Barkerburgh

Spent 5 days/4 nights in the Wasagas, at Vala’s Villa, the Tolkien themed ancestral summer cottage of the Ellis-Perrella family of Guildwood.

Just about here:

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It was taken by Reid, total serendipity. I get hit in the head repeatedly (every time somebody watches the damn thing) and I still think it’s funny. Maybe that’s why…

I had a great, relaxing time, with frisbees, thunderstorms, standing in the lake up to my neck for an hour at a time, and an engineering project at the mouth of the Saint David’s River, which flows mightily into Nottawasaga Bay somewhat north of the villa.

After returning from the Wasagas, Anneli took me, as a somewhat belated birthday present to see the “Facing Mars” exhibit at the Ontario Science Centre. While I had some issues with the interface for some of the exhibits, and some just didn’t work, it was still highly cool. Then we went to see the IMAX film “Roving Mars“, which was so kick ass I can’t tell you. It was basically about the Spirit and Opportunity rovers and their missions on Mars, a combination of live shots and splendid CG. One hypothetical shot showed an ancient Martian desert of rolling dunes dotted with saline lakes, and was quite spectacular, stirring in fact.

We had lunch, wandered around the other exhibits a bit and then we went to the tiny planetarium to see a show about Toronto’s night sky, although we also went out into intergalactic space for a quick peek. Beside the line-up, there was a sign telling us that if we were past it, we might not get in because space was limited. I pointed out that space was in fact infinite, got a general laugh except from a snotty 10 year old girl who said “I think they mean that seating in the planetarium is limited.” I couldn’t let her get away with that so I kidnapped her and sold to the greys from Zeta Reticuli for scientific experiments said “I don’t think so!”

Yes sirree, had me some fun.

I got this from Anneli, and as she said, ‘Fantasy Overload‘!

Wait for the ending!

The night of Wednesday, December 12, 2007, and into Thursday morning, I spent several hours playing Quake II, Warcraft III and Mechwarrior III, and a little Thief. I’d spent an hour or so working on NaNoWriMo 2006 and the TV was on in the background. Once or twice the William Shatner Warcraft commercial came on.

Part of the NaNoWriMo 2006 project involves non-imitative Star Trek replicator type technology which is related to holodeck technology, and I was writing a scene that involved its use. (NB: Star Trek didn’t invent it first. I’d mention Venus Equilateral, but…)

I’m mentioning these as likely influences because when I went to bed, I dreamt.

When I dream, man, do I dream. And I dream in colour.

(more…)

I’m not entering NaNoWriMo this year, but instead will work on finishing my last year’s project which so many of you contributed ideas to.

I have transferred the research and background notes to MediaWiki - a freakin’ godsend for this sort of thing, as you well know I know well - and will use that to carry on.

I won’t say I’ll hit 50,000 words, but I may very well go over…

There will be much and sincere wishing of luck starting…Now.

I have high wide windows, maybe 1.5 square meters of big air, with a large fan blowing out one side and fresh air flowing in the other.

A couple of months ago, an ordinary garden spider found her way in (I say ‘her’; I’m lonely). She established herself on my ceiling fan light fixture, anchored between the fixture itself and the long, dangling, on/off pull-string. She started small and kept getting bigger.

I let her stay for two main reasons. First of all, if she heard somebody was going to try and kill me, she’d warn me; “Some Pig”. That would be cool. Yes, I know that’s not what Charlotte meant by that message, but that’s how I’d take it, believe you me.

Secondly, I noticed that sometimes she withdrew up into the light fixture and the web would get all tattered. I thought she’d died. I actually don’t get a lot of bugs in my place, even with the wide open windows. But she came back bigger and better. That’s happened a couple of times. Now the web is bigger than my outstretched hand and she’s big and lovely.

Now yesterday, I noticed her looking a little thin and peaked and I got worried. After all, she’s probably late middle-aged for a spider and a little hungry.

Later I noticed there was a dying beetle on the hallway floor inside the back door. I grabbed some tweezers, snagged the beetle, took it inside and dropped it into the web. Well, she was on it so fast I barely saw her move, even though I was expecting it. Cool. It was almost as big as she is and she went wild wrapping it up and then dragging it up to the centre of the web to, I assume, dine.

Then I sat at my computer, watching her, thinking “Enjoy, my arachnid beauty!”

Then I glimpsed my copy of ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ and thought, ‘Jesus Christ! Tolkien must have had a pet spider!’

Then I looked around at my little room and thought, ‘A Elbereth Gilthoniel, Barker! You’re Gollum!’

I am.

Well, here’s my wrap up of the last day of the Gathering of the Fellowship.

Again, it was a much smaller scale than the first Gathering, but quite interesting.

Ted Nasmith, the famous Tolkien (and Other artist), seems to be a Beatles fan. He, his brother, and a fellow whose identity I didn’t catch put on a short concert of Beatles songs rewritten as Lord of the Rings songs by Ted himself (I think…)

The first one was a version of “Help!” which got a standing ovation; it was clever and funny. It was also their encore.

During a short break, partway through the concert I felt obliged to shout out “You guys are more popular than Frodo!”

