Book and No Movie: On the Rocks

 The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake, Grand Central Publishing, previously known as Warner Books, a Division of Hachette Book Group, 1970.

Provenance: Apparition Books, Renton, which has an excellent collection of esoterica, plus solid SF and mystery sections. After discussion of caper films among my Saturday night group which mentioned the movie version, I found this copy, its spine uncracked, on its shelves. 

Review: I've talked about Donald Westlake before in these pages, and how he balances both hard-bitten, hard-boiled protagonists with lighter, more human-sized, comical characters. The Hot Rock is an example of the latter. I was attracted to it because, many years ago, I saw the movie version with Robert Redford and George Segal, and when the subject came up in our group, I kept my eyes out for a copy.

This is the first of the novels featuring John Dortmunder, a very good thief with very poor luck. He goes free from prison and an old buddy picks him up in a stolen car with MD plates. The old buddy, Kelp, has a job for him - stealing a large emerald belonging to an African nation on the behalf of a rival African nation. Dortmunder is uncomfortable with the idea, but lacking a lot of options, throws in with Kelp. 

They put together a team: Dortmunder is the planner. Kelp is the contact. Murch is the driver (who obsesses about driving), Chefwick is the locksmith (who is model train fan), Greenwood is the all-around, the utility outfielder of the group, a hapless romantic. They're all mugs who have had their run of hits and misses, but never a big score. They meet in the back of a bar and plan out the heist from the New York Coliseum. No small thing. The heist works, until it doesn't. Greenwood gets caught with the emerald. 

So now the plan becomes how to get Greenwood out of jail with the emerald. And they do, but they don't. Author and screen critic Robert McKee refers to this as "the gap" which drives character development - the space between character expectations (Greenwood gets the gem) and reality (The cops catch Greenwood). That sets up the next part of the heist (getting Greenwood back) and ratchets up the tension as a result. This happens a number of times - where they succeed until they fail. And as Gilda Radner's character, Rosanne Rosannadanna says, "It's always something."

And so it is. Dortmunder is the pessimist and ready to walk away several times. Kelp is the optimist, and keeps bringing him back into the fold. The risks get bigger with every iteration, as do the resources. The plot bounces along nicely, the characterization is good, and Westlake has an economy of style that plays out incredibly well here.

Anyway, after talking about it in our Saturday night group, we went hunting for the film version from 1972, with Redford, Segal, Paul Sands, and Zero Mostel. And we couldn't find it. Anywhere. Not streaming. Not on Amazon. Not even at the venerable and incredible Scarecrow Video. which is the last local outpost of rentals. In our overheated, overproduced, content-heavy modern times, it is not to be found. I found a Spanish-language version, but that's not the same thing at all. I remember seeing it in the theaters fifty years ago, and seeing it on TV once or twice, but the ground has opened up and swallowed it whole. Would love to know the story of why.

Maybe we have to plan a heist.

More later, 

 

Book and a Movie: Canary In a Coal Mine

 The "Canary" Murder Case by S.S.Van Dine, Fawcett Publications, 1927

The Canary Murder Murder Case, written by S.S. Van Dine, Albert Shelby Lovino, Florence Ryerson, Herman Mankiewicz, directed by Malcom St. Clair, Paramount Pictures, 1929.

Provenance: The novel is from the collection of Sacnoth, who provided a large number of mysteries for my late mother-in-law when she lived with us, and which I have been slowly burrowing through over the years. The book itself became a shop-worn volume tucked in my jacket pocket, to be read at the moments when I was waiting for someone or something else (the rest of you use phones these days, so you understand the principle). Nearing completion of this particular mystery, I inveighed upon my Saturday-Night crew to watch the film version (we had previously watched The Kennel Murder Case, another Philo Vance mystery. 

The Reviews: The "Canary" Murder Case (the original put the name in parenthesis, and I'll use it here to separate it from the film) lived for several months on the best-sellers lists, and was regarded as being a definitive advancement of the genre. Its detective, Philo Vance, was a erudite intellectual dilletante who is good friends with the New York City DA, Markham, and is allowed to tag along on investigations. A Broadway actress is slain in her locked apartment, and all clues point to an interrupted burglary. Vance, who is more concerned with the psychology of the criminals than mere apparent evidence, disagrees with the prima facie appearances. And the fact that all the initial evidence points to a burglar only strengthens his opinion. The crime scene is, in his opinion, "too perfect". 

It turns out that the Canary had numerous suitors and former suitors and a taste for blackmail, and that her apartment building had more visitors that evening than the news stand at Penns Station. Suspects are gathered, solid alibis are established, then shattered, and it all leads up to an unreasonable poker game with Vance, Markham, and the suspects. Vance knows who the killer is after that game, but the evidences shows it impossible. Until in the final pages, Vance discover "how he did it", with a bit of high tech wizardry (for the time) which left me shaking my head. 

The writing is engaging, though I had a hard time putting William Powell (who is Vance in the movie - more about that later) into the mold of Vance of the book. Instead I kept getting Frasier Crane as Vance - he would quote Latin, refer to obscure artists, and noted that he had to dash out to the opera or a Monet showing. Vance of the books is extremely elite and dilettantish. As a result, he also codes gay - his encyclopedic knowledge of art and disdain for the commonplace, his elaborate mode of speaking, his fondness for NYC Clubs, plus his relationships with the other male members of group (Markham, the rougher, doubting Chief Detective Heath, and the narrator) gives off strong gay vibes in the modern age. (Of course, Van Dine himself believed that romance had no place in mysteries, so this may account for some of that attitude).

And then there is the matter of the book's narrator - supposedly Van Dine himself, who is presented as Vance's lawyer and constant companion, but who vanishes as a character whenever Vance has someone else to chat with. Indeed, all of "Van Dine's" conversations with Vance are along the lines of "I tried to convince Philo to tell me what was going on, but he remained tight-lipped".  Narrator "Van Dine" is effusive in his praise of this great detective. And the "Van Dine" of this volume was living with Vance in Manhattan, since his own apartment was being renovated. So yeah, the aura of "more than just friends" hangs heavy over their relationship in a way that those of Holmes/Watson, Wolfe/Goodwin, or Poirot/Hastings does not. 

So, with twenty-some pages to go in the book, and with me confident of whodoneit and having an idea of howhedidit, I sat down with my Saturday night group to watch the movie based on it. And it is pretty bad in movie form. We get that The Canary (The OG Flapper Louise Brooks) is a nasty blackmailer right off the bat, and she vanishes from the film upon her demise. Vance (William Powell) is already on the case, investigating her on the behalf of a local banker, as she was blackmailing his son. The son was innocent and one of the young ingenues with Mary Astor, herself in an early role (and therefore innocent as well). Most of the bits of gathering the suspects were shortened, but it concluded in the same unreasonable poker game where Vance tests the mettle of the suspects. He realizes who the murderer is, but that murderer perishes before they can confess, and Vance must find out the howhedidit on his own (though better than the way he did in the book).

I say it was pretty bad - it was slow, pokey, and there were odd shifts in the filming. The reason for it was that it was originally filmed as a silent movie, and then retrofitted with dialogue and additional scenes afterwards. This was Powell's first appearance as the lead, and his theater training gave him a natural diction and movement that was missing from the silent-scenes filmed earlier (There was a lot of held shots of people looking grim). And Louise Brooks herself refused to participate in the reshoot, so a lot of her lines were dubbed and in many cases her face obscured. 

This is Powell's first gig as a leading actor in the movies, his first talkie, and and an early establishment of his film character as a hero as opposed to a villain. His calmness and comfort really stands out here, and while he does not have the wit and savoir faire of the Thin Man and other roles yet, neither does he come off with Van Dine's eliteness and esoteric nature. He is dapper, mannered, and restrained.

So, the end result - both movie and book are verging on their centennial. They're of their era (The movie in particular has a couple black actors in supportive, comical roles  - yeah, cringeworthy). They are both worth revisiting, though know that you may face disappointments in their resolutions.

More later, 

Recent Arrivals: The Odd Lot

 So it has been a while, but new games continue to accumulate here at Grubb Street. Some are Kickstarters, but others are from various stores in the area. And I have to say, it's a good thing. There are more game stores operating in the Puget Sound region now than there were 10 years ago, and I am pleased to see brick-and-mortars even as I take advantage of funding new products in advance. 

