BLOG NO-009

DA VINCI 19-5

2008-04-06T01:49:00.002-07:00

"And also with you." Sister Sandrine headed for the stairs. "Please be sure the door closes tightly on your way out."

"I will be sure of it." Silas watched her climb out of sight. Then he turned and knelt in the front pew, feeling the cilice cut into his leg.

Dear God, I offer up to you this work I do today....

Crouching in the shadows of the choir balcony high above the altar, Sister Sandrine peered silently through the balustrade at the cloaked monk kneeling alone. The sudden dread in her soul made it hard to stay still. For a fleeting instant, she wondered if this mysterious visitor could be the enemy

they had warned her about, and if tonight she would have to carry out the orders she had been holding all these years. She decided to stay there in the darkness and watch his every move.

FOR CHAPTER 20 CLICK HERE

DA VINCI 19-4

2008-04-06T01:49:00.001-07:00

"It is no trouble," she said. "After all, I am awake."

Silas stopped walking. They had reached the front pew now, and the altar was only fifteen yards away. He turned his massive body fully toward the small woman, and he could sense her recoil as she gazed up into his red eyes. "If it does not seem too rude, Sister, I am not accustomed to simply walking into a house of God and taking a tour. Would you mind if I took some time alone to pray before I look around?"

Sister Sandrine hesitated. "Oh, of course. I shall wait in the rear of the church for you."

Silas put a soft but heavy hand on her shoulder and peered down. "Sister, I feel guilty already for having awoken you. To ask you to stay awake is too much. Please, you should return to bed. I can enjoy your sanctuary and then let myself out."

She looked uneasy. "Are you sure you won't feel abandoned?"

"Not at all. Prayer is a solitary joy."

"As you wish."

Silas took his hand from her shoulder. "Sleep well, Sister. May the peace of the Lord be with you."

DA VINCI 19-3

2008-04-06T01:48:00.002-07:00

A fitting image, he thought. The brotherhood's ship was about to be capsized forever. Feeling eager to get to work, Silas wished Sister Sandrine would leave him. She was a small woman whom Silas could incapacitate easily, but he had vowed not to use force unless absolutely necessary. She is a woman of the cloth, and it is not her fault the brotherhood chose her church as a hiding place for their keystone. She should not be punished for the sins of others.

"I am embarrassed, Sister, that you were awoken on my behalf."

"Not at all. You are in Paris a short time. You should not miss Saint-Sulpice. Are your interests in the church more architectural or historical?"

"Actually, Sister, my interests are spiritual."

She gave a pleasant laugh. "That goes without saying. I simply wondered where to begin your tour."

Silas felt his eyes focus on the altar. "A tour is unnecessary. You have been more than kind. I can show myself around."

DA VINCI 19-2

2008-04-06T01:48:00.001-07:00

"You're an American," she said.

"French by birth," Silas responded. "I had my calling in Spain, and I now study in the United States."

Sister Sandrine nodded. She was a small woman with quiet eyes. "And you have never seen Saint-Sulpice?"

"I realize this is almost a sin in itself."

"She is more beautiful by day."

"I am certain. Nonetheless, I am grateful that you would provide me this opportunity tonight."

"The abbé requested it. You obviously have powerful friends."

You have no idea, Silas thought.

As he followed Sister Sandrine down the main aisle, Silas was surprised by the austerity of the sanctuary. Unlike Notre Dame with its colorful frescoes, gilded altar-work, and warm wood, Saint-Sulpice was stark and cold, conveying an almost barren quality reminiscent of the ascetic cathedrals of Spain. The lack of decor made the interior look even more expansive, and as Silas gazed up into the soaring ribbed vault of the ceiling, he imagined he was standing beneath the hull of an enormous overturned ship.

da vinci chapter 19-1

2008-04-06T01:47:00.000-07:00

The Church of Saint-Sulpice, it is said, has the most eccentric history of any building in Paris. Built over the ruins of an ancient temple to the Egyptian goddess Isis, the church possesses an architectural footprint matching that of Notre Dame to within inches. The sanctuary has played host to the baptisms of the Marquis de Sade and Baudelaire, as well as the marriage of Victor Hugo. The attached seminary has a well-documented history of unorthodoxy and was once the

clandestine meeting hall for numerous secret societies.

Tonight, the cavernous nave of Saint-Sulpice was as silent as a tomb, the only hint of life the faint smell of incense from mass earlier that evening. Silas sensed an uneasiness in Sister Sandrine's demeanor as she led him into the sanctuary. He was not surprised by this. Silas was accustomed to people being uncomfortable with his appearance.

DA VINCICODE 8-10

2008-02-23T21:35:00.003-08:00

relations. When the Pope visited Paris a few years back, Fache had used all his muscle to obtain the honor of an audience. A photo of Fache with the Pope now hung in his office. The Papal Bull, the agents secretly called it.

Collet found it ironic that one of Fache's rare popular public stances in recent years had been his outspoken reaction to the Catholic pedophilia scandal. These priests should be hanged twice! Fache had declared. Once for their crimes against children. And once for shaming the good name of the Catholic Church. Collet had the odd sense it was the latter that angered Fache more.

