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Pictures of Sean Astin from book signing
Behind the cut are pictures of Sean that I took at the book-signing last Saturday. Please don't reuse without permission. Thanks.
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Sean was signing copies of "There and Back Again: An Actor's Tale" at the Boston Museum of Science on October 16th. The signing was slated for 10:00, so I got there at about 8:30. I would have liked someone to go with me, but let's face it: most of my friends have not embraced geekery as a lifestyle to the extent that I have. Even Mr. Miri, who had to drag me kicking and screaming to the first LOTR movie, preferred to stay home.
The event had been billed on the website and in the member newsletter as not requiring tickets, but lo and behold, tickets were required. (Of course, the member newsletter and exhibit brochure both indicated that a book signing would be held on Friday, but that wasn't true either.) If you approached the museum on foot, you headed in the door leading from the street and were given free tickets, up until the point when the tickets ran out. However, many people, myself included, approached the museum from the parking lot, because Science Park is one of the least pedestrian-friendly portions of Boston, and that's saying something. Anyway, if you came in through the parking lot entrance, nobody gave you a ticket. You had to notice that somebody else had a ticket, ask them where they got it, and go track down the person who had given it to them. So it was chaos. Fortunately, I am very used to chaos, and my spirits were high.
While in line, I met M, a funny, down-to-earth woman accompanied by two 13-year-old girls dressed in garb. (I'm not going to write M's name out, because she may not wish to be featured on a site for which the primary purpose is the showcasing of hobbit porn. Hard to imagine, but true.) Anyway, M had stayed up all night making her daughter an incredible outfit based on Rosie's dress in Fellowship. She didn't have any pattern to go by, so they watched the DVD together, and M2, her daughter, hit pause when the dress hove into view. Anyway, many hours later: voila, dress. Accompanying M and M2 was M2's best friend. She was wearing the elven cloak that had been part of M2's Legolas outfit last Halloween. Anyway, over the course of the three hours in line, the emotional state of the two girls veered from excitement ("I love Sean!") to cynicism ("You know, Sean's really pompous.") and back again ("Mom, will you call him Seanie-Wonnie for me? C'mon, it'll be great!"). They were all cheerful and bright and very good at watching my stuff every time I wandered away to find a bathroom. I enjoyed hanging with them.
At 10:20, we got the impression that Sean had arrived at the place where he was going to be signing (a huge, open room directly in front of us and much further away than we would have liked). Either that, or Halle Berry had just shown up, because about a hundred camera flashes went off, and the people in the big room started screaming. So the girls in garb started screaming too, if only for a moment. It was like Beatlemania. Anyway, the people in the big room eventually calmed down, and some time, the line began to inch forward.
Eventually, we got to the front of it. There had been some question as to whether M and her garbed companions would be allowed to pass the checkpoint that led to the signing, because they had only two tickets for the three of them, and these were the wrong color. (I had tried to encourage the girls to go pick up purple tickets while there still were some, but they didn't want to leave the line until M came back from buying books, and by then, the purple tickets that gave one first priority in the line were gone.) When all was said and done, though, it seemed unlikely that the museum staff would brave the public relations debacle that would have been the inevitable result of turning away two adorable, patient kids in hobbit outfits. Anyway, staff let the kids and Mom go up to the book-signing table, where they got their books signed. The girls also got handshakes, which pretty much propelled them over the edge. The last time I saw the one who had said that Sean was pompous, she was having an uncontrollable crying fit over having touched him. Her friend was crying too. It was really sweet.
Anyway, Sean was really pleasant. I told him he was great in the movie (duh: how many billions of times does he hear that every day) and I gave him a little present. It was a copy of a writing pin that I had had for a long time, and which I had given to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
snoopydance4me after we became friends. I later bought myself another pin just like it, and I thought it would be funny for her and Sean and me to all have the same pin. It says "Write Hard, Die Free," and it has a little skull and crossbones over a crossed pen and pencil. You can see it here.
He studied it, and I told him that if he didn't want it, he could give it to Dom and Billy and tell them to finish their script. He said that the pin was a thing of beauty, and that he had talked with Dom recently. They had done an interview together via the miracle of conference calling. He said that Dom was in Hawaii, doing "Lost," and I said, "I know, I forgot to watch it on Wednesday." (Snoop informs me that I missed him getting his shirt ripped off by a boar. Argh!) At this point, Sean counseled me to get Tivo. Anyway, he signed four books for me and one little set of battle figurines depicting Sam, Frodo, and a surly orc with a whip. I would have brought more stuff to sign, but the word was that he would only do books and one item per person, and it was questionable as to whether he was going to sign more than one book.
As for the loot, one book went to Snoop (happy birthday!), one book went to me, the teenie-weenie battle figureenies are a Christmas present for my youngest sister, and I'm planning to auction the other two books off for the Toddapalooza fund. There's going to be an art show in memory of Todd in late November, so I might auction them off there. Or I might auction them off on the Internet, through an intermediary. I'm not sure yet.
All in all, it was a kick. Although I really only have eyes for Mr. Miri and Elijah, Sean looked very presentable in his dark shirt and dark hair (when did he get that done?) and several of my friends thought he looked hot in the photos. I was very surprised by the color of his eyes -- they were lighter and greener than I would have imagined. Though hazel, they seemed to glint aqua in the light. Of course, you can't tell that in the photos, because the red-eye tool that came with my software is not able to put that mix of colors in. Also, I want to say that the whole time I saw him interacting with people, he was unfailingly gracious and kind. When some people who hadn't gotten tickets shouted "Hi Sean" in unison from the overlooking balcony, he looked up at them and waved. It was a lot of fun going down to see him, and I hope he got some enjoyment (or at least some royalties) out of it as well.
