The Lord of the Rings in Sixty Seconds

Now this is funny

A Synoptic History Part 1

Update 4/10/08: If you have not already read this, don't bother starting now. I have very nearly rewritten it all, replacing a lot of the names. I mean to post it in smaller portions next time, in a couple of weeks, perhaps.

I've called this Part One for a reason, however the other parts to come are still rather sketchy - even in "synoptic" form. (Of the Rise of the Quendilli; Of Ereston Irchamilon; Of Ingold and Ingram; Of Adinnir Drakesbane; Of Loquendon and Oedis; etc.) You'll just have to try your luck with the names. And please don't anyone mention "The Silmarillion" - those of you who know what that is.

Of the Creation of the Lower World and the Great Enmity

First there was Venaur, called Telúmono, Lord of All; and from the word of his thought sprung his beloved, the Arváni, named his Holy Children. Of these there were three. Foremost among them was Víor, the Lord of Light; second to him came Athrú, Lord of Darkness – for in those first days ere time was yet counted, darkness was pleasing and night held no fear, for fear had not then been conceived. Last came the Lady Mará, and most dear to her brothers. And they dwelt together with Telúmono in Vinyóldë.

Erelong, Telúmono fashioned that which he called Hándaion, the Lower World, for he hung it without Vinyóldë, in the Void, and made a window looking down upon it from his throne. This world he clothed with trees and grasses and raised mountains and cut seas upon its face. He placed beasts and birds on the land and fish in the waters; and he made the soulless fays of tree and mount.

And the Void he filled with the greater and lesser Seraphs, the Arlússindi and the Ailostí. The lesser seraphs were numberless, and none have learned all their names; but of the Greater were only a few, and their names are recounted in all the histories. There was Vrános the Watchman of Day, ablaze with a great flame and chief of all the Seraphs; and there was his wife Quë, gentle Mistress of the Night. Also there was Rastmú who dared to pilot his ship closer than any other to fiery Vrános; and also bright Silfeínyn of the Morning, fairest of all; and Díndiol the Red Headed; and doughty Lirósto; and Kilmárë with her shining garlands hung about her; and Tastúplë and his sister Tíntwiel, and distant Ilún, last and least among the Arlússindi. All these were set by Telúmono in their courses across the sky. And his work was good, and it was fair, but it was yet incomplete.

For when the Arváni saw the beauty of Hándaion, they were enamored and sang of its wonder. And they said to themselves that if only they might each add something to this work. Therefore they came to their father and asked that they might join in his labour together with him.

This pleased Telúmono, for it had been his own thought that he had placed in their minds. Thus he decreed that they three should each of them shape a man and from that man would come an entire race; and under the unliving flesh of these new men, he himself would kindle life.

But when the Arváni had fulfilled their task, and saw how glad were these fathers of men as they walked in the glades of Hándaion, Athrú felt suddenly ashamed. For though the men of his brother and sister were fair and oft merry, his was short and grim and quick in temper. He fancied them to be harsh, unlovely and rude; creatures ill matched with the beauty of Hándaion. And so he cursed his hands, that they had fashioned these malformed people.

In truth, they were not as him thought them – they were not ugly, but nor were they passing fair – but they were hardy, and skilled in craftsmanship. Yet they seldom cared to fashion small, delicate things, but would fainer raise soaring towers and fine cities. They were named by Telúmono the Ngóstili, the Stalwart Folk.

Mará's people he named the Merdili, for they loved the oceans of the world and its heaving surf, and the wide northern skies, therefore they took their homes beneath the seas.

To the last race, those of Víor, Telúmono gave the name Quendili and it is with them that this history is chiefly concerned.

Now, to these three races Telúmono gave dominion and judgment over all things within the spheres of Hándaion, bounded by the path of Quë, who sailed closest of all the Seraphs to Hándaion; but this pleased Athrú illy. He loved the new world dearly – dearer than he ought, nigh covetously – and desired that he and his brother and sister should govern it as their house. But this was never in Telúmono's purpose.

