2011 Roll Call

On Mon, 24 Jan 2011 20:56:32 +0000 (UTC), "O. Sharp"
wrote:

>Would you recommend the works of Tolkien to your friends?: Errr, isn't
>the answer to that question blindingly obvious when you consider the group
>you're asking the question of? "By the way, you hardline Tolkien fanatics:
>d'you think his stuff is worth reading?"

It was a trick question! It was designed to force you to waste
several seconds of your life thinking about it!

{ cackle }

There are some authors whose works I enjoy reading (George R.R. Martin
is one example) but which I would not recommend to friends. Location
can also be an important factor. I have met some people via the
Internet who enjoy the works of Tolkien, but no one in my neighborhood
(or indeed in my state) seems interested. (There are obviously people
who have read Tolkien, but few truly appreciate his works.)

>What other authors do you currently enjoy reading?: I've been reading
>Melville lately and enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would (though
>it took me a chapter or two to get used to his prose style).

I am tackling the classics too on the theory that since our
ancestors were obviously much smarter than we are, I will improve my
own mind through reading their works.

Morgoth's Curse
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On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 20:12:44 +0000 (UTC), Steuard Jensen
wrote:


>I am easy to find online by first name alone, or at my website as
>linked above. I've loved these newsgroups for many years and the
>community here has been important to me, so I hope that we can manage
>to stay at least tenuously connected even if (when?) they atrophy
>away.

I feel certain that someone hates the Tolkien newsgroups as much
as you love them because this is the only newsgroup (to the best of my
knowledge) that is consistently spammed by that True American Patriot
or whatever his current pseudonym may be.

Morgoth's Curse
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"Morgoth's Curse" skrev i meddelelsen


> I feel certain that someone hates the Tolkien newsgroups as much
> as you love them because this is the only newsgroup (to the best of my
> knowledge) that is consistently spammed by that True American Patriot
> or whatever his current pseudonym may be.

The 192 kB bandit? He also spams rec.arts.sf.science a lot. Or it. I
don't know if this is a bot or a person.

Harabanaz.
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On Thu, 28 Apr 2011 02:22:04 +0200, "Raven"
wrote:

>"Morgoth's Curse" skrev i meddelelsen
>
>
>> I feel certain that someone hates the Tolkien newsgroups as much
>> as you love them because this is the only newsgroup (to the best of my
>> knowledge) that is consistently spammed by that True American Patriot
>> or whatever his current pseudonym may be.
>
> The 192 kB bandit? He also spams rec.arts.sf.science a lot. Or it. I
>don't know if this is a bot or a person.

It's almost certainly a bot since the message size never seems to
vary. I tried to killfile him, but the alias and e-mail address keep
changing, so it is easier to just delete the header before downloading
any messages.

