Must be a group member before inviting friends
John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 86
July 8, 2018
Bethmoora in THE NECRONOMICON?
So, here's a thought.
I was re-reading Lovecraft's THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS and came across one of those passages that effectively serve as info dumps of the Mythos.
In the story, Vermont farmer Henry Akeley, who has first-hand experience with the Mythos, tells what he knows in a letter to Miskatonic professor Albert Wilmarth, who knows a good deal about such things second hand, from reading the books there in his university's library. Here's how Lovecraft's Wilmarth describes the exchange:
. . . a terrible cosmic narrative derived from the application of profound and varied scholarship . . . I found myself faced by names and terms that I had heard elsewhere in the most hideous of connections—Yuggoth, Great Cthulhu, Tsthoggua, Yog-Sothoth, R'lyeh, Nyarlathotep, Azathoth, Hastur, Yian, Leng, the Lake of Hali, Bethmoora, the Yellow Sign, L'mur-Kathulos, Bran, and the Magnum Innominandum . . . worlds of elder, outer entity at which the crazed author of the Necronomicon had only guessed in the vaguest way
(THE DUNWICH HORROR AND OTHERS p. 227)
I'd always thought of THE NECRONOMICON more as a grimoire than anything else--that being the use Wilbur Whateley puts it to in THE DUNWICH HORROR. But Wilmarth's description makes me wonder: what if THE NECRONOMICON were more like a collection of stories (think Ovid)? Most of the items in Wilmarth & Akeley's list have a story devoted to it, either by Lovecraft himself, or one of his friends and correspondents, or one of the writers of a previous generation from which HPL directly borrowed. What if we were to think of THE NECRONOMICON as a compilation of stories? Thus WHISPERER is the Yuggoth tale; CALL OF CTHULHU the story about Great Cthulhu and Rl'yeh; DUNWICH HORROR the tale where we learn about Yog-Sothoth; DREAM-QUEST the Nyarlathotep tale, and so forth. The middle part of the list allude to works by writers of the generation before Lovecraft, still alive and writing when Lovecraft was beginning his career: Bierce (Lake of Hali), Chambers (The Yellow Sign), and Dunsany (Bethmoora).
The analogy's not perfect --so far as I know there's no story about Yian, or some of the other more obscure items towards the end of the list. And the chronology's all off. But it's still striking, and Lovecraft deliberately left some things vague so he cd add to or adjust elements in the Mythos as needed for later stories. The Mythos was open-ended, and to some degree self-contradictory, like a real mythology.
For instance, in what way might Bethmoora come up in Akeley and Wilmarth's pooling of their knowledge? The best way for them to have learned the legend of what happened to this city is to hear it from a deranged cultist (Akeley) or read it in an Arkham book (Wilmarth). And that legend would closely correspond to the actual tale written, and published, by Dunsany (in A DREAMER'S TALES, 1910). For another example, if a fictional character reading about The Yellow Sign in the NECRONOMICON is learning pretty much the same story as a real-world reader reading Chamber's tale "The Yellow Sign", then the closest approach we can make to replicating the contents of THE NECRONOMICON is to compile an anthology of the relevant tales.
At any rate, that the idea I'm currently playing around with, musing over and seeing where it goes.
--John R.
I was re-reading Lovecraft's THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS and came across one of those passages that effectively serve as info dumps of the Mythos.
