Art Commission

And the winners are....

Meredith -- unicorn (No specifics! Woo!)

Joy --Eugenides, The Queen of Attolia (This will be embarrassingly easy)
Kathy -- a griever, The Maze Runner (This will be challenging!)

Congrats!!! I'm excited about this little project, I've found the idea charming in its entirety. I'll start at the top of the list and hopefully crank out one every few days. I'll post a picture of the results and then contact each of the winners to m This is my first time doing something so interactive on my blog and I've had a great time, hope you've enjoyed yourselves too!

Quenarth's Blirthday Party

>> WINNERS FOR THE ART COMMISSION WILL BE ANNOUNCED TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT (3/30/2011) Three names will be randomly drawn. Click on the Art Commission tab if you haven't voted yet!

"Hooray! This is splendid!" -- Mr. Toad

     Come in everybody! Welcome! Here, have a party hat.

     This is splendid! I'm afraid I'm rather like Toad as your host today. As much as I'd like to be sweet Molely or the wise Rat, we're dealing with the serious exuberance of Party Business and I warn you the fever is catching ... we may have to steal a motorcar after the ice cream.

     So have a seat, I'll serve the cold ginger beer and we'll get started!

     Three questions about blogging: Put your responses in the comments of this post. This way, I get to know you better* and who knows...you could make a friend (i.e. "follower.")

*Or know even less. Creative responses are encouraged. Maybe you're really a secret agent from the future merely disguised as a quiet bookstore owner who leaves encrypted messages on his blog. Hey, I would click on the link to that blog.

Happy Blirthday!

     Some call it a blogiversary, but I have "commitment issues" with my blog so lets not make this any more complicated by throwing about marriage analogies. Others, the serious bloggers, write special posts that begin "This day marks x years of blogging..." and then continue on their ponderous way to make their earth shattering post.

     But we, dear readers, are going to have fun. Or I am, at least. Quenarth turns TWO this Saturday and we're going to have a  blirthday! And we're starting off with a poll located (lovely Vana White gesture) to the right. Feel free to leave any questions in the comments of this post.

The Options

Book Giveaway -- self explanatory. I have very few books that I actually part with but there's the odd volume of fiction lying about that I've read once and vowed never to read again. So this just goes to show how much I love you...I'll be giving away books like Mockingjay.

Art Commission -- I will draw, in graphite, any (except Harry Potter!!!) fictional character you ask of me. You will then receive the artwork in the mail and a photo of it will be posted here for all to see.

Elvish Translation -- I will translate anything (poem, paragraph, etc.) into Quenya (50 words or less). I shall then post it here, along with its Elven script equivalent complete with pronunciation. (Not quite sure how I'll do this yet, probably via a video).

Faery Gold -- Obviously the best option! Who doesn't want Faery gold? Get serious. But if I had any I would share.

Other -- You think you have a better idea? Then prove yourself and leave it in a comment to this post.

    Go to it! And I'll meet you back here on Saturday for the blirthday post!

Listening in the Dark » Beethoven

In which the blogger attempts to break her own rule and talk, from a non-academic perspective, about a favorite piece of music.

     In my Junior year I, like every piano major, took the required “piano literature” course. A year long curriculum devoted to memorizing, contextualizing, and understanding the vast repertoire of the clavier instruments.

     I recall on a particular night, preparing for a listening exam, I scrolled my iPod to the beginning of the new downloaded list.

     At the close of another school day, the usual of classes, practice, and performance, came the nighttime activities of studying, grabbing the fastest thing to eat, and taping down my broken nails so the cuticles could mend while I slept.

     Next track: Sonata Op. 53 in C Major, dedicated to Count Ferdinand Erns Gabriel von Waldstein, the third movement. And I forgot my hunger, pausing in the act of wrapping a finger in medical tape.

Writing With Annie Dillard

     Reading Annie Dillard frightens me. Not so much by what she has to say (isn't that flattering), but how she says it. She knows what she's about.

