Et al
A long post again, so cut several times to different bits.
Thursday. Curses, foiled again - someone else has taken my favorite spot to sit in the archive reading room. I suppose I can’t really complain though, this is only twice in what, seven weeks so far? And the reason I like it is probably why someone else would want it; there’s both a table lamp for extra light, and also plenty of electrical outlets so I can plug in the laptop without worrying that the other people at the table will be left short. Plus I can sort of see outside from that seat, which isn’t possible from most of them. But phooey. Sharing the table I’m at now is an older fellow using a laptop with two fingers, the hunt-and-peck system; but hey, at least he can type. SO has colleagues who can’t, or at least won’t.
I’m definitely going to go in to the Guildhall Library Friday. There’s nothing else I can really think of to look at here just now, so taking a day (or maybe more, I’ll see how it goes) at another archive is likely to be more productive. I’ll wait till the cheap day passes start, at 9:30; that will give me 6 hours of work at the GL, about; worth losing an hour to save the money. Today I’ve decided I’ll go through what I’ve picked out already, which I doubt will take me even till 5 o’clock much less 7, and I think then I’ll just stop. I feel like I’ve been most diligent for the past 9 weeks and relaxing a little now won’t hurt anything.
Friday. Have been to Guildhall, found stuff, intend to spend at least two days there next week. Guild charters are no good but when there are pre-1485 ordinances, that’s definitely useful. There’s a volume I want to try to get hold of at home through interlibrary loan, a facsimile of some of the Grocers’ records. I can’t remember if I got it at Minnesota or not; I know I read some of it in the Institute for Historical Research here in London five years ago, but I’m not going there this time. So I know the thing exists but don’t know if I can get it or if I should deal with the original instead, and it’s a long one as I recall. Well, at least I’ll get things from various other guilds; I managed four today, and was able to eliminate some others from consideration because they had nothing that will help me in what I’m doing.
Some people-watching bits I didn’t get around to last time, from the tube. On my first trip heading into the city on Tuesday, there was a family sitting across from me: parents and two daughters. I’d estimate that the older was perhaps 15, the younger maybe 12 or 13. Both girls were wearing quite heavy makeup (even allowing for the fact that I don’t wear it and so any makeup seems like a lot to me), most noticeably thick black eyeliner, the older more than the younger. The older girl also had a sort of tousled-streaked-hair look going, and a tight pink t-shirt that read “Material Girl.” I’m sure she was trying to appear older than she was, and it worked; she looked like a 23-year-old who was both permanently short of sleep and high. It looked terrible. Made me think about the fact that my sister and I weren’t allowed to have our ears pierced until we were 12 (though in the event, because they treated us pretty equally since we’re so close in age, she was permitted at 11, when I had mine done - and since I turned out to have a metal sensitivity, I wear earrings now about once in two years, barely enough to keep the holes). If I should have a daughter - well, come to think of it, a son also - when would I allow that child to get ears pierced, or wear makeup, or whatever? Hm.
Then on the way back from Tosca there was a woman who reminded me of no one so much as an older Queen Elizabeth I. She had fairly long hair, dyed that sort of pale coppery red but white at the roots for quite a way, which somehow stood away from her head like an aureole. She was reading a program for some religious musical performance - an oratorio, maybe - and had long thin pale fingers. Her face was clearly old - 50s or even 60s - but scarcely wrinkled, and again pale, opaquely so but her skin must have been luminous when she was young. Dressed in modern clothes, jeans and such, of course, but that didn’t diminish the effect much.
Oh, and then there was the couple who got on, sat next to me very briefly and then moved across to the other side where they could sit on the end of the row. As soon as they sat down, though, the woman dug out one of those flat liquor bottles - whisky probably or maybe brandy, something of that brownish color - unsealed it and took a swig. Then put it away and fetched out a bottle of Coke. The man was eating crisps. She did not look in good shape - depressed? Just an addict? Who knows? But it seemed very pathetic to me to be in such need to medicate oneself as to drink liquor on the tube. I’m not against drinking - though there are teetotalers in my family and also alcoholism - but I’m extremely moderate about it in my own life, partly because it’s a waste of money to drink a lot IMO and partly because I find it disrupts my ability to do other things, such as writing. Once in a while, when out with friends for instance or on a special occasion, fine; but not nightly. I’d rather drink milk with my dinner. *whispers* I even have a special mug I drink my milk from, with Bunnikins on it... holdover from childhood.
