Stratofanatic's Emporium

So, I received an email out of the blue today from Dr. Donald "Mack" Hassler, a former editor of Extrapolation,  a prolific critic within SF Studies, and also my Honors thesis advisor at Kent State University back in .... let's say, 2005-2006 it must have been, so fifteen years ago. Anyway, he had just seen my recent article in Extrapolation about Poul Anderson's poetry, and dropped me a line.  Here's part of what he said: The new issue of Extrap just got to me in the mail, and I am delighted to see the new long piece by you.  Also, I see that you are now Director of Undergrad Studies in Arizona. I remember the old days in the Honors College so well and am very proud of how you are moving in the profession. He was a good advisor, too -- gave me free reign to do what I want, and very patient. If I remember right, after a summer of working on my thesis** alone, I then handed him a 100-page mess in September, un-proofread, with comments like "INSERT EVIDENCE HE...

So, back in April 2020, right as the quarantine was launching into full swing, I got randomly contacted by a Tolkien fan society in China, the ArdaNEWS Studio , asking if they could translate my (then) recently published  Journal of Tolkien Research article, " On Ways of Studying Tolkien: Notes Toward an Epic Fantasy Criticism ," into Chinese. For people with a good memory, I blogged about it here . Despite the best of intentions, as you might expect, the project was delayed because of COVID. Since I know the translators are all volunteers and Chinese grad students in English, and that translation is a major effort in the most optimal of conditions, at one point I even offered to make them a donation. The group declined, gracefully, because they wanted to maintain their non-profit status. Anyway! I just got a long, super apologetic email from their main translator saying that, yes, the article is now fully translated and proofread, but .... they weren't really happy with ...

So, there's this non-affiliated scholar named Bobby Durie who, on Twitter, posts frequent and interesting nuggets about H. P. Lovecraft in a series that he calls "Deep Cuts." In the following Deep Cut , he has a brief but remarkably information FAQ about Lovecraft's cat, whose name HPL uses for the four-footed ghost-rat sniffing kitty in "The Rats in the Walls." Since I've actually taught this story a number of times, I'm posting this here as a reminder to share with my students at a later date.** ------- ** Typically, rather state the animal's name in class, I just call him The Cat with An Unfortunate Name" (CWUN)™.

I don't drive or have a phone, so never got into podcasts, but I just listened to The Prancing Pony Podcast  and, holy cow, they're amazing -- funny, well-spoken, great readers of Tolkien's text (they even do voices!), and they prepare with much useful background research. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to them. The following two episodes are about Saruman. Both reference a 2016 open-access article of mine , from the Journal of Tolkien Research , that reads Saruman closely together with Plato's Republic, which is how I found the podcast. When they posted the episode on twitter, someone kindly thought to tag me. Anyway, here are the episodes:  Episode 217: Fooling Yourself (The Angry Old Man) . They begin talking about my article at around the 51 minute mark, although the set-up begins at about the 48 minute mark. They continue talking about it for a fair bit. Episode 218: The Renegade . Mention of my article begins at around the 34 minute mark, though the set-up comes ...