Cool Book: Subtle Blood by K.J. Charles

 

 

The Will Darling Adventures by K.J. Charles
Cover Art by Tiferet Design

 

 

My review of KJ Charles' Will Darling Adventures has been updated and moved to my author website: J.A. Jablonski. You can link to it here:

KJ Charles | The Will Darling Adventures | Pt. 1
KJ Charles | The Will Darling Adventures | Pt. 2

Cool Book: Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles

 

My review of KJ Charles' Will Darling Adventures has been updated and moved to my author website: J.A. Jablonski. You can link to it here:

KJ Charles | The Will Darling Adventures | Pt. 1
KJ Charles | The Will Darling Adventures | Pt. 2

Cool Book: The Four Profound Weaves: A Birdverse Book by R.B. Lemberg

 

My review of R.B. Lemberg's The Four Profound Weaves: A Birdverse Book  has been updated and moved to my author website: J.A. Jablonski. You can link to it here:

R.B. Lemberg | The Four Profound Weaves

A Hobbitish Affair

If there is one thing my crew is good at it's theme parties -- e.g., Dr. Who (Part 1 and Part 2) and our occasional, friendly wizardish group's gathering. We even have parties for things we may not like. In this instance, it was the last of Peter Jackson's cinema renderings of J.R.R. Tolkien's whimsical book The Hobbit: or There and Back and Again. The "not liking" has to do with a simple, even whimsical tale being transmorgified into a bloated, faux epic.

 

(L) The book I read at age 12.
(R) Movie poster of the latest movie.

It took me years before I would watch Mr. Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. Like many who love the books, I have my own images and ideas of the stories. And since I also was the person who initially processed the original, handwritten LOTR manuscripts for Marquette University's Special Collections and University Archives back in the 1970s, my attachment to the original works by Professor Tolkien runs pretty deep.

When I heard that Mr. Jackson had decided to make three movies out of a slim-volumed tale Tolkien had created as a night-time story for his children, I knew pretty much right away that I wouldn't be seeing them anytime soon.  

But I am a purist, and my aforementioned crew is hardier when it comes to movie adaptations than I. So for each of the 3 movies, we have gathered, hobbit-like, to share much food and much mirth, before those that will head off to the movie theater. This year it was our turn to host the gathering. As it was so close to the December holidays, we made it a combined Christmas and Cinema Party.

Inspired by the presentation approach my brother Architect uses when giving tours of the straw-clay Natural House he designed and built -- which entails posting informative signs throughout the home -- and inspired, too, by the sheer fun of the event, we "decorated" primarily with signs. 

These are the editions I read in high school and college.

The painting on the mantle was done by my sister,
Door County (WI) artist Jan Marie Jablonski.

"Party Tree (Seasonal Variation)"

The wood print behind the tree is
Proud Woman by artist Judith W. Nelson.

Over the entry to the dining room.

There are three pieces of dragon art in the dining room. Obviously only the one in flight could be Smaug!

Those of you familiar with The Lord of the Rings will recall the mithril-edged Doors of Durin that lead into Moria. 

Image source/credit

"Ennyn Durin Aran Moria. Pedo Mellon a Minno. Im Narvi hain echant. Celebrimbor o Eregion teithant i thiw hin."

"The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter. I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs."

Our version, leading thru the doors into the kitchen, where the party buffet was laid out, was much more prosaic.

The most grand piece of all was the oil painting of Lorien of Middle Earth by my sister, Door County (WI) artist, Jan Marie Jablonski, gave to my husband and me as a wedding gift. The signage for this echoed the architect's tradition of the truth window.

"A truth window (or truth wall) is an opening in a wall surface, created to reveal the layers or components within the wall. In a strawbale house, a truth window is often used to show the walls are actually made from straw bales. A small section of a wall is left unplastered on the interior, and a frame is used to create a window which shows only straw, which makes up the inside of the wall.M Many designs exist for truth windows. Glass may be placed over the window, or an openable wooden panel, or it may be a simple framed opening." [Wikipedia entry]

In our case, we imagined the window looking into Middle Earth!

