Or The GPS Of Life…
Ever wonder just WHY you do what you do or why you are just where you are? (Myself, rarely, or at least never more than a half a dozen times a day.)
I managed to pass, thank you very much, on the what-will-I-do-when-I-grow-up angst when I was growing up (reserving my angst for other essential issues like pimples, girls and chin-ups), largely through lack of imagination on my part and absence of peer or parental pressure. I have managed not to strew too many milestones in my wake; the kind that bear witness to abrupt changes in course are not the variety that I tend to leave. The path trodden, albeit wayward and pedestrian, is relatively straight.
But going where?
That’s another question that I never ask.
How are you supposed to know the answer to a question like that?
It’s like getting in the car and driving somewhere in a hurry. Except for accidents, traffic jams or detours, you don’t spend much time looking at the landscape. And I’m particularly partial to landscapes.
They’re full of horizons other than the one you’re aiming for. They contain people, for whom you are a fleeting speck of motion on their own horizons. And all those cars going the other way… in a hurry too, I suppose, just a few miles over the speed limit, intent on gaining a minute or two.
Is that any way to go through life?
Knowing where you are all the time, how close to your goal you’re getting?
I’d rather be lost. Somewhere along the way.
Perhaps that’s why I’m so fond of maps… speaking of which…
MAPS OF MIDDLE-EARTH:
I do love maps. Thus, you can surely imagine my squeals of delight (well, manly, barytone and definitely masculine squeals) when I received a huge box of the new edition of The Maps of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, all reprinted and repackaged by HarperCollinsPublishers.
They come in a sturdy slip-case, with a hole die-cut in the door of Bag End, so you can see the Shire on the back cover of one of the books inside. (You can also, depending on how you feel, put both books in differently, and choose to see Rivendell just a step outside Bilbo’s front door. Or, if you are fond of surrealism there’s also Gondolin and Cape Forostar to choose from.
Given the bigger format, the maps have fewer folds, and no pesky booklet stuck in one corner. (The pesky booklets have been united in one lovely hardback, entirely separate from the maps themselves.)
My only gripe, the maps still have folds, but what the heck, and my o-o-old pencil sketches that I did a-a-ages ago for the first maps look pretty… well… old. The paper is a bit on the thin side, but Brian’s texts are, as always, brilliant.
Last but not least, there is a 4th map, of Numenor this time, which you can’t get except in the boxed set.
My advice: BUY IT! (Brian and I get royalties…)
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Above left: While not a big fan of book shots, just had to include this snapshot to show the whole thing.
Above centre: Cover of the map “book”. It is actually exactly the cover of a hardback with no pages – the maps slip inside.
Above right: Brian’s commetary
Below left: Slip case front
Below right:Slip case back
SHAMELESSLY COMMERCIAL:
Many people write in to ask where the devil they can get MYTH & MAGIC in the US. Well, due the to mysteries inherant to the American market, you can’t. At least not yet. I do believe and American edition is happening, but in the meantime, you can go to Bud Plant Inc.
I used to buy stuff from there when I was in my teens (I got my amazing limted edition of The Edgar Rice Burroughs Library of Illustration, and my old hardback copy of A Look Back – The Art of Berni Wrightson from Bud Plant) and astonishingly enough, they are still in San José and thriving.
So if your local bookshop owner looks at you as if you just tried to order a pizza (that comisserating and hooded stare the cognoscenti reserve for the unenlightened) then go click on:
http://www.budplant.com/prod.itml/icOid/10828 (link no longer active)
(Do tell them I sent you, maybe they’ll give me a gift certificate.)
WHERE MY LIFE FLASHES BEFORE MY EYES – FASTFORWARD, PAUSE AND REWIND:
Received the rushes fo the footage shot for one of the documentaries that is being put together. Hopefully I’ll have the trailer next week. It is VERY disturbing seeing oneself on screen, though I have long since mithridated myself to the sight of me other than fleetingly in a mirror with toothbrush or comb.
More news when I have it, but we hope to show the trailer at the opening of the show in Gruyères. There is a web site being put together to house the presentation of the project; I will provide a link as soon as it’s on line.
TALKING TOLKIEN
At the Fnac in Geneva. Sometimes I wonder why I do these things… Two and a half hours in the train, two rush-hour-traffic taxi rides, a world-record sprint through the Geneva train station on the return journey, and I didn’t even get a copy of the DVD… still haven’t seen the trailer for the Return of the King. What AM I doing wrong?
Last week I wrote that I would be present at the exhibition on September 28th and October 12th and 26th. Luckily for me, I just received the flyers for the show, and it turns out I will be there October 12 and 26 and November 9. The times have not changed. Still 2 pm to 5 pm on those three Sundays.
Oops!
I really must keep better track of myself.
The opening remains unchanged: September 26 at 6:30 pm.
See you there.
