Wednesday, August 31, 2016

The Return of "Tolkienian Gloom"

So, today I was skimming a piece about the NEW YORK TIMES' apparent fixation of using 'shadow' or 'cloud' when describing Mrs. Clinton's campaign when I came across an unexpected Tolkien reference in it. There's the link to the whole piece (which, as I said, I've only skimmed") below, but here's the salient passage:

"Like many people, I've been bothered by an ominous, insinuating tone in the NYT's Clinton coverage. HRC always seems to be inhabiting a gloomy, almost Tolkienesque realm of cloud and shadow .  . .  I went searching for instances of "cloud(s)" and "shadow(s)" in stories from the past few months."

The piece goes on to say that the writer "found 20 articles since early May using 'clouds' or 'shadows' as the de rigueur metaphor of choice. (To be fair, three of the examples are Associated Press stories the Times ran.)" and then goes on to cite specific examples. Here's the link:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/new-york-times-cloud-shadow-clinton-coverage



Now, this reminded me right away of a similar usage that drew Tolkien's attention and resulted in him writing a letter to the newspaper, just a year before he died, to protest association of his name with gloom. The original letter to the editor can be found at Tolkien Gateway (http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_339), which reproduces an image of it as it appeared in the paper; for just the text itself, see LETTERS p. 419-420.

So, while I think it's often specious to say what a writer would or would not have liked, here we're on pretty solid ground to feel that Tolkien wd not have been best pleased by the association of his name and work with clouds and shadows, however metaphoric.

--John R.
current reading: LONGITUDE: THE TRUE STORY OF A LONE GENIUS WHO SOLVED THE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM OF HIS TIME, by Dava Sobel (1995/96).



Tuesday, August 30, 2016

I Eat a Guava

So, yesterday I ate a guava for what I think is the first time. I've had guava preserves before, having been told Dr. Blackwelder that guava made the perfect scone sauce* (something about which it turns out we disagreed). But I'd never seen a fresh guava, so far as I can recall. And the place where I found them was unusual: the produce section of the Magnolia Wal-mart. So I got two and brought them home, just to give them a try. And a few days later I split them with my sister and brother-in-law, my mother having declined.

They look like a little lemon, except with smoother skin and maybe about a quarter the size. Inside they have a soft core with (edible but hard) seeds surrounded by firmer yellow flesh. The center reminded me a bit of a yellow fig, while the outer part tasted more like a pear (which it also slightly resembled in taste). It was better if you ate both parts together.

The results: my brother-in-law and I thought it was fine but wdn't go out of our way to find one; my sister didn't care for it much. Still, nice to have given something new a try; you never know when you'll make a real discovery and find something you've been missing out on. It certainly wasn't any stranger than several of the fruits I'd tried in Hawaii.


--John R.

current reading: FREDERICK CATHERWOOD, ARCHt. --a biography of the great travel artist given to me back in 1987 by my friend Taum Santoski, who knew of my longtime interest in Catherwood.


*this was during the same visit in which, before serving him with some of Janice's most excellent scones, we warned him about Parker (The Cat Who Bit People), said "I'd rather be bitten than ignored", and proceeded to show that this was true.

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Stephen Colbert is Brilliant (Frodo & the Ring)

So, I have Janice to thank for sending me this link, which I wd otherwise have missed.

Stephen Colbert has long been notable for being a self-confessed Tolkien fan (indeed, a Tolkien nerd), and proud of it.

Typically this has taken the form of his display of knowledge that shows he's not just read THE LORD OF THE RINGS and THE HOBBIT but THE SILMARILLION as well and is conversant with the VALAQUENTA and AINULINDALE, able to recall facts about the books off the cuff. Now for the first time he's moved from being just a fan (albeit a famous one) to, I wd argue, being a Tolkien scholar as well.

In a recent segment Colbert offered up an insight into THE LORD OF THE RINGS I don't remember ever coming across before. In essence, he argued that Gandalf knew Frodo would fail in his quest to destroy the Ring, because he'd seen with his own eyes that Frodo could not throw the ring into his own fire at Bag-End. Letting that sink in, I think Colbert is on to something here, and that it's a major point that had never occurred to me.