Therefore Athrú thought to make himself a new world to be his home; so he took himself to the underside of the disc of Hándaion – called Úngothon, the Nether-hells – were nothing lived, save the sightless, formless shadow-fays, to whom Athrú gave their visible shapes in return for their service.

But the bodies he gave them were terrible, like those of great spiders; and like spiders, they wove gloomy meshes of web that barred-out the daylight shed by Vrános. They were the Mim-Úthrioth, bound by oath and strange love to their master.

Neither was anything else he fashioned fair, but always his designs would go astray and result in forms of dismay – dark and twisted towers, blasted trees, and poison lakes, dead cities of shriveled gardens and empty windows. But never could he imitate the gift of life that was Telumono's alone to give, though he tried unceasingly.

In the midst of Úngothon, Athrú set a great forge – Talquóro he named it, for upon it he smelted the materials from which he sought to fashion his realm. But as the fires of Talquóro grew hot and burned fierce, of a sudden they leaped forth and burned Athrú's hands as he worked there, so that they pained him always and hindered him in everything. Thus was his own curse worked out.

And so his shame and jealousy grew and he came to hate Hándaion with malice as strong as his former love, because he could not copy it. Moreover, it came upon him to employ all his cunning to secretly turn the designs of Telúmono awry, for in the defeat of the work of his hands and fruit of his mind he greatly envied the power that his Father wielded.

Now, long ere his fall into darkness and jealousy Athrú had seen the beauty of Silfeínyn, Morning Star, and had wedded her, and had had many children by her. These children were, for the most part, of the same mind as their father, ready to follow his will. One alone among his off-spring still fainly sought Telúmono's favour; Óchë he was named. But he was scorned by his brothers and sisters, and because he oft spoke against their father and would have thwarted much of his malice, they bound him in the nets of the Mim-Úthrioth, and there left him to torment.

Athrú's first move to further his ambition against Telúmono was to send out into the world of Hándaion these children under the fair seeming guise of lords and ladies bearing gifts and teaching wisdom and knowledge to the Three Races. Some he sent even into the heavens to deceive the very stars that could see the gates of Vinyóldë from the rail of their bright ships.

And to all who would harken, Athrú's children whispered discontent and spoke of freedom from the fancied constraints of Telúmono, promising a new and better power would rise in his place; and everywhere they went they won over countless thousands by these lies and the trickery taught them by their father.

Of the Three Races, the Ngóstili were ever the readiest to listen and learn from the children of he who had shaped them, for they forgot that it was not Athrú who had given them life, but Telúmono, therefore they turned aside to worship Athrú, and with them many of the Quendili were also deceived; for both these races desired autonomy.

And among the Arlússindi they won over Tíntwiel and also Ilún, who was flung the furthest out in the heavens, and who desired most to take the place of Rastmú by Vrános' side. And many of the nameless Ailostí they won also; and thus were the heavens thrown into disarray.

But among the Merdili they found no welcome, for those people of the sea were content with their lot and they saw through the lies of Athrú's messengers.

Such black treachery as Athrú's could not long remain hidden, and when the darkened mind of Tíntwiel came to be known to Tastúplë her brother, he and and Díndiol, fearing to go to Telúmono with such evil tidings, came first to Víor as he sat in Vinyóldë and told him of all that was passing in Hándaion by Athrú's design.

And at the telling of their tale, Víor waxed mighty in wrath; and he threw himself down upon Hándaion in the dreadful fury of a thousand tempests to see himself how things went. And as he came he gathered to him all the scattered Seraphs who would still heed his summons.

But even as they came Vrános set in the West of Hándaion, and as he passed beyond the Odán Echirímunt – the mountains which encircle the world – Athrú led forth his dark army in tumultuous clamour to overturn Vrános in his fire-ship and to put out his light. And thinking to usurp his place, Ilún, captain of Athrú, drew his sword and slew Rastmú as he sought to defend Vrános his lord; the first and most terrible of all deaths in Hándaion.

But this deed was beheld from afar by Víor, and he perceived in that moment all the evil his brother had wrought in the world; and he hurled himself with all his following into the battle. Thus the first of the great wars to rend Hándaion – the War of Brothers – was joined.

