Big, hairy feet. Alka Seltzer. Visine. Adult Diapers optional, but suggested.
At the Alamo Downtdown in Austin TX, yesterday they held a special event: The Hobbit Feast.
Exective chef John Bullington has created a seven meal feast, one for each of the different hobbit mealtimes (1st breakfast, 2nd breakfast, elevensies, etc.), spread out over the twelve hours it takes to watch the entire middle earth trilogy. Interpreted from actual meals referenced in the books, the Hobbit Feast is the ultimate Lord of the Rings sensory experience.These seven meals accompany a screening of the three Lord of the Rings films, spaced with 30 minute breaks between them, including the credits.
Okay, so this already happened, as it was a Saturday event, but maybe they'll do it again. I got very little sleep Saturday morning and ran out of time to swing by here and do any posting -- including bits of trivia such as this.
I'd be a little afraid of the crowd that would show up for something like this. The thought of spending 12 hours with people who would show up and spend $88 a pop for this... I don't know. I picture some of them showing up in costume, and an attempt to work Middle Earth sing-alongs into the breaks.
.png)
Comments
It's no joking matter, but if you'd watched the Bucs-Washington game yesterday, you'd understand my truculence.
Hobbits. Brrrr. We hates them, we hates them forever!
Onto better thoughts, I for one would have gone to this. It would have been fun to see the movies one after the other and have gourmet food to munch on. Also, I love people-watching and that would be a primo place for it.
Hobbitses. I loves my hobbitses (and my elvses, and my dwarfses, and orcses and my uruk haises...).
Oh--and my humanses.
When I heard it was Washington/Tampa Bay I recalled that Tammy had mentioned that being part of the afternoon's household plans, so I listened as The Play was made and The Call was made, replayed, and verified. I know a few things about it from that.
The decision went against the Bucs, that since it was a potential score-tying touchdown with only 2min. 55 s. on the clock. The home and certainly stadium audiences (at least the Bucs fans) were on their feet cheering a touchdown, unaware that it was about to be called against them. I know that the call was based on the man with the ball losing control of the ball at the point where he otherwise, officially, would have scored the touchdown.
Since all of the millionaires on the field were paid either way, the only ones I at all felt bad for were the fans... and they were rooting for a point of pride out of Florida, for Chrissakes.
I believe I found some acceptable music after that...
As for the crowd, I don't know that I want to spend half a day in a place with the Tolkien equivalent of convention-going Trekkers. Between the ones who decided to attend "in character" and those looking to supplement the film with recalled material from the books... It may have gone wall, but it has "strain" written across it.
Still, I hope that those who went had fun and got their $88 worth.
I don't mind long entertainments. My sister a couple of years ago, sat through three days of another kind of Ring story. Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. I don't think people dressed up as Valkries, but it was a huge picnic, eating and drinking fest.
Hey, maybe it's knowing this was going on in Texas that made it more worrisome... ;)
We are now, apparently, applying political correctness to chat threads about people who dress up as hobbits.
Well, at least those who feel that way are brave enough to put a name to their scorn.
No, wait...
What America do YOU live in, kemosabe? The America I live in has a trillion dollar economy largely driven by pleasure providing technology and services. What do you think computers, DVD players, stereos, fully loaded luxury vehicles, hot tubs, the fast food & snack industry, big budget Hollywood spectaculars, overstuffed furniture, air conditioners, waterbeds, half hour or its free pizza delivery, downloadable music, rampant pornography, and the entire 'instant gratification takes too long' culture is ABOUT? Stoicism?
Hobbits have nothing to teach Americans when it comes to self indulgence, trust me.
The whole Hobbit lifestyle is probably Tolkein's romantic notion of peasant life.
Even with all the shiny baubles that distract us in American life, I do stand by my statement that we mistrust pleasure. Especially the pleasure of quiet reflection. After all, "Idle hands are the devil's playground!" Our President always loves to be photographed on his ranch,"clearing brush." This "clearing brush" serves no purpose but keeps his empty mind occupied. Without knowing quiet, reflective times, one can never know themselves. This is the danger of television and the internet.
Perhaps that is why Tolkein put so much emphasis on the hobbits smoking their stinking "pipeweed."
If people want to dress up as characters and congregate I have no problem with that providing my attendance isn't mandatory. I see nothing better nor worse in any of that than those who take part in Society For Creative Anachronism events, Renaissance Fairs, and probably would find little to no essential difference between any of the above and people gathering to play Role Playing Games even without being in costume.
Maybe I simply don't like people that much.
What caught me with the Hobbit Feast - saw me looking at it askance - is that it's a mixed event. Three movies shown almost consecutively which tell an overall story? If I want to see the story, then that's all good. At that point I'd be mostly concerned about how comfortable the seating is.
Food being served in seven waves during that movie marathon? Providing that I've identified that there's nothing in the food I don't want, then that's a big plus.
It's the people that are going to be the biggest potential problem for me, largely because they're the most unpredictable factor. Experience tells me that odds are some of them, especially if they come in character, going to poison the atmosphere.
In the end, it's likely something that the people who attend would really enjoy, but I most likely wouldn't... which makes it a good move for me not to go.
Oh, on the last points raised in the Brad/Highlander exchange above, (and now I see that Brad's added this) I'd point out that what Hobbits might have to teach many of us is about enjoying the simple pleasures... though they can keep that Hobbit wacky weed they're always smoking...
There are a lot of people who give me the same look that I give the above people when I tell them I have a blog. I'm sure that some give you Hero Clix players the same look when they hear about that.
Everybody feeds their inner child differently... my usually likes to dine alone.
Can't we all just get along? ;)
This comment brought to you by zypidsyi; as in, Have a zypidsyo-doo-dah-day!
In case anyone cares, I, too, fall (with a resounding thud, I'm afraid) towards the side of those who choose not to dress up as their favorite fictional characters. Now, I have vicariously enjoyed my kids dressing up for Halloween, but since I've been what passes for a grown up, I don't do it publicly anymore. At all. And I'm okay with that.
I very much enjoy Monty Python & the Holy Grail - and many of their classic Flying Circus sketches - but I almost begin to loathe the material when faced with people who want to do live, parallel readings with the film... and seem to want me to laugh as if the person talking over (or just in advance of) the film is terribly witty for doing so.
"Ah, yes. You've heard this before, too. Your parents must be so proud..."
So much, as ever, depends on who's doing it. Friends will always be cut slack in this respect, but that's a vanishingly small list of people. Odds are, you're going in the "asshole" file. ...not that many are going to care.
I enjoyed the movies (and the books, which I've read several times), and would possibly have fun watching them in a community of people who would also enjoy them. If people started jumping up and role-playing (a la The Rocky Horror Picture Show), then I'd be annoyed.
In any case, I think we've beaten this topic to death.
"I'm getting better!"