The Hobbit Hole IX - A sudden tree or standing stone

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[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

A sudden tree or standing stone

• First thread: New Zealander builds Hobbit hole
• Second thread: The New Hobbit Hole
• Third thread: The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads! (Congratulations, we filled it up!)
• Fourth Thread: The Hobbit Hole IV - The Road Goes Ever On...
• Fifth Thread: The Hobbit Hole V - Where Many Paths and Errands Meet...
• Sixth Thread: The Hobbit Hole VI - And Whither Then? I Cannot Say...
• Seventh Thread: The Hobbit Hole VII - But not yet weary are our feet...
• Eighth Thread: The Hobbit Hole VIII - Still round the corner we may meet...

New verse:

Upon the hearth the fire is red, Beneath the roof there is a bed; But not yet weary are our feet, Still round the corner we may meet A sudden tree or standing stone That none have seen but we alone. Tree and flower and leaf and grass, Let them pass! Let them pass! Hill and water under sky, Pass them by! Pass them by!

Still round the corner there may wait A new road or a secret gate, And though we pass them by today, Tomorrow we may come this way And take the hidden paths that run Towards the Moon or to the Sun. Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe, Let them go! Let them go! Sand and stone and pool and dell, Fare you well! Fare you well!

Home is behind, the world ahead, And there are many paths to tread Through shadows to the edge of night, Until the stars are all alight. Then world behind and home ahead, We’ll wander back to home and bed. Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, Away shall fade! Away shall fade! Fire and lamp, and meat and bread, And then to bed! And then to bed!

See also: http://freeper.the-hobbit-hole.net

Web page for our moot reports and troop support information!

[Sam Cree]

How do you like Villiers?

[Wneighbor]

The person who sent this email is a woman.

Give the freeper a prize!!!

[Sam Cree]

You mean 19th century, right?
;-)

[Wneighbor]

Efforts to place me in a Hawaiian shirt west of Pearl or east of Diamondhead will meet with firm resistance. Within those bounds, resistance will be mild, but noticeable.

They picked a day for this after all the teachers are gone. LOL.. that means it's only admin people doin' it. I think they think us teachers shouldn't get that casual in class.... think I'll wear a Hawaiian print dress under my graduation junk! :-)

[Wneighbor]

Nope, not my idea! I didn't even know about the first annual they had! LOL But, soon as I read it, I thought of you!

[JenB]

Hmm, maybe I should get a Hawaiian outfit for graduation!

Actually, I wonder whatever happened to the dress I got in Hawaii four years back. I bet it'd fit again.

[Lil'freeper]

Women in the workplace can be such a pain.

Have I told you about the "Honk Honk Honk Beanie Baby Goose" award we have? It's the "attaboy" prize: a beanie baby that gets to sit on your desk when you do something especially well. Most recently, it was given to a gal who actually completed something.

We also have a sock monkey thing with long arms and velcro on the hands. It gets wrapped around your computer monitor when you don't do something well. It's the "Monkey On Your Back" award. It was last given to the chap who keeps forgetting to turn off the bathroom lights at the end of the day.

And yes, our supervisors are women.

[ExGeeEye]

Sometime during the war, which the US did not enter until 1917, The SMS Cormoran, a German vessel low on coal, put in at Guam (then a neutral port) and requested to fill her bunkers. The American Governor demurred, regarding the ship apparently not as an actual enemey, but as the enemy of our friends so to speak. The ship rode at anchor for months, and what was at first an uneasy relationship developed into friendship between the Cormoran's crew and the US Naval personnel and families. There was even a marriage between the Cormoran's surgeon and an American woman on the island!

In August 1917, the discovery of the Zimmerman Note (in which Germany asked Mexico to attack the US in exchange for regaining Texas, NM, AZ and a good-sized chunk of CA) led to the US declaring war on Germany. On the day the declaration was official, the governor of Guam ordered the surrender of the Cormoran and her crew as enemy combatants. A boat carrying armed Naval personnel set out toward the Cormoran and encountered her supply boat in the harbor. The supply boat did not respond to hails and hove to only when rifle shots were fired across its bow-- the first shots fired by an American combatant against a German combatant in WWI.