Turning now to his laptop computer, Collet attended to the other half of his responsibilities here tonight—the GPS tracking system. The image onscreen revealed a detailed floor plan of the Denon Wing, a structural schematic uploaded from the Louvre Security Office. Letting his eyes trace the maze of galleries and hallways, Collet found what he was looking for.

Deep in the heart of the Grand Gallery blinked a tiny red dot.

La marque.

Fache was keeping his prey on a very tight leash tonight. Wisely so. Robert Langdon had proven himself one cool customer.

FOR CHAPTER 9 CLICK HERE .

DA VINCIC CODE 8-10

2008-02-23T21:35:00.001-08:00

Fache will do what no one else dares.

The delicate art of cajoler was a lost skill in modern law enforcement, one that required exceptional poise under pressure. Few men possessed the necessary sangfroid for this kind of operation, but Fache seemed born for it. His restraint and patience bordered on the robotic.

Fache's sole emotion this evening seemed to be one of intense resolve, as if this arrest were somehow personal to him. Fache's briefing of his agents an hour ago had been unusually succinct and assured. I know who murdered Jacques Saunière, Fache had said. You know what to do. No mistakes tonight.

And so far, no mistakes had been made.

Collet was not yet privy to the evidence that had cemented Fache's certainty of their suspect's guilt, but he knew better than to question the instincts of the Bull. Fache's intuition seemed almost supernatural at times. God whispers in his ear, one agent had insisted after a particularly impressive display of Fache's sixth sense. Collet had to admit, if there was a God, Bezu Fache would be on His A-list. The captain attended mass and confession with zealous regularity—far more than the requisite holiday attendance fulfilled by other officials in the name of good public

DA VINCI CODE 8-9

2008-02-23T21:34:00.006-08:00

"No," he fired back, tired and frustrated. "You told me Saunière was attacked in his office by someone he had apparently invited in."

"Yes."

"So it seems reasonable to conclude that the curator knew his attacker."

Fache nodded. "Go on."

"So if Saunière knew the person who killed him, what kind of indictment is this?" He pointed at the floor. "Numeric codes? Lame saints? Draconian devils? Pentacles on his stomach? It's all too cryptic."

Fache frowned as if the idea had never occurred to him. "You have a point."

"Considering the circumstances," Langdon said, "I would assume that if Saunière wanted to tell you who killed him, he would have written down somebody's name."

As Langdon spoke those words, a smug smile crossed Fache's lips for the first time all night. "Précisément," Fache said. "Précisément."

I am witnessing the work of a master, mused Lieutenant Collet as he tweaked his audio gear and listened to Fache's voice coming through the headphones. The agent supérieur knew it was moments like these that had lifted the captain to the pinnacle of French law enforcement.

DA VINCI CODE 8-6

2008-02-23T21:34:00.005-08:00

"Yes?" Fache said.

Langdon weighed his words carefully. "I was just thinking that Saunière shared a lot of spiritual ideologies with Da Vinci, including a concern over the Church's elimination of the sacred feminine from modern religion. Maybe, by imitating a famous Da Vinci drawing, Saunière was simply echoing some of their shared frustrations with the modern Church's demonization of the goddess."

Fache's eyes hardened. "You think Saunière is calling the Church a lame saint and a Draconian devil?"

Langdon had to admit it seemed far-fetched, and yet the pentacle seemed to endorse the idea on some level. "All I am saying is that Mr. Saunière dedicated his life to studying the history of the goddess, and nothing has done more to erase that history than the Catholic Church. It seems reasonable that Saunière might have chosen to express his disappointment in his final good-bye."

"Disappointment?" Fache demanded, sounding hostile now. "This message sounds more enraged than disappointed, wouldn't you say?"

Langdon was reaching the end of his patience. "Captain, you asked for my instincts as to what Saunière is trying to say here, and that's what I'm giving you."

"That this is an indictment of the Church?" Fache's jaw tightened as he spoke through clenched teeth. "Mr. Langdon, I have seen a lot of death in my work, and let me tell you something. When a man is murdered by another man, I do not believe his final thoughts are to write an obscure spiritual statement that no one will understand. I believe he is thinking of one thing only." Fache's whispery voice sliced the air. "La vengeance. I believe Saunière wrote this note to tell us who killed him." Langdon stared. "But that makes no sense whatsoever."

"No?"

DA VINCI CODE 8-6

2008-02-23T21:34:00.003-08:00

Misunderstanding breeds distrust, Langdon thought.

Even Da Vinci's enormous output of breathtaking Christian art only furthered the artist's reputation for spiritual hypocrisy. Accepting hundreds of lucrative Vatican commissions, Da Vinci painted Christian themes not as an expression of his own beliefs but rather as a commercial venture—a

means of funding a lavish lifestyle. Unfortunately, Da Vinci was a prankster who often amused himself by quietly gnawing at the hand that fed him. He incorporated in many of his Christian paintings hidden symbolism that was anything but Christian—tributes to his own beliefs and a subtle thumbing of his nose at the Church. Langdon had even given a lecture once at the National Gallery in London entitled: "The Secret Life of Leonardo: Pagan Symbolism in Christian Art."

"I understand your concerns," Langdon now said, "but Da Vinci never really practiced any dark arts. He was an exceptionally spiritual man, albeit one in constant conflict with the Church." As Langdon said this, an odd thought popped into his mind. He glanced down at the message on the floor again. O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint!