In the story, Vermont farmer Henry Akeley, who has first-hand experience with the Mythos, tells what he knows in a letter to Miskatonic professor Albert Wilmarth, who knows a good deal about such things second hand, from reading the books there in his university's library. Here's how Lovecraft's Wilmarth describes the exchange:
. . . a terrible cosmic narrative derived from the application of profound and varied scholarship . . . I found myself faced by names and terms that I had heard elsewhere in the most hideous of connections—Yuggoth, Great Cthulhu, Tsthoggua, Yog-Sothoth, R'lyeh, Nyarlathotep, Azathoth, Hastur, Yian, Leng, the Lake of Hali, Bethmoora, the Yellow Sign, L'mur-Kathulos, Bran, and the Magnum Innominandum . . . worlds of elder, outer entity at which the crazed author of the Necronomicon had only guessed in the vaguest way
(THE DUNWICH HORROR AND OTHERS p. 227)
I'd always thought of THE NECRONOMICON more as a grimoire than anything else--that being the use Wilbur Whateley puts it to in THE DUNWICH HORROR. But Wilmarth's description makes me wonder: what if THE NECRONOMICON were more like a collection of stories (think Ovid)? Most of the items in Wilmarth & Akeley's list have a story devoted to it, either by Lovecraft himself, or one of his friends and correspondents, or one of the writers of a previous generation from which HPL directly borrowed. What if we were to think of THE NECRONOMICON as a compilation of stories? Thus WHISPERER is the Yuggoth tale; CALL OF CTHULHU the story about Great Cthulhu and Rl'yeh; DUNWICH HORROR the tale where we learn about Yog-Sothoth; DREAM-QUEST the Nyarlathotep tale, and so forth. The middle part of the list allude to works by writers of the generation before Lovecraft, still alive and writing when Lovecraft was beginning his career: Bierce (Lake of Hali), Chambers (The Yellow Sign), and Dunsany (Bethmoora).
The analogy's not perfect --so far as I know there's no story about Yian, or some of the other more obscure items towards the end of the list. And the chronology's all off. But it's still striking, and Lovecraft deliberately left some things vague so he cd add to or adjust elements in the Mythos as needed for later stories. The Mythos was open-ended, and to some degree self-contradictory, like a real mythology.
For instance, in what way might Bethmoora come up in Akeley and Wilmarth's pooling of their knowledge? The best way for them to have learned the legend of what happened to this city is to hear it from a deranged cultist (Akeley) or read it in an Arkham book (Wilmarth). And that legend would closely correspond to the actual tale written, and published, by Dunsany (in A DREAMER'S TALES, 1910). For another example, if a fictional character reading about The Yellow Sign in the NECRONOMICON is learning pretty much the same story as a real-world reader reading Chamber's tale "The Yellow Sign", then the closest approach we can make to replicating the contents of THE NECRONOMICON is to compile an anthology of the relevant tales.
At any rate, that the idea I'm currently playing around with, musing over and seeing where it goes.
--John R.
July 7, 2018
the children of Lilith
So, sometimes there's a gemstone hidden in the dross.
In this case, the dross is a volume of WEIRD TALES stories by Seabury Quinn, and the gem was a brief passage from a Rossetti poem I hadn't read:
. . . bright babes had Lilith and Adam
Shapes that coiled in the woods and waters
Glittering sons and radiant daughters
And if this were not enough, thanks to the wonders of the Internet I was able to quickly track down and read the entire poem ("Eden's Bower"), in the process finding a second quotable passage that draws a chill, esp. when juxtaposed with the first:
. . . in the cool of the day in the garden
God shall walk without pity or pardon.
--John R.
current reading: "The Whisperer in Darkness" by H. P. L., plus a book of short stories by Seabury Quinn
In this case, the dross is a volume of WEIRD TALES stories by Seabury Quinn, and the gem was a brief passage from a Rossetti poem I hadn't read:
. . . bright babes had Lilith and Adam
Shapes that coiled in the woods and waters
Glittering sons and radiant daughters
And if this were not enough, thanks to the wonders of the Internet I was able to quickly track down and read the entire poem ("Eden's Bower"), in the process finding a second quotable passage that draws a chill, esp. when juxtaposed with the first:
. . . in the cool of the day in the garden
God shall walk without pity or pardon.
--John R.
current reading: "The Whisperer in Darkness" by H. P. L., plus a book of short stories by Seabury Quinn
July 1, 2018
The Third Silmarillion
So, the day before yesterday one of those annoying online ads along the lines of 'if you liked that, you'll certainly like this' actually came through with something I'm interested in learning about: the forthcoming boxed set of THE GREAT TALES by JRRT, the stand-alone volumes THE CHILDREN OF HURIN, BEREN & LUTHIEN, and the soon-to-be forthcoming FALL OF GONDOLIN, all of them edited by Christopher Tolkien and illustrated by Alan Lee.
I was struck by how this fulfills one of Tolkien's plans for his never-completed book.
Of the several different ways Tolkien thought of presenting THE SILMARILLION, the first was a synoptic QUENTA accompanied by several smaller associated pieces: Annals, the Ainulindale or Valaquenta, Akalabeth and something on the languages, and so forth. This is pretty much THE SILMARILLION as we got it in 1977: a concise, coherent account drawn from multiple layers of drafting.
