E.L.F. 2006 - Sunday

I'm afraid I was in a bit of a sour mood by Sunday morning. Some of you are aware that my husband passed away on June 7th. We had been separated for 21 months prior to his death, so while my adjustment has been easier than for some widows, I make up for it with extra guilt. His death was unexpected, and planning the funeral in North Carolina and then flying myself and my two children to New Orleans for the graveside service was, to say the least, stressful. I had already scheduled some ambitious travel plans for July, and decided not to cancel them at that late date. I spent the first week of July at the North Carolina Outer Banks with my mother and my children, and it was not exactly relaxing as I ended up as caretaker for all the rest. A week later, I loaded the kids in the car again so I could attend a seminar at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina in furtherance of my volunteer career as a breastfeeding counselor. Two weeks later, and we're flying to Newark, so as you can imagine, by Sunday I was really wishing the weekend was over and I was back home in my own bed. Instead, I was faced with a room full of unpacked belongings and the prospect of being a Hobbit all over again. At this point, I was wishing I at least had a change of Hobbit clothes, but hey, Billy Boyd deserves us, so I went to work packing and strapped that corset on one more time.

We stored our luggage and then made our way to the convention area. I had decided to skip the charity brunch with Billy Boyd, so the first item on the agenda was Michael Drout's presentation on "From Beowulf to Middle-earth." I am so thankful I joined an online read of Beowulf this year. I never read it in school, and this reading was done in fits and spurts, and is, in fact, unfinished, but I have made it through Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon. According to Prof. Drout, Tolkien's essay "The Monsters and the Critics" is credited with changing the way Beowulf is taught, from a scholarly extant text to a story about monsters. Michael Drout shared with us in his previous presentation how while reviewing documents in the Tolkien archives, he came across Tolkien's unpublished book-length criticism of Beowulf, from which he drew this essay. Unpublished! Tolkien! It doesn't get any better for an English professor. With the cooperation of Christopher Tolkien, he was able to edit and publish Tolkien's text in 2002 in the middle of the film frenzy. You can see some of Michael Drout's work at http://www.michaeldrout.com/

In his Sunday presentation, Michael Drout discussed philology and linguistics and how languages evolve. For example, the "p" sound in the word "pisces", (Prof. Drout gave us the technical description for this sound but I can only remember "breathless" and "stop") changes to the "f" sound in "fish", an interdental fricative (remembered that one!). By noting the rules for these sound changes, one can reconstruct an ancient language. Tolkien was fascinated by devolving the story behind language, and his fantasy work was an attempt to fill in the cultural gaps.

Prof. Drout then connected Beowulf to Lord of the Rings. You may be aware that the Rohirrim had Anglo-Saxon names, the language in which Beowulf was written. (This is noted in Unwritten Tales in the footnotes.) Furthermore, the legendary ancestor of the Rohirrim, Eorl and his people had Gothic names. The Rohirrim regarded the Elves with distrust, calling them witches and sorcerers, similar to the portrayal of Elves in Anglo-Saxon culture. Beowulf was Geatish, from Geatland (pronounced "yaht-land in Anglo-Saxon), which is generally assumed to be the same as Gotland, thus the land of the Goths or Gothic. Hence one could say that Beowulf and Elves are part of the culture and history of the Rohirrim.

I think Prof. Drout enjoyed his moment of celebrity. Instead of a room full of (possibly) disinterested college students with their Ipods and instant message cell phones, he had a room full of interested and knowledgeable adults, albeit dressed as Hobbits, Elves, and Wizards. He got to shill his website and books. He even got to sign a few autographs. And he told a really funny story about why it is important to learn Beowulf. He asks his Beowulf students to memorize the first few lines of Beowulf in Anglo-Saxon, and he had one student who was very uncomfortable speaking aloud in class and struggled with the language. She was only able to pass the course by meeting him in his office and reciting it there, but not before questioning why she needed to learn this stuff anyway. She got her answer while traveling abroad. She found herself in a pub in Australia, and one of the locals promised a round of drinks for all if anyone could recite the first ten lines of Beowulf in Anglo-Saxon. She was the most popular person in the bar that night! Michael Drout has recorded Beowulf in the original Anglo-Saxon. It sounds perfect for those nights around the fire with your comrades.

