Newsgroup: it.fan.scrittori.tolkien
Titolo: Modena (sorry, it's in English)

Visto che Finrod si lamenta che non parliamo di Modena sul NG, e visto 
che con mia sorpresa mi hanno chiesto di fare un resoconto sulla mailing 
list internazionale (uno dei membri, udite udite, legge il blog 
dell'ARST anche se non sa l'italiano), posto qui quello che ho inviato 
in quella sede. Scusate se non lo traduco, ma � lunghetto e sono un po' 
stanco.
P.S. spero che n� Andrea n� Federico se la prendano per le scherzose 
definizioni che ho dato di loro, se mai leggeranno questo post.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Indeed, two days we won't forget easily.
The theme of the meeting was "Tolkien and Philosophy", having been 
organized by the Philosophical Institute of Tomistic Studies of Modena 
although we, of the Roman Association of Tolkienian Studies, 
collaborated also a little (and were credited more than we actually 
deserved, of which we dutifully thank the PITS guys).
The level of the guests was exceptional, since we had Mr. Tom Shippey, 
Mrs. Verlyn Flieger and Mr. Christopher Garbowski, not to mention "our" 
Franco Manni and Andrea Monda along with the "outsider" Wu Ming 4 (a 
pseudonym, as you can guess, but that's how he wants to be named in public).
The organization went incredibly well for a thing based entirely on 
volunteers (my job, for one, was the distribution of the headphones for 
the simultaneous translation) and the audience peak was 180 people 
which, believe me, is almost incredible for something like this in Italy.
Mr. Shippey opened the meeting, debating in a duet with Franco Manni the 
links, or more probably the lack of links, between Tolkien and the 
philosophers of his time. The way Mr. Shippey talks is really very good, 
using humour to talk down to the audience, like his opening statement 
going "Tolkien doesn't talk of philosophy in his work because, well, 
he's not a philosopher", while abruptly passing to serious arguments 
such as "is it possible that Tolkien wrote On Fairy Stories and never 
discussed it with Collingwood (a philosopher, note of mine), who had 
breakfast in Oxford at the table aside him and was writing "On fairy tales"?
Next after Shippey came Christopher Garbowsky, speaking about 
"Philosophy and Theology of death in Tolkien". His speech was serious 
and profound, discussing the subject of death from the point of view of 
the Catholic-oriented interpretations of Tolkien, but to be honest he 
didn't "grab" the audience as Shippey/Manni, probably because he prefers 
reading rather than talking and this tends inevitably to give a speaker 
a flat tone that lets the audience mind wander from time to time, losing 
the thread.
After a very good lunch (we were in Emilia, after all), back again on 
the stage with the fully home-made duet between Andrea Monda, Tolkien 
regular of the moderate-catholic interpretation school, and Wu Ming 4, 
Tolkien new-kid-in-town of the moderate-left-wing interpretation 
non-school, newcomer but really very well-prepared and exhibiting by the 
way a nice personal card with "200,000 copies sold of my first book in 
ten or eleven countries and I was more or less twenty-five at the time" 
written on it (ever heard of a very interesting novel called "Q" by, 
hear hear, "Luther Blisset", previous pseudonym of the team now called 
Wu Ming? If you don't, have a try: although IMHO probably a little 
over-estimated, it's definitely worth a reading).
Last, as usual, the fireworks, in the shape of a very young 77-years-old 
lady called Verlyn Flieger, who literally enchanted the audience with a 
speech on the "Philosophy of time and language in Tolkien", winning 
unanimous smiles with a "pardon my Entish" before quoting Treebeard, as 
well as a one minute applause at the end of the speech after having 
revived in a way I couldn't ever imagine the most feared of questions, 
i.e. (would you have ever expected that?) "who is Tom Bombadil".
This, for the institutional part. To complete the picture, you must add:
- two dinners sitting in front of Shippey and aside Flieger talking with 
them face to face about Tolkien as if I were one who /really/ knew about 
him and his works;
- a champions league final match watched on TV with Shippey and a 
definitely good number of glasses of beer, not to mention a final 
whiskey to toast to the victory of Inter;
- an 80 Km back-trip to Modena to recover a forgotten bag while on the 
way back to Rome, inclusive of a missed lunch.
Two days we won't forget easily, indeed.
Bye
Gwindor
-- 
"'Oh, yes,' said Twoflower, to whom sarcasm was merely a seven letter
word beginning with S"
Terry Pratchett
Togli REMOVEME dall'indirizzo per rispondere

 Visto che Finrod si lamenta che non parliamo di Modena sul NG  [cut]
perch�, non posso lamentarmi, forse?
;-)
Pi� tardi lo leggo, many thanks for the effort!
S

 whiskey to toast to the victory of Inter;
Questo ha battuto tutti i record: da tolkieniano e interista vedere una 
finale di Champions League di fianco a Shippey bevendo un discreto 
numero di birre, vincere la finale e brindare con lui con un bicchiere 
di whiskey veramente non ha prezzo!! Altro che Mastercard!! :-DDD
Mae aur!
-- 
Hunnaur
Periscono le greggi, periscono le stirpi; / anche tu stesso morrai;
ma non perirï¿½ giammai la buona fama / che uno si acquista.
Havamal (Il carme dellï¿½Alto) ï¿½ vv. 305-308