tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65086871797500967712024-03-16T11:50:47.921-07:00Forrest for the TreesForrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.comBlogger652125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-45574027898638423332024-03-16T11:01:00.000-07:002024-03-16T11:01:55.392-07:00Dhalgren<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85867.Dhalgren" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Dhalgren" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320531180l/85867._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85867.Dhalgren">Dhalgren</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/49111.Samuel_R_Delany">Samuel R. Delany</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5044808149">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
The older I grow, the more I realize that my childhood might have been exceptional. Not exceptionally <i>good</i>, mind you, just an exception to what the "normal" American child experiences. I was raised as an Air Force brat. Born in Germany, lived in The Philippines, Italy, England, and all over the US (Texas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wyoming). Since the commencement of "adulting," I've lived in Pennsylvania, California, Utah, and Wisconsin. This shiftiness, especially in the first eighteen years of life, led to forming and cutting friendships and love in rapid order. I have no idea what it's like to have a "hometown". That just doesn't exist for me. I keep contact with a select few people I knew as a child. And even though I've lived in Wisconsin for nearly thirty years now, I still feel like a wanderer on this planet. <br /><br />In all these journeyings, I've come to appreciate places for their unique mood, style, atmosphere, amusements, and shortcomings. When I visit a new place, I like to soak up the ambience and get to know the place. Cities, in particular, have personalities, I've found. My favorites are Oxford (UK), Vienna (Austria), and Madison, Wisconsin (US). <br /><br />I've also met some strange characters in my life's wanderings. When I was young, I had more time and freedom to get to know individuals who lived out of the mainstream of society. Freaks, geeks, punks, goths, metalheads, gangsters, ex-soldiers, mystics, chronic alcoholics and drug abusers, the chronically mentaly ill, the homeless, other wanderers. The list can go on and on. I find humans endlessly fascinating and endlessly frustrating. I have a love/hate relationship with the human race. For the record: mostly, I love 'em!<br /><br />I find that my experiences have everything to do with Dhalgren. Everything.<br /><br />I'll be honest, I was shocked at how much I related to many of the characters in this book. Because I knew them. Some I still know. I won't name names, but the carnival of personalities in this work are almost all people I've met. It's an ugly bunch, with a lot of deviance from social norms. These are "my people".<br /><br />But the real main character in this story is not the protagonist, who has forgotten his name and is simply called Kid throughout. The main charachter in this story is the city, Bellona. <br /><br />Like any city, this work of psychogeographical semi-apocalyptic fiction is not particularly "linear". In fact, the last section's typeset is intentionally non-linear, with "asides" that contrast sharply with the other text in its immediate vicinity, a choppy fluidity between space and time-lines, and an aggressively experimental layout. Much like a city. In fact, I'd say this is one of the greatest works of psychogeography I've read to date.<br /><br />And why "semi-apocalyptic"? Before I answer, let me point out that my Dad, an avid and voracious reader of science fiction (I owe that addiction to him), had this book on his bedside shelf for many months. I don't know if he ever finished it, but it eventually disappeared some time in the early '80s. So when I began the book, I was expecting all the regular tropes of science fiction, but something of a higher intellectual train than the pulps. Well, I was altogether wrong. <i>Dhalgren</i> is a semi-apocalyptic work, a story set in a city that has become a sort of pocket dimension, it's own entity, while still existing in a decidedly non-apocalyptic America. It's a place that time and space didn't forget, really, but a place that time and space set aside for its own little apocalypse. Something like "The Zone" in <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2013/10/roadside-picnic.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Roadside Picnic</a>, or like what happened to the planet of Tekumel in the <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2012/07/hrefhttpwww.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Empire of the Petal Throne</a> universe. <br /><br />In Bellona, things have become . . . disordered. Imagine that the late '60s and early '70s never ended, but that law and order were simply absent. It's not utter chaos - people still gather in groups, some in communes, some in gangs, some in ultra-luxurious compounds, some in . . . utter denial of the situation they are in (they try to maintain a "normal" lifestyle, despite the crumbling city and social order). Yes, there is violence, but there is also love and loyalty. As Depeche Mode used to say "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTYsElEGswc" rel="nofollow noopener">People are People</a>". And so it is in Bellona. <br /><br />But Bellona is a jealous city. It doesn't let go so easily that one just walks away. Something undefined and strange compels many people to stay, though some do "escape" . . . if they avoid the forces that have been put in place to <i>contain</i> the decay of the city from escaping into the rest of the world. Well, it's not so mystical as it sounds, but as in many cities, people find it difficult, sometimes impossible (because of ideology, economics, or relationships) to leave. <br /><br />Is the city alive? Maybe, maybe not. <br /><br />Are the people who enter it under some kind of geas that doesn't allow them to leave? Possibly. <br /><br />Will everyon who reads this work enjoy it? I doubt it.<br /><br />Is <i>Dhalgren</i> a great work of experimental science fiction? Absolutely. <br /><br />I'm glad I journeyed there. Though it was rough going, at times. Very rough going. I myself was, for a time, trapped against my will. But, as with many of the places I've seen in my life, I would return, if only for a visit.
<br /><br />
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<div><br /></div><div><p>________________________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-4896850624975702092024-02-05T18:23:00.000-08:002024-02-05T18:23:18.108-08:00The House of the Moon<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9bQKt2V3In5YVvVX89lTXoxmLt8xT2TSZvSt4MYsxUruga2vGo5DlBsxR1P2UnpvQEsElQ9yG-NcpugiOdz3TLxwozE2_DsklCnvUtB3LJvVJtOtYtsJ8zy9iFXjjkI1Z2NnR2WvcVFiDwDeP31gx4fTJkTh05Ra3OKHvH_7M6Gx_sW8jks0eYRcrlMQ/s4000/20240204_165210%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9bQKt2V3In5YVvVX89lTXoxmLt8xT2TSZvSt4MYsxUruga2vGo5DlBsxR1P2UnpvQEsElQ9yG-NcpugiOdz3TLxwozE2_DsklCnvUtB3LJvVJtOtYtsJ8zy9iFXjjkI1Z2NnR2WvcVFiDwDeP31gx4fTJkTh05Ra3OKHvH_7M6Gx_sW8jks0eYRcrlMQ/w300-h400/20240204_165210%20(1).jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p><br /></p>Benjamin Tweddell has a gently diabolical touch. Whether it is the claustrophobic-um-ecstatic <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-veneration-at-polywheveral-manor.html" target="_blank">The Veneration at Polwheveral Manor</a> or the decadent apotheosis of <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/11/a-crown-of-dusk-and-sorrow.html" target="_blank">A Crown of Dusk and Sorrow</a> Tweddell's tone floats freely between the sacred and the obscene, from light to darkness and back again. <i>The House of the Moon</i> is no exception. Tweddell's literary chiarascuro, for lack of a better term, contrasts hopeful light and hopeless darkness as dissonant foils to one another, but also, behind it all, pieces of the same completeness, ends of a spectrum, rather than a stark duality. <p></p><p>As with all of Mount Abraxas books, the production values are outstanding, but in this case, I think the publishing house has outdone itself. This is absolutely exquisite in form and execution. This little work is a treasure, especially with the deft hand of Luciana Lupe Basconcelos at the pen and brush. Her works are the gems on the crown here.</p><p>As with Tweddell's other work, a looming building looms large in this story. Here it is the titular House of the Moon, so-called by those who see beyond it's facade as an empty, if disquieting, Cavendish Hall. Julian Ashford moves to the estate of his recently-deceased mother and sees a mysterious, beautiful, yet sad young lady near the grounds of Cavendish Hall. He discovers, in time, the secrets of the House of the Moon, the identity of the young lady, and his mother's own connection to the strange edifice and its inhabitants. This is a moody and seemingly serene bit of poetic prose, until a certain point, where Julian's perceptions about the place and his place in the universe are shattered. To say more than that is to give too much away, but I end with one word of warning: be careful when looking up into the night sky and staring at that blackness between the stars. You may learn something about reality that you aren't ready yet to know. And rather than reality coming crashing down upon you, you will be lifted up and swallowed by it.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhiz9p5pkU5lgmV6ygL4vjEGwQUvVPGtEgYKoulAq_hl9DFNAyBudCenOFvPdlHiAE3KTDVcZS5d6v_-E81HDHFSgm9e7aF4_4eo8WbTynObXW4SYElFytbvpYvM5o2GF7WQ6AmpxrHjA1M8A8dqF9hNG-4aLf2jYYqdb36G6oAGibQq3-b3Tk-SqnR6o/s4000/20240204_165142.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhiz9p5pkU5lgmV6ygL4vjEGwQUvVPGtEgYKoulAq_hl9DFNAyBudCenOFvPdlHiAE3KTDVcZS5d6v_-E81HDHFSgm9e7aF4_4eo8WbTynObXW4SYElFytbvpYvM5o2GF7WQ6AmpxrHjA1M8A8dqF9hNG-4aLf2jYYqdb36G6oAGibQq3-b3Tk-SqnR6o/w300-h400/20240204_165142.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBdAwivw3OwhuoM5z8meNNo92Qiwka_Lsu_gRK4AzwyXNQN0Nr5IzSn9lhXGRHsP1uo3W5UaaTYCAHT-SXviJ3BG1NfqxlJSfSLA9gQ8kn1RhdBH1Sr7WE7-is1DEZBEPwdhazD5R1R4sme86guJMZNZ0kHflkoi7GCpDeVXgADSWSXW9WOx0PEHsmf5E/s4000/20240204_165152.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBdAwivw3OwhuoM5z8meNNo92Qiwka_Lsu_gRK4AzwyXNQN0Nr5IzSn9lhXGRHsP1uo3W5UaaTYCAHT-SXviJ3BG1NfqxlJSfSLA9gQ8kn1RhdBH1Sr7WE7-is1DEZBEPwdhazD5R1R4sme86guJMZNZ0kHflkoi7GCpDeVXgADSWSXW9WOx0PEHsmf5E/s320/20240204_165152.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p>________________________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-4978637890967032512024-01-18T19:04:00.000-08:002024-01-18T19:04:41.936-08:00Beloved Chaos That Comes By Night<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKJvv9NxsStn5rarDIxKpIMz9rkMz9Ak-OMx2ndJ_rPHKIoujCXfkpWfyq7iPUfy9m0SM0JALjpDkbjxAMpvSs43tMpqmpddxSvGSfG1RhrYoDBiJ7tkrQbjRRS0Ccb7duEWIAa5g1Oky9c8lVKABGMQIineRRwxTtxuQ0Sltz3R3AXNTf7prCXrNVbJQ/s4000/20240115_200356.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKJvv9NxsStn5rarDIxKpIMz9rkMz9Ak-OMx2ndJ_rPHKIoujCXfkpWfyq7iPUfy9m0SM0JALjpDkbjxAMpvSs43tMpqmpddxSvGSfG1RhrYoDBiJ7tkrQbjRRS0Ccb7duEWIAa5g1Oky9c8lVKABGMQIineRRwxTtxuQ0Sltz3R3AXNTf7prCXrNVbJQ/w300-h400/20240115_200356.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Make no mistake about it, one of my favorite Mount Abraxas authors is <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/search?q=jonathan+wood" target="_blank">Jonathan Wood</a>, whom I have never met, but whom I have made a mental picture of, without one shred of evidence. <br /></p><p>When I lived in England, I knew a man whose name I don't recall. He was a US Marine Vietnam Vet who had retired in England, not far from <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/02/oneiric-adventures-through-impossible_22.html" target="_blank">RAF Chicksands</a>, where I lived at the time. He's got to be dead now, or if he is alive, his liver should be studied for the furtherment of medical science once he finally does give up the ghost. Yes, he did a drink a bit. I know, because I joined him on a few benders. Note: Kids, don't drink. I gave up drinking 35 years ago and it's one of the best things I've ever done. Anyway, this un-named alcoholic vet was slightly portly, dressed in nothing but sweats, and lived in a very dark little cottage "in the country". He was a jovial man, but he definitely had his demons. I don't know anything about his education, but he was eloquent, with a wide-ranging vocabulary, and he told the most sordid and morbid stories (did I mention he was a Vietnam Vet?) about his days in the military with such poesis that I could sit enwraptured, listening to him for hours (being lubricated by Southern Comfort probably helped). As I said, he was a joker, but he had a grim side to him born out of the horrors he had seen. </p><p><span>This is how I picture Jonathan Wood. I'm certain that my assessment of the man falls well outside the realms of reality, just like the visions we make in our head of someone we've spoken to on the phone several times, but never met in person. But until I meet Mr. Wood, this is the image I will have.</span></p><p><span>That vision is a result of reading his writings. They are eloquently grim in the best of ways: poetic and hopeless, like being buried in diamonds that sparkle so beautifully, but they cut, oh, they cut.</span></p><p><span>Some of Wood's works err on the side of poetic brilliance, while others wallow in the mire. But there is a certain cognitively-dissonant hegelian synthesis that arises out of the seeming chaos.</span></p><p><i>Beloved Chaos That Comes by Night</i> starts on the brilliant side, but devolves into, well, chaos, in the end. At the beginning one is buoyed up by the prospects of a young playwright who is honing his craft and, in the end, we see a hopelessly desparate man that has been bullied, used, and abused by others (and, one must add, as a result of his own desires) to the point of barely thinking of himself as human as all. This is a story of the potential for great gain diseased by the tragedy of great loss. It is about the warping of dreams into nightmare, a true horror story devoid of ghosts, but full of monsters of one's own (ignorant) making.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7_SHWBsGmJSzd3JNIhhnu7tKlTlMb8W83CFQDhfonwUgo_hOdDkQtNlMrmkfPsvkN8YaiZ52sfkK-RreHjbAMBHOD6Clxb-yfY880xcR84rb19qhRM1fWaRyGGibal2k_jyqEAAXDhXOTwK2vW8JfgYblPBzLD1miBTP4kKPFMEmX6-4n9yGQAZ4q8fA/s4000/20240115_200422.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7_SHWBsGmJSzd3JNIhhnu7tKlTlMb8W83CFQDhfonwUgo_hOdDkQtNlMrmkfPsvkN8YaiZ52sfkK-RreHjbAMBHOD6Clxb-yfY880xcR84rb19qhRM1fWaRyGGibal2k_jyqEAAXDhXOTwK2vW8JfgYblPBzLD1miBTP4kKPFMEmX6-4n9yGQAZ4q8fA/w300-h400/20240115_200422.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /> ________________________<p></p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-7734980579518513152024-01-01T10:55:00.000-08:002024-01-01T10:55:19.408-08:00The Graphologist and Other Stories<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMgLdcjt_mr5C7Vf1JmowBDZzIKSI4okSCwdr5NK2LQB5qJCQCohTYZfFP2iCCWfZH6iiwxrMeUWOz8J7HE7ZQyvOM1NfZz9Esc4hLCxSnbacHQaAC1r8i5c7Pvx3P9me4bfvC0ibSnKjR7oO1-y_5R9XPQA96s6z7mW4J2aP9_Ptvq4MxrXIMXGcFjvM/s4000/20240101_120223.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMgLdcjt_mr5C7Vf1JmowBDZzIKSI4okSCwdr5NK2LQB5qJCQCohTYZfFP2iCCWfZH6iiwxrMeUWOz8J7HE7ZQyvOM1NfZz9Esc4hLCxSnbacHQaAC1r8i5c7Pvx3P9me4bfvC0ibSnKjR7oO1-y_5R9XPQA96s6z7mW4J2aP9_Ptvq4MxrXIMXGcFjvM/w300-h400/20240101_120223.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>When Rhys Hughes is on a roll, nothing can stop him. Of the four stories in this short collection, two are good, two are outstanding, and the stand outs were not the ones I was expecting to shine. I went into "The Puppet Show" thinking, oh no, here we go with a <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-secret-of-ventriloquism.html" target="_blank">Jon Padgett</a> copycat. But this story twisted in unexpected ways and unfolded a unique tale of <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2015/09/irrational-man-study-in-existential.html" target="_blank">existential dread</a> that proved every bit as effective as anything Padgett, <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2015/11/teatro-grottesco.html" target="_blank">Ligotti</a>, etc., have produced, while remaining true to its own vision of cosmic horror. The second standout story, "The Filtered Ones," about ghost-pirates with a psychogeographic layer, flips from existential dread to enduring hope. Yes, I know, ghost-pirates. I was very skeptical going into this one, ready to be disappointed. But the story turned out to be a delight! The other two tales, "The Tipping Point" and "The Graphologist" are both good, but they are very much overshadowed by the greatness of "The Puppet Show" and "The Filtered Ones". Nothing disappoints, and Hughes excels here at taking the reader's expectations and fully flipping them on their head.Strongly recommended, especially for the two standout stories!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZWNtsemeDl9evx-LRPH7Rg0MVHC5UOzoT2-BPOYVWm3MlX0lHdgCzUx9EKX5pDu71AaShSUDVIg3haw6d5S1_4C9FcJqC6u9KoniirXqyWnj-xy8L5SWb_DGgGHiVeuEWT_FC-kMhyphenhyphen6IjKhaCf3nOcQTsSfznEwrdyQkBBkyUXsT3VLHlPXqfNzmnkAk/s4000/20240101_120232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZWNtsemeDl9evx-LRPH7Rg0MVHC5UOzoT2-BPOYVWm3MlX0lHdgCzUx9EKX5pDu71AaShSUDVIg3haw6d5S1_4C9FcJqC6u9KoniirXqyWnj-xy8L5SWb_DGgGHiVeuEWT_FC-kMhyphenhyphen6IjKhaCf3nOcQTsSfznEwrdyQkBBkyUXsT3VLHlPXqfNzmnkAk/w300-h400/20240101_120232.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>________________________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-87162404372607108042023-12-22T20:39:00.000-08:002023-12-23T08:54:36.789-08:00Gameholecon 2023 Rogues Gallery<p> Here is the Rogues Gallery of people I played at Gameholecon 2023, in no particular order:</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYQNm2IIVOokocTaMGQKkhk17OavsCjj7BRNBbPg1pzTlaxIz-XgCZV_nZQ7ghyWbAwoQwYu8xZh7sDl4U6dVDyLJURhrAkC5nsoKJJzipYzLYphBixBmu0QNClE9NKKt94J4Pj9O-QNTYc4y9NMwhSZIXO2_e02dsc0nmS_PXHG8IEu5J0aUbJeCRLKs/s4000/20231222_203010.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYQNm2IIVOokocTaMGQKkhk17OavsCjj7BRNBbPg1pzTlaxIz-XgCZV_nZQ7ghyWbAwoQwYu8xZh7sDl4U6dVDyLJURhrAkC5nsoKJJzipYzLYphBixBmu0QNClE9NKKt94J4Pj9O-QNTYc4y9NMwhSZIXO2_e02dsc0nmS_PXHG8IEu5J0aUbJeCRLKs/w480-h640/20231222_203010.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>My first game of <a href="https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/vaesen/" target="_blank">Vaesen</a>, which I quickly fell in love with, I played Father Art Nilson, a preacher (of rather liberal values). He took a rather "universal" approach to theology.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXMi__z_7JOr1RnS1XY8TD4NGFNDouqFa5M_jdTjdC_tJ3BXlOgfvypX4r5xUHEoeYZQe1tUfesEtjOfg1_qgwU8PCJf9KUNlPaCn0wXMA5ypGCnl9Yu7SYobMg-XJRifnYjk-pJaBEVNXqQpCKaZEjEf27Sn54UkC7f-9QzyX23RqpOHuS2TAqKotYt0/s4000/20231222_202951.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXMi__z_7JOr1RnS1XY8TD4NGFNDouqFa5M_jdTjdC_tJ3BXlOgfvypX4r5xUHEoeYZQe1tUfesEtjOfg1_qgwU8PCJf9KUNlPaCn0wXMA5ypGCnl9Yu7SYobMg-XJRifnYjk-pJaBEVNXqQpCKaZEjEf27Sn54UkC7f-9QzyX23RqpOHuS2TAqKotYt0/w480-h640/20231222_202951.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p>Once in a while I steal a real name. I did so for my <a href="https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/blade-runner-rpg/" target="_blank">Blade Runner RPG</a> character. This name is that of an old friend from high school many, many years ago. Hopefully, he won't sue me. First time playing Blade Runner, which is, like Vaesen, a <a href="https://freeleaguepublishing.com/" target="_blank">Free League publishing</a> game with very similar mechanics. Lots of ethical grey areas in this game, which I like. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIvpswiQ3Rr4kr58VuvzZdd10WRYbZt8lA8ikX2e_bTpLARVoTlBjOs1rnWaANUH2idbbGdby3BWQj0E0HKWrh9nJWI5Uz5dnAv0Ptv6hOWbaPbxcJlN65OA1VcqlXjwrS0G-HD-7Iu_SWBkH9Zc3V5yEEE4BxQFKIbGM1ea9zzbDQVfVAyDA7IoKeWZE/s4000/20231222_202936.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIvpswiQ3Rr4kr58VuvzZdd10WRYbZt8lA8ikX2e_bTpLARVoTlBjOs1rnWaANUH2idbbGdby3BWQj0E0HKWrh9nJWI5Uz5dnAv0Ptv6hOWbaPbxcJlN65OA1VcqlXjwrS0G-HD-7Iu_SWBkH9Zc3V5yEEE4BxQFKIbGM1ea9zzbDQVfVAyDA7IoKeWZE/w480-h640/20231222_202936.