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dernwyn
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May 17 2009, 8:55pm
Post #1 of 21
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The Unofficial Bored of the Rings Discussion, Chapter II: Three's Company, Four's a Bore - II
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Again, this is a free-for-all feel free to make whatever comments you wish!
The night was as clear as an elfstone, sparkling with starpoints, as Frito gathered his party in the pasture outside the town. In addition to Spam, were the twin brothers Moxie and Pepsi Dingleberry, both of whom were noisome and easily expendable. They were frisking happily in the meadow. Frito called them to attention, wondering vaguely why Goodgulf had saddled him with two tail-wagging idiots that no one in the town could trust with a burnt-out match.
"Let's go, let's go!" cried Moxie.
"Yes, let's," added Pepsi, who promptly took one step, fell directly on his flat head, and managed to bloody his nose.
"Icky!" laughed Moxie.
"Double icky!" wailed Pepsi.
Frito rolled his eyes heavenward. It was going to be a long epic. Indeed.
-Do Moxie and Pepsi provide proper parody for Merry and Pippin?
Gaining their wandering attention, Frito inspected his companions and their kits. As he had feared, his orders had been forgotten and everyone had brought the potato salad. Everyone except Spam, who had stuffed his knapsack with sleazy novels and Dildo's tablespoons.
At last they set off, following Goodgulf's instructions, along the yellow-brick Intershire Turnpath toward Whee, the longest leg of their journey to Riv'n'dell. The Wizard had told them to travel at night unseen along the side of the Path, to keep their ear to the ground, their eyes peeled and their noses clean, the last directive weighing rather heavily on Pepsi, under the circumstances.
For a while they walked along in silence, each lost in what passed in boggies for thought. But Frito was especially troubled as he considered the long travels ahead of him. Though his companions frisked gaily along, playfully kicking and tripping each other, his heart was heavy with dread. Remembering happier times, he hummed and then sang an ancient dwarf-song he had learned from the knee of his Uncle Dildo, a song whose maker had lived before the dawn of Lower Middle Earth. It began:
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho,
It's off to work we go,
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, heigh-ho, heigh-ho, Heigh-ho, heigh-ho . . .
"Good! Good!" yipped Moxie.
"Yes, good! Especially the 'heigh-ho' part," added Pepsi.
"And what do you be callin' that?" asked Spam, who knew few songs. * [* Clean ones, at least.]
"I call it 'Heigh-ho,' " said Frito.
But he was not cheered by it.
Soon it began to rain and they all caught colds. -Have you ever been to a picnic where everyone brought potato salad?
-Is there some significance to the dwarf who wrote "Heigh-ho" living "before the dawn of Lower Middle Earth"? For which verse in LotR is this meant to represent?
-Why do their Middle-earth counterparts never seem to catch colds or other illnesses?
The sky in the east was changing from black to pearl-gray as the four boggies, weary and sneezing their heads off, stopped their march and camped for the day's rest in a clump of dogwillows many steps from the unprotected Turnpath. The fatigued travelers stretched out on the sheltered ground and made a long boggie snack from Frito's store of dwarfloaf, boggie-brewed ale, and breaded veal cutlets. Then, groaning softly under the weight of their stomachs, all dropped quickly off to sleep, each dreaming their private boggie dreams, most of them having to do with veal cutlets. -What are "dogwillows"?
-Are veal cutlets appropriate picnic fare? What would be ingredients in "dwarfloaf" and "boggie-brewed ale"?
Frito awoke with a start. It was dusk now, and a sick feeling in his stomach made him scan the Path from between the branches with terror. Through the leaves he saw a dark, shadowy bulk in the distance. It moved slowly and carefully along the rise of the Path, looking like a tall, black rider on some huge and bloated beast. Outlined against the setting sun, Frito held his breath as the ominous figure's red eyes searched the land. Once, Frito thought, the fiery coals had looked right through him, but they blinked myopically and passed on. The ponderous mount, which appeared to Frito's startled eyes to be an immense, grossly overfed pig the size of a house, snuffled and snorted in the wet earth to root out some scent of them. The others awoke and froze with terror. As they watched, the evil hunter goaded his mount, emitted one great and sour fart, and passed on. He had not seen them.
