John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 62

Vignettes of Christopher

So, my newest publication is just out: a short memorial of Christopher Tolkien that appears as a Note in the newest issue of MYTHLORE.* It's paired with a piece by Bill Fliss, the Tolkien archivist at Marquette, which gives a brief but fact-filled account of Marquette's interactions with Christopher over the years. I had not known, for example, that Christopher had been in touch with Marquette as long ago as 1974, when he wrote to them seeking a copy of the unpublished EPILOGUE to LotR. As part of his due diligence he needed to consult the Epilogue in case it contained any link or allusion to THE SILMARILLION, upon which he had just embarked.

My own piece, I now see in retrospect, is a series of glimpses of Christopher in different settings, some wholly in keeping with the persona or image we all had of him and others very much at variance thereto. Christopher in an I-Hop the morning the 1987 MythCon ended. Christopher at the Wade in Wheaton. Christopher in the quad at Keble College. Christopher at the Eagle and Child. I wasn't able to marshal my thoughts to write a proper memoir, but it seemed right to share a few memories that so far as I know weren't written down anywhere, or at least not from my perspective.

--John R.

*MYTHLORE #136 (Spring/Summer 2020) pages 125-127; Bill's piece immediately precedes it, on pages 123-125. The two pieces go well together and read as if we'd planned them as complementary pieces, but this is more from good fortune than design.

The Trip to Egypt (Day Thirteen)

Wednesday April 22nd 2020
DAY THIRTEEN
And with that, our seeing of sights wd have been over and our attention wd have turned to the trip home. The day wd have started with checking out of the hotel, getting to the airport, checking in for our doubly foreign flight (first to Germany and then on to the US). It wd be a long trip, all the way to the US west coast. Once home we shd be greeted by the cats, who no doubt wd have been baffled by the length of our absence. We'd be left with a lot of memories of having been at some amazing places and seen in person things I've  read about since at  least junior high days.

That, at least, was the plan.

And then along came the pandemic.

The tour was cancelled.

We're among the lucky ones: we're well, and safe at home, and about as socially distant as you can get in a densely populated area. But I can't help regretting that the trip didn't come off.

There may wind up being more to the story. We've rescheduled the tour for sometime next year. So if all goes well --i.e., if the pandemic is over and foreign travel safe again--then we may find ourselves amid the Pyramids and Sphinx after all.

We'll see.

--John R.

The Trip to Egypt (Day Twelve)

Tuesday April 21st
DAY TWELVE
So, this wd have been it: the highlight of the trip. If we'd only been able to make a short trip to Egypt, three or four days, this is where we wd have spent it: seeing as much as we cd of the Pyramids at Giza, Saqqara, and Dashur.And, of course, the Sphinx.

As it is, the tour planned to pack the visit to Giza all into one day.

First would have come The Sphinx. Then the Great Pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure.

This being Egypt there wd have to be temples: specifically the Sphinx Temple and Valley Temple. -- which wd have been a great way to wrap up our temple tour.

And near at hand, alongside the Great Pyramid, is the boat-pit, where they uncovered Pharaoh's boat and then left it in place.

Since we were not able to be there in person, I consoled myself with the two following video walks, which between them show close views of the entire Sphinx and all three of the Great Pyramids, including a complete walk-around of the Great Pyramid. They're long but highly recommended.

There are two walking tours around the Sphinx, the first at 8 am:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv2T_LXq-Eo

If you want to see the same route but this time with tourists, try the Sphinx at 2.30:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2CR6Mi0b8o

For the pyramids, see them up close and personal here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2CR6Mi0b8o


You can also go into the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops to the Greeks), but I don't know if our tour wd have allowed enough time for that or not. I hope so.

Then was to come a side-trip to SAQQARA, about seven miles to the south, to see the Step Pyramid of Djoser.

And, about four miles further south at DASHUR stand the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid. Further south still at MEIDUM is the Collapsed Pyramid, one of the most interesting of the whole sequence since it shows what pyramids look like inside. I suspect the trip wd not have ranged far enough to take it in. A pity, since all three were built by the same pharaoh, Sneferu, clearly a man determined to have his own way despite any setbacks.
Visiting as much as we cd of the above was the plan, and I'm sure if we'd had time and our energy levels held out we'd have done more, so long as we were there.

And with that our sight-seeing wd have been over and we wd have begun to turn our attentions to getting back home again.

--John R.

The Trip to Egypt (Day Eleven)

Monday April 20th
DAY ELEVEN

So, this day we wd have said goodbye to our ship, the S. S. Sphinx, and flown from Luxor to Cairo and checked back into a hotel near the Giza plateau. I suspect, from what I can make out from the maps, that the hotel actually overlooked the Pyramids and Sphinx, which wd have been great.

If we had gotten in early enough there might even have been a chance for a quick run over to the Pyramids that afternoon/early evening. Or we might have rested up to make sure we were as ready as possible for the Big Event: the next day's visit getting up close and personal with the Sphinx and Pyramids.

In the words of Sgt Pepper, getting very near the end, with the best still to come.

--John R.