If Gandalf sees for himself that Frodo is already too tightly tied to the Ring even before settting out on his quest, then he knows that Frodo will never be able to toss the Ring into the Fires of Doom. However good-intentioned Frodo is, he's already too far in the power of the ring.

Therefore, I think it's fair to extrapolate that Gandalf must have had a contingency plan: that another person (himself, Sam, Strider) would need to be there to take the final step after Frodo had accomplished the grueling task of getting the Ring to the right place at the right time.  That is, unknown to himself, Frodo's quest was never to destroy the ring: it was to bring the ring to the place where it could be destroyed. And he achieved his task, at great cost, and was duly honored for it, but privately haunted for failing in the second test (a bit like Gawain's hyper-honor at the end of SGGK).


That's where my cogitation on Colbert's observation led me, anyway; I'd be curious what others make of it.

--John R.
currently in: Magnolia, Arkansas



xx

http://nerdist.com/tolkien-nerd-stephen-colbert-nailed-his-audiences-lord-of-the-rings-questions/

Thursday, August 25, 2016

The Worst Song Ever Recorded?

So, yesterday I was in Wal-Mart for the first time in months (in fact, the same Wal-Mart I was last in, the last time I was back here in my hometown in Arkansas), when over the loudspeakers they played "I've Got a Brand New Pair of Rollerskates". Which just goes to show that while the good music of the sixties and seventies is always with us, so too are the bad. And among the bad, for the worst of the worst I would cast my vote for "I've Got a Brand New Pair of Rollerskates, You've Got a Brand New Key". There may be worse songs out there (it was, after all, the era of Yoko Ono), but this is the worst I know of that actually got a lot of air time before slinking into well-deseerved obscurity.  It was almost worth hearing it one more time for the pleasure of when it stopped.

--John R.
currently at: The Greek Theatre, Southern Arkansas University


UPDATE
So, I have to say Wal-Mart more than made up for it when I went back the next day, and heard Tears for Fears playing over that same sound system. Then I have to wonder what Smith and Orzabal would think  if they knew their work was one day destined to entertain Wal-Mart shoppers in Magnolia, Arkansas. Just another sign that you do the work and let the legacy take care of itself.




Wednesday, August 17, 2016

The New Arrival (LEAF BY NIGGLE)

So, Monday's mail brought not just the latest issue of VII* but the newest Tolkien book: the first stand-alone publication of his 1942-43 parable LEAF BY NIGGLE. I gather this was released in association with (or at least contemporaneously with) the one-man show that's currently touring in England -- and, I hope, will make it over here in good time.

Most who enjoy Tolkien will have read this already, thorough collections such as TREE AND LEAF (which paired it with OFS), THE TOLKIEN READER (which added FGH, ATB, OFS, and HBB to make the classic collection**), both during Tolkien's lifetime. Postumously THE TOLKIEN READER's place was taken by TALES FROM THE PERILOUS REALM  (which added SWM; a later re-issue added ROVERANDOM as well).  It's nice to see it get to stand on its own for once.

As for the book itself, it's a handsome little volume, only about sixty-four pages (including backmatter) with a tree and a bicycle on the cover and an Afterword by Tom Shippey. Shippey's interpretation of Tolkien's tale is purely allegorical and strictly autobiographical.

All in all, a nice little book that I'm happy to have. If it weren't already spoke for on the Tolkien shelf I'd put it alongside Giono's THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES and Merwin's UNCHOPPING A TREE.

--John R.


*haven't had time to read this yet, but v. much looking forward to their publication here, for the first time ever, of PUDAITA PIE, the Lewis brothers' collection of sayings of their father that made him look bad, and to a review-essay of four biographies wh is full of well-deserved praise for Raymond Edwards' new Tolkien biography (the reviewer also liked the Zaleskis' book for its treatment of Wms and inclusion of Barfield).


