Wanderlust: A History of Walking

 

Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Walking is dead. Long live walking.

I came to this book with admitted biases. One of the goals I keep in my bullet journal is to do at least two "long" walks a month. I define this as a walk of 3+ continuous miles, not on a treadmill, but outdoors. And while I know that this won't seem like much to my European friends (more on that later), for an American to walk three miles straight through and not on a treadmill - well, unfortunately, that is an oddity. Unlike Europe, we're just not built for it here, and Solnit's Wanderlust: A History of Walking addresses that fact from multiple angles.

Solnit traces the strange development of "nature" walks over time. The differences in attitude toward natural paths versus groomed walkways, along with differences among class perceptions of landscape and walking itself, not to mention regional preferences, show a more variegated landscape than the modern reader might expect. You might expect a book on walking to be pretty straightforward, one step after another, right?

It's a bit more complicated than that.

The book begins with anecdotal discussions with anthropologists regarding the very earliest walkers which is, by turns, insightful, funny, irreverent, and which tear through some of the most commonly held misconceptions about early hominids (some of which I held). It's an interesting start and necessary, I guess, but I question the need for it. Is it just a vestigial tale? Perhaps, though later chapters examine the in-body experience of walking in various social and political contexts which also say something about bodies and their physical place in the world, as well as what the exercise of the use of those bodies means (I do not only mean in the sense of physical fitness, as this is just a by-product of walking).

There was a bit of metalepsis in my reading of Wanderlust, though it was purely unintentional. When I am working at the office here in town, I always take some time to go for a walk on the Ice Age Trail, which passes very near to my workplace. I also walk home from work sometimes, after my wife has dropped me off on days when she needs the car (yes, we are one of those rare and elusive one-car American families). On my last long walk home from work (4.2 miles), I was heading down the sidewalk reading this book, and a total stranger, who was mowing her lawn, stopped her lawnmower to ask what I was reading (note: I wish there were more people like this in the world!). I showed her the cover and she just started laughing out loud. We exchanged pleasantries and I was on my way again. I'm kind of worried that she's going to intercept me another time, when I'm reading something far more morbid or controversial.

Speaking of which, Solnit does not shy away from controversy. She has an entire chapter on sex workers and the freedom and limits of such work when related to walking. She also presents a chapter on walking as a revolutionary political act, from the Civil Rights protests to the Argentine mothers of the "disappeared" walking in solidarity against a tyrannical regime.

Earlier, I had mentioned Europe. I was born in Europe and lived over half of my childhood there. So maybe I see the auto-mation of American society with a bit more of a critical eye than most of my American friends. Last month, I had the opportunity to go to Germany for a week for work (I work for a German-based company), followed by a week's vacation in Belgium and The Netherlands. On average, I think we walked about 6 or 7 miles a day. When we weren't walking, we took trains almost everywhere. I had a rental car for my first week in Germany, but really only used it to get from Amsterdam to Oelde and back, then out for dinner for one night. Other than those three trips, we stood on trains and walked and walked and walked. For my American friends, what you need to understand about Europe is that it is BUILT for walking. Some of it has to do with scale (Germany and Wisconsin are almost exactly the same size, for comparison), some of it has to do with history (plazas built around medieval marketplaces or Renaissance and Baroque cathedrals), but much of it has to do with choice: the choice to let pedestrians (and bicycles) predominate. The old medieval streets are simply too small to avoid congestion, but rather than just widening the roads (and destroying several historical buildings in the process), Europe has, by and large, pushed cars to the outskirts. Having a healthy public transportations system makes this more feasible (though some would argue that the amount of strikes and delays that occur is anything but "healthy" - thanks, privatization!) but again, this is a choice made largely by the people who live there, who want walkable, bike-able streets, helped along by the scale of the cities and countries in question.

I could go on and on about third places and the lack thereof in the states, but I will try to bite my tongue a bit after stating that the disappearance of third places in the US has everything to do with the prevalence of automobiles. The one really depressing moment I had while on vacation was looking over a plaza thronged with people mostly just hanging out and eating Italian ice cream (those who know, know) and people-watching, while realizing that there really are no places like that, none, zero, zilch any closer to me than Chicago (an hour and a half and a parking nightmare away).

I didn't take this book with me when I travelled, and I'm glad I didn't. I might have just opted to stay there. Walking, as you can probably guess, is a part of me and a very important part of my life.

When I returned from Europe and got back into the groove of work again, I naturally picked up where I left off. The funny thing is that I was simultaneously reading Walter Benjamin's collection of essays, Illuminations. I discovered that Solnit mentions Benjamin explicitly and particularly his thoughts on Baudelaire, something that had struck me while reading Benjamin's book. It seems all (walking) roads lead to Baudelaire in some way. It was all a very strange synchrony, though the figure of the Flâneur might just be the hinge on which all these synchrony's rotate, at least as far as urban walkers go.

But Solnit is equally at home (or away from home?) in presenting the history of rural walking, as well; something I know a little bit about. Here, also, one finds a long tradition of political protest in the form of voting with one's feet (and sometimes, fists). Protest marches in England, for example, seem to have originated in the country over contested right-of-ways through public and private land. I recall, in fact, when I lived in England, at the base I lived on, there was a "bridal path" we were told was required to allow the Queen to ride her horse on, whenever she wished it. But it actually acted as a public path, at times, with anti-nuclear protesters (this wasn't a nuclear base, but the protesters had no idea) from the CND marching through every few months or so. So long as they stayed on that path, there was really nothing to be done about it. If they strayed from it . . . well, I've seen what British police can do. There's a reason British cops don't have to carry guns, and it's not because they are convincing conversationalists.

