Browsing Tag

things that are awesome

The Internet

Thank you, Kickstarter

As a quick followup to yesterday’s post, I’d like to note that userinfoariaflame has just brought to my attention that Kickstarter has issued an excellent apology about their actions this week. They’ve owned up to what they did and are taking steps to make it right, including a sizable donation to RAINN.

I’ve already updated my previous post with an ETA about this, but I wanted to call this out separately as well and issue a public thank you to Kickstarter for these actions. As someone who’s run a Kickstarter of her own, I feel that this goes a long way to restoring my faith that they are a safe, creative space for everybody.

Movies

On the Desolation of Smaug trailer, and Tauriel!

And lo, yesterday, the Internet did quake with the coming of the first trailer of The Desolation of Smaug! And it was GOOD. Internet, I AM EXCITE. Because OMG the shot of Bilbo at the top of the trees with the butterflies. OMG the barrels tumbling down the waterfall. OMG there’s Bard the Bowman. And OMG THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF SMAUG! \0/

If you haven’t seen it yet, behold!

I’ll just say this right now: after seeing Legolas and Tauriel, I have just two words for Mr. Jackson. Those words are: HEADCANON ACCEPTED!

I do not give a fat flying damn that Legolas is not actually in the book. He is after all Thranduil’s son, and it makes sense for him to be around. I’m absolutely fine with his presence. Particularly if he’s going to be badassed and pretty and shooting things.

I give even less of a damn that Tauriel is entirely a figment of Peter Jackson’s imagination. Those of you familiar with my longstanding Elfquest fandom will know how much I appreciate a clearly badassed female elf. Those of you familiar with my longstanding Tolkien fandom, likewise. Because after all, Lúthien, Galadriel, and Éowyn are my top favorite characters all over Tolkien’s works. Especially Lúthien–because, hello, badassed female elf, even though her badassery is less combat-oriented and more magical.

Also, having read the relevant chapter of The Hobbit not terribly long ago, I do note that Thranduil does in fact have a guard captain. Yes, he’s male in the story, but he’s so incidental a character that I have no problems whatsoever with Jackson pulling a genderflip.

I’d pretty much already decided that I’m on board with Dara’s interpretation of Jackson’s movies, which is to say, Middle-Earth has reached such mythic status that Jackson’s simply now adding extra versions of the same stories into the rich tapestry of stories available. It’s like Greek mythology–there are several different versions of any given Greek myth, depending on what sources you check. With the works of Tolkien, it’s simply that we know which ones are the original canon. Same deal with superhero stories, which are certainly giving us our modern mythic heroes.

Or, if you will, Jackson’s just giving us some damn good AU fanfic. In which case HEADCANON ACCEPTED makes all the more sense. ;D

Here’s one more thing that makes me willing to deal with Tauriel’s presence as well: wondering honestly whether she’s fated to die in the Battle of Five Armies. This would, I think, make narrative sense. I mean, we know what happens to Legolas. We know he starts off bitterly anti-dwarf in LotR, and that it takes his friendship with Gimli to pull him out of it. If the rumblings I’m hearing about Tauriel being his love interest in these films are true, and she goes out in a tragic blaze of glory in the Battle of Five Armies, it would work quite neatly to set up his sentiments in the other films.

Until we get film #3, though, I’ll be over here admiring her badassery. Because redheaded elf with a bow who looks like she knows how to use it? SIGN ME THE HELL UP.

Music

A bit of musical squee!

And now, several moments of musical squee from last night!

In a move that should surprise absolutely NOBODY who pays attention to what I post for more than five minutes running, a little part of my brain demanded last night, “YOU NEED TO FIGURE OUT THE CHORDS TO VIVE L’AMOUR NOW.”

Because y’all knew this was coming, right? I mean, what with all the delighted slurping up I’ve done of chords for Great Big Sea songs, working on Le Vent songs was pretty much inevitable. I’d already futzed around a bit with “Lanlaire”, but “Vive l’amour” is pretty much the other major song of theirs that’s prone to grabbing my guitar-based attention. So it’s the easy and obvious candidate for me to play with.

So I did! And there I am last night with Ti-Jéan in my lap, and I’ve got my piccolo too to try to twiddle out the melody line and make sure the key is actually what I think it is–which, for general reference, is G. And the first moment of squee is when I’m hitting note on the piccolo and the guitar strings start echoing them back at me, in this strange, lovely resonance that sounds a lot like a wet fingertip running around a wineglass. Very, very cool.

