The Hall of Fire

I can see why Tolkien, hard at work with his professorial duties, writing when he had a free moment, and raising a family, would find the upper class hobbits' life of leisure to be attractive. Bilbo, Frodo, Merry and Pippin are landed gentry, who do not appear to spend any time actually working for ...

I'm following an artist, Donato, who often posts paintings from private collections that I otherwise wouldn't be able to see, and often posts LOTR related pics. I posted the portrait of Tolkien in the birthday thread, since Donato published it on that day. Here's one he posted today. I've screen cap...

Artist Donato posted this today on Bluesky:

Happy Birthday to J.R.R. Tolkien.
Thank you for bring such inspiration to readers and creatives around the world!
"J.R.R. Tolkien"
42" x 33"- 106cm x 83cm oil on panel, 2012
private collection

Hobbits involved?

Go for it!

They are pretty rare to see in Muir Woods, or other forests around here. Maybe one or two sightings during a 4 hour hike.

More pics:

I was in Muir Woods on Dec 21st and 25th. Here are some photos of typical weirdness from the forest: Convergent ladybugs, Witch's Butter, Banana slug, Coho Salmon, and Redwood fasciation.

Was "smell" a translation of "sniffing" or whatever it was the Black Riders were doing?

Ish, as in Gollum's folk?

Are the relatives elves?

Yes, a raven. A relatively small one, though.

My new co-pilot.

I've reported on the 40 books I enjoyed the most so far this year, but there were many more. In 2024, so far, I've actually finished 132 books at least once, and sampled but discarded about 40 more. I can stop any time. Really.

I've heard good and bad about Karla's Choice , but haven't read it myself. I think I will have to read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy first. All three are on my increasingly improbable "to read soon" list. I have read Harkaway's Titanium Noir and Angelmaker...

I found this on Blue Sky, posted by one of my favorite artists. It's "Húrin and Huor approaching Gondolin", by Donato. In case you can't get into Blue Sky, I've copied the painting, with and without the artist sitting in front of it for size. https://bsky.app/profile/donatoarts.bsky.social...

I promise to report on the 100 or so books I've read since my last report... soon.

Meanwhile, here's a nice article on Martha Wells, author of the Murderbot series and The Witch King, and other books: https://www.wired.com/story/murderbot-s ... tha-wells/

California is fabulous. The Bay Area is especially fabulous. I say this as someone born and raised here, then away from it for 30 years, now back for almost 20 years and still madly in love. Unfortunately, the word has gotten out. The population of our fair state has gone from 14M to 39M in my lifet...

In the vicinity of Isengard?

To be fair, this could be said of just about anywhere on Middle Earth, or modern Earth.