NYC: The Official Post
Well, where to begin? Ah, yes. Concerning... Wednesday.
Wednesday was the day I received news of being accepted into the job. I got an email right after school with stuff I needed to fill out, and so I had my fingerprints done just before I left for the airport. Poor little Sini was sad to see me go, and my mom was, well, acting motherly, hehe. I was traveling to NYC in the same plane as my friend Cathy, and she had enough points for a free hotel room so we didn't have to wake up too ridiculously early for our 7:25 am flight.
Right just as he was about to leave my dad took my laptop away from me :( So I was left without internet for four days :P It's fine, the 'net at the hotel cost a whooping 14 bucks a day. Pshh.
So we woke up around 5:30 on Thursday and didn't encounter any problems or delays for our flight. I had the nice aisle seat, though I'm thinking I want to do window next time so I can take pictures with my awesome sweet camera. The flight was rather uneventful- an hour or so of sleep, some music, some gaming, some drawing... the usual. We landed on time in JFK at 4 EST, waited until 5 for two people coming from Germany, and then took a taxi to our hotel right near southern Central Park in Manhatten.
I had, by this time, realized that I had forgotten my memory card at home, so after we ate something in the cafe across the street we went to Best Buy a few blocks away so I could buy myself a memory card. After that I went to sleep while my roommate went to the Beecake (Billy Boyd's band) concert. I'm glad I decided to sleep rather than go- the sleep was much needed xD
Down the street of my hotel. See that hotel to the left? Yea, the WELLINGTON Hotel. I hope I wasn't the only one who thought immediately about NZ when I saw it :P
I woke up around 7 on Friday and decided to get something cheap to eat. That led to going outside and getting some donuts and a drink from a stand. Cheaper than Starbucks. After eating, I had a 9AM appointment to see the Tolkien manuscripts from the Marquette University (which is apparently located in Chicago, not England! The more you know...). Photography was *not* allowed in the exhibit, and so I took extensive notes so I wouldn't forget anything. All for you, inzilbeth_3319.
So I went with TORnsib Entmaiden and the wait was relatively short. Behind two glass cases were the notes. My first observation was that Tolkien's handwriting was absolutely gorgeous- even his shorthand was lovely. Much nicer looking than my own handwriting. He could also write very straight, even without lines to help him. Lucky...
The documents were apparently from 1941 to 1944... though my notes says that these were from 1944. I believe most were from 1944, but there were certainly some older pieces:
*4 colored pages of the Book of Mazarbul (complete with Dwarvish runes...)
*3 translations of pages from the Book of Mazarbul (complete with gaps in text)
*2 LOTR Title Pages (on one of them is the crossed-out title "The Magic Ring". I prefer LOTR too).
*2 drawings of the top of the Doors of Durin; they were very similar other than being done in different pens and having different tree designs. I drew the designs, but it's raining outside and so no pictures for now. One looks like a symbolic flame with a crescent moon on top, the other design is closer to the film's White Tree of Gondor only thinner with less branches. Also has crescent moon on top of it.
*Drawing of Balin's tomb; I'm pretty sure it was the same one used in the book.
*Sketch of the book of Mazarbul (and it was once called the Book of Moria).
*A sketch of Isengard; I copied the sketch in 5 minutes, so while it's not perfect, it's... something. Will also be photographed when it's not raining.
In the second case were definitely pages from later on in the process, but not very late. Important things to know:
*Faramir and Aragorn exists. Eowyn seems to live, not sure if she was paired with Faramir at this time.
*Halbarad + Rangers and Arwen do NOT exist! I was like... OMG!
As for the documents...
*2 pages of chronology, basically a snippit of what we see in Appendix B. It was a timeline of earlier events, around the time the Hobbits meet Aragorn. I remember that, crossed out, was Gandalf meeting Bombadil. It was replaced with him going to Bree. Most of the rest, to my memory, was the same as in Appendix B, though it only went to part of October.
*4 back/front pages of charted timelines. Going down the side of the page were dates, while across the pages, depending on the time, were groups such "enemies", "the company", "Frodo/Sam", "Gollum", "Men and Friends", "Enemies", "Aragorn", "Gandalf", etc. The timeline was very similar to what we have in LOTR, except, as mentioned, missing Arwen and the Rangers' in ROTK.
