Last weekend I had the great fortune to join up with some of my hobbit posse in Manhattan to see the FotR symphony, a Tolkien manuscript exhibit, a talk with Howard Shore and some other Tolkien experts, and Billy Boyd's band Beecake. I'm still recovering from a sore throat, congestion, and tiredness, but it was totally worth it, as it was a wonderful time.
I drove up to
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lbilover's Thursday evening, where I met up with her wonderful self again, and met for the first time the delightful frodosweetstuff and belleferret. They had just gotten back from a Woodjin tour of the Pine Barrens. Having gotten lost in the Pine Barrens when I was a lil kidling, I was with them in spirit on that. Lbilover drove us into the city--bless her--to the Holiday Inn Midtown where we stayed for 2 nights with 8 hobbit dolls. It was quite comfortable, in a good location, and there was enough room for the hobbit dolls to skate back and forth on ice cubes without getting in our way.
Left to right, that's my Bingo and Sam with their stuffed koala and oliphant mathoms that Bilbo gave them this past birthday, Frodosweetstuff's very stylish Frodo with a nice shoulder bag and Sam with a spiffy leather jacket, oblivious to the other hobbits' presence as they make out, Lbilover's's Sam and Frodo who are old hands at multi-hobbit doll meet-ups, and Belleferret's Frodo and Sam, a little nervous at first at being around all these identical hobbits.
We left the dolls to party while we went to catch the subway down to Joe's Pub in the East Village for the Beecake concert. We met up with
aliensouldream there, who is so full of fun energy. If you've read Belleferret's or ASD's reports, you know that we had interesting company waiting on line to get into the concert with us. First we saw Howard Shore arrive and stand around by the line talking with friends. Then everyone got quiet and vibraty, and I turned around and saw Elijah Wood's un-mistakable lovely face about 3 feet behind me. So that was fun. The loveliest part was that it was a line of about 100 people or so, all fans who recognized Elijah and Howard, and yet only one or 2 people went up to bother them for pics, so they could run about like other people. It's nice to know not all A-list actors and Oscar winners are pursued by paparazzi or have to live in a People's Magazine type world. It's also nice to see these old coworkers being friends and supporting each other's gigs. They wound up sitting at tables with their friends in different ends in the middle of the room.Joe's Pub is a neat venue with a very high art deco ceiling over a framework of industrial pipes--kind of a steampunkish look. And we got a comfortable table in a front corner. The concert was fun. I wasn't wowed by the band, but their instrumentals were very good--a pretty Beatles-esque pop-rock-alt sound. I'd prefer Billy to use his gorgeous voice in a plainer style than the stylized way he uses it here, but it was still nice. I got a fuzzy pic of Billy on the way out.
The next morning we got up to go to the Tolkien manuscript exhibit at Fordham University a few blocks away and met up with ASD again. There were all kinds of things in the notes on exhibit that we're guessing haven't all made it into the HoME. I'm still reading through those, so I'll keep an eye out to be sure. But there were lists of hobbit measurements that we hadn't seen before, and I'll write up some notes I took of those in another post. There were notes on the Shire calendar, and on the languages. There was an ink drawing JRR had done of the Doors of Durin. And there were gorgeous drawings of pages from the Book of Mazarbul, that looked to be colored with colored pencils--lovely colorings. There were also graphs putting the happenings in LotR along a time line. We made many happy sighs as we read in the graphs, "Sam rescues Frodo." Lbilover pointed out, with much gratitude to the Professor, a wonderful sentence under a discussion of languages, that in comparison with "Bilbo, Sam, Meriadoc, or Peregrin . . . Frodo was more skilled in unusual sounds." It is a gift, a gift to the hobbit slash writers! Why not use this gift?
I was pretty felled at this point and all day by my time of the month coming full force with its accompanying TMI woes, but I soldiered on. Well, I whined quite a bit, but there was still so much fun to have this day, I still managed to have fun and not ruin anyone else's. We went to have lunch at the Trump building, and then went on to the Apple Store to accommodate Belleferret's religious practices. The hobbit dolls came out for a group shot in front of the Apple Store:
Then we went to FAO Schwartz to accommodate my religious practices. Bingo and Sam had an encounter there:
Luckily, this dragon only liked his hobbits with mustard, and there wasn't any mustard to be had there.
We went back to the hotel to rest a while, get changed for the concert, and wait for Lbilover's and my hobbits to get changed into their evening wear, and then we taxied down to Rockefeller Center to meet up with the lovely
honeyandvinegar, panmodal, verangel, nuke33, aliensouldream, and frolijah_fan_54. FF54 and we 4 hobbit doll wranglers went for the 68 story view at Top of the Rock. On the way up the Hobbit dolls posed in front of the window facing Radio City Music Hall's marquee.
Then we headed up 68 stories, and what we saw will be the subject of the next post.
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Well, you know, there's RotK here in September . . . (-;
*hugses*
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RotK symphony with the film is September 11th at Wolftrap, an open air concert shell in Virginia that is a 45 minute drive from where I live. A few people are planning to come already, so I'm going to plan a moot and reserve a guest apartment in my building, and maybe reserve a motel room nearby if more people decide to come. Cali and I will also be putting up a couple of folks at out apartments. Come if you can! (-:
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