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p>This is Hayu, a servant whose name actually comes from the waking world ("Hey, you!"). This was for the excellent <a href="https://www.dreamrpg.com/" target="_blank">Dreamland RPG</a>, which is in development now. The setting is H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands and, particularly, author/artist Jason Thompson's visionary graphic novel <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-dream-quest-of-unknown-kadath-other.html" target="_blank">The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and Other Stories</a>. The system is very unique, utilizing word-cards as prompts to creating sentences that mold actions or even the environment itself. Also a first-time play for me (noticing a theme here?). I loved, loved, loved this game. The system is very different from any other RPG system I've played, and lends itself to really digging in on the creative side. I will definitley be buying and running this one when it comes out of development. I was blown away by it!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSOL9N6GueUwJSvf7OgQOBncw8JyglbaoS2TSbJRO0Dv6sUgY9j5fzJUAlxZw1ayVlLNCFTzT1IwUAKYZW3csd5QtPTpbpQ1iNc90i71011XAYSlIvhumS2mkUdXBHAwSxZCO_WmiWwS7J9h_4aNvMvqYjTfs3WOD2T8bTKuWTd22-iHpxYod1raM41wQ/s4000/20231222_202921.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSOL9N6GueUwJSvf7OgQOBncw8JyglbaoS2TSbJRO0Dv6sUgY9j5fzJUAlxZw1ayVlLNCFTzT1IwUAKYZW3csd5QtPTpbpQ1iNc90i71011XAYSlIvhumS2mkUdXBHAwSxZCO_WmiWwS7J9h_4aNvMvqYjTfs3WOD2T8bTKuWTd22-iHpxYod1raM41wQ/w480-h640/20231222_202921.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p>My second game of <a href="https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/vaesen/" target="_blank">Vaesen </a>was actually an introductory adventure, but I don't mind that I played "out of order," so to speak. Here I played Soren Neilgaard, a social media content creater. The overall mood in this session was VERY different from that first game of Vaesen, which speaks to the versatility of the setting, I think. In terms of play style, the game reminded me just a titch of Trail of Cthulhu, though it's far more stripped down than TOC. Simpler, faster, slicker. I really do like Vaesen a lot. Can't wait to play it again! Maybe there will be a session at Garycon next spring?</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA3X6WvKfkhP4ucJPQFc_ep-NIs1Qs_HQrhyphenhyphenXtMT8Qa-h1GMBKt8jeBzxPAeoXkHJs9DiujkbvaoAG7WpczBJ3QUnjO9l0JGJ9FVjhihNsgUepVCYxed2jj14IW3PZTx5Q-_uyG_39ptzccKy-N3QUujX8rUSAq4ZBcHgXFJ3pvBi6i7tLneICC1D11i4/s4000/20231222_202903.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA3X6WvKfkhP4ucJPQFc_ep-NIs1Qs_HQrhyphenhyphenXtMT8Qa-h1GMBKt8jeBzxPAeoXkHJs9DiujkbvaoAG7WpczBJ3QUnjO9l0JGJ9FVjhihNsgUepVCYxed2jj14IW3PZTx5Q-_uyG_39ptzccKy-N3QUujX8rUSAq4ZBcHgXFJ3pvBi6i7tLneICC1D11i4/w480-h640/20231222_202903.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p>The character for my first session (yeah, yeah, I know) of <a href="https://www.wetinkgames.com/store/p/sodium-kedf4" target="_blank">Never Going Home</a> was named <a href="https://zoranzivkovic.wordpress.com/about/" target="_blank">after an author I know</a>. This session was set in Serbia pre-World War I, before the machinations of the Black Hand which led to the war (and the subsequent breach in reality posited by the setting of Never Going Home. This was a heist story set on a train, but with long-lasting consequences. The game uses a simple system of skills, with playing cards as a part of the resolution system. I like the way it played, but loved the scenario. It's one I could see playing in any number of other systems, but it hews thematically quite closely to the setting paradigm of the game itself. Stripped to the bones, though, this scenario could easily port to other systems. I'm going to keep it in my back pocket for off-books games at stupid o'clock at cons. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj766CO999TWumrFjIkbuG_pCN3BMAkqQ6w5dMguQKIGyPbl9iUBGT9dL4cc5wltq90mck93qUCr5vbPcAj3BeJcG-GVjZXD2CQtPIMxK5MZP7A-mCLhujH7KznOFr_FA8XDFeMCHLxf-mBCgzvH21zgkaMfk8YVwIhJubesQTseYO5KV8vcqMoJAgYU7A/s4000/20231222_202836.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj766CO999TWumrFjIkbuG_pCN3BMAkqQ6w5dMguQKIGyPbl9iUBGT9dL4cc5wltq90mck93qUCr5vbPcAj3BeJcG-GVjZXD2CQtPIMxK5MZP7A-mCLhujH7KznOFr_FA8XDFeMCHLxf-mBCgzvH21zgkaMfk8YVwIhJubesQTseYO5KV8vcqMoJAgYU7A/w480-h640/20231222_202836.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIlz1ag82U6p1f-VdPgmQ48d2LuyTcfeJK2d3svACDHbDH4frRcsQGeoxY_ocdEL04pjfQBFXOFLay7HYKUYg9EY1Q9PrNT6JVE30SYOO8vd-Yh1Mjy8eRO3C_SZs4LTpR_VOQz2zQEl1w2aEJJ3TGBuCDkirpUQjzZdhrW3Ypfh-GwdtoPl-QZtzv0PA/s4000/20231222_202848.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIlz1ag82U6p1f-VdPgmQ48d2LuyTcfeJK2d3svACDHbDH4frRcsQGeoxY_ocdEL04pjfQBFXOFLay7HYKUYg9EY1Q9PrNT6JVE30SYOO8vd-Yh1Mjy8eRO3C_SZs4LTpR_VOQz2zQEl1w2aEJJ3TGBuCDkirpUQjzZdhrW3Ypfh-GwdtoPl-QZtzv0PA/w480-h640/20231222_202848.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p>Every con I attend, I try to get into one of the You Too Can Cthulhu sessions. This was a "black letter" event, which means it was extra special. I believe almost the entire YTCC crew was involved in one way or another in this massive game. I think we had something like 16 PCs in this game? Something ridiculous like that. We were all gangsters, more or less, from Chicago who were trying to expand our family "business" in and around Kansas City or Saint Louis (I forget which now). Of course, this is a <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2017/05/call-of-cthulhu-keeper-rulebook-horror.html" target="_blank">Call of Cthulhu</a> session, so it's not a question of if things will go horribly wrong, just a question of when and how. Well, we found out. Another fantastic production by You Too Can Cthulhu. Here's a photo of the crew. These guys are amazing. If you've never played in one of their games, you must. Just make sure you leave a slot open for me!</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcU7EB08BcrnLyEI8S-g7XJ_3LNWcp0hLVcb9ixoFjHOd43UIAZXdFZ1XK05vBlR6DhfGCSW614qAnjTT1h6I6lXOF9c_xGj02uBjjnnupNaJKqsTjK-NGRqLJ9o-fCf4k1TpuqJ2lrqV6ljY2oJANIzC5FTvBL01rwl_P6zpPV6CXn71H_TD1eEscxSY/s4000/20231020_190952.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcU7EB08BcrnLyEI8S-g7XJ_3LNWcp0hLVcb9ixoFjHOd43UIAZXdFZ1XK05vBlR6DhfGCSW614qAnjTT1h6I6lXOF9c_xGj02uBjjnnupNaJKqsTjK-NGRqLJ9o-fCf4k1TpuqJ2lrqV6ljY2oJANIzC5FTvBL01rwl_P6zpPV6CXn71H_TD1eEscxSY/w300-h400/20231020_190952.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcijiktNIOX4wasSYxRxKU4HqB3glpilk9RDq7RAJhTSRkA_49-bOHZtfNBRjxFM7ls0C75mJI8g_kU6FfGyobYkx0ThrVhwX6npPa5GNZ2oF8fCqcfe1f7Ku6WkCUlYSlx70QkhODb5U9hvurkFbzPw81qomNvg3YeVXRxbLz_UNNkCI-7WQKp2B_MjA/s4000/20231222_202801.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcijiktNIOX4wasSYxRxKU4HqB3glpilk9RDq7RAJhTSRkA_49-bOHZtfNBRjxFM7ls0C75mJI8g_kU6FfGyobYkx0ThrVhwX6npPa5GNZ2oF8fCqcfe1f7Ku6WkCUlYSlx70QkhODb5U9hvurkFbzPw81qomNvg3YeVXRxbLz_UNNkCI-7WQKp2B_MjA/w480-h640/20231222_202801.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p>This was NOT my first game of Empire of the Petal Throne. But it was, by all means, the best one I've played in yet. It was an open exploration, by tube car, of the planet of Tekumel. It was great playing a higher-level EPT character after having trudged through some requisite lower-level adventures over the years to really familiarize myself with the setting. The setting is . . . challenging for people who have notions about what fantasy should be. Tekumel is absolutely unique and rich. One must give onself up to the cultural norms of the planet, and they can seem rather strange at first. But once one allows oneself to dive in, there are few settings that can match it in grandeur. If you haven't played EPT, but remember seeing those old adds in Dragon Magazine so many years ago, maybe it's time you gave it a try?</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnrrWjWT5DxmmBBWMFdfQbRau16TULkZKbu6GuJ2SDqBdKeXFxw4hLa1Wx5RYXl5Va2ZtWytzxeiGSQ7vmh7b1VaBwJZ5AwA8VigsOjEDiLJSK4MqMWhe3Lo7ERQGq8QSja-IZgUqzk3GZKJjGEFevKBaLPvpQlAtE8y6gy2ZG5MgQ2o8vfGWYVqXpJB0/s4000/20231222_202735.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnrrWjWT5DxmmBBWMFdfQbRau16TULkZKbu6GuJ2SDqBdKeXFxw4hLa1Wx5RYXl5Va2ZtWytzxeiGSQ7vmh7b1VaBwJZ5AwA8VigsOjEDiLJSK4MqMWhe3Lo7ERQGq8QSja-IZgUqzk3GZKJjGEFevKBaLPvpQlAtE8y6gy2ZG5MgQ2o8vfGWYVqXpJB0/w480-h640/20231222_202735.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p>Now, while I've played many, <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-simplest-rpg-system-out-of-this.html" target="_blank">many games of Classic Traveller</a>, this was my first game of Mongoose Traveller. The systems are really quite similar. Yeah, Mongoose Traveller does flesh things out a bit more and maybe provides a little more breadth in character creation, but at it's heart, I didn't see much difference betweeen it and the Classic Traveller I know and love. So, while it was my "first" time, it really wasn't. Though it WAS my first time playing a Vargr. We all played Vargr, in fact, which was pretty cool. This was a very Indiana Jones-style adventure. Set in a pyramid, even. I liked that none of us were good combatants. We were just a bunch of scientists and archaeologist. My character was, in fact, an expert in paleolinguistics. If you're familiar with Traveller, you'll know that the combat system is downright deadly. So when you get a bunch of nerds trying to use weapons . . . well, hijinks ensue. But we, through a couple turns of raw good luck, prevailed, defeating our rivals and preserving cultural integrity and good inter-planetary relations the whole time. </p><p>One last thing. I've mentioned before how much of an influence Marc Miller has had on my life. He put on a couple of seminar sessions, one of which I attended. He said to us there "when you have a moment, stop by my booth, I've got something for you". So I did. And he did. I won't say what it was that he had for me, but let's just say Marc is as generous as he is intelligent. Here is a picture of me with one of my childhood heroes, one who turned out to be every bit as good as I pictured in my eleven year old mind back in the early '80s.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_XPB6VnT-nl5yPgoWrZtST1yqsIMw34xOQ0qWVDuNs4rMi7dkd0H2JFe2bOL-N7aTa_s12nnth8u5nLOioSIhh_QooJqmuD1R_WzoSOu1RieQOgykAB_l-W63ZdRjVQgxWqR-inWPu5OZfqUxV9ffg77tZxUSCXMYHl0AtymNpumnhHHewmd_8LP05uM/s4000/20231021_134650.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_XPB6VnT-nl5yPgoWrZtST1yqsIMw34xOQ0qWVDuNs4rMi7dkd0H2JFe2bOL-N7aTa_s12nnth8u5nLOioSIhh_QooJqmuD1R_WzoSOu1RieQOgykAB_l-W63ZdRjVQgxWqR-inWPu5OZfqUxV9ffg77tZxUSCXMYHl0AtymNpumnhHHewmd_8LP05uM/w480-h640/20231021_134650.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p>As always, I'm looking forward to <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2023/02/ttrpg-conventions-tips-and-tricks.html" target="_blank">my next Con experience</a> at Garycon in the spring. I hear it's sold out! I guess the 50th anniversary of D&D will do that to a convention named after Gary Gygax. See you there!</p><p>________________________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p><p><br /></p>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-19967790450846879002023-12-10T15:47:00.000-08:002023-12-10T15:47:28.001-08:00A Man Worth Killing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDDO1SyEo7R3VZzmhKY1DWCC5yLO15p3jOETW4VDHZRwjnl064dug1dQjbPATvWjmArIJZPcE12bmCQTyxrG5IIN727gZ4lXzySkb6DKCywaJYZW7OrOamP_4ljNHJWI9thqgWa6tq2Rk_xn6DQnqH9Pe9AqM5d7nGqNdUYoJ9TRARJMXTQ33Aewbjrn8/s4000/20231210_171909.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDDO1SyEo7R3VZzmhKY1DWCC5yLO15p3jOETW4VDHZRwjnl064dug1dQjbPATvWjmArIJZPcE12bmCQTyxrG5IIN727gZ4lXzySkb6DKCywaJYZW7OrOamP_4ljNHJWI9thqgWa6tq2Rk_xn6DQnqH9Pe9AqM5d7nGqNdUYoJ9TRARJMXTQ33Aewbjrn8/w300-h400/20231210_171909.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> Oh, what an <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2017/12/art-existentialism.html" target="_blank">existentialist </a>web Douglas Thompson has created here in another volume of <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-tome-of-ravass-bhavatan.html" target="_blank">Mount Abraxas press's series The Old Ways Remain</a>. In this short <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/04/french-decadent-tales.html" target="_blank">decadent </a>novella, one sees, as the opening remark claims, "a forensic record of an ordinary man's descent from staid normality towards a moral void". We begin, as one does in this sort of story, with a murder, then work our way back to the initiation of the abandonment of morality that eventually leads to the trap of an inescapable conscience wherein one cannot even confess the truth to find some absolution in guilt. It truly becomes a "moral void". Debauchery may be fun, and the discovery of guilt might offer a cathartic, if terrifying relief of tension from holding guilt within. But what if one is trapped in an in-between state, a static purgatory that promises neither punishment or salvation. This is the conondrum we are presented with here. It is every bit as horrible as it sounds: a certain kind of undeath of the moral being, forever hungry, never satisfied, but never released from bondage. There is no resting in peace for that sort of psychological noose. It ever tightens, but never strangles, Tantalus unleashed.</p><p>Did I mention a lost Scottish village reappearing in a time-slip that seems to mirror the moral entrapment of the narrator? There's that, too. It's a nice piece of <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-english-heretic-collection-ritual.html" target="_blank">psychogeography</a>, a form that I don't see often enough in weird fiction. If you've ever wondered what it might be like to be trapped by the fey, this might be your tale. It's not all magic dust and laughter, though. Far from it. It's an uncomfortable slippage into some sort of liminal hell, if anything. Venture forth, if you dare.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJQ_gmyoBFGaEsW2INPdIDXjIrjFSCuWhZdXeOqcU-FeainvTRMDM3OF42puc0wMkbIwYHE5NbXObL_JnPteuejUDSjDAB-det9efbwUM-wmQvCZwG40DOHszW-Nrp6mMcol6Pd7B4zYCk125fUrl5HB6r5HieOFYGF3AnEe7Rwzyi5xjhmxfTBAjzt4E/s4000/20231210_172339.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJQ_gmyoBFGaEsW2INPdIDXjIrjFSCuWhZdXeOqcU-FeainvTRMDM3OF42puc0wMkbIwYHE5NbXObL_JnPteuejUDSjDAB-det9efbwUM-wmQvCZwG40DOHszW-Nrp6mMcol6Pd7B4zYCk125fUrl5HB6r5HieOFYGF3AnEe7Rwzyi5xjhmxfTBAjzt4E/w300-h400/20231210_172339.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDkSxz-6Hg4nV1ibf_VwIJn69GRFvsPGnX3lVoX-YvGri_4_0rnkXVIU0ULt6Po8mogLQIma9vh-xT3soMPmOQ_1So3gNgd98XFWIBcA5t8HxvSvsLXxvg_zwnlNIr5ux_lEFwNfHJtCPRSvlc2Eki6fjeTosj5sdeHNqIBa2X_ioSt0UNJqcbCTJn77Q/s4000/20231210_172302.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDkSxz-6Hg4nV1ibf_VwIJn69GRFvsPGnX3lVoX-YvGri_4_0rnkXVIU0ULt6Po8mogLQIma9vh-xT3soMPmOQ_1So3gNgd98XFWIBcA5t8HxvSvsLXxvg_zwnlNIr5ux_lEFwNfHJtCPRSvlc2Eki6fjeTosj5sdeHNqIBa2X_ioSt0UNJqcbCTJn77Q/w300-h400/20231210_172302.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>________________________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p><p><br /></p>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-43132168103836800782023-12-01T14:56:00.000-08:002023-12-01T14:56:48.593-08:00The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59615374-the-hellebore-guide-to-occult-britain" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1662335632l/59615374._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59615374-the-hellebore-guide-to-occult-britain">The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16150477.Maria_J_P_rez_Cuervo">Maria J. Pérez Cuervo</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4393461231">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Next time I'm in the UK, this book is coming with. The unstoppable crew at <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2022/06/hellebore-7-ritual-issue.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Hellebore</a> have created a <i>mostly</i> (though not completely) comprehensive guide to magical places in teh British Isles. Sections are divided geographically, so you can pull this Baedeker of the bizzare wherever the ley lines have taken you and have a Virgil to your Dante. <br /><br />The book itself is a handy size and seems well-constructed, which you'll want if you're taking it with you. Most of the place entries have a postal code listed, so if you can interpret that (or ask a local postmaster), you'll be good to go. Entries range from megalithic tombs to occult bookstores to locales tied to famous practitioners of magic (though one should take any location related to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4cQ0734W7I" rel="nofollow noopener">Aleister Crowley</a> as questionable because, you know, Crowley). <br /><br />Now, I have two slight complaints. First, and this one is small . . . too small . . . the print is too small! This is the case especially in some longer, colored text blocks. Pardon the old guy with eyes that are going bad who are interested in this subject matter. There are thousands of us, I'm sure. Might want to consider bumping those fonts up a point and doing a slightly longer book. <br /><br />Earlier, I said that this book was <i>mostly</i> comprehensive. Of course, not everything can be covered in an almanac such as this, but I noted two glaring ommissions of which I am personally very aware. I won't go over details in this review, but if you read <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/01/raf-chicksands-and-devils-quoits.html" rel="nofollow noopener">my blog post on The Priory at RAF Chicksands and The Devils Quoits</a>, you'll see exactly what I mean. The weird thing is that Clophill Church, which I mention in my blog post, and which is DIRECTLY tied to the Chicksands Priory (albeit by an undergroudn tunnel - I kid you not; I've been in that tunnel myself) <i>is</i> mentioned, while the priory is not. I don't get it. The very <i>reason</i> that people went to Clophill Church to put up satanic graffitti and sacrifice animals was <i>because</i> the church was physically tied to the alegedly haunted priory. So why no Chicksands Priory? It's not about accessibility. You can arrange a tour of the Priory with the non-profit that cares for it. I don't get the ommission.<br /><br />I won't spend much time on the other one, The Devil's Quoits, in Oxfordshire. Sure, it's hard to find (my wife and I got lost looking for it at first), but it's a beautiful megalithic structure that has been researched rather well. maybe it's because the archaeological dig that revealed the full scale of the Quoits was only done in 1945, so it doesn't have the old magical associations that, say, the Rollright Stones do? Again, I don't fully understand.<br /><br />Perhaps one can slip index cards in with one's own entries where the Hellebore guide is missing them?<br /><br />Still, it is enough. Not complete, but enough. If you are lucky enough to live in the UK, you really should buy a copy. And if you're visiting and looking for the magic of the isles, you definitely need to take this with you to read on the plane flight over. It's a long flight, trust me. Be prepared. <br /><br />
<br /><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/811928-forrest">View all my reviews</a>
