The Lord of the Rings Musical

No, you heard me right. There is a Lord of the Rings Musical.

It played in London and Toronto, though there is talk of a world tour someday. Some of the music is very catchy, although only loosely based on Tolkien's poems. I don't know how changed the plotline is; some of the costumes do look a little strange. Here is the website: The Lord of the Rings Onstage


This is called The Cat and the Moon. It is a very fun song, but doesn't follow Tolkien's genius-ly silly poem. A longer version, with lyrics and better sound is RIGHT HERE. (It won't embed)

HERE is an interesting version of The Road Goes Ever On. It doesn't follow the poem, and is much different than the movie's approach, but still quite pretty. :) More videos can be found by searching "The Lord of the Rings Musical" in YouTube.

Born of Hope

Do you remember the Lord of the Rings fanfilm The Hunt for Gollum that I mentioned? There is a new film out by the same people.

I have found another Lord of the Rings fanfilm! It is called Born of Hope (see the movie, and the website, HERE). 

It is the story of Aragorn's parents. The story is not told in Tolkien canon (aside from a reference to the gravestone of Aragorn's mother).

I don't have time for a proper review, but I enjoyed this video very much. If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, you must watch it.

English Country Line Dancing-- The Scottish

I finally found the videos I took at the Christmas Ball! Grandma and Papa gave us their old camera; it saves as a different format, hence the reason my searches didn't find it. But the good thing about the different format is the fact that it takes sound and can go on Blogger. :)
This dance is one of my favorites, although its not technically "English". We call it The Scottish, and it is the most tiring dance. It is so popular that they have to do it two times so everyone can have a go. It is a looong dance, and I taped nearly the whole thing. You do not have to watch all ten minutes of this. :)

What they thought was empty...

God's creation really is something, isn't it?

Take the idea that that tiny bit of "nothing" held so much, and that we can't really comprehend how much it held.
Then take a moment to realize that all of the universe is just a very very small bit (think less than a spot that holds "nothing") of God's great majesty...

No matter what you believe about the physical beginning of the universe (this video takes for granted the big bang theory), it is still impressive...

One line in the video, something along the lines of "we pointed the most powerful telescope into empty space for no other reason than the fact that we were curious", reminded me of something I told Mom years ago. "God made science so that people are never bored, and so that they can keep on finding things out about them and God."
I'm not sure what you think, but I think that science can lead us so much closer to God... The world is His creation. When have you ever tried to learn about the character of an artist, and have not looked at his artwork? When have you ever tried to understand the mind of a musician without listening to his music? How could you learn about God without paying some attention to His creation. Of course, we can never learn all about Him. The very very most we could understand is such a tiny sliver of His greatness, for He is infinite. But all Christians are called to love God more and more... and when have you ever grown to love someone without understanding them, even the littlest bit?

Piratey Things

Have ye ever wanted to be able to scribe like a scurvy pirate does, without all th' effort 'o figurin' out how to scribe like dey do? Ha, me buckos, ye can do it fer sure! Just be off to 'tis here site: http://postlikeapirate.com/translator.php 'n have yerself some scurvy pirate y a ruckas!

'n while we be on th' subject 'o band 'o pirates, why don't ye take a peek at 'tis here a ruckas movin' picture? Veggie Tales be Arrr, me jolly scurvy pirate bucko.



'n don't ye forget to take a look through th' spyglass at me messages 'bout that Arrr musical I was in- th' band 'o pirates 'o Penzance- aka The Pirates of Penzance

The Hunt for Gollum

So I finally got around to watching this!

The Hunt for Gollum is a fanfilm based on the Lord of the Rings. It is set between Bilbo's birthday party and Frodo leaving the Shire. Gandalf was worried that Sauron might have knowledge of the Ring, and Aragorn was sent to find the creature Gollum.

Overall, I was pretty impressed. The script was good, the actors resembled the actors in the real movies, and the CG was amazing! All of the landscape shots were CGI (computer-generated images, CG for short). And the music, costumes, and props were wonderful.

The fight scenes left some to be desired. Maybe its just my personal taste, but I thought that the choreography could be better, and the gore could be less. :)

And this was my favorite bit- SUBTITLES! Yup! It had subtitles! Which makes it much easier to follow. (not that the sound quality was't good- it was great- but its easier for me to understand stuff visually)

You can watch it here. Make sure you have time- its forty minutes long. There is supposed to be another one coming out!

Neat arrangement

Love Story by Taylor Swift meets Viva la Vida by Coldplay. Its really neat!

Dancing

Marcus was so cute this morning. Adelynn was listening to some music, and he came up and started to do a strange sort of bouncy dance, and kept beat to the music with his hands. He didn't seem to get why we were all laughing with him, but just kept doing it more and more. Here is a short video of him:

Last night we watched The Water Horse. It was a very good movie. When we finished, it was lighting off in the distance. As always, I came up with a little verse about it.
There's something about this evening/ As I'm sitting in my robe/ Looking out through a silent room/ Out through the crystal- clear glass./ Far-off, in the distance/ Beyond the silhouettes of dark trees/ Lighting is falling and raining down/ A hundred-million waterfalls of light./ Each splash lights up the moonless sky/ And douses the clouds in pink light./ Like a candle the light flickers and wavers/ Shying away from the Earth/ It retreats into the darkened sky,/ Runs back to it's secretive home./ Behind it it leaves/ A shuddering memory/ Quick to fade as another light splashes./ Behind it it leaves/ A bittersweet touch/ And the thunder.
It was not really a "silent room" because Adelynn was screaming at me, with that relentless persistence of four year olds, to play tea-party with her. And I do not know if it really was a "moonless night": I just couldn't see the moon through the window.