The Inklings was an informal literary discussion group associated with the University of Oxford, England, for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and late 1949.   The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who praised the value of narrative in fiction, and encouraged the writing of fantasy.   The more regular members of the Inklings, many of them academics at the University, included J. R. R. "Tollers" Tolkien, C. S. "Jack" Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, Tolkien's son Christopher, Lewis' elder brother Warren or "Warnie", Roger Lancelyn Green, Adam Fox, Hugo Dyson, R. A. "Humphrey" Havard, J. A. W. Bennett, Lord David Cecil, Nevill Coghill.  "Properly speaking," wrote Warren Lewis, "the Inklings was neither a club nor a literary society, though it partook of the nature of both.  There were no rules, officers, agendas, or formal elections."  As was typical for university literary groups in their time and place, the Inklings were all male.  (Dorothy L. Sayers, sometimes claimed as an Inkling, was a friend of Lewis and Williams, but never attended Inklings meetings.)  Readings and discussions of the members' unfinished works were the principal purposes of meetings. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet, and Williams's All Hallows' Eve were among the novels first read to the Inklings.  Tolkien's fictional Notion Club (see "Sauron Defeated") was based on the Inklings.  The name was associated originally with a society of Oxford University's University College, initiated by the then undergraduate Edward Tangye Lean circa 1931, for the purpose of reading aloud unfinished compositions.  The society consisted of students and dons, among them Tolkien and Lewis.  When Lean left Oxford during 1933, the society ended, and its name was transferred by Tolkien and Lewis to their group at Magdalen College.  Until late 1949, Inklings readings and discussions usually occurred during Thursday evenings in CS Lewis's college rooms at Magdalen College.  The Inklings and friends were also known to gather informally on Tuesdays at midday at a local public house, The Eagle and Child, familiarly and alliteratively known in the Oxford community as The Bird and Baby, or simply The Bird.  Later pub meetings were at The Lamb and Flag across the street, and in earlier years the Inklings also met irregularly in yet other pubs, but The Eagle and Child is the best known.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings 

Legacy of the Inklings

The Marion E. Wade Center, located at Wheaton College, Illinois is devoted to the work of seven British authors including four Inklings and Dorothy L. Sayers.  Overall, the Wade Center has more than 11,000 volumes including first editions and critical works. Other holdings on the seven foremost authors (G. K. Chesterton, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Inklings Owen Barfield, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams) include letters, manuscripts, audio and video tapes, artwork, dissertations, periodicals, photographs, and related materials.   The Mythopoeic Society is a literary organization devoted to the study of mythopoeic literature, particularly the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Charles Williams, founded in 1967 and incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1971.  A resurrection of the Inklings in Oxford was made in 2006; the group still meets every Sunday evening, currently at St Cross College nearby the Eagle and Child. It has similar aims and methods to the original group, albeit with somewhat gentler criticism.  Named after the Inklings is The Inklings Society based in Aachen, and their yearbook, Inklings Jahrbuch für Literatur und Ästhetik, published from 1983 by Brendow, Moers.  The members of the Inklings are the three Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica in James A. Owen's series, The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica.  The existence and founding of the organization is also alluded to, in the third novel, The Indigo King.  The undergraduate literary and art magazine at Miami University in Oxford, OH, is named Inklings.  They also meet on Thursday nights.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings 

The alcohol laws of New Jersey are unique; they are among the most complex in the United States, with many peculiarities not found in other states' laws.  They provide for 29 distinct liquor licenses granted to manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and for the public warehousing and transport of alcoholic beverages.  General authority for the statutory and regulatory control of alcoholic beverages rests with the state government, particularly the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control overseen by the state's Attorney General.  Under home rule, New Jersey law grants individual municipalities substantial discretion in passing ordinances regulating the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages within their limits.  The number of retail licenses available is determined by a municipality's population, and may be further limited by the town's governing body.  As a result, the availability of alcohol and regulations governing it vary significantly from town to town.  A small percentage of municipalities in the state are "dry towns" that do not allow alcoholic beverages to be sold, and do not issue retail licenses for bars, liquor stores, or for restaurants to serve alcohol to patrons.  Other towns permit alcohol sales 24 hours a day.  Retail licenses tend to be difficult to obtain, and when available are subject to exorbitant prices and fervent competition.  New Jersey's history of taverns and alcohol production dates to its early colonial period.  Colonial winemakers received recognition by the Royal Society of Arts for producing high-quality wine, and a local distillery owner was asked by George Washington for his recipe for "cyder spirits."  Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the industry developed with the influx of European immigrants, specifically Germans and Italians, who presented a sizable market for alcoholic beverages and brought with them old world winemaking, brewing, and distilling techniques.  With the rise of the temperance movement culminating in Prohibition (1919–1933), New Jersey's alcohol industry suffered; many breweries, wineries and distilleries either closed or relocated to other states.   The legacy of Prohibition restricted and prevented the industry's recovery until the state legislature began loosening restrictions and repealing Prohibition-era laws starting in 1981.  New Jersey's alcohol industry is experiencing a renaissance, and recently enacted laws that provide new opportunities for the state's wineries and breweries.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_New_Jersey 

Amorphophallus titanum (from Ancient Greek amorphos, "without form, misshapen" + phallos, "phallus", and titan, "giant" ), known as the titan arum, is a flowering plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world.  The titan arum's inflorescence is not as large as that of the talipot palm, Corypha umbraculifera, but the inflorescence of the talipot palm is branched rather than unbranched.  Due to its odor, which is reminiscent of the smell of a decomposing mammal, the titan arum is characterized as a carrion flower, and is also known as the "corpse flower", or "corpse plant" (Indonesian: bunga bangkai – bunga means flower, while bangkai means corpse or cadaver).  For the same reason, the title "corpse flower" is also attributed to the genus Rafflesia which, like the titan arum, grows in the rainforests of Sumatra.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphophallus_titanum 

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches.  Morphologically, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified.  The modifications can involve the length and the nature of the Internodes and the phyllotaxis, as well as variations in the proportions, compressions, swellings, adnations, connations and reduction of main and secondary axes.  Inflorescence can also be defined as the reproductive portion of a plant that bears a cluster of flowers in a specific pattern.  Read much more and see beautiful images at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflorescence 

 Giant Corpse Flower bloom - time lapse from two views

"Jesse," the second Titan Arum to bloom at The Ohio State University, was named for famous OSU alumni Jesse Owens and opened May 25, 2012.  Jesse was sown from seed in November, 2001.  Jesse's sibling, Woody, bloomed April 23, 2011.  Some of Woody's pollen was used to pollinate Jesse at approx 1:30 a.m. on May 26, 2012.  Other pollen was donated by "Clive," a Titan Arum that bloomed a few weeks earlier in Niagara Falls, Ontario.  See 4:03 video at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh149OESEF0

Follow Woody updates and see viewing hours at the OSU Biological Sciences Greenhouse.  The first flowering was April 23, 2011.  Titan arums can rebloom as quickly as 2-5 years if the conditions are right. Woody was repotted in November 2012 and the tuber weighed 49 pounds at that time.   See images at:  http://bioscigreenhouse.osu.edu/titan-arum