 **LotR, H, and THE TOLKIEN READER made up the three books that most people in the sixties and first half of the seventies who liked Tolkien read)

Saturday, August 13, 2016

MythCon and the MythSoc Awards

So, I cdn't make it to this year's MythCon (after having v. much enjoyed last year's event in  Colorado), but was v. interested to see the schedule of presentations. Thanks to David Bratman for posting the schedule before the event:

http://www.mythsoc.org/assets/MC47_Schedule.pdf

and also for his post-con report of some of the event's high spots:


http://kalimac.livejournal.com/897464.html


http://kalimac.livejournal.com/897696.html


http://kalimac.livejournal.com/897849.html




Looking at the schedule, there are definitely papers I wd have attended, given the chance:

--Rbt Boenig's Plenary lecture  -- having been impressed with Boenig's book (which I believe won last year's award), I'd like to hear more of what he has to say.

--Joe Christopher's latest piece on the Lindskoog Scandal

--Chip Crane on the evolution of Tolkien's prose style

--Talley et al on Tolkien's unsung heroes

--Himes's piece on CSL's hypocrisy as a critic (a look at Lewis's late, unsatisfactory AN EXPERIMENT IN CRITICISM)

--David Bratman's "C. S. Lewis: Numenorean" (being myself deeply interested in how THE LOST ROAD, THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS, & THE DARK TOWER intersect with Lewis's space trilogy)

--both Croft's pieces: the one on post-Tolkienan faerie drama, and esp. the other on JRRT's Introductions, Prefaces, and Forewords.

--Fitzsimmons's piece on Barfield (there being so few presentations on OB, I try to never miss an opportunity to see one).

--and lastly Lazo's "C. S. Lewis Got It Wrong (and Why It Matters): Unraveling an Unpublished Mystery" (mainly to find out what his topic is and, depending on the answer, what he had to say about it).


As for the Mythopoeic Awards, congr. to all the nominees and esp. the winners. It was good to see what is almost certainly the best book ever written on Ch. Wms., one of the Society's three tentpole authors, get the nod (Lindop's THE THIRD INKLING). And it was also good that Williamson's book on the emergence of modern fantasy (a book I liked so much I contributed a cover blurb to it) also was honored.


--JDR



Friday, August 12, 2016

Giving Finland A Mountain

So, here's a fun story, the best 'good news' item I've heard in ages:

Norway is thinking of giving Finland a mountain, to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Finland's becoming independent back during the dark days towards the end of The Great War.

There's precedent for such minor border adjustments, both within countries (for example, Tennessee and Arkansas periodically adjust their mutual border to take into account shifts in the Mississippi) and between them (e.g. between Finland, Russia, and Norway, as noted in the article itself).

The amount of territory involved is miniscule (0.015 sq km), and would have the effect of shifting Finland's tallest point from the side of a mountain to share a mountain with the Norwegians, each having one of its two peaks within their (adjusted) territory. In Finland's case, their peak wd then become the tallest peak in Finland.

There are a few Norwegian nationalist who object to the deal, and it turns out the Sami community* does too (feeling that a wide swatch of northern Scandinavia shd be stateless), but it sounds like this goodwill gesture is likely to come to pass.



Here' the link


--JDR
current viewing: HIS AND HER CIRCUMSTANCE
current reading: INTO OTHER WORLDS by Roger Lancelyn Green (disappointing) and THE WIZARD OF LEMURIA (Lin Carter's first novel; arrived yesterday)



*the people previously known in the past as the Lapps.


Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Ace vs. Ballantine, 1962


So, here's one final surprising takeaway from Richard A. Lupoff's book on Edgar Rice Burroughs's contribution to popular fiction: the discovery that Tolkien in 1965 was not the first time Ace Books and Ballantine had tussled over publication of works whose copyright status was uncertain. In fact, the Great Copyright Controversy, as it's sometimes called, over the two rival paperback editions of Tolkien's LORD OF THE RINGS was, if anything, a re-match between Donald Wollheim at Ace and Ian Ballantine at Ballantine. The following passage is fairly lengthy, but I found it fascinating for the light it shed on paperback fantasy/science fiction publishing in New York in the early to mid 1960s, and the context against which the slightly later LotR battle wd play out.


