Portada de 'Kamasutra en la empresa'

Acabo de publicar, junto a mi compañero Rafael Galán, el libro ‘Kamasutra en la empresa. 69 posturas que te darán placer en el trabajo’. Se trata de una guía para sobrevivir en la jungla laboral que nos enseña a sobrevivir a los compañeros trepas, jefes tocapelotas, a las broncas, a los malor rollos, etc. Las  situaciones descritas seguro que les serán muy familiares a muchos periodistas. Y todo contado en clave de humor inteligente (eso, al menos, es lo que hemos pretendido).

En este blog voy a reproducir tres extractos de capítulos que, de alguna u otra manera, hacen referencia al mundo del periodismo. Hoy publicamos ‘La postura del boli azul de Pedro J.’

“Víctor Olmos es un veterano periodista que hace unos años publicó un libro titulado ‘Un día en la vida de El Mundo’. Del diario El Mundo, se entiende. Su director, como sabes, es el superfamoso Pedro J. Ramírez, idolatrado por unos y odiado por otros. El libro es un recorrido a lo largo de todo un día por las entrañas del periódico. Una detallada y amena explicación de cómo funciona un diario por dentro, sus problemas, sus secciones, y los mil y un trucos para sacar adelante un producto tan complejo y apasionante como éste.

Pedro Jota es uno de esos personajes que parece tener el don de la ubicuidad. Si pones la radio, allí está, en la tertulia de turno, opinando esto y lo otro sobre la actualidad política del momento. Si enchufas la tele, allí lo encuentras polemizando con los opinantes de la otra acera. Dando una conferencia en la Universidad, firmando un libro, en Internet… ¡Si es que parece un Dios este hombre! ¡O un Gran Satán! (depende de quien sobre él opine).

Y esa omnipresencia también la ejerce, como no podría ser de otra manera, en el diario que regenta. Desde el gran titular de portada hasta cualquier detalle noticioso de segundo orden, por nimio que parezca, allí puede olerse la presencia de Pedro Jota. Pedro Jota interviene absolutamente en todo. En la redacción de El Mundo se dice que le gusta tirar los córners… y lanzarse a rematarlos.

Un día el director pide a la periodista Lucía Méndez que escriba el editorial principal del diario. Méndez presenta el texto a Pedro Jota a eso de las 8:30 de la noche. Este se sienta a su mesa y lo lee cuidadosamente, con un sempiterno bolígrafo azul en ristre. Y una media hora después, cuando se lo devuelve, está lleno de correcciones azules. ¡Nada menos que trece en un texto de menos de quinientas palabras! Méndez hace las correspondientes correcciones y ahí tenemos el nuevo texto que vuelve a la mesa de Pedro Jota. Y otra vez Pedro Jota metiendo pluma con nuevas correcciones.

Jefes como Pedro Jota, si no muchos, sí que hay algunos en empresas de todo tipo. Depende de cómo tengamos el día, podemos sentirlo como una bendición (¡hay que ver lo afortunados que somos por todo lo que aprendemos con este hombre!) o como una inmensa putada (¡vaya jefe tocapelotas que nos ha tocado! ¡a ver si se toma unas buenas vacaciones y nos deja hacer nuestro trabajo en paz!). En cualquiera de los casos, es lo que hay. Tenemos que convivir con él y lo único que podemos hacer es aprender a sobrellevarlo con pequeños trucos… como los que precisamente aplican, a manera de pequeño exorcismo, en el diario El Mundo.

Leemos en el libro mencionado: “Hay en la redacción de El Mundo quien cree que es conveniente introducir en los textos que se le presentan para su aprobación algún error o incorrección para que Pedro Jota pueda utilizar su bolígrafo azúl”. “Si no corrige, no se queda tranquilo”, apostilla John Muller (uno de los históricos del periódico).

¡Sencillamente genial! ¡Torear a nuestro jefe siempre causa un placer especial! El jefe omnipresente suele ser un personaje superexigente, que parece que sólo vive para el trabajo y que, de manera obsesivo-compulsiva, quiere conocer hasta el último detalle, por pequeño que sea, de todo cuanto se cuece en la empresa. Más de una vez, sin aviso previo, sentirás su aliento sobre tu cogote mirando por encima de tu hombro lo que escribes en el ordenador, con lo que el sobresalto que te llevas puede ser de infarto. Es el Gran Hermano que todo lo ve, que fiscaliza hasta tus últimos movimientos y que nos hace comprender lo que sentía el personaje interpretado por Jim Carrey en ‘El show de Truman’. O los sufrimientos de Frodo, el prota de ‘El Señor de los Anillos’, al sentirse vigilado en la distancia por el ojo del malvado Saruman.

Y te aseguramos que sí, que estos personajes existen y que, si no sabes lidiarlos, pueden hacer que tu vida laboral se convierta en un infierno. Menos mal que nos tienes a nosotros. Suerte que te has gastado un dinerito (¡muy bien gastado, por cierto! ¡recomiéndanos!) en este revelador libro que tienes ahora entre tus manos. Muchas gracias por los derechos de autor que nos corresponden. Nuestras familias te lo agradecen.

Pero a lo que íbamos. ¡Los chicos de El Mundo nos han dado el antídoto mágico contra los jefes omipresentes! Con este remedio, se acabó el sufrimiento y nuestra vida laboral será mucho más fácil y placentera. Si trabajas para un tocapelotas para quien el trabajo nunca está perfecto al cien por cien, te recomendamos la POSTURA DEL BOLI AZUL DE PEDRO JOTA.

