The Sheila Variations

Every time I look at that I get mad at myself for majoring in a lab science rather than something cool like oceanography or vulcanology. All science may be either physica or stamp collecting, but the stamp collecting looks damn fun.

How cool, too, to answer the question: "What's your major?" with "Vulcanology."

While other kids are buying textbooks, you're buying asbestos-lined boots. not to mention the best schools are in places like Hawaii.

Yeah, no sense in majoring in Volcano Sciene at the University of North Dakota.

Well, they can crop up in unexpected places, like some vegetable field in 1943 (granted, pretty much all of Japan is volcanic):

http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/north_asia/showa.html

The guy who owned the field got a message from the wartime Japanese government. It seems that US bombers were using the lava flow as a landmark on their way to night bombings of Tokyo, so he was asked to black out the light. From the lava.

He's got a little museum there, and the letter is in a glass case, just so Tokyo can't deny it was sent. I love Japan.

Hey, I think I can see Frodo in that picture.

This photo is from the point of view of the eagles.

They are searching for 2 crying hugging Hobbits.

Then let me be the one to ask the perennial question: "why didn't they just have the eagles drop the Ring in Mount Doom to begin with?" ;-)

It's a semi-rhetorical question, and there are better answers than "because then the story would be over."

They're on that rock over to the mid left.

I love the scene with the eagles. I know it's awfully parochial of me, but the sight of bald eagles flying to the rescue of a people speaking with a vaguely English accent gives me chills.

Oh Jesus, Bill, that's quite an interpretation. :)

Remember: NO ALLEGORY.

DaveJ: I wondered that myself.

I wondered: Damn, those eagles sure bide their time, and show up at the last minute ... what, you only decide to help us when lava is rushing up our nostrils?? Thanks a lot, boys!

I know there's no allegory, that's just what I get from it.

How long the Americans waited before entering the war is often a bone of contention, you know.

Well, we all see what we want to see, I suppose. Hobbit-boys see the conservation "love the trees" message, others thrill with the "Victory to the West" line.

I hope you know I'm just teasing.

I know you're teasing, but that's why these books Tolkien wrote are like the great legends and myths of old: They're open to a wide variety of interpertations.

Oh, and of course I know about our long-delayed arrival. Give me a little credit.

Eddie Izzard says about that, "I think you Americans were too busy watching movies - where the cavalry always shows up IN THE LAST FIVE MINUTES!"

Very funny bit. He pretends to be throwing pots and pans at the Germans, because they have no ammunition: "Throw a pan ... wait ... throw some forks at them ... do we have any knives ..."

Then let's not make fun of the Hobbit-boys for making the books be an allegory about environmentalism, and we'll call it a day.

It's simple, really: much of the point of the Fellowship was to be inconspicuous, not draw Sauron's gaze like an army or, oh, I don't know, a flock of giant birds would. The eagles would've been huge targets for orc arrows.

Moreover, except whenever they provide the deus ex machina, the eagles pretty much kept to themselves. There's no reason to assume Gwaihir would've been able to part with it any more than Gandalf or Galadriel could have.

And I refuse to NOT make fun of the hobbit-boys for saying it's all about the trees.

Well, also - there is the most definite fact that you wouldn't have a damn book, and who would read a story about a bunch of eagles flying a couple miles to drop a ring into a crack in the earth??

But yes, I see your point. The Hobbits were little inconspicuous fellers ... the least likely suspects to do such a thing,

And fine - make fun of Hobbit boys!! But if you see in the book an allegory with which YOU agree (and I most definitely do myself - I'm not excluding myself!) - then just acknowledge that you are being just sliiiiiightly hypocritical.

Besides, after reading Tolkien's letters, I don't think the Hobbit boys are WILDLY off on their conclusions.

It's not like they're saying:

"Tolkien is OBVIOUSLY anti partial-birth abortion, because ... the Hobbits themselves are like almost-grown fetuses..."

or

"Tolkien is making the case that everybody should be on a low-carb diet."

They're at least in the ballpark of some of his real sentiments.

I'm not REALLY taking all of this tremendously seriously by the way ... Just so you can "hear" my tone of "voice".

I'm never only SLIGHTLY hypocritical. :-p

Just stopped in to see what subject of conversation this picture of lava ultimately led to.

Tolkien. Check...

Dave:

BWAHAHAHAHA

Me neither. Might as well go all out.

Ash: Your comment is freakin' FUNNY.

Wicked funny, even. ;-)

I just want to make the slightest of corrections, but the study of volcanoes is volcanology. Vulcanology is (I imagine) one of the symposia you might be able to attend at a Star Trek convention. Unless there's a vulcan-hobbit connection I don't know about, in which case I've misinterpreted the entire thread.

Ash--I'm just relieved they aren't talking about The Breakfast Club again.