Tuesday, the city had an official opening of the Marquette Interchange, a massive freeway project that's been going on for longer than I have lived here. However, the project was completed months ahead of schedule and millions under budget. Pretty amazing in this cynical age. It's startling because you just don't expect to hear government say things like "ahead of schedule" and "under budget."
Tuesday was also the official dedication of the life size, bronze statue of the Fonz downtown. Now, I was going to write about this as a "good thing about a solid Midwestern town and a bad, or at least corny thing about a Midwestern town" kind of juxtaposition. I was going to write that it was sad that the only thing they could think to commemorate was a 30 year old TV sitcom that happened to be set here. But you know what? I read about the dedication ceremony, how most of the cast of Happy Days and Lavern and Shirley made appearances and the nice things they said, and how everyone in the city was happy because the statue was such a positive thing (you know, a smiling guy with two thumbs up), and I have a hard time actually finding fault with it. It's corny, but you know, why not? Why not a statue of the Fonz? Like most of America, I loved that show back then too. So what the heck--two good things dedicated in one day here in Milwaukee.
- Music:Eva Cassidy: Wonderful World
Apparently RPGNow/DriveThurRPG (collectively known as OneBookShelf) had some kind of catastrophic database error, and our Share the Enlightenment Program is ruined. Records of referrals are lost.
This was entirely out of Malhavoc Press' control, and I'm pretty unhappy about it.
We appreciate any and all referrals, and will continue to appreciate them. However, since we don't have records of who referred whom, we don't know who to give the free exclusive product to. So we've decided the only fair thing would be to give it to everyone. So look for that in the next couple of weeks.
As for the Ptolus book, we'll come up with a new means of awarding that with a new contest or program at a future date.
I'm really, really sorry this happened.
- Music:Robert Henke: Signal to Noise
As I have mentioned previously, I'm working on The Very, Very Secret Book of Conspiracies.
You don't have to research conspiracy theories very long to realize that the people behind the theories eat and breathe coincidence. If you're a skeptic, you'd say that it's all just coincidence, but even if you're not you have to admit that not all the links that theorists draw between mysterious people and events can all possibly be correct (well, in fact, you can argue that it's all true, but then you're getting into a very weird sort of Grant Morrison/Robert Anton Wilson/Discordian area). So in a way, conspiracy theorists study coincidence.
They get really good at it, in fact. When someone brings up that the first atomic bomb was detonated at the Trinity Site in White Sands New Mexico at 33 degrees latitude and JFK was assassinated in Dallas, also at 33 degrees latitude, near the Trinity River, they wag their eyebrows as if to say, "see, it's all connected." But does such a link mean anything, or is it a coincidence? Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy and Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln, but so what? Yet meaning--actual explanation--is forever denied the conspiracy theorist, so it's the link that becomes important, not the reason for the link.
Still, it's funny how things happen. Just as I finish the chapter on Holy Blood, Holy Grail, I pick up a graphic novel that I've been meaning to read for more than a year called Rex Mundi by Arvid Nelson. It's been so long since I got it that I didn't remember what it was about any more. Sure enough, it's all about Rennes le Château and that sort of thing (but subtly so, at least at first). And it's excellent by the way. Then I stumble upon an article about Rossyln Chapel in Scotland. Then the Templars are in the news. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about here, trust me: it's all a lot of coincidences. And you really ought to find yourself a book that would explain how they're all linked...
- Music:Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
Well, That Was a Mistake
Back in January, I was deep in my latest novel and a couple of other non-game related projects. When the email came along to remind me to register for GenCon, I considered it for about twenty seconds and said to myself, "nah, I'm not going." Sue and I had some interesting vacation ideas for the summer and for the first time in 20 years, there was no real reason for me to go, or so it seemed. I needed to take my change in focus seriously now, and this seemed like a nice, clear-cut way to make that clear, if to no one other than myself.
About in April or May I started questioning that decision, but like the stubborn mule I can be sometimes, I stuck to my decision. Besides, it was too late to get a hotel room, right?
In July I was seriously regretting the decision, but Sue and I already had plans for that weekend and August was looking to be incredibly busy. Plus, a lot of my friends weren't going this year either. (Although a lot of other friends were.) So even though I could have put together a last minute trip, I didn't.
