Molly Ringle's Blog, page 22

The Hobbit audio: it is here!

34 wonderful voices from awesome people all over the world, coming together in one file to read a crazy dragon attack scene from a little book called The Hobbit - it has finally come together and is ready as my Halloween present to the world.

Listen here:

http://mollyringle.com/audio/halloweenhobbit.mp3

And read along below to see who our courageous readers are and which lines they are rocking. Thank you so much, all my lovely friends, family, and mysterious-but-so-cool volunteers! And special...

Perfume reviews of this quarter so far

In the company of my lovely young cousin Sally ("young" for me now includes people in their 20s), I recently procured a bunch of samples from Blackbird Apothecary here in Seattle. Following are my notes upon them all, should you be curious.

Montale White Aoud: When I see "aoud" (or "oud" as it's often spelled), I expect spices and exotic woodsiness. Therefore upon spraying this one on, without having read anything about the notes, I went, "Whoa! Rose! Didn't expect that." It is however a Hallo...

Three items on the agenda

Item the first: If you've signed up to read Hobbit lines for the Halloween audio project, here's your first reminder to record them and send them in. I've gotten a handful so far and am looking forward to stringing the whole thing together.

Item the second: Hey look! I got featured as an "author we love"! Fred LeBaron, who put together this little tribute, is a librarian (and dad) who stumbled upon my books a year or two ago, and decided he liked them. In our correspondence since, he has also...

The Hobbit for Halloween: signup!

Happy October, everyone!

Today I'm extending an invitation to you all: read aloud a few lines from The Hobbit for the world to enjoy. All ages, voices, and accents welcome. It'll be a Halloween audio project like the ones we've done before--click here and scroll down for examples, which you can listen to as you wish. (I re-listened to them lately, and they are so cool.)

As you can see on that page, in past years our brave band of volunteers has read aloud from Poe's "The Raven," Irving's "The L...

Hey YA heroes: it's okay to lust. Try it sometime.

I have said this before, but once again, I am tired of the way teenage girls are not supposed to show sexual desire in, like, nearly all of bestselling YA literature. Even in the Hunger Games, which otherwise I quite admire, Katniss only barely starts noticing, after MONTHS of kissing Peeta, that, huh, it's occasionally *fun* to kiss him. And of course (SPOILERS, HI) a certain pregnancy rumor has to go hand-in-hand with a marriage rumor--because a heroic female would never have sex before mar...

The Hobbit for Halloween?

I'm considering another Halloween literature read-aloud (see 2010's Project Dracula for example). Maybe in honor of the Hobbit movie coming out soon, we could use a spooky section from that. What's the most Halloweenish part? Bunch o' giant spiders? Smaug? Other? Also, would you guys be up for reading parts and actually recording them on time?

If so: yay! Official sign-up and assignment of lines to follow.

Fandom-a-go-go

Good couple of days for my fandoms lately.

We have of course the newer, longer Hobbit trailer...



...in which I found myself unexpectedly thinking, "Dang, there are some hot dwarves in that bunch." (Particularly Kili, though Thorin is handsome as well.) If it looks as though we're in for some broad, slightly dumb humor--well, let's be fair; that was kind of canon for The Hobbit as a novel. Drunk carousing elves and plate-chucking dwarves are part of what Tolkien gave us to work with. Can't expect Peter Jackson to just leave that lying on the table, can you?

Incidentally, as serai1 and I were discussing yesterday, Martin Freeman looks perfect as Bilbo, partially because he's already proven himself a great Arthur Dent--and, if we think about it, Arthur Dent kind of is Bilbo. They're both grumpy homebodies hauled at great reluctance from their houses to go on a grand perilous adventure, and spend most of the time wishing they had their tea. Or handkerchiefs. Hey, I can completely relate.

Switching gears, we also got an extended preview/trailer/thing for the new Les Misérables:



The more I see of it, the more I dare think they're getting Hugo's story as right as they can. They're adding book-faithful details that weren't in the stage show, such as the elephant statue inside which Gavroche sleeps. And the cast's voices sound awesome so far.

But if that's too heart-wrenching for you, and you want something funny, enjoy Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel breaking into an impromptu version of Javert and Valjean's confrontation song:



I LOL'd. Now I want Neil Patrick Harris to be in a production of Les Mis. He'd be a great Javert, but honestly he could be any part he wanted. Enjolras, Fantine, Eponine--whatever. He'd rock it.

Gross.

Grossest smell of entire week: I hosed out the yard waste cart today. Here in Seattle we get to throw food scraps into the yard waste as well, and we haven't cleaned our bin all summer, so you can imagine the grossness. There was this *sludge* formed at the bottom, which gave off noxious gases as I hosed it out and dumped it on the garden. The cart and the whole yard smelled like the stinkiest of garbage trucks.

So--scent therapy. After burying the sludge in dirt, I threw handfuls of fragrant plants into the yard waste cart: rosemary, lavender, thyme, sweet woodruff. Put my clothes in the wash and had a shower with lemon, bergamot, and grapefruit essential oils sprinkled in the tub, and peppermint soap to wash up with. May have to follow up with a spritz of something clean like L'Eau de L'Artisan.

So. Yes. May your day not involve anything as gross.

Monday funnies

Things to make you laugh. Apologies to my Facebook friends, since I already posted these there.

1. The 15 funniest autocorrects from August 2012. My favorite may be "THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA IS THERE, INSIDE YOUR MOM."

2.

(Didn't really happen, but makes a good joke.)

3.


4. And sticking with the "Call Me Maybe" meme-theme, try watching this without grinning...

Houseplant or Hogwarts spell?

Upon noting with friends how both botany and Harry-Potter-verse utilize a fair amount of faux Latin, I thought it might be fun to make up a quiz similar to that "IKEA product or Lord of the Rings character?" one that was going around a while back. We can call this one...

Houseplant or Hogwarts spell?

Let's go! What are the following--plants or spells? Get out your wands and try casting them:

1. Alohomora!
2. Ficus Elastica!
3. Gloriosa Superba!
4. Protego Horribilis!
5. Wingardium Leviosa!
6. Hedera Helix!
7. Salvio Hexia!
8. Furnunculus!
9. Dieffenbachia!
10. Dracaena Marginata!


Scroll down for answers...


1. Alohomora - spell (opens doors)
2. Ficus elastica - plant (rubber tree)
3. Gloriosa superba - plant (glory lily)
4. Protego Horribilis - spell (protects against Dark Magic)
5. Wingardium Leviosa - spell (levitates things)
6. Hedera helix - plant (English ivy)
7. Salvio Hexia - spell (protects against hexes)
8. Furnunculus - spell (causes boils)
9. Dieffenbachia - plant (dumb cane)
10. Dracaena marginata - plant (dragon tree)