Got a spare 27 minutes in your day today? If so, take some time to watch this BBC 2 John Izzard interview of Professor J.R.R. Tolkien. Here’s the official synopsis of the March 30th 1968 broadcast:
John Izzard meets with JRR Tolkien at his home, walking with him through the Oxford locations that he loves while hearing the author’s own views about his wildly successful high-fantasy novels. Tolkien shares his love of nature and beer and his admiration for ‘trenchermen’ in this genial and affectionate programme. The brief interviews with Oxford students that are dotted throughout reveal the full range of opinions elicited by ‘The Lord of the Rings’, from wild enthusiasm to mild contempt.
Jump on over to the BBC to view the video. [Video]
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From the Birmingham Mail:
The great nephew of legendary Birmingham author JRR Tolkien is sculpting a statue of Cardinal Newman which will be specially placed in Cofton Park for the Papal visit.
Award-winning sculptor and Catholic Tim Tolkien has started work on the life-size statue of the Cardinal which will be fabricated in steel and sprayed with bronze.
Read the full story at the Birmingham Mail website. [Read More]
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The L.A. Times blog recently did a big story on Gary Kurtz who was a guiding hand in the Star Wars galaxy until he left after “The Empire Strikes Back.” He talks a lot about those films and his split from George Lucas over creative differences but he drops a little nugget about what Weta will be up to as well. It says,
He’s now working on a ramping feature-film project called “Panzer 88” that he says will begin filming later this year and will feature visual effects by Weta, the same New Zealand outfit that populated Middle-earth in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
It isn’t thought that this should have any effect on the pair of movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” but people in New Zealand are certainly staying busy. Read the whole story here.
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Poet Michael GR Tolkien’s reworking of classic children’s fantasy is read for audiobook by Charles Dickens’s great-great grandson. It is a match made in publicists’ heaven: the grandson of JRR Tolkien and the great-great grandson of Charles Dickens have collaborated for the first time on a verse retelling of a classic fantasy story.
Poet Michael GR Tolkien, the eldest grandson of the Lord of the Rings author, was inspired by Florence Bone’s prose fantasy for children, The Rose-Coloured Wish, first published in 1923. Telling the story of two children who set out to use an evil enchanter’s wishing chain of stones to save their alpine valley, only to fall into trouble, the book was read to Tolkien in the 40s and 50s as a child, and he in turn read it to his own children. More..
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Anthony & Jessica from the Northeast Tolkien Society write: We wish to take a few moments to update you on new details regarding our August, September, and October Tolkien-related events in the New York City area. Our new website has all the pertinent info in our upcoming events section. We are one week away from our Sunday, August 15th Summer Harvest Picnic!! (1pm-5pm The Conference House Great Lawn 298 Satterlee St. Staten Island, NY 10307). Understandably some of you will be away at the Festival in the Shire event taking place across the great pond, but if you are not we hope to see you next week! Continue reading “NYC Tolkien Events Update”
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Did you know Professor Tolkien worked on the staff of the Oxford University Press (makers of the OED – Oxfrod English Dictionary) from 1919 to 1920? He worked in the ‘W’ range, discovering the meaning of words from ‘waggle’ to ‘warlock.’ (See a wonderful article on Tolkien’s involvement with the OED here)
We bring this up because millions of ‘non words’ have been discovered in a secret vault owned by the Oxford University Press. A graphic design student, Luke Ngakane, discovered hundreds of these words in his research and used them in one of his design projects. It makes for an interesting article that we thought we’d share with you! Enjoy! [Read More]
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