"I see the Star above my mast!"

[eldritchhobbit]

New semester preparations are holding me hostage, but I have escaped long enough for a few quick notes:


* I am deeply saddened at the untimely passing of Humphrey Carpenter, the great biographer of J.R.R. Tolkien and the editor of Tolkien's letters. I owe Mr. Carpenter a personal debt for the many ways in which he made Middle-Earth more real and known to me.

* The wonderful Tim O'Shea from Pop Thought has just published a thoughtful interview with editor Janet B. Croft about the Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings anthology from The Mythopoeic Press. (I have previously mentioned the book in detail here.)

* Thanks to sneezythesquid and USA Today I have a glimmer of hope about Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith:

Star Wars alums Neeson and Jackson both offered hints that George Lucas has shot a top-secret cameo of Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn's ghost, à la Alec Guinness, for May's Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. "I can't speak about it," Neeson joked. "Jedi code of ethics."

Say it's so, George. Say it's so.

* 24 still has it. Enough said.


And now, in memory of Humphrey Carpenter, a quote:

"...Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
the wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
beneath the ever-bending sky,
but islands lie behind the Sun
that I shall raise ere all is done;
lands there are to west of West,
where night is quiet and sleep is rest.

Guided by the Lonely Star,
beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I'll find the heavens fair and free,
and beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
and fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the Star above my mast!"

from "Bilbo's Last Song," J.R.R. Tolkien