Blood Meridian @ Opening Bell Coffee

Open Bell Coffee was our meeting place for Blood Meridian, and we were treated to game traffic and fireworks from Reunion Tower on the way there. The coffee shop is in an attractive, brick-walled basement lit by christmas lights and funky signs. The hot chocolate and waffle I had were fine, if pricey. Megan said the rice crispy treat was "trying too hard," but was serviceable. I didn't hear Natalie complain about her cake balls. The main challenge with places with live music is that we have to yell at each other, but I suppose we understood each other well enough.

1409 S Lamar St, Dallas, TX 75215

Book Review

This book is all about blood and sunsets, and it rocks. Set mostly in the 1850s, Blood Meridian follows a character known only as "the kid" through a wild, gory, marauding rampage through Texas and Mexico. The kid falls in with a group of scalpers intent on ridding the west of the natives, and in this group is the Judge--a giant, white, bald man with seemingly superhuman power and a limitless capacity for evil. Though inspired by historical events, this book reads like a western apocalypse in epic poetry. If there is a flaw in the narrative, it's probably in the nonsensical ending and epilogue. Megan would say the problem is that there are too many boring stretches of desert ramblings through bloody sunsets, but Natalie and I find those to be some of the most captivating parts of the book.

Memorable Lines

"I looked for blackness, holes in the heavens. The Dipper stove."

"The sun was just down and to the west lay reefs of bloodred clouds up out of which rose little desert nighthawks like fugitives from some great fire at the earth's end."

"The survivors lay quietly in that cratered void and watched the whitehot stars go rifling down the dark. Or slept with their alien hearts beating in the sad like pilgrims exhausted upon the face of the planet Anareta, clutched to a namelessness wheeling in the night."

Star Count

Natalie--4.5
Kim--4.5
Megan--3.5