Holly

I wonder if anyone's ever been temped to carve moon letters onto this wall? And then, say "friend," and enter?

Feastin' and watchin'

Some of my long-time readers might remember that 'way back in February I was promised the birthday present of an LOTR geek's dreams. My wonderful kiddos made plans to chip in and finance an Alamo Drafthouse Lord of the Rings marathon/feast for us. (The rather hefty tab would be wasted on Henry, who was thankful not to be included.)

Well, months passed. And the scheduled marathon/feast, which had been put on a few times a year in the past, didn't seem to be finding a way onto the Drafthouse's busy schedule. Finally, the word was out for a December date, and Sally got her computer ready to be an early purchaser. [As it turned out, she had to be very early, since they told us they had sold out in eight minutes!]

The paucity of showings meant that Hal and Carey would have to miss out, since they would already have departed for their New England holiday trip. But their absence, while most unfortunate, was the only thing that wasn't absolutely perfect about the event!

Yes, we did have to get there a little early (for the 11 a.m. start) and wait in line to be sure we'd get good seats. But there was the Drafthouse decor to admire (see above right), free old-school Tron to play (see above left), Onions to read...in short, the wait time went quickly. And our seats were fantastic!

This was my only attempt at a shot during the event, but I got a good one! The Doors of Moria glowing in the moonlight and empty wine glasses littering the table!

What an amazing experience! I can't decide which aspect—the movies or the food—was most enjoyable.

The food was what made the day unique, though. What a spread! Sally had upgraded to the wine package, so we truly ate like Númenorean kings the whole day long. We can't figure out how they were able to serve so many people (probably about 150?) and have the plates always a perfect temperature, lovely to look at (as much as we could see in the dark) and heaped with such high quality, and imaginative foodstuffs! I just wish I could have taken a picture of each plate but Sally assured me that would be very bad form as we were served during the movies.

I also wish I had not licked the first few plates so squeaky clean, as I had to skimp on some of the later items due to a seriously distended stomach. I haven't eaten so much in a single day in years!

The menu is pictured on the right (click on the image to see a larger version) and a quick look will give you an idea of how imaginative the fare is. The first 3 items came out during the first movie, with two each for the second and third. Our favorites were probably the pork/cheese galette (I didn't even know what it was before, but WOW! what a delicious little pastry!) and the mead (since it was also a very pleasant surprise). But everything was scrumptious. The lamb, tomato soup, eggs, sausages and strawberries, especially.

Not to mention the "lembas bread"—yummy scones (complete with authentic leaf wrappings) that unfortunately I had little room for:

(picture taken during an intermission)

Being in the same theatre with a group of other geeks was fun as well. There were folks in costumes, including the girls pictured on the left in the lobby. One of the group had made their dresses. And the girl wearing a replica of my favorite Arwen dress, on the right, had it made for her by her grandmother!

A bonus feature came in between the first two movies. Sally dashed back to our seats after a potty break to tell me she had seen FRODO in the hallway. Now, we hadn't been drinking that much, so I took it to mean that Elijah Wood was visiting the theatre.

And I was right! He came out shortly thereafter and had a chat with the chef/master of ceremonies, answered some questions from the audience, and just gave us all a thrill.

And so, what about the movies? With all this other stuff going on, was it worth spending 11 hours inside on a nice, crisp winter day?!

Heck, yes! We had both worried about getting tired, getting stiff, not really being able to enjoy the last movie, etc., but it was wonderful!! Not tired at all!! And it was such a delight being able to see the whole panorama of the story all at once. To know as one movie ended that you wouldn't have to wait a year (like we did when they first came out) for the next one, or even until the next night!

One reason the viewing was so enjoyable was that, for the first 2 movies, we were watching the extended cuts! On film! What a treat! For some reason, films of the extended versions of FOTR and TT are available but not ROTK. However, we were happy to be able to see any of the extra footage from the DVDs on the big screen.

I'd do this again in a heartbeat. But, with the following enhancements:

• have all kids present
• share the wine upgrade so that not too much booze is consumed (and save some $$)
• hold back from cleaning plates in early courses
• and, maybe, make myself one of those dresses!

Something old, something(s) new

It's been a while since I've worked a puzzle, so a few days ago I decided to bring out an old favorite. I don't know how many times I've worked this one, and it always makes me want to read Lord of the Rings again.
The picture is an amalgam of the cover art for my first editions of the trilogy, published in 1965, so in addition to being a rather neat (if not exactly authentic—see the comments about it here, under the heading "Ballantine edition") it has a personal nostalgic appeal.

(Note: the small illustrations throughout this post are other examples of Tolkien cover art from the wonderfully-named comprehensive reference site, theonering.com. However, it's not totally comprehensive, since it didn't include Remington's covers in the cover art gallery.)

What's wonderful about LOTR, however, is that there is always new stuff you can discover about it, and with the assistance of technologies Professor Tolkien never imagined. Several months ago a colleague introduced me to the Tolkien Professor website. What a wonderful treasure trove of stimulating, high-level Tolkien geekiness!

I mean, he had me when I first saw the following invitation on the index page: "Click, friend, and enter." [Tolkien nerds will get the coolness of this.] And when I read his first lectures, about the Hobbit....it brought back memories of my best English professors. Really, really interesting, deep readings of the text, eloquently expressed, knowledgeable and erudite, yet totally accessible. The only problem is that Professor Olsen doesn't produce these gems fast enough! Too bad he has to earn a living doing other things like academic publishing and teaching classes in medieval literature.

Thank goodness, he's come up with a way to at least partially satisfy his [I would think] legions of internet fans. This semester, he's also teaching a course in Tolkien this semester and is podcasting his lectures! Not as detailed as the primary lectures, they're still very much worth hearing and, best yet, they cover EVERYTHING Tolkien from The Silmarillion to Leaf by Niggle.

To continue with the old wine in new bottles theme, in anticipation of a drive to Houston last week, I wondered if I could somehow capture a few of these podcasts in a format that would allow me to listen to them while I drove, not owning any kind of advanced audio player. I realize—now—that this little miracle of technology is a trivial matter. My son and daughter-in-law tried not to find my ignorance too laughable and showed me how to put the downloaded files onto CDs for the trip. Ahhh! What an enjoyable drive I had!

And I even forgot, while at work this afternoon, that there was a perfectly good baseball game (spring training, but, still, a baseball game) I could have listened to while doing some work at my desk. I was much too excited about hearing the next Silmarillion class.

I have a feeling I'll be re-reading some Tolkien again really soon.

House-hunting in A-town

No, we're not thinking about moving. Not after just getting half our house made liveable!

But the globe-trotting son and daughter-in-law are looking to put down roots, to find a home base of their own to jump off from when the make their future travels. And we're just thrilled that their selected location is so close!

Being part of the new internet economy [going to an office in the same place every day to work is so TwenCen!] they can live anywhere. So why wouldn't they choose Austin, coolest city in Texas by far and one of the coolest in the country! Not temperature cool, to be sure, but definitely hipness cool.

Unfortunately, though, a lot of people are enamored of Austin, and the house price reflect its popularity.

We took a family Valentine's/early birthday* trip north up IH 35 this past weekend and spent a few hours house-hunting with them and their perky realtor. They found a house they were really excited about, only to find out a few hours later that four offers had already been received on it. That's them on the front porch at the left.

Sigh. I guess that was a really good price. They have learned, pretty quickly, to be philosophical about such setbacks, though, and are determined to keep looking.

The rest of our visit was spent playing games, sleeping, and eating. Doing all this with the whole fam (including cat grandson Bosworth, shown on the left making sure no one disturbs a napping Henry) is a perfect birthday gift for this mother of adult children.

But I even got a couple of other unexpected cadeaux: a Kindle gift cert that I will have so much fun deciding how to spend, and the promise of a ticket to an upcoming Alamo Drafthouse LOTR extravaganza. Does this sound like heaven or what?!

---

*More on this non-milestone bday in my next post.

Tree fetish

[Laurelin] bore leaves of a young green like the new-opened beech; their edges were of glittering gold. Flowers swung upon her branches in clusters of yellow flame, formed each to a glowing horn that spilled a golden rain upon the ground...

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, "Of the Beginning of Days," (p. 33 in my edition)

I've been reminded of Tolkien's description of one of the original trees at breakfast lately. I look out the window and see the early morning sun lighting up my neighbor's magnificent oak from the bottom—quite a dramatic effect, that you might get some idea of in this photo. Well, Fantastic Forrest (author of an always-entertaining blog) says I have a tree fetish and she's probably right, although Tolkien had one, too, so I consider myself in good company.

Incidentally, the neighbor's tree is like the description in another way, too—fortunately we've come to the end of the season of the "golden rain," which in this case are buckets of oak blossom detritus and pollen. Pretty hard to keep the cars clean under that! But the shade the tree provides in the heat of summer is worth a little inconvenience in the spring. Everyone in this part of the world is probably a tree-fetishist, since without that shade in July and August we'd all be little fried buttons of sunburned flesh. ¡Viva los arboles!