Film: Engineering Project

The Wind Rises written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

I have an off-again, on-again relationship with Japanese animation. As a child, I was not exposed to Macross or Star Blazers, but I got more than a double dose of Kimba, the White Lion through Paul Shannon's Adventure Time. In college I remained immune to the rising force of manga, though I read all of the english translations of Akira. I have good friends who are anime fans and work on translations, and through those I get a semi-regular dose of animation on the small screen, but it has been years since I have been in a theater for the medium (Akira again, at the Oriental Theater in Milwaukee).

But last night was an excellent occasion to renew the habit. The Wind Rises is reported to be the last film of writer and director Hayao Miyazaki, who has built up the powerful Studio Ghibli over the years. And it is a retrospective, not of his life life, but rather a fictionalized account of Jiro Horikoshi, who designed the Mitsubishi Zero fighter plane. And it is magical fictionalization, grounded in the reality of the modernizing Japan of the Showa period, but taken leaps of dreams and imagination.

Jiro Dreams of Biplanes

We meet Jiro as a boy, nearsighted but dreaming of flight. In his dreams, he is met by the Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Battista Caproni, who becomes his spirit animal, guiding and exhorting him to pursue his dream. We follow the youth through school (and the Great Tokyo Earthquake), to his job at Mitsubishi (and the collapse of the banks) to visiting Germany (and the rising militarism of the '30s). And his desire for flight is matched in description of both the rising Japanese desire for modernity and the relentless technological advancement created by war. He meets and re-meets his bride, perfects his aircraft, and suffers the loss both personal and national.

And through it all Hayao's dream supports him. He is the portrayed against a backdrop of glum, if not grim, fellow Japanese. No one else is smiling, yet he is amused, buoyed by his dreams. He performs small acts of heroism, but for the most part dodges the worst of his world. The other major characters have their ups and downs, their rages and tears, but Jiro remains a calm island. The exception to the glum companions comes late in the film, where he lectures a group of younger engineers, and there we see the laughter and wonder of others sharing the same mission.

Miyazaki gets engineering right in presenting it as a form of creativity. As a former civil engineer, I do not dream of flying (well, I rarely do), but I do dream in maps, in floor plans. Within my topological dreams I know exactly my location, even when the ground shifts. I assume this to be natural, but it seems to be the way I order my mind. I look at buildings and see lines of force and stress. And even with my shift into fiction and games, I still see that structure within words and paragraphs. It is a clockwork as beautiful as a biplane's fabric wings. So yeah, Miyazaki unites both the soft nature of creativity and the hard universe of numbers. Jiro's winged dreams match up with Miyazaki's own celulloid achievements. It is autobiography by transposition.

But I disagree with the hand-wave given to the results of Jiro's work. Caproni, his spirit guide, writes off the military nature of his creations as a thing that gives him the ability to create beautiful planes. And Jiro is of similar mind, even though Miyazaki has to admit the darkness at the heart of Jiro's beautiful creations. The darkness remains at the perimeter, haunting always.

Should this be Miyazaki's last work, it seems to pack the feel of autobiography. I don't know the director's backstory, but it feels like pointing out the unification of imagination and technology matches up well in the area of movie making, another dimension of flight and dreams. It is a long film, alien in many ways to Western sensibilities (indeed, the fascination with steam engines as an analogy of development of Japan approaches the fetishistic, and is probably will be the source of many college papers). The rhythms of the movie are not those of Western film, with its quiet bits, the way it draws attention, and subtlety of the players all mixing into a core experience. If you get the chance to see it on the big screen, do it.

More later,

Play: Masochism Tango

Venus in Fur by David Ives, Directed by Shana Cooper, Seattle Rep through March 9.,2014.

Is this a season of sex at the Rep? Bo-Nita echoes Lolita, A Great Wilderness deals with gay conversation therapy, and here we now have a cogent and brilliant deconstruction of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs, complete with the requisite fetishware.

It's a good play, perhaps the best of the season so far. And I say it even though this one is not one of the local-born plays that the Rep has been delivering with such wondrous efficiency this year. And I say this despite the fact that it is a play about an playwright and an actor. Plays about writers and actors portraying actors are all so very, very meta and always send up a red warning flare for me, that the theatrical version of I-5 construction is coming up, and we're in for slow going.

