Friends-Only Post No. 13: Extra Errata

WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEK ETC.

Well, it finally happened. We finally did The Da Vinci Code. Those of you most familiar with the ancient codices presumably saw this coming, and probably applied yourselves either to attempts at speeding its release or attempts to suppressing it forever. (If the latter: Hey, what's up with that? It's just one episode, jeez.)

As I covered last week, this book left me one flummoxed lummox. As I look at my notes, I find only the disjointed ramblings of a confused mind (and the occasional doodle of a goat, of course). Of the terrifying scribbles, one thing stands out above all others: what in holy hell did I mean when I wrote "Whoa, Sophie is obviously Princess Leia"? The world ... the world may never know. The world may never be strong enough to know!

Thanks to everybody who entered the contest -- we had a LOT of winners! I'm waiting on the prizes to arrive, so please hang loose. I will reach out to you all when I have the prizes in hand to get your mailing addresses so I can cause physical artifacts to be transported to your waiting, deserving hands.

WHAT THE HECK?

For me, again, as noted last week, Da Vinci Code was a very tough read in some ways. I think this episode shows, though, that when all else fails, just returning to these ridiculous-ass books and the silly-ass crap they're made of (bad words and sentences, mainly) is definitely the way to go. As much as we were able to read from this book, there was a whole pile of stuff we didn't get to, most or all of which made me chuckle. Here's a couple choice slices.

Newton's tomb was covered with orbs

I don't know why, but this sentence pleases me.

Although French fire regulations required several emergency stairwells for a space this large, those stairwells had been sealed automatically when Saunière tripped the security system. Granted, that system had now been reset, unlocking the stairwells, but it didn't matter -- the external doors, if opened, would set off fire alarms and were guarded outside by DCPJ agents.

...is this going to be on the test?

As they entered the deserted park, the agent reached under the dash and turned off the blaring siren. Langdon exhaled, savoring the sudden quiet. Outside the car, the pale wash of halogen headlights skimmed over the crushed gravel parkway, the rugged whir of the tires intoning a hypnotic rhythm. Langdon had always considered the Tuileries to be sacred ground. These were the gardens in which Claude Monet had experimented with form and color, and literally inspired the birth of the impressionist movement. Tonight, however, this place held a strange aura of foreboding.

Rugged whirs intone hypnotic rhythms? Auras are something places hold?

As someone who had spent his life exploring the hidden interconnectivity of disparate emblems and ideologies, Langdon viewed the world as a web of profoundly intertwined histories and events.

...as opposed to...what, exactly? Also, too...disparate emblems?


UNTIL NEXT TIME

If you missed it, we got interviewed for Tampa's Creative Loafing, and I think the interview came out well! Read it! Show your friends! Demand similar coverage for us in other magazines and on other webbed sites!

Also, it appears as though we missed National Book Lovers Day! Which, bummer. If you help us, maybe we'll remember for next year. Sorry and thank you.


ride the crab

--Collision for IDEOTVPOD