Lighting a fire

Tony Meade

Active Member
Hey all,

Now that we're a month into 2021, I just wanted to remind everyone that we had talked about taking the episode summaries and creating a product out of those, whether that was a book, Wiki, essay collection, or whatever. The episode summaries were always supposed to be a first step in the process. I haven't seen any movement on that the next phase of that project.

I don't want to be that guy... No, actually I do.

With almost 700 hours of my own work, I'm worried that nothing will come of it apart from a curious sub-forum on the class with a lot of posts by me. I have two fulltime careers (my day job, and my music career) as well as a number of other projects, and very little free time to do the summaries, but I've been faithful in doing them for every class. I don't want to feel like I've wasted that time.

I also don't have time to take charge of the project myself, particularly if lots of people are going to want a voice in it, so someone would need to step up and take charge of it, if it's going to happen. Let me know what we plan on doing, and if I should continue.

Thanks.
 
I would say that the summaries are worth your effort made, even if nothing more comes from it; At the very least they are a searchable form of the discussion.

I would encourage you to continue, and would also hope that your efforts connect with someone who has the passion needed to drive the next phase.
 
Awesome. So, I should keep doing this work until someone else gets around to doing something with it.
 
Absolutely you should continue. These summaries as this exploration into the minutiae (which itself is meaningful and essential) proceeds further and further become more and more indispensable. In other words, as the number of video hours swells to an unmanageable scope, the summaries as a means to explore, summarize and follow the conclusions drawn gain in importance. I hear your sense of fatigue -- it is natural given the expanding duration of this project. When you began doing this, ... when? about a year and half or more ago?... the pace was considerably quicker. And it will pick up again with the completion of this massive and detailed chapter on the Council of Elrond. You are performing a vital public service whose eventual benefits remain unknowable at this stage. I copy each summary into Word files and download the PDFs. And often save listening to the original video until I do to perhaps tweak them very rarely here and there. I respond better to the written than to the spoken word, so I find your summaries stick in my mind better than the (let's admit it) rather rambling discussions (which is a necessary and obviously beneficial quality they have). So HANG IN THERE, TROOPER!! Probably the original goal of a written analysis of and commentary on LotR might have to wait until the entire sequence of discussions has reached its end. Artistic patterns often only emerge when a book has been fully treated. But have no doubt, at that point your resolve and perseverance will truly be seen for their determination. Never doubt what you are doing. Time will tell.
 
I think there would be more interest in working on an end product if there was any sort of an end in sight. At the current pace, we are going to finish the discussion of the 3 books well after we have all passed on and continue only in holographic form. The summaries alone are going to add up to around 1000 episodes to have to sort through. I think the summaries are useful though because there's sort of a collective conscious of where the discussion was at that a later rewatching of the episodes may be unable to recapture. For instance, the videos do not save all of the chat going on in the various places that might have inspired the questions or insights that Corey reflects on during class.

For an end product though, I don't know what could be done except an extensively footnoted version of the text. Perhaps in a separate volume like the commentary to the Divine Commentary by Charles Singleton that I read in college. The commentary volumes are far thicker than the actual texts and I believe there's a separate note on every stanza. It seems very similar to the approach the class is taking- analyzing every sentence.
 
The original notion was produce an end product on a book by book basis, and we have finished with book one. I'm considering just creating an editable e-text for book one myself as a model, but that will have to wait until next year, after I finish my actual Tolkien book that I put off for 18 months while I created all the episode summaries.

I think there would be more interest in working on an end product if there was any sort of an end in sight. At the current pace, we are going to finish the discussion of the 3 books well after we have all passed on and continue only in holographic form. The summaries alone are going to add up to around 1000 episodes to have to sort through. I think the summaries are useful though because there's sort of a collective conscious of where the discussion was at that a later rewatching of the episodes may be unable to recapture. For instance, the videos do not save all of the chat going on in the various places that might have inspired the questions or insights that Corey reflects on during class.

For an end product though, I don't know what could be done except an extensively footnoted version of the text. Perhaps in a separate volume like the commentary to the Divine Commentary by Charles Singleton that I read in college. The commentary volumes are far thicker than the actual texts and I believe there's a separate note on every stanza. It seems very similar to the approach the class is taking- analyzing every sentence.
 
Clarification -- "the e-text for Book One" refers to your summaries, not the LotR text itself, right? In either case, I already have an e-text (in Word) of Tolkien's LotR, and I am creating an e-text (in Word) of your summaries as they come out week by week. I also have compiled a series of sets (the entirety being way too huge to do in one gulp!) of the PP slides (again, week by week as they are covered). (If anyone wants them, just ask...) I also have downloaded each of the PDFs of your summaries. (All of these as I noted above in my previous post.) None of this, however includes the Discord or other means of listener comment. I don't know, of course, what Prof Corey plans to do with all this. But I agree a single comprehensive treatment (by him of course) of these observations/discussions done Book by Book would seem a manageable option -- or better, Chapter by Chapter. To be made available to us on some sort of subscription/password permission basis (a la the MythMoots). Maybe, I don't know offhand how to deal with securely preventing premature unremunerated release of such a coherent compilation. One problem I foresee of compiling a text is how to indicate which passages of LotR are being covered. Perhaps opening and closing phrases of the paragraphs involved in each session? There being obvious copyright problems with simply quoting the entire text. About 1/4 of the text has been covered in 4 years so far. Given the sporadic coverage of the first 20 sessions, let's say it would have been 5 years. That means in about 15 more, the entire book will have been covered (minus Appendices and Prologue. let alone textual Forewords.) That does mean most of us will still be around (in non-holographic mode!)... But to wait until then for a full commentary might be frustrating... And be too big a bite all at once.... Dunno... Another sticky point is citations! Given the semi-collaborative nature of these discussions and his innate fairness, Prof Corey is not liable to countenance claiming all the points made are solely his. So maybe the refs made originally in the videos to listeners comments and questions might in a prose text be footnoted with a list appended of Internet handles plus real names forming a sort of Personagraphy, rather then a Bibliography, might help?
 
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PS; You asked in your posts if someone will step forward to guide the making of these summaries into a coherent polished narrative. That, I feel and I am sure all will agree, depends on Prof. Corey's initiative. The conclusions are his, with our comments and questions as catalysts. Thus taking the next step into coalescing and pruning the summaries must be his ultimately. Which is not to say that some volunteer "harbor pilot" so to speak might not be welcomed and might spur him into taking that step. But his is the mastership and rightly so, we are just crew on the ship. You Tony are, as it were, the keeper of the log of the voyage. And you should not feel obligated to do more. Perhaps one way forward is to take a cue from the 900 page Hammond and Scull "Reader's Companion" which annotates various and sundry phrases. By the way, the Singleton commentaries on D.A.'s "Divine Comedy" mentioned above by Joe Ursic take over 1000 pages for each of the 3 parts.
 
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