Some of these new projects that have shown up push back the standard limits of what is a role-playing game, and reflect the wide diversity found in the hobby. Some cleave closely to one version of D&D or the other, or have that heady whiff of nostalgia to them, while others challenge a lot of basic assumptions and tropes in the play-style. So this is a mix of old and new 

Let' see what's here: 

Elder Mythos Deluxe Edition by Michele Paroli and Marta Palvarini, Mana Project Studios, Boxed RPG containing a 240-page digest-sized hardbound, 2 Card Decks, 9 dice, GM Screen, and 10 scenario maps, 2025, Kickstarter. This is a Lovecraftian game where you play. not a cultist or an investigator, but a Mythos Entity itself, both competing with and collaborating with other (player) Mythos entities. It is listed as using the Year Zero engine, but that is pretty much just using that system's dice pools and a card-based initiative session. As an Elder God, you use your turn to manipulate lesser entities (including mere mortals) in the play field, and to mess up the manipulations of the other players, then describing those manipulations in detail. There is a GM/Eldritch Master who is supposed to corral the whole thing. The game play feels like a brain-storming session where there are no bad ideas, but there are bad ideas. The entities you represent stand outside of time, space, and traditional role-playing tropes. The book itself has variable fonts, white on black printing, and a lack of index to help you navigate. So this one would be a learning experience.  

Pendragon Gamemaster's Handbook by Greg Stafford et. al, Chaosium, 238-page hardbound, 2024, Wizard's Keep Games. I mentioned there's been a rising tide of game stores in the area, and I was happy to see one of the locals, Wizard's Keep Games, carrying a deeper level of Chaosium products. This Gamemaster's book is a toolkit-style of book on diverse subjects, supporting the core book -- court life, religions, and the supernatural, as well as new rules for running large battles, plus a goodly collection of NPCs and creatures. The presentation on parchment-ish paper is as solid and the art styles are appropriate for the period, and should become a browsable book in my collection.. 

Call of Cthulhu The Sutra of Pale Leaves: Twin Suns Rising, by Damon Lang, Andrew Logan Montgomery, Jason Sheets, Yukihiro Trada, et al, Chaosium, 192-page hardbound, 2025, Wizard's Keep Games. The past is another country. Japan is another country. An adventure set in Japan in the go-go eighties (40 years ago) is several countries removed. This particular adventure establishes a new manifestation of the King In Yellow and its infiltration into Japanese society. The book deals with Japanese mythology, manga, and the Yakuza, and sets up for a SECOND volume of adventures, Carcosa Manifest. The primary designers come out of the Sons of Singularity, who did The Sassoon Files, and The Blessed and the Blasphemous, and the design here shows a lot of their approach in the form of flowcharts to guide the adventure and confidants to use as plot hooks to bring the players in. 

Orbital Blues by Sam Sleney (writing) Josh Clark (art) and Zachary Cox (more writing), Soul Muppet Publishing, 206-page digest-sized hardbound, 2021, Mox Boarding House. An impulse buy, as I note that Mox has slowly be growing its RPG selection over the years, and bringing in some more esoteric titles. Orbital Blues has been out a few years. It is a pretty straightforward game system - a character has three stats (Muscle, Grit, and Savvy) and uses d6s to resolve tasks and combat. Its genre is "Space Western", which includes Firefly, Mos Eisley, and in particular Cowboy Bebop. It's a dystopian setting, where the future has passed through the planets and satellite settlements and then moved on, leaving poverty and oppression in its wake. You're outlaws on the fringe of society, trying to make a dishonest credit by smuggling, bounty hunting, and heists. Also picked up a copy of A Starborne Resistance,  a slender 48-page squarebound, which provides a planetary setting of a dying colony ignored and oppressed by a once-mighty Confederacy. The books have that art-book look, in that no two-page spread looks like any others. Lack of an index means you're going to have to remember where you read that particular useful rule. Looks interesting. 

Orders of Inquisition by the RPG Professor, Self-published,  120-page softbound, 2025, Kickstarter. This is the sort of product I enjoy, and one that kickstarter excels at bringing to a wider audience. It takes the traditional tropes of gaming fantasy and turns them on their heads. As opposed to the gods (of all alignments) being player-supporting forces, the gods are distant and cruel, and their agents in the world fanatics. The book rolls through the alignment godheads presenting the negative side of faith, followed by specific orders, new classes, spells, and relics. In general, its crammed with some really nice, non-standard ideas. It would be an excellent addition to the more grimdarkish campaigns.

(And as an aside, I always wanted to develop a Good-aligned cult that believes fanatically that the dead should stay dead. Which is a really good thing when talking about vampires, and a really bad thing when you're talking about your fighter who has just been resurrected.)

Mythic Bastionland by  Christ McDowall, Bastionland Press, 208-page hardbound, 2025, purchase at PAX. This is the weirdest book of a weird lot. It looks great, but you really need to bore into it to understand what is going on. It's a fantasy Pendragonish setting, where you are a knight with powers and a mentor. You travel the land (hex-crawling to create the Realm) and encounter stuff, until you are powerful enough to go to the City and join the Round Table. I think. The presentation is the challenge - a collection of  one-page summarized followed by detailed descriptions of the various knights you can be. It wraps up with a series of dialogues between DM and players which to make some sense of it all.. The is beautiful, the presentation is compact, but it requires a lot of engagement just to wrap your head around. 

Random Jottings 22 Omnibus by Michael Dobson, Canal Press, 202-page softbound, 2025, gift of the author. Mike Dobson was my boss for several years at TSR, and following his tenure there he continued to write histories, books, articles, and commentary. A lot of that can be found here. This is a personal fanzine in which he talks about his travels, Wikipedia, and most relevant to this audience, his time at TSR and other gaming companies, and includes an article in the Comics Journal. Good bits of history. 

The Planar Codex by Cody Faulk et al, Daggerwood Games, 200-page hardbound, 2025, Kickstarter. Coming from my Manual of the Planes background, I always find planar books interesting. And this is a 5E (2014) product and is Great Wheel adjacent, and you'll recognize versions of the Feywild the Nine Hells, the Seven Heavens, and Mechanus (formerly Limbo). That means that they can be supplement old-school and Planescape-style settings, or be used to create a new planar arrangement. The approach is nice and very player-centered - new subclasses for all the original classes, new spells, and new races. My only gripe is that the fiction that headers each section is printed in an italic script font, which makes it slow going for these old eyes. 

The Medieval Fortress by J.E.Kaufman, H.W.Kaufman, Illustrated by Robert M. Jurga, Da Capo Press (Perseus Books Group), 320-page softbound, 2001, from the collection of Sacnoth, but actually purchased from Barnes & Noble in Tukwilla in 2005 (The receipt was being used as a bookmark). OK, NOT a gaming book per se, but the type of book I really like - a comprehensive reference work on medieval fortresses and walled cities. So this is browser's book for me, to be picked up and leafed through, and a reference if I'm doing any serious historical castle design. Good illustrations, though the photos are a bit muddy in black and white.

Draw Steel Heroes Book One: Heroes by Matthew Colville, James Introcaso, Willy Abeel, and Robert Djordjevich,  MCDM Productions, 402-page hardbound, 2025, Kickstarter; Book Two: Monsters, 378-page hardbound. This one demands a LOT more attention that this brief write-up can provide. This is a deeply impressive re-imagining of the D&D-style of game, reconfigured from the ground up, showing origins in 4E in its crunchiness. It is quite specific in its goal - it is about combat encounters, and the rules reflect that at every turn. No base assumption of D&D is left unchallenged - use of 2d10s instead of a d20, you always do SOME damage in combat (the only question is how much), Characteristics are refashioned with a small spread of scores. The archetypical classes are rethought, as well and while recognizable, function in different fashions. Spell are are rethought as abilities. Everything has shorthand box. 

The game is more than combat, but will function best at a table with a battlemap or online, as opposed to everyone in comfortable chairs scattered across the living room. The monster book contains new versions the reliable and recognizable foes, along with high level baddies that do some world-building for us, and rethought alternates for the TMed creatures like the Mind Flayer and the Beholder. There is a lot of lore in the game, but most of it is parked in descriptive text of the character classes and creatures, so it bears a complete reading. My one nit in presentation is that the excellent art for the monsters needs to be labeled, so I know which of four stat blocks on the page is applicable.

In short, Draw Steel is an adventurous reincarnation of the traditional TTRPG, and if you bemoan the lack of crunch in a lot of modern incarnations, this is one to check out. Its the one I'm going to be moving through in the next few weeks. 

And that's it for this bag of stuff, mixed though it be. I really like the spectrum of projects that come out of roleplaying, and while not all of them are my particular pipe of tea, I am glad they're available, and if they strike your fancy, you should hunt them down.