But another way to see the book is as a collection of disparate materials: poems, tales, annals, essays, histories, philological excursions, and all. Think Translations from the Elvish, by B.B. And this is pretty much what we got the second time around, with THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH in all its twelve volume glory.
And now another iteration, this one alluded to in his LETTER TO WALDMAN, will see print: the Great Tales each as a stand-alone book in the series known as THE SILMARILLION.* We're fortunate not just that all this material survives and has been published but that we have multiple ways of accessing it to see which suits this reader or that reader best.
These are good times to be a Tolkien fan, or scholar.
--John R.
--current reading: Seabury Quinn stories (bad, but not as terrible as I remembered from a previous try).
--current audiobook: Nero Wolfe.
*all the more so if the rumor proves true and this third volume also includes what little was set down of the fourth and final Great Tale: THE TALE OF EARENDIL, bringing the set to as complete a state as is now possible. In any case, we'll soon know.
I was struck by how this fulfills one of Tolkien's plans for his never-completed book.
Of the several different ways Tolkien thought of presenting THE SILMARILLION, the first was a synoptic QUENTA accompanied by several smaller associated pieces: Annals, the Ainulindale or Valaquenta, Akalabeth and something on the languages, and so forth. This is pretty much THE SILMARILLION as we got it in 1977: a concise, coherent account drawn from multiple layers of drafting.
But another way to see the book is as a collection of disparate materials: poems, tales, annals, essays, histories, philological excursions, and all. Think Translations from the Elvish, by B.B. And this is pretty much what we got the second time around, with THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH in all its twelve volume glory.
And now another iteration, this one alluded to in his LETTER TO WALDMAN, will see print: the Great Tales each as a stand-alone book in the series known as THE SILMARILLION.* We're fortunate not just that all this material survives and has been published but that we have multiple ways of accessing it to see which suits this reader or that reader best.
These are good times to be a Tolkien fan, or scholar.
--John R.
--current reading: Seabury Quinn stories (bad, but not as terrible as I remembered from a previous try).
--current audiobook: Nero Wolfe.
*all the more so if the rumor proves true and this third volume also includes what little was set down of the fourth and final Great Tale: THE TALE OF EARENDIL, bringing the set to as complete a state as is now possible. In any case, we'll soon know.
June 21, 2018
I Was Wrong (The 1930 Hobbit)
So, as I mentioned in my last post, the newly arrived splendidly illustrated catalogue for the current Bodleian Tolkien exhibit, TOLKIEN: MAKER OF MIDDLE EARTH by Catherine McIlwaine, contains valuable new information about the dating of THE HOBBIT.
For years we've been bedeviled by contradictory information as to when Tolkien started the book: Tolkien's emphatic statement that it was after he moved to the new house on Northmoor Road, vs. his two eldest sons' insistence that it had been at some point while they were still at their previous house (right next door), and therefore sometime between 1926 and 1929. Now we have new evidence which makes the earlier date certain. McIlwaine writes
Tolkien began to write The Hobbit in the late 1920s,
reading it to his sons in instalments during the evening
in his study, the proper 'place for such amusements'.*
His eldest son John recorded in his diary for New Year's
Day 1930, 'In the Afternoon we played in the Nursery.
After tea Daddy read The Hobbit'.
(McIlwaine p. 290)
That about as decisive as anyone cd possibly wish. This is the best kind of evidence: first hand, contemporary, and unambiguous. We're lucky to have it. I'll have to go back and revise my account in MR. BAGGINS giving the chronology of the book's writing.
My preliminary conclusion in the light of this new evidence is that what we have in JRRT's account of sitting at this study in the new house on a summer's day writing that iconic first sentence of his book is a composite memory. In his 1964/65 Guerroult radio BBC interview he describes a mental image that he now realizes is a 'beautifully worked out pastiche' of his father's house in Bloemfontein with his grandfather's house in Birmingham, features of both appearing in a composite in his memory. Something of the same must have been the case in his memory of creating that first page of THE HOBBIT.
Now if only more evidence wd turn up to help nail down when Tolkien finished the book as well.
--John R.
