jpp thoughts

I was hanging out with my good friend, Glen, yesterday when I was telling him about how a recent event. Its not photography related but its still an imagery thing. Earlier this week I started reading a copy of Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien who happens to be my favorite artist since I first read The Fellowship of the Rings in the early 80's. Well I was telling Glen that when I first started reading this week, I had a very vivid memory of the first time I read the trilogy back in middle school. The memory was so real I could almost picture my surroundings, remember the sounds, everything! I guess thats why Tolkien's books are so memorable to me. Funny thing is I remember wanting to live like one of the characters from the novels that I started making items from the book. I put together a makeshift chain mail armor made out of a lot of paperclips that were clipped together! I carved out a piece of wood into a facisimile of Frodo's sword "Sting". In order to mimic Sting's glowing affect, I even pasted a bunch of leftover glow in the dark glue from Halloween. Finally I would wait til the middle of the night and sneak out with my entire outfit (armor, sword and a bedspread that doubled as a cloak). Since I was supposed to be fast asleep, I snuck downstairs in the dark. Made my way to the backyard and would stare wonderly at the bright stars. I fancied that there might be an orc or an elf hiding amongst the shadows in the backyard. My Lord of the Rings phase lasted for several weeks that summer with the occaisonal slipping out the backyard at night.

Re-reading the Fellowship of the Rings this week really evoked those memories. Ahh to remember those innocent days of my youth! So here's the cover from the the trilogy set of LoTR that I read back in those days.

jp