The Twenty-Third Roving Ranger

Folks,

a warm welcome to this, the twenty-third Roving Ranger newsletter.

Events

I would highly suggest to you to look up the International Tolkien Fellowship Facebook group for Tolkien-inspired events the world over.

Essays & Scholarship

The 9th edition of Fastitocalon has just come out, edited by Dimitra Fimi, Thomas Honegger, and Allan Turner; the topic is “Fantastic Languages – The Language of the Fantastic.”

A really interesting short bit on Tolkien and the June 1951 Ad Eundem Club meeting with the Tolkien Guide, another example for things put up on auction that may not be quite Tolkienian after all.

Tolkien and the Age of Forgery: Improving Antiquarian Practices in Arda by Will Sherwood has just been published with the JTR.

Newsletter Special: Project Northmoor

On Dec 2, 2020, Project Northmoor was publicly announced, leading to world wide headlines such as Lord of the Rings actors unite to try and save Tolkien’s house. When I first heard of it I was enthused to see a project promoting a Tolkien centre was happening. However, when I started reading the website and tried to figure out who was involved in running the project my enthusiasm quickyl ebbed away
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Ian McKellen, John Rhys-Davies and Martin Freeman captured the imagination of the press and many fans; I started digging. Parts of this finally ended up in a Guardian article Questions raised over charity seeking to buy JRR Tolkien’s Oxford house and a statement by the Tolkien Society on the project soon followed.

Basically many fans were under the impression the house needed to be saved, that a literary centre – read museum/ library/ archive etc – would be built and that this would be the first such centre in the world. All of these statements are either untrue or only half true.

What the project actually seems to be is a b&b specialising on spiritual retreats and creative writing workshops and the organisational team has no link to Tolkien whatsoever. If you feel like supporting this you are free to do so, quite obviously, what you do with your money is your choice.

I, however, will not support this project.

P.S. They dislike museums and I dislike people who dislike museums. And also this tweet is massive nonsense.
Nota bene: I am not dissuading you from supporting this project – this is your decision and yours alone! If you feel like making an informed decision here are some of the questions the project should be answering via TolkienGuide.

Franchise, merchandise and Amazon series

The reviews of Lord of the Rings & Hobbit in 4K will explain to you why you might be interested in buying the 7th version of those film trilogies. And yes, the man himself explained a bit of how they did the work.

Even though New Zealand has dealt really well with the pandemic the lack of international visitors has its consequences: Waikato’s most profitable Hobbit-hole i-SITE on shaky ground.

Lord of the Rings on Prime obviously are close to starting the media hype and have listed twenty new cast members.

Sarehole Mill, one of the few places with an actual link to JRRT, now has its own recipe books, Bakes and Cakes.

Other stuff

German website herr-der-ringe-film.de was the largest German-spekaing website on the film trilogies, a huge community hub also running Ardapedia, the German-speaking wiki on all things Tolkien. Unfortunately, the volunteer-run sites have to shut down with Ardapedia being taken over by the German Tolkien Society. Main organiser Stefan Servos and I wrote the concept for the first fantasy film convention worldwide inspired by the LotR film trilogy, RingCon, which later on become HobbitCon and is still active as MagicCon today.

In other news

For all Trekkies this might be of interest: Outstanding visual effects artist Dan Curry’s work is being celebrated in a new book.

Weta Digital has obviously become of interest to one of the former Facebook presidents.

Walter Hooper, personal secretary to C.S. Lewis and of huge importance to Lewis and Owen Barfield scholarship, passed away on Monday, Dec 7, 2021. I will link obituaries next week.

The Blog Roll