When the Very Air is a Lovely Fume

Recently discovered ad copy found in the shredder of the Dark Lord Advertising Agency:

One ring to rule them all.

One ring to find them.

One ring to bring them all

and in the darkness bind them.

In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie

and rock bottom prices for jewelry lurk around every corner.

You'd be crazy as a Gollum not to take advantage of our everyday low prices! We're practically giving them away - just ask the kings of dwarves and men!

Put one of our rings on the finger of that certain special someone and she'll be yours forever, provided you also purchase the Ruling Ring for half off the original price.

You can't go wrong, but if you do, you'll want one of precious rings - guaranteed never to fall off during an orc attack!

Hurry today before they vanish out the door.

Happy Birthday, Bilbo and Frodo

I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

You Suck

There's an interesting discussion going on here and here at Colleen Lindsay's blog about a recent piece by Richard K. Morgan criticizing Tolkien and his readers. I won't go into details - read the piece for yourself, the comments, and the comments at Colleen's blog. Many of the commentors are much more eloquent than I.

Instead, I would like to address the human tendency to define personal taste as the ultimate measure of universal quality. Far too often literary criticism consists of nothing more than what the critic thought the book should have been, and how disappointed they were that the author didn't write the book the way they think it should have been written.

Honest literary criticism would start from the point - does the work accomplish it's goal? Does it tell the story successfully within its own frame? Beyond that, everything else you can say about a piece of fiction is your personal opinion. An honest critic recognizes this. So I may hate, for example, The Da Vinci Code. I may have very good technical and artistic and personal reasons for hating it. I may, at a personal and professional level, believe readers are tricked into liking the book by Dan Brown's literary sleight-of-hand, and I may be baffled by their inability to see through his clumsy tricks. But the book succeeds at what it sets out to do. It is what it is (and that's all it is), and it is wildly successful at what it does, within its own frame of reference. I doubt it will be much remembered in 50 years, but only time will tell. Largely thanks to a harsh lesson I learned from a forgotten commentor on a web forum several years ago, I recognize that my opinion of a book and its supporters is just my opinion. People can honestly hold different opinions about a book and neither be, by definition, wrong. Or somehow mentally or emotionally flawed or underdeveloped.

But if you can't recognize that your opinion is just your opinion, well, then, you suck.

Your opinion may vary, consult your conscience.

Treasure Hunting

I've just gone through all 200-odd posts and added tags so my loyal readers can more easily search for the little nougets of wisdom hidden throughout this sucky blog.

In doing so, I've also noticed some areas of weakness on my part. Clearly, I'm not writing enough about sex or ghosts, so I need to work on that. Also, I've got more Harry Potter posts than Lord of the Rings posts, and that ain't right. Things that suck (at #2) is blowing the pants off Things that don't suck (just 3 posts!), and I've got way too many People are stupid posts, so I need to work on my attitude and try to be more positive. It would help if people weren't so stupid.

Now, I'm completely exhausted. I think I'll take a nap and maybe have sex with a ghost while watching Lord of the Rings.

Been There and Now We're Back Again

Peter Jackson signs on to produce The Hobbit.

This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The Lord of the Rings suffered because three three-hour movies wasn't enough time to tell the story. Especially when you start adding stuff... but I won't go there.

I fear that two movies will be too much time to tell The Hobbit. It's not that complicated of a story - There and Back Again - but a lot happens, too much for one movie, but not enough, I fear, for two, unless they plan to really drag out the Battle of Five Armies for, like, half the second movie. And frankly, that wouldn't surprise me a bit. I don't know that I would mind that. I think it would be cool to see dwarf armies in battle - it has the advantage of never having been done. And they could really add to the depth of the story by including some historical information that ties the Mines of Moria, the goblin war, and the seven rings of the dwarves into the story in a way that isn't presented in the original Hobbit.

If I were writing the screenplay, I would start it with Gandalf's chance encounter on the road to Bree. If you're reading this, Mr. Jackson, I am available. I have trained myself, body, mind and soul, for this task for the last twenty years. Call ME!

