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Monday Meandering

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(Image by gorbould…check out the rest of his work, it is very good!)

Two more weeks left in October…two more weeks left for R.I.P. III Challenge activities…and boy is the weather here in the Kansas City area starting to look and feel just like autumn should feel. On this Monday, post 24-hour read-a-thon and post helping my parents move (a subject that will be examined in a melancholy post in November) I just thought I would discuss a cornucopia of things that are on my mind today.


(Gold River by Philippe Sainte-Laudy. Wonderful images, check out his site!)

If you like the images above I highly recommend that you do some searching on Flickr. Simply typing the word ‘Autumn’ in the search box will yield image after glorious image, many of which include those magical words ‘all sizes’ to the above left of the image. Those words mean that more than likely a wallpaper sized image can be had. I have found a wide variety of images I hope to use for wallpaper as the seasons pass. Just a friendly reminder, make sure to give credit where credit is due. On another note, these images are also incredibly inspiring. There are many wonderful, talented photographers and artists out there on Flickr.
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This past weekend was the second and final 24 Hour Read-A-Thon of the year! Congrats to all of you who participated, be it for a few hours or for the entire 24. Mad props to those who made it the entire 24 hours! Wow! That is some dedication. I look forward to the spring 2009 read-a-thon. Hopefully we can do a Once Upon a Time Mini-Challenge as a part of it. Speaking of mini-challenges, Congrats to Callista for winning the R.I.P. III mini-challenge prize pack!

Speaking of the read-a-thon, Dewey’s husband posted on her site that she is in the hospital. From all indications it appears that all is well but I encourage those of you who do so to keep her in your prayers and send positive thoughts her way.
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The R.I.P. III Tiny Stories submission date has passed. Tomorrow (hopefully) your stories will be traveling across the internet superhighway to Lisa Snellings and Stuart Clark for judging. I hope to announce the winners later in the week. Congrats to all of you who gave it a shot. I am always thrilled to see what folks come up with and look forward to sharing this year’s stories with you.

Don’t forget that the Something Sinister II Photo Contest is now in progress. Get those images in, you have until the end of the day Wednesday, October 29th! Don’t be intimidated, exercise those creative muscles.
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(image found here)
As the weather turns cool and November approaches I start hearing the strains of the music of The Lord of the Rings and it is only the delight of eerie reading that keeps me from diving into full on LOTR mania early. I did cheat a bit today, watching a few scenes from Fellowship of the Ring. Yes, it may have been because I was testing a new DVD software program, but let’s be honest…I was cheating.

I blame talk radio. On the way in to work this morning I heard that Viggo Mortensen, Aragorn, turned 50 today. Happy Birthday Viggo!!! I have had LOTR on my brain all day. A perusal of One Ring dot Net revealed that master composer Howard Shore’s birthday was this past Saturday, the 18th. Belated birthday wishes to him as well.

In honor of both men and as a precursor to the annual LOTR talk in November I give you this:

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Speaking of LOTR, the film Reclaiming the Blade is nearing completion. This documentary is narrated by John Rhys-Davies and includes a handful of folks involved in the LOTR trilogy including Viggo Mortensen, Karl Urban, John Howe and more.

From the website:

“The Medieval and Renaissance blade, a profound and beautiful object handcrafted by master artisans of old. An object of great complexity, yet one with a singular use in mind- it is designed to kill. The truth of the sword has been shrouded in antiquity, and the Renaissance martial arts that brought it to being are long forgotten. The ancient practitioners lent us all they knew through their manuscripts. As gunslingers of the Renaissance they were western heroes with swords, and they lived and died by them. Yet today their history remains cloaked under a shadow of legend.”

I am really looking forward to this and I hope it lives up to expectations. Here is a teaser trailer if you are interested:

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As part of my travels this weekend and in the spirit of the R.I.P. III Challenge I listened to the audio version of Neil Gaiman’s latest novel, The Graveyard Book. It is no secret how much I loved reading the book. I can say with all honestly…and with no prejudice whatsoever 😉 …that the audio version is WONDERFUL!!! Neil Gaiman is the consummate storyteller and to hear him voice the characters that he himself created is pure pleasure. If you have a chance to purchase it or check it out from your local library please do. You will not be disappointed. I was so excited to experience this story for a second time this month and it exceeded all my expectations.

Trick or treat is soon to come. In my book you all deserve a treat and so I offer you this enchanting, short interview (from Wired) with Neil Gaiman regarding The Graveyard Book.

Enjoy!

16 thoughts on “Monday Meandering”

  1. Thanks for all the videos Carl…I was very intrigued by the interview by Neil Gaiman as I have the book but going to read it when I’m done with American Gods!