More later,  

Theatre: Creature of the NIght

 Dracula Adapted from Bram Stoker's novel by Nathan Kessler-Jeffrey, directed by Brad Lo Walker, Renton Civic Theatre, through November 2nd.

Many, many years ago I wrote a short play and staged a reading at the Burien Actors Theatre with five readers. Two of them were friends, but three were recruits that I had never met before. All did a wonderful job at the time, but I noticed that one of my then-readers was in a play down at the Renton Civic Theatre, which is just down the hill from Grubb Street. So I made a rare evening excursion into Renton to a theater I had never attended before.

And a word about the Renton Civic Theatre, which is community theater at its best. From the street it is an unassuming theatre marquee sandwiched between a realty company storefront and a Japanese restaurant. The venue inside is excellent, the house and stage both larger and more comfortable than the Taproot's. The lobby is small, and has handbills from the 40s when this was a motion picture house. There is a bar this particular evening there was no alcohol, because the only volunteer at the counter was underage and could not serve. It's really a nice place. On this Friday night the house was mostly full, and there were more than a few attendees who ignored the whole "turn off your phone" warnings. Ah, well. 

The play itself is an excellent adaption of the original novel. The novel is epistemological in nature, which is to say that it is presented as letters, diary entries, and other first person accounts. Moving it to the stage results in a series of vignettes where the characters recite the letters, then move seamlessly into scenes with the other characters. As a result they're doing a lot of their own stage management as they haul chairs, tables, and coffins on and off the stage. 

Adapting to the stage also involved other changes. Quinton Morris, the cowboy in the book (and you did read the book as a kid, right?), gets a slight mention but never appears on stage. Neither do the brides. The finale remains in London as opposed to fleeing back to Transylvania. Yet that doesn't change the story itself, and helps retain the sense of the characters being overmatched by the Count. The production also gender changes Renfield, which actually works better.

The actors are all excellent. My reader, Michael Yichao, is the hapless Jonathan Harker, the lawyer dispatched to Castle Dracula to help Dracula move to London. The heart of the play belongs to Mina (Dani Davis) who hits everything precisely and sharply.  Angela Martin does double duty as the manic Renfield and the supportive Sister Agatha. Lucy Westenra captures the coquettish nature of Lucy. David Breyman posts an almost-comic Dr. Seward, Cameron Widmark is very British nobility and honor as Arthur Holwood, Lucy's fiancé, and Phillip Keiman is an endearing Abraham Van Helsing. And Tadd Morgan is our Count, shedding the Hungarian accent early as he modernizes for London and makes himself a holy terror. 

There is humor in the horror, and most of it comes from the characters themselves - Harker's naivety, Lucy's shallowness, Seward's moroseness. It is subtle and effective. And that's a challenge given that Drac himself has been parodied to death over the decades. There's one sequence that created inadvertent giggles among the audience, contrasting Jonathan and Mina's wedding with the death of Lucy, but in general the actors kept the audience in check and enthralled with a story that many of them knew since childhood. 

You want a Halloween play? Here's your Halloween play. Go enjoy,

More later. 

The Political Desk: Summing Up

 Go Vote.

Yes, I know it's not as exciting this year. And it's a short turnaround . And in my case, there are a lot of unopposed races (a dozen on my own ballot - your mileage may differ). 

Go Vote anyway.

And if you're planning to mail in your ballot (it's free), do it sooner than later. There is no guarantee that it will be postmarked in time. Otherwise, go drop it off at a hopefully nearby ballot drop box.

Go Vote early.

There are a lot of races that I don't have any say in. Mayor of Seattle (Katie Wilson). City Attorney (Erika Evans). Districts that I am not living in (Edwin Obras in the 33rd, Vandana Slatter in the 48th). That's the nature of our system. I can deal with it.

But for you? Go Vote.

I listed a bunch of the sources of recommendations and endorsements earlier in my blog here. And for those interested, here are comparable endorsements of the Stranger and the Times.  Otherwise, here's my summary from the past few days:

Proposed Constitutional Amendment: Senate Joint Resolution No. 8201: Approved

King County Proposition No. 1 Medic One - Emergency Medical Services Replacement of Existing Levy: Yes

King County Public Hospital District No. 1 Proposition No. 1 Levy Lid Lift for Health Care Services: Approved

King County Executive: Claudia Balducci

Metropolitan King County Council District No. 5: Stephanie Fain (The Times this morning launched an editorial against her opponent for claiming the Times endorsed him, which it did not.)

City of Kent Council Position No. 2: Satwinder Kaur (Her opponent sent out a late attack mailer on her. The return address for this mailer on a non-partisan position was the Washington State Republican Party).

Kent School District No. 415 Director District No. 4: Teresa Gregory

Kent School District No. 415 Director District No. 5: Laura Williams

OK, that's it. I'm going back to theatre reviews and talking about games, but I will pop back in with the results. 

Do I need to say it again? Sure. Go Vote. 

More later.

The Political Desk: Kent

 So, Kent. My home town. We're a community in the Green River valley, South of Seattle tucked between Renton and Auburn. Most of the industry (light) and government are in the valley floor, along with the large mallish Kent Commons, but spilling up both the East and West Hills (Grubb Street is on the East Hill, in the Panther Lake area, which was sucked up by the city more than a decade ago). It's a very diverse community, and ranges from mildly urban through suburban to exurban, particularly as you move towards the growth boundary to the East. The town was originally known to settlers as White River (before that river was diverted to the south), then Titusville (after a local settler), and finally settled on Kent, since it became a major producer of hops, which at the time weren't doing so well in the original Kent, England.

Anyway.

Most of the positions in Kent are unopposed, but there are a few contested races. Here's a quick guide:

City of Kent Council Position No. 2. The incumbent and current president of the council is Satwinder Kaur, who has done a good job and pacts and ton of endorsements, including the mayor and the rest of the council. We've endorsed her before, and she's helped see Kent through a lot of challenges. Her opponent is Neet Grewel, who is running on "Cleaning Up Kent", which is a nice play on her first name (Neet. Clean. Yeah). She says a lot of good and proper things in her Candidate statement, but adds to it support for AI and crypto (which is concerning, but not part of the job she wants) and espouses anti-vac propaganda on her socials (which is concerning and may have an effect on the job she wants). And the Kaur campaign has sent out pictures of her having out at Marlago and hobnobbing with RFK Jr. So, yeah, I'm going with Satwinder Kaur.

City of Kent Council Position No. 6. We're back in the same position of hard, good choices. Sharn Shoker and Andy Song are both at the progressive end of the political spectrum. Shoker is a director of a Seattle-based non-profit, while Song is the present head of the Kent School Board. Both are good, and I recommended Song in the primary. But looking at it again, I'm going to say take a good look at Sharn Shoker for this position.

Kent School District No. 415 Director District No. 4 Teresa Gregory is the incumbent, but only for a little while, but has done a good job so far.  Her opponent doesn't even have a web site to make her views widely known. The school district is facing budget cuts because of hacked federal funding, and I think I want Teresa Gregory there to make the decisions.

Kent School District No. 415 Director District No. 5 Laura Williams is a veteran teacher and union leader with a fistful of endorsements and a plan for the future. Her opponent does not have a website, so my only exposure is through her candidate statement, which has some red flags and conservative dog whistles. So, yeah, Laura Williams.

And that's it. Now we sum up. More later,

The Political Desk: County Positions and Tough Choices

 I've got two county races to decide on my ballot. One is for County Executive, the other for Position No. 5 on the Council. And these are the most frustrating items on the ballot for me, in that there is no bad choice for one, and no great choice for the other.

Both are open positions, in that their predecessors have gone on to other things. Dow Constantine was the County Executive forever, and moved on to head up Sound Transit. Dave Upthegrove was on the council for position 5, but was elected to run the Department of Natural Resources. And the thing is, either one could have just stayed - it is harder to vote an incumbent off the council than just wait for natural erosion. Reagan Dunn, the conservative counselor from district 9, has been there ever since his mom got him the posting, and they have even redrawn the borders of his district to keep him. 

Anyway,

King County Executive has two very competent and talented candidates. They are both former council members themselves, and they are both in the progressive category. They're voting records are pretty much identifcal. The good news is you're going to get someone worthwhile. The bad news is you have to choose. 