So the Mithril Awards are now out; I nearly missed seeing them Wednesday and didn’t have time to say anything then. No wins - I didn’t really expect to win any category, so I wasn’t actually disappointed about that, a mild regret at the most - but I was very, very pleased that Courting the Lady was runner-up in the Novel category. I still think it’s the best story I’ve yet written. One of my filks was also a runner-up, Run Run Run. Now, of course, I will want to find time to read at least a few of the winners and finalists, because most of them are completely unfamiliar to me!
Have made some progress on both the Nerdanel piece and the Denethor one; I scrapped a chunk of the latter and rewrote it. I know where it’s going, and there isn’t too much more, actually, I think/hope, but getting the words on the screen is like pulling teeth. We’re almost at the denouement, in which Denethor’s hopes are dashed. I imagine it will want some editing even after the draft is done. Have close to three pages written on Nerdanel. The individual parts of that are going to be quite short, two or three pages each it’s looking like; I think I may post the first part this weekend on HASA and Rómenna and perhaps here too in a separate post. It will probably need editing once the rest is written, but oh well.
Plus I’m putting down some random musings about slash and writing it, which may turn into a little essay, more for my own benefit than anything else; it’s certainly not going to be anything academic, but if I get it into some kind of coherent form I’ll probably put it on my site just for the heck of it, and doubtless here in the LJ too. Wrote a filk Wednesday night - I intend to resume my “Two for Tuesday” parody habit on TORn when I get back, and I want to have a few in the bag beforehand if I can. Those I’ll post on my site when I get home; I’ve revamped the filk listing a bit to (I hope) make it easier to find what one’s looking for, by listing them under original artist and including the name of the original song too. I’ve begun the next chapter of Passages as well. As I told one of my fellow slashers earlier this week, if I can’t get any of my other muses to cooperate, the slash muse will generally do so...
I’m also starting to compile a list of alternatives to obscenity, vulgarity, and blasphemy, just for the heck of it (and there’s one by way of example), so if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know! Words, phrases, sayings, whatever. So there is a lot in progress at the moment on the fandom front, probably more than there should be and I’ll be wailing about it next week... but right now I’m pleased.
All right, so for the last three nights or so there’s been what must be fireworks out there someplace close by at about 10 pm each night, for I don’t know, ten minutes maybe. I could understand it the first night if someone got all excited about Bastille Day for some reason (though it would be odd here), but three nights? It’s awfully noisy - people with animals must be going bonkers - and it’s close enough that I can smell that sharp gunpowdery smell afterward. Phew. I just want to know why this is necessary? Make that four nights now, as of Saturday.
And more gripe: noise pollution in general. This isn’t a UK-only gripte by any means, I just happen to be here when noticing it. Let me see. There was the fellow on the tube yesterday playing the guitar and busking. Bad enough in a station when you can grit your teeth and walk quickly by, but very annoying in a train carriage where you’re stuck. He wasn’t bad as these players go (played REM’s “Losing My Religion” and faked that nasal Stipe whine pretty well) but I will not encourage such behavior and was appalled to see people giving him money. Oh, I suppose it’s not illegal but I do think it’s rude at the very least.
Then there’s the unavoidable cell phones, which are coming to mind at present because I’m jotting this down on the Oxford train and there’s a woman in this carriage who seems to be using some sort of weird medical implement - I can’t figure what else it could be - that has a soft ring like a phone every 15 seconds or so, and at first I thought it was her mobile before I peeped around the seats. The variety of cell phone rings is phenomenal and each is more irritating than the next (says the self-righteous non-users, at least so far a non-user). Not to mention that I neither need nor want to hear the personal conversations of everyone around me. [/end rant]
Someone on this train (returning) has a good sense of humor. We’re about to get to Reading and after running through the usual spiel about what the connecting services are, we’re told, “If you’re leaving the train at Reading, be sure you take all your baggage, all your luggage, and all your children with you.”
Oxford was great. I got lucky on the tube this morning and ended up in Paddington rather sooner than I’d expected, so took the first fast train available and arrived in Oxford about 9.20. espresso_addict’s train wasn’t scheduled to get in for over an hour, so I walked to the city centre and took my obligatory photograph of the Eagle & Child pub (which was closed at that hour of course and we didn’t go back to it, so I never stepped inside), which I may post in that indefinite future time when I actually get all my rolls of film developed. Back at the station, the train was delayed about half an hour, ah well.