So for the second time in 20 years (the first was to be best man at Bruce Cordell's wedding), I didn't go to GenCon. And that was a mistake. I really, really missed it. I missed the ENnies for the first time (and hey, I won a gold for BoXM II and World of Darkness), missed seeing the finished Dorkness Rising, missed seeing some friends I haven't seen in a long time, and just generally missed a lot of fun.
I won't be making that mistake again next year. Is there a place to register for 2009 right now?
- Music:Porcupine Tree: Stupid Dream
The fairly new and surprisingly cool* Milwaukee International Film Festival won't be happening this year, thanks to the petulance of one of it's co-founders. The short version of the story goes something like this:
Co-founder: Now that the film festival is on its feet and not in the red, here's a bill for a couple hundred thousand dollars for the work and advertising that I've provided in my weekly newspaper that you thought was all free.
Rest of the Foundation: Uh... what? We don't have that kind of money.
Co-founder: Well, then I'm taking my ball and going home so that no one can play.
I'm fairly confident that it will resurrect in some new, probably just as good if not better form next year because it was so popular. Maybe I'll even try to get involved myself. Anyway, until then, Sue and I have decided to have our own personal film festival in mid-September and watch at least one movie on DVD every day. Movies yet to be determined.
By the way, both Marley and I are feeling much better. Thanks for all the concern and well wishes.
*I shouldn't be so suprised, considering Milwaukee is the sexiest city. And yes, my tongue's a bit in my cheek here, although apparently it was rated as such in part because there's so much to do here in the summer, and that's certainly true. There's so many festivals, live music, and outdoor events that it makes you feel guilty for missing out on so much even if you go to 2-3 a week. (It's a oft-repeated, self-deprecating urban myth that Milwaukee is the fattest city. That's actually Chicago, Houston, or Vegas, depending on how you measure it. Milwaukee is actually one of the fittest cities.)
- Music:Radiohead: The Best Of
Band Names
If I had a band, I would choose from one of these names:
Now Appearing
Sold Out Show
Standing Room Only
One Night Only
Tickets on Sale
Just Announced
Appearing All Week
Live in Concert
On Tour
Canceled
Or maybe:
Free Download
MP3
DRM-free
New Album
But then, I always did value irony over success.
- Music:Bardo Pond: Selections: Volumes I-IV
Putting aside purchases with emotional value (Sue's engagement ring, Marley, and so on), I think I can say that the best purchase I ever made was for the Sonos music system in our house. It changed the way I listen to music, and I listen to music all day long--unless I'm asleep or watching TV, I'm listening to music. And if I'm at home, it's on my Sonos, playing music throughout the house. We have six different units all linked together, although I can separate them and play different music on each one or link them in smaller subsets. I can listen to our 1500 CD+ collection, although with access to Rhapsody's library (and it's very cool genre channels) as well as Pandora and other Internet radio, I actually very rarely do. I can control the Sonos on either of our computers or one of the three handheld controllers in the house.
Here's an article about how Sonos helps represent the death of planned obsolescence, which is part of why I like it. My Sonos is better now that it was when I bought it, not worse, or even worse by comparison to other things on the market (such as, say, my almost three year old laptop). Sonos is constantly upgrading the system and adding new features to the software available as free upgrades. And, more than any other company that I've ever had contact with, they listen to their customers. Ask for something reasonable and intelligent on their company messageboards and a few months later it might show up as an upgrade. Oh, and the couple of times I've ever needed customer service, they were some of the friendliest and most responsive guys I've ever dealt with. They even sometimes follow up with a "everything working OK now?" email a few days later.
I know I've raved about Sonos before, and no, I don't get any kickbacks from them or anything. (Although if you bought one here
I guess I would, sort of.) It's just a really important part of my day that I only rarely talk about. - Music:Hoover: The Lurid Traversal of Route 7
Was there an rpg before Shadowrun that used the "roll a number of dice and count your successes" mechanic? If there was, I don't know about it, but I'd like to.
- Music:Paul Simon: Surprise
On Sunday, I had thought that the vet said that she should have been practically all better by today. She's better, but still sick. I was expecting more. But Sue didn't get the same impression from the vet as I did, and so believes that everything is going according to plan. I suppose the meds are working, and it will just be a matter of time.
- Music:Tommy Guerrero: Year of the Monkey
Well, so far Marley doesn't seem to be any better, which has me pretty upset. Not much I can do about it right now other than wait and observe, though.