In that battle Úngothon was destroyed, the fires of Talquóro were quenched, and the webs of the Mim-Úthrioth were torn asunder, and Óchë the Faithful was freed from his bondage. Hándaion was riven in two and all the seas ran together into one place, severing that world into two great continents. And Athrú was utterly defeated, though in the fight he dealt Lirósto a grievous wound in his side. But he was finally taken; and bound in the same webs that had held Óchë fast, was thrust into Cûrleigon in the outer void, his prison of unyielding adamant, there to remain until the ending of the age.

And Telúmono gave this judgment also: that Athrú was banished forthwith from Vinyóldë and fated to one day lose all he sought and whatever he gained, and in the end to be finally destroyed along with all who served him. And the Ngóstili and the Quendili were cursed with mortality for choosing to follow the lies of Athrú. Yet Telúmono swore also an oath that he would not forever abandon them to their doom, but that they would one day be saved, and whosoever trusted in that oath would regain their immortality in the end. But ere that day's dawning, he turned the world over to the servants of Athrú to do with as they pleased.

At the uttering of this doom, Mará, who had alone sued Telúmono for her brother's forgiveness, cast herself in grief from the doors of Vinyóldë and ever after strayed in the skies above Hándaion, her tears shed for the lost world oft wetting those very lands below.

But to faithful Óchë was given the place of Rastmú by Vrános' side. And for a little while their was peace.

And so an age past, and a thousand years of captive malice lay dormant in Athrú's heart; and he escaped from out of Cûrleigon, even as Telúmono had foreseen. And as the gates of Vinyóldë were forever barred to him, he came to Hándaion thinking to regain his power there and once more take up his dark sceptre over all the lands. But he found things little to his liking, for although in his stead Ilún had rebuilt Úngothon and rekindled the fires of Talquóro, and many of his former servants had gathered there to await his return – or had found darksome holes and hideaways in Hándaion, safe from the wrath of Víor – Athrú found that Tíntwiel had abandoned him, and in contention had raised herself up a mountain in the midst of the great sea and had enthralled there under her power two of the kings of Hándaion and all their people with them. These kings were Nímro of the Ngóstili and Khúro of the Quendili; Thrall and Bondage; and by their hands she had fashioned herself a false paradise named Torodíor Găth, a snare to unwary mariners who ventured too near her realm. For although the land seemed fair, upon the mountain top was built a tall tower and a gold dome – a heathen temple to herself, within which was daily offered a sacrifice of mortal blood. She was the queen of sorcery and witchcraft and necromancery.

And so Athrú hated her, as he hated Telúmono and the three Races, and plotted her destruction and the destruction of all the world.

By this time many of the Ngóstili and the Quendili had lost all remembrance of his former evils, for in their mortality they had many of them become weak-minded and ignoble, and this Athrú worked to his gain.

He issued a summons to all the Ngóstili, calling them to Ilábtoron – the easternmost continent of the two in Hándaion– and claimed their fidelity by saying he was their sovereign lord and maker, and as such they were bound to serve him. As of old, many Ngóstili heeded his words and those that followed him to Ilábtoron were named the Chorochán, for he fed them upon his hate, and they became truly foul and grotesque, even as he had first thought them.

But a few still recalled the tales of his ways and refused to again listen to his lies; and so they remained in the west, in Vuintoron; and they were the Úlethoch, for they were separated from their kin.

And He set the Chorochán to work making great engines and armories as to ready them for battle against the Quendili and Úlethoch, and so destroy or enslave all the peoples of the world and cling to his mastery of Hándaion, defying even the final curse of Telúmono.

Alien: A Response

I wrote this in response to my friend's assertion here that we should not rule out the possibility of the existence of aliens.

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No, I think we can rule out the possibility of aliens altogether. Where do they fit in with God's plan? Where is the biblical allowance for them? True, we might say that about many things - birthdays, computers, and other things the Bible doesn't mention. But if there were alien life forms, this other race of beings would have to be damned in the fall of man. They Bible says that as a result of Adam’s sin "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of child birth right up to the present time" (Romans 8:22) God holds them accountable for our sin?