We took a college walking tour, which turned out to be a good way to go; the guide definitely knew what he was talking about and we saw a number of colleges from the outside, and also went into the courtyards etc. of several. Had lunch at a café tucked down under St. Mary Virgin (the university church, or used to be) and were able to sit outside which was pleasant except for wasps. We had very good weather; it started out cloudy but then became sunny and even warm, we’d both brought jackets which were totally unneeded, in fact I got a bit sunburned on neck and face. Sadly we didn’t really get to see Exeter College (Tolkien’s undergraduate college) as it was closed for some function, very likely connected to the graduation that was taking place today. There were hordes of graduates (post grads in fact, we concluded) wandering about in their robes, proud families in tow.
After lunch did some more wandering about, and finally went and sat in the university park for a couple of hours and talked before catching our respective trains back. Weird thing happened there, though. There we were quietly sitting on the grass, kibbitzing about Denethor, and these three young girls came up and inquired were we lesbians? Were we married? What was the pin I was wearing? Etc. Mostly this one girl who was pretending - I’m sure it was pretense - to be not all there mentally and using it as an excuse to be rude. Foolish, and I told her so; that it really was not a good idea to go up to strangers and ask questions of that sort. As espresso_addict pointed out afterward, if they’d tried anything like that with two men, they’d risk getting raped if the men took offense to being asked if they were gay and decided to give direct proof otherwise.
But very good fanfic talk; her Denethor is far more evil than mine but in conversation I got a new insight into the Denethor-Faramir relationship - could it be that not only does Denethor see in Faramir many things he doesn’t much like in himself, but (perhaps unconsciously) sees his sone as a potential rival? Rival possibly for Boromir’s affection but more likely a rival in rulership in the not-too-distant future. Not for inspiring leadership - Boromir, I would think, would have no contention there from either brother or father - but in the ability to see where matters stand, and how to guide them to a desired end, possibly more effectively than Denethor himself does.
Some chat about the Mithrils as well; sounds like there’s rather more bitching and other flak out there than I’d have expected, even knowing what kinds of idiot some people can be. I’m sorry it’s happening because it’s so totally unwarranted, and not sorry I don’t feel I have to go out and read any of said bitching or take note of it.
Thursday. Curses, foiled again - someone else has taken my favorite spot to sit in the archive reading room. I suppose I can’t really complain though, this is only twice in what, seven weeks so far? And the reason I like it is probably why someone else would want it; there’s both a table lamp for extra light, and also plenty of electrical outlets so I can plug in the laptop without worrying that the other people at the table will be left short. Plus I can sort of see outside from that seat, which isn’t possible from most of them. But phooey. Sharing the table I’m at now is an older fellow using a laptop with two fingers, the hunt-and-peck system; but hey, at least he can type. SO has colleagues who can’t, or at least won’t.
I’m definitely going to go in to the Guildhall Library Friday. There’s nothing else I can really think of to look at here just now, so taking a day (or maybe more, I’ll see how it goes) at another archive is likely to be more productive. I’ll wait till the cheap day passes start, at 9:30; that will give me 6 hours of work at the GL, about; worth losing an hour to save the money. Today I’ve decided I’ll go through what I’ve picked out already, which I doubt will take me even till 5 o’clock much less 7, and I think then I’ll just stop. I feel like I’ve been most diligent for the past 9 weeks and relaxing a little now won’t hurt anything.
Friday. Have been to Guildhall, found stuff, intend to spend at least two days there next week. Guild charters are no good but when there are pre-1485 ordinances, that’s definitely useful. There’s a volume I want to try to get hold of at home through interlibrary loan, a facsimile of some of the Grocers’ records. I can’t remember if I got it at Minnesota or not; I know I read some of it in the Institute for Historical Research here in London five years ago, but I’m not going there this time. So I know the thing exists but don’t know if I can get it or if I should deal with the original instead, and it’s a long one as I recall. Well, at least I’ll get things from various other guilds; I managed four today, and was able to eliminate some others from consideration because they had nothing that will help me in what I’m doing.