The boggies waited until the distant grunting of the beast had long quieted before anyone spoke. Frito turned to his companions, who were well hidden in their foodsacks, and whispered, "It's all right. It's gone."
Doubtfully, Spam emerged. "Bless me if that didn't fright me plumb out o' me codpiece," laughed Spam weakly. "Most queer and disturbin'!"
"Queer and disturbin'!" came a chorus of voices from the other sacks.
"And even more disturbin' if I keep on a-hearin' me echo every time I open me chops!" Spam kicked the sacks, each of which yelped, but showed no sign of disgorging its contents.
"Grouchy, he is," said one.
"Grouchy and mean," said the other. -How well does the description of this Rider match the Rider in LotR?
-Do you also find Tolkien's phrase "queer, and indeed disturbing", odd enough to parody?
"I wonder," said Frito, "what and who that terrible creature was."
Spam cast his eyes downward and scratched his chins guiltily. "I'm guessin' it's one o' those folk the Fatlip told me to remember to be awarnin' ye about, Master Frito."
Frito looked at him inquiringly.
"Weeeell," said Spam, pulling his forelock and licking Frito's toes in apology, "as I recollect now, the Old Lip was atellin' me just before we left, And don't be forgettin', he says to me, to tell Master Frito that some smelly stranger wi' red eyes was askin' after him. Stranger? says I. Aye, says he, and when I keeps mum, the fiend up and hisses at me and twirls 'is black mustache. 'Curses,' the foul thing says, 'foiled again!' And then he waves 'is billy at me and jumps on 'is pig and hightails it fr& th' Bag Eye ashoutin' somethin' very much like 'Hi-yo Slimey!' Very strange, I says. I guess I was a bit slow t' tell ye, Master Frito."
"Well," said Frito, "there's no time to worry now. I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's some connection between that stranger and this foul searcher." Frito knitted his brows, but as usual dropped a stitch. "In any case," he said, "it's no longer safe to follow the Turnpath to Whee. We'll have to take the shortcut through the Evilyn Wood."
"The Evilyn Wood! ?" chorused the grubsacks.
"But Master Frito," said Spam, "they say that place is . . . haunted!"
"That may be true," said Frito quietly, "but if we stay here, we're all blue-plate specials for sure." -How well does this parody Sam's desciption of his conversation with the Gaffer?
-How does one knit one's brows, but drop a stitch?
-What is a "blue-plate special"?
Frito and Spam hastily decanted the twins with hearty kicks, and the company policed the remaining fragments of cutlets from the area, spicing the leftovers with a number of sawbugs. When all was ready, they set out, the twins emitting highpitched cheep-cheeps in the not altogether vain hope of passing themselves off in the dark as migrating cockroaches. Due west they tramped, doggedly locating every possible opportunity for falling flat on their muzzles, pressing on so that they might reach the safety of the wood before the next sunrise. Frito had calculated that they traveled over two leagues in as many days, not bad for a boggie but still not fast enough. They had to take the wood in stride to be at Whee by the next day.
Silently they walked, save for a slight whimpering from Pepsi. The silly nit's bloodied his pug again, thought Frito, and Moxie's getting cranky. But as the long night passed and the east brightened, the flat ground gave way to hummocks, hillocks, and buttocks of spongy, soft earth the color of calves' brains. As the company stumbled on, the underbrush changed to saplings and then to huge, irritable-looking trees, blasted and scored by wind, weather, and arthritis. Soon they were swallowed up from the dawn light, and the new night covered them like a rank locker-room towel.
Many years before it had been a happy, pleasant forest of well-pruned puswillows, spruce spruces, and natty pines, the frolicking place of dronemoles and slightly rabid chipmunks. But now the trees had grown old, clotted with sneezemoss and toemold, and the Nattily Wood had become the crotchety old Evilyn. -Does this parody easily evoke Tolkien's description of the Old Forest?
