News Archive

If you have several thousand dollars to spare you might like to buy a first edition of The Hobbit which is up for auction on 14th September at Freeman’s in Philadelphia. You can read more about the book here.

The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar website is now accepting sign-ups for the Beta Program. In order to sign up, you must have an account at the Lord of the Rings online forum. To read more, click here for the North American site. European players can visit Lotro Europe to read more and sign up.

An exhibition of Ted Nasmith’s work will be held on 23rd to 26th September at Redesdale Hall, Moreton in Marsh, UK. The title of the exhibition is; Where Many Paths and Errands Meet. In addition, each afternoon he will also be performing Tolkien inspired songs from his forthcoming CD. There’s further information at his website here.

Have you ever wondered when your favorite stars from Lord of the Rings will be on TV? Now you can know! The CoE TV Guide will list almost all of the shows featuring actors and actresses from Lord of the Rings, and what channel their show will be on (US only). All times EDT.

Have you ever wondered when your favorite stars from Lord of the Rings will be on TV? Now you can know! The CoE TV Guide will list almost all of the shows featuring actors and actresses from Lord of the Rings, and what channel their show will be on (US only). All times EDT.

Welcome to the first edition of the Realm Newsletter! The Realm of Ulmo has had the pleasure of doing this first edition so we hope you’ll stop by and take a look.

The Florida Orchestra will be performing The Lord of the Rings Symphony on February 21st and 22nd at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg, Florida. Tickets on sale now! More information and ticket purchases can be found at The Florida Orchestra’s website here.

9. As you dine, what would you like to converse about? What one custom from your ccountry do you wish to teach them? What do you wish them to teach you?

I’d love to hear about their own countries, how it is living there etc. I’ve always been interested in different cultures It would also be nice to hear about all the places they’ve been to and the experiences they’ve had in their lives. I’d love to teach them about saunas! How in the summertime we first sit in a sauna for a couple of hours (not forgetting to dip into a lake a few times) and after that have a big bonfire where we grill sausages, corn and marshmallows, all the time chatting with friends and listening to music. The good part is that it doesn’t get dark during the summers, not even at night, so you can sit up the whole night if you want to. What I would like them to teach me? To ride really well, most definitely! Always wanted to be able to do that! Then I’d like to learn swordfighting and archery and…

10. Your companions will wish to know how you came by the name of ~figwit~. Please explain.

Alas, I have to be boring on this one! Figwit was the first name I came up with, then I just placed the ‘~’ signs in it because it didn’t accept just the name figwit. Naive as I was, it didn’t even cross my mind that another person had that name, and a mod to that. I think we both have had our fun with people mixing up our names! I thought about changing my name in the beginning, but now it would just feel weird; everyone would still call me figgy or fig

11. The Lord Ulmo wishes to know what you love best about his Realm.

Absolutely the wonderful bunch of people we have in Ulmo! When I first joined the realm of Ulmo little over a year ago it was a relatively small realm. Over the year we’ve gotten a lot of new members and the saying “the more the merrier” really suits into our group. I’ve gotten a lot of wonderful and reliable friends, friends I never would’ve met if I hadn’t joined. Every member offers something different and unique to the realm. You could even call us a big happy family, where we work hard together when it is needed and have a lot of fun at the same time. Now when I have the chance I must say to each and every Ulmonite: You all are fun, unique, talented, encouraging and a bit crazy too I’m glad I’ve gotten to know you all, without you nothing would be the same! *huggles every Ulmonite tightly*

12. The Lord Ulmo also wishes to satisfy his curiosity about your world. What form of music do you enjoy in your world and what does the servant figwit enjoy doing when she is not busy serving Ulmo?

I really enjoy all kinds of music, everything from rock to celtic. I also listen a lot to the radio. Some artist I especially like are Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams, their music is excellent! I also adore Disney-music and movie soundtracks; you can never have enough of them. During my freetime I read a lot of books, watch movies, listen to music and hang out with friends. I couldn’t live without those things, and not without a computer I have to admit *blushes* I also love singing and different kinds of sports (watching them and practising them myself).

