Standing Into Danger

Friday, October 11, 2024

Semi-Random

It's a semi-random post today, because I've had another hectic week.

We visited Las Vegas the week before last, a quick and unexpected three-night trip

to visit friends of ours from various places.

So I'm sharing some photos from our trip ~ Probably more than I should.

Taxiing to Take Off

I love when I can catch the canopy of Jeppesen Terminal

reflected in the whale's tail of the Westin Hotel.

Denver International Airport

Denver, Colorado, USA

September 30, 2024

Back to ever-fascinating Cloud Land where golden aspen tinted the flanks of mountains.

White River National Forest

Near Gypsum, Colorado, USA

September 30, 2024

I'm dreading when Southwest Airlines goes back to assigned seats.

I love snagging a window seat on the correct side of the plane

to see my favorite geological feature, the amazing Waterpocket fold

on the east side of Capitol Reef National Park and its adjacent Strike Valley.

If you're interested in the geology click here.

Waterpocket Fold

Capitol Reef National Park

South-central Utah, USA

September 30, 2024

Watching the action at Harry Reid International Airport is always fun

for this airplane-junkie, as Terry and I wait our turn to exit from the back of the plane

where I found a good window seat for photography.

Southwest Terminal

Harry Reid International Airport

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

September 30, 2024

It's always fun to see how Vegas hotels are decorated, although I have to say

that the Encore's lobby has one of the strangest lamps I've ever seen.

Checking in at the Encore

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

September 30, 2024

Terry and I are budget travelers, so this gorgeous room in the Encore

was a rare luxury, and perhaps, the most beautiful room we've ever stayed in.

I could get used to this ~ lol!

Our Room the Encore

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

September 30, 2024

Terry Connects to the Internet

Pure Luxury!

The big hotels lining the Strip are filled with high-end stores,

because many people enjoy shopping when they visit Vegas.

I enjoy window shopping, although some items have me scratching my head.

Like these shoes ~

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

September 30, 2024

And these ~

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

September 30, 2024

Butterflies are found throughout the Encore, like these inlaid beauties in the floor.

A Floor the Encore

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

September 30, 2024

I could lie in bed and watch the ever-changing Sphere for hours.

The View from Our Room in Encore

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

September 30, 2024

Connecting with friends and one well-traveled monkey, Jacques.

Catherine and Harvey, Two Good Buds from the East Coast

Andiamo Steakhouse at the D

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

September 30, 2024

We do the same things over and over, but it's always fun,

and I love the crowd-pleasing bands on Fremont Street.

Nick Burbey (lead guitar), Daniel Conway (drums) and Rich Embry (vocals)

Alter Ego

Fremont Street, Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

October 1, 2024

I like to get right up by the stage where I can watch

the interaction among the band members and the roadies.

This lighting technician was playing the lightboard like an instrument.

Working the Lightboard

for Alter Ego

Fremont Street, Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

October 1, 2024

DC, Daniel Conway, Takes a Bow at the End of the Show

Alter Ego

Fremont Street, Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

October 1, 2024

I've watched all the resident Fremont Street bands many times,

so it's really fun when different band members substitute for each other.

Life happens to everyone, but the show must go on.

I was surprised and delighted when I found Jeff St. Germain of Stays in Vegas

substituting for Alter Ego's front man Rich Embry.

(I had just missed his band, another favorite, by one day.)

Rich and Jeff are two completely different singers,

but both are talented and crowd-engaging show men.

It was fascinating to watch this consummate professional step in for Rich

and to see how the band members made set and song changes work almost seamlessly.

Rich Embry's Alter Ego Jeff St. Germain

Alter Ego

Fremont Street, Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

October 2, 2024

And I saw one of my favorite regulars on Fremont Street ~

a street sweeper who makes his job fun and delights visitors.

Do You Think I'm Sexy ~ lol!

October 2, 2024

Sometimes a flyer comes to a stop on the SlotZilla Zipline and has to be rescued.

"What? Me?" She Laughs

October 2, 2024

To the Rescue

October 2, 2024

Illyria Strakhov takes a break from balancing on top of many glasses,

as a member of the crowd demonstrates her acrobatic skills.

Wow!

October 2, 2024

All too soon it's time to wave goodbye.

Leaving Las Vegas

October 3 2024

The rocks outside Vegas are phenomenal!

Just north of Lake Mead we fly by Hamblin Mountain,

the western lobe of an ancient stratovolcano that formed

during the Late Miocene, 11-15 million years ago.

Later, faults split the Cleopatra-Hamblin stratovolcano into three large sections.