Claudia Balducci is a former mayor of Bellevue, and has been instrumental in pushing mass transit, including getting the Eastside line running, even though it not connected with the rest of Seattle. She has experience and a reputation for getting things done. Girmay Zahilay rose from incredibly humble beginnings, clerked in the Obama administration, and has leaned hard in renter protection, first responders, and increasing the minimum wage.

 Both are solid politicians: Balducci has the experience, while Zahilay has the endorsements. The Times recommended Balducci in a meek endorsement that summed up everything they hated about the council, but hopes that Balducci could fix it. The Stranger went in for Zhahily in part because Balducci has been courting the moderate/centrist wing of the party. But neither are radicals.

Me? I'll opt for Claudia Balducci, but to be honest, either one would do a fine job.

Metropolitan King County Council District No. 5 has the opposite problem, in that neither of the two candidates, Peter Kwon or Stephanie Fain, feel like particularly good fit, and brows are furrowed about what happens when either gets in. Kwon is a former council-person from SeaTac, while Fain has ben president of the Harborview Medical Center's Board of Trustees for 5 terms.

 In their attack mailers, both have accused the other of being Republicans in sheep's closing. Kwon is getting the support of the local Republicans, while Fain is married to a former GOP State Rep who stepped down over accused sexual improprieties. Kwon also said one thing to the Republicans, and another to Planned Parenthood (which pulled their support, but he hasn't admitted it yet). Fain has deep pockets supporting her. Kwon has the experience, while Fain has the endorsements, including getting the nod from both the Times and the Stranger, though it sounds like the Stranger is whistling past the graveyard on this one. 

Regardless, whomever gets the nod will likely be more in the centrist camp than a progressive force. Fain, though, is pushing healthcare, while Kwon underlines effectiveness in moving things forward without new taxes. Both sound like rational human beings and capable leaders, so that's good. I'm going to go in for hope this time, and recommend Stephanie Fain, though my opinion has changed three times as I wrote the past three paragraphs. Yeah, democracy is a challenge, sometimes. 

And that's the toughest decision for me on this ballot. Next up, we get specific with the City of Kent, my home town.

More later,

The Political Desk: Ballot Measures

 Let me whine just a bit. Our election processes allows us to vote on finances. SOME finances. Not the whopping 10% sales tax, but rather situations where we are asked to weigh in on public goods and services which most of us like. So we DON'T get to vote directly on things like, say, salaries for elected officials, putting electronic billboards on the sidewalks, or creating a AI-powered holographic Dr. Martin Luther King to talk to you about breakfast (not making that one up). But we DO get to vote on things like EMTs, Hospitals, and care for the elderly.  Which makes me roll my eyes just a tad.

Anyway ...

Proposed Constitutional Amendment: Senate Joint Resolution No. 8201 This is to change our state constitution to allow the government to play the stock market to help fund WA Cares for elderly care. Good plan, but it admittedly has risks, in that the stock market (or just the part of the stock market that you've invested in) can go down as well as up. Most of these funds are invested in bonds, since they are more stable (but lower-paying) Most recently the markets have trended upwards, but they have been highly volatile because, well, you know. On the other hand, the State Investment Board has been pretty cagey do date about investments, so they aren't exactly getting into AI and crypto. I'm going with an Approved on this one, but it becomes one more thing to keep an eye on.

King County Proposition No. 1 Medic One - Emergency Medical Services Replacement of Existing Levy This is a replacement for an expiring levy, and lowers the rate on the property taxes (but will raise more funds because your property value has likely gone up). Its for EMTs and 911 calls. No one even filed an entry against it. So, yeah, I'm good for that. Vote YES.

King County Public Hospital District No. 1 Proposition No. 1 Levy Lid Lift for Health Care Services  This is Valley Medical, which is about 2 miles from here, and the ER/OR that we use (most recently for the Lovely Bride's shoulder replacement). This will allow them to raise more money for operations and capital improvements. Yeah, I'm down with it. Go with Approved.

That's it for the funding issues - on to the candidates.

More later,

The Political Desk: Rush To Judgement

 So, the ballots have finally landed here on Grubb Street for the 4 November election. It is an off-off-year election, which means in general that things are pretty quiet. Now, we are electing a Mayor in Seattle (which I can't vote for) and a new County Executive (which I DO vote for), but there are not a lot of races this year, and many of them (local races, judges) have no listed opposition. 

One thing that is a new wrinkle, though, is the strong recommendation you get your votes in early this year, particularly if you are mailing them in. Mail-in ballots are great, because you aren't stranded in a voting booth wondering who the heck these people are. However, the Post Office has been gutted in recent years by stupid conservative policies, which consists of gutting a public service and then complaining that it can't do its job. But what this means in this case is that if you drop your ballot in the mailbox on November 4, there is no guarantee that it is going to be postmarked in time. And the postmark is the final line.

So, either vote early, or drop it off at one of the many handy drop boxes we have in King County by 8 PM on the 4th. Of course, as a result of stupid conservative policies, this one hurts areas (mostly rural) that don't have accessible ballot drop offs, and where conservatism is stronger. So it hurts themselves, so you should vote early in any event.

This year is also different in that I have received a huge number of mailers. which range from brightly colored declarations of why you should vote for me, to somber, red and black warnings about how horrible the other candidate is (often on opposite sides of the same mailer). In particular, I got a set of identical mailers for me, the Lovely Bride, and both of us from a bunch of 2nd-place candidates in Burien who have unified under the "Enough is Enough!" banner (As an aside, I don't live in Burien, and cannot even see it from my house). The fact that this organization is wasting money sending mailers to people who cannot vote for them indicates to me that no one should trust them with their communities' money. And yeah, this is another dig at stupid conservative policies. Not really stupid, but definitely incompetent as well.

I'm going to roll through my ballot in the next few days. I WON'T be covering races that have only one candidate, which this year is goodly number of positions, including the Mayor of Kent, the three Port of Seattle positions, one of the City of Kent Council Positions, some judges, and the Water/Sewer and Hospital district commissioners. So you lot can take a long lunch hour to celebrate, then get back to work.

Those voting should also have gotten Voters' Guides for King County (the thick one) and Washington State (the skinny one). They can be found here as well, which allows you to see pro and anti statements on the ballot measures as well as the candidates presenting themselves in their own words. 

Should you vote the way I indicate? Of course not! Here are a bunch of other folk's opinions. Here is the Seattle Times. Here The Stranger sounds off. Here is the Urbanist's recommendations, and here is a listing for the progressive FUSE site. For the kids, here's the UWDaily's notes. Crosscut, which has posted in the past, no longer has the manpower to muster any opinions. See earlier comments on stupid conservative policies. 

AND you don't even have to wait for me to wade through all this. Go grab you ballot by the ovals and go vote. Time is surprisingly of the essence! 

More later, 

Theatre: Women's Plays

The Roommate by Jen Silverman, directed by Kathryn Van Meter, Arts West through October 19th

Fancy Dancer by Larissa FastHorse, Directed by Chay Yew, Seattle Rep in conjunction with the Seattle Children's Theatre, through November 2nd

 Theatre is for everyone, but some of it skews to a particular demographic. This past weekend the Lovely Bride and I saw two plays, both female-centered and pretty darn good.

Our attendance at both of these plays are delayed by travel - the Lovely B and I were in Pittsburgh for our 50th High School Reunion and pressed on to visit friends and family in Philly (and no, I didn't tell you. I don't tell you everything in these write-ups). So as opposed to opening night at the Arts West or the first few weeks of the Rep's run, we're tuning in late here. 

Friday night, we headed out to West Seattle for The Roommate. A tightly-wound woman in Iowa gains a freewheeling boarder/tenant/housemate in the form of a more worldly Brooklynite. Wackiness ensues, but takes a dark turn as both women evolve off each other. The spirit of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple haunts this, as this is also a play about polar opposites sharing the same space and setting off sparks. But this one has more emotion, more passion, and more grounding than Simon's take on the situation. 

Sharon (Sarah Harlett) is a agitated, frantic worrier, a retired wife and distant from her grown son. She a county mouse, and she frets, cleans, and moves around the stage like a hummingbird, always castigating herself for her mistakes. Robyn (Mari Nelson) is the roommate from New York city, gay, vegan, more comfortable in her skin, trying to quit smoking other nastier habits and make a fresh start. She's the city mouse, a woman with a past. And Harlett and Nelson are brilliant in their roles as their characters move from a wary first encounter to a team-up and to a break-up that leaves them both changed. 