Throughout the weekend, the convention organizers had been showing fan videos. Most were film footage set to pop songs. One of the most memorable was a lengthy "Middle-earth Idol" with "contestants," all the same actress, costumed as various LOTR characters singing Idol-style pop songs intercut with film footage. On Sunday, they showed a trailer for a spoof film, Dork of the Rings. The producers of Dork of the Rings were making the convention rounds last year with their costumed actors and previews. At the same time, Cliff Broadway and Carlene Cordova were making the rounds with their documentary, Ringers: Lord of the Fans. Apparently the two groups got together and made a mocumentary of Dork of the Rings called Dorkers, thereby spoofing their own documentary on the subject of a spoof of their original subject. Got that? It was pure genius, with so-called experts, comic book collectors, the grandson of the Dork of the Rings author, actor interviews, fan tributes, and following the format of Ringers, a history of Dork of the Rings fandom. They even brought in the actress dressed as Gandalf from "Middle-earth Idols." I think the mocumentary may even be better than the original spoof.

Following the videos, I left for my photo-op with Billy Boyd. Sarah and Joseph were still in their costumes. Sue joined us for a wait in line and graciously French-braided Sarah's hair and adorned it with yellow flowers reminiscent of Elanor. When Billy Boyd came through, we got the same wink and nod we'd gotten from Sean Astin. When our turn came, Billy was very gracious. He talked with both the children, complimenting Joseph on his tartan waistcoat. Then he corrected himself and said "you call it a vest." "Today it's a waistcoat," I replied. He then asked Joseph his name, to which Joseph answered "Spiderman," and proffered his temporary arm tattoo of Spiderman. So we bantered like that, posed for our picture, and then to my surprise, everyone in the room applauded. Can't wait to see the picture.

After the photo op we changed into regular clothes. I would be a Hobbit no more! When we got all presentable again, we headed back to the auditorium just in time for Billy Boyd's talk. He was a bit of comic, repeatedly knocking over the mic stands and noting a "hazard" on the stage, a gap in the platform. When someone arrived late, he quickly ran through everything he'd said and done thus far, noting "and there's a hazard on the stage." He's very physical, and someone asked him if he'd ever done stand-up (a couple of times). One of the first questions he took was to name eighteen things he liked about Dominic Monaghan. He reeled off a few, and then said he would add more as he thought of them throughout the show. Eventually, after the umpteenth time he noted the "hazard", he said that sometimes it was the repetition that made things funny, and this was something he liked about Dom. He told a story about how every time they drove by a sheep pasture in New Zealand (and they have a lot of sheep), Dom would yell "resume your positions!" At first it wasn't funny at all, but after a month it was hilarious. Towards the end of his presentation, Billy dropped a leather bracelet, and there were so many gasps in the audience, he offered it up to the highest bidder for charity. When it got to $250, he turned around while the finalists selected a number, and then he called out the winning number. "Sold, for 250 pounds," he shouted. "No, dollars!" we all replied. Hey, we know our exchange rates!

After Billy's presentation, the convention organizers auctioned off Lord of the Rings pictures, posters, and plaques, including all the vinyl convention banners, while Billy Boyd signed autographs. The banners have film publicity photos or a collage of photos plus the convention information, so they are very limited edition. The two stage banners signed by all the celebrity guests went for about $550 and $650. I joined in the bidding frenzy and got an unsigned stage banner for $120, which I promptly had Billy Boyd sign. I already had two autograph tickets myself, but Billy also generously signed a third autograph on a New York City postcard for my daughter.