DA VINCI CODE 8-5

2008-02-23T21:34:00.001-08:00

Da Vinci. Langdon felt a shiver of amazement. The clarity of Saunière's intentions could not be denied. In his final moments of life, the curator had stripped off his clothing and arranged his body in a clear image of Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.

The circle had been the missing critical element. A feminine symbol of protection, the circle around the naked man's body completed Da Vinci's intended message—male and female harmony. The question now, though, was why Saunière would imitate a famous drawing.

"Mr. Langdon," Fache said, "certainly a man like yourself is aware that Leonardo da Vinci had a tendency toward the darker arts."

Langdon was surprised by Fache's knowledge of Da Vinci, and it certainly went a long way toward explaining the captain's suspicions about devil worship. Da Vinci had always been an awkward subject for historians, especially in the Christian tradition. Despite the visionary's genius, he was a flamboyant homosexual and worshipper of Nature's divine order, both of which placed him in a perpetual state of sin against God. Moreover, the artist's eerie eccentricities projected an admittedly demonic aura: Da Vinci exhumed corpses to study human anatomy; he kept mysterious journals in illegible reverse handwriting; he believed he possessed the alchemic power to turn lead into gold and even cheat God by creating an elixir to postpone death; and his inventions included horrific, never-before-imagined weapons of war and torture.

DA VINCI CODE 8-4

2008-02-23T21:33:00.004-08:00

Fache motioned back to the pentacle on Saunière's abdomen. "Nothing to do with devil worship? Are you still certain?"

Langdon was certain of nothing anymore. "The symbology and text don't seem to coincide. I'm sorry I can't be of more help."

"Perhaps this will clarify." Fache backed away from the body and raised the black light again, letting the beam spread out in a wider angle. "And now?"

To Langdon's amazement, a rudimentary circle glowed around the curator's body. Saunière had apparently lay down and swung the pen around himself in several long arcs, essentially inscribing himself inside a circle.

In a flash, the meaning became clear.

"The Vitruvian Man," Langdon gasped. Saunière had created a life-sized replica of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous sketch.

Considered the most anatomically correct drawing of its day, Da Vinci's The Vitruvian Man had become a modern-day icon of culture, appearing on posters, mouse pads, and T-shirts around the world. The celebrated sketch consisted of a perfect circle in which was inscribed a nude male... his arms and legs outstretched in a naked spread eagle.

DA VINCI CODE 8-3

2008-02-23T21:33:00.003-08:00

Most strange? A dying man had barricaded himself in the gallery, drawn a pentacle on himself, and scrawled a mysterious accusation on the floor. What about the scenario wasn't strange?

"The word 'Draconian'?" he ventured, offering the first thing that came to mind. Langdon was fairly certain that a reference to Draco—the ruthless seventh-century B.C. politician—was an unlikely dying thought. " 'Draconian devil' seems an odd choice of vocabulary."

"Draconian?" Fache's tone came with a tinge of impatience now. "Saunière's choice of vocabulary hardly seems the primary issue here."

Langdon wasn't sure what issue Fache had in mind, but he was starting to suspect that Draco and Fache would have gotten along well.

"Saunière was a Frenchman," Fache said flatly. "He lived in Paris. And yet he chose to write this message..."

"In English," Langdon said, now realizing the captain's meaning.

Fache nodded. "Précisément. Any idea why?"

Langdon knew Saunière spoke impeccable English, and yet the reason he had chosen English as the language in which to write his final words escaped Langdon. He shrugged.

DA VINCI CODE 8-2

2008-02-23T21:33:00.001-08:00

"You alleged earlier," Fache said, "that Saunière's actions here were all in an effort to send some sort of message... goddess worship or something in that vein? How does this message fit in?"

Langdon knew the question was rhetorical. This bizarre communiqué obviously did not fit Langdon's scenario of goddess worship at all.

O, Draconian devil? Oh, lame saint?

Fache said, "This text appears to be an accusation of some sort. Wouldn't you agree?"

Langdon tried to imagine the curator's final minutes trapped alone in the Grand Gallery, knowing he was about to die. It seemed logical. "An accusation against his murderer makes sense, I suppose."

"My job, of course, is to put a name to that person. Let me ask you this, Mr. Langdon. To your eye, beyond the numbers, what about this message is most strange?"

DAVINCI CODE 8-1

2008-02-23T21:31:00.000-08:00

Langdon couldn't tear his eyes from the glowing purple text scrawled across the parquet floor. Jacques Saunière's final communication seemed as unlikely a departing message as any Langdon could imagine.

The message read:

13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5

O, Draconian devil!

Oh, lame saint!

Although Langdon had not the slightest idea what it meant, he did understand Fache's instinct that the pentacle had something to do with devil worship.

O, Draconian devil!

Saunière had left a literal reference to the devil. Equally as bizarre was the series of numbers. "Part of it looks like a numeric cipher."

"Yes," Fache said. "Our cryptographers are already working on it. We believe these numbers may be the key to who killed him. Maybe a telephone exchange or some kind of social identification. Do the numbers have any symbolic meaning to you?"

