Pre-Tolkienism

As part of my quest to distinguish myself from other fiction writers, I've been teaching myself about the fantasy fiction created before The Lord of the Rings showed up and changed everything. You see, as much as I appreciate the epic scope and mastery of Tolkien's work, dragging myself through the books before seeing the movies (mind you, I was in my early teens at the time) really took its toll on me. I admit: I'm not much of a fan of LotR. I was bored by the lengthy descriptions of the landscapes, and was monotonously depressed by the doom and gloom of The Return of the King in particular. It was hard to trudge through, and it certainly wasn't pleasant feeling pretty much the same way Sam and Frodo did on their journey to Mordor. I just wanted it to end. In fact, I don't plan to read them again, and I'm perfectly satisfied with the extended cuts of the films.

If there's one thing that gets my goat, it's the fact that most fantasy writers don't really care, or worse, know about anything beyond Tolkien's work and maybe some of the other things made into movies, TV shows, and cartoons. When one thinks of the word "fantasy", they usually picture something resembling Dungeons and Dragons. No one really likes the elves we associate with Santa Claus and a certain poor shoemaker, and the tall, mysterious, and holier-than-thou Tolkien elves have pretty much replaced them. The same goes with hobgoblins: Tolkien himself knew that hobgoblins were originally smaller, more benign versions of goblins, but he had already made them larger and meaner than regular goblins inThe Hobbit- so despite being renamed Uruk-hai, a lot of people treat hobgoblins as if they were bigger.

My problem is that for some bizarre reason a lot of people feel its necessary to similarly reinvent what has already been fully developed in folklore and mythology, such as the fairies shaped like beetles and flowers in The Spiderwick Chronicles, the lumpy bat-like dragon in Zemeckis' Beowulf, and of course the pretty boy sparkly vampires of Twilight. Even Harry Potter commits a minor offense by making boggarts unfriendly shapeshifters instead of the household nuisance they originally were. See, I don't see why anyone would bother making these sort of things any different when they're perfectly fine already... if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Mass culture, world culture and all the knowledge in the world is so easy to access that traditional mythology has been set in stone, because after so many millennia of being developed and refined without anyone's awareness, we can finally map out how it evolved and where it wound up. Any changes we make now is self-conscious.

Open Up Your ****ing Heart

Just for good measure, here are more versions of "Let the Sunshine In".

The original:



Popular version:

Screeching Weasel vs. Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm

Now what am I rambling on about THIS time? What could I possibly be doing pairing a loud, fast, hormone-enraged skate punk band with two adorable, iconic cartoon babies? Well, let me tell you.

So here I am, watching Boomerang late at night, and The Flintstones come on. I hadn't seen the episode before, because I'm not a terribly avid Flintstones fan (although I know a thing or two), nor an avid television watcher. I prefer watching DVDs late at night, because then I can watch whatever I want. But my point is that I discovered this completely by accident.

At first the episode disgusted me with its horrid, outdated, and narrow-minded views on rock 'n' roll. I was willing to accept the laughably out-of-touch quality of "The Bedrock Twitch" and the terribly unflattering caricature of The Beatles that shows no understanding of their music whatsoever. But when Fred AND Barney, the latter normally being a much more liberal-minded fellow, started ranting about stuff like "TEENAGERS ARE EVIL AND ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD" and "THIS MUSIC IS AWFUL AND MADE BY TALENTLESS HACKS" and "ME WANT BIG SPORTS GAME"- which has been proven embarrassingly wrong a million times over in the past forty-plus years- I almost wanted to cry.

Things started looking a little better when I realized that this was an episode described in one of my favorite books: The Rocklopedia Fakebandica, which is all about one of my favorite subjects- namely, fictional rock groups. I looked forward to whatever dopey song the two toddlers got to sing. Here's the song:

Emulation

I love emulators. It's like having a bunch of old games all in one box, without needing any physical space. Like a museum of old software. I kinda get giddy sometimes.

WEE! OLD GAME!

Here's something I've been meaning to post for a while:

Tymime's Recommended Emulator/Simulator List!

4Kids is evil, apparently

At least that's what people keep saying for some reason. I can't imagine why. I don't approve of their censorship practices, but I fail to see what it is that makes them evil or why it's so hilarious to make such a claim.

Holy Cheese, Batmouse!

Yesterday's Archie:



...Is that Batman with Mickey ears?

EVERYBODY SHOULD READ THIS ESPECIALLY EVERYBODY

Words to live by: just because it's not to your taste doesn't mean it's wrong.