come not between the nazgûl & his prey.

Welcome to Earth!

2009-07-05T13:07:59Z

Yesterday was a fine day, just fine. Went up to a park at 10:30, selected numerous vegetables. Fed my aching body a Chinese food breakfast-- fresh off the wok. Went to the gym & lifted some weights: another hour & a half. Not unproud of that. Then! A text message telling me all previous intelligence was invalid, & that the Jenny Lewis show was...pronto! Hopped in the shower, scrub a dub dub, met up with Peter & zoom! Off to the races. "Hey, do you actually know how to get to Battery Park?" I asked on the train, "because I was just heading to where Carla used to live in Battery Park City; it ought to be near there, right?" Between Peter & I we found it without too much ado, & nice walk along the piers lining the Hudson river, to boot. The set-up in the park was kind of annoying-- there was only one entrance to the show & you had to weave through a labyrinth to get there; but you had to find start of the maze, which was the tricky point. At the mouth, there was a worker-- enter here for the show. Guy, I don't need you at the entrance, I need you elsewhere to tell me where the entrance is! In we went though, & found ourselves a decent enough spot; Jennny Lewis! James (showing up to meet us) elaborated on my old chestnut-- "Pretty sure Jenny Lewis has a soul; pretty sure you don't-- into the new team motto: Jenny Lewis Is Not A P-Zombie. I tried not to get too annoyed at human beings-- seriously, such rude apes; makes me so mad. This is why I don't go to shows! But free is the price that flips that math. She ended with "Born Secular" & for a crazy moment I thought it was going too segue into "Big Guns," which-- anthems for war on heaven are all I ever want from music. Instead they left the music resonating & left the stage. For no encore!? Sad. Conner Oberst next so...we absconded with quickness.

Took the boys to Aperitivo to sing for our supper. Or well to just eat our supper I guess. They were putty in my hands, ordering what I recommended. I like it when that happens. Take my advice, it is always good for you! James had the beet gnocchi & Peter had the pasta with the three different kinds of mushrooms. I had a bresoala salad, which was arugula, goat cheese, truffle oil, & some smoked meat. Yo, the salads at Aperitivo are always worth a damn. Then for my entree I had linguine with chicken liver, sage, & a white wine & cream sauce. I took half of it home, rather than over-eating; the boys said I should text Jenny to let her know how responsible I was being. We also drank some Italian beer. I forget what it was called.

We were going to swing by the sake house on the way back-- says me "You are profiting from all the dates I go on with my wife!"-- but they were closed. What! Well I'd gotten the boys hearts set on sake, so we went to the wine shop & bought a bunch. Or at least, Peter & I did; James got shochu, which no one noticed till we put it in our mouths & did a spit-take. I got "Summer Snow," which was recommended to me by the sommelier-- which was very nice. Peter & Alicia's first time with unfiltered sake; leaving Alicia unconvinced, which is a first for me, since everybody else likes it. James's bottle was, actually-- looking at it now, it isn't shochu, it is sake-- komekome-shu, which is maybe like-- some kind of sake? Anyhow, it is a weird thing. Not bad, but...not any taste I was expecting. Peter's bottle I heated up; heated water & then soaked the bottle in it thus. The label peeled off though, so I don't know what is was called. There was much MarioKart & LifeForce, lo. In the middle of all this, Alicia arrived, wearing Peter's clothing & bearing a gift: a painting she made me!

& then we started flexing & had a gunshow waterfall.

Alicia was feeling crappy, so she & Peter left (after Peter went to go get a burrito & chips, missing the chance to play veterinarian & check out our sick pythons); James & I grabbed sake & climbed the fire escape to the roof. Talked about being in the wizard's city. I say: most American day! Italian food, Japanese drinks, then Mexican snacks, then fireworks. America. We watch the fireworks, & the superintendent & his family come up to watch them too; meaning we can get down via the actual staircase, instead of the fire escape. Which, we do! Then James & I split a couple mouthfuls of wine, I have him roll me a cigarette, we go outside & then I bid him farewell. Goodbye, I'll see you tomorrow at play practice. & then I'm up another hour being a lovesick sap, then bed. Which puts me at today. I'll leave this entry with the most patriotic thing I know of.

Gangrene really feel me.

2009-07-04T15:45:48Z

Bryan & Simon! Simon showing his treasured picture of two glass boots filled with cocktails. "Two Boots! At Two Boots!" So they rolled up on this sleepy head & that led to wine down the gullet-- as you can imagine. It never rains but it pours; so much for my lazy tucked in evening! So we were...drunk! Or well Simon & I were-- Bryan was driving, & sober! He spoke to me of-- fatherhood! I have an odd life suddenly. Or well, not so surprisingly, I guess. With time, that passed, & I woke up this morning with an errand in the bank: go pick up Tania's CSA produce. Done! There are beats, & squashes, & cabbage & lettuce, some parsley, some chard, some...some other thing I don't know what it is, some ears of popcorn, & I think something else, but I forget. Anyhow, no one was available for breakfast, sadly, so I grabbed some greasy Chinese food! They'd just opened, everything was piping fresh. & it was what my hangover wanted. Now I'm trying to get my act together, hit the gym, & then James & I will go see Jenny Lewis in the park.

mordicai @ 2009-07-03T23:14:00

2009-07-04T03:22:05Z

So I threw my intentions into the wind. I mean-- I drank too much stimulant juice today to just give up. Heck, once I tried how sherry tasted I knew I was a mess. For the record: I've had that since martak moved, & I'm pretty sure it is for cooking. I dumped it down the drain. From orbit. The only way to be safe, you know? & I started making Alice-- you remember Alice? A mix cd. Oh wait, I skipped the important details: I do that with stories. I think the myelin sheathes on my neurons are just super awesome, is how it goes down. Anyhow, I tossed the sherry (WTF, sherry?) & figured out that the liquor store was still open & grabbed a bottle of wine. Along the way running into David & Maggie on their suspicious date. Cracked the cork & started watching Firefly. Lovely show, that. Like-- that show! Anyhow, Simon called me in the middle to ask if I wanted to hang out; I said call me when he was done! He hasn't, to date. & Now I'm getting rightly anxious of the sleeping. You know, let me call him & see how his events are going. iTunes, pause on that Neutral Milk Hotel / Elliot Smith mix I made! Hold on...live blogging! Uh, no answer. Exciting. I got his voice mail. It told me to buy tickets to my play: why, what a cunning voice prompt!

The Champ.

2009-07-04T01:05:27Z

What is the score? Fuck, I don't know the score, I just know to keep punchin'. Did the bell ring? Are the cops here? Thursday was my summer hours half day. How we do. I rolled on back to the pulsating heart of Brooklyn & did my thing. My thing being knocking an hour & a half out at the gym. S'when I started feeling fuzzy. I mean, I felt good, no doubt. I felt like I might take the gentleman's way out of my obligation. Lilly's birthday, is what I mean. & by gentleman's way, I mean-- old folks way. Man, a party that gets started at midnight is too late for these bones! I'm circadian rhythms (hell, my cicada-ian rhythms I'm so cyclical, man) get me up at 6:30, & I spent too many nights prior drinking till late. So I dropped a dime on her let her know I was not going to be due. Stopped by David & Maggie's-- David was rolling on a DnD game, but I said naw. See, can't hang if I'm going to leave my other plans hanging. So I dropped some suds & took off. I should mention: all that took place in some real Hated Noah style. I mean, sky pouring down buckets; a walk to Gowanus is normally short & sweet, but by the time I got there I was soaked on in. Borrowed socks to get home, if you know what I mean. Then on to today; got up, met Tom for some breakfast (green eggs & ham at Perch) & then game prep-- then, you guessed it. Gaming. Ran my game; went well, surprise guest, surprise NPCs, & then out! I was going to meet up with Alicia but her plans were bumped forward, so now I'm back here. Not drinking; sort of want to, sort of not, so trying to err on the side of getting up early & going to pick up vegetables for Adam's uh, what do you call 'em. Hippie commune thing. Then gym, then who knows? Suck it, fourth of July, I don't need a plan for you.

Blue, Red, Green. (61)

2009-07-02T18:45:20Z

Green by Jay Lake.

Blackblood sang a song:
"Hey, nonny-nonny, you there--
I'll call you Emerald."

It is funny what preconceived notions'll get you. I sure had some-- notably, I thought this was part of the same series as Escapement & Mainspring. I mean, I really did think it was, to the point of stretching my noggin with theories that we were south of the Equatorial Wall; that Kalimpura was Kuala Lumpur, that Copper Downs was Petra in Jordan (based on the language, Petraean). & also thought the Duke was going to turn out to be William of Ghent. Well first off, Mordicai, your geography sucks. The equator goes through Malaysia, but Kuala Lumpar is north of it, & Jordan & Petra are way north of it. So, that is the baggage I carried with me until finally I bought a clue. Second off, this has nothing to do with those other books.

I quite liked it! Let me respond to a couple other reviewers, so I can unclutter my tabs. Wolfeian? I don't think so. We've got a narrator but she ain't untrustworthy. If she lies or is wrong, that is part of the story. She isn't lying to the reader, & that meta is the alchemy Gene Wolfe has wrought, wroughts. Is wroughting. That is what Gene Wolfe does. There is worldbuilding here of a subtle sort; flavorful & excellent. Maybe if Kuala Lumpur had drifted into Kalipura over 10,000 years & everything was crazy? But I think no. & as to the concern about the cover art, I waffle. It certainly is gorgeous, & the blood in the airs, the cuts on the face, the pomegranate tree; all clearly indicate the artist was well coached or had read a significant portion of the book. A book in which she's clearly brown. Brown enough to think people of light complexions are "maggot coloured." So, yeah, troubling, but there you go. There are almondy, eyes-- a commenter suggests the artist was told to go for "Asian." I'm inclined to agree with that theory; though like the reviewer, I saw her being Southeast Asian (see also: Malaysia).

Enough talking around the book. You had me at "female protagonist of colour" & a non-Western influenced setting. The frame story carries a little girl into a house with harsh teachers trying to make her into a lady. Then on from there into a temple of female assassins. Then back into the town for a mythic confrontation with divinity. Lake dances the story from one place to the next plausibly & richly. Kalimpura is the place for me; I really found it engaging & plausible. Lake depicts the gods & goddesses with flare, though I'm usually opposed to the "gods need prayers for power!" aspect of some fantasy yarns, it wasn't pushed here. Green herself is precocious, but not enough to prick the bubble of suspension of disbelief. She is angry & makes mistakes, but not enough for you to write her off, & not melodramatic enough to suborn the story. She's caught up in the center of each unlikely event, but has fate, destiny, the fickle finger of spirits & psychopomps all pushing their agenda, so it hangs. She doesn't turn away from the plot of the story, but isn't as caught up with large events as she could be-- she plays her part & lets what happens off camera happen off camera. She holds on to her past, but in a way that doesn't telegraph the rest of the story. Plus, she ninja fights a lot, which is pretty great.

The Pattern.

2009-07-01T13:53:52Z

I am mostly annoyed at myself. Too lazy to go to the gym, drinking too much. Missing Jenny. Man I don't respond well to being alone. I mean, no surprises there. I've never shut up about a Fall, about abandonment & loneliness; I just finally did something about it. Got love. Just sort of anger-making when I realize her being out of town for a few days can scatter so much of my discipline to the wind. I mean-- not in a super co-dependent way. Just that worrying about food when I get off the train from work to home. Being at home without being there with her. Basic assumptions are undermined, you know what I mean? & if I was-- you know, going to the gym, eating decently, sleeping enough? I'd not be so sloe gin eyes about it. But that is sort of the self-fulfilling prophecy, you know? Because having a wife to tell me to eat, not to get drunk, to go to bed next to-- like, makes the living part of life tolerable. Instead I'm left with Mordicai who, let me confide-- he's really awesome, but kind of impractical.

