'stretches incredulity'

So, last week I finished what I'm expecting to be my next publication: an updating of my 2012 speech at Marquette describing how the Tolkien manuscripts came to Milwaukee. I had a lot of fun researching and writing the original presentation, and I've enjoyed going back to it almost four years later and changing it  from an oral to a written form. I even managed to uncover and incorporate some new information about Tolkien's planned visit which I'm looking forward to sharing and seeing what others make of it.

More here after the piece is published, which shd be sometime this fall.

As for the title of this post, that was a phrase I'd used without thinking to describe one of Wm Ready's stories about his interactions with Tolkien. Janice pointed it out when she gave the final piece a read-through for me, and I was torn. On the one hand, I found the phrase strangely evocative. On the other, it's a kind of double negative, and these days those are considered to cancel each other out (unlike in Chaucerian times, when doubling negatives just meant emphasis). So I'm afraid it'll have to come out. Pity, but sometimes a good line has to go by the way in the interests of accuracy.


--John R.
current reading: the 1st ed PH.
current anime; GHOST VILLAGE, VANADIS.
current music: The Smithereens (six albums' worth).