I am eclectic. That should be very apparent to anyone who knows me, perhaps less obvious to those who don’t know me well. How does this work, why does this work, what happens if I do this, does that make any difference, can I learn to do that? These are some of the underlying questions that drive me. Of course there are some things that I wouldn’t do – bungee jumping for example (of course with my osteoporosis it would be dangerous, but even before I knew I had it the idea of jumping from a height – no heights please – didn’t appeal).
Recently I was giving a bit of a history lesson. Lilja had just finished reading The Lord of the Rings (LOR)and we were discussing kings, nobility and how government has changed through the millennia from family groups, through tribes, and on to kingdoms and today’s modern world. She’s still into the LOR world, so I drew a parallel to the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA - see sca.org), which is something Lilja would enjoy taking part in.
One of my SCA friends, Adeliza, suggested I share some of the film clips of SCA stuff available on youtube with Lilja. So off I went to Google. And yes I found some great stuff on the SCA on youtube. I spent hours looking at things, trying to narrow down the choices to something sensible for ten year old Lilja.
Among the things I found was a song: I’ll See Your Six (c) copyright 1993 W.J. Bethancourt III who is known as: Ioseph of Locksley in the SCA. You can find the lyrics at: http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/sf/filk/seeyrsix.htm, the song itself at www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1TTLtxzNTU. Once you get there, you may want to hear Bethancourt’s Mongol Doodle Dandy and his Unanswered Questions too, in fact you might enjoy most of his music! I suppose what I like about I’ll See Your Six and Bethancourt's other music is the eclecticness it portrays.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Day before Christmas
Tis the day before Christmas... the days are getting longer, there’s snow and the weather is clear and about minus 25 Celsius. This month I have treated myself to all sorts of wonderful indulgences: movies and books. Actually I have overindulged in these areas, undoubtedly to my personal detriment, but such is life.
Books: I have made the difficult but challenging decision to not purchase Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books – yet. I will beg my friend Hanna to permit me to continue to abuse her copies instead. I have borrowed (consumed) her copies of Breaking Dawn and Eclipse… or they consumed me. I found them completely un-put-downable. I’d read through the night – even after I’d already read them once, twice, three times and OUGHT to have been reasonable enough to put a book mark in, close the book, and go to bed. After I returned them to Hanna, I decided they were too dangerous to my health to actually own them simply because I could not stop reading them – unless they are safely ensconced on Hanna’s bookshelf and under her lock and key!
So instead of the Twilight books I have ordered Patricia Briggs’ Raven’s Shadow, and Raven’s Strike; and Lois McMaster Bujold’s: Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, and the Hallowed Hunt. All of which I have read, loved, want to read again and HOPE that I have the self-disciple NOT to stay up all night reading them again. I should put a qualifier here. I did not really even like Paladin of Souls much less “love” it, but it is definitely worth reading again and it is part of the series.
Movies: Instead of the Twilight books I bought the Twilight movies! The books are better than the movies but that’s okay, I like the movies well enough. I also bought Music and Lyrics, and How to Train Your Dragon both of which I like for their positive feel and I can watch these without getting tired of them. For an additional change I also bought a McGyver movie… um well, I have not taken to it. I know there will come a time when I’m very happy to have it though. It will be a relief, a change. That time will probably be in March. There are still a few more movies I wish to acquire.
Meanwhile, Funlayo and I are making tentative plans to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. We plan to take Lilja and possibly Sofia if she meets the age limit. I think none of us anticipate being entirely happy with the movie version – which could of course ruin the film for us. We’ve spent so much time seeing the story while reading the book; that we’d really like to have that vision brought to the screen. I do think it is possible to love both a movie and a book for the different element they expose. I also think it is time for the movie/script writing industry to re-evaluated what the audience wants in book to movie translations.
Books: I have made the difficult but challenging decision to not purchase Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books – yet. I will beg my friend Hanna to permit me to continue to abuse her copies instead. I have borrowed (consumed) her copies of Breaking Dawn and Eclipse… or they consumed me. I found them completely un-put-downable. I’d read through the night – even after I’d already read them once, twice, three times and OUGHT to have been reasonable enough to put a book mark in, close the book, and go to bed. After I returned them to Hanna, I decided they were too dangerous to my health to actually own them simply because I could not stop reading them – unless they are safely ensconced on Hanna’s bookshelf and under her lock and key!
So instead of the Twilight books I have ordered Patricia Briggs’ Raven’s Shadow, and Raven’s Strike; and Lois McMaster Bujold’s: Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, and the Hallowed Hunt. All of which I have read, loved, want to read again and HOPE that I have the self-disciple NOT to stay up all night reading them again. I should put a qualifier here. I did not really even like Paladin of Souls much less “love” it, but it is definitely worth reading again and it is part of the series.
Movies: Instead of the Twilight books I bought the Twilight movies! The books are better than the movies but that’s okay, I like the movies well enough. I also bought Music and Lyrics, and How to Train Your Dragon both of which I like for their positive feel and I can watch these without getting tired of them. For an additional change I also bought a McGyver movie… um well, I have not taken to it. I know there will come a time when I’m very happy to have it though. It will be a relief, a change. That time will probably be in March. There are still a few more movies I wish to acquire.
Meanwhile, Funlayo and I are making tentative plans to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. We plan to take Lilja and possibly Sofia if she meets the age limit. I think none of us anticipate being entirely happy with the movie version – which could of course ruin the film for us. We’ve spent so much time seeing the story while reading the book; that we’d really like to have that vision brought to the screen. I do think it is possible to love both a movie and a book for the different element they expose. I also think it is time for the movie/script writing industry to re-evaluated what the audience wants in book to movie translations.
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