<div><br /></div><div><p>________________________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-48874859816206003032023-11-24T10:30:00.000-08:002023-11-24T10:30:24.363-08:00The Castrato of St. Petersburg <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSdlRMAcoIehoCyUzv0xfvdccIYvn195ozhTNPrqK7gWt-rjP7pGn4SEye4ZxFBgipouxw-tOAJAf4lzDiA-mjlB0IxCsBSCt29HEQRWNU-AFaeNlCWCyfRyI3J1xXn9O3QYoIzue_rJvWJCWeRSpRusbUfs1x3b-x8X3B8mkKwGTy7qFVNFZC53qXQ24/s4000/20231124_110058.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSdlRMAcoIehoCyUzv0xfvdccIYvn195ozhTNPrqK7gWt-rjP7pGn4SEye4ZxFBgipouxw-tOAJAf4lzDiA-mjlB0IxCsBSCt29HEQRWNU-AFaeNlCWCyfRyI3J1xXn9O3QYoIzue_rJvWJCWeRSpRusbUfs1x3b-x8X3B8mkKwGTy7qFVNFZC53qXQ24/w300-h400/20231124_110058.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><i>The Castrato of St. Petersburg</i>, by Stephan Clarke, is another in the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/mountabraxaspress/" target="_blank">Mount Abraxas</a> series of booklets <i>The Old Ways Remain</i>. If the quality and tone of the other books in this series continue as they have with this book and <i><a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-tome-of-ravass-bhavatan.html" target="_blank">The Tome of Ravass Bhavatan</a></i>, we might have here a fine, fine series from Mount Abraxas, yet again. </p><p>This novella traces the somewhat excrutiating, but at times triumphant history of Norcinelli, a <a href="https://www.openculture.com/2016/06/hear-alessandro-moreschi-the-only-castrato-ever-recorded-sing-ave-maria-and-other-classics-1904.html" target="_blank">castrato</a> from rural Italy who finds his way, eventually, into the court of the Tsar. And by "triumphant," I mean triumphant in a banal way that celebrates small victories, or the avoidance of horrid tragedy. That's not to say that Norcinelli avoids all tragedy, least of all the circumstance which led to his "operation" at the very beginning. There is a modicum of hope in every forlorn circumstance, always driven by his delcaration "I will sing for the tsar". </p><p>The writing in this volume is not flowery, and I think this might have something to do with being told in the first person, which lends itself to a more conversational tone. I've recently read some older murder mystery stories where the first person perspective it sold with purple-prose, and it comes off as disingenuous. Clarke's prose here is conversational, but at times "jerky" with little oddities. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's noticable. Or maybe I'm just overly sensitive given my recent readings. This doesn't take away from the overall telling of the story, it just introduces some "hiccups" here and there, nothing jarring enough to throw one out of the tale. </p><p><br /></p><p>The tone here is a strange one. Some might incorrectly consider this a work of "weird" fiction, but there are no supernatural elements and no breach of reality. Still, the nature of the story, that of a young child wiht very strong religious propensities who must negotiate the disappointments of learning that humans are humans, and sometimes despicably so, along with the rarefied environments in which these different experiences are set, make for a strange feel. The theme of loss and longing intensify this feeling, making for a contrast between ethereality and grit that gives a dream-like quality. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirU2JLWyDAiBnBsGGwuVehso5sk0fIEjYkGF11yQ7UvFqe4qlCTWHKn4089gUB4ogqub9HM3-_lIHVzn0Em1hVpBrKny3hdqCA0XzWcy9tOzY0Bt9Q1mjhTiRFAZLWtxrAF23ENUjxJAR7QcLUOcvIF9S0S08fYuWsZzxREurvLR8aeAPWKXgneWzKwBk/s4000/20231124_110112.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirU2JLWyDAiBnBsGGwuVehso5sk0fIEjYkGF11yQ7UvFqe4qlCTWHKn4089gUB4ogqub9HM3-_lIHVzn0Em1hVpBrKny3hdqCA0XzWcy9tOzY0Bt9Q1mjhTiRFAZLWtxrAF23ENUjxJAR7QcLUOcvIF9S0S08fYuWsZzxREurvLR8aeAPWKXgneWzKwBk/w300-h400/20231124_110112.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>________________________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-46378027631141474142023-11-22T13:37:00.000-08:002023-11-22T13:37:10.763-08:00Decasia: The State of Decay. A film by Bill Morrison.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid9N49iBKyVv8Ms4-rdy4Yflon2kaHkn9EuHCIIXILCfdgVwxFaEzJK9qtVoa0PNLDyqAwnd5HuJt89Znv6DBUUcydyLSSGDe8N1mzZC4WLydBQftvRxR8gbJYvnw1uueXZ3SkoUj9dHjef70TUNXGcbFgbB1m8PedQ9tnYS-4AuOVfN3RfMqy-3AuYNA/s4000/20231122_134128.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid9N49iBKyVv8Ms4-rdy4Yflon2kaHkn9EuHCIIXILCfdgVwxFaEzJK9qtVoa0PNLDyqAwnd5HuJt89Znv6DBUUcydyLSSGDe8N1mzZC4WLydBQftvRxR8gbJYvnw1uueXZ3SkoUj9dHjef70TUNXGcbFgbB1m8PedQ9tnYS-4AuOVfN3RfMqy-3AuYNA/w300-h400/20231122_134128.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">My first forays into "experimental" film were courtesy of the <a href="https://ic.byu.edu/" target="_blank">International Cinema at BYU</a> when I was an undergrad. Though not as highly-experimental as Morrison's <i>Decasia</i>, my early exposure to such films as <a href="https://svankmajer.cz/" target="_blank">Svankmajer's</a> <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4O3fYwYPW0&t=1s" target="_blank">Faust </a></i>and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/may/18/wim-wenders-cinema-today-makes-me-nauseous" target="_blank">Wender's </a><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXNF7UGNsvU" target="_blank">Wings of Desire</a></i> whetted my appetite for more. When a friend of mine, who shared a shift as a security worker at night on campus, invited me and a few others over to watch <a href="https://www.davidlynchfoundation.org/" target="_blank">Lynch's </a><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WAzFWu2tVw" target="_blank">Eraserhead</a></i>, I was hooked. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">I stumbled on Morrison's work while searching for clips from my favorite directors, <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-quay-brothers-universum.html" target="_blank">The Brothers Quay</a> (if you don't know how much of a Quay fanboy I am, you obviously have not been reading <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">my blog</a> for long). Morrison's <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx0HzBiaVn4" target="_blank">Light is Calling</a></i> came up in my search, and my interest was piqued. I watched it and was entirely blown away. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, while <i>Light is Calling</i> is done in a warm sepia-tone, <i>Decasia</i> is purely black-and-white, which suits my (very mild) <a href="https://www.colorblindnesstest.org/farnsworth-munsell-100-hue-test/" target="_blank">hue blindness</a> just fine. Like any experimental cinematic work, this one takes patience and, in places, pure endurance. I admit to nearly shutting the whole thing off during a sequence in which an anonymous diver is climbing a ladder up to a high diving board (at least that's what I think was happening). Everything is in fairly slow-motion. Not <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfDoQwIAaXg&list=FLqRYXszGF3ZwvPzH9sW6GAQ&index=21&t=407s" target="_blank">super slowmo</a>, but slow nonetheless. Morrison is willing to make you work for your insights. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">What we're given is a series of black-and-white films damaged by time either by smeared development fluid or outright disintegration of the cellulose acetate medium. The images are often difficult to discern, sometimes inscrutable. At other times, there are moments of relative clarity - the many cuts of <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/europe/turkey/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-whirling-dervish" target="_blank">whirling dervishe</a>s that seem to thread the sparse motifs together are decidedly old and far from perfect, but they offer the eyes a bit of a rest from the more challenging segments. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">I find it interesting that so much of <i>Decasia </i>is set in, well, Asia, whether Asia Minor or the Far East. Though Morrison has said nothing of colonialism that I can find in his interviews, a fair amount of footage is taken from documentary film of the middle east and Japan, among other locales. One of the more haunting segments is that of a pair of Catholic nuns standing as sentinels as a group of young uniformed schoolgirls, likely Vietnamese, if I am correct in my surmisings, marching past into what I presume must be a Catholic mission-school, probably in <a href="https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/french-colonialism-in-vietnam/" target="_blank">French Indochina</a>. In one particularly attention-grabbing moment, one of the girls looks back at the camera and we see her full face for the first time. There is a strong look of suspicion in her eyes. It's probably just childhood curiosity for seeing a film camera for the first time, but I like to think of her as telepathically saying "I will be freed from this. If not me, then my children, or my children's children. We won't tolerate this forever."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Other segments are mostly banal documentary pieces, with a few bits from dramatized silent movies scattered throughout. I didn't recognize any of them, but my <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-haunted-screen-expressionism-in.html" target="_blank">silent movie mental catalog</a> is quite minimal. When such dramatized performances were presented, there was, for me, a mixed tale of the wonder of acting with th tragedy that, while these images survive, the actors clearly did not. It didn't help that there were, in close proximity to these sections, film of underground miners' bodies being dragged out from mines. A strange contrast. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The music for the film was originally the film for the music. The initial performance of Michael Gordon's composition was the occasion for which the film was initially created. The music came first, then the film came as a reaction to that music. It's obvious that Gordon and Morrison played off of each other, though, to produce the "final" version that appears in <i>Decasia</i>. Gordon's atonal, intentionally de-tuned avant-classical orchestral piece and Morrison's abstract, surreal imagery play well of of each other.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">A PRI interview on the DVD provides some insight into both Morrison's motivations for creating the movie and Gordon's thought process behind the music. Though the interview claims that you can't have one without the other, I'm willing to accept that as a challenge and watch Decasia muted with, let's say <a href="https://sunn.southernlord.com/" target="_blank">SunnO)))</a> playing as musical accompanyment. Actually, I can think of a number of bands whose work would compliment the visuals. <a href="https://tkde.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble</a> jumps right out front. Much of <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/12/lp-review-skaphe-wagner-degard.html" target="_blank">Wagner </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/12/lp-review-skaphe-wagner-degard.html" target="_blank">Ó¦degard's</a> work would work, as well.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Morrison claims that the work is both <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2015/08/black-sun-deathcrawl.html" target="_blank">existential </a>and life-affirming. There is no doubt about the former. The film throughout evokes an existential dread through a two-fold process of obscuring and revealing, forming a sort of pulsating rhythm between the <a href="https://50wattsbooks.com/products/the-weird-and-the-eerie" target="_blank">eerie and the weird</a>. The viewer often feels trapped between several worlds at once: The world from which they are viewing the movie, the world in which the film was initially captured, and the world that some of the captured film is trying to portray (this is particularly true of pieces that show actors from the 1920s or '30s portraying scenes in historical costume). <i>Decasia </i>is not only a film, it is a place, its own strange world of mixed up timelines bubbling in and out of perception. Needless to say, it is a very strange place to inhabit, even if only momentarily, a discomfiting space that reminds one of one's mortality in the strongest of ways. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">On the flipside, there is a strange element of hope throughout, as well, that maybe something of us can survive that change called death and still affect the world. It's not an overtly spiritual plea by Morrison, but a little whisper of what might possibly be. Just maybe. Time will truly tell, right?</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYZBLhP-DNoMlbP8KWdpg89V3GLqCw0FHepkrm7lNRzuvsh_3WwGfW03M7jTSO8WgFQjMvCfecZCcm8LyII2x94s0ZWtR6WT9GILdLkxyuRoQArb6iOwEp7eu5wh2vA-sZW-24gZiCAQP9aDkXdxc88wenOyvSoc3b8JHiyjyU4fyrjzwZoJmxEwO4lzw/s4000/20231122_134016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYZBLhP-DNoMlbP8KWdpg89V3GLqCw0FHepkrm7lNRzuvsh_3WwGfW03M7jTSO8WgFQjMvCfecZCcm8LyII2x94s0ZWtR6WT9GILdLkxyuRoQArb6iOwEp7eu5wh2vA-sZW-24gZiCAQP9aDkXdxc88wenOyvSoc3b8JHiyjyU4fyrjzwZoJmxEwO4lzw/w300-h400/20231122_134016.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p style="text-align: left;">________________________</p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px; text-align: left;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-align: left; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px; text-align: left;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></div><br /><p><br /></p>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-30620335632488764222023-11-22T09:43:00.000-08:002023-11-22T09:43:49.951-08:00The Tome of Ravass Bhavatan<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPr785aZ9wwI6rQJz9Vt7_lBVUzQ-RHS_zEarpj3gZInEyN305cZGq_SoVWy-Oiy1OlPoCowFa7R10ZQ9q572zraOGZinhYtt3_edKxVdbChH1j0d_zv3O5Ukwo_qBsjaedmbB89WJLhqJwWQkpCM5hVGbOC1nWLKkruHmoVugWfccQPX11-pm0wQh0vg/s4000/20231121_204432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPr785aZ9wwI6rQJz9Vt7_lBVUzQ-RHS_zEarpj3gZInEyN305cZGq_SoVWy-Oiy1OlPoCowFa7R10ZQ9q572zraOGZinhYtt3_edKxVdbChH1j0d_zv3O5Ukwo_qBsjaedmbB89WJLhqJwWQkpCM5hVGbOC1nWLKkruHmoVugWfccQPX11-pm0wQh0vg/w300-h400/20231121_204432.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Once again, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/mountabraxaspress/" target="_blank">Mount Abraxas press</a> churns out an amazing set of booklets, this time in the series <i>The Old Ways Remain</i>. These are a similar format to <i>The Doomed House of Abraxas</i> series, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/193541597-that-grey-ancestral-realm-tween-paper-and-glass" target="_blank">one of which</a> I penned myself. These are short, very-limited editions of weird/dark/doom-laden stories by various authors, printed on heavy cardstock and illustrated with some of the best dark artwork out there. This one is illustrated by Vhan.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>The Tome of Ravass Bhavatan</i> is an <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2015/09/irrational-man-study-in-existential.html" target="_blank">existentialist</a> occult work by Christian Riley. Riley's work is new to me, and a pleasant surprise. I find his prose . . . let's call it "Indigo". It's not quite purple, but it's on the far end of the spectrum from bland. There's a reverent, telestial quality to the writing which takes a second to shift into, but once you're in, you're in. In tone, it's highly redolent of the <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/04/french-decadent-tales.html" target="_blank">French decadents</a>. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The story itself focuses on the discovery (and repeated rediscovery) of the titular Tome. It's a <a href="https://www.weirdstudies.com/156" target="_blank">dark academic's</a> dream, the find of a lifetime, and one that promises previously obfuscated secrets that have been hidden for centuries. The strange and twisted history of the book is presented when Harold, the protagonist, discovers a copy of the exceedingly rare work in a place he never expected to find it. As the story goes on, one wonders if he found the book, or the book found him? We see his immersion in the work and its workings in a clever literary trick that results in . . . well, a trick. The sort of trick that a god of mischief and chaos might play. It's a wonderful ending that subverts previous dominant narratives, leaving the reader a bit of a sting, but a sting worth taking.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4WyT1OEt6lDY2gW8va8XvZBvzhocUedxwLMJ46Lq8ZnNGntgYldbNryJeqy_7toZG_HRB9-P8oZeTzUg0jwCgWQqQ1My7uhVaIxYGD7jyl0sMEphg2q8PQ6GdWPQTln5bGFwF1ke4CpqHpIsZyL9BbhrX8V0Qy2j6HAKvjJm8kvlGtwXocmmgMUeDS3o/s4000/20231121_204449.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4WyT1OEt6lDY2gW8va8XvZBvzhocUedxwLMJ46Lq8ZnNGntgYldbNryJeqy_7toZG_HRB9-P8oZeTzUg0jwCgWQqQ1My7uhVaIxYGD7jyl0sMEphg2q8PQ6GdWPQTln5bGFwF1ke4CpqHpIsZyL9BbhrX8V0Qy2j6HAKvjJm8kvlGtwXocmmgMUeDS3o/w300-h400/20231121_204449.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p>________________________</p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-33732952945631862292023-10-25T19:40:00.001-07:002023-10-25T19:40:44.065-07:00Swann's Way<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18804.Swann_s_Way" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1351527778l/18804._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18804.Swann_s_Way">Swann's Way</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/233619.Marcel_Proust">Marcel Proust</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/565774706">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
It is impossible to capture all the splendor of this book in a review. That's not an excuse, it's the simple truth. <i>Swann's Way</i> is one of the most beautiful, most <i>human</i> novels I've read, and it's only the first in the epic <i>In Search of Lost Time</i>. Will I read the rest? Unlikely. Ironically, there's just not enough time. <br /><br />However, this was anything but a difficult read. It's nothing like <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2016/11/ulysses.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Joyce</a> or <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/03/samuel-becketts-complete-short-prose.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Beckett</a> or <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/search?q=melville" rel="nofollow noopener">Melville</a>, for example. Yes, the sentences notoriously go on and on (in once case, I seem to remember one sentence going on for three pages straight, maybe more), but once the reader gives themself up to the rhythm of the novel, one becomes enfolded in it. It is an easy read, easy on the brain, easy on the soul.<br /><br />The only way I can describe Proust's prose is to use the analogy of natural pearls on a string. Each is different from one another, each shines with the same lustre, and all together they compound delicately accrete into something even more beautiful as a whole. One has to read the whole work, studying each sentence on its own merits. I could provide inumerable quotes that illustrate the beauty of the prose, but then I would be quoting nearly the entire book. Suffice it to say that Proust out-Huysman's Huysman by turning the seemingly banal into a celestial scene without succumbing to the temptation to bejewel the prose with gaudy embellishments. Take, for example, part of the account of Odette sprucing up the room into which she had invited Swann:<br /><br /><i>But when her footman came into the room bringing, one after another, the innumberable lamps which (contained, mostly, in porcelain vases) burned singly or in pairs upon the different pieces of furniture as upon so many altars, rekindling in the twilight, already almost nocturnal, of this winter afternoon the glow of a sunset more lasting, more roseate, more human - filling, perhaps, with romantic wonder the thoughts of some solitary lover wandering in the street below and brought to a standstill before the mystery of the human presence which those lighted windows at once revealed and screened from sight - she had kept a sharp eye on the servant, to see that he set them down in their appointed places. She felt that if he were to put even one of them where it ought not to be the general effect of her drawing-room would be destroyed, and her portrait, which rested upon a sloping easel draped with plush, inadequately lit. And so she followed the man's clumsy movements with feverish impatience, scolding him severely when he passed too close to a pair of jardinieres, which she made a point of always cleaning herself for fear that they might be damaged, and went across to examine now to make sure he had not chipped them. She found something "quaint" in the shape of each of her Chinese ornaments, and also in her orchids, the cattleyas especially - these being, with chrysathemums, her favourite flowers, because they had the supreme merit of not looking like flowers, but of being made, apparently, of silk or satin. "This one looks just as though it had been cut out of the lining of my cloak," she said to Swann, pointing to an orchid, with a shade of respect in her voice for so "chic" a flower, for this elegant, unexpected sister whom nature had bestowed upon her, so far removed from her in the scale of existence, and yet so delicate, so refined, so much more worthy than many real women of admission to her drawing-room. As she drew his attention, now to the fiery-tongued dragons painted on a bowl or stitched on a screen, now to a fleshy cluster of orchids, now to a dromedary of inlaid silverwork with ruby eyes which kept company, upon her mantelpiece, with a toad carved in jade, she would pretend now to be shrinking from the ferocity of the monsters or laughing at their absurdity, now blushing at the indecency of the flowers, now carried away by an irresistible desire to run across and kiss the toad and dromedary, calling hem "darlings". And these affectations were in sharp contrast to the sincerity of some of her attitudes, notably her devotion to Our Lady of Laghet, who had once, when Odette was living at Nice, cured her of a mortal illness, and whose medal, in gold, she always carried on her person, attributing to it unlimited powers.</i><br /><br />Analysis of this passage seems to me a petty blasphemy. This book is to be read. It is, more than any other book I can think of, a reader's book. I have absolutely no desire to dissect this book (I'll leave that to the professionals, such as <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28388.Proust_s_Way" rel="nofollow noopener">Roger Shattuck</a>). I enjoyed it, and I just want to leave it that way. And that might be just about the best compliment I can give a simply beautiful work of fiction. Maybe <i>the</i> simply beautiful work of fiction.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
