@sanders.senate.gov I don't know whether, as an independent, you would be eligible to take Schumer's place. But someone with guts and conviction needs to take his position away from him. Now more than ever. So much is at stake.

Elvish immortality in Tolkien is like the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. #Tolkien

Poor babies time.com/7332356/uber...

Can we start a drive to have this letter graven in atone?

A quick post on words in The Book of Lost Tales and Turin Turambar. Tolkien #Tolkien

In the 1st version of Túrin's story, in the Book of Lost Tales, the inscription on his tomb adds the name Níniel, referring to his sister by the name she had as his wife. This version dances along the edge between horror and denial.

Is everybody in the US ready to lose their 394 pounds in the next year (that's 178 kg for those countries in the 21st century).

Come join us with as we discuss feasts and food in Tolkien's legendarium at our next Carrock Smial meeting.

Gandalf knows a three pipe problem when he sees one. #Tolkien

I am not David Bowie, but I approve this message.

A new post, much shorter.

Perfectly amazing things from people like @prancingponypod.bsky.social, @tolkien-in-jena.bsky.social, @teawithtolkien.com, @jrsoundscapes.bsky.social, @alas-not-me.bsky.social, @miriamellis.bsky.social, @file770.bsky.social and more...

Dragons are trying to convince us the problem is the hobbits. There's your fucking Tolkien metaphor.

A long post from something I am working on for my next book, which will treat the Great Tales and (what I think of as) the Great Themes, Death/Immortality, Fate/Free Will, Divine Justice/Problem of Evil in the years before Tolkien began The Lord of the Rings. alasnotme.blogspot.com/2025/10/from...

"Problems for [Tolkien's] listeners would be compounded by his tendency to pursue lines of thought like a fox dashing from covert to covert, as he does in all versions of ‘On Fairy-stories’." - @johngarthwriter.bsky.social in the latest Journal of Inklings Studies. 15.2 (2025) open access.

I never made any of this bumper sticker I designed, but I still like it

“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency." -Rebecca Solnit I don't generally see Jack Torrance as a figure of hope, but if an ax can be a metaphor for hope, times can change.

Trigger Warning. This post speaks of the deaths of 3 people, two of them children.

Group of friends on subway, talking. W1: I have honestly never dated a guy who knew anything about sports. M1: So, I'm having another superbowl party this year.

It is always a desperately sad moment when you realize there is no more macaroni and cheese.

ftw

Reposting this from a few years back because it's got a fun story about Tolkien and the Classicist Maurice Bowra.

If the Vanyar had a favorite flavor of ice cream, it would be called Vanilla Bliss.

Two statements I have heard in my life that seem axiomatic to me: 1) If more is better, you'll never have enough. 2) Nothing is always more than you think.

Books or articles with titles like those below should be greeted with the deepest suspicion. Mucho distrust. -- The True Story/History of _______ -- The Real Truth about ______ -- The Hidden Code of ______ -- The Secret History of ______

If you're old enough, you may remember a photo of a South Vietnamese officer shooting a member of the Viet Cong in the head on a street in Saigon. It's a powerful, gruesome image. But the moment I saw this photo from Chicago, the picture from Vietnam leaped into my mind.

In The Book of Lost Tales Tolkien uses the word god/s to describe the Valar over 300 times (not counting Christopher's uses). Never once does he use it of Eru Iluvatar, although he is clearly who Tolkien would say is God. He also never uses "angel" to explain the Valar, as he does in his letters.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Watching the Obi-wan Kenobi series the other night, I reached the final duel between Obi-wan and Vader. Vader opens a deep hole into which Obi-wan falls. Vader then buries him beneath tons of rocks. Here was the perfect chance for Vader to say "Who's got the high ground now, Obi-wan?"

I suppose you could say that the regime is the most transparent in history, since everything they say is a lie and everybody knows it.

The locus classicus for a drive-thru.

It's just not a proper Jaguar with that elegant hood ornament.

Breakfast in Portsmouth at a bakery that manages its line as badly as the DMV. Stand in line for a half hour on a Monday morning and then get told that the food would take another half hour.

Wife brought her 100 year old film camera to that pirates game from a few weeks ago and she got this shot that's just perfect

Glorfindel, too sexy for his serk since the Day before Days.

Balmy Sunday afternoon, New Castle Harbor, witk Montauk Daisies, looking towards Maine across the water.

I have mischievously sneaked a reference to Grease into something I'm writing. Mwahaha!

In the 20s and 30s Tolkien makes "bliss" the main word to characterize Valinor. "Bliss" has been used of the happiness of otherworldly places since Old English. But once Numenor arises we hear that the Numenoreans "began to hunger for the undying bliss of Valinor." Of course #tolkien

Time was Teddy Roosevelt got shot in the chest while campaigning for president. Since he wasn't coughing up blood, he decided the bullet hadn't penetrated his lung. He quieted the crowd, saved the gunman from being lynched, and finished his speech. No word on how he reacted to stopped escalators.

Escalator sabotage doesn't even rise to the level of exploding cigars.

Let me think. What were we talking about before we were interrupted? Oh, right, the Epstein files. I knew there was something.

To listen to the conservative justices of the Supreme Court talk, they seem to think they're going to be remembered like John Marshall. In fact they'll be remembered like Roger Taney. The evil they do will live after them.

All this has happened before. All this will happen again.

For #TolkienTrewsday and pirates I can offer only Hildefons Took, who went off on a journey and never returned, but (I like to imagine) he took little brother, Isengar, with him. Isengar, 'tis said, went to sea in his youth. Together, for a time, they became the dread pirate hobbits.

Well it looks like this century's Goebbels has found a Horst Wessel of his very own.

Perhaps starting to read the OED entry for "as" at 1 AM when my eyes were already tired wasn't the best idea.

I don't believe he was speaking of the present confusion of the first and second amendments and the rise of violence, but Kosh said it best "The avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote."