Valerian and Laureline

Mikey (to Brendan, just before shooting him): "Hi, Jack.  Bye, Jack."--The Sopranos

Tonight I bought a Googleplay Ebook version of a French science fiction comic book--they call it a "bande dessinee"--about Valerian and Laureline. (I got a version already translated into English; there was a time when I would have got the French version and translated it myself.) Valerian is an agent born on the future earth colony planet Galaxity, who goes on missions through space and time to pre-empt disasters. Laureline is his partner (and lover!), whom he picked up in the Middle Ages:  I have a feeling she's the real reason for the series' success, sort of like Captain Haddock in the Tintin comics.

I downloaded a double story from the books "The Ghosts of Inverloch" and "The Wrath of Hypsis." The clever thing about the story is that their mission, and how they can accomplish it, only gradually emerges over two books--even they're in the dark at first!  It turns out to involve beings on the planet Hypsis wanting to trigger a nuclear holocaust on 20th-century earth to prevent the eventual founding of Galaxity, and our hero and heroine finding a way to prevent this.  A full explanation would take forever, so you might as well read the books directly.  It gets really weird when they reach Hypsis!

Friday afternoon I saw Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann at the Bloor. (It started at 11:30 A.M.!) It was a Royal Opera revival of a classic 1980 production directed by John Schlesinger.  The story with Antonia and Dr. Miraculous gives me the creeps!

Someone I know doesn't want me to write about him on this blog. (For which reason, I can't say who he is.) Frankly, I'm impressed that he thinks anyone will read it.  John Snow and Pena, I value your readership highly.  In that Proust-based Vanity Fair celebrity questionnaire one of the questions is, "What do you consider your greatest achievement?" I'd say that my greatest achievement is making friends.  It isn't like Jerry Seinfeld collecting Porsches; every new friendship is unique!