Last night's D&D game showed a bit of my lack of preparation (since I was at the Vet's all day), but it was OK. I worry that my NPCs are starting to be too similar, but that's a frequent worry of mine.
Not going to GenCon this year, I made a recent stop at a game store (The Source, a fabulous store) and picked up a few things. Another MacFarlane dragon, some privateer minis, some dice, and three new RPGs. The games are Aletheia, Noumenon, and Burning Empires. While I'm happy to have all three and all three are great reading, I'd only actually consider playing one of them as-is (Aletheia). I'd like to do full-up reviews on them, and hope to find the time in the coming days. In fact, I'm considering getting back into doing rpg reviews in the future, but I'll write more about that later as well.
I got precious little accomplished today since I'm still not feeling 100% and I had to keep my eye on Marley all day, who had to be outside most of the day to avoid accidents on the carpet of various kinds. My laptop's screen doesn't really allow me to work outside on the deck, so I tried to get other, non-computer related things done. Mostly, though, I just read my new rpgs.
The basement is pretty much done, although we're building a new storage cabinet down there which won't be done until the end of the week. Once that's done, I can finish organizing all the stuff and really call the basement fully armed and operational.
- Music:Yo La Tengo: I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One
Family Time
This past week Sue and I visited my family. I go tto see my parents and two of my sisters. It was a nice time, but a bit too short. Sadly, I also caught a bad cold on the trip, which made the journey back home (nine hours by car) less than pleasant. Sue and I had a lot of stuff on CD (fiction and nonfiction) to help pass the time, though, especially since we didn't hardly listen to any of it on the trip there. On the way, we just talked. Sue and I almost never have trouble filling the hours in conversation. But on the return trip my throat was too sore for much of that.
Sadly, when we returned and got Marley back from the pet-sitter, we discovered she had some kind of (still unresolved) health issue and spent the entire day at the Vet Emergency Clinic. Hopefully, we'll get this figured out and taken care of soon.
- Music:Death Cab For Cutie: Narrow Stairs
- Music:Dr. Dog: Fate
Subjective Self
It goes without saying that tastes in entertainment are subjective from person to person. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and so on.
But what I've found is that taste is subjective within just myself.
For example, on Friday night, it was late but I wasn't tired and Sue went to bed early, so I watched Krull. I'm pretty sure this is the third time I've seen it. The first was back in the 80s. I didn't see it in the theater (I don't think), but on VHS, back in those heady days before anyone owned a VCR and you and your friends would get together and rent a machine and way more movies than anyone can or should actually watch in one night*. Amid what I imagine was a selection of early-to-mid 80s SF/F fare, it was probably fine. Not as good as Bladerunner, but better than Yor, Hunter from the Future. I really don't have much memory of it, but I remember the arcade game, which ruled. It was really the only arcade game I was ever very good at, along with maybe Disks of Tron.
Anyway, the next time was just a couple of years ago, when my friend Jeff and I watched it together (again, late one night when we had nothing else to do). I think we were both astonished at how bad it was. We couldn't even finish it.
And this time? I thought it was OK. I mean, it's not good, but it's quite ambitious. It fares badly when compared to say, the contemporary Empire Strikes Back, but it's clearly a step above most of those terrible 80s sword and sorcery movies, like Beastmaster or Sorceress or something like that. Really, it's probably in the same league as Willow, but not quite as good. Which is damning with the faintest of praise, but there you go. I mean, it doesn't sink down to gratuitous sex or silly fights with rubber snakes or anying. It's actually trying to tell a story with a kind of message, sort of. It tries to actually give some "sense of wonder" moments, such as when the heroes ride to the bad guy's lair on "fire mares" over an extended swell of the music (score by James Horner, by the way). And good use of Clydesdale's as magical mounts in a fantasy movie, by the way. And there's some nice location shots in parts, although there's a lot of less than great soundstage scenes too.
So why did I think this now and now a few years ago? Well, my larger point just might be that the context was different. I was likely in a different kind of mood, maybe feeling more generous, or more willing to judge the film on its own merits. I had seen different kinds of other movies and having read different books, and so on. My expectations were very low, and there wasn't a hint of nostalgia in the air.