Eres consciente de que tu trabajo está impecable, que para eso sabes muy bien lo que te traes entre manos y le has dedicado al mismo muchas horas. Pero imagínate que ahí, delante de ti, tienes a tu jefe amenzándote… ¡CON SU BOLÍGRAFO AZUL! Ese tío, que apenas conoce de qué va en realidad tu proyecto y apenas ha dedicado tiempo a pensar en él, se cree con todo el derecho del mundo a opinar y va a querer meter sus zarpas y dejar su impronta con el falaz argumento de que se puede mejorar, que para eso él es el jefe y también tiene que justificar su sueldo.

Pues bien, antes de que quiera meter mano a un aspecto sustancial de tu trabajo, de que literalmente lo destroce por puro capricho, tienes que ser mucho más inteligente que él. Introduce a conciencia algún pequeño error, pero QUE SEA MUY VISIBLE (¡pónselo fácil!). Tu jefe lo detectará de inmediato (de eso se trata), sacará su boli azul, introducirá su pequeña aportación y se quedará contento. ¡Misión cumplida! El tocapelotas ya está satisfecho y tu trabajo no ha sufrido ningún daño importante. Así de fácil.

Ahora ya sabes cómo actuar con estos personajes. Muy sencillo. ¡Es como echarle un hueso a tu perro para se entretenga y no te moleste mientras tú te ocupas de lo que es realmente importante! Eso sí, si tu jefe no responde a este perfil, pero conoces a alguien que sí padece situaciones como estos, sé un tío (o una tía) enrollao (o enrollá) y ve corriendo a contarle la POSTURA DEL BOLI DE PEDRO JOTA. Seguro que te lo agradecerá”.

Más información: http://laempresasegunelkamasutra.wordpress.com

MAGIA, ESPADA Y FANTASÍA (VI)

La segunda parte de la monumental adaptación a la pantalla de la obra de J.R.R. Tolkien por Peter Jackson y su equipo da comienzo en el punto en que la Comunidad del Anillo se disuelve: Frodo y Sam siguen su camino hacia Mordor, Merry y Pipin han caído prisioneros de los orcos de Sauron, y Aragorn, Legolas y Gimli, dejando a los pequeños portadores del anillo que encuentren su propio destino, van tras los cautivos para liberarlos, mientras Sauron y su aliado Saruman siguen acumulando fuerzas con las que aplastar a las razas libres de la Tierra Media, desunidas y parapetadas tras sus débiles defensas…

Tras el impactante efecto sorpresa de la primera entrega, Las dos torres ofrece más de lo mismo (pero peor) en la forma, aunque empieza la decadencia en cuanto al fondo. Como dijimos en su momento en esta misma sección, a medida que la trilogía avanza, sus grandes virtudes se van poco a poco diluyendo y los pequeños inconvenientes del primer capítulo, minimizados ante la grandiosidad del conjunto, van creciendo hasta poco a poco adueñarse de este puente hacia la conclusión. El problema, precisamente, es la entrega incondicional a la espectacularidad de las formas y el paulatino descuido de unas, ya de por sí, demasiado elementales, lineales, esquemáticas cuestiones de fondo (personajes, psicología, motivaciones, reacciones ante los hechos…) siguiendo, obviamente, las pautas marcadas por Tolkien pero haciendo que la película, exactamente igual que su antecesora y su continuación, dependa en exclusiva de los conocimientos previos del espectador sobre la obra literaria a fin de que pueda entender la lógica de acontecimientos y personajes, sin que se trate de un producto cinematográfico autónomo. A ello no es ajena la introducción de las grandes batallas y de las escenas de acción propias de la historia en las que la entrega a la espectacularidad es total, y en las que se desvirtúan algunos logros de la primera parte. Por ejemplo, donde hay un ingente esfuerzo por utilizar el maquillaje y la caracterización para la construcción de las diversas criaturas “no humanas” y de ambientación y dirección artística para los espacios, comienza a haber demasiada labor de computadora a fin de recrear enormes ejércitos en movimiento, espacios abiertos o decorados en los que transcurran los combates, auténticamente de videojuego por más espectaculares que sean, y también en el momento de provocar un buen número de efectos de la violencia sobre individuos y objetos. La batalla principal es tan grandiosa como artificiosa, con algún que otro guiño que supera lo humorístico para adentrarse en lo ridículo, completamente fuera del tono general de la historia, y las múltiples y complejas tramas paralelas que como un mosaico van salpicando la narración y cambiando el punto de interés y de tensión a cada momento, unidas a la excesiva duración del film, hacen que el ritmo vaya desde la lentitud más extrema al servicio del crecimiento de una tensión no siempre lograda (porque hay que entender que al igual que se depende del libro para presuponer aspectos de los personajes el espectador ya conoce el desenlace de los hechos sobre los que se pretende cargar emoción) hasta la vertiginosa sucesión de acontecimientos acelerados que siembran la película de altibajos y lagunas de emoción.

El problema es que la ingenuidad y expectación del discurso de la primera parte se torna aquí en una oda a las imágenes animadas desprovistas de discurso de cualquier tipo o, lo que es peor, intentando alcanzar la sublimidad de ciertos mensajes a través de la mera repetición de frases y situaciones pretendidamente trascendentes y decisivas (cuando, insistimos, el lector de Tolkien, espectador a quien va dirigida la película, no como intención, pero sí como construcción, ya sabe qué va a pasar y qué no) pero que, a través de ese culto a lo entendido como modernidad e innovación visuales, son en el fondo de una emotividad vacía, de una emoción nula, sin una aventura real, sin un riesgo o un peligro que realmente cruce al otro lado de la pantalla, sin unos personajes vivos por los que podamos sentir una empatía que vaya más allá de lo que los personajes dicen representar, sin llegar a sentir algo por los personajes en sí.