  2. I love that pumpkin photo! We finally have dreary rain weather, with the possibility of snow showers, so it feels like winter is coming! I love how you write about Neil Gaiman….and LotR, which funnily enough, I have lately started thinking I was due to start watching again too! I was also thinking of a photo possibility for the contest… 🙂 Have a good week, Carl!

  3. Ah, it seems many admirable men celebrate a day of birth in October. My husband’s is tomorrow; the apple pie I baked in lieu of a cake sits cooling on the counter as I type. Now THERE’S an image of Autumn.

    I will say a prayer for Dewey.

    And, now I’m tempted to take a day of school to watch the trilogy with my son. Who, like you, can never get enough. That’s a good thing: it turned him into a reader!

  5. Wow…what a jam-packed-full-of-goodies this post is! I absolutely adore that pumpkin photo…so forlorn.

    I know it’s all your doing, but I’ve been thinking it almost a necessity that we watch LOTR over Thanksgiving this year.

  6. Debi: I’ll certainly shoulder the blame for you becoming obsessed with LOTR. I cannot think of any more wonderful accusation.

    Jeff: Great, isn’t it?

    Bellezza: Happy Birthday to your husband! I would love to take a day off and do that as well. Alas I don’t think I will be doing so, but I’ll certainly get a lot of LOTR watching done in November and December.

    Susan: Good, I hope you do enter into the photo contest, that would be great! It is easy to write about Neil, thanks. He brings out the best in me. Snow?!?! I’m not quite ready for that, but the desire for snow is sitting right there, out on the very edge of my perception. I’ll be wanting it very soon.

    Kristina: I suspect you’ll love the book. The interview makes me want to go out and read Jungle Book. I especially love how he talks about being able to run free as a child and how that doesn’t happen today. I remember being able to do that as well and like him I did not let me daughter do the same as she was growing up.

  7. I simply cannot wait to get my hands on The Graveyard Book. I’m going to borrow it for a friend before I spring for it myself (although, I’m sure I’ll love it).

  9. Ok, I followed your suggestion and looked at autumn photos on Flickr and now I’ve totally lost track of what I was doing! My head is filled with wonderful colors of red, orange, brown, and yellow… And now I have a new wallpaper. Now, on the to the rest of your post…

  11. The sky in that first photo you included is just stunning! And I love the colours of the second. I’ll definitely check out the artist’s galleries. Thank you so much for the links!

    The RIP mini-challenge was such fun. I’m already looking forward to the April read-a-thon and the Once Upon a Time mini-challenge. I have no doubt it will be just as perfect.

    Reclaiming the Blade sounds so great! Thanks for the trailer, I hadn’t seen it before.

  12. You treated us to a cornucopia indeed, Carl. I love posts like this, full of lots of goodies. I quite enjoyed the interview with Neil Gaiman on The Graveyard Book. I think I will listen to the book first, rather than read it. Hearing a story is so very different than reading it, and I am sure I will concur that hearing it read by the author is wonderful. Gaiman has a great ‘radio’ voice.
    My mother read to me every night, until I was old enough to read on my own. Of course I read to my children, and those are some of my most cherished memories of their childhood. My daughter had a lot of trouble reading, so I read all of her homework and reading assignments to her until she was 10 or 11. It was wonderful to climb into bed after dinner and read Anne Frank’s Diary or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Fortunately (or unfortunately, for me) the reading thing clicked for her in 6th grade, and I didn’t get to read to her any more. Sadly, she never learned to love reading. She is nineteen now – and I wonder if I brought out a really good book, if she would let me read. I think I will give it a try.

  13. I’m just about to go buy The Graveyard Book on iTunes. I can’t wait to hear him read it. I can put audio books on my iPhone and listen to them at work 😉 So that’s the plan. It’ll be a nice way to drown out the craziness.

    Love those pics. Great idea to use them as wallpaper…I think I may go find myself some Fall backgrounds.

    And I’ve been in a LOTR mood too lately. I’ve been dying to reread The Hobbit for the 4th time, so I think I may break that one out again in November and then follow it up with the LOTR trilogy. I still haven’t read The Simarilion or The Children of Hurin yet! I need to get those read. I just need a couple of Tolkien months! Did you see there’s a new Tolkien book coming out soon called Tales from the Perilous Realm??? It looks great!

  14. I have that exact same shot of Viggo on my bulletin board. My hubby printed it out for my for Valentine’s Day. What a guy! 🙂

    Now I’m in the mood to watch LOTR again. That and Band of Brothers are the only flicks I can watch over and over again.

  15. Definitely let’s do a Once Upon a Time mini-challange!

    Thank you for thinking of me. I’m home and doing fine now. 🙂

    I’m in love with the Philippe Sainte-Laudy photo. Off to his site!

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