Category Archives: Blogs, Socials

Blogs, Socials

Several links, mostly about me

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OK, I’m back. On my way home from Minot, it became increasingly clear that I’d picked up something infectious and essence-sapping. I’m pretty sure it’s a bad cold. Still it was better than last year, when I drove home wounded. And it gives me an excuse for how tired I was by the end of the combat schedule.

If you’d like to see my interview, as broadcast on Minot Channel 13, the video is here. This was the 6:00 show. At 10:00 they did a shorter segment that just talked about my books. I had no objection to that.

The last day of Høstfest was crazy-making. The new family of club members who’d been helping us out had to go home early, at what turned out to be just the moment the hordes descended. People stood in long lines to have their pictures taken in Viking garb, and my own book sales weren’t bad either. It nearly killed us, but we went home laden with silver.

I’ve failed in my responsibility to keep you updated on my Virtual Book Tour appearances. Yesterday was the first stop, at Inkyblots blog.

Today I appeared at The Book Connection.

On a non-personal note, I have to mention the untimely death on Thursday of television producer and author Stephen J. Cannell, several of whose books I have read with great pleasure and reviewed here. R.I.P.

Blogs, Socials, Goofing

The Versatile Blogger Award

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Our friend Meg Moseley has tagged us over at her blog with the coveted Versatile Blogger Award. A Major Award of this caliber does not come without a price. Here’s what we’ve been asked to do:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.

2. Share seven things about yourself.

3. Pass on the award to up to fifteen deserving bloggers.

4. Contact the bloggers you chose for the award.

1. Thank you, Meg.

2. Are there seven things about myself I haven’t told you yet? Is there anything left unrevealed that won’t revolt the public and drive what’s left of our readers away? I can but try.

2.1 I weighed 5 lbs., 6 oz. at birth. I was underweight. In the time since then I have remedied that defect in rather magnificent fashion.

2.2 Technically, by the rules of primogeniture, I am the patriarch of my family, oldest son of the oldest reproducing son in the blood line (assuming you disqualify adoptees). This applies only to the Kenyon branch of the Walkers. My relatives Steven and John Book, who read this blog, come from a different branch, and so miss out on the benefits of my benevolent overlordship.

2.3 I do not care for bacon. Or much of anything smoked, really.

2.4 The first book I ever took out of a library was about early American explorers. I think it was called Explorers All, but I may be mistaken about that.

2.5 I like wristwatches with lots of little dials and functions. However I’ve given up wearing them, because they’re such a pain to keep regulated. (I still wear a watch, just not the complicated kind.)

2.6 I once punched a guy who’s dead now. The two facts are not related. Anyway, he deserved it.

2.7 Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever the hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to eat some chocolate.

3. I shall pass this on, as is my wont, to zero deserving bloggers. Why should I dilute such an honor by sharing it with lesser writers?

4. Done.

Blogs, Socials, Writing

Eat like a Viking, regurgitate, repeat

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In case you’re wondering how I’m doing on the Virtual Book Tour I’ve been working on for my publisher, I think I can say it’s been going well. I’ve finished one blog post and several interviews for various literature-related blogs. And yes, I’ll let you know where to look for them, once they appear (assuming I find out myself).
I’m nearly finished with the first batch of interviews. I understand more are coming. Today the publicist asked me how I felt about writing a food-related post for a blog that talks to authors about their favorite recipes.
Now on the surface that doesn’t make much sense, me being a certified microwave-dependent bachelor (though I do make a mean scratch chocolate chip cookie when the fit is on me). But the idea of writing about Viking food, and relating it to West Oversea (buy it here) is intriguing. I’ve decided to do it, and I’ve made arrangements to borrow a recipe from a reenactor friend.
(And yes, in case you wondered, I will give her credit for it.)
I feel confident I can produce a post unlike any this particular blog has seen before. A hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners exposé of genuine Viking cuisine, featuring such delights as rotten shark (a delicacy in Iceland which reportedly made that Chef Gordon Ramsey throw up), and sheep’s head (also popular in Iceland. The eyeballs, I’m told, are especially relished). Many is the joke that’s been made about lutefisk over the years, but the Norwegians’ beloved lutefisk is just a pale, ghostly remnant of the true Nightmare On Elm Street mealtime horrors of the Scandinavian past.
Because we’re talking about a marginal economy, where taste places a far distant second to survival.
People sometimes ask me whether I wish I had been born in the Viking Age.
My answer is no, for three reasons.
One, I was a sickly child who would in all probability have been exposed on a hillside for the wolves at birth.
Two, the plumbing was awful.
Three, the food was inedible to the modern palate.
I’ve written a time travel book (still unpublished at this date) in which a father and daughter get the opportunity to go back to Viking Age Norway and stay there. She points out that if they did, they’d never get to eat chocolate again.
I call that an excellent point.

Blogs, Socials, Reading

Hwaet!