-Do you remember Natalie Wood and Evelyn Wood? Who were they?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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squire
Gondolin
May 18 2009, 1:41am
Post #2 of 21
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-Do Moxie and Pepsi provide proper parody for Merry and Pippin?
This M&P pair certainly capture the problems I had for years telling the real M&P apart.
Other thoughts: - “The night was as clear as an elfstone, sparkling with starpoints” – quite good Tolkien, or at least good enough to set up the laffs in the rest of the passage.
- “noisome” – a real Tolkien word. He uses it a lot in the latter half of LotR, to describe the horrors of Mordor. To see it in the same sentence as the word Dingleberry is pretty funny.
- “…wondering vaguely why Goodgulf had saddled him with two tail-wagging idiots that no one in the town could trust with a burnt-out match.” That’s one of my favorite lines. One neat thing I will note here, possibly repeating myself from an earlier discussion (how many years has this … thing … been going on?), is the authors’ Tolkienian ability to roll off a long and complex sentence without losing the reader along the way.
- “It was going to be a long epic” – another classic line. It is noticeable that Frito continues to play the straight role in the narrative, as he has since he wandered through the party, feeling alone among the merrymakers, an intruder in his own village.
-Have you ever been to a picnic where everyone brought potato salad?
No, not really.
-Is there some significance to the dwarf who wrote "Heigh-ho" living "before the dawn of Lower Middle Earth"? For which verse in LotR is this meant to represent?
This might be a reference to the fact that Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs predated The Lord of the Rings in our popular culture. But interestingly, The Hobbit with its influential vision of dwarves came out in August 1937, just three months before Snow White’s competing, and equally influential, dwarfs. If you count the 1938 American release of The Hobbit, of course, Snow White and its unforgettably stupid song does indeed date from “before the dawn of Lower Middle Earth.”
It’s hard to say which song this is meant to stand in for. The seemingly right choice is the walking song that ends
Fire and lamp, and meat and bread,
And then to bed! And then to bed!
because the trek has just begun and we have not yet met a Black Rider. But more likely it is this later song, which has the “Ho! Ho!” feature, and also an association with rain (however in LotR the rain precedes rather than follows this song):
Ho! Ho! Ho! to the bottle I go
To heal my heart and drown my woe.
Speaking of late 1930s fairy tales from American popular culture, note the joke about the “Yellow Brick Road” combined with a putdown of the Interstate Highway System (still relatively new and glamorous in 1969). Here it’s the “Intershire Turnpath.” As elsewhere (“mithrilplate”, “balrog in the woodpile”, “Travels with Gollum”), the authors here drop a reference to an actual Tolkien term in an inconspicuous place, while maintaining their own parodic vocabulary for the primary narrative.
-Why do their Middle-earth counterparts never seem to catch colds or other illnesses?
Does the black breath not count as an illness? But other than that, may I suggest the Fellowship is healthy from living outdoors and getting plenty of exercise? But this raises the parallel question of why they never “go to the bathroom” or mention the lack of women in their lives – quest narratives aren’t about that sort of realism.
-What are "dogwillows"?
You got me. A variation on pussywillows, which are not willow-trees at all?
-Are veal cutlets appropriate picnic fare? What would be ingredients in "dwarfloaf" and "boggie-brewed ale"?
Yum, veal cutlets. I think the joke here has to do with processed or institutional food. Meatloafs and cutlets feature strongly in my memories of school cafeterias in the early 1970s. We called the veal cutlets “scabs”.
Boggie-brewed ale. Clearly the same “heady ale” that flowed by the hundreds of gallons into the boggies’ maws during the party.
“The sky in the east was changing from black to pearl-gray” “The fatigued travelers stretched out on the sheltered ground” “all dropped quickly off to sleep.” These are all quite good - no surprise by now. Any of these phrases would cause untold consternation should they appear in a TORn quiz that asked where they appear in LotR!
-How well does the description of this Rider match the Rider in LotR?
