Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th

Subject: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Mbo
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 08:30 AM

I had a birthday on Saturday, and I turned 21. One's 21st birthday means coming of age, and being officially considered an adult. So, I got to thinking about time and my future life as an adult, and a great poem by J.R.R. Tolkien came to mind. Here it is--enjoy.

I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen,

Of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were,

With morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be

When winter comes without a spring that I shall never see.

For still there are so many things that I have never seen:

In every wood in every spring there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago,

And people who will see a world that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think of times there were before,

I listen for returning feet and voices at the door.

By J.R.R. Tolkien (from The Fellowship of The Ring)

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 08:45 AM

Go see your b-day thread! **BG** That is a beautiful poem! Thank you for posting it! WOW! 21? Wonderful. May you have a grand year and many more.

luvyaKat

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Áine
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 09:00 AM

A Happy, Merry, and Wondrous Birthday to You! Geez Mbo, you sent me into a serious timewarp with that poem -- back to when I was your age and reading Tolkien for the first time. Thank you for reminding me. Anyway, happy, happy, joy, joy!!

-- Áine

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Mbo
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 09:07 AM

Thanks for the wishes, friends! And look forward to seeing more Tolkien quotes in the future! He is my favorite author and have read almost everything he wrote. The "History of Middle-Earth" series gave me lots of insight into THE MAN's life and thoughts, and consider myself a Tolkien scholar. I can hold my own with the best of them! Ha ha!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 09:26 AM

Love Tolkein. Good taste there Mbo.
Your future is just like an 'etch a sketch',
Or a chalk board.
Wipe it clean every morning. That way you have a better chance to experience a brand new day full of magic and wonder.

Banjo Bonnie

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 09:55 AM

Happy Birthday!

I love the poem. My college roommate set many of the Tolkien poems to music, and I remember that one in particular. Every Spring I notice a wildflower I never noticed before, and I always think..."in every wood in every Spring there is a different green."

Many more happy Springs to you!

Mary

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Easy Rider
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 10:00 AM

How do you reboot an Etch-a-sketch, after it crashes?

Pick it up and shake it.

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Áine
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 10:03 AM

Dear Mbo,

Now that you are an 'official' member of the A(dult) crowd, remember to follow your instincts, and when you run into someone/thing you just don't feel 'right' about, I want you to think 'What's it got in its pocketses?' OK?

-- Áine

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Mbo
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 10:15 AM

Can do, Aine. I always think Gollum-eque things about people like "What's it got in it's handses?" "Where are you going in the cold, hard lands?" "We can't know till we catch it and squeeeeze it's head!" and "Is it nice, my precious? Is it juicy? Is it SCRUMPTIOUSLY CRUNCHABLE?"

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 11:49 AM

I wonder if I am the only person who was disappointed by the Lord of the Rings. I loved The Hobbit, and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, but I felt the last volume didn't really live up to the first two. It may be that, in spite of the grave dangers and woundings the characters went through, they kept moving forward, which is essentially an optimistic direction. It may be that the forward motion of the journey narrative betrays the apocalypse narrative. It does not ever feel as if the forces of good are pushed back to the final standing ground, and that darkness has engulfed everything, even though the novel says that repeatedly. Rather, the main characters are always moving forward. I would have liked the last book to have been physically at the end of the world. Personal taste, perhaps.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Tony Burns
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 12:08 PM

Happy birthday Mbo. Paddy Hernon set that poem to music and included it on his "By Request" CD. The CD is available from him via his web site http://www.tallship.bc.ca/. Follow the Paddy Hernon link.

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Caitrin
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 01:35 PM

Tolkien is great stuff! I love every bit of it (even the literary criticism). If you liked it and have a sense of humor about it, you ought to check out Bored of the Rings. Very amusing.

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Caitrin
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 01:36 PM

Correction...not all of it. I couldn't manage to get through The Simarillion. There are lengths to which I will not go, even for ol' J.R.R.

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Benjamin
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 01:55 PM

Happy Birthday!

I remember reading the series around 5 grade! (I started them in about 4th). As a kid, I was into Tolkien, CS Lewis, and Susan Cooper.

I will leave you with a line a friend gave me on my birthday a few years back.

"Life is like a bicycle, you only fall off if you stop peddaling!"

I don't know why she told me this of all things, but think about it!

BMW

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: InOBU
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 02:04 PM

Happy Birthday: A dear old freind of mine, Arther Kenoy, was the last lawyer for the Rosenburgs, and after a judge turned down his final appeal for their lives, telling Arthur, he was right, that the law clearly stated that they could not be exicuted during peacetime for espionage, that political conciderations made it impossible to rule in their favor, and that Arthur, as a young lawyer would understand when he was as old as the judge was. Arthur, who is now decades older in years, never got that old in cynicism. If being an adult is learning to conform to this evil cold world of hardend cold hearts, please remain a child like the rest of us old red folkies, who as our hair gets thin and grey, never get as old as some. Many happy returns of the day, and take it easy, save some liver for your old age. All the best Larry Otway

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Mbo
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 03:05 PM

