Journal of No. 118

essentialsaltes @ 2012-05-28T17:15:00

2012-05-29T00:15:17Z

Maxicon XII

2012-05-27T23:33:54Z

Once again I announce: "All hail popepat!" And Mrs. Pope and Minipope. They once again opened up their house for (can it be?) the 12th Maxicon (which is still ongoing, but I moderated my participation to Saturday only... stretching into Sunday).

First up for me was Garrett's Dead Space RPG. I had played the demo, which made me the most knowledgeable about the source material I think. Which is not a problem, since the whole point is to scare the pants off you with the unexpected. It went well: fast-paced, high tension, limited resources, stressful timing deadlines. If there was any problem, it was that the gods of luck smiled on us too much in the final showdown. Good scary fun.

Next up, aaronjv ran The Tribunal, an award-winning LARP created by jiituomas. The 12 players play soldiers in a totalitarian state, faced with a difficult decision: whether to value honesty over expediency. I'm torn about how much I should or shouldn't reveal. One part of me says it doesn't matter since whatever happens is almost entirely the product of the players; the other part says that hearing the rationalizations or bullshit produced by one set of players might affect future players who read about it, and thus color whatever they would ultimately produce. I'll err on the side of caution and step back a bit.
I enjoyed the experience. This is perhaps controversial. Some people (named Aaron) have denigrated the idea that LARP is merely (?) an enjoyable pastime. It is Art with a capital A. I don't have a problem with that, except that in its extreme form Art becomes Pollock and Rothko. You're a rube if you expect to enjoy it, it's Art fer crissakes. Art!
I had my doubts about whether I would enjoy being an ant in a totalitarian army. But I came in to the game with not only an open mind, but a willingness and readiness to do it right. And the other participants probably saw me red-faced and shouting more in those couple hours than in the rest of their experience of me. Anyway, my awesome role-playing (relatively speaking) is beside the point; the point is that I enjoyed the experience. But am I supposed to enjoy my Brussels Sprouts?
My answer is that I don't care. LARP for me is an enjoyable pastime, and as long as I enjoy it I will continue to participate. It may also be Art; it may also be therapy; it may also be escapism; I don't care: Philistine that I am, I'm only interested in doing it if I enjoy it.
Anyway, stepping back in. I liked the way that character names instantly invoked associations that helped to establish character, and aided others in remembering same. I liked the way that the game was essentially entirely created by the players rather than directed from outside. The game relies on the players being willing to play, and I'm glad we had a group up to the challenge.

Following that was an impromptu meeting of the Live Game Labs & other interested parties, wherein we plotted the future of American LARP while simultaneously solving the problem of monetizing LARP and trading juicy gossip.

Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum

2012-05-27T22:02:39Z

Richard Fortey's book is named after a somewhat mysterious storage room at the Natural History Museum (formerly part of the British Museum). I believe whatever review or precis I saw suggested that that was what the book was about, so I was expecting a strange unearthing of random semi-treasures not considered worthy of display, mothballed and forgotten. But that's not exactly what the book is about at all.
Fortey is/was an expert on trilobites at the museum, and this is really more his recollections of the people, all experts in their fields, with whom he came into contact, and the collections housed in the behind the scenes areas. And some history of the towering figures that were either very important in the Museum's history, or picturesquely eccentric. And plenty of insider gossip and scuttlebutt that makes for a good read, whether it's vodka hidden among the velociraptors or amorous trysts among the molluscs.
Despite not being about what I thought it was about, the book was still (?) very absorbing. I think the best thing it does is to set out how useful the giant collections are that are all behind the scenes, where no public visitor will ever see them. In the modern age, perhaps the point of the museum is to attract paying visitors, but the real value is in these collections that form the real basis of many disciplines.
And now, since I read it on kindle, the pull-quotes:

Nor is it permitted to cause offence by naming a creature johnsmithi after John Smith while stating that it is the most unattractive member of the genus. I have to say that Linnaeus himself did not follow this prescription, and named a useless weed Siegesbeckia after one of his enemies.

The edible properties of the truffle are not matched by their aesthetic ones, for most truffles look like some kind of knobbly animal excreta, which have been passed with not a little discomfort.

Mineralogists also tend to be the more mainstream scientists. They are the ones that wear the white coats, and hide away in the basement while reading dials from sophisticated machines. Only a few of them have gone mad, and many of them have lived blameless lives in the single-minded pursuit of mineral excellence.

'This stone is trebly accursed and is stained with the blood, and the dishonour of everyone who has ever owned it.'

'As a professor, do you have a right to live?'

2012-05-26T14:28:14Z

Complain about the city putting up crosses on a tower next to your public university? In Texas?