<br /><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/811928-forrest">View all my reviews</a>
<div><div>____________</div><div><br /></div><p><span face=""Google Sans", Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 1.375rem; font-variant-ligatures: no-contextual;"></span></p><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></div></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-79469107492496331182023-09-12T20:16:00.001-07:002023-09-12T20:16:37.469-07:00The Ring of Truth<p> <a href="https://www.fiddlersgreenzine.com/" target="_blank">Fiddler's Green Peculiar Parish Magazine</a> has been producing a wonderfully elegant, downright enchanting series of zines, of which <i>The Ring of Truth</i> is the most recent. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdkfX9j3NRK8cCkLHAU6Y3UG5BWmq1I57QTfBrX3Lv2vuktUsc7BwgPcI-oT8BDXEfv28owkWLZlWMyygi0QRkQCMDkFFA1wfTUdaoHrlwf8RvnmOvneaxP6ber0o_1Cn1i6PVp_QjM-qp7DNGW4Pv-UAT-Tg-RuJG9FLJNobLJ2CaWANMqanlvkmzv8g/s4000/Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdkfX9j3NRK8cCkLHAU6Y3UG5BWmq1I57QTfBrX3Lv2vuktUsc7BwgPcI-oT8BDXEfv28owkWLZlWMyygi0QRkQCMDkFFA1wfTUdaoHrlwf8RvnmOvneaxP6ber0o_1Cn1i6PVp_QjM-qp7DNGW4Pv-UAT-Tg-RuJG9FLJNobLJ2CaWANMqanlvkmzv8g/w300-h400/Cover.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>Yes, this "zine" is not your common photostatted punk zine. Far from it, in fact. This really is a piece of art - and it is beautifully illustrated by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/alicecaoillustration/" target="_blank">Alice Cao</a>'s fine linework. </p><p>The text itself is composed of a wistful literary reminiscence, extremely well-written, about Marsh's first childhood brush with the magic world and his later (succesful) attempt to invoke a window to that world by means of a magic circle. Following this is a practical guide to creating a sacred space AKA a magic circle (which really need not be a physical space at all). A "Further Reading" section provides a brief, but focused bibliography on the subject matter at hand.</p><p>Saying much more than this would spoil your enjoyment of the book and some of the little discoveries to be made therein. The magic is there, but you need to find it yourself. I suggest drinking some <a href="https://www.instagram.com/officialcocknbull/" target="_blank">Ginger Beer</a> out of one of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/trevorfosterstudio/" target="_blank">Trevor Foster</a>'s wonderful skull mugs as the perfect, almost magical, complement.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-9mV9e-0pqwKIHGUBMuEGAYlOPIm1NJUyprTfKc-UxjzEiZXrlLaRc5br-72vFalqafi9Nrc8XtMddMSnzpTZ2ngOLgNi3qg7mkxvNpvRkItsBx9j1MN14DUL-oJQ19v-OjgNH_SFRKw7DrlhS84IZo8oEDTagfCAAXSGehKSYAqhOXZpbLEINlBTHwI/s4000/Cover%20and%20Skull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-9mV9e-0pqwKIHGUBMuEGAYlOPIm1NJUyprTfKc-UxjzEiZXrlLaRc5br-72vFalqafi9Nrc8XtMddMSnzpTZ2ngOLgNi3qg7mkxvNpvRkItsBx9j1MN14DUL-oJQ19v-OjgNH_SFRKw7DrlhS84IZo8oEDTagfCAAXSGehKSYAqhOXZpbLEINlBTHwI/w300-h400/Cover%20and%20Skull.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div>____________</div><div><br /></div><p><span face=""Google Sans", Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 1.375rem; font-variant-ligatures: no-contextual;"></span></p><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-66637515331527217742023-08-26T15:22:00.004-07:002023-08-26T15:22:39.824-07:00The Book of Antitheses<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59690949-the-book-of-antitheses" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Book of Antitheses" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1637709897l/59690949._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59690949-the-book-of-antitheses">The Book of Antitheses</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5118881.Jobe_Bittman">Jobe Bittman</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5552120011">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Massive trigger warning: If the practice of magic, extreme violence, and/or strong sexual themes offend you, skip this review and never, ever read this book. Now that that's out of the way . . .<br /><br />Lamentations of the Flame Princess again presents one of the more obscene and transgressive roleplaying game works out there. Say what you will about <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2013/11/lotfp-spell-black-flame.html" rel="nofollow noopener">LotFP</a>, they have a brand identity, and they unapologitically stick with it. This is not a book for children or the easily offended - not. at. all. If you're looking Saturday morning cartoon <i>Dungeons and Dragons</i>, this ain't it. Now, I'm guessing that if you read this far, you are not easily offended. But you might be a child. After all, <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2012/10/official-advanced-dungeons-and-dragons.html" rel="nofollow noopener">I started playing D&D when I was 9 years old</a> . . . a long time ago. As a preteen and early teen, I was enamored of the game. And, yes, it did introduce me to some . . . alternative ways of thinking/viewing/believing. And, yes, the bare-chested illustrations of the harpy, sphinx, and others were *ahem* attractive to this young man and, I'm guessing, just about every other young man out there.<br /><br />So, while the <a href="https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=0046" rel="nofollow noopener">Satanic Panic</a> was overblown, there were some elements of truth to it. The original D&D game was filled with Devils and Demons (sanitized into "Tanar'ri" and "Baatezu" in some later editions) and there were, occasionally, straight-up occult elements in the game (c.f. the booklet of monsters and magic items module <i>S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth</i> - which is, incidentally, my favorite module of all time). <br /><br />In <i>The Book of Antitheses</i>, Jobe (yes, I know him - more on that later) fully embraces something that I've realized in my later years - the <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2016/05/ritualized-magic-in-rpgs-danger-versus.html" rel="nofollow noopener"><i>ritual</i> nature of roleplaying games</a>. Whether you believe in magic or not, you must admit that playing RPGs is highly ritualized. Gaming groups typically meet at a set time and place (even if said place is virtual), surround a table (again, sometimes virtual) and delve into a realm of imagination, fate, and, (dare I say it?) faith. We create alternate personas, much like an initiate into magic arts, we oftentimes concentrate to a state of near-meditation, we use dice as divinatory or soothsaying tools and bind our characters (a piece of ourselves?) to the results. Often, we laugh and joke, which seems to contradict my argument until one notes that magical practice, by and large, is ended by "banishing" the ritual space so that the things summoned there don't creep into everyday life. Magicians engage with the demons, get what they want (or not), and banish the entities at the end of the ritual. <br /><br />A few years back, these commonalities struck me quite profoundly. If I recall correctly, this thundering revelation took place in 2019. I was so struck by the thought that I immediately contacted several people who were gamers and who had a deep understanding of magic and the occult and set up an improptu online meeting. Two of the people who came into the discussion (I think there were seven of us total?) were Jobe Bittman and the person who would later write the profoundly-insightful foreword to this book, JF Martel (who is the co-host of my favorite podcast, <a href="https://www.weirdstudies.com/" rel="nofollow noopener">Weird Studies</a>). In fact, I like to think that I facilitated Jobe getting in contact with JF and having him write the foreword. Then again, maybe I am deceived by some whimsical spirit.<br /><br />I also sat at the gaming table with Jobe at Garycon one year and played through a game he ran. Well, partially, I had to leave about halfway through, unfortunately. He began the session by letting those at the table know that they would be participating in a ritual exercise and that any who wished to not participate should leave. He then rang a clarion, a singing bowl, and effectively invoked and opening to the session. We then played an RPG with Jobe randomly determining how encounters would go, not by rolling dice and consulting tables (the "normal" way one would), but by casting a number of small objects ("charms," if you will) and "reading" the results to determine what would happen during the encounter we were involved with by examining the relation of the objects (each of which represented different persons or elements) to (or against!) each other. These seemingly strange methodologies really helped immerse us into the game and the imaginal plane (though he would argue that this "imaginal" plane was an actual real place, though it is only visible in our minds). We felt that we were a part of something, much as one normally does while playing an RPG, but more intensely, in this case. We had more "buy in," all-in-all. <br /><br />And this is one of the techniques that is outlined in <i>The Book of Antitheses</i>, a step-by-step guide to gaming-as-ritual. Jobe claims that the book is a real book in a real place as real as the book you hold in your hand. In fact, one of the adventure threads involves characters seeking and finding <i>The Book of Antitheses</i>, which is, in reality . . . well, <i>The Book of Antitheses</i>!<br /><br />Several other techniques are outlined here, as well. The thrust of all of these is this: When running a roleplaying game, don't use pre-existing structure as a crutch. Toss aside those adventures that have a numbered encounter that shows exactly what is "in the room". Let fate decide for you! You'll never have to prep again, so long as you have a good grasp of setting, non-player character personalities and motivations, and "resonances".<br /><br />This last piece is important. A resonance can be anything from a rumor to an event. The gamemaster should have several one- or two-sentence descriptions of <i>possible</i> or even probable encounters for a given area. This doesn't mean the old "wandering monster chart," though monsters can be a part of the lists. It is important that these lists are NOT numbered, like the wandering monster charts of yore. The gamemaster needs to decide which element presents itself to the party based on intuition and, potentially, casting the charms as outlined above. The presentation is much less proscriptive than say, rolling a "4" on the chart which gives "1d6 ogres," which sometimes gets ridiculous, even when such charts are tailored to the environment in which the encounter takes place. Resonances are much more loose and free than this, allowing the gamemaster to divine which of the potential events, rumors, interactions, etc., will happen at any given time. it's a much more nuanced approach than the old tables.<br /><br />The last half of the book is composed of an "adventure," though I hesitate to use that term. There are several locations, several non-player characters with strong motivations, a cultural milieu with conflict brewing just under the surface (waiting to explode at any moment), and a couple of potential "problems" that the party of adventurers can try to resolve. There are multiple possibilities here that can only be explored at the table. No need to worry if your players have read the adventure ahead of time - it won't help. There are just too many variables and the stochasticity of throwing and interpreting the charms ensure that you will never run the same adventure twice, even if nothing has changed with the book itself. <br /><br />There is also a section on monsters that give more insights into their motivations and ambitions, along with, yes, a stat block (LotFP stats). <br /><br />I'll end on a side note. In my Dungeon Crawl Classics game this morning, one of the players' characters spun some crazy yarn (this happens every time we play) and one of the other players (but not his character, this was an "out of character" comment) said "I think you're just making crap up". To which the response was:<br /><br />"Dude, it's ALL made up!"<br /><br /><i>et sic est</i><br />
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/811928-forrest">View all my reviews</a>
<div><br /></div><div><div>____________</div><div><br /></div><p><span face=""Google Sans", Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 1.375rem; font-variant-ligatures: no-contextual;"></span></p><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></div><span class="J-J5-Ji" face=""Google Sans", Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" jsname="SjW3R" style="align-items: center; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline-flex; flex-wrap: wrap; font-size: 22px; min-height: 28px; position: relative; vertical-align: bottom;"><div aria-checked="true" aria-label="Important mainly because it was sent directly to you." class="pG" data-is-important="true" data-tooltip-align="b,l" data-tooltip-contained="true" data-tooltip-delay="1500" jsaction="mouseenter:Oh6g9b; mouseleave:Oh6g9b;click:KjsqPd; keydown:mAamLc;" jscontroller="sggJRd" jsname="FaKNoe" role="switch" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-size: 0px; height: 20px; margin: 0px 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; width: 20px;" tabindex="0"></div><div aria-checked="true" aria-label="Important mainly because it was sent directly to you." class="pG" data-is-important="true" data-tooltip-align="b,l" data-tooltip-contained="true" data-tooltip-delay="1500" jsaction="mouseenter:Oh6g9b; mouseleave:Oh6g9b;click:KjsqPd; keydown:mAamLc;" jscontroller="sggJRd" jsname="FaKNoe" role="switch" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-size: 0px; height: 20px; margin: 0px 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; width: 20px;" tabindex="0"><br /></div></span></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-34593054846935284092023-08-14T19:13:00.005-07:002023-08-26T14:01:31.114-07:00Being and Time<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92307.Being_and_Time" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Being and Time" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1298438455l/92307._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92307.Being_and_Time">Being and Time</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6191.Martin_Heidegger">Martin Heidegger</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1377489818">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
"Did I learn?" This is the only possible question I can ask about my reading experience with Martin Heidegger's notoriously difficult tome <i>Being and Time</i>. I would be lying if I said I clearly understood more than 25% of this work. Warning: unless you are a trained philosopher or a genius autodidact, you will find within these pages a long stretch of imposter syndrome waiting for you. I cannot rightfully or accurately assess whether I "got" this book. Some of it, sure, but I don't know enough here to assess what I really, really know about Heidegger's philosophy.<br /><br />But did I learn? Let's find out. Below, I've cut and pasted the notes I've taken along the way. Immediately following each self-quotation, I will assess whether, at the end of it all, I learned anything in relation to these initial impressions. Let's go:<br /><br /><i>Well, the foreword and translator's notes successfully put me to sleep. Hoping that the actual text is a little more engaging.</i><br /><br />This did get better. As I crawled along and picked up an occasional idea here and there, along with bolstering my knowledge by watching very specific youtube videos on particularly difficult passages, I found myself more and more engaged because I understood more of the previous groundwork as I went along.<br /><br /><i>Heideggering is hard work. I'm glad I know some German or the footnotes here would be mostly nonsensical. Or at least misleading.</i><br /><br />Yes, Heideggering is hard work. That did not change. Knowing German helped quite a bit, but sometimes my knowledge of German actually got in the way because of the way that Heidegger <i>uses</i> the German language. Some of his wordplay is incredibly subtle and I suspect that even native speakers with a high level of academic training need to use the footnotes as a crutch to help understand the precise way in which he uses specific words with specific nuances. The footnotes, along with having German "at hand," so to speak, were extremely helpful.<br /><br /><i>My brain hurts.</i><br /><br />This was true throughout.<br /><br /><i>That Philosophy 101 course I had 27 years ago isn't helping me much here, for some reason. I want a refund on that portion of my tuition!</i><br /><br />It actually came in handy later, when Hegel and Aquinas came up I had a comparative framework to diff off of Heideger's ideas, which gave me an unexpected and needed context. But I still want that refund!<br /><br /><i>I cheated and watched a youtube video or five to get some grounding. Glad I did that.<br /><br />Essentially, Heidegger is rewriting Philosophy 101 as it relates to ontology.</i><br /><br />I'm still glad I "cheated". That helped things immensely. And I STILL want that refund!<br /><br /><i>Hmm. About 10% of the way through the book and I understand about 25% of what I've read.</i><br /><br />This proportion of understanding proved true from the beginning to the end. I understood things well about a quarter of the time. Truth be told, I *somewhat* understood other things maybe another 15-20% of the time. Not bad for an imposter.<br /><br /><i>Page 65 . . . and I'm just at the beginning of Part 1?</i><br /><br />Yes, I was. But that preamble was necessary not to set the stage, but to strip the stage down to it's loose wooden planks and rebuild philosophy. Heidegger was a philosophical marine drill sergeant. He destroys you, then builds you up again.<br /><br /><i>We're going on a cruise in a couple of weeks. I strongly suspect this will NOT be a book I take with me. Sorry, Heide.</i><br /><br />Well, that cruise didn't happen. My wife got a blood clot the week before we were supposed to leave, and with here then-recent cancer scare, we couldn't take a chance. Good thing, too, as we would have likely ended up in a hospital somewhere in Anchorage. We still plan on taking the cruise, but it's probably going to be a year or two. 2022 was pretty brutal.<br /><br /><i>"Linguistic gymnastics" is the phrase that comes to mind when trying to describe what my brain is doing now. And I've fallen off the balance beams more than once here.</i><br /><br />See my comments about German above. Lots of linguistic gymnastics in this work.<br /><br /><i>I'm glad I don't *have* to read this. It's one thing to discipline myself to read something inscrutable; it's quite another to have it assigned to you.</i><br /><br />In the end, I'm glad I read it. But I could easily see a huge number of philosophy majors going to the counselor's office to change their majors after this. Easily.<br /><br /><i>Every two pages I spend on Heidegger is a hard-won battle. Most of the time, I lose, but I'll hold onto my feeble victories and improve upon them. Slow and steady wins the race.</i><br /><br />It wasn't *always* torture, just most of the time. Slow and steady did win the race, incidentally. Or at least I finished the marathon.<br /><br /><i>This text can feel so mechanical at times that one forgets it is about human beings. Then, occasionally, one slips past the strictness of the language and realizes that not only is Heidegger not philosophizing about an "ideal" human being, but that he is sympathetic to humans in their weaknesses, even when they don't reach their full potential.</i><br /><br />This was a surprising revelation that became more and more clear the more I read. Heidegger's primary concern was the inner life of an individual human being, replete with its faults and foibles. <br /><br /><i>Any review I do for this book can only scratch the surface.</i><br /><br />c.f., this pithy review.<br /><br /><i>Back to the philosophical salt mines . . .</i><br /><br />Looking back on this phrase, it was definitely ill-advised and I didn't even think about the implications at that point, given Heidegger's overly-problematic political leanings. It was not intentional, but I suppose it might have been subconscious. My apologies for the "bad optics". I suppose I could redact this note altogether, but that wouldn't be intellectually honest. <br /><br /><i>I'm not sure if Being and Time is considered "analytical philosophy," or if I'm even using the right term, but this sort of Definitional work seems like definition for the sake of definition. It's academically interesting, but emotionally flat and intellectually tedious. But I will press on and finish. I'm learning things, but it's not particularly enjoyable.