La película acumula historias que transcurren de manera paralela pero no por ello gana en solidez, muy al contrario, es una forma de perder pulso, de deshilvanar un puzzle que en la primera entrega había quedado ensamblado de manera aceptable. Se vuelve facilona, vulgar, reiterativa, simple y lineal, por más que visualmente pretenda todo lo contrario, resultar majestuosa, abigarrada, rica, espectacular; busca enganchar por la belleza y el impacto de imágenes grandilocuentes, olvidándose de atraparnos por el cariz de los acontecimientos que cuenta, y es ahí donde, a pesar de que engancha y obliga a seguirla, apuesta por explotar los elementos más pobres y simplones del lenguaje cinematográfico y busca convencer a través de algo, en el fondo, tan fácil como es apabullar, embaucar por aplastamiento.

Habiendo alcanzado así la trilogía la cúspide de lo que podía ofrecer, buena parte de esta segunda entrega y toda la tercera parte son un lento caer hacia la superficialidad en el discurso y el tributo a las formas animadas por ordenador en detrimento de la historia misma, al metraje excesivo en la creencia de que la mejor adaptación es la que cuenta todo (ya dijo Voltaire que el secreto de aburrir consiste en decirlo todo), de que a más, siempre es mejor. Y el cine nos ha dado gran cantidad de muestras, seguramente las mejores, de que lo mejor suele ser siempre lo contrario.

Light, levitating, but with a firm funk base. The mix in hand exactly moves within this range: an overview of most important slightly-overlooked electronic classics of the past decade, mixed together in the playful manner we all have that craving for. Frodos’ definition of electronic club music is mainly based on House, even if some tracks sound more obscure & dub-infused.
One and-a-half hours of genre-defining tracks to rock to.

Tracklist will follow shortly.

Right click to save…
OTAM mix18: Frodo – ‘Theresnonibbit’

There is no way to emphasize sufficiently the importance of brotherhood in walking the journey of freedom from addiction, as well the journey of masculinity.

We need one another as men in order that we would be real men. What is it that hinders us from reaching out to ask for the support of our brothers, even in a time of emotional and spiritual need? Whatever it is, we must renounce that inertia; that impulse to hide; that strong pull toward rugged individualism. In the moment of temptation there is nothing to be gained from resisting the strength which a brother _ or brothers _ can lend.

We need to know that we will never walk alone. We need to be the sort of men who do not let our brothers walk alone.

The stakes are simply too high. When all is said and done the man who will not call out for help will be the one regretting his fierce independence as he sees the wreckage wrought in his life from temptation that flowered into sin and took him down. His wife, kids and reputation in ruins, that man will think: “If only I had just called a brother.”

Again, how instructive are the great stories. It was not Frodo alone who took the ring back to Mordor, it was a Fellowship. It was not one soldier behind enemy lines bringing back Private Ryan, it was a group of soldiers together. We have been lied to by that segment of popular culture which elevates Rambo and John Wayne as the depiction of what it means to be a man.

Men need each other. And in the company of men, a man finds who he is. And it is those men who band together who do what is truly heroic: they move into the world to offer a strength which comes from God and is not corrupted by fleshly intentions.

To my brothers i say: You’ll Never Walk Alone.

Earlier this week, a friend posted this Twitter: “If you could pick one movie and have it actually be a true story, what movie would you pick?”
I took this too seriously, I’m sure, and reflected on it through the afternoon.  After great contemplation, it was suddenly clear to me: Lord of the Rings.  Hobbits – real.  The Shire – real. Gandalf – real. Ents – real. Yes, I would love to live in that world. (I realize that means wraiths, balrogs and the like are included too… but what world, including our own, doesn’t have it’s share of baddies?)  I guess I kind of cheated on my answer since it was a book first… but don’t all great things come from literature? 

“Eucatastrophe” is one of my favorite words.  Tolkien coined it to represent the great thing that surprisingly happens when it seems all hope has failed.  Basically, it’s the opposite of a catastrophe.  And, isn’t it great to have a word for that??  It’s what happens at the end of Return of the King: it seems that Sauron has won; Frodo gives up; Gollum claims the ring.  There is no sign of hope.  Yet, suddenly, we have that great eucatastrophe  – Gollum and the One Ring fall into Mount Doom and the world is saved.  Big. Sigh. Of. Relief.

I love used to love the ending of Return of the King.  I do love the notion of Valinor, the undying lands, especially after reading The Silmarillion.  And the idea of Frodo going there is so… peaceful…

But, wait a minute… Didn’t Frodo just give up?!? Didn’t he fight against all odds and endure every difficulty and then lose strength?  I’ll be honest with you – Frodo and I have been fighting about this for a couple years.  For the longest time, he was my favorite LoTR character.  For reasons I won’t go into, I related to him.  I empathized with him.  But, then, a few years ago, I suddenly realized how weak he was being.  He couldn’t deal; he gave up; then he still couldn’t deal, and he basically bailed on this earth.  Ummm… yeah… that sounds less inspirational.  So, help me out, fellow Ringers.  I’m really mad at Frodo!  The eucatastrophe is amazing – but Frodo doesn’t bring it about.  In fact, his final decision would have led to nothing but catastrophe.  I know it’s important that he spared Gollum earlier, for if it wasn’t for that mercy Gollum would not have been there to inadvertently destroy the ring…. but why did you give up Frodo?  Why??

Earlier this week, a friend posted this Twitter: “If you could pick one movie and have it actually be a true story, what movie would you pick?”
I took this too seriously, I’m sure, and reflected on it through the afternoon.  After great contemplation, it was suddenly clear to me: Lord of the Rings.  Hobbits – real.  The Shire – real. Gandalf – real. Ents – real. Yes, I would love to live in that world. (I realize that means wraiths, balrogs and the like are included too… but what world, including our own, doesn’t have it’s share of baddies?)  I guess I kind of cheated on my answer since it was a book first… but don’t all great things come from literature? 

