Tolkien Gleanings #69.
* In the latest edition of the UK magazine The Critic, “A Theology of Parties”. As we head into the healing phase of the post-pandemic era, the author suggests C.S. Lewis and Tolkien as exemplars of the sort of fun-with-fellowship reunion parties we might be planning. This being the… “J.R.R. Tolkien who purportedly went to a New Year’s Party in the 1930s dressed as a polar bear.”
* A review of the book The Art of New Creation: Trajectories in Theology and the Arts (2022). One of the chapters is on place-making and “creation and new creation in the work of Tolkien”, while another discusses the role of imaginative power in Tolkien’s sub-creation.
* Creative Writing Summer School at Exeter College, Oxford. Very costly, and one wonders what sort of writer can possibly afford it… but it seems to be booking up rapidly. 23rd July – 12th August 2023.
* The art exhibition ‘Sur les traces de Tolkien et de l’imaginaire medieval’, 25th June 2023 to 28th January 2024. A large exhibition with… “over 250 drawings and paintings by John Howe” plus armour and medieval items. Not Paris, as had previously been mooted… rather it’s near Brest in Brittany, northern France.
* A large group exhibition in Georgia, USA, from 1st July – 5th August 2023. A 15 artist… “group exhibition of artworks inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings”.
* My Tolkien Gleanings PDF ‘zine version is now available. Including a 5,000 word illustrated essay on Radagast.
* And finally, who knew that Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock, Star Trek) recorded ‘The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins’ in 1967? That’s noted in a new open access journal article on “Remediating fantasy narratives for participatory fandom: Tolkien’s stories and their translations in films, videogames, music and other products of the culture industries”. As well as the usual survey, there are also a couple of pages on the “music industry, with reference to well-known songs and bands”. Mercifully, Archive.org only has a 30 second clip of the cringe-tasic “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins”.