Batgrl (Book Data Kept Elsewhere) > Recent Status Updates

Canto XV, 13-14
...So she gives him a book
he can keep by his side and into which he can look.
This clever volume comes with a complete
index that allows him to find at once
any particular subject, she he meet
one kind of spell or another. Only a dunce
would flip through the pages at random and in the heat
of the moment try to find the answer he hunts
for frantically.

Canto XIV, 126
"...They've fled, but there is more to do
at the inner wall to which the skimble-scamble
French are hurrying."

Where else you'll find skimble-skamble, which has more than one spelling. More here.

More gore!
Canto XIV, 124
"...Moschino? Stove in,
his head crushed like a grapefruit..."
A couple of stanzas listing who died and some telling specifically how. But this part made me stop to ponder whether people were regularly going around crushing grapefruit for some reason.

National Association of Scholars study of books that colleges, etc., have assigned as common reading, pdf to this year's report on this page, also other years. So of course I'm reading through them, adding to my to read list. Because apparently I don't think it's long enough.

Article on 3 Heroes Forgotten by Food History: Coryat - the fork, Papin - the pressure cooker, Saunders - Piggly Wiggly. ...Wait, what?

The Supersizers is a series of shows on food and history and currently free on Hulu. The episode on the French Revolution inspired me to read Palate In Revolution, which I really enjoyed.

Happiness is discovering that many libraries in California take used books which they then sell to raise money for the library. Which is making me much happier about the book cull that I need to do. (One must cull if one continues to buy more after all.)

Oh no you didn't!!! Dammit, that is not an ending. ... OK now must see which is the next Lecoq book...

I think I've figured out why I'm enjoying this - Lecoq is clever, but he's far from the only clever one in his world. Also he makes mistakes and is still learning the job. There's a humility in him that I like. .... Meanwhile we have yet to unmask the Big Bad....

This... It's... I am now stunned. An amateur detective pops up, well off, taken on detection for enjoyment. And Lecoq knows him. And he uses deduction and has solved a case involving other wealthy folk. And of course he reminds me of someone...

OK this is a really good chase scene - must remember to see if this has been made into a film, because all of this part seems very cinematic.

I keep telling myself that I'll stop after one more page - and oops I've fallen into A Chase Scene. So now I must keep going to see if there's a Catch or an Escape.

An example of the detective work Lecoq deals with: "... examining all the hotel and lodging house registers, in which the landlords are compelled to record the names of their tenants, even should the later merely sojourn under their roofs for a single night."

Poor Lecoq is now having to run all over to try and track the owner of a single earring. In a Holmes story this would be told in 2 paragraphs tops. But Lecoq, he not only does oodles of leg work, but also has been mocked more than once by his nemesis, not to mention his boss...

"A prisoner's examination always begins with these questions as to individuality, which gives both the magistrate and the culprit time to study each other, to try, as it were, each other's strength, before joining in a serious struggle; just as two duelists, about to engage in mortal combat, first try a few passes with the foils."

Lecoq likes to make up axioms, which he apparently never tells anyone else. They also seem very philosophical (can't tell if he's riffing on some famous quote): "Distrust all circumstances that seem to favor your secret wishes."

There, just quoted a nice big chunk of the section on the Morgue (in the review), so now anyone who wants can be just as ghoulish as those Parisians, and have a peek at the scenery. (I can say nothing, I think this section is fascinating. Not that I'd want to be there myself, what with the smell.)

I should note here that in the 1900s Paris when there were bodies that weren't identified the Morgue would place them out on slabs and allow the public to view them. This was in hopes of identification - but it was also a place the public could get a ghoulish thrill for free. (And of course I can't remember what book I read this in. Sorry.)

"...strange to say, the Parisian fair sex is rather partial to the disgusting sights and horrible emotions that repay a visit to the Morgue."

Lecoq: "Always suspect that which seems probable; and begin by believing what appears incredible."

1905 French police procedural! And there's already been a MacGyver moment: using scraped off wall plaster to cast footprints in snow.

And now for some blood and gore from our poet Aristo:

Canto XIV, 121
...he
moves along this convenient path to slay
one man after another, with zest and glee,
slicing open the top of a head to display
the brains (or else it's a monk's tonsure that could be
just a bit short). Arms and heads are flying
as what remains of their damaged trunks are dying.

Where to look for Silence:
Canto XIV, 85-6
..."Once, I'd have said the hall
of any Benedictine abbey. Or reading a book
in a library in the school where Pythagoras taught.
But in those places now, he wouldn't be caught
dead. He didn't abandon them but they
abandoned him. And now he hangs out with thieves,
lovers sometimes, and even killers who may
skulk about with him at night..."

And because I know someone else must be wondering: fricandel on wiktionary, or see wikipedia's frikandel - "a Dutch snack, a sort of minced-meat hot dog, developed either in 1954 or in 1958/1959 in the Netherlands."

Angel Michael bumps into Discord:
Canto XIV, 79
He can recognize her at once by her strange cloak
of multicolored tatters that pell-mell
fall open at any breeze. Her hair is a joke,
partly plaited but partly loose as well
and falling on back and bosom in baroque
multicolored swirls in a fricandel
of styles and shades. She clutches in both her hands
writs, affidavits, complaints, and legal demands.

Mandricardo and Doralice:

Canto XIV, 63
And what do you think happened that night between
Doralice and Agrican's son? Do you
think...? (Wink wink! Nudge nudge! Know what I mean?)
I'll let you imagine what you like. But it's true
that in the morning both of them were seen
to be somewhat more cheerful. And calmer, too.

Mandricardo and Doralice

Canto XIV, 60
And would you believe? She starts at last to hear
what he is saying. Her terror fades. She knows
well how the game is played, for in her sphere
at court, that's what girls learn to do, I suppose,
at a very early age.

Mandricardo and Doralice
Canto XIV, 53
A curious thing: the captor has become
the captive's captive. As the two stand there,
there almost seems to be a kind of hum
of complicated forces in the air
as the power of her domination transfers from
him to her.

Mandricardo falls for Doralice. Problem, she's engaged, and he's just slaughtered her guards.

Canto XIV, 52
...He is caught in the nets of love! And one of his
first thoughts is that in this very sorry case,
weeping, if this is how she appears, what is
her face like when she's smiling? ...