Hobbit Day

Today is Hobbit Day, the day fans of J.R.R. Tolkien celebrate his work. Why the 22nd of September? Because it is the date of the birthday of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. It kind of make sense that their birthday is on the 22nd of September: autumnal equinox, time for change, call for adventure. How would you observe Hobbit Day? I guess most would read The Lord of The Rings, particularly the chapters surrounding Bilbo's birthday. Here I mark it with an illustration of Alan Lee: Frodo (or is it Bilbo? I do think it's Frodo) discussing with Gandalf. But if I could, I'd spend the day with my brothers playing a game of Dungeons & Dragons, set in a halfling village. Like for many people, Tolkien's world brought us to D&Dr and it inspired us a lot, so it would make perfect sense.

De la nature de L'ostie d'chat

Quelque chose m'est venu en tête à propos de L'ostie d'chat. Bon, je le savais déjà, enfin j'en étais conscient dès ma première lecture de la bande dessinée, mais j'y ai pensé plus en détail ce soir. Le chat en question, appelé Legolas (ainsi nommeé en l'honneur de, ben, lui), est en fait un MacGuffin. Il est donc un prétexte à l'histoire. Sa présence dans la bande dessinée est périphérique et il apparaît donc très peu, toujours pour faire interagir les personnages et lancer ou relancer l'action, ou encore mettre certaines résolutions en suspens. On sait très peu de son passé, sinon qu'il a eu un ancien propriétaire schizo qui s'est suicidé. On sait aussi qu'il est moche, contrairement à son homonyme. Sinon, il n'est pas le personnage principal d'une bédé dont il est le titre.

L'ostie d'chat

Ce fut mon coup de coeur lors de mon dernier séjour à Montréal: L'ostie d'chat, la bande dessinée d'abord parue en webcomic, comme un serial, puis maintenant disponible en bande dessinée sur papier. J'ai acheté les trois tomes, plus les bonus, en deux coups. Le premier achat était simplement le tome 1, pour voir si j'aimerais, puis dès le lendemain j'ai fait l'acquisition du reste. je ne suis pas un acheteur compulsif, sauf lorsqu'il s'agit de bouquiner. Pourquoi j'ai accroché comme ça? Outre le titre et le félin, qui n'a pas vraiment l'air d'un félin d'ailleurs. En fait, c'est assez peu à propos du chat, appelé Legolas, ou Lego pour faire court.

Mais c'est surtout sur son entourage et ses propriétaires improvisés: Jasmin (le grand à gauche) et Jean-Sébastien, qui vivent leurs vies montréalaises sur le Plateau Mont-Royal (en tout cas le Plateau est souvent la scène de leurs mésaventures) un peu comme je la vivais lorsque j'étais Montréalais d'adoption. Jasmin est un aspirant musicien rock, Jean-Seb un gars d'origine italienne travaille dans la haute technologie, même si sa vocation est la gastronomie. Fait intéressant: on dirait souvent que Jean-Seb a été dessiné suivant mon modèle, comme sur cette couverture. Alors voilà. C'est drôle, souvent tendre sans jamais être gnangnan, ça peut être très sombre aussi (Legolas a été adopté à la suite du suicide de son ancien propriétaire). Et bon, parfois, ça parle de chats.

Lead figures and sharing memories

Here is another episode of my last time in Québec, I hope nobody minds. During the time of my stay in my parents' house in Chicoutimi, my godson and his family came see us for a Sunday roast. As the roast beef was cooking (for it was what we were having), his sister went to my bedroom's desk do her homework and my godson asked for some colour crayons to colour a drawing he had made. We couldn't find crayons, but looking everywhere we found some old toys and games in a cupboard, including these lead figures of Dungeons & Dragons stock characters and The Lord of the Rings. Back during my geeky teenage, we were using them as... Well, as nothing really. We just had them on display during the games, or on the mantelpiece, for fun. I had started buying them to my bros as Christmas presents, first trying to find figures resembling their characters, then more stuff to expand the collection. They really got into it. It served no purpose but to look nice, like some visual aid to build some kind of atmosphere.

And when I found them, in a box above an old, old, old puzzle box my parents must have given me when I was four, my godson got fascinated by them. He found them "super cool". Which is his expression for lots of things he gets into: Viking mythology, Harrods' figures of British guards, a book on whales he sees on the shelves, etc. But those figures, they were coolness made lead. He asked me one by one what they were, we took them all out of their box and placed them on the puzzle's box and I had to explain what each one was: this is a wizard, this is a ranger, this is a priest, this is a druid, this is a knight with a morningstar as a weapon, this is an ogre mage, this is a blue dragon (which blows lightnings, as any D&Dr gamer knows), this is a lich, this is a griffon, and so on. Of course, I also had to explain what the character or the monster could do and find the owner of every limb and weapon that had been broken. When it was all done, he asked if we should move everything back in the box. I said I would do it later, because I wanted to take a picture of the improvised display. His father told me that my godson is hyperactive, but when he gets his mind into something he remains quiet and focused. It is very true, as I could witness it then. I wonder if he will one day follow his geeky godfather and one day play Dungeons & Dragons. In any case, I am very glad he finds lead figures so darn cool.

