The Code inspires more poetry. =D

[kippurbird]

I feel like I'm reading a train wreck. I've completely given up trying to figure out where this story is going to go. Because it's not going to make any sense where it ends up. And least I didn't have this problem with Eragon.

Moving on. There's a brief scene where Cell Phone Bishop gets a phone call on the private plane he's taking to Paris. It's from Fache. Apparently, for some reason, Fache is talking to Bishop about the location of Langdon... I don't know WHY he would do that... I mean... how does anyone know this Bishop is even involved in the cases? It's just so completely random. But Brown apparently needs Bishop to go to London... so... for no reason in particular Fache has contacted Bishop and is telling him about what is happening... yesss... \~/\~/ So, Bishop goes to the pilot and says we need to go to London all the while thinking that every thing's going to pot. Pilot says he can't. Bishop gives him a diamond ring and they can.

And now we go back to having sex. I mean discussing what the poem might mean. But really the conversation just degrades into sex talk again. This time Langdon has another epiphany about what the headstone is. \~/ He gets this by thinking, "A headstone praised by the Templars" and looking out the window. I get some of my best ideas that way... the whole staring out the window bit, but they don't let me make the leaps of logic that Langdon does. Perhaps he's just that special.

Oh dear lord... I just used, "He's just that special" for the first time in this book. |~~|

*goes off and gets more drinking stuff*

So, why did you kill Dan Brown?

Sex rite.

That must be some strange sex rite.

You have no idea.

ehhehheee...


So, back to sex I mean... No. See, the Headstone... which now that I think about it just took on a whole new sort of meaning... is in reference to the pagan god Baphomet that the Templar's worshiped. He's a horned god if you know what I mean. Right. So, after that enlightenment and the usual Church Oppresses Sex bit \~/ they discover that well, Baphomet has eight letters and there are only room for five on the cryptex.

How do they solve this then? Well, first they have to translate Baphomet into it's Hebrew equivalent.

The Hebrew alef-beit that they use is this:

A B C D H V Z Ch T Y K L M N S O P Tz Q R Sh Th. Which stands for Alef, Beit, Gimmel, Dalet, Hei, Vav, Zayin, Chet, Tet, Yud, Kaf, Lamed, Mem, Nun, Samech, Ayin, Peit, Tzadik, Kuf, Reish, Shin, Tav.

All right. Then he says that in formal Hebrew spelling the vowel sounds aren't written. Well yes. They're the little dots and dashes that are under the letters. The "Nekkudot" that was referenced back in chapter 71 when they were trying to make heads or tails of the backwards English. Therefor all the letters above are in fact not vowels. Because they don't look like little dashes and dots.

However he says that by taking out the "a" "o" and "e" in Bapvometh you get five letters. Because clearly the names will transfer accordingly in each language. Never mind the fact that the "aleph" is in fact a silent letter and not a vowel and that the ayin doesn't make an "o" sound.

And it gets worse. They use the Atbash cypher to turn BPVMTh into ShVPYA which turns into SVFYA in Sofya or Sophia! Which means Word of Wisdom in Greek. Or to spell it correctly "Sofia".

Well that was fun. God forbid they had to try and make an actual Hebrew word out of ShVPYA. The Hebrew word for wisdom by the way is HaCham. \~/\~/\~/\~/\~/\~/\~/

Long story short. They open up the cryptex and find... another cryptex. This one black. As Langdon notes: "Sauniere's passion for dualism. Two cryptexes Everything in pairs. Double entendres. Male female. Black nested within white. Langdon felt the web of symbolism stretching onward.

Every man sprang from woman.
White - female
Black - male.
Kippur - drunk \~/

Apparently there's another four lined iambic pentameter verse wrapped around the black cryptex. We get the first line "In London lies a knight a pope interred." Obviously this requires me to finish the poem.

In London lies a knight a pope interred
For of his sex life it was heard
When seeing his cock they would pray
To Jesus Christ: thank you, it is my lucky day.

\~/

Teabag says that he doesn't know who the knight is, but he knows where to look. Meanwhile six police cars are heading to the airport.