Langdon looked again at the digits, sensing it would take him hours to extract any symbolic meaning. If Saunière had even intended any. To Langdon, the numbers looked totally random. He was accustomed to symbolic progressions that made some semblance of sense, but everything here—the pentacle, the text, the numbers—seemed disparate at the most fundamental level.

DA VINCI CODE PART 3-9

2008-02-23T05:13:00.004-08:00

I'm trapped in a Salvador Dali painting, he thought.

Langdon strode to the main entrance—an enormous revolving door. The foyer beyond was dimly lit and deserted.

Do I knock?

Langdon wondered if any of Harvard's revered Egyptologists had ever knocked on the front door of a pyramid and expected an answer. He raised his hand to bang on the glass, but out of the darkness below, a figure appeared, striding up the curving staircase. The man was stocky and dark, almost Neanderthal, dressed in a dark double-breasted suit that strained to cover his wide shoulders. He advanced with unmistakable authority on squat, powerful legs. He was speaking on his cell phone but finished the call as he arrived. He motioned for Langdon to enter.

"I am Bezu Fache," he announced as Langdon pushed through the revolving door. "Captain of the Central Directorate Judicial Police." His tone was fitting—a guttural rumble... like a gathering storm.

Langdon held out his hand to shake. "Robert Langdon."

Fache's enormous palm wrapped around Langdon's with crushing force.

"I saw the photo," Langdon said. "Your agent said Jacques Saunière himself did—"

"Mr. Langdon," Fache's ebony eyes locked on. "What you see in the photo is only the beginning of what Saunière did."

FOR CHAPTER 4 CLICK HERE

DA VINCI CODE 3-8

2008-02-23T05:13:00.003-08:00

My French stinks, Langdon thought, but my zodiac iconography is pretty good. Taurus was always the bull. Astrology was a symbolic constant all over the world.

The agent pulled the car to a stop and pointed between two fountains to a large door in the side of the pyramid. "There is the entrance. Good luck, monsieur."

"You're not coming?"

"My orders are to leave you here. I have other business to attend to."

Langdon heaved a sigh and climbed out. It's your circus.

The agent revved his engine and sped off.

As Langdon stood alone and watched the departing taillights, he realized he could easily reconsider, exit the courtyard, grab a taxi, and head home to bed. Something told him it was probably a lousy idea.

As he moved toward the mist of the fountains, Langdon had the uneasy sense he was crossing an imaginary threshold into another world. The dreamlike quality of the evening was settling around him again. Twenty minutes ago he had been asleep in his hotel room. Now he was standing in front of a transparent pyramid built by the Sphinx, waiting for a policeman they called the Bull.

DA VINCI CODE -PART 3-8

2008-02-23T05:13:00.001-08:00

"Do you like our pyramid?" the agent asked.

Langdon frowned. The French, it seemed, loved to ask Americans this. It was a loaded question, of course. Admitting you liked the pyramid made you a tasteless American, and expressing dislike was an insult to the French.

"Mitterrand was a bold man," Langdon replied, splitting the difference. The late French president who had commissioned the pyramid was said to have suffered from a "Pharaoh complex." Singlehandedly responsible for filling Paris with Egyptian obelisks, art, and artifacts.

François Mitterrand had an affinity for Egyptian culture that was so all-consuming that the French still referred to him as the Sphinx.

"What is the captain's name?" Langdon asked, changing topics.

"Bezu Fache," the driver said, approaching the pyramid's main entrance. "We call him le Taureau."

Langdon glanced over at him, wondering if every Frenchman had a mysterious animal epithet. "You call your captain the Bull?"

The man arched his eyebrows. "Your French is better than you admit, Monsieur Langdon."

DA VINCI CODE -PART 3-7

2008-02-23T05:12:00.004-08:00

The driver ignored the signs prohibiting auto traffic on the plaza, revved the engine, and gunned the Citroën up over the curb. The Louvre's main entrance was visible now, rising boldly in the distance, encircled by seven triangular pools from which spouted illuminated fountains.

La Pyramide.

The new entrance to the Paris Louvre had become almost as famous as the museum itself. The controversial, neomodern glass pyramid designed by Chinese-born American architect I. M. Pei still evoked scorn from traditionalists who felt it destroyed the dignity of the Renaissance courtyard. Goethe had described architecture as frozen music, and Pei's critics described this pyramid as fingernails on a chalkboard. Progressive admirers, though, hailed Pei's seventy-one-foot-tall transparent pyramid as a dazzling synergy of ancient structure and modern method—a symbolic link between the old and new—helping usher the Louvre into the next millennium.

DA VINCI CODE PART 3-6

2008-02-23T05:12:00.003-08:00

Musée du Louvre.

Langdon felt a familiar tinge of wonder as his eyes made a futile attempt to absorb the entire mass of the edifice. Across a staggeringly expansive plaza, the imposing facade of the Louvre rose like a citadel against the Paris sky. Shaped like an enormous horseshoe, the Louvre was the longest building in Europe, stretching farther than three Eiffel Towers laid end to end. Not even the million square feet of open plaza between the museum wings could challenge the majesty of the facade's breadth. Langdon had once walked the Louvre's entire perimeter, an astonishing three-mile journey.

