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Sep. 16th, 2008 12:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goldenmeanIt was a white crane. It was a helpless thing. Upon a red stain. With an arrow in its wing. And it called and cried. And it called and cried so...
I'd apologize for not updating, but it's really been a mercy to you, dear readers, so instead, I demand adulation for not inflicting myself upon you. I accept both heartfelt thanks and imbibables efficacious for temporary annihilation, except the latter are really more trouble than they're worth, so I guess heartfelt thanks it will have to be. But I digress.
I really just wanted to take the opportunity to mention that sometimes things are not so bad. Most people seem to know that on some instinctual level, but I really don't seem to. I think it's possible that my concept of the future is broken. When things are black, they will be black forever. They haven't always been black of course, because what's darkness with no concept of light? No, I've got the past sewn up nicely, thank you very much, though mainly in the form of nostalgia, which probably isn't surpassingly healthy, but what can you do? But anyway, what I wanted to say was that at Death Guild tonight there was a moment when they played New Model Army's Vagabonds (We are old, we are young, we are in this together), and it was mercifully uncrowded for dancing, and things were pretty much ok for a while. It's only a four minute song, but beggars can't be choosers.
Two other times that things have been pretty much ok recently, both strangely deal with D&D. I think I came perilously close to passing out from oxygen deprivation due to laughing at my D&D game a couple of weeks ago, which is pleasing. I'm not going to go into details, because I still have enough pride that I refuse to be the Guy Who Wants To Tell You About His D&D campaign. I just can't do it. Some fun things you're just meant to be slightly ashamed of. It's how I roll, and you're going to have to come to some grudging acceptance of it. Maybe I caught some of my mother's long abandoned catholicism.
Anyway, the other moderately awesome D&D moment occurred in Games of Berkeley wherein I was offering sage advice on the overwhelming panacea of dorkery options available to some maybe 12 or so year old girls who were apparently new to the hobby (No, I do not secretly work at Games Of Berkeley, but the employee who was helping them was seeming sort of baffled). After having been duly informed of the differences between third and fourth edition and "just how much do you really need a dungeon masters guide?", and so on and so forth, one girl turned to the other, and proceeded to explain why this was so much fun, offering an example of play that went a little something like "You are traveling down a path. There is a tree. You travel further and look behind you and see the same tree, and you realize that it is actually following you, because it pulls up its roots and dances" at which point she proceeded to dance like a treant. It was one of the most excellent things I have ever seen. She then proceeded to hem and haw and worry about how she would be asking for gift certificates for her birthday and saving allowance to save enough money to buy everything she wanted. In a better world, I would have happily dropped a hundred dollars worth of dorkery into her hands, because, well, she deserved it, and I have an overdeveloped sense of justice, but we don't live in that world, and I just couldn't make an anonymous thirty something stranger presenting a teenage girl with an expensive no strings attached gift not feel spectacularly creepy ("Hey little girl... *deep panting breath*, I've got a first edition Deities and Demigods at home *slobber, leer*, wanna see it?"). I don't like this world very much a lot of the time.
While I'm here, let's have a quick media watch. It's been sort of dead for movies recently, despite it being Fall (speaking of, that's on DVD now, buy it if you missed it in the theaters), which is usually a good time for such things. I saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona with Jenny and Emmie a week or so back, which was definitely worth a watch (confidential to April, totally feeling you on the Javier Bardem thing now), though I'm a little bitter about it because it got me thinking that maybe I'd been missing out on some good stuff by avoiding Woody Allen recently, so I went and purchased Cassandra's Dream, which was at best "fine". Also saw the new movie about The Germs, What We Do Is Secret, which I liked quite a bit. And today I saw the new Coen brothers Burn After Reading, which was only ok. They really haven't had a winner comedy since Oh Brother. Shame. As for reading, it's pretty much just been the new Malazan book, which I blew a load worth of carbon footprint environmental goodwill by importing from England for a three week or so head start, and then reading only intermittently. I am a bad person. I've also been reading a load of Math texts, namely Graph Theory, Functional Analysis, Complex Analysis, and Abstract Algebra, because while I am not the Guy Who Wants To Tell You About His D&D Game, I am the Guy Who Considers Math Texts A Comfort Purchase. Speaking of the Coens, I get this bit from Barton Fink (Spoilers if you haven't seen Barton Fink (Why the hell haven't you seen Barton Fink?)) stuck in my head whenever I think about my new books. Look Upon Me! I'll show you the life of the mind. I will show you the life of the mind! I will show you the life of the mind!!!
And now, sleep.
