Serenity at Christmas....

Yesterday I watched the first disc of the Firefly DVDs with lmondegreen. I love those shows more every time I see them.

This is the first time I had watched the first three (chronologically) in order and I was surprised how the story fell into place - it's all much more linear than I had thought, as you learn things bit by bit. The developing revelations about River, for example. I had forgotten that the 'hands of blue' reference was so early, or that we actually saw the blue-hand guys so soon in the series.

I first fell in love with Mal Reynolds when he threw Niska's henchman into the turbo-engine - back when "The Train Job" was the first episode. I still think one of his best moments is shooting the Fed in "Serenity". So why do I love Mal for his murderousness?

The answer: that isn't the whole story. It's the combination of character, charm and dirty deeds. Love it when he tells Kaylee "I'm a bad man," while tenderly holding her hand. That's so sexy - the combination of tough and sweet that he manages so convincingly.

I'd also forgotten the lovely scene where Inara brushes Kaylee's hair and then Mal asking, "Will you do my hair, too?" (Cute, very cute.)

And the conversation between Jayne and Mal, when Mal asked Jayne why he didn't sell him out to the Fed and Jayne says the Fed didn't offer him enough money. And when Jayne is offered enough money: "That'll be an interesting day." Then the smile they exchange.

Can't wait to watch the rest of these DVDs.

(Fandom feels like a good place to be these days.)

The Mark and Craig Show...

I've been wanting to talk about the Gathering of the Fellowship, the Tolkien convention in Toronto, but time has been short, and there are always other things to do.

One highlight was what we called the Mark and Craig show.

Two of the guests of honour at the con were Mark Ferguson, who plays Gil-Galad the Elven King in "The Fellowship of the Ring", and Craig Parker, who plays Haldir, a Lothlorien Elf in the first two movies.

Many of us are big fans of Haldir, including myself. It is a little difficult to explain Haldir's snotty charm to those who don't see it; but it doesn't matter. Haldir is proud and heroic and shiny.

At first I didn't recognize Craig Parker, as he looks so unlike Haldir. He isn't tall. He doesn't have long, fair, shiny elven-hair. He has moppy brown hair and he's very mobile and expressive.

He's terrific.

For their first session, Mark and Craig answered questions from the audience. Someone asked who is responsible for the death of Haldir. At first he blamed Aragorn for singling him out - he was fine till Aragorn shouted his name - and then he confessed the truth: it was his fault. The food the caterers brought was so good that he pushed some hobbit out of the way to get to the pork chops first, and then discovered he had shoved aside Peter Jackson, who then wrote die, die, die in red crayon over the script of Haldir at Helm's Deep.

Craig Parker explained that he isn't as tall as Haldir, and they started out filming his scenes from "Fellowship" with him on stryrofoam blocks. He kept falling over.

They asked him to speak Elvish, and he did.

Someone asked if they had stories about other members of the cast while filming. Mark and Craig looked at each other significantly. "We have stories," Craig explained. "We can't tell them without being sued."

"We could tell about.... Oh. No."

"And the time when - "

"Uh-uh."

"Or what about - oh, no, not since Pirates of the Caribbean, came out."

They turned to the audience. "Sorry. We don't want to be sued. There was a lot of hobbit misbehaviour." Shaking their heads sadly.

The Mark and Craig show, part two...

On the second day of the "Gathering of the Fellowship" Tolkien convention in Toronto, Mark Ferguson (Gil-Galad) and Craig Parker (Haldir) did a reading. Kids got to sit at the front by the stage. The reading was from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. They read the famous chapter "Riddles in the Dark" - the chapter that introduces Gollum.

They took turns reading narrative. Mark read Bilbo's parts. Craig read Gollum - and very well, too.

It was wonderful. They brought out the best in Tolkien's prose and they interacted nicely with the children, at times making them guess at riddles or comment on what was happening.

At the end, Craig said he hadn't realized how long the chapter was. I was wishing they'd read the whole book.

The Mark and Craig show, part three...

On the third day of the "Gathering of the Fellowship" Tolkien convention in Toronto, Mark Ferguson (Gil-Galad) and Craig Parker (Haldir) did a third talk, maybe because the previous two had been so popular, maybe because they just felt like it. They both gave the impression of being delighted to be at the con, happy to meet us, having a great time. I've seldom seen to actors who interacted with fans so well.

The third session was another question-and-answer thing, and the audience wasn't very lively, probably because we'd all been up from midnight to four a.m. watching "The Return of the King" in a Toronto theatre. Mark and Craig had a lot more energy than we did.

They told a silly story by improvising each word in turn - one word each and then back to the other, sometimes trying unsuccessfully to trap the other one into ending or prolonging a sentence, using key words flung out by the audience about a fan who'd come from Perth, Australia to be at the convention. It may have been a girl we were talking to at registration, who had a wonderful leaf of Lorien tattooed on her arm. Our friend who had come from Yorkshire grumbled that they Australians had pre-empted her as the people who had come furthest.