13. Alas, the time will eventually come for you to leave our world. What memento will you sneak into your pocket (while the Lord Ulmo discretely looks away) to cherish and help you remember your visit?

An Elvish sword or a blade (though I doubt they would fit in my pocket) I’d love to have one hanging on my wall! And the swords and blades made by the Elves are so beautiful

14. The denizens of ME wish to sing a farewell song as you leave us. What do you wish them to sing?

If I could choose whatever song I like, it would be “Right here waiting” by Richard Marx. I just love it, and it has such memories..
But if it had to be one we’ve heard in ME, it would be Gandalf’s Road Song

15. What memorable and favorite words of advice or impressions from Ulmo’s realm have you recorded in your journal?

If anyone has a problem or a bad day or they’re feeling sad, you can always count on a whole bunch of people ready to help out, cheer you up or give words of comfort! And that’s just one of the reasons why I love the Realm of Ulmo.

Though this is no Yukio Mishima we’re dealing with here: no haunting images of cherry blossoms, no elegies on honorable samurais and on the frailty of ephemeral life, no geishas and delicate Japanese painting landscapes flooding his works. Murakami confesses, through a number of his characters, that he’s not particularly fond of Japanese literature, nor does he find in it what he’s looking for. His controversial generation needed a different kind of literature, and so his writings are meant for the teenage upbeat punkers, the sophisticated and cynical young urban artists, the millions of regular young people populating modern Japan who love anime, video games, and rock, who shriek at the “Return of the King” premiere and howl in delight as hard-boiled “Harriipottaa” fans.
Murakami’s characters are clumsy, hypersensitive teenagers fumbling with their first love affairs (“Norwegian Wood”, “Kafka on the Shore”), lonely misfits yearning for companionship and looking for an escape in hallucinatory alternative worlds (“Sputnik Sweetheart”, “A Wild Sheep Chase”, “Honey Pie”), talking cats, crows and toads sporting quotes from Dostoyevsky and other Russian “heavies”, depressed lawn-mowers and pushy, overconfident and sophisticated young girls harboring romantic souls. Perhaps the best way to catch a glimpse of Murakami’s universe and relate to it on a personal level is through his own words, with the voice of the narrator in “Hear the Wind Sing”: “If it’s art or literature you’re looking for, you’d do well to read the Greeks. In order for there to be true art, there necessarily has to be slavery. That’s how it was with the ancient Greeks: while the slaves worked the fields, prepared the meals and rowed the ships, the citizens would bask beneath the Mediterranean sun, rapt in poetical composition or engaged in their mathematics. That’s how it is with art. Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o’clock in the morning can only produce writing that matches what they do. And that includes me.”
He has preserved this self-deprecating quality in the face of overwhelming material success following his first best-seller “Norwegian Wood” (named after the famous Beatles hit), along with a cool, seemingly detached tone and an offbeat sense of humor. He never plans his work beforehand, never frets over plot and character building, and never sees beyond the page he’s writing. In a sense, he’s having as much fun writing his novels and short stories as his audience will when reading them. Whenever immersed in one of Murakami’s works, you never feel the presence of an over-bearing author, who already knows what’s going to happen next, who is a control freak and smirks at your toil. He’s spontaneous, as much amazed by the plot development as you are, and has a distinctive likeness for rhythm, for a sort of hidden melody within each story: “But that’s the fun of writing a novel or a story, because I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I’m searching for melody after melody. Sometimes once I start, I can’t stop. It’s just like spring water. It comes out so naturally, so easily.”
His great friend and admirer, Kazuo Ishiguro (Booker Prize winner for the well-known “Remains of the Day”) is perhaps the closest to understanding and enjoying Haruki Murakami’s style and personality: “He has two distinct styles. There’s the bizarre, anarchic style and there’s the very controlled, melancholy approach. Of the latter, “South of the Border” is beautifully judged, so fragile. It’s almost like a piece of cocktail jazz you hear playing in a bar, a perfectly measured piece from beginning to end. On the other side is “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle”, the berserkly inventive side where he keeps hitting you with things and you’re not quite sure what to do with them.”
So if you’re in the mood for intensely alive, brooding characters, bizarre events and surrealistic landscapes, permeating music themes and an unmistakable rhythm, just try one of his short stories and novels. You’ll soon become addicted, as addicted as he is to jazz; when asked which three albums, out of several thousand, would he save if his house were burning, he replied: “I give up. I couldn’t choose three. So I let it burn. Everything. I save the cat.”