*quoted from LETTERS OF JRRT, p. 21
For years we've been bedeviled by contradictory information as to when Tolkien started the book: Tolkien's emphatic statement that it was after he moved to the new house on Northmoor Road, vs. his two eldest sons' insistence that it had been at some point while they were still at their previous house (right next door), and therefore sometime between 1926 and 1929. Now we have new evidence which makes the earlier date certain. McIlwaine writes
Tolkien began to write The Hobbit in the late 1920s,
reading it to his sons in instalments during the evening
in his study, the proper 'place for such amusements'.*
His eldest son John recorded in his diary for New Year's
Day 1930, 'In the Afternoon we played in the Nursery.
After tea Daddy read The Hobbit'.
(McIlwaine p. 290)
That about as decisive as anyone cd possibly wish. This is the best kind of evidence: first hand, contemporary, and unambiguous. We're lucky to have it. I'll have to go back and revise my account in MR. BAGGINS giving the chronology of the book's writing.
My preliminary conclusion in the light of this new evidence is that what we have in JRRT's account of sitting at this study in the new house on a summer's day writing that iconic first sentence of his book is a composite memory. In his 1964/65 Guerroult radio BBC interview he describes a mental image that he now realizes is a 'beautifully worked out pastiche' of his father's house in Bloemfontein with his grandfather's house in Birmingham, features of both appearing in a composite in his memory. Something of the same must have been the case in his memory of creating that first page of THE HOBBIT.
Now if only more evidence wd turn up to help nail down when Tolkien finished the book as well.
--John R.
*quoted from LETTERS OF JRRT, p. 21
June 17, 2018
The Bodleian Tolkien Exhibit Catalogue
So, Thursday we found a note on the door that FedEx had failed to deliver a parcel but wd try again. The next day a heavy (6kg) package arrived from Oxford, being the two catalogues for the just-opened Tolkien Bodleian Exhibit. One, TOLKIEN: MAKER OF MIDDLE-EARTH is a four hundred page work showing the more than 180 items that make up the exhibit (an 'item' sometimes being multiple pages, such as several closely related maps or letters. The second is TOLKIEN TREASURES, a smaller a hundred and forty-four page softcover filled with gems from the displays; this one concentrates mostly on the art work with fewer manuscripts, letters, and photographs.
Both are by Catherine McIlwaine, the Bodley's Tolkien Archivist. It'll take time to absorb the riches contained in these books, but a few things do pop out on a first page-through.
First off, this is a beautiful book. It doesn't just reproduce a stunning array from Tolkien's papers but also has a lot of information. The first eighty pages of the book contain six essays by Tolkien luminaries:
J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch by Catherine McIlwaine
Tolkien and the Inklings by John Garth
Faerie: Tolkien's Perilous Land by Verlyn Flieger
Inventing Elvish by Carl F. Hostetter
Tolkien and 'that noble northern spirit' by Tom Shippey
Tolkien's Visual Art by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull
There's much here, and in the pages that follow, that I'll enjoy going through and absorbing, esp. since it now looks like I'll be able to see the exhibit after all sometime near the end of its run. I've already been struck by the first page of THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS, by Terence (later Terry) Pratchett's thoughtful fan letter re SWM, by the news that Tolkien was part of the Cretaceous Perambulators (I have to go back now and compare the text given in the little 1983 pamphlet of the same name with Tolkien's draft text on Catalogue p..245), by the realization that Tolkien kept a good deal of his fan letters, or at least a judicious selection of the cream of the crop (e.g.,, the one he got from Iris Murdoch -- didn't spot the one from Mary Renault, alas).
All in all, a wealth of material, highly recommended to anyone interested in Tolkien's life and interested in this extended glimpse into how his mind worked as an author (and artist and linguist).
One particular highlight for me is conclusive evidence that Tolkien had already started work on THE HOBBIT before summer 1930, which I had argued was the no-earlier-than-by date. Thanks to a mention in Fr. John Tolkien's diary for 1930 we know know JRRT was several chapters into the book by New Year's Day, a few months earlier. So I was wrong about Tolkien's start date, a topic important enough that I'd like to devote a separate post to it.
But for now, and between now and when I'm over there, I'll be reading and re-reading this major acquisition too my Tolkien Library.
--John R.