Very closely indeed. The sense of the paragraph echoes the original very well. Note the use of Tolkien’s classic indistinct exposition: “looking like”, “Once, Frito thought,” and “appeared to Frito”. I’m still looking for the fart, though.
-Do you also find Tolkien's phrase "queer, and indeed disturbing", odd enough to parody?
Excellent catch. These guys really play parodic hardball.
"Bless me if that didn't fright me plumb out o' me codpiece," – Ha, ha, ha! That is so like Sam – until the last few words!
No more time, now. I will try to continue with this as time allows. Excellent stuff so far!
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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dernwyn
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May 18 2009, 2:24am
Post #3 of 21
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The authors do make delicious use of Tolkien's words and phrases! What an idea for a quiz to spring on everyone at some opportune moment. 
I also enjoy it when they break down the fourth wall with phrases such as "going to be a long epic"; this is like the narrator in The Hobbit giving the reader a sly wink.
Good catch with the Snow White timeline! And it is hard to read that "ho ho ho" without also thinking "heigh ho".
"Intershire Turnpath" always makes me think of "Massachusetts Turnpike" - and no doubt Beard and Kennedy were thinking of the same cowpath road. (Did you know that I-95 from Maine to Florida is still not a complete, unbroken road?)
My own guess regarding the fart is that it parodies the high shrieking call of the Nazgûl, affecting certain sense in an unpleasant manner.
I wonder how many readers here know what a "codpiece" is - or what kind of image that line conveys!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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squire
Gondolin
May 18 2009, 10:56pm
Post #4 of 21
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-How well does this parody Sam's desciption of his conversation with the Gaffer? Very well, again. It captures the illogic and matinee dramatics of the entire “Hunt for the Ring” sequence – which have occupied many a Reading Room discussion. In this story, it picks up nicely on the “man, a stranger to the boggies of the Bag Eye, a stranger they had understandably overlooked because of his rather ordinary black cape, black chain mail, black mace, black dirk, and perfectly normal red glowing fires where his eyes should have been.” that we met in the first chapter.
Spam’s dialect is a wonderfully exaggerated version of Sam’s: “I'm guessin' it's one o' those folk”, “was atellin' me”, and “I was a bit slow t' tell ye, Master Frito”.
-How does one knit one's brows, but drop a stitch?
I don’t knit, but Frito does. Ask him. Ah well, this is not one of their better jokes, being a simple and stupid pun. But these guys didn’t make millions with this book by sticking to “little takeoffs on his use of Norse tales and wicked phoneme fricatives”, as much as I love the ones they left in.
-What is a "blue-plate special"?
A low cost full meal as may be found at diners and family restaurants across America. Probably a less-used term these days – BotR is getting so dated. “Blue plate”, I assume, refers somehow to the quality of china dishware used?
-Does this parody easily evoke Tolkien's description of the Old Forest?
Not really as much as it parodies all of Tolkien’s descriptive nature and travel writing. - “Due west” – they are not trying to follow the LotR geography, at least.
- “Frito had calculated that they traveled over two leagues in as many days, not bad for a boggie but still not fast enough.” An entire sentence without a punchline, the authors must be asleep at the keyboard. Great evocation of Tolkien’s obsession with maps, travel times, deadlines, etc.
- I love “hummocks, hillocks, and buttocks” – I just know Tolkien used one of those words somewhere, unknowingly opening himself up for a literary mooning.
- “The new night covered them like a rank locker-room towel” – amazing how often and how well they navigate the straight Tolkien set-up and the Lampoon pratfall in a single sentence.
- “blasted and scored by wind, weather, and arthritis.” Both “blasted” and “scored” are good Tolkien words, although they are never used together like this; they do occur quite close together during the Shelob episode. Interestingly, we find this line in the Old Forest adventure: “Little fingers of fire licked against the dry scored rind of the ancient tree and scorched it.”
-Do you remember Natalie Wood and Evelyn Wood? Who were they?