Morgoth's Curse
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Name/Alias(es): Neville "Osric" Percy
Gender: M
Age: 42
Nationality: British
Posting since:
Very intermittent, but first seen in the early 90s, IIRC
Heroes:
What are your hobbies and/or interests?:
Roleplaying gaming and a wide surround
What do you dislike?:
Relevant here? Slash fanfic, on principle (not having read more
than a paragraph of it, and that by mistake).
Unfunny parody material.
Google groups as a usenet client.
How did you discover the works of J.R.R. Tolkien?:
Mum had a copy of The Hobbit; vaguely aware of LotR, but most
directly pointed to it by the bibliography of the AD&D Dungeon
Master's Guide at age 14-16.
Which of J.R.R. Tolkien's books have you read and which is your
favorite?:
Read all of them bar Roverandom and The Road Goes Ever On.
LotR is the favourite.
Which is your favorite character from "The Hobbit"?
Soft spot for Balin.
.... "The Lord of the Rings"?
Gandalf
.... "The Silmarillion"?:
Finrod Felagund.
Where would you live if you could dwell anywhere in Middle-earth?:
Rivendell
Which lord would you serve if you lived in Middle-earth? (You can
choose any of the lords from any of the first three ages.):
Elrond Halfelven
Have you ever tried to learn to speak or write any of the languages
that Tolkien invented?:
I've worked the dictionaries to make up names, place-names and
snippets of phrases, but no more than that.
Has Tolkien inspired you to write any stories of your own?:
Not as fiction in its own right. But roleplaying game adventures
set in Middle-earth are not a very different thing. And when you
write up your adventures using the most fitting language you can,
those accounts come close. (Though they are poor if judged as fiction
per se.)
Has Tolkien had any impact on the moral choices of your life? (In
other words, did you recall specific quotes from his works when you
were trying to figure out what was the right thing to do?):
Specific quotes don't figure, particularly. But I've spent more
actual hours / mental effort figuring out the objectively-true
morality of Middle-earth than I have on the morality of the real
world. But the tone, and whatever specific conclusions I reached then
reflect back into my subjective real-life morality.
Would you recommend the works of Tolkien to your friends?:
Unquestionably.
Do you have a favorite Tolkien-related website?:
So many over the years. Rolozo Tolkien is the most enduring.
What is your favorite Tolkien-related reference book?:
Morgoth's Ring is worth its weight in gold.
What other authors has Tolkien inspired you to read?:
I have read and still do read a slew of fantasy, but not directly
as inspired by Tolkien. I've read CSL's That Hideous Strength and
Charles Williams, looking for insight into the shared imaginarium of
the Inklings, but been unimpressed.
What other authors do you currently enjoy reading?:
Recently: Joe Abercrombie, Steven Erikson, George RR Martin,
Bernard Cornwell's 'Uhtred' stories, Michael Moorcock, Rogert Zelazny,
Neal Asher, Jim Butcher, Justine Robson
Did you enjoy any of the movies about Middle-earth?:
I loved 'em lots, without being blind to the <ahem> concessions
they made to the medium of film and the tastes of the cinema-going
consumer. The film rendition of Theoden's speech gave me gooseflesh
more poignantly than the written original, despite the beauty of the
language on the page.
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"O. Sharp" skrev i meddelandet

[snip]

> Some chapters - and I won't try at all to specify which; perhps it's an
exercise for the individual reader - were far and away more abomination-y
than others, and a few were brilliant shining things which still amaze me
now with how well-crafted and funny they are (and not just my chapters,
even! <g>). But taken as a whole, and compared to the original? Oh, I
agree, 100% and completely: The E-Text is an abomination. But it must be
added that, in a few places, it's a pretty _good_ abomination.

In my opinion, it was a certain Madame Pr*mb*n* who irrevocably wrecked the
project.

Öjevind
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On May 31, 3:30 am, Öjevind Lång wrote:
> "O. Sharp"  skrev i meddelandetnews:iihho3$5ap$1@reader1.panix.com...
>
> [snip]
>
> > Some chapters - and I won't try at all to specify which; perhps it's an
>
> exercise for the individual reader - were far and away more abomination-y
> than others, and a few were brilliant shining things which still amaze me
> now with how well-crafted and funny they are (and not just my chapters,
> even! <g>). But taken as a whole, and compared to the original? Oh, I
> agree, 100% and completely: The E-Text is an abomination. But it must be
> added that, in a few places, it's a pretty _good_ abomination.  
>
> In my opinion, it was a certain Madame Pr*mb*n* who irrevocably wrecked the
> project.
>
> Öjevind

Did you not turn it into a mockery with your armies of cartoon mice?

Really.
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"Pseudonymus al-Faqha'ter III" skrev i
meddelelsen


> On May 31, 3:30 am, Öjevind Lång wrote:

> > "O. Sharp" skrev i meddelandetnews:iihho3$5ap$1@reader1.panix.com...

>> > Some chapters - and I won't try at all to specify which; perhps it's an
>> > exercise for the individual reader - were far and away more
>> > abomination-y
>> > than others, and a few were brilliant shining things which still amaze
>> > me
>> > now with how well-crafted and funny they are (and not just my chapters,
>> > even! <g>). But taken as a whole, and compared to the original? Oh, I
>> > agree, 100% and completely: The E-Text is an abomination. But it must
>> > be
>> > added that, in a few places, it's a pretty _good_ abomination.

