Tolkien in the News

[bruce rerek]

Oh well I guess, I am stuck in Brooklyn with the Tolkien blues again.

[Philipa]

Oh well I guess, I am stuck in Brooklyn with the Tolkien blues again.

[Philipa]

Alan Lee's Book Tour in the USA





According to Ain't it Cool News this is the THE LORD OF THE RINGS SKETCHBOOK book tour for Mr. Lee in the US.

NEW YORK - Saturday, October 22nd
Books of Wonder - 12:00 noon

PHILADELPHIA - Monday, October 24th
Friends Select School - 7pm

ATLANTA - Tuesday, October 25th
Chapter 11, Peachtree Battle - 7pm

AUSTIN (yay!) - Wednesday, October 26th
BookPeople - 7pm

DENVER - Thursday, October 27th
Tattered Cover, LoDo - 7:30pm

SALT LAKE CITY - Friday, October 28th
Borders Books, Murray - 7pm

SAN FRANCISCO - Saturday & Sunday, October 29th and 30th
Saturday: Book Passage, Corte Madera - 7pm
Sunday: The Booksmith - 2pm

SEATTLE - Monday, October 31st
University Bookstore - 7pm

PORTLAND - Tuesday, November 1st
Powell's Books, Beaverton - 7pm

[Varda]

ARGH!!! Not coming to the Washington DC area this time!!

[Riv Res]

Tolkien Society News





The Latest Amon Hen is Out: #195

Among other things, there is a great piece "My hand is ungentle": Éowyn and the Women of Middle-earth", which just begs for discussion. I will be placing the scans in the Scholastics thread very shortly.

There is also a review of Lewis and Currie's first book Uncharted Realms of Tolkien, specifically The Forsaken Realm of Tolkien...review by renowned Tolkien artist Ted Nasmith. He raves about the book. Will try to post the scans of this as well.

Plus...much more.

[Philipa]

Jawbone of Hobbit-like species uncovered

AP) -- Scientists digging in a remote Indonesian cave have uncovered a jaw bone that they say adds more evidence that a tiny prehistoric Hobbit-like species once existed.

The jaw is from the ninth individual believed to have lived as recently as 12,000 years ago. The bones are in a wet cave on the on the island of Flores in the eastern limb of the Indonesian archipelago, near Australia.

The research team which reported the original, sensational finding nearly a year ago strongly believes that the skeletons belong to a separate species of early human that shared Earth with modern humans far more recently than anyone thought.

The bones have enchanted many anthropologists who have come to accept the interpretation of these diminutive skeletons marooned on Flores with dwarf elephants and other miniaturized animals, giving the discovery a kind of fairy tale quality.

But a vocal scientific minority insists the specimens are nothing more than the bones of modern humans that suffered from microencephaly, a broadly defined genetic disorder that results in small brain size.

The latest discovery on Flores to be published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature does not change their minds, they said, with one critic describing the latest artifacts as "pretty scrappy."

And, at least two groups of opponents have submitted their own studies to other leading scientific journals refuting the Flores work.

The result is a controversy unlike any other in the often-contentious study of human origins. Those caught in the middle say the debate is a real test for what we know about human evolution.

"Many syndromes can cause microencephaly and dwarfism and they all need to be considered," said Daniel E. Lieberman of the Peabody Museum at Harvard, who wrote a commentary in Nature. "The findings are not only astonishing, but also exciting because of the questions they raise."

If you'd like to discuss what is in the news you can do so in the Tolkien in General thread.

[Philipa]

Alan Lee is keeping an on-line travel blog for his US tour





Iolanthe brings us news that Alan Lee is keeping a travel blog for his US tour for the book The Lord of The Rings Sketchbook. Follow the tour dates in the post above as he tells you step by step his experiences on the road.

View his blog here. Enjoy!

[Philipa]

Desert Island Books: Rebecca Tannenbaum
Witchcraft history maven discloses her very favorite literary works this side of Salem

As Halloween approaches, Rebecca Tannenbaum, professor of next semester's history class "Witchcraft in Colonial America," tells us about her essential reads.

