Tom
banner
alas-not-me.bsky.social
Tom
@alas-not-me.bsky.social
Always heard a different drum.

Happy to talk about Tolkien on podcasts.

'Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring: To Rule the Fate of Many.'

Finalist for The Tolkien Society's Best Book Award 2024
@KentStateUPress
Is it Joffrey, or is it Caligula?
October 29, 2025 at 8:00 PM
October 28, 2025 at 6:08 PM
I never made any of this bumper sticker I designed, but I still like it
October 26, 2025 at 2:48 AM
“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency."
-Rebecca Solnit

I don't generally see Jack Torrance as a figure of hope, but if an ax can be a metaphor for hope, times can change.
October 23, 2025 at 8:00 PM
If you're old enough, you may remember a photo of a South Vietnamese officer shooting a member of the Viet Cong in the head on a street in Saigon. It's a powerful, gruesome image.

But the moment I saw this photo from Chicago, the picture from Vietnam leaped into my mind.
October 8, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Top 20 tbr pile day 17/20, "The Death of Vergil" by Hermann Broch.
October 2, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Top 20 tbr pile day 16/20, "Lavinia" by Ursula K Le Guin, too long in the pile.
October 2, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Balmy Sunday afternoon, New Castle Harbor, witk Montauk Daisies, looking towards Maine across the water.
September 28, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Halfway there.
September 23, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Top 20 tbr pile day 15/20, "The Poetic Edda," expanded and revised edition, translated by Jackson Crawford.
September 23, 2025 at 12:29 AM
All this has happened before. All this will happen again.
September 18, 2025 at 5:13 AM
Top 20 tbr pile, day 14/20, "Tolkien et la memoire de L'antiquité" by Isabelle Pantin and Sandra Provini.
September 17, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Top 20 tbr pile, day 13/20, "The Redress of Poetry" by Seamus Heaney.
September 17, 2025 at 10:09 PM
Top 20 tbr pile, day 12/20, "Four for Tomorrow" by Roger Zelazny.
September 17, 2025 at 10:06 PM
Top 20 tbr pile, day 11/20, "Scripture and the English Poetic Imagination" by David Lyle Jeffrey.
September 13, 2025 at 5:44 AM
Top 20 tbr pile, day 10/20, "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn," by Thomas Boyle. One of the all-time great titles
September 12, 2025 at 6:20 AM
Table rubbed down and dry. Time to put the stuff back on it.
September 10, 2025 at 4:40 PM
That's a great interview. Here's the Niekas interview I was thinking of. Niekas is available online.
September 10, 2025 at 5:04 AM
Top 20 tbr pile 9/20, "Paths in the Snow" by Jem Bloomfield.
September 10, 2025 at 1:10 AM
The freshly oiled top of my desk. I do this about once a year. Let the oil sink in, then wipe and rub it down. I made the table years ago out of black walnut. The tapering octagonal legs were fun to make.
September 9, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Top 20 tbr pile day 8/20, "The Rise of Romance" by Eugene Vinaver.
September 8, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Top 20 tbr pile day 7/20, "Winters in the World" by Eleanor Parker.
September 8, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Top 20 tbr pile, day 6/20. David Jones's "In Parenthesis"
September 6, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Top 20 tbr pile, day 6/20, Harlan Ellison's Greatest Hits
September 4, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Top 20 tbr pile, day 5/20.
September 3, 2025 at 9:34 PM