{"id":30465,"date":"2008-10-31T20:17:54","date_gmt":"2008-11-01T01:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=30465"},"modified":"2008-10-31T20:17:54","modified_gmt":"2008-11-01T01:17:54","slug":"john-howes-journal-many-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2008\/10\/31\/30465-john-howes-journal-many-meetings\/","title":{"rendered":"John Howe&#8217;s Journal: Many Meetings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"intro\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/logo_jhowe_home.jpg\" class=\"no-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/logo_jhowe_home.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"John Howe Logo\" width=\"150\" height=\"87\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-28519 no-lazyload\" \/><\/a> <strong>Or the Ins and Outs of Tolkien Fandom<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.john-howe.com\">John Howe<\/a><\/strong> writes: Meeting Tolkien fans is invariably an engaging experience &#8211; occasionally delightful, sometimes moving, often a little scary &#8211; but never ordinary.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not that they form an always identifiable body, like Trekkies &#8211; who I find a little frightening &#8211; I mean, to lavish such attention on costumes that look like something Yves Saint-Laurent binned as a bad idea in the 70\u2019s is beyond me, and do we REALLY need more than one Mr. Spock ? &#8211; or the exuberant kaleidoscope of Star Wars fans. Tolkien fans come in many shapes, sizes and disguises, from \u00fcber-serious comma-counters to elegant and flighty Elves. (I\u2019ve just learned that there is debate amongst Star Trek fans as to the correct denomination; \u201cTrekkers\u201d being apparently preferred by those \u201cTrekkies\u201d who \u201chave a life\u201d. Why do I find this deeply perturbing?) <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Some encounters with fans are quite striking. I was sitting once in a tiny wee book fair in deepest rural France, my mind absorbed with wondering what I was doing there and doing a complicated sketch in a book to pass the time, when, in the top corner of my vision, two enormous, Kong-like sets of hairy knuckles lowered themselves down on the table in front of me. I raised my eyes, which travelled up two chain-mail (!) clad forearms the size of my thighs, over a mantle of fur, to a hirsute face set off by quite startling eyes (or at least the glints I could make put under the beetling brows). \u201cSir Howe, I am Boern,\u201d it rumbled. I nearly jumped out of my skin (until I remembered Beorn only ate honey.) <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/news\/more.php?id=246_0_1_0_C\">Continue&#8230;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Or the Ins and Outs of Tolkien Fandom John Howe writes: Meeting Tolkien fans is invariably an engaging&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[197,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fans","category-howe"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-7Vn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}