>> In my opinion, it was a certain Madame Pr*mb*n* who irrevocably wrecked
>> the
>> project.

> Did you not turn it into a mockery with your armies of cartoon mice?

Are you referring to Steuards's chapter with the Reeps? But it was *I*
who turned the e-text into a mockery by killing Frodo, starting a trend.
*I* did! Ha!

Cuervo.
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"Pseudonymus al-Faqha'ter III" skrev i meddelandet


>On May 31, 3:30 am, Öjevind Lång wrote:
>> "O. Sharp" skrev i meddelandetnews:iihho3$5ap$1@reader1.panix.com...
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> > Some chapters - and I won't try at all to specify which; perhps it's an
>
>>>exercise for the individual reader - were far and away more abomination-y
>>> than others, and a few were brilliant shining things which still amaze
>>> me
>>> now with how well-crafted and funny they are (and not just my chapters,
>>> even! <g>). But taken as a whole, and compared to the original? Oh, I
>>> agree, 100% and completely: The E-Text is an abomination. But it must be
>>>> added that, in a few places, it's a pretty _good_ abomination.
>>
>> In my opinion, it was a certain Madame Pr*mb*n* who irrevocably wrecked
>> the
>> project.
>>
>> Öjevind
>
> Did you not turn it into a mockery with your armies of cartoon mice?
>
> Really.

Ah, yes. Well do I remember that prophecy:

"Towards the amusement parks
Mice are advancing."

Deeply moving, in my opinion.

Öjevind
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[I'm missing the parent, so two belated replies in one!]

In message , Öjevind Lång
wrote:
> "O. Sharp" skrev i meddelandet
>> Some chapters - and I won't try at all to specify which; perhps
>> it's an exercise for the individual reader - were far and away more
>> abomination-y than others, and a few were brilliant shining things
>> which still amaze me now with how well-crafted and funny they are

Me too. I was intrigued at the time, though, by how widely peoples'
tastes varied! For every chapter that I thought was fantastic, someone
else thought it was dull, and vice versa. That in itself led to a lot
of the madness of the project, both for better and worse. I'm still
rather proud of the whole thing, despite its flaws.

And despite its many brilliant bits, the one quote from the Etext that
still comes to my mind most often by far is Bill Hsu's fruit and bait
stand, "Pedro's Mellons and Minnows" ("advertised from here to the
Eregion gate of Moira"!).

> In my opinion, it was a certain Madame Pr*mb*n* who irrevocably
> wrecked the project.

What, all the way back in Chapter 8? Or all the way at the tail end?
Her chapters were quite popular with one contingent and less with
others, was my impression. (To take a rough stab at a broad Etext-fan
classification, I'd say there was a "subtle parody" faction, a "crazy
chaos" faction, and of course a "tilde" faction. I think that all
three had reasonably substantial numbers, and the things they aimed
for in their contributions were wildly different and often mutually
incompatible.) I agree that her final chapter didn't respect the
previous chapters as much as it probably should have, but fortunately
David and Menelvagor stepped up and offered a respectable replacement.

But that's all water under the bridge for me now. I look back at the
whole thing from time to time and boggle at the fact that we finished
it at all. (Mind you, I haven't *read* the whole thing in years.
Writing chapters toward the end became an immense burden for a
consistency freak like me!)

Steuard Jensen


P.S. Turns out, I've got a baby due in two weeks. It's thrilling and
terrifying in roughly equal measure.
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Steuard Jensen wrote:

> P.S. Turns out, I've got a baby due in two weeks. It's thrilling and
> terrifying in roughly equal measure.

Congratulations!
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"Steuard Jensen" skrev i meddelandet


[snip]

> P.S. Turns out, I've got a baby due in two weeks. It's thrilling and
terrifying in roughly equal measure.

Congratulations!

Öjevind
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Steuard Jensen wrote:

> P.S. Turns out, I've got a baby due in two weeks. It's thrilling and
> terrifying in roughly equal measure.

Turns out, now? Congratulations!

T.
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