1. J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Lord of the Rings"

Yeah, I know it's geeky, but I love the trilogy and have loved it ever since I first read it at the age of 14. As a meditation on the nature of courage it is unsurpassed, and Tolkien's gifts as a storyteller and builder of imaginary worlds can't be duplicated.

Read the rest of the article at the Yale Daily News.

[Philipa]

Lecture at Cuyahoga Community College's Eastern Campus


© Darrell Sweet

Lecture at Cuyahoga Community College's Eastern Campus to Celebrate the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis

Two professors will give presentations on the authors' literary and cultural significance

HIGHLAND HILLS, Ohio, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- On Thursday, November 17 at Cuyahoga Community College's Eastern Campus, Tri-C professors Laura Blunk and Marueen Morley will deliver a lecture titled "Storytellers for Our Times: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis."

The presentation, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the publication of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and the forthcoming film of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, will take place in the President's Plaza of the E-3 Building at 4250 Richmond Road in Highland Hills from 6 to 7:15 p.m. The lecture is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the Tri-C Eastern Campus Liberal Arts Department.

Professor Blunk of the history department and Professor Morley of the English department have teamed up to create a lecture that addresses the literary, cultural and historical impacts of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien's work. There will be a discussion following their presentation.

For more information, contact Professors Blunk at (216) 987-2294 or by email at laura.blunk@tri-c.edu, or Professor Morley at (216) 987-2251 or by email at maureen.morley@tri-c.edu.

PR Newswire via Yahoo News
© PR Newswire

[Philipa]

'Lord of the Rings' scholar to give talk'



© Writers Write, Inc.

Lord of the Rings' scholar to give talk

By JIM HAUG
Business Writer
Last update: November 06, 2005


DAYTONA BEACH -- Poor Gollum. The hobbit's obsession for his "precious," the all-powerful ring, led to madness and his climatic death leap in "The Lord of the Rings."

To add insult to injury, the actors in the recent movie trilogy did not even pronounce his name correctly.

Before he denigrated into the grotesque Gollum, he was known by his proper hobbit name, Smeagol, which is pronounced "Smare-gol," and not "Smee-gol," which is how the actors said it.

This is according to Thomas Shippey, a J.R.R. Tolkien scholar who consulted with filmmakers on the "The Lord of the Rings," even making a pronunciation guide on the character and place names.

Smeagol was the only flaw to an otherwise excellent adaptation by director Peter Jackson, Shippey said.

The Tolkien scholar will unlock more mysteries for local "Rings" fans when he gives a lecture at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

The humanities professor at St. Louis University, will speak on "Wisdom and the Wise in the Lord of the Rings," at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Gale Lemerand Auditorium in the Willie Miller building, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Shippey actually taught with Tolkien at Oxford University and inherited his faculty position at the University of Leeds.

He now teaches at St. Louis University in Missouri. Shippey remembers Tolkien as someone who did not taste success until late in his life. "The Lord of the Rings" was not published until Tolkien was 62.

He became weary of the all the fame.

"He got calls at three in the morning because people (in America) were unaware of the time change," Shippey said. He got the sense that Tolkien would not open up to fans unless he could tell they had read his books.

Nonetheless, Shippey thinks Tolkien would have appreciated the recent movie trilogy for opening his work to "a new generation of fans."

Shippey also thinks the "Rings" movies were far superior to similar genre adaptations like "King Arthur" or "Troy," but he was careful to distinguish Tolkien's work from pure fantasy like J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter."

He expects the Harry Potter series will end happily, which is different from the dark tone of the "Rings."

The hobbits, remember, destroy the ring but then return to a corrupted Shire, their homeland.

"You can never defeat evil. It always comes back. Every victory is paid at a price," Shippey said.

Shippey says Hollywood has downplayed the dark side to Tolkien's work.