“Eucatastrophe” is one of my favorite words.  Tolkien coined it to represent the great thing that surprisingly happens when it seems all hope has failed.  Basically, it’s the opposite of a catastrophe.  And, isn’t it great to have a word for that??  It’s what happens at the end of Return of the King: it seems that Sauron has won; Frodo gives up; Gollum claims the ring.  There is no sign of hope.  Yet, suddenly, we have that great eucatastrophe  – Gollum and the One Ring fall into Mount Doom and the world is saved.  Big. Sigh. Of. Relief.

I love used to love the ending of Return of the King.  I do love the notion of Valinor, the undying lands, especially after reading The Silmarillion.  And the idea of Frodo going there is so… peaceful…

But, wait a minute… Didn’t Frodo just give up?!? Didn’t he fight against all odds and endure every difficulty and then lose strength?  I’ll be honest with you – Frodo and I have been fighting about this for a couple years.  For the longest time, he was my favorite LoTR character.  For reasons I won’t go into, I related to him.  I empathized with him.  But, then, a few years ago, I suddenly realized how weak he was being.  He couldn’t deal; he gave up; then he still couldn’t deal, and he basically bailed on this earth.  Ummm… yeah… that sounds less inspirational.  So, help me out, fellow Ringers.  I’m really mad at Frodo!  The eucatastrophe is amazing – but Frodo doesn’t bring it about.  In fact, his final decision would have led to nothing but catastrophe.  I know it’s important that he spared Gollum earlier, for if it wasn’t for that mercy Gollum would not have been there to inadvertently destroy the ring…. but why did you give up Frodo?  Why??

Más de un interesado en leer la obra de JRR Tolkien me ha preguntado con qué libro empezar. Mi primera advertencia es que para leer a este autor hay que tener una buena predisposición a la fantasía… caso contrario es mejor que ni lo intenten.

Pero vayamos al orden de lectura, hay tres opiniones en este sentido:

1. Están los que piensan que primero hay que leer El Silmarillion, porque en él se cuenta el inicio de los tiempos y se describe la creación del mundo imaginado por el autor, incluyendo lo sucedido desde antes de la aparición de Hombres, Elfos y demás criaturas. Allí encontrarán todas las historias de los días antiguos.

El Hobbit sería el segundo libro de la lista. En éste, Bilbo vive una gran aventura. Es un libro para niños muy logrado, único en su tipo, que en definitiva termina sirviendo de bisagra entre El Silmarillion y El Señor de los Anillos.

En El Señor de los Anillos, entonces, Bilbo cede protagonismo a Frodo. Aquí se une todo ese mundo fantástico creado en El Silmarillion, con parte de esa ingenuidad de El Hobbit . Este intento de unidad de todos los relatos lleva a Tolkien al punto de incluir al viejo Tom Bombadil, que no termina de encajar en ese contexto (de ahí la gran pregunta ¿Quién es Tom Bombadil?).

Por último, habría que caer presos del consumo compulsivo, y leer Cuentos Inconclusos, El Libro de los Cuentos Perdidos, todos los cuentos que escribió el autor y que no tienen como marco la Tierra Media, todos los libros publicados por su hijo Christopher, todos los libros que hablan sobre su obra, los que la enulan, y todos los demás etcéteras.

2. Luego están los que opinan que hay que leer la obra en estricto orden de publicación. Esto correspondería, según ellos, al deseo del autor en cuanto al orden de lectura.
No estoy de acuerdo con esta perspectiva ya que esto no es del todo cierto. Tolkien hubiera querido publicar mucho más y mucho antes de lo que se publicó, y mucho dependió de los deseos de las editoriales, las circunstancias socioeconómicas, y su propia dedicación a la obra.
El estricto orden de publicación termina siendo tan arbitrario entonces como cualquier otro método. Sólo se puede decir a favor de esta opinión, que al conocer el autor qué estaba publicado y qué sabía el lector previo a cada publicación, podría haber modificaciones en el material para ajustarse a esa realidad.

3. La tercera opinión es, sin más preámbulos, la mía.
Si se tiene el deseo de leer a JRR Tolkien, primero habría que leer El Hobbit, pero sólo si a uno le gustan los libros para niños. caso contrario, saltearlo.
Luego (o directamente) El Señor de los Anillos, la obra más famosa de Tolkien, que une todos sus relatos y todas sus pasiones. Es el libro más popular del autor y el que todo lo une.
Si se disfrutó esa lectura, no olvidar el cuarto tomo, que contiene unas cuantas perlitas muy interesantes (en la edición de un solo tomo está incluido), se trata de Apéndices de El Señor de los Anillos.
Más tarde, si (y sólo si) uno realmente ama la lectura y este mundo fantástico, entonces sí El Silmarillion, obra que JRR Tolkien no llegó a publicar, dedicó casi toda su vida a escribir y reescribir, y Christopher a quien le perdonamos todo lo demás por esto compiló y publicó.
Ya si uno se enamoró perdidamente de estas historias resultará totalmente imperdible Cuentos Inconclusos (mi favorito).
Del resto de los libros recomiendo poco y nada, casi todo es material que Tolkien no quería publicar y decidió cambiar. Si alguno de los temas son de especial interés se puede buscar cuál de la infinidad de libros publicados por Christopher trata sobre eso.
Sólo para fanáticos empedernidos: Cartas.
Y, desde mi perspectiva, los libros que no están ambientados en la Tierra Media puede leerse en cualquier momento, tal como se mezcla con la lectura de un libro de otro autor.

Por lo menos así lo veo yo.

Some people have too much time on their hands or just studying it a little too much.

These charts show the character interactions in the movies. The horizontal axis is time, the vertical grouping of the lines indicates which characters are together at a given time. I particularly like the Primer chart; if you haven’t seen it and like films in the vein of Memento, go pick up a copy. I’d make sure you don’t keep blunt instruments close at hand, I promise you by act two – you will be reaching for that churchill dog.

