Musings – Page 7 – Into the West

MiddleMoot 2019 Session Sampling

The elvish quote on the screen intrigued me but was not represented in the handout.

MiddleMoot 2019 (last month in Waterloo, Iowa), like most conferences, consists of multiples sessions competing for the same time slots. Like all good stories, plays and, in this case, moots, there is a beginning, a middle and an end where we all gather together. In between, decisions must be made.

Since I wanted to support my fellow Withywindle Smial presenters, Sessions 2 and 4 were already decided. Thus I need to decide between female grief as foresight or interruptions and musing for the first session. I went with the former for various reasons, but mostly because I’m not a writer of fiction (just a reader), my life is one long interruption and I was intrigue by the concept of female grief as foresight and subcreation, especially after reading about Aragorn’s mother, Gilraen. I created an audio recording of the session on my iPad, but Jude Bleile was so soft-spoken, even with a microphone, that I won’t share that recording here to avoid listener frustration.

More Memes Than You Can Shake a Hobbit At

Our Smial Hangout is a great place discuss Tolkien, his books, etc. but we also have discussions about board games, trivia and, of course, share the latest and quite often Hobbit-hilarious meme. For example, today we ‘fell back’ and Merry and Pippin had this to say about it:

Other memes shared in October in no particular order:

Book Review: Master of Middle-Earth

Master of Middle-Earth

The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien
by Paul H. Kocher

Published: 1972
Read: 10/12/2019 to 11/2/2019
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

GoodReads Synopsis

As is the case with all great works of art, J. R. R. Tolkien‘s masterpieces generously repay close attention and study. In this thoroughly entertaining and perceptive volume, winner of the prestigious Mythopoeic Society Scholarship Award, Professor Kocher examines the sources that Tolkien drew upon in fashioning Middle-earth and its inhabitants-and provides valuable insights into the author’s aims and methods. Ranging from The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings to The Silmarillion and beyond, Master of Middle-earth opens the door to a deeper and richer appreciation of Tolkien’s magnificent achievement.

My Thoughts

I became aware of this out-of-print book recently while listening to Season Three of the Prancing Pony Podcast. For my birthday, I decided to ‘splurge’ and purchase actual print books (which I haven’t done regularly in years because I prefer ebooks and audiobooks; the former because I can control the size of the font as my eyes age and the latter because I spend ninety minutes in a car five days a week). I found a reasonably priced used paperback edition if The Master of Middle-Earth along with a used paperback edition of A Tolkien Compass, edited by Jared Lobdell.

All Hallow’s Eve

While visiting my daughter last weekend, (see previous post), we spent part of Saturday visiting the Museum of Flight, and the rest of the day carving pumpkins, something I hadn’t done in decades. The last time I did this as a kid, was in the mid to late 70s when my grandmother spent a couple of weeks with my brother and I in October while my mom and dad were away on a trip. We did the more traditional carving of a face – eyes, nose and a mouth with jagged teeth.

Rachelle adding the finishing touches to her dragon carving Sunday morning.

Skip ahead a decade and a half in the mid 90s after I’d spawned two children of my own, both of whom were vastly more artistic than I ever dreamed of being. My daughter especially has always been good at 3D art. Thus her dragon is center stage in the photo above. My Balrog isn’t too shabby but not nearly as frightening as I’d hoped. Nic’s Raven is his nod to Poe, nevermore!

The kittens are not phased by the Balrog-to-be.

Happy Hallowe’en everyone!

My Daughter’s Debut as Principessa in Suor Angelica Tonight

In just a few hours I’ll be boarding a plane to the Pacific Northwest so I can visit my daughter and see her debut performance as Principessa in Suor Angelica for the Lyric Opera of the Northwest. This will be the second time this year I have seen this opera. Earlier this year, in May, Rachelle appeared at the Mistress of Novices for the St. Petersburg Opera.

