Happy New Year's Weekend! We saw about a dozen Whitetail Deer on their customary turf below the painted "F" on the hillside above our neighborhood. There was a short thaw which might have exposed some fodder for them. Right now it's close to -20 C (+5 F) and the air is murky. Frost coats the branches of trees and the peanuts on our back deck, but doesn't slow down the Flickers, Magpies, and Woodpeckers. One of the Bald Eagles caught a fish in the aereation pond, and devoured it on the ice.

Footbarn's Celebration of Theatre: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
NEW! Spitfires of the Spaceways
Watch Dale Arden rescue Flash Gordon for a change!

Charity Alert: Make a resolution as the days get longer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Look for updates on the Hockaday Museum of Art's Website this week.

Media Watch: I happened to tune in to a live broadcast of James Brown's funeral in Augusta, Georgia around noon on Saturday. I still think it's miraculous that we are able to share events like this via electronic communications. His manager related one personal story of how Brown wrote Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud) from the podium. Mr. Brown's last wish was for people to try to love one another and do their best to raise themselves up. Al Sharpton relayed his words to Jesse Jackson and Michael Jackson -- convincing the latter to interrupt his exile in Dubai to attend the service. I can put aside my issues with certain celebrities to accept Brown's wish as my own for the New Year. I also checked out BET's Soul Brother No. 1 -- James Brown special for another look at his career. They played P-Funk music, quoted Bootsy Collins, and spent time with other musical successors too -- as well they should!

I read The Lord of the Rings every year around this time. J.R.R. Tolkien's fantastical spell still works for me as I willing suspend my disbelief for the experience of visiting Middle Earth. The magic begins in Tolkien's very personal forward to the 1966 edition -- names and scenarios from the author's long tale tantalizingly appear as he sketches out the chronology of how he wrote it. I think he was addressing those who had read the hardbound edition published ten years before, but those vivid glimpses also piqued his new readers' curiosity. The forward especially illuminates the character of the storyteller -- introduced in the third person by Prof. Tolkien, as well as a couple of personal insights into the gentleman himself as he laments lapses of copyright law and briefly addresses his critics and fans.
His storyteller persona unifies the entire sprawling narrative. The character of this storyteller is most perceivable in the Prologue and Book One, but gradually blends into the evolving tapestry of the novel, and is always there. The same storyteller guided his readers through The Hobbit as well, but was more prominent in the earlier novel. Tolkien's voice, derived from his real-life roles as father, friend, drinking buddy, and scholarly colleague is at the core of the story's appeal. Contrary to conventional cynicism, I believe that his avuncular personality was also a major factor in marketing the authorized version of Lord of the Rings to a public who were free to choose other publishers, but who made a phenomenal international success of the Ballantine paperbacks.
Tolkien, as author and public figure, astoundingly declared in his 1966 forward to the Ballantine edition: The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, major and minor, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review the book or write it again, he will pass over these in silence ...
I have had a lot of fun with this line over the years, and actually enjoy spotting fancied defects here and there. The overall momentum of the story survives them all. The quotation above actually finishes with this comment: ...except one that has been noted by others: the book is too short. I choose to think he was pulling our collective leg, but only his surviving family knows for sure if that's the way he felt.
Some of the Lord of the Rings' most dramatic creations are the Ringwraiths, or Black Riders. They intrude on Frodo's idyllic walk through the Shire as his long adventure begins, and the Ringbearer spends much of the first book running away from them. These dark pursuers are compelling in their mysterious menace. There are limits on their power, though, otherwise our naive little heroes would have NO chance against them. Exactly what comprises their strengths and weaknesses are only hinted at by the storyteller. This long pursuit is my favorite part of the novel because of the way it introduces the landscapes and powers resident in Tolkien's world to the reader. It was MY introduction to Middle Earth, and the visual images I conjured in my mind's eye during that very first reading during those long winter nights of forty years ago have never been supplanted.
Later on, the Ringwraiths take to the air, becoming much more aggressive and almost too powerful to credibly challenge or defeat. In the wonderful appendix Tale of the Years, these Nazgul were even mightier, but never as terrifying or charismatic as at the beginning.

...like a simple-minded hobbit I feel that it is, while I am still alive, my property in justice unaffected by copyright laws. It seems to me a grave discourtesy, to say no more, to issue my book without even a polite note informing me of the project; dealings one might expect of Saruman in his decay rather than defenders of the West. -- J.R.R. Tolkien

Here are Jack Gaughan's covers for the (in)famous Ace reprints of Lord of the Rings. The opportunistic cut-rate American Science-Fiction publisher previously struck gold with unauthorized Edgar Rice Burroughs reprints a few years earlier. They took advantage of a technicality to put out this softcover version of Tolkien's best-seller about a decade after it's hardback release.
I saw these first on local retail shelves as a teenager, and put the book on my "future reading" list. Rival Ballantine Books negotiated an authorized edition with still-living J.R.R. Tolkien, as they had previously done with the late Burroughs' remaining family. The author's personal appeal was printed on the cover, and convinced me to buy it on sight. The media controversy itself helped introduce this remarkable work to an international audience, who embraced Tolkien, and his preferred publishers, in astoundingly unforseen numbers.
Tolkien's success prompted a huge income tax bill a few years later, which the professor settled by selling the movie rights to his unfilmable story. Even though both animated and mixed live-action flicks have been made, they do little justice to the original. HOWEVER -- millions more people buy and read Tolkien's books as a result.