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Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age
***Barrelling down I-95 through the middle of New Jersey and watching all the belching smokestacks from the refineries, their lights twinkling in a grotesque wonderland of horrors, sadly makes me remember Saruman and his evil genius for despoiling the land....Why couldn't he have put that talent to use on other things? And why can't we stop doing this to ourselves. Sigh....,
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Child...I'm slighted. You've stolen one of my all-important connections to Middle-Earth!...Well, I suppose this makes us kindred spirits. Comfort yourself with the fact that I-95 isn't quite the model route for roadside aesthetics, and that better can be found. Plus, in NJ, you can turn off almost anywhere and find yourself in the middle of scenic, rural, low-tech nowheresville.
For me...
-Reading Hemmingway, or Hawthorne. For some reason, despite the lack of jollity, I feel like I'm listening to (in my crazy little head) a rather twisted combination of Tom Bombadil and Treebeard, with all the 'hastiness' of the old Tree-herder, and all the droning prose-etry of Tom. Also, listening to certain poetry read or from a recording, gives me the distinct impression that I'm listening to Tom, but not all poetry. Mostly Yeats, Whitman, or Longfellow, which has some mild effect, and/or affect on my countenance. It doesn't really connect me to M-E, per se, but it is easier to listen to Yeats when you imagine Bombadilo reciting it...
-As some of you may know, and some of you, like the esteemed F. Hedgethistle, certainly know, one of my lower-paying, secondary jobs is thespianary, or, the business of dramatic, melodramatic, polydramatic, and pickledramatic theater. Certain roles, that a thespian is presented in his or her life, are bound to remind him of his own life experiences, unless the play is downright weird (Marat Sad, for example). So, every now and then, I get to perform in something that draws me into Tolkien, via characterization, or maybe plot. Once, after a performance of Shakespeare's play, Othello (Plot in a nutshell, for those who don't know: Moor meets girl, moor loves girl, moor thinks girl is cheating, moor kills girl), in which I was playing the 'villain,' Iago, I was told by a colleague, who had recently seen the LotR movies at my behest (not quite into the books yet), commented off-hand that my performance reminded him, slightly, of Grima Wormtongue. Now, this is
not a point of pride, since I was trying to make the performance distinctly non-Brad Dourif, but it was still interesting to hear from another that I had actually slipped, mentally, into the comfortable vernacular of a character from Tolkien. Such things have happened on more than one occasion...not always for the better (making Winston Churchill sound like Treebeard is definately not something to be proud of).
-White gems, diamonds, or something to that effect, in a group of three. I swear, I can't touch certain shiny, crystalline objects, for fear that my hand will melt on contact, and I really like my hand. I really don't have any phobia for Rings, if you know what I mean, but jewels make me both uncomfortable an intrigued. I get the urge to grab those sparkly little trinkets and whisk them off to the Sons of Feanor, or better yet, keep them for myself. There's actually a very funny story I could tell, but it would take to long, and make too little sense out of context...
There are probably more "connections," but I've named my top three. Others will be expunged in the event that I feel a sudden, unquellable need to get nostalgic.