*2 Hobbit measurement charts (this man was so thorough).
*Another Appendix, this time Appendix... E IIRC. Basically wherever Tolkien has all of the Elvish pronounciations. There was two versions of the first page of that appendix, one of them called "Queries and Nots".
*Another page on pronunciation of words and names.
*Shire calendar. I think it was the same as the one we have in Appendix D, but I'm not 100% sure.
*Something historically interesting- the time of the moons in LOTR on the back of "Air Raid Precautions" that I believed dated from 1944. Wow. Talk about... crazy.
*One of my favorite items on display- a calendar comparison chart. It compared these calendars: Modern, Shire, Gondor, Elessar, Rivendell. Elessar's was redone 3 times (in different color pens, too, heheh). The only date (that I saw) that was the same on all of theirs (other than Elessar's) was Feb 1. I don't know if this chart was ever updated or if this was the final draft for calendar conversions, but oh man, I wanted it XD
After that awesome experience, I knew I had a few hours before meeting up with suzll, so I decided to attempt to go to Ground Zero through the Subway system. I asked for directions and was told to go to 53rd street. I took the subway at 57th. Oops.
It ended up being a 2 hour trip through New York, walking a good couple of miles from subway to subway attempting to find my way back uptown. It rained on and off, though while I didn't have my umbrella, I did have an awesome coat I stole borrowed from my mother. I also got to experience China again with, instead of fake Rolexes being shoved in my face, rather fake Gucci bags by immigrants from Caribbean countries. Very interesting.
But by one I was able to find my way back to my hotel. Just as I was about to go on the elevator to rest my feet, I got a call from suzll saying she was in the lobby. I forgot my tired feet and pounced her when I found her. I took a quick stop to my room and she was cool with what I wanted to do (yay, thank you for being awesome). We got a quick bite to eat at a diner a couple blocks away, and then headed to 5th Avenue. Did I want to see Tiffanys? No. How about the Gucci store? Nope.
Random chandeleir says hello.
Trump Tower. Best botanical design on skyscraper building, ever.
No. I headed straight for FAO Schwartz. And I quickly found how awesome suzll is when she didn't give me a weird look, but promptly took out her own camera. :D
You're so perty :D
Harry Potter lifesize Legos = awesome.
I want it all! And I want it naaaoooo.
Harry Potter Geek in me is apeased. Rachel, you'd love this store...
Very appeased.
OMG dragon! Stuffed, too.
AGGGHHHH!
Wonder how much it costs? I'm guessing 5 digits, but no more than 50,000. I'd buy it. If I had, like, a ridiculous amount of money. Bill Gates probably has a copy.
Barbie runway. The little girl in me was appeased.
Hogwarts Express! Tolkien Enterprises, please give license to FAO Schwartz, kthx.
I bought Sini a bear (who is sitting with me right now, heheh), and then afterwards we went to the Apple store right next door... which had the coolest. Entrance. Ever.
We were rather disappointed with the inside, which just looked like any normal Apple store. With such a cool entrance I was expecting something wicked-awesome inside :P So we left up the awesome elevator.
We walked down 5th avenue until we came upon an awesome cathedral. I'll post the pics of it on my stock account and post the link when I have them up. It was so gorgeous. Here's a little teaser.
Afterwards we went to the Top of the Rock at the Rockefeller center, which I recommend over the Empire State Building. It's cheaper and a lot less of a line- you don't have to wait a whole day for it. We were there an hour, at most. The films at the beginning were interesting, I suppose... they were mostly there for crowd control, so I appreciate the effort of the Rockefeller Center to keep the waiting crowds busy while we waited.
Then we went up a very fast elevator to the 69th and 70th floors, and the view was absolutely amazing.
I'll be doing the real perty, post-production-editing ones on dA and I'll mention it here when they're posted, but for now, a couple teasers...
Yep, central park and empire state building...