After that the show was over for us. I know many of the people stay for Sunday night, and if I could get an extra day off, I would have certainly stayed as well. Instead, Sue offered us a ride to the airport, and after a brief side trip to view the Statue of Liberty, we found ourselves stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike. After a panicky 20 minutes, we finally cleared the construction and approached the airport, a mere 45 minutes before our flight was scheduled to leave. If you've read my journal of E.L.F. 2005, you may recall that we stayed at the convention to get our precious autographs from Elijah Wood, leaving us little time to make our flight. Even though the convention organizers moved us to the front of the autograph line, we made it to the airport only 25 minutes before our flight left. We had missed the 30 minute rule and the airline would not let us on. We re-ticketed for later that evening and didn't leave Orlando until about 11:00 pm, watching our fellow convention-goers come and then leave again. I wasn't about to miss this flight. I can be pretty brazen when I have to, so I went straight to the curbside check-in counter bypassing the line. When they asked who was next I said "I don’t know who's next, but my plane leaves in 45 minutes," and they checked us in. I gave the guy an extra tip, hugged Sue goodbye, and then we raced to the gate like Hobbits running from Ringwraiths. After a brief tangle in security (literally, we couldn't find the opening in the nearly empty serpentine rope line) we made it to the gate to find our flight delayed twenty minutes. Whew! We loaded up on cookies, chips, and drinks for our nutritious dinner and boarded the plane for home, as another E.L.F. weekend faded into memory.

Postscript: After repeatedly vowing in front of witnesses to abstain from anymore fan conventions until my children were older, I found out the next convention was scheduled for Schaumburg, Illinois July 27-29, 2007. Now I was already toying with the idea of attending the La Leche League International convention which just happens to be in Chicago on July 20-23. I may even be a presenter at the LLLI convention. And LLLI is based in Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago. Hmmmm, maybe I could just take the whole week…

Thank goodness we missed all the new security rules in the wake of the foiled mass airplane downing in the U.K. And thank goodness we missed a mass airplane downing.

E.L.F. 2006 - Saturday

Saturday morning dawned late for me. I took Joseph downstairs in search of a bagel and a decaf coffee. The coffee shop only had pastries and cookies, so we availed ourselves of the breakfast buffet in the restaurant. They seated the Reeve family right next to us, and Joseph, who has a habit of throwing any object when it is no longer of any use to him, threw his used napkin on Daniel Reeve. Sorry!

Returning upstairs, we donned our Hobbit dress for photo-ops with Sean Astin. Joseph was not particularly interested in looking like Frodo Gardner, and voiced a preference for "Elmo." (When you think about it, "Elmo" does sound like a Hobbit name.) After some struggle, I got him in his short pants and braces and puffy cotton shirt. When he balked at the waistcoat, I decided not push my luck. Sarah and I, dressed as Rosie and Elanor for the day, laced up our bodices and drew on a bit of feet fur with a body crayon. Sarah can draw an excellent poodle upside-down on her leg, so I let her do the drawing for all of us. I packed a bag for the day with camera, cell phone, shunned waistcoat, and shoes for all. We padded off to the elevator, and when we got to the 1st floor, we were greeted by a crowd of women who squealed with delight when they saw my little Frodo Gardner. He was at first taken aback, but when he realized they liked him, he was quite pleased and happy to wear the costume from then on.

We met up with Sue, wandered around the disappointingly spare exhibit room, and popped in the main auditorium for some of the filler programming. Sue stayed for a presentation by Lynette Porter on "Heroic Hobbits" while my crew went to stand in line for our photo ops with Sean Astin. My kids looked just adorable. Joseph drew "oohs" and "ahs" wherever he went. I thought our outfits looked pretty good, even if they were a collection of found and purchased items. While I have grand ideas, I don't have a sewing machine, and I don't have the time to buy fabric and hand-sew something. I'm certainly not going to be distressing leather or making armaments, or even making real furry feet. Even if I could figure out how to make hobbit feet, what are the chances I could get both kids to wear them? Same with the pointy ears – we're only going to be so accurate. Luckily, Sarah has naturally pointy ears.

Joseph's green corduroy pants with attached suspenders came from the bottom of his closet – they had once been part of his Christmas suit from two years ago so they were now the perfect length for hobbit trousers. I picked up his ivory shirt last year at a Renaissance Faire. It was collarless with a single button, and extra puffy because it is too big, but the suspenders helped to tame it. The eschewed vest was part of the same Christmas outfit. (Wait for it, it reappears on Sunday.) Sarah wore a handmade (by someone else) pink and ivory brocade skirt and bodice complete with a bell hanging from the bodice, also bought at the Renaissance Faire. I thought the bell was a nice Hobbitty touch. I wore a cotton poet's shirt with a large lace collar (actually a nightshirt in a previous life), a mid-calf length skirt with a green floral print, a lacy petticoat, and a solid green bodice. The shirt and the skirt were culled from a garage sale I hosted earlier this year. The bodice and petticoat were purchased, but the petticoat doubles as a peasant skirt, and I actually wear it in real life.

