[OOC: too sick to write]

[sythyry]

[OOC 'cause I'm too sick to talk to Sythyry]

• Spell your first name backwards - I am the opposite of drab.
• The story behind your lj user name - Back at the beginning of time, when LCS was still Project MAC and AI still showed some promise, and nobody much had heard of Thomas Hardy, three people of indeterminate species ruled MIT from Room 333; they were named Fingonn the Great, Lortulan the Incredible, and Plishtzoing the Truly Rather Remarkable. From the four corners of the world came messengers bearing them tribute and taking back ukases from the three. Everywhere, the mightiest warriors feared them and the oiliest politicians licked their boots, and random people named their kids after them. They were strong and they were brave and they were skilled in the seven deadly arts and they were supreme blockheads.

  One day, just after the beginning of time, back when people still spoke respectfully of COBOL and whorshipped IBM and nobody much had heard of Felix Mendelssohn, there came a bedraggled and bemerded couturier named Longshot from the far-off land of Almery, bearing with him a fine silver barometer upon which here were a whalebone bustle, a box of splendid date-apricot bars and a limnetic hellgrammite. And Longshot offered these to the three inhabitants of Room 333 by way of tribute, saying that the most noble of the three should get the bustle, the wisest of the three should get the date-apricot bars, and the best fisher of the three should get the hellgrammite.

  In fact, Longshot was no mere couturier; he was none other than Longshot the Jeweler, and he had come to steal the great jewel-studded telescope that Richard Nixon had sent to Room 333 as a gift, back when Fortran was considered a functional language and 300 baud was fast, and nobody much had heard of Max Ernst. Indeed, the three lords were distracted with the barometer and its contents, and Longshot tiptoed over as quietly as fire and he snuck the telescope under his mitre, and then tiptoed backwards toward the door. But Lortulan the Incredible hurled a cabezon at him and he was slain instanter. (Which will have to do for a moral to this story: crime does not pay.)

  But the barometer still remained in Room 333, and the three still had to divide the tribute. Fingonn first claimed the bustle and Lortulan the date-apricot bars and Plishtzoing the hellgrammite, and everyone was happy until Lortulan realised that Plishtzoing had only caught shrews and thrips, and was therefore much less of a fisherman than she, Lortulan, who had caught many large edible fishes from the North American coastal waters.

  Then they called in Dr. Fernando Corbato to arbitrate, but he said something sensible and they got rid of him in a hurry.

  And then Plishtzoing claimed the bustle, whereupon Fingonn smote him with a loofah covered with spikenard, and Plishtzoing was sore wounded and afraid. To make a long (and largely unrecorded) story short, on that day long ago (when Unix were few and Multics were relatively many, and nobody much had heard of T. S. Eliot) they slaughtered each other in Room 333. And so Room 333 is haunted by the ghosts of Fingonn the Great, Lortulan the Incredible, and Plishtzoing the Truly Rather Remarkable, to say nothing of the ghost of Longshot who is always creeping along the walls looking for the exit. I hope that answers your question.