Despite the estimated five days it would take a visitor to properly appreciate the 65,300 pieces of art in this building, most tourists chose an abbreviated experience Langdon referred to as "Louvre Lite"—a full sprint through the museum to see the three most famous objects: the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory. Art Buchwald had once boasted he'd seen all three masterpieces in five minutes and fifty-six seconds.

The driver pulled out a handheld walkie-talkie and spoke in rapid-fire French. "Monsieur Langdon est arrivé. Deux minutes."

An indecipherable confirmation came crackling back.

The agent stowed the device, turning now to Langdon. "You will meet the capitaine at the main entrance."

DA VINCI CODE -PART 3-5

2008-02-23T05:12:00.001-08:00

The Citroën swerved left now, angling west down the park's central boulevard. Curling around a circular pond, the driver cut across a desolate avenue out into a wide quadrangle beyond. Langdon could now see the end of the Tuileries Gardens, marked by a giant stone archway.

Arc du Carrousel.

Despite the orgiastic rituals once held at the Arc du Carrousel, art aficionados revered this place for another reason entirely. From the esplanade at the end of the Tuileries, four of the finest art museums in the world could be seen... one at each point of the compass.

Out the right-hand window, south across the Seine and Quai Voltaire, Langdon could see the dramatically lit facade of the old train station—now the esteemed Musée d'Orsay. Glancing left, he could make out the top of the ultramodern Pompidou Center, which housed the Museum of Modern Art. Behind him to the west, Langdon knew the ancient obelisk of Ramses rose above the trees, marking the Musée du Jeu de Paume.

But it was straight ahead, to the east, through the archway, that Langdon could now see the monolithic Renaissance palace that had become the most famous art museum in the world.

DA VINCI CODE -PART 3-4

2008-02-23T05:11:00.002-08:00

Langdon nodded absently. Symbologists often remarked that France—a country renowned for machismo, womanizing, and diminutive insecure leaders like Napoleon and Pepin the Short—could not have chosen a more apt national emblem than a thousand-foot phallus.

When they reached the intersection at Rue de Rivoli, the traffic light was red, but the Citroën didn't

slow. The agent gunned the sedan across the junction and sped onto a wooded section of Rue Castiglione, which served as the northern entrance to the famed Tuileries Gardens—Paris's own version of Central Park. Most tourists mistranslated Jardins des Tuileries as relating to the thousands of tulips that bloomed here, but Tuileries was actually a literal reference to something far less romantic. This park had once been an enormous, polluted excavation pit from which Parisian contractors mined clay to manufacture the city's famous red roofing tiles—or tuiles.

As they entered the deserted park, the agent reached under the dash and turned off the blaring siren. Langdon exhaled, savoring the sudden quiet. Outside the car, the pale wash of halogen headlights skimmed over the crushed gravel parkway, the rugged whir of the tires intoning a hypnotic rhythm. Langdon had always considered the Tuileries to be sacred ground. These were the gardens in which Claude Monet had experimented with form and color, and literally inspired the birth of the Impressionist movement. Tonight, however, this place held a strange aura of foreboding.

DA VINCI CODE -PART 3-3

2008-02-23T05:11:00.001-08:00

"I assume," Langdon said, "that the American University of Paris told you where I was staying?"

The driver shook his head. "Interpol."

Interpol, Langdon thought. Of course. He had forgotten that the seemingly innocuous request of all European hotels to see a passport at check-in was more than a quaint formality—it was the law. On any given night, all across Europe, Interpol officials could pinpoint exactly who was sleeping where. Finding Langdon at the Ritz had probably taken all of five seconds.

As the Citroën accelerated southward across the city, the illuminated profile of the Eiffel Tower appeared, shooting skyward in the distance to the right. Seeing it, Langdon thought of Vittoria, recalling their playful promise a year ago that every six months they would meet again at a different romantic spot on the globe. The Eiffel Tower, Langdon suspected, would have made their list. Sadly, he last kissed Vittoria in a noisy airport in Rome more than a year ago.

"Did you mount her?" the agent asked, looking over.

Langdon glanced up, certain he had misunderstood. "I beg your pardon?"

"She is lovely, no?" The agent motioned through the windshield toward the Eiffel Tower. "Have you mounted her?"

Langdon rolled his eyes. "No, I haven't climbed the tower."

"She is the symbol of France. I think she is perfect."

DA VINCI CODE CHAPTER 3-2

2008-02-23T05:10:00.002-08:00

Outside, the city was just now winding down—street vendors wheeling carts of candied amandes, waiters carrying bags of garbage to the curb, a pair of late night lovers cuddling to stay warm in a

breeze scented with jasmine blossom. The Citroën navigated the chaos with authority, its dissonant two-tone siren parting the traffic like a knife.

"Le capitaine was pleased to discover you were still in Paris tonight," the agent said, speaking for the first time since they'd left the hotel. "A fortunate coincidence."

Langdon was feeling anything but fortunate, and coincidence was a concept he did not entirely trust. As someone who had spent his life exploring the hidden interconnectivity of disparate emblems and ideologies, Langdon viewed the world as a web of profoundly intertwined histories and events. The connections may be invisible, he often preached to his symbology classes at Harvard, but they are always there, buried just beneath the surface.