But we're not - the action moves smoothly and the actors dance through their roles with verve and believability, right up to the end. Michael Tisdale is Thomas, the playwright looking for the perfect actress for the female lead in his adaptation of Sacher-Masoch's work. He's tightly-wound, frustrated, intellectual, and a bit of a control freak. Gillian Williams is Vanda, the aspiring actress that blows into the auditions late after everyone has gone home and seems to embody all the negatives of aspiring actors. Until she steps into the role she is playing and suddenly embodies the part, as if the vodun spirit of Sacher-Masoch's work is riding her.

OK, let me back up a moment for the original, pluralized fur-bearing Venus from Sacher-Masoch. Sacher-Masoch gave us the term masochism, much like the Marquis De Sade gave us sadism (are there any other isms that come from writers, or do we just get the sexual ones?). Sacher-Masoch uses the term "supersensual" to describe his protagonist, Severin, who is so struck by the aloof Wanda that he agrees to be her slave for a year, and goes through all manner of degradations, humiliations, and dominations (I'll cop to the fact that I have not read said text and I am leaning on Wikipedia for this summary, though the full text is here), until finally he gets it all out of his system. Indeed, Sacher-Masoch makes the case that one cannot be dominate or submissive with the other gender, but must be equal, to be companions. It is a hallmark moment in the original work, but we don't get to that point in the play, because the play is not really about that.

The thing about the original Venus (and about the version that Thomas in play adapts and presents to us the audience) is it from the masculine POV. That is, the text deals with Severin's compulsions that drives him forward, and lasts until the point that he declares himself "cured". He effectively tops from the bottom, while the heroine (named Wanda in the original) is almost a bystander. And that's one of the things that play DOES rattle about with - the question of who is really in charge here - Severin or Wanda? Thomas or Vanda? Director or Actor? Man or woman? Creator or muse?

It is heavy going in places, and could just collapse of its own weight. However it is spared from that fate by a script that is bright and engaging, and characters that are incredibly likable. We immediately connect with both the neurotic Thomas and the brassy, earthy Vanda. The humor is there, accessible, positive, and likable. The early bits have that casual attractiveness of an episode of the Big Bang Theory (nerds and hotties and the goofy attraction therein), which you need for later when you are deep in the forest and things are getting dark. This is all foundation work.

Michael Tisdale is good as Thomas, but Gillian Williams is amazing as Vanda, an incredibly demanding role that requires her to turn on a dime from struggling, desperate actress to cool countess and back to modern commentator. The audience is sometimes a half-step behind both of them as they barrel through the assumed roles and assumptions. And the end? I don't quite buy it, but the logical part of my brain has by this time been swept aside by the emotional. Supersensual, indeed.

Worthwhile and engaging. Yeah, worth seeing, and worth comparing against A Great Wilderness. Go have fun.

More later,

Postcard from Bellingham

This past week, the Lovely Bride and I celebrated our 31st Anniversary. For our 30th, we snuck off to Maui. For our 31st, we headed north for Bellingham.

We've actually made it a thing for the past few years - doing local weekend getaways - Alderwood down on Hood Canal, Snohomish Lodge, even downtown Seattle. It is a way to break away from the regular duties, and to hang out, play games together, and read.

So, this time, Bellingham. The vibe I got of the town was very much similar to Madison, another railroad town with a university present. Actually, it is four different towns that eventually grew together, which explains both the multiple old-building shopping areas and the street grid, which bounces off at all angles. The place has a strong progressive vibe to it plus an old-time industrial feel, and the current stress seems to be between those pushing for more commercial/tourist activity versus acting as a transportation hub (looking at the recent concerns about a proposed coal-loading platform).

We stayed at the Belleweather, a recent creation on the coast, a peninsula with new buildings including hotel, restaurants, and shops. We had a water view, which meant a view of the marina along one side. The place was nice, but there were weirdnesses - a huge bathroom with an deceptively small tub, a gas fireplace without a couch in front of it (instead two stiff-backed chairs), and those weird louvered windows between the bathroom and bedroom (which work as a concept only if you don't have the toilet visible as a result). The staff was positive, though, and the main room was dominated by Biscuit, the resident yellow lab. It was good but not great, and to be frank, a Sunday morning fire alarm did little to improve things for us (which was when we discovered the phone didn't work).

