World Enough and Time

maaseru, Pim and I had planned to go to see The Hobbit as soon as it opened, because, after all, The Lord of the Rings is among our very favourite books and movies and we feel a deep gratitude, love and loyalty to J.R.R. Tolkien and to Peter Jackson.

But when the time came, we hesitated, said "Let's go see Skyfall again instead," and did.

When I first read The Lord of the Rings when I was fourteen, full of a deep and endless passion for that book, I then turned to The Hobbit, hoping for more of the same. I was devastated to discover that it was too cute, too dull, too shallow - that it lacked everything I had loved about The Lord of the Rings and contained everything I hadn't loved about The Lord of the Rings.

I read it again about ten years ago, and thought it wasn't as bad as I remembered. I liked "Riddles in the Dark" and the "Conversation with Smaug". But Lord of the Rings it isn't.

So. Courage in hand, I went to see The Hobbit today, with Tasia, StarWolf, and Chrystine. It got off to a bad start: the first ten minutes of the movie were badly out of focus, with or without the 3D glasses. I couldn't tell what was going on, and was starting to feel queasy from trying. They sorted that out about the time Gandalf got to Bag End, so that was all right.

In the end, I thought the movie was 95% boring and 5% brilliant, and the intense brilliance of a few choice moments made the rest of it worthwhile.

The great moments? ( They were... )

I have a plan to use different wallpaper for each month of the year, and for Frebruary I wanted to use one of the drawings by Alan Lee that we see with the closing credits for The Return of the King. Remember them? They looked like this.

Well, I can't find any of these suitable for wallpaper anywhere online. Anyone have any ideas how to find them? If I bought The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook are they included?

Went to Costco with maaseru and bought nothing. Nothing! Very proud of myself. Well, I did eat a hot dog.

Baked a carrot cake from scratch. That was fun, particularly the cream cheese icing. It was a birthday cake for josanpq, whose birthday was last week.

Then josanpq came over and she and I and maaseru and maaboroshi and I all played the Lord of the Rings edition of Trivial Pursuit. It turned out to be very funny and sometimes goofy and often challenging. Some questions are absurdly easy and some not - for instance, I got, "What was the name of Theoden's niece?" followed by "What was the name of Arwen's horse?" Sometimes we thought the answer on the card was wrong - for instance, it said that only Gandalf had been to the Mines of Moria before The Fellowship of the Ring, but surely Aragorn had been there, too? maaboroshi really impressed us by knowing that it was October 24 when Frodo woke up in Rivendell; she confessed it was because that is her brother's birthday. Then I got the question of "What time of day was it?" I threw up my hands in despair.

Whenever Haldir's name came up we shouted "Shiny!" because he's a favourite (and oh so shiny).

maaboroshi won the game. I came second. The budgies ran a running commentary. They seemed to enjoy the game, too.

Over supper, we watched the third episode of Merlin. It didn't seem as slashy as the first two, but was fun anyway.

I didn't finish the story I'm working on, though, and tomorrow it looks as if I'll have no time at all.

Spent the day watching The Lord of the Rings (extended edition) with maaseru, maaboroshi and lmondegreen. Because of all the snow, josanpq couldn't make it - drat! - but she phoned.

It's a wonderful New Year's Day tradition.

Sauron has fallen and all's right with the world.

I got this quiz from kikibug13, To which race of Middle Earth do you belong? I didn't quite get the result I expected. I was angling for Gondorian. This would be second best - and they quote my favourite passage of Tolkieneque Anglo-Saxon poetry.( Read more... )

This gets me thinking of The Wanderer, which is my favourite bit of Anglo-Saxon poetry, and the only one I have memorized in the original (in part) from an old Caedmon record that was in the public library when I was a teen:

Hwær cwom mearg? Hwær cwom mago?
Hwær cwom maþþumgyfa?
Hwær cwom symbla gesetu?

( I had a translation... )

Yeah, I guess the Rohirrim might be the right place for me. Even if I was sort of dreaming of a Gondorian library of leather-bound books, with Romanesque arches overlooking a splendid vista...

( Read more... )