Click here for a full screen version of the charts.

Dré

There is an ongoing debate at the moment about the virtues and vices of social media. Just this week, an article was published by The Telegraph claiming that ‘Twitter costs the British economy £1.38bn’, and then I hear, at a conference last week that Gloucestershire College used Facebook to develop a community of 600 students before they started college this September.

Being a fan of The Lord of the Rings, I couldn’t help but draw a comparison between this debate and the ‘council of Elrond’. In this analogy, the ‘ring of power’ represents web 2.0.

There are some, who, like Boromir, see it as a ‘gift’:

'It is a gift'

But who may be so enthusiastic that they cannot see that there may be some pitfalls along the way.

Others want to take a more heavy-handed approach, by, for example, banning the use of social media wholesale in the workplace. Like Gimli, they try to destroy it:

Destroy it!

But this is futile. No matter how much you try to ban it, it’s still there.

The rash of news stories, positive and negative is like the argument between the members of the council:

Argument

Ultimately, the argument achieves nothing, while the ring remains on the table.

If you’ve seen the film/read the book, you’ll remember that Frodo offers to take the ring to Mordor. There is only one way he can do this, however, and that is with the help of  others, in ‘the fellowship of the ring’:

Fellowship

In the Lord of the Rings, Boromir (the one who sees the ring as a gift) and Gimli (the one who wants to destroy it then and there) both end up as part of the fellowship. We need both voices, I think, but we can’t go on stubbornly ignoring each other.

We need to stop arguing and start collaborating. Some of us will have to speak up, like Frodo, and alert people to the fact that we can’t ignore the massive changes web 2.0 is bringing about: in the workplace, in learning institutions, in our personal life, in democracy, in the media… And the only way to make a path through all of this is to collaborate.

Which character do you think you are?

PS- by equating web 2.0 with the ring of power I am not saying that web 2.0 is evil – this is just an illustration!

The British writer G.K. Chesterton once wrote:

Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

i have been pondering this quote recently as i rework my manuscript. If we are going to slay the dragon of pornography addiction, it will require thinking about our lives in the manner Chesterton suggests here. The dragon does exist, but more importantly it can be beaten. To do so requires thinking of our lives mythically; we are WarriorPoets in a battle that has all the import of Frodo returning the Ring to Mordor.

Life. It can be so crazy. People come and go, in and out of our lives. Some leave something wonderful behind and others just leaving a bad taste in our mouths. Funny thing though; right when you think you know what to expect, something changes. Your normal life and everything you’ve come to expect suddenly is history. That’s life I suppose; change, change and more change.  

“He who rejects change is the architect of decay.  The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”  Harold Wilson

I never used to be good with change…I was a sorry basket case when things started to be different from normal. I was the male version of Anne of Green Gables; always wanting things to stay the same. In my mind if it wasn’t broken, don’t fix…ya know what I mean? Of course I learned that change was impossible to escape and although it wasn’t always fun, I had to adapt to it and embrace it.

I’ve had some amazing people come into my life, and I’ve had to accept the fact that they may not always be there. They have a calling that may not always include a close proximity to me; darn it all. They’ve taught me, inspired me, and gave me a greater worth. They’ve challenged me, pushed me and believed in me. I’ve always known that not everyone has one of these great people in their lives and that these moments should be cherished. Not every Anakin has an Obi-Wan, not every Robin has a Batman and not every Frodo has a Fellowship. Some people go their whole lives without someone believing in them, but they don’t give up. Those of that have been lucky to have an Obi-Wan, should jump at the chance to be that for someone else.

Change is going to happen. The people in your life RIGHT NOW, may not always be there no matter what you think, and if they are in your life; there’s a reason. Don’t expect things to stay the same, expect change and then you won’t be surprised when it comes. Invest, believe and create worth in others while you have the chance.

Thanks for reading.

Suddenly Bilbo looked up. “Ah, there you are at last, Dúnadan!” he cried.
“Strider!” said Frodo. “You seem to have a lot of names.”
“Well, Strider is one that I haven’t heard before, anyway,” said Bilbo. “What do you call him that for?”

Why is it that things in Middle Earth have so many names? It’s as if Tolkien’s narrative landscape was tunneled through with linguistic rabbit holes, teeming with broods of playful and proliferating names. Black Riders, Ringwraiths, and Nazgul; Rivendell, the Last Homely House, Imladris; Strider, Aragorn, the Dúnadan—it seems as if being a person or place of importance in Middle Earth requires at least three different names, one of which must be in a foreign language if at all possible.

The meetings at Rivendell, and the tales told at the Council of Elrond in the chapter following, must have worked on Tolkien like so many excuses for enriching the treasure-trove of Middle-Earthling names. The character who was Tom Bombadil several chapters ago becomes Iarwain Ben-adar, Forn, and Orald during the Council of Elrond; and the sneaking culprit who bears so much of the blame for the Ring is revealed not only as Gollum but as Sméagol, who is to become Slinker and Stinker before his tale is done.

And this is not even counting the epithets. Frodo is dubbed both the Halfling and the Ring-Bearer, just as Elrond is the Half-Elven and Gandalf is the Grey. The Ring itself is variously the One Ring and Isildur’s Bane. Even Sauron, who does not seem to have another proper name—certainly not one as decorous and awe-inspiring as “Tom Riddle”—has an entourage of epithets that include “the Dark Lord,” “the Necromancer,” and “the Enemy.”