Second moment of musical squee: realizing that the chords to the song are in fact dead simple. Dara and I like to make cracks about GBS’ “Goin’ Up” being subtitled “Four Chords No Brain”, and really, “Vive l’amour” is pretty much the exact same chords in a different order (G, C, Em, and D) with occasional bonus A minor thrown in in places. What I haven’t quite gotten down yet is the strum pattern, since I keep wanting to play GBS-style and that doesn’t work with the flow of the song. But I broke out the original studio recording, the one Bernard Simard sings lead on, and it’s easier to follow that one on guitar than it is the Symphonique version. I foresee several more spins through this as I get it down. And possibly transposing into D, or maybe capoing up a fret or two, so I can get it into a better range for me to sing. 😀

Third moment of musical squee: realizing that in the huge pile of sheet music transcriptions of various Quebec tunes I’ve slurped down from a couple of places, I do in fact have the reel that serves as the outro for this song! “Reel à Ti-Zoune”! WOO! Much fun to be had there as well!

And the final moment of musical squee for the evening was in fact unrelated to any of the above, but it’s also goddamned awesome so I’ve gotta squeal about it here too. Dara came downstairs with the mandolin last night and plucked out for me, I kid you not, a swing arrangement of “Road to Lisdoonvarna”. Y’know, the most basic of basic jigs in the Irish tune repertoire. She’s got a PROJECT in mind for this. And she’s jazzing this tune the hell up. She played it for me and I instantly had the swing band sound she’s envisioning pop into my head, complete with a full rocking horn section. I wanted to be able to play trumpet JUST so I could actually play that lovely thing myself. I cannot WAIT to see how her project progresses. Because this, ladies and gentlemen, is how Dara rolls.

Comics

I’d just like to take this opportunity to say SQUEE

I squeed about this on the social networks yesterday, but for those of you who may have missed it, Richard and Wendy Pini released the news that Dark Horse is going to be picking up publishing Elfquest! They linked up to this story on Comics Beat that has pertinent details!

Dark Horse is going to re-publish older material as well as start putting out the new stuff as well–the prologue bit that was recently serialized on Boing Boing, AND the new actual main story, “The Final Quest”, once it starts in earnest! And there will be print and digital releases!

This news fills with me HAPPY. And soon my iPad will be filled with ELFQUEST.

Because yeah, I have all the previously released print material, but I’ll adore having it in digital form as well. I know it’s been available to read for free for ages on elfquest.com (which is AWESOME), but that depends upon having a live Internet connection. And I do love the idea of having omics to read right on my iPad!

Plus: DARK HORSE! Who’ve been the main place I’ve been buying comics from at all, what with their excellent Buffy season 8 and season 9 series, as well as the stories they’ve done for the Firefly universe. They should be an excellent home for Elfquest and I am looking very much forward to giving them more of my money. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my own treatment of elf characters can trace the majority of its lineage right back to the Wolfriders and the Sun Folk, and I am over the moon that Elfquest is coming back to us again. 😀

Valor of the Healer

I… wait… WHAT?

Um, Internets? I just found a thing checking my Google Alerts. Somebody check me here. I’m not seeing things, right?

I’m not seeing MY BOOK mentioned in an article on usatoday.com?!

Because it sure as hell looks like I’m getting mentioned. Down at the bottom, in an article predominantly about shapeshifter paranormal romance, BUT STILL.

I… wha… um. I think I need to sit down.

*sits down*

ETA: Because seriously, people, this isn’t even COMPUTING in my head! I’m all “wait wait WHAT? People who AREN’T ME, and who DO NOT ALREADY KNOW ME, are aware that this book now exists? As an actual THING that can be bought and read? And they’re POSTING about it? On a site that people outside of fandom might actually browse?”

With a side helping of “wait wait wait I’m the ‘fantasy’ after-dinner mint in an article otherwise all about paranormal romance?!”

This is what just happened to my head, Internets:

GIR's Head Explodes

GIR’s Head Explodes

Great Big Sea, Music

A Great Big Pile of Great Big Sea!

Great Big Sea’s Facebook account announced this morning that the the CBC Radio 3 account on YouTube posted a whole MESS of videos from a concert this past November in Ontario.

Really. GOOD. Videos. Like this one of “River Driver”. Jesus Jumping CHRIST on a pogo stick, the bass on Murray in this. +50 to the sound engineers who worked this show, because I have never swooned so hard at the harmony mix on this song.

And there’s MORE OH MY GOD MORE. Enough that I must really hope that this is potential future DVD footage, because I would buy the HELL out of this.

It’s an entire MINI-CONCERT! Enjoy this, if you’re starting the three-day weekend here in the States!

The Internet

And now, nerd humor!

If you have access to a command shell on your computer and you have the traceroute command available, type this, for lo, there are lols to be found. No other hints shall be given!

traceroute 216.81.59.173

(For those of you who don’t know what traceroute is, it’s a command that shows you all the hops necessary to go from your computer to the computer you’re trying to get the route to. It shows the names and IP addresses of intervening hosts.)

If you don’t have immediate access to a command line, click over to userinformd‘s LJ where she has thoughtfully captured the output for your amusement!

H/t to both userinformd and my own belovedest userinfosolarbird!