DA VINCI CODE CHAPTER 3

2008-02-23T05:10:00.001-08:00

The crisp April air whipped through the open window of the Citroën ZX as it skimmed south past the Opera House and crossed Place Vendôme. In the passenger seat, Robert Langdon felt the city tear past him as he tried to clear his thoughts. His quick shower and shave had left him looking reasonably presentable but had done little to ease his anxiety. The frightening image of the curator's body remained locked in his mind.

Jacques Saunière is dead.

Langdon could not help but feel a deep sense of loss at the curator's death. Despite Saunière's reputation for being reclusive, his recognition for dedication to the arts made him an easy man to revere. His books on the secret codes hidden in the paintings of Poussin and Teniers were some of Langdon's favorite classroom texts. Tonight's meeting had been one Langdon was very much looking forward to, and he was disappointed when the curator had not shown.

Again the image of the curator's body flashed in his mind. Jacques Saunière did that to himself? Langdon turned and looked out the window, forcing the picture from his mind.

SAMSUNG DNIE

2007-12-05T04:34:00.001-08:00

Due to popular demand, after the Sony full HD review we've managed to get our hands on none other than a Samsung Mosel full-HD LCD TV. Sony and Samsung have become household names at the Tech2 stable, so I don’t think an introduction is needed. However I'll just mention that the Mosel series from Samsung include some high-end models that have received critical acclaim.

We called up Samung India, saying we want to add our (Tech) 2 bits, and they readily obliged with a brand new piece from their M-series Mosel. The F-series models are a little more expensive and may be a better choice, but this 46-incher will have to do for now.

Features and Design
The TV is pure elegance in terms of appearance. I can’t say much their lower-end models, but this has a smooth black finish that exudes confidence, and says ‘check me out’. It’s a piano-gloss finish, black all over, and the gloss is not overkill. It's actually pretty rich and smooth.

The swivel stand is oval, and bears the same finish as the bezel, which adds to the uniform good looks of the unit. There were some tacky stickers that I summarily tore off – I wonder if they will notice?

The typical Samsung 'on' button is present at the center of the bottom panel. The speaker too is a bit hidden and angled downwards, below the front panel. There's an HDMI at the side along with the retro suite, and an easily accessible squarish rack at the back. No aerobics required.

Before I forget, the HDMI inputs are HDMI 1.3, so you have many more colors, and 1440p compatibility (whenever that comes here!)

All expensive TVs these days have lots of features; some proprietary, others standard. For instance, the Samsung M8 conforms to the xvYCC (via HDMI 1.3) or extended gamut color space, just like the Sony, which means the color pallete is quite huge. These days the TVs I get for review never seem to have bad color, so I guess LCD technology is getting better.

Samsungs’s DNIe stuff is there, plus ‘Movie PLUS Mode’ for film cadence frames smoothening, and a few more minor tricks. The basic specs are in no way ordinary, as the contrast ratio is a whopping 15000:1, no prizes for guessing the quantum. The response time is faster than 8 ms, and the resolution is 1920 x 1080p.

BOSE HEADPHONES

2007-12-05T04:33:00.001-08:00

It was only a few days ago that we reviewed the Genius Noise Cancellation headphones, and waxed eloquent on opportunities for cheap makes in the market. What we have here now is the baap of them all, perched on the opposite end of the spectrum. Bose's Quiet Comfort series is the epitome of luxury with (alas) not much value for money. The new Quiet Comfort 3, however, shows some promise – but comes with a steep bill as expected.

In the QC 3 you will instantly see Bose's desire to make a more compact headgear while improving on their erstwhile inadequate attempt at noise canceling. These headphones are small, and are bundled with two proprietary rechargeable batteries which fit into the top of the right headphone can. And they do enable a whole new experience in noise reduction.

This time around, the QC 3 headphones come with an 'on-the-ear' design, and although we're not big fans of this form factor, we must admit that this one is surprisingly comfortable, mainly due to the soft foam pad covered by some material that reminds one of leather. The urge to take them off after 45 minutes is missing in the QC 3. Your ears don't feel as if they have just returned from battle, though they are a little hot due to the material of the exterior pad.

We'd have preferred disposable AAA batteries; but the QC 3 comes with proprietary batteries, which means you have to carry the charging kit wherever you go. If your batteries go dead while you are on a long journey, you've had it!

We didn't like the fact that the pair deploys only active noise cancellation. This means that you need to keep noise cancellation switched on at all times if you have to listen to music. So keep them charged before you set out.

To supplement a good musical experience, the 'big box' (literally) comes with an assortment of different charging plugs, a carry bag that can accommodate the extra battery, among other things. A gold-plated 3.5mm to 5.5mm converter is also bundled.

N81 -COOL

2007-12-05T04:26:00.000-08:00

In this age of high-end mobile phones (or should I say handheld computers and communication-cum-entertainment devices?) Nokia is a household name. Its latest addition to the stable is the N81, whose USP is a whopping 8GB of internal memory. Here’s my take on the 'Next Episode' in mobile technology.

Form Factor
I’ve decided to call this model 'Li'l Fatty' – its dimensions of 102 x 50 x 17.9 mm will explain why. At first sight (or second), this plain rectangular slider doesn't look impressive at all. On the top is a slider switch to lock the keypad, a 3.5mm earphone socket (good placement) and the power/profile switcher button. It has a set of stereo speakers on either side, and on the right are the volume/zoom keys and a dedicated camera key as well. At the bottom you’ll find the charging port and the new standardized microUSB port.