</i><br /><br />Obviously, from my earlier comments, this feeling came and went. But when it came on, it came on strong. Reading more slowly helped me to cut through this academic wall and get to the actual "soul" behind it. I do believe the book has "soul," but it takes some digging to get to it.<br /><br /><i>The whole notion of death in this book is utterly fascinating. While acknowledging the cessation of being in this world, and thus no longer being a Dasein, Heidegger hints that there is a sort of existence of one, even as that one has ceased being in the worls as Dasein here. But the Being of that being is unknowable by Dasein.</i><br /><br />This actually helped me connect with this work in a way I hadn't up to this point. This probably has to do with my admiration for <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2015/09/irrational-man-study-in-existential.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Existential philosophy in general</a>. The seeming paradoxical nature of Heidegger's statements in relation of Dasein to death actually tied things together quite nicely for me. Your mileage may vary.<br /><br /><i>Death enters the picture and suddenly all that came before in this tome makes much more sense. Existentialism instantiates clarity!</i><br /><br />As I just said . . . <br /><br /><i>317 pages in, I feel like I'm beginning to grasp what Heidegger is on about. Call me ignorant. But I am starting to put two and two together.</i><br /><br />Mmmmmaybe I was learning something?<br /><br /><i>There is something fundamental about the call of conscience, an irreducible something that is at the core of Dasein's Being. There is no good answer to "where does it come from?", it is intrinsic to Being. So far as I can tell, this is the closest Heidegger gets to some notion of "spirit," "soul," or "essence". But what do I know?</i><br /><br />This, I think, is where Heiddeger's view of some sort of "soul" became more clear. I went back and scanned throughout the book, and one can find ghostly whispers, very faint, of this feeling, here and there throughout. Perhaps this is inevitable when one is talking about the inner life of a human?<br /><br /><i>There's something a bit Ayn-Randian about the concept of conscience here, but it seems less mercenary. Self-serving? Yes, more a focus on authenticity, to being true to one's self, than just snubbing every other human being around you without mercy for the sake of the argument.</i><br /><br />Heidegger's ties to nazism are fairly clear, from what I understand. Though Ayn Rand wasn't a nazi, per se, her individualism-to-the-point-of-extreme-selfishness rings with some of the same echos, albeit on a personal, rather than national scale. I find Heidegger much more kind (if that's the right word) than Rand, but still adamant about the individual need to be oneself, despite what society as a whole thinks. Of course, if you get a whole bunch of people who think they are being individualistic, while they are merely all following one person's individualistic personality, well, you get facism.<br /><br /><i>I'd love to be able to state that I understood thus and such percentage of this book. But that would imply a continuous "block" of understanding, and that's just not true. It's more like a journey where certain points were more lucid and memorable than others, like pearls unevenly distributed along a string.</i><br /><br />This notion also held through, especially in hindsight. And this is the most corect summation of my reading experience with <i>Being and Time</i>. Will I read it again in full? Probably not. But I will dip into sections from time to time in order to both build my understanding of this work and to provide context when other philosophers refer to Heidegger. <br /><br />So I feel that I did learn from the book. And i will keep on learning. Some of the ideas herein and some of the structures have provided glimpses for me into the workings of philosophy, even if uneven and obfuscated by my own ignorange. Gradually, though, I'm hoping the light seeps in and grows and I can use this as a springboard into other, perhaps equally difficult, works. My intellectual muscles have been strengthened, though I have yet to understand how to integrate the whole body of work into my philosophical routine. That, I think, is a lifelong pursuit. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
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<div><br /></div><div><div>____________</div><div><br /></div><p><span face=""Google Sans", Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 1.375rem; font-variant-ligatures: no-contextual;"></span></p><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></div></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-35875928062397414632023-08-13T18:53:00.004-07:002023-08-13T18:54:43.996-07:00The Veneration at Polwheveral Manor<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 1.375rem; font-variant-ligatures: no-contextual;">The Veneration at Polwheveral Manor by Benjamin Tweddell</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #1f1f1f; font-variant-ligatures: no-contextual;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For the uninitiated, Mount Abraxas produces some of the most beautiful books out there, featiring dark, "weird" fiction in very limited editions unlike anything you will find anywhere else. I've had a few of my novellas published by Mount Abraxas and I am continually amazed by the quality of physical artifacts that they produce. Getting a new Mount Abraxas title never gets old. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The auctoral lineup for Mount Abraxas titles is one of the best-kept secrets in the weird fiction world. One will frequently find books featuring the work of some of my favorite contemporary authors, including <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-exalted-and-abased.html" target="_blank">Damian Murphy</a>, <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2019/12/at-dusk.html" target="_blank">Mark Valentine</a>, <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-voice-of-air.html" target="_blank">John Howard</a>, and <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/12/orphans-on-granite-tides.html" target="_blank">Adam S. Cantwell</a>. They are always beautiful books, exquisitely written, with strange twists and turns of an almost reverential quality. <i>The Veneration at Polwheveral Manor</i> holds this standard high. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The story takes place sometime in the mid-20th Century and considers the retreat of Jacob Thurman, an ex-military medical man who is stricken with bouts of blindness, into a dreary cabin away from civilization. Here Jacob hopes to retreat from society, dreading the inevitable next fearful attack of blindness and, eventually, the permanent loss of vision. Here he discovers Polywheveral Manor, an old manor house whose caretaker, Julius De Monte, is a scion in a long line of guardians of a holy (or unholy?) relic: the remains of the Blind Seer, Saint Eusebius. De Monte, it is rumored, was once blind, but now cured, though doctors have no explanation for how the cure took place. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Going into more detail than this will spoil the story, so I shall forbear. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The atmosphere and mood of the piece is a throbbingly dark, overhanging cloud until the revelatory end. I'll be honest that I found some of the emotional turns just a touch disingenuous, but this is only because we are given such a short time to know, to <i>really</i> know, the main characters. The characterization was not bad, not by any means. On the contrary, it was quite good, yet seemed a bit <i>sudden </i>at times. This is my only complaint about the book, and it is only slight. The work is brooding, which one might expect, given the subject matter, and one can find themselves easily immersed in the depths, particularly with Jacob's plight and the grim prospects for his future. If you appreciate a frisson that can border on claustrophobic, you will appreciate this. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tweddell's style throughout is, <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/11/a-crown-of-dusk-and-sorrow.html" target="_blank">as usual with his works</a>, exquisite. His delivery is smooth, transparent when it needs to be, and drawing attention to itself when it needs to do so. The cover art, by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/mysteriousfour_/" target="_blank">Mysterious Four</a>, adds to the mystery by evoking, quite intentionally, I believe, the cover of the first <a href="https://www.black-sabbath.com/discography/blacksabbath/blacksabbath70/" target="_blank">Black Sabbath</a> album. "The Wizard," indeed!</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsK2SCppSEJUhDBA0ol6PgCuWZ3YuaPqYwb_shbfLFgHZruutFf0oazcH4bXbZJHG7Gcq2EbiezXyOpQyu6IwIeUnjEbqLq0bo19HEbVu7I2rUi9RdPRrJbvEHsk-htstCc7MZpzZ_wyPZ-akg1HHUqA0ql4ssJUc-7E1gx4fpXabqfRFSXNfeDZqQSfE/s4000/front%20cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsK2SCppSEJUhDBA0ol6PgCuWZ3YuaPqYwb_shbfLFgHZruutFf0oazcH4bXbZJHG7Gcq2EbiezXyOpQyu6IwIeUnjEbqLq0bo19HEbVu7I2rUi9RdPRrJbvEHsk-htstCc7MZpzZ_wyPZ-akg1HHUqA0ql4ssJUc-7E1gx4fpXabqfRFSXNfeDZqQSfE/w300-h400/front%20cover.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRUYA31-boq63yJCbSAvg-98SlZwlZk6dLBFQn0V2dNmOI4q_M9TF87qWCNJCW2K3s6uxhLM300WidOErCSTVt99Pi7CE2kMebPPLz0aSINXk3ybfBK8e78w9ibkUiSlu6l_gyL3O6nhhKG0pwdaUxiJhDiVYSRjTqf3-HidE9rjSnSY2LtcCYnJmQcpQ/s4000/endpages.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRUYA31-boq63yJCbSAvg-98SlZwlZk6dLBFQn0V2dNmOI4q_M9TF87qWCNJCW2K3s6uxhLM300WidOErCSTVt99Pi7CE2kMebPPLz0aSINXk3ybfBK8e78w9ibkUiSlu6l_gyL3O6nhhKG0pwdaUxiJhDiVYSRjTqf3-HidE9rjSnSY2LtcCYnJmQcpQ/w300-h400/endpages.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCrhukv1PQGm8GiKawB-pHy6kqhxFIQ9eirJPW69pOtoc2l0XTXmg4XT6gXbtJR20K86tHCyVkcE-xn_WdufumMk99JGXLvnLseeKHIhuGBtnV0OD8OienIZTHyxgsiC5-fND7CZ8caPs-tIljl9sHcjJL-QnesySZjFCStRIOO7DSDHJX0pVFSe3Okf4/s4000/Cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCrhukv1PQGm8GiKawB-pHy6kqhxFIQ9eirJPW69pOtoc2l0XTXmg4XT6gXbtJR20K86tHCyVkcE-xn_WdufumMk99JGXLvnLseeKHIhuGBtnV0OD8OienIZTHyxgsiC5-fND7CZ8caPs-tIljl9sHcjJL-QnesySZjFCStRIOO7DSDHJX0pVFSe3Okf4/w300-h400/Cover.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div>____________</div><div><br /></div><p><span face=""Google Sans", Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 1.375rem; font-variant-ligatures: no-contextual;"></span></p><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></div><span class="J-J5-Ji" face=""Google Sans", Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" jsname="SjW3R" style="align-items: center; background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline-flex; flex-wrap: wrap; font-size: 22px; min-height: 28px; position: relative; vertical-align: bottom;"><div aria-checked="true" aria-label="Important mainly because it was sent directly to you." class="pG" data-is-important="true" data-tooltip-align="b,l" data-tooltip-contained="true" data-tooltip-delay="1500" jsaction="mouseenter:Oh6g9b; mouseleave:Oh6g9b;click:KjsqPd; keydown:mAamLc;" jscontroller="sggJRd" jsname="FaKNoe" role="switch" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-size: 0px; height: 20px; margin: 0px 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; width: 20px;" tabindex="0"></div><div aria-checked="true" aria-label="Important mainly because it was sent directly to you." class="pG" data-is-important="true" data-tooltip-align="b,l" data-tooltip-contained="true" data-tooltip-delay="1500" jsaction="mouseenter:Oh6g9b; mouseleave:Oh6g9b;click:KjsqPd; keydown:mAamLc;" jscontroller="sggJRd" jsname="FaKNoe" role="switch" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-size: 0px; height: 20px; margin: 0px 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; width: 20px;" tabindex="0"><br /></div></span>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-17381017901656095382023-08-08T17:55:00.002-07:002023-08-08T17:55:57.073-07:00The Science Fiction in Traveller<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29624377-the-science-fiction-in-traveller" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Science Fiction in Traveller" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1459014675l/29624377._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29624377-the-science-fiction-in-traveller">The Science Fiction in Traveller</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1188345.Shannon_Appelcline">Shannon Appelcline</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5743244928">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
I've spared no praise regarding what is one of my favorite roleplaying game systems, even claiming that it is <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-simplest-rpg-system-out-of-this.html" rel="nofollow noopener">The Simplest RPG System Out of this World</a>, and by "Simple," I really mean <i>versatile</i>. But this review isn't about <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-traveller-book.html" rel="nofollow noopener">the game itself</a>, it's about the book <i>The Science Fiction in Traveller</i>: a book about books about the game which is contained in books. Let's go down the rabbit hole.<br /><br />The title might as well have been "The Traveller in Science Fiction". While the first section reviews books that Marc Miller claimed were inspirational to him (some of which <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-stars-my-destination.html" rel="nofollow noopener">I also thought were good</a>, some <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2012/11/triplanetary-tale-of-cosmic-adventure.html" rel="nofollow noopener">not so good</a>), this section is actually quite short. This isn't <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2015/10/my-personal-appendix-n.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Appendix N</a>, by any means, and I was honestly surprised by the scantiness here. But Appelcline is careful not to impose his own thoughts of what <i>might</i> have influenced Miller. Rather, he defers to Miller's own claims on the subject. As a strict exercise, I see why Appelcline did what he did, but I would like to have seen more of his insights into what might have influenced traveller. I think there's a lot more that can be seen between the lines of the published game material itself.<br /><br />The vast majority of the book is taken by reviews of books and stories either influenced by Traveller (Jefferson P. Swycaffer's <i>Condordat</i> series, derived from Swycaffer's Traveller campaign, has an entire section dedicated to it) or written for the actual Traveller universe. Or universes, if I'm being proper, as the fiction reviewed here covers the breadth of all eras of Traveller (Classic Traveller, Megatraveller, The New Era, T4). Appelcline rates all of the works here by their literary merit and their applicability to the Traveller game (whether in terms of direct gameability or just inspiration/atmosphere). I've learned that there is a lot of really bad fiction associated with Traveller, most especially the "gaming fiction" that seems to compose the majority of the work. There are also a few titles that I will likely pursue for a read at some future date.<br /><br />I wouldn't call <i>The Science Fiction in Traveller</i> "essential" reading for players or referees of Traveller. But sifting through the titles and using Appelcline's ratings as a guide is . . . an okay idea. I hestitate because, at times, I feel he contradicts himself. The ratings, as with any person rating books (myself included) are subjective and inconsistent with one another. I also noted several editing errors throughout the book, which gives me pause because I have copyedited several books and am particularly bothered by lazy editing, which is evident here. So don't take the ratings as gospel-truth. Your opinions may vary wildly from Appelcline's, but I feel this is a good starting point for your explorations into science fictional work associated with the game.
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<div><br /></div><div>____________</div><div><br /></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-43789460493905125472023-05-29T07:06:00.003-07:002023-05-30T14:19:17.595-07:00The Impersonal Adventure<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58897390-the-impersonal-adventure" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Impersonal Adventure" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1630407974l/58897390._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58897390-the-impersonal-adventure">The Impersonal Adventure</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/441779.Marcel_B_alu">Marcel Béalu</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5241455749">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
First off, a huge thank you to Goodreads friend <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/900340-nancy-oakes" rel="nofollow noopener">Nancy Oakes</a> for gifting me a copy of the book. It was an incredibly kind gesture. Please go take a look at her blog, <a href="https://www.readingavidly.com/" rel="nofollow noopener">Reading Avidly</a>!<br /><br />Wakefield Press continues to do the (insert your favorite deity here)'s work, especially with their sub-series <a href="https://wakefieldpress.com/collections/the-school-of-the-strange" rel="nofollow noopener">"The School of the Strange,"</a> a series of possibly forgotten novellas and collections by some of the 20th-Century's most under-rated and lesser known European writers in translation. Through the books I've read in this series (<a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2023/02/malpertuis.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Malpertuis</a>, <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2022/11/waystations-of-deep-night.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Waystations of the Deep Night</a>, and now this) and several <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/05/opium-and-other-stories.html" rel="nofollow noopener">other gems from other publishers</a>, I've developed a strong taste for continental European works in translation. I suppose having spent half my childhood in Europe has something to do with it, but I've become enamored of finding and exploring these works. Since my German and Latin are sub-par, and since there are so many languages I don't have time to learn, I really appreciate what Wakefield (and others) has done here. They've presented an excellent primer for works of "The Weird". <br /><br />Marcel Beaulu's <i>The Impersonal Adventure</i> continues this trend. The title, as one might guess, is tongue-in-cheek, with several meanings, at least a couple of them laced with irony. The situations that the main character, Fidibus, finds himself in speak to the crumbling of individualism, the loss of "me" in what I will call crowded situations. Simultaneously, Fidibus discovers that his singular importance has been hidden even from himself by the overwhelming tyranny of the majority in which he finds himself. And what if the majority imposing such tyrrany is altogether mad? What if it is so mad that you are unsure of your own sanity? And when one comes to their senses, what happens when the fact that everything making sense doesn't make sense anymore? There's a powerful sense of surreality throughout, which the appended analysis of the novella interprets in Freudian terms (while disavowing a proprietary interpretation - it is pointed out that this is only one way in which the text <i>may</i> be interpreted and acknowledges that this is probably the wrong way to approach the book anyway). Even this last essay at the end of the book adds a further element of ambiguity.<br /><br />What is not ambiguous about the work is the sheer atmosphere presented here. In my notes, I characterized it as Alfred Hitchcock meets David Lynch, and as I continued reading the book, this feeling never diminished. I felt as if I was immersed in a world created by these two, but in an admittedly anachronistic sense. If you're a fan of <i>Vertigo</i> and <i>Twin Peaks</i>, for example, I think you'll like this book!<br /><br />This novel becomes more and more claustrophobic, in a social sense, as it goes along. Questions of personal identity vis-Ã -vis other's expectations and the expectations of society at large are at the forefront. In sum, this might be the greatest gaslighting story ever told, but its surreal tone and bizarre conclusion make it much more than that.