Afterwards we went back to the hotel and I rested a bit before the dinner that night. The dinner was with a bunch of TheOneRing.net members, and it was absolutely wonderful. Not much cuisine-wise, but it was great talking with so many different people and putting faces to screen names. Afterwards we went to Times Square- wow, it's so big- and there were MnM and Hersheys stores there. Chocolatey goodness! I went to bed relatively early again, because I had lots of plans for Saturday.
And Saturday, what a day! Saturday was just as great as Friday, and I didn't get much lost this time XD I woke up a bit later than I intended, but I was determined to see Ground Zero. So I called periantari and we decided to meet up around the area- and she led me basically in the right direction, which was good :P. I took the right subway this time and ended up near St. Pauls (which I didn't take pictures of, for some weird reason). It was way cool- I've never seen graves from the 1700's before, and while that's nothing compared to graves in Europe and whatnot, it was something for me.
Right across the street from St. Paul's was Ground Zero and... wow. I didn't realize how large the site was until I was actually, you know, there. They were doing construction there, and the new tower has a frame a few stories high now.
Close by was a place that had the plans of the new WTC, called the Freedom Tower, as well as the designs for the memorial for all of those lost on 9/11. Also nearby was a fire-fighters monument; I imagine that the police one was there too, but I didn't see it.
Plans of the new Freedom Tower; the two waterfalls fall into pools where the original towers once stood.
Wow.
The story below it is about how the firefighter survived the collapse of the North Tower while 20 storeys inside.
Building being done...
What really struck me is how many foreigners were here- America is really a country of foreigners, which is what I really love about it.
I felt a bit ill inside reading all of the names. 90 nationalities, ages 2 to 80.
People still leave memorials here- 8 years later, and a month past its anniversary.
And my only picture of the church across the street, because I'm a moron...
Right by Ground Zero I met up with periantari, her little sister, and speedyhobbit, who ended up being made of awesome. Yay new friends! We ate New York pizza; I've had that supposed pizza in CA, and it doesn't taste very good. I was very surprised when the pizza turned out being bloody delicious. NY pizza = frigging amazing.
Since it was rainy and we were running out of time, we took the subway straight to the Metropolitian. Uhm, ART HISTORY GEEK LOVE. My thanks to my friends for letting me drag them all over the museum for a few hours. I took a good 200+ pictures there, and most of them will end up in my dA stock art account, which I'll link here once I get the pictures up.
So BIG! Met love!
After the museum I grabbed a hot dog from a vendor. Ended up being very disappointed with the hot dog. How could you fail me, NYC?
Then this guy co-erced me into a photo. He didn't mention until half-way in that it was 3 dollars. Clever, Mr. Liberty, very clever. My mom loves it, so it was well worth it.
speedyhobbit and I went back to my hotel and she hung out while I got dressed in my fancy-shmancy dress and... heels. Then I decided that I didn't want to spend money and walked to Radio City Music Hall which was .5 miles away.
I'm. A. Moron. I basically moaned the whole way. Thank you, Cher, for being so tolerant.
But I felt very accomplished at the end of the walk, even though the wait was very annoying, to say the least. Along with going to the wrong line at first (and diverting it to a whole new area single-handedly because I'm amazing), we did manage to get in there. And wow, wow! What a theatre. No food allowed, of course, because they needed to sell us very expensive food and drinks (and I got to chug down a drink just before getting in there, which was an interesting experience...). But anyways, the theatre was absolutely huge and, frankly put, exceeded my expectations.
And the art display of my winning art? Turned out they displayed all three pictures I submitted... on two huge screens in the main hall right before the show. Talk about being absolutely surprised and flattered. I sort of want to enter again next year :P
Howard Shore + Doug Adams before the show
TORN :D
These photos were stolen from someone else... the peeps displayed all three of my drawings O.o
The show itself? Worth every single penny. Alongside being able to talk to and meet awesome people, the music was just... wow. They were absolutely flawless. Different, of course, and a few of the times you couldn't hear the dialogue very well (they had sub-titles for that reason), and they dimmed down the music track which also held the sounds of various creatures, so the troll and watcher weren't nearly as loud as they usually are. Still, it didn't matter, because the music was just... wonderful.