I'm guessing, though, that Rebecca Solnit is a convincing conversationalist. I can attest to the fact that she is a convincing writer. If nothing else, I'd love to take a long walk and talk with her.

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Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

 

Illuminations: Essays and Reflections by Walter Benjamin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In a weird and unplanned synchronicity, I read Walter Benjamin's Illuminations at the same time I read Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust: A History of Walking. I had no idea that these works had any connection with each other, but there is a very strong connection in their analysis of the work of Baudelaire. More on this later.

It took some time to get to Benjamin's excellent and very eclectic collection of essays. Hannah Arendt's introduction is extensive and interesting, laying a foundation for what is to come by examining Benjamin's light in both a historical and intellectual context. I came through it feeling well-equipped to tackle Benjamin's sometimes-abstruse work. Rather than a barrier to getting to the source material, Arendt provides a useful and understandable bridge to Benjamin's core ideas.

We start with "Unpacking My Library," which every book-lover should read, but, more especially, every book collector. I'm admittedly somewhere between the two poles of reader and collector Benjamin presents, but I lean more toward the former than the latter. Benjamin, an admitted book collector (there is an underlying hint of shame in the title as he presents it, as if it is a guilty pleasure), points out the collector's foibles with a great sense of self-deprecating humor.

"The Task of the Translator" presents several thoughts on translation, including the very interesting question of one's linguistic machismo when translating. Should the translator impose his language on the one being translated, or should he allow the language being translated to inform and even form his own? I have always respected "good" translators and their work, but now I question what, really, does "good" mean in this context? I don't have a firm conclusion, but I do have a lot of thinking to do as a result of reading this essay, which was probably Benjamin's intent.

In his essay "The Storyteller," Benjamin parses out the different characteristics, not of structure, but of the worldview of storytelling (as in: around a campfire), the short story, and the novel. He reflects on collective vs individual memory, the impatience of modernity (don't get me started), and how the absence of death and the view of eternity it provides has shaped fiction, in general. The irony of Benjamin's demise is not lost on me. It's a bittersweet read, precisely because of what followed.

As much as I love Kafka, it's apparent that I need to read more of him. I guess The Collected Stories (all of his short stories) and The Trial aren't quite enough. I feel like such a poser . . . Maybe I should read him in German to feed my ego a little. In any case, I found Benjamin's "Franz Kafka" inspiring. Absolutely one of the best summations of the spirit of Kafka's work that threads the needle between analysis of Kafka's psychological state of mind and the more metaphysical/surreal aspects of Kafka's work. I've been a fan of Kafka's work since I was young and this rekindles the fire to dive back in again.

Sadly, I know very little about Brecht's work, having only read (in German) "Der kaukasische Keidekreis". But while I should read more of Brecht's work, I know something about the man himself. I had a professor in college who was a Brecht expert. James K. Lyon, from whom I took my German literature classes as an undergrad, wrote the book
After doing some more research and interviews, Professor Lyon discovered that every Wednesday night, Brecht would have friends and acquaintances over so he could show them what was going on in Germany at the time. They watched (and discussed and mocked) German propaganda films - hence the anthems and salutes. But this poor lady thought Brecht was a communist and a nazi!

Now on to Proust and Baudelaire. The Freudian analysis of Proust and Baudelaire feel flimsy, at best. I get the analysis of memory regarding Proust, and the examination of time might have some basis in psychology, but the Freudian dream-connection just hangs by a weak thread. I found Benjamin's Marxist analysis of Baudelaire much more convincing than his Freudian analysis of the poet. After reading this, I definitely need to read Flowers of Evil yet again. In fact, I should make that a regular practice. I can't stand French as a language (everything is an exception, sorry, but give me German, Swahili, and Latin rules all day long), but if I were ever to attempt to learn it again, it would be for this sole purpose: Reading Baudelaire.

As I said earlier, I was reading Solnit's Wanderlust at the same time as this book. I'll probably save most of the correlations for my review of Solnit's work, but there was an amazing amount of connection, with Solnit quoting Benjamin critiquing Baudelaire, while herself analyzing Baudelaire's work, not only on the figure of the "Flaneur," but also on walking as a socio-political act. Fascinating stuff, especially since my wife and I had recently returned from a vacation in Europe where we figure we clocked in around 90 miles of walking in two weeks.

The book continues with Benjamin's analysis and critique of film in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," which is not so interesting when addressing the work itself as it is fascinating when one looks at the audience and the change it engenders in them vis-à-vis their appreciation of static art. I might also add that the exploration of strangeness that an actor undergoes when acting in front of the camera and of that same actors dissociation with self led me to think about real and rumored instances of actors who fell too far into their characters and never quite shook the stain to their psyche. Granted, many of these stories are overblown and sensationalized, but I have spoken with some actors who have had to essentially detox from their role to return to normalcy.

The final essay "Theses on the Philosophy of History" is be far the most challenging piece in the collection. It is a somehow timely piece of class history and touches on resistance to fascism in ways that many people now are exploring and re-exploring. Benjamin's arguments might be difficult to understand and sometimes seem to cater to the "party line" a little too cleanly, but they are worth consideration and contemplation.

