By Urulókë
Thain (Admin)

an eBay auction that made me laugh...

16 Aug, 2007
2007-8-16 9:35:42 PM UTC

and laugh, and laugh...

A link for the truly curious is below, but here is the relevant text. The auction is for a 1968 Skiatook, Oklahoma (USA) phone book.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien spent a majority of his time in Skiatook writing his second draft of The Lord Of The Rings, a fact paid tribute to by Skiatook's inclusion in the feature film The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King as portraying the city of Minas Tirith. Strangely, all footage shot on location was used only in the film's theatrical trailer, and never saw light in the final cut of the film, an Ontario-based city instead appearing. The original footage- with commentary by Tolkien- is available on the upcoming "One Ring Edition" of the DVD.

Can't wait to hear that commentary...

eBay auction page

17 Aug, 2007
2007-8-17 4:30:01 AM UTC

riiiight... the mental image of JRRT typing away in the 1040's in Skiatook, Oklahoma(!) is incongruous to unfathomable depths, and therefore hilarious - and though I appreciate the humor, I don't think I can laugh until I've finished passing the brainstone. THE @#$&%....?!?

Trotter

24 Aug, 2007
2007-8-24 7:30:08 AM UTC

I looked at this and thought that this must have come from somewhere else on the Internet, looked like it had been cut and pasted, and a quick search on google shows the real culprit.

Search.com web page, Skiatook

I am struggling to see who to contact to get the Tolkien reference removed. Does anyone have any ideas?

Urulókë

24 Aug, 2007
2007-8-24 8:03:41 AM UTC

Good catch Trotter.

The Search.com page is just a mirror (out of date) of the Wikipedia page (which is allowed under the wiki terms of use). I submitted a request to fix to search.com, we'll see if they do anything about it.

It seems (looking at the edit history for the wikipedia page) that Skiatook is a common vandal page - lots of edits that get undone pretty quickly, seems like Search.com happened to grab their copy before one particular instance of vandalism was fixed.

Ah, the power of wikipedia. The truth is what we make of it...

David O.

24 Aug, 2007
2007-8-24 11:38:08 PM UTC

I live about 2 hours from Skiatook, Oklahoma and have been through that town.

I am trying to picture Tolkien there, but it is just not working!

Urulókë

28 Aug, 2007
2007-8-28 5:25:28 PM UTC

I got a response back from Search.com, they said they would update the Wiki information on their side (but they haven't yet.) At least they responded.

Hey David, next time you pass through Skiatook could you take some photos - I want to see what Minas Tirith looked like!

Urulókë

6 Oct, 2007
2007-10-6 6:51:55 AM UTC

Well, I finally had time to revisit, and it appears that Search.com has corrected the listing. One less mis-fact about Tolkien online! (And probably a million new ones.)

tom bombadilo
Not too shy to talk

31 Dec, 2007
2007-12-31 6:06:36 PM UTC

That is hilarious!
I live just 30 min from Skiatook
I couldn't live in such a mundane place, I live in Tulsa a bit less mundane larger city. I just forwarded that to some of my friends, absolutely hilarious

Beren

1 Jan, 2008
2008-1-1 11:28:56 AM UTC

You sometimes read crazy things, especially on the internet, yet it is also true that a lot of myths have been created in the past by some authors and while most of us now know they are myths, it seems hard to destroy them. That is how things go...

Trotter

22 Jan, 2008
2008-1-22 7:52:18 PM UTC

Another classic from Ebay, a constant source of amusement

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/antique-j-r-r-t ... ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

an eBay auction that made me laugh...

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