The Black Volcanic Rocks of Hamblin Mountain

and the Red Aztec Sandstones Formed from Jurassic Sand Dunes

Pinto Valley Wilderness, Nevada, USA

October 3, 2024

Sometimes we fly into Denver International Airport on a more southerly route.

Then, if I'm lucky, I can spot our home and our favorite Parkway Bar and Grill.

Almost Home!

October 3, 2024

Where Our Garbage Goes

Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site (DADS) Landfill

October 3, 2024

I'm linking to Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date, Tom's Aloha Friday, and Nicole's Friday Face Off.

For Rain: Receding Hare Line ~ I immediately thought of Rain when I spotted this in a beautiful contemporary gallery in the Wynn. Unfortunately, I forgot to write down the artist's name.

Receding Hare Line

Eden Gallery at the Wynn

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

September 30, 2024

For Tom: The Spirit of Aloha

Sharing Dinner with Fun Friends

Andiamo Steakhouse, The D

Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

October 1, 2024

For Nicole: Sacked Out Face ~ I visit Tembe Elephant Park in Egmangusi, South Africa, almost every day. I am determined to visit it for real!

Lazy Lionesses

Tembe Elephant Park

Emangusi, South Africa

September 24, 2024

Have a great weekend!

Till next time ~

Fundy Blue

Standing Into Danger https://selkiegrey4.blogspot.com

My next post will be

Friday, October 18th 🤞

On the Bay of Fundy
© M. Louise (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue
All Rights Reserved

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

IWSG: Wednesday, October 2, 2024 ~ "...never shake Thy gory locks at me."

It's the first Wednesday of the month,
the day that members of the
Insecure Writer's Support Group
share their writing struggles
and writing successes
and offer their encouragement
and support to fellow writers.

To visit the IWSG website, click here.

To become a member of the IWSG, click here.

Our wonderful co-hosts who are volunteering today,
along with IWSG Founder Alex J. Cavanaugh are Nancy Gideon,

Jennifer Lane, Jacqui Murray, and Natalie Aguirre!

I hope you have a chance to visit today's hosts and thank them for co-hosting.

I'm sure they would appreciate a visit and an encouraging comment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Every month the IWSG announces a question that members can answer
with advice, insight, a personal experience, or a story in their IWSG posts.

Or, the question can inspire members
if they aren't sure what to write about on IWSG Day.

Remember the question is optional.

This month's featured question is:

Ghost stories fit right in during this month. What's your favorite classic ghostly tale? Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy October, Everyone!

I sure many IWSG Members will have fun with this month's question.

Favorite classic ghost story?

I'm going Shakespeare's Macbeth, which technically isn't a ghost story,

but contains a scene where the ghost of Banquo appears at a banquet

to haunt Macbeth after he has murdered King Duncan and ordered the killing of Banquo.

Parnell as Macbeth and Dr. Cronin as Banquo's ghost.

Plate to: St. Stephen's Review, June 1889.

Wikimedia

I've always been fascinated with Shakespeare's tragedy

because my maiden name is MacBeath which is pronounced Macbeth.

I endured decades of teasing over my name, from the incantations of the three witches,

to the cry Macbeth hears, “Sleep no more! Macbeth hath murdered sleep!",

to the sleepwalking anguish of Lady Macbeth uttering "Out, damned spot! out, I say!"

Out, Damned Spot!

Lady Macbeth by Alfred Stevens, undated, oil on canvas, 127 x 97 cm.

Musées communaux de Verviers (Verviers, Belgium)

Wikimedia

The ghost of gory-locked Banquo, Macbeth's former best friend

and fellow general in battle, is more disturbing than chilling.

Banquo's ghost speaks no lines, only appears, disappears, and reappears

visible to no one but King Macbeth.

Macbeth's horrified reaction results in Lady Macbeth sending everyone away.

The really chilling part of Shakespeare's tragedy

is what highly ambitious people can do in seeking political power

and the damaging physical and psychological consequences of their ruthless actions.

I find it a tale and a warning for our troubled world.

Word Cloud

Poster of Thos. W. Keene in William Shakespeare's Macbeth

circa 1884

Wikimedia

Wishing each of you a fun IWSG Day.

A big thank you to our awesome co-hosts today.

Have a healthy, happy, and creative October!

Oh, guess who's traveling today ~ Again!

I'll visit around as quickly as I can.

Till next time ~

Fundy Blue

Standing Into Danger https://selkiegrey4.blogspot.com

My next post will be October 11th!🤞

Friday, September 27, 2024

Finding J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien entered my life on a dreary winter day early in 1966.

