One hundred and twenty-seventh Roving Ranger

Events & Shows

The Lure of Middle-earth (Si apre in una nuova finestra), “The worlds biggest fan organised convention for Middle-earth CCG and Lord of the Rings LCG”, is happening this weekend in a German medieval castle with Ted Nasmith as GoH.

The Wade Center has the Aubrey Buster 2025 Hansen Lectures (Si apre in una nuova finestra), either online already or still upcoming, on C.S. Lewis.

The carnival at Viareggio (Si apre in una nuova finestra), Italy, had a huge allegorical float titled "The Last Heroes Of Innocence” in which the Witch-king of Angmar was depicted (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Instagram; official website (Si apre in una nuova finestra), see 2nd category floats]

Review of the Hobbit stage version (Si apre in una nuova finestra) at the TOY, Buffalo.

Feel like winning tickets to the LotR musical (Si apre in una nuova finestra)? [West Australian]

The opening of the Tolkien Tapestries exhibition is linked with a conference at the Sorbonne Nouvelle: L'œuvre de JRR Tolkien et l'écologie (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [March 20]

Mareike Huber (Si apre in una nuova finestra) will present ‘Languages on the Move: Tolkien's Invented Languages and Their Use in Adaptations’ (Si apre in una nuova finestra) on March 14 at Corpus Christi College.

The Tolkien Lecture in Oxford has announced its next speaker: Zen Cho (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Scholarship & Fandom

The subreddit r/fantasy does polls of favourite books; this redditor did a different calculation for 2014-2025, having J.R.R. Tolkien rank third (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Miriam Ellis has Marcho, Blanco and Dark Ages Hobbit Hardihood (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The Lilly Library at Indiana University Bloomington (Si apre in una nuova finestra) has a blog post titled Drawing Tolkien: Art Inspired by Tolkien’s Legendarium (Si apre in una nuova finestra) on Tree by Tolkien (Colin Wilson; h/t Tolkien Gleanings (Si apre in una nuova finestra)).

Volume 20, issue 2 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), of the Journal of Tolkien Research has added more items.

‘Reduced to nonsense’: JRR Tolkien’s irritation with typist revealed in archive (Si apre in una nuova finestra)[Guardian; h/t Andrew Wells]

Merchandise & Franchise

Interesting: ‘You Shall Not Pass’: ‘Lord of the Fries’ Trademark Dispute Has a Winner (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Variety Australia; original report with TheAge (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (paywall)]

Any article on the wonderful Jed Brophy gets a listing here: The Only Actor Who Has Appeared In Lord Of The Rings, The Hobbit & The Rings Of Power (Si apre in una nuova finestra)[SlashFilm]

Lord of the Rings Online's 64-bit Server Transfers Temporarily Disabled After Slow Processing and Issues (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [MMORPG]

Ablaze Media will be selling the Kalevala (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and Tolkien (Si apre in una nuova finestra) graphic novels as a bundle called J.R.R. Tolkien Genesis Collected Set this May, 28; preorders available.

The Phantom Warner Bros. 100th Anniversary (by Kakawow) has collectible cards with figures from the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” film trilogies (Si apre in una nuova finestra)(h/t Tolkien Visual Collecting Guide (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

Rick’s Bakery (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in Fayetteville, Arkansas, knows how to sell its workshops: why not do a hobbit house (Si apre in una nuova finestra)?

A petition to reopen Monolith Studios (Si apre in una nuova finestra) had 16 signatures at the time of writing [Change.org]

Full Commentary from Cast and Crew on 'The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim' (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Youtube]

The latest custom keyboard by DROP is Gondor (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Inter alia

Shrek 5 has a teaser (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Typewriters, stinky carpets and crazy press trips: what it was like working on video game mags in the 1980s (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Guardian]

Michael Whelan has 1976: Year in Review (Part One) (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Substack]

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