I got a good laugh.

Later that day, Ted did a concert with just his brother on the keyboards of original LOTR-themed songs he’s written himself, some quite moody and mournful, especially about Beren and Luthien (who, as all know, were the George and Gracie of Middle-earth).

At the first Gathering, I wore a temporary tattoo of the Ring Inscription across my forehead and across the back of my head. (Blatherings link, scroll down.) It was from a bookmark provided by Atlantis-Alliance and distributed at the Gathering.

They were long out of them this time, so I went to a dollar store and bought a sheet of temporary tattoos with mainstream fantasy themes. The first day I wore a European dragon on my forehead, the second day I wore a Chinese dragon, and the third day I wore a sword with a flaming skull. Of course, I kept forgetting they were there (especially out in Public) and couldn’t understand the looks people were giving me, which were even weirder than usual.

I want to thank my friends, who I’ll just call “Tim” and “Anneli” for the delightful birthday present of the membership for the Gathering.

The Gathering of the Fellowship: There was an artist who was not in attendance at the Gathering named Ruth Lacon, an Englishwoman of prodigious talent and imagination. Her agent made sure a number of copies of her book were available, although he couldn’t bring a whole crate over. There were originally about six or seven copies. All but one had sold ($50 Canadian) by late Sunday, the second of three days of the Gathering. Her inspiration ranges from the Bayeux Tapestry to classic Indian artwork and she has illustrations from The Hobbit, the Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings, and probably other of JRRT’s works that I haven’t read. Oh, wait, she did a scene from Farmer Giles of Ham, which I loved as a teenager.

Here’s the general Google string for ‘Ruth Lacon’ and worth the browse, let me tell you.

She’s wonderfully talented, with a wide range of cultural inspirations and her illustrations inspired by the Silmarillion alone are moving and evocative. FY yer I, every couple of months from now on, google this, and look for a new edition of ‘The Hobbit ‘ illustrated by Ruth Lacon.

Her agent in the UK (and I guess, abroad) is Andy Compton of ADC Book and ADC Promotions. He was here at the Gathering and ain’t just an entrepreneur. He loves Tolkien’s works as much as any old New World streetcorner LOTR geek with an encyclopaedic memory: “Spare a quarter for a Middle Earth question?” We all grew up with them here in Toronto.; it’s a Loonie now (a dollar coin for you foreign visitors. “How old was Frodo on Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday?” You’d be surprised!)

If our streetcorner LOTR geeks aren’t in your tourist guide, (they have distinctive hats) you can always ask anybody you meet:they all know what’s going on.

Now I just found out that Tolkien is considered to have used certain Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire landmarks as inspirations for things like the Three Farthing Stone and the Barrow Downs. I heard this from an Englishman of indeterminate accent, an Englishwoman speaking to Andy and from Andy Compton himself , whose headquarters are in Moreton-in-Marsh, in, of all places, Oxfordshire, which is like this close “< ->” to Gloucestershire. Seriously. Foreign people have such fascinating customs.

Now I’ve admired Ted Nasmith’s work for years. He’s Canadian which doesn’t hurt, and he works hard too. Check my previous post for his link and see what else he does. Knock your socks off, I swear to god. A god. The Gods. I don’t know.

So, anyhoo, Ruth Lacon. Explore her link above.

Today was the first day of the Gathering of the Fellowship.

As a volunteer I was assigned to watch the Art Gallery. Canadian Tolkien artist Ted Nasmith’s work was on display.

An artist named Jef Murray was there too, quite good, but a completely different style than Ted’s realism. He was a guest of honour at the Gathering, and he designed the logo, which is here on the Gathering’s homepage. It is also the image on the passes that we all carried around.

At the suggestion of another attendee, “Carol”, who was in costume, I got Jef to sign my own pass. My name is not eBay. This is a keeper.

I watched the documentary, Ringers: Lord of the Fans. Funny but respectful.

1> ‘The Unit’ looks like a good show.

2> So does ‘Boston Legal’.

3> That poor kid in Detroit who the 911 operator told to stop fooling around with the 911 system…

4> I really should have been watching ‘Babylon 5′ years ago.

5> Dean Koontz’es’s book ‘From the Corner of His Eye’ is a good read, nicely constructed, even though hardly anything really plotty happens until about page 600.

6> ‘My Name is Earl’ gets funnier and funnier.

7> Venus Express!

8> I love this weather.

9> The last few episodes of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ have been kickass, except I missed it both times on Space this past weekend through bad TV viewing planning. I guess I need to take a course.

10> ‘Coronation Street’ is getting kinda wacky, but that’s good. It’s a little boring when things are normal.

11> Nancy Grace is a foul human being.

12> If I was taller, I could see farther in a crowd during an emergency.

That’s Fremen for ‘I am profoundly moved’ (which is what the bookstore should have been named instead of that mournful Brooklynese near-homophone of my surname…).

Google is experiencing server errors, both the search engine and Gmail.

It’s been so dependable in the past. This is like when my grandfather, an endless, bountiful fount of shiny new quarters straight from the bank and Scotch mints, got too senile to even remember he had grandchildren.

Kull wahad.