Bobo is hanging out at Teabag's place while the CSI folks look for clues. Brown takes this moment to throw us some more pagan symbolism hidden in the church. This time the hollow nave of a church is really a tribute to a woman's womb and that a cathedral's entrance represents a woman's vagina. \~/ They also find a list of Priory Grand Masters. Names that I recognize include Nicolas Flamel, Da Vinci, Robert Boyle, Issac Newton, Victor Hugo, Claude Debussy.

Then he gets a phone call from the Banke Andre. Andre wants to have phone sex talk to Fache but when he gets Bobo he hangs up because he doesn't want to talk to the officer he lied to. So, Bobo gets Interpool to get him everything they can on the bank and the banker. \~/

And that's it for now.

Drinks: 18

Comments

[spoofmaster]

Woops, fell behind on reading your posts...sorreh.

I just wanted to mention for the last one that it's awfully convenient for the male followers of the Sacred Feminine that their worship consists of sexual intercourse. I think it's come up before, but it's kind of painful to see just how obviously Brown's Sacred Feminine is about fulfillment of male desires rather than actual promotion of women, or even (as one would think more likely in ye olde various religions) reproduction.

If there's one thing I've learned from studying the functions of gender in film, it's that just about every object can be read as either phallic or vaginal (or, sometimes, both) if you really put your mind to it. Brown talks about the entrance to a cathedral being vaginal, but if we're going to say that we might as well say that all doors are vaginal, and one worships the Sacred Feminine every time one walks in or out of a room. Any hole/passageway = OMG VAGINAL!!!, I suppose. That's not to say that there's no such thing as true vaginal imagery (the tunnel from All About My Mother springs to mind, for instance), but I think that these things need to be a lot more clearly intentional before we start blathering on about teh seckshool symbology.

[the-norseman.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to mention for the last one that it's awfully convenient for the male followers of the Sacred Feminine that their worship consists of sexual intercourse. I think it's come up before, but it's kind of painful to see just how obviously Brown's Sacred Feminine is about fulfillment of male desires rather than actual promotion of women, or even (as one would think more likely in ye olde various religions) reproduction.

I don't want to toot my own horn, but what do you think I thought about when I wrote about fertility rites (scroll down it's the second segment)?

Maybe we should add "horny, but suppressed men" to the "dirty old women" as his target audience? Well, well, well... It all starts coming together now!

On an entirely different note the Templars have been cleared of heresy (link) meaning that the whole Baphomet thing was made up out of whole cloth. Just in case you had any doubts whatsoever.

[karma-kalisutah.livejournal.com]

See also: Why are there no women in the Priory?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

There are though, because Grandpa wasn't banging a guy in that Sex Rite.

[yetanotherbob.livejournal.com]

Much love for the Sex Rite icon.

I did some googling, and the flying leap that he does with Sofia? It's got precedent, but he still gets it wrong. A Dr. Hugh Schonfield who is a scholar in the Dead Sea scrolls, is one of the ones who claim Baphomet = Sophia. And yes, it looks like Sophia is a deity of Gnosticism. So he's not pulling it completely out of his ass. He's also using others' asses.

Okay, back to absurdity. There's also precedent for duality. You remember the Yin and Yang symbol of Taoism? Brown could be latching onto that. The duality. Male and Female. Hot and Cold. Black and White. Passive and Active. Down and Up. The punchline? Taoism already categorizes. Yin is Female, Yang is Male. But Yin is also Dark. And Yang is Light. In other words, he got his colors backwards.

Oh, oh, and two new rules:

The name-dropping lists ("See! I'm not a crackpot after all, because Issac Newton is mentioned! Maybe I can rub some of his legitimacy onto me!") should be new names. The new Priory Grand Masters are Bozo, Harpo, Tweedle-dee, Tweedle-dum, Howdy-Doody and Alfred E. Newman.

