Vermont Softworks:

I don’t, as a rule, discuss personal or family matters here; that’s the role for my personal blog. Nevertheless, I feel I should mention that I’m more-or-less ​“back” from an unexpected journey health-wise. Details — no doubt too many for some readers, and never enough for others — are at a specialized set of pages at PostHope​.com. No more need be said here.

To celebrate, …

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Paper given at the 15^th annual Tolkien in Vermont conference at UVM:

Mapping Mordor: Normalizing Tolkien’s maps as the first step in examining his worldbuilding method of construction-by-revision; or, Yet further confirmation (as if we needed it) that Tolkien had no master plan, did not ​“first make a map and make the narrative agree,” and, in fact, never did produce a map that exactly portrays what’s described in The Lord of the Rings

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Though it may seem a slight departure from the usual theme here at Vermont Softworks, I’d like to take a moment to remember Donald Swann, for today is his birthday. Some readers will recognize him as the composer and tenor of the English comedic duo Flanders and Swann. Their best-known songs are probably ​“I’m a g‑nu,” ​“The hippopotamus song,” and ​“Madeira M’Dear?” — though I have to say my favorites may be ​“The reluctant cannibal” and ​“Misalliance.” In fact, Swann was a serious and prolific composer, producing not only nearly 2,000 songs, but choral works, musicals, operas, and instrumental works as well. One particularly near and dear to my heart…

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The Tolkien Art Index is live! 463 pieces of art by J.R.R. Tolkien are listed — essentially, everything that has been published that is even tangentially related to Middle-earth. At this point, there are titles, descriptions, notes, tags, dates, cross-references — essentially everything except thumbnail versions of the images themselves. These are ready to add, but I must first secure permission to post them, and I have only just now initiated that process — so we’ll need to be patient!…

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The ultimate goal of this index is to list all of the published artwork of J.R.R. Tolkien: drawings, paintings, maps, sketches, doodles — everything, in fact, that might be construed as art other than items consisting purely of Tengwar or Cirth writing. For these, see the excellent Mellonath Daeron Index of Tengwa Specimina (DTS) and Index of Certh Specimina (DCS), respectively. Such an index should ease scholarly discourse and provide an unambiguous shorthand for referring to Tolkien’s artwork.…

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