Natalie Wood was a pretty actress from the 1960s, unfortunately she died at the hands of the Charles Manson cult soon after BotR was written. Evelyn Wood ran a speed-reading mail-order franchise in the same era – President Kennedy required his staffers to take the course. Naming one of the countless Tolkien forests after people named Wood is a pretty simple-minded jest – to anyone but a boggie, of course. Note that this bit is really a take-off on Mirkwood (formerly Greenwood the Great), not the Old Forest.
There is some kind of not-quite-successful conjunction of “natty pines” aka knotty pines (=cheap suburban basement paneling) and “Nattily Wood” aka Natalie Wood going on here.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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GaladrielTX
Dor-Lomin
May 19 2009, 1:00pm
Post #5 of 21
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-Do Moxie and Pepsi provide proper parody for Merry and Pippin?
I guess they’re saying Pepsi is the one with worse judgment. If so that makes sense.
-Have you ever been to a picnic where everyone brought potato salad?
No, someone usually passes around a sign-up sheet. There was the pot-luck Thanksgiving party at work years ago where accounting was told to bring salads. Half the office was in accounting, though, so there was way too much of that and not enough more substantial food. In later years they usually split accounting in two.
-Why do their Middle-earth counterparts never seem to catch colds or other illnesses?
It wasn’t relevant to the story of the quest. Also, they had enough other, more interesting things to challenge them. I guess Tolkien had no reason to think up an upper respiratory infection.
-What are "dogwillows"?
A hybrid of a dogwood and a weeping willow? That would be kind of pretty, now that I think of it.
What would be ingredients in "dwarfloaf"
Well, olive loaf contains olives….
-How well does the description of this Rider match the Rider in LotR?
Opposite in some ways. A sniff is an intake of air at the top of the body. A fart is, well, the opposite.
-Do you also find Tolkien's phrase "queer, and indeed disturbing", odd enough to parody?
I can't help thinking of Divine.
-How does one knit one's brows, but drop a stitch?
I like that play on words. Frito doesn’t make the connection.
-What is a "blue-plate special"?
I think it’s served at cafeteria-style restaurants. If you request the special of the day the employee behind the counter dishes it out on a blue plate. That way the cashier knows to ring it up at whatever the lower-than-usual price is.
soft earth the color of calves' brains.
Oh, weird. I was just reading about the cooking of brains the other night.
slightly rabid chipmunks
Seems to me one can be “slightly rabid” about as easily as one can be “slightly pregnant”. You either are or you aren’t.
-Do you remember Natalie Wood and Evelyn Wood? Who were they?
Natalie Wood was in that zombie movie, West Side Story, but they got someone who could really sing to do the vocals.
Of course it was a zombie movie!
Tony: It's right outside the door, just around the corner...but it's comin'.
Riff: What is?
Tony: Zombies! Aiiggh!
Natalie died in a boating accident. I hope her zombie won't come back and eat my brains for that crack about her singing.
Evelyn Wood was the name of a speed-reading course you could go to or buy or something. I’m not sure if there really was an Evelyn Wood, just as I’m unsure about Betty Crocker and Mrs. Butterworth.
~~~~~~~~
The TORNsib formerly known as Galadriel.
(This post was edited by GaladrielTX on May 19 2009, 1:02pm)
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dernwyn
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May 19 2009, 9:31pm
Post #7 of 21
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Somehow, that seems like a very appropriate term for much of the parody in this book!
I haven't seen any menu list a "blue-plate special" in years, but I get the feeling that it would usually be either meatloaf or creative leftovers. A different way of saying that they'd all be mincemeat!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
(This post was edited by dernwyn on May 19 2009, 9:32pm)
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dernwyn
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May 19 2009, 9:43pm
Post #8 of 21
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I had that same initial reaction
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to "dwarfloaf"...never trust goblins who run a butcher's shop.
Speaking of which...you really were going to cook brains?
And now I'm getting weird visions of how "Accounting" can be split in two...
Did you ever try Moxie? I never knew it was still being made - haven't seen it in the stores here for years!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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GaladrielTX
Dor-Lomin
May 19 2009, 11:19pm
Post #9 of 21
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LOL! No, I wasn’t the cook who prepared the brains.
