The One hundred and thirty-first Roving Ranger

Events & Shows

Hobbit auditions coming up in January 2026 with TAC at the Lake (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Liberty Lake, WA]

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Scholarship & Fandom

Jason Fisher is on a roll with: Humphrey Carpenter was a professional jazz musician (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [see also: Tolkien’s Biographer Was Also a Pro Jazz Bassist (Si apre in una nuova finestra)], Like father like son (Si apre in una nuova finestra), and A newly discovered primary account of Arthur Tolkien’s death (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Tolkien scholar and organiser of the many excellent talks and seminars in Oxford (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in recent years, Giuseppe Pezzini, will have a book out, April 30: Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation [Bookshop.org (Si apre in una nuova finestra) | Blackwell’s (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

doubtfulsea has Rad Aghast (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Mercury Natis has Reading Sam and Frodo through the Greek Loves (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Substack]

Stephen C. Winter has “Frodo, I Think You Do Very Unwisely in This… I Do Not Think You Should Go With This Creature. It is Wicked.” Frodo and the Wisdom of Unwisdom (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Dimitra Fimi has On Tolkien's Letter 131 (1): Capturing "timeless Elvish enchantment." (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Substack]

Robin Reid has Tolkien Studies Area, PCA, Program (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Merchandise & Franchise

Amazon shakes up streaming leadership team (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [TechCrunch; see also Hollywood Reporter (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

Apparently, Middle-earth Enterprises are litigious as ever and are trying to go against a ruling in Australia where “Lord of the Fries” was allowed to keep and use its trademark (Si apre in una nuova finestra), clearly arguing “Lord of the X” is not a snowclone (Si apre in una nuova finestra) owned by MEE. [New South Wales case registry (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

Take a closer look at LEGO 10354 The Lord of the Rings: The Shire’s minifigures (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [BrickFanatics]

Warner Holme Review: The One Ring: Moria: Through the Doors of Durin (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [File770]

Sotheby’s has Lord of the Rings to The Hobbit: The Most Valuable Tolkien Works of All Time (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The La Bohème in Washington has a Tolkien Dinner (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Lord Of The Rings Turned Into Studio Ghibli AI Slop Looks Like Garbage (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Kotaku]

Inter alia

In the last week two actors who were of influence to me (via SHOGUN and WILLOW] passed away: Val Kilmer [BBC (Si apre in una nuova finestra) | BFI (Si apre in una nuova finestra) | NPR (Si apre in una nuova finestra) ] and Richard Chamberlain [ BBC (Si apre in una nuova finestra) | BFI (Si apre in una nuova finestra) | CBC (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

The people at Tolkien Guide have Selling your Book Collection (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Youtube]

Ansible 453 made mention of the upcoming 451 Fahrenheit by J.R.R. Tolkien (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [April 1st]

George R.R. Martin has a lovely write-up on Glasgow (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Warner Bros. Cancels New ‘Harry Potter’ Project After Deciding It’s Not Worth the Money (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Inside the Magic]

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 3, has an Official Teaser. (Si apre in una nuova finestra)

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According to German law I have to inform you all links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's (Si apre in una nuova finestra), Bookshop.org (Si apre in una nuova finestra), or Genialokal (Si apre in una nuova finestra), the (independent) bookshops of my personal trust (one with a Tolkien connection!)

If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Facebook (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Bluesky (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Instagram (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Threads (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Mastodon (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Si apre in una nuova finestra)

As this is 2025 I would like to note that this newsletter is 100% human-made, curated by me, Marcel R. Bülles. This also holds true for everything I write with my blog and here at Steady. Also, the average time of curating this newsletter ranges from 12-16 hours for the bi-weekly edition and 6-8 hours for the weekly one.