That's a firing. And a harassment, of course. Article also interesting for the comments in which it appears one of the commenters is the person who sent a threatening email to the professor.

the lovely bones

2012-05-25T14:13:23Z

#1: Don't post things to facebook, or you will have to scroll through your stupid timeline to relocate them again.

#2: Original story

#3: Update:
"bones not belonging to the mobster were recovered [from his tomb, but] they have not yet been positively identified as [the missing girl's]."

"The Catholic Church's leading exorcist priest has sensationally claimed a missing schoolgirl thought to be buried in a murdered gangster's tomb was kidnapped for Vatican sex parties."

Dumbth, by Steve Allen

2012-05-25T00:00:59Z

Dumbth was Steve Allen's term for... well, dumbth. Ignorance, poor reasoning, inefficiency, laziness, etc. The first portion of the book is essentially a catalog of dumbth, as seen in the news, or experienced directly in Allen's life. Unfortunately, since the book was published in 1991, and this update was ten years later, and Steve was an old old codger, many of the examples are from long long ago. Worse, some of them are cranky grandpa stories about how they didn't have the right kind of onions for his belt at the store, even though they had stocked quite passable onions formerly. It's also a bit much, just having dumbth after dumbth laid on you.

Fortunately, the second portion of the book is generally much better. Here he provides his 101 ways to improve your thinking. There's nothing earth-shattering here, but he presents a lot of good rules, and does it in an accessible, humorous style. Avoiding bias, recognizing bias, relying on evidence, not getting too attached to your first hypothesis, keeping up with the news, and so on. Alas, the book is probably least likely to be read by those who could most benefit from it. Give a copy to that aged relative who forwards things to you that have been debunked by snopes, or who instantly decided that George Zimmerman should be let go (or summarily executed).

Of primary importance

2012-05-23T20:52:46Z

Following up on Obama narrowly edging out a felon in the WV primary, he had trouble in KY and AR. Obama won both contests, but this time he nearly lost to Nobody (KY) and some Occupy Wall Street lawyer dude (AR).

In other news, Ron Paul picked up all of ME's delegates and most of the delegates in MN. Although the caucuses in those states were won by Romney and Santorum, respectively, the delegates were actually chosen at recent conventions. With this tailwind, Paul bids fair to surpass Gingrich to reach third place in the Republican primaries.

Wikipedia has Romney at 972. 1,144 are needed, leaving him to get another 172. TX (May 29) doesn't have that many to award, so Romney will most likely(*) go over the top on June 5th, when CA (a winner-take-all-state) [and NJ, NM, and ND] votes.

(*)A few other states (WA, LA, MO(**)) will have their conventions on June 2nd. Depending on how those turn out, and how well/badly Ron Paul does in TX (a proportional state), it might happen then, instead.

(**) Missouri had both a primary (won handily by Santorum, followed by Romney and Paul) and caucuses (won in a relatively close one with Santorum over Paul, with Romney a distant third). But the pre-state convention district conventions seem to have favored Romney. So I despair of our mickey mouse system.

Dragon Bite

2012-05-21T05:06:19Z

IMG_0097, a photo by Essentialsaltes on Flickr.

Ho-Lee Shit.

At Louche Ends, by Maria Alexander

2012-05-19T00:12:18Z

At Louche Ends: Poetry for the Decadent, the Damned & the Abinsthe-Minded is a slim volume of ladyeuthanasia's Stoker nominated poetry.
It's hard to review poetry. It's hard to review stuff written by people ya know. This is double-hard.
I'm not a big fan of free verse, but the form (or lack thereof) does seem to be a good one for these late-night thoughts. The best of the poems (of which there are more than a few) have the rhythm and music of fine speech. Probably the strangest thing about reading some of these poems is that knowing the poetess occasionally provides some personal insight into them. For other poems I can appreciate the sense and the tone, but I can't help wondering if I might gain a similar personal understanding if I just offered Maria the right drink at the right time and got the right story out of her.

The Spy Who Loved Me, by Ian Fleming

2012-05-18T23:36:34Z

The book has absolutely nothing to do with the film, so it's kind of like a brand new, authentic, Fleming Bond. Except that it isn't. 'Spy' is told first person from the POV of a young woman, and Bond doesn't show up until the final third. It almost reads like a Mary Sue fanfic. The first third is her sexual biography, told in flashback and filmed in Slightly-Prurient-o-Vision. In the middle third, she's taken hostage by cartoonish thugs, whose main sources of enjoyment are making her cook for them and making insinuations of impending rape. In the final third, Bond stumbles accidentally upon the scene to save her, and his main sources of enjoyment are making her cook for him, killing bad guys, and finishing up with a one night stand. The main character, Vivienne Michel, is perhaps the best thing about the novel, a reasonably interesting and lifelike character study (coming from a guy who thought it reasonable to create a female character named Pussy Galore who heads a criminal gang of lesbian trapeze artists). The worst thing about the novel is everything else. I like that it strays wildly from the formula, something like the couple stories written from Jeeves' or Sherlock's POV, but unlike those, this one doesn't turn out successfully.