The woman soloist, while I did not like as much as the one used in the films (but I'm a big fan of Enya so I'm a bit biased), was still bloody brilliant in her own right, and the two boy soloists used brought chills, absolute chills. So talented, so wonderful. I also heard chorus in places I did not know they existed (the prologue when it shows the mountains, in the beginning when it shows Bilbo's map, and some parts with Boromir...).
I am a big fan of the chorus, and their impact really was brought home during Moria. There was tons of applause after that (though, to be fair, we broke into applause around every 20 minutes or so, and on Saturday's performance only once for a character- thankfully it was not obnoxious Aragorn fans, haha, though I did do a little 'yay' from my seat, but it was a quiet one :D). Also, for the first time ever, I got chills from the Watcher scene due to the music. The special effects in the film really mutes it, but hearing the violin strings live... I was chilled for the first time during that scene.
In the end, it was like watching the film all over again. I am so, so grateful that I was able to experience it. If you have the opportunity to see TTT either in London or NYC next year, I HIGHLY recommend it. Also, if you don't believe me, just take a look at any of the reviews of the performance- you will see great reviews from everyone who attended and appreciates music. Just amazing. Well worth every penny. I would love to go again, but unless something magical happens, I doubt I could afford it and college at the same time :P Here's for hoping it comes to LA!
After the concert, I went for a late-night dessert at a nice restaurant close to our hotel. I walked again. I refused to take off my heels because I was wary of the streets and, well, I wanted to prove... something. Lord knows what. O.o I met and spoke with a wonderful couple who lived there, exchanged information with the folks I sat by during the show, and of course hugged tons of TORnsibs. It was so magical.
Sunday wasn't bad at all, either, though since I had a flight at 5pm I was a bit rushed. TORn was hosting this little event a bit of a distance away from our hotel, but it wasn't nearly as expensive as I thought it would be for a taxi ride. When we got there we watched presentations from Colleen Doran about Tolkien artists, David Salo about the languages, Howard Shore's wife with a documentary of her husband working on ROTK music, and Howard Shore and Doug Adams.
I don't really have much on this, so just a few notes:
*Colleen Doran was able to give me excellent legal advice on the How To's of selling Tolkien-based artwork. Apparently people like the Hildebrandt Brothers, Howe, Lee, and Nasmith were specially selected by the Estate. For the rest of us, it's all about avoiding copyrighted names (only exception: commissions with no plans of reproduction). It was absolutely wonderful to get this advice, especially if I plan on doing illustration on the side.
*David Salo was a pleasure to speak with. I worship his knowledge only as a Tolkien linguistics geek can :) It would be wonderful if he works on the Hobbit; I think he certainly has the knowledge to.
*Mrs. Shore's documentary was wonderful. We heard from Annie Lennox some earlier versions of Into the West (including some small differences like "hearts are calling" or something like that. We also heard unused music (Annie Lennox singing "Seven stars, seven stones, and one white tree"- a total geek moment there.) It was absolutely fascinating to watch and I hope it gets released somewhere in some point of time in the future.
*Howard Shore and Doug Adams (author of upcoming book Music in LOTR) talking about various themes, difficulties coming up with this and that... at this point in time I was trying to get over the fact that I was right next to Howard Shore. I really should start taking notes at conventions... I bet Magpie has a better account.
I also got all of their autographs. Consider me very much pleased. XD
My pics are terrible. Here are the best of the batch, without extensive post-editing...
David Salo
Howard Shore's wife.
Howard Shore and Doug Adams
And then Cathy, Georg, and I went straight from there to the airport. Taxi saw us and pulled over for us right away, which was, of course, awesome. Georg went back to Germany and then Cathy and I went back to LA.
It was on the return flight that I discovered my iPod earphones work in the airplane jack AND that drinks of non-alcoholic sorts are free. I was much pleased with these discoveries.
All in all, one of the best times of my life. It's up there with China, ORC 2006, and Comic Con 05 and 08.
... I've been an incredibly lucky person. I have the best of friends- and the coolest parents in the world (since most of these would not have happened without their constant support).