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<div><br /></div><div><div>_____________________</div><div><br /></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></div></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-90526540563530859122023-05-09T19:20:00.000-07:002023-05-09T19:20:14.328-07:00Strange Attractor Journal Five<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39785223-strange-attractor-journal-five" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Strange Attractor Journal Five" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1523227282l/39785223._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39785223-strange-attractor-journal-five">Strange Attractor Journal Five</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/734780.Mark_Pilkington">Mark Pilkington</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5385808818">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
"Eclectic" does not begin to describe the wide-ranging forays of <i>Strange Attractor</i>. The fifth installment is no exception. With such disparate essays, there's no place to begin but the start, so . . . <br /><br />Being crucified is not on my list to do. It is pretty impressive, though, if that's your thing. Could crucifixion be done as performance art? Maybe, maybe not. <a href="https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/crucifixion-of-joseph-de-havilland-hampstead-heath-1968.66318/" rel="nofollow noopener">An "event" in 1968</a> is even more shrouded in mystery now than it was at the time the news made headlines, as explored in William Fowler's "Fact or Crucifixion? The Story of the Hampstead Heath Messiah". The world may never know what truly happened there, but do we really want to know anyway. This is the sort of happening that myths are made of. <br /><br />Hmm. E. H. Wormwood (is that a real name?) examines the use of toads in witchcraft in "the Green Crucible: Speculations on the Cult of the Natterjack Toad". And now we know why witches often had toads as familiars. Hint: it has to do with the witch's ability to fly. Can you connect the dots?<br /><br />"Haus Atlantis," by Karen Russo, is an intriguing ride through mythmaking, ultra-nationalism, and Nazi aesthetics (yes, there was such a thing, apparently), along with competing notions of the place of art and myth in society. A fascinating read.<br /><br /><a href="https://larkfall.wordpress.com/" rel="nofollow noopener">Musician and writer Phil Legard's</a> essay "Tree Spirits and Celestial Brothers" is a brief biographical sketch of the magus known as Charubel. I would like to have known a bit more about Charubel's connection with Gustav Meyrink, as Legard opens the essay with an anecdote about this relationship. Nevertheless, this is an excellent overview of what one might refer to as a working man's cunning man. While I'm praising Legard, you should definitely check out his musical forays as half of the duo Hawthonn. I strongly recommend giving their album <a href="https://badabingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/red-goddess-of-this-men-shall-know-nothing" rel="nofollow noopener">Red Goddess (of this men shall know nothing)</a> many, many listens. <br /><br />Speaking of music, for those who think that electronic music has it's roots in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLF_Rh3nwxs" rel="nofollow noopener">Forbidden Planet</a> soundtrack (which is excellent, by the way), you'll have to dig a little further back for the truly earliest Electronica. This is exactly what Daniel Wilson does in his essay "Electromania: The Victorian Electro-Musical Experience".<br /><br />The essay "On Losing One's Head: Musings from a Labyrinth: <i>Acéphale</i>, Bataille, Crowley and Seth-Typhon" is fantastic. This is the sort of thing I was hoping for from SA5. The other stuff so far has been good, too, but this is off the charts amazing. Christopher Jossife's "musings" on Acéphale provide a glimpse into Bataille's headless, godless religion. It was taken, in all seriousness, by (most) of it's members, not a mere surrealist <i>bon mot</i>. There was even talk and the offer of human sacrifice (Bataille offering himself as the victim) which, thankfully, didn't culminate in the actual act. Interesting that the dawn of WW II was a harbinger of the Acéphale's eve. One wonders if they helped unleash darker forces than even they know how to reckon with?<br /><br />I minored in anthropology (with a primary emphasis on archaeology) as an undergrad and have a particular <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2015/12/after-ice-global-human-history-20000.html" rel="nofollow noopener">penchant for ice age art</a>. So, I enjoyed Robert J. Wallis's essay "Cave Art, Sex and Death: An Archaeology of the Lascaux 'Shaft Scene'." The analysis is sound, from the viewpoint of comparative anthropology, and well-reasoned, with the usual academic ambiguities (which is not a bad thing, in this case).<br /><br />I really need to watch Donald Cammell's <i>Performance</i> after reading Nadia Choucha's essay "Scottish Fairlyore, Occult Dulity and Donal Cammell's Performance". I'm intrigued. So intrigued by Choucha's analysis, in fact, that I might be sorely disappointed by the movie itself. Maybe I'll just imagine it for myself. "Aguirre's Performance," sort of like Jodorowsky's Dune, but only in my head.<br /><br />Ghosts and shapeshifters have an ambiguous relationship with each other and the living in "Humans With Animal Faces: Kows, Tuts, Barguests and Other Shape-shifting Spirits" by Jeremy Harte. The vagaries are the interesting part, where hauntings are, perhaps, not hauntings at all. Or maybe so. Who can tell?<br /><br />Chris Hill introduces us to an obscure (outside of Italy, that is) mystic in "'Gustavo Who?' - Notes Towards the Life and Times of Gustavo Rol; Putative Mage and Cosmic 'Drainpipe'.". Rol was an intriguing figure, to say the least, enigmatic in his humility and purported miracle / psychic abilities. An interesting biographical exploration of an interesting man.<br /><br />Elvis, James Dean, and Kaiju are not the major focus of the screenplay "LET ME DIE A MONSTER" by Ken Hollings and David McGillivray, but they all feature prominently. It never hit the actual screen, but it's surreal enough that one would be tempted to see it, should some enterprising director take a wild chance on it.<br /><br />The <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/02/quay-brothers-on-deciphering.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Brothers Quay</a> piece "The Flies of Orta San Giulio" is what originally pulled my attention toward this volume of Strange Attractor. It is a very minor piece in the Quay's oeuvre, but it drew me in to this excellent eclectic volume, and that can't be all bad, can it?<br /><br />So, <i>Strange Attractor Journal Five</i>: how does it all "hang together"? Well, it doesn't. It doesn't have to. I appreciated the divergent subjects and styles throughout, all of them interesting. It reminds me of the Monsters of Rock concerts at Donnington, UK that I attended as a kid. Except that rather than being wildly uninhibited, these monsters are cunning and calculating. There's a certain bacchanalian sensibility to the Pilkington's brainchild here, but also a steady hand barely restraining the weirdness herein. Here, one is in a liminal zone, on the border of something indescribable, something one must experience in order to appreciate the fullness of its meaning. Strange Attractor pulls the reader to the edge of the precipice and allows them to hold academic distance, or take the plunge!<br /><br /><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/811928-forrest">View all my reviews</a>
<div>_____________________</div><div><br /></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-23844198591374248062023-04-22T19:16:00.003-07:002023-04-22T20:17:56.287-07:00Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11807427-puppet" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349040978l/11807427._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11807427-puppet">Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/62569.Kenneth_Gross">Kenneth Gross</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5137003032">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Puppets and I go way back. I want to say that the Muppets and Sid and Marty Kroft shows (<a href="https://www.sidandmartykrofftarchives.com/videos" rel="nofollow noopener">HR Pufnstuf</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYL1a4BDPmo" rel="nofollow noopener">Far Out Space Nuts</a>), though the latter was more costumed humans than puppets, I admit, introduced me to bodies animated by unseen humans. But, outside of television (and that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAykOz1gWi4" rel="nofollow noopener">P movie by that D company</a>), I quite fondly recall my mother making little puppets out of felt and doing little puppet shows for me. She was a drama-girl all the way. Furthermore, I remember seeing street puppets <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ql7DxcWILE" rel="nofollow noopener">when I lived in Italy as a boy</a> and at least one <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/thats-the-way-to-do-it-a-history-of-punch-and-judy" rel="nofollow noopener">Punch & Judy show</a> in Brighton, England, when I lived in the UK as a teenager. <br /><br />But it was later in life that I learned to appreciate the uncanny nature of puppets. In the early 90s I discovered the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4O3fYwYPW0" rel="nofollow noopener">movies of Jan Svankmajer</a>, which sometimes featured marionettes, then, in the early 2000s, I discovered the <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-journal-of-london-school-of.html" rel="nofollow noopener">stop motion films of The Brothers Quay</a>, which have become an obsession of mine. Back in 2003, I believe it was, I saw another Punch and Judy show (this one in Minneapolis, of all places), I took my kids to a live puppet show (with puppets more reminiscent of Frank Oz's early creations, than anything else) not many years after. Then, in 2019, while on vacation in Europe, <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/12/salzburg.html" rel="nofollow noopener">my wife and I visited Salzburg, Austria</a> and attended the <a href="https://marionetten.at/" rel="nofollow noopener">Salzburg Marionetten Theatre</a>. And just tonight, I signed up for a <a href="https://www.domestika.org/" rel="nofollow noopener">Domestika</a> course on making wooden marionettes. <br /><br />I think I'm becoming a little obsessed. Maybe I was obsessed all along and am just now admitting it. <br /><br />Back in 2021 (it feels strange to say that - has it really been that long?), I read and reviewed Victoria Nelson's outstanding book <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-secret-life-of-puppets.html" rel="nofollow noopener">The Secret Life of Puppets</a>, which I had stumbled on at Goodreads, if I remember correctly. Then, my favorite podcast, <a href="https://www.weirdstudies.com/" rel="nofollow noopener">Weird Studies</a>, did <a href="https://www.weirdstudies.com/135" rel="nofollow noopener">an episode on this same book in November of 2022</a>. They followed this with <a href="https://www.weirdstudies.com/136" rel="nofollow noopener">an episode about the movie Evil Dead II</a>, which also dipped into the uncanny nature of puppets. This is where I first saw reference to the book being reviewed presently. <br /><br />It is <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/02/faceless-dolls-weird-and-eerie.html" target="_blank">this uncanny aspect</a> of puppets that Kenneth Gross examines in <i>Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life</i>. All the while I was reading, I felt as if I had the voice of Mark Fischer whispering in my ear. His book/essay on <i>The Weird and the Eerie</i> could have formed the skeleton for Gross's essay, though Gross's work preceded Fisher's by five years. So, perhaps it is the other way around? However, I find no reference to Gross's work in Fischer's bibliography. Maybe this is just another magical synergy that seems to happen so often with these sorts of confluences. <br /><br />The movement and intelligence that are apparent in a puppet is "weird" (in Fisher's sense) because there should be no movement or intelligence or intention in unliving material, yet that intent seems to come through the unliving (perhaps undead?) material of the puppet. There is movement in what there ought not to be. This offends our logic while simultaneously spiking our curiosity, a morbid curiosity for that which is incapable of morbidity, strangely enough.<br /><br />It feels quite natural for humans to view these artificial beings as artifacts with some connection to the past. I've seen countless cast off dolls in the mud, for example, and it piques my sense of wonder. How did this get here? Who lost it? Is there some latent connection with a past owner? This begs the further question: Are puppets, dolls, and marionettes some sort of mana batteries, storing energy from some past life force? Perhaps the mystery of these unseen lives that live behind the figures is what we hope to see through to, with the "little people" serving as scrying devices into past lives, their joys, and tragedies. But are our visions clouded and warped by looking through these anthropomorphic lenses? Could some malevolent spirit twist or visions of the past if we are not careful? Do we dare look into their eyes? <br /><br />Puppets and the stages on which they come "alive" ae not like us. They are exaggerated and often missing many of the subtle and not-so-subtle things that make up life. This creates what Fisher termed "the eerie". Much that should be "there" is not, yet some law of puppetry <i>seems</i> to govern their universe, laws that do not apply in the same way to us. Nor do our laws apply to them. So which reality is real? Which laws actually inhere?<br /><br />Just as the paradox of life seemingly manifest in dead things causes unease and fascination, the utter unknowability of what it feels, tastes, smells, or sounds like to be a dead thing that was once living simultaneously terrifies us and fills us with curiosity, longing, even, to know and, with much fear and uncertainty, to experience what the dead experience. It is <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2015/09/irrational-man-study-in-existential.html" rel="nofollow noopener">the age old push and pull of existential dread</a>, brought to life(?) by the infusion of seeming intent into dead matter. The puppeteer possesses the puppet with life-force, animating it, the living possessing the dead in a reverse-seance. Who is the medium here?<br /><br /><i>Puppeteers I have met indeed often speak of waiting for some impulse from the puppet they hold, a gesture or form of motion that they can then develop often being shocked by what emerges.</i><br /><br />The act of puppeteering blurs the line between tool and wielder. yes, the human informs the dead material, but the dead material imposes its own limitations, resisting, even fighting back!<br /><br />The unliving puppet is, of course, innocent, as it can only react to others' manipulations. Yet many puppet shows are transgressive and anything but innocent (go watch a <i>Punch and Judy</i> show, if you don't believe me). Here the inherent innocence of the puppet allows for a buffer to the audience. Hence the shocking nature of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z0bdJPvDaw" rel="nofollow noopener">the horror trope of puppets and other artificially animated human stand-ins possessed of self-realized inimical animation</a>.<br /><br />Remember, though, that's it not always the humans facing the puppet that have need to fear that strange intersection of life and death, of immaterial energy and material existence. As Gross implies, this liminal zone is fraught with danger for all:<br /><br /><i>Then there was the marionette of Antigone who had hung herself with the very strings that had earlier given her life. That had its own kind of truth.</i>
<br /><br />
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<div><br /></div><div><p>_______________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-79624059848362499402023-04-15T12:54:00.003-07:002023-04-22T19:16:22.096-07:00Games I Haven't Played<p> Tabletop Roleplaying Game conventions are a thing of wonder. Scores, sometimes hundreds of games to choose from. I still have my preferences, as I outlined in my post on <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2023/02/ttrpg-conventions-tips-and-tricks.html" target="_blank">TTRPG Conventions Tips and Tricks</a>, but we don't always get what we want, do we?</p><p><br /></p><p>So, here is a list of games I ended up not playing at conventions, either because I had scheduling conflicts with other games, because availability slips so rapidly (DCCRPG, I'm looking at you), or because the GM had to cancel. I supposed this is a sort of <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/05/ghosts-of-my-life-writings-on.html" target="_blank">hauntological view</a> of "what might have been," that strange, forward looking nostalgia for a future that was never fulfilled. Ah, well, there's only so much time in life and I can only give up so much sleep. Anyway, here goes, these are the ones I really wanted to play, and had a fighter's chance at getting into, but just missed out on. Had I not gotten some of my first choices, or if availability wasn't snatched away from me by those pesky gold ticket holders, I might have played:</p><p><br /></p><p>Gamehole 2016, I wasn't keeping good notes back then. Sorry!</p><p><br /></p><p>Garycon 2017:</p><p>Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea: Black Briars and a Dead Rabbit</p><p>DCCRPG: The Heist (Run by Harley Stroh, whose games are notoriously difficult to get in to because they sell out so fast)</p><p>Metamorphosis Alpha: Androids, Androids, Androids</p><p>AD&D 1e: The Tomb of Aethering the Damned (run by my friend Julian Bernick)</p><p><br /></p><p>Gameholecon 2017:</p><p>Fantasy Trip: Guerillas in the Mist</p><p>DCCRPG: Symptom of the Universe (run by my friend Brendan Lasalle. Brendan's games sell out FAST!)</p><p> Call of Cthulhu: The Star on the Shore</p><p>Chill: A Lamp Gone Dark</p><p>Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea: Shooting Star Watcher</p><p><br /></p><p>Garycon 2018:</p><p>Traveller: Secret of the Ancients</p><p>Traveller: Into the Kinunir (featured event run by Marc Miller, the creator of Traveller. Sigh.)</p><p>AS&SH: The Palace of Xambaala (run by the creator, Jeff Talanian, as well)</p><p>Call of Cthulhu + DCCRPG(!): Crawl of Cthulhu</p><p><br /></p><p>Gameholecon 2018:</p><p>Fantasy Trip/Melee/Wizard: Introductory demo game</p><p>GURPS: BPRD (yes, <a href="https://www.darkhorse.com/Search/BPRD" target="_blank">that BPRD</a>)</p><p>Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Blood in the Chocolate</p><p><br /></p><p>Garycon 2019:</p><p>Traveller: Prison Planet</p><p>Operation Whitebox WWII: Operation Peardrop (run by Bruce Cunnington, the coolest englishman I know)</p><p>Call of Cthulhu: Midnight under the Bharat Sun (run by the always awesome You Too Can Cthulhu crew - I try to get into at least one of their games every convention)</p><p><br /></p><p>Gameholecon 2019:</p><p>Delta Green: Fire from Heaven</p><p>Empire of the Petal Throne: Beyond the Plain of Towers</p><p>Empire of the Petal Throne: Hinlakte Hijinx</p><p><br /></p><p>Garycon 2020 was virtual, so I didn't take great notes on my schedule. </p><p><br /></p><p>Gameholecon 2020 (Virtual). Seems like I inadvertently nuked my notes on this. </p><p><br /></p><p>Garycon 2021 (Virtual):</p><p>DCC: The Jeweler that Dealt in Stardust</p><p>DCC: Descent into the Depths of the Earth</p><p><br /></p><p>Gameholecon 2021 (back to in-person!):</p><p>Troika!: The Black Pearl (run by my friend Jon Carnes)</p><p>Call of Cthulhu D10: A Nightmare on Sesame Street</p><p>Tales from the Loop: Time After Time</p><p>Cthulhu Dark Ages: People of the Book</p><p>Star Fleet Battles</p><p><br /></p><p>Garycon 2022:</p><p>The King in Yellow: The Unspeakable Oath</p><p>Barbarians of the Ruined Earth: Meeting the Metal Menace</p><p>DCCRPG: Return to the Purple Planet</p><p>Troika!: So You've Been Thrown Down a Well</p><p>DCCRPG: Dark Sun Arena Bloodbath</p><p>DCCRPG Dying Earth: Escapades and Expeditions of the Dying Earth (Julian Bernick)</p><p><br /></p><p>Gameholecon 2022</p><p>Traveller: Getting Up</p><p>Trail of Cthulhu: The Coldest Walk</p><p>DCCRPG: Blood in the Brutal Lands (Michael Curtis, whose games also fill quickly)</p><p>Solar Blades and Cosmic Spells: Temple of the Cyber Lich</p><p>Traveller Seminar: Advanced Traveller (with Marc Miller, who had to cancel. Sigh.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Garycon 2023</p><p>DCCRPG: Day of the Kaiju (run by my friend Hector Cruz)</p><p>Traveller: Derelict Starship (run by my friend Victor Raymond)</p><p>Call of Cthulhu: Eve of Darkness (You Too Can Cthulhu)</p><p>Star Wars: Shadowport, All Jawas</p><p>Call of Cthulhu: The King in Yellow</p><p><br /></p><p>There you have it, the games that I had not. Despite all of these misses, I have had a fantastic time at every Gameholecon and Garycon I've attended. They are a wealth of riches, and these are just some of the gems that spilt out of the bag. Of course, if you're reading this, and you ran one of these games, and wanted to run it again, who am I to stop you? Just save me a seat!</p><p>_______________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-45862174646988616132023-04-13T19:11:00.002-07:002023-04-22T19:16:32.942-07:00TTRPGs versus Competition<p> While listening to a Patreon-subscriber extra on my favorite Podcast, <a href="https://www.weirdstudies.com/" target="_blank">Weird Studies</a>, it dawned on me why I love tabletop roleplaying games in a way that I don't love miniature wargames or boardgames. Now, don't get me wrong. I love miniature wargames and many boardgames, but they have a "low ceiling" when it comes to fulfillment for me. There's something that rings in my soul when playing or running TTRPGs that isn't present with the others.</p><p>I've thought a lot about why TTRPGs are my main hobby of choice. What do I get out of it? It's not mere nostalgia for having played the games as a kid. I have nostalgia for other things (the past ubiquity of used bookstores, the freedom of being a more-or-less free-range child, video game arcades, and so forth), but, whereas those things are nostalgic explicitly <i>because </i>I can't go back to them, tabletop games are still around and I feel like they've grown <i>with </i>me. But that's not the reason I love them.</p><p>Here's the secret: I'm a competitor. In fact, I'm very competitive. My wife and I used to play <i>Risk </i>a lot when we were first married and had no money (but we had a beat up copy of <i>Risk</i>), but we discovered that we simply could not play the game together because we are (gasp!) both competitive. That competitiveness has served us well when we're facing the rest of the world, but we have learned to compromise, to give, forgive, and work around our competitive streaks.</p><p>Back to the present (more or less): Not long ago, I was playing a miniatures game. I knew the person running the game and I knew two other players. Three of the other players were strangers to me. One of these seemed to know the game master or had had some past interaction with them. As we progressed along, I got a sort of irritated vibe from this particular player, especially when the game wasn't moving at the pace he wanted it to. Truth be told only two people at the table had played the game before, and one of them was him (I was not the other - this was a brand new mini game to me). He became increasingly curt with . . . well, everyone who wasn't him, if I'm being honest. He was extremely rules-lawyerly, which I can understand in a mini's game where measurements matter, but this guy was borderline belligerent. I admit, I pushed back a bit, and he finally backed down, but, to be frank, it felt yucky. I realized, upon stopping to think about the man's behavior for a bit, that he was really, REALLY competitive.</p><p>Now, I've known some people to be overly competitive while playing TTRPGs. In games and people that I normally play with, those players are looked upon as anathema. I've seen people acting like jerks being jettisoned from a table by a DM and I'm glad it was done. It was ugly, but necessary for the enjoyment of the rest of us. I've been lucky in that I've never had to eject someone for being a jerk. But I would, in a heartbeat, because I believe that TTRPGs are a cooperative venture, even, at times, when there is some "player versus player" element present or, more properly, "character versus character". </p><p>It is this cooperative aspect, unbounded by proscriptive rules, that I think draws me to TTRPGs above other genres of game. I've played cooperative boardgames and rather enjoyed them, but these are bounded by the rules as written. The cooperation in TTRPGs is of a different hemisphere, or another order of magnitude, where an individual's creativity can transcend the bounds of the game by creating something with other players that the writers of the game could have never anticipated. It is a meeting of the imaginations of the players, rather than a forced constraint provided by the machinations of the game designer. Perhaps this is why the proverbial "rules lawyer" is universally despised by all but himself? TTRPG players, for the most part, want freedom to choose and the freedom to interact within a set of <i>agreed upon</i> rules. The "rules lawyer" breaks this assumed social contract.</p><p>This is also why I am not opposed to character versus character interactions, so long as allowing such interactions was agreed upon before the start of the game. Of course, there must be full consensus here, so players must ask themselves what do they really want out of the game? Are they willing to sacrifice some comfort for the sake of the communal game? And what is "too far"? All of these questions (and I'm certain I'm missing some) need to be considered in this instance.</p><p>What do you think? Do you also find more freedom of expression in TTRPGs than in boardgames? Are there exceptions? If so, I'd love to hear about specific boardgames that allow the same degree of freedom and creativity among players. </p><p>_______________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-8114074548959808432023-02-28T19:08:00.000-08:002023-02-28T19:08:05.301-08:00Malpertuis<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57129771-malpertuis" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Malpertuis" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1613763574l/57129771._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57129771-malpertuis">Malpertuis</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/111191.Jean_Ray">Jean Ray</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4684997628">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
<i>Malpertuis</i> is a brooding work of dark genius. It is a puzzlebox, a mystery . . . of sorts. A slow, grey carnival, solemn, but unholy, slowly unfolds. The setting, the house Malpertuis, is like a decaying body, with the inhabitants its organs, fitfully straining to beat, to move, to live. But the dolor that hangs over the place and its . . . people(?) is loden with malaise and despair that eventually stifles all attempts to escape the somber veil of thwarted history that is wrapped in the tangled skeins of fate to the point where the Sisters themselves are strangled by their own threads. <br /><br />The pace is deliciously plodding. There is a strong sense of <a href="https://www.theoi.com/greek-mythology/greek-gods.html" rel="nofollow noopener">something that once was, but is no longer</a>. A vitality that has been sapped and bled into a dry husk blown about by the slightest breeze. <br /><br />It is beautiful and ugly at the same time. But there is little to hope for in Malpertuis. The cursed place was condemned to crumble by the ambitions of the sorcerer Cassave, whose misdeeds and perversities I will not recount here. Even the author (who may or may not have identified with the un-named thief/narrator) is loathe to approach Cassave's sins directly. If the reader is looking for direct explanations and <a href="https://www.weirdstudies.com/140" rel="nofollow noopener">so-called "plot,"</a> they will be hard pressed to find anything of the sort.<br /><br />Ray's perambulations serve a higher (lower?) purpose: to bring the reader <i>into</i> the gothic labyrinthine walls of Malpertuis. Reading the book is, like walking a labyrinth, a meditation, a strange shelter from the outside world, an escape into an inner world both fascinating and excruciating. <br /><br />At first, I thought I might be entering a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSMqAdgcK_o" rel="nofollow noopener">Gormenghast</a>-like space combined with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jji9Z_c55nY" rel="nofollow noopener">Knives Out</a>. It didn't take long before I realized that this was not the conceit that Ray was working with. In Malpertuis, we are not bound by contemporary notions of plotting and novel structure. This is a kaleidoscopic work, a shattered mirror of perspectives and prose. It is deeply fascinating, in this regard, with the "story" being revealed from different points of view, along with different <i>attitudes</i> toward the subject matter. I used the word "vortical" in my notes while reading, and I stand by that description. This is a whirlwind into which the reader is not merely drawn, but yanked with great force, to be buffeted about non-stop by strangeness and unwelcome revelations.<br /><br />Now, I know I use this argument all the time, but one of my methodologies for evaluating a work is "would the <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/02/quay-brothers-on-deciphering.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Brothers Quay</a> make a movie of this? Could they?" The answer here is a resounding "yes". The book <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ61OoX2trw" rel="nofollow noopener">has had a cinematic treatment</a>, which is its own piece of art, but not nearly as sublime as this amazing opus.<br /><br />Strongly, strongly recommended! I can see myself revisiting <i>Malpertuis</i> many, many times. But then, isn't that just the nature of the place itself? I am happily caught in its labyrinth!