The Egypt Trip (Day Eleven)

Monday April 20th
DAY ELEVEN

So, this day we wd have said goodbye to our ship, the S. S. Sphinx, and flown from Luxor to Cairo and checked back into a hotel near the Giza plateau. I suspect, from what I can make out from the maps, that the hotel actually overlooked the Pyramids and Sphinx, which wd have been great.

If we had gotten in early enough there might even have been a chance for a quick run over to the Pyramids that afternoon/early evening. Or we might have rested up to make sure we were as ready as possible for the Big Event: the next day's visit getting up close and personal with the Sphinx and Pyramids.

In the words of Sgt Pepper, getting very near the end, with the best still to come.

--John R.

The Trip to Egypt (Day Ten)

Sunday April 19th
DAY TEN

So, more temples.

The planned trip wd have had us start the day at Edfu, touring the Temple of Edfu, another of the late (Ptolemaic) temples, this one dedicated to Horus.

From there it'd be downriver to Esna and the Temple of Esna. Then it wd have been downriver a little more, bringing us back to Luxor. There's Luxor light show that night, but I suspect it'll be hard for a modern light show to match the splendor of the ancient temples themselves. In any case, I suspect we'll probably be saving up our strength for the big event to come: Giza.

--John R.

Sometimes You Don't Get the Book You Wanted

So, a few years back* I picked up a book by Humphrey Carpenter I only now finally took time to have a look at: A GREAT SILLY GRIN: THE BRITISH SATIRE BOOM OF THE 1960s --a group biography of the type Carpenter did so well.**

I thought that since I like Peter Sellers (a brilliant but troubled man) on the one hand and Monty Python on the other this wd be a good way to bridge the gap, to see how the talent of the 1950s segued into that of the '60s and the legacy they left behind on the 70s. In particularly I wanted to learn how the Goon Show (whom I had heard much about but seen or heard v. little of their actual work) inspired those who followed.

To my disappointment, that's not what this book is about. Carpenter is primarily concerned with Alan Bennett, who I'd not even heard of, with some attention to Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and David Frost, none of whom I'm especially interested in. There are only passing references to Peter Sellers and his Goon Show partner Spike Milligan, about whom I know only enough to convince me of his importance.*** The Pythons come in only as respectful admirers of a generation later; Douglas Adams, a generation after that, escapes Carpenter's purview altogether.

So, I'll have to come back to this one at sometime down the line when I've gotten over the disappointment that's entirely my own fault: having imagined a book was one thing when it was really another.

Oh well. Even such cursory searching as I did on the internet to get a sense of what Milligan and the Goons were like, coincidently juxtaposed with my watching a documentary about the making of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, made me appreciate just how much of the famous Beatles' humour was their own take on Milligan et al. And I now see that Milligan's trademark was to take a situation, any situation, and within a few steps reduce it to anarchy. It's as if the world were constantly offering him straight lines and he cd never resist delivering the punchline that just popped into his head.

--John R.
--current reading: PAPAL LIES by Wills (finishing up); MYTHAGO WOOD (re-reading); two others.


*Kalamazoo 2012, it turns out

**like GENUISES TOGETHER, THE BRIDESHEAD GENERATION, and of course THE INKLINGS

***for a sample of Milligan at work, give a listen to his short skit ("8 o'clock") with the third Goon, Harry Secombe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tjHlFPTwVk

The Trip to Egypt (Day Nine)

Saturday April 18th 2020
DAY NINE

The trip-that-wasn't wd have continued with an optional side-trip I wdn't have wanted to miss.

Leaving the First Cataract and heading upriver to Abu Simbel on Egypt's southern border wd have brought us to the colossal images of Ramses once carved into a cliff but removed and moved to higher ground when the construction of the Aswan High Dam created Lake Nasser and flooded the original site.

In addition to the row of huge figures, the Temples of Abu Simbel are also the site of the famous carvings depicting the Battle of Kadesh.

After a day seeing Ramses-style huge and impressive, it wd have been back to Aswan and the S. S. Sphinx. Still a lot to see, but I suspect it wd have been at about this point that we'd start thinking of home.

--John R.

The Trip to Egypt (Day Eight)

Friday April 17th 2020
DAY EIGHT

Another day, another temple.

Today the planned trip wd have brought us to Philae Temple, on an island in the Nile, and the Unfinished Obelesk.

Just for a complete change of pace, also on the agenda had been a ride in a felucca (the traditional Nile sailboats).

And with my love of tea I'd been looking forward to Afternoon Tea at the Old Cataract Hotel at Aswan, featured in Agatha Christie's MURDER ON THE NILE (both the book and the movie).

The Trip to Egypt (Day Seven)

Thursday April 16th
DAY SEVEN

So, by now our planned trip wd be reaching the mid-point of the Nile cruise part of the tour. 
As usual, another day wd have brought another temple: in this case, Kom Ombo Temple, which dates from Ptolemaic times.
While we'd have no doubt visited its crocodile museum, temples aside, two highlights of the day wd have been a Nubian tea and an optional bird watching side-trip, by boat, to see birds of the Nile.
--John R.