John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 110

Parker and Hastur

So, today marks fourteen years since my cat Parker died. He was twelve -- a good age, but I'd hoped he could be with me for much longer.  He was the smartest cat I've ever had the pleasure to know, and the only one so famous for his bad behavior (one of his nicknames was The Cat Who Bit People) as to have a book written about him.* I still miss him.


The next day we went to get a new kitten to help fill the cat-shaped hole in my heart. We did have Rigby, who was a sprightly young cat of about four, but she'd very definitely become Janice's cat within a month of joining our household; she and I got along really well but it was Janice she always sought out for laps &c. Besides, we thought Rigby would welcome a companion cat to share the place with during the day.**

While caring for Parker during those last weeks when he was dying I'd noticed a friendly little black puffball of a kitten in the cage at the local PetSmart and had decided to adopt him if he was still there after Parker was gone.*** In the event, we found him gone and another cat, a little torbie kitten, in his place. I picked her up and she purred: it took about half a minute to know she was coming home with us. By the time we got home from the store she and I had bonded. Again, she likes Janice a lot but is clearly 'my' cat.  She spends most of her day with me: sleeps on my desk when I work, supervises anything involving papers spread about, and makes sure cat-treats get dispensed upon demand. Recently she's retired and now spends most of her time in four or five favorite spots (one of her major tasks is to check to see that the sunbeams are where they shd be when they shd be).


So rest in peace, Parker. I'm glad to have shared twelve years and seven different apartments and houses with you. The scars have mostly faded but the memories remain.

And Hastur: Happy to have you with us these past fourteen years and hope you'll stay for years to come.


--John R.


*PARKER'S CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE by Janice K. Coulter (story) and Stan Brown (pictures)

**we were wrong about that.

**his name would have been Babaganoosh

Election Day (again)

So, today is election day in Washington state. Again. This time it's not presidential or local issues on the ballet but national offices like Senator and Representative, and statewide offices like governor and state legislature positions.

Half the voting was easy, since a number of incumbents who I think have done a pretty good job were up for re-election  (e.g. Adam Smith or Tina Orwall) -- or, in one case (David Upthegrove), moving to try for a different job, shifting from state legislature to Commissioner of Public Lands.

Aside from these, I mainly judge by the write-up provided by the candidates themselves for the voter's pamphlet, since I like to judge people by their own words (and the company they keep, which often comes through, though not always to their advantage, in the endorsements). Where I'm in doubt between two or more decent-sounding candidates for the same spot, I like to check out my friend Jeff's detailed write-ups over on www.grubbstreet.blogspot.com (cf. in specific http://grubbstreet.blogspot.com/2016/07/political-desk-jeff-recommends-primary.html). Jeff not only puts more time into it than I do, but I trust his judgement -- although I do make different choices in some cases.

The thing that really stands out in this year's election is that Crazy Season continues, as it has all year.  Thus we have eleven people running for governor and seventeen for the Senate, many of them from fringe parties like the Socialist Workers (who want to defend Castro's revolution and champion the cause of LaVoy Finicum --no, really) or Independents like self-confessed tree-hugger Steve Rubenstein (though I'm with him on the protect-the-trees front) or partyless candidates like the gun-shop owner who doesn't like light rail (not much of a qualification for running for Lt. Gov., one wd think).  A surprising number are from weird one-off parties that one strongly suspects came into existence when the candidate downloaded the run-for-office form from the internet and had to fill out a blank 'party affiliation' space. Among these I wd include the Human Rights Party, the Conservative Party, the Standupamerica Party (which apparently doesn't believe in capitalization), the Lincoln Caucus Party (who apparently aren't aware there's another party-of-Lincoln out there), and the System Reboot Party, all running candidates for Senator, as well as the Holistic Party and the Fifth Republic Party* on the Gubernatorial side.

As for the actual candidates,  I automatically dismiss perennial office-seekers like ''Uncle Mike" and "Goodspaceguy" (another capitalization-challenged candidate) who I don't think actually care about the job or getting elected but just want the ego-boo of seeing their names in the pamphlet every other year. Of the rest, several come across as credible candidates for the job, and it's from among them that the run-offs will occur, presumably in November.  Or at least so let us hope. Have to say, though, that I'm dismayed by the number of people who boast about being unqualified for the job they're seeking. To my way of thinking, if you've never held public office, and you're not Jimmy Stewart, you ought not be running for high public office.

Among this overly colorful array of candidates, the bottom of the barrel takes up an uncomfortable amount of the barrel. You know it's a bad sign when the guy who thinks fluoride poisons drinking water (wd-be governor James Robert Deal), who seems to be using his run to gin up support for a class-action lawsuit, doesn't even make it into the top (bottom) two. For the absolute bottom, I keep going back and forth between David W. Blomstrom, who wants to be governor so he can warn people about the "jewarchy", his own term for what used to be called 'the international jewish conspiracy' (apparently anti-semitism is trying to rebrand itself these days). Or would-be Superintendent of Public Instruction Ron Higgins, who seems to want to be in charge of Washington's school system so he can dismantle it from within (he's all for charter schools, homeschooling, and enforcing traditional gender roles); more perniciously, he's against vaccinating kids.** It's hard to choose between a stone-cold racist on the one hand with someone on the other whose policies, if carried out, would probably actually kill people, and children at that . . .

Have to say that by comparison, tree-huggers look pretty good.

Like I said, crazy season.

--John R.
current reading: Lupoff's book on Burroughs
current viewing: SHIRO BAKO (an anime about making anime); just finished Jackson's TWO TOWERS.




*this apparently refers not to de Gaulle's Fifth Republic, France's government since WW II, but to post-2001 America.

**although Col. Higgins does have my favorite line from the whole voter's pamphlet in his write-up: that schools shd aim to produce "people who know how to learn, since schooling ends but learning never should" 

Tolkien Definitely Read Burroughs

So, after I posted my previous piece on Tolkien's familiarity with Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar work, I've been reminded by several people* that there's much more direct evidence than that of JRRT reading ERB: Tolkien himself says so in a letter about a decade before his death.

Ironically enough, this turns out to be something that I once knew and had since forgotten; following from those reminders I found, by way of Tolkien Gateway, that the relevant information is included in Richard West's TOLKIEN CRITICISM: AN ANNOTATED CHECKLIST [1970], one of the very first Tolkien books I ever read** and for years my bible for tracking down other stuff (pieces by and about Tolkien). Under entry B109, page 34, RW gives Tolkien's reply to a query regarding whether he'd been influenced by Burroughs in his own writing:

"Source hunting is a great entertainment but I do not myself think it is particularly useful. I did read many of Edgar Rice Burroughs' earlier works, but I developed a distaste for his Tarzan even greater than my distaste for spiders. Spiders I had met long before Burroughs began to write, and I do not think he is in any way responsible for Shelob. At any rate I retain no memory of the Siths or the Apt."
I haven't read Lupoff's book,*** but Doug points out that the Siths and Apt appear in the third of the John Carter books, which I also have not read (PRINCESS OF MARS being the only one I've read of that series).

So the evidence seems to be that Tolkien read a good deal of Burroughs' works but that like many readers gave up on the various series as they became increasingly formulaic. He definitely read a number of the Tarzan books and some of the Pellucidar books; there doesn't seem to be enough evidence to say whether he read any of the Mars books -- he might have read some and just happened to miss that one volume or he might have given them a pass altogether.

From what I have read of Burroughs' work, I have to agree with Tolkien that I don't see any influence on the Middle-earth stories, but admittedly there's a lot of Burroughs I haven't read so I may be missing something. Still it's nice to be able to confirm another bit of Tolkien's reading and his awareness of his contemporaries.

--John R.


*thanks to Doug for pointing this out, and to both Doug and Charles for providing me with the quote.

**this is back in the day when there were only five books out about JRRT: Isaacs & Zimbardo, Ready, Carter, West, and Kocher, with a sixth (Ryan) reported to be out there but which none of us had ever seen.

***though I have read Fenton's 1967 biography of ERB

THE DERELICT (CoC)

So, I've never made it to 'free comic book day' or 'free rpg day'. But I was sorely tempted this year by the news that Chaosium would be giving away a special one-shot CALL OF CTHULHU adventure, created just for the event and written by Sandy Petersen, the legended creator of the game.*  Accordingly, I was very glad when Chaosium announced after the fact a limited time offer whereby those who hadn't been able to get a copy on free rpg day could order one on-line for the cost of printing.  I did, and it's now arrived and I've had a chance to read through it.

Knowing that the adventure was called THE DERELICT, I wondered if it might have been inspired by one of two famous templates: the Wm Hope Hodgson story of the same name (one of WHH's very
best, if not the best), or the old Jonny Quest episode (in fact, the last one they made.)






