Thanks to our friend Corey Olsen at The Tolkien Professor for alerting us that The History Channel will air an episode on J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings as part of its “Clash of the Gods” series. Corey and Michael Drout are among Tolkien scholars who are interviewed as part of the program. The episode airs at 10:00 p.m. EST, Monday, October 5 and again at 2:00 a.m. EST on Tuesday, October 6. You can see The History Channel’s schedule here and check out more about the series at the production company’s site, kpitv.com.
Category: J.R.R. Tolkien
While not quite as famous as the anniversary of the publication of ‘The Hobbit,’ J.R.R. Tolkien penned what would become an important part of his larger mythology 95 years ago. Marc wrote to remind us of the event which is talked about in John Garth’s “Tolkien and the Great War,” and according to Marc, “Tolkien’s Gedling.” The poem, published in “The Book of Lost Tales Part 2,” contained the linguistic and imaginative seeds that helped inspire Middle-earth. In short, celebrate Tolkien today and perhaps read of Eärendel!
WIRED.com: J.R.R. Tolkien 1916J.R.R. Tolkien was a leading scholar of the English language’s Anglo-Saxon roots, and he invented entire languages for his legendary Middle Earth narratives. According to a new restricted exhibit at Britain’s intelligence-agency Government Communications Headquarters, the acclaimed author and philologist also trained to crack a few languages at the top-secret Government Code and Cypher School before World War II. More..
Matt Blessing from Marquette University gives us the heads up: An online registration form has been prepared for public tours of manuscript exhibit, “The Beginnings of a Masterpiece: Original Manuscripts from The Fellowship of the Ring.” Continue reading “Advanced Registration for Tours of Tolkien Manuscripts”
JRR Tolkien was secretly trained as a Government spy during the Second World War…
“Tolkien, one of his generation’s most respected linguists, was ”earmarked” to crack Nazi codes in the event that Germany declared war. Intelligence chiefs singled him and a ‘cadre’ of other intellectuals to work at Bletchley Park, the codebreaking centre in Buckinghamshire. Its staff – which included Alan Turing, the gay codebreaker – would later decipher the ‘impenetrable’ Enigma machines. This saved Britain from German conquest by allowing the Navy to intercept and destroy Hitler’s U-Boats.”
Thanks to Ringer David for sending in the link to this article. [Read More]
From Geek Dad Matt Blum on Wired.com: Some questions have such clear answers that you know your answer the moment you hear or read it. These are of the “Who was the better James Bond: Connery or Dalton?” sort. You might even blink a few times to make sure you read the question correctly. This is not what the Great Geek Debates are all about. They are about the deep, soul-searching, tough questions — not quite Sophie’s Choice-tough, but nearly so. They challenge you to determine, once and for all, what kind of geek you truly are. More..