In following Lupoff's account, it's important to note that later in his career Burroughs became his own publisher. Accordingly, "Burroughs, Inc." is both the family publishing business (which fell quiescent after Burroughs' death) and the Burroughs Estate (which remained selectively active). Lupoff was an editor for Canaveral Books, so he had a ringside seat for the events he recalls forty years later.


[Following Burroughs' death in 1950, official Burroughs Inc.] editions began disappearing from bookstores. Book dealers active in the field both then and now recount their experiences of being unable to obtain books ordered from Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Reprint editors tell of comparable experiences. Donald A. Wollheim, soon to be with Ace Books but then with Avon, tells of attempting to secure paperback rights to Burroughs' work and receiving for reply only rebuffs—or total silence.

It seemed almost as if Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., was attempting to bury the writings of Burroughs, and attend to more lucrative matters such as the licensing of the Tarzan character for motion pictures, comic strips and magazines, and other commercial exploitations.

For 12 years this was the situation, while Burroughs, except for the Tarzan adaptations, became virtually a forgotten man. A coterie of loyal fans kept the lamp of memory flickering, and a semi-professional publisher would now and then risk lawsuit with an underground edition of a few hundred copies of some "lost" Burroughs work.

In 1962 everything changed. Jack Biblo and Jack Tannen, operators of a used books store in New York, learned through a copyright search that approximately half of the Burroughs canon was in the public domain. That is, the copyright had lapsed 27 years after first publication, and had not been renewed as legally required. Anyone who wanted to reprint Burroughs could, permission or no, provided only that they stayed within the out-of-copyright list.

Biblo and Tannen set up a publishing house called Canaveral Press and announced an ambitious program of reprinting Burroughs in hard-bound, illustrated editions. In short order Wollheim of Ace Books announced a similar and even more ambitious program of paperback reprints. Ballantine Books produced a trump card with the claim that they had obtained Burroughs' Inc.'s permission, and thus would reprint copyright as well as public domain material. Dover Books announced its own, somewhat smaller, Burroughs program.


For a time there was utter chaos. From a drought of Burroughs there was now, suddenly, a flood. Where a given title had been out-of-print for decades, there were now two, three, four competing editions on sale at once. Eventually, fortunately, a measure of order was restored when a new administration at Burroughs, Inc. negotiated settlements with the various publishers involved.

Canaveral obtained exclusive hardcover publishing rights for a time. They eventually produced two dozen Burroughs titles including several first editions.* Dover limited its program to a few omnibus volumes of Burroughs, then retired from the field.

Ace and Ballantine split the paperback rights more or less down the middle—Ace got [the] Pellucidar and Venus series, Ballantine got Tarzan and Mars. Other titles were parcelled out one by one. For hardcover first editions of remaining Burroughs manuscripts, Burroughs Inc. published a single title, and in recent years has allowed various small presses to produce others.

In this fashion, this immensely popular author came back into his own after a hiatus of 12 years.

—MASTER OF ADVENTURE: THE WORLDS OF EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS, rev. ed. 2005, pages xxxviii-xxxix (emphasis mine).**


The key elements here that parallel the slightly later events over Tolkien's book wd be (1) the refusal of the authorized publisher to grant permissions for paperback reprints, despite approaches by several publishers; (2) this leading to the discovery by Wollheim that the official publishers probably didn't have undisputed rights to material (and hence cd not legally sub-let rights they might not actually have); (3) which led to the official publisher normalizing the situation by striking a deal that led to the recognition of an officially authorized edition (which in Tolkien's case led to the unauthorized rival being driven from the field).

The biggest difference in Tolkien's case is that while Burroughs was long dead, and the most prized of the books in question had been published a half-century before. Did this inspire the telling line by Tolkien himself about "courtesy (at least) to living authors" that appeared proudly on every copy of the Ballantine text?

In any case, it seems to me a case cd be made for the Burroughs brouhaha of 1962 being an interesting preliminary skirmish, as it were, in the Tolkienian battle of 1965. I'd previously known Lupoff only as the author of the novel LOVECRAFT'S BOOK, which I've had for years but never read. I'm thinking now I shd dig it out and give it a try.

