The Inklings Variety Hour

Poetry Thursday: "Imram," by J.R.R. Tolkien

We're trying a new thing this season--each Thursday, I plan to release a brief recording of a poem by one of the Inklings. 

This is more or less directly inspired by the excellent podcast, The Daily Poem by Goldberry Studios, so check it out and subscribe if you want more of this sort of thing.

The poem this week is "Imram," by J.R.R. Tolkien.

You can find a text of the poem here.

You can find it reprinted in Sauron Defeated in the History of Middle Earth Series.

Do you have a favorite poem by one of the Inklings (or someone associated with them in some way) that you'd like to hear read on the podcast?  Feel free to shoot me an email if so, at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

As always, give us a five-star rating if you want to encourage us to keep doing what we do.

See you Tuesday for The Silver Chair, Part 2!

The Silver Chair, Part 1: Signs and Blunders

Please leave a five-star review of this podcast if you enjoy it. 

We'd also love to hear from you--feel free to send us an email at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  

Welcome to Season Four!  

Chris is joined by Eric Geddes and author Jonathan Geltner to discuss Chapters 1 and 2 of the fourth book in the Narniad (is that what we're calling that now?), The Silver Chair. 

Among other things, we discuss:

• How we're all graduates of Experiment House now
• The school Experiment House was maybe sort of kind of based on
• The real means of getting into Narnia this time (is it the door or Aslan's breath?)
• Aslan's Country as Eden/The Terrestrial Paradise, and Pole and Scrubb's very literal Fall
• The role of the four signs and memory
• Knowledge, experience, and recognition
• The name of the book
• Silverchair (who were, as it turns out, fans of Narnia)

Things we didn't discuss but I'd planned to:

• The Door in the Wall, a beautiful fairy-story by H.G. Wells

Next:

• I'll be releasing brief recordings of poetry by the Inklings each Thursday. This coming Thursday, it'll be "Imram," by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Next Week:

• My wife Glencora and I will discuss Chapters 3 and 4 of The Silver Chair. Never fear--we will get to Puddleglum the following week!

This Season:

Shows on their way include:

• Interview with J.D. Peabody about The Inkwell Chronicles: Race to Krakatoa
• C.S. Lewis and World War I
• Interview with Connor Salter about Bill Gresham (Joy's ex) and his most important novel-turned-movie, Nightmare Alley
• George MacDonald's "The Golden Key"
• At last: Owen Barfield!
• Arthurian Torso
• Perelandra
• And quite a bit more. Stay tuned, and feel free to let me know what else you'd like to see.

An Inklings Christmas Carol (Part 3 of 3)

The last (weirdest) part of Chris' "An Inklings Christmas Carol." 

Oh, didn't realize it was still Christmas, did you? Well, it is, but it's getting close to Epiphany, time of magi and revelations.  

Happy Twelfth Night!

Thanks again to Sørina Higgins and her talented authors' circle, of which I am a part. Feel free to join us.

Write me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com if there are specific things you'd like to see in Season 4 of The Inklings Variety Hour!  

I plan to kick things off with a discussion about The Silver Chair. I'd like this discussion to be with a group of enthusiasts rather than scholars, per se. So please email me if you'd like to join in.

An Inklings Christmas Carol (Part 2 of 3)

Enjoy, and have a Merry Christmas!

Part 3 will post in a week or so (which is, by the way, still Christmastide).

Thanks to Joe Hoffman, Ed Powell, and Sørina Higgins for their talents and help.

Apologies for the occasionally poor audio quality.  We did the best we could!

Email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com. If you like the show, I'd love to hear from you.

 

An Inklings Christmas Carol (Part 1 of 3)

At last!  Here is the first part of a (Zoom) table reading of my "play" (loosely defined), "An Inklings Christmas Carol."  

Two more (longer) parts are to come!  Gee, it's a good thing Christmas begins on December 25, or I'd be out of time. Twelve Tide, etc., etc.!

Special thanks to Anika Smith, Sørina Higgins, and Joe Hoffman for reading this episode.  Thanks in general to Sørina's Author's Circle, which you can find out more about (and even join) here. 

Hope you enjoy it--keep in mind this is a first draft, none of us are professional actors, and I'm not making a cent off this episode! As with any holiday movie or play, if you keep your expectations low, you'll have a pretty good time!

Feel free to send me feedback at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  And please rate the show if you like it!

Twelve Tide (Pipkin Book)

O.G. Host Anika Smith rejoins the podcast to interview Chris and his beautiful and omnicompetent wife, Glencora, about their new Christmas resource book, Twelve Tide. 

Part of what we're trying to do with this book is make Christmas less a single-morning present binge preceded by anxiety and followed by anticlimax--and more a season of twelve days of giving, feasting, and learning to celebrate better.

Want an idea of what's in the book? Check out our website, 12tide.com.

We are all Niatirbians now (and Lewis was dismayed by godless Christmas cards).  We want to reconcile sacred and "secular" aspects of Christmas and equip people with some old ways to celebrate this season. 