Monday, Monday, Monday. What did I do about the Moon's day? Oh I know. I called Sam & Tracey on a whim? & found that our desires perfectly matched! They wanted burgers in the Slope; I was in the Slope & wanted a burger all day. We went to Flipsters which used to be a different burger place, in the past, & was a sea food restaurant before that. Wait, they have a...terrible home page. "What are flipsters? They are Brooklyn hipsters who flip hamburgers..." Haha what, shut up. Anyhow; I drank some Six Points beer & had a lamb burger with goat cheese. I'm still not sure if it was any good, honestly. Like: it was complicated. It might have been good. I knew I was getting into a "thing," right? Lamb burger. Then Sam had to go to work, & Tracey came over to drink some sake. Talking back at my place & over dinner about my game was useful. Like-- duh, communication usually makes things better! That is sort of the premise of the Psychohistorical Age, right?

Last night I was going to drink a little wine, read my book (Green which so far is awesome & set in Jordan & Malaysia, which both satisfies my concerns, even though my guess went awry...I was sure it would be Incans...) & then go to bed early. I pulled a hamstring somehow, & it was raining, so I wasn't sweating blowing the gym off. I know I talk about going or not going to the gym a lot, but it seriously is my major chemical concern. Like, I'm not a dualist, I have no problem acknowledging that the brain is a part of the body. Whether or not any of it is real is the real concern. I'm falling off topic; if you want more discussion on solipsism versus nihilism, refer to my wedding vows. Man, I miss Jenny. Anyhow, so instead of my calm, restorative evening-- Lilly called me. I like Lilly! I like her enough to choose to ruin my medicine-night. We went to Bar Reis for sandwiches & cocktails, then back to my apartment for video games & wine & drunken talking. I am pretty sure I was drunk & sentimental! She was drunk & revelatory. We were drunk! I had a lot of fun-- I made the right call, but it was another night of too much drinking & not enough sleeping.

Oh, I got lunch with Victoria yesterday, too, & I got a new phone! Victoria & I went to that cheap Indian place I like, & we talked about shit. I was feeling sleepy & defeated. Then to the park, where we watched a chubby dude do crazy yoga while we sat on the grass under a tree, which made me feel better. "Feelings." See also: drink too much, don't sleep enough. My chemistry! My chemistry...oh & also I got a new phone. A Magnet which is to say, a non-smartphone. A dumb smartphone. A smart dumbphone. It looks like a Blackberry or whatever-- it has a keyboard. I was tempted by the iCult, but really? I don't need the internet for five minutes. Like-- I'm clearly deeply invested in information technology; I'm not trying to be a hater? Just that I'm on the Web all day at work-- I have access to it at home-- I don't need to browse the internet when I'm waiting at the bus stop or whatever. I already have books. Books, which I like, & don't run out of batteries. See also, Kindle-- I don't get it? For the same amount of money, I can have a book. Which doesn't run out of batteries & I can keep & put a notecard in for notes, &...like, a book is just good information technology already. I'm not trying to be difficult here, or one of those people who tries to idolize an obsolete thing (newspapers) to justify it. Books are just not defunct yet. I don't see it happening for a while yet. Anyhow, So I got this phone now. My wallpaper is The Seal of Astaroth & my ringtone is "Lovecraft in Brooklyn" by the Mountain Goats-- I tried the "Requiem" by György Ligeti, & The Krull Theme by James Horner, but I couldn't get the mic to make them sound passable, for all my efforts. You know, the AT&T site tried to tell me I could download Godspeed! You Black Emperor songs, but it was a lie, & then when I searched for it again, it was gone! Weird, right? Still, I kind of want that.

Oubliette session twenty-seven: Rain of Stars.

2009-06-30T16:45:13Z

After a long hiatus & an epic prologue, we finally got back to gaming on Saturday. Things have been rough with outside commitments like the play & new jobs & what have you, but hopefully we're back in the saddle. I had a really awesome time running the game, & I think the others did too. There was a bit of tension at the end, but I don't think it tainted the whole thing. A big part of it was my fault for failing to communicate the direction of the story. We've talked about it subsequently-- last night. Just hard to learn how to use meta-gaming for the story; like, it isn't wrong to say "that isn't going to happen this session, lets move on." Seems obvious, but as a Narrator you can get led astray trying to be mysterious or whatever.

Things were fast paced; Damocles returned from his sept in the Synod; Balthazar from the bowels of the Urth. Lorelai had stayed right where she was, on her throne in Dragonfly. Her figurative throne-- for the moment. They decided to take advantage of the winter stalemate with the Shining Horde to investigate north, in Englezarke. They knew, from the map they'd bartered from the Lobescrubber, that a comet was falling there. So off they went, leaving their apprentices behind. Damocles paused & sniffed the wind-- trouble in the north, as the worms of soil dug that way.

They travelled up the river, Lorelai tacking the sails, Damocles & Balthazar keeping their eyes peeled, slipping under enemy patrols. Along the way they marveled at the paradox of Englezarke-- fertile soil, good land, decent people, but poor as hell-- why couldn't the country get it together? It lines the riverline basin, like Egypt followed the Nile. Eventually they made landing at a fish-husbandry farm (aquaculture! Only the Hawaiians & the Chinese care about it-- well, & the modern West). They'd been told by some dockhands that it would be safe to land ashore here-- so they did, & got a decent welcome. It might be the quarter keg of ale they brought with them (just in case! My game is great-- "We better take this beer just in case.") Alexis, Piotr, & Dubbel were all there, living a simple life with their ox, Bessie (who dredges the ponds). Of course, there are odd things afoot-- faerie troubles, stuff coming up from the deep Urth & heading northward.

When the Beastie that was troubling the farm next door showed up, Lorelai was almost at the boat to get their things; Damocles was with the fellow who finds it; Baltazar was inside, looking at the stars out the window. "Bessie? Something the matter, girl?" had Damocles with his sword already drawn. Blarggg! Monster. I used the Xorn mini-- & had to explain a few times when I talked about the cow hooves left. Were they, you know, PART of the thing? It grabbed Damocles & shoved his face into its maw/slit. Grinding, mammoth-like teeth &...white tadpoles of various sizes-- some as big as cats. They cut it; Bathazar shot it; Lorelai ran at it with her science-trident. Warmongering! Strife! Instead of blood, or organs-- just more giant sperm. They killed it as it ran off (supernatural stink in the air-- brimstone, tracers, that sort of thing) & Lorelai speared all the struggling larvae-things before they could wriggle & writhe away. Then Lorelai, troubled by what she saw, stayed up all night making an elaborate scrimshaw hair-ornament as a gift to their hosts.

(Monsters. I wanted to make a horrific monster, see if I could sort of JUMP! surprise it out at them-- since normally I'm like "You hear rumors about this thing: they are wildly inaccurate. Creepy setting pieces happen. Oh the psychological horror..." about that kind of thing. I think I squicked them? But actually making monsters scary is tricky. I'm trying to add skills to my repertoire about it.)

The flotilla of boats coming down the river was the next sign that something was wrong. A whole glistening horde; kayaks & yachts & anything they could cram down the river. Lorelai, in a masterful display of watercraft, lashed herself to the sail & steered their boat between them, darting & weaving. As they passed, they heard the people cry out: "A star has fallen!" Which the campaign had been building up to for some time-- stars falsely aligned, comets in the sky, inauspicious births. A star fell down! But to the player's surprise as they rounded the bend in the river-- the star did not fall hard. There it was,nestled in the city, a gleaming, bristling, cluster of tines. Spines, pricks! Crystal shafts of blue & white. The players walked into the city of Breenhart, according to their character. The very carriage of Lorelai was enough to put folks at ease-- more even! It was like seeing the queen, or the pope, or Batman. She'll make it right! Damocles sulked into the city. He made an intimidate check! "Stay indoors. I'll handle this." Balthazar distractedly behind them-- why would he talk to regular people?

The crystal ship is odd; there are veins of bloody gold within-- or gold the colour of blood-- or something-- orichalcum! The orichalk. It loops & whorls, moving within the glass. Perhaps it spells words, though none can read it. They see in places crackling-- breaks in the crystal. Eventually Balthazar coaxed a needle to the surface-- then another-- then another, a whole keyboard of sharp points! His Alien Hand (recall: Balthazar has had his corpus callosum cut) danced across it. Which caused his glossolalia to act up, end of line. So he talked crazy for the rest of the session. Inside was mysterious & strange! But not that strange to them: they'd been to the Secret City in Lalala & have grown used to thinking of Malake as the ruined remnants of a Karnak settlement. For yes! The Karnak. The karnak. They zig-zaged through the twisting arteries of the ship, almost immediately losing track of "down"-- which is clearly purposeful. Many corridors were blocked; with more of the loopy writing, & another finger-prick stud; down one tunnel a SARLACC! Mesmerizing them, or projecting a holographic illusion; Balthazar stumbled into the ant-lion-like hole! Lorelai was held at the edge by Damocles, who thanks to his increasingly ~~diabolical~~ ~~demonic~~ ~~infernal~~ draconic mind-set was more or less immune. They pulled Balthazar to safety & said "oh. I guess the words on the door mean Caution."

Eventually they wound their way to a crystal chair, with a huddled figure before it. There it is pierced by the glass fragments that make up the ship, mutated, changed, ruined. They knew the ship was contaminated! Without any coaxing, Balthazar sits on the chair, which send filaments of orichalk into him, spooled out of the crystal points & into his blood stream! & he starts communicating; & opens the walls before him! Thousands of Sleepers! People in glass coffins, tubes filled with milky white liquid, all in a state of hibernation! The spines of the ship-- of which there are twelve-- each have as many stacked within them! 120,000 souls! Oh but Balthazar says six of them are "contaminated" & three are "unknown." But also within the room:

This mess! Which recognizes the Imperial Goblin Balthazar speaks to it. There are three individuals awake on the vessel at all times: the dead one & this one are part of the "crew" that was awake when the ship was infected. It sits in a tub of garbage water & demands Balthazar remove the quarantine protocols. Which he considers doing for a moment! Thinks better of it almost immediately (when Damocles & Lorelai ask "What did it say?" & he tells him & they freak out). Then, fine! STRIFE! It pulls out of the tub-- legless! Tentacled! The tentacles have mouths! Cyborg tentacles! Extra tentacles! Buzzing with flies, writhing with maggots! Remember those guys from last campaign!? Fuck those guys! So the players fight the hell out of it! Swords flashing! Guns blazing! Tridents popping organs! & this thing...EW! Barfs flies on them-- & then the flies barf acid onto them! WHY. & he's wrenching at them with his arms & legs & he's bigger than he has any right to be...& they just hew away at him, till the brink of death, when he finally collapses! Twenty three wounds dealt!

Then comes the tricky part. Between Balthazar's nonsense-Hybrid talk, Damocles decides to immerse himself in a tank. So, Balthazar finds one with a dead body in it, & opens it. I figure, sure; who knows how long this has been floating towards Urth (I do, but you know)? There has to be dead people out of the 10,000 in the room-- maybe there was a malfunction, or they had cancer, or whatever. So he gets in, hoping it will heal some of his injuries. Then he holds his breath! Until he's finally forced (after like, minutes) to gulp it down & breathe the liquid. Lorelai thinks about getting in; then Tracey reconsiders, but only after I make a joke about it "Okay, you guys get into the cryogenic tanks. Next session: 1000 years later..." & the I chuckle wickedly. A joke! But now Tracey is worried that her changing her mind is meta-gaming, & doesn't know if it is what she should or shouldn't...but we talked about it. She doesn't get in; she waits with Balthazar outside, since he's badly hurt as well.

If you aren't drunk on the internet: you're doing it wrong.