The captain of the Cormoran scuttled the ship rather than surrender her; he and most of the crew survived though seven were drowned or killed by debris. One of these was never found; the other six are buried on Guam and their graves are still visited from time to time by German Naval authorities.

The ship would have been lost to history except for an event in WWII. The Japanese had invaded and occupied Guam; units on Guam and many other islands in SOPAC were resupplied by Japanese freighters converted (armed) for war use. One such freighter was sunk in Guam's harbor by a US sub (which had to wait for high tide and then fire the torps at an up angle to get them over the reef!).

A sailor assigned to Guam in the 1950's, who dived as a hobby, went to explore the Japanese wreck and found the older wreck beside it. The Japanese ship had almost landed on top of and actually collided with the Cormoran as she sank. The sailor/diver explored both ships for years, bringing up articles from them; he died in 1975 having apparently run out of air while exploring the Cormoran.

[Fedora]

Just got back. I stopped at the comic-book store while I was there; check out what I found :)

How to Draw Manga: Martial Arts & Combat Sports

It's part of a series which covers various aspects of manga-drawing.

The store didn't have any discs bigger than 4.7 gb, though--sigh. Will try looking online next.

[ExGeeEye]

We slaughtered it.

[Sam Cree]

Dramatic use of perspective on the cover!

Did you know that the old masters were aware of that kind of (photographic) perspective, but never used it because they thought it looked unreal, even though they knew that that was what one actually saw?

These days though, with photography, everyone is accustomed to such dramatic perspective, so artists go ahead and use it as well.

[Fedora]

We slaughtered it.

Good team effort! :)

[Fedora]

In the art instruction books I've read--and I've found this to hold true in my experience drawing--one of the barriers to rending perspective realistically is a tendency of the conscious mind to draw what it thinks "should" be visible rather than what the eye actually sees. I guess the trick--which I'm still learning--is to just draw what the eye sees without attempting to "correct" it.

BTW, here is another really interesting book which analyzes the comic/manga medium from an artistic perspective:

Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics

Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics," a creation that sits roughly between comic book and historical literary criticism, is an indispensable work for anyone interested in studying funnybooks seriously. Along with Will Eisner's seminal works on the subject (which I have not read all the way through), "Understanding Comics" uses the graphic-text art form to dissect one of the most rapidly growing trends in both art and literature. In an accessible, readable style, McCloud takes the reader through the history of comics, the definition of comics as a sequential art form involving symbols, and examines several major trends in modern comic-dom.

While there's plenty here for both the casual reader and someone interested in more scholarly study. While it's more of an introduction than an in-depth exploration of comic study, McCloud provides enough resources for someone to continue study on his or her own, and enough seeds to begin sprouting ideas about the funnybooks. Occasionally, he misses the mark - his definition of art, for example, is a little broad - and "Understanding Comics" isn't nearly as well-cited as it could be, but these are easily overlooked flaws.

Especially beneficial is his comparison of Japanese Manga comics with traditional American graphic storytelling, because the two are basically the same medium but evolved almost entirely independent of each other, until the last 15 years or so. I wouldn't recommend it for the Sailor Moon fans, but those that enjoy anime and Manga will find much useful information here, in particular the comparisons between the two comic forms (not so much in any actual study of Manga in and of itself).

I highly recommend "Understanding Comics" to anyone who wants to - well - understand comics. Whether you are interested in the ways Alan Moore tells a story, or want to deconstruct the use of movement in Dave McKean's artwork, or you want to learn why Spiegelman chose certain symbols and styles in his work, "Understanding Comics" gives the reader an excellent springboard to further study.

[Fedora]

Ping on thread starting at #129.

[300winmag]

Another odd factoid: the first Japanese surface ships sunk in WW2 were sunk by a Marine artillery battery on Wake Island. The 155s were well-hidden, and the crews waited until a destroyer and a transport sailed into shallow water, expecting no resistance.

[ExGeeEye]

USMC Props.

[Wneighbor]

Can't believe people actually get paid to come up with these ideas!

[Rocko]

It's you!

[Darksheare]

I draw what I see, or as close as I can get to it, and sometimes what I see isn't what is there.
(Cripes, how Confucian..)

I've seen both of those books, and they're worth it even for those whove been drawing longer than I.
(Reference material for when you run into something odd.)

[Fedora]

Thanks for the interesting factoids!