--John R.
current reading: R. L. Green's INTO OTHER WORLDS (still)
current viewing: BACCANO! (brilliant nonlinear storytelling) and HIS AND HER CIRCUMSTANCE (the single best anime series ever)

*i.e., the first publication, or first book publication, of previously unpublished or uncollected material

** I have silently corrected two obvious typos in the original.

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Was Lin Carter a Tragic Figure or a Pulp Hack?

So, when reading Lupoff's book,* I was surprised to come across the following tribute to Lin Carter.
On page 33 Lupoff writes (emphasis mine)

'The late Lin Carter, himself a science-fiction author and one of the most perceptive critics of imaginative literature, stated in his classic study of epic fantasy (Notes on Tolkien, Xero magazine, 1961, 1962): "One such traditional plot device is to open your tale in surroundings, or among characters, familiar to your audience, and by degrees (once the reader has 'identified' and become 'comfortable' with them) to carry him further and further into your make-believe world." '[Nt1]**

At the bottom of this page, Lupoff has added the following note (again, emphasis mine):

[Nt1]'Carter's series of Xero articles served as the basis for his book-length study Tolkien: A Look behind the Lord of the Rings (1969), which in turn led to his stint as Consulting Editor on the fondly remembered Ballantine Adult Fantasy series (1969-1973). Carter was a talented and perceptive literary man who devoted the majority of his energies to producing a barrage of pastiches of the Burroughs and Robert E. Howard variety (touched on elsewhere in this book). He died in 1987, leaving his potential not merely unfulfilled but virtually untouched.'


Those passages I've boldfaced give me pause, because I've always looked on Carter as someone with enthusiasm but not talent or judgment. His A LOOK BEHIND THE LORD OF THE RINGS, filled with errors as it was, introduced me to a lot of writers I went on to read and enjoy, and I think his work writing those little Forewords to the Adult Fantasy Series volumes helped establish a sense of fantasy's having a coherent tradition running form Morris to Tolkien (with precursors before and heirs beyond). But I certainly wd never call him "perceptive" (as Lupoff does twice). And what I've read of his fiction was simply hopeless.

I'm curious: does Lupoff suggest he was a tragic figure because he thought he had it in him to write a novel better than the dreck he actually did write (and publish)? If so, upon what does he base this sense of Carter's "potential"?

Or was Carter able to recognize talent without being able to do more than imitate its outward forms? That wd be tragic indeed if the many books he wrote (nearly a hundred) were all more or less exercises in futility, aping the forms of better writers without being able to capture any of the spark that brings their work to life. But I see no sign anywhere that Carter himself thought that; instead, he seems to have been filled with admiration for his own work (e.g., regularly including it it Year's Best fantasy anthologies he edited).

So, Lupoff's comments suggest there was more to Lin Carter than comes across in his books. If anyone else has insights into what this might have been, I'd be interesting in hearing.

--John R.
current reading: INTO OTHER WORLDS by Roger Lancclyn Green (1958)


*MASTER OF ADVENTURE: THE WORLDS OF EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS (rev. ed. 2005)

**Gary Hunnewell's invaluable TOLKIEN FANDOM REVIEW: FROM ITS BEGINNINGS TO 1964 volume provides the information that this appeared in three parts, in issues number 7, 8, and 9, respectively, taking up a total of just 21 pages.




Tolkien & Burroughs, Lupoff & Green

So, since finding Tolkien's passing reference to Burroughs' Pellucidar, and his (already well known but forgotten by me) familiarity with Burroughs work in general, esp. Tarzan, I've been reading a copy of Lupoff's book* to get a sense of the context within which he quotes Tolkien.