And what of their relationship to their Creator? If they were cursed by the fall of Adam, are they saved by Christ’s coming to earth as a man and dying as a man to redeem man save them also? Or must He come to Mars in the body of a Martian to bring the Martians salvation also? Of course not, “For Christ died for sins once for all” (1 Peter 3:18).

Could he have created them at a later date, or an earlier? No, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) And if you believe in six day creation, as I do and I know you do, Andy, here is the “beginning” of the first day. Then six days later “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because he rested from all the work of creating He had done.” (Genesis 2:1-3) So if God made aliens, as I see it, He would have had to have done it in those six days, they would have to come under the curse of Adam, and Christ’s death as a man would have had to save them from God’s wrath. Does this agree with the Bible theologically? I may not have made myself very clear, but Andy, you at least know the context within which I am arguing.

Another point, isn’t the search for alien life spurred at least partly from the fear of man “being all there is”? We are corrupt, perverse, immoral, degraded. Humanity presents a grim picture to the most optimistic of people – those who are optimistic hope we’ll get better, we’ll find world peace or make poverty history. Only the completely deluded are content with humanity as it is right now.

Who would want current man to be the pinnacle of evolution? Those who search for extra-terrestrials want to find them because if man was “it”, there is no hope, for man would be the highest rational power in the universe.

But man isn’t “it”. He isn’t the highest power. If by “aliens” we mean “rational beings other than man” they do exist. But they don’t inhabit some distant planet, nor will billions of dollars find them.

The Bible speaks of angels, of demons, of Satan, and of course, of God. Man is not alone.

Just a couple of youtube videos I thought were rather neat. The first needs no introduction - Jerry Lewis & Lord of the Rings. The second is a Paul Colman song, before he became a Newsboy - back in the PC3 days - set to Lord of the Rings. Good music, good movie.

Another Reason to Revile Against the Foods Festival

Is this bumper sticker an official document? Do They mean to confirm the low opinion some people have of the citizens of the West Coast and promulgate - in the minds of those certain persons of malicious inclination - our illiteracy? Not that we're all so incompetent in that field - I hope. But, I mean, come on! If the Wildfoods Festival wasn't bad enough already...
What's the bet I committed some defamatory error or other in this denunciation, and condemned myself to endless ridicule.

John Piper is Bad

A defamatory video? Watch and find out....

Mission: Implausible

Exterminate Yous - All of Yous

Like the meaning of life and absolute truth, English speaking people are globally searching - often subconsciously - to find a Plural Third Person Pronoun. We all know there should be some solution within the reach of mortal man - it screams to be found - and in this modern era we have attempted to fill that void with misconceived and faulty answers. The most infamous of these is the repugnant word “Yous”. It has spread throughout our society, infiltrating even one of the highest and most respectable paragons of our culture: the television advertisement.

Also like meaning in life and truth, the answer can be found in that which modern man has cast aside as obsolete and antiquated. Our forebears made wide use of the Personal Pronouns “Thou” and “Ye”, but to hope that we could return to this form of language, however practical, would seem to be more than could be asked of this ever-advancing generation.

Unlike meaning and absolute truth, in language at least we can happily compromise. I suggest we take our language deftly and deliberately into our own hands, modeling a new word of reasonable respectability to fill the vacuum left by the exclusion of the more archaic Personal Pronouns and to finally exterminate that unacceptable, unrefined and undignified word. We must cast it from our linguistic presence - our great and noble society depends upon it.

The Work Camp, part 3: The Continuing Story

Part 1 / Part 2

'Here, what's this then?'