It's interesting, however, to think about how it might not be as simple as we think to just say "I like ____" or "I don't like _____." The real truth is, it might be more accurate to say "I like _____ right now" or "I didn't really like ____, but you know, in a couple years if I give it another chance, I might change my mind." But we just don't think like that. We assume that how we feel right now about something is how we're always going to feel. I don't know about you, though, but for me, that's not at all how it really works. I can think of a very long list of things that I used to like or dislike that I now feel differently about. In that context, "things," can be movies, books, TV shows, music, games, foods, activities, ideas, and probably a lot more. You know, I can think of a list of people that I feel differently about today than I used to.
The "me" that makes these determinations, ultimately, is entirely subjective.
*If you're too young to have any idea of what I'm talking about, just smile and nod. It was back when I watched movies with Abe Lincoln after taking our pet mammoth for a walk.
- Music:David Hazeltine: The Classic Trio
Fans of Malhavoc Press now have more incentive to share their love of the products with their friends. If you're a gamer, it's probably likely that you know someone who wants to keep playing 3E (either instead of, or along with, 4E) but who's never bought a MP product. Maybe they've always been a D&D gamer who "only buys core." But now there's no "core" for them to buy. Now's the time to enlighten them--and get something out of it yourself.
Go to Drivethrurpg.com or RPGNow.com (you'll have to register or login for it to work) and find the details of the Malhavoc Press Share the Enlightenment program. Basically, you recommend some MP products to some friends. They get a 10% off coupon. If two of them buy products, you get a free exclusive product written by me that won't be available anywhere else. Plus, the person who recommends the most friends (who actually buy something) wins a signed and personalized Ptolus hardcover. And they're hard to get nowadays in any form.
So go forth and bring light to the darkness!
I'm not going to GenCon this year, but I have plenty of friends going. Is there going to be anything so cool there that I should ask them to pick it up for me?
One of my favorites of the later crop of Warner Brothers cartoons involves a game-show-sponsored race between Bugs and Daffy. A recurring gag throughout involves Daffy falling from a great height and Bugs watching him fall saying "I wonder if that silly duck will remember he can fly?" Followed by a thud, and Bugs saying "Nope."
Last week it finally got hot here in Wisconsin, and I was thinking about bringing a fan into my office. It took me almost two days of the heat before I remembered that there's a ceiling fan in here. It's one of those "you see it so often you stop seeing it" kind of situations. I felt like a silly duck.
Somewhat similarly, I made another discovery today. Our fireplace downstairs is surrounded by bricks painted off-white. When we used the fireplace, the bricks around the edges slowly darkened from the fire. Two different people told us that it was a shame that the previous owner had painted over the bricks, if for no other reason than now we'll never get that dark color off of them. We were told that we'd just have to repaint them every few years. So Sue and I did nothing other than curse the former owner for the silly paint job and lived with the darkened bricks. Today, however, as I was cleaning around that area, I discovered--completely by accident--that the sooty darkness wipes right off with a damp rag. Completely. It took about a minute and a half and now the fireplace looks like new. I'm not sure if I was a silly duck or if the moral simply is, don't believe everything you're told.
- Music:Death Cab For Cutie: Narrow Stairs
James Sutter, editor of the Planet Stories book line at Paizo has some nice things to say about Jeff Grubb and I in his column at paizo.com.
The ENnies voting is now up and running. My Book of Experimental Might II, World of Darkness, Vault of the Iron Overlord products are all nominated, as well as Hobby Games: The 100 Best, a book I contributed to.
Oh, and why stop there? Here's a fun game. And here's another. And another.
- Music:Saybia: The Second You Sleep
A while back I posted that I was now on Facebook and that I welcome any and all friends. That's still true, and I think it's really cool to connect to new people that way. However, if we don't actually know each other, please don't use Facebook to send me a suggestion to add someone else I don't know as a friend. That's kind of awkward, and I'll just ignore it.
I'm trying to keep my LinkedIn profile to those people I've actually worked with, though. So please don't be offended if I don't accept your invitation there if that's the case.
I'm no longer on MySpace or any other site.
And, as always, if you need to contact me (and actually expect a timely response, or a response at all), directly emailing me is the way to go. Not a message via Facebook, Livejournal, Yuku, or anything else. It's my own shortcoming to just not be able to remember to check and respond to so many different things. My email is my first name, followed by an "at" sign, followed by my first and last name as one word, followed by of course a period and then the ubiquitous "com". Easy peezy.