The play itself has some weaknesses, which requires\ you to just accept it as part of the plot., The pair fall in with themselves extremely quickly. We're a little weak on the why and how of why the mousy Sharon wants a roommatein the first place and how Robyn found out about the opportunity. And there are small things that threw me a little, like getting high off of two hits of a reefer and using a traceable land-line to run phone scams (Iowa apparently does not have caller ID). But the acting stands out here as Harlett and Nelson encapsulate their characters. It was definitely worth it, and a strong start to the Arts West season.

Sunday afternoon we caught Fancy Dancer at the Rep, which, again, we also had to delay because of the trip East (actually, it from exhaustion on returning from the trip East, but never mind). Fancy Dancer is a one-woman show presented by the author, alternating with another actor-dancer. We got to watch the playwright perform, a half-Lakota Sioux woman drawing on her own history for the play. Her story is growing up in Minnesota, abandoned by her parents, raised by a white couple, bullied and abused by her fellow students, but finding a goal in life through ballet, and as part of that inspiration through the work of Maria Tallchief, who was America's first prima ballerina as well as half Native American (Osage tribe). 

Maria Tallchief, 
who has her own
quarter

FastHorse tells her story with wonderful dance (of course) and excellent stagecraft. The floor is bare with a minimum of props, but storms and stars are projected on the walls, moving use through time and emotions. The tale runs through many personal setbacks and small triumphs, and ends with her finally getting her first professional job, and finding the strength to move forward. 

The thing is, this is only half the story. doing the research on FastHorse, I found she was a professional ballerina for only a decade, until an injury forced her to retire from the stage. She regrouped and began teaching and writing her own plays, and her voice carried to the point where she was the first known Native American to have a play on Broadway. And that feels like a play on its own.

And this was a performance that reached out to the women in the audience. The audience was heavily weighted towards woman for our matinee, along with more children than I have previously seen at a Rep performance (many of whom, I suspect, were also in dance class). And it is a personal tale of triumph in the face of adversity. 

The Lovely Bride did not care for it as much, in part because it was a one-person show. Without the interaction and conflict of multiple actors, it is less of a play and more of a straight-forward storytelling experience. I think a single-actor play has validity as theatre (though I've seen some real questionable ones over the years), and FastHorse's portrayal of her youth is as much theatre as the two-hander of The Roomate. 

So in the end, I liked these plays, but did not love them. They did not hit home for me, in part because I don't share similar experiences (never took ballet, never felt I had been retired from my marriage). I am, as the Lovely B says, "not the target market". And that's OK. They were well-done, well-performed, and well-presented, and deserve the level of attention. If you're looking for a comedy, I'd give The Roomate the edge. For a more personal tale, check out Fancy Dancer. 

More later.

Theatre: Prop(er) Comedy

 The Play That Goes Wrong by Henry Lewis, Henry Shields, and Jonathan Sayer, directed by Damaso Rodriquez, Seattle Rep through 28 September.

Many years ago, in the pre-Covid times, I went to London on business for Amazon. And I has a free day and wandered the city, primarily hunting out bookstores. And there was a kiosk with plays currently running in the East End. One was the Cursed Child Harry Potter play, but the one that caught my eye was The Play That Goes Wrong. In the end, I decided to hunt down bookstores, but I always wondered about it.

Well, at last that particular crow comes home to roost with the Seattle Repertory opening their season with their production of the play. It is light. It is frothy. and it is hilarious.

People in theatre love plays about theatre, and anyone with more than a tacit background in theatre recognizes everything that go wrong in a performance. Muffed lines, mis-pronunciations, missed cues, malfunctioning props. And here everything that can go wrong does go wrong, in a non-stop cavalcade of blunders, malaprops, and accidents. The action and errors come in hard and fast here, and the audience (which included more than the normal amount of kids this time) rolled with it.

The concept is that the Comley Polytechnic Drama Society is staging a production of The Murder at Haversham Hall, a 1920s mystery. The Drama Society a small but spunky group of amateur thespians, and their reach exceeds their grasp. Combined with a deathtrap of a stage, the groundwork is laid for continual challenges to the production. The actors (Cassi Q. Kohl, Chip Sherman (previous in Fat Ham), Darius Pierce, Ian Bond, Setareki, Darragh Kennan (early in a Sherlock Holmes play at the Rep), Chis Murray, and Ashly Song) are all very good with verbal and physical humor, which they need to be, as the ongoing disasters pitch them from one side of the stage to the other, and leaves everything in shambles.

The Rep has always been an organization that excels at their technical production, and the company does not disappoint in making a play where the technical issues threaten to consume the staff. Sound cues go off at the wrong time, doors refuse to function properly, props fall from the walls, people miss their marks, but through it all the players manage to push forward in that "Show Must Go On", straining to maintain the lines they have to speak and the reality of the stage grows weirder and weirder.  It was a lot of fun.

We had out own bit of minor challenges as well. We initially sat in the wrong aisle (hey, it was the first show of the season), and left a half-consumed bottle of modestly expensive wine behind at dinner (I ended up walking four blocks back to retrieve it, and the staff at Toulouse Petit Kitchen were more than kind in finding it). And I was intent on finding the Lovely Bride's late mother's seat in the theater. After her passing, we sponsored a seat in the theater for Nardi Novak, who was in a couple movies and TV shows as we as being active in the Pittsburgh theater scene. I tried to find the seat location before the show, but the info desk had no clue, but said they would look it up for the Intermission. Low and behold, at Intermission, they came up with the seat number, CC12 on the balcony level (On the far left as you face it from the stage). I had to politely ask the occupant of that seat to vacant temporarily as I got this shot, and scurried back to my seat for the curtain of the second act. 

Anyway, 

The Play That Goes Wrong does everything right, and is a very pleasant way of spending a Sunday afternoon. Yeah, the Rep will delve back into more serious matter, but this was a delight.

More later, 

Cup of Crimson Wonder

I got into Dungeons & Dragons in the late 70s at college. At that time, I was listening to a lot of progressive rock, which was a broad category which included bands like Yes, ELP, Pink Floyd, and in particular Jethro Tull. Tull had done albums like Aqualung, Warchild, Minstrel in the Gallery, and Thick as a Brick (one sone over two sides of an LP - you really should take the time to give it a listen). And in 1977 they released Songs from the Wood, which was the first of a series of "Folk Rock" albums. And I listened to it a lot, and it influenced my some of my writing, world-building, and game design.

And one of the songs was "Cup of Wonder", which leaned heavy on medieval mystical themes with a lot of synthesizer. And as one does, I wrote up the cup described of the song as a D&D magical item. 

(Now, looking back at the song, there was a LOT I missed at the time - namely, that the song was very much a "Hey, let's go out into the wheatfield and have sex" sort of song, and that a lot of the mystic references had earthier meanings and feminine euphemisms. )

But anyway,

I wrote the first cup description in 1977 in the wake of the album's release, but never really found the place to unleash it on my players. I considered it as a "Miscellaneous Magic" item, which was sort of a catch-all category for things that didn't really fit in one of the other columns. Now, by 1976 Eldritch Wizardry had come out and we had already started to talk about Artifacts and Relics as vastly powerful magic items with powers and malevolent effects unknown to the players. Below, I've revised my notes to fit the formatting and font of the original little brown box books of original D&D:

MISCELLANEOUS MAGIC

Cup of Wonders: This golden chalice can create a Healing potion that can repair one six-sided die, plus one, (2-7) points of damage, once per day. Once per week it can create a draught that will Neutralize Poison. The draughts must be imbibed directly from the cup to be effective.

 

It was a pretty straight-forward description of the item. Given the brutal nature of early D&D (your party's cleric did not even get a Cure Light Wounds spell until 2nd level), this was a suitable item to help the group survive. I put it in my random magic tables, but I never really found the opportunity to put into my player's hands. 

A few years later, I found my original notes, and upgraded the Cup of Wonders to full artifact status. Both Eldritch Wizardry and the 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide left the abilities lines blank to let the DM fill in what he could, choosing from a master list, but I made those choices for my versions of the items. Here's what I ended up with: 

TABLE (III.E3) SPECIAL

Cup of Crimson Wonder: This ornate chalice of beaten red-gold with silver filigree of forest creatures was brought from the Isles of the Furthest West by the Green Man as a gift to the Great Druid at the founding of his order. The Green Man often rescinds this gift for his personal use, and abandons it when he has completed his tasks. Upon speaking the Green Man’s name, the cup fills with blood, which then grants the positive effects of this item. In the hands of the Great Druid or one of the three Archdruids the cup may cast Resurrection once per day without having to rest and are immune to the Cup’s major and minor malevolent effects. Druid initiates of lower levels and non-druids may use the following powers/effects when possessing the cup:

4 × I: Create food and water – 1 time/day  

 Cure light wounds – 7 times/week  

 Know alignment when held and ordered – 1 time/day  

 Possessor immune to disease

2 × II: Heal – 1 time/day  

  Regenerate 2 h.p./turn (but not if killed)

2 × III: Possessor’s hair turns white  

   Saving throws versus magic are at -1

1 × IV: User takes double damage from steel and iron weapons.