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I’ve been reading Julie Powell’s book Julie & Julia, her account of attempting to cook all the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in her spare time in one year. Some of the ingredients are…unusual. Like the brain matter floating around in Julie’s pot.
For the record, after the mad cow disease scare of a few years ago, I wouldn’t eat brains. Before then, though, I would probably have been crazy enough to try them, given the chance.
Hmm, yours do look tasty….
“And now I'm getting weird visions of how "Accounting" can be split in two...”
Easy. The debits go over by the door and the credits stand over by the window.
Re Moxie, I had no idea. I have heard the phrase, “You have moxie,” meaning spunk, but had no idea where it came from. Now I know! I will try it if I see it somewhere around here, although it sounds as if I should prepare myself for an unusual flavor. You have probably figured out by now that I’m adventurous when it comes to food and drink! Not sure I want to shell out $11.50 (plus whatever tax and shipping charges are involved) for a six-pack online, though.
~~~~~~~~
The TORNsib formerly known as Galadriel.
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dernwyn
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May 20 2009, 12:07am
Post #11 of 21
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Moxie and Choxie with Cottontails...
(apologies to Beatrix Potter!)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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sador
Gondolin
May 20 2009, 7:35am
Post #12 of 21
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Did you ever try Moxie? I never knew it was still being made - haven't seen it in the stores here for years!
In fact, I didn't even know what Moxie was - I was thinking more of these!
Ah well, give a non-American BotR, and see what he makes of it - good to have FarFromHome in the same boat...
"There's nothing in the feeling of weight in an idle toss-pot's arms." - Galion
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sador
Gondolin
May 20 2009, 8:34am
Post #13 of 21
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Again, this is a free-for-all feel free to make whatever comments you wish!
Tell me, do you intend to cover this chapter in a week, and then wait for someone else to pick up the hot potato ball? Look how long it took squire to cover the first chapter!
Moxie and Pepsi Dingleberry, both of whom were noisome and easily expendable. They were frisking happily in the meadow. Frito called them to attention, wondering vaguely why Goodgulf had saddled him with two tail-wagging idiots that no one in the town could trust with a burnt-out match.
The authors answer their own question, don't they?
Do Moxie and Pepsi provide proper parody for Merry and Pippin?
For book Merry and Pippin - well, not really.
For movie Merry and Pippin - excellent!
Everyone had brought the potato salad. Everyone except Spam, who had stuffed his knapsack with sleazy novels and Dildo's tablespoons.
Well, Spam's knapsack will be a more confortable pillow. And give him better dreams.
Their noses clean, the last directive weighing rather heavily on Pepsi, under the circumstances. Do you think that under different circumstances, Pepsi scruplously follows Article III of Fergus' Creed?
Have you ever been to a picnic where everyone brought potato salad?
I, for one, wouldn't - so the answer is obviously no!
But I don't really remember that many picnics.
Is there some significance to the dwarf who wrote "Heigh-ho" living "before the dawn of Lower Middle Earth"?
I can't improve on squire's answer.
Is that different from the rest of this discussion?
For which verse in LotR is this meant to represent?
Merry and Pippin's "Ho! Ho! Ho! To the bottle I go" seems to be an effective counterpart.
Why do their Middle-earth counterparts never seem to catch colds or other illnesses?
See my previous answer.
Merry and Pip bring their medicine to this trip, rather than useless potato salad - and therefore, they can cheerfully defy the elements!
What are "dogwillows"?
Willows which have been marked by dogs.
Are veal cutlets appropriate picnic fare?
Well, a version of chicken cutlets is a pretty common picnic fare, in my part of the world.
What would be ingredients in "dwarfloaf" and "boggie-brewed ale"?
I always thought 'dwarfloaf' meant the type of loaf dwarves make - harder than stone, and tasting worse than cram. The ale sounds, um, intimidating.
Each dreaming their private boggie dreams, most of them having to do with veal cutlets. Most of the boggies; Spam was dreaming about his novels.
