Return of the Bride of the Half-Sister of the Interview Meme

[rymenhild]

The Rules

1. Leave me a comment.
2. I respond by asking you five questions. You will answer them, because you like talking about yourself.
3. You then update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Questions, courtesy of misslucyjane:

1) Thwap me if I've asked you this before, but what's the story behind your username?

Rymenhild (also spelled Rimenhild, Rimenild, Reymyld and Rigmel), princess of Westernesse, is the love interest in the late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Middle English verse romance King Horn. She courts her young man, rather than vice versa, but then she makes up for the initial awesomeness by staying at home for fourteen years while Horn goes off to fight Saracens. I'm not all that fond of the character, but I do like her name. I also like the fact that I can shorten the name to Rym, which is a Middle English word for verse or poem. (Its cognate in modern English is "rhyme".)

2) I am full of admiration and wonderment at medievalists. Why did you decide to focus on this period?

I never really decided to become a medievalist -- it just happened. I suppose I started out as a ten-year-old fangirl reading Susan Cooper, JRR Tolkien and everything I could find that mentioned King Arthur. I wanted to know what inspired these writers, so I started looking for the source texts. After eight or ten years of enthusiastic reading, when it came time for me to choose my specialty within English literature, I really didn't have to think very hard.

3) One of my favorite lines in Possession is something along the lines of "We love what survives our education." Is there any work you feel you love despite having studied it for years?

Oh, that's a good question. After sixteen years, two undergraduate seminars (one as a student, one as the instructor) and a senior thesis, I'm still passionately in love with Arthurian literature. (I tried listing the individual Arthurian works I love, but it's really too long of a list for me to post here. Ask me later!) King Horn and several other deeply odd Middle English romances have also survived my obsessions well.

4) What is "bibliosexuality"? (And does it involve stroking bookbindings? Library porn?)

I believe I first discovered the word in gramarye1971's userinfo and traced it back to foreverdirt's tongue not-that-far-in-cheek coming-out post. In any case, I adore books as things. I especially adore old books. Nothing makes me happier than sitting in an archival library with a seven-hundred-year-old codex smelling of vellum and leather, and, um, petting the corners of pages very gently when the librarians aren't looking. Not that I do that.. Anyway, I suppose I could just describe myself as a bibliophiliac, but the word "bibliosexual" is more fun.

5) Define yourself in five words or less.

Far too good at procrastinating. :D?

Comments

[prosewitch.livejournal.com]

Reading this was really quite enlightening and enjoyable. I love learning new things about you, even after knowing each other through a few years, universities, and states and countries. :D

I suppose commenting volunteers me for an interview-thingie. Which is just as well, as I am eager to drink from the springs of your good-at-procrastinating-ness!

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I am eager to drink from the springs of your good-at-procrastinating-ness!

I love the structure of that sentence. Maybe I'll send it to my linguist friend to see what she makes of it. :)

1. You've presented serious (and very interesting) papers on fantasy literature and anime. Are there any other genres traditionally perceived as "low culture" that you intend to study from a critical, scholarly perspective?
2. Now that you've spent several years in the Midwest, how does it compare with the lefty West Coast enclaves where you grew up and went to college?
3. Tell me about a really good LARP moment.
4. Recommend a musician or band you're listening to these days.
5. What's your favorite fairy tale (not counting AT 510b!) and why?

[villainny.livejournal.com]

I'd like to be interviewed, please. :D

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

1. What is Traders and why should I care?
2. Tell me about a good experience you had as a teacher.
3. If you could pick up and go anywhere in the world, where would it be? For the purposes of this question, all considerations of finance and health get magically waved away.
4. What's your favorite alcoholic beverage?
5. Have you ever written original fiction? If so, describe one of your original characters.

[wickedtrue.livejournal.com]

I did not know that about your username! Huh. You learn something new every day.

Oh dear. I guess this is me volunteering to be asked questions. Anything particularly scholarly might get a very silly answer, just a warning.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

1. I realize that although I know you do theatre, I don't know what you do in theatre. Acting? Backstage? Directing? All of the above? Why?
2. Those paints on your photo journal look awesome. Any particular colors you can't live without?
3. Recommend me some crack-filled anime.
4. What music did you listen to as an angsty teenager? (If you were an angsty teenager, that is. If you weren't, substitute some other adjective.)
5. When you conquer the world, what's the first change you'll make?

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

I never really decided to become a medievalist -- it just happened. I suppose I started out as a ten-year-old fangirl reading Susan Cooper, JRR Tolkien and everything I could find that mentioned King Arthur.

That's how it always works, isn't it? *g*

(And no FAIR, you have friends who are filled with wonderment! Everybody I know is all, 'how are you going to get a job with THAT?' :P)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

That's how it worked for lots of people I know, yes.

Also, maybe you need other friends! :D

[concordantnexus.livejournal.com]

Ever buy a book just because you liked the smell of the ink and/or pages? (I have).

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

No -- the books whose smells I love most are way, way out of my price range -- but I've certainly bought books because I liked the way the bindings felt in my hands.

[gramarye1971]

*puts up hand, waves it about*

[saphyria.livejournal.com]

*whistles sheepishly* Baaaaa.

*is also totally not procrastinating*

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Should you still feel like asking questions by the you've gotten to me, I am curious to hear what questions you would ask. Though having just been interviewed, I may take a while before posting to LJ.

[pat-trick.livejournal.com]

i comment thusly, but will be answering here, as i do not post memes in my own journal.

[flintknappy.livejournal.com]

Highly amusing. I think medievalism did just find you. Or you have a serious crush on King Arthur. :)
That bibliosexuality thing is hillarious. And you certainly are skilled at procrastinating. It's a shame you can't write a dissertation on the art of procrastinating- somebody should.
So yeah, I suppose, interview me up dude.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

In my senior year of college, I asked navelofwine to write me a brief biography I could put in the back of a literary magazine. She suggested something on the order of, "[rymenhild] has recently eloped with Geoffrey of Monmouth. This greatly surprised her friends, who didn't think she was interested in men, especially not men who'd been dead for seven hundred years."

[reconditarmonia.livejournal.com]

*bounces up and down waving*