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February 16, 2005
Who Was J.R.R. Tolkien? - Fr. John Folmer
Father John Folmer, of the Sacramento Catholic diocese, gave a fascinating lecture this evening on John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (pictured left), author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. These are my notes from the evening.
Fr. Folmer became acquainted with Prof. Tolkien in the mid 60s, when he was a theology student in Europe, through Tolkien's son John, a Catholic priest. Fr. Folmer described an interaction in which he had told Prof. Tolkien that everyone he met in Germany kept on trying to get him to pronounce his name in a more German way. Tolkien then recounted a story of when he was in the first World War. After a battle he came across an injured German officer and in German, asked him if he would like some water. The officer replied that he would. And after Tolkien brought him some water, the officer proceeded to lecture Tolkien regarding his German pronunciation.
Tolkien was born in South Africa and returned to England with his mother and younger brother when he was three. His father died in South Africa before he could rejoin them. His mother received help from both sides of the family to raise her family, until she converted to Catholicism, which alienated both sides of the family from her. She died of diabetes when Tolkien was still quite young and JRR (Ronald as he was known) and his younger brother were taken care of by a Catholic priest from the Birmingham Oratory, founded by John Henry Cardinal Newman.
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Posted by elise at 11:33 PM | Comments (4)
Jambo
My friend Kelly's brother and his partner launched their company Jambo Networks at Demo yesterday. Jambo uses wi-fi devices to help you locate people physically close by who share common interests. This takes social networking to a whole new level. Imagine sitting at a table at Whole Foods at 4th and Folsom, tuning in and finding that someone else who (fill in the blank - trains show dogs, obsesses over Kant, parachutes for fun, etc.) is sitting at the next table. This is either really scary, or the next thing in online dating. Big congrats to Kelly's brother Jim and his business partner Charles!
Posted by elise at 12:07 PM | Comments (2)