1 × IV: Summon 1 of each type of elemental, 16 hit dice each, no need for control – 1 time/week 

There is a lot more going on here than in the first draft, in that I'm adding a lot of abilities and keying in on giving the druids something unique and cool as well. There's more background color for the AD&D versions, something that will increase as we go along, and is sort of a "shadow worldbuilding" in that it hints at larger things with the campaign world. I kept to the list provided at the time, with the exception of the Major Malevolent Effect (Table IV), which I felt was to overpowering, but instead grabbed something that would fit with its Druidic attempt.

Looking through the changes from the original D&D magic item to a 1st Edition AD&D artifact, I'm kind of curious to see how the design would change, and weather it would come closer to the original song or stray off into the fields and forest on its own. I'll take a look at later editions, and if it works out, I'll post here. Otherwise...

More later,

The Political Desk: Primary Results

 Hey folks, the King County primary election has come and gone. It was a top-two primary, which means the two candidates with the most votes go on to the general election in November. It is an open primary, which means that you don't have separate Democratic and Republican ballots. And most of the positions are non-partisan, which means that anyone can run without being a member of the party (though for some positions they can self-declare as "prefers X party". That also means you can get two Democrats, or two Independents, or two Republicans squaring off against each other in the general.

It is ALSO an all-mail-in election, which means that we'll have a big drop of votes on election day, then smaller drops as the ballots mailed in at the last moment are counted. Often this does not move the results much, but there is always a race or two that in "hanging fire" - it's so close you can't make the call immediately. So I wait a couple days before posting here. Late ballots around here tend to shift the vote towards the lefter, bluer, more progressive end of the political spectrum.

Final vote total looks like 33% or so, which is a) about right for an off-year primary election, and b) still sucky. That all said, it was a good night for the progressive side of the coin. In Seattle Mayor's Race, the progressive candidate actually out-polled the moderate incumbent (50% to 42%). And for King County Executive, we see two progressives squaring off against each other. 

Anyway, here's the local results, as of Friday night. If they change further, I'll note them in this space.. 

King County Proposition No. 1 Parks, Recreation, Trails, and Open Space Levy - Everyone likes parks, This was approved with 73% of the vote. In elections where 52% is called decisive  and 54% is called a mandate,  the Seattle Times sniffed at this result with the innocuous headline "King County Property Tax Looks to be Passing."

King County Executive This is one with two progressive Democrats in the main,. Grimay Zhailay (44%) vs Claudia Balducci (30%). Both candidates are currently on the King County Council and have similar voting records. The campaign looks like it will be cordial. Good.

King County Council District 5 - Here's where it gets interesting. On election night we have three candidates of the six candidates that are running who are viable after the first day - Stephanie Fain, Peter Kwon, and Kim Khan Van. Both Fain and Kwon would fit in the moderate/centrist slot. Fain had a LOT of mailers and endorsements, and Kwon had billboards. Real, old-fashioned billboards.  As of Friday night, we're looking at 27% for Kwon, 24% for Fain, and 23% for Van, so it is likely Kwon vs. Fain in the final. This one could flip, but there are not a huge number of uncounted votes left.

City of Kent Position No. 6 -  We are looking at Sharn Shoker (34%) versus Andy Song (19%). Shoker, as expected, had a very strong campaign, but it is good to see Song in there.

Kent School District No. 415 Director District No.4 - Will be Teresa Gregory (42%) versus Carolyn Wilsie-Kendall (32%)

Kent School District No. 415 Director District No.5 - Will be Laura Williams (49%) versus Jane Smith (30%), sparing use the Laura vs Laura contest in the main..

And with that the Political Desk rolls over, hits the snooze bar, and returns to slumber until sometime in October.

More later,

The Political Desk: The Replacements

 OK, on the local ballot there are only six things, so let's try to do them in one swell foop. The bulk of these are replacements - open positions due to the office-previous holder moving on.

King County Proposition No. 1 Parks, Recreation, Trails, and Open Space Levy. I like parks. You like parks. The Stranger and the Times like parks. No one has even submitted an argument against it. This is a replacement of existing levy on property taxes to maintain parks. Sure. Go with Approved.

King County Executive Long-term King County Exec Dow Constantine has stepped down to oversee Sound Transit, so this is an open slot without an incumbent.  The two front running candidates in the run are former Bellevue Mayor Claudia Balducci and Grimay Zhailay, of the King County Council, Both are impressive, both have endorsements, and both are on the progressive side of the spectrum. The candidate that is the better centrist moderate was John Wilson, who ran into legal trouble from stalking his ex-wife and has dropped out following his arrest. The rest include Amiya Ingram, an independent who writes a damned poetic Voters' Guide, Bill Hirt, a perennial who runs to point out the flaws in Sound Transit, Rebecca Williamson who tacks down the Socialist end of the spectrum, and Don L. Rivers, who is humbled to put forward his candidacy. There is also a gosh-honest endorsed Republican, Derek Chartrand, who wants to know why King County is wasting money when it could just build more jails.

I'd love to see a face-off between Claudia Balducci, who has the experience, and Grimay Zhailay, who is the new young hotness, but for the primary, I am going for Claudia Balducci,  

King County Council District 5. King County District 5 is squarish lump of real estate that encompasses Renton, Kent, Seatac, Normandy Park, Des Moines and the southern part of Tukwilla. This is another replacement election, in that previous councilperson Dave Upthegrove left to become State Commissioner of Public Lands. And the roster is very strong with individuals with backgrounds in unions, local politics, and NGOs. That's the good stuff.

The bad stuff is ... well, there's an elephant in the room. A real political elephant. Steffanie Fain, is married to Joe Fain, a former Republican State Rep who stepped down after a rape accusation (after stepping down, they stopped the investigation, which is maddening - so we don't know what happened). The Times ignored the situation in their endorsement. The Stranger touched base on it briefly, then decided to endorse someone else. Ms. Fain packs a lot of heavy hitters in the Moderate/Liberal part of Democrat spectrum as far as endorsements. I literally don't know enough to give a firm opinion on all this. here, but I need to put it on the record.

Of the rest, I look at their Voter's Guide and what I can dig up. Angela Henderson has a strong union backing. Ryan McIrvin is a Renton Councilmember, as was Kim Khanh Van. Peter Kwon was one for SeaTac. All have a pretty respectable amount of accomplishments and endorsements. Ahmad Corner comes out the grassroots side of the equation, and stakes his claim on affordability and safety. This is a hard call, even at the primary level, but I'm going to suggest Ryan McIrvin.

City of Kent Position No. 6 OK, now we are getting into the weeds. Most of the urban blogs and magazines don't get this far south, so we're pretty much relying on what gets said in the Voters' Pamphlet and on their web sites (and yes, I am judging you on your web skills). All was to make Kent safe, happy, and affordable. I'm looking out primarily for red flags and dog whistles. But, if you tend towards the Progressive end of our spectrum, check out the Progressive Voters Guide, where you can dial down to the School District level. It's actually kinda impressive. 

Anyway, City of Kent Position No. 6.  At this level, everyone is an amateur. And that's great. Some have some experience under their belts. Some are small businessfolk as their day job. Some have been living in Kent all their lives. Some are first-generation citizens, their parents having come to one of the most diverse towns in Washington State. And that's where the goo-goo part of my civics goes out to them (Goo-goo is a Chicago term, usually used disparately, for "good-government"). Sharn Shoker is an extremely strong candidate, but for the primary I'm going to suggest you look at School Board Director Andy Song. 

Kent School District No. 415 Director District No.4 This is the trailing end of the ballot, where no one but the Lovely Bride and a few friends will be paying attention. And we actually have someone running who is an incumbent! Well, kinda. Teresa Gregory was put into the position to replace Awale Farah. for just a little while. But, so far so good, so yeah, let's keep her. 

Kent School District No 415 Director District No. 5 is a choice between two Lauras - Laura Williams and Laura Jensen. I hope both of them will be on the November ballot, just for the confusion factor. I'd go with Laura Williams, but that's just me.