All-in-all, this is an intellectual/philosophical grab bag on a wide variety of topics. Each is addressed in a different way - you won't find Benjamin pounding the same drum repeatedly - and one will have a variety of emotional and intellectual responses to the whole. But one cannot argue that the work is insignificant. Far from it.



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The Creative Act: A Way of Being

 

The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I studiously avoided reading reviews of this book until I was done because I (correctly) predicted there would be those who praised it as a new book of holy scripture and those who would utterly trash the work as thin and inconsequential. Neither of those two camps is right. And while I do not condone tossing a book before you've given it a fair chance (though I have utterly given up on a book or two, opinions will differ on what a fair chance is. I can see the naysayers who feel that the book is a bunch of twitter quotes strung together, and I can even see why people who went into it not expecting a philosophically-oriented book would be turned off to it (though why you would think that a book about creativity would NOT have a philosophical orientation is beyond me). That said, I lean towards the cult of those who sing this books praises. I'm not all-in drinking the Kool-Aid, but I am at the edge of the clearing watching everyone line up, considering.

If one reads the book to the end, one finds the admission:

You are you.
The work is the work.
Each person in the audience is themselves. Uniquely so.
none of it can truly be understood, let alone distilled to simple equations or common language.

And herein lies the heart of the matter. Creativity is very difficult to pin down. There are exceptions and contradictions. What works one time doesn't work the next. That's the whole point of creativity. If you're looking for an end-all-be-all truth, study Accounting. Paint-by-numbers is not creativity, and it never was. It's good practice, and one can learn principles from it, but the true teachers in creative acts are experience, intuition, and failure.

Rubin does, however, share practical ways of thinking/being for those who might be struggling through the creative process. He also shares ways to ensure that you are creating good art when you think you've got a finished product. Any writer who's been writing for a while will tell you that the most difficult part of writing is editing. And if they don't, you can bet that their work shows it. I can categorically state that my early work, even those for which I was paid good money, could stand another edit. Or two. Or ten. Here Rubin doesn't spare the rod, but reminds us of our responsibility to create the best work we can, while giving us some tools to work with.

Now many of these tools come in the last third of the book, but if one doesn't buy into the foundational principles (remember that old concept of "willing suspension of disbelief"?), then the latter parts of the book are going to be far less impactful. No, you don't have to drink all the Kool-Aid, but you have to be willing to read and observe with an open mind. If you can't at least accept, theoretically, that "art is our portal to the unseen world," then this book is not for you. But if you'll give that thought a serious chance, the rest of the book will make sense to you. Again, if you want paint-by-numbers-so-you-can-monetize-everything-with-high-productivity, you need to look elsewhere.

If you're onboard with exercising a little faith, you'll be able to grok the book. The practicum really starts with the chapter on "Seeds," about a third of the way in. From here to the end, I've marked so many passages and taken so many notes that I won't take the time to put them all (if any) into this review. I've begun marking it up (in pencil - yes, I write in my books) with marginal notes, much like the ancient rabbinical scholars used to litter a verse of scripture with their annotations. As a result, this book has become highly personal to me and will continue to do so as I revisit it. It serves as a mirror to my own creative process, revealing all of its beauty and flaws. I will gaze into this book many times in the future both for inspiration and for practical solutions when I'm stuck (and there are many methods given for how to become un-stuck in the last third of the book).

I have a handful of reference books that I keep "hot at hand" in my writing area. An old Roget's Thesaurus, Tim D. White's Human Osteology, Francis D.K. Ching's A Visual Dictionary of Architecture, and now: Rick Rubin's The Creative Act: A Way of Being.

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Common/Uncommon Book

 More on this later, but I just returned from a trip to Europe and bought some writerly goodies while I was over there: The Leuchtturm 411 notebook and a Retro 51 Tornado Woodworks Bourbon Rollerball Pen. I am in love.

I've been wanting to do a "Commonplace Book" for a while, and had the rudimentary beginnings of one in my bullet journal, but have migrated those notes out. However, I wanted to also use this notebook to capture writing ideas. So, if you flip the notebook upside down, to the back, you'll find my "Common Book" with great quotes, sentences, phrases, and just plain cool words that serve as inspiration for my writing, including some transcriptions from notable passages (I have one from Rikki Ducornet's The Jade Cabinet, for example, regarding the Hungerkunstler). 

At the front of the journal is my "Uncommon Book" where I capture ideas according to the following key, inspired by some of the schools of magic in D&D:

 

And here are the new tools I get to use: 

I went on vacation seeking inspiration, as usual. I came back with several pages worth of inspirational ideas, as well as a container for them! 

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Agent of the Imperium: A Story of the Traveller Universe

 

Agent of the Imperium: A Story of the Traveller Universe by Marc W. Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I make no bones about it: The Traveller RPG and it's primary setting, The Third Imperium, is one of my favorite places to take my imagination and has been since the early '80s. As a young child, I always wondered who the creator of the game, Marc Miller, was. As an adult, I've had a chance to meet him, game at this table, and really get to know him in a different way than just being a star-struck 12 year old fanboy. Marc is not just a creative genius, he is a gentleman and a kind, benevolent person, politically active in calling out racism and prejudice, just a general all-around good human being.