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Anglo-Saxon helmet part of the Sutton Hoo treasure excavated near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, 1939. British Museum

Photo copyright: Newscom.

Joi Weaver at the Evangelical Outpost has recently “discovered” Beowulf, through experiencing it in the way it was originally intended–as a performance. She’s pretty excited about it, and the performance she recommends–that of actor Benjamin Bagby–sounds delightful.

What followed was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Benjamin Bagby, founder of the medieval music group Sequentia, sat on a bare stage, and sang the first part of the Beowulf story in Anglo-Saxon, accompanying himself on a reconstructed Anglo-Saxon harp. Over the next hour and a half, the story of Grendel’s attacks unfolded, culminating with the coming of Beowulf and the defeat of the monster. I hadn’t gotten any work done–instead, I was perched on the edge of my seat, hanging on every word of the performance. Reading Beowulf had stirred nothing in me: hearing it set my mind and heart on fire.

A DVD is available.

(By the way, my friend Sam the Viking has built a Viking hall at his farm in Missouri. Recently he hosted a Beowulf night for a college professor and her class, during which they recited Beowulf in that historically authentic setting. Wish I could have been there.)

Dale Nelson sent a link to a blog post by Inklings aficionado Jason Fisher. He believes he’s discovered a previously unrecognized influence on Tolkien’s concept of “the Circles of the World.”

I’ll attempt to show how Tolkien’s figurative “Circles of the World” may have emerged from three such disparate sources: the Ynglinga Saga of Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla; the Latin Vulgate Bible, with particular emphasis on the Book of Wisdom; and perhaps even the Hereford Mappa Mundi, a medieval map of the world on display in the West Midlands of Tolkien’s youth. In the end, at this late stage in Tolkien source-hunting, it can be difficult to uncover substantially new (and sufficiently verifiable) source-traces; however, in this case, I believe I have something new to offer to Tolkien Studies.

Check out the blog as a whole. Looks good.

Blogs, Socials

Sometimes I forget people actually see this stuff…

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Yesterday, in my post on the Zombie course at the University of Baltimore, I referenced Prof. Brendan Riley, who taught a similar course even earlier at Columbia College, Chicago.

Prof. Riley was kind enough to drop in and participate in our comments, and he did so in a highly courteous and reasonable manner. I won’t say he won me over to his point of view, but I’ll declare freely that he didn’t turn out to be the sort of fellow I would have expected him to be.

His blog, which is extremely interesting (in my view) is here.

Blogs, Socials

Not undead, just brain dead

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Personal note: Blogging from me will probably be light for the rest of the month. My publisher’s publicist has booked me for a “virtual book tour,” in which I’ll do guest blog posts and interviews for what looks like a daunting number of web sites.

My plan is to throw myself into this thing and work the (Charles) Dickens out of it. A virtual book tour would appear to be tailor made for my personality, so if I can’t shine at this I’ll be a man pretty much with nothing to say for himself.

While I’m thinking of it, buy my book.

It’s been in the news lately—The University of Baltimore is offering a credit course on zombies in literature.

Blumberg’s course is not without precedent. Brendan Riley, an English professor at Columbia College in Chicago, introduced a course called “Zombies in Popular Media” in 2006, a few years into the nation’s zombie revival. He believes he was the first to offer an entire course on zombies, a perennial entry on lists of oddest college courses.

“It was kind of a fight to get it as a recognized course at the school,” Riley said. “Because, at first, it appears to be kind of a frivolous topic.”

I suppose if I object to this, I’ll be identifying myself as not only a dinosaur, but a fossilized dinosaur.

But I do object, and I’m pretty sure I’d have objected back when I was in college. Continue reading Not undead, just brain dead →

Blogs, Socials

Doktor Luther is Back

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What’s that roar of clarity and wit you hear on the horizon? It’s Doktor Luther criticizing the movies. Yes, he’s back, and he’s on Twitter. To wit:

  • Lutherans who have not read Bo Giertz’s “Hammer of God” should be forced to wash Joel Osteen’s wife’s car for a year. http://bit.ly/bNggXW
  • That also goes for the works of Lars Walker, despite his retrograde fashion sense. http://bit.ly/16Ujpg
  • If you don’t buy this book now, I will find you and sit on you. http://amzn.to/bPXrBM Fascinating and sad.
  • This guy created 20 rooms out of 350 sq. ft. He should be a Marvel superhero or something: Efficiency Man. http://bit.ly/bsRTvM

You’ve been blessed, haven’t you? Yes, you have.

Blogs, Socials

Style Guide Update: His Beneficence

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When referring to the blog, “Writing, Clear and Simple,” do not cite rmjacobsen.squarespace.com, but writingclearandsimple.com instead. When referring to the blog’s author, use “Roy Jacobsen the Magnificent” when quoting and “Roy Jacobsen the Beneficent” for all other references.