Bean At Work

[cbertsch]

Since Skylar had today off from pre-school, I brought her to the office with me. While distressed to learn that there wasn't that much "work" for her to do at this end-of-semester juncture, she had fun sharing her Dragonology book -- see knicolini's blog entry from today on the subject -- with everyone she saw.

It seemed appropriate, under the circumstances, to set her up in my office for some "downtime" with the underrated Rankin-Bass animated version of The Hobbit, a childhood favorite of mine:

The best part was the moment of recognition during the cavern scene when she turned to me and said, "It's the Ring of Power!," captured for you here in the manner of Marcel Duchamp:

Isn't retroactive foreshadowing fun?

Comments

Roast Them Alive

[sittinginaroom.livejournal.com]

The animated "Hobbit" was also a favorite of mine as a child. Tolkien's book was the first "grown-up" book I read (alternating with my father -- he read a section out loud, I read a section out loud) as a child. The recent resurgence of LOTR's popularity brought with it a fairly regular stream of snipey potshots at the animated original. I don't care -- I loved it as a child, though I now refuse to watch it. I had a bad experience with "Thundercats" a couple years back. "Thundercats" was another favorite cartoon as a kid. In an uncharacteristic burst of nostalgia the adultish me decided to revisit childhood me's toon-of-choice and I went out of my way to catch a late-night "Thundercats" rerun on Cartoon Network. The result was a questioning of every childhood perception I ever experienced -- I remembered the cartoon as as somehow "sleek" and with higher quality animation. If you've ever seen "Thundercats" you realize the absurdity. For whatever reason, the experience was extremely uncanny and jarring, highlighting a basic disconnect between past and present perception. But still, those Goblins . . . awesome.