Christopher Tolkien is the youngest son of J.R.R. Tolkien, and his literary executor. He recently gave a rare interview to French newspaper Le Monde. In it, he talks about his father’s works, reputation, and the slow evolution of Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
The posterity of J.R.R. Tolkien is both the story of an extraordinary literary transmission from a father to a son, and the story of a misunderstanding. The most well-known works, the ones that have hidden the rest, were only an epiphenomenon in the eyes of their author…
[In French] | [English translation]
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Thanks to message board member, irisgirl, for alerting us to a nod to Tolkien in, of all places, tattoos sported by this years’ olympians. Karine Sergerie, a member of the Canadian taekwondo team heading to the 2012 London Olympics, has a tattoo on her forearm which reads, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time given to us.” Seems even olympians can be Tolkien geeks like us. We’ll be cheering for you, Karine! …Read More
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Now is the time to dig out all your Hobbit, Elf and Rohan gear, clean up your Orc armor and grab your Wizard robes. It has been at least 8 years since we’ve had a chance to wear our Middle-earth finery, and now with just 3 weeks to go, San Diego Comic Con 2012 will kick off. With both TORn and WB doing panels about the Hobbit, and companies like WETA, LEGO and Gentle Giant, among others, selling Hobbit themed merchandise, Middle-earth will be everywhere. Here at TORn, we know that no comic con is complete without costumers, so we would like to officially invite all past, present and future Tolkien costumers to pack up their gear and plan to wear it on Thursday.
The TORn panel will be at 10:15am on Thursday at the con, and while it would be nice if all Tolkien costumers could attend the panel, we know some of you may not get in. What we would really like to do is a mass a big group shot after our panel, out on the Outdoor Amphitheater behind the Sails Pavillion, overlooking Coronado Bridge. Our panel will end around 11:15am, so given the typical chitter chatter that always follows such events, lets plan for about 11:45am out on the Sails Terrace area. If you have older costumes you’ve got in storage, please pull them out and bring them. If your costume is book based rather than film based, no worries. If you have a costume based on Tolkien artwork, or the Silmarillion, bring it to San Diego. And if you are working on a new Hobbit era costume, wear that too (unless you are entering it into the Masquerade, don’t want you getting into trouble). All Tolkien themed costumes are welcome and encouraged, TORn would love to show that our community is large and creative and enthusiastic. If you have any questions, please contact Garfeimao@TheOneRing.net.
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Tolkien researcher John Garth is the author of Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth. Michael Martinez, who describes it as “a great biographical portrait of a young man who sees his world divided between life and death” chats with the author over on Xenite.org about how Tolkien’s experiences of war might have influenced his fiction.
An excerpt:
From almost as early as [Tolkien] could remember he had lived in and around Birmingham, one of the biggest industrial cities of the era, and as a lover both of nature and of rural life he was acutely aware of the encroachment of the town. He was also well aware of the Arts & Crafts Movement spearheaded by William Morris, one of his favourite authors (The House of the Wolfings, The Roots of the Mountains, etc.), and I’m sure his own views on the alienating effects of ‘mechanical’ labour were considerably shaped by those of Morris and his followers.
[More]
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I live near Allentown, PA and rarely have an opportunity to partake in any special events that would interest the Tolkien community locally. Today was a bit different. You see, the Allentown Art Museum is currently exhibiting ‘At the Edge: Art of the Fantastic,’ the most comprehensive and largest exhibition of fantastic art to date in the United States. When I saw an ad featuring Donato Giancola’s The Hobbit, I just knew I had to go! The presentation is quite impressive – showcase fantasy art from hundreds of years ago to present. If you ever wanted to see works in person, but really didn’t want deal with going to a convention convention, this showcase is a perfect opportunity. Tolkien themed works on exhibit: The Hildebrandt Brother’s Smaug and The Gift of Galadriel, Ruth Sanderson’s Galadriel, Mark Zug’s The Sands of Gorgoroth, Matthew Stewart’s Battle of Five Armies, Stephen Hickman’s Siege of Minas Tirith (triple WOW factor in person), Darrell Sweet’s The Slaying of Glaurung, and last but not least, Donato Giancola’s The Hobbit (Absolutely stunning in person – and gigantic!). The exhibit runs through September 9th 2012 in Allentown, PA. [Allentown Art Museum]
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Here at TheOneRing.net, we are very proud of the community we have helped create, and like any community, we experience losses. One such loss occurred this weekend in Los Angeles, where the Tolkien fan community, and the costuming community as a whole, lost one of its brightest and most creative individuals. Kent Elofson died on May 18 of an apparent suicide in his Pasadena home, leaving behind a huge community of fellow costumers, all mourning his passing.
More behind the break. Continue reading “LOTR Fandom Loses One of its Own: Kent Elofson”
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