![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I left out the last eight verses
Seriously, there should be an emoticon for not actually dead—I'm not, even if this inbox full of unanswered e-mail says otherwise. I got a cold. I dropped off the map. Mostly I've been self-medicating with various books and Flanders and Swann,1 although last week Eric and I watched Norwegian Insomnia (1997) and this Wednesday Viking Zen showed me The Secret of Kells (2009).
In any case, the mail just brought me two awesome things: Louise Brooks' Lulu in Hollywood (1982), which I suspect of being a birthday present from my best cousins ever,2 and my contributor's copy of Not One of Us #44, in which can be found my poem "In the Earth in Those Days." It is about Biblical selkies;![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
asakiyume introduced me to the folklore. Appropriately, it appears in the same issue as Jeannelle Ferreira's "The Seal Wife," also Loren Rhoads' "Catalyst," Patricia Russo's "With the Blue Heart People," and other fine pieces of autumn and change. Go forth and pick up a copy of your own. I am going to read Louise Brooks until I have to leave for a rehearsal. Wish me luck.
1. Probably to no one's surprise but my own, I find that I consider Donald Swann awesome: I am already inclined to respect an ostensible straight man who goes off with Greek tongue-twisters and can sing about hippopotami in Russian even before he decides that going mainstream from light comedy means setting Tolkien to music and writing an opera of Perelandra. I don't suppose anyone has his recording of Sydney Carter's "Lord of the Dance"?
2. Edit: Confirmed. Best cousins ever.
In any case, the mail just brought me two awesome things: Louise Brooks' Lulu in Hollywood (1982), which I suspect of being a birthday present from my best cousins ever,2 and my contributor's copy of Not One of Us #44, in which can be found my poem "In the Earth in Those Days." It is about Biblical selkies;
asakiyume introduced me to the folklore. Appropriately, it appears in the same issue as Jeannelle Ferreira's "The Seal Wife," also Loren Rhoads' "Catalyst," Patricia Russo's "With the Blue Heart People," and other fine pieces of autumn and change. Go forth and pick up a copy of your own. I am going to read Louise Brooks until I have to leave for a rehearsal. Wish me luck.1. Probably to no one's surprise but my own, I find that I consider Donald Swann awesome: I am already inclined to respect an ostensible straight man who goes off with Greek tongue-twisters and can sing about hippopotami in Russian even before he decides that going mainstream from light comedy means setting Tolkien to music and writing an opera of Perelandra. I don't suppose anyone has his recording of Sydney Carter's "Lord of the Dance"?
2. Edit: Confirmed. Best cousins ever.
no subject
I should take a picture of the wall behind this computer, so you could see "In the Earth in Those Days" hanging on it, next to a calendar for the month of May, illustrated by the healing angel in some past year, and underneath an "A Softer World" cartoon, in which Joey Comeau declares that we are all going to die, and he intends to deserve it.
How was The Secret of Kells. I recall someone pointing me to a trailer for it, but I never heard anything about it.
no subject
Enjoy!
How was The Secret of Kells.
Visually extraordinary, one of the most unusually beautiful animated films I have ever seen: it does not look like anything else except ninth-century Irish illuminated manuscripts, including when the characters are in motion; it refuses perspective in historically intricate, elegant ways and the last shimmer of the Chi-Rho page of the Book is alive. The otherworldly characters are not and could never be mistaken for human or mortal. There's a hilarious bit with Saint Colum Cille. There is a white cat named Pangur Bán. The narrative has problems. Some of the ways in which it deliberately leaves its loose ends untied are both admirable and successful, but in places they cause the film to feel like two or three stories awkwardly joined—or two or three different takes on the same material that somehow wound up in the same draft—and there's one major instance where they fixed an emotional tension that I had found incredibly powerful when unresolved; it's a Disney-level misstep in a film that otherwise has very little to do with conventional animation and I have no idea what happened. The other serious problem, which is both artistic and narrative, is the representation of the Vikings as black-and-red horned monsters; they come across as aliens or Orcs that have somehow nipped over from Peter Jackson's Middle-Earth and it doesn't work, because the film is otherwise very shaded about people's lives and motivations-even the pre-Christian sacrifice-god that Brendan winds up confronting1 is not portrayed as hellish, only very old, a bloodstained dark place, and still hungry. And given the manuscript look of Kells, honestly, I'd have expected the Vikings to be animated in one of the traditional Norse styles. Instead they're from some other planet and the disjoint doesn't ruin the film, but it did interfere for me. I would still recommend you see it. I'd certainly like to see what its creators do next.