--current reading: BEYOND NEW HORIZONS
Both are by Catherine McIlwaine, the Bodley's Tolkien Archivist. It'll take time to absorb the riches contained in these books, but a few things do pop out on a first page-through.
First off, this is a beautiful book. It doesn't just reproduce a stunning array from Tolkien's papers but also has a lot of information. The first eighty pages of the book contain six essays by Tolkien luminaries:
J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch by Catherine McIlwaine
Tolkien and the Inklings by John Garth
Faerie: Tolkien's Perilous Land by Verlyn Flieger
Inventing Elvish by Carl F. Hostetter
Tolkien and 'that noble northern spirit' by Tom Shippey
Tolkien's Visual Art by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull
There's much here, and in the pages that follow, that I'll enjoy going through and absorbing, esp. since it now looks like I'll be able to see the exhibit after all sometime near the end of its run. I've already been struck by the first page of THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS, by Terence (later Terry) Pratchett's thoughtful fan letter re SWM, by the news that Tolkien was part of the Cretaceous Perambulators (I have to go back now and compare the text given in the little 1983 pamphlet of the same name with Tolkien's draft text on Catalogue p..245), by the realization that Tolkien kept a good deal of his fan letters, or at least a judicious selection of the cream of the crop (e.g.,, the one he got from Iris Murdoch -- didn't spot the one from Mary Renault, alas).
All in all, a wealth of material, highly recommended to anyone interested in Tolkien's life and interested in this extended glimpse into how his mind worked as an author (and artist and linguist).
One particular highlight for me is conclusive evidence that Tolkien had already started work on THE HOBBIT before summer 1930, which I had argued was the no-earlier-than-by date. Thanks to a mention in Fr. John Tolkien's diary for 1930 we know know JRRT was several chapters into the book by New Year's Day, a few months earlier. So I was wrong about Tolkien's start date, a topic important enough that I'd like to devote a separate post to it.
But for now, and between now and when I'm over there, I'll be reading and re-reading this major acquisition too my Tolkien Library.
--John R.
--current reading: BEYOND NEW HORIZONS
June 16, 2018
Danny Kirwan dies
So, yesterday I heard about the death of Danny Kirwan, the chief creative force behind my favorite Fleetwood Mac album, BARE TREES (1972). Kirwan had joined the group when he was eighteen or nineteen and been fired when he was about twenty-two, about the age most folks finish college, mainly for being a mean drunk, and spent most of the succeeding years a derelict. A pity, since I think he was the most talented of all the many talented guitarists to pass through that group in its half-century of existence. I'd even go so far as to say that I think the Kirwan/Christine McVie dominated BARE TREES deserves to be ranked with the much more famous Buckingham/Nicks/Christine McVie FLEETWOOD MAC 'WHITE ALBUM' and RUMOURS. In addition to songs like the title track and 'Child of Mine', Kirwan's best instrumental ('Sunny Side of Heaven')* can be found here as well as well as the playful near-instrumental 'Danny's Chant'. And now the grimly beautiful 'Dust' takes on new resonance: melancholic but melodic.**
When the white flame in us
is gone
And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness
Left alone
To crumble in our separate night
When your swift hair is quiet in death
And through your lips corruption
Thrusts to steal the labour of my breath
When we are dust
When we are dust
When we are dust
--John R.--today's album: BARE TREES; today's song: DUST; current reading CHASING NEW HORIZONS by Stern & Grinspoon
*even better, perhaps, is the instrumental version of his song 'Dragonfly' as adapted by the London Rock Orchestra**the lyrics are taken from a Rupert Brooke poem, the latter stanzas of which are rather more hopeful than Kirwan's version. The album also includes the great Christine McVie piece about being on the road, 'Homeward Bound'.
When the white flame in us
is gone
And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness
Left alone
To crumble in our separate night
When your swift hair is quiet in death
And through your lips corruption
Thrusts to steal the labour of my breath
When we are dust
When we are dust
When we are dust
--John R.--today's album: BARE TREES; today's song: DUST; current reading CHASING NEW HORIZONS by Stern & Grinspoon
*even better, perhaps, is the instrumental version of his song 'Dragonfly' as adapted by the London Rock Orchestra**the lyrics are taken from a Rupert Brooke poem, the latter stanzas of which are rather more hopeful than Kirwan's version. The album also includes the great Christine McVie piece about being on the road, 'Homeward Bound'.