I dedicate this post to them and to all Ringers everywhere. Hope the wait was worth it a little XD
Wednesday was the day I received news of being accepted into the job. I got an email right after school with stuff I needed to fill out, and so I had my fingerprints done just before I left for the airport. Poor little Sini was sad to see me go, and my mom was, well, acting motherly, hehe. I was traveling to NYC in the same plane as my friend Cathy, and she had enough points for a free hotel room so we didn't have to wake up too ridiculously early for our 7:25 am flight.
Right just as he was about to leave my dad took my laptop away from me :( So I was left without internet for four days :P It's fine, the 'net at the hotel cost a whooping 14 bucks a day. Pshh.
So we woke up around 5:30 on Thursday and didn't encounter any problems or delays for our flight. I had the nice aisle seat, though I'm thinking I want to do window next time so I can take pictures with my awesome sweet camera. The flight was rather uneventful- an hour or so of sleep, some music, some gaming, some drawing... the usual. We landed on time in JFK at 4 EST, waited until 5 for two people coming from Germany, and then took a taxi to our hotel right near southern Central Park in Manhatten.
I had, by this time, realized that I had forgotten my memory card at home, so after we ate something in the cafe across the street we went to Best Buy a few blocks away so I could buy myself a memory card. After that I went to sleep while my roommate went to the Beecake (Billy Boyd's band) concert. I'm glad I decided to sleep rather than go- the sleep was much needed xD
Down the street of my hotel. See that hotel to the left? Yea, the WELLINGTON Hotel. I hope I wasn't the only one who thought immediately about NZ when I saw it :P
I woke up around 7 on Friday and decided to get something cheap to eat. That led to going outside and getting some donuts and a drink from a stand. Cheaper than Starbucks. After eating, I had a 9AM appointment to see the Tolkien manuscripts from the Marquette University (which is apparently located in Chicago, not England! The more you know...). Photography was *not* allowed in the exhibit, and so I took extensive notes so I wouldn't forget anything. All for you, inzilbeth_3319.
So I went with TORnsib Entmaiden and the wait was relatively short. Behind two glass cases were the notes. My first observation was that Tolkien's handwriting was absolutely gorgeous- even his shorthand was lovely. Much nicer looking than my own handwriting. He could also write very straight, even without lines to help him. Lucky...
The documents were apparently from 1941 to 1944... though my notes says that these were from 1944. I believe most were from 1944, but there were certainly some older pieces:
*4 colored pages of the Book of Mazarbul (complete with Dwarvish runes...)
*3 translations of pages from the Book of Mazarbul (complete with gaps in text)
*2 LOTR Title Pages (on one of them is the crossed-out title "The Magic Ring". I prefer LOTR too).
*2 drawings of the top of the Doors of Durin; they were very similar other than being done in different pens and having different tree designs. I drew the designs, but it's raining outside and so no pictures for now. One looks like a symbolic flame with a crescent moon on top, the other design is closer to the film's White Tree of Gondor only thinner with less branches. Also has crescent moon on top of it.
*Drawing of Balin's tomb; I'm pretty sure it was the same one used in the book.
*Sketch of the book of Mazarbul (and it was once called the Book of Moria).
*A sketch of Isengard; I copied the sketch in 5 minutes, so while it's not perfect, it's... something. Will also be photographed when it's not raining.
In the second case were definitely pages from later on in the process, but not very late. Important things to know:
*Faramir and Aragorn exists. Eowyn seems to live, not sure if she was paired with Faramir at this time.
*Halbarad + Rangers and Arwen do NOT exist! I was like... OMG!
As for the documents...
*2 pages of chronology, basically a snippit of what we see in Appendix B. It was a timeline of earlier events, around the time the Hobbits meet Aragorn. I remember that, crossed out, was Gandalf meeting Bombadil. It was replaced with him going to Bree. Most of the rest, to my memory, was the same as in Appendix B, though it only went to part of October.
*4 back/front pages of charted timelines. Going down the side of the page were dates, while across the pages, depending on the time, were groups such "enemies", "the company", "Frodo/Sam", "Gollum", "Men and Friends", "Enemies", "Aragorn", "Gandalf", etc. The timeline was very similar to what we have in LOTR, except, as mentioned, missing Arwen and the Rangers' in ROTK.