And so it seems that any being of any importance or lineage in Middle Earth bears many names, and indeed cannot avoid bearing them. Interestingly, the lone class of beings to largely escape these multiple namings is the Hobbits. They are named in our common modern way of First Name, Last Name, and that is very likely because they are neither important enough to have epithets (except in the case of a prodigy like the Old Took), nor adventurous enough to win other names. (Think of how many multiple namings arise from the same thing being named in multiple languages. That is a phenomenon that no respectable Hobbit would wander far enough to suffer.)

This fanciful proliferation of names, I believe, is ultimately not merely fanciful. If it does nothing else, it contributes its tuppence to the three-dimensional texture of Middle Earth as a world of intelligent beings. Things are named diversely because diverse languages name them, or because diverse qualities inhere in them. A name picks out what is most salient from someone’s particular angle of vision. Thus, Isildur’s Bane means nothing to Frodo until he hears the story of Isildur; but to the Heirs of Isildur, the epithet strikes closer to home than the mere noun “the Ring.” So it is with the Last Homely House and Imladris. The first conveys to us all the comfort of a chair by a fire; the last conveys all the magic and mystery of an unexplored fairy kingdom.

All this seems to be roughly what lies in the background of Bilbo and Frodo’s exchange on the names of Aragorn. It is tempting to think that Tolkien included the brief conversation just to make his linguistic point. For Aragorn explains to Bilbo that he is called Strider by a particular folk (the Bree-landers), much as he will explain to Boromir in the following chapter that travelers give the Rangers scornful names. The striding and wandering quality—“Longshanks” as Bill Ferny puts it—is what stands out about the Rangers to such a folk. But as Bilbo goes on to demonstrate in Elvish, the name of “the Dúnadan” when applied to Aragorn is fraught with import. It means “Man of the West, Numenorean,” and is not only what stands out to the Elves when they look at the weather-beaten Ranger, but is closer to the reality of who he is.

And so I say: let the names be fruitful and multiply, and replenish all of Middle Earth.

Some good impressions of Lord of the Rings Characters.

Part 1

A Writer Goes on a Journey calls Twilight clichéd, and considering the sexist views throughout the series, it’s not hard to see why. The story revolves around a helpless heroine who is constantly in need of rescue by supernatural men. She has no sense of self outside of her relationship to them. Given the demographic—teenage girls—the popularity is disturbing, or at least revealing. It did make me wonder though: How is speculative fiction representing gender? Are we writing brave new worlds of equality or reinforcing more traditional roles?

A quick way to assess gender bias is to give the protagonist a sex change and see if the plot still holds. I tried this on my first love, LOTR. (I am a huge Tolkien fan. I actually leaned Elvish when I was a teen so I could write in my diary without fear of discovery!) However, when Frodo becomes female, the story just doesn’t work. Tolkien wrote in a masculinist hegemony, and it shows.

Eowyn, the maiden of Rohan, has to disguise herself as a man ...

He portrays women via the male gaze—maidens with flowing hair, long dresses, and male protection—fathers, brothers or husbands controlling their lives. Eowyn, the maiden of Rohan, has to disguise herself as a man to ride into battle and kill the Nazgul lord. She must reject her feminism and lie to achieve her goals. This tells us something about the gender constructs of Middle Earth.

In the Shire, we don’t meet any females aside from Sam’s Rosie, who gets a few paragraphs, and Bilbo’s hostile aunt, who gets perhaps less. The temptation is to assume the females are in the role of child rearing, bread-baking and other domestic tasks. If Frodo were ‘Froda,’ he wouldn’t make sense as the ring bearer without reconstructing gender norms in the Shire—a full rewrite.

For example would we find ‘Froda’ living sequestered with bachelor Bilbo for all those years, and later living alone with her faithful servant Sam? Although a homosexuality is not implied when these figures are male, heterosexual complications arise with the gender switch. We have no model for it in the present ‘life in the Shire’ and to avoid jarring the reader the ‘feminist’ qualities of hobbits would need more development.

To remain consistent to the work—where females must become like males to have an impact—hobbits might have to be written as an androgynous race (much like the Dwarves). In this way female hobbits would lose the feminine identity and gain effectiveness. Another possibility is to give them ‘higher powers’ as in the race of Elves.

How many parts of Lord of the Rings would change if the main character changed gender?

Conceiving that female hobbits could be rewritten to accommodate ‘Froda’ as ring-bearer, Smeagol the Gollum would have to switch gender as well. As a shadow figure—the dark side of the psyche that knows nature’s ways and the hidden paths yet is damaged and twisted by life—Gollum’s gender must match the ‘light’ figure’s as they do in myths, dreams and fairytales. Again, more rewriting.

What do you think? Is speculative fiction widening our views of classical gender roles or reinforcing traditional ones? Does your favourite hero or heroine withstand a gender switch without confusing plot or meaning? Does it matter? I’d love to hear your comments!

Kim Falconer is the author of the Quantum Enchantment series, beginning with The Spell of Rosette, and continued in Arrows of Time. She is currently working on a second trilogy, and yet has the time to also run Falcon Astrology!

episch.

Directly following Gandalf’s explanation of the Seen and the Unseen worlds to Frodo, Tolkien records for us a prophetic and mystifying rumination on the part of Gandalf.  To Gandalf’s eyes, which see in both worlds as the Elves do, Frodo appears slightly transparent.  Importantly, the word is transparent and not faded.  Gandalf does not think that Frodo will come to evil.  But, he reasons, “He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.”

The image of a glass filled with light instantly recalls the Phial of Galadriel, which will come to Frodo’s aid so often through his later adventures.  The implication of Gandalf’s rumination is clear.  Frodo too has begun to live in the world of both the Seen and the Unseen, and to those like Gandalf who can see the Unseen, he is already being transformed into a vessel or medium of invisible virtues.  As the Phial of Galadriel brings light to dark places, Frodo himself will presumably come to exude (for lack of a better word) a “spiritual” light in the darkness.

