At the pip, the time is…

September 9th, 2009 · No Comments

Day 10: The Shooting Star

Another bike commute to jury duty today. An unexpectedly long lunch meant I got to really enjoy the awful Euro dance music coming from the Dance Zone kiosk on the Third Street Promenade today, where I chose to park my bike, eat my lunch, and read today’s adventure, The Shooting Star.

I think the strongest element of the book is its opening, an evocative and frightening sequence which starts out rather innocuously but then takes us through what seems to be the end of the world. Though it’s nighttime, it’s getting extremely warm outside. The tar in the street melts and begins to freeze people (and dogs) in their tracks. Rats run wild, escaping their steaming sewers. And no one knows what’s going on. Of course, Tintin gets to the bottom of it, but the news he finds out is not good. The world will end thanks to a meteor headed straight for our planet, and Tintin learns the exact time of impact.

He dials TIM on his phone to find out the exact time “at the pip,” which reminds me of our free and harmless pastime of calling 844 when we were kids, to see what the time and temperature were, and to hear the little ad at the beginning for a plumber or whoever else paid for the service.

Like the full page spreads of the previous book, and the brouchure from the book before that, the group of portraits of the scientists going on the expedition, which is not contained in the traditional panel structure of the books, is a nice little touch.

Captain Haddock, though president of the Society of Sober Sailors now, is still having trouble with his whiskey. In this adventure, though, Tintin is able to use Haddock’s weakness to his advantage. The book as a whole is mostly a one-man adventure: Haddock’s role is fairly minor, we only see Thompson and Thomson once, and Tintin really carries the plot along on his own, venturing to the downed meteorite and staking it out on behalf of the European scientists.

Just one more day of jury duty this week, and then a day at work for the first time in a few weeks. Looking forward to that, and to a weekend at home.

Tags: Books · Los Angeles · Nostalgia