The grating voice came from behind the van. I wheeled around to find myself confronted with a swarthy, sweaty, crude-looking man who wore an oily moustache – more like Stalin's than Hitler's – and smoked a fetid smelling “roll-your-own” of dubious ingredient. He wore a colourless military cap slung at a slovenly angle and decorated with what – at first glance – looked like badges, but were in reality beer bottle caps. And not just Tui, but Speights, Heineken, Stella, Monteiths, Tasman Bitter, DB Canterbury Draught and many more.
At his side, tied to his belt by means of a cheap, third-world-country-manufactured green garden twine, was an empty Tui bottle. No, maybe the bottle wasn't empty after all. It was half-filled with what looked like bits of shredded coconut....
“It can't be!” I thought to myself. Choking back the rising nausea, I identified the bottle's contents – bitten off ends of finger nails; and perhaps even toe-nails – that large, thick sliver on the top (I could just make it out through the black glass and peeling label) looked as if it could once have belonged to a big toe. Needless to say, it didn't make things look overly hopeful in the way of constructive hobbies and pastimes in my new home. If the guards had to resort to fingernail collecting as an amusement, what did the detainees do?
Standing behind my new acquaintance, like one of the gargoyles on the old cathedrals in Europe – before they'd been destroyed – was my old friend, the Limper. An ugly leer of ugly intent decorated his ugly face.
I drew a sharp breath of consternation and frustration. “Now I'm for it,” I thought, “No chance to find Kit now.”
The new man spoke again, his voice was certainly not subject material for the romantic poets. “This won't do,” he rasped, “A male detainee walking free in the woman's camp? What's his number? Who's the dipsomaniac responsible for keeping him 'safe'?'
'Not thinking of running off were we lad?' he croaked at me. 'In these parts we don't take none too kindly to folks who go putting themselves forward. You're at Camp Kaiapoi now, and if you start any monkey business, then my name's not Superintendent Kronckendolf if I don't make it your hell. Understand? Good.'
'Hell? Dosen't he know that's a real place?' I tried to think up some suitably bitting remark, but was interrupted in what I confess is a unbelievably difficult exercise and not to be undertaken by those apt to be caught on the proverbial hop. Hopping is an entirely different form of work-out altogether. A milk of a different ilk.
'Here, Harry!' the repulsive superintendent gasped at the Limper, 'Get this boy back in the van with the others. He'll come to no harm there, I'll see to that personally.'
'Right you are, chief,' the Limper shrilled.
They made a good pair, the Limper and the Superintendent – a soprano and a wood-saw. A perfect duet.

Back in the bus with the other male prisoners, I tried to shrink inconspicuously into one of the back seats.
'You just come an' sit up the front with us, kid,' came the rasping command, 'I want to keep my eye on you.'
'Curse it,' I muttered, wondering if the circumstances would excuse me if, just this once, I used a much more potent expletive than was usually heard to issue from my lips.
The superintendent shoved me roughly into the chair next to him. As I hit the seat (bad springs – with the foam padding bursting through the faded coverings) my hand touched something small, hard and lumpy clinging to the underside of my chair. Why must they always stick their chewing-gum there?

One of the guards gave me a toothless, unsavory grin. Or was it a smirk? It's a peculiar thing that you become so distracted in times of trial by the smallest details such as application of word definition.

'Well now, me bonnie lad,' began the Superintendent. 'Bonnie...' he repeated, running the word over his tongue as if he relished the taste. That word has a distinct flavour of horse-radish to me – bitter. Over the coming weeks I was to learn that 'Bonnie' is synonymous with humiliation.
Chuckling in perverse delight – a sound not unlike a heavily asthmatic sheep – the Superintendent leaned over to the Limper. 'Where's Bonnie here staying?' he asked. The Limper grasped at a muddy Adidas backpack, from which he extracted a battered clipboard. Muttering the alphabet under his breath, he ran his finger down the list: 'Smythe, Andy; Admitted April 23 '07, No. 0065219, Sector 12, Block C, Hut 511.'
They already have everything planed, even down to the date I would be “admitted”. How long have they been watching me? How long has my name been on on their list?
These thoughts and more darted through my mind.
'What say we relocate him over to Sector 13, eh? We'll put him up in a nice, special place.' The asymmetrical leer returned to Limper's face as he heard these words. Across from me the other guard's eyes widened in excited anticipation.
'Sector 13, Hut 666, that's were we'll put you up in.' said the Superintendent, committing a gross prepositional solecism. 'You superstitious, Bonnie?'