Lost Leaf of Lorien

I listened to Chapter 9 “Flotsam and Jetsam” of Book Three of The Lord of the Rings (the unabridged audiobook of The Two Towers read by Rob Inglis) and I realized I made a grave mistake in my fanfiction story. I hadn’t been listening very long on my drive to work this morning when I heard the following conversation:

‘And here also is your brooch, Pippin,’ said Aragorn. ‘I have kept it safe, for it is a very precious thing.’
‘I know,’ said Pippin. ‘It was a wrench to let it go; but what else could I do?’
‘Nothing else,’ answered Aragorn. ‘One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters. You did rightly.’
Tolkien, J.R.R, The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 9 “Flotsam and Jetsam”

I immediately realized I had completely forgotten the return of the brooch to Pippin by Aragorn when they were reunited at the gates of Isengard. If I do decide to write a final draft of my Pippin short story, I will have to adjust it a bit to match the above.

Sunday Afternoon Train Ride

20191020_165615 — Terry reviewing the drink menu while we wait for boarding to finish.

This autumn marks a milestone for Terry and I. We met three dozen years ago last month. I can remember where we met, but I can’t remember the exact date. But the story of our meeting is a Moss Family urban, legend which I only share with close friends and family. To commemorate the occasion, Terry and I decided to try something completely different: dinner on a train going nowhere (literally I have a photo to prove that!).

Second Submitted Draft of My First FanFiction

Yesterday, I bravely supplied my first rough draft of my first ever fanfiction in a post about an interactive session I attended at MiddlMoot 2019. Today, I’m posting my second draft, and the one I submitted to be read and voted upon by the attendees of MiddleMoot.

20191019_072655 — First paragraph of second draft in my ‘better’ handwriting?

First Foray Into FanFiction

Nicole Evans preparing for her MiddleMoot 2019 session on FanFiction

On Saturday, October 12th, I attended my second MiddleMoot, hosted on the campus of Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo, Iowa. After the Welcome Address delivered by Robert Steed in the auditorium of Tama Hall, the first session I attended was a fascinating look at the theme of female grief as foresight and subcreation by Jude Bleile (more details forthcoming in a separate post). The following session I selected from the program was entitled “The Journey of FanFiction” presented by Nicole Evans, a fellow member of the Tolkien Society of Kansas City, a librarian, writer and blogger.

20191012_104747 — Fellow TSoKC members Ross and Robbie visit with Corey Olsen prior to Nicole’s presentation

Nicole spoke briefly about the history of fanfiction, even citing examples from her adolescence (over 12,000 on one site alone but who’s counting?) and explained the interactive nature of her session. We, the audience, would select five pieces of a story puzzle that we then would assemble creatively into a short fanfiction story. We could then enter our story into a pool to be read and voted on by attendees for a prize to be awarded at the end of the conference.

The five elements we would drew were Character, Object, Setting, Plot and First Lines. The photo below displays my drawing. We had approximately thirty minutes to compose our tales. We were to underline each item as we used it in our story so the readers/judges could confirm we had used all five.

Corey Olsen would write fanfiction using Odo as a character, the Arkenstone for an object, Mordor as a setting, sneaking into the Council of Elrond for a plot and start off with a first line of ‘I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.’
Audience Participation, The Journey of FanFiction

Welcome to the New Home for My Blog!

For the last nine years, my blog, Misty Midwest Mossiness, has languished as a ‘free’ site hosted at WordPress.com. That ‘free’ came with a slight headache, which eventually morphed into a migraine. My ability to host for ‘free’ meant being saddled with advertisements, the content of which I could not control.

I took a huge leap this week and dived into the Digital Ocean. I’ve created a couple of droplets, their term for virtual machines hosted in their cloud. I created this new home using one of their prefab Droplets in their Marketplace. I did have to buy a new domain name, mostly because I didn’t want to mess up and re-configure my existing domain name just yet. My new domain name – hennethannun.net – which reflects my ongoing love for all things Tolkien and sunsets. For more information about Henneth Annûn visit this brief article at the TolkienGateway.

I was able to export my blog (overnight) from WordPress.com and import it this morning in just a few minutes. I will leave the old blog in place for the rest of the year and monitor this new blog home to see if this is cost effective and won’t break my pocketbook.

I will be adjusting the look-and-feel of this new blog – rebranded as “Into the West” – over the next few days. Let me know what you think.

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