Chapter 3 of 12
It's time for some spoily commentary on Chapter 3 of Eternity Unleashed!
Spoilers under the cut. You have been warned.
It's time for some spoily commentary on Chapter 3 of Eternity Unleashed!
Spoilers under the cut. You have been warned.
if you don't get the hate, here's what you don't understand.
it takes up to 2 hours to close down the kitchen.
The last 60-90 minutes before closing time you do almost no cooking because the restaurant doesn't have many people in it and you've already cooked most of their diners.
So if someone walks in during, like, the last hour, the cook is in the middle of an industrial deep clean of the kitchen.
(these numbers can vary quite a bit from place to place but i have worked several restaurants with these actual times and the concept remains the same)
Say the place closes at 10. If you wait til the restaurant is already closed to start all your cleaning duties, you'll be there until at least midnight.
More than that your boss knows that on an average night you can start your clean up as soon as the last rush ends and get out of there around 10:45, even 10:15 on a slow night if you get lucky. That means there are plenty of restaurants where if you do take until midnight the manager is going to come up to you at some point that week and ask you what went wrong that night, and you'd better have an answer.
So this example restaurant closes at 10 pm. The dinner rush ends around 8:30, and shortly after that the cook is going to start getting every single dish possible over to the dishwasher because the dishwasher always gets hit hard and late, and the machine runs for 2 full minutes and only holds so many dishes, so the way that works out is if you wait an extra 30 minutes to give the dishwasher all your stuff it can mean adding like 60 minutes to the end of his shift. And you're gonna KEEP finding shit to send to the dishpit right up until you leave probably.
all these little square and rectangle containers in this cold table have to be pulled out and changed over into new containers, replaced by new full ones, or in some cases filled from larger containers in the back, which can result in even more empty containers to send to the dishwasher.
while it's all pulled apart to do this, you have to clean up all the spilled food and sauce and juices and stuff from the joints and ledges and shelves and drip trays
Once you get your line changed over in this way, and fully stocked, anytime someone orders something that makes use of a bunch of that stuff, you have to restock and re-clean it some. It might already be covered in plastic. Some of it might already be stuck in the back to make room to take apart your cutting board counter to clean. To cook a dish isn't TOO much of a problem at this point, but you're really hoping for zero orders because you still have so much other cleaning to do.
Meanwhile the salad bar and appetizer section and server station and everybody are all doing the same thing. Even the bartenders are stocking olives and lemons and sending back whisks and stir spoons and shakers and empty 4quart storage containers that used to hold the back-up lemons and olives and things. Every section is dumping their must-be-cleaneds to the dishpit as fast as possible because early and fast is the only thing they can do to to help that dishpit not absolutely drown into overtime.
The poor dishwasher is always the last to clock out, soaking wet and exhausted.
Around this time you probably scrub the flat top, which has turned black from cooked on grease and is still about 500 degrees. Line cooks are divided in opinion on water-based or oil based cleaning methods for this, but they all involve scrubbing with (usually) a brick of pumice stone using every ounce of your strength while you try not to burn yourself
you scrub it from fully blackened to gleaming silver and now if somebody orders something that needs the flat top to cook, you can either fuck up your cleaning job or fake it in a couple frying pans and pass that tiny fuck you down to your dishwasher (who usually understands, especially if you help them take the garbage out or clean your own floor drain later)
If there's deep fried stuff on the menu then the fryers have to be cleaned out, which includes straining the oil out into enormous and super-heavy pots full of oil so hot that if you spill on yourself then it's probably a hospital visit and if you slip and fall face first into it it'll be the last thing you ever do.
Then you gotta scrub out the fryer. Like you gotta take the (hot) screen out and reach your arm down into the weird rounded pipes and curved areas (so hot, burn you if you brush against them hot) and scrub off whatever is down there
Depending on your kitchen you might have to do up to four of these. Then you'll have to pour the (dangerously hot) oil back in
oh, and if you didn't dry the pipes and get ALL the water out of the trap and tank?
water reacts with hot oil in a sort of mentos and coke way that can send a tidal wave of oil past the open flame of the pilot light ...HUGE dangerous mess and/or burn down the kitchen if the oil lights up.
Unless! If the oil has been used too hard and needs to be changed, it's time to carry those open topped super heavy pots full of will-kill-you-hot oil and dump them in the barrel outside by the dumpsters so you can put room temp fresh oil in the fryers. whew!