It's friday, so...... Tarsier Attack!

2012-05-18T13:47:40Z

[Spoiler (click to open)]

and, of course...

Empiricism

2012-05-17T14:38:03Z

Part of the dogma of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is that there is a causal correlation between global warming and the lack of pirates. This has been put to the test. Germany has been on the forefront of alternative energy sources, helping to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The result?

[Spoiler (click to open)]

In the recent election in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Pirate Party won 7.8% of the vote (up from 1.6% two years ago), granting them 20 seats in the state government.

Real Christians (TM) can't even beat girls and sissies at a game

2012-05-16T20:38:40Z

Our Lady of Sorrows forfeited the baseball championship in the Arizona Charter Athletic Association, because their opponent had a girl on the team.

UCC church regretfully pulls out of the St. Clair Church Softball League, because half the teams won't play them, as their pastor (who is not on the team) is bisexual.

Say something nice about Mitt Romney Day

2012-05-12T18:01:12Z

"Men and women of every faith, and good people with none at all, sincerely strive to do right and lead a purpose-driven life."

It takes at least some guts to say something even as unobjectionable as that at Liberty University, a place so backward that students aren't allowed to watch R-rated movies and young earth creationism is the party line.

Color me dubious

2012-05-11T20:54:18Z

Top men drop Nazi's Tibetan Mayan non-crystal skull on the floor, chipping it, and potentially limiting "its ability to prevent Armageddon."

Spotted on the lunch walk

2012-05-11T20:19:05Z

An obese little person. Musta weighed 175... 180... easy.

A handlettered sign beside the burrito wagon. My Spanglish is poor, but it seemed to be offering seafood and church.

A moving picture story

2012-05-10T04:15:26Z

Spotted at the Bad Astronomer.

Cartography

2012-05-10T00:18:07Z

[Spoiler (click to open)]

This seems to be a more accurate map, but for the most part, it's the same:

And for reference...

Obama comes close to losing the WV Democratic primary

2012-05-09T15:43:31Z

A Texan serving a 17.5 year sentence for extortion won 41% of the vote (and 1 delegate).

(ok, maybe 59/41 is not 'close to losing', but for a sitting president...)

(Some background from 2008, when Hillary whomped Obama 67-26.)

Snake worshippers... why did it have to be snake worshippers?

2012-05-08T18:09:11Z

Cobra Woman (1944)
"The fourth of Universal’s costume adventures pairing Jon Hall and Maria Montez, Cobra Woman provided a welcome bit of tropical escapism to war-weary audiences. Filmed in lush Technicolor with ornate sets and lavish, bejeweled costumes, this fanciful romp is truly a feast for the eyes, if not for more rational faculties."

May 12, 2012 - 4:00 pm @ UCLA Archive

The Elephant Vanishes, By Haruki Murakami

2012-05-08T02:35:53Z

Not Hiding the Elephant, but rather The Elephant Vanishes, a book of short stories by Murakami.
I think I may be done with Murakami. Not that he's bad -- he isn't -- but he seems to go for a particular note on the hopeless and meaningless nature of modern life, leavened by surrealism that ranges from enjoyable to "WTF, dude?". He certainly hits that critique of modern life bang on. Maybe it's better in the novels where it's stretched over a story, but in these shorts, he hammers that note over and over.

Perpetual Motion Machine

2012-05-06T18:55:03Z

Hollywood Babylon

2012-05-05T16:50:49Z

Much as I remembered it. Sordid stories, dubious (ok, untrue) details, glamour photos of dead bodies (from Marie Prevost's slightly nibbled corpse, to Jayne Mansfield's dog). All related breathlessly in a style ranging from snappy to obnoxious. As much stuff as is made up, there is also always the stuff that you just couldn't make up, like the latter days of silent film star Corinne Griffith:

In 1966, within a few days, she married and divorced her fourth husband, Broadway actor Danny Scholl (Call Me Mister). Scholl was 45, more than 25 years Griffith's junior. In court she testified that she was not Corinne Griffith. She claimed that she was the actresses' [sic] younger (by twenty years) sister who had taken her place upon the famous sister's death.

Less than 6 months to Samhain

2012-05-05T05:49:43Z

And thanks to richardabecker for bringing this to my attention.

Infidel Jefferson

2012-05-05T05:42:47Z

Through this and that, I ran across this most excellent screed against the election of Thomas Jefferson, penned by master orator John Mason. I confess I skimmed a bit, but it's quite a piece of work.