*2 Hobbit measurement charts (this man was so thorough).
*Another Appendix, this time Appendix... E IIRC. Basically wherever Tolkien has all of the Elvish pronounciations. There was two versions of the first page of that appendix, one of them called "Queries and Nots".
*Another page on pronunciation of words and names.
*Shire calendar. I think it was the same as the one we have in Appendix D, but I'm not 100% sure.
*Something historically interesting- the time of the moons in LOTR on the back of "Air Raid Precautions" that I believed dated from 1944. Wow. Talk about... crazy.
*One of my favorite items on display- a calendar comparison chart. It compared these calendars: Modern, Shire, Gondor, Elessar, Rivendell. Elessar's was redone 3 times (in different color pens, too, heheh). The only date (that I saw) that was the same on all of theirs (other than Elessar's) was Feb 1. I don't know if this chart was ever updated or if this was the final draft for calendar conversions, but oh man, I wanted it XD
After that awesome experience, I knew I had a few hours before meeting up with suzll, so I decided to attempt to go to Ground Zero through the Subway system. I asked for directions and was told to go to 53rd street. I took the subway at 57th. Oops.
It ended up being a 2 hour trip through New York, walking a good couple of miles from subway to subway attempting to find my way back uptown. It rained on and off, though while I didn't have my umbrella, I did have an awesome coat I stole borrowed from my mother. I also got to experience China again with, instead of fake Rolexes being shoved in my face, rather fake Gucci bags by immigrants from Caribbean countries. Very interesting.
But by one I was able to find my way back to my hotel. Just as I was about to go on the elevator to rest my feet, I got a call from suzll saying she was in the lobby. I forgot my tired feet and pounced her when I found her. I took a quick stop to my room and she was cool with what I wanted to do (yay, thank you for being awesome). We got a quick bite to eat at a diner a couple blocks away, and then headed to 5th Avenue. Did I want to see Tiffanys? No. How about the Gucci store? Nope.
Random chandeleir says hello.
Trump Tower. Best botanical design on skyscraper building, ever.
No. I headed straight for FAO Schwartz. And I quickly found how awesome suzll is when she didn't give me a weird look, but promptly took out her own camera. :D
You're so perty :D
Harry Potter lifesize Legos = awesome.
I want it all! And I want it naaaoooo.
Harry Potter Geek in me is apeased. Rachel, you'd love this store...
Very appeased.
OMG dragon! Stuffed, too.
AGGGHHHH!
Wonder how much it costs? I'm guessing 5 digits, but no more than 50,000. I'd buy it. If I had, like, a ridiculous amount of money. Bill Gates probably has a copy.
Barbie runway. The little girl in me was appeased.
Hogwarts Express! Tolkien Enterprises, please give license to FAO Schwartz, kthx.
I bought Sini a bear (who is sitting with me right now, heheh), and then afterwards we went to the Apple store right next door... which had the coolest. Entrance. Ever.
We were rather disappointed with the inside, which just looked like any normal Apple store. With such a cool entrance I was expecting something wicked-awesome inside :P So we left up the awesome elevator.
We walked down 5th avenue until we came upon an awesome cathedral. I'll post the pics of it on my stock account and post the link when I have them up. It was so gorgeous. Here's a little teaser.
Afterwards we went to the Top of the Rock at the Rockefeller center, which I recommend over the Empire State Building. It's cheaper and a lot less of a line- you don't have to wait a whole day for it. We were there an hour, at most. The films at the beginning were interesting, I suppose... they were mostly there for crowd control, so I appreciate the effort of the Rockefeller Center to keep the waiting crowds busy while we waited.
Then we went up a very fast elevator to the 69th and 70th floors, and the view was absolutely amazing.
I'll be doing the real perty, post-production-editing ones on dA and I'll mention it here when they're posted, but for now, a couple teasers...
Yep, central park and empire state building...