At some point during their talk a young child - about a eighteen months old, I'd guess - started to cry. His father was carrying him out, but paused, I supposed, in the hope of hearing one more thing that Craig and Mark were saying, and they started to talk to the kid - waving to him, saying hello - until the little boy waved back with the stiff-fingered wave of the very young. Charmed just like the rest of us were.

More about the Gathering of the Fellowship...

The Gathering of the Fellowship convention was held in the Sheraton Centre in Toronto, at a fancy hotel we would not normally have afforded right across from Nathan Philips square with its coloured lights on the trees for Christmas, skaters, music, and the City Hall lit up in purple.

Underneath, the hotel is connected via "The Path" to a series of underground shopping malls, department stores, and the Eaton Centre. We discovered a great place for lunch on the Path quite near the hotel: a place called Sushi 2000. I went back each day and ate more than I should have.

There is a large outdoor area in the centre of the hotel like a glassed-in courtyard, with rocks, trees and a waterfall. The local birds obviously love it. We instantly dubbed it The Forbidden Pool.

Highlights of the Gathering:

1. A talk by Professor Michael Drout about Tolkien and Beowulf. It doesn't take much, but his witty, literate talk made me think again about studying Anglo-Saxon - something I've wanted to do since I first read Tolkien in my teens. This talk was informative and well-informed without ever getting pedantic or simplistic.
   
   He said that there has been much reinterpretation in Beowulf scholarship since Tolkien's time but not much progress in proving or disproving theories, as there is no new information to work from.He had all sorts of interesting comments about Beowulf scholarship and the problems with the document, and described how the original manuscript burned in the 18th century when it was stored at a manor called, prophetically, Asburnham.



2. Exquisite costumes, some in the Masquerade at Medieval Times, some just in the hotel. There were many beautiful young girls who had no trouble at all looking like Elves. There were some of the best costumers from Toronto whom I remember from SF cons and World Cons of the past. There was a Nazgul wandering around looking scary, who came up behind Maboroshimaki when she was waiting in the autography line for Craig Parker, and he put his hands on her shoulders - she screamed loudly. No wonder.
   
   There was a Captain Jack Sparrow wandering around with the appropriate mannerisms - I chuckled whenever I saw him.



3. Ted Nasmith did a slide show showing art he has done for the Lord of the Rings over the years and the upcoming edition of The Silmarillion. He loves The Silmarillion and some of his comments made me eager to reread it. My favourite picture was of the Queen of the Numenoreans clinging to the last precipice as the ocean bears down upon Numenor.



4. Heather Bruton was selling art in the dealers room. Go Heather! One dealer had beautiful Gondorian arm braces; another was selling swords at a price I could almost afford - but after much consideration, I didn't get one. I did get a copy of The Rough Guide to The Lord of the Rings though I can't help wishing the title was The Rough Guide to Middle-Earth. I also got some beautiful Elvish and Rohirric calligraphy from a Quebecois artist named Morwen, of two of my favourite poems in Tolkien - "A Elbereth Gilthoniel" and "Where is the horse and the rider".



5. There were several panels with several speakers of varying degrees of interest, particulary when some speakers were intelligent and articulate and some ... not. I was most impressed with Michelle Segara and Dan Timmons.



6. The art show: some exquisite pieces, especially portraits of the characters in the movie. One lovely drawing was called "Sea Longing" and it was a picture of Legolas at the shore, with cliffs behind him. There was a cute drawing of "Frodo of the Nine Fingers" and a funny photograph of a "Happy Ent". I particularly liked Heather Mullaney's art - I noticed she also won a prize in the writing competition. Impressive. Another great peace was ceramic tile, showing the Two Trees of Valinor in greens, yellows and blues, with a celtic-knot border. It was nice also to see a children's art section, where a picture of Frodo at the Ford was outstanding

Michelle Segara

Talking about the Gathering of the FellowshipI mentioned that Toronto author Michelle Segara impressed me with her articulate comments on The Lord of the Rings, but I didn't mention what she said that impressed me. Among other things, she commented that when she first read The Lord of the Rings when young, she had loved the Elves: she thought it was all about the Elves, and was surprised on talking to other people that they didn't see it that way - some were more interested in Hobbit, or Men, or whatever.

On later stages of her life, reading it again, she saw other cultures being more interesting or significant than the Elves as her life and situation changed. Now she is married with a home and children, she said, she appreciates the Hobbits more.

Dan Timmons

One of the speakers at the Gathering of the Fellowship convention in Toronto was Dan Timmons, a teacher at Ryerson in Toronto, and a Tolkien scholar.

I found all of his comments interesting but he mentioned in passing that he believed that Tolkien had been truly divinely inspired in The Lord of the Rings, and I would have loved to have known what he had meant by it, and what significance he felt this had. Unfortunately the panel passed on to another speaker (one less articulate and original) and I will quite possibly never know.