He wrote, "J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the 20th Century" to show that Tolkien was a writer of his times and not simply creating a new mythology. Tolkien is more like George Orwell than readers might realize.

He writes about the threats to civilization. Races like the elves and hobbits are facing extinction in Middle Earth.

"They know it," Shippey says.

jim.haug@news-jrnl.com

IF YOU GO

WHAT: J.R.R. Tolkien scholar Thomas Shippey unlocks mysteries for "Rings" fans at a lecture.

WHEN: 7 p.m. Wednesday.

WHERE: Gale Lemerand Auditorium in the Willie Miller Building at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

ADMISSION: Free. For details, call the ERAU public relations department, (286) 226-61282.

News Journal Online
© News Journal Online

[Philipa]

Rock collector cherishes his 'Lord of the Rings' images

MARK FISCHENICH

The Free Press


MANKATO, Minn. - Some of the old-timers in Bruce Birkemeyer's rock collecting club weren't exactly encouraging when he wondered if he should enter his "Lord of the Rings" display in a regional competition.

The problem was that Birkemeyer had literally thought outside the box. The competitions sponsored by mineralogical societies consist pretty much exclusively of rock hounds displaying their most interesting finds in a 3-foot by 4-foot display box.

Everybody does it that way.

Nobody, by contrast, tries to tell a classic fantasy story with rocks - rocks that happen to look, if you eye them closely and maybe receive a hint or two, like a troll hiding behind a bush or a wizard standing above a deep pit or the smoke of Mount Doom, nobody until Birkemeyer.

The Mankato retiree, had - for reasons he can't entirely explain - decided to try to find agates, jasper and other semiprecious stones that looked like characters and scenes from "The Two Towers" - book two of the J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy "Lord of the Rings."

He spent years looking for the right rocks and then put the best ones behind framed glass, a sort of story board of the book using cabochons - rounded and polished ovals with flat backs. It was completely different from anything else that had been displayed at the competitions.

"The older members of the club said 'Bruce, you don't have a chance. The judging is so severe they'll chew you up and spit you out like cannon fodder,'" said Birkemeyer, 63, who sought his sister's advice nonetheless. "She said, 'What do you have to lose? So you'll get chewed up and spit out.'"

Birkemeyer absolutely adores rocks, a genetic condition going back to his grandfather.

"I'm at least third generation," he said.

His grandfather, a crack shot with a rifle, left home at age 15 and got a job in California as a guard for an aging prospector in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The prospector, a man in his 80s, was skilled at finding veins of gold but had trouble keeping others from moving in on his finds.

"People would jump his claims, so he hired my grandfather as a rifleman to protect his claims," Birkemeyer said.

His grandfather later moved back to Minnesota, farming at Evan midway between New Ulm and Redwood Falls. But the man had picked up an interest in mineralogy and spent summers on rock quests. His sons, including Birkemeyer's father, inherited the passion and Birkemeyer spent family vacations looking for Lake Superior agates and other stones.

In the long Minnesota winters, they'd make jewelry.

Birkemeyer continues to hunt for rocks; He makes belt buckles and bolo ties, and he's midway through crafting a back-splash above his kitchen counter made exclusively from stones he's collected, cut and polished.

The stones are beautiful. But for Birkemeyer, they're also a diary.

"I can tell you where every one of those rocks came from," he said, pointing to the dozens of pieces that make up the back-splash, "where I found them or traded for them."

Birkemeyer has some special stories for some of the stones in his "Lord of the Rings" display. Sometimes it's about finding the larger chunk of agate or other rock that ultimately was cut and polished into the much smaller cabochon.

He points to one and is brought back to 1988 in the high desert of Oregon, rock-hunting with his mother. They came across two guys from Texas who had been chipping away at rock for five days to get at a huge vein of agate.

They removed so much rock that they had their entire bodies in the hole, and the piece of agate just wouldn't let go. They announced they were leaving, and Birkemeyer was incredulous.

"The guy said 'I can't lift a hammer anymore. We have to be back to work in Texas on Monday."