The whinny of Limper and the drunken gulp from Toothless mingled with the incredible imitation of farmyard animals with respiratory trouble pushing furniture over concrete emitted from the Superintendent.

An Ordinary Boy

This is as far as my imagination took me on this venture, only the introduction of an mock E. Nesbit book. I have no idea what would have followed thereafter.

Michael Attwood was not like most storybook children you might read about. For starters, he was not an orphan. No, both his parents were living and were in the best of health, with neither in any risk of suddenly falling ill, dying or even disappearing. Nor was he an only child, he had three other brothers and two sisters. All four of his grandparents were still very much alive and preferred things to be left just as they were, thank you very much. He had no indulgent, bachelor uncles nor any solitary, dowager aunts, which is not to say that his aunts and uncles were not kind or caring, they simply had enough children of their own to worry over. He knew almost everyone he was related too and it was clear that none of them had any great treasures or fortunes, hidden or otherwise. He had not uncovered any dark family secrets, for there were none. His father, like his father before him and his father before him, was a dentist, with little hope of changing the tradition. They lived in a fairly new house with little to speak of in the way of attics and basements, or even wardrobes for that matter. The nearest lake was a full fifteen miles away, the nearest wood, even further. The truth of the matter was that the only thing that really stood out and labelled him as a storybook child was his full name: Michael George Thomas William James Leroy Richard Henry James Peter Ernest Attwood. And none of these were too peculiar, excepting, perhaps, the repetition of the name “James”, but that is what happens when you are the eldest child and your parents are set on honouring all their uncles and fathers. What galled Michael especially about the whole business was that he had all those names and he could not make an acronym – a word using each of the first letters from each name – out of them. Not enough vowels. Despite all this abnormality for a storybook child, Michael Attwood was one and he did have the most amazing of adventures, which involved none of his family but all of his names.

An Insidious Home Network

"Welcome to my parlour," said the Spider to the Fly.

The Spider sat impassively at the nucleus of her web. In the morning sun the dew laden, silken threads, which formed the orbed product of her nocturnal labour, glistened like the remains of a decimated bay window shimmering in the dulled brilliance of a burglar’s torch. Each crystalline bead of water exquisitely embodied the ambience of that yet unsullied dawn; the herald of new beginnings, fresh opportunities, hope of a better life. Who would dare to suspect that this thing of such subtle beauty was in reality an unscrupulous snare of death, a very symbol of callous bloodthirstiness and evil?

The Fly buzzed lethargically. His mind transmitted cerebral exchanges at what seemed a profoundly slower rate than the pace at which his wings bet the crisp air. Nevertheless, even his aerial appendages were palpitating with an atypical air of settled apathy. Undoubtedly, this slothfulness of mind and body was accredited to a fusion of the waxing morn’s nippy temperature and the Fly’s physical constitution.

Perhaps he was an artistic highbrow among a genus of intellectual dropouts and he appreciated the delicacies of fine art, or maybe it was due merely to an observational error that the Fly, like Icarus, whose misadventures were bourn to a conclusion almost as grim as that about to be enacted, flew perilously nigh to an orb resplendent with fraudulent beauty.

With something akin to an inverted maelstrom or contrariwise cyclone in the inner sanctum of his digestive region, the Fly suddenly felt the iron embrace of the silken chains. Spending all his limited energy in a futile endeavour to break free from these fetters of death, the Fly sensed the web vibrate in a movement which originated at an epicentre entirely independent of his own desperate activities. He turned to behold the Exo-skull of Death bearing down upon him like a rabid, pesticidal arachnid descending upon its wretched prey. Indeed, this simile is glaringly redundant. As compound eye met compound eye the Fly was fully gorgonized, even without the Spider’s paralyzing venom; and certainly, neither of the insectoid visages could comfortably adorn a friendly greeting card. The Fly perceived the glinting, poison-suffused fangs manoeuvre into striking stance. And the rest we will cloak in a curtain of non-violent, non-confrontational, anti-aggressive silence.

The Spider commenced her task of repairing her insidious network after performing her part, however menial, in staying the perpetual advance of contamination spreading creatures into the human world.