Some people-watching bits I didn’t get around to last time, from the tube. On my first trip heading into the city on Tuesday, there was a family sitting across from me: parents and two daughters. I’d estimate that the older was perhaps 15, the younger maybe 12 or 13. Both girls were wearing quite heavy makeup (even allowing for the fact that I don’t wear it and so any makeup seems like a lot to me), most noticeably thick black eyeliner, the older more than the younger. The older girl also had a sort of tousled-streaked-hair look going, and a tight pink t-shirt that read “Material Girl.” I’m sure she was trying to appear older than she was, and it worked; she looked like a 23-year-old who was both permanently short of sleep and high. It looked terrible. Made me think about the fact that my sister and I weren’t allowed to have our ears pierced until we were 12 (though in the event, because they treated us pretty equally since we’re so close in age, she was permitted at 11, when I had mine done - and since I turned out to have a metal sensitivity, I wear earrings now about once in two years, barely enough to keep the holes). If I should have a daughter - well, come to think of it, a son also - when would I allow that child to get ears pierced, or wear makeup, or whatever? Hm.
Then on the way back from Tosca there was a woman who reminded me of no one so much as an older Queen Elizabeth I. She had fairly long hair, dyed that sort of pale coppery red but white at the roots for quite a way, which somehow stood away from her head like an aureole. She was reading a program for some religious musical performance - an oratorio, maybe - and had long thin pale fingers. Her face was clearly old - 50s or even 60s - but scarcely wrinkled, and again pale, opaquely so but her skin must have been luminous when she was young. Dressed in modern clothes, jeans and such, of course, but that didn’t diminish the effect much.
Oh, and then there was the couple who got on, sat next to me very briefly and then moved across to the other side where they could sit on the end of the row. As soon as they sat down, though, the woman dug out one of those flat liquor bottles - whisky probably or maybe brandy, something of that brownish color - unsealed it and took a swig. Then put it away and fetched out a bottle of Coke. The man was eating crisps. She did not look in good shape - depressed? Just an addict? Who knows? But it seemed very pathetic to me to be in such need to medicate oneself as to drink liquor on the tube. I’m not against drinking - though there are teetotalers in my family and also alcoholism - but I’m extremely moderate about it in my own life, partly because it’s a waste of money to drink a lot IMO and partly because I find it disrupts my ability to do other things, such as writing. Once in a while, when out with friends for instance or on a special occasion, fine; but not nightly. I’d rather drink milk with my dinner. *whispers* I even have a special mug I drink my milk from, with Bunnikins on it... holdover from childhood.
So the Mithril Awards are now out; I nearly missed seeing them Wednesday and didn’t have time to say anything then. No wins - I didn’t really expect to win any category, so I wasn’t actually disappointed about that, a mild regret at the most - but I was very, very pleased that Courting the Lady was runner-up in the Novel category. I still think it’s the best story I’ve yet written. One of my filks was also a runner-up, Run Run Run. Now, of course, I will want to find time to read at least a few of the winners and finalists, because most of them are completely unfamiliar to me!
Have made some progress on both the Nerdanel piece and the Denethor one; I scrapped a chunk of the latter and rewrote it. I know where it’s going, and there isn’t too much more, actually, I think/hope, but getting the words on the screen is like pulling teeth. We’re almost at the denouement, in which Denethor’s hopes are dashed. I imagine it will want some editing even after the draft is done. Have close to three pages written on Nerdanel. The individual parts of that are going to be quite short, two or three pages each it’s looking like; I think I may post the first part this weekend on HASA and Rómenna and perhaps here too in a separate post. It will probably need editing once the rest is written, but oh well.
Plus I’m putting down some random musings about slash and writing it, which may turn into a little essay, more for my own benefit than anything else; it’s certainly not going to be anything academic, but if I get it into some kind of coherent form I’ll probably put it on my site just for the heck of it, and doubtless here in the LJ too. Wrote a filk Wednesday night - I intend to resume my “Two for Tuesday” parody habit on TORn when I get back, and I want to have a few in the bag beforehand if I can. Those I’ll post on my site when I get home; I’ve revamped the filk listing a bit to (I hope) make it easier to find what one’s looking for, by listing them under original artist and including the name of the original song too. I’ve begun the next chapter of Passages as well. As I told one of my fellow slashers earlier this week, if I can’t get any of my other muses to cooperate, the slash muse will generally do so...
I’m also starting to compile a list of alternatives to obscenity, vulgarity, and blasphemy, just for the heck of it (and there’s one by way of example), so if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know! Words, phrases, sayings, whatever. So there is a lot in progress at the moment on the fandom front, probably more than there should be and I’ll be wailing about it next week... but right now I’m pleased.
