Marquette Manuscript Event

So, thanks to friend Jeff for the following link.

https://www.marquette.edu/library/news/2021/tolkien-exhibit.php

Tolkien manuscripts on display? All I can say is Sign me up. 

--John R.

The World Wobbles

 So, here's a piece from a while back I'd intended to post a link to but never found the right time. So here it is as a companion piece to the Gulf Stream article from a few days ago. Just another of those disquieting things that show the world is changing --on the whole in predictable but unwelcome ways, but sometimes with sudden unexpected shocks. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/23/climate-crisis-has-shifted-the-earths-axis-study-shows

--John R.

--current reading: THE WORM OUROBOROS

--the newest arrival: ALONE AGAINST THE TIDE solo CoC adventure. Long ago their ALONE AGAINST THE WENDIGO was great, and their ALONE AGAINST THE DARK good enough, so decided to give this one a try while on an upcoming trip.

Is This a Cheese Shop?

 So, I've been happy that the friendly neighborhood Starbucks is open again so that once a week or so I can take my laptop down, put the earphones on,  and work away* at one of their little tables. I was a little disappointed the first week that when I ordered tea they were out of English Breakfast. I went with Earl Grey instead --a mistake, but at least I'd know better next time.

The second week they were again out of English Breakfast, but rather than oil of Bergamot I went with a hot chai tea latte. Good, though not what I really wanted.

The third week they's run out of English Breakfast, so I went the chai route again. Starting to get annoyed.

The fourth week, today, they didn't have English Breakfast. I asked was it discontinued, did they not carry tea-flavored tea anymore? They said no, they carried it, they were just out today. So I ordered a cup of hot water. Techically I ordered a large Earl Grey but told them not to put in the tea bags yet. Then once I got safely to a table I disposed of the E.G. teabags and used two teabags I'd brought from home.** Call it a workaround.

There must be a way to get these folks to sell me a cup of tea. But so far finding out how is, shall we say,  a work in progress.

--John R.

--current reading: THE WORM OUROBOROS

*today it was finalizing the text and trimming back the endnotes for my piece on Wm Hope Hodgson

**Market Spice's Northwest Breakfast blend

UPDATE

. . . And the next time I went in and ordered a hot tea, they got me a hot tea. English Breakfast. Tea flavored tea, with no fuss.  Which makes me luckier than Dent Arthur Dent.  --JDR

The Gulf Stream shutting down

So, the most alarming story I've seen in a long time appeared in THE GUARDIAN last week: The Gulf Stream is becoming unstable --slowing down, cooling down.

This wd bring, in the words of their reporter,  "catastrophic consequences around the world".

I think its importance is shown by the immediate response it got from the first three people I shared it with: 

            Oh my God.

Here's the link:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/climate-crisis-scientists-spot-warning-signs-of-gulf-stream-collapse 

--John R.

current reading: 

THE WORM OUROBOROS (1922)

 Eaves & Kimpel's Introduction to Richardson's PAMELA (1741)

and (taking lots of notes) the preview of Carl's new book THE NATURE OF MIDDLE-EARTH (2021)

Preview of the new Tolkien book

 So, thanks to friend D. for letting me know about the just-released preview of THE NATURE OF MIDDLE-EARTH, ed. Carl Hostetter (and thanks to T.O.R. for providing the link.  For those of us who can't wait till September, here's a thirty-five page sampling from the book.

https://preview.aer.io/The_Nature_of_Middleearth-NDAxNzU2

I know what I'll be reading on tonight.

--John R.

MFA finalists

So, the Mythopoeic Society has now announced the five finalists for this year's Mythopoeic Award in Inklings Studies:

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies

• John M. Bowers, Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer (Oxford University Press, 2019)
• 
  
• Oronzo Cilli, Tolkien’s Library: An Annotated Checklist (Luna Press, 2019)
• 
  
• John Garth, The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places That Inspired Middle-earth (Princeton University Press, 2020)
• 
  
• Catherine McIlwaine, ed, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, 2018)
• 
  
• John D. Rateliff, ed, A Wilderness of Dragons: Essays in Honor of Verlyn Flieger (Gabbro Head, 2018)

That's an impressive array of interesting books, each of which makes a significant contribution to Tolkien studies, and I'm pleased that a work I contributed to made the list.

For more information, including the nominees for the awards in fantasy studies, fantasy fiction, and fantasy fiction for young readers, see

http://www.mythsoc.org/news/news-2021-08-01.htm

--John R.

--current (re) reading: THE WORM OUROBOROS by E. R. Eddison

Re-Reading Twain

Re-Reading Twain

So, it shd be easy to spot the theme that links my recent reading:

 

TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE

TOM SAWYER ABROAD

HUCK FINN & TOM SAWYER AMONG THE INDIANS
SCHOOLHOUSE HILL

 

I'd read the first two of these years ago, probably not long after I bought a paperback copy combining the two (on Sunday January 12th 1986). I didn't think much of TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE then and don't think much of it now, though the trial scene at the end is interesting to the extent that it shows how far back the 'Perry Mason' tradition (Defense Counsel Explains All) goes. At any rate it's better than the two other detective stories by Twain I've read, "A Two Barreled Detective Story" (which includes a parody/pastiche of Holmes, whom Twain hated, as a character) and PUDD'NHEAD WILSON (which starts with a good idea --twins separated at birth, one raised 'white' and the other 'black'--and utterly fails to do anything with it).

ABROAD isn't much better, but at least it links Twain up with the Poe-Verne runaway balloon tradition.

The third entry, HUCK FINN AND TOM SAWYER AMONG THE INDIANS, I read years ago (as in decades). Back when I was in high school or junior high this is one of the many, many books I read while working as a shoe shine. The edition I hunted down for reading now, on Kindle, prints the start of the novel by Twain which then segues into a much longer continuation and conclusion by a Western writer I've never otherwise heard of: Lee Nelson. His contribution, while interesting for its historical backdrop (something Twain tended to keep vague), isn't anything I'll be needing to read again. The same applies to Twain's fragment as well -- although Twain is my favorite American author* there's a smattering of works by him I've never read, and I'd rather read on them and re-read some favorites than to give this one an undeserved third try.

 

That just leaves SCHOOLHOUSE HILL, the only one of these I don't think I've read --though I've had the book it's in since August 18th 1979,** and despite the fact that I've marked up other sections of the book (which contains three variant texts of Twain's THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. I was surprised by how good it is. After three duds I was prepared with lowered expectations, but he really came through. Pity he broke off and left this version unfinished.

So I'll certainly need to read the other two alternate versions of the story (posthumously assembled from his papers). I'll probably skim several more Twains I don't think I'll need to keep, I'll definitely be adding other Twains to the read-this-at-last shelves.

--John R.

current viewing; think now's a good time to dig out and re-watch Hal Holbrook's MARK TWAIN TONIGHT.

*some of my favorites of his works including THE LETTERS FROM THE EARTH, THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, THE DIARY OF ADAM AND EVE, and of course stories like "A Day at Niagra", "His Grandfather's Old Ram",  and "Journalism in Tennessee", not to mention the lecture "Advice to Youth"

**only about a week after I graduated from Magnolia, moved to Fayetteville, and started graduate school:: clearly I picked it up pretty much the first time I was able to get into a bookstore