I saw a mad gaiety in his shadowed eyes

[sovay]

My poem "Tapping the Vine" is now online at Goblin Fruit. It was written for time_shark and tithenai. The turndun is an Australian Aboriginal form of the ritual instrument known in English as a bull-roarer and in classical Greek, as a component of the Dionysian Mysteries, as a rhombos (ῥόμβος). The OED tells me the name is "Native Australian of the Kurnai tribe in Gippsland." I do not know if the language it came from is still extant; I hope so.

On an utterly un-classical topic, How to Train Your Dragon (2010) was quite a bit more awesome than I had been expecting. I had assumed the dragons would be good: they were. (The protagonist dragon is of the feline rather than the purely saurian model, which accords with my tastes; it is also not a wish-fulfillment animal companion.) I had not assumed they would be in the same film as aeronautical engineering, subtle non-stupid gender stuff, and cursing by Odin and Thor. Yes, all right, Northumbrian smallpipes are not particularly Norse, and neither is the tradition of apotropaic names. But the credits song was by Sigur Rós!

And my fever broke sometime this afternoon, so I am going to celebrate by going to bed at a reasonable hour, or at least staying up with The Annotated Hobbit (2002) rather than a thermometer.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought that film looked good!

Love the poem. You do the best damn Dionysian on the planet.

So glad the fever broke. Savor.

Nine

[gwynnega]

The poem is wonderful.

And I'm glad your fever broke!

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Delighted your fever has broken! Congratulations on the publication--it's a lovely poem, with an interesting combination of things in it.

Glad you enjoyed the movie. I've been a bit uncomfortable with it, on the grounds that they seemed to have made such unnecessarily substantial changes from the book. But I can forgive a film much when it uses Northumbrian smallpipes (anachronistic though they be) and has good dragons.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad to see "Tapping the Vine" at Goblin Fruit. It's really excellent.

The movie sounded quite good. I fear 3D will make me ill, but that may be worthwhile anyway.

Most of all, I am glad your fever broke. Rest well and enjoy being well.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Very, very glad your fever broke.

Tell me where your subject line is from--I love it.

[larryhammer]

Okay, see, if someone had mentioned before now that there was a Sigur Ros song involved, I would have seen it by now.

---L.