The lyf so short

B2MeM is imminent...

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 19:04:27 GMT

... and I've admired the super-organised (neatly handwritten or printed! in a nice folder/kit! like these lovely kits you see on studyblr!) displays of other people's Bingo preparations. They're making me feel sadly lazy and inadequate. (Let's not even mention that I'm no longer entirely certain that I remember what cards I've claimed! I hope I'm not forgetting anything major that I typed into that Google document and then deleted from memory.) I've just got a lazy digital folder on my computer in which I've saved the cards (a week after claiming them, which is why I don't remember for certain whether they're all the ones I claimed >_>) and the stamps, and also a document. The document contains a table in which I've listed all prompts by Bingo number and card, and tentatively wrote down an idea if I already had one. It's not even in Excel! It's a plain dumb Word (well LibreOffice Writer, same difference) document. That is because I am (despite only using digital media for this) not actually tech savvy. I'm just lazy.

Still, in case anyone else is intimidated by the neat and efficient kits, here is Lyra's Lazy B2MeM Track-keeping Method (which is more or less an adapted version of Lyra's Lazy Thesis Writing Method). Maybe it'll help someone who is new to this and knows they won't manage to prepare (let alone maintain) a neat analogue folder...

( Pics under the cut )

It will be interesting to see whether I'll manage to actually participate much at all. The school year is hotting up and we all got additional duties on top of our regular teaching, due to stupid ~quality management~ stuff. I've got to help knit a new inclusion/diversity concept (basically, What are we already doing at our school to help students with special needs? What else do we need to do? What can we do better? And Who is to blame? Which is exactly the job you'd assign to a rookie with half a year of experience at this particular school AND with teaching in general, haha. I'm part of a team so I don't have to do it all by myself, but it's still... challenging. Plus working on a different group for the educational concept, which I'm also totally predestined to help develop... not). Just regular teaching is challenging enough! And the next holidays are still over a month away! ;_;

But that's a different ramble for a different post (that probably won't happen)...

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I am ALSO a journalist

Mon, 24 Sep 2018 11:28:17 GMT

The annoying thing about volunteering as a web journalist with your club of choice (the German Tolkien Society in this case) is that you regularly have to make time for "editorial team" meetings via Skype, that you have to run after topics, and that the people you have to run after for news don't always take you seriously because you are not writing for any "serious" medium. ALso, your husband may occasionally grouse because you invest time and effort and get no money for it.

The GOOD thing is that sometimes they DO take you seriously, which is why I got a folder of images from the Maker of Middle-earth exhibition AND the exhibition catalogue (it's got 416 pages, is that still a catalogue?) as a pdf file? Just because I am going to write an article about MoMe for the German Tolkien Society page. HOW AWESOME IS THAT? I am obviously not allowed to share it, but I can ogle it at leisure!
(I'm always surprised when things work out, OK?)

Incidentally, the catalogue is GORGEOUS and you should all buy it, ESPECIALLY those who can't make it to the exhibition, but also those who've seen it and chafed at the No Photography rule! Hint hint nudge nudge. There's SO MUCH in there, hot damn. If you order via the Bodleian directly, you can also buy a softcover edition which only costs 25 Pounds (rather than 40 for the hardcover - although it's totally worth it). Amazon etc. only have the hardcover.

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Turns vaguely westwards, raises glass of dandelion wine

Wed, 03 Jan 2018 20:15:30 GMT

The Professor!

(Also, The Orator, while we're at it! Yes, I know that Jan 3rd 648 AUC isn't the same as our Jan 3rd, but calender conversion gives me a headache, so screw that, I love the idea of these two guys sharing a birthday.)

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flails

Wed, 15 Nov 2017 17:04:45 GMT

CJRT has resigned as director of the Tolkien Estate. (As early as August actually. Multiple sources confirm so I guess this is not just a hoax?) It shouldn't be that surprising - he's 93 and hinted as early as April that Beren and Lúthien would probably be the last of his father's works that he'd edit and published - and yet... it is.

Well, this is certainly a gamechanger, isn't it, and opens up a whole new range of possibilities for the TV rights Amazon has bought. O.ó

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From Russia With Love

Fri, 20 Oct 2017 18:23:02 GMT

Fandom, it seems, is not without a certain sense of irony.