I will never forget the moment, even if I don't remember the exact date.

I had been fighting bronchitis, strep throat, and a high fever for a number of days,

and I was completely miserable.

My only comfort was my blue Sony transistor radio

that was sitting on my stomach as I lay in bed.

J. R. R. Tolkien

ca. 1925

Wikimedia

CJFX Radio, 580 on the AM dial, broadcasted from Antigonish, Nova Scotia,

sending its welcome waves out to eastern Nova Scotia and beyond.

At that time CJFX played country, pop, jazz, rock, and Celtic music,

and I listened to it hour after hour, day after day, from my home 35 miles away in Stillwater.

Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada

Google Maps

Antigonish and Stillwater, Nova Scotia, Canada

Google Maps

I tuned in for rock; but, because of CJFX's variety format,

I was forced to develop an appreciation for Jim Reeves, the Clancy Brothers,

Eydie Gormé, and Steve Lawrence ~

not to mention John Allan Cameron and Winston "Scotty" Fitzgerald

thanks to the influence of legendary DJ and Scottish fiddle lover Gus MacKinnon.

But, the most important impact CJFX had on my life was introducing me to J. R. R. Tolkien.
That Saturday morning CJFX broadcast a program for teenagers

that featured J. R. R. Tolkien and his book The Lord of the Rings.

I listened spellbound, and when I heard the following passage

from LOTR read aloud, I was caught for life.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,

Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1, "The Fellowship of the Ring," 2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1967.

The Ring of Power

Getting my hands on The Lord of the Rings in Stillwater was not an easy thing.

The nearest store that might carry the books was in Antigonish, and I had little money.

It was a long wait until the end of the school year when I won a prize

that covered the cost of the books and my mother had the time to drive me to Antigonish.

(I wish I hadn't worn my copies out. They'd be worth a lot now.)

Wikipedia

Fair Use Rational: # The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of the article topic.

I read the trilogy nonstop for days, and then the hunt was on for The Hobbit.

I couldn't find it anywhere!

We moved over the summer to Freeport at the opposite end of Nova Scotia,

and a new neighbor, who had a teen-aged son visiting down in the States,

heard about my fruitless efforts to find The Hobbit.

The son returned home in the fall with the book for me in which

he had inscribed, "May the hair on your toes grow ever longer!"

The story did not disappoint!

I have been reading and studying Tolkien ever since.

One of the best courses that I have ever taken at university

was a course on Tolkien and the Inklings with

Dr. John J. Brugaletta at Cal State Fullerton in Fullerton, California.

This phenomenal professor immersed me

in the complexity and the depth of Tolkien's world and his mythology.

Tolkien and The Hobbit

Aurora, Colorado, USA

Date Unknown

Humphrey Carpenter, writing in his authorized biography of Tolkien, describes how

Tolkien's imagination followed two different tracks during the 1920s and early 1930s.

On the one hand Tolkien was writing entertaining stories for children;

and on the other, he was constructing his personal mythology

that was eventually published posthumously in The Silmarillion.

The two tracks did not meet until one summer's day

when Tolkien was marking exam papers.

Later in his life Tolkien could not remember the year this happened,

but, this is how he remembered the occasion:

"One of the candidates had mercifully left one of the pages with no writing on it (which is the best thing that can possibly happen to an examiner) and I wrote on it: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." Names always generate a story in my mind. Eventually I thought I'd better find out what hobbits were like. But that's only the beginning."

(Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1977, p. 172)

From a sentence written on a blank page in an exam paper almost ninety years ago

came the books that have captivated millions of readers and continue to do so today.

Citation: "J. R. R. Tolkien." AZQuotes.com. Wind and Fly LTD, 2024. 27 September 2024. https://www.azquotes.com/quote/354684

azquotes

Tolkien went on to find out a whole lot about hobbits and much more about Middle-earth.

When I first read Tolkien's books and Carpenter's biography,

it did not take me long to recognize that Tolkien was the quintessential hobbit.

He recognized this himself and once wrote, "I am in fact a hobbit." (Carpenter, p. 176)

It is fascinating to read about Tolkien's childhood

and to speculate about what might have influenced his later writings.

Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

When he was three he traveled with his mother and brother Hilary to Birmingham, England,

because South Africa's heat was impacting his health.

While they were in England, Tolkien's father Arthur, back in South Africa,

had a severe hemorrhage while recovering from rheumatic fever and died.

Suddenly, Tolkien's mother Mabel was faced with raising

Ronald and Hilary on her own and with very little money.