First off, I have to say Lupoff's is an enjoyable book and I've learned a lot from it. It's not a biography but an overview of Burroughs' literary career, looking at each of his seventy-odd book. Since Burroughs wrote multiple series, switching back and forth between the latest entries in each, it's particularly helpful that Lupoff doesn't follow a strict chronological sequence but groups books belonging to various series and sub-series together and discusses them in said groupings. It's also good that, while obviously a great admirer of E.R.B.'s work, Lupoff also think Burroughs wrote too many books and takes it as his task to highlight what he thinks are Burroughs' best works and why., and which are only for completists.**  I tried to do something of the same with Dunsany in my dissertation, and think he does a good job with this difficult task. He's also not shy about ranking some ERB books as abject failures, either from Burroughs trying to write outside his comfort zone or by-the-numbers later entries in series that had outstayed their welcome.***

He also includes a chapter on likely influences on Burroughs and another on Burroughs' (massive) influence on others, the most notable of whom he considers to be Rbt E. Howard. (who I'd say has somehow come to eclipse even Burroughs himself in recent decades).  And in addition to revisions and updating by Lupoff himself, there's also an extensive chapter, added by Burroughs scholar Phillip Burger, covering events of the forty years between the editions of Lupoff's own book.****


To my surprise, the idea that Tolkien was influenced by Edgar Rice Burroughs comes not from Lupoff but from Tolkien's friend Roger Lancelyn Green. The three relevant paragraphs in Lupoff's book read as follow:

A final possible descendant of John Carter, suggested 
by Roger Lancelyn Green in Into Other Worlds
appears in The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien. 
The Two Towers is part of Professor Tolkien's great 
trilogy The Lord of the Rings (George Allen and 
Unwin, 1954, 1955, 1956). Green suggests that 
"Shelob in The Lord of the Rings is so like the 
Siths of the Barsoomian caves that an unconscious
 borrowing seems probable."

I personally find Shelob, a huge anthropophagous
spider who guards a tunnel, more closely analogous
to the apts which guard the carrion caves of Okar
in The Warlord of Mars. Queries as to the possibly
attribution, Professor Tolkien offers this gracious
but not very helpful reply:

Source hunting is a great entertainment but I do not
myself think it is particularly useful. I did read many
of Edgar Rice Burroughs' earlier works, but I developed
a dislike for his Tarzan even greater than my distaste
for spiders. Spiders I had met long before Burroughs 
began to write, and I do not think he is in any way 
responsible for Shelob. At any rate I retain no memory
of the Siths or the Apts.

(Lupoff, rev. ed. pages 200 [1st 2 paragraphs] & 201 [3rd paragraph]).

I have to confess to not having read WARLORDS OF MARS (1919), third book in the original Barsoom trilogy; from a quick dip it sounds as if the SITH is in fact a giant wingless hornet, while the APT sounds more like the Lovecraftian ghoph-keh.

In any case, Lupoff first devotes a paragraph to summarizing Green's point, then follows with a second paragraph advancing a suggestion of his own, then concludes with the third paragraph by Tolkien himself denying the connection, in words rather similar to his parallel critism of the Lord Peter Wimsey series: perhaps he simply had low tolerance for series that went on and on.

The irony in this is that Green, who knew Tolkien (JRRT had been his advisor for his Thesis and may have modeled one of the characters in THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS on RLG) and could have just asked him directly about any possible borrowing, puts forward a suggestion just on his own cognizance, so to speak, while the American Lupoff writes to the overseas author seeking confirmation.

--John R.



*MASTER OF ADVENTURE: THE WORLDS OF EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS by Richard A. Lupoff (rev. and exp. ed. 2005; orig publ. as EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS: MASTER OF ADVENTURE in 1965)

**particularly helpful is the chapter titled "A Basic Burroughs Library" (p.202-213), in which Lupoff says that if you're only going to read one book by Burroughs, it shd be TARZAN OF THE APES, the first Tarzan book. But if you're going to read two, then A PRINCESS OF MARS shd be right there in second place. And if you're going on to three he'd suggest THE WAR CHIEF, a lesser known western. From there he expands this to a half-dozen, adding THE MUCKER (another non-series book), THE MOON MAID (as among his best science fiction), and TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN (as the best of the later Tarzan books). If going for a full dozen, he recommends AT THE EARTH'S CORE (the first Pellucidar book), TALES OF THREE PLANETS, THE GIRL FROM HOLLYWOOD (simply because it's wholly atypical), THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (Burroughs dipping into Conan-Doyle territory), and the other two books in the original Barsoom trilogy: THE GODS OF MARS and THE WARLORD OF MARS.

