I Go Walking After Midnight

There are a few places and situations I regularly revisit in my nightmares, and this is one: the library and administrator offices at South West Texas State University (now entirely given over to offices). The situation is this: it's the end of semester, I do not belong there, but I have to retrieve personal material I've stashed there. I have no reliable method to leave campus, and it is closing down and everyone's leaving. The library is a difficult labyrinth to navigate, and I'm a little lost. Sometimes my 'stuff' is in a locker I can't remember the location of, sometimes it is precariously 'stashed', liable to be thrown away or carried off. Last night it was behind a shelf, a stack of folders a foot and a half feet high, slippery and hard to carry. While I tried to navigate my exit and call for extraction, the elevators continued to befuddle and shift. When I finally made my way out the place was almost empty and night was coming on, and I was none too sure of the rondezvous point. I have this dream with some regularity, with the variation that is sometimes in a big shopping mall complex and I'm trying to get out with the great stuff I've found.

I am still in hospice care, but I'm getting slowly better. My anxieties are now what shall become of me and my stuff? No doubt reflected in this nightmare.

 

I Could Use Some True Grit Right About Now

This album came out in 1970, fifty-six years ago, and I'm almost sure my mother bought it. We never listened to it a lot, except for maybe Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and for some  reason They Call the Wind Mariah. You'd have thought Pop might have liked the True Grit theme, but I don't remember him ever listening to it.

I don't know why it entered my mind tonight, except that I seem to have suddenly experienced a sort of mind-emptying existential dread that's scraping out the bottom of my brain, the result of being involuntarily away from home and family for seventy days and suddenly twigging to the reality of the fact at midnight and feeling every inch of the distance, both physical and psychological.

 

Hospice, Not Hotel

 

Into the Archive: Three More Books

 

The Tower and the Ruin: J. R. R. Tolkien's Creation, by Michael D. C. Drout (hardcover, 384 pages, W. W. Norton, Dec. 2 2025)

Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruins of Ymir, by John Crowley (softcover, 464 pages, S&S/Saga Press, July 24 2018)

The Magic Shop, by Maurice Dolbier, Fritz Eichenberg (illustrator), (hardcover, 75 pages, Random House, Jan 1 1946)

These books came in last week, and I'd like to say a few short words about each. Usually I'd have abstracts about  each from Amazon, but circumstances are making that difficult for me right now.

Of course I love a good scholarly take on any aspect of Tolkien, and that's what Drout's volume promises to be. It came just in time for September 22, and any Tolkien fan knows what that means.

I'vebeen dancing around Ka for some time now, and Crowley's recent passing has made me finally drop the hammer. It promises to be a return to magical realism saga secret history, but I'll have to read it before I'm sure.

But what really intrigued me was The Magic Shop. The Eichenberg illustrations have been teasing me for a while, and when I was ordering the other books and saw a copy going for only $50 (it's usually $100) I felt I had to jump on it. And it's a good thing I did. When I looked again, the only copy available was again $100. It's a surprisingly thin volume, rebound in Library binding at some point, with that inexplicable process that replicates the book cover illustration right into the cover. It was a short read, of that peculiar era that romanticized New York City ... for kids. It's a nostalgic hoot.

So there we are, for now.

Not About Medical Matters

I'm hoping my increasing boredom and subsequent activity is a sign of returning health. Having watched multiple seasons of television shows and obsessive viewings of movies both favorite and new, I at least turn my eyes to my new laptop and more creative endeavors.

Ironically that involves first an act of destruction, as I purge my Grok files of a few months of generated pictures. I suddenly realize I have no need of them there as I published most of them here, or have them stored on my old computer at home. On the site they simply make it hard to find anything. So I delete dozens at a time, and as I can't figure out how to delete multiples all at once, I do it one picture at a time. Even so, it wounds part of my packrat soul.

I also have several books on order, including one of yet another analysis of Tolkien and his works, the last (so far) of John Crowley's books, and one rare children's book with illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg. All should be in this week.  I know it's counterintuitive getting more books when I face the task of reducing my library, but there it is.

And that is what's going on with me.

 

Let My Tolkien Go!

        

‘Tis September, and what comes with September but Tolkien books? And what this year but a very special book, one that has been a Holy Grail, if not a Lost Ark, for me for some time? The Old English Exodus, published only once in 1982 with only 3000 copies, and going since then for over $1000 a copy (I’m sure I’ve seen $2000 at least once). Now for the first time it has been reprinted and offered with four other books, the whole going for $115 in a boxed set. It’s a snip, even if I have the four other books already! 

You can see all four other titles in the picture here. And while I’m sure all owners of the first edition of Exodus will continue to have something to preen and gloat over, mere lovers of Tolkien will simply finally be able to appreciate what was heretofore a specialist, almost stealth publication.  

The publisher is William Morrow, the publication date was August 25 of this year. Tolkien’s editor was Joan Terville-Petre. I await my brother’s arrival here at Walnut Springs so I can see what it is and how many pages it has; I have seen some indications that it has a reversible cover that matches the old History of Middle Earth volumes! 

 

 

Continuing Here

Since it's a new month and things have been happening, I thought I'd give a quick update on stuff.

Last week I discovered that James P Blaylock had a collection of essays on life and writing that had been available since February. I had to have it immediately and when it came I read it in two days. It included previous published items and a goodly amount of new material, stuff about writing and (most interestingly) how his life and writings interwoven. I don't have the precise details (cost, publisher, etc.) but learning about his childhood and his writing path and the vanished world he began in brings me ever-closer to him. I've always known from his work that he had "the right instincts", and now I'm even more sure. Also found out he loves Tolkien, which I always suspected but never found on record before!

Also on a less universal note, I went in on Friday for a further operation and had about half of my right foot (including all the toes) removed. Not as traumatic as I would have once thought; perhaps my feet being numb for years had something to do with it. The worst part about it is it puts my physical therapy back a bit. I advise everyone to stay healthy and as far from the need for a hospital stay as possible; the crashing boredom is terrible. If I did not have the kindly and loving visits from my family, I don't know what I'd do.

Also loving that it's September at last. I'm beginning to feel it around the edges!