After a short wait, Sean Astin made his entrance and the kids got a wink and nod as he went by. Picture taking goes remarkably fast at these things, and Sean was his usual congenial self. He's very good with kids, and last year he put Sarah on his lap. This year we were standing, but he asked them their names and talked to them. The picture turned out great, and as soon as I get a jpeg version, I will upload it.

After the pictures, the babysitter took the children to change clothes and try out the pool (very cold). I headed back to the auditiorium still in costume for Daniel Reeve's second presentation. He mostly discussed projects other than Lord of the Rings this time, King Kong in particular. We learned how painstakingly difficult it was draw King Kong's head on a map so that it resembled a coffee stain.

Shortly afterward Sean Astin made his entrance. He was his usual genial self. He treats his fans like regular people. He thanked some people in particular for some of the gifts they brought him, naming each gift and speaking directly to the person. He talked about his work on 24. Most of you know that he got the job through a chance meeting at his chiropractor's office, no thanks to his agent. He initially signed on for seven episodes, but the scripts kept coming. He'd flip through them to see if he was killed off yet (and, yes, he's been killed off). Someone asked him if he ever had any "Sam" moments, and he answered with a long story about "saving" his family from a very large spider. Autographs went quickly as he had a plane to catch at 6:00.

You may be aware that Elijah Wood had been scheduled for E.L.F. but cancelled in June. I'm sure that many people bought tickets in anticipation of meeting him, and I am very glad that I met him at the previous E.L.F, or I would have been sorely disappointed myself. On the positive side, Elijah Wood's absence meant no fangirl invasion on the day of his appearance, gumming up the convention for the rest of us. The audience by and large would remain the same group of serious fans each day. Another plus, and I mean no disrespect, but though I can be relatively at ease meeting Sean Astin or Billy Boyd, I turn to mush in the presence of Elijah Wood, and if I can manage audible speech, I get all tongue-tied. So I was really ok with his absence. The organizers tried to compensate the fans, first with a "to be announced" slot on the schedule, which became a video, which then became a live video, which then became an interactive live video feed, possibly overlapping Sean Astin's presentation. None of that happened, not Saturday, not Sunday, for reasons we may never know. All ticket-holders did get autographed photos of Elijah, but I'm sure some people felt cheated. Interestingly, no such attempt was made to compensate for John Rhys-Davies late cancellation the week before.

After getting my autographs, I changed out of my Hobbit costume for an early dinner with Sue and the family. Then it was back to the room to dress everyone again for the costume contest. This time Joseph was happy to wear his vest. Contest entrants included a very realistic Haradrim, father and son Rohirrim warriors, a Gandalf, an Easterling Lady, several Eowyns, miniature and full-size both in courtly white and casual green, a Frodo, various Elves including a trio, though I'm not sure exactly who they were, and a crowd favorite, the Ring. I don't know how the judges decided because all the costumes were excellent, and some were quite detailed. In case you're wondering (or are perhaps looking for Halloween ideas), the Ring costume was constructed out of two hula hoops and a wide band of gold fabric with Elvish writing. The children and I made a nice showing (Sue thinks we should have won), and for our efforts we got a $25 gift certificate and many requests for pictures. Third prize went to Frodo, 2nd prize to the Rohirrim warriors, and 1st prize, a $250 gift certificate, to the Elf trio.

