what a party!

We ended up having a terrific b’day party last Thursday after noon, with about 30 friends listening in Institut Henri Poincaré to Florence, Pierre, and Sylvia giving lectures on my favourite themes, namely ABC, MCMC, and mixture inference. Incl. subtle allusions to my many idiosyncrasies in three different flavours!  And a limited number of anecdotes, incl. the unavoidable Cancún glasses disaster! We later headed to a small Ethiopian restaurant located on the other side of the Panthéon, rue de l’Ecole Polytechnique (rather than on the nearby rue Laplace!), which was going to be too tiny for us, especially in these COVID times, until the sky cleared up and the restaurant set enough tables in the small street to enjoy their injeras and wots till almost midnight. The most exciting episode of the evening came when someone tried to steal some of our bags that had been stored in a back room and when Tony spotted the outlier and chased him till the thief dropped the bags..! Thanks to Tony for saving the evening and our computers!!! To Éric, Jean-Michel and Judith for organising this 9/9 event (after twisting my arm just a wee bit). And to all my friends who joined the party, some from far away…

Toukoul, Brussels

While in Brussels this week, I realised I was staying near a well-rated Ethiopian restaurant called Toukoul (from the name of a, Ethiopian hut) and went there early enough to secure a table before it got full. For plenty of good reasons as the food is terrific, with enough spice for the taste

to linger in the mouth long after the dish is gone. (Contrary to the few other Ethiopian restaurants I tested and tasted in the past months.) And plenty of injera available on the table. And a highly friendly service. A place to remember for future trips to Brussels. Definitely! 

a memory of light

It is now over: I have finished reading the last volume of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light. When considering that I started reading the first volume in Ithaca in the summer of 1990, while visiting George Casella, there is something momentous (and bittersweet) in reading the last page and acknowledging it is now over. For good. As many other WoT fans, I grew attached toJ some of the characters, despite the repetitions, the often immature psychology, and attitudes that varied from one volume to the next… It is thus a wee sad to see them vanish with the last page (or, worse, die within the last volume for three of them). Even though 14 volumes plus a prequel is more than enough. Of course, this feeling is nothing compared with what the second author, Brandon Sanderson, must feel! As he mentions on his blog, he had read the very final scene in 2007, soon after Robert Jordan’s death, when he was asked to complete the series…

I will not get into details about this last volume as I do not want to post spoilers. And because Leigh Butler did a much better job! (Warning: many many spoilers!) Let me mention however that the book stands to the previous volumes written by Sanderson, at the very least, and certainly above some of the weakest volumes written by Jordan. The battle that occupies a large part of the book has enough shifts and surprises to make it bearable, even though there are too many “happy endings” in my taste. Including the very final scene. Maybe not so surprisingly the two major characters in this volume are Perrin and Matt (thanks to the nice trick about the great captains). They have certainly grown in stature and depth from the first volume, even though they are not free from the occasional relapse. The roles of Rand, Nynaeve and Moiraine are somewhat anticlimactic as they seem to be doing nothing! (Of course, they only seem!) The forces facing each other sound very disproportionate and it is hard to understand why the dark side does not make use of those superior forces from the beginning. (The same question applies to the whole series, somehow!) I must also acknowledge being a bit disappointed by the (homely) final chapter. (Nothing terrible like the very final chapter of Harry Potter of course!) I can understand Jordan’s motivations in writing it and it somehow makes sense. Still, not the ending I would have liked to read for this superlative epic! Nonetheless, I think Sanderson did a magnificent job in merging the notes of Robert Jordan into a coherent and enjoyable ending. That it took three rather than one volume is more a testimony to the complexity of the universe Jordan created than a nuisance (now that the series is over!). May he always find water and shade!