You write such pretty words, but life's no storybook. Love's an excuse to get hurt... and to hurt.
I'd apologize for not updating, but it's really been a mercy to you, dear readers, so instead, I demand adulation for not inflicting myself upon you. I accept both heartfelt thanks and imbibables efficacious for temporary annihilation, except the latter are really more trouble than they're worth, so I guess heartfelt thanks it will have to be. But I digress.
I really just wanted to take the opportunity to mention that sometimes things are not so bad. Most people seem to know that on some instinctual level, but I really don't seem to. I think it's possible that my concept of the future is broken. When things are black, they will be black forever. They haven't always been black of course, because what's darkness with no concept of light? No, I've got the past sewn up nicely, thank you very much, though mainly in the form of nostalgia, which probably isn't surpassingly healthy, but what can you do? But anyway, what I wanted to say was that at Death Guild tonight there was a moment when they played New Model Army's Vagabonds (We are old, we are young, we are in this together), and it was mercifully uncrowded for dancing, and things were pretty much ok for a while. It's only a four minute song, but beggars can't be choosers.
Two other times that things have been pretty much ok recently, both strangely deal with D&D. I think I came perilously close to passing out from oxygen deprivation due to laughing at my D&D game a couple of weeks ago, which is pleasing. I'm not going to go into details, because I still have enough pride that I refuse to be the Guy Who Wants To Tell You About His D&D campaign. I just can't do it. Some fun things you're just meant to be slightly ashamed of. It's how I roll, and you're going to have to come to some grudging acceptance of it. Maybe I caught some of my mother's long abandoned catholicism.
Anyway, the other moderately awesome D&D moment occurred in Games of Berkeley wherein I was offering sage advice on the overwhelming panacea of dorkery options available to some maybe 12 or so year old girls who were apparently new to the hobby (No, I do not secretly work at Games Of Berkeley, but the employee who was helping them was seeming sort of baffled). After having been duly informed of the differences between third and fourth edition and "just how much do you really need a dungeon masters guide?", and so on and so forth, one girl turned to the other, and proceeded to explain why this was so much fun, offering an example of play that went a little something like "You are traveling down a path. There is a tree. You travel further and look behind you and see the same tree, and you realize that it is actually following you, because it pulls up its roots and dances" at which point she proceeded to dance like a treant. It was one of the most excellent things I have ever seen. She then proceeded to hem and haw and worry about how she would be asking for gift certificates for her birthday and saving allowance to save enough money to buy everything she wanted. In a better world, I would have happily dropped a hundred dollars worth of dorkery into her hands, because, well, she deserved it, and I have an overdeveloped sense of justice, but we don't live in that world, and I just couldn't make an anonymous thirty something stranger presenting a teenage girl with an expensive no strings attached gift not feel spectacularly creepy ("Hey little girl... *deep panting breath*, I've got a first edition Deities and Demigods at home *slobber, leer*, wanna see it?"). I don't like this world very much a lot of the time.
While I'm here, let's have a quick media watch. It's been sort of dead for movies recently, despite it being Fall (speaking of, that's on DVD now, buy it if you missed it in the theaters), which is usually a good time for such things. I saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona with Jenny and Emmie a week or so back, which was definitely worth a watch (confidential to April, totally feeling you on the Javier Bardem thing now), though I'm a little bitter about it because it got me thinking that maybe I'd been missing out on some good stuff by avoiding Woody Allen recently, so I went and purchased Cassandra's Dream, which was at best "fine". Also saw the new movie about The Germs, What We Do Is Secret, which I liked quite a bit. And today I saw the new Coen brothers Burn After Reading, which was only ok. They really haven't had a winner comedy since Oh Brother. Shame. As for reading, it's pretty much just been the new Malazan book, which I blew a load worth of carbon footprint environmental goodwill by importing from England for a three week or so head start, and then reading only intermittently. I am a bad person. I've also been reading a load of Math texts, namely Graph Theory, Functional Analysis, Complex Analysis, and Abstract Algebra, because while I am not the Guy Who Wants To Tell You About His D&D Game, I am the Guy Who Considers Math Texts A Comfort Purchase. Speaking of the Coens, I get this bit from Barton Fink (Spoilers if you haven't seen Barton Fink (Why the hell haven't you seen Barton Fink?)) stuck in my head whenever I think about my new books. Look Upon Me! I'll show you the life of the mind. I will show you the life of the mind! I will show you the life of the mind!!!
And now, sleep.
You write such pretty words, but life's no storybook. Love's an excuse to get hurt... and to hurt.