Back in 2023, after a very long conversation about politics and gaming (I'll spare you all the details), I bought this book from him at the gamehole convention. Of course, I asked him to sign it. He was very excited about the premise, wherein the main narrator has his consciousness loaded into a "wafer" that allows his personality and experiences to be plugged into a host body. He acts as a spokesperson who speaks as if the Emperor or the Empress (depending on when the narrator has been activated) and makes the most difficult decisions, often sacrificing thousands or even millions to save millions or billions. He is the one who makes the difficult decisions, acting, in ways, as a sort of god with the fate of the (known) universe in his hands. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it. And these are not decisions that are made lightly. There is a pathos to the power, with some degree of regret and the haunting of the ghosts of the past that one might expect in such a situation.

But the central conceit of the book allows a broad view of a large universe. It is a rather brilliant mechanism, and one that requires a delicate balance between the vast and the personal.

In what could be a sanitized, clinical exposition on the setting of the Traveller RPG, Marc Miller takes a different tack, posing questions about what one would do if one had uninhibited authority, including the ongoing questions about the needs of the many versus the needs of the few. The humanity here is never lost, with all the attendant good, evil, and indifference that this infers.

I don't have time to go into details of Miller's Traveller universe. Suffice it to say, it's complex, but does not bury itself under details. There are nuances in the book that I had not expected from the source materials of the original game. For instance, there is the "problem" of the Zhodani, a human race that has embraced the use of psionics to the point where honesty is the only policy that makes sense in their culture. It is often compared to a pure communist system (Marc confirmed this to me directly in a conversation we had once). But here, there is a textured cultural take on a small sliver of Zhodani society showing both the diversity that is possible in a society where there are no lies and all thoughts are transparent, while simultaneously showing the impossibility of such a society understanding a culture that dissembles, deceives, and lies (i.e., the rest of Humaniti).

I'm glad I'm familiar with the Traveller universe. Yes, I could read this without it and still understand what's happening, but having been steeped in the lore for over 40 years now, I have a much clearer understanding of the impact of the events being portrayed here. But this should not stop the reader who has never played the game. The novel stands on its own feet. But if you'd like to know more, to engage in the actual ongoing creation of the setting, there's always the roleplaying game. Such is the creative magic of RPGs!

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Ossuary of Dreams: Twenty-Five Tales of German Horror and Weird Fiction

 

Ossuary of Dreams: Twenty-Five Tales of German Horror and Weird Fiction by Robert Grains
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My kids are great. They're all adults now, so to call them "kids" feels a little disingenuous. But my kids are great (and my wife and grandkids, too, I must add).

"So why," you are likely asking yourself "are you leading off a review of a collection of weird horror fiction with 'My kids are great'."? Well, here's the deal. At around Christmas time, I do a bunch of massaging to my Amazon wishlist. Before you go ballistic, I try to order my books direct from publishers or, even better, directly from authors, so get off your high-horse for a second. I keep that Amazon wishlist to help my kids with Christmas shopping for dear old dad. One of the biggest issues with this is a recency-bias. If I see something new and shiny and it's getting near Christmas, I add it to my wishlist.

Such was the case with Ossuary of Dreams. I don't remember why I added it to my list last minute, but I did. Maybe it was the cool title or the even cooler font on the cover (no seriously, I live that font), or maybe I read a review about it that impressed me . . . I don't know. But, added it, I did.

So, this might be a sort of apologia to my daughter, who bought me the book. Kiddo, I really do appreciate the gift. It means a lot to me . . .

But I gotta give this one two stars.

The collection had its high points.

I found "A Walk in the Morning" to be a highly effective story.

There are echoes of Dhalgren in Grains hurtling-toward-the-collapse story "Our City at Night," but with a strong injection of occult forces. Here, I found that I prefer Grains at longer word counts. It gives his voice needed breathing space and makes the flourishes more emphatic and impactful.

I rather liked the unfolding-apocalypse (with a dream-time glimpse into the pyrrhic acknowledgment of respect to the lone survivor, imparted by the new God of this world) portrayed in "The Golden Age". I, for one, embrace the arrival of our robot overlords. This was an effective story, paced perfectly, with an air of reverent restraint that fit the tale to a tee. Well-played, not-quite-terminator.

"The Portraits of the Baron," the second-longest work in this collection, was, admittedly, very enjoyable. I loved the deep dives of esotericism here and the ending, while predictable, was satisfactory and held an ironic twist. This is the strongest work in the book.

"Metamorphosis" is an apocalyptic horror story somewhere between Clark Ashton Smith and China Mieville, wherein the narrator embraces the inevitability of change on the cosmic level, accepting fate with a philosophically stoic attitude that masks the shock of an undeserved fate of extreme horror.

So, there was something to like the collection. But, as Stepan Chapman used to say, there's also "something for everyone to hate".

I didn't hate most of the other stories. They ranged from "meh" to "I want to lem this book," but few of them went to the extreme of me wanting to do physical harm to the actual object. I reserve most of that hatred for one book in particular, which I'd like to see burned off the face of literary history. So, I didn't hate any of them that much. But there were some in there that I just kind of wanted to punch in the mouth.

I think that there are two fundamental problems, for me, with the work. First, the absolute fascination, nay, worship of overwrought and just plain faulty description drove me batty.

For example:

. . . a rumbling like from a squadron of unleashed poltergeists in the entablature.

This phrase has so many problems, I can't even begin to enumerate them. Well, maybe I can, but I really don't want to. Suffice it to say that I have more questions than answers about what is happening here.

Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident.

Secondly, the overuse and downright abuse of adverbs had my inner editor clawing at my innards the whole way through. I honestly wanted to scream at times. Instead, I sighed heavily (I wince at having used an adverb here - is there no escape?!?) so I wouldn't wake up my wife. the "ly" ending now makes me twitch whenever I see it, like an abused puppy. It's going to take a while before I can see it without twitching.

Finally, I think that while the translation is mostly very good, you can also tell, in places, that it is a translation. I speak conversational German, and I know how convoluted German sentences can get. I don't envy anyone translating such a work of purple prose from German to English. The effort was good, but it is inevitable that there are some hiccups, and given the often awkward phraseology, they really show.

Had this been my first weird fiction rodeo, and had I read this, say, thirty years ago, I might have felt differently. But I can't, in good conscience, say anything beyond "it was ok," hence the two stars.

As always, your mileage may vary.

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Garycon 2025 Rogues Gallery

 

As you can probably tell by my paucity of posts, life has been very, very busy. Particularly with my day job because, well, screw Trump and his lack of actual economic and diplomatic policy. Tariffs are taking a stupid toll on those of us who work in procurement and supply chain. Yeah.

Despite all the intentional chaos our unhinged government is creating, I was able to get to Garycon this spring. Now, not all cons are absolutely amazing. And this Garycon was only amazing because I was able to see an old friend I haven't seen since high school. 38 years later, we were able to get together and hang out a little bit. Man, that felt good. I don't have a ton of contact with people I went to high school with, both because I am avoiding most social media and because I graduated from a small Department of Defense school in England. Upon graduating, we all spread to the four winds. So, the best part of Garycon was seeing my old friend. He'll be coming back next year, too, for which I am very, very grateful.

But this Garycon was . . . well, it was fine. But nothing spectacular. Of course, I had a great time and played in some great games, but outside of one particularly great DCC game (thank you, Julian Bernick), the games were . . . alright. Nevertheless, I'm trying to make it a habit to show the many faces I wore as a player, so here we go.

First off, you'll notice that two of my characters have the same name: Dweezel Space Jesus. I think that's going to be my default name for any DCC/MCC character I play at conventions. It fits the mood of DCC and it's easy to remember. Of the two Dweezel Space Jesii that I played, the elven sage in the lower left hand corner of the photo above was my favorite. This was the one I played in Julian Bernick's outstanding adventure "Expedition to Yuggoth," which is just what the label says, a 4th level DCC adventure to Yuggoth, home of Mi-Go, gigantic automata, and other nasties whose names Chaosium has copyrighted (they'll probably sue me for using the terms "Yuggoth" and "Mi-Go," but whatevs). As is usual with one of Julian's adventures, all descended into chaos rather quickly, which is just what I had hoped for. I think Julian exhudes some kind of spiritual force field that drives players insane in his presence. It's a wonderful gift, and I enjoyed it, especially the part where the party cleric was able to charm some Mi-Go into going back and killing off a party of mercenary lizard men who tried to rip us off as we were busy stealing - uh, I mean "transporting" - some . . . goods from the planet. We had trapped them in a building so we could off with the goods, and encountering the Mi-Go and being able to charm them just as we were getting ready to jump off-planet was a godsend. And by "God" I mean the Elder Gods, of course.

Here's our intrepid party of adventurers. Notice the lady in the back trying to sneak up on us and backstab:

Speaking of Chaosium, I played in two Call of Cthulhu games, one put on by the awesome guys at You Too Can Cthulhu, and another put on by the awesome guys at Court of Cthulhu. Both were great, mysteries were had, people died in grisly ways or sold their souls for their own personal gain. Call of Cthulhu always brings out the best in people.

I also played in a Traveller game where we had to infiltrate a red zone planet and find a Zhodani spy. Good times were had by all except the Zhodani spy and one of our party members who, if I remember correctly, lost a good chunk of their face. Important safety note: If you get in combat in Traveller, you've made a grave error. That system is deadly.

Last of all on the roleplaying front, I played the newest incarnation of a Conan RPG, Conan: The Hyborian Age. It's an interesting system with additive dice rolls and well-differentiated classes. I always like to play at least one game I've never played before at a con, and this was it this time. Good game. I'd play it again.

With every con, I try to get into at least one miniatures game, as well. I can't afford to buy all the minis in the world, so I pay good money to rent them at cons. This year, I played Legions of the Petal Throne for the third year in a row. I splurged and bought the rulebook, as well. It's way out of print and bloody expensive, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.

Here's a little chunk of my army ready to charge, then in the midst of the final battle. Yon Koryani won. This felt like vindication after the horrific loss I suffered last year!

And this year, I played in two miniatures games. The second was Pulp Alley: The Lost World of Lemuria. It was a little more complex than I like in my mini games, but it was fun, nonetheless. Here are a few of my thugs in action:

So, good times had, as usual. Not quite as spectacular as, say, Gameholecon last year (where I played in one of the coolest adventures I've ever played in, to be honest). But going to Garycon is always great. I'll be there as long as I'm on two feet and breathing.

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The Jade Cabinet

The Jade Cabinet by Rikki Ducornet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the interest of full disclosure, I know Rikki. I've helped publish her work a couple of times and have an irregular correspondence with her. Just sent her a letter (handwritten, of course) a few weeks ago, in fact.