I do like the brilliant 2.4 inch display and the fact that in landscape mode, if you’re playing games, two buttons on either side of the earpiece become active. NICE! Since it’s 3G enabled there’s also a secondary VGA camera in front in addition to the 2 megapixel (WHAT?) camera with an LED flash in the rear.

The five way nav-pad under the display also doubles as a navigation touch-sensitive navi-wheel, which is a disappointment if you’re an iPod fan… or not. It only works with when the new shortcut menu (activated by a little gray button near the nav-pad) is on or when you’re scrolling through your music. Not the gallery, just the music files. There are four keys around the nav-pad that are dedicated to the music player. The top two are the track skip keys and the the bottom pair are the stop and play/pause keys.

The problem is the placement of these keys is absolutely ridiculous. You’ll more often than not end up activating the music player rather than deleting a word while typing and it won't activate the music player menu, just the last song that was playing. Trust me, you too will be startled when a song blares out really loud when you least expect it. The buttons are overly sensitive.

On the plus side, the slider is extremely smooth and responsive, and the large keypad is great. But I must admit I was quite disappointed by the overall design.

varanam ayiram stills

2007-12-05T04:14:00.000-08:00

DEAD MAN RETURNS

2007-12-05T04:12:00.000-08:00

No one yet knows why John Darwin disappeared from Hartlepool five years ago - but he is guaranteed to find lots of things have changed upon his return.

Chief among them: his wife has sold up and shipped their furniture and lots of money to Panama.

When they lived together on the seafront at Seaton Carew, John and Anne Darwin were described by friends as a loving couple.

He was a committed Catholic and had been a teacher for most of his working life, she was a doctor's receptionist and regular churchgoer.

When he vanished, there was a huge search and rescue operation involving lifeboats, coastguards and the RAF

His smashed-up canoe, lifejacket and paddle were found, but there was no sign of him.

On Saturday, five years after vanishing, he walked into West Central Police station in London in good health and, according to one source, "looking suntanned".

Since then, he has been staying with family - believed to be his son Mark - with a Metropolitan Police family liason officer looking after him.

TAX PAYER BECOME CITIZEN NO 1

2007-12-01T18:51:00.001-08:00

Filing your tax return wasn’t as easy as it is now. However, FD Engineer, a man who is 100 years old, has been filing his income tax returns since 1949.

Born in a small town in Secunderabad, he tirelessly coordinates with his chartered accountant friend over the phone to make sure the tax returns are filed in time every year.

“When I was 17-18 years old, I felt that I was a very bad boy,” says FD Engineer. It is not without reason that he is the citizen number one. This bad boy is now the nation's pride. At the grand old age of 100 years, Framroz Darabsha Engineer is the country's oldest taxpayer and a real inspiration to an entire population of working professionals.

According to the IT records, this year too, he filed tax returns of 7,500 rupees. But the zesty centenarian dismisses all the sudden attention with a shrug.

Engineer says that he pays all his taxes religiously as he fears God and can do nothing to cheat anyone.

The Finance Minister PC Chidambaram sent Engineer a congratulatory note earlier this month. Calling it a unique achievement, the minister applauded Engineer for being a model citizen.

“He is disciplined in every field of life. Very many years ago, money wasn’t as important as it is today. So it wasn’t a big deal for him to pay his taxes,” says Zurie Mody Engineer's Daughter.

Adding on, she says that her father believes in doing his duties.” He says that if we shrug our duties, the government will be unable to function successfully and will fail to help us,” says Zurie Mody, Engineer's Daughter.

Engineer’s health might fail him, but his convictions remain strong.

LALU BECOMES PROF

2007-12-01T18:50:00.001-08:00

Apart from meeting students from top business schools like Harvard and Wharton, Lalu Yadav is now getting ready to act Professor. Perhaps this goes to show that at least one of the parliamentarians is busy.

A group of four deans from the INSEAD Business School, Singapore are interested in the now famous turnaround handshake of the minister and the King of Turnaround himself is more than delighted to obliged.

“They expressed a desire to meet me and my officials. I welcome them,” said the affable Indian Railway Minister Lalu Yadav.

These kind words brought Lalu more than just the usual praise from the visiting business gurus. This time he was offered a chance to lecture at the business school itself.

Dean of INSEAD Business School Frank Brown said, “We would love to have the minister come to our campus and talk to our MBAs.”

The minister could not be more pleased for the offer will see him lecturing in Singapore within the next six months. Indian Railways and its turnaround will also be a case study in the business school's curriculum.

“One of the things that we want to do at INSEAD is turn it [Indian Railways’ success] into an INSEAD case study because it is such a terrific story. It’s a case study for us because it is a unique turnaround seen anywhere in the world,'' said Brown.

This is not the first time that business schools have come seeking advice from the Indian Railway Minister, specially focussing on the turnaround of the Indian Railways

YUVI TO PLAY IN RANJHI TROPHY

2007-12-01T18:49:00.000-08:00

Yuvraj Singh, named India's 12th man for the second Test against Pakistan that began Friday, has been released by the cricket board to play for Punjab against Bengal in the Ranji Trophy match starting Saturday.