2009-06-30T03:11:44Z

You ought to be able to. I certainly can. Fat, worms in the air. You can ignore them in the ground but when the maggots take to the sky? Drat. I can-- I can hardly hold it together. Like, somehow the idea that there might be anyone who gives a fuck is impossible. Less impossible then the idea that anyone would give a fuck about me, interesting enough. Or I should say, duh. Mordicai is greater than all reality, is duh. Oh! Speaking of awesome; fordmadoxfraud translated Revelation from the Greek for me one year. Showed it to Tracey & she was appropriately dumbfuddled. Hold on. Better. So I had an okay tonight. Burgers & beers with Sam & Tracey. Then Tracey coming over for Sake & Geek Talk. Tracey needs Geek Talk, which can be hard. Like-- if you want to narrativly force something in, she's cool, as long as you tell her that is what is up. Or not! Like, last session she was distracted & I should've...anyhow. She came over & I showed her my big books! My Voynich's & my Harmonia Macrocosmica & such ilk. I book bragged! I am like that. Anyhow-- I tried to go to bed; it didn't work. Shit, I'm pretty gross about having a wife, but it is...uh, awesome?

Gagazillion.

2009-06-29T16:58:18Z

Jenny went on vacation! To go visit her parents, & shoot guns. This is what she is doing & so I am left to my own devices. My devices are pretty fierce! Friday I woke up to see her off (she would't reconsider, & on top of everything was sick!) & then I cleaned the apartment up & poof! Dynamite! I went over to Sam & Tracey's to run my game; it went pretty well I thought, though there was some 11th hour stress that I hope didn't taint it. Afterwards, James came over & we played some Lifeforce, coining such memorable rants as "Cover your zone, bro!" & "Bro, catch my option!" Also there was MarioKart & World of Goo & then Maggie came over & then next was David! More videogames & then the success of successes-- NeverEnding Story! Yesss, letsss! Then kit & caboodled into bed. Which! I've been making the bed up every morning, because I know Jenny would want me to. Also, by myself I don't make a mess; I barely rumple the covers! Sunday was busy as a bee! Okay, first off I went to the framers, only to find they were closed; then met with Adam to hit up some brunch at Sotto Voce. Acceptable! Then back to the Framers ("Prints Charming") where he got the prints Jenny got me & the print I got her in the mix to get framed. Very exciting! Then back home (with Adam) for some MarioKart & then to the gym. Back from the gym & then to play practice; rehearsal in full overdrive. I was less intimidating, more chipper. Weird; I didn't know I was! Then (I told you it was busy!) Maggie & James & I met David for late night sandwiches & drinks-- Reis 100 wasn't open (should've been!) but we got Brooklyn Bakery & drank at Bar Reis anyhow. I wanted a martini, & I got one! Now I'm at work but I shouldn't be. I should be...hiding under the bed!

mordicai @ 2009-06-29T09:35:00

2009-06-29T13:37:37Z

M: "Ugh."
A: "Ugh?"
M: "I'm done, I'm done. I'm past the part where Jenny being gone is sort of novel. Where I over-compensate for being bored & lonely with being social. Seeing people, hanging out. I'm done. I just want to go home. I don't even need an apartment. I just want a closet. Climb into the closet & snick'd, close the door. Like, maybe a horizontal closet, so I can lie down in the dark & huddle & close the door. I'm done."
A: "They call that a casket."
M: "Fuck."

Oubliette teaser- the Shining War contiues.

2009-06-26T14:07:48Z

For the first part go here.

The war has ravaged the land. The tunnels & canals that run through the city have even formed icicles of melted brick, drippings of stone formed under the barrage of heat from the ornithopters before they were dealt with. Still, there are other fiery ruins, for the sticky, sputtering fire is hosed out by the infantry, & their whistling, shrieking rockets that explode in showers of sparks have touched the land with scars of dark tar & fire. Even the rivers have run with the colours of war. It has been a terrible cost, but against all odds your desperate measures have held the Horde at bay. The Baroni Corvulus Crucious even confides in you that it is his belief that the fires, the ash, the blood--- all will water the fields, & there will be a rebirth for Malake, a new flowering. The Horde may be inhuman in their war, but they haven't taken to salting the fields. There has almost settled in a new status quo, under the constant stress, anxiety, & threat. Soldiers may go forth to war suddenly! Enemies may attack in a flash! But you live lives; as you must.

There are things afoot in the city, however, that defy common sense. Missing people, mysteriously mutilated bodies, blood-drained corpses. At first these things are attributed to the overall chaos & entropy of the situation, a sorry side effect of the battle. Then, as the crimes continue, they are blamed on the Fanatics-- the Horde's lunatic, almost walking dead obsessive terrorists. Efforts to crack down on these break-ins to the City (spearheaded by Dragonfly, Demilion, Crucious, & the Doge's theme of Sea-wolf) become more effective-- literal & figurative dragnets, traps, fortifications, & interior patrols, as well as armed marine troops (many of them women, pearl divers from the north who have found new employment) swimming, patroling the canals. As these tactics bear fruit in the form of curtailing invasion, the cases continue-- & are not strictly limited to humans. A horse, & several of the seals (common once, but rare in this time of troubles) have been found with their organs torn out, devoured. Your friend Gaspar examines the corpses-- informing you that these animals appear to have been killed in varying fashions but their post-mortum wounds were done by human hands, human teeth. Something is clearly prowling Malake's canals & themes. Gaspar begins strictly stabling his Zebron, making sure he is not accesable to such preadation. An artist, taking the witness of someone who says they saw a young boy feeding from the dead horse, draws a picture, distributing copies of it on the back of propaganda fliers (spare paper!). In it, he conflates the rumor of the boy with the stories of bloodless corpses, of dead people found drained, absent of any vital sanguine humor-- still, this is the image that takes hold in the mind of the populance.

Speaking of your friend the Ghoul-- he has a notable moment of heroism in all this. Content during most of the war to stay within Malake, he is kept busy-- very busy, in fact. The dead are brought home, & Gaspar is primary among those dealing with the dead of the City. The Synod takes the majority of their dead, & their priests are well involved in rites of mourning, but everyone knows an expert; in fact, you slowly, by spans & cubits, become aware that he is not the lone ghoul of the city. Others have come, too-- some mumble against them, saying they've descended like a flock of carrion birds, but most are glad, realizing that the city would swell with dead where it not for the ghoul's ministrations. They take the bodies into the depths of the black glass Themes, preparing them with salves, preservatives, anti-decaying treatments, embalming, removing organs but keeping them with the bodies-- in general, mummifying them according to tradition, & then secreting them in catacombs, in enclaves where they can wait till the end of the world to be perfected again. Sometimes, when the Horde's forces are screaming like the dead, women & children rushing in with suicidal abandon to try to tear apart bunkers of musketeers, to break the charge of some Aristo cavalry, it almost seems like the end of days can't be far.

The ghouls earn the respect of the troops (of all stripes, besides perhaps goblin) in a peculiar incident. One morning, as the sun rises ("23 minutes late," Balthazar muses), a tower is visible; a building not present when night fell, sitting astride a hill the Shining Horde had occupied by force at nightfal, but now abandoned. When spyglasses & telescopes are brought forth, it appears horrifically to be made of bundled together-- stitched?-- bodies. The dead, defiled, & not just piled into a rough heap but painstakingly lashed to each other. Deadman D'Eivonn & the others are furious; they mount up on striped horses, on shaggy horses with necks as long as their body, & ride out, without consulting anyone. Impromptu squads form up around them, Synod Hussars, Malake cavaliers, but they read the Tower of the Dead with no cause. &-- without laying hand on it-- ride back. Odd! When they return, they explain: it was not a pillar of corpses, as they feared, but rather statues. Busts, figures, art, memorials-- copies of the human form of all shapes & sizes broken & placed into a column. Still-- the memory of the ghoul's bravery sticks in everyone's mind--as do fears of supernatural serial killers.

Balthazar's insistence that the goblins below represent an untapped resource resonates with the Doge, & the Dux's representatives, especially after seeing the Goblin Sappers working with the Synod; they usually work after dark, & you are all sure that they cause as much harm to their own ranks as they do to the enemies, but it is damned impressive-- from the ingenius shrapnal they throw to the very charges you used to destroy the ornithopter. So, with all due pomp, the Doge comissions an envoy, under the official aegis of Balthazar, to meet with the goblins, & make treaty with them. The nobility send Lorelai as their representative; the Church (in the guise of the Soverign See) send Damocles.

Balthazar beings by sending heralds, of a sort: Lorelai jokes about "fishing for goblins," as the process involves some of the techniques used to hunt for sharks. Chumming, bells & whistles, storm drains & stray dogs, words painted on hermit crab shells. Bowls of sour milk, maggots baked into bread, animal bones ground up & mixed with corn. The replies are not pleasant; a Scar from the Shining Horde is taken prisoner & his jailers find part of a message carved into his back. A toilet overflows with sewage & effluvia...then blood & worms....then finally black beetles which climb out & onto the walls into the patterns of words. Rotten fruit filled with repugnant gasses, almost like a bloated corpse, with the seeds carved into letters. At long last you negotiate a meeting below the Theme the goblin's have occupied-- the Increscent Theme. They moved in & you haven't heard a peep from them since, until now. The room is one of weights & chains, hanging from the ceiling. Or at least you presume there is a ceiling-- you've come to a deep place of the Urth, stalked all the while by bright, lidless eyes.

You aren't sure how many goblins are in the room; the slink in, accompanied only by the sound of flapping feet. They lurk at the fringes of darkness, hidden from all your eyes besides Baltazar's star-blessed (or cursed) senses. Four come into the circle of light, heralded by hideous shrieks from the goblins, clashing of metal & braying of trumpets. In the clash & clutter, the counterweights above you shake & move, despite their heft & thickness. There is a great deal of speaking next; introductions, a constant stream of malediction of titles. "The Right Inhonorable Inhorrible Skullcandler, Hiz excellency of Gougeprick" (an eyeless terror); "Piss-porridge Gougeprick's Favorite Son, Frailbiter the Knifey Junior" (horned & pale); "Imperial Assayer of Lofty Heaven & Rubbishbin Hell, Commissoner of Goodthink" (green & lavished with armor & jewels) & "Sargentlemen Fisklechick of the Imperial Secret Police" (a all-too canny look to his noseless face). The "honorifics" go on & on, & Balthazar doesnt spare you them-- you are astonished at the filthy terms of endearment he comes up with in a game of brinksmanship with the goblins.

Negotiations are...stressful. Balthazar underlined the importance of following his lead; but for all that, guns & swords are drawn, waved! Not just between you humans & the goblins, but between the goblins. Threats are made in quiet, serious voices; personal, professional, against families, loved ones, gods. Lies are told, increasingly outrageous. Blood is spilled-- pricked fingers-- mingled, & oaths made & discarded. Alliances shift from sentence to sentence. You eventually agree upon terms-- strange terms! The Doge & the Dux have authorized you as their agents, & you create another amendment, or addition, to the Aurelia Carta-- this the Aurelia Catena, the Golden Chain, so named for the room you sign under (the goblins with hideous heiroglyphs). They give you three Ceremonial Cleavers, as a sign of your participation, asking in exchange threads of your hair.

I. That, upon each member of the Aristos coming of age, a goblin (chosen by the goblin) be allowed to "pitch woo" at them at least once.

II. A system of conduct for the Nobility to hire guards of Goblinilk, including prices & conditions for dismissal.

III. Custodianship (NOT ownership, which the goblins vehemently seek) of the depths of Malake below a certain VERY deep point.

IV. Gifts of Tribute from the Doge to the "Hegemon of the Gougeprick" & to "The Great Emperor of the Hegemony"

V. An official area for a Goblinmarket, wherein guns, weapons, tick-tocks, booms, fruits, gleams, & "other sundry" (said with a twinkle) can be traded.

Wilhemina Incarnadine if having her face painted & hair coiffed when Damocles goes in to see her, as she requested you do. Her legs lay out & her dressed hitched up; she is immodest, of course, in the true cosmopolitan fashion of Malake. She speaks openly in front of the man doing her make-up. There is small talk, of course, & proper courtesy, but herein is the gist:

"Damocles, dear son of Lux, hello. Thank you for coming to see me; I know you are busy seeing to the offense & defense of the city. Let me not detain you any longer than I must, & speak plainly & to my point. With the advent of the Soverign See here in Malake, it is my earnest hope that your vision for a City laboring for both Man & God can be realized. Of course, any ship requires steady hands on the tillar; & a crew to serve each purpose. A navigator, a helmsman, a chief, so forth."