Knowing Rikki and reading The Jade Cabinet again after having been away from it for so many years, I am struck, most of all, by the sheer restraint she shows in presenting this devastating, yet beautiful novel. It's a clear case of the power of editing and craftsmanship at work. Her pen is under strict control here, concentrating the power of whimsey and, indeed, some degree of madness into a self-restrained, almost ethereal (pardon the pun - one of the main characters is named "Etheria") critical examination of male dominance, the Victorian social paradigm, and the favoritism of technic over magic.

This is a character-driven novel, first and foremost. What I love about Rikki's work here is that none of the characters are presented as "either/or". Radulph Tubbs, a notably brutal man with few redeeming qualities, almost none, in fact, becomes, in his older years, a bit sympathetic. But not too sympathetic. More just plain pathetic. But the narrator (who, in a surprising twist, ultimately . . . well, I don't want to give away the surprise) feels a pity that borders on admiration for Tubbs' inner world, even though his actions in the physical world are violently misogynistic and crassly materialistic. Baconfield, the architect, who is hired by Tubbs, is a staunch industrialist, bent on bringing sterile order to everything, but later, through a series of misfortunes, becomes a mad mystic. Angus Sphery, father to both Memory (the narrator) and her sister Etheria, is a loving, whimsical father and a friend of Charles Dodgson (yes, that Charles Dodgson) who also abandoned his first daughter and ultimately ended up in Bedlam asylum. Sphery's wife, Margaret, likewise, lost her sanity, but for altogether different reasons.

Yes, it's that sort of novel. Full of frivolity, madness, and (mostly) tragedy.

And at the center of it all is Etheria, the mute daughter of Angus Sphery, who is essentially sold off to Radulph Tubbs for the price of The Jade Cabinet, a Wunderkammer, of sorts, filled exclusively with figurines carved from jade. One of these figures, which I will not reveal here, becomes the pivotal tool (I use that word reluctantly, but it works on several levels), the wrench in the works, as they say, that leads to the vanishment of the lovely, innocent Etheria and the subsequent emergence of the one true monster of the novel, the Hungerkünstler. No, not that Hungerkünstler, but one of the same mien.

Unlike many character-driven novels, however, The Jade Cabinet is fully-engaging throughout, with something for everyone (or "something for everyone to hate" as my friend Stepan Chapman used to say). The magic realism borders, at times, on that ill-defined subgenre known as "The Weird". The writing itself has a strong focus on not only the language itself, but the role of language as it affects the inner worlds of each character. Ultimately, I suppose, the work is about language and memory, though it never beats the reader over the head with a philosophical stick. It is subtle. And this is really the greatest compliment I can give to it: it breathes softly, with occasional rushes of wind, but it's underpinnings are mere whispers that overwhelm, if one is paying attention. It demands such attention, but not in a bombastic way; rather, it engages like a soft mountain breeze through the trees, simultaneously caressing the ears and overwhelming them. It is an elemental force: the force of the air.

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Spellburn March Madness

 Okay, nerds. 

You've heard all the office talk about March Madness, but you want nothing to do with sportsball. 

No problem. 

Spellburn is sponsoring its own tournament. The contestants are 3rd party DCC titles, of which yours truly has two entries all his own and more in his collaborative pool.

So, here's your chance to vote for Beyond the Silver Scream (Psst! Here's a free DCC Patron, straight from the book, if it will influence your vote - just don't tell the elections commission!) or At the Mutants of Madness. Or, if you're more fond of my collaborations, you can vote for The Umerican Survival Guide. 

You know what? You do you, man. Just vote for whatever you like. But be sure to support the awesome 3rd party publishers of DCC and MCC content! Scan that there QR code and you'll be teleported to the arena.

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If you like my writing and want to help my creative endeavors, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!

Garycon Schedule 2025

 In case you're wondering, I will be at Garycon. Schedule, at this point, follows (though I'm on a waitlist for one game that I'm going to barge into if a slot opens up, so one of these might change). And, yes, I do play a lot of Call of Cthulhu at cons. It's usually the only chance I really get to do so!

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Addendum: The keeper running The King in Yellow graciously informed me that I had played in that scenario just a few years ago. Ah, my brain . . . So, I dropped The King in Yellow to give someone else a chance, then took a spot in a Star Wars game (never played before) and a DCC game, just for kicks and giggles:

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If you like my writing and want to help my creative endeavors, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

 

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have to admit that I approached this book with trepidation. While I have been making a concerted and whole-hearted effort to embrace minimalism and slow living (but not spartanism, which is the extremist version of minimalism), I have been very careful to avoid what I'll call the bruh-culture of efficiency aka "hustle culture". Screw hustle culture. Screw productivity at all costs. I'm just not about that.

That's not to say I don't laud and enjoy hard work, I do, so long as it brings intentional results and so long as I can "turn it off" when I need to, which is often. Hustle culture isn't sustainable in the long term, and I've been on this planet long enough to realize that, for me, at least, slower really is better. Working myself to an early death is just not on my agenda, and I've been very close to a couple of situations where I've seen overwork and hustle culture result in some long lasting and sometimes severe damage to mental health, as well as physical health (usually joined at the hip). I'm not going there. You really can't pay me enough to go there. I value well-being over money.

So, it was with some concern that I opened the cover and skimmed the book, to see a fair amount of "corporate speak" between the covers. I almost lemmed this one, but thought I'd give it a chance.