OK, that's it. We can now return you to your regularly-scheduled theater, book, and game reviews. 

More later, 

The Political Desk: A Small Primary

Yard signs have sprouted. The sage editorial boards have delivered endorsements. The ballots have arrived. The Primary season is upon us. And let me rant a bit before getting to the meat of the situation.

It's short ballot this year, with only six items on the Grubb Street version, and half of those are dealing with my community of Kent. I buck the current movement of trying to shove all the elections into an even-year cadence. I do this for two reasons. The first is that if you put EVERYTHING on the ballot, there is an informational overload, which reduces the number of people who actually want to vote (I vote regardless, but I understand that people can look at a slew of names and let out an exhausted sigh). Secondly, and more importantly, I prefer to turn the boat slowly. Which is to say, if we go the wrong way, we can course-correct as opposed to lurching back and fourth between political poles. 

Also, I've described my politics as being "Politely Left of Center", which has served me well for the past 25+ years. Though I've described myself to pollsters as an Independent, I lean heavily Democrat, particularly in my time in Wisconsin and Washington State. I've supported Republicans in the past, but usually in non-partisan positions where they aren't obligated to line up with their crazier partners. I'm sure that the local leadership on the Kent City Council includes Reps, but to be honest, they've done a good job, they've stayed away from the crazy, and that's really what I care about.

Currently the Democrats are still a big-tent operation, which means it swarms with factions and arguments. That's cool - that's sort of the way Democracy is supposed to work. But I can put them into four major groups.

 Moderates, also called Centrists. They pitch themselves as the safe, sensible, responsible people. Big business should be encouraged, even pampered. Will not march, but claim to reflect the wants of most people in their districts. Are concerned that conservatives will consider them too liberal. Aware about infrastructure. 

Liberals. They want change, but are good with making it incremental. Slow change is still change. Patient. Unionist. Thoughtful, with can sometimes seem inert. Big Business should be carefully guided to do the right thing. Will march if they have to. Worry about infrastructure.

Progressives. Get things done. Movement is good, even if there are unintended consequences. Will march and protest to show that there are a lot of folk that agree with them. Corporations should be watched and kept on a short leash to keep them from screwing up. Want to rebuild infrastructure

Leftists, often called Socialists, though the term is often used by the conservatives for anyone more liberal than Barry Goldwater. Will march, will get loud, will throw things. Corporations should be burned to the ground. We need to reset everything to redress years of injustice.

I'd put myself down on this spectrum as on the Liberal/Progressive line - in favor of change, but willing to be thoughtful about it. Good with regulation, but let's playtest it. Most of the fights in our chunk of the PNW are between the Moderate and Liberal wings of the parties. Seattle itself (which I can't vote in) has been in the hands of the moderates recently, who have been doing safe, moderate things, like more money for police and cameras, shorter hours for beaches and libraries, supporting landlords, putting electronic billboards on sidewalks, and trying to reduce ethical requirements for their positions. On the other hand, cars are no longer pushing through pedestrians on the cobble-stone street at Pike Place, so ... yay?

I suppose I should address the current Republican factions as well, even though they are a rare breed in Metropolitan King County. Here's an analogy, though  Take a plate, stand over a concrete sidewalk, hold the plate at an arm's length, and let go. 

It used to be that the GOP was pretty monolithic, but now its riven with all different flavors of conservative; Neo, Theo, Paleo, Tech-Bro, Isolationist, Anarcho, Maga, and Original Flavor Conservative (though a lot of those have drifted over to become Moderate Dems). They expect the other factions to line up with them, they have a deep dislike of each other, and a hatred of Dems of any stripe trying to make things better.

OK, enough of a rant. If I go on I'd have to post this on Twitter. Lemme tag you in on the other folk reporting in.

The very-valuable official King County Voter's Guide is here. The Seattle Times, representing the Moderate Wing, and their recommendations are here. The Stranger is under new management and tends to the Liberal/Progressive side with less snide remarks and can be found here (TLDR Cheat Sheet here). The Progressive Voter's Guide is, duh, progressive, but handles a lot of areas that the Times and Stranger miss. The Urbanist's Endorsements are here. KUOW discusses the candidates without coming right out and making recommendations here. But as always, check out your sources. Don't just take my word for it.

And then we move on. More later,

Recent Arrivals: A Calm Before the Storm

The recent arrivals at Grubb Street ...

So things have been trickling into Grubb Street for the past few months - gifts from friends, kickstarters fulfilling, and the odd store pickup. But I want to gather them all in one place because the Washington State Primary primary ballots have arrived and I feel obligated to slog through this off-off-year election.  So here we go with the fun stuff first. 

The Sassoon Files 2nd Edition by Jason Sheets, Damon Lang, Andrew Montgomery, and Jesse Covner, Sons of the Singularity 272 page hardbound, 2025. Kickstarter. This is the 2nd Edition, and I should note that the 1st edition had problems seeing print since doing a project about pre-communist China hit some push-back from printing in China. The setting is Shanghai, which is touched on all-too-briefly in the classic Masks of Nyarlathotep and gets a deeper look in The Nyarlathotep Companion. I was the Keeper on a long-running Masks campaign (Which I may someday bore the heck of everyone here by talking about it - unsurprisingly, I have things to say).

But anyway ...

Sassoon Files is really good, and attempts to capture the flavor of Shanghai in the pre-war era. It is at the time where the city is overseen by a bunch of Western powers that broke it up into rival fiefdoms, have native Chinese movements verging on a split between Communists and Nationalists in the wake of the death of Sun Yat-Sen, has a collection of local criminal organizations of varying levels of control, and is in general being a hub of intrigue and adventure in a historical sense. And add new mythos cults, deep ones, ancient mystic relics elevates the entire setting. On the down side, the timing of the adventures overlap with each other and with Masks, so the Keeper may have to do some re-orging to run everything, and while the players can throw in with gangsters or the communists, they always tend to come back to dealing with Victor Sassoon, a wealthy bon vivant with a eye towards protecting the city from Mythos threats. Hence the title.

Daggerheart Core Set by Spenser Stark et. al, Darrington Press, 266-page hardbound, boxed set of 280 cards, 2025, Midgard Comics and Games. This is the most recent of the declared "D&D-Killers" I've encountered over the years, and has an excellent pedigree with the Critical Role folk. The book is colorful, well-organized, and hits all the beats of traditional RPGs, though it adheres to the more free-form Powered by the Apocalypse/Blades in the Dark style of play (I have opinions, but that will wait for another day as well). I'm not sold on the plethora of cards that came with the rules, but that may just from previous experiences, and I'll see how well they fit into the game. So this one is under investigation. I got this from my local friendly comic shop, which has a small section of RPGs and discovered that customers were amazed they had it, since it had sold out in more traditional gaming venues. 

The Excellent Prismatic Spray Volume 1, Issue 2, 72-page squarebound, Pelgrane Press, 2001, from the collection of John Rateliff. John (known the blogosphere as Sacnoth) has been clearing out his collection, mostly on Ebay with the aid of Bill Webb, but occasionally something offers something up to the rest of the gang. This is the 'zine for The Dying Earth RPG, which is in the category of "Great RPGs I've read but will probably never play" - the gaming version of tsunduko. The game and 'zine both emulate the flowery, ornate, robust, superfluous language of Jack Vance's books perfectly, and to be frank, the game deserves to be featured in those podcasts where they talk about games that are no longer published. In addition, this particular volume contains a four-page essay by Gary Gygax on "Jack Vance & the D&D Game".

Curse of Candlelight Manor, by Heidi and Erik Gygax-Garland,  32-page self-covered digest booklet, 2023, Gaxland  Pooduction,  Shadows over Lake Geneva, A Sanguine Horror by Heidi and Erik Gygax-Garland, 32-page saddle-stitched booklet, 2023, both also from the collection of John Rateliff. Heidi is Gary Gygax's daughter, and she and her husband are continuing the family tradition. Curse is a wonderful, short, old-school style adventure written for 5E, and set in a haunted house. Sanguine is usable for both 1E and 5E, and is a modern adventure set in Lake Geneva of 1948, dealing with the old Oak Hill Sanitarium, which is one the site of now Colonial View Condos where I lived in the early 80s. I am really curious if the maps provided are based on the original Sanitarium. Both are volume 2s in a series, so I'm going to have to pick up the first volumes the next time I am at GaryCon.