The talent show followed the costume contest, and many of these were costumed as well. Some of the crowd favorites were a young boy who performed Aragorn's soliloquy at the Black Gate, some free-style poetry, a skit involving Frodo, Gandalf and a lawyer for New Line Cinema, and a nice rendition of "Into the West." I'm sure I've forgotten something worthwhile, but the overwhelming winner was a Wood Elf from the costume contest. She sang an original song entitled "I Would be a Wood Elf Myself" while accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. It was very folksy, the microphone wouldn't stay in place, and she forgot some lines and dropped her pick, but it all seemed to add to the charm and humor. Thankfully, I don't have to try to remember all the lyrics, because she posted them here. Wood Elf

After the talent show, Emerald Rose began their set. They are a Celtic Rock band, and they soon had everyone dancing. My kids were like whirling dervishes, but at midnight when Joseph could stand up no more, I finally took them up to the room. Sarah wasn't ready to leave and wanted to return, but it took an hour for Joseph to wind down and fall asleep. By that time the party was over and the remnants had moved to the bar, but for some reason they frown on taking young children into bars in New Jersey. I took the little party animal back upstairs and we went to bed. The next morning she informed me that she would like to have a band at her birthday party.

Coming eventually, Sunday!

E.L.F. 2006 - Friday

Well, I'm back.

I survived another E.L.F. Weekend of Wonder. As the saying goes, if 'ya ain't tired, you didn't do it right. I can now say I partied with John Noble and Daniel Reeve. Had a good showing in the costume contest. Danced the night away Hobbit-style. Learned what a voiced inter-dental fricative is. Got winks and nods from fellow Hobbits Sean Astin and Billy Boyd. Came home with lots of autographed memorabilia, including one of the enormous stage banners advertising the show. And of course, no E.L.F. weekend is complete without a missed or near-missed flight and an O.J. Simpson-like post-9/11 sprint through the airport. And I wasn't even late for work Monday morning.

Friday morning started with an early alarm at 5:00 am. An hour and a half later and I was on the way to the airport with two dressed but sleeping children and Erica my babysitter. We arrived at the airport in Charlotte, NC, checked the luggage curbside, parked, caught the shuttle, strolled leisurely through security, got a cup of coffee and some breakfast, and boarded our plane in a calm and orderly fashion. After an uneventful trip we landed at the Newark airport shortly after 11:00. The entire day was still ahead of us!

After settling in at the hotel, I picked up my registration materials while the Erica and the children entertained themselves. Sarah, my six-year-old daughter, and I caught the tail-end of the first session, an entertaining presentation by Daniel Reeve, calligrapher, cartographer, and graphic artist for the Lord of the Rings movies and other projects. Any writing, any map scattered on a table, any inscription you saw in the films, he did it. He showed us all the fonts he developed for the different characters and cultures of Middle-earth. He talked about how demanding Peter Jackson was. Think it's easy to distress a map? You can wrinkle it, tear it, burn it, and stain it. Then make three exact copies. Huh? But he did it. He showed us a few inside jokes. He would display a slide of Tolkien's map of ME, then his, then a map of New Zealand. They are remarkably similar, so he added an island here, enlarged a bay there, until his map of ME looked exactly like New Zealand! He also showed us enlargements of some of the maps where you could see the names of members of the art department or Peter Jackson on islands and such.

Some of the documents are written in Elvish or Dwarvish. Daniel Reeve had to compose plausible text for all these because they knew that someone somewhere would freeze-frame it and try to translate it. No jibberish, cursing, or insulting the management allowed! He also found himself composing a few more verses to the Lay of Beleriand since Tolkien only composed 5 himself and they needed more verses on the page.

Daniel Reeve was followed by Michael Drout, pronounced like"drought", a professor of English at Wheaton college. He came in through a door in the back of the room, yelled "What?", then began reciting Beowulf in Anglo-Saxon. When he finished his short recitation, he explained that Tolkien opened his classes on Anglo-Saxon in the same manner, reciting the first 50 lines of Beowulf (though he only recited the first 11). This he suggested, was an attempt to scare the less devoted students out of the class, thus leaving Tolkien with fewer papers to grade. He then discussed various kings in legend and literature, from King Hrothgar and Beowulf, to King Albert, often regarded as the first English king, to Viggo Mortensen's portrayal of Aragorn. These kings demonstrated modesty, usually coupled with a firm sense of their birthright. If you are familiar with Beowulf, you know that he declined to be placed among Hrothgar's sons, declined to marry his uncle Higlaf's wife (um, eeewww, was Drout's ad-lib comment), and declined to accept the kingship of Geatland until Higlaf's son was killed in battle. Only then did he finally accept the crown, and continued to rule for fifty years, which in Anglo-Saxon, means a long time. Similarly, Aragorn of Tolkien's book would not take the crown through force nor outshine Denethor, but waited until he had the opportunity to prove himself and the people were willing to accept him as king. Aragorn of the books never doubted his right to rule as he carried the shards of Narsil about, but waited patiently for the right opportunity.