You might have to do some kind of walk-in duty (moving around 50lb cases of lettuce and 50lb bags of onions to get to the stacks of five gallon buckets full of salad dressings and sauces to move so you can reach the giant metal pots and bus tubs full of prep and get it all organized and make sure it's all labeled and i have to stop now i'm having flashbacks)
THE POINT IS
by 15 or however many minutes to close, the line cook is doing an intense deep clean and probably has the whole stove taken apart to detail.
For some industrial stoves this means lifting off large cast iron plates that weigh like 20 lbs each and are still quite hot. Whatever metal burners are on there, you gotta take off and clean, you can see here the lines that indicate the large thick cast iron rectangles that sit on top of the burners to allow heavy pots to rest on. Those five (each has one front burner hole and one back burner hole, see?) have to be lifted off and cleaned with soap and a wire brush usually, and then the underneath area also has to be cleaned because a lot of shit falls through the burner holes on a busy night.
if you didn't do it when you did the flat top you have to do the grease trap (which can be like a full five minutes and is always disgusting).. You gotta clean out all the little gas jets in each burner with a wire or something so the burners all flame evenly, and sometimes you have to remove some of the natural gas piping that connects the burners to access where you have to clean.
you gotta clean out the bottom of the oven and the wire racks, and, oh gods, you gotta take down the filter vents from the hood fans above the stove.
See all the lined parts along the top of the wall?
those are hood vents, and as they pull air up they also pull a lot of grease and they have to be taken down and cleaned, then you gotta climb up there and scrub where they go before you put them back...
And then there's the mopping and floor drains and...
Anyway, that's what the line cook is doing when you walk in fifteen minutes before closing and order something that needs to be cooked on that stove. They are doing an entire industrial cleaning of a professional kitchen.
In some restaurants maybe one or two of these jobs will be every other night or even only twice a week, but in many, possibly most kitchens, ALL of these things happen EVERY night. You don't want to leave any food mess that might attract insects or rodents for one thing, so a really good kitchen is as close to brand new as you can get it every night.
open with an apology and ask the server to go ask what the cook would prefer you to order.
Any good server will already know what the cook is hoping for and what will make their line cook go into the walk in and scream. If it's significantly less than an hour to close and they say some variant of "oh anything is fine" they are either telling the lie their boss wants them to say, or they actually do not know what their line cook wants, and you can either use human connection and a conspiratorial just-between-us tone to get them to drop the customer-is-always-right act, or get them to actually go ask the cook.
It might be as specific as "the lasagna is easiest on the kitchen" or it might be a simple guideline like "nothing that requires the flat top" or "any of the sautés are easy" but a good line cook will probably have a system for if they have to make a couple of the most popular items after they start their close, so the answer is likely to include something most people like and you should be good to order that.
but for the love of all that's holy, please only do so at great need. Leave that last 30-60 minutes to the truly desperate and the crew's duties.
This applies to almost all businesses, by the way. Closing time should be interpreted as "The time everyone who doesn't work there should be out the door."
If it’s too onerous to take orders within a certain interval before closing time, the restaurant should publish a “last orders” time as well as a closing time.
Hello, imaginary reader! I'm back, with a chapter-by-chapter commentary on Eternity Unleashed. I can shout into this concrete bucket forever.
Spoily Chapter 2 commentary follows, under the cut. You have been warned.
I finally was able to pin baste my Space 1999 quilt together. It’s time to start handquilting.
😍 Mind blown!
"Eternity Unleashed" is the first story in the Powysverse canon of Space: 1999, which unifies and continues the timeline of the 1970s TV series, novels, and novelizations.
It is the first part of William Latham's original novel, "Eternity Unbound". It is the backstory to the filmed episode "End of Eternity", which I won't link because I'm keeping call forwards to a minimum as I work through the storyline.
According to the author, it's "a brand new novella at the beginning that tells you all about Balor’s rise and fall on Progron".
All this is fully consistent with the cheerful tone of Space: 1999 Y1, so we're starting as we mean to go on.
Chronologically, "Eternity Unleashed" takes place "centuries before 'End of Eternity'."
Sequentially, "Eternity Unleashed" is the first story in the Powysverse and the backstory to "End of Eternity" 23 stories later.
"Eternity Unleashed" is the first part of the book "Eternity Unbound", published in February 2005, the joint-third Space: 1999 book published by Powys Media.
The novel is written by William Latham.
Its central character is a guy by the name of Balor, who we'll meet in person when his episode comes up for discussion.
According to Powys: "ETERNITY UNLEASHED chronicles his ascent from outsider to honored scientist, from ruthless despot to imprisoned exile."
According to the author "There’s a little bit of Napoleon in Balor’s story, I suppose. A little bit of Hitler."
Balor hails from the planet Progron. Hi to all my Progron readers out there. Represent!