Perhaps it would not be too much of a stretch to take a cue from the Catholics on this point.  If Frodo’s sufferings transform him into a phial of light to his world—a vehicle of divine grace, as it were—then this lowly Hobbit of the Shire is destined to become a Saint of Middle Earth.

This 19th of December edition of the Amsterdam labelnight ‘Redevice invites…’ @ Studio 80 features the scandalously underrated Sub Static and Karloff Rekordings label-boss Falko Brocksieper. In order to keep up with our reputation of providing a playground for more experimental and absurd techno approaches, we’ve also invited Vera Heindel, San Proper & Kouam Djoko. Talk about letting those dogs out.
Here’s an exclusive interview plus mix avec Falko, to get the juices flowing.

Could you tell us about the founding of Sub Static and Karloff Recordings. What was your role in both labels?

Sub Static was founded in Cologne in 2000 when I met my long-term partner MIA. Our aim was just to create a small platform for our music and ideas. However this soon became a more serious occupation, as we increasingly enjoyed to work for international content and reputation. It led to the desire to release an even wider range of electronic music we loved, so the sublabel Karloff Rekordings was established in 2003.
At times we had approaches to grow the labels to a higher business level, but after all the basis of our motivation and qualification was always just to release and promote our favourite music.
Mia and I never had clearly defined roles in the label management, so anything within A&R, promotion, administration, accounting was my daily business. I also did all of the graphic design.

One of our favorite mixes of the year is the MNML SSG MX36 you did, which features half-forgotten gems from the likes of Mouse On Mars, Robert Hood & Plaid. Could you tell us something about your musical roots and artists that have most inspired you?

What first got me into techno was trance, mostly european stuff, in the early 90’s. However at the time this wasn’t even a clearly outlined genre, neither was it cheesy or commercial. It simply meant – techno that is monotonic and trippy. When I got my first set of turntables and started to spend more time in recordshops I soon discovered the music of Robert Hood, Jeff Mills, Dan Bell, Woody McBride.. alot of mid-90’s minimal techno, mostly from the states. And soon after there was stuff like Aphex Twin, Mouse on Mars, Two Lone Swordsmen, Mille Plateaux & Rephlex stuff…. also alot of electro. Then even more techno – Cristian Vogel & Brighton crew, Maurizio, Kompakt… It’s been exciting times musically, which intensified for me even more when I moved to Cologne in 1997 to study at the Academy of Media Arts.
It’s this spirit of the 2nd half of the 90’s that I tried to capture in the recent mix you mentioned. Part of the spirit is also the health, complexity and mysticism of musical culture at that time — it seems like a very short time window between the farreaching innovation of electronic music, and the start of desktop producing, discogs, downloads and information overkill.

You originate from Cologne, but you operate from Berlin since 2004. Has this move influenced your productions/DJ-sets in a significant way?

I can’t really say how much influence this or the other city has. I think for the main part, moving to another place always changes your way of thinking, and gives you a new perspective on many things — which was also what I was looking for when I decided to move.
What I can say is – approving the clichee – Berlin has been and still is a very inspiring & vibrant place to live and I have no desire to live anywhere else.

You’ve been pretty productive lately when it comes to releasing. Do you have a lot of unreleased material stored up somewhere?

No, piles of unreleased material is what i never had, unfortunately. However this year has been quite productive indeed. Last year I finally released my 2nd album and was touring with my first live set, both helping me to get a fresh approach on the new productions that came out this year.

Any future plans we should know about?

Right now I’m working on a completely new live set, enabling me to be a bit more flexible and improvisational. It’s also giving me ideas for a couple of new tracks already. You can expect some new releases of me in early 2009, but it’s too soon now to announce any particulars.
Also I’m in the studio again with Benjamin Fehr, recording new material as ‘The Result’. Our first release came out this summer on his label Catenaccio. Another EP will be out soon on Brouqade Rec, as well as remixes on TicTacToe and the remarkable NervMusic from Moscow.

Tracklist:
01. Basic Soul Unit – ‘Hope.unity.vision’
02. Falko Brocksieper – ‘Never Mind’
03. Soul Clap – ‘Beauty Sleep’
04. Rene Breitbarth – ‘Pump’
05. Hakim Murphy – ‘Jupiter Poop’
06. Seuil – ‘Lost In The Soul Shower’
07. Dan Ghenacia & Djebali – ‘Eightball’
08. Motorcitysoul – ‘Vivid [Roman Flügel's RMX]‘
09. Khan & Brigitte Fontaine – ‘Fine Mouche’
10. Wasted Chicago Youth – ‘Shake Them Gears’
11. Hell feat. P. Diddy – ‘The Dj [Jay Haze RMX)’
12. Dollz At Play – ‘Oscura Wand In Paris’
13. Ambivalent – ‘808 Clap’
14. Dinky – ‘Epilepsia’

Right click to save…
OTAM Mix 19 – Falko Brocksieper – ‘Decemberumbrella’

En un contexto en el que estamos dispuestos a rendirnos y que ya no distinguimos entre lo que queremos y debemos:

Frodo: No puedo hacer esto, Sam.

Sam: Lo sé. Ha sido un error. No deberíamos ni haber llegado hasta aquí… Pero henos aquí, igual que en las grandes historias, señor Frodo, las que realmente importan, llenas de oscuridad y de constantes peligros. Ésas de las que no quieres saber el final, porque ¿cómo van a acabar bien? ¿Cómo volverá el mundo a ser lo que era después de tanta maldad como ha sufrido?

Pero al final, todo es pasajero. Como esta sombra, incluso la oscuridad se acaba, para dar paso a un nuevo día. Y cuando el sol brilla, brilla más radiante aún. Esas son las historias que llenan el corazón, porque tienen mucho sentido, aun cuando eres demasiado pequeño para entenderlas. Pero creo, señor Frodo, que ya lo entiendo. Ahora lo entiendo. Los protagonistas de esas historias se rendirían si quisieran. Pero no lo hacen: siguen adelante, porque todos luchan por algo.