"I have a simple proposal for you. Be part of the See with me. I've spoken, in due confidence, with the Doge-- I hope I wasn't over-stepping my bounds, but I wanted to discuss it with him before I brought the matter to your attention. I have my supporters & my detractors-- as I'm sure you do as well. I doubt those overlap however. Join with me. Step away from the Doge-- renounce your Ell Wand. Not in anger! I should have said Resign. Resign your comission under the Doge, & take Holy Orders. Cleave to the Church, & the City, in the body of the Soverign See. You won't be alienating Fleance; I'm sure he sees the benefit of diversifying his allies, as per our discussion. You can avoid any moral entanglements, while embracing your faith!"

"Don't you see? You can serve God & Man, you can help the City & the Church. There is only one real practical concern. You would need Holy Orders. I have some idea of your purpose as an inquisitor & witch-hunter. Both honorable positions. & I have heard tell from the many rumors surrounding you that you were raised in a monastary. I submit to you this: become a Hashashin. Become a warrior for Lux Unconquered. Return to your sept, your monastary home, with all due haste. Take your adopted s...take your friend along, the boy Mathio. Swear Holy Orders in your sept's monastary, undergo whatever secret rituals the Hashashin offer you. Go to the Synod, go into the embrace of the Church. Allay any suspicions the conservative might have. & then return, in haste."

"Together we can make a new path for the Church of Lux Invictus, Damocles. Will you?"

Lorelai has been through a great deal; but if anyone can say they've grown to the challenges around them, Lorelai is it. Dragonfly is like a map of her life since she left Englezark. Left-- such a nice word for it. Was sold, along with her brother, to save the rest of her family. Walking the crossed spars, the levels devlving beneath the river, she can say man places of memory; the old a palmpset beneath the new. In this alcove she pulled one of the Drakes, saving him from some minor falling debris during a strafing run by the Horde's ornithopters. It wasn't too long ago that she was pulled into that alcove by the hands of one of Airvanthe's "friends" for clumsy kisses & brutish fumbling at her breasts. Then here, in this hall-- she chased some of the Theme's children with Balthazar-- was it Unus & Duo? Or Septimus &...oh, who can keep them straight? Again, when the Theme was The Noble Airvanthe of the Golden Nirvana's, she was made to parade up it, naked, to let him check the soles of her feet, or her teeth, as though she was a broken horse. & so on; everywhere the twin strands of life, wrapped around each other. The memories could mingle-- mix-- but they don't. Because this isn't Airvanthe's Theme. This isn't his Dragonfly. It is yours. By your claim. By more than just the Doge's paper, or the Dux's permission, but in fact, in truth. You are Lorelai of Dragonfly, & Dragonfly is Lorelai's. & so, at least in part, is this whole City-- as you prayed for, it has so far has the Fortitude to stand against the Horde.

An invitation to the Malleus manor isn't out of place. The formality of the writing is hard for you to puzzle out; Octavia has spared no courtesy for you, not knowing how difficult it makes picking out the words. Still, the gist of it is easy enough for you to suss out; she'd like you to come to her Manse, & meet with some friends of hers. Friends of yours, she says, too, but that doesn't make any sense-- it must be Noble-speak for them having good intentions towards you.

& so you go, with a smal honor guard of Drakes. You take a black-cabined gondola out to see the Baronessa, calling on her for twilight cocktails & supper. Whatever that might mean. A small shiver crosses your shoulder as you travel on the water, as you hope there are no machinations of the fishy (or more to the point, fish-blood) variety afoot this evening. Your Drakes (yours & Damocles & Mathios & Balthazars-- you've all had a hand in them, in this) stand quietly by you, just enough to guard you without jeapordizing the safety of the Theme. The light scintilates along their laquered scale armor, not reflective but catching the light almost as a jewel might.

You are aware, perpetually aware, of the stunted, dwarflike servants that Octavia keeps (more properly, that the Malleus line keeps). They mostly stay out of sight, but you can hear them scurry in the jungle as you approach, opening tiny doors & using dumbwaiters for elevators in the house. Your newfound empathy for your fellow man tells you this is their way of being respectful; letting you know where they are means they welcome you in; as much as the feral madthings are capable of. Lorelai's dealt with goblins-- she's seen worse. Octavia's appearance is a shock to her blase acceptence of the Manor's oddity, at least at first. She seems soot soaked, mussed, wild. On closer look, she's clean, in couture clothing, but...disheveled. Mascara streaked-- with tears? Or purposefully? Or hell, with purposeful tears, maybe. Grungey. But still, in her strange way, beautiful. She looks at you with that half-caring obsession; how can she do that? Be so off puttingly on & off, at the same time?

Her guests are visions of emerald. Plucked from the earth & polished, & you know enough of their dress, their look, & their speech to judge them to be from Lalala. You can't guess what exactly they are here for, of course, but you remember that your treatment as a noble, from the first, started there. The two girls in green appear to be sisters-- you'd say twins except one seems older than the other, though they look nearly identical. Octavia has her Acolytes of the Box serve you all absinthe, sugar cube & slotted spoon, & introduces the two girls as "Lalia & Lalia. They are both Demoselles. Girls, this is the Baronetta." Octavia slumps on her chair, sprawled across the back, bored of it all. When the girls speak, it is in steps, finishing each other's sentences.

"Hello (hello) Baronetta."

The girls want to speak with you, at some length, about...well, about nobility. They say that Mempsimoru (whom they refer to as "The Velvet Hierarch") spoke to them about you, but that "The Monarchs already were well appraised of the situation. With you & your brother, blood & bone, & Seraphina Triune."

"We-- that is, we those who cleave to-- the Twin Monarchs-- know that there are others. Like them-- the Twin Monarchs-- but apart from this place. Across the Sea-- silver, green, blue, the Orobrous River, the Sea that circles the world-- there are places filled with them. Exalted ones. Kings & Queens like-- like living myths-- who rule with supernatural-- deftness. We think-- we are led to understand-- that they were here, too once. That the Eld (OOC: a cycle of legends, like the Arthurian tales, or old Bible myths, about magical kings & quests & such) was the last of them-- except for the Two Monarchs."

"It is given to us to know-- through means & seeking-- that you may be-- wrapped up in these events. We-- want to help-- you. To sort-- through any confusion-- & see if we can-- discover the truth of affairs. Will you trust us?"

Inhlanzi just means "fish"? (60)

2009-06-24T16:18:21Z

Escapement by Jay Lake.

I stopped angel's hearts,
tore queens from their thrones, & kings,
with my pocket watch.

This comes next in jaylake's series that started with Mainspring, & I really like it. Second books-- I'm turning out to like second books from Tor a lot lately, like Queen of Candesce. This novel is three yarns, three character threads, some of them minor characters in the first book; the librarian, Childress is my favorite of the bunch, then there is Al-Wazir, the chief, & Paolina, the new character, the youthful polymath. The new Newton, they keep calling her. Newton the Alchemist! Following the lead of the first book, there is plenty of word play here, & plenty more details on the worldbuilding. Instead of talking about that, lets talk about the stuff that does stand out in contrast. Like-- the Chinese! You get a pretty good window into the Chinese here, & I really like what I see. While the British see the clockwork of heaven & read the hand of God, the Chinese see perfect evidence of the Celestial Hierarchy. So right there, the dueling paradigms are set up to be equally viable. Lake does an excellent job making the Chinese the same but different-- that is, the oddity & weirdness of the Chinese are clearly a point of perspective, one that starts dissolving as the characters become better acquainted with the culture. & I really liked the way he rendered the languages, too. Besides that, you get bits of the Solomonic Kingdom Ophir, & their brass automatons, which you know. Soon. They have Seals made by King Solomon for "brains" or a "soul" or whatever.

Oh, & before I sign off, one thing that bothered me-- on page 126, Librarian Childress corrects Captain Leung's classification of angels as "European," saying they are "Biblical" & that she ...wasn't sure what a European angel would be. Well I call foul! Clearly the angels are European, because they are beautiful humanoids with wings. Not winged chimera or rings of fire; they are Pre-Raphaelite angels. Now, I at first thought angels were going to act as a sort of genius loci, or at least, manifest that way. The excuse of perspective, writ large. Then the winged savages show up, who as far as I can determine are made in the image of the angels. Childress, as a well-educated scholar, should have known better! That is all I'm saying. I wonder if Green will answer the riddle? If not, I'm guessing Pinion, the fourth book, has a darn good chance of it, with a title like that.

mordicai @ 2009-06-24T10:21:00

2009-06-24T14:22:06Z

Role Models

Uh, this movie is hilarious? Seriously, there is a joke about three minutes in-- Paul Rudd says, in regards to KISS, that he also likes to "rock & roll all night, & part of every day." Only you know, delivered in the wry Paul Rudd fashion. We had to pause it on account of "Lolling." Or Jenny even insisted we were "Rofling." There are a bunch of other jokes-- low, mid & high. Plus, the movie ends up being super geek affirming. Like-- not only is the LARP kid told that being a LARPer is fine if that is what you feel like doing, but it grows to encompass the cast. To the point of them all dressing up like the KISS Army & fighting the LARP crew-- who are all pretty hilarious? Like, not caricatures, but instead guys who are playing fucking LARP. Which means having fun. I was pleased; I'm a sucker for that, no doubt.

You read a book, son!

2009-06-23T14:14:09Z

Another day of dates with my wife. Seriously, we're romantic as hell. We got lunch together at a Cuban place near work-- lots of food. Tamales, empanadas, Cuban sandwich & a baked chicken sandwich. The onions were really good? & then we went shopping for a phone-- I need a new one but realized I don't really want or need a smart phone or iPhone or anything like that. If I needed to kill five minutes, I would just read a book, I don't need to browse a tiny internet. I like you internet, but I see you all day at work & sometimes at home, you know? I don't like you an extra fifty bucks a month. So I think I'll get a Magnet. Keyboard, but no state of the art functions. Anyhow; after work Jenny & I met at No Idea to have giant tumblers of liquor. Nice to have a drink with her! Though there went my hopes of going to the gym. We hopped a train & dinner was at Aperitivo, which I've been going to a lot lately. Went to lunch with Danielle there the other day, even! This time Jenny & I got mussels (sandy) & pasta-- her the three-mushroom, which was cool looking & good, & me the beet gnocchi again-- also cool looking & good. Afterwords she got a chocolate pyramid, & I got a glass of digestif-- Cynar. Verdict: too sweet. Dinner conversation was how individuals who are important to us but estranged-- exes & their ilk-- can be total morons. & those who aren't-- like, I've been bonding with Theresa pretty fiercely lately. Getting home was a bit tricky; I realized I had forgotten my credit card & had to go back to the restaurant to pick it up. Then we watched Angel & got drunk-- the episode where they steal his soul! I like that episode a bunch.

I end the weak!

2009-06-22T14:17:58Z

My stomach is still upset from this weekend. My next month is basically booked back-to-back & solid with plays & parties. To which I've been told to shut up, because apparently having to go to nice social gatherings-- having that as your problem-- is a nice trouble to have. Well anyhow, my guts are in knots from living off beer & champagne & vodka only. The only vitamins or nutrients I had all week! A liquor fast. & no gym; that is right, I didn't go to the gym once. Lazy. Lazzzzy!

