All the Rage

fantasy characters have never looked so cool!

Andrew Leonard claims that Diablo II is a runway show run amok. The developers may claim this is a role-playing game where a champion lays waste to legions of hell-spawn monsters, but with so many accessories to choose from such as “the emerald-chipped helm of light” , “the crimson sash of life”, “the heavy boots of the Jaguar” or “the silver ring of the leech” who cares about killing demons?

You can read the original article here , but beware! Andrews directs his scorn at players who could only think whether yielding a scepter of sacrifice provides a significant bonus to an attack rating  without ever considering if it looks good with all those artic furs your barbarian is wearing! And do the “bright gloves of dexterity” clash with the “hard burgundy leather armour of triumph”? I bet you didn’t consider that!

The hotest spot south of Havana

Monday evening. It reminds me of that song

“Music and passion were always in fashion
At the copa… Copacabana”

Cultura is Fun

Subbing for Cicinato last thursday. He may have gone to Canada but I got to eat lots of chocolate!

EOS Digital Rebel XTi

Looking at these guys one cannot help but think that “Cultura is Fun”

(Taken with my newly-acquired digital SLR)

(left to right: Cris, Mari, Karla, Fabiano, Vanessinha e Ana Brito. Author is behind camera lenses)

Keep on casting in the free world…

Yes, it is merely a test.

Yes it is a podcast.

No, I am not the one singing.

click here to listen

Roots, Bloody Roots!

Long time no see, eh? I’ve got news: I’ll shortly begin experimenting with podcasting either on this space or on some of my classes’ blog. I’ve already opened up an account at Gcast but while I don’t think of anything interesting to say I thought you might enjoy this video:

Of the Ruin of Berieland and the Fall of Fingolfin

So many good bands are drawing inspiration from timeless classics of literature that gone are the days in which an angry parent might equate rock with lack of literacy. The song I selected is “Time Stands Still at the Iron Hill” by Blind Guardian. This song describes the clash between Morgoth, the evil God of Fire and Finglofin, lord of the Elves of Noldor, in single combat.

Fingolfin obviously dies at the end, for powerful and immortal as he was, he was no god, whereas Morgoth IS a god himself. An evil one, but a god nevertheless.

The song is part of the album “Nightfall in Middle Earth”, a concept album completely based on the work Simarillion, from JRR Tolkien. The entire span of the book is recounted in the tracks of this album, even if somewhat obliquely. Fans of the book will certainly understand the lyrics even if the lyrics taken alone do not lend themselves to understanding the book.

Enjoy.

Time Stands Still at The Iron Hill Blind Guardian Light fails at dawn The moon is gone And deadly the night reigns Deceit Finally I’ve found myself In these lands Horror and madness I’ve seen here For what I became a king of the lost? Barren and lifeless the land lies I stand alone No one’s by my side I’ll dare you Come out You coward Now it’s me or you He gleams like a star And the sound of his horn’s Like a raging storm Proudly the high lord Challenges the doom Lord of slaves he cries Slowly in fear The dark lord appears Welcome to my lands You shall be damned

The iron crowned Is getting closer Swings his hammer Down on him Like a thunderstorm He’s crushing Down the Noldor’s Proudest king Under my foot So hopeless it seems You’ve troubled my day Now feel the pain The Elvenking’s broken He stumbles and falls The most proud and most valiant His spirit survives Praise our king (chorus) Lord of all Noldor A star in the night And a bearer of hope He rides into his glorious battle alone Farewell to the valiant warlord The Fate of us all Lies deep in the dark When time stands still at the iron hill

References, Inferences

One small bar of Toblerone chocolate to whomever is the first to tell me what is the exact work of literature (title and author) to which the Clarivoyant picture in the “on the author” section refers.

Revelations

O God of Earth and Altar G. K. Chesterton O God of earth and altar, Bow down and hear our cry, Our earthly rulers falter, Our people drift and die The walls of gold entomb us, The swords of scorn divide, Take not thy thunder from us, But take away our pride From all that terror teaches From lies of tongue and pen From all the easy speeches That comfort cruel men From sale and profanation Of honour and the sword From sleep and from damnation, Deliver us, good Lord. Tie in a living tether The prince and priest and thrall, Bind all our lives together, Smite us and save us al; In ire and exultation Aflame with faith, and free, Lift up a living nation, A single sword to thee.

Revelations Bruce Dickinson O God of earth and altar Bow down and hear our cry Our earthly rulers falter Our peolple drift and die The walls of gold entombe us The swords of scorn divide Take not thy thunder from us But take away our pride Just a babe in a black abyss No reason for a place like this The walls are cold and souls cry out in pain An easy way for the blind to go A clever path for the fools who know The secret of the hanged man – the smile on his lips The light of the blind youll see The venom that tears my spine The eyes of the nile are opening – youll see She came to me with a serpents kiss As the eye of the sun rose on her lips Moonlight catches silver tears I cry So we lay in a black embrace And the seed is sown in a holy place And I watched and I waited for the dawn The light of the blind youll see The venom that tears my spine The eyes of the nile are opening – you’ll see Bind all of us together Ablaze of hope and free No storm or heavy weather Will rock the boat youll see The time has come to close your eyes And still the wind and rain For the one who will be king The watcher in the ring It is you

From the mere pairing up of the lyrics we can see that the Egyptian theme of the song is sandwiched within the opening and closing verses of the original English hymn. The first part is sung ipsis literis , whereas the closing verses are sung mirroring the general idea but paraphrasing the contentes (aflame with faith / ablaze with hope, etc).

We can easily estabilish that both the Hymn and the song’s theme is a call for a miracle to unite a people, but where does the Egyptian content come from? Acordingly to Wikipedia Bruce was partly inspired by the works of Aleister Crowley, a somewhat maverick writter.

I did some research on the topic and found out that the guy claims that when he was in Egypt in 1904, his wife (named Rose) was possessed by Horus (the eye of the Sun rose on her lips) during a ritual invocation (So whe lay in a black embrace and the seed is sown in a holy place) and that he, Aleister Crowley was then annointed both “prince and priest of the beast” and was heralding a new age, where Horus himself would come down and conquer the world (by brute force, I might add!).

Then he went of to create his own religion, with its own book of revelations and all. Which is something that seems to become increasingly more common these days. Maybe one day I’ll gather some friends and have a go at that, too.

Maiden in Brazil

Dear students, I’m almost gone to Curitiba. There’s no way I am going to miss Iron Maiden playing the songs I used to rock with, when I was a teen myself and couldn’t afford air tickets nor going to concert venues .

Maybe studying English isn’t as fun as Maiden concerts, but we can learn a lot from their symbols and lyrics. Bruce himself has an historian’s degree under his belt and this is reflected in most of his songs which talk about History and Literature, often mixing both.

Here Eddie dresses as an English Redcoat in the cell phone snapshot taken while the group played “the trooper”, this song is a direct reference to the poem The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson, and readers of the first with a working knowledge of British History will firmly place the song in the context of the War of Crimea. The song differs from the poem though, in that it is brutally focused on the sheer waste of British lives in the Battle of Balaclava, whereas the poem merely hints at that in far greater elegance.

The Redcoat became intimately associated with the British Empire to the point of being somewhat akin to a national symbol. Not to be liked by all, however. If Lord Tennyson praises the British soldiery with

“When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered. Honour the charge they made!”

The American colonials held the “King’s men” in much more contempt and defiance, as their folk lore attests:

“Why come ye hither, Redcoats, your mind what madness fills? In our valleys there is danger, and there’s danger on our hills (…) soon you’ll know the ringing of the rifle from the tree.”

See you next week!