The Tolkien Family: Arthur (father), Mabel (mother), and JRR (baby)

Handwritten Christmas card with a colored photo of the Tolkien family,

sent by Mabel Tolkien from the Orange Free State to her relatives in Birmingham,

on November 15, 1892.

Wikimedia

She finally found a place for them to rent in the hamlet of Sarehole

on the southern edge of Birmingham.

The hamlet, the Sarehole Mill, and the surrounding English countryside

were transformed by Tolkien's imagination into the village of Hobbiton

in his writing decades later. (Carpenter, p. 176)

Sarehole Mill

Wikimedia

Moseley Bog, Close to Sarehole Mill

Wikimedia

Mabel Tolkien began to teach her sons,

and, Ronald could read at four and write not long after.

Very quickly he demonstrated an interest in languages and drawing.

He loved to read, and his mother provided him with many books.

Ronald particularly liked The Red Fairy Book with tales collected by Andrew Lang

because it contained "The Story of Sigurd."

Sigurd is a hero from Norse Mythology known for slaying the dragon Fafnir.

From a this very early age, Tolkien desired dragons. (Carpenter, p. 22).

Fafnir

Around the time he was seven, Tolkien wrote a story about a dragon.

Humphrey Carpenter quoted Tolkien's recollection of his early story:

"I remember nothing about it except a philological fact. My mother said nothing about the dragon, but pointed out that one could not say a 'green great dragon', but had to say 'a great green dragon'. I wondered why, and still do. The fact that I remember this is possibly significant, as I do not think I ever tried to write a story again for many years and was taken up with language." (Carpenter, p. 23)

From these humble beginnings in his childhood, John Roland Reuel Tolkien

went on to become a world-renowned philologist, artist, and writer of high fantasy:

a hobbit who loved dragons.

J. R. R. Tolkien

I have no idea how many times I have read Tree and Leaf,

Farmer Giles of Ham, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.

And I have read many other books by Tolkien, the Inklings, scholars, and fans.

And then there is Peter Jackson's wonderful LOTR movies and all the spinoffs.

Last October 30th found me (and our cruise ship) blown into Wellington, New Zealand

instead of docking at our scheduled port of Auckland.

My husband Terry and I chanced upon a wonderful statue of Gandalf the Grey

in the Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington isite Visitor Information Centre.

Looking at Gandalf, I remembered that teen-aged girl

listening to CJFX Antigonish in Stillwater a lifetime ago.

What a reading adventure that broadcast started me on,

one that me made as familiar with the maps and landscapes of Middle-earth

as the lands and shores of my native Nova Scotia.

I still hope to see some of the movie locations in New Zealand.

Gandalf the Grey

Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington isite Visitor Information Centre

Wellington, New Zealand

October 30, 2023

Today I am joining the 2024 Tolkien Blog Party at Rachel Kovaciny's

The Edge of the Precipice blog, thanks to my friend Debra at She Who Seeks.

Debra introduced me to this event last year, and she reminded me with an email this year.

What would we do without thoughtful friends?

Rachel has had fun Tolkien related activities in her blog this week.

If you're a Tolkien fan, check out Rachel's Tolkien posts.

Courtesy of Rachel Kovaciny

I, of course, am behind. 😵‍💫

I'm still linking to Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date, Tom's Aloha Friday,

and Nicole's Friday Face Off, although I'm not posting photos related to them this week.

Have a great weekend!

Till next time ~

Fundy Blue

Standing Into Danger https://selkiegrey4.blogspot.com

My next post will be

Wednesday, October 2nd. 🤞

Books Read in 2024

"5 Languages of Love: The Secret to Love That Lasts" by Gary Chapman
"Eruption" by Michael Crichton and James Patterson
"In Darkness" by L. Diane Wolfe
"In My Time of Dying" by Sebastian Junger
"The Bat" by Jo Nesbo
"The Dark Forest" by Cixin Liu
"The Frozen River" by Ariel Lawhon
"The Last to Vanish" by Megan Miranda
"The Montauk Monster" by Hunter Shea
"The Road to Character" by David Brooks
"The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller
"The Twist of a Knife" by Anthony Horowitz
"The Uninhabital Earth: Life After Warming" by David Wallace-Wells
"The Women" by Kristin Hannah
"Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens
"Writing the Shadow" by Joanna Penn

Pages

Friday, October 11, 2024

Semi-Random

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

IWSG: Wednesday, October 2, 2024 ~ "...never shake Thy gory locks at me."

Friday, September 27, 2024

Finding J. R. R. Tolkien