Freyja's day was a long day of Dungeons & Dragons. Summer hours at work seem to fit together with fordmadoxfraud's schedule & skycornerless & toughlad's day off, which means afternoon blitz of adventure! David was running-- part one was my tiefling warlock, James' human bard & Emily's changeling ranger versus some jumping spiders ("Oh I forgot to mention; they are the size of horses") & a web golem. The web golem is awesome-- awesome-- & inside of it was a phylactery. Which my warlock insisted on hanging on to. Then there was some fast-talking a bunch of kobolds ("No! Don't give him...the Cosmic Silver Piece!") which led to us avoiding the fight & getting a bunch of gryphons or hyppogryphs or one of the two. Skyhorse & Dirtybird, we named them. Lovely. Then on to the town & meeting up with elladorian's eladrin wizard & Erica's vampire shifter druid; then us talking to some stupid scribe & getting tricked by some half-elf trickster! Which should have resulted in us getting ambushed by something like thirty kobolds & goblins-- but we are sneakier than any sneak! Instead thanks to Erica & Emily's character's ability to shapeshift, the goblin leader got shived & then the goblins & kobolds tricked into fighting each other-- problem averted! There was like, evil water? Which we tried to guard, only to later find out there was a second site. Drat. Things finished up with a huge brawl against zombies, skeletons, a four-armed skeleton, & that treacherous half-elf. Once OPERA & Gren (the bard) closed the circle that was animating the dead, it was all clean-up. Loot? +2 dwarven chainmail-- I've been full of greed for new armor. & I'm totally taking mounted combat next left.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa

On Saturn's day, there was some mix-up with David maybe wanting to brunch & gym, but that didn't happen-- between that & the rain I ended up electing to blow off working out & watch cartoons. I watched the Fullmetal Alchemist movie, which was...weird. I'd say watch it if you car about the cartoon but be aware that it is...weird. Like-- the doppelganger of Fuhrer King Bradley is...Fritz Lang? & it ends with Hitler being arrested-- which I thought might be the prevention of WWII but I think is also maybe just him going to write Mein Kampf. Anyhow, other than all the Fritz Lang montages, the best parts were super-scary Gluttony & Ray Mustang blowing everything up. I kept calling James at work to give him the blow-by-blow, since nobody else cares about FMA, right? Basically, I think it worked on a lot of levels to explore the rise of the Nazis in the same sort of way that a lot of Japanese animation deals with the rise of Japanese nationalism. With alchemists blowing stuff up along the way.

Then I met up with Jenny-love at work to go to Queens! Brian (of Brian & Jocelyn) was having a birthday celebration that started out at the new beer garden in Astoria. During which, it poured rain. Everyone in Metropolis is talking non-stop about the rain with the fervor usually reserved for talking about real estate. Seriously though, this weather is effing ridiculous; it hasn't stopped raining in...it just hasn't stopped raining, okay? So we huddled under an umbrella drinking liters of beer, getting wet & drunk all at once. Here is the verdict on the beer garden: what the hell? I don't get it. It is basically...a big backyard? It wasn't all-you-can-drink; it was the opposite. It was thirteen bucks for a liter of beer & eight dollars for a hamburger. That isn't a deal! I could just go to a bar & sit on the patio. I'm not complaining-- I had fun! Rather, rendering judgment. Thumbs down! Gladiator kills beer garden! Katie & Toy were there, & now since I've met them like, enough times, I decided they have moved into acquaintance-ville. There were other folks to enjoy talking to-- J. Matthew was pretty funny, & the gentleman who writes headlines for the New York Post (who took the above picture of me & Jocelyn) had a Edgar Rice book in his bag. Also ended up going crazy about how he bought Budweiser & someone told him it was low class.

That was after we left the beer garden, which we did with no-small Keystone Coppering. We followed people to clown cars, lost people, rejoined them, stayed behind, got lost, got found, took a train, all kinds of such. Then to the liquor store where everyone bought a bottle of Prosecco. I mean, there was a lot of it! Then to Brian & Jocelyn's apartment, which is a Gene Wolfe locale; a hallway at the end of which are infinite bedrooms. Seriously, there were...lets say at least twelve, & every time you'd open or close the door, there would be a different bedroom behind it! Which is good, because there were hundreds of people in attendance. I ruined my sobriety with cunning & stick-to-it-ness, & a good time was had. Songs were sung! Jokes were laughed at! Then the hellish train ride home; from Queens! It wasn't too bad, not really. There was a chance of going to Victoria's birthday then, but I am an old fuddy duddy, man! I had to crawl into bed.

Sunday was Jenny & me trying to hang out with each other. Played some MarioKart (I'm now gold on everything except the last two levels of 150cc Mirror) & then watched a lot of Angel. Ate diner food (Eggs, spinach, potatos, sauce) & some of the Tony Awards, since Tony is in it & NPH was hosting. Lunch was burritos, & then off off off to play practice. Things are pulling tighter together; having Greg tell me what things are & aren't working for my character is assuaging some of my nervousness. Then afterward, Maggie & I went to Macri Park for more drinks. The downside? the terrifying bathrooms aren't terrifying anymore; they have just boring regular sinks now. The upside? There was free barbecue! Yeah, some burgers & hot dogs & corn! So Maggie & I hung out talking about work & about roleplaying, & then we came home; my timing meeting up with Jenny's, too, coming home from Carla's. Now here I am working, waiting for the replies to my emails.

Tick-tock & Nick Chopper. (59)

2009-06-20T16:31:47Z

Mainspring by Jay Lake.

H. erectus &:
the equator dividing
the world a brass cog.

The first thing that one me over were the play on words. Okay-- this book sort of takes the tactic "what if the world was intelligently designed?" to the extreme. The Earth orbits the Sun on a giant track, visible in the night sky, & the equator is a wall, topped with 100 mile high brass teeth, which fit into the grooves of the track as it spins through the heavens. The moon is on a similar track, the inside of the Earth is a giant set of nestled spinning balls, so on. Now-- theologians in the Northern World argue over Divinity-- God made the cogs! or other options like-- "all we can say is something made the world." Well anyway, I mentioned the wordsmithing: the horofixion of Christ? See, because the Romans crushed Brass Christ in giant gears & clockwork. What, awesome. The only issue I might take with the book is a fairly big one-- making the Southern Earth a weird jungle savage land filled with ape men & such ilk. Uh, there are lots of human beings in the real world below the south of the equator, & sort of sweeping them aside & making the North full of people & the south full of proto-Edenic Homo erectus & odder things is troublesome, to say the least. I hope later books (there are two more, so far) rectify this-- I mean, there were not-white people who were real, not stereotyped characters, so I think Lake isn't unaware of the difficulties of having white, imperialist powers as the star of your book. A little un-abandoned Incan civilization or whatever would go a long way with me. Oh & warning: lots of Homo on Homo sex-- by which I mean interspecies, intra genus. Or at least I read the Correct People as Homo erectus more than ape-people, but then, that is how I roll.

Oubliette teaser-- the Shining War.

2009-06-19T14:34:19Z

My Oubliette campaign has been on hiatus for some time, & it has been making me sad! Further more, I painted myself into a corner-- brewing a War-- which my players weren't interested in. They disengaged, I fear, despite their lip service. So, rather than actually have a war, I'm going to "fast forward" past many events of the war, leaving them in media res, which will ironically free them from narrative constraints. Usually you drop people in the middle of things to sweep them up with the plot, but by making the plot the status quo, it will free them up to go scurrying around on missions & get on with the business of being player characters. So this week I've been writing them emails to summarize the war between Malake & the Shining Horde, & they've been very responsive. In-character letters, written vignettes, stuff like that. I've collected here only the bits I sent to all of them.

Lorelai, Damocles, & Mathio ride past the flames set around the City of Malake, which burn the verdant jungle & pampas grass, blazing until they hit one of the many cliffs & chasms set about the city, or the river. Lorelai, ever practical, wets silk cloths to cover your faces with to filter the smoke, & Damocles takes the idea one step further, soaking the pack blankets of the horses in the river to beat off sparks or ash that might land on the
carriage or spook the horses. The driver steers clear of any trouble, as well as he can, taking back roads traveled by milkmen & moving along cliff-edges where the scree & rock can't burn. Eventually the driver brings you to a place where refugees are disembarking by boat, fleeing the city. Without too much difficulty you convince one of the Doge's Elite, a Sea-Wolf, to smuggle you into the city on his return trip, & he's soon glad for Lorelai's boatsmanship, as she steers from the rear, regal in her new stole, & golden collar, with a trident across her knees. The nearer you get, the more you see pieces of paper clogging the canal-- you fish some out to confirm your suspicions that yes, they are further propaganda, of all stripes.

The City of Malake comes up on you, or you come up upon it-- both & neither, for the river that you move on also moves you, & moves through the Black Glass of the City of Mirrors. You press through the cliffs cut into the earth & due to a trick of perspective they seem to part, as a curtain, the red of the stone giving way to the vista of the ink dark Themes. At first you fear the worst, for the metropolis flickers with hungry glints of orange & flame, red & fire, but you realize swiftly that the mirrors that bend the light to keep the city illuminated are magnifying the situation. The City stands!

But not unmarked. Most of the more temporary structures interlinking the Themes have been destroyed by the gouts of fire the Ornithopters of the Shining Horde somehow spat. Rope briges & wooden catwalks were burned away, & much of the plaster, crennelation, & masonry on the faces of the Black Glass are damaged beyond any probably repar. Still, the Doge has used the cities resources cleverly & to full advantage; on the city's canals there are pump boats spraying water at lingering fires, & bucket brigades organized by the themes sharifs & wardens. You are challenged before being able to enter the city-- there is are nets of chain strung across the entry point, & heavy makeshift "barricade boats" ready to be pushed in the way-- & above you rocks wait to topple. Clever- no one ever said Fleance wasn't. Your boatsman knows the proper call words & codes, & when word gets out the the famous diplomats Lorelai & Damocles are returned, two kayaks come with you in escort. You demure speaking to the Doge immediately-- you want to check in at home.

Outside of the door to the Bulb, many of Lorelai's friends & proteges, the girls of Dragonfly, wait. They are shellshocked & spooked by the events of the past few days, but there are women among them with a clear head & steady presence; Viola parts with you, giving Lorelai a lingering kiss on the corner of her lips. Some of the Drakes, the Elites of the theme, have been attempting to take charge, running water here & there, but the Theme escaped the brunt of the blaze. Lupus & Balthazar have not, however, eturned. When Lorelai & Damocles arrive, you can feel morale surge, & start to return, & when news of Lorelai's Accolade to Baronetta gets out, you can almost hear it physically leeing through the cracks of the theme on the rumor mill, spead on wings of gossip.

Balthazar & Lupus join you at the Theme in good time; both of them seem both more & less. More & less what exactly, you couldn't say. Balthazar is clearly caught on the cusp of one of his depressions, but seems to have avoided falling entirely into it, while Lupus seems distracted, unfocused &...something about his face just isn't right. Balthazar's Alien Hand seems if anything more animated in the wake of whatever happened to him, as if making up for the crestfallen demeanor of the rest of his body-- his slumped shoulders, his crooked brow. Damocles can feel a sort of humming, throbbing energy passing between the two of them; a web in which his blood brother & the apprentice have ensnared each other. Balthazar proudly, if bitterly, assures you that Adelard is dead-- & dead for good. He speaks of a behemoth that lumbers between the beams of the sun, & of names you've heard before, but disjointedly, distractedly, defeatedly; it is difficult to pin down any specifics other than that the warlock's heart has been destroyed.

A few days pass-- tense days, with the occasional strifing from the sky-ships, blowing brimstone & napalm upon the city, keeping everyone in a seige mentality. Blitzed. Nights of sounds; of music instruments without known analog making strange sounds in the distance, of arms of fire encircling hills like serpents. & so when the time is right-- when the newly inspired Aristo, Octavia Malleus (dark of hair) has made her way through the barricades about the city, when Wilhemina Incarnadine (hair pompadoured) has a chance to make herself proper, when Fleance the Younger can spare himself from the frantic task of preparing for war-- you meet, to discuss the treaty between the nobility & the democracy of the City of Malake. When you meet at the Sea-Wolf theme, the first thing that strikes you is that Fleance has lost an eye. "Nothing of note. An assassin-- one of the Scars. Makes me look distinguished."

& Together, the Six of you-- Fleance, Octavia (who bears the sigil of the Dux to press with his signature), Lorelai, Wilhemina, Damocles & Balthazar-- create the Aurelia Carta, the Golden Charter. The debate spans some time, as each side presents various arguments & ridiculous demands, but these are poo-pooed by the more level headed members of the party, & all of you realize the pressures the city is under. Each day you see the Doge appraised of reports from the field-- you get the impression that he has sent some of his best men into the breach in advance of open hostilities-- in fact, the very supporters he normally keeps close to keep his hold on the city. He has gambled & gone for broke in support of Malake-- if it falls, all he has will be ruin.