June 15, 2018
North Texas RPG Con
So, this time last week I was in Dallas, attending the NORTH TEXAS RPG CONVENTION as one of their special guests. I'd been a bit apprehensive about going, giving that a lot of living legends in TSR history wd be there -- like Tim Kask, the original editor of THE DRAGON and later champion for FINIEOUS FINGERS, who I never did meet; and Merle Rasmussen, creator of the original TOP SECRET, who I did.*
As it turns out, folks were very welcoming and I had a great time.** I got to play not one but two sessions of my favorite game (1st edition AD&D), both run by Paul Stormberg, who I knew as a Greyhawk guru and friend of Dave Sutherland in the latter's latter days; we've exchanged the occasional gaming-related email with over the years.
The first game was THE MANSION OF MAD PROFESSOR LUDLOW by Jim Ward. This had appeared in one of the first issues of DRAGON magazine I ever saw (the mid-40s) back when I was just getting into the hobby, years before I met and came to work for Jim. We all played boy (and girl) scouts exploring the weird mansion of a mad scientist; v. Jim Ward-ian.
The second game was the sample dungeon from the original DMG expanded into a full-length module. A great idea, and we had great fun with it. I remember Jonathan Tweet having worked on his own version of this at some point (presumably adapted to third edition) but don't recall if that ever got into print. I'm only sorry we didn't get all the way through (prob. inevitable in a four-hour slot). Anyway, a good time had by all.
The third game was a change of pace: Jeff Grubb running a CALL OF CTHULHU scenario of his own. Inspired by the original Lovecraft story that gives the game its name, it pitted our curious but clueless Miskatonic University college students against Weird Creepy and Violent Supernatural Things Going On. I'd played an earlier version of this a good ten years or more ago but that didn't prevent my enjoying this iteration.
I never did locate the Tolkien gaming room until the last evening of the con (having walked right by it all weekend), when I sat in on a session of The One Ring rpg; from what I saw I'm impressed yet again now good a job they did of crafting a Tolkien-specific rpg. Pity about the (near) tpk.
And then of course there was the Dealers' Room, from which I emerged with a book about Dave Arneson and a recent reprint of DARK TOWER, the first module I ever bought but now in rather dilapidated condition; having a new copy has filled me with the ambition to run it. If I get to go back next year, this wd be my choice of what to run. That, and the old D&D module MAZE OF THE RIDDLING MINOTAURS adapted from solo to group play.***
A good trip, and some great games. We need more events like this one.
--John R.
* more recent luminaries included Jon Petersen, who is continuing the good work of PLAYING AT THE WORLD on his blog, which I definitely need to start checking out on a regular basis.
**it helped to see familiar faces like Jeff Grubb, Steve Winter, and Bill Webb, who I see in my (more or less) weekly D&D game, plus getting to meet some folks I'd previously only known from online.
***my copy fortunately being fully keyed.
As it turns out, folks were very welcoming and I had a great time.** I got to play not one but two sessions of my favorite game (1st edition AD&D), both run by Paul Stormberg, who I knew as a Greyhawk guru and friend of Dave Sutherland in the latter's latter days; we've exchanged the occasional gaming-related email with over the years.
The first game was THE MANSION OF MAD PROFESSOR LUDLOW by Jim Ward. This had appeared in one of the first issues of DRAGON magazine I ever saw (the mid-40s) back when I was just getting into the hobby, years before I met and came to work for Jim. We all played boy (and girl) scouts exploring the weird mansion of a mad scientist; v. Jim Ward-ian.
The second game was the sample dungeon from the original DMG expanded into a full-length module. A great idea, and we had great fun with it. I remember Jonathan Tweet having worked on his own version of this at some point (presumably adapted to third edition) but don't recall if that ever got into print. I'm only sorry we didn't get all the way through (prob. inevitable in a four-hour slot). Anyway, a good time had by all.
The third game was a change of pace: Jeff Grubb running a CALL OF CTHULHU scenario of his own. Inspired by the original Lovecraft story that gives the game its name, it pitted our curious but clueless Miskatonic University college students against Weird Creepy and Violent Supernatural Things Going On. I'd played an earlier version of this a good ten years or more ago but that didn't prevent my enjoying this iteration.