1. In one of the film's showpieces—who knew it was possible to be reminded simultaneously of Beowulf and Harold and the Purple Crayon, but it's gorgeous.
no subject
no subject
no subject
I was able to track those down! I'm not yet sure how I feel about some of the original settings with William Elvin, which are much more Romantic art song than English folk—I just hurt myself by imagining Benjamin Britten in the Shire—but his own version of "Bilbo's Last Song" went definitive for me about two bars in. There is also the fact that, although I don't have the CD's liner notes, it looks as though Swann recorded the song in 1993. He died in '94. I will have trouble disentangling the song from him now.
The concert revival of Perelandra, alas, remains inaccessible, unless you're in Oxford or Illinois. I assume recordings exist of the original 1964 staging, but I also assume they're in private hands and/or buried in copyright. Someone should just film Perelandra already; I know it would make
no subject
I agree that a few of the settings are too Romantic. Sam's song in the tower, especially, doesn't make melodic sense without the accompaniment -- and did Mr. Swann think that someone shlepped a piano up the stairs into Cirith Ungol? But I am quite fond of the Hobbit walking-song. And Tolkien himself heard them in his lifetime and didn't disapprove, which makes me like them the more.
no subject
Oh, nice: with Tolkien's notes and calligraphy. That I do not have.
And Tolkien himself heard them in his lifetime and didn't disapprove, which makes me like them the more.
Yes. Lewis cried at Perelandra; one can usually take that as a good sign.
Would you like the recordings?
no subject
Alas my contributor's copy - assuredly mailed by conscientious John - endures a Elysium in the bowels of the Canadian Postal Service ...
Looking forward to reading your new poem, Sonya, and I hope you feel better soon.
no subject
It's been postal service hell around here recently, too: I think my cousins mailed my present sometime in September. I hope your copy arrives soon.
Looking forward to reading your new poem, Sonya, and I hope you feel better soon.
Thank you! I enjoyed "Last."
no subject
I enjoyed "Last."
That compliment means a great deal to me, thank you.
no subject
Good luck, and best wishes for recovery :)
no subject
Thank you! It turned out to be an awesome rehearsal, which helped.
no subject
no subject
no subject
It is not a present I was expecting and it's perfect.
Love you plural, my best cousins. Thank you.
no subject
Glad for the awesome things. Enjoy! Hope the rehearsal goes well. Good luck!
PS
no subject
See above reply to
no subject
no subject
It's taking its sweet time. But rehearsal was good.
no subject
I am in love with Michael Flanders, now that you mention it. (I fell hard, the moment that he said, "Bonfire Night is coming. You can always tell. Swann pushed me up the road and we got four shillings and sixpence." I find it oddly badass that he could make that kind of joke about himself.)
no subject
With piano, or more traditionally? I'd no idea Swann's settings even existed until four days ago, tops; I don't know if they assimilated into filk repertoire or if they get performed at classical concerts or if the original LP is just very coveted by Tolkienistas.
I fell hard, the moment that he said, "Bonfire Night is coming. You can always tell. Swann pushed me up the road and we got four shillings and sixpence." I find it oddly badass that he could make that kind of joke about himself.
That is very fair. I am just—apparently—similarly endeared of mildly manic pianists with mad language skills who are sort of Christian mystics in their spare time.
no subject
no subject
I imagine it would be very good that way.
I don't know what it would sound like with piano and Donald Swann.
Swann's the piano; the singer for the original 1967 recordings was William Elvin. He has a lovely clean baritone, but I'd have chosen someone less mannered; I might like him best on the almost unaccompanied, plainchant-like "Namárië." As mentioned to
no subject
Feel much better very soon. And do post something (if you feel up to it) about Book of Kells because clearly there's a lot of curiosity out there.
no subject
I didn't grow up with Flanders and Swann, unless you count the Limeliters performing "Madeira, M'Dear," but they cropped up on my radar last year—via Max Adrian, I think—and I realized I wanted very much to hear more of them. I got the four-CD collection Hat-Trick for my birthday. I'm happy.
Feel much better very soon. And do post something (if you feel up to it) about Book of Kells because clearly there's a lot of curiosity out there.
Thank you. Posted!
no subject
no subject
Please let me know what you think of it when you do!