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<div><br /></div><div><p>_______________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p></div><div><br /></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-63275629950456438312023-02-13T17:39:00.003-08:002023-02-28T19:06:32.115-08:00Exiting Modernity<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57884411-exiting-modernity" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Exiting Modernity" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1619625149l/57884411._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57884411-exiting-modernity">Exiting Modernity</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20872460.James_Ellis">James Ellis</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5138433984">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
For the record, this page is 590 pages long. For whatever reason, Goodreads doesn't have that information. So know when you are going into this, you're getting a lot. <br /><br />But a lot of what?<br /><br />Ellis can be, at times, obscure to the point of inscrutable. But his sometimes frenetic approach also allows multiple points of entry to readers who are constantly beset by the incessant demands of modernity. He uses the weapons of modern capital and consumerist social media against them. What I thought was annoying, initially, I eventually found quite brilliant as confusion resolved into clarity.<br /><br />Ellis is not as a-political as he thinks he is, but I do think he makes a good-faith effort to try to push explicitly political opinions aside. It's not always clear where his loyalties lie, but there is a strong libertarian streak throughout his work, but thankfully without much of the conspiracy-craziness that so often accompanies that bent. When he's talking about personal freedom (whether of expression or work or goals), he is at his best. At times, Ellis tries way too hard to prove he's an iconoclast, and when he gets "in the way" of his thoughts, he muddies the clarity of his own vision. Of course, I'm certain he'd deride any call to tone things down, but really, the guy needs some editing.<br /><br />And while his ideas are always controversial and often intriguing, the real test of such a book as this rests in the answer to the question "did it make any meaningful change in my life"? And the answer, in this case is, "yes". <br /><br />Perhaps it's just in the timing, but this book pushed me over the edge of indecision and caused me to drop Twitter. There were a number of touchpoints leading up to that final decision. <br /><br />It's no secret, at least to those who read my blog, that I have been contemplating a move away from some social media <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2018/11/analog-kid.html" rel="nofollow noopener">for quite some time</a>. When I took my trip to Europe in 2019, <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2019/07/analog-europe.html" rel="nofollow noopener">I largely abstained from social media</a>, and it was . . . liberating. The next year, I read the book <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/01/digital-minimalism-choosing-focused.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Digital Minimalism</a>, which led to <a href="http://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/11/slowfast.html" rel="nofollow noopener">a short social media fast</a> (among other things!). I <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/12/fast-to-last.html" rel="nofollow noopener">recorded some of my findings in this exploratory phase</a>, including falling in love with blogs all over again. Next, <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/02/half-time-is-not-enough.html" rel="nofollow noopener">I tried to go with a three weeks on, one week off approach</a>. But that only lasted a couple of months until I was scrolling away again - mainly on twitter - to the point where I actually forgot I had committed to that approach. Much later, I watched the Netflix documentary <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaaC57tcci0" rel="nofollow noopener">The Social Dilemma</a>. That made me wary for a while, and I set timers on Twitter, Instagram, and Redditt (I had already largely given up Facebook by that point). But it was really this book that finally pushed me over the edge to deactivate my twitter account. Why not delete it? Apparently it's really easy for conniving individuals to "take over" your old account if you delete it. So it sits dormant, now. It's been a few weeks now and I feel . . . liberated . . . again. The point of all this is that Ellis convinced me to drop Twitter, and that is not a decision I made lightly. Since I am an author (albeit very part-time) Twitter was the ideal place to huck my wares, so to speak. But I think I'm content to let my content (books, stories, RPG supplements, etc) speak for themselves. I'll keep blogging, as I feel that blogs are a more "meaningful" medium than social media. Besides, I'm done with doom-scrolling. I only have so much time left in life (could be tomorrow, could be fifty years from now, who knows?) and I don't want to be on my deathbed full of regrets because I wasted so much darned time on Twitter.<br /><br />But social media critique is only one aspect of <i>Exiting Modernity</i> and, truth be told, it's not even that big of a deal in terms of the percentage of pages devoted to it. Much of the critique is aimed at social engineering at large, with media being only a small portion of "the problem". I'll spare you all the details of "the problem," as I agree with some aspects of Ellis's thoughts more than others and, well, you should read this book and find out for yourself!<br /><br />Ellis' critique of measurement hues very closely to the critique in <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2022/12/technic-and-magic-reconstruction-of.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Technic and Magic</a>, which I read very recently. I consider it an (improbable) and happy accident(?) that I read these one after the other. This really refreshed some thoughts that have been coalescing in my mind for many years regarding what I really want from life, and what I really don't want! <br /><br />I was going along just fine until I encountered the section on Accelerationism, where Ellis drops the casual tone and goes for a jargon-filled philosophical analysis, which people smarter than me are likely to love. For me though, hitting this section was like taking my car to top speed on the autobahn, then encountering a wall of feather mattresses around the curve.<br /><br />That didn't happen. Well, not the part about the feather mattresses. Though <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/06/vienna-part-i.html" rel="nofollow noopener">I did have to eventually slow down on the autobahn</a>. <br /><br />I really struggled with this section, then FINALLY! on page 213, Accelerationism was clearly defined. I would have liked this, oh, 120 pages earlier. <br /><br />The largest fault of this book is not a fault of content, but of order. The last two sections on Accelerationism should have been put at the beginning of that section, not the end. The way it is structured now might have been true to the order in which Ellis' blog was created, but moving from the specific to the general does no favors to readers new to the material. The last 200 pages or so were an utter slog until the last section on "The Genealogy of Foucault's Numeric Power Structures - Man <i>Under</i> Number," but, then again, I read a lot of Foucault back in graduate school, so that background helped, no doubt. My very slight grasp of <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-hermetic-deleuze.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Deleuze</a> made the section immediately preceding it <i>almost</i> tolerable, but not comfortable. There are obvious gaps in my philosophical knowledge that I'm trying to fix, but the last part of this book came, well, out of order in my philosophical life. I'll have to reread those latter sections again once I've got more philosophical reading under my belt, so to speak. <br /><br />In time. In time . . . <br /><br />
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<div><br /></div><div><p>_______________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-14235915811645502602023-02-07T17:38:00.003-08:002023-02-28T19:06:15.581-08:00TTRPG Conventions Tips and Tricks<p> So you've hemmed and hawed and stewed and thought about one of the oldest questions in tabletop roleplaying: Should I attend an RPG convention?</p><p>There's a lot behind that one question and a lot of reasons that answering the questions behind the question can lead to a lot of worry and analysis paralysis. By the time you think you've thought it through, the opportunity to register has come and gone and soon, with it, yet another unattended convention. I know. I've been there. It can be daunting. I'm here to help.</p><p>I'm no pro at attending conventions. All told I believe I've attended 18 or so? That's a lot less than many. Some of that has to do with budget, but mostly, for me, it's about time. I have to take days off work to enjoy my favorite conventions, so I burn, in total, about a week's worth of PTO every year on cons. You might not have that luxury. So I'm hoping that what I share here will at least answer a few questions and give you more information so that you can make a good decision of what to do with your valuable time. I honestly wish I had a "coach" to guide me through my first couple of cons, someone who knew the ropes. And I did have people help me along the way . . . a bit. Some of the things I've learned just came through making mistakes and learning from them and maybe getting lucky a time or two along the way. So this is my way of paying it forward.</p><p>Keep in mind that this is drawn purely from my own experience. Your experience will likely be different. A gaming con can be a big event, with lots of moving parts. No two cons are ever the same, and that's good! But I hope that my experiences can help to alleviate some fears and might even entice you to join us con-goers.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Why should I go to a gaming convention?</span></p><p>1. Sure, you play elf games. But do you play human games about elves? Going to a gaming convention is an immersive human experience. Be prepared to meet new people, but don't think you have to be an extrovert to fit in. <i>Au contraire</i>, I am an introvert by nature. I recharge on my own, thank you very much. Being around people saps me of energy. At the same time, I'm energized by gaming. I have to admit, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0KYU2j0TM4" target="_blank">it takes a LOT out of me to run a game</a>. But it puts a lot into me to play a game. It's not that I dislike running games, I like running them, but I am always a spent shadow of myself by the time the session is done. So I don't run a lot of games at conventions. One, maybe. Two max. I've run two games twice and it took a full afternoon just to recover. Thankfully, I played games at tables with others who "fed" me. I developed friendships at the table. Real, honest to goodness friendships with people who care about me, who I visit, when possible, outside of gaming. I'll never forget at Garycon back in 2018, one month after <a href="https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/hemet-ca/mary-aguirre-10822987" target="_blank">my mother</a> passed away (and one month before, unbeknownst to me, <a href="https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/hemet-ca/robert-aguirre-10822764" target="_blank">my father</a> would pass away) a friend I had met gaming gave me a little tap on the arm and said "hey, man, I'm really sorry to hear about your mother". That moment touched me deeply. I'll never forget that simple act. That would not have happened if it wasn't for attending gaming conventions and developing a friendship with that individual. More on him later.</p><p>2. I've developed a standing wish-list for gaming conventions. Whenever possible, I want to play 1 game of <i><a href="https://goodman-games.com/dungeon-crawl-classics-rpg/" target="_blank">DCCRPG/MCCRPG</a></i>, 1 game of <i><a href="https://www.chaosium.com/call-of-cthulhu-rpg/" target="_blank">Call of Cthulhu</a> (</i>preferably with the wonderful crew of<i> <a href="https://www.youtoocancthulhu.com/" target="_blank">You Too Can Cthulhu</a>)</i>, 1 miniatures game, and 1 game in a system I've never played before. That last one is key, and I've been able to do this at every major con I've attended. I've been introduced to games that I might never have had the chance to play before, games I read about in gaming magazines way back in the '80s, games I had heard of but couldn't play because of proximity to other people playing those games, obscure games, games I promised myself I would play years ago. Some of them lived up to and even exceeded expectations (<i><a href="https://www.tekumel.com/gaming_rulesEPT.html" target="_blank">Empire of the Petal Throne</a></i>, I'm looking at you), some were frankly <a href="http://numenera.com/" target="_blank">disappointments</a>, but I always learned something by trying out a new system and in a couple of case, new doors were opened that I have stepped into wholeheartedly. As I said earlier, I always try to squeeze in at least one miniatures game. I have not found one I didn't love. But I can't afford to just buy gobs of miniatures. So I let gamemasters/judges at cons do it for me. I consider some of the money I pay to attend cons as a "rental fee" for other peoples minis. </p><p>3. As I kid back in the late '70s and early '80s, I idolized game designers. I couldn't afford to make the trip to Lake Geneva to meet <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-tangled-cultural-roots-of-dungeons-dragons" target="_blank">Gary Gygax</a>, but I really wanted to. Another one who I really wanted to meet was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EKi_YXmT0" target="_blank">Marc Miller</a>, designer of <i><a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-simplest-rpg-system-out-of-this.html" target="_blank">Traveller</a></i>. While I never got to meet GG (though I lived only an hour from Lake Geneva for the last decade of his life), I did get to meet and play <i>Traveller </i>with Marc Miller at Garycon which, ironically, I supposed, is a convention formed after the death of Gary Gygax in 2008. I found Marc an incredibly nice, humble person who paid close attention to each of his players, whom he only knew when they showed up at the table. I admit I fanboyed a bit and told him that I'd been waiting to play at his table since I was 12 years old, and that he did not disappoint. He signed my <i>The Traveller Book</i> and gave me a "nobility" card. It was a great moment. Last year, I was signed up for his Advanced Traveller seminar at Gameholecon, but, alas, he had just spent his strength at an all-Traveller convention a week or two before and had to cancel. I'm hoping to catch that seminar again sometime soon. </p><p>I also had the distinct privilege of playing the <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/tsr09031addtheroguesgallery" target="_blank">AD&D Rogues Gallery</a></i> "personality" Lassiviren the Dark at none other than <a href="https://www.museumofplay.org/blog/not-just-fan-fiction-the-allen-hammack-dd-collection/" target="_blank">Al Hammack</a>'s own table. It was an all-evil party of Greyhawk PCs of evil alignment. Hammack had played Lassiviren in Gary Gygax's Greyhawk campaign, and here I was, at his table, playing his character! Now, one of the stupid magic users decided to cast a lightning bolt at a devil prince, which bounced around the room (did I mention <i>stupid</i>?) and hit the infamous assassin, wiping him out. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHoY6nbohG5j7xDm4kTm154qGL9S_Q-uUotZ3oCBMXhlOM4-useXK0ZHu8Lrlf4FNypazdR6dnOmLdkDxgHTVczRvoLj-kCnUJ2c0-cL3x5WmyoAFgp2hsHNQ9OF_PEkLlQPVb0tKSjVeY7F1QWNg9e2DfTQ_kw_gsS8gqKQRT_TwJ00L8mUJdBpJ5" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="183" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHoY6nbohG5j7xDm4kTm154qGL9S_Q-uUotZ3oCBMXhlOM4-useXK0ZHu8Lrlf4FNypazdR6dnOmLdkDxgHTVczRvoLj-kCnUJ2c0-cL3x5WmyoAFgp2hsHNQ9OF_PEkLlQPVb0tKSjVeY7F1QWNg9e2DfTQ_kw_gsS8gqKQRT_TwJ00L8mUJdBpJ5=w157-h320" width="157" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>I've met many RPG "celebrities" (very few of whom claim the title of "celebrity" - we gamers seem to be a mostly humble bunch), some of whom I didn't really like (I won't mention the name, but if I did, you know him and have heard of him a LOT), and some of whom have become close friends. You'll have the same chance to meet these men and women at cons. It might be intimidating, but screw up your courage and just go introduce yourself. I guarantee that 99.9% of them will be glad to meet you and speak with you. Just remember that they don't necessarily remember all the details of things they've done and written that you might remember, and that they might be on the way to some important engagement that might cut the conversation short. Be cool, and they'll be cool (except <i>that one guy</i>).</p><p>4. Think your FLGS (<a href="https://kryptonitekollectibles.com/" target="_blank">Friendly Local Gaming Store</a>) is great? You're probably right. But in terms of sheer quantity of gaming stuff to see in person and purchase from the makers (who are usually more than glad to sign the book/poster/thing you purchase), you cannot beat a gaming convention. Think of it as that market your characters meander through, looking for that perfect sword, suit of armor, or herbal mixture. It's like that, but with dice, books, t-shirts, dice towers, and lots and lots of cool fantasy art. </p><p>5. You won't find more RPG-specific art than at a con. I've been able to meet and shake hands with and, most importantly BUY something from artists whose work I have admired for decades, as well as some newly-discovered artists whom I'd never even heard of. One word of caution: don't ask an artist if they will do something for you without paying them. They need your support, even if it's just in buying a $5 decal or a bookmark or something. They are professionals. Be professional. Don't get me wrong - they love gaming and art and they want to talk gaming and art. But buy what you can. Support them!</p><p><span style="font-size: large;">How Do I Do It?</span></p><p>1. First rule, try not to be intimidated. Yeah, there are some people who are jerks in the gaming community. But by and large, we are a very friendly bunch. We want to have fun together, and we want to help people have fun together. No one's going to grade your "performance," especially as a player. As a GM, sure, people will judge you. That's built in to leading any group of people. But as a player, the GM, in all likelihood, really wants to help you. In my experience, most con table require no experience in the game being played, or even in gaming at all. And I've noted that at every con game I've been in where a rank beginner is playing, not only the GM, but someone at the table WANTS to help them have fun and understand the game! Don't worry about making mistakes. These are games of the imagination with some semblance of loose structure in the form of rules. Everyone at the table, including the GM, makes mistakes. You will, too. Embrace it as a learning opportunity that allows you to help the next beginner at your table who needs help. Having gone through the same process of learning from errors, you can be an invaluable help to them. Pay it forward!</p><p>2. In terms of mechanics of most cons: Yes, you do need a stinking badge. Typically there will be a tiered system of badges (Gold, then Silver, for example) where the more you pay, the earlier you get to register for games. There may be swag incentives for buying the more expensive tickets, too. If you, like me, buy the lower tier ticket, be prepared to miss out on the opportunity to play the most desirable games. The gold ticket people often get those slots before you will - indeed, you pay to play. I don't like it, but that's the way it is. </p><p>3. Don't overplan. Gaps are good. I would recommend leaving plenty of space in between games to eat, use the bathroom, take a nap, and, most importantly, play games that are not on the formal con schedule. In fact some of the best games I've played and run have been "off books" - a spontaneous game in a lobby or an unused room or even in the hallway. First time I played <i><a href="https://www.chaosium.com/runequest-rpg/" target="_blank">Runequest </a></i>was in an off-the-books game in the convention center hallway sitting on a pair of benches in a nook where the landline pay phones were. And it was awesome! Some con-goers who have a room will invite others (people they know) to come play a game there. You might be invited to a hotel room game by someone you just met that day at an earlier table. Happened to me, and, again, it was awesome! The great thing about off-books games is that the GM is often running a system that they didn't think would be well-received or that they just didn't want to "perform" in public. The <i>Runequest </i>game, by the way, we played because RQ creator Greg Stafford had just passed away, and someone I had met at the con that day wanted to run a tribute game in his memory. Amazing.</p><p>4. After hours games are the best. Don't count on getting much sleep. I think I average about five hours of sleep a night during cons. Some of my favorite, most memorable games have been played at "Stupid O'Clock". Yeah, everyone's a little punch-drunk and rummy from lack of sleep, which makes for a lot of craziness in the game. Crazy stuff happens at night at a gaming convention, when everyone's relaxed and just a little kooky. I have so many memories of late night games that I can't even list them all. I ran "Bunnies and Burnouts" late one night (think <i><a href="https://watershipdown.fandom.com/wiki/Watership_Down_(film)" target="_blank">Watership Down</a></i>, but the bunnies were able to kill the band High On Fire and steal their tour bus, drive it into a downtown high-school science fair and cause a small nuclear explosion), I've played <i><a href="https://morkborg.com/" target="_blank">Mork Borg</a></i> in the grim dead of night, I've seen Fetal Kanye West shot in the face with a Bazooka wielded by an evil Pope, I've played an 8th level (!) DCC game with tyrannosaurs whose forelimbs had been replaced with chainsaws - and all of this made complete SENSE at the time. Stupid O'Clock is the BEST time for gaming at a con! Oh, and none of these games are on-books (though you can find on-books games that start at 9 and go to midnight, if you like).</p><p>5. Find a forbidden place. This is one of my favorite "secrets" and it will probably get me in trouble. As your walking through the convention center, just check to see if "that door" is open. Then invite some friends in for a quick game in the mechanicals room. Or, see that hotel room with no door on it where they're refurbishing the room? It's 11 at night. No one's going to come by. Go on in and play something there. Just be careful not to touch any exposed wires.</p><p>Like I said, I'm probably going to get in trouble for suggesting this. But trust me, it's worth it.