Towel Day occurs on May 25th annually and is the internet-wide celebration of the life and work of Douglas Noel Adams (1952-2001).
“He was a brilliant writer….maybe that’s why he hated it. He put so much effort into it” Terry Jones quoted in an article on what would have been Douglas Adams’ 60th birthday.
Graham Chapman discovered Douglas Adams in 1974 as the result of a live show the latter had written. They started a short lived writing collaboration when Chapman’s former collaborator, John Cleese, left Monty Python in December of 1974. Adams would go on to receive a writing credit for the sketch Patient Abuse which appeared on the final episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Adams is one of only two non-Python members to receive a writing credit in the series. Adams also collaborated on a sketch for Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Continue reading Towel Day 2021 – Douglas Adams and Monty Python
Terror in Ypsilanti: John Norman Collins Unmasked by Gregory A. Fournier takes place between 1967 and 1969, when a number of young women between the ages of 13 and 21 disappeared from the streets in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, Michigan, many of them co-eds at Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan. John Norman Collins was initially only charged with the murder of Karen Sue Beineman, an 18-year-old EMU student, but his links to other murders, including one in California; seemed straightforward for authorities. In Terror in Ypsilanti, Fournier dives into the crimes of Michigan serial killer, John Norman Collins. 
Laura Lyons is a housewife in 1913 living with her family in an apartment in the New York Public Library where her husband is the superintendent. She enrolls in Columbia Journalism School and finds a new world outside of the library walls and herself where women have their own identity. When someone starts stealing rare books and her lifestyle is at risk, she has to make a choice.
Hollywood follows the lives of aspiring stars of various races and sexual persuasions pursuing their movie making dreams in Hollywood’s Golden Age.
It’s 1988 and Belinda is working in a nursing home after having had quite the career driven fall. Her new job is boring and a bit frustrating but the light at the end of that tunnel is her co-worker, Joe for whom she harbors a secret attraction though her insecurity stands in the way of hope. When thefts and worse start to happen at the nursing home, she turns to Joe. When she discovers something disturbing, she has to decide if she’ll go along to get along or if she’ll stand up for what is right and protect her residents.
Photographer Arthur Fellig had a second sense as to where emergency services would be and arrived in such a timely fashion that he nicknamed himself “Weegee.” The Austrian immigrant had an unflinching eye for the gritty side of life. Weegee’s flare for the experimental paved the way for photographers of the future and his outlandish personality makes for a life lived on ones own terms. Bonanos shows us the manic man behind the lens. 
The drunk driver that killed Tess’ daughter got two years in prison but why should his daughter, Eve, live when hers had died. Tess obsessively stalks Eve and when the young girl goes missing, Tess is the obvious suspect but what if it wasn’t her? 
In 1937 Alice McDonell Parsons was allegedly picked up at her home by two people interested in seeing a property she had for rent and was never seen again. A note found on the floorboard of a car led police to think it was a kidnapping, which wasn’t so far fetched as kidnaping was a very popular crime at the time. The FBI became involved and Hoover assigned his best agents to the case. The complications that followed and secrets that were exposed complicated the case of the missing woman whose fate was never really known. Drielak takes a deep dive into declassified documents to fit the puzzle pieces of what happened to Alice McDonell Parsons.
Morag McGregor is sent to Scottish Court by her father in hopes that she will make a match or, at least, dampen her desire to get revenge on her neighbour, the Campbells. In a setting tense with religious and political strife will Morag sate her desire for revenge and return to her secret love who is waiting at home?