Aiya Iluvatar

Hobbits in Brookfield?

So, I was driving back from Elmbrook Hospital this morning, listening to The Tolkien Professor's podcast, when I nearly broke my neck from whiplash passing this sign which I had never noticed before:

Hobbits in Brookfield?  I must investigate!!!!

Ooh!  The intersection of Rivendell and Brandywine!  We're in Buckland, but still in the shire.

 
 
And here we are!  A Hobbit-hole!  But wait, what's up with the smokestack????  

  

OK, this is PAINTED to be Middle-Earthy, but looks suspiciously industrial...

Uh oh.  I am guessing that the effects of the works of Saruman are still noticeable and that the Shire still awaits its scouring....

Hobbit Holiday

From TheOneRing.net

“On September 21, 1937 The Hobbit was first published in Great Britain to great success. In fact, it was so successful it took J.R.R. Tolkien a bit by surprise. In a letter to his publishers the following month he commented: “At the moment I am suffering like Mr. Baggins from a touch of ’staggerment.’ Staggerment, indeed! Little did The Professor know the millions of lives he would touch with his little story about a simple Hobbit who rushed out of his door one day without any money or a handkerchief. Happy 72nd anniversary to The Hobbit! ”

Tolkien Trained as Bletchley Park Codebreaker

Evidently, according to an article in the Telegraph, J.R.R. Tolkien did some initial training as a Code Breaker at the top-secret Government Code and Cypher School. He ultimately declined a job at Bletchley. Interesting to think of the alternate history of Tolkien working on the Enigma codes with Turing. Excerpt following:

JRR Tolkien trained as British spy 
The novelist JRR Tolkien secretly trained as a Government spy in the run up to the Second World War, new documents have disclosed. Tolkien, one of his generation's most respected linguists, was ''earmarked'' to crack Nazi codes in the event that Germany declared war. Intelligence chiefs singled him and a 'cadre' of other intellectuals to work at Bletchley Park, the codebreaking centre in Buckinghamshire. Its staff - which included Alan Turing, the gay codebreaker - would later decipher the 'impenetrable' Enigma machines. This saved Britain from German conquest by allowing the Navy to intercept and destroy Hitler's U-Boats. According to previously unseen records, Tolkien trained with the top-secret Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS).

So Turing broke “Gay Codes?” I’m not going to even speculate on those....
David+
Thanks to Tolkien Studies.

Technorati Tags: tolkien, enigma, cryptography, worldwar2

Supercessionism and the Stewards of Gondor

Couldn't pass this one up - A graduate Student, Ken Brown, is writing a thesis on the problem of "Replacement Theology" (ie, what role does Judaism play vis a vis Christianity) and goes at it using the metaphor of the Steward of Gondor,

Imagine a king went away on a journey and left an emissary a regent to govern in his stead. The regent is charged with reminding his people of the king’s wishes and keeping them expectant of his eventual return. The regent does his job well, but when the king finally does return, it is in a manner that no one expects, and most do not recognize him as the king at all. At that point, the king’s regent is, technically speaking, no longer necessary–no one needs to ask the regent about the king’s wishes because they can now ask the king directly–but since the regent is one of the few who knows the king’s true identity, he does continue to serve as a “witness” to that fact, valuable to those who have come to trust the regent but are not yet convinced that this late-comer is truly their king.

and

Such is how, I believe, John views Moses, the Torah and the Temple. As the incarnation of the one God of Israel, Jesus does not replace those “predecessors” (after all, he thinks Jesus, as the logos, predates them), nor is their status as “witnesses” (John 5) a demotion from their previous roles. Instead, John seems to be saying that this is the purpose they have always served. Jesus is not a new Moses, a new Torah or a new Temple, but the divine king to whom all three have always pointed.

It's worth a read, both the original post here and its follow-up here.

Thanks to Entangled States for the heads-up.

David+

christianity, episcopal, religion, tolkien, supercessionism, judaism

Tolkien's Posthumous Works

A funny cartoon coming down the Mythopoeic Society's listserv:

Of course, this is a jab at the publication of "The Children of Húrin" (J.R.R. Tolkien) last year. People often ask how Tolkien's works can be published posthumously and still be considered authentic. Tolkien was an unusual writer, in that he really wasn't a novelist. He wrote primarily to provide a mythological background for his Elvish languages. When he wrote, he would start with a draft, then abandon it and start all over from scratch, filing each draft away. He was notorious for his perfectionism, requiring prodding from both his publisher and sometimes from C.S. Lewis to get his works ready for publication instead of endlessly revising them. As a result of this perfectionism, his most beloved work, the Silmarillion, was not published during his lifetime.

His son and literary executor, Christopher Tolkien, has dedicated his life to making sense to JRR Tolkien's badly-filed and sometimes confusing manuscripts. Most Tolkien scholars believe that when CT publishes something, it is genuine JRR, except for some editing and bridge material. Indeed, it may be that no other writer has left such an amazing legacy of manuscripts that show a writer's mind at work.

David+

humor, tolkien

C.S. Lewis' Conversion from Theism to Christianity

An excellent video I came across on YouTube on Tolkien's role in Lewis' conversion to Christianity.

anglican, christianity, inklings, religion, tolkien, cs lewis

A Hobbit-Library

Can I please, please have one? A library designed to hold a collector's rare Tolkien manuscripts.

David+

Technorati Tags: anglican, episcopal, hobbit, architecture, tolkien

Fellowship of the Ring Chat Log

a very creative chat log for what the forming of the Fellowship might look like if it took place on a MMORPG like World of Warcraft.....

