Beg to report: on her own initiative my roommate sat through the EE Fellowship and Two Towers DVDs (Thursday and Saturday), as preparation for seeing Return a week later. At her church yesterday, the sermon was about Return, so she went out after with a select group of churchgoing nerds and saw Return. That would be about 11 hours of Tolkien-y goodness in 4 days, which for a total Tolkien virgin is remarkable.

She reports she started crying about the beginning of the volcano parts, and that, as with some other Tolkien virgins, she sort of assumed that Frodo was dead. (She said his waking up in a happy place, shot through soft filter, with Gandalf -- who had been dead -- standing right there, convinced her briefly that Frodo must be in heaven.)

So we did the dishes last night to quizzing about several points of canon, including How Did Frodo And Sam Not Eat For X-Many Days, If They're Hobbits? and Why Wasn't Legolas On The "Last Ship Leaving Middle-Earth"? and Gimli Is Really His Boyfriend Isn't He? Good times, good times.

why is it that elves never ever seem to get even the smallest bit of dirty while the rest of the lot gets dirty as fuck?

When they all emerge from Moria in Fellowship, Legolas has a couple of artful smudges on his forehead. (Everybody else is dirtier.) All the elves do get wet at Helms Deep, although NSM with the dirty, and they scream like girly-men when they fall flailing off the Deeping Wall. If that's any consolation to you.

(I do like a little bit of scruffy, although Miracleman's riff on Elrond passing off Irish Spring soap as a magical token was well-taken, in Strider's case.)

Strider doesn't clean up that well. The kingly hair wasn't happening.

Well, he's just not a Prell guy. Either there's some wicked hard water in Minas Tirith, or else he way overindulged on the conditioner, because that hair was flat and heavy. Well, and it didn't matter anyway, because he is doomed to spend the rest of his life with hat-hair.

as with some other Tolkien virgins, she sort of assumed that Frodo was dead.

I watched TTT over the weekend, and I realized that the reason that I, as a non-Tolkien-reader, expected Frodo to die is that Galadriel says that Frodo is beginning to realize he won't survive (or something to that effect).

I'll tell you why. It's those damn "Frodo Lives" t-shirts. Plus someone said he never marries. I can't believe I never learned otherwise for two years.

One of my problems with the cloaks as pictured in the movie was that they looked as itchy as all get out.

Dom Monaghan mentions that he was fiercesome allergic to his cloak.

Here's the link for the fabric suppliers. Still looking for photos.

watching FotR after seeing RotK is absolutely heartbreaking.

Oh yes. I mentioned, rather flippantly, that instead of erranding yesterday we could pile up and watch EE FotR and TTT before seeing RotK again this coming Friday. I was more than half-joking, but he went for it. Even with pauses, it was exhausting. Trilogy Tuesday was fueled with crowd-excitement and much caffeine. Yesterday was unplanned for. But the pastoral bits in the beginning of FotR had my throat all lumpish, in a way I'd never been before, watching it.

Mucho thanks, Beverly. BTW, there is a box on its way to you right now.

From this page you can find links to cloak photos, and some closeups. I'd do more search, but I have to jump in and out of the shower and run off to have my mammogram.

Yes, I've been repressing. Cloak search MUCH more fun!

a box on its way to you right now.

Ooh! Wheee! Thanks. I'll get them back to you ASAP.

I didn't know jack about Lord Of The Rings at all before embarking on my viewing of the Trilogy and was glad I didn't. How do the movies compare to the books? I highly doubt that any written passage could do justice to how damn sexy they all are.

They couldn't have got rid of Gollum fast enough for me. Guy just got on my nerves about half way through TTT.

Hmm. It appears to be a simple enough tweed. I'm not crazy about the color--it doesn't look elven enough, IMO. They should be a subtle, luminous gray that iridesces slightly to green or brown.

pondering, and making a shopping list for the MD Sheep & Wool festival....