Music from this episode includes:

• George Winston's "The Holly and the Ivy"
• Bing Crosby's "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"
• Loreena McKennitt's "The Holly and the Ivy"
• Choir of Christchurch's "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
• Loreena McKennitt's "Gloucestershire Wassail"
• The Chieftains' "Boar's Head Carol"
• Maddy Prior's "Coventry Carol"
• Medieval Baebes' "Adam Lay Ybounden"
• Maddy Prior's "Wassail!"

Also, if you're interested in the Twelve Tide Spotify list Anika suggested on the show, here it is.

Stay tuned...I'm done with grading and I'm turning my attention to an Inklings Christmas Carol.  Won't be easy to finish in time, but I'll do my level best.  If you are interested in reading a part for it, feel free to email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

God bless and keep you this Advent Season. See you at Christmas!

C.S. Lewis Has a Reading Day? (Crossover with All About Jack!)

Happy November 29, or as it's newly-known in Jack-conscious circles, C.S. Lewis Reading Day!

Join William O'Flaherty and Chris as we play Schroeder to C.S. Lewis' Beethoven in a "Crossover Extravaganza" that is sure to have you schlepping down to your local library to crack open some of our favorite works by Lewis!

(Ah! Still fresh! And intoxicating!)

William and Chris will both be attending a Livestream event today (11/29/23) marking this first annual C.S. Lewis Reading Day. Feel free to come along, at 7:00 EST. You should be able to find it on the Pints with Jack Youtube Channel or Facebook Page.

In the meantime, read some C.S. Lewis. (I assume that's what one does on a C.S. Lewis Reading Day when one isn't creating and listening to podcasts.)  If you're not sure where to start, listen to a bit of the present episode to get some ideas.

We had the first (and longer) part of this conversation on William's fine podcast, "All About Jack." It's already up, so check it out if you want to know about some of the works by Lewis that have influenced Chris the most.  You can also find it on William's Youtube channel.

You can find the essays and books William discusses here:

The Screwtape Letters (Annotated)

The Weight of Glory

The Four Loves

The Business of Heaven

Additionally, here is William's Amazon page, where you can buy his books on C.S. Lewis, The Misquotable Lewis and C.S. Lewis Goes To Hell.

And you can find Twelve Tide, the Christmas Resource book by Chris and Glencora Pipkin on Amazon as well. More on that next week!

Finally, Chris is creating a Christmas Special starring the Inklings. If you have any interest in reading the part of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Warnie Lewis, or Edith Tolkien, please contact him at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  

Coming soon...

Just a quick announcement about some bonus content coming your way in the next few weeks:

If you want to hear the first part of my conversation with William O'Flaherty, check out his podcast, All About Jack.  The second part will arrive on C.S. Lewis Reading Day, right here on The Inklings Variety Hour.

If you want to watch the Livestream conversation between myself and a whole bunch of other C.S. Lewis podcast hosts, go to the Pints with Jack Youtube Channel at 7:00 PM EST on Wednesday, November 29.

If you'd like to check out the book I've written with my wife (Twelve Tide), here it is. We'll be talking with original cohost Anika about it next week.

If you would like to be a part of the Christmas special I'm working on for later in December (or would like to suggest ideas for Season Four), email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  I'd love to hear from you for any reason, really.

New Charles Williams Poems!

In this special edition of The Inklings Variety Hour, Sørina Higgins joins me to discuss an exciting discovery she made while perusing Charles Williams' manuscripts at the Marion E. Wade Center.

Come to hear about the new Charles Williams poetry and manuscripts; stay to hear a brief discussion about whether Williams should be "canceled." 

Follow Sørina's work at https://theoddestinkling.wordpress.com/, and feel free to support her work at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/higginssorina. 

And let me know your thoughts! Email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  

The Inklings Variety Hour will be back in March (or so) for a fourth season! In the meantime, enjoy occasional bonus episodes like this. Next up, we'll be having a crossover episode with William O'Flaherty's "All About Jack" podcast for the new, official C.S. Lewis Reading Day (November 29). 

I'll also be promoting a Christmas book my wife and I have written. We'll see you then!

Barfield, Tolkien, and ”Splintered Light,” with Verlyn Flieger

Verlyn Flieger rejoins me to talk about her first important work--and really the first very important work on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion--Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World.

I was really excited to have this conversation, as I read this book just under two decades ago and it not only introduced me to Barfield's ideas, but also made The Silmarillion far more interesting and meaningful to me than it had been. 

So, enjoy, and thanks so much to Verlyn for coming on the show again.  It's been such an honor and a treat to be able to talk with her.  

I'm about out of podcasts!  With the semester starting up, this may well be the final podcast of the season--but I intend to return for Season 4, probably sometime in March.  You'll probably have a few scattered podcasts from me before then, so watch this space!

I've pretty much run out of regular co-contributors, and I worry that the nature of this podcast suffers if it's mostly interviews with published experts (fun as those are), book promotions, or me just talking on my own.  This should be primarily friends talking about good books (and many, many thanks to all the friends who have joined me here)!

If any listeners would like to join me to discuss a book (say, The Silver Chair or The Man Who Was Thursday, or something else), just say the word.  I'd love to have you chime in for an episode or two at the very least.

As always, email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com or give the podcast a rating on iTunes.  

Thanks for listening!