2 comments on my sanity Listening to: The MacGyver theme music
Mood: Science-ey
(edit: an oversight meant an artificially low Aitken Index. Corrections have been made below.)
Sahara. Wonderful wonderful film.
So there I was, happily watching Sahara the other day when I realised that I had possibly missed a whole huge opportunity for *more cheese*. Because Sahara is one of a series of books, written by Clive Cussler, featuring Dirk Pitt and his loveable chirpy cockney Italian sidekick Al Giordino.
I happily got my sticky little mitts on a whole bunch and have devoured 2 in about the last 5 days. These books are not *good*. They are not particularly well written and the plots are wonderfully far fetched. Pitt himself is bordering on a Marty-Stu, only his "lack of attractiveness" (which doesn't in fact prevent women from falling at his feet) saves him from that status really.
But I like them. I actually do.
It's difficult not to when you get scenes like this:
It was a few minutes past five when Pitt arrived back at his quarters on Brady Field. Within seconds of discarding his sticky clothing, he was firmly entrenched on his back in a narrow shower stall. It was a tight fit; his head was crooked into one corner, his back pressed flat on the wet tile floor, and his hairy legs and feet thrust upward on a ninety degree angle in the opposite corner.
To anyone who might have peeked, it looked like a contorted and bone torturing position, but Pitt found it thoroughly comfortable and immensely satisfying. When time allowed, he always relaxed in the shower in this manner. Sometimes he dozed off, but mostly he used the simulated rainy atmosphere and the solitude to think. At this moment his mind simmered with a multitude of perplexing questions.
He mentally juggled the facts and unknowns together, seeking a pattern and trying to concentrate on the most important problems. It was no use. His mind eluded his grasp and stubbornly chewed on the minor and inconsequential riddle of the noiseless truck by the beach.
For some inexplicable reason the riddle irritated him and he endeavored vainly to shake it, but it remained. Finally he gave in to it and closed his eyes and recreated the scene, hoping to visualize a sign or solution.
Suddenly a blurred form appeared on the other side of the shower door.
“Hello in the shower,” Giordino’s voice rumbled over the running water. “You’ve been in there nearly half an hour. You must be thoroughly water-logged by now.”
Pitt resigned himself to the interruption and reached up and turned the faucet to off.
“You better hurry,” Giordino shouted. Then it occurred to him that the water was no longer running. He lowered his voice. “Colonel Lewis is on his way over— he’ll be here any second."
Pitt sighed. Pushing his body to a sitting position, he awkwardly struggled to his feet, nearly slipping on the slick tile floor. A towel sailed over the shower door, falling in folds around his head. The mere thought of being prodded and pushed in order to impress a higher ranking officer made the hairs on his neck bristle. He glared through the fuzzy glass panel.
“Tell Colonel Lewis he can play with himself while he waits.” His voice had a nice frost to it. “I’ll come out when I damn well feel like it,” he said succinctly. “Now get the hell out of my bathroom, you bastard, before I cram a bar of soap up your anal canal.” Abruptly, Pitt felt his checks heating. He hadn’t really meant to be rude to his old friend. Immediately sorry. he felt a wave of guilt “I’m sorry, Al. My mind was elsewhere.”
“Forget it.” Without another word Giordino shrugged and left the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Pitt briskly dried his lean body and then shaved. After he finished, he blew the tiny black hairs out of the cordless electric shaver and patted his face with British Sterling aftershave lotion. When he stepped into the bedroom, Giordino and Colonel Lewis were waiting.
Lewis sat on the edge of the bed and twisted one end of an immense red handlebar moustache. His large rosy face and twinkling blue eyes along with the large bush on his upper lip gave him the appearance of a jolly lumberjack. His movements and his speech were rapid, almost jerky, giving Pitt the impression that the Colonel had a pound of ground glass in his crotch.
“Sorry to break in on you like this,” boomed Lewis. “But I’m interested in knowing whether or not you’ve run onto anything substantial concerning the attack yesterday.”
Pitt was nude, but he didn’t give a damn.
(The Mediterranean Caper, 1973)
- It's difficult not to laugh, and then gape that anyone could have written such a thing seriously. These books are for men. Hairy, manly, beer-drinking, gun-shooting men.
... Which is what leaves me a bit confused, really. Because Dirk likes to take his clothes off. A lot.
Dirk needs something to dim the torch he is using while he sneaks about on a ship in the dead of night? No problem, he whips off his swimming trunks and wanders around on the ship in his birthday suit.
Al is injured in a rockfall? No problem, Dirk whips off his swimming trunks and bandages his old friend's hand with them, rescuing them and the two (naked) women with them while himself wearing the Emperor's New Clothes.
Dirk is trapped in an ancient labyrith with his only escape through a set of rusty bars? No problem, Dirk whips off his clothes and squeezes through, with only a minor graze to his unprotected family jewels, which warrants two crotch counts, incidentally (see below).
The proportion of the books that Dirk spent naked seemed surprisingly high, and so in the spirit of scientific advancement I have developed a system for analysing and rating the Dirk Pitt books as I read them. I call it the Aitken Index, and it is summarised as the percentage of the book's final word count that Dirk spends in the buff.
The more detailed Aitken Index Analysis also includes several other features, common to the books. As I read them, I will post each book's Aitken Index for public perusal.
So without further ado, here is the Aitken Index for book 2:
Aitken Index Analysis:
Book 2: The Mediterranean Caper
Word count: 79,200
Number of occurrences of Dirk being naked, including inferred nakedness (in the shower etc):
6
Number of words Dirk spends being naked:
545 words- sleeping naked before putting on his swimming trunks.
525 words- shagging
809 words- showering and getting dressed in front of Al and a colonel, and he doesn't give a damn
233 words- naked squeezing between some bars.
8 words- while he washes his underpants
1986 words- he wanders about a ship, naked. how manly.
Total: 4106 words
= 5.2% of the book.
References to manly hair, facial/bodily:
19 (and 1 reference to manly, hairy fish)
References to/occurrences of naked/barely clothed women:
14
References to crotches; male, female or donkey:
18
Which gives a crotch reference every 4,400 words
Stay tuned for the Aitken Index Analysis of book 1, which I will be re-reading for the purposes of scientific research, shortly to be followed, I imagine, by the analysis of book 3.
October 20, 2006 at 8:47 p.m.