The corporate speak between the covers, I learned, was a bit of a necessary evil. I'm reminded of Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism and its use of what I'll call techno-speak. I'm not the most tech-savvy person (I can fuss with a database and worked for a major software firm for a few years, so I'm not a complete stranger to it), so I am a little intimidated and defensive when it comes to techno-speak. And while I've been in the corporate world for decades, I bristle at corporate speak. I use it, admittedly, as a tool. But the way some people revel in it, frankly, makes me a bit ill. Thankfully, the corporate speak here was really used to contextualize warnings about the dangers of slipping into being a "yes man" in the corporate world. McKeown makes no bones about standing one's ground, and pissing off many people in the process, in an effort to ultimately define personal boundaries and focus on what one deems is essential.

Does this work in the real world? Yes and no. I was surprised and felt rather justified to read about being intentionally slow to answer some requests. I'm in procurement, and while there are indeed times for fast action (e.g. customer emergencies), most people's emergencies are not really emergencies. And in corporate settings where everything is an emergency, disfunction reigns supreme. Did I mention "screw hustle culture"? McKeown's point, at least at this juncture in the book, is that oftentimes emergencies aren't, and the essentialist is not only able to differentiate between emergent and non-emergent situations, but to forestall the non-emergent situations or, at times, ignore them entirely. Of course, in the corporate setting that most of us work in, you can't just be flippant about disregarding the needs of others, but, with practice and in the right context, you can set the tone with coworkers and even bosses regarding your boundaries. If you can't, you need to decide if that's a "you" problem or a company culture problem. You may or may not be able to change an entire company's culture (likely not), but you can do some things to influence your island, so to speak. McKeown addresses that here. I'm not going to go over all of the ins and outs, because I would just be repeating what he said. You really do need to read it for yourself.

Is this book a life-changer? Not for me. There are some things as a mid-level manager that are intractable and that I just have to live with. But I have discovered that, in the right context, I have more power to decide what is essential than I would ever have given myself credit for, or ever had the courage to enact, even five years ago. If I would have encountered this book several years ago, I think it would have had even less of an effect on me than it has, simply because I have made a conscious effort only in the past year or so to really try to simplify and declutter my life physically, mentally, and emotionally.

I've found that minimalism is hard work. If you think that slow living is simple, you are in for a lot of disappointment and cognitive dissonance. You have to work at working less, but there is a pathway. Actually, there are a number of pathways. Essentialism is just one aspect of minimalism and, I'd argue, a minor one, at that. As part of a curriculum on learning to live more slowly and intentionally (and that is a BIG syllabus, I can assure you), Essentialism is definitely helpful. But I don't think it's a good doorway into the slow life of intentionality. Pardon the horrid pun that you knew was coming, but it's not essential, at least not as a whole. Helpful, absolutely. And a part of the journey, to be sure. But only one piece of a much larger puzzle.

Still, there are parts I will be reading again. The section on "Play" is, I think, critical. As is the section on "editing". This isn't a master-class, but there are clearly some gems, some of them are essential, but not the whole thing. And what is essential for you is going to be different than what is essential for me. It's a personal journey. Hopefully you can find some key waypoints in this little box of maps.

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If you like my writing and want to help my creative endeavors, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!

Prisms of the Oneiroi

 

Prisms of the Oneiroi by Martin Locker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While I've read bits and bobs of Martin Locker's work before, this is my first full-length foray into his work and I feel like I've struck gold in the Pyrenees. I paid for it (including shipping from Andorra), but this is worth ten times what I spent! There's a wonderful variety to the stories in this collection, all girded by Locker's own voice, or, more properly, voices, as his characters are distinctly-identifiable from one another. Each tale is a different facet of the same gem.

Ligotti has nothing on Locker when it comes to existential dread on a cosmic scale. This was the sort of suffocating fear of the universe that Lovecraft strove for, but Locker has found. "The Dreaming Plateau" is horror of a different order of magnitude, made all the more impactful by the elision of the most purple prose. The poetic heart is intact, but without un-necessary frills, with terrifying clarity. And for some reason, my mind kept flashing images from the Tibetan scenes in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus throughout, which is not a bad thing. I was waiting for Tom Waits to burst through a door at any moment.

"Corfdrager" examines one of my favorite enigmatic pieces of art, Bruegel's "The Beekeepers and the Birdnester" (and the art used on one of my favorite albums from one of my favorite bands, Sunn's White 2) as a catalyst for the narrator's encounter with his family's past and his own inheritance via a seemingly academic investigation. One wonders, by the end, if the academics aren't the most horrific aspect of the story. If you went to graduate school, you know what I'm talking about here. The dive into apiary lore is more sinister and more irresistible than one might imagine.

While reading Prisms of the Oneiroi, I am using a Winterthur Poison Book Project bookmark (you can get one, like I did, for free here). The irony of reading "The Temple Consumes the Rose," which features a green book by Sar Peladan, is not lost on me. I might also be tempted to consume such a book, if I was to be rewarded the visions of Latoure, even if it cost me my life. Such is the price of true art. A moving occult tale.

"The Secrets of Saxon Stone" was a delight to read, and I am not being facetious. Daimons abound, the psychogeography of the region portrayed is reflective of the spirits that not only dwell there, but are interwoven into its very fabric. This is like Dunsany, but without the pedantics that sometimes overween his work. This is mythical and approachable, lending familiarity to the representation of the divine.