An academic memory

I have been watching pictures of my British alma mater, which made me feel quite nostalgic of the time. This picture is the building of the Senior Common Room, which is where I used to go when I was a PhD student after a paper. Like all universities, we had plenty of common rooms, but this was my favorite one, as it was theoretically reserved for academics, or aspiring academics, as I was at the time and staff. Junior common rooms, or JCR, were basically glorified bars, lesser bars in fact. The SCR was situated in an older building in a cedar surrounded part of the campus. The beers on the tap were real ales and this much better than what one could find on campus, and they were offering a menu that was actually quite decent. I remember especially a chicken and bacon lasagne (with garlic bread on the side) that I used to eat for supper every other Thursday, right after a guest lecturer (usually a medievalist as it was my field of studies) had given us a paper about something or other. As I usually did not have lectures or classes on Friday, it was my treat before the weekend: chicken and bacon lasagna and beer. I also had tea there, but this was more occasional. I used to walk to there via a small trail that used to get quite muddy. Some of my French friends, who were into Lord of the Rings, had nicknamed it the Hobbit's path. With the pseudo-medieval look of the building itself, my own field of studies, I have to confess the whole place and its surroundings reminded me of a Dungeons & Dragons setting.

Sigurd and the Dragon

I left work earlier because of the snow that fell over the UK. Luckily, the trains left on time, so I was not stranded anywhere. Anyway, I spent my free afternoon reading, amont other things (as I read many books at the same time) Gods and Heroes from Viking Mythology. I am still at the creation of the world, with frost giants being very loud when they are having council, which is irritating Odin and his brothers. I am looking forward to get into the stories of Viking heroes.

Last Christmas, I read the story of Sigurd to my godson, because he had been very impressed by the image I uploaded on the right (drawing by Giovanni Caselli). I say I read it, but I didn't read it much, as it was quite a long story. I barely had time to read the introduction, until Fafnir murders his father Hreidmar and turns into a dragon. At least my godson had time to see the dragon get into the story. My mother kept telling me: "Oh, just read the bit about the dragon!". But it is difficult for the story to make any sense without any context. So I read it from the beginning, until he started dozing off. Of course I looove the legend of Sigurd. I read the Sigurd legend before the stories it had inspired, among them The Lord of The Rings, so it has an "original" charm to me.

Hobbits airlines safety

This is the first English post of November. A quick one because I feel deflated. I was feeling very bluesy today, with Halloween being over and all. At work I have a Kiwi colleague and she showed us an advert/airplane safety instructions from Air New Zealand. I don't want to spoil any punch, but it features a certain mythical place featured in a classic book, which came to life in a certain trilogy of movies made by a certain Kiwi director in New Zealand. What else? Oh yes, there is a small nod at Dungeons & Dragons. In any case, it is irresistible and by far the coolest, most entertaining safety instructions I ever watched.

A Hobbit's home

I read this piece of news in the Metro today, it made me smile: a family in Wales built a house under a hill, just like a Hobbit's house. The geek I am sometimes (often) with (sometimes) hippy tendencies got envious reading this. Who wouldn't live in a Hobbit's home? You read Tolkien's books and you think that's stuff of fairy tale, modern fiction at best. And yet it is possible. And it looks like it does in fiction. I am not sure how eco-friendly this house really is, but it sure has character. Primitive, yet it seems quite cosy. I have been living in the attic for the last few years (properly in the attic since 2007), it is how I prefer to live, but I do find the idea of living undergrounds, or at least underhill, if there is plenty of light, very appealing.

What to read where

This is a follow up of this post. I thought about it quite a lot, and a recent post by Leigh Russell got me thinking about it again (and by the way Leigh enjoy your time in the Midi). As I said pretty often here I am a seasonal reader, I read according to the time of the year (horror stories before Halloween, novels set in a heatwave if I am in the middle of one, etc). Maybe I should be, sometimes, a "setting" reader. I thought about it a lot: one understands a country better through its literature. So here is a list of authors or titles I would read, or recommend to read, when I/one visits a place, or travels to a place (disclaimer: I did not visit all these places):

 -Chicoutimi: The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi. Well, duh!
-Japan: something by Yukio Mishima. Read one novel of him, in cégep. If I ever go to Japan, I will pick up one of Mishima's work.
-Florence: Machiavel, in the text if I can, or with a translation on the side.
-Los Angeles: Raymond Chandler, definitely.
-Oxfordshire: Something by Tolkien. You visit the English countryside and you see the Shire, like my dad remarked recently.
-Rome: I would probably reread Bear's Roman Women. I know, I know. I am shamelessly plugging Burgess again. But it is such a great read. I would probably try to read some Italian poets, in the text. I would ask an Italian friend to give me a few tips. Not Dante, I got fed up with him.
-South Africa: something by Deon Meyer. I only read Dead at Daybreak, basically a crime novel about the ghosts of Apartheid, but I want to read more of this author. My mum made me discover this one. It has been too long.
-Train journeys (especially long ones): No, not this one! If you read French, try this one. Tonino Benacquista is sadly not very well known outside the French speaking world. A shame.
-Sea journeys, or beach holidays: Moby Dick or Treasure Island. Just because.