The in-form Yuvraj will proceed to Siliguri for the match. But ex-players felt that if he was not to be played at the Eden Gardens, he could have been asked to proceed Thursday itself. India's playing XI that played here is believed to have been decided the night before.

The 25-year-old left-hander, adjudged the Man of the ODI Series against Australia, was also not played in the first Test in Delhi. He has so far played 19 Tests and 195 ODIs.

Many experts and former Test players, including Arun Lal, believe that Yuvraj should have been included in the XI.

"He is the man in form and he deserved to play Test matches too. If you don't play him now, when will you? He has just won a Man of the Series award and he must full of confidence at this moment," Lal said.

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2007-11-23T19:42:00.000-08:00

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2007-11-17T20:53:00.000-08:00

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BEE MOVIE -MOVIE REVIEW

2007-11-16T18:29:00.000-08:00

BEE MOVIE -MOVIE REVIEW

Bees rarely fly in a straight line. They hover and zigzag, with a purpose known only to the collective brain of the hive. The most genuinely apian aspect of “Bee Movie,” DreamWorks’ new animated movie about, well, bees, is that it spends a lot of its short running time buzzing happily around, sniffing out fresh jokes wherever they may bloom. There is a plot — the usual big, elaborate story with the usual important messages about saving the planet, living together in interspecies harmony and believing in yourself — but it’s a little beside the point. The real fun is the insect shtick.

The DreamWorks Animation formula, exemplified in the mighty “Shrek” franchise (and imitated by would-be rivals at Sony and Fox), is to charm the children with cute creatures and slapstick action while jabbing at the grown-ups with soft, pseudosophisticated pop- cultural satire. “Bee Movie,” directed by Simon J. Smith and Steve Hickner and animated by several hundred industrious drones, pushes this strategy almost to the point of dispensing with the kid stuff altogether.

There are a few splendid cartoon set pieces — including a funny, thrilling bee’s-eye tour of New York, from Central Park flora to the surface of a tennis ball to the inside of a speeding car — that show off the latest computer animation techniques. But most of the film’s creative energy is verbal rather than visual, and semimature rather than strictly juvenile.

Which is hardly surprising. As everyone knows by now, the leading man (and one of the screenwriters and producers) is Jerry Seinfeld, whose sitcom, almost a decade off the network air, lives on in syndication and in the endless recycling of memorable one-liners by a certain type of pathetic Gen-Xer. (Not me, though. I’m the complete opposite of every film critic you’ve ever met. I’m the master of my domain.)

Mr. Seinfeld provides the voice and attitude for Barry B. Benson, a young bee who has reached the stage in his accelerated bug lifestyle when he must choose a career. The hive where he lives is a highly regimented place, where the bees, conditioned by 27 million years of evolution, work without a break in the same job for their whole lives. Visually, this world resembles a sweet, sunny, corporate version of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.”

Barry’s nerdy pal, Adam (Matthew Broderick), accepts his drone future as part of the natural order of things, but Barry is a maverick, an individualist yearning to break out of the conformist world of the social insects.

He may also remind some viewers of Benjamin Braddock, the alliteratively named hero of “The Graduate,” a film that “Bee Movie” cites in a few amusing scenes. Not that Barry has an affair with a middle-aged mama bee (all bees are children of the queen, a biological fact the film notes only in passing). Instead he flies even farther from the nest, so to speak, falling in love with an actual human being, a Manhattan florist named Vanessa who speaks in the irresistibly sweet voice of Renée Zellweger.

When you stop to think about it, the prospect of romance between a bee and a person raises some potentially awkward, not to say physiologically outlandish, questions. But of course you’re not supposed to think about it. The moral of the story — one of them, anyway — is that we and the bees are interdependent and that we should respect their hard work.

This lesson is satirically driven home in a courtroom plot that erupts just as the love story starts to get sticky. When Barry discovers that honey is sold in supermarkets, and that it is harvested from captive bees held in smoky, shoddy fake hives, he sues the human race, going after some of its notorious bee abusers. These include Ray Liotta, who sells his own brand of honey, and Sting, whose name is obviously offensive to bees. (Both celebrities make cameo voice appearances, as does Larry King, playing a character called Bee Larry King. It’s funnier than it sounds. Or maybe it’s exactly as funny as it sounds.)

Even when playing an animated bee, Mr. Seinfeld does not demonstrate great emotional range. His comfort zone as a performer ranges from peeved to perplexed to moderately psyched, with occasional bursts of obvious exaggeration to indicate that he is at least aware that more intense states of feeling exist. But his detachment works in the movie’s favor by defusing its sentimental impulses.

Perhaps because of its star’s background in stand-up comedy, “Bee Movie” makes overt a conceit that is usually left implicit in animal-kingdom cartoons, namely that species is the cartoon version of ethnicity. Barry and his tribe are not just bees. They identify as “Beeish” — I’m sure “Benson” was something else back in the old country — and worry about their children dating wasps. On his travels Barry meets a mosquito who speaks in the voice of Chris Rock and who refers to his despised and misunderstood brethren as “bloods.”

These riffs on identity politics, a durable if sometimes risky source of humor in American pop culture, give “Bee Movie” an extra fillip of comic vitality — the hint of a sting, if you will, in an otherwise soft and fuzzy entertainment.

source: movie corner