Hono(u)ring authors

Blecch -- HATE the new posting interface. Way too 70s looking with the rounded corners, and all those little fields make me feel as though I'm filling out a form. NOT what I am wanting when I go to share brilliant insights with flist. Thank goodness for "switch to old version."

I see that C.S. Lewis is being honored -- or, I should say, honoured -- with a memorial in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey, right up there with Shakespeare, Chaucer, Kipling, Samuel Johnson et al. I'm pleased for old Jack, but my gruntle is more than a little dissed by the fact that, really, Tolkien should have gotten the hono(u)r first. I just don't see how ten transparent Christian allegories, no matter how lovely and pleasant to read*, top the incredibly rich and detailed world that Tolkien created, complete with millennia of myth, legend and history and at least four different languages, not to mention a cracking good quest narrative. Nevertheless, congrats, old boy.

Speaking of Tolkien, of course we all know that the opening of The Hobbit is now only two weeks away, and Mr Psmith and I have already bought our tickets for the midnight opening (I haven't been to a midnight opening in I-will-not-admit-how-long and am almost ridiculously excited about it). In honor of The Big Day, a_execution posted an interesting discussion of several of Tolkien's characters which you might be interested in.

Alas, no matter how long I live, I fear my reaction to movie!Legolas will be forever colored by the hilarious Very Secret Diary of Legolas ("still the prettiest member of the Fellowship"). Heeeee....

* Not to mention the Problem of Susan

Multicultural animals

[But first, a quick PSA: you've only got two days left to listen BBC Radio 4's half-hour program on fanfic. It actually verges on the scholarly, featuring authors China Mieville and Henry Jenkins and going all the way back to the Iliad and the Odyssey. "Stories are there to be played with, changed, made into our own. They always have been. And that's a good thing." Thanks to inamac for the link.]

Now, on to the Danish ducks! When I was in high school I joined the German Club, where I learned that in Germany dogs say "wau wau" and wolves say "knurrt." Here is a hilarious (and educational!) video about the sounds animals make in different languages; the pictures accompanying it are a riot, especially the ducks. And I totally agree with him about Hungarian doves :)


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