The Aurelia Carta! When finally agreed upon, herein lies the consequences:

I. That all mortgaged Themes, all Themes with forfeit leases, all Themes owned or controlled by the Doge or his supporters, all Themes in lien or of doubtful provenance, in essence all Themes not unilaterally held & controlled be summarily SOLD to the Dux (who in turn sells them to the Baronis). This influx of wealth to the city essentially turns the warchest of Malake from a pauper's purse to a king's ransom-- quite literally. It ties the fate of the Aristos to the City, while establishing their power & control as landlords-- in effect, the Aristos BUY their rank, their value, their position, by investing in economy.

II. The various rights & duties of the nobility; that a Just Aristo be granted Privilige & that an Injust Aristo be denied it.

III. The Doge is in no uncertain terms to remain an elected freeman. The same process of election-- of councils who appoint councils who appoint councils ad naseum-- is kept, with one small change-- the INITIAL selection of electors is done by the nobility. Octavia lobbied long & hard for the final ratification of the position by the nobles but Fleance refused. Also, the Dux has a vote in each ratification-- a single vote.

IV. The Doge is equal in rank to the Dux. The Doge is appointed For Life. Additionally, the Doge will NOT be granted titles if he retires, nor will his children be granted inherited titles; Fleance lobbied for this but Octavia (wisely) pointed out the possible conflict of opinion.

V. The Statement of Nobility & of the Election of the Doge as DIVINE MANDATE.

Before you can fly truce to the Synod & make your parlay to them in hopes of drawing them into your war, the first real battles with the Shining Horde begin. Their warriors are hooded, hidden from you with tall pointed hats, or in heavy robes. They carry scourges to whip with (themselves & others), chopping swords to cut with. Some fire what Balthazar tells you are a kind of rocket-- things halfway between firework & missile, that whistle then explode. The melee is confusing, chaotic. They pant & scream in odd, inhuman tongues-- though Lorelai knows it. The Horde fights in what seems like a wild crush, but with Lorelai's help you translate some of their maneuvers-- moving in circles across the battlefield to keep soldiers fresh & spoiling for a fight at the front & letting the wounded retreat, sweeping in Crane shapes across the pampas, with a column leading at the front, or strafing across like a Serpent.

You discover under their hoods they are men the same as any other. Damocles' Sword Reborn drinks deep, feeding the earth red-- the Horde seems to wear much white, & it turns crimson under his ministrations. Balthazar's gun speaks to answer the question the sword begs: Bang, bang, bang! You see dots, pips on the white of the soldiers. You see them hope for death. Steel rings on their fingers. Some wear pocketwatches, chain fobs an obvious mark of rank. You fight, & where you fight you win. Mathio & the Drakes break the advancing column of a Crane & the wings scatter, picked off by the other Elites. Lupus rides with his brothers under the Standard of the House Crucious; they raid supply lines, topple hills, make daring, almost foolish trysts to break whatever hold they take on the cliffs surrounding Malake.

But you are moving backward. The line is advancing, & you cannot be everywhere. The Wardens of Moldeworp Theme & their Sheriff fall & a chain of pueblos are occupied. The battle rages, the Horde relentless, for....days? Time is always on their favor; cursed time ticks for them! The sun stays put for their seiges-- & you know it is meant to set. The dusk does not come until they have finished their night-time advance, & you loose the train of them. Their supplies are early, your supplies are late. You hunker down & dig in when the ornithopters come & wait...& wait...& wait...as they spray napalm & fire down, charring crops that should have come to harvest, except they just would not turn. They fight with fire, earnest fire of ideology.

Ultimately, you salle forth to meet them before they can reach the suburbs & holdings in the east, before the can fortify a line as them come down from the hills & mountains-- but you fail. You make them pay to take their position, but they dig in. They have encroached upon the land of Malake. They buzz like termites around the hills, quarrying, mining, stripping trees of the jungle, digging vast earthworks for mysterious reasons.

Smuggling yourselves & the other ambassadors to the Synod forces is no easy task. The roving bands of the Shining Horde are always about, moving in secret, but you are no strangers to stealth & guile yourself. You travel with newly enfranchised nobles & representatives of the Doge, but everyone is aware that this mission is able to happen as your sufferance-- & that you are to credit with the mist falling from the Dux's eyes with the death of the unbeatable Adelard. You sneak under cover of darkness, & yes, even now temporal distortion works against you, dawn chiming earlier than you'd hoped, forcing you to cut your travels short & do it in two parts. While the day passes you hide in a muddy, smeared foxhole-- a reminder of strange times in the goblin battlefields. The ambassadors are not happy to be so degraded, belly down in muck, but a stern word from Damocles, a kind word from Lorelai, & a strange word from Balthazar silence them.

You are eventually led to the leaders of the Synod Expeditionary Force; passing through ranks of hussars & musketeers. Isambard of the Theopsophic Standers sept is the head; a small man, almost a dwarf. He wore an eyepatch before, & now he does not-- you see both of his eyes shot though with cataracts. He stares near you when you speak, almost through you, but never again can he look at you. Andromache of the Dowsing Square sept is with him, with the two long carbines strapped to her legs in custom holsters; you were unclear of her rank in all this but now you realize she's a near equal with Isambard. You meet in tents with raised wooden floors, held up by cunning ropes & poles.

The "negotiations" go well. The other abassadors give the proper speeches & introductions & do much of the talking. You recognize that you are here with a deceptively simple purpose, twofold. On one hand, you must assert the claim of the Aristos to Divine Mandate, & their stake in the governance of the city of Malake. This is hard, considering the open secret that the Synod wants to use the opportunity of Malake's vulnerablity to de facto take it over. Still-- the Divine Mandate is true in both Fact & Spirit of the law; you have no hidden agenda on that matter, & eventually Isambard & Andromache accede, but only after days of tedious court room drama-- the Barristers & Soliciters of Malake are legal experts & with Wilhemina & Balthazar's theological aid, the force acknowledgement.

Then comes the second, more difficult part: seeking succour. For a moment, it seems touch & go-- the Synod has the opportunity to leave: when the accept the Mandate of the Aristos, they make some noise about departing. Well, with the aid of the Divine, the will of Lux, Malake should be fine. Well, if the nobles are truly claiming stake in the leadership of the city, then they should be able to defend it themselves. So forth. Damocles recognizes that this isn't bluster; this isn't bluff; Lorelai is there however, with brave words & well reasoned pleas, to change their vinegar bitterness into sweet wine. Malake must make concessions to the Synod-- which is when the real gritty negotitions take place.

The end result is the first amendment to the Aurelia Cara-- The Aurelia Bulla, the Golden Bull, for it is sealed with the token (or "bulla"-- the translation to Bull is a pun, but the accurate & widely used one) & chop of the Pontiff. Aurelia Bulla outlines the rights of the Church in Malake; not the Synod, the Church-- Damocles advocates for the seperation, & no one seems to mind, seeing no difference between the two. You & the other ambassadors offer, in effect, a stock in the potential of Malake-- if the Shining Horde can be defeated, the Church has every reason to, in the future, remain an ally of the City & to respect its sovereignity, & allow it to make money by being a free society & melting pot, as it was before all these Troubles began. Some important priviliges granted in the Bull are:

I. The creation of a Sovereign See in Malake-- a sort of miniature city-within-the-city outside of the Doge & Dux's authority, under the Church's. Part & parcel of this is the right of the Church to their own trials-- giving ordained clergy a sort of diplomatic immunity.

II. A single vote in each of the elections for the Doge, mirroring the Dux's right-- to be administered by the Hierophant of the Soverign See.

III. The "voluntary" tithe of 10% of annual earnings made by the Aristos & Doge to the Church-- you recognize that Isambard may be pious, in his way, but he is a politician of the Old School-- without financial cause, he's unlikely to accede in the City's favor.

IV. Rendering various sales & trades free of tax-- in specific, sacraficial animals, incense, purchases of the Church-- in effect, creating the Church as a tax-exempt not-for-profit...even if it takes in money.

When the Shining Horde cross the line-- it is devastating. Their strike forces-- Lorelai says the name translates as "Cadre" or "Cadre of the Juggernaut" are peers with a swordsman of Damocles caliber. Damocles can recognize the signs of an austere lifestyle spent in training-- the proverbial children raised by monks to be fighters. & what fighters they are! You would have to give them a gruding respect if it weren't their knives in your friend's throats, their feet crushing your comrade's windpipes. They whirl & dervish & fight with all their limbs-- like they have more fists & feet & punches & blades than anyone has any right to. They vault across embankments, barrel through formations, striking at Elite, at Officers, at Aristos. They are cutting down the leadership of the army; both Malake & Synod.

The Synod has brought its resources to bear on the warfront. They have hussars-- heavy calvary with curved sabers & "wings" fluttering from their back. They have musketeers, who provide much needed distance killing. They have goblin sappers, who undermine the fortifications of the Horde, who act as auxilleries to the mustkeers. They have vellites, lightly armored infantry, moving quickly across the field to back up the City's infantry.

In the brief moments of peace, Mathio, Salazar, Calibain, Tibault, & some of the other Drakes approach Balthazar. "We've got these." Mathio says, opening a chest full of pistols, of Synod stamp. "We didn't loot them. Or-- we did, but the commanding officer--- it was a massacre. We promised him we'd give his men vengence. Balthazar-- Damocles can't teach us everything. He has one hand. We all," he gestures about him, "have two. We can learn his sword style-- we are learning it, but we're wasting our options. So I want you to teach us how to shoot. We've got a free hand. Put a pistol in it." & so he does.

But the Cadre keep coming-- they are by no means unkillable, but aren't for one-on-one fighting, not if you can help it by Lux. Three of them tag team a marooned unit of Rhino Warriors, cut off by a Crane manuver, & hack them to pieces with kris knives. Mathio & Damocles, Lupus & Damocles, Damocles with a partner take them down one at a time, carefully-- but they pay the penalty; in a clash, Balthazar firing supression, tomahawk whirling, in the mix, but too slow-- two Cadre slip out from around a bunker, & one over the top-- three of them for the five of you, & you win but they are knives that cut as though fresh from the furnace, they are hands in points stabbing at eyes, kicks to knees-- bones are broken, cuts go deep. None of the three escape-- you all see to that, doing the grim work of killing a retreating woman as she tries to acrobat her way clear-- but you are hurt, & leave the field after a week of hard campaigning.

Lorelai is not untouched by the trouble & violence-- far from it. There are...forays into the City. Something between spies & terrorists, assassins & propaganda fanatics. Men-- almost universally men-- who come in by the waterways. Singly, one at a time. Many are caught in the nets, the pillars, the bars, by patrols. But some few sneak through. Whether cunningly disguised as birds, or caked in mud, crawling across the bottom of the river, somehow these madmen, these Fanatics, get in. Just a trickle, but enough to raise the level of stress, of havok. They commit acts of random violence, random graphitti, scrawling logos, attacking women, upsetting boats, setting fires. & when caught, screaming rote memorized phrases in the vulgate-- "We are watching!" "Hope for you yet!" "Better!" "Sin is the enemy!"

They come after you. You know it-- you know they footpad through the city to the Dragonfly. The Theme has been largely untouched, & you know they hate it. Some intellegence has come to them, somehow-- they know you are the architect of their misfortunes. They know Lorelai has bridged the gap between the Nobles & the City-- they hate you for it. They know you were instrumental in adding the Synod to Malake's allies. They hate you for it.