After they left, Birkemeyer climbed into the hole and his mother handed down requested hammers and chisels. A short time later, he had 251 pounds of agate. He paid the landowner 50 cents per pound and had the material that - deep inside - contained "Gollum hiding in the bushes" for his display.

His stories of discovery also involve the saw he uses to slice into the stone where the intricate patterns are found.

The centerpiece of the display, "Wizard Saruman on the rim of his orc-making pit," was found that way. Even though the stone is the one that judges were later blown away by, Birkemeyer didn't see it when he first made the cut into the jasper. He thought that it looked sort of like a European monk, but Saruman - the primary antagonist of "The Two Towers" story - didn't occur to him.

"All of a sudden one day I thought 'Monk? Nuts! That's my evil wizard!'"

After years of effort, Birkemeyer had his "Lord of the Rings" display ready - 17 different scenes carefully framed and accompanied by a book explaining each, along with technical descriptions of the stones. It was April 2004 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at the Midwest Federation of Mineralogical and Geological Societies' annual convention.

He was entered in the novice division, competing beside rock people from 12 states. So nervous that he stayed away from the convention for more than four hours after the judging was done, Birkemeyer quickly learned that his unconventional display was a hit.

"The judges were waiting for me at the door," he said. "They were so excited, they talked to me for an hour."

As a trophy winner in the beginner category, Birkemeyer was eligible to compete in the masters division the following year. One woman strongly encouraged him to enter the 2005 contest at the national convention in St. Louis.

"She grabbed my arm and said, 'Honey, you ain't no novice.'"

Birkemeyer followed her advice, although there were times in the months leading up to the convention in August that he thought about dropping out. The pressure was so intense he wasn't having any fun as he tried different stones and different layouts and reread his booklet over and over.

"People's expectations were so high," he said. "To me, it became almost a yoke on my shoulders."

Birkemeyer persevered and was ultimately rewarded, becoming one of just 10 trophy winners nationwide.

"All of the judges told me the same thing - it was the most artistic, creative thing they'd ever seen done with rocks," he said.

But unlike the previous competition, he turned down a woman who had a proposition for him.

"She says, 'Son, now we need to do Harry Potter.' I said, 'No, I don't think so.'"

Grand Forks Herald
© Grand Forks Herald

[Philipa]

Lord of the Ring: A Reader's Companion



From The Tolkien Society:

Now in the shops, The Lord of the Rings - A Reader's Companion by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. Long in the making, this useful volume explains, cross references and provides historical information about The Lord of the Rings as you read it. Misprints and other updates are also listed, and there is some previously unpublished material, including a further portion of Tolkien's letter to Milton Waldman in 1951, extra notes to his Nomenclature of the Lord of the Rings, and notes from material written for 'The Hunt for the Ring' (What were the Nazgul up to on the way to Crickhollow, and why was the Witch King nervous?). There is much cross-referencing to facts scattered throughout the Histories and Unfinished Tales. Out in hardback, and, usefully, in paperback; matching the 2005 white cover editions with Tolkien's 'ring' design on the covers.

© Tolkien Society

Here in the states we have to wait till the end of December. Here is the Amazon link.

[Philipa]

Lecture focuses on prevalence of rings in literature

© Dan Staten

By: Jed Layton

Magical rings and powers, like those found in J.R.R. Tolkien's tales, were the topic of discussion at the Sterling M. McMurrin Lecture on Religion and Culture.

Wendy Doniger of the University of Chicago spoke on the prevalence and frequency of rings in literature around the world.

Doniger said there are three prominent types of rings found in literature: a ring of identity, a ring found in a fish and a ring of remembrance.

"To lose your ring is to lose your identity," Doniger said. "Signet rings are the emblem of owner."

Doniger quoted from Herodotus, the Hebrew Bible, "Big Fish" and Freud as examples of literature that contained one of the three mythological types of rings.

She also exemplified the idea of rings being used to take the blame or guilt. She said that storytellers would use a ring as a scapegoat, placing the blame on the jewelry rather than on the man at fault.

