Is this the table where JRR Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings? Is it the setting he had in mind for Elrond’s conference where 4 hobbits, 2 men, and one each of wizard/elf/dwarf pledge their faith to a fellowship of the One Ring?

It may well be both of these, for it is a fine old stone table in the gardens of Merton College, one where (it is said) Tolkien would often sit outdoors writing on fine days like yesterday in the years after 1945, when he became Oxford’s Merton Professor of English language and literature.

Merton (founded in 1260 by Walter de Merton) has many lovely medieval spaces set among peaceful lawns and well-tended gardens. I would not be surprised in Tolkien’s vision of Lothlorien’s elegant retreat from a dangerous world owes something to his own experiences of life in this setting.

“DM of the Rings” is a wonderfully comic rework of Lord of the Rings–images from the movie with cartoon dialog from a bunch of guys playing the story as a D & D game. Just for example…

• Frodo aka “Dave’s character”: Do we all have to be hobbits? My stats are rubbish!
  Aragorn: I’m not a hobbit. I get to be a ranger!
• Sam: Look at those guys! I’m going to need a stepladded just to stab them in the knees.
• Legolas: My character is a man!
  Aragorn: Your character portrait says different-Meow!

Really fun, really silly–and I swear I’ve played D&D with every one of these guys. Heck, I remember when was one of these guys!

Thanks, Akma, for the great link to nerdiferous humor–and happy birthday, Akma!

I get Google traffic looking for “E.B. White essay“; AKMA gets it for Good Friday sermon advice. He just posted some very good Good Friday sermon advice, so keep pointing there, Google!

For more (if more pagan) inspiration, I love the Marge Piercy poem Kalilily just posted.

…The soil stretches naked. All winter
hidden under the down comforter of snow,
delicious now, rich in the hand
as chocolate cake: the fragrant busy
soil the worm passes through her gut
and the beetle swims in like a lake.


As I kneel to put the seeds in,
careful as stitching, I am in love.
You are the bed we all sleep on.
You are the food we eat, the food
we are, the food we will become.
We are walking trees rooted in you…

It’s worth reading more of, as is Kalilily, so be your own angel and go check it out!

Dave Winer’s Scripting News, still going strong at the ripe old age of ten (that’s 110 in blogyears)…

Doc Searls got it right, in “A Post of Thanks.”:

“When they scroll the credits of my life, Dave’s is going to be one of the first names on the list. And when they scroll the credits for blogging, outlining, writing, scripting, journalism, XML, RSS, SOAP, podcasting and a pile of other technologies, standards and practices we will all eventually take for granted, the same will be true for those as well.”

In 2003, I quoted what Dave said about “Why weblogs are cool”

Later, I called Dave a “big hairy non-girl”, while praising him for something that now is just a broken link. Update: Here it is!

Dave’s contribution to my first year of blogging, when he was a Harvard Berkman Fellow, may be overshadowed in the view of history by his use of Berkman Thursdays and Bloggercons to assemble a critical mass of bloggers, “real news” people, and technophiles and get them excited about stuff like campaign blogging. At Bloggercon 1, Dave showcased audiobloggers in front of a roomful of Apple-toting technophiles–those people, including Dave, soon pushed those concepts forward into podcasting.

For more of the wit and wisdom of Dave, see his own blog. Happy tenth, Dave, we look forward to the next ten!

I wasn’t thinking about football until MontaukRider blogged it:

Tomorrow is Homecoming at my alma mater. I’ve attended the Homecoming Football game with my family since I was in my teens. It was my Uncle Shane who started the tradition. He’d buy reams of tickets and arrange huge tailgating parties. Shane was exceedingly gregarious, and nothing pleased him more than to have family and friends all together for food and quaff.

His children have continued going to the annual festival, as have I and my children. My two sons went to every Homecoming Game that’s been held since they were born. Now they both attend the University: Now I travel to see them at the Game. There’s a satisfying symmetry in this.

Autumn may be a season of change for some things…not for others!

“I’m sorry, but you need to show, not only your car’s registration, but also three pieces of mail delivered to you within the last 30 days, at least one of which must be a utility bill, bearing in mind that cable TV bills don’t count as utility bills.”

So tonight at dinner, I was proud to announce that it had taken me only TWO separate trips to our City Hall Annex to get one new resident sticker.

Frank may well have an insight into this problem. “Maybe any time they actually give you a parking sticker, some penalty gets deducted from their pay check?”

Thank you, Alfredo and Honda Cars of Boston, which is in Everett, but never mind.

I’d also like to immortalize Frank’s 10-minute technique for selecting a replacement car:

BETSY TO FRANK: Look, I found the car issue of Consumer Reports.

FRANK TO BETSY: (Ten minutes later) I want a Honda Civic Hybrid with a navigational computer.

BETSY TO FRANK: I have a Honda Accord Hybrid. You might want one of those, they’re a little bigger.

FRANK TO BETSY: (Genuinely puzzled why I would suggest this.) But the Honda Civic has better gas mileage. And it’s also cheaper!

So Frank drove back to NH in my Accord. A few days later, I followed him in a new Honda Civic–which does get better gas mileage.

But I’m less evolved than Frank, and I like my own car.

… physicist Stephen Weinberg [said]: “Good people* * will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things—that takes religion.”

Weinberg’s statement is true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth. To make it the whole truth, we must add an additional clause: “And for bad people to do good things—that takes religion.”

Dyson also challenges Daniel Dennett’s claim that suicide bombers should be thrown into the balance sheet against “religion.”

Someone needs to update Godwin’s Law for the Aughties, when all the opponents of hotheads are somehow like terrrorists.

Miss Lina Lamont: “People”? I ain’t “people.” I am a – “a shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament.”

As I drank morning coffee, still half asleep, I heard Frank upstairs simply roaring with laughter at his email, which (I later discovered) included this YouTube video of live-action bloopery.

Making a
long story short, a grad student or taxi driver (I’ve seen two versions) named Guy Goma was whisked into a BBC studio where a young woman interviewer informed her live TV audience that they would now be hearing from technology expert Guy Kewney.

Guy Goma’s expression, as he hears himself thus introduced, goes from pleasant acceptance to surprise and shock at amazing speed.

But what’s more remarkable is his grace and good humor, as he responds in French-accented English (he’s from the Congo) to the interviewer, to avoid embarassing her while in front of the camera.

Being put on the spot in front of live cameras is the kind of thing that happens in nightmares. Thanks to Guy Goma, I now have a warm-hearted, dignified role model for what I ought to do next.