     Dillard taught writing classes at Wesleyan University and insisted that anyone in the world could be a writer. One had only to work hard and learn the techniques; talent is nothing without hard work. One such technique she learned from Samuel Johnson's writings. I don't know about you, but I'm certainly open to learning from Mr. Johnson.

Step One
     Take a polished piece of writing (in the case of Dillard's students it was likely a non-fiction essay) and circle all of the verbs.

Step Two
     Add them up. 12 verbs you say? Are they good verbs? Can you double that amount?

Step Three
     What's a good verb? One that communicates the exact action. If you used an adverb get rid of it...that only means you used the wrong verb. Did he walk quickly or did he sprint? That one page, slogged with description, will come alive.
     But I found another of Dillard's tactics even more beneficial. After polishing and re-polishing your work, take up some scissors and, as Annie says, "Cut your voice free." Snip out only the good sentences. Yes, you know what those are. Staple these fragments to a paste board. Leave plenty of space. Now, write in the necessary "connecting sentences" to string all your good ones together...be as minimal as possible.

"One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better." - The Writing Life

Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded

-A- AANSCHULTZ, CONREID
          (c. 1820 -- October 12, 1888)

Inventor of the praxiscope technology (which see), Professor Aanschultz believed that close observation of physiology and similar superficial phenomena could lead to direct revelation of the inner or secret processes of nature. Apparent proof of this now discredited theory was offered by his psychopraxiscope, which purported to offer instantaneous viewing of any subject’s thoughts. (Later researchers demonstrated that the device “functioned” by creating interference patterns in the inner eye of the observer, triggering phosphene splash and lucid dreaming.) Aanschultz’s theories collapsed, and the Professor himself died in a Parisian lunatic asylum, after his notorious macropraxiscope failed to extract any particular meaning from the contours of the Belgian countryside near Waterloo. Some say he was already ustable from the abuse of his autopsychopraxiscope, thought to be particularly dangerous because of autophageous feedback patterns generated in its operator’s brain. However, there is evidence that Aanschultz was quite mad already, owing to the trauma of an earlier research disaster. 

from Great Breakthroughs in Darkness (Being, Early Entries From The Secret Encyclopedia of Photography)

Mythago Wood: Desire

Robert Holdstock penned his break through novel Mythago Wood in 1984. The prose is simple and poetic, the story rooted in the myths and folklore of Britain. Holdstock's level of creativity and power to evoke mysterious atmosphere  -- I especially love his descriptive passages of wooded landscapes -- won him great respect among Tolkien scholars and readers. That was my sole reason for picking up the book.

I read it straight through in one sitting, left it alone for a few weeks, and then re-read parts of it. I think Holdstock bit off more than he could chew, but the first third of the novel and its last few pages are wonderful. The technique he uses to create character depth is genius...yet frustrating.

But before I get into that, I want to state that we are all of us created to worship (Psalm 115 comes to mind). In Mythago Wood the protagonist and his companion search for what, they believe, is ultimate happiness -- they hunger for the fulfillment of their greatest, and sometimes secret, desires.

The Road to Faery: Sage

Galadriel and her Mirror.
Source.

Being the third part of the Trivium Imaginarium


Read: Part One
Read: Part Two

"For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean..."

Galadriel
The Fellowship of the Ring

• DEFINITION: A master of his craft not only in skill, knowledge, and understanding but also in experience. He understands that he knows only what he knows -- humbling thought.
• PURPOSE: To go beyond merely reading fantastic literature as a favorite genre, consuming the next installment of whatever best seller...but to be able to discern good fantasy from bad fantasy. And I do believe that a case can be made for good and bad fiction. Understanding that the reader becomes what he reads, one must harness this power of ink becoming blood. Words crafted in an author's mind can become another's existence.
• CURRICULUM: I have listed the books from the Novice and Journeyman along with the new curriculum. Context is everything. The more I consider the books I read at a younger age, the more I realize the depths and subtleties that eluded me then.