Afterwards we went back to the hotel and I rested a bit before the dinner that night. The dinner was with a bunch of TheOneRing.net members, and it was absolutely wonderful. Not much cuisine-wise, but it was great talking with so many different people and putting faces to screen names. Afterwards we went to Times Square- wow, it's so big- and there were MnM and Hersheys stores there. Chocolatey goodness! I went to bed relatively early again, because I had lots of plans for Saturday.
And Saturday, what a day! Saturday was just as great as Friday, and I didn't get much lost this time XD I woke up a bit later than I intended, but I was determined to see Ground Zero. So I called periantari and we decided to meet up around the area- and she led me basically in the right direction, which was good :P. I took the right subway this time and ended up near St. Pauls (which I didn't take pictures of, for some weird reason). It was way cool- I've never seen graves from the 1700's before, and while that's nothing compared to graves in Europe and whatnot, it was something for me.
Right across the street from St. Paul's was Ground Zero and... wow. I didn't realize how large the site was until I was actually, you know, there. They were doing construction there, and the new tower has a frame a few stories high now.
Close by was a place that had the plans of the new WTC, called the Freedom Tower, as well as the designs for the memorial for all of those lost on 9/11. Also nearby was a fire-fighters monument; I imagine that the police one was there too, but I didn't see it.
Plans of the new Freedom Tower; the two waterfalls fall into pools where the original towers once stood.
Wow.
The story below it is about how the firefighter survived the collapse of the North Tower while 20 storeys inside.
Building being done...
What really struck me is how many foreigners were here- America is really a country of foreigners, which is what I really love about it.
I felt a bit ill inside reading all of the names. 90 nationalities, ages 2 to 80.
People still leave memorials here- 8 years later, and a month past its anniversary.
And my only picture of the church across the street, because I'm a moron...
Right by Ground Zero I met up with periantari, her little sister, and speedyhobbit, who ended up being made of awesome. Yay new friends! We ate New York pizza; I've had that supposed pizza in CA, and it doesn't taste very good. I was very surprised when the pizza turned out being bloody delicious. NY pizza = frigging amazing.
Since it was rainy and we were running out of time, we took the subway straight to the Metropolitian. Uhm, ART HISTORY GEEK LOVE. My thanks to my friends for letting me drag them all over the museum for a few hours. I took a good 200+ pictures there, and most of them will end up in my dA stock art account, which I'll link here once I get the pictures up.
So BIG! Met love!
After the museum I grabbed a hot dog from a vendor. Ended up being very disappointed with the hot dog. How could you fail me, NYC?
Then this guy co-erced me into a photo. He didn't mention until half-way in that it was 3 dollars. Clever, Mr. Liberty, very clever. My mom loves it, so it was well worth it.
speedyhobbit and I went back to my hotel and she hung out while I got dressed in my fancy-shmancy dress and... heels. Then I decided that I didn't want to spend money and walked to Radio City Music Hall which was .5 miles away.
I'm. A. Moron. I basically moaned the whole way. Thank you, Cher, for being so tolerant.
But I felt very accomplished at the end of the walk, even though the wait was very annoying, to say the least. Along with going to the wrong line at first (and diverting it to a whole new area single-handedly because I'm amazing), we did manage to get in there. And wow, wow! What a theatre. No food allowed, of course, because they needed to sell us very expensive food and drinks (and I got to chug down a drink just before getting in there, which was an interesting experience...). But anyways, the theatre was absolutely huge and, frankly put, exceeded my expectations.
And the art display of my winning art? Turned out they displayed all three pictures I submitted... on two huge screens in the main hall right before the show. Talk about being absolutely surprised and flattered. I sort of want to enter again next year :P
Howard Shore + Doug Adams before the show
TORN :D
These photos were stolen from someone else... the peeps displayed all three of my drawings O.o
The show itself? Worth every single penny. Alongside being able to talk to and meet awesome people, the music was just... wow. They were absolutely flawless. Different, of course, and a few of the times you couldn't hear the dialogue very well (they had sub-titles for that reason), and they dimmed down the music track which also held the sounds of various creatures, so the troll and watcher weren't nearly as loud as they usually are. Still, it didn't matter, because the music was just... wonderful.