How well does the description of this Rider match the Rider in LotR?
Nice; and I really liked Galadriel's take about the sniffing.
Do you also find Tolkien's phrase "queer, and indeed disturbing", odd enough to parody?
That was beautifully done! Anyway, two notes:
Remember the fox in 'Three is Company', who noted there is something mighty queer about the hobbits outdoors. But it wasn't disturbing; so he went on with his business, and never found anything more about it.
Also, the "queer and disturbing" is less a parody than a quote. But it is parodies later in the same paragraph, by "grouchy and mean".
How well does this parody Sam's desciption of his conversation with the Gaffer?
Not bad.
But I wonder - when Spam pulls his forelock, does his hand get all greasy? Or did the grease wash off in the rain?
How does one knit one's brows, but drop a stitch?
I agree this is a simply pun; and not at all one of their best.
Soon they were swallowed up from the dawn light, and the new night covered them like a rank locker-room towel. Ugh!
Does this parody easily evoke Tolkien's description of the Old Forest?
More of Mirkwood.
Do you remember Natalie Wood and Evelyn Wood? Who were they?
I know who Natalie was; never heard of Evelyn.
"There's nothing in the feeling of weight in an idle toss-pot's arms." - Galion
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
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May 20 2009, 10:56am
Post #14 of 21
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Tell me, do you intend to cover this chapter in a week...? Nope, half a week! I don't want to mess up Kelvarhin's space too badly!
Excellent catch regrading Fergus's Creed!
I had thought that the "Heigh-Ho" background information was simply a take on the supposed ancientry of some of the songs in LotR, but squire's explanation does expound nicely on it!
Chicken schnitzels! Yum! That's what some places call "chicken fingers" over here, cutting them into long strips before breading. "Schnitzel", of course, meaning simply a "cut" piece of meat, or "cutlet".
*starts humming "My Favorite Things" from "Sound of Music"...*
I try to not think about Spam's greasy hair...
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"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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Eowyn of Penns Woods
Doriath
May 20 2009, 5:20pm
Post #16 of 21
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I'd say that a "dogwillow" is not a "Pussy Willow". ;) It also rhymes with "Bog Willow" (Salix pedicellarus) , which brings us back to boggies.
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
May 20 2009, 10:00pm
Post #17 of 21
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"Icky!" laughed Moxie.
"Double icky!" wailed Pepsi.
They sound like the Venture Brothers.
Indeed.
-Do Moxie and Pepsi provide proper parody for Merry and Pippin?
Moxie and Pepsi are definitely distant runner-ups to Coca Cola, er, that is, Frito.
-Have you ever been to a picnic where everyone brought potato salad?
No. I think the most was four kinds of potato salad, which were all good.
-Is there some significance to the dwarf who wrote "Heigh-ho" living "before the dawn of Lower Middle Earth"?
In the early 1930 Composer Frank Churchill became famous for his scores of various Disney cartoon shorts, including the wildly popular “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.” He would later be nominated for Oscars for his scores of the feature length cartoons Snow White, Dumbo, and Bambi.
Churchill died in 1942, indeed way before the dawn of Middle-earth.
For which verse in LotR is this meant to represent?
I’d say “'Ho! Ho! Ho! To the bottle I go!”
Disney’s Dwarves seem to have the same work ethic as Tolkien’s.
-Why do their Middle-earth counterparts never seem to catch colds or other illnesses?
Beside the skin condition of “turning orc” or the psychological “palantir madness”? I suppose they all had strong genetic resistance brought on by natural selection because they and/or their ancestors survived The Great Plague (aka The Dark Plague) of the Third Age.
Like most scientist believe we don’t have huge numbers of deaths from the Bubonic Plague nowadays because we’re all descendants of survivors.
-What are "dogwillows"?
Around here it’s used euphemistically in place of “pussywillows”. I’m serious.
-Are veal cutlets appropriate picnic fare?
I wouldn’t think so. Aren’t veal cutlets more like the centerpiece of a larger dish with pasta, parmesan, and/or sautéed vegetables and mushrooms?
