Thursday, May 17th, 2012

Featured

On Kirill Yeskov’s <i>The Last Ringbearer</i>

On Kirill Yeskov’s The Last Ringbearer

A few months ago on a bulletin board I was drawn into a somewhat tedious argument over what, exactly, pipeweed is in The Lord of the Rings.  My sparring partner argued that pipeweed was clearly tobacco, Tolkien said so, and that, cleraly, was that. The problem with the identification of pipeweed with tobacco, I said, was this: Middle-Earth is not a fantasy world.  Instead, Middle-Earth is... [Read more]


On the Demise of a Band I Liked

On the Demise of a Band I Liked

Sunday evening I learned a band I liked had broken up. The band is Aerials Up.  Unsurprisingly, they’re from Scotland.  When I wrote about Aerials Up originally, I wrote that “there’s a certain similarity to Arcade Fire in the sound of Aerials Up; there’s a similar instrumentation, a similar mixture of male and female voices.  But I also hear a certain Barenaked... [Read more]


On Allyn’s Second Adventure in New York

On Allyn’s Second Adventure in New York

A few days ago, I went to New York City. I had it all planned out.  I was going to go to The Cloisters, I was going to see their exhibition of the Lewis Chessmen, and… well, that really was all I had planned.  Which caused problems when I discovered upon arriving there, due to my own lack of research beforehand, that the museum was closed on Mondays. These things happen. I said to myself,... [Read more]


On Allyn’s Adventures In New York

On Allyn’s Adventures In New York

Yesterday, being a lovely spring day with nothing to do at the office, I took a vacation day and went to New York City. Why? Because I wanted to go to The Cloisters to see the Lewis Chessmen. However, when I planned my trip I neglected to look online to see when The Cloisters was open.  Imagine my surprise when, after taking the Megabus, then suffering the indignity of the New York subway system,... [Read more]


On the Shamrock Fest 2012 Post-Mortem

On the Shamrock Fest 2012 Post-Mortem

I promised myself that I wasn’t going to spend much money on CDs at Shamrock Fest.  After last year, when I bought five CDs (two from the Charm City Saints, two from Barleyjuice, and one from The Gobshites), what more was there to buy? Well… Shamrock Fest is a Celtic rock/punk festival held in DC each year around St. Patrick’s Day.  I attended last year, and I was looking... [Read more]


Writing

On Writing A New Outline

On Writing A New Outline

Over the last two weeks I’ve been working on and off on a plot outline.  For the past week, the work has been mainly off; it’s been a week of deadlines at the office, though there has been progress over the last two days, if only to clear my head. The germ of the idea, a piece of nonsense of the sort that I’m prone to make, had come to me a few days before I started on the outline. ... [Read more]


On Writing a Podcast Script

On Writing a Podcast Script

Today I wrote my first podcast script. I mentioned about two months ago that I was considering starting a podcast when I relaunch my website in the coming months. (By the way, there’s nothing wrong with my website that requires a relaunch, except that I have to move it to another server, so why not spiff it up and give it a new look?) Since I’m laid up this weekend with a nasty, unproductive,... [Read more]


Comic Books

On Things I’ve Been Reading

On Things I’ve Been Reading

John Carter: World of Mars Marvel Comics Written by Peter David Art by Luke Ross A few weeks ago I saw John Carter, director Andrew Stanton’s adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars, the first of his eleven books set on Barsoom (better known to us as Mars), for Disney.  John Carter has become legendary as one of the biggest box office failures of all time, which is unfortunate... [Read more]


On Things I’ve Been Reading

On Things I’ve Been Reading

Orbit: John Lennon Bluewater Productions Written by Marc Shapiro Artwork by Luciano Kars I’ve been a Beatles fan for two-thirds of my life.  I have official CDs by the Beatles as a band and as solo artists, bootleg CDs, books, posters, toys.  I’ve seen Paul McCartney in concert.  I’m thinking about seeing Ringo Starr in concert.  I moderated a panel on the Beatles... [Read more]