- Music:Coldplay: Viva La Vida
Part of me wanted to title this entry "Wha-what?" because somehow 2 days passed without me updating here, despite a resolution on my part to update every day for a week. I kind of don't even know where those two days went, they went by so fast. And in my last entry I even referenced what I was going to post about "tomorrow." Whoops. But that reference was to what I'm working on now. I haven't talked about it yet because it was still up in the air, but now contracts are signed and so it's all much more set in stone. But it's going to keep me busy for most of the rest of this year.
First off, it's not the novel(s) I've mentioned obliquely here for the past year or more. Those are still important to me, but like game design, long form fiction is mostly pushed to my back burner for now. It's a nonfiction book. The working title (which may be the real title) is the Very, Very Secret Book of Conspiracies and it's basically an acerbic look at conspiracy theories. It's got more of a "get a load of this" rather than a "put your tinfoil hat on" vibe. It's fun, and hopefully funny. It's not trying to convince anyone of anything--it's only agenda is to provide some interesting and entertaining reading. I'm not a conspiracy theorist myself, but I am fascinated by them. It pokes some fun, but it's not a debunking book. I think most readers might even accidentally learn some things. I think of it as a book full of stories you can share with your friends at parties--stuff that they won't often even believe is real, or in some cases that real people believe it.
My work on Dark Matter and Of Aged Angels certainly sets the stage for this, but my own library for this kind of thing is almost embarrassingly large because of a massive, multiyear Call of Cthulhu campaign I ran in the 1990s called Millennium Fever. Part of my goal in that campaign was to continually provide the players a steady stream of high strangeness so that they would be convinced I was just making it all up and then be able to tell them that it was all real (or again, that real people believed it was real). I never had much of an outlet to info dump all of this crazy stuff in a professional way, even with Dark Matter and Of Aged Angels, so it's nice to finally work on this book.
I've already written the chapters on the Illuminati, the Templars, the Freemasons, Bohemian Grove, and Rennes-le-Chateau (a la the Da Vinci Code). I'm sure I'll be posting here with more discussions about discoveries and challenges with the book. One challenge that I know is coming is dealing with conspiracy theories about real tragedies (MLK assassination, 9/11, etc.) in a lighthearted way without being crass or insensitive.
And hopefully soon I'll get to tell you about the fun little project that kept me so busy for the last two days that I didn't have time to update...
- Music:The Shins: Wincing the Night Away
Short Fiction
After a brief foray back into Steven R. Donaldson's The Land with Fatal Revenant* (yeah, I know, it came out months ago, but I was saving it for just the right time), I'm back to reading a lot of short fiction. I've enjoyed much of the collections called Interfictions, Feeling Very Strange, and the New Weird, and to a lesser extent Wastelands. Between these collections, various magazines, and a number of fiction podcasts, I've been recently exposed to a lot of new authors really worth checking out. And by "new," I mean "new to me," in the sense that I either hadn't heard of them before or wasn't familiar enough with them to remember their names, and now I am. Some of them are not new at all. Some I've read before but for some reason didn't click for me until now. I'd probably immediately check out any new fiction by any of these authors, for example:
Elizabeth Bear
Peter S. Beagle (see, I told you, some aren't actually new)
M.K. Hobson
Aimee Bender
Ted Chiang
Matthew Chaney
Paul di Filippo
Jeff VanderMeer
Matthew Hughes
It's probably by no coincidence that I'm reading a lot of short fiction right now because that's mostly what I'm writing. My current project, which I'll probably write more about tomorrow, isn't fiction at all, but I'm still toying with some odd short stories.
*Quick review: my least favorite Covenant book so far. Ironically, it's everything that I wanted when I was 14 years old and reading the original trilogy. That is to say, as an adolescent, I wanted Covenant to use his ring all the time. I wanted lots more scenes of the Lords of Revelstone fighting cavewights and ur-viles. That kind of thing. Instead, I got a lot of conversation. This book is full of over-the-top power blasts and whatnot. It's like the epic level version of the original trilogy. Unfortunately, at the heart of it all is multiple, lengthy interior monologues from Linden Avery, who--when push comes to shove--just isn't that interesting a character. And despite a huge collection of side characters and more villains than you can keep track of, she has no one of real interest to talk to, either, until the last 1/4 of the book. (The Insequent are too like the Elohim to be interesting for my tastes--they're too powerful and ill-defined.) The very end of the book, however, seems like a promise that the next book will be better. Of course, I felt that way about the Bones of the Earth, too--and in fact, it was the very same promise!
- Music:Radiohead: The Best Of
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