"Rings that come in fishy packets are fishy excuses," she said.

"The forgetfulness of the ring is a convenient and cynical excuse that is frequently used in literature."

Doniger touched particularly on the Victorian age texts and their use of rings in that style of literature.

She said that A Study in Scarlet, Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula all used rings as a theme of repression.

A prominent scholar in literature, law, gender and ecology, Doniger was invited to speak at the lecture because of her immense depth of knowledge, said English professor Vincent Cheng, director of the Tanner Humanities Center.

"She is a specialist in many cultures, especially Hindu mythology," he said. "She is a controversial figure and is quite a riot."

Doniger concluded the lecture by pointing out that even today with all of the modern-day inventions, rings still exist. She pointed out that drunkenness, drugs, credit cards and science are all contemporary "rings" used for power and to cause forgetfulness.

j.layton@chronicle.utah.edu

© Daily Utah Chronicle

Daily Utah Chronicle

[Philipa]

George Sayer Dies

George Sayer, author of Jack & recorder of the 1952 home-made tapes of Tolkien reading from The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings, died recently in Malvern, Worcs.

As I walked away from New Buildings, I found the man that Lewis had called "Tollers" sitting on one of the stone steps in front of the arcade.

"How did you get on?" he asked.

"I think rather well. I think he will be a most interesting tutor to have."

"Interesting? Yes, he's certainly that," said the man, who I later learned was J.R.R. Tolkien. "You'll never get to the bottom of him."

© The One Lion

To read the entire article visit Narnia Fans.com

[Philipa]

Read a Book

Read a Book

By SUNAYANA ROY

Roverandom:
J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien mania has been quietening down ever since the noise and glory surrounding the release of The Return of the King died down. While nobody can doubt that the three movies introduced Tolkien’s Faerie to a whole new generation (indeed, to a new millennium, why not?) we can also safely say that there has always been a steady and perennially faithful band of Tolkien fans. It was through the efforts of such loyalists that Roverandom was eventually published.

The story was originally written in 1925, while on holiday with his three sons. The middle one, then four-year-old Michael, lost his toy dog somewhere on the beach. Roverandom was written to comfort the young Michael for the loss of his favourite toy. It was about a real dog called Rover who is rude one day to a bad-tempered wizard.

As a punishment for his bad behaviour Rover is transformed into a little black and white toy dog. As a toy lying out on the road he was picked up and placed in a shop window, from where he was bought for a little boy (the middle son among three, just like Michael himself). The little boy loved his new toy and took him to the beach one day, where Rover fell out of his pocket and thus got lost.

To start with, Rover was happy, thinking he had managed to run away, but he soon realized that being still only a small, metal dog, he was not free at all. Just as he was watching the tide come in, terrified of being drowned, Psamathos the old sand-sorcerer who lived on that beach decided to take a hand in the proceedings. He could not return Rover into his original form, but he could give the toy dog the ability to move and bark just like a real live one. Since Rover didn’t want to go back home (and face the cat who lived there) in his current form, Psamathos sent him to live for a time with the Man-in-the-Moon.

The Man-in-the-Moon had his own dog called Rover so, to distinguish the two and also to mark the randomness of the toy Rover’s adventures, he was named Roverandom. To help him get around the moon, he was also given a pair of magical wings.

With a new name, wings and in a strange new place Roverandom soon found plenty with which to occupy himself, and he and the moon dog had many adventures wandering all over the moon.

They explored all the mountains and valleys and had a nasty brush with a dragon one day. Eventually though he returned to earth, and went in search of the wizard who had changed him into a toy dog, hoping to convince him to reverse his spell.

A must-read for all Tolkien enthusiasts, Roverandom is enhanced by five beautiful plates of colour illustrations which were sketched by Tolkien himself for the story. The story itself is as fanciful and as magical as any Tolkien tale and will be appreciated by young and old readers alike.

© The Statesman

The Statesman