***It's good to remember that Burroughs, like H. Rider Haggard and Earl Stanley Gardner, wrote quickly: each book took an average of forty-nine days to write, according to Lupoff (p. 53), or about seven weeks per book.

****have to admit that I'm amused by the fact that this book has a Foreword (by Michael Moorcock), an Introduction (by Lupoff, to the new updated and expanded edition), a Preface (by a fulsome Burroughs bibliographer named Henry Hardy Heins, who's writing for fellow enthusiasts), and another Introduction (again by Lupoff, to the original 1965 edition).

Friday, August 5, 2016

Tolkien on the BBC this weekend

So, thanks to Andrew F, Allan G, and Janice S. for sharing the news that there's a special Tolkien broadcast on the BBC this weekend.

It's long been known that when the BBC interviewed Tolkien for the 1968 BBC-tv special TOLKIEN IN OXFORD, the film crew shot a lot more footage than made it into the final film. For years Tolkien scholars have speculated whether any of the unused footage may survive. The answer turns out to be yes: thanks to Stuart Lee (editor of the Blackwell-Wiley volume on JRRT) the recovered footage has resurfaced (parts of it were shown to the Tolkien Society last year)* and excerpts from it are going to be broadcast on radio-BBC tomorrow. Here's a link to the article about the broadcast:
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/2016/07/bbc-to-broadcast-lost-tolkien-recordings/

And here's the listing actual broadcast, through which I hope to be able to listen to it tomorrow.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07mvd5z


Nice to see that Joss Ackland will be the host; previously I've known him mainly as the guy who played C. S. Lewis in the original SHADOWLANDS (and did a much better job of it than Hopkins in the theatrical version).  And that they have a good array of Tolkien talent to comment on the clips (Dimitra Fimi, Stuart Lee, Tom Shippey).**  V. much looking forward to this one.

--John R.


*http://www.tolkiensociety.org/2015/07/watch-leslie-megahey-talks-about-tolkien-in-oxford/

**pity they didn't include longtime Tolkien Society stalwart Jessica Yates, who's actually in the original 1968 broadcast film.









Thursday, August 4, 2016

Parker and Hastur

So, today marks fourteen years since my cat Parker died. He was twelve -- a good age, but I'd hoped he could be with me for much longer.  He was the smartest cat I've ever had the pleasure to know, and the only one so famous for his bad behavior (one of his nicknames was The Cat Who Bit People) as to have a book written about him.* I still miss him.


The next day we went to get a new kitten to help fill the cat-shaped hole in my heart. We did have Rigby, who was a sprightly young cat of about four, but she'd very definitely become Janice's cat within a month of joining our household; she and I got along really well but it was Janice she always sought out for laps &c. Besides, we thought Rigby would welcome a companion cat to share the place with during the day.**

While caring for Parker during those last weeks when he was dying I'd noticed a friendly little black puffball of a kitten in the cage at the local PetSmart and had decided to adopt him if he was still there after Parker was gone.*** In the event, we found him gone and another cat, a little torbie kitten, in his place. I picked her up and she purred: it took about half a minute to know she was coming home with us. By the time we got home from the store she and I had bonded. Again, she likes Janice a lot but is clearly 'my' cat.  She spends most of her day with me: sleeps on my desk when I work, supervises anything involving papers spread about, and makes sure cat-treats get dispensed upon demand. Recently she's retired and now spends most of her time in four or five favorite spots (one of her major tasks is to check to see that the sunbeams are where they shd be when they shd be).


So rest in peace, Parker. I'm glad to have shared twelve years and seven different apartments and houses with you. The scars have mostly faded but the memories remain.

And Hastur: Happy to have you with us these past fourteen years and hope you'll stay for years to come.


--John R.