</p><p>Sometimes it's helpful to just ask a facility's staff member or janitor if they can let you in to an otherwise "forbidden" room. People love to be naughty. But if you get caught, don't rat out the janitor. That's just uncool.</p><p>6. Take care of yourself. Sleeps out the window, but take a cat nap between games, if you can. Be sure to hydrate! Drink lots of water (and know where the nearest bathrooms are). Be sure to eat. I've gone for long stretches forgetting to eat, then wondering why I'm getting cranky. But really, drink water - lots of water!!! Also, step outside. Seriously. Get some fresh air. Even if it's a few seconds in the dead of winter in Wisconsin - get outside for a few minutes. You need to breathe. Another thing: scout the bathrooms. The proportion of bathrooms versus people is likely WAY too low. Those places are going to get trashed over the course of the convention, so know where ALL the bathrooms are. Last year at a convention that will go un-named, I sat in a stall that was fairly clean, full of TP, good to go. In the stall to my left, I could hear another person doing his business. I heard that familiar clatter from the TP dispenser that one always hears in a public bathroom. The clatter got more and more frantic, then spilled into complete panic, followed by "OH DEAR GOD!" - I hope that guy isn't reading this because I stifled a laugh, finished my business, and abandoned that poor soul. Hopefully he made it over to my stall, which was amply stocked with TP. I didn't stick around to find out. I promptly evacuated. It wasn't my finest hour.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What Cons Should I Go To? What Do You Recommend?</span></p><p>1. This might surprise people, but I have never been to <a href="https://www.gencon.com/" target="_blank">Gencon</a>, so I can't really speak about it. One of these years I'll get there at least once. But the idea of 60K sweaty nerds is not appealing. Even if I had been, I wouldn't try to tackle that one in this paragraph. I remember when I was in grad school I had a graduate seminar on Genocide. Charming topic, let me tell you. Every day we walked out of that class feeling like there was little hope for humanity. However, we never, and I mean NEVER tackled the Holocaust. It was just too big of a subject. And, given the evil in the world, we had plenty to talk about in that class without mentioning the worst of the worst. My point, poorly made, is that Gencon is too big to be tackled in a paragraph. It's its own thing. I'd love to hear about others' experiences in the comments, however. </p><p>2. <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2019/05/garycon-2019-rogues-gallery.html" target="_blank">Garycon</a>, which takes place in the spring in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, is probably my favorite con in terms of who I see there and the mix of games. You'll find a lot of "old school" games there, as well as a few newer games (some of which really hew to an "old school" feel - Mothership, for example, or Dungeon Crawl Classics). It was hear I sat down at Marc Miller's table. I don't know the exact numbers, but I think attendance is somewhere between 1-3K people. Here you'll find a fair amount of after-hours games going on, and I'm usually in one or more over the course of the witching hour. It's at Geneva Commons, which used to be the Playboy Club years ago. It's got a lot of character, and the lobby is very comfy. Food at the restaurant is pretty decent. Now, I will say that I've encountered a fair amount of speed bumps there. One year the event registration system completely collapsed and a lot of people did not get their choice of games, even though they were ready literally at the second event registration opened. Then I got the song and dance that "hey, we're just amateurs here, we don't make any money." Utter BS. I know how much I paid and I know how many people were attending that year. They could have hired a consultant who knew what the heck they were doing, but they skimped and everything came crashing down. They've improved by moving to tabletop events, but I'm still pretty bitter about that one. I've also seen several issues with tables being double booked, though not this past year. All that said, it is a great time, with great people, and I now that Luke Gygax, who runs the thing, is responsive and has made a LOT of improvements over time. It's just going to take a while to lose the sting of past years. Anyway, I do love the old school feel there. One year, they had the original painting from the 1st edition DMG on display, along with all the original little brown D&D books, as well as an original 1st edition copy of Empire of the Petal Throne, all just sitting out at a table for you to look at. I thought "this is incredible - here are books and a painting that are worth literally thousands of dollars, out in the open and everyone who comes by to look a this table on the side of one of the gamerooms is respectful and knows better than to touch, even though none of this is under glass or guard." Made me proud to be a gamer. And if it's your first time at Garycon, be sure to take a moment to pay your respects. Out in the main hallway upstairs you'll find a chair and desk with a DM screen and Gary's original Hawaiian shirt that he wore while DMing, along with a picture and placard dedicated to him. I honestly cried the first time I saw it. Real tears. It was touching. Go pay your respects.</p><p>3. <a href="https://www.gameholecon.com/attend" target="_blank">Gameholecon </a>takes place in Madison, Wisconsin, each autumn. When I lived in Madison, I literally walked to this con, as the Alliant Energy Center in which it takes place was about a 30 minute walk from my house. The Alliant Center is, well, a convention center. It's not nearly as cozy as the old Playboy Club in Lake Geneva. But it is extremely well-organized and run. Volunteers are pleasant and helpful, and the whole operation just hums. You'll find a lot of old-school RPGing happening here, but you'll also see more contemporary systems like Savage Worlds, Numenera, and so forth. the D&D Adventurers' League gets its own room, and there is a Magic The Gathering con-within a con there, as well. Food is adequate inside, but if you go outside, there's bound to be three or four food carts, which is where you really want to get your food, trust me. The convention center is also attached to the Clarion Suites, which used to be more for open gaming, but has been encroached on with on-books games as Gameholecon has expanded. Overall, there's a more formal feel to Gameholecon than to Garycon, but I think this has to do with the Alliant Center shutting its doors at night, whereas Geneval Commons, as far as I can tell, is pretty much open, at least in the hallways and lobby, 24/7. </p><p>4. If meeting in person isn't your thing, for whatever reason, there are virtual cons available that are a lot of fun. The Cyclops series of virtual cons, run by Goodman Games, is a great example of what a virtual con can be. I've attended a couple and rather enjoyed myself. Now, there is a caveat: because I had met many of the people I played with in person at Garycon and Gameholecon, there was a much more personal connection. However, I've played in virtual cons with total strangers and enjoyed the heck out of myself. During the height of covid, for example, Garycon and Gameholecon went fully virtual. I was able to play <a href="https://ironcrown.co.uk/merp/" target="_blank">MERP</a>, which I had wanted to play since I was a teenager, and having that game online was actually really helpful, as the GM had plugged all kinds of algorithms into <a href="https://roll20.net/" target="_blank">Roll20</a> such that one did not need to go through the convoluted math inherent in that game. The computer did all the crunching for us, and having looked at the rules a few times, I can tell you that the game would have been sluggish were it not for our automagic calculations. Note also that both Garycon and Gameholecon have a virtual element, so be careful when choosing events that you choose the right type. I accidentally signed up for a virtual game last year for Gameholecon, but thankfully found my error a few weeks before the con. So I bowed out of that and let someone else take the slot, since I was attending physically. </p><p>5. Sometimes, you'll find gaming conventions that are not gaming conventions. For example, a few years ago, one of our local science fiction conventions, <a href="https://fancyclopedia.org/Odyssey_Con_(WI)" target="_blank">Oddcon</a>, added a game element. Sessions were small, with very few people, but I was able to game with a couple of noteworthy people in the DCC community that I knew and we introduced a few total strangers to the game and had a great time. So keep your eyes on other, more local conventions that might not advertise their game aspect well. You might be surprised!</p><p>6. During the height (or lows) of Covid, I became convinced that if the epidemic continued at the same pace, the larger cons would break up as people created and ran private or invite-only cons. I had hopes to do this myself, but when the huge victorian house I tried to buy fell through (long story), my hopes were dashed. I fully intended to run Call of Cthulhu games for around 50 people, but, alas, it wasn't to be. I still have dreams of running something in my back yard one summer. Larry Hamilton ran a con out of his garage the year before last, I think, and I came within a hairs-breadth of attending, but wasn't able to make it. I still regret that. I believe he had something like 15 people in attendance and he literally held it in his garage. Sounds perfect to me. This past week, I attended a private con put on by a fantasy artist whose work you've likely seen (especially if you play DCC/MCC). It was a small gathering - nine people at the height of it. I saw people I haven't seen for many years there, which was awesome. Given the crew there, was absolutely insane. We played DCC, of course, several rounds of <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/242952/red-dragon-inn-review" target="_blank">The Red Dragon Inn</a>, <i>TMNT </i>(my first time! We played skater camels!), and a game in which everyone rolled up characters from a different system and all played in the same game (it worked, but I'm not sure how - I had a Classic Traveller ex-Marine, if you must know), and lots and lots of conversation about game theory and gaming in general. It's like getting together with your friends for D&D at your parents' place, except it's bigger, you're bigger, and it's at your friend's place, not his parents place. Without responsible adults there, I guarantee hijinks ensue. And that's why we're all in this anyway, right? There will be another one in September, and I am going to do everything I can to make it there.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">CONclusion</span>:</p><p>Well, I hope this is at least nominally helpful to you. I'm certain many people will comment and tell me that I'm wrong . . . and, to be honest, they're right. Con-going is a very personal experience. I'm certain I've forgotten key points of advice, my critique might be harsh in some regards, and I might be wearing rose-colored glasses in others. If you've been to cons, I'd love to read about it in the comments, good or bad. Hopefully this can become a sort of clearing house for people's thoughts on conventions (or reasons why they don't want to think about them). Lastly, I'm biased. I love the few cons I attend. I've made lifelong friends through them and played some of the most memorable games of my life in them, as well (ask me sometime about my first experience playing Star Frontiers at Garycon. You probably won't believe me even if I told you what happened in that game.). So I encourage you to screw up your courage and give it a shot. And if you do so and run into me at a con, I'd love to meet you. </p><p>See you at the table!</p><p>_______________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6508687179750096771.post-31296167056155600352023-01-21T13:34:00.000-08:002023-01-21T13:34:04.150-08:00House of the Nine Devils<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60536220-house-of-the-nine-devils" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="House of the Nine Devils" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1651426420l/60536220._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60536220-house-of-the-nine-devils">House of the Nine Devils</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/705218.Johannes_Urzidil">Johannes Urzidil</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4864123837">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
As I write this review, I am listening to Lech Jankowski's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uuDqtlHpn8" rel="nofollow noopener">"Pause in Shadows"</a> from his album <a href="https://www.discogs.com/release/2615098-Lech-Jankowski-Pause-In-Shadow-Street-Of-Crocodiles-495" rel="nofollow noopener">
<i>Street of Crocodiles</i>
</a>. This is done with intent, as I want to set the proper mood for this review and felt that Jankowski, whose music has been used by the <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2015/12/whats-in-quays-wunderkammer.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Brothers Quay</a>, echoes the Central/Eastern European tradition in his music. Though Jankowski is Polish and author Johannes Urzidil was a German-Czech-Jewish writer born in Prague, I see some tenuous connections. Jankowski's music, as I have said previously, has been used by the <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2020/02/quay-brothers-on-deciphering.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Brothers Quay</a>. The <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-quay-brothers-universum.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Brothers Quay</a> filmed a short based on Bruno Schulz's <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-street-of-crocodiles.html" rel="nofollow noopener">The Street of Crocodiles</a>, Schulz has been called "The Polish Kafka," and Kafka and Jankowski knew each other and spent time together (along with <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-golem.html" rel="nofollow noopener">Gustav Meyrink</a>). So pardon my syncretism as I create my own little artificial Central European world in my head. I live here, so I get to make the connections.<br /><br />The artifact-qua-artifact of this <a href="https://www.twistedspoon.com/" rel="nofollow noopener">Twisted Spoon Press</a> book is solid. The hardcover is elegant, with a silk ribbon spilling from the headband for convenience in marking pages. It is just the exact right size for a book, in my opinion: 5.5" x 7.5" and about .75" thick. It really sits in the hand perfectly. The cover, a negative photo of what I presume to be the titular "House of the Nine Devils" is understated, but complex enough to draw one in. I will definitely be buying more Twisted Spoon books in the future, especially at the price point. That's a lot of great book for $23.00.<br /><br />And what about what's inside? Let's explore. I should begin by saying that, while I bought the book thinking it was fiction, the autobiographical elements tell me that it's not. Or, if it is fiction, it is extremely well-realized. One feels immersed in Urzidil's life throughout. For those who despise non-fiction, I say give it a chance. You'll find that often, as they say, truth is stranger than fiction, and there is enough of a dose of strangeness throughout to whet the appetite of those who love "The Weird". <br /><br />The title story, "House of the Nine Devils," tells the uncanny tale of a house that might have been the residence of both Faust and Tycho, or maybe neither. A mysterious visitor and his portrait appear and disappear, and the house itself may be the cause, but maybe not. We are never quite sure and this unsurety places the story somewhere between quaint mystery and unsettling frisson. I was reminded, ever so slightly, of the strangeness of Danielewski's <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/02/house-of-leaves-changed-my-life-the-cult-novel-at-20" rel="nofollow noopener">House of Leaves</a>. A fabulous start to this volume!<br /><br />"Vacation in Flames" is far more beautiful than the title indicates; even sublime. Childhood innocence is somehow betrayed and upheld at the same time, with a profound and moving respect for beauty being the tie that binds. It is a haunting tale, but in a light, lovely way, a gentle haunting, if you will, with an ephemeral character who may or may not be a ghost. This story will stick with ne for some time to come.<br /><br />It was with "New Years Commotion" that I began to suspect that the book was not fictional. I'm still not completely sure if "New Years Commotion" is autobiographical or not. The narrator claims so, but is the narrator a fictional entity or Urzidil himself? Regardless, the author has captured, quite effectively, something that has happened to most of us: being a child who has lost something and is desperately searching for it, along with the many little steps of experience that come with that.<br /><br />"Porter Kubat" threads its way through Bohemian society among military officers, ballerinas, porter-messengers, and a young man who becomes entangled by his own guilty conscience in a labyrinthine societal maze of which he has little understanding. Like others in this volume, it is a tale of waning innocence, of the shocks of life, all enmeshed in Prague's streets, theaters, and barracks. A sublime story.<br /><br />"We Stood Honor Guard" is not a story, but a powerful essay (clearly non-fiction) on the causes of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The relevant argument holds relevance to any historical or contemporary empire, including the one in which I now live: The United States of America. This is critical to "keeping things together". Simple, yet genius.<br /><br /><i>The question of why the Francisco-Josephinian era (including the brief reign of Charles) actually came to an end repeatedly elicits all manner of possible historical, political and other explanations, enough to fill up thick books and which, taken on their own, may ring true, but that nevertheless mean very little. For they are only symptoms of an overall attitude. And this overall attitude in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was characterized by utter lovelessness, by the absolute lack of kindness or the willingness to ever do anything for anyone except oneself, by the indescribable callousness and selfishness of everyone. It was the ignominy of an all-embracing mutual lovelessness that ultimately destroyed that era. And if one objects that selfishness is fundamental to being human, is a part of our individual social and political nature, the answer to this is simple: it's exactly what ruins human beings and empires, what has always ruined them, and what will keep on ruining them in the future, however rich or powerful they might happen to be at times. As Heinrich Mann once so magnificently expounded during the First World War, this was what ruined the Second French Empire, what ruined czarist Russia, Wilhelmine and Hitlerian Germany, Britain's world empire, the list could go on and on, backwards and forwards, as long as it is selfishness that underlies the political rationales ostensibly causing these collapses - ostensibly because empires do not fall apart due to external causes but begin to crumble from within. These may be truisms. But, as Goethe once remarked, we have to keep on repeating the truth, since the falsehoods all around us are constantly being repeated as well.<br /><br />In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, everyone hated and no one loved. Everyone sought their own advantage, no one was willing to make a sacrifice. At best they made a deal and cheated their way around it. How was such an empire supposed to hold together?</i><br /><br />A long, seemingly meandering coming-of-age story, "The Last Tombola" starts on the most banal of notes, a father's request to his 13-year-old son to deliver a letter to the father's superior. The story "jumps," then ends on an unexpected note that colors the entirety of the story, flipping a switch on that reveals highlights and shadows from the previous 29 pages. It's done naturally, as well, <a href="https://forrestaguirre.blogspot.com/2018/12/reclaiming-art-in-age-of-artifice.html" rel="nofollow noopener">without artifice</a>.<br /><br />In "The Assassin," Urzidil's encounter with Gavrilo Princip, who changed world history by triggering the events that led to World War I and hence, World War 2, etc.) turns from a chance encounter of morbid curiosity to a rather erudite philosophical analysis of world events and those behind them. Frankly, his implications are horrifying when one thinks of Trumpism, not because of Trump himself, but because of the impetus behind him, the bleak social fuel for the Trump movement's engine.<br /><br />Again, I don't know if Urzidil is writing fiction or memoir here. But "A Night of Terror" in which he and another soldier spend the night in a friend's apartment hiding from police will stick with me, either way. If it's a fictional story, I wish it was real. If it's truthful, then truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. Perhaps it lies in that strange limnal zone in-between, much like the narrator.<br /><br />"One Last Deed" takes place in a real-dystopia: Nazi-occupied Prague. It's a dark reminiscence punctuated by the light of laughter. Old enmity turns to new friendship and provides a gift from the past, a gift that Urzidil would have liked to forget, a gift that ultimately saves his life. This is a powerful, good story about being human. <br /><br />"Step and Half" starts and spends most of its pages and energy in describing Urzidil's relationship with his step-mother, recounting her acidic personality and comical mannerisms. I won't say what "Half" represents, but I will say that the story takes a melancholy and poignant turn once this element is introduced. This has caused me deep introspection.<br /><br />Resignation, melancholy, and triumph swirl around "Paternal Prague," and I am struck by the vision I have, while looking into that whirlpool, of my relationship with my own dead father. Though I haven't had Urzidil's self-same experience in life, I read about his relationship and feelings toward his father, and I understand him clearly, as if we had inhabited the same emotional space for a time.<br /><br />The collection (translated into English for the first time, incidentally) is profoundly moving. I had bought the book largely because I am hungry for more work by Central and Eastern European authors in translation. I am being fed. Well fed.
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<div><br /></div><div><p>_______________</p><p><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at </span><a href="https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre" style="background-color: white; color: #336699; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-decoration-line: none;">https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre</a><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14.85px;">. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!</span></p></div>Forrest Aguirrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05531127358059851571noreply@blogger.com0