Original post here:

Welcome to Lord of the Rings Online!
You have joined the MENELDOR server.
Joined chat channel: Regional - Rivendell
Accepted Quest: "Destroy the One Ring".
Gandalf has joined your fellowship.
[Fellowship] GANDALF: did you just accept the quest???
[Fellowship] FRODO: yeah
[Fellowship] GANDALF: dude, that's an elite
[Fellowship] FRODO: its ok, bilbo is leaving the game so he gave me all his stuff
[Fellowship] FRODO: see... [STING], [ELVEN MITHRIL SHIRT]
[Fellowship] GANDALF: you can't solo that quest, dude
[Fellowship] GANDALF: do an lfg and get more peeps
[Fellowship] FRODO: but everyone in this zone is a high level snob
[Fellowship] GANDALF: you'll be pwnzed hard
[Fellowship] GANDALF: mobs in mordor zone are really high level
[Fellowship] GANDALF: and do you even have mordor on your map?
[Fellowship] FRODO: no
[Fellowship] FRODO: is there a fast travel route there?
[Fellowship] GANDALF: no
[Fellowship] FRODO: crap
[Fellowship] GANDALF: get more people, you need at least 6 for quest
[Fellowship] FRODO: kk
[Regional - Rivendell] FRODO: LFG Destroy the One Ring
[Regional - Rivendell] FRODO: I'll carry the ring, but I don't know the way
[Regional - Rivendell] ARAGORN: sure, i'll help
[Regional - Rivendell] LEGOLAS: i need that one
[Regional - Rivendell] GIMLI: sure, send me invite
[Regional - Rivendell] SAM: cool! i'm in
[Fellowship] FRODO: is sam too low level?
[Fellowship] GANDALF: is that his only toon?
[Fellowship] FRODO: yeah, he's been focusing more on crafting than leveling up
[Fellowship] GANDALF: ok, just tell him not to tank
[Regional - Rivendell] BOROMIR: i'll join
[Regional - Rivendell] BOROMIR: we'll pwn, i got teh best sword in teh game
Aragorn has joined your fellowship.
Legolas has joined your fellowship.
[Fellowship] ARAGORN: hey
Gimli has joined your fellowship.
Sam has joined your fellowship.
Boromir has joined your fellowship.
[Fellowship] FRODO: thanks for joining guys
[Fellowship] BOROMIR: rdy
[Fellowship] LEGOLAS: sure thing
[Fellowship] BOROMIR: you guys know how to do this quest?
[Fellowship] ARAGORN: yeah, we just need to protect frodo while he goes in
[Fellowship] BOROMIR: omg!!! you don't just walk into mordor!
[Fellowship] ARAGORN: he's the only one that needs to survive
[Fellowship] ARAGORN: we get quest credit if he completes it
[Fellowship] GIMLI: we all tanks?
[Fellowship] FRODO: no, not me and gandalf
[Fellowship] FRODO: <-- burglar
[Fellowship] GIMLI: cool, what class r you gandalf?
[Fellowship] GANDALF: wizard
[Fellowship] BOROMIR: theres no wizards in this game, you mean lore master
[Fellowship] GANDALF: no, i'm a wizard
[Fellowship] GANDALF: i'm a developer
[Fellowship] ARAGORN: woot!
[Fellowship] GIMLI: rock on! we got a dev!
[Fellowship] BOROMIR: dude, can you spawn me some gold???????
[Fellowship] GANDALF: no
[Fellowship] BOROMIR: plzzzz!!! i just need 10 more gold to get my tier 3 armor!!1
[Fellowship] GANDALF: no
[Fellowship] GANDALF: ask again and you're banned
[Fellowship] BOROMIR: sry
[Fellowship] FRODO: oh, here's two more of my guildmates
Merri has joined your fellowship.
pippin has joined your fellowship.
[Fellowship] MERRI: hey hey
[Fellowship] PIPPIN: woot!!! sup guys!!!!
[Fellowship] BOROMIR: we rdy now?
[Fellowship] FRODO: rdy
[Fellowship] ARAGORN: 1
[Fellowship] LEGOLAS: ready here
[Fellowship] GIMLI: go go go
[Fellowship] GANDALF: ready
[Fellowship] MERRI: ready!
[Fellowship] PIPPIN: ready!
[Fellowship] PIPPIN: what quest we doing?

Technorati Tags: games, humor, MMORPG, tolkien, World of Warcraft

Stephen Colbert Gets Tolkien-Geeky

Senator Santorum (R-Pennsylvania) has used a somewhat lame Tolkien analogy to the War in Iraq. He said, "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else. It's being drawn to Iraq. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the eye to come back to the United States." Stephen Colbert breaks down the analogy further:

Thanks to Tolkien News Gateway for pointing this out....

Technorati Tags: humor, iraq, politics, colbert, tolkien

Care to live in the Shire?

Now it appears that you can live in the Shire - although I would guess it carries a pretty hefty price tag. The Shire of Bend, Oregon is a housing development that has Tolkien-themed elements. From the web site:

"The Shire is a development that borrows its basic design concept, styling and features from an era where the sense of community, the beauty of the land and the interaction of the residents with the land had high value. The Shire brings the spirit of a great age to daily living. The Shire has many flavors of eighteenth century English architecture and landscaping chosen because the style of the period was enchanting, evoking good feelings of a simpler lifestyle than the present. The Shire is a place where just the beauty and charm of the grounds and the structures make you relax, smile and be happier. We set out to create a lifestyle rather than a subdivision."

There are a variety of styles available, including the above one that looks more Anglo-Saxon Rohan than English countryside Shire. They use specialty shingles to re-create the thatching. There are even "Hobbit-Homes" in the development that are actually storage sheds:

Very interesting, if a little too commercialized...

David+

Technorati Tags: housing, Rohan, shire, tolkien