Powys Media are in the USA. I don't know if there are any copyright libraries in the USA that might have it. I searched the Library of Congress and didn't find it there.
As for public libraries, I swear I did a search that turned up one (1) copy in one library somewhere in Florida. However, I can't find it in my history. It's very unlikely that many public libraries will have copies. I assume it turned up in Florida because of proximity to the Space Coast.
The only way to buy the book is on the second-hand market because it is permanently out of print. It is extremely rare because Powys used a print-on-demand service and did not publish ebooks.
According to the author: "He’s a fun character to play with, first of all. […] I convinced Mateo [Latosa, head of Powys Media] that it made sense to at least try looking into Balor’s past a little, and those flashbacks were just way more intense than I think we’d been expecting them to be. There was more of a story there than just the little glimpses we got in 'Resurrection'. Back-story, I mean."
Also according to the author: "[Mateo Latosa] was interested in seeing the novella from me because I’d never really written any science fiction about a whole new culture or anything like that, and he was curious to see what I might do with it."
And: "I think by the end of The Balor Saga, we’ll know why Balor acts the way he acts, or at least we’ll see the evolution of his particular brand of evil."
The author says: "The first story has elements of 'Frankenstein' in it, I suppose, but not really as many as you’d think. There’s something of a love story in there, believe it or not."
About the process, the author says: "Stepping back, I had to take Balor in 'End of Eternity', subtract the influence of a thousand years of isolation from him, and then figure out who he was. So he needed flavors of who he is in the later stories, but he obviously couldn’t be the same guy. Then, I needed to map out a beginning, a middle, and an end for the novella, that basically shows Balor coming to power and then losing it so he can be exiled."
I haven't really got any spoilers, because I don't have the book UPDATE: I got it! Read the chapter-by-chapter commentary, starting here.
The only information I have about the book is what's on the open web. Most of the reviews I could find online give little or nothing away.
Amazon UK has no reviews, but I did find some in other countries, where it is rated 5 out of 5 stars and accompanied by three reviews that praise it highly.
According to this review: "First, a brand new account of Balor of how Balor became who he became - from his childhood on Progron, through adulthood and his progression into a psychopath. And all possibly sparked by being spurned in love…..!"
I generally assume that the Powys books are for an audience of existing Space: 1999 fans who are very familiar with the material. However, this review says "Eternity Unbound" is a standalone novel that can be enjoyed by anyone.
I hope to do one post a day, but that isn't always going to be possible.
Hopefully tomorrow, though, we'll move on to the next "story of past events", the portion (pp. 2-42) of John Kenneth Muir's original short story "The Touch of Venus" that takes place before Breakaway was even thought of.
UPDATE: or go to my commentary on Chapter 1 of Eternity Unleashed!
UPDATE! I'm adding a chapter-by-chapter commentary on Eternity Unleashed! To read, start here.
I managed to get hold of a copy of Eternity Unbound!
Oh yes, I said I'd be posting to this series daily, didn't I? Work kicked my ass, to the extent I wasn't even able to look at this book for three months after I received it.
Anyway, better late than never. I'm back, with a chapter-by-chapter commentary on Eternity Unleashed.
As described earlier, Eternity Unleashed is chronologically the first story in the Powysverse. We can assume, until otherwise indicated, that it's an origin story for the Powysverse itself, not just for its central character.
The story takes up pp. 1-140 of Eternity Unbound, a book in three parts.
The book cover features artwork originally shown in the TV episode, which will be instantly recognizable to most readers.
Chapter One begins by effectively establishing a mood concolorous with those pictures, evoking a stark and flinty aesthetic in greys and browns.
“Sweet Dreams”
Martin Gregus captured a once in a lifetime moment of a Polar Bear sleeping on a bed of fireweed.
Churchill, Manitoba, Canada
This is it, this is the best photo ever taken
Agreed that that is one of the top tier photos of all time but you cannot deny this is a close contender
we're so lucky to get to eat so many staple grains tbh. like in early history you'd have to just eat what grew around you on a day to day basis like if you were born in asia hope you like rice if you were born in northern europe hope you like einkorn wheat. but i'm gonna eat rice AND wheat AND oats today. fabuloso
Just remember 60 people signed on to stab Caesar and he only had 23 stab wounds, the real moral of the story is group projects have always just been like that
be sure to leave out milk and cookies for brutus tonight
You can leave as many cookies as you want but he’ll only et two
this remains the funniest addition anyone’s made to one of my posts
I love this mental image of this quietly horrified and righteous 6th grader just being like ma’am you can’t do that
6th grader:
Very observant witness statement.