orichalcum

From Anthony Lane's review in the New Yorker: (no spoilers beyond the title)

"The one thing delaying any attempt to film Lewis' Narnia novels was the lack of technology; until recently, for example, there was no computer-imaging program powerful enough to re-create a wholly convincing wardrobe."

TLTWTW was the first Real Book I ever read all by myself, at the age of six.

( Easy Recipe for Turkish Delight )

( My favorite quote from the book: )
"Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." --from the preface to TLTWTW, C.S. Lewis

And if it's good, I get at least four more Birthday Movies!

Well, I can now say that I have trudged through a major snowstorm to _give_ a final. About 9.3 inches fell in 10 hours yesterday, on top of a 2-3 inch base, and I had to give a final in Latin from 7-9 PM. Most of the streets weren't paved, so I just followed the deep bootprints of the two or three crazy people in front of me.

But I'm sure my students particularly appreciated the cookies I made for them (following the tradition of one of my advisors, who noted that students always did better on their finals when they had sources of energy right to hand.

None of us were anywhere near Midway, thank goodness.

Hopefully later today I'll get some pictures of Eowyn, who is up to her belly in snow at the moment, and a bit confused by this whole thing. :)

The Spoiler-Free Part:

I loved this movie. Cried 2 minutes in, cried 2 hours in, marveled at the animals and the incredible range of lion-like yet communicative facial expressions on Aslan, found it deeply faithful to the book. The casting is perfect, and very oddly reminiscent of my own casting for my long ago Yale Children's Theater production of _Wardrobe_, although admittedly their evil dwarf looks nothing like ladybird97 and Aslan wasn't played by a large black woman with a pierced tongue. But the kids, especially Susan and Lucy, looked like my actors, unnervingly so.

A. found it mediocre, as a warning, but largely because of problems that he also has with the book, mostly concerning the characters of Susan, Edmund, and the White Witch.

Forgive the first 30 seconds of the movie, which were a horrific script choice.

( Spoilers ahead! Beware )

Memorable quotes coming later:

January: (4th) It's been a while since I've posted, and this'll stay pretty short, cuz I've got less than 24 hours till I leave for Th Big Life-Changing Job-Interview Conference in Boston an have much to do.

February: (1) Cuz it's a much more healthy way to procrastinate: Alea Iacta returns!

March 2: 239 pages later, with a complete draft, the thesis of my dissertation turns out to be that Roman elite males were anxious about the role of female prostitutes and condemned their excessive influence not because they despised female sexual activity or even female economic activity but because prostitutes were definitionally not loyal members of a family with a permanent bond to a specific man.

April 1: "Ma'am, we're not going to go down there and escort your Western bacon cheeseburger." Orange County Police Department.

May 2: How much of a Modern Major General Are You?
Well, almost to a Ph.D, I do pretty darn well on the humanities, but fall down on the other areas.

June 1st: In Britain, starting in a few months, gay Anglican priests will be able to enter into civil unions with their same-sex partners...but not have sex with them.

July 5th: Women Are Somebody Else's Problem
So, the NYTimes has this interesting article about bisexuality which claims, based on a recent study, that men may not actually be aroused by more than one gender, even if they consider themselves bisexual.

August 1: If you thought all the brouhaha about sexist hiring practices at Harvard was inflated by liberal feminists, take a look at this very simple bar graph.

September 1: Work: 5 years ago I was starting graduate school. I've done a lot in the meantime. I was still excited about taking classes and learning from Wise Old Ones.

October 1: Serenity Review - The non-spoiler version - Joss is better at TV shows.

November 4th: So, I've been rereading George R.R. Martin's _Game of Thrones_ in preparation, theoretically, for the new book that's about to come out, and this time through, have had several new thoughts I wanted to throw out there for commentary by fellow fans.

Dec 8th: The one thing delaying any attempt to film Lewis' Narnia novels was the lack of technology; until recently, for example, there was no computer-imaging program powerful enough to re-create a wholly convincing wardrobe."

And the song that stuck in my head all year:
"Cause you can't jump the track
We're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass glued to the table,
No one can find the rewind button boys so cradle your head in your hands
And breathe, just breathe, whoa breath just breathe
There's a light at the end of this tunnel you shout cause you're just as
far in as you'll ever be out
And these mistakes you've made
You'll just make them again if you'll only try turnin' around." --A. Nalick, "Breathe."