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!

It's a Hot One

 As one might expect, it's been very hot here in Texas in August. The heat drives all kinds of critters inside in search of water, relief and prey. They killed a little scorpion in Physical Therapy yesterday. this hunting spider (a bit more than a quarter in size) haunted our halls for two nights running before disappearing under my hospital bed. It had the honor of being the first picture taken with my new phone. Fairly harmless, of course; you don't mess with it and it doesn't mess with you.

My recovery proceeds apace. I'm learning methods of transfer (bed to chair, bed to 'pottty chair, etc.) and the exposed bone in my foot is almost completely covered. Everyone is cautious about putting a projected date on my complete recovery of course. But that's what's up with me.

Purgatory?

 

I was laying in my hospital bed today (and despite what anyone says, sitting on your ass all day is not a pleasant experience) when it struck me as how similar the experience must be to Purgatory. Not the old medieval concept of compensatory torture, but as remedial and corrective therapy to bring one to a healthy status.

The nurses are like firm but helpful ministers, the regimins and routines designed to bring you back to 'factory specs,' as it were. The food is adequately good but not so great as to tempt you to gluttony or concupiscence (I've often wondered if I could request salt and pepper shelters and a bottle of ketchup - which has more sugar than you'd expect). 

It is in fact a kind of torture but obviously beneficial in the long run, like training a dog to the leash. The ultimate goal is to remove the leash,free the dog from choking, and leave it obedient to good habits.

It seems almost ungrateful to compare it with torture. But the suffering is there; it is contingent on the consequences of my own actions with perhaps a dash of bad luck. It is the duty (cheerfully fulfilled) of the nurses (angel/agents of the Purgatory simile) to help me get through it.

Well, I'm Back

I did not accomplish my goal of 3000 posts by my 63rd birthday; instead I found myself in the hospital fighting an infected right foot. For a while it seemed I might lose the leg, right up to the knee. But thanks to the efforts of my doctor it was confined to a wound and the loss of a little toe. Right now I am undergoing recovery and rehabilitation at a place called AVIR at Warm Springs, a place at which, coincidentally, my grandmother on my father's side spent the last years of her life.

I have a brand-new laptop computer, of a basic but totally adequate nature, which my brother John went through some pains to help me obtain. My niece Morgandy ("who has the Knowin's of the Doin's") helped set it up. This old dog is struggling to learn new tricks and get back on track, especially with my scripts for The Wizard, the Prince, the Warrior, and His Son. This is my first effort at a post in over half a month; let's hope they get better as I get better,

Grackles: Another Early College Poem

GRACKLES

 

Emptied by summer, the parking lot

Shimmered like silver, scoured by rain,

Flared to gray fire under the early sun.

I saw grackles wading in disdain

 

Of the wet ground, pecking the grass

That grew in a fringe. The fronds

Waved above water in the morning wind,

Speckling with dew the rain-fed ponds.

 

Drawn by the nightly rain, snails crawled,

Salting the dark pavement with ghostly white.

The grackles watched sideways with fly-green eyes,

Then snapped at their shells with delight.

 

I left the grackles sporting there,

Playing, the free lords of the day.

I sighed, bent down, took up my books,

And, slavelike, heavy, went my way.

Notes

Why grackles? I think mainly because I liked saying 'grackle.' It seems I had only recently discovered the technical name of these 'black birds,' and their ubiquity and commonness put them on a par with sparrows as symbols of the everyday struggle to survive. I was waiting for a shuttlebus at the college parking lot, a rather dreary and interminable process.

AI Embellishments of Old Illustrations