Monthly Archives: March 2002

“Beoo-wuuUUUUUURrf!!”

  • Reading time:3 mins read

I picked up the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf in the bookstore. Wow. This was just recently completed, and has been highly-praised. I think I see why.

In high school we read it in the original Anglo-Saxon, with a bevy of footnotes. This is a bilingual edition, laid out beautifully with the Anglo-Saxon on the left and a flowing, interesting translation on the right. Breaks are inserted. Weird changes in the text, where there are unlabeled poems-within-poems in the original, are now in italics and set off and written in a somewhat different meter to reflect the aside. There are tiny notes in the right margin to give quick passing reference or explanation to what’s going on in each stanza or section. The introduction is extremely deep, helpful, and interesting.

And the cover’s really neat.

Also, now that I can actually read the fool thing, I can see a lot of from whence Tolkien reaped his ideas. I knew he taught himself Anglo-Saxon when he was in grade school or something of the silly sort and became quickly fluent in it, and it was obvious that Beowulf was one of his influences for his work. But yikes. Actually, he was one of the most vital scholars of the work, ever. He singlehandedly changed the way it was viewed, skewing it as an artistic work of an individual rather than some kind of chronicle of accumulated and traditional information.

Reading the translation discourages and inspires me, just from how well it flows and how verbose and eloquent it manages to be. Elegant, in the sense that it is wordy with few words.

Something about which I wonder, however: the semi-line break I have oft seen in Shakespeare and the like. For instance:

    Enraptured by neutrons, he wept;
                                                      and yet forever it fell
    upon the wayside of his daughter’s carpet; she never cared
    for the pumpernickel sample encroached in her slumber that eve.

    (Heaney, 1441)

In some cases it’s obvious and makes sense — such as when a long quote ends partway through a line. This line of verse must be completed, and yet the remainder is set off to make the end of the quote and the beginning of the next thought more obvious. Maybe that’s really what it is. A sort of a stanza/paragraph break where it seems one is needed but where doing so would sever a line. Interesting.

The Hardest Part

  • Reading time:1 mins read

The hardest part of any project is building up the energy to tackle it. Once the project is finally begun, it practically completes itself.

Fishies.

  • Reading time:1 mins read

I’d wondered for a while why Swedish Fish now just said “Swedish” on them rather than the “Malaco” to which I’d become accustomed since youth. Upon further study, it ends up that Malaco is a Swedish company which holds the rights to Swedish fish and a boatload of other common gummi candies. Any which are produced and sold under other brands — and there are several I’ve seen in my time — are done so under license from Malaco.

I guess they decided to switch the fish mold so as not to annoy the other companies who produced the things; why have some other company name on your candies? Also, I guess having “Swedish” so pically inscribed makes a bit more sense just in terms of brand recognition, or inner coherence of the product.

So — now I now. And so do you. We match!

“Sanguine” indeed.

  • Reading time:5 mins read

I stopped by the bookstore to grab another couple of non-photo blue pencils, as these two I have are starting to get a bit short. While there, the thought struck me to look for a better eraser than this junky thing I’ve been using — and my eye hit the sketching and drawing pencils. Oh, my this is dangerous. I don’t know much about the different types offhand, but I was fascinated. I contemplated picking up several Conte pencils for the sake of experimentation, until I realized how much these things cost. Gah, it’s something like two dollars for a single pencil!

I stared in disbelief for a moment, then picked up a preset pack of six assorted “sketching” pencils (distinguished from “drawing” pencils and other types by what criteria, I am as yet unsure), and two different erasers (at least these are cheap!), and left. Well, I paid for them and then I left.

After playing with what I’ve got here, I’ve come to the conclusion that I really like this sanguine pencil. Especially when I contrast it with a deep graphite, it has… well, it stands off the page in a really classy way. And I quite like how the lead feels, as well.

Also I have here a sepia pencil, which is sort of interesting (though I like the sanguine one better); a hard charcoal one, which actually feels quite different from the other charcoal pencils I’ve got sitting around; this one feels more like an actual pencil, and doesn’t seem quite as messy.

There’s a rather nice graphite pencil; it seems soft and sturdy, and has a nice flow to it. Also included, for some reason, is a white pencil. I’ve not found use for this yet, though I suppose if I had some coloured paper it could have an interesting effect. Or maybe it could be used for highlights or something. Hrm.

Lastly is a pencil I just don’t understand. “pierre noire”, it’s called. It seems very hard, and it’s rather dark — but it feels very greasy when I move it around. It’s smooth, but it feels like it’s putting on the brakes when I draw with it. Like I’m pushing it uphill. I mean, it’s interesting, but I don’t know yet what to do with it.

UPDATE:

    • Upon some more experimentation, I find that the pierre noire is

very

    sensitive to pressure. If I press down hard, it barely moves. If I gently skirt it across the page, it glides smoothly. This pencil seems to be great to use for shading and very light sketching; I seem to have a lot of control over exactly how much tone I put down at any moment, and if I want more I can just layer it. The pencil almost holds me back and keeps me from overdoing things. This is very interesting.

Another thing to note is that all of these pencils are pretty hefty; they’ve got a larger-than-usual circumference, and they’re pretty long. Something just feels solid about them. It’s very nifty.

Something confusing is that all of the packaging I saw discussed how various pencils were “stumpable” or not. What does this mean? The only thing I can think of is perhaps that one could cut the lead at a strange angle, for some special effect? It’s mostly the softer and stranger leads which were claimed to be “stumpable”.

UPDATE:

    Okay, this is explained as well in the sense that I went back to the bookstore in order to get a pencil case and ended up acquiring a pair of paper stubs. These work much better than fingers. Real life can be like Photoshop, too!

The two erasers I got were a simple Sanford Pink Pearl and one of those kneaded rubber things. I’m not entirely sure what the use is of the latter, but I always saw them in my boxes when I was young and thought they were neat. So I picked one up for the hell of it. Again, it only cost around seventy cents — so what the hell.

UPDATE:

    Okay, I just remembered what’s so useful about the gummy erasers; they don’t particulate. They just absorb graphite like a sponge, without flaking all over. This gummy thing and the woodless pencil I have would work together very well if I were to be doing some detailed line work.

I’m not really sure what to do with these things, but now that I’ve them here I’m inspired to try to figure it out. Only problem is — gah, are these things ever expensive. This fact almost makes me reluctant to use them beyond sparingly. But I suppose I just have to get over that. I’m always so scared to lose things. I might as well put things to use while I’ve got them.