What would be ingredients in "dwarfloaf"…
Meatloaf seasoned with Dwarven spices, like “Cowboy loaf” is meatloaf seasoned with Southwestern spices.
… and "boggie-brewed ale"?
Boggie spit, assuming boggie saliva has the ptyalin necessary to initiate fermentation.
"Grouchy, he is," said one.
"Grouchy and mean," said the other.
Definitely the Venture Brothers.
-How well does the description of this Rider match the Rider in LotR?
Pretty well until the passing of gas. Apparently Jackson was inspired by this passage.
-Do you also find Tolkien's phrase "queer, and indeed disturbing", odd enough to parody?
I think it’s a Bevis and Butthead reaction to the word “queer”. “Gay” didn’t start being used as a euphemism for “homosexuality” until the 1970s.
-How well does this parody Sam's desciption of his conversation with the Gaffer?
Pretty well.
-How does one knit one's brows, but drop a stitch?
Frown in thought, then raise an eyebrow.
-What is a "blue-plate special"?
A cheap meal at a diner or café consisting of a meat and three vegetables. It’s pretty obvious who Frito thinks the three vegetables are in this case.
-Does this parody easily evoke Tolkien's description of the Old Forest?
Masterfully.
-Do you remember Natalie Wood and Evelyn Wood?
I remember Evil-lyn is Skeletor’s girl-friend. And SPI’s board game Swords and Sorcery had the Natalie Woods and the Evelyn Woods where the Spiders and Elves lived. And one of the comic routines of druggie duo Cheech and Chong was “"The Evelyn Woodhead Speed Reading Course”.
But I think all that is after 1968.
Who were they?
Natalie Wood starred in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), a film Curious often cites as an example of ambiguous magic and fantasy. It was usually played continuously on television during Christmas in the 1960s, much like "It's a Wonderful Life".
Evelyn Wood was a teacher who in the 1950s studied Senator John Kennedy’s reading habits and published a book on speed reading. In the 1960s the book became the basis for speed reading courses taught in many schools and universities. She became especially famous because of her connection to JFK.
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The audacious proposal stirred his heart. And the stirring became a song, and it mingled with the songs of Gil-galad and Celebrian, and with those of Feanor and Fingon. The song-weaving created a larger song, and then another, until suddenly it was as if a long forgotten memory woke and for one breathtaking moment the Music of the Ainur revealed itself in all glory. He opened his lips to sing and share this song. Then he realized that the others would not understand. Not even Mithrandir given his current state of mind. So he smiled and simply said "A diversion.”
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FarFromHome
Doriath
May 21 2009, 9:03am
Post #18 of 21
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Nobody seems to have mentioned
[In reply to]
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that Bilbo catches a cold in The Hobbit (and indeed refers to it in LotR: "The banquet was very splendid, however, though I had a bad cold at the time, I remember, and could only say ‘thag you very buch’.")
Why do the heroes of LotR not catch colds? Because they're heroes on an epic adventure! You don't mention all those little bathetic annoyances like colds, or constipation (I've always wondered why the super-refined lembas didn't play havoc with the hobbit digestive system), or sore feet (well, they do mention those once or twice) when you're on an epic quest...
In contrast, Bilbo in The Hobbit is a bit of a comic character that we can metaphorically poke disrespectfully in the tummy - and so are the hobbits of BotR, of course. So their minor illnesses and discomforts are fair game.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship’s beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Bilbo's Last Song
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
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May 21 2009, 10:30am
Post #19 of 21
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Er, referring to the fact that Bilbo did get ill - not the cold itself! 
And poked most disrespectfully in the tummy...which you're quite right: this would never, NEVER happen in LotR!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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FarFromHome
Doriath
May 22 2009, 9:32am
Post #21 of 21
(2833 views)
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... he's just not an 'epic' hero! But there are lots of other kinds of hero....
I've never watched Lost, but it sounds like Hurley has more in common with Bilbo than Frodo, at any rate!
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship’s beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Bilbo's Last Song
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