Black Is The New Blood

I have no interest in The Da Vinci Code. I read the first couple of pages once. It was so poorly written that my head boggled at how it had become so popular. Can anything that has sold 40 million copies be any good? Then I had a chuckle over the Pynchon joke from Gravity’s Rainbow….”For Demille, young fur-henchman can not be rowing.” (Or something like that…if you don’t get it, say it aloud and say it fast). I reaffirmed the fact that I am a literary snob of the highest order.

That said, this is pretty cool. Panoramas.dk presents a 360 degree virtual reality tour of some of the major sites mentioned in the novel. Quicktime is required, but worth the install if you don’t have it.

Be sure to check out the Mona Lisa panorama. I read that the Louvre had one million more visitors last year than the year before. This has mainly been attributed to the popularity of The Da Vinci Code, and is supported by the fact that there have been travel guides published that solely deal with the book. This figure is astonishing. It works out to an average of over 2,700 more visitors a day. Looking at the Mona Lisa Panorama, it looks like they are all there at once. Is it really worth seeing the Mona Lisa if you have to suffer through a throng like this?

[Update 1]:

My Friend, Ms. M, who has visited the Louvre more than once, before the publication of TDVC, tells me that at certain times of the year, crowds can throng pretty deep. She also confirms that the picture really is as small as it looks.

via Neatorama

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