Locker displays his acumen for ethnography and mythic studies in "Sea Salt and Asphodel," a story of dreams, prophecy, and the cycle of life and death. The depth of immersion here just has to be experienced - I can't describe it. Suffice it to say that this tale is told in such a way that one feels at one with the others presented in the story. You don't read this story, you live in it. The reader feels a part of the tale, such is the attention to detail.

"In Search of the Wild Staircase" is an epistolary story in the vein of Harper's magazine travelogues from the late-19th- and early-20th-centuries, albeit with a folk horror twist. That twist is set on its head, though, as it is implied, at least, that The Church itself is the source of the frisson. The story ended a bit too hurried for me, but it's still a very solid work. I'll never look at the little country of Liechtenstein the same again.

Locker, you clever, clever man. "The Jasmine Tear" is a story worthy of a Twilight Zone episode, which is one of the highest compliments I can give to a short story. The koummya, the djinn, the deal with a demon, and the treasures of the Maghreb - this is worthy of Musiqa al-Ala; a masterstroke of storytelling that will stick in my mind until the Last Day (or fifty years, whichever comes first)!

I found "A Dialogue of Innocence with the Hidden Parish" deeply moving. First, it created a deep psychogeography of a particular house seeping with sadness, longing for company. I thought of my parent's home and the sorrow I associate with it, but more of that at a later time. I also thought of my own childhood and the deep impressions of place I felt as a young world traveller. Moving every two or three years (Dad was in the military) forces one to latch on to the feeling of a place rather quickly, so I might be a little hypersensitive that way. Combine that with the death of my parents a few years back, and maybe I was destined to fall in love with this story.

Ever contemplated choosing homelessness? I have (when it's warm out). In fact, I was very strongly tempted at my last job to just give a try at homelessness, but fate, thankfully, intervened. In "What the Vagabond Sees or The Parish Coda," an entire society and cosmology is outlined for English Vagabonds, whose motto is "No Parish But Albion". If you know, you know. I immediately connected with this tale, due in part to a trip I took in 2019 that allowed a fair bit of rambling around the Cotswolds. I recalled the many carefree hikes that friends and I took in the English countryside, from Brighton and Eastbourne to the Midlands to the Cotswolds, when I lived in the UK as a teenager. As I understand it, after The Great War, many veterans, disillusioned from the horrors they saw during the war, became homeless wanderers in the 1920s. I think that the song "The Tin Man" by Grasscut is inspired by that phenomenon or, if it's not, I'm going to interpret it that way anyway. I've often dreamt of what it would be, in my dotage, to hike around England until I just drop dead. I know I'm going to sound borderline insane, but it's a very tempting prospect, in all seriousness. This story just unlocks that morbid longing in my heart all over again. Maybe. Someday. Maybe. But only if I'm alone. And it's warm. But I can't imagine a better way to go.


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SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am, by academic training, at least, a historian (MA African History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, '99, if you must know). So, I am rather persnickety about my history books. Note that I am not a student of Classic Roman history - I've been trying to fill that gap in my knowledge base the last couple of years through the History of Rome podcast and a little reading, including this book and some specious fiction in the form of I, Claudius. I've also been studying Latin because that's something I promised myself I would do from my childhood (thank you, Asterix & Obelix), so I recently read Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin and have just begun Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, which I'm enjoying thus far (it doesn't hurt that the first city mentioned in this Latin primer is Brundisium, or, modern Brindisi, where I lived as a child for a few years).

But what of Beard's SPQR? I have to admit that I was a bit taken aback by Doctor Beard's starting point. Did I mention my pickiness when it comes to history books? The book starts in an unlikely place, the political clash between Cicero and Catiline. Even with my rudimentary knowledge of Roman history and chronology, I can think of many other starting points that might be a better "spring" into the subject. As I read, though, my skepticism melted away. What Beard has done here is set a trap for the reader, a clever ruse to begin, not with history, but with historiography disguised as history. This is a genius move, as it sets the stage for the evidence that is presented in such a way that the reader, also, becomes a critically trained (at least heuristically) historian. Thus, SPQR is not only a history book, it's a history training ground.

The emphasis here, unlike other Roman histories I've sampled, is not primarily on military campaigns and military leaders. They aren't ignored, by any means (an impossibility if one is being honest about Roman history), but Beard does her level best to provide a broad vision of Roman society, inasmuch as the available evidence allows. You'll learn about all the big emperors, of course, but you'll also learn about slaves and freed-slaves and merchants, the more common people and the mass of humanity that kept the Roman machine oiled and working. This is a refreshing change from the prominent pseudo-idol worship of the emperors that makes its way into many high-level histories. Beard is, of course, restricted by the evidence, but her work in archaeology, as well as history, allows her a more "in the trenches" view of Rome and Romans, something I was hoping to find.

All-in-all, this is fantastic recounting of the first millenium of Roman history. I find it interesting that Beard ends the book at the moment when Caracalla, for enigmatic reasons, granted Roman citizenship to all people in the empire, ironically, and effectively ending the empire itself, or at least changing the structure of the empire to such an extent that earlier Romans would hardly recognize it. Maybe elitism has something going for it? You decide, but be sure to read this account before making that decision. You may be surprised at the parallels to modern life. The Romans still have something to say to us.

If you're interested in more Latin language and history books, try I, Claudius or Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin

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