Midweek Staff Meeting – Don’t Change A Thing
Rabelais
Rabelais died 460 years ago today. I feel like I should make a dirty joke in his honor.
Knife Of Dreams (New Year’s Resolution, Book Thirteen)
Unlucky thirteen? Maybe. After hitting a rough patch, Jordan’s final books in the series have gotten a bit more compelling. This one was the last he completed before passing. Not his masterpiece perhaps, but a good way to go out, nonetheless.
I’m feeling more forgiving and almost appreciative of Jordan’s tics. Actually, they’re pretty good tics, it just that they’ve all been used a lot in the last ten books. But maybe because I can feel the end approaching, I am able to enjoy them again.
Mostly, I talking about this horror movie trope, where he shows you someone saying let’s go through that door and then shows the monster behind a door and then a show of someone turning the door knob.
Except, what he does is show the heroes prepare a cunning plan and then switches to a shot of some villain explaining how the hero is walking into her (and many of the villains, and certainly all the best villains, are women in these books – read into that what you will) trap.
The more or less hero, Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, is still kind of a whiny b—h. It’s really annoying, too. While using his magic, he still tends to get mopey and also car sick (I thought that when he cleaned up the male half of magical power, that was supposed to end?). And just in case he was in danger of becoming less irritating, Jordan burns his left hand clean off, so that everyone has an excuse to feel sorry for him and he can be an annoying tough guy. Ugh.
Mat, once again, figures prominently, but he’s in love and that makes him much less interesting.
Logain, the former false dragon gets some semi-prominent appearances. I can’t really explain who Logain is in the context of the story and mythology. I mean, this is book eleven. Eleven. I simply can’t go back and explain a whole muckety series of events and characters dating back ten books and roughly 8,000 pages. I have a life beyond this blog, you. I have hobbies. I have friends. Not many, but, you know, one or two. And I’m not a total nerd. I play D&D with real people. Grown ups, no less.
But my point: Logain is actually kind of cool, a little bad a– and seems relatively bright, competent, and good (morally speaking).
He almost makes up for Lan. Lan has been with us since the beginning, but Jordan has mostly ignored since the second book or so. Small scenes, but there’s been a definite effort to limit his importance. Which is good, because Lan is clearly a cheap knock off Tolkien’s Aragorn. I mean, a knock off to the point that, after reading the first book, you feel like Jordan should write a large check to the a charity of the Tolkien estate’s choice. As the series has progressed, Jordan has successfully created his own world, separate from Tolkien’s epic fantasy. But now, Lan as Aragorn is back. And, I guess it’s fine, but, it’s just irritating.
This volume’s immediate predecessor ended with a big set piece. Knife of Dreams ups the ante by incorporating several big set pieces in the last two hundred or so pages – and much less confusingly described so that the pay off feels much more worth the wait. Even better, some issues and concerns that have popped up over the last couple of books are resolved. Elayne becomes Queen of Andor. Perrin leads an army into battle to rescue his wife. Mat (as usual) has the best stuff – a couple of decently described tactical skirmishes and ambushes, culminating in a marriage to the heiress to the Seanchan imperial throne. Rand captures one of the Forsaken (that’s when he loses his hand), but (as usual), his set piece is less fun to read than the others. A couple of baddies get their comeuppance. Even better, almost every ongoing storyline but one gets resolved. I’m referring to the storylines of the main characters. Obviously, the final battle for the fate of the world hasn’t happened yet. It’s as if Jordan knew he would never complete another book and wanted to take responsibility for tying up a few fictional loose ends. And now I’m sad, because he’s gone.
I won’t lie. Some of my books lately have been shorter than others. Knife of Dreams is my return to something a little longer. And frankly, the last two books I read were disappointing, so it’s not like this is somehow less challenging or interesting. I’ll even say it’s better. Though I’m also hoping that the next book I read is better than Robert Jordan, in general.
Monday Morning Staff Meeting – Forgiveness
Your New Favorite Chairs
Weekend Reading – Why Ask Why
Goodreads Account – Cancelled
I cancelled it. I considered just letting it lie fallow. Or else inserting random stuff to try and do my small part to de-calibrate Amazon’s algorithms. But, really, I just didn’t want to be involved if Amazon was going to be running the show. Sigh. So I cancelled the account. The coffee philosopher will not longer exist on Goodreads.
Midnight Movie: ‘Flash Gordon’
Last weekend’s midnight movie at the E Street Cinema was the 1980 classic, Flash Gordon.
And it freaking rocked. Here are just a few reasons why:
It stars Max Von Sydow, prancing around in a pink satin pantsuit and a haze of psychosexual weirdness that would have made Ingmar Bergman commit ritual suicide, had he seen it.
Topol, best known for Fiddler on the Roof, never known for understated performances, clearly prepared for this role by locking himself in sterile white room, empty save for a pencil, a ream of virgin paper, a vast quantity of LSD, and the script. He then based his performance on the notes he wrote to himself while locked in that room.
Brian Blessed wears wings and a scaled leather speedo. He also attacks the role of King of the Hawkmen with the sort of gusto one normally associates with bath salt sniffing cannibals. A gifted Shakespearean, he nonetheless believes that a failure to mug the camera and overact will result in a live car battery being clamped to his aged father’s withered testicles.
It’s got an alien princess who looks, dresses, and talks like a notably slurry Bond girl. And speaking of Bond, Timothy Dalton plays Prince Barin of Arborea. And his second in command is played by Riff Raff. Riff Raff, people.
Every costume was latter pilfered by George Lucas for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
It advocates the little known theory that the most deadly martial art ever created is, in fact, the ground game advocated by legendary college football coach, Bear Bryant.
The score is by Queen, at their most bombastic. But in between Freddy Mercury doing whatever it is he does to sing those lines with a complete lack of irony (‘Flash… Ah Ahh… He’s a miracle’), Brian May is an awesome guitarist and they put some great, propulsive beats into the music.
And, for the first time since 1980, I got to see it on the big screen.
the coffee philosopher 