Hold This, Harry

As Atrios points out, "It's absolutely outrageous that one senator and one senator only appears to be blocking us from passing this piece of legislation," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Who? And what legislation? Why, Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican, and the legislation he has so cruelly put a hold on, completely stripping Harry Reid of his ability to act? A bill that would provide more money to investigate cold case files from the Civil Rights era.

But when it comes to Chris Dodd's hold to prevent a bill giving retroactive immunity to telecoms for spying on Americans, it's full fucking steam ahead for Battleship Harry. Because there's no fight he won't fight, damn the torpedoes, when it comes to delivering the goods for His Royal Corporate Majesty.

With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?

Earlier today, Juan Cole compared Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Democrats to a bunch of gentle hobbits facing off against the Orcs of Mordor. As I noted in comments (not yet posted), I'd much prefer hobbits. They at least will fight when backed into a corner.

One year ago, America had a Scouring of the Shire moment when Democrats took control of the House and Senate. But Reid and Pelosi immediately turned into high sheriffs and declared that expelling Sharky and his men was "off the table," I suppose because they liked the size and importance of the feathers in their caps. Apparently they are more frightened of what might happen if the horncall of Buckland is sounded and the general rabble of hobbitry is roused from its frightened lethargy. No telling who we might turn on next. Maybe even the high sheriffs!

This just shows you who our leaders really trust.

It ain't us hobbits, Frodo, my boy. So we must stick together.

Updating The Hobbit

Zaentz Rings in Jackson for Prequels

As Lord of the Rings fans mounted a protest following word that New Line had dropped Peter Jackson from consideration as director of The Hobbit and another Lord of the Rings prequel, producer Saul Zaentz has given assurances that Jackson will indeed direct the two films. A German website, Elbenwald.de, posted an interview with Zaentz, who acquired the rights to the works of the late Rings writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, in 1976 (the Saul Zaentz Company owns Tolkien Enterprises), in which Zaentz says, "It will definitely be shot by Peter Jackson. ... Next year The Hobbit rights will fall back to my company. I suppose that Peter will wait because he knows that he will make the best deal with us. And he is fed up with the studios: to get his profit share on the Rings trilogy he had to sue New Line. With us, in contrast, he knows that he will be paid fairly and artistically supported without reservation." (The preceding quotation is a translation that appeared on TheHobbit-Movie.com from the German interview posted on Elbenwald.de.)

A Prediction

Now that New Line has dropped Peter Jackson as director of The Hobbit, in what will probably go down as the most boneheaded move in the history of Hollywood boneheadedness, I predict the following things about the new Hobbit movie:

• They will move the shooting location to Vancouver and rebuild Hobbiton so that it looks nothing like the Hobbiton in Jackson's Lord of the Rings.
• The new director will go out of his or her way to distinguish The Hobbit in every possible way from both Jackson's and Tolkien's work.
• They'll get someone younger and less gay to play Gandalf.
• They'll hire the writers of the original Dungeons and Dragons movie to adapt the script from the Bass and Rankin screenplay.
• They'll hire Glenn Yarbrough to sing the theme song, which will be written by Hootie of Hootie and the Blowfish.
• They'll add a love interest for Bilbo. Gweneth Paltow will get the part, because hobbits are notoriously svelte. And blonde. She'll go on the journey, taking the place of Bombur in the story.
• There will only be six dwarves because thirteen is just too many for the audience to keep track of.
• They'll cut the trolls scene, and change the story so that Sting is a mathom sword that Bilbo has lying around the hole.
• They'll cut the scene with Beorn, and the scene with the spiders.
• They'll add an adventure wherein Bilbo and Gandalf rescue Ms. Paltrow from the Necromancer and return in time to save the dwarves from the Elf King.
• Bilbo will kill Smaug with Sting and the movie will end with Thorin crowned King Under the Mountain because the Battle of Five Armies is just too confusing and anticlimatic for American audiences.
• The movie will be a huge flop, bankrupting New Line, thus convincing Hollywood once again that fantasy movies are a bad investment. Of course, you and I know that it's bad fantasy movies that don't make money, but who are we to question people who are so wise as to drop Peter Jackson from the production of The Hobbit?