City of Peace
May. 28th, 2010 06:14 amBefore I ramble about Osnabrück, writers and the like, a fannish observation: hastily checking lj-dom, I saw that James MacAvoy has been cast as young Charles Xavier for X-Men: First Class, aka the "Charles and Erik are in love and then break up" story (seriously: do the summaries the studio PR gave for this prequel so far read differently to you?). My immediate reaction to this was: I wonder what this will do to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
likeadeuce's fannish loyalties. As for me, I'm torn. On the one hand, that part of the backstory was the one I am most curious about, and it won't have Wolverine in it. (Nothing against Logan per se, only I like him as part of an ensemble, not as the de facto main character he became in the later X-Men movieverse outings.) Also, in lack of a time machine and a young Patrick Stewart, James MacAvoy is certainy an intriguing choice. Not much like P.S. at all but a good and charismatic actor. Now for an equally good Erik, please.
...on the other hand, well. X-Men III. And the trailer was enough to make me not see Wolverine. Plus the Charles 'n Erik break-up was covered so superbly bypenknife in Fear the Rest.
...Aaaanyway. Back to real life. Osnabrück is an old city which was bombed to smithereens in WWII but got reconstructed so well that you don't notice if you don't know. However, the part where 80% of the city was laid to waste was the reason why my paternal grandfather, whose hometown it was, decided after returning from the war that he couldn't stand the sight of rubble anymore and moved his entire family down south, which is why I was born in Bamberg. But he took me to visit Osnabrück a couple of times when I was a child, so I have a somewhat sentimental connection to this city, and when it got chosen as the location for the annual conference, I was thrilled. It's very suitable for a PEN-meeting for its two main claims to fame: a) Osnabrück was one of the two cities where the peace accord after the 30-years-war was negotiated (the Protestant one; the Catholic city was Münster, and both negotations and peace treaty signings took place in both towns), and b) it's the hometown of Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front. So in recent decades, the local city hall decided to make the most of it, gave Osnabrück the label "city of peace" and build lots of memorials with anti war quotes from writers for over 2000 years (Virgil to Remarque) everywhere. And to host conferences.
( Have some pictures of Osnabrück with comments )
Off now to the conference. Just one more question: when I uploaded the photos to Photobucket, I noticed the function where you can change the link so it's not an endless number but whatever word you choose is gone. Or am I missing something? Please advise.
likeadeuce's fannish loyalties. As for me, I'm torn. On the one hand, that part of the backstory was the one I am most curious about, and it won't have Wolverine in it. (Nothing against Logan per se, only I like him as part of an ensemble, not as the de facto main character he became in the later X-Men movieverse outings.) Also, in lack of a time machine and a young Patrick Stewart, James MacAvoy is certainy an intriguing choice. Not much like P.S. at all but a good and charismatic actor. Now for an equally good Erik, please....on the other hand, well. X-Men III. And the trailer was enough to make me not see Wolverine. Plus the Charles 'n Erik break-up was covered so superbly by
penknife in Fear the Rest. ...Aaaanyway. Back to real life. Osnabrück is an old city which was bombed to smithereens in WWII but got reconstructed so well that you don't notice if you don't know. However, the part where 80% of the city was laid to waste was the reason why my paternal grandfather, whose hometown it was, decided after returning from the war that he couldn't stand the sight of rubble anymore and moved his entire family down south, which is why I was born in Bamberg. But he took me to visit Osnabrück a couple of times when I was a child, so I have a somewhat sentimental connection to this city, and when it got chosen as the location for the annual conference, I was thrilled. It's very suitable for a PEN-meeting for its two main claims to fame: a) Osnabrück was one of the two cities where the peace accord after the 30-years-war was negotiated (the Protestant one; the Catholic city was Münster, and both negotations and peace treaty signings took place in both towns), and b) it's the hometown of Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front. So in recent decades, the local city hall decided to make the most of it, gave Osnabrück the label "city of peace" and build lots of memorials with anti war quotes from writers for over 2000 years (Virgil to Remarque) everywhere. And to host conferences.
( Have some pictures of Osnabrück with comments )
Off now to the conference. Just one more question: when I uploaded the photos to Photobucket, I noticed the function where you can change the link so it's not an endless number but whatever word you choose is gone. Or am I missing something? Please advise.
