Last Monday Sir Ian McKellen was on the telly in his star turn in Extras. “I said to Peter Jackson, ‘you do know I’m not really a wizard?”‘ he said, to Ricky Gervais’ character. Now here he is in Melbourne where, the next night, I will watch his King Lear strip away the layers until he stands naked and tormented before us. His Lear got a standing ovation and he put his hand over his heart as he took his bow. Now, I do know he is not really a king but for 3 1/2 hours I believed he was. That’s the confusing, wonderful magic of acting. His Lear, and in almost everything written about it this is mentioned with varying degrees of rude innuendo, gets his pants off. This seems to be some big deal, but it’s not, he sighs, to him. [More]
Month: August 2007
BEWILDERED AND BEMUSED
Or the True Nature of Glamour
Today, the word “glamour” is more closely associated with ’50’s film starlets and glossy magazines than with its original meaning.
Here is what the dictionaries say:
GLAMOUR:
1720, “magic, enchantment” (especially in phrase to cast the glamour), a variant of Scot. gramarye “magic, enchantment, spell,” alt. of Eng. grammar (q.v.) with a medieval sense of “any sort of scholarship, especially occult learning.” Popularized by the writings of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Sense of “magical beauty, alluring charm” first recorded 1840. Glamorous can be dated to 1882 (slang shortening glam first attested 1936); glamorize is dated 1936.
The etymology is intriguing and a little frustrating. “Gammayre” is almost systematically listed as a Sottish variant on “grammar” (14th century), which is of course from Greek grammatike tekhne ‘art of letters’, from gramma ‘letter of the alphabet’. Not much to do with spells, but more with spelling. Hmmm… spells and spelling… it’s tempting, but a bit of a long-jump of faith, casting spells is not really like spelling correctly, despite the magic of putting names to things. [More]
Among the hoopla that defines Comic-Con 2007, Sideshow Collectibles announced three new LOTR Collectibles: The Sam and Frodo 12-inch figures and the Gandalf the White Premium Format Figure. The Sam and Frodo figures feature the newly developed ‘hobbit’ body allowing them to be displayed in scale with the other 12-inch figures. And of all the LOTR Collectibles we have seen to date, the portraits of Sean Astin and Elijah Wood are dead on! If you are interested in purchasing the exclusives of these items, you’ll need to take part in the Priority Pre-Order this coming Monday. Follow the links for complete details! [Sam and Frodo Info] [Gandalf the White Info]
With kind permission John Howe has allowed us to re-print his newsletter entries as they are released. Take a look at the latest edition!
The Rest of the Rest – I realize I have been remiss is announcing events in Saint-Ursanne – actually I’ve been a little too busy with what I’ve been doing to think about announcing what I will be doing…
Here are the rest of the dates:
AUGUST 10th Conference/debate With François Rouiller, author & illustrator The theme will be the many faces of Heroes in fantasy. Hotel La Cigogne, 8:00 p.m.
AUGUST 11th Signing session At the cloister. This will begin at 2:00 p.m. and likely last a couple of hours. Normally, we will distribute numbered tickets for a dozen signatures with drawings, the remainder will be signatures only.
AUGUST 23rd Conference/debate Medieval fantasy art, with Sara Petrucci. Restaurant de l’Ours, 7:00 p.m.
SEPTEMBER 1st Conference/debate Fantasy bestiary, with Sara Petrucci. Hotel de la Demi-Lune, 6:30 p.m.
SEPTEMBER 2nd Signing session This will be a joint signature session with Alan LEE, so it’s possible it will turn into a bit of a marathon. This will be Alan’s first (but hopefully not last) visit to Switzerland. The cloister: starting at 2:00 p.m. John
Vanessa “Saffron” Price, Online Community Representative for The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, writes: Meet Boromir, son of Denethor and Captain-General of Gondor! [More]