Frodo: ¿Por qué luchas tú ahora, Sam?

Sam: Para que el bien reine en este mundo, señor Frodo. Se puede luchar por eso.

So since he who has control over good things can do all things, whereas those who control evil things cannot do everything, it is clear that those who can do evil things are less powerful.

The professor whom I am assisting in the course on Boethius neatly divides Boethius’s “evil beings” into three categories.  Some men are evil through ignorance, because they simply do not know what the good is, or because they are deceived.  Some are evil through weakness of the will, because they know what is good but they desire evil more than the good.  But some are evil through malice, and they do what is evil because they know it is evil.  They take delight in the harm they cause.

In the case of Tolkien’s characters, at least the ones who are tempted by and succumb to the Ring, the first two categories seem to merge.  Through weakness of will Isildur keeps the Ring on account of its beauty, and he is thereby deceived into thinking it harmless.  Through ignorance, Bilbo and Frodo keep and use the Ring for many years, and it wears away the strength of their wills to the point that Bilbo barely gives it up, and Frodo cannot do so at all, even though at the last he knows with perfect clarity how evil it is.  Gollum desires the beauty of the Ring from the beginning, and murders for it; he is then deceived into thinking that, with the Ring’s help, he can learn great secrets under the mountains.  In all such cases, the action of the Ring depends on deception and the weakness of its wearer’s will, and its result is not to increase the wearer’s power, but to drain it away.

But what of the beings who are evil for evil’s own sake?  In what sense are they powerless?  Here I think my two previous meditations pertain the most.  For it is of these evil men, and only of these evil men, that Boethius asserts that they simply do not exist.  He qualifies this, of course, by saying that such men do not exist as men—they exist as something less, as corpses exist.  But do what sorts of powers pertain to a corpse?

… All power is to be reckoned among desirable things, and all desirable things are related to the good as to the high point of their nature.  But the capacity to wreak evil cannot be related to the good, and so is not something to be desired.  Yet all power is desirable, so it is clear that capacity for evil is not a power.

As it is with the Ring, so it is with Sauron and all evil beings.  They possess no powers except temptation and deception, acting like parasites on the ignorance and weakness of other beings.  In cases where these other beings resist temptation and deceit, they sometimes have the power to destroy.  But Sauron and all his ilk are wholly powerless to create: they can only destroy what has already been created.  They are powerful in the sense that leeches are powerful, deriving their capacity to cause harm only from the constitution of their victims, and not from any real power radiating from their own beings.

You see kings seated high on lofty thrones,
In gleaming purple bright, fenced by grim arms,
Speechless with rage, threats on their louring brows.
Draw back this veil of arrogant, empty show,
Then see close chains which bind the lords within.
Lust with its poisonous greed excites their hearts;
Wild anger whips up storm-waves in their minds;
Grief plagues these captives, slippery hope torments.
The king you see by many lords possessed,
His aims frustrated, by harsh masters pressed.

Or, as Boethius writes in the following chapter:

True voices and true shapes were lost;
Bereft of human norms,
Their minds alone endured unchanged
To mourn their monstrous forms.

(Consolation of Philosophy, V.2 & 3)

The Return of the King, book three of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is absolutely wonderful.  But if you read it, be prepared to be depressed. Overwhelming hopelessness is a not-so-subtle theme throughout the whole thing.  The beauty of it is that, for the most part, the characters keep striving on even when they know exactly how impossible are the tasks that they face.  It’s nice to read about straightforward heroes – and villains – in modern literature.

I enjoyed reading about the plight of Eowyn – at last, a female who actually does something! 

Although apparently the actions she takes are mostly of the suicidal variety, and Tolkien seems to indicate that her place is at home, doing “women’s work”, not out at battle.  I’m torn on that one.  On one hand, she did indeed have a responsibility to shepherd the people while the king was away, but personally, I wouldn’t have liked being patronized and told to go hide in a cave while all the cool people ran off to do heroic deeds, either.  Still, I appreciate the fact that all the men involved in this decision (Theoden King, Eomer, and Aragorn) truly wished only for her safety.

I was torn again when it came to her love story.  My first inclination was to delight in a happy, romantic ending.  However, angst makes for more interesting reading, generally.  I felt a lot more for her character while she was moping around like Eeyore than I did when she, in two pages, transformed into that la-di-dah Princess Sunbeam type character.  The ends got tied up just a bit too neatly for my taste.

I don’t feel the need to say much about the battles, other than that they were enthralling.

My heart was breaking for Sam and Frodo while they trudged through Mordor.  It was interesting to see Sam become more and more the hero of the story.  We have no way of knowing if Frodo could have succeeded without him in the end, but it certainly seems unlikely.  Gollum played his part well, too.  You have to pity the creature but always despise him at the same time.  I was a little disappointed that Frodo couldn’t destroy the ring of his own free will (guess hobbits aren’t quite as tough as they say!) but it absolutely worked out for the best to have Gollum give up his life for it.

All in all, it was an excellect conclusion to an excellent epic tale.

How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep that have taken hold.  ~ Frodo Baggins

 

 

The Hobbit in his secret hole,

Unwillingly lets

The Fortune of the Ring unfold.

Then Begins

The story of adventure told.

~ Eyes searching the horizon

Clinching teeth, nibbling old rations,

Temporarily frozen passions

Flowing beneath leaden brows

Incredible sacrifice he knows. ~

Around his neck

The Destiny of Middle Earth he holds.

~ But thanks to the unsung henchman

(the friend to the end), and a certain guide;

Immortal peril and deep, dark evil on an epic scale

He Bolds. ~