Gamemasters: The Comic Book History of Roleplaying Games by Fred Van Lente, Tom Fowler, and Bill Crabtree, 112-page hardbound, Clover Press, 2025, Kickstarter. Fred Van Lente has done one of my favorite comic book series, Action Philosophers, so I was very interested in seeing what he did with the more recent history of RPGs. He covers the basics of history (sort of what you'd read in the first Playing at the World, traveling through Chess, miniatures, wargames, and the Braunsteins which birthed modern RPGs, as well as covering the more real-life salacious and scandalous adventures over the years (Dallas Eggbert, the FBI raid on Steve Jackson). But where it excels is when it starts talking about other, non-D&D RPG games, like Call of Cthulhu, West End's Star Wars and (ahem) the original Marvel Super Heroes by myself and Steve Winter. Its pretty good, though I have to note that liberties were taken in presentation (Yes, Lake Geneva had a Playboy Resort, No, there were no Playboy Bunnies at the first GenCon (At least in uniform)), and some of the stories are of the "yeah ... kinda", but its an excellent, entertaining look at our hobby and industry.

An Infinity of Ships by by Adam Good and Jamie Peters, Illustrated by Rob Turpin, 152-page digest hardcover, published by STATIONS, 2025, Kickstarter. I love the art and idea behind this one - the ability to create your own spaceships. But not a formulaic "Here is how many credits the astronavigation unit costs", but a more free-form "Here, roll on a huge number of tables and tell me what you and you players can make of it". It is more inspirational than instructive. The ships themselves range from mechanical to organic to beyond, and the AI ranges from simple servants to godlike commanders. The names are out of IMBanks novels.("for example, "This Could Have Been an Email"). It doesn't try the define the universe that these ships operate in, but in covering all types and options (and running light on operating systems), they portray a radically diverse and chaotic galaxy where there are few known constants. Still, worth hacking about with it. The Kickstarter included stickers, bookmarks, and 115 cards to randomly create ships on the fly.

... and one that arrived after I took the photo.

The Old Margrave by Matthew Corley et. al, 256-page hardbound, Kobold Press, 2025, Tales of the Valiant Game Master's Guide Pocket Edition by Celeste Conowitch et. al. 304-page softbound digest, Kobold Press, Tales of the Valliant Game Master's Map Folio, 6 24" by 36" double-sided maps, gift of the publisher. The Old Margrave is an ancient forest just to the East of Zobeck, the main city of Kobold's Midgard campaign setting. Its a wonderful forest location for adventure, and the book (for 5E and their Tales of the Valiant) has new heritages, lineages, spells, subclasses, and a huge adventure arc set in the forest. Speaking of Tales of the Valiant, the Pocket Edition of the ToV GM's Guide is a digest-sized reprint of the original book, in a handier and portable format. And while my current gaming style (sitting around a living room or online) does not use maps and miniatures, the Map Folio hosts a number of locations (Inn, Gate, Fort, Tower, Villa, Lighthouse) that can be ported into any adventure.

Ticket To Ride Legacy: Legends of the Old West by Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock, and Alan Moon, Big box of a boardgame, Days of Wonder, 2023, Gift from Ed Stark, who was out here visiting for a wedding. The original Ticket To Ride has been a go-to game for our game days on Grubb Street, and a source of contention between the Lovely Bride and the mighty Stan! This version is a Legacy game, which means that as you play it, you modify the game materials that will affect future plays. In this case, you start with the Eastern Seaboard, and work west over time, with specialized rules as you add more pieces to the game. And ultimately you have a finished version for replay. Now we just have to find a regular gaming group to meet up with, since our own gaming groups are different and on different days. Ah, the challenges of game players.

And that's it for this round. Now I settle into the more boring stuff about very local politics. Its cool if you find something else to read. I'll understand. 

More Later, 

A Book and a Play: Golf Outing

 The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie, William Morrow Paperback Edition, original publication 1923.

Murder on the Links by Steven Dietz,  Directed by Karen Lund, Taproot Theatre, Extended run through 30 August.

So John, who is Sacnoth and Janice, who is the Bride of Sacnoth, invited me to join them in an expedition in the Greenwood neighborhood for this Hercule Poirot mystery in Taproot's renovated main stage. The new/old digs are well-renovated, and the seating, while still tight, has been improved. In preparation for the play, I actually tracked down a copy of the original story at Page 2 books in Burien. It was an interesting search, in that while a lot of my regular haunts had all manner of Agatha Christie novels, they did not have this one. 

Anyway, long story short, I liked the play better than I liked the book. But I'll get to that. Lemme talk about the book first.

The Murder on the Links is the second Poirot novel. Poirot (for those who never got near PBS in their upbringing) is Agatha Christie's Belgian Detective, with his fastidious nature, distinctive moustache, flashing green eyes, and little grey cells that he uses to navigate through the mysteries. I had powered through a number of Poirot short stories, collected in Poirot Investigates, and he has the talent of targeting some small fact that blows up traditional theories about the case. 

Poirot's assistant and narrator of the tales is Captain Hastings, who is Watson to the Belgian Holmes. He is note quite the dullard of Nigel Bruce in the Sherlock Holmes movies of the 40s, but missteps regularly, concludes erroneously, and is often distracted by beautiful women (Poirot is, of course, immune to all feminine wiles).

So, the novel: Poirot and Hastings are summoned to France by a wealthy Brit named Renauld, who fears for his life because of an unstated "great secret". They arrive on the scene to find Renauld has been murdered, his body found in what would become a bunker in an adjoining golf course (this is the only mention of golf in the book). What follows is a torturous route with continual twists and revelations - hidden histories, changed wills, stolen evidence, secret romances, strange coincidences, exploded alibis, multiple confessions, acrobatic twins, another body, and a rival for Poirot in the form of Surete officer (seriously underused). There is a lot going on, stuffing it all into a relatively short novel. All of this is told with the dry, mannered, clockwork style of Christie, which, for all the murder involved, feels very temperate and bloodless. Having read a lot of Christie recently, I can see why Raymond Chandler really hated her work.

So that's the book, and on reading it I saw it would be a great challenge adapting it to the stage. There are a huge number of characters involved in the novel, including all the suspects, witnesses, and detectives. There is a lot of travel, from England to France with Poirot frequently dropping away from the narrative for some secretive mission in Paris or London. The book's plot turns on itself, with blind alleyways and false leads that are later revealed to be pertinent facts. Oh, and Hastings at one point does something lumpishly stupid and obvious that is then ignored by the author for several chapters. How to handle all that?

Well, writer Dietz does a pretty good job of it, and in addition, makes it a comedy.

Now, Christie lends itself well to comedy, particularly with sometimes overblown characters like Poirot. Check out Miss Marples in the 1960s movies, where the prim, elderly villager is overtaken by Dame Margaret Rutherford's more boisterous portrayal. And Dietz and the actors lean into the implausibility of the original text heavily. The accents are heavy, the actions are frenetic, and the lines are overblown. It actually lends a strong sense of fun to proceedings, and is frankly contagious. Dietz allows Hastings to be the narrator, and to fully narrate, piercing the veil between the fictional world and recognizing it as a play. Janice pointed out a similarity with The 39 Steps, and I heard another patron afterwards make the same comment. So yes, we can put his piece in the same wheelhouse as that one, making the original story a metatextual comment on the fact that this is a play. 

More importantly, the huge cast is cut down to a mere six. Nathan Brackett as a woosterish Hastings, Richard Ngyugen Stoniker (or perhaps understudy Mark Emerson - the moustache is that mesmerizing) is a solid Poirot. Everyone else in the play is portrayed by two men (Tyler Todd Kimmel and Jeff Allen Pierce) and two women (Betsy Mugavero and Claire Marx), which leads to situations where quick changes and transformations are required (and sometimes performed comically on-stage). And the players are in on the joke - this is a performance, and as the players move all the props about on the stage and pull together to make it all make some sort of narrative sense.

And as a play, it works so much better than as a novel. The linearity of moving the action forward makes clear the various plot points and revelations. I did not lose the thread. And even Hastings' bumbling in places makes better sense on the stage than it did on the printed page. Also, the play allows Brackett's Hasting to be more of the romantic hero he sees himself as, with his heart on his sleeve and his desire to protect young (and pretty) young women. And it gives Hasting not only a happy ending, but a lead-in to another Poirot mystery as an Easter Egg. Oh, and a scene actually takes place on a golf course.

All in all, it was an enjoyable way to spend and afternoon, and highly recommended. The cast is frantic and positively acrobatic in their portrayals, and leaves the audience exhausted and delighted. Worth seeing.

More later,