LORD OF THE RINGS IN CONCERT They better have an Elvish choir.
  • LORD OF THE RINGS IN CONCERT They better have an Elvish choir.

As you'd already know if you could be bothered to look at a goddamn map for once in your life, Lord of the Rings in Concert is coming to Portland next week. On Tuesday, October 18, the theatrical cut of Fellowship of the Ring will play at the Rose Garden, accompanied by a full chorus and the Oregon Symphony. The theatrical version of Fellowship on a big, HD screen, accompanied by a live performance of Howard Shore's Academy Award-winning score? Now that's some high-class nerdery.

Alas, like a finely wrought mithril-coat, such high-class nerdery doesn't come cheap: Tickets for the event are $35-95. Unless, that is, you win one of the three pairs of tickets we'll be giving away on Blogtown this week!

HAIKU CONTEST!

Yes, I'm ignoring Steve's strict "No poetry on Blogtown" rule, because he's already gonna swoop in here and declare all of us dweebs anyway, so there's nothing to lose. Why a haiku contest? Because if there's one thing Peter Jackson's movies didn't carry over from Tolkien's books (in addition to that obnoxious jackass Tom Bombadil), it's Tolkien's obsessive inclusion of 4,000 songs and poems on every single page. So a poetry contest is kind of fitting. (Also, I wanted to think of a way to make you guys actually have to put some effort into trying to win these tickets.)

So here's the deal: Put your best Lord of the Rings-related haiku in the comments section below, and make sure your real email address is linked to the name you're commenting under. At 5 pm on Thursday, October 13, I'll pick the three best haikus and email the winners to let 'em know how to get their tickets. (I'll update this post, too, so everybody can see who won and/or bitterly criticize my choices.) That'll give the winners four whole days to get their Legolas costumes ready to wear to the concert, and it'll give the losers four whole days to scratch up enough change to buy tickets to the show and maybe sign up for a much-needed poetry workshop.

Reminder: A haiku's three lines, with five syllables in the first, seven in the second, and five in the third. (Yes, I'll be counting.) Bonus points if you can work in shit like "Lothlórien" and "balrog" and "Gamgee"; negative points if you get super annoying and try to write the whole thing in Sindarin. Poems about Liv Tyler's potato face will accepted, as will poems written from the perspective of Gollum or Treebeard, or poems about what Gimli does in his off hours. They can be about the books or the movies or both. Really, pretty much anything Lord of the Rings-related goes, except for entries written by Stuart Townsend. Mr. Townsend's haikus will only be considered if they contain the phrase "shafted up the ass."

Have at, Tolkien fans! You've got until 5 pm on Thursday, and I expect to be impressed. Otherwise I'm taking all six tickets for myself. Not to give to friends or anything, mind you—just so I'll have plenty of space to spread out and stretch and maybe take a quick nap during the Galadriel part.