The woman soloist, while I did not like as much as the one used in the films (but I'm a big fan of Enya so I'm a bit biased), was still bloody brilliant in her own right, and the two boy soloists used brought chills, absolute chills. So talented, so wonderful. I also heard chorus in places I did not know they existed (the prologue when it shows the mountains, in the beginning when it shows Bilbo's map, and some parts with Boromir...).
I am a big fan of the chorus, and their impact really was brought home during Moria. There was tons of applause after that (though, to be fair, we broke into applause around every 20 minutes or so, and on Saturday's performance only once for a character- thankfully it was not obnoxious Aragorn fans, haha, though I did do a little 'yay' from my seat, but it was a quiet one :D). Also, for the first time ever, I got chills from the Watcher scene due to the music. The special effects in the film really mutes it, but hearing the violin strings live... I was chilled for the first time during that scene.
In the end, it was like watching the film all over again. I am so, so grateful that I was able to experience it. If you have the opportunity to see TTT either in London or NYC next year, I HIGHLY recommend it. Also, if you don't believe me, just take a look at any of the reviews of the performance- you will see great reviews from everyone who attended and appreciates music. Just amazing. Well worth every penny. I would love to go again, but unless something magical happens, I doubt I could afford it and college at the same time :P Here's for hoping it comes to LA!
After the concert, I went for a late-night dessert at a nice restaurant close to our hotel. I walked again. I refused to take off my heels because I was wary of the streets and, well, I wanted to prove... something. Lord knows what. O.o I met and spoke with a wonderful couple who lived there, exchanged information with the folks I sat by during the show, and of course hugged tons of TORnsibs. It was so magical.
Sunday wasn't bad at all, either, though since I had a flight at 5pm I was a bit rushed. TORn was hosting this little event a bit of a distance away from our hotel, but it wasn't nearly as expensive as I thought it would be for a taxi ride. When we got there we watched presentations from Colleen Doran about Tolkien artists, David Salo about the languages, Howard Shore's wife with a documentary of her husband working on ROTK music, and Howard Shore and Doug Adams.
I don't really have much on this, so just a few notes:
*Colleen Doran was able to give me excellent legal advice on the How To's of selling Tolkien-based artwork. Apparently people like the Hildebrandt Brothers, Howe, Lee, and Nasmith were specially selected by the Estate. For the rest of us, it's all about avoiding copyrighted names (only exception: commissions with no plans of reproduction). It was absolutely wonderful to get this advice, especially if I plan on doing illustration on the side.
*David Salo was a pleasure to speak with. I worship his knowledge only as a Tolkien linguistics geek can :) It would be wonderful if he works on the Hobbit; I think he certainly has the knowledge to.
*Mrs. Shore's documentary was wonderful. We heard from Annie Lennox some earlier versions of Into the West (including some small differences like "hearts are calling" or something like that. We also heard unused music (Annie Lennox singing "Seven stars, seven stones, and one white tree"- a total geek moment there.) It was absolutely fascinating to watch and I hope it gets released somewhere in some point of time in the future.
*Howard Shore and Doug Adams (author of upcoming book Music in LOTR) talking about various themes, difficulties coming up with this and that... at this point in time I was trying to get over the fact that I was right next to Howard Shore. I really should start taking notes at conventions... I bet Magpie has a better account.
I also got all of their autographs. Consider me very much pleased. XD
My pics are terrible. Here are the best of the batch, without extensive post-editing...
David Salo
Howard Shore's wife.
Howard Shore and Doug Adams
And then Cathy, Georg, and I went straight from there to the airport. Taxi saw us and pulled over for us right away, which was, of course, awesome. Georg went back to Germany and then Cathy and I went back to LA.
It was on the return flight that I discovered my iPod earphones work in the airplane jack AND that drinks of non-alcoholic sorts are free. I was much pleased with these discoveries.
All in all, one of the best times of my life. It's up there with China, ORC 2006, and Comic Con 05 and 08.
... I've been an incredibly lucky person. I have the best of friends- and the coolest parents in the world (since most of these would not have happened without their constant support).
I dedicate this post to them and to all Ringers everywhere. Hope the wait was worth it a little XD