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."

I will never correct them, but I love when people post or comment about "Rouge One."

My book is now available for pre-order within the US! Visit my website for all of the shopping links & information about the pre-order thank you gifts I've created for you! teawithtolkien.com/book (International shipping will be available soon - thank you for your patience!)

In "Slow Horses" Hugo Weaving sounds like he's doing a Jack Nicholson impression.

The freshly oiled top of my desk. I do this about once a year. Let the oil sink in, then wipe and rub it down. I made the table years ago out of black walnut. The tapering octagonal legs were fun to make.

COULD YOU PLEASE HELP ME? 😀 I would love to have my newsletter get to 1,000+ subscribers by Frodo's and Bilbo's Birthday on Sept 22... ... but for that I would need your support in sharing this and letting people know about THE ROVING RANGER. If you need to hear a reason why... here are seven 😅

In her article, "The Ruined Landscapes of Beowulf: Apocalypse and Hope," Lisa Myers talks about how the vagueness and paradoxes of Grendel's mere, the familiar jumbled up in unfamiliar ways add to th horror of this part of the tale. Suddenly it struck me. It's the Upside Down

Top 20 to be read pile, day 3 of 20. The Long Shadow of Fáfnir.

Top 20 in to be read pile, day 2/20.

I used to be embarrassed that this guy came from the same city as I do. That was bad enough. Now I'm embarrassed he comes from the same planet and genus as do.

20 on to be read pile, covers only, day 1/20

Just a Josephus Miller appreciation post.

Admittedly, it's hard to track the cognitive decline of someone who's been a gibbering nitwit for fifty years at least.

Between the hours of 2 and 3 pm today I have hunted down not only Tolkien's first use of "calaquendi" but also a quote from Pope Innocent III the source of which was not very clearly given. facilis descensus cuniculo

I know your time is valuable, so I’ll keep this brief: a donation or repost of my pinned post could make a real difference for us. Thank you.

Future footnote: "To be sure, God’s wrath is on display in the fall of Númenor, but let us sink that continent when we come to it."

A long post I never meant to write. But there's such irony in the fact that Tolkien hated Nazis for perverting Northern mythology, and now they're doing it to him. He'd be more upset at what he'd see as a perversion of his faith. Whatever his faults, he believed in empathy, pity, and mercy. #tolkien

I wanted to contribute this old post of mine on the flowers of the Gladden Fields from 10 years ago. More recently, Walter S and Graham A Judd published "The Flora of Middle-earth," which naturally discusses the flowers in question. #tolkientrewsday

When you find that allusion to Keats you knew was there somewhere, but it's too late....

The guy who threw a Subway sandwich at the federal agent worked at the DOJ. According to Pam Bondi, he is an example of the Deep State. Once again proving that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

It's not like we haven't denied entry to refugees facing genocide before, is it? And clearly starving children with one arm and one leg are far more dangerous than the passengers on the St Louis in 1939.

Who does this guy think he is? Neville Chamberlain?

"The Vulgar and Ignorant Cad is not yet a boss with power; but he is a very great deal nearer to becoming one in this green and pleasant isle than he was." Tolkien, 1944 Applicability in action

I hope you'll check out this new book by @miriamellis.bsky.social

So maybe cats are so unwilling to go in the cat-carrier because there's a cat ghost story involving a haunted cat-carrier and a guy named Schrödinger.

Yes, this is how you fight, Governor!

I just discovered this today.

300,000 Black women have left the labor market in a three month period this year, and it's estimated that the unemployment rate for Black women is as high as ten percent but none of this is getting much traction. So, I wrote about it on my blog. blackgirlinmaine.com/commentary/f...

Until Bilbo rescued the Dwarves from the spiders, they considered him a DEI hire.

The police, the courts, the govt, are supposed to protect you against rapists and punish the rapists. How's that working out so far? You need to defend yourself by any and all means.

"Host bodies" -- that is about as vile a perspective as I have ever heard. What kind of loathsome abomination of humanity thinks like this? "Host bodies" is beyond being for or against abortion. It is a declaration that bodies with wombs are inhuman and no more than property.

The manosphere is to men as ideology is to ideas, as bravado is to bravery, as confidence is to cocksureness. It reads the wrong books, learns the wrong lessons. It's Wormtongue in a dungeon dreaming he's a dragon on the wing. It believes the world owes it the glutting of all its desires, now.

I just saw @ansonmount.bsky.social's comment on criticism of SNW's casting of Adrian Holmes, a black actor, as Robert April, previously seen as a white cartoon in ST:TAS: "Is it really -- Is that as deep as character goes with you?" Bravo, Anson Mount, bravo. Bravo to Adrian Holmes, too.

Two conferences dealing with Tolkien and with women and gender in mythopoeic works to take place this week -- The NY Tolkien Conference and the Online Midsummer Seminar of the Mythopoeic Society. Follow the link for more info. annasmol.net/2025/07/28/t...

So there I was reading the "Overture" to Eddison's "Mistress of Mistresses" on the 5 train, as one does, and thinking how lush and Swinburean the prose was. Then I turned the page and the narrator starts reciting Swinburne. Of course he does.

There he goes using reason again. But using reason against the bathroom bill purveyors is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

For all students and scholars facing a deadline, you are not alone. Tolkien wrote to his son, Michael, on 1 March 1939: "I am going off to Scotland on Monday night or Tuesday morning, & have not written the infernal lecture yet. Not much bed for me between then and now, I fear"

I just finished reading an interesting and well-done scholarly book. But there was this one footnote near the end. It cited a last name, a short title, and a page number. Since I am interested in the subject, I looked in the bibliography. It's not there under the author's name. No title in

I really dislike musical episodes in general, but I would watch the musical episode of ST:SNW over and over rather than watch one more scene of Spock and Chapel (I'm trying to be even-handed here) tormenting each other. The performances are wonderful. It's the way it's unfolding.

If anyone is denied equal protection, no one has equal protection.