It bears noting that co-blogger Sudeep turns 23 today. I am not capable of the same mathematical riffs, so I will merely note that 17-12 = 5, that 5 is a prime number (and the average of 4 and 6, i.e., the average of the distance of 23 (prime) to the nearest surrounding primes (19 and 29)). And that those who turn 23 today are even younger than those of us who turned it five days ago.

(Small spoilers below the fold). This generally unexceptional NYT Piece on Batman and Star Wars contains one odd claim.

The author writes:

Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) is urged by his mysterious mentor to chop off the head of his enemy, Count Chocula - sorry, that's Count Dooku - and does. That is his crucial turn toward the dark side, and soon he's the villainous Darth Vader...

Amber's been having an interesting discussion about the spelling of "barbecue", and why the abbreviation is BBQ if the correct spelling is barbecue. I don't actually know the answer to the question, and do think that the agreed origin of the term comes from the South America barbacoa, but wanted to note that there is an alternative, almost certainly wrong, etymology. The same misguided cute-ifiers of history who brought us urban legends such as the "rule of thumb" meaning something about beating wives with sticks no thicker than a thumb (also utterly untrue) once claimed that barbeque comes from barbes a queue - that is to say, French for from beard to tail, referring to how one skewers meat. But since that's not really an explanation of how one skewers meats (and what of cubed and cut meats, which the early french also ate?), I think it's pretty clear that this is not really the correct origin. In the last few days, furthermore, I've discovered "barbecue", spelled with a "c", in some very France oriented cookbooks of the late 18th century, which I'm reading for other reasons. If they didn't think barbecue had something to do with tails, it probably didn't.

As I have made clear elsewhere, I have a weakness for the books of Arturo Perez-Reverte. So it was with no small degree of excitement that I cracked open the first volume of Captain Alatriste, newly translated into English.

None of this excitement was misplaced. Reverte clearly labors under the deep wish that he had been born as a Spanish Alexander Dumas, and he can spin tales (almost) as well as the old master. Indeed, one of the many thrills rolling off the book is the overlap between the classic Musketeers chronicles. The selfsame Duke of Buckingham makes an appearance, and the political background is constant.

Of course, there are differences, and that is the point. Spain is not France. Alatriste is an old soldier, not a brash Gascon kid. Alatriste lacks Athos's prudishness, but not his dignity. The catholic leaders do not have Richelieu's class or his cunning. Milady is 13 years old. And so on.

When I was 13, my father tried to convince me to take French rather than Spanish by emphasizing the superior literature-- high and low-- available in that tongue. Alatriste (like Rabassa) is also a bit of a comeback to that sort of Francophilia, bristling with Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Cid, Velazquez, Quevedo, and more. Michael Dirda's short-sighted review misses this angle-- this is not mere second-rate derivative Dumas, it is subversive Dumas.

Future books will be translated, and I have only one (large) complaint-- they are too expensive. These books ought to be rolling out in cheap paperbacks, to be devoured by young kids and passed easily and carelessly from hand to hand, not hardbacks scoring an exorbitant $17 each.

I, of course, will keep buying them, but I do hope that other people love them slightly less than I do, and balk.

[50 Book Challenge]