Jill and Tim gave us the most delicious chocolate we've ever had, a very special gourmet chocolate with bacon! Absolutely fantastic! Thank you!
This bacon chocolate has got us thinking. We've all got a special place in our heart for bacon. And roast pigs feature in both Norse and Irish mythology - bacon is holy!
So, we're asking for your opinion on a bacon-themed sumbel. It would be in the fall (summer sumbel is private) and everyone would bring a dish with bacon in it. The story would probably be Cormac's Adventure in the Land of Promise, a very very short tale - it literally fits on two pages - that includes a magical ever-roasted yet ever-living pig. The sumbel would be at Mat's house in southern NJ (Annie's apartment in CT is even less convenient, and small).
If it was on an acceptable date, would you make the trip to Ocean County for the bacon sumbel?

pig was success.. 99.999% of trash on curb for tomorrow... couldn't give .1 shit about the rest.. going to bed.. and sleeping in gods dammit!

I didn't like Angela's Ashes for being so miserable, but it at least put into form many of the ghosts who still haunt Ireland.

So I'm  a bit of a sucker for collecting tapestries - those cotton batik cloths with Newagey designs hippies and college students are so fond of - and I have to cut my collection in half for the move. I have three tapestries that I'd like to give to someone who wants them (or one). The ones I'm giving away are all twin-bed sized. The first is purple-red, dark blue and white and has dragonflies, lilies and stars with some knotwork in the corners. The second is brightly rainbow-striped with a dark green and yellow ying-yang in the center. The third is dark blue and has a few faded parts on it as it was in a window for a year but overall it looks pretty good; it's a angel holding a chalice with a big knotwork border.
I eventually want to get this gorgeous one for my apartment bedroom but eventually I will come to my senses for now I'll use one of the three I'm bringing there.

Chris Hemsworth has been cast as the part of Thor in the upcoming Marvel movie.

You may remember Chris' most recent role and George Kirk in this years (most awesome) Star Trek movie.  Chris hasn't dome much else, which works in his advantage.  It is my personal opinion that the talented but otherwise not well known actors tend to do a better job in casting these larger than life roles.  It makes the character more believable because we're not seeing Bartleby, Fred O'Bannion, Chuckie Sullivan trying to dressed up as Dare Devil.  We're seeing Matt Murdock. 

Thoughts? 

Other than why the F*** they cast Natalie Portman as anything in the movie.

 - Mat

Happy Birthday

Wish I could be there

 - Mat

I have goals like a lot of people. Get a PhD, get a good job, publish a novel, get fit, see the world, get married, have kids, and so on. Then I have goals unlike most people. Getting in on a replica Viking ship voyage is one of them. Seriously. Being out in the sea, getting splashed by waves, sleeping in the cold air on the hard deck and being soaked and miserable for days - I want this. Badly.
Step one is getting involved in the Norse academic community so I can be on the grapevine for upcoming projects/voyages. Tentative check. Step two is learning how to sail so I stand a much better chance of getting selected. I got in contact with the UConn Sailing Club and they say they will teach me. Huzzah! I'm not sure what step three is - learn Danish? I'll figure it out from there but I feel one baby step closer to fulfilling my crazy goal.

Now you know I'm not all "the earth is warming! buy fluorescent bulbs or DIE!" But I just went outside to admire the lightning bugs and it occurs to me that the days and nights are very quiet for this time of year. I'm used to the crickets chirping quite loudly at night and it's now silence in the backyard. I also remember as recently as last summer using the cicadas as a thermometer (if you're waking up to cicada rattles at eight in the morning get ready for a hot day!). Now I'm sure that the rain has delayed summer a bit but I recall lightning bugs not appearing until it was summer proper, along with or after the crickets and cicadas. Anyone else notice this by them? Any ideas why?

(a scene from Jesse's house as the cake is about to be served)

One nectarine daiquiri, two tuna-cumber sandwiches, two Fangorious Mojitos, and one viewing of Boondock Saints later...

We had a wonderful day in Philadelphia yesterday. It was my first time, and Mat's first time since he was quite young, in the city. We went specifically to visit the Mütter Museum and also to hang out with slate1198 but we got there early enough to visit the Liberty Bell and the historic district, including a walk through City Hall and Chinatown. We also passed a great old shop called The Book Trader and even though Mat tried to restrain me from entering (fool!) we went in anyway and I purchased two books on Vikings, one $6 and the other 50¢. When we finally got to the Mütter we had several hours to peruse the exhibits. Mat was expecting it to be worse/more extensive but I was sufficiently grossed out. Then we met up with Sara and ate at a great sushi place, then went back to her home and hung out for a bit. Jay walked home from his final speech exam (which he did well, yay!) and then we got ice cream at Coldstone, and then got ready to go. It was a great day and we hope to get back to Philly soon. Thank you Sara and Jay for hosting us!

