So, I know where I'll be at 5.45 am tomorrow morning.
I intend to get up far too early in order to take part in this year's Tolkien Society Seminar. I've only been able to attend this event once before, in May 1987, where Stephen Medcalf, Jessica Yates, Diana Wynne Jones, Geraldine Harris, and myself were the speakers.
Thanks to the Society's decision to hold it online this year, I'm finally able to attend another one after all these years, and I'm looking forward to it. Though the start time of 4.30 am Pacific Time is just too early for me: I'm hoping to join the fun around 6 am. Of the several events I have marked down to attend I'm particularly looking forward to the Christopher Tolkien roundtable.
https://www.tolkiensociety.org/events/seminar-2020/
If you're both an early bird and interested in Tolkienian adaptations (the theme of this year's seminar), see you there.
--John R.
--current reading: THE AVEROIGNE CHRONICLES by Clark Ashton Smith (2016); FANTASIES OF TIME AND DEATH by Anna Vaninskaya (2020); AVILION by Rbt Holdstock (2009).
opera review: The Magic Flute again
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On the topic of birds: Today I learned Tolkien likely named the harbor of Numenorean Gondor, Pelargir, after the Greek word for "stork" (pelargos).
It's possible he may have intended to allude as well to the Pelasgians, the name used by ancient Greeks to refer to their forebears in primeval times, which some ancient writers (such as Aristophanes in The Birds) thought might be connected to "pelargos" because they were migrants out of Egypt. (Shades of Bernal.)
Andrew McCarthy (ATM)
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