For the last two days, I've been stewing in a bit of self-pity because my would-be epic War of Wrath artwork for the Silmarillion 40 collection hasn't been getting the attention I'd been hoping for (which sucks particularly because I've been waiting for the reveal for two months). I mean, I know it's not perfect but it's not that bad, either. I was telling me to be a grown-up and suck it up, it was probably just a busy week for everyone, etc. etc., but yeah, I was disappointed and about to whine about it on LJ.

On the other hand, today I discovered that the Russian guys who printed that beautiful physical book of The Tempered Steel have by now progressed to apparently do cosplay and photoshoots (or fully fledged re-enactment?) based on my fan novel. HOLY WHAT. I honestly don't know how to deal with that level of appreciation! Should I blush and hide, or should I squeal? I guess I'll end up doing a bit of both for the rest of the day, in an "I am not worthy but please don't stop" kind of way. Seriously, I've lost all ability to even can.

As a result, disappointment and utter elation have followed each other so quickly that I don't know what to feel and asfdklhdfgw I'll just slink off and watch this, all red-faced like Caranthir and grinning doofily all like myself. Holy wow, you gals, I was not prepared.

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In other news,

Thu, 17 Aug 2017 18:23:50 GMT

when designing dragons, there's a fine fine line between "terrifying" and "ridiculous".

[from the diary of Melkor, 223 F.A.]

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Procrastinating like a boss

Thu, 17 Aug 2017 15:13:43 GMT

While I'm sitting here procrastinating starting on my Silm40 War of Wrath art, lemme share another amusing (well, I thought it was amusing) bit from Tolkien's biography.

Sooo he's in his 70s now and retired and unexpectedly wealthy and people are willing to publish pretty much anything with his name on it so his chances of having the Silmarillion printed are pretty good. That means he's got to get 50 years worth of early drafts and disjointed tales and vagueish outlines and experimental family trees, plus the characters he randomly introduced in The Lord of the Rings (like who is this Galadriel woman? NOBODY KNOWS SHE WAS JUST SUDDENLY THERE) in some kind of working order. Basically it's a shitload of work and he really wants to get a crack on it because it's his life's dream and he knows he's running out of time and he sits in his study/garage and...
plays game after game of Patience* and does no writing whatsoever.

That's so... relatable? I mean, I'm willing to bet that everyone reading this has, at some point, put off writing something - be it creative or academic or work-related (or all of the above, if you're lucky?) - and put it off in order to do something completely different. Be it playing round after round of Solitaire or Minesweeper or some more elaborate computer game, or just obsessively checking e-mails or social media. (That's another thing Tolkien apparently kept on doing, searching for some early draft and instead picking up some piece of fan mail and answering at length.) Right? We've all done that. You might be doing it right now, reading your f-list instead of doing whatever you should be doing.

But I love that detail not because I can connect to it on a personal level, but above all because it shows that, yet again, it's not Young People These Days and it's not Those Damn Smartphones And Computers. It's just people, perhaps creative people in particular but it might just be people in general. When they had no digital means of playing Solitaire, they used actual physical cards. Before cards, they probably used dice or sheep knuckles or tesserae or whatever. Cicero's shitload of letters to Atticus are probably the ancient Roman way of obsessively checking your e-mails. It's just human nature and maybe we should just accept that instead of beating ourselves up over it.

(I mean, the Silmarillion did get published eventually. Somehow. Well, four years after the author's death and only due to the heroic efforts of his youngest son but whatev.)

(FWIW, I did rework my fail!sketches from back in March and am now a bit more hopeful that I might actually be able to pull it off. So there. I've totally earned myself a round of procrastination. UPDATE DAMN YOU. :P)

---
*Solitaire, for those of you outside Europe or younger than 25.

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Polysyllabic barbarities (and other crazy stuff Tolkien did)

Sun, 30 Jul 2017 17:06:50 GMT

SOOO for the purpose of this month's SWG challenge I am re-reading Humphrey Carpenter's Tolkien biography. (The topic of the challenge is love stories. The muses insist on an essay. Don't ask.) I know I keep saying that, but maybe I haven't yet said it here, so let me put it out here: I really really wish that Tolkien's biography could be turned into a movie at some point, because WHAT A LIFE, WHAT A CHARACTER. Seriously, it would be like Angela's Ashes, only with more Elves?

But anyway. I stiiiill haven't fouuuund what I'm looking for, but I have found plenty of great anecdotes. I know some posts have been making the rounds on Tumblr about John "Road Rage" Tolkien, and him and C.S.Lewis attending a party (NOT a costume party) dressed up as polar bears, and these are indeed delightful tales, but there are so. many. more. Many of which have been dear to my heart for years but I keep forgetting half of them and only recall them upon re-reading, so let me share them now.

