This year I've done the Tolkien Toast in the most pleasant and (in)appropriate ;) company.
Agan, Greenie, Lommy, Nog, skip, Rune, Eonwe, Squatter, Legate, Oddwen, Hooky, Bethberry, and yours truly (I hope I haven't missed anyone, but I'm sure I'll be corrected quickly if I have) did not wait till 9:00 but all toasted (and roasted!) the Professor sometime early via Skype. And, to honour the day, we read two chapters, and possibly more after I left. Once again, happy eleventy-eleventh, Mr. Tolkien! |
Happy birthday, Professor!
During the afore mentioned event, we learned that if you ask Hookbill to read the passage in the Window on the West about toasting, you'll have to face the consequences that he may continue the passage with "And then Théodred said..." |
"It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or a man that hears it, when the 'turn' comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality.
Even modern fairy-stories can produce this effect sometimes. It is not an easy thing to do; it depends on the whole story which is the setting of the turn, and yet it reflects the glory backwards. A tale that in any measure succeeds in this point has not wholly failed, whatever flaws it may possess, and whatever mixture or confusion of purpose." J.R.R. Tolkien: "On Fairy Stories" Happy birthday Mr. Professor, and may your words of ("realism-based") encouragement enlighten our souls! |
And I sadly had to leave with a coughing fit before the readings got underway. What a great way to celebrate The Professor. I love Noggie's quote. I think it's a fascinating glimpse into Tolkien's concept of narrative.
I'm half an hour away from my official toast here. |
I shall be raising a glass later in honour of Christopher Tolkien's eighty ninth birthday. Without his efforts we would have far less to talk about here.
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He would have been twelvety-two today!
Don't forget to raise a glass in memory of JRRT at 9pm your time...
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Haven't decided yet if it will be a mug of tea or a snifter of brandy, but I have an hour left to decide. :)
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To The Professor
"yet its maker was telling of things already old and weighted with regret, and he expanded his art in making keen that touch upon the heart which sorrows have that are both poignant and remote. If the funeral of Beowulf moved once like the echo of an ancient dirge, far-off and hopeless, it is to us as a memory brought over the hills, an echo of an echo. There is not much poetry in the world like this."
A glass of South African shiraz. |
"Indeed, he [Frodo] at once began to carry on Bilbo's reputation for oddity. He refused to go into mourning; and the next year he gave a party in honour of Bilbo's hundred-and-twelfth birthday, which he called a Hundred-weight Feast. But that was short of the mark, for twenty guests were invited, and there were several meals at which it snowed food and rained drink, as hobbits say."
-Samuel Adams "White Christmas" brew (a Belgian White ale) |
We raised glasses of port wine with Lommy, Greenie, Nog, Legate, Kath, Hookbill, Rune, and Oddwen. It was part of our dinner which consisted of tea, cake, scones, seed-cakes, coffee, more cakes, beer, red wine, pies and cheeses, raspberry jam and apple-tart, salad, eggs, cold chicken, and pickles. Some observant individuals may notice that's pretty much what Bilbo served the Dwarves at the Unexpected Party.
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Rather missed the time, but better late than never. The Professor!
"Dear-bought those songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. For the price could be no other. Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Ea, and evil yet be good to have been." |
Thanks to Bethberry' s note on FB, I was able to enjoy a tribute to the man who provided my mythos and the Legendarium in which I remain most comfortable.
Cheers, Professor. Grace and peace. |
A Birthday Toast:
Here’s to Tolkien, And here’s to you and me. If perchance we disagree On Middle-earth canonically, Hell with you, here’s to Tolkien and me.:D |
To the Professor! I raised a glass of Moscato Spumante, together with my husband & sons.
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The Professor!
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*raises a cup of tea*
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There are two pre-eminent feasts in the Barrow-downer year: Bilbo & Frodo's Birthday and Tolkien's birthday, and the latter of these is upon us. Break out the toasting glasses and something nice to drink this evening.
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Happy 123rd, Professor.
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Milk for me. :) Happy birthday, Professor!
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Happy Birthday Prof!
And hail and well met to all the Downers, hope you al have a very Merry New Year Rumil |
A cup of tea, as usual. Prosit!
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The Professor! * raises a glass of cider *
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On mathom day
To the Professor!
(And because of the requisite time of the toast, I could raise but a glass of goodly dihydrogen monoxide.) And as for my quote, well, 'tis a newish one. Let's see if any can identify it. "Let us rather be glad that we have come suddenly upon a storehouse of those popular imaginings that we had feared lost, stocked with stories not yet sophisticated into a sense of proportion, with no thought of the decent limits of exaggeration, with no sense (or certainly not our sense) of the incongruous, unless, as we may at times suspect, incongruity is delighted in." |
A day late, thanks to binge-watching Outlander with Pitchwife-Wife, but nevertheless: *raises bottle of Czech beer*
The Professor! To adventures we seek and to those that seek us, to things fair and terrible, vast and small; to mountains and mushrooms, silmarils and cooking-pots; to chamber music and songs at the campfire; to the stories we weave to make sense of our lives and the world we live in, and to language, that many-faced glass through which we view the world and ourselves and never stop discovering new facets. |
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