• Are you a lesbian - Neuters are, by definition, not lesbian.
• Where do you live - Inside my skin.
• 3 words that you sum up - A man + a plan + a canal = Panama. Or, for more detail: A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal--Panama!
• Wallet - My wallet has no name.
• Hairbrush - My hairbrush is shared with my wife, and, therefore, has no name either.
• Toothbrush - Evidently named "Zongralam Zoongra", but I do not know why.
• Jewelry worn daily - A plain gold ring courtesy of beetiger.
• Pillow cover - Unlikely to replace literature, even fairly bad literature, in my opinion.
• Blanket - Squirmy fuzzy thing! Like a ferret, I say! Even to the extent of sleeping for hours and hours, and you think it's inanimate, and then it goes all manic and boings around frantically and won't let you take a nap. Sheesh!
• Tea cup - Named "Gorgo"; it is a mug that holds somewhat over a pint of tea -- it can fit a 3-inch tea infuser ball. I made it myself, and glazed it Chun Red, so that it is a beautiful turquoise color. (Chun Red glaze usually turns turquoise. Once in a long while it turns red. Red high-fire glazes are so rare that it's called Chun Red instead of Chun Turquoise.)
• Sunglasses - There are glasses full of sunshine in my home. I call them windows!
• Underwear - The underer, the better.
• CD in stereo right now - Garmarna: Vittrad. No, I don't know what it means.
• Taboos - Um ... my refusal to eat insects is likely a taboo.
• Piercings - Ow!
• What you are wearing now - A faintly pained expression. Also some clothes.
• Hair - I have a truce with my hair. It does what it wants; I do what I want; we rarely interfere with each other, except for occasional border clashes.
• Makeup - As quickly as possible after every fight.
WHO or WHAT (was/is/are)
• In my mouth - I am married.
• In my head - I'm married there, too.
• Dishing - Turkey-shephard's pie that my wife made, I recently dished out.
• After this - My boss will lecture about our product. I will attend and try to listen. I would like to know what it is I have been working on these last few months.
• Talking to - Sythyry, but zie's not answering.
• Eating - Organical cereals. Blerg.
• Fetishes - I prefer to call them "talismans".
• If you could get away with it and murder anyone, who would it be and for what reason - For all you know, I did...
• Person you wish you could see right now - My father-in-law. ('cause it'd mean he was alive again.)
• Is next to you - Many computers, few arts.
• Some of your favorite movies - I don't let movies get up to "favorite".
• Something you're looking forward to in the upcoming month - Visits from shaterri, heron61, lediva. Finishing the Herethroy love story.
• The last thing you ate - Organical bread and disorganical cream cheese.
• Something that you are deathly afraid of - Um ... death?
• Do you like candles - Yes.
• Do you like hot wax - In candles, yes.
• Do you like incense - Not my favorite snack.
• Do you like the taste of blood - Also not my favorite snack.
• Do you believe in love - Yes.
• Do you believe in part-time love - I have some evidence it exists.
• Do you believe in love at first sight - No. Nonetheless beetiger and I did it anyways.
• Do you believe in Manhattan - No such place could possibly exist.
• Do you believe in God - Polytheists generally do...
• What do you want done with your body when you die - Um ... I'd like it curried, I guess.
• Who is your worst enemy - I would consider Norbert Blane to be my worst (in the sense of 'least competant') enemy. He crashed his car into a bridge in Rhode Island in 1971, years before we became aware of each others' existence, thereby nullifying all chances of the epic struggle we would have engaged in that would have destroyed each others' lives, loves, and most of the Eastern Seaboard. Good thing, too, now that I think of it.
• If you could have any animal for a pet, what would it be - Mini-chimera, of cat, otter, and dragon.
• What is the latest you've ever stayed up - I have never stayed up.
• Ever been to Belgium - Several times.
• Can you eat with chopsticks - Yes, though I prefer to eat with beetiger, or with my mouth, or both.
• What's your favorite coin - The lozen, of course.
• What are some of your favorite candy - Raisins.
• What's something that you wish people would understand - The value of creativity.
• What's something you wish you could understand better - Yr iaith Cymraeg. (The Welsh language)
• What's one thing you want to make happen for tomorrow - I would like to make the sun rise. Not that it does a bad job of it on its own ... not that the last person who volunteered for the job (viz. Phaeton) didn't get rather demolished at it ... hm. Actually that's quite the bad idea.

Comments

[veijukka.livejournal.com]

Hope you're feeling better!

I'm not sure what Garmarna means...I think it's just a name, though I could be wrong. Vittrad=vittrar, something like decompose, or wear away. I think.

Good group, good song. I approve. =)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Kiitos!

What other groups like Garmarna (and Hedningarna) would you recommend? Sometimes they show up this side of the Atlantic...

[veijukka.livejournal.com]

*gasps* *dies* A Finn? Ist possible?

Varttina! You must get Varttina. I'm well-nigh obsessive about their music. Not as heavy as Garmarna,and not as folksy (at least in later albums) as Hedningarna. Some of their later stuff gets really...different (guests by Tuvan throat singers - I love it!) I'm always on the look-out for more Scandinavian music, myself. I'm teaching myself Finnish by song lyrics. Slow going. ~_* There are other groups out there, but these are the three I know anything about. Borders offers a series of Scandinavian compilations called Cheaper than Food (and they are) that offer a good overview of the folk-revival movement, I guess you could call it.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not a Finn. (I'm a mongrel, though I emphasize the Welsh fraction of my ancestry.)

I speak about three words of Finnish, of which 'kiitos' is far and away the most useful. ("with tearful eyes" being the least useful one that comes to mind.) They're all cribbed from song lyrics, translated by one or another person named Toivo.

Varttina's my favorite group, and 'Cheaper than Food' is in my CD player at the moment.

Another good CD is 'Musta', by one of the Hedningarna Finnish singers, whose name I cannot remember now.

[veijukka.livejournal.com]

How about Wimme? I love his part in Hedningarna's Hippjok, and I've got something else by him, although the name of the album escapes me at the moment...

[dreamburnt.livejournal.com]

Eep.  Okay, I'm supposed to be getting ready for work and I hate to butt in, but when it comes to music there's no stopping me:

http://www.noside.com/

(Just in case y'all haven't been there already.  Online LP's, free downloads, lyrics and translations...!  *melts*)

My fav (aside from Garmarna and Hedningarna) is Sorten Muld.  Gjallarhorn is pretty dang good, too, IMHO.  Annbjørg Lien, tho' I've yet to give more than two songs a proper listen. 

Outside of Northside, I don't know of much Scandinavian music...  Most of what we listen to around the house is some flavor of Celtic; Dervish and Deanta are good if you like that too.