Research Week
Research Assignment #1: Save B-Fest From The Communists
Word was going around that What is Communism? wasn't going to make it to B-Fest this year. So, I did some searching in the UCLA Film Archive to see if they had a copy. Lo and behold, they do! However, they don't have a circulating copy, so I'm not going to be able to get my hands on it. This led to me berating librarians to silencius for their taunting of me. However, my further searches led me to discover that they *do* have copies of all of the episodes of I Led 3 Lives that I would be able to go and watch, so perhaps I will be able to get my Herbert Philbrick fix nonetheless.
I also poked around UCLA to find someone associated with showing films on campus to ask if there's any good stores that sell film shorts in the area. I was able to find someone, but she wanted to talk about it on the phone so of course I haven't bothered to call her yet. We'll see how that pans out.
Research Assignment #2: Ed Wood or not Ed Wood?
I was poking around in the bios on Lexis and found that the common wisdom seems to believe that Ed Wood attended Northwestern University! I was curious to see if there was any other documentation for this, so I fired off an email to the university archivist. He provided me with all sorts of good information, but I haven't come to a conclusion yet. I will reserve posting more about this until I get the results of my FOIA request back from the Marines about Ed Wood's military records.
Another amusing point of my exchange with the archivist was that he knew who I was, and asked if I had any of our campaign materials and stuff that he could have for the archives. I can't help but see a Yakoff Smirnoff joke in there somewhere.... ("In Russia, librarian asks you for historical documents!")
Research Assignment #3: Excessive Force or Resisting Arrest?
I got my first research assignment for the semester, which has to do with a hypo where an arrest was made at a protest. This was the only one of these research things that I definitely had to do, and so is of course the only one of these that I didn't touch yet.
Research Assignment #4: Has Anyone Heard of Ring Fingers?
I found it a little strange in Fellowship of the Ring that when Isildur cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand, Sauron had been wearing it on his index finger and not his ring finger. Then, when Frodo put on The Ring, he also put it on his index finger. This seemed very odd to me, so when I watched The Two Towers and Return of the King one after the other today, I kept an eye out for this, and went back to FOTR afterwards to double-check.
The results: Elves and Wizards wear Rings of Power on their middle finger, while Hobbits, Men, and the Dark Lord wear the One Ring on their index finger.
It is strange that no one in Middle Earth wears rings on their ring finger. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to develop theories as to why the One Ring has to be worn on the index finger.
Word was going around that What is Communism? wasn't going to make it to B-Fest this year. So, I did some searching in the UCLA Film Archive to see if they had a copy. Lo and behold, they do! However, they don't have a circulating copy, so I'm not going to be able to get my hands on it. This led to me berating librarians to silencius for their taunting of me. However, my further searches led me to discover that they *do* have copies of all of the episodes of I Led 3 Lives that I would be able to go and watch, so perhaps I will be able to get my Herbert Philbrick fix nonetheless.
I also poked around UCLA to find someone associated with showing films on campus to ask if there's any good stores that sell film shorts in the area. I was able to find someone, but she wanted to talk about it on the phone so of course I haven't bothered to call her yet. We'll see how that pans out.
Research Assignment #2: Ed Wood or not Ed Wood?
I was poking around in the bios on Lexis and found that the common wisdom seems to believe that Ed Wood attended Northwestern University! I was curious to see if there was any other documentation for this, so I fired off an email to the university archivist. He provided me with all sorts of good information, but I haven't come to a conclusion yet. I will reserve posting more about this until I get the results of my FOIA request back from the Marines about Ed Wood's military records.
Another amusing point of my exchange with the archivist was that he knew who I was, and asked if I had any of our campaign materials and stuff that he could have for the archives. I can't help but see a Yakoff Smirnoff joke in there somewhere.... ("In Russia, librarian asks you for historical documents!")
Research Assignment #3: Excessive Force or Resisting Arrest?
I got my first research assignment for the semester, which has to do with a hypo where an arrest was made at a protest. This was the only one of these research things that I definitely had to do, and so is of course the only one of these that I didn't touch yet.
Research Assignment #4: Has Anyone Heard of Ring Fingers?
I found it a little strange in Fellowship of the Ring that when Isildur cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand, Sauron had been wearing it on his index finger and not his ring finger. Then, when Frodo put on The Ring, he also put it on his index finger. This seemed very odd to me, so when I watched The Two Towers and Return of the King one after the other today, I kept an eye out for this, and went back to FOTR afterwards to double-check.
The results: Elves and Wizards wear Rings of Power on their middle finger, while Hobbits, Men, and the Dark Lord wear the One Ring on their index finger.
It is strange that no one in Middle Earth wears rings on their ring finger. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to develop theories as to why the One Ring has to be worn on the index finger.