There's the debating society thing, where young JRRT gives his maiden speech on a motion supporting the objects and tactics of the suffragettes. I had completely forgotten about that! How unexpected is that! Mind you, considering that this is the school debating society, everything should probably be taken with a grain of salt as it may purely be meant to provoke. But as this is also the source of the motion (probably of his own devising) 'That this House deplores the occurrence of the Norman Conquest' and the '[...]sudden flood of unqualified abuse upon Shakespeare, upon his filthy birthplace, his squalid surroundings, and his sordid character', two convictions which appear to be taken as set in stone by a lot of fans and scholars, that's certainly interesting. ("his filthy birthplace, his squalid surroundings and his sordid character"? I mean YMMV but does that sound like it's supposed to be taken literally? Incidentally, I find it curious that Carpenter adds "probably of his own devising" to the thing on the Norman Conquest, since he earlier related the story of the teacher who insisted on the use of plain old English words rather than posh Norman loan words, cf. muck vs. manure. So yeah, the speech may have been Tolkien's, but the idea? Less so? Incidentally incidentally, for a linguist who supposedly so hated the Norman influences on the English language, Tolkien certainly uses a shitload of Anglo-Norman words in the Lay of Leithian, starting in fact with "Lay", but what do I know.)

Anyway.

There's the delightful description of Tolkien's graduation: 'The school-porter was sent by waiting relatives to find me,' [Tolkien] recalled years later. 'He reported that my appearance might be delayed. "Just now," he said, "he's the life and soul of the party." Tactful. In fact, having just taken part in a Greek play, I was clad in a himation and sandals, and was giving what I thought a fair imitation of a frenzied Bacchic dance.' (I WOULD PAY GOOD MONEY TO SEE THAT ON SCREEN OMG.)

Then it's off to Oxford and the typical town vs. gown rags: 'At ten to nine we heard a distant roar of voices and knew that there was something on foot so we dashed out of College and were in the thick of the fun for two hours. We "ragged" the town and the police and the proctors all together for about an hour. Geoffrey and I "captured" a bus and drove it up to Cornmarket making various unearthly noises followed by a mad crowd of mingled varsity and "townese". It was chockfull of undergrads before it reached the Carfax. There I addressed a few stirring words to a huge mob before descending and removing to the "maggers memugger" or Martyr's Memorial where I addressed the crowd again." [emphasis mine]
*rolls under the table in helpless laughter* Fëanor? Fëanor is that you?

Or a brief return to his old school where he met up with his friends of the T.C.B.S. to perform the first ever play by an English dramatist performed at King Edward's School in Birmingham. After their performance of Sheridan's The Rivals, "the school magazine reported: J.R.R.Tolkien's Mrs Malaprop was a real creation, excellent in every way and not least so in make-up." AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! (Aside from the fact that it amuses me to no end that this super-obsessed linguist would play Mrs Malaprop of all characters, I also relish the idea of Tolkien's exploits as cross-dresser.)

On that note, this also had me rolling my eyes: [...] while as to homosexuality Tolkien claimed that at nineteen he did not even know the word.
That's such suspiciously specific phrasing that I immediately feel reminded of the "Exact Words" section over at TVTropes. I mean, I can practically see the entirety of the interview: "And was there any kind of, hm, homosexual behaviour at your all-male school, Prof. Tolkien?" - *deadpan* "Homosexual behaviour? Good God, at that age I didn't even know the word. *chews on pipe* Back then, we simply called it buggery." - "CUT! CUT!"

...
At any rate, I think these crazy little episodes deserve more attention because a lot of fandom (and even more of "scholarship") has this mental image of Tolkien as this unworldly, uptight, super-serious scholar. So let's not forget that this supposedly unworldly, uptight, super-serious scholar danced on the table wearing nothing but a sheet and sandals, or hijacked a bus (WTF WTF?!) and made stirring speeches to a crowd of Oxford students and citizens (AHAHAHAH), and who strutted around on stage in petticoats and make-up. I think Tolkien scholars in particular could benefit from the occasional reminder of a frenzied Bacchic dance. Also, sympathising with suffragettes? I guess this is where Erendis got her rhetoric?

But of course the "Charge 'em and they'll scatter" story is gold as well. So keep on reblogging it, it makes me happy whenever I see it.

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