Born: January 12, 1949; Kyoto.
Educated: Waseda University, Tokyo.
Married: 1971 Yoko Takahashi.
Career : 1974-1981: owner of Peter Cat jazz club, Tokyo. 1984: visits US. 1986-89: lives in Europe. 1991-1995: lives in US. 1991-93: visiting scholar at Princeton University. 1992: Una’s Lecturer in the Humanities at UC Berkeley. 1993-1995: writer in residence at Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts. 1995: returns to Japan.
Novels: Hear the Wind Sing (1979, translated 1987); Pinball 1973, (1980, translated 1985); A Wild Sheep Chase (1982, translated 1989); Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985, translated 1991); Norwegian Wood, (1987, translated 1989); Dance Dance Dance, 1988, translated 1994); South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992, translated 1999); The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, (1994-95, translated 1997); Sputnik Sweetheart, 1999, translated 2001); Ubime no Kafka (2003, translated & published as “Kafka on the Shore” 2005).
Collections of Stories: The Elephant Vanishes (1993); After the Quake (2000, translated 2002).
Non-fiction: Portraits in Jazz 1 and 2 (1997 and 2001); Underground, (1997 and 1998, translated 2000); and others.
Essays: Murakami’s House of the Rising Sun (1984); A Young Reader’s Guide to Short Fiction (1997); and others.
Some honours and awards: Noma Literary Newcomer’s Prize (1982, for A Wild Sheep Chase); Tanizaki Literary Prize (1985, for Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World); Yomiuri Literary Prize (1995, for The Wind-up Bird Chronicle); Kuwabara Takeo Prize (1999, for Underground).

South of the Ered Wethrin lay the Pools of Ivrin, from whence the River Narog flowed. It was a fair place, and its waters came from crystal clear fountains, and were guarded against defilement by Ulmo. It was here that the Mereth Aderthad, the Feast of Reuniting, was hosted by Fingolfin. Gwindor son of Guilin brought Túrin Turambar here after Beleg Strongbow had died by his hand: “There Gwindor spoke to Túrin, saying: ‘Awake, Túrin son of Húrin Thalion! On Ivrin’s lake is endless laughter. She is fed from crystal fountains unfailing, and guarded from defilement by Ulmo, Lord of Waters, who wrought her beauty in ancient days.’ Then Túrin knelt and drank from that water; and suddenly he cast himself down, and his tears were unloosed at last, and he was healed of his madness.” (Silmarillion: 209) Sadly the Pools of Ivrin were defiled by Glaurung, before the destruction of Nargothrond.

The Pools of Ivrin, the River Sirion, and all the other waters of Beleriand that once glittered in the light of the Sun and the Moon and of the stars of Varda were drowned after the War of Wrath by Belegaer, the Great Sea. Belegaer was also named the Sundering Seas, for it separated Middle-Earth from Aman. After the drowning of Beleriand the Grinding Ice, Helcaraxë, ceased to exist, and one could no longer travel to Aman on foot. There are many islands in the Great Sea that have been remembered in tales and songs, and some of them are no more. Such is it with the Isle of Balar, which is said to be the eastern horn of the island upon which the Eldar journeyed across Belegaer to Valinor, which was later put in the Bay of Eldamar and became known as Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle. Such, too, was the fate of Númenórë, which sank into the depths of the ocean at the end of the Second Age.

Many are the rivers that flow into the Great Sea and other oceans, and many are their tributaries. Many are the lakes and pools and ponds where fish and birds and other animals live their lives. The veins of Ulmo are many, and they are ever changing, but his spirit runs through them all.

[i]Sources:[/i]
Tolkien, J.R.R., edited by Christopher Tolkien. The Silmarillion. HarperCollins Publishers, London: 1999.
http://www.wikipedia.org
http://www.councilofelrond.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Encyclopedia&file=index