But Lorelai is not defenseless. & will not be terrorized. They come & they die on her trident. The wind blows her hair about, the rain falls when she is angry. It is the season of storms, & Lorelai is amidst them. She is at the center of a group of Drakes who would die to protect her & she still confronts them; for they come. She is boat-crafty; she poles in gondolas, seeking out these insurgents, spotting them for crossbowmen, harpoonists. Day & night, when the incursions are at their most intense, when bodies surface from those killed trying to enter every hour of the watch but still some slip through. But not one makes it into her House. One comes close enough to scrawl with a jagged pick in the marble face of the entrance-- carving a crooked, simple skull-- & picks the lock on the doorface-- opens it, spooking one of the younger girls, who cries out & drops a crystal decanter full of alcohol she was taking to the injured for antiseptic. But there he stayed, at the door-- Lorelai, returning from her boating, looking for spies, head bruised, skull cracked from a nasty upset, her boat capsized & her head hit by the gunwale, finds him first. Lorelai, cut about the ankles & calves by Fanatics hiding under the boat, spears him to the door.

He wriggles for too long.

The Shining Horde is more than a Military force. Much as a modern, civilized army often has camp followers, there are those who have come with the Horde through the Gap-- but to a much greater extent. Streaming through the pass through the mountains come what you would expect to be civilians-- supply lines, families, craftmen. They are not, however, civilians, not in the traditional sense at least; the crowds of people will gather at the fringes of each of the major battles, almost like spectators at a sporting event. Then-- if things seem to be turning against the Horde at a crux point of the battle, almost as if they were possessed of one mind, the watched with rise up & riot into the battle-- old women with farm impliments, children with hammers & kitchen knives. Even worse, you'll sometimes find that children are taken into battle-- as the months go by you find among the bodies of you fallen foes youths & younger-- true children, dressed in the hoods & uniforms of the Horde. Still, Malake (nobles & otherwise) & the Synod seem to be holding the forces of the Horde at bay during the rainy season.

After a few months of stalemate, the mud & trenches bloody between the City & the Horde, the Ornithopters begin to "Colour Bomb" Malake. The name "Colour Bomb" spontaneously arises among the people of the City, but the veterens in the Synod who have touseled with the Horde before tell you that is was the name they gave it to-- it accurate describes what happens. The Horde's buzzing air vessels begin dumping a sea of Alchemical powders on the City: potions of dust made from spices & alchemical reagents. Cinnamon, ground pepper both heavy in the mix, lending a small of spices, irritating the membranes, making eyes water, throats choke, noses hemmorage snot & blood. Then too in the mix are strange drugs; euphorics, hallucinagenics, barbituates. A cocktail aimed to set the people into misery, confusion, & horror. The first few days of colour bombing are a nightmare-- Balthazar, Damocles, the cities lumieres, the mechaniks & machinists of the City desperately work the ancient mechanisms of Malake's black glass depths to filter the air; there is some success with sealing the Themes entirely, & moving those in less protected (to airborn poisons) places into those with better filtration; Lorelai helps organize those people she can reach through word of mouth & takes them through the underground tunnels of the City thought routes Balthazar makes safe through his always on-going talks with the goblins-- he is away, down, deep in the depths more & more often.

Before you all, on the big walnut table from Lorelai's dining room (now dragged to the center of the room) are repurposed chess pieces. White pawns for the Shining Horde, the knights & bishops the Cadre, the Rooks to stand for the traitorous Scars, & then behind them-- the Queen & King. The ornithopters-- or where you guess them to be. You've had the Drakes observing them, coming & going, & Balthazar, when asked, lazily, distractedly, pointed to a winestain on the table cloth. "Here," he says-- which possibly fits with your intel. So you put them there.

Surrounding the table is Damocles, Lorelai, Balthazar, Lupus (you finally realize what is wrong with his face: there is no colour to his eyes), Mathio (with a fat black pistol with a wooden grip at his waist across from his curved sword). "I am sick," says Damocles, "of being on the defensive." He is preaching to the choir.

"We've been stuck like this for three months." say Lore. "We've called it a stalemate, but even with the goods we smuggle downt the river, or through the Synod, we're being squeezed."

"More so with these air raids; fire," Mathio.
"Poison." Lupus.
"Leaflets." Mathio.
"Drugs." Lupus.

"Dreams are grey." Balthazar, nodding.

You plan the assault. The ornithopters, or so you believe, are hidden behind a force of Scars, amidst the semi-civilians. They seem, by their positioning, woefully under defended, but then, they can always leave, if trouble comes their way. & you aren't so naive as to think there aren't some secret, ultra elite guardians. Still. A guerilla assault, such as Balthazar's bandits...er, soldiers...have been carrying out could work. If the right team could do the job. Which of course-- will have to be you. Even Lorelai will go; she speaks the language & she can take them part of the way past the Horde, by boat, up the "secret canal" near the Malleus manor.

Disembarking from the low slung gondola (disguised as a log) you sneak & fight your way through the Scars without difficulty; these are old hat to you, gladiators & escaped slaves. You slink through without much incident, & those who present a chance of incident-- the guard who spots you, the former rich-kid girl who blunders into you on her way to take a squat-- are silenced. Throats cut before they can say anything, cry out & alert the others to your presence. Balthazar gets cuffed in his head for the effort, Damocles kicked in the shins, Lorelai's Rood-made scale gets a long scratch into the leather from a dirk, but you are a whisper moving through the Scars.

All of you move with cunning & stealth, doing sweeps looking for a suitable landing spot for the ornithopter, when you spot it-- in a bowl of land, excavated into the earth & then hard covered with chalk, under a canopy of what looks to be sewn together leaves. Just one, unfortunately; the other must be berthed somewhere else, more is the pity. It looks even more like a bug when it is at rest, tucked up with lines leading to it-- fuel, perhaps, or lubrication or who knows what.

You are in the fight before you know what is happening. Damocles' sword flashes out, ghostly white under the stars, & there is the sound of it's rippled blade against glass again & again-- parry, parry, parry! Frantic. Balthazar's gun is in one hand, his axe-that-is-a-pipe in the other. Lorelai's weapon is braced, as she shakes herself into attention, the fangs of the trident hungry, almost humming, smelling like oozone. Mathio is just a fraction behind Damocles & Balthazar, trying to position himself to flank Damocles as they have done with the Cadre. Lupus draws his sword & draws back, almost rearing like a serpent, appraising.

What is it?! A girl fashioned of ceramic & glass, iron & brass. It fights like the Cadre, but faster, insanely fast, switching from opponent to opponent, silent as you could hope for. Like it was spoiling for a fight & doesn't want to ruin it with reinforcements. Impossibly strong-- now it picks up Mathio & hurls him into Lorelai, knocking them both down, the sides of her trident scraping a gash in his arm. Swords slide off its curves, but Damocles is as always aiming for weakpoints, joints, under plates & panels. The only sound is your grunts, the clash of arms, & a slow sound (familiar to Balthazar) of gears grinding. Hands like pincers grasp for Balthazar & they blur; they turn to after images. Balthazar is here, or possible not, possibly there, or maybe not; all these different places almost but not quite at once, but the doll-like figure is there with him.

Lorelai is up before Mathio, striking for the clockwork thing's back while it is occupied in a stationary race with Balthazar. She see's the filagree & craftmanship, the artistry & ornamentation built into the creature's shell, & the blade's of the trident (given to her by the red haired twin) tear at the tulle of the doll's skirt, the points jab in a joint articulating the back to the waist & with leverage she..

...flips it & the thing, rubber ligaments inside it strainging, comes at her, claw-made hands coming to pluck out her eyes, & then Damocles is interposed, one of the automatic monster's hands glancing off his pauldron, the other coming in, breaking a collar bone. Lupus strikes at the thing while it is on Damocles-- you realize it has kicked its feet up onto his chest like a cockroach, perched atop Damocles' body-- the young noble hits it with the hilt of his sword, knocking an arm loose, the other without purchase on Damocles the thing spirals, light as a puff of dandilion seeds in the wind, clattering to the ground but up already again...

...but back up & springing for Damocles again, sprinting across the amber pampas (grey in the dark). Damocles brings up his sword & winces but Lorelai is there before him, working with the reach of her pole arm, the weapon reversed, the bracing spike of the trident smashing into the battle-doll's face, making a spider-web of cracks across it's cheek, as Balthazar is on it now, three barrels of his star-bourne pistol jammed into it's back & roaring! BANG! BANG! BANG! The element of surprised shattered but then-- what good is succesfully sneaking to your death? Lupus grabs Mathio-- physically restrains him, tears him away from the life or death brawl. "We have to set the charges! Come on, you idiot!"

...the dense, solid cast feet of the wind-up doll-thing whip out at Lorelai, breaking ribs, but the arm that swings at Damocles goes awry, off kilter. The warmachine rolls over on its back to try to smash Balthazar in the ground-- successfully-- & Damocles brings the point of the Sword Reborn down (gritting his teeth, swallowing a mouthful of pain from his shattered clavicle) sheering through its belly, cracking a piece of armor & black lining. Inky oil (iridescent when the light hits it) spills out, & two fistfuls of cogs & toothy wheels. That is the turning point-- the thing still strikes out quick, arm a moray eel darting out of coral, & it is still strong enough to break Balthazar's nose with a headbutt, to stomp on his inseam & crush his foot-- but even injured as you are, you have matched it. There are shouts, as the Scars run for you, but you fight the thing till it's mainspring gives, till it drops like a puppet whose strings are cut.

You are standing around it, triumphant but sore hurt, when you see the Scars running toward you, gladiators, prize fighters, unransomed, faces a mess of scar tissue, weapons torn from the hands of the dead. Behind you, Lupus & Mathio are running to meet you. Damocles lifts his sword in a rough duelist's salute; Lorelai sets her pretty jaw & arches on the balls of her feet, swinging her weapons to the ready. Balthazar looks up distractedly from reloading his weapons, hitching it into the crook of her arm.

& that is the silhoutte framed by the sunburst of the explosion behind you, as the mines prepared by the goblin sappers turn the ornithopter into a bird of fire with plumage of shrapnel. BOOM.

You shouldn't celebrate. The City of Malake is under siege, & the attacks against the troops on the front have only gotten worse, in the wake of your destruction of the ornithopter. Of course, there is the counter argument that you were effective-- the other ornithopter is still present, but the Horde isn't risking it in battle, or on raids-- mostly it stays at the outskirts, doing high altitude reconissance, with the ocasional strafing run in battle-- but no more Colour Bombs, no more attacks on the City. The Doge & the Dux have explicitly ordered you out of combat for the next few weeks, until you heal; Damocles' arm is mangled, Balthazar's foot is broken, & Lorelai's ribs have turned her torso beneath her breasts into one big bruise. In point of fact, you are threatened with house arrest, when Damocles' fervor seems like it might become an obstacle. So you do. Celebrate. In point of fact, Luce & Alexi throw a fete in your honor. Diti is at the battlefield, along with many of the Scars she brought back to the city with her, but Demilion opens its arms to you.

Opens its arms & its legs with all the sadomasichistic extravagance it can spare. All the presence of the Dragonfly girls is requested; the party is full of nobles holidaying from the warfront (most as injured as you, trying to put a good face on it), & civilians caught up in the mad feverpitch of the end of the world. The sky at night is red with the light of five on rushing comets, Malake has been under assault for months on end, the sun doesn't rise & set as it ought to, the river runs red with the blood from battles, & for one night those free to do so fuck & drink & smoke & play. The air is heavy with hashish (imported from the Synod) & opium (imported from the Shining Path), & there are drinks a plenty, of ever colour, in every shape glass you can imagine.

Baronessa Octavia is there, as well-- whom you haven't seen in some time, with her hair in rings, her skin powdered & flanked by ribbons. You are led to understand that she waits in her ancestral home most of the time, the decaying mansion where Lorelai first found her, like a spider in a web. No-- like bait in a spider's web. For, as enemies come to snatch her up, perhaps for ransom, they...don't come out. The Acolytes of the Box hunt the jungle about her home-- & have been eating well. But for all the Demi-lion are there, for all that Octavia is there to, there is no drink more interesting than wine-- no piscine delicacy, no marine delight.

It ain't Iaijitsu it is Iaido. (58)

2009-06-17T19:28:58Z

Afro Samurai Volume I by Takashi Okazaki.

