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I work with two people who emphatically profess to have been bored to death by LotR, both the books and the movies. Now the latter I can understand, but the books? My main complaint about the movies so far was that they cut so many of the more quiet poetic and funny moments in favour of action scenes partly even of their own invention. I'm not a rabid fangirl (except when I leave the cinema whining and ranting about what Peter Jackson and his cast IMO messed up this time) - Tolkien's writing has lost much of the appeal it had for me 10, 15 years ago. These days I tend to get irritated by the pseudo-epic style and the stark black and white of the moral conflict; faceless evil incarnate only holds a very limited interest for me. But some passages and characters I'm still rather fond of and to have them called boring and tedious by implication is a bit harsh. Part of me wanted to shout blasphemy!... Is this an age thing? One of them is 19, the other 23. Then again, probably just a matter of varying tastes, no need for me yet to go all grandmotherly and complain about what today's youth is coming to.


On an entirely unrelated note, I picked up at work this 3CD compilation 'Forbidden, not forgotten', about composers forbidden, persecuted and murdered by the Nazis.

The historical background hardly bears thinking about - my favourite piece (and even this expression sounds slightly wrong in the context) is 'Partita für Streicher' by Gideon Klein, written in 1944 in the ghetto of Theresienstadt, the composer was deported to Auschwitz only a few days after he finished it and killed there. Pavel Haas, 'Studie für Streichorchester', also murdered in Auschwitz, as was Hans Krása ('Brundibár' - an opera for children).

I'm not a musical person; my knowledge about classical music especially is not even sketchy to begin with and for that reason I hesitate to write about my occasional tentative (and extremly random) venturings in this direction, though even understanding as little as I do I'm beginning to think it'll maybe occupy me more in the future. Even listening to an alternative radio station, recently so much of the music tends to quickly bore me... :: sigh :: Maybe I'm really growing old. Or maybe just growing up...

(no subject)

Strange dream I had this morning between the alarm going off and me actually waking up an hour later...

( ... )

Woke up and the room was actually light for once, after days and days of dense fogs and gloom; a clear morning, storm shaking the bare trees in the yard, chasing the clouds over the sky, glimpses of blue and sun. During the day it clouded over with a slight rain, but it was a cold and clear night when I came home, moon and stars out.


Andromeda season 3 finale. Just. Wow. I have no words. Or rather, I actually have quite a lot of words but won't be able to turn them into a comprehensive and coherent post tonight and still get up in time for a whole day of Christmas cookie baking tomorrow. Need to sleep, badly.

Suffice it to say that it almost - almost - reconciled me with a lot of the 3rd season crap, but really, would it have hurt them (other than KS's ego that is - presumably) to let KHC bring out the Shakespeare like that more often... it would have vastly improved the series.

Prepared one of tomorrow's cookies, then got stuck in front of the tv watching 'Billy Elliott', which was really quite good and not too cliched; some very touching moments and the kid who played Billy was amazing.