Slight  spoiler space here








It turns out they went the latter route, combining inspiration from "The Sea Haunt" (episode #26) with another, more famous, episode: #20 "The Invisible Monster". The result should make a pretty good one-shot Cthulhu night as written. Yet interestingly enough, I can see how this same set-up could easily be adjusted to accommodate the Hodgson option instead, particularly if combined with a theme from "The Voice in the Night", Hodgson's  other best story.

So, a thumb's up on this one: short but focused, and I think it'll be pretty creepy (in a good way) in actual play.  I do plan to throw out the pregen characters (who take up half the text) and let the players come up with their own Investigators and explanation why he or she is aboard that yacht when the scenario begins.



--John R.
current reading: Nevil Shute's last novel
current music: The Jayhawks, "Isobel's Daughter"


*the fact I was getting together with Tolkien friends down in Palo Alto that day certainly more than reconciled me to my choice

Did Tolkien Read Burroughs?

So, as is so often the case,  I was looking something up in one of Tolkien's works (the extended edition of SMITH OF WOOTTON MAJOR) when I noticed something interesting in its relevance to another of his works (the Flieger/Anderson edition of OFS). And in specific to the latter's listing of fantasy authors Tolkien is known to have read.

In a passage in Tolkien's essay on SWM, he's discussing works that place Faerie underground, as opposed to his own preference, which is to associate it with The Forest.*  In the course of his discussion, he alludes to such tales being "no more credible and no more interesting than Edgar Rice Burroughs['] tales dealing with a vast subterranean world" (SWM, exp.ed., page 86).

The reference here is clearly not to TARZAN or the JOHN CARTER series but to the PELLUCIDAR
series that began with AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1914), the first of six novels sharing the same setting:  a Hollow Earth filled with dinosaurs, humans, and monsters of various kinds.

While Tolkien does not explicitly say he's read the E.R.B. books, I think that'd be the natural interpretation of his being able to pass judgment on them in what sounds like a well-informed personal opinion. It's easy to forget that in addition to being literary men the Inklings, especially Tolkien and Warnie Lewis, were very fond of the pulp science fiction stories of their day. I don't think I've come across Burroughs before as an author whose work Tolkien knew, but it's not surprising.  So, another one to add to the list.

--John R.
--soon-to-be current reading: AT THE EARTH'S CORE, as soon as I have time to download a copy. I know I started to read this once years ago but don't think I made it more than a few pages in. We'll see if I have better luck this time.



*this despite "Ides AElfscyce", which clearly places the elven-lady's abode in a subterranean world lit by a green jewel overhead, and the hidden underground cities that populate Tolkien's SILMARILLION mythos.

THE LAY OF AOTROU AND ITROUN (Next New Tolkien Book)

So, Thursday (a week ago today) I learned* of the next new Tolkien book on its way: a new edition of Tolkien's Breton Lay, THE LAY OF AOTROU AND ITROUN, edited by Verlyn Flieger (who's already done editions of SWM, OFS,** KULLERVO). And by the next day I'd already preordered a copy (due out in England on November 3rd).

Given how short this piece is -- only about five hundred lines -- and that the new book is listed as being 120 pages, I assume the volume will probably come with some extras -- introduction, notes, possibly commentary, perhaps printing the earlier (1930) draft for the first time. Since this is Tolkien's re-working of a Breton Ballad, I wouldn't be surprised if his faux-medieval source was reprinted as well, esp. given that it's quite short.  And in any case, the listing on amazon.co.uk promise a Prefatory Note by Christopher Tolkien.

All in all, a nice chance to have a piece currently available only through interlibrary loan and the like accessible in a format that fits easily on the shelf with Tolkien's other short pieces; something to be able to look forward to. It's a piece I've been interested in for a long time (cf. the section on it in my contribution to the Shippey festschrift), even having organized a dramatic reading of it at Kalamazoo several years ago.

Here's a link with a few details:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lay-Aotrou-Itroun-J-Tolkien/dp/0008202133/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=4R5HA899J7M4KGGKET6X



Nor is it the only short new book by Tolkien announced as forthcoming: amazon.co.uk also lists a stand-alone printing of Tolkien's little parable LEAF BY NIGGLE .. Just 64-pages long, it's apparently being released in conjunction with the dramatization of the story, which is currently on tour in the UK.  I'll be pre-ordering this one too -- though I'll have to hurry about it, since it's due out in just a week.