I never did locate the Tolkien gaming room until the last evening of the con (having walked right by it all weekend), when I sat in on a session of The One Ring rpg; from what I saw I'm impressed yet again now good a job they did of crafting a Tolkien-specific rpg. Pity about the (near) tpk.
And then of course there was the Dealers' Room, from which I emerged with a book about Dave Arneson and a recent reprint of DARK TOWER, the first module I ever bought but now in rather dilapidated condition; having a new copy has filled me with the ambition to run it. If I get to go back next year, this wd be my choice of what to run. That, and the old D&D module MAZE OF THE RIDDLING MINOTAURS adapted from solo to group play.***
A good trip, and some great games. We need more events like this one.
--John R.
* more recent luminaries included Jon Petersen, who is continuing the good work of PLAYING AT THE WORLD on his blog, which I definitely need to start checking out on a regular basis.
**it helped to see familiar faces like Jeff Grubb, Steve Winter, and Bill Webb, who I see in my (more or less) weekly D&D game, plus getting to meet some folks I'd previously only known from online.
***my copy fortunately being fully keyed.
June 7, 2018
More on the Oxford Exhibit
So, David B. has posted a detailed and appreciative description of the Tolkien Exhibit at the Bodleian:
https://kalimac.livejournal.com/1024070.html
And John Garth has published a review of the exhibit and relates the thoughts it evoked for him about the interconnectivity of all Tolkien's work.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/classic-books/tolkien-maker-middle-earth-bodleian-libraries-review-once-in/
In addition to the exhibit itself, the Special Events that will accompany it throughout its run have begun:
https://tolkien.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/events/
I don't know the first of the three named speakers (whose name has now rotated out of the updated site), but I'm told by someone who was there that Verlyn and Dimitra were "were brilliant as ever". I don't doubt it.
Reading through David's and Garth's piece has started me thinking that with Tolkien everything we have is at the cost of something else. We wd like there to be more paintings, but we shd know that they'd be at the cost of more stories. Or more stories, but that wd come at the cost of some scholarship. Or more scholarship, but that wd cost us more on the languages. It's all connected, and each piece we have is at the cost of something we don't have.
Or, to put it another way: what we don't have (e.g. SILMARILLION) we don't have because we do have something else (e.g., THE LORD OF THE RINGS).
--John R.
--waiting in the airport for my flight to Dallas and an Old School rpg convention: NTrpgCON
https://kalimac.livejournal.com/1024070.html
And John Garth has published a review of the exhibit and relates the thoughts it evoked for him about the interconnectivity of all Tolkien's work.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/classic-books/tolkien-maker-middle-earth-bodleian-libraries-review-once-in/
In addition to the exhibit itself, the Special Events that will accompany it throughout its run have begun:
https://tolkien.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/events/
I don't know the first of the three named speakers (whose name has now rotated out of the updated site), but I'm told by someone who was there that Verlyn and Dimitra were "were brilliant as ever". I don't doubt it.
Reading through David's and Garth's piece has started me thinking that with Tolkien everything we have is at the cost of something else. We wd like there to be more paintings, but we shd know that they'd be at the cost of more stories. Or more stories, but that wd come at the cost of some scholarship. Or more scholarship, but that wd cost us more on the languages. It's all connected, and each piece we have is at the cost of something we don't have.
Or, to put it another way: what we don't have (e.g. SILMARILLION) we don't have because we do have something else (e.g., THE LORD OF THE RINGS).
--John R.
--waiting in the airport for my flight to Dallas and an Old School rpg convention: NTrpgCON
May 31, 2018
The Most Important Tolkien Event of the Year
. . . is taking place this week in the Bodleian Library. In fact it started today; a major new exhibition of J.R.R.T.'s manuscripts, artwork, and associated items (like his iconic pipe). A full catalogue will be out in a month or two, as well as a shorter, simpler version for those a little less deeply invested in all thing Tolkienian. Wish I cd be there!
Here's a piece in today's GUARDIAN that gives a basis overview:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/31/drawn-into-tolkiens-world-exhibition
And here's a brief mention* of the special lectures that accompany the exhibition and turn it into an event:
MYTHOPOEIA: MYTH-CREATION AND MIDDLE-EARTH5 JUNE 2018,
5.30–7PMA celebration of Tolkien and his creations, with special guests Dame Marina Warner, Prof Verlyn Flieger and Dr Dimitra Fimi.
