From: Mike

Just writing in to let all the South African readers know that this Thursday at 19.00 on a South African show ‘CineMagic’ on the M-Net channel, they will
be showing a preview for the first ‘The Lord of the Rings’ film. According to the promo for the show, they are going to be previewing “the biggest event movie ever” or something like that and they showed a few clips from the first Theatrical Teaser Trailer (Frodo catching the ring, Orcs marching, Aragorn throwing a burning torch at the screen etc.).

Ringer Spy Chet sends along word from the University of Northern Illinois, seems they have a stage play adaptation of ‘The Silmarillion’ in the works! [More]

From: Chet

My girlfriend graduated from Northern Illinois University a few years ago. She occasionally gets the Alumni newsletter. It came just today with a really interesting bit of information. A new faculty member, Professor Robert Schneider, is currently working on a stage adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel The Silmarillion. I can’t imagine what this production might look like. You may want to do some investigating.

Robert Schneider works for the School of Theatre and Dance. The following is the snail mail address:

Northern Illinois University
School of Theatre and Dance
1425 West Lincoln Highway
Dekalb, IL 60115

I really would love to see this production when it is finished. Please post any info if you get any!

This year the annual Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest featured Fantasy as one of its categories, and not surprisingly the winners wrote awful Tolkien parodies. Bad, but not bad enough. I belive that we Ringers could easily trounce this year’s winner with something much, much worse for next year, so sharpen those pencils! [More]

Darth Caesar of Gaming Havens has picked up a real scoop for gaming fans as it is revealed that Riot Entertainment have bought up the wireless game rights for the movie trilogy. [More]

From: Ken C

Just wanted to let you know that a Finnish author, who illustrated a copy of The Hobbit, died the other day.

HELSINKI, Finland — (AP) — Finnish writer and artist Tove Jansson, who created the Moomin family of trolls, died Wednesday. She was 86. [More]