Aragorn of the films however doubted his ability to rule and was initially reluctant to assert any authority. This Aragorn leaves Narsil in the museum.* (Peter Jackson says this is because it would look silly on film for Aragorn to pull out a broken sword, but I think it fits seamlessly with the character portrayal.) Michael Drout opined that because of relatively recent experiences with dictators such as Hitler, the viewing public regards someone sure of his right to rule with distrust. Thus Viggo Mortensen deflated Aragorn's ego to some extent in order to make him palatable to Western audiences.

After Michael Drout I took a short break, missing some of the filler material like trivia contests and skits. On our way to our room Sarah and I ran into John Noble, who played Denethor, waiting for the elevator. I just happened to have some pictures of myself with John Noble that I took last year at DragonCon in Atlanta (what a coincidence!), so I whipped them out of my purse. We talked briefly about DragonCon. He hated it and told his agent never to book it again. DragonCon put all the celebrities in the back of the vendor room, a hot, crowded, serpentine madhouse of swords, circlets, superheroes, and shackles. To his credit, he autographed my ROTK Visual Companion book after his DragonCon presentation to save me the task of negotiating the autograph room. Anyway, I showed him the pictures and enjoyed this brief conversation until I got to my floor.

Next on my agenda was John Noble's actual presentation. He talked about acting, his career, upcoming projects, and so on. Regarding LOTR, he initially auditioned for both Saruman and Denethor, but agreed that Christopher Lee was perfect for the role. One of the hardest scenes he filmed was where he "sees" Boromir over Faramir's shoulder and then falls backward. He first did a sort of stage fall, but Peter Jackson said it wasn't real enough. So then he did a real fall, to which Peter Jackson said, "Great, let's do it again." They had to get the fall from different angles, so after repeated falls he had a terrible bruise. As a treat for us, he recited Denethor's line about "no long sleep of death embalmed …".

After John Noble's presentation, he and Daniel Reeve began signing autographs. Since I was in row D, and each row had 38 seats, this took a while. I finally got back to my room at about 8:00. I ordered room service for us all and then showered the long day's grime away. Several times that day I had been in touch with fellow message-boarder Sue, who lived nearby. We finalized plans to meet for the first time at the dessert party that night with John Noble. The party was sold out, but I had bought a full pass for my babysitter, and she was going to stay in with the kids, so Sue was going to use my second ticket.

I got to the party late, and all the tables were filled, and all the people at the tables were seemingly engrossed in their own conversations. John Noble and Daniel Reeve were slowly making their way through the party stopping at every table, so not much milling about as no one wanted to miss their turn. While I was pondering sit-down parties versus stand-up parties in my head, my cell phone went off. I expected it to be Sue, but instead it was my security service. My alarm was going off, so that was a little excitement while I spoke back and forth with Security Central, the police, and my next-door neighbor and simultaneously navigated a cocktail party. I found one of my row-mates from the auditorium, Karen, and we chatted a while. I got my table-turn with John Noble where I learned he had a 4:00 am flight to England scheduled the next morning. Then Sue showed up. We had a glass of wine, talked, and staked out the door so she could get a word with John Noble before he left. But neither John Noble nor Daniel Reeve seemed too intent on leaving the party. They just kept coming back. We got pictures. We talked. The party ended. We migrated to the bar. And we shut the bar down. John Noble and Daniel Reeve stayed the entire time, soaking up all the attention. We advised John Noble to forgo sleeping and just stay up until he needed to leave for the airport. Daniel Reeve opened his Saturday session with an apology for being disorganized, but he'd had a late night. Sue and I just smiled.

Coming soon: Saturday!

*My comment, not Michael Drout's.