The second new rule is no more iambic pentameter. Let's use anapestic trimeters and anapestic dimeters. In other words:

In London lies a knight pope interred-
But that really is a poem absurd.
We tried to read Brown,
Our confusion did drown,
And our sex rites became rather slurred!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

The icon is all your fault.

I did some googling, and the flying leap that he does with Sofia? It's got precedent, but he still gets it wrong. A Dr. Hugh Schonfield who is a scholar in the Dead Sea scrolls, is one of the ones who claim Baphomet = Sophia. And yes, it looks like Sophia is a deity of Gnosticism. So he's not pulling it completely out of his ass. He's also using others' asses.

Yes, that is a talent of Brown's. Unfortunately as explained above the substitions don't really work.

I've already used limericks, however in this case I had to follow what was given to me in the text. Alas.

[berseker.livejournal.com]

Bozo and Harpo? Aw, now I want to join the Priory. Between this and the rites, they seem to be having a lot of fun. :)

[sonic-sues.livejournal.com]

I feel like I'm reading a train wreck. I've completely given up trying to figure out where this story is going to go. Because it's not going to make any sense where it ends up. And least I didn't have this problem with Eragon.

I gave up after your fourth or fifth post.

All right. Then he says that in formal Hebrew spelling the vowel sounds aren't written. Well yes.

I know I'm being incredibly optimistic here, but maybe he confused it for Egyptian hieroglyphs. They rarely wrote out vowels.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

They don't write out vowels in Hebrew either. But the vowels are dots and dashes put under or on top of the letters. Everything else is a consonant.

[brainchild129.livejournal.com]

That's not true either - there are written out vowels in hieroglyphics: u, i, and a (usually pronounced ah). They didn't write out e though, so that is usually inserted by modern translators.

(yay! Those glyph classes in college are finally coming in handy in a place other than a museum!)

[brightrosefox.livejournal.com]

I have decided that using "sex rite" as an excuse for almost everything is now a good idea.
Late for work? Sex rite. Spilled coffee on my new shirt? Sex rite? Got into a fight with a friend? Sex rite? Traffic jam? Sex rite plus mass orgy.

Feel free to jump in.

[brightrosefox.livejournal.com]

*blink* And I must have been question mark-happy, because those were supposed to be period after the repeated word "rite". *drinks her coffee*

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

*points to icon at top of entry.* =D

[brightrosefox.livejournal.com]

*looks*
HAH!! *falls over*
Yeah, that's perfect.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Perfectly stealable.

[brightrosefox.livejournal.com]

*ponders*

*steals*

*grin*

[-youngblood-.livejournal.com]

Nicolas Flamel, Da Vinci, Robert Boyle, Issac Newton, Victor Hugo, Claude Debussy.

Because, like I said, anyone who ever did anything remotely cool was in the Priory. I wonder if he's going to try and get Stephen Hawking in there.

Now I'm imagining Hawking's robot voice saying, "The sacred feminine demands that we engage in sex rites. Help me get out of this chair."

(P.S. I love Stephen Hawking, so no slight is meant upon this awesome man. Just on Dan Brown.)

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Now I'm imagining Hawking's robot voice saying, "The sacred feminine demands that we engage in sex rites. Help me get out of this chair."


*snerks*

[brainchild129.livejournal.com]

I just wonder why he stuck DeBussy in there. Personally, if I was going to add an awesome 19th century French composer in there, I'd choose the equally talented (and super-moody) Camille Saint-Saens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-saens).

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Maybe he likes Debussy?

[wariena.livejournal.com]

I wish I had Langdon's logic. I could leap to incredible heights of stupidity in a single thought process and, when all else failed, there's always the sex rites.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Yup. The answer to everything. Sex rites.

[reverie-shadow.livejournal.com]

So, why did you kill Dan Brown?

Sex rite.

Actually...Ass Ponies.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

*gigglesnort*

[berseker.livejournal.com]

Check this out: http://www.filmdrunk.com/post.phtml?pk=498

It´s probably bullshit and it doesn´t matter anyway, but the point is, the girl kinda looks like Mona Lisa. If you squint. I think there might be a conspiracy.