This little book's release means that just about all Tolkien's shorter pieces have now been released, or soon will be.

Again, here's a link for a little more information.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0008205531/ref=s9_newr_gw_d5_g14_i1_r?ie=UTF8&fpl=fresh&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=KV10Z061EPFQAWYYQ92Y&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=26de8ef0-2ad7-412c-8634-6cd03b7b73e2&pf_rd_i=desktop



--John R.
--current reading: THE DERELICT by Sandy Petersen
--current music: PAGING M. PROUST by the Jayhawks (a group whose existence I just learned about on Tuesday)


*thanks to friend Andrew (Thanks Andrew).

** (w. Doug Anderson),

Of Corbins and Corbyns

So, when is a Corbin not a Corbin?  Answer: when he's a Corbyn.

Apologies to all for getting the name wrong in my previous post, and thanks to friend Charles (thanks Charles) for pointing this out to me.

--John R.

The Hobbit in Lancaster (and a one man LEAF BY NIGGLE show)

So, for those who can't afford a trip to New Zealand to visit HOBBIT sites, here's something closer at hand -- if you live in England, that is.

In short, someone's putting on a three-hour outdoors performance of Tolkien's story, apparently in the round and in the woods. The setting sounds great, and the whole production something I'd like to know more about, though it's clear they've taken liberties with the story --cf. the picture of wood-elves with Williams the troll (I wonder if he speaks cockney) and Gandalf the Grey in green. Pity they don't include an image of Bilbo, THE hobbit.

THE GUARDIAN give it four stars (out of a possible five). Here's the link:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/jul/15/the-hobbit-review-tolkien-peter-jackson-williamson-park-lancaster-dukes



Also, for those who can get to Scotland, here's a more modest but perhaps more Tolkienesque adaptation of Tolkien's little parable: LEAF BY NIGGLE (a one man show, which THE GUARDIAN also gives four stars out of five):

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/may/04/leaf-by-niggle-review-retelling-tolkien-unruffled-clarity-artistic-vision

The production has now gone on the road; for those who might be able catch it, here's the schedule.

http://www.puppetstate.com

It's rather nice to see that their previous production was THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES, which was a major influence on Owen Barfield's final story (EAGER SPRING). I hope both these come over here sometime: I'd like to see either or, better yet, both.

I think these are at the vanguard of what I expect to be a lot of adaptation of Tolkien pieces, and soon of 'an evening with JRRT' type one man shows as well.


--John R.

A good day for progressives

So, the day before yesterday brought two good bits of political news for those of progressive convictions.  First, Bernie Sanders endorsed Hilary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, bringing his aspirational movement into the main fold of the Democratic party and helping to bring said party back from drifting towards neocon territory.  And second, across the water, Jeremy Corbin survived a coup to displace him as the head of the Labour party (a.k.a. 'the Shadow prime minister').  Like Sanders, Corbin is someone who's been fighting the good fight as a voice in the wilderness for a long time who suddenly rose to prominence in the last year or so. In Corbin's case, a suitable analogy would be something like the superdelegates (his fellow MPs) hate Corbin: it's the voters who love him and support his change of direction for the party.

As for the home front, yesterday the latest Voter's Pamphlet arrived in the mailbox (what, ANOTHER primary? Aren't we due a Secondary by now?). More on this when I've had a chance to look through it.  

--John R.
current this, that, & the other: ibid.

D&D as a period icon

So, saw a piece in THE GUARDIAN today about a new Netflix show, STRANGER THINGS, which apparently heavily features D&D as a way to set the characters and milieu (the story's set in 1983, during the peak of D&D's popularity). I haven't seen the show, having just learned of it today, but will have to make some time to give it a try.

As for the long listing they give of examples of D&D showing up on tv and in the movies, and of well-known figures known to have enjoyed the game, I'm surprised they leave out Colbert in the latter group and the final episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER in the other, in which Xander teaches Giles how to play D&D the night before they face the final apocalyptic struggle that ends the show (the world survives, but the earth literally opens up and swallows Sunnydale, their home town, forever)

Here's the link to the GUARDIAN piece; I'll probably post more once I've had a chance to watch some of the show and form some sort of an opinion about it.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jul/13/from-game-of-thrones-to-michael-gove-the-legacy-of-dungeons-dragons

--John R.
current anime: PSYCHO PASS
current manga: Satoshi Kon's OPUS
current reading: 1s ed PLAYERS HANDBOOK