*PARKER'S CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE by Janice K. Coulter (story) and Stan Brown (pictures)

**we were wrong about that.

**his name would have been Babaganoosh

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Election Day (again)

So, today is election day in Washington state. Again. This time it's not presidential or local issues on the ballet but national offices like Senator and Representative, and statewide offices like governor and state legislature positions.

Half the voting was easy, since a number of incumbents who I think have done a pretty good job were up for re-election  (e.g. Adam Smith or Tina Orwall) -- or, in one case (David Upthegrove), moving to try for a different job, shifting from state legislature to Commissioner of Public Lands.

Aside from these, I mainly judge by the write-up provided by the candidates themselves for the voter's pamphlet, since I like to judge people by their own words (and the company they keep, which often comes through, though not always to their advantage, in the endorsements). Where I'm in doubt between two or more decent-sounding candidates for the same spot, I like to check out my friend Jeff's detailed write-ups over on www.grubbstreet.blogspot.com (cf. in specific http://grubbstreet.blogspot.com/2016/07/political-desk-jeff-recommends-primary.html). Jeff not only puts more time into it than I do, but I trust his judgement -- although I do make different choices in some cases.

The thing that really stands out in this year's election is that Crazy Season continues, as it has all year.  Thus we have eleven people running for governor and seventeen for the Senate, many of them from fringe parties like the Socialist Workers (who want to defend Castro's revolution and champion the cause of LaVoy Finicum --no, really) or Independents like self-confessed tree-hugger Steve Rubenstein (though I'm with him on the protect-the-trees front) or partyless candidates like the gun-shop owner who doesn't like light rail (not much of a qualification for running for Lt. Gov., one wd think).  A surprising number are from weird one-off parties that one strongly suspects came into existence when the candidate downloaded the run-for-office form from the internet and had to fill out a blank 'party affiliation' space. Among these I wd include the Human Rights Party, the Conservative Party, the Standupamerica Party (which apparently doesn't believe in capitalization), the Lincoln Caucus Party (who apparently aren't aware there's another party-of-Lincoln out there), and the System Reboot Party, all running candidates for Senator, as well as the Holistic Party and the Fifth Republic Party* on the Gubernatorial side.

As for the actual candidates,  I automatically dismiss perennial office-seekers like ''Uncle Mike" and "Goodspaceguy" (another capitalization-challenged candidate) who I don't think actually care about the job or getting elected but just want the ego-boo of seeing their names in the pamphlet every other year. Of the rest, several come across as credible candidates for the job, and it's from among them that the run-offs will occur, presumably in November.  Or at least so let us hope. Have to say, though, that I'm dismayed by the number of people who boast about being unqualified for the job they're seeking. To my way of thinking, if you've never held public office, and you're not Jimmy Stewart, you ought not be running for high public office.

Among this overly colorful array of candidates, the bottom of the barrel takes up an uncomfortable amount of the barrel. You know it's a bad sign when the guy who thinks fluoride poisons drinking water (wd-be governor James Robert Deal), who seems to be using his run to gin up support for a class-action lawsuit, doesn't even make it into the top (bottom) two. For the absolute bottom, I keep going back and forth between David W. Blomstrom, who wants to be governor so he can warn people about the "jewarchy", his own term for what used to be called 'the international jewish conspiracy' (apparently anti-semitism is trying to rebrand itself these days). Or would-be Superintendent of Public Instruction Ron Higgins, who seems to want to be in charge of Washington's school system so he can dismantle it from within (he's all for charter schools, homeschooling, and enforcing traditional gender roles); more perniciously, he's against vaccinating kids.** It's hard to choose between a stone-cold racist on the one hand with someone on the other whose policies, if carried out, would probably actually kill people, and children at that . . .

Have to say that by comparison, tree-huggers look pretty good.

Like I said, crazy season.

--John R.
current reading: Lupoff's book on Burroughs
current viewing: SHIRO BAKO (an anime about making anime); just finished Jackson's TWO TOWERS.




*this apparently refers not to de Gaulle's Fifth Republic, France's government since WW II, but to post-2001 America.

**although Col. Higgins does have my favorite line from the whole voter's pamphlet in his write-up: that schools shd aim to produce "people who know how to learn, since schooling ends but learning never should"