The dining table was elegantly dressed.

Included were sparkling (non-alcoholic) wines from the Prancing Pony pub in Bree and . . .

 
. . . wee dragons guarding their golden hoards (chocolate coins) as party favors.

Not even the bathroom was overlooked. Though I confess my inner snark emerged. Fortunately, all guests found it amusing.

The meal itself was potluck: 2 large pots of homemade deliciousness: cream of chicken/wild rice soup and midwestern chili (i.e., not too spicy); a fresh vegetable platter; sourdough and French bread with loads of Wisconsin butter; and West Coast smoked salmon and crackers. The dessert was something special. Asked to bring one of his special fruit pies, Architect -- anticipating another murderous Jacksonian cinematic debacle -- demured saying,

"Methinks that, with the experience that we will face and need to endure, we will require something stronger than mere pie. I'm planning a battle dessert."

Said dessert turned out to be a thoroughly decadent, very rich bittersweet chocolate bread pudding topped with hot butter-whiskey sauce!

Thus fortified with good food and good cheer, the movie-goers departed to meet their fate. Two hours later I texted my sister Cee: "So, how was it?"

"Just got out," she replied, "You know . . . we . . . liked it! General opinion! So surprising! Best of the three somehow. And we were so stoked to hate it [like the others] . . . go figure!"

I'm thinking it was the battle dessert that made the difference.

Pepys Into The Past

Some brilliant soul is Tweeting lines from the famous diary of Samuel Pepys.  This morning's is such a flourish of language, color, and images, that I must needs post it here for our collective entertainment!

First, how do you pronounce his name?

"The accepted pronunciation today of his curiously spelled name is PEEPS. Sam definitely pronounced his name PEEPS as do the descendents of his sister Paulina. However other branches of the family pronounce it PEPPIS."

[from the Samuel Pepys Diary FAQ]

I am going with old Sam and dear Paulina; PEEPS it is.   

 Image source: Wikipedia

And then, who is this fascinating creature? Here are the first two paragraphs from that font of human knowledge, Wikipedia. I've left the links active, just for fun.

"Samuel Pepys' FRS, MP, JP, (pron.: /ˈpiːps/;^[1] 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man. Although Pepys had no maritime experience, he rose by patronage, hard work and his talent for administration, to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and subsequently King James II.

His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy.^[2] The detailed private diary Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 was first published in the 19th century, and is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London."

Mr. Pepys would utterly adore the Internet age.  If here were alive now, he would have invented Twitter if some else hadn't already done so.

Samuel Pepys diary manuscript volumes
Image source: Wikipedia

Here's more on him from the Samuel Pepys Diary FAQ cited above:

"Although he was known in his day for his efficient work with the navy, he is famous now for his intimate personal diary, written between 1660 and 1669. It is evocative of the 17th century, a time of great change in England but it is its intensely personal description of a man who is vain, lecherous, hard working, keen to learn, in love with yet argumentative with his wife, and determined to leave his mark on the world that makes his diary so fascinating even 350 years later."

I am happy to report that the whole of Pepys' diary now resides on my Kindle reader, thanks to the good people at Project Gutenberg. Here is the link to the various formats they offer (as well as a link to read it online).

Off to breakfast then, wishing I were doing so amid a noise of trumpets and fidlers and wearing a scarlett waistcloathe!

 Image source/credit

From Mars to Eternity

Ray Bradbury

Author * Imagineer

August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012

". . . therefore, seeing that our brother has taken the Universe unto himself, we commend his spirit to the night, and to the stars from which he came—knowing that by so doing, the night shall never lack for starlight, or our lives for our beloved brother's memory, till time’s end . . . .”

 

Text, slightly modified, from

Duane, Diane (2000-09-22)
The Wounded Sky (Star Trek: The Original Series) 
(Kindle Locations 3512-3514). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.