*cf. https://tolkien.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/events/
I'd love to hear an account of how it all goes.
--John R
Here's a piece in today's GUARDIAN that gives a basis overview:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/31/drawn-into-tolkiens-world-exhibition
And here's a brief mention* of the special lectures that accompany the exhibition and turn it into an event:
MYTHOPOEIA: MYTH-CREATION AND MIDDLE-EARTH5 JUNE 2018,
5.30–7PMA celebration of Tolkien and his creations, with special guests Dame Marina Warner, Prof Verlyn Flieger and Dr Dimitra Fimi.
*cf. https://tolkien.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/events/
I'd love to hear an account of how it all goes.
--John R
May 30, 2018
WotC Days (2001) -- layoffs
So, we had a plumber in last week, which meant we had to move about fifty boxes to the other side of the box room so he could open up the wall and get at the pipes that were misbehaving. This being too good an opportunity to miss, we sorted through several boxes that have lain undisturbed for a long while now, throwing away a good portion of what was in them but plucking out some items of interest, at least to me.
Case in point: a seating chart at Wizards of the Coast, showing who was in which cube. This was clearly in the old building on Lind, not the current location.
This page is of added interest because I marked it up at the time to show who got laid off in the June through July 2001 layoffs, including myself. I can date it from indicators like the absence here of Jon Pickens, who had been the longest serving department member when he left in the previous round (December 2000), and the presence of Charles Ryan, who came up to join us in Seattle at that point (the only member of Last Unicorn to do so when WotC shut down the offsite autonomous branch). And it's distinct from the next round (which came sometime in 2002, I think), which took out some not marked here, like Dale Donovan.
Not all of the people marked here as leaving the department left the company. Some left on their own dime, like (I think) Thomas Reid, who wanted to concentrate on his novels. Some, like Dave Eckelberry and Jennifer Clarke Wilkes transferred to other departments, like Cards R&D or boardgames. And some, like me and Duane Maxwell, Jason Carl and Owen Stephens, Steve Miller et al, were simply out of luck.
At any rate, a curious historical relic wh. I thought I'd share, since one thing WOTc had in common with TSR was that its inner workings were entirely oblique, so that the outside world was usually completely unaware of who was in-house and who was out-of-house/freelance, and who did what on what project. This gradually changed as the internet made it far easier to keep track of such things, but even as late as when I left for the last time in December 2005 most people who followed the game closely still had relatively little idea of the department as a whole, and who did what on what projects.
Here's the chart:
--JDR
--who's starting to wrap up my major proofing project and turning my mind to NTrpgCON
Case in point: a seating chart at Wizards of the Coast, showing who was in which cube. This was clearly in the old building on Lind, not the current location.
This page is of added interest because I marked it up at the time to show who got laid off in the June through July 2001 layoffs, including myself. I can date it from indicators like the absence here of Jon Pickens, who had been the longest serving department member when he left in the previous round (December 2000), and the presence of Charles Ryan, who came up to join us in Seattle at that point (the only member of Last Unicorn to do so when WotC shut down the offsite autonomous branch). And it's distinct from the next round (which came sometime in 2002, I think), which took out some not marked here, like Dale Donovan.
Not all of the people marked here as leaving the department left the company. Some left on their own dime, like (I think) Thomas Reid, who wanted to concentrate on his novels. Some, like Dave Eckelberry and Jennifer Clarke Wilkes transferred to other departments, like Cards R&D or boardgames. And some, like me and Duane Maxwell, Jason Carl and Owen Stephens, Steve Miller et al, were simply out of luck.
At any rate, a curious historical relic wh. I thought I'd share, since one thing WOTc had in common with TSR was that its inner workings were entirely oblique, so that the outside world was usually completely unaware of who was in-house and who was out-of-house/freelance, and who did what on what project. This gradually changed as the internet made it far easier to keep track of such things, but even as late as when I left for the last time in December 2005 most people who followed the game closely still had relatively little idea of the department as a whole, and who did what on what projects.
Here's the chart:
--JDR
--who's starting to wrap up my major proofing project and turning my mind to NTrpgCON
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