Well, looks like I'm Tolkien's defense lawyer now. Caitrin, I too tried to read "The Silmarillion" when I was 17, and thought it confusing and boring after loving "The Lord of the Rings." I read it 2 years ago and couldn't believe what I had found wrong with it the first time ."The History of Middle-Earth" is a 13 volume set edited by his son Christopher, which shows how Tolkien's vision began, evolved, and became what we know today. I have read 11 of those 13 volumes, and if you all had the love and devotion I have for Tolkien to read them, you would understand why he wrote his books as he did. I've have seen this evolution over the course of his life, and think that "The Silmarillion" is his greatest work. I've read and understood each concept, theory, character, place in revision after revision and am totally in tune with his thinking. It really is a beautiful thing that he created for us. I don't think of Tolkien as a "fantasy writer" with all the stigmas that come with it. He is even more than just an author. His artwork has highly influenced me, and his ideas are like a philosophy to me. Therefor, I, and anyone else who joins Tolkien on this magical tour through the history of his work will say that ending the world at the end of the book would have ruined his vision. Middle-Earth is OUR world, in an imaginary time, as Tolkien states himself, around 9000 B.C.. Ending it would have meant ending our world, and that was not what he wanted. And Peter, the armies of good were pushed to the brink. If Sauron got the Ring, the last hope of the world, his armies would have destroyed Aragorn, the last hope of humankind. It would have meant absolutely not hope at all forever. As for literary analysis, I often find it quite stupid. "Frodo as a Jesus figure" or "Aragorn in the Beowulf archetype." Come on, people! Tolkien tells you in the foreword to the Fellowship that his book IS NOT AN ALLEGORY!!!!!!!!!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: paddymac
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 03:07 PM

Congratulations on another milemarker. As at least implied above, chronology is but one marker of progress. My view from your postings is that you are substantially more mature than I recall being at that same time in life. The best advice is Larry's: "Save some liver for your old age." I nominate it for instant "wisdom of the ages" status.

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 03:51 PM

...and back to the bicycle:

When my son suffered his first heartbreak (he was the dumpee instead of the dumper), I sent him a card that said:

As my Grandma used to say, sometimes in life you fall off your bike, but just remember...(open the card) YOU HAVE TO PEDAL THE D*** THING!

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: InOBU
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 04:00 PM

Thanks for the endorcement Paddymac: Unfortunately it was not wisdom, but experience, but, as I sip my tea, while others the wiskey I wish I were having, I remember, I had my share, it is now anothers turn. I come from a singing family, and for almost a year after my last wiskey, I thought I could never sing again, I would blank on words, that would never happen before the keg went dry. However, one day, I picked up and empty glass and ... well it was the lack weight in my hand that was missing. The words came back, and the lesson is, save it for a rainy day. But when you are young and you can get away with it, you do, My father, in the last weeks of his life, said, what Ive heard from many others, if I knew Id live so long, I would have taken better care of myself. MODERATION (but try everything within reason!) Larry

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 05:07 PM

Dear Mbo, Second rule of literary criticism is: "Don't believe everything an author tells you" (first rule: "Beleive everything an author tells you"). It is only not an allegory in the strict Dantean sense: a one to one matching of narrative to alternative meaning structure.
As I said, and did indicate that it was a matter perhaps of taste, the last book might be better if it was physically at the end of the world, by which I meant physically back in the pseudo-England of the shires -- a bit like England in 1940 -- in the last ditch. I suspect Tolkien was afraid that the allegory with Dunkirk would be too obvious, and switched it around. Because of the dynamic of the narrative -- the good guys move into the territory of the bad, their last ditch is forward ground -- it never feels to me as if the armies of good are on the brink physically. I appreciate you think this is heresy, and am always willing to be corrected by an immersed fan.
More heretical: I think the Lord of the Rings is fun, but not very influential as literary work -- because the linguistic form of the material is not as powerful as Tolkien's superstructure. He did not create a new epic language to match his epic, as say Milton or Spenser did, in spite of all his scholarly nestbuilding. He tried, and should be congratulated on the effort, but almost nobody in this century has figured out how to write a modern epic in new cast epical language that will work: Joyce and Pound maybe.

I think what people will read in 2100 will be The Hobbit, as a minor children's classic, and of course his original scholarly work on the Old English and Middle English classics. Not a bad legacy.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: stupidbodhranplayerwnodoesn'tknowanybetter
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 05:32 PM

Happy belated Birthday Mbo! Remember though, that you're still a kid until you reach the age of eleventy-one Slan go foil' Rich

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 08:09 PM

Michel Delving really exists, I've driven through it....

Tolkein based the lands of the Shire on land that he knew, and the names are similar and still exist today. There is nothing new under the sun, but there are people who have never seen it before.... Enjoy being 21, you'll never be it again....

LTS

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Mbo
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 08:30 PM

Thank you, everyone, for your well wishes! I'm so happy! Peter, I'm sorry if I took offense, but sometimes I feel like I'm the last person in the world who understands Tolkien as a whole, not only writings, but everything associated with him. Well! I hope tomorrow's instalment stirs up as much interest! Cheers!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 08:36 PM

Geeziz...Not to be the lone dissenter here, but....That's a very nice piece Meebo and I find Tolkein more interesting now than ever before, possibly because of writings like this which depress the living shit out of me. Thankfully, I'm going to pull a joke on someone around midnight and that cheers me up considerably!

Keep up the good work....and now to zip to your B'Day thread.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 08:52 PM

Twenty one? Hobbits aren't counted as adult till they are 33. I don't think humans should be either. Or possibly till they're eleventy one, as the fella with the drum said up the threads a bit.

I don't feel near as grown up as I did when I was 21 anyway. As Bob Dylan once more or less wrote. You know, that fella who was a big singer many years before you were born Mbo m'boy. "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

Subject: RE: Mbo's Quote O' The Day--Dec 6th
From: Mbo
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 09:00 PM

Don't worry, McGrath, I know who Dylan is! My favorite Dylan song is "Don't Think Twice." I also loved him in the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys, which included Tom Petty, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne (my personal music idol & all-around cool dude.) Anyone know about the Wilburys? Am I not alone in being the only one rattled and headed for the light? Oh yeah...Bob's vocal on the superb "Congratulations" is awesome! Thanks, again!

--Mbo