All right, so for the last three nights or so there’s been what must be fireworks out there someplace close by at about 10 pm each night, for I don’t know, ten minutes maybe. I could understand it the first night if someone got all excited about Bastille Day for some reason (though it would be odd here), but three nights? It’s awfully noisy - people with animals must be going bonkers - and it’s close enough that I can smell that sharp gunpowdery smell afterward. Phew. I just want to know why this is necessary? Make that four nights now, as of Saturday.
And more gripe: noise pollution in general. This isn’t a UK-only gripte by any means, I just happen to be here when noticing it. Let me see. There was the fellow on the tube yesterday playing the guitar and busking. Bad enough in a station when you can grit your teeth and walk quickly by, but very annoying in a train carriage where you’re stuck. He wasn’t bad as these players go (played REM’s “Losing My Religion” and faked that nasal Stipe whine pretty well) but I will not encourage such behavior and was appalled to see people giving him money. Oh, I suppose it’s not illegal but I do think it’s rude at the very least.
Then there’s the unavoidable cell phones, which are coming to mind at present because I’m jotting this down on the Oxford train and there’s a woman in this carriage who seems to be using some sort of weird medical implement - I can’t figure what else it could be - that has a soft ring like a phone every 15 seconds or so, and at first I thought it was her mobile before I peeped around the seats. The variety of cell phone rings is phenomenal and each is more irritating than the next (says the self-righteous non-users, at least so far a non-user). Not to mention that I neither need nor want to hear the personal conversations of everyone around me. [/end rant]
Someone on this train (returning) has a good sense of humor. We’re about to get to Reading and after running through the usual spiel about what the connecting services are, we’re told, “If you’re leaving the train at Reading, be sure you take all your baggage, all your luggage, and all your children with you.”
Oxford was great. I got lucky on the tube this morning and ended up in Paddington rather sooner than I’d expected, so took the first fast train available and arrived in Oxford about 9.20. espresso_addict’s train wasn’t scheduled to get in for over an hour, so I walked to the city centre and took my obligatory photograph of the Eagle & Child pub (which was closed at that hour of course and we didn’t go back to it, so I never stepped inside), which I may post in that indefinite future time when I actually get all my rolls of film developed. Back at the station, the train was delayed about half an hour, ah well.
We took a college walking tour, which turned out to be a good way to go; the guide definitely knew what he was talking about and we saw a number of colleges from the outside, and also went into the courtyards etc. of several. Had lunch at a café tucked down under St. Mary Virgin (the university church, or used to be) and were able to sit outside which was pleasant except for wasps. We had very good weather; it started out cloudy but then became sunny and even warm, we’d both brought jackets which were totally unneeded, in fact I got a bit sunburned on neck and face. Sadly we didn’t really get to see Exeter College (Tolkien’s undergraduate college) as it was closed for some function, very likely connected to the graduation that was taking place today. There were hordes of graduates (post grads in fact, we concluded) wandering about in their robes, proud families in tow.
After lunch did some more wandering about, and finally went and sat in the university park for a couple of hours and talked before catching our respective trains back. Weird thing happened there, though. There we were quietly sitting on the grass, kibbitzing about Denethor, and these three young girls came up and inquired were we lesbians? Were we married? What was the pin I was wearing? Etc. Mostly this one girl who was pretending - I’m sure it was pretense - to be not all there mentally and using it as an excuse to be rude. Foolish, and I told her so; that it really was not a good idea to go up to strangers and ask questions of that sort. As espresso_addict pointed out afterward, if they’d tried anything like that with two men, they’d risk getting raped if the men took offense to being asked if they were gay and decided to give direct proof otherwise.
But very good fanfic talk; her Denethor is far more evil than mine but in conversation I got a new insight into the Denethor-Faramir relationship - could it be that not only does Denethor see in Faramir many things he doesn’t much like in himself, but (perhaps unconsciously) sees his sone as a potential rival? Rival possibly for Boromir’s affection but more likely a rival in rulership in the not-too-distant future. Not for inspiring leadership - Boromir, I would think, would have no contention there from either brother or father - but in the ability to see where matters stand, and how to guide them to a desired end, possibly more effectively than Denethor himself does.
Some chat about the Mithrils as well; sounds like there’s rather more bitching and other flak out there than I’d have expected, even knowing what kinds of idiot some people can be. I’m sorry it’s happening because it’s so totally unwarranted, and not sorry I don’t feel I have to go out and read any of said bitching or take note of it.