Memory Lane

Filed under:It's My Life — posted by Anwyn on October 16, 2007 @ 10:54 pm

TheOneRing.net is down temporarily, and we may have lost some data permanently. The staff is looking into who has what and which can be saved and restored, and Corvar and Calisuri are looking at a jumpstart on the redesign they’d been planning. Ouch. On the up side, this may make it easier for Green Books to return to active posting. The static pages where our essays were kept were started in an era (I love the internet age; individual years can be the sum total of their own eras) before self-posting was widespread; we Green Bookers were far less on the technical knowledge side than on the thematic Tolkien side, and we had to send our stuff to an individual tech person who would then convert it to HTML and post it for us. This gradually became a bottleneck (although I don’t wish to defame our posters; we all gradually fell off in our duties, too, due to life, babies, documentaries, books …). Perhaps now we’ll get a self-posting system, like a blog, that will leave Green Books no excuses outside ourselves. I don’t know who we’ll get back besides me; it’s been a long time, and people have lives … babies … books … films …

I know I haven’t done any Tolkien stuff in a while, and I think it may have lost me at least one reader. Ouch. It is hard to keep talking about one subject. I’ve been doing Tolkien posts only when my heart is really in it, because I’d hate to write nonsense about Tolkien worse than not to write about him at all.

But I went browsing tonight through the sites of two of the artisans who do really wonderful Tolkien work. TORn was heavily affiliated with Badali Jewelry back in the day and still has a lot of Badali’s ads. Badali made those brooches that our folks got to give to Peter Jackson et. al., the ones the crew tended to actually wear at Oscar ceremonies. I was always fascinated by his One Ring, though I never bought one because I wouldn’t be comfortable wearing it. (Now Corvar, though, has been waving his ring hand, trying to turn me into a wraith, for years.) It’s gorgeous nevertheless. I love the script carving.

And Wandering Fire Pottery & Tile Works is now Verdant Tile Co., but they still have a few of their beautiful Tolkien-inspired designs. I think I have to order a couple of these this week–always intended to, but never got around to it.

No, I’m not advertising for either of these companies, in the sense that nobody asked me or paid me to do so. Just remarking on some beautiful, fascinating work. And remembering.

Update: I ordered the Athelas Kingsfoil tile and the White Tree tile. A little bit of Gondor for my living room.

Dancing with the Stars Week 4

Filed under:Television — posted by Anwyn @ 10:01 pm

Results show. This week: Two shows, no waiting. Thank whoever decided House and Bones wouldn’t air tonight. And my Tuesdays are still bereft, even with those two goodies (no, they’re not on the same level, don’t bother accusing me of thinking so, but I enjoy both nevertheless), without the television awe that was Veronica Mars.

That famous choreographer who hasn’t performed on TV in four years? I seriously must not be cool enough, because that was fairly repellant.

Drew and Cheryl are much more my style. Even if Wayne Newton still is not. The season they won was the only season I didn’t watch. As Jeff Foxworthy says, won’t do that again.

Cuban’s not even in the bottom two? Damn it. Who in the hell will be? He and Floyd were the only ones who came close to deserving it.

Mel and Maks. Ouch. I have to say Jane deserves to stay more than Mel (slightly), so that’s appropriate given Cuban’s inexplicable escape. Next time, Gadget.

Bye-bye, Floyd. Thank you, thank you, for lifting the standard of the early-eliminated athletes up from Clyde Dreckler.

Clockwise or Counter?

Filed under:Blogging — posted by Anwyn @ 8:12 pm

According to this, I’m right-brained. Which I did not expect.

We’re Loyal to You, Illinois

Filed under:Cool — posted by Anwyn @ 8:05 pm

…say Michael Jordan and his son Jeff, who begins his freshman year and will play ball for the Illini.

Cleared for Landing

Filed under:Cool — posted by Anwyn @ 9:12 am

Congratulations to Chris and Christina on the birth of their little pilot! Personally, though, I’d like to hear from Christina on this claim of two hours, nineteen minutes of labor time. Swift recovery to Christina and lots of sleep to everybody.



image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace