PrincessFAz
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: scream of the fazguls...
I justhad to say that the new EE stuff has got me squeeing like a fangirl...even though I'm old and have lots of kids...so what!!! It's exciting!!! Furthur proof:



This poor baby needs some tender loving care....

Lord of the Rings Exhibit
Now Playing: Tubular Bells

PrincessFaz and I recently visited the Lord of the Rings Exhibit at Boston's Museum of Science (where, believe it or not, we met in person for the first time). Several other TORC posters were there: shieldmatron, Raksha, athelas63 (princessFaz's sister), and IthilienRangerette.

The exhibit was really fantastic, despite the lack of Faramir/Gondor stuff. Gondor was represented by a couple of beat-up banners, two sets of armor (one from the Prologue, one from TTT/ROTK), a royal saddle (very uncomfortable looking), some scrolls from the Minas Tirith archives, and Dead Boromir In A Boat. The rest of the exhibit was very heavy on the "exotic" races: orcs, elves, evil invisible wraiths, hobbits. No coronation outfits, no Ranger outfit, no shiny sword, absolutely nothing to indicate Faramir's contribution to the story. The OUTRAGE. "Fellowship" this, "Ring" that. Blah blah blah. Sheesh.

In spite of the dissing of the Stewards, it was really cool to see the props and costumes from the movies close up. Everybody raves about the amount of care and detail that went into creating Middle Earth, and rightly so. Things that were in the background for maybe two seconds were every bit as lovingly carved and crafted as things that got a lot of closeups and screen time. I was really taken with a long elf-sword that looked ideally suited for slicing watermelon. There were some handpainted Orc contact lenses (yellow and red) and a big case of discarded prosthetics. The major Fellowship costumes were there, from Legolas' velour '80s stirrup pants to Gimli's bristling-with-axes getup. There were some interactive exhibits too. We had our photos taken inside a scale cart designed to make people on the left-hand side look enormous, and people on the right-hand side look tiny.

Dead Boromir was eerily realistic, right down to the chin stubble, the mud and grass clumps on the soles of his boots, and the cut across one knuckle. Certain members of the party had to be bodily restrained from clambering over the barrier *koff*

The exhibit is well worth seeing, if you get a chance. It's heading to Sydney next, then coming to the State Museum in Indiana in fall 2005.

make/it/stop
Mood:  spacey
I read this interview recently where David said he used to hang out with a group of people who were into astrology/clairvoyance, and it got me thinking.

I go to a funky hairstylist who also does sculpture, aromatherapy, and astrology on the side. She always gives me a lengthy discourse on whatever my chart happens to be doing that day. Not that I really think our lives are determined by the positions of a group of big icy rocks in outer space, but it is always interesting to hear how closely she's able to draw parallels between what the planets are doing and what's going on in my life.

For example, I recently got one of those fake promotions where your workload and responsibilities triple, but your title and paycheck don't change. Instead of doing work, I now talk about people who do work to the people who talk to other people about the people who talk about people who do work. My new boss is very documentation-oriented (a diplomatic way of saying "anal") and has been breathing fire down my neck non-stop ever since the transition. Status reports, org charts, project plans, spreadsheets, conference calls with people 12 time zones away. Suddenly, I'm drowning in paperwork.

At our most recent session, my hairdresser said that Saturn is now passing through my sun sign (as it has been for the past two and a half years). Saturn exerts a long-term, baleful influence on whichever zodiac sign it happens to be in. At the moment, it is approaching 24 degrees of Cancer, which supposedly matches the angle of the sun on my birth chart. As Saturn passes through one's birth angle thingamajig, feelings of tension and depression and leadenness increase. The bad patch starts 1-2 degrees before, and lasts till 1-2 degrees after. This happens once every 29 years or so, to all of us. (Leo people, you're next!)

To make matters worse, Saturn is planning to go retrograde in Cancer. Its apparent motion in the sky will back up and then go forward again, making a total of 3 times that I can expect this joyous birth angle event to happen over the next six months. It's akin to being run over by a car, then having the car back up over you, then being run over again. Or having somebody go all apple-pie on you with a rolling pin.

Saturn is the planet of authority and repression and gloom, according to my hairdresser, and I will be feeling the oppressive jackboot of authority on my neck for quite some time. She suggested honoring Saturn's leaden influence by lifting free weights and embracing the mound of paperwork on my desk. I'm thinking of honoring Saturn's leaden influence by looking for another job. Something creative.

On a completely unrelated topic: Why, whenever there is a set of 12 double doors, are 11 of them always locked? And why don't I ever choose the one that is unlocked? I always end up whapping into the unyielding door like a sparrow. My moon sign is Total Idiocy.

PrincessFaz
Mood:  sad
Now Playing: flashlight tag
Feeling very Faramish tonight...why does everything stink so much? What's it all about, alfie? Is life really beautiful? I think not. At least the Gondorians had someting to fight for. We got nothing. I feel like Faramir in Osgiliath, starting to freak out and lose it. If only Mithrandir would show up so I can pour my heart out to him...

Love your Bahston accent, MIS...very Kennedyish.

Carry on...

make....it....st o p
Today's forecast: partly hurricaney. With more on the way.

