{"id":2054,"date":"2005-05-31T09:49:38","date_gmt":"2005-05-31T09:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/?p=2054"},"modified":"2020-09-25T08:39:53","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T07:39:53","slug":"pointy-ears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/pointy-ears\/","title":{"rendered":"Pointy Ears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or \u201c…Wonderful Folks, Elves, Sir! Wonderful!\u201d<\/strong>*<\/h4>\n

Nowadays, elves seem to come in all sizes. They dwell amongst humans, and only reveal their ears and elven garb in large gatherings where they can pass unnoticed – or conspiciously admired as the case my be. And, I seem to end up in pictures with them, where I invariably feel rather like a tall and homely hobbit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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All photos \u00a9 the elves that are in them.<\/p>\n

I have a great fondness for adults who dress up, and can never understand the reticence of so many to consider this an acceptable pastime. If serious and respected cognocenti can discourse endlessly on the \u201cright\u201d suit and the \u201cappropriate\u201d attire for every occasion, why frown on elves?
\nWe live in curious times. With access at our fingertips to every aspect of our and others\u2019 cultures, past and present – we generally dress generically, and live in sanitised and stereotyped apartments with mass-market furnishings – even to what we hang on the walls.
\nNot that I\u2019m complaining and planning to chuck my ubiquitous Ikea furniture, you understand, but leaving the door open the slightest crack in case fantasy wanders by seems reasonable enough.<\/p>\n

So next time you cross the path of an elf or an orc, don\u2019t sneer. These people are happily and unselfconsciously reminding us that even the drab birds that we are can reveal the bright feathers under our mind\u2019s wings from time to time.<\/p>\n

The \u201celf\u201d on the far right made me feel particularly scrawny and homely, but Sandro is not only a wonderful guy (his face WILL find it\u2019s way into an illustration one day; admittedly a step down, or at least sideways, from his appearances in the Lord of the Rings) but he is also a very talented painter besides. And of course, he\u2019s a New Zealander, which makes a combination pretty hard to beat.\u00a0 Good thing he can\u2019t sing – but wait a minute, he CAN sing. Some people have all the talent.<\/p>\n

And, Sandro is the author of:<\/p>\n

Quote of the Week<\/strong>
\n\u201cBeing an artist seems to involve so incredibly much networking and upkeep and promotion and other crap, that getting down to actually creating something ends up feeling like a holiday, when that\u00b4s the part that people consider our \u201cwork\u201d.\u201d
\nSandro Kopp<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.sandro-kopp.com<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.sandrokoppofficialfanclub.com<\/a>
\nA Brisk Acceleration of Events<\/strong><\/p>\n

Going for a couple of days to a show opening is always like being strapped on a rocket – suddenly the event takes on a momentum of its own and you simply hang on.
\nAdd to that the possibility of meeting someone you\u2019ve always dreamed of meeting, and this for nearly three decades, and you definitely have liftoff.
\nI have wanted to meet Jean Giraud aka Gir aka Moebius aka the best comic artist, film designer, and just plain artist alive today in France if not all of Europe and the rest of the world\u2026 (Does it show that I admire his work?)
\nMeeting people of that stature is fraught with anxiety for me, and had not the taxi doors been locked, I might have leaped out at some stoplight and slinked back to the hotel. (That and the knowledge that if I pulled a like stunt, my wife WOULD have killed me\u2026)
\nJean is amazing.
\nIt was a wonderful dinner.
\n(And no, I can\u2019t recall what I ate.)
\nThe opening of the show went well, I signed God-knows-how-many things of all kinds, and dredged the murky depths of my mind so as not to say the same thing to each and every journalist. The photos<\/a> are<\/a>\u00a0 in<\/a> the<\/a> scrapbook<\/a>.
\nOn the Big Screen<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Swiss premiere of There and Back Again<\/em> is scheduled for June 4th and 5th:
\nFESTIVAL DU FILM ROMAND
\nMAISON DES ARTS DU GR\u00dcTLI, RUE DU GENERAL DUFOUR 16, 1204 GENEVE
\nSaturday June 4 at 8:00 PM and Sunday June 5th at 2:00PM
\nhttp:\/\/WWW.FONCTION-CINEMA.CH<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Followed by a projection here in Neuch\u00e2tel at the NIFFF (June 28 to July 3rd – exact date and time to follow.)
\nhttp:\/\/WWW.NIFFF.CH<\/a>
\nMore information here<\/a>.
\nSign of the Times<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unbeknownst to me, I\u2019ve actually had work on intermittent but regular display in Canada for the last thirty years\u2026 admittedly not as revolutionary as a Campbell\u2019s Soup can, but it must be my only painting on exhibit in Canada. (\u201cFresh Asparagus\u201d being of course one of an ambitious series of post-modern rural tableaux from my Farm Produce period, including \u201cPeaches\u201d, \u201cApples & Pears\u201d, \u201cMexican Art\u201d, \u201cFresh Strawberries\u201d and many others.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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A Box of Beowulf<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even if you know Beowulf, you\u2019ve certainly yet to play the board game. \u201cBeowulf\u201d will be coming out this autumn.
\nI\u2019m not a big board game player, and generally my first-hand experience of the board games I\u2019ve illustrated comes from playing the prototype, but I really love this one. (Okay, I actually won the test game, so I\u2019m biased.) The game is designed by none other than Reiner Knizia, who is a justly renowned board game genius. Beowulf is a fabulous game (I mean, I did win the test game, after all) that follows the original tale very faithfully. If you liked Reiner\u2019s Lord of the Rings games, then don\u2019t miss this one. (It\u2019s got some nice pictures in it too.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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This is the German version of the game box. The English version will come out at the same time.<\/p>\n

FAQ<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Frequently Asked Questions section had been enhanced by French versions for half a dozen entries (currently indicated by an (F), which Dom will replace with a flag or some device).
\nThis is an ongoing and expanding endeavor entirely relying on the goodwill and spare time of one of the multilingual forum members, so no complaints if there are not half a dozen languages available for every topic, please.
\n* Samwise Gamgee, The Fellowship of the Ring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or \u201c…Wonderful Folks, Elves, Sir! Wonderful!\u201d* Nowadays, elves seem to come in all sizes. They dwell amongst humans, and only reveal their ears and elven garb in large gatherings where they can pass unnoticed – or conspiciously admired as the case my be. And, I seem to end up in pictures with them, where I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[65,495,494,433],"class_list":["post-2054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles","tag-beowulf","tag-elf","tag-sandro-kopp","tag-there-and-back-again"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1PY8Y-x8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}