I keep wanting to dye my hair blond and my hair keeps getting other ideas. For the umpteenth time I've put a box of blond on my hair and came out with a ginger-orange color. I quite like it as I have the skin tone to be a redhead, but I have had my hair blond once before and I know I can get there again. Next time I dye, in a few weeks from now, no mercy shown. I'll be using "Ultra Light Blond" or "White Blond" and finally get a proper golden blond color.
Either that or ginger again.

Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj is definitely the best movie ever made about a first-year history graduate student.

I thought I'd raise an observation and see if other people have made the same conclusions, or perhaps spark a debate. Perhaps you've noticed it, or perhaps you don't think it worthy of consideration, but I would like to talk about cultural heathenism and its place in the wider heathen community.
There are a lot of religious heathens out there; I'm broadly including everyone who celebrates the big Germanic/Norse holidays, blóts or sumbels every so often, and/or regularly honors the Germanic/Norse gods in their own way. There are also a lot of people, particularly in Europe, who consider themselves heathen for various reasons and yet do not practice heathenism. Are they hypocrites? Impostors? Wimps? I've done some thinking and I've come to the conclusion that they are just as "heathen" in name and deed as we blóting monthly, gods' images/names tattooed in our flesh, lore-knowledgeable heathens.
The most obvious example is the Viking metal community. Now as far as I can tell, Viking metal is basically just Germanic or Scandinavian folk metal with more of a kick (though Metal!Josh or baldurrising can correct me). At its core which is still found in almost every song is an interest in contemporizing medieval and older traditions of the bands' respective countries, whether it's putting Faroese folk ballads to electric guitar , bass, and drums (Týr), writing an album about the historical journey undertaken to reach Constantinople (Turisas's To Holmgard and Beyond), or composing songs in honor of gods (Ensiferum's "Ahti", Heidevolk's "Wodan Heerst", The Sword's "Freya", Solefald's "Loki Trickster God", etc. etc.). It's not just the music itself but the lyrics and their spirit that draws great numbers of people of different ages to this subculture. I expressed frustration in my last Heathen Living post ("Mjöllnir") with these metal heathens but I've become more sophisticated in my acceptance, which I will explain below.
Also, I found many people in Ireland (and I suspect many more in Scandinavia) who called themselves pagan/heathen but were not actual practicing heathens nor metal music fans. They are heathen in opposition to being Christian, which was how they were raised and how the country sort of expects them to be. Without the proud American separation-of-church-and-state, the government and culture supposes their citizens to all be Catholics or perhaps Protestants and treats them as such unless they're clearly something else. But these Irish "heathens" are not just young kids trying to be cool or rebellious; they are historically minded and very patriotic, and seek to affirm their Irish identity in the time before St. Patrick (who was, after all, British).  For them, heathenism is about history and national pride, not religion. I'm sure there is a similar phenomena in Scandinavia but I can't comment personally.
So it appears there is a great number of people across the world who are attracted to the pre-Christian mindset of northern Europe but who are not necessarily interested in ritual, deity or landwight or ancestor interaction, or discussing heathen theology in LiveJournal posts (ahem). I say let us not turn our backs on them (apart from those who say that this interest is available ONLY to those of European descent ahem ahem ahem). We know that before Christianity came, there was no concept of religion. People didn't get go to the temples because a book or their goði told them to or else!, they went because they wanted to. Sure there were such things as temple taxes and people who were decidedly atheist earned the epithet "the Godless" (or so the sources written by Christians say). But I'm a firm believer that there were just as many Midsummer-and-Yule heathens or those who never really thought about religion outside of the big life events (birth, marriage, death), as there are Christmas-and-Easter Christians and people who don't really think about religion outside of the big life events today.
Why not have a modern heathen community with a small but considerable percentage of practicing religious heathens, and a large "nimbus" of non-practicing heathens who are in it for the community, values, history, etc.? Do you think that these people aren't qualified to be heathen, and if so what are the criteria? Is the desire to be "heathen" enough to qualify? Are labels (cultural heathens, metal heathens, national pride heathens, religious heathens, etc.) helpful or divisive? If you were at a specifically heathen event (ECT, a Vingolf blót, etc.) and several people were respectful but non participatory in religious ritual, would you feel insulted, annoyed, amused, or not care? If you were fighting for heathen rights (making the Mjöllnir optional for a veteran's memorial, seeking discrimination charges on religious grounds, etc.) would you want cultural heathens on your side or uninvolved?

Brathalla had a contest for readers to answer the question, "How does Hel really die?" At first I was confused because this is not in the lore, literature, etc. anywhere then realized it was a creative rather than factual question. I came up with a couple different lengthy answers which were somewhat "canon" (e.g. fit in with the rest of lore) but the winner was "Four words: Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kick". I did get the first honorable mention, namely The "I’m Not Afraid of Paradoxes" Award, which kind of made my day.
Link here.

Tonight we will be showing Let the Right One In, a Swedish horror film about vampires who don't sparkle. Annie's read the book and loved it (and she doesn't like vampire books) and the film's gotten terrific reviews. We'll be watching it as part of our "Horror, Sushi and Hot Sake" series. Let us know if you want to join in the fun. Two-star accommodation available for those who wish to spend the night.