I watched the Two Towers again for the first time in a long while, and was struck by the crisp elegance of Faramir's Gondorian accent. I read somewhere that the Gondor accent was based loosely on the Yorkshire accent, with long o's and e's ("mehyn" instead of "men", "Bohrohmir", etc.). The effect is very plummy and smooth. You know you're in the presence of a literate culture, a civilization of scholars and poets.

Now, if the filmmakers had defied logic, common sense, and tradition, and gone the American route - who knows? Maybe they would have given the Gondorians a Boston accent, as follows:

"A chance foah Fahrameah, captin of Gondoahh, to show his quality. Wicked pissah!"

"Battahlions of ohcs are crahssing the rivahh..."

Or perhaps an upper Midwest accent:

"Yer bodygaird, eh?"

OK, I just realized I have no point here.

Talk amongst yourselves.

make!it!stop!
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: Peruvian nose fiddle


Behold. A Faramir Topps card.

Stare at it. Feel the urge to collect, surging through the veins of your forehead.

You want it. You need it. You will do anything to possess it.

The last time I felt the urge to collect anything, I was 10 years old and trying to amass a complete set of "Star Wars" cards. Every kid in the school was ga-ga for them. Recess was a huge trading bazaar; instead of playing kickball and foursquare like normal kids, we huddled under the jungle gym exchanging duplicates and bartering for missing cards. Exchange rates fluctuated wildly: three R2D2s might get you a Han Solo at lunchtime, but only a pair of Tusken Raiders by the time the bell rang.

Every last cent I could scrape together went towards buying Star Wars cards. Each new pack was eagerly opened and thumbed through, looking for certain cards, chewing the revolting cardboard gum, and lowering the eventual resale value of my parents' house by plastering Jawa stickers all over my bedroom door.

After weeks and weeks of dedicated collecting, I had acquired every single card, except for #63. (The card number is still burned into my brain. I can see it with my waking eyes.) #63, a picture of Luke Skywalker, was particuarly coveted by the girls in our class, and thus hard to come by.

With the end in sight, my buying frenzy increased. Feverishly I raked leaves, babysat, walked dogs, washed windows, sold pitchers of lemonade along the river to thirsty canoers, scanned the sidewalks for dropped pennies and nickels. Pack after pack of Star Wars cards was purchased, ripped open, and thrown down in disgust, refusing to yield up the coveted #63.

One day, my older sister and I stopped into the local candy store on the way home from school. On a whim, she bought a pack. You guessed it: #63 was the first card in the pack.

I made the classic mistake of falling to my knees and begging for the card. Had I kept my cool and feigned disinterest, she probably would have given it to me outright. As it was, the asking price immediately shot up well into two figures. I had to mortgage sleeping rights to the dog, TV channel selection privileges, dish duties for a month, and all my future Halloween candy, as well as sing the "My Older Sister Is The Greatest" song right there in front of the store.

After two solid hours of torment, she relented, and let me have the card. It was only a small square of cardboard, but oh, the satisfaction. The sense of completion. The blisters, the aching back, the complete loss of dignity: all worth it. I had set a goal, and accomplished it. I spread all the cards out on my bedroom floor and just looked at them. Nothing missing. A whole entire set, assembled with my own sweat and toil and tears.

Two weeks later, Topps announced that they were coming out with Series Two Star Wars cards.

There is probably a deep moral lesson in all of this, but it eludes me.

PFAz
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: tag
Lonely....I'm Princess Lonely...Just checking in to see if my picture came up and it didnt so the heck with it...let me try something else...

Princopesso o de Fazzina
Mood:  amorous
Now Playing: The Big Red One
Okay, where did this picture come from:



Why do these get missed? Or where are they all these years that suddenly they pop up? Is there a hidden stash of photos of David somewhere? Just curious...

DJ jazzy make_iT_stop
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: the national anthem of the Planet Cute
Listening to the commentary on "The Bank", where they discuss using a stunt double to jump into the water behind the moving boat, makes me realize how difficult and dangerous an occupation acting can be. Just look at the requirements of some of David's past roles: attacked by savage dogs, dragged behind a horse, drenched with oil and set on fire, getting beaten up by Joseph Fiennes in 110-degree heat. Not exactly a walk in the park. You have to admire people who can ignore hazardous conditions and turn in a consistent, utterly believable performance.

My workday seems so boring and pedestrian by comparison. The biggest threats to my health are paper cuts and coffee scalds. The closest I've ever come to getting hurt on the job was last summer, when I broke my ribs at the company picnic while tubing behind the VP's motorboat. (He was deliberately trying to buck me off, and succeeded.) A few years ago, I came within a hair's breadth of getting arrested/severely assaulted while doing a routine site survey, but that's a different story. Let's just say I accidentally found some barrels of toxic waste that the town would have preferred to keep secret.

I'm antsy about the upcoming U.S. election too, PFaz. This is probably the most significant presidential contest since FDR/Wendell Wilkie in '36, if not Reconstruction. It's hard to believe there's any undecided voters left in the country.

P Diddy Fazzzz
Mood:  hungry
Now Playing: Theme song to Koala Brothers, mate
I'm hungry but also irritated. Why must Wire Images torture usssss? Why must the pictures by thumbnail size so that we must squint. We just want to gaze on the beauty, we just want to see the brown suit. Why cant they give it to us bigger, even with a water mark. They torture ussss. Tricksyy false Wire Imagesssss. WE just want to look, we dont want to sell or anything, I mean geez oh pete.

On a side note, I cant wait until the election is over.