Fire it up! Fire it...
Can you dig it?! Can you dig...
Well, something like that.

So apparently Sam Jackson is the voice of the cartoon. & he should be. & I bet I'll like this more after the second volume. I like mix & match settings-- katanas, matchlock guns, cyborg arms, rocketlaunchers, you know, whatever works. Plus, killer guys with teddy bear heads? This volume though-- well, PW actually sums it up pretty neatly as macho posturing. I like the art-- I like the way his 'fro can dissapear into negative space to draw his face & I like black & white & blood as a colour scheme. I like the Number 1 & Number 2 headbands. What I don't like is-- there are two instances with women in the book. One, the girls the bad guy has tied up & abused. Two, the innocent girl that Afro Samurai throws in front of bullets to give him cover. What? No thanks. Boo. What is up with the "bad bad dude" trope? I thought the trope was "good bad dude." You know, he saves the girl, at least? I mean, if you are going to be brutishly ignorant of genderpolitik? That is a pretty major concern.

Hanging tough!

2009-06-17T19:17:46Z

I've been forever doing nothing so far this week, & I like it. I mean, nada. Sure, I have lunch dates; or sort of anyway. I'm always falling in & out of lunch with Marie or Danielle or Tom or today I hung out with Nick Courage or somebody is always popping up. Then I'm home, for not much more! Jenny has been suffering under the lash of a headache, so I've been unhooked from my evening. Every-other-day gym attendence is still rocking; good. I'm starting to handle that. Otherwise, I've been occupying the holes in my work-day with writing an interlude for my Oubliette game-- they helped create the Aurelia Carta & the first of its amendments, the Aurelia Bulla. Otherwise, my days have become ridiculous Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon-- from everything from "seduction community slang" to...well, I had actual Baader-Meinhof about the actual Baader-Meinhof: one of my co-workers worked on a book about them at OUP before she came here & they just sent her a finished copy. How nuts is that? So yeah, nothing doing. Oh yeah though-- I should review that comic I read. Oh & as soon as the put out rules in the back of a Monster Manual for playing a PC derro, I'm there. & one other thing-- I am officially a fan to the max of HomeStuck, now.

By this sword I rule! (57)

2009-06-15T23:28:49Z

Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett.

The canals of Mars
connected the seas that were
once upon a time.

I've been meaning to pick up one of Paizo's "Planet Stories" for a while. I like Paizo-- they put out consistently good product. I like pulp, especially the "swords & science" version. Put the two together & well! Of course, with pulp it is tough to know what is wheat & what if chaff; with your Howard's & your Lovecrafts & your Burroughs, you can sort of roll the dice & hope history was right to give them props (it was). It took a little more coaxing, but Nicola Griffith wrote the introduction to this one. Oh, & I picked it up for a smile at BEA. So there is that, too. Oh, then also, "author of Empire Strikes Back," too. Stars, they are a'right. So what do I have to say? This is a book on the cusp. There is Moorcock magical swords & protagonists shouting out Demon God's names. Burroughsian man out of place-- in this case not from Earth to Mars so much as from the deserts of the dead, red planet to it's living vibrant past 1,000,000 years ago. The protagonist is of the scoundral stripe, & the girls are of the "proud hellcat" variety. I enjoyed it. I don't know that it was brilliant-- it ain't going to change your life, but then, so what? Sword fights. Slave galleys. & there was a bit where Ywain, the haughty princess of the Evil Empire (tm) is "slender as a boy in her black mail" which I thought was really nice. It worked.

mordicai @ 2009-06-15T09:21:00

2009-06-15T13:22:51Z

Back at work! Dear old Metropolis fetish, dear dear flat, iron icon. After Freya's Day's date the romance continued. Jenny & I went to Ghenet, the new Ethiopian place in Park Slope-- "where angels eat"-- which is I guess owned by the same people as the now defunct Mekerem, which is no longer around, or so the gossip goes? Anyhow, there is an Ethiopian restaurant in my neighborhood, which cheers me to no end; I like it. We went there & smashed a bottle of wine with dinner-- oh, & had some steak tartar appetizer that was pretty good & had green peppers. That is the closest I've come to tolerating green peppers ever. Afterward back home for some more Angel-- we're making steady progress; we've moved into Season Four I think? Then she fell asleep on my lap, then she fell asleep on top of the covers! Which JUST WON'T DO so I worked my wiles on her & woke her up. It might have something to do with the second bottle of wine we hammered out. Or the cocktails. Or the beer.

Sunday was some video games & some chilling out. I grabbed breakfast from a diner (that I used to hate but now like?) & beat Life Force, that old Konami game where you are a space ship inside like a demon-alien-planet? & you have to fight white blood cells & robots & such. I like the Wii's ability to download old console games. Plus some MarioKart, & then off to the gym. This last week has been better at getting me on track-- a reliable every-other-day. Then ran into Adam & Tania picking up lunch supplies-- salad, & then over to Royal Oak for play rehearsal. Things are coming along; I didn't choke on anything, which is fine by me. I can really only be responsible for knowing my own shit, right? Which I do, or I'm getting there. Cocktails at the Centre of the Earth is creeping up, man.

The fire this time. (56)

2009-06-14T15:47:53Z

Fire by Kristin Cashore.

Sparklegirl powers!
Horse of a different colour--
leopards & bugs, too.

I liked this one better than Graceling, which puts me just about opposite Jenny & Marie, who both liked Graceling more-- though Jenny sums it up as thinking Fire is probably the better book, but she prefers Graceling. First off, Cashore gets into the worldbuilding, in a high concept but fluid fashion that I liked better then the "graced." The graced are basically Marvel mutants, each with a unique superpower, right? This book takes place both before the last, & geographically to the far east. Across ridiculous mountains, there is a place where you'll occasionally find...impossibly coloured animals. Green horses. Neon pink hawks. Blue leopards with gold spots. These are called "monsters" & they have an internal ecology-- monster cats prefer monster mice, you know? The main character is Fire, who is a monster human, bright red hair the colour of flame, hence the sobriquet. The only monster human. She, & all the monsters, are painfully beautiful. "Take your breath away & control your mind" pretty. Plus she's got a supernatural empathy about it; desire especially.

The book shares some of the faults Graceling had: some of the girls skirt a little close to martyrdom & self pity at points, though at least Fire doesn't have super fighting powers, making her concerns a little more valid. She's a good stand in for the male gaze-- the first part of the book certainly emphasizes that, & you know? I think she is a good telling of the pitfalls of beauty-- Marie poo-pooed it, "oh, poor girl is too preeeeetty" but you know, there are downsides, especially if you want to be judged for something other than being pretty. The romance is telegraphed & makes you kind of want to pound on everyone's head for not figuring it out, but I guess that is the genre. At least none of the characters have weird emotional non-issues to self-sabotage with. I half expected politics & romance to end up in conflict, but nope. Which is a minor complaint of mine-- there are nobles without there being nobility? Where are the people vying for the king's attention? Seemed weirdly absent. There are two too many unbelievable coincidences-- especially when it comes to parentage. Oh-- Fire's father, the sociopathic monster? His relationship with his daughter, & hers with him, I really liked that. & her relationship with her horses. Anyhow, any minor concerns aside-- those are fodder for conversations. I liked this book.

In which Oubliette doesn't happen for X weeks running.

2009-06-13T17:34:18Z

I'm a little bit bummed that my game ended up canceled at the last minute today. I'll still probably go over to Sam & Tracey's, since I haven't seen them in a coon's age, but no roleplaying. Which is a bummer-- the horse, we are falling off it! I am putting forward the notion that next time we start, we jump a few months or a year-- sort of act like a season has passed, or like we're in the sequel. I have the ultimate future of the storylines already pretty much figured out, & I'd hate to see the game lapse & be forgotten. Anyhow, I've been thinking about Oubliette 3.0 plenty, so even if this campaign does go belly up for whatever reason, I'll be all set with the next iteration...though I hope it doesn't come to that. Oh, & I think I've made my peace with making the Autodidacts (the self-teaching automata, natch) an option that isn't immediately available to PCs...putting it in the "supernatural" category with things like vampires or magic kings or living gods. Which leaves humans, karnaks, alphas, demis, cacogen, & goblins. Huh.

Last night Jenny took me out for a date. It was a half-day, so I came home, played some video games, ate some food, relaxed, went to the gym. She got home in a pretty black poofy dress & we went out to the Kappa Sake House for a date. We go on dates now! Perks of being grown up. We had a few we knew we liked, & I had a really strong one-- the sake equivilent of like, a quad or something. 25% alcohol. To eat we had their mackerel (me: "I don't like mackerel. Oh wait, that is only raw mackerel. I dunno about cooked.") which was good & very salty, as they claimed. We forgot that we'd had their "potato salad" which is basically kind of colcannon-y mashed potatoes. We also had a couple of their sushi rolls, which are no-joke fusion-- there was a shrimp & basil one that was really basil-y, & there was a salmon & siso that was reallly...siso-y. I don't know that I've ever had siso before. We chuckled our way across the block home, watched some television & some Angel & then tumbled into bed to play footsie.

Old Mister Radio-head. Has a radio for a head.

2009-06-12T14:59:21Z

Decided rather spur of the moment to go out with some folks after work. I waffled for a bit but I like my co-workers & Joceyln was coming & well...I felt like it! We were going to walk down to Kat's, but the rain kicked up, & so we took the train two stops. I hate traveling meager distances like that, but yeesh, it has been Thor & Odining out there, Zeus & Tiamat bleeding everywere. The evening was tame; got decidedly unsober & cracked each other up with anecdotes & turns of phrase. As you might. We split up early; going out with co-workers is funny like that. Normally, I have to leave parties early-- sort of duck in, duck out, since I have to go to work early the next day or have a wife waiting at home or whatever. Which is where the funny comes in-- my collegues have the same work to get to early the next day, so the evening tends to end in unison; I don't duck out early so much as the event wraps up without further ado. When I got home Jenny had no interest in television or in me, sadly. I didn't feel like video games, so I just ate too too much (a burrito & granola & yogurt!) & went to bed early, at nine-thirty. Oh, lets not forget lunch yesterday-- I met Jenny & Danielle outside the Flatiron & we went to get all you can eat Indian food. Seriously though, the little dessert guy-- I like that stuff. Today is an early day at work-- I'm going to go home, relax, work on my game for tomorrow, & go to the gym. Maybe Jenny will join me, but frankly I think it would be smarter if she went to Anti-prom.

holistic manipulative multi-modal musical memetic. (55)

2009-06-12T13:55:42Z

Savage Girls & Wild Boys by Michael Newton.

Fey, without language,
raised in basements, & forests
Feral, pre-modern.

Rather than a discussion about feral children, which is what I thought I was getting into (& wanted) this is more a history of a few cases. In fact, more a series of essays on the various investigators of the wild children. I wasn't a big fan-- dry without being academic, the book is studiously footnoted, but the annotations are largely sources for quotes. Quotations & citations pepper the book, but they lead back to antique notes & musing rather than to scholarly or scientific discussion. Besides that, Newton has a tendency to make wildly unsupportable statements without blinking, things like:

"Burnett suffered from the abiding fault of many overthoughtful men: his life too readily turned into abstractions to shelter him from the blunt sufferings of experience." (68)
"This latter text is really a grant application-- the greatest ever written..." (124)
"However, radicalism traditionally flourishes in more liberal regimes." (174)

Along with him ascribing qualities to the paintings & pictures in the insert, & taking them as assumed. The guy in that painting has "cold, untroubled eyes"? If you say so. The pictures in the middle are the most haunting thing in the book-- while there are turns talking about Tarzan & Mowgli, the philosophical ramifications of the wild children that don't really go anywhere, the marrying of picture to case is well chosen, especially the picture of Genie (a girl kept prisoner in her room). I would perhaps be more charitable if I was reading this book for a particular case, or at least with the knowledge that it was more an exploration of the cases themselves than the subject of those cases-- viz, the kids. Still, a very pretty book.