A mini-Christmas in January...

[fajrdrako]

Yesterday was an extra Christmas for me, in terms of gifts. Nice surprises!

First, I had lunch with my friend Jacques, who unexpectedly gave me a belated Christmas gift -an ornament from "Carlton Cards Heirloom Ornament Collection". Not just any ornament: it's Storm from the X-Men. She's wearing this costume; the Jim Lee era, I think? It's very cool.

Jacques deals in collectibles, but not fannish stuff, and he's really very much a mundane. I was touched that he even remembered I was an X-Men fan. Full marks to him for cleverness. Mind you, he's known me since I was 13, and I've been an X-Men fan all this time - it just shows he has a good memory!

Then when I got home, I had a package in the mail: John Barrowman's new CD, Another Side. It's pop songs, not showtunes, which I would prefer; and for some reason Barrowman included "All By Myself", which must be the most boring song ever written. On the other hand, his lovely voice makes even the songs I don't much like sound lovely, so maybe I'll get a whole new appreciation of "All By Myself". Maybe.

On the way home, I picked up a package at the Post Office, and it was a pile of Christmas goodies from walkingowl. Now, there's a woman who's not in the least mundane! Delights such as the Heroes and Firefly graphic novels, and the TV Guides that have Heroes covers by top comic book artists: Jim Lee, Michael Turner, and Tim Sale. maaseru looked in surprise at the TV Guides and said, "Are they still publishing that in the States?" So it seems. We don't get it in Canada any more.

I guess I'll have to wait eleven months till my next Christmas, but this was a wonderful bonus!

I wondered if it were a special Saint's Day that would have some Christmas connotation, but looking up a possible connection, I found mostly a bunch of early Christian martyrs, and St. Kentigern. I always think of him as a Dunnett connection, because his nickname was Mungo, and he was associated with St. Ninian, and Dorothy Dunnett named her sons Ninian and Mungo. Classic Scots saints. Mind you, Wikipedia and other sources give his Feast Day as Jan. 13, not 14: maybe a saint with two names gets to have two Feast Days?

Comments

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

*bouncebouncebounce* I just picked up my OWN CD from the post office like two hours ago!!! John's CD, I mean... ahem.

*still barely coherent*

On the other hand, not ALL the songs are pop tunes. "Being Alive" is a Sondheim song (*snorts* and it shows, I had to put it up on Tonks' journal... mostly because of "But being alone isn't being alive", but not just. It's... enchanting, as many other Sondheim pieces) Ahem.

... maybe I should take another hour to try and calm down before I try to comment more?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Fun, isn't it? I've been listening to it at work this morning. The more I listen, the more I like it.

You're right, "Being Alive" is Sonheim, and very welcome too.

More comments welcome, whether you're calm or not!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I've been to Kentigern's shrine in the undercroft of Glasgow Cathedral, which is a rather impressive Gothic pile in the East End. Used to be a major pilgrimage centre.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd certainly like to make my own historical pilgrimmage to his shrine! Maybe one of these days.

I love the Celtic saints (for totally non-religious reasons, you understand) and it gives me a thrill when I see the physical evidence of their lives - something you don't quite get from books. There's something about being in the same part of the world where they once lived, seeing their artifacts or their graves or their shrines.

Something like Sutton Hoo is even more exciting, but you don't get many of those.

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

For me, JB's new CD is totally worth it for his version of "Your Song." Even if half the songs on the CD make me cringe for one reason or another... well, at least he sings them well. :-)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

When I first got it, my thought was, "He could have been singing more Cole Porter - or Sonheim and Andrew Lloyd Weber - and he's doing this?"

But the more I listen, the more I like and appreciate what he's done. He's making me like songs I never liked before. How does he do that?

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

I have a particular liking for him, for linguistic reasons. My friend the medievalist, who was working on vernaculars in medieval manuscripts, came to me for linguistic advice because his mentor used two terms of affection for him, one in Irish, one in Pictish, both of which meant approximately "my dear". We realised that the Pictish, "mu ngu", wasn't just Celtic but near as dammit to early Welsh, complete with nasal mutation after the first person possessive pronoun. Even Breton doesn't do that.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness - that's fascinating! And shows (doesn't it?) the historical closeness of the Celtic 'family' of languages, at that point in time.

I'd love to know more about Pictish, and Pict customs. I always thought the Pict sections in the Venerable Bede were particularly interesting, but I don't really know much more about them - except for seeing spirals carved into stone in my travels in Scotland. I always fondly thought the Picts were responsible for the brochs in Orkney, but I don't now recall why I thought that - was it a fantasy of my own, or something the guide books said? I don't recall.

I suspect I should do some reading up on the Picts.

And maybe more reading on darling old Mungo.