Henderson Books - Bigger on the Inside

Bellingham is the home of the Whatcom Museum of History and Art and the Sparks Museum of Electrical Invention, neither of which we visited. Instead we pampered ourselves with hot stone massages (at Zazen, also on this peninsula, and recommended), and book shopping. This is probably one point it reminded me of Madison. Michael's on Grand was recommended on the net, and  was a sprawling bookstore in disarray, where you had to do a lot of digging to find anything you are after. Good for treasure hunting, but the history section looked like a small hurricane had hit it. However, Henderson Books directly across the street was neatly arranged, well-organized, and had exactly what I was looking for (Books on the War of 1812 from Canadian or British publishers). So yeah, if you're looking for something specific, head for Henderson.

On restaurants, the ones on the peninsula were totally OK, but the best ones we found were in the city proper. Anthony's has an outpost here, and its Hearthfire was large, noisy (we were fortunate to be in a sub-room), and had good ribs and a crab mac and cheese the LB liked. The local Italian place had for me a good lobster ravioli/shrimp for me, but the LB's veal chop marsala had a burnt sauce. And breakfast at the hotel was a sad thing - mushy oatmeal and an under-seasoned omelette from one of those automatic machines, and a negligible buffet. It was bad enough that on Sunday, after being roused by the fire alarm, we still chose to seek breakfast elsewhere.

The good places in Bellingham were more local oriented as opposed to traveler/tourist formatted. The Boundary Bay Brewery and Bistro was pretty damn brilliant. The LB chose it solely for the BLAT (Bacon/Letuce/Avocado/Tomato), but the young lady at the front desk of the day spa raved about their beers, so I ordered a sampler. Six 5 oz. glasses on a place mat informing you of their natures (as I child I would get a place mat with a maze and maybe a word jumble - this was better). The best of their regular brews were the Scotch Ale and the Blonde, but the ESB and Red Ale were excellent, and the Oatmeal Stout went nicely with a well-prepared lamb burger. I'm not a fan of IPAs, I have decided, but discovered by the end of the meal that this sample had vanished as well.

Art at the Harris Avenue Cafe by Gretchin Leggitt.

Her site is at http://gretchenleggitt.com/

Anyway, after a Saturday Breakfast Fail at the hotel, we cast out for on the net for a replacement for Sunday, and ended up in Fairhaven, which was one of the OTHER towns that melded to form Bellingham. Fairhaven itself has the small-town charm of old buildings re-purposed to art shops and restaurants, and one of these was the Harris Avenue Cafe (which is attached to Tony's Coffee & Espresso, and in cold weather, you come in through the coffee shop). And it was wonderful. I had an amazing italian sausage omelette that was folded enough times to resemble origami.The LB, daunted by the eggs on the menu, went with oatmeal (which was real, thick, and fruited), toast, and asparagus (the waitress said everything on the menu was available). And she raved on the asparagus (grilled, not steamed), the oatmeal and toast. Yeah, it was a good turn for the final day in Bellingham.

Both Boundary Bay and Harris Avenue were crowded, and the crowd was a mix of townies and students, baseball caps and fashionable scarves. For Bellingham, I would say hair colors not found in nature, tattoos, and piercings are a good sign for the quality of the food. And that's among the clientele. The more traveler-oriented spots were OK, but just OK. The stuff in the older buildings, re-purposed for new businesses, hung with local decor or art (Gretchen Leggit had her art at the Harris, which made me find her site, which I then recommend as well), is where to find the good stuff. It is worth hunting down when you are in Bellingham.

More later,

Play: The Power of the Word

A Great Wilderness, by Samuel D. Hunter, Directed by Braden Abraham, Seattle Repertory, through February 16, 2014.

One of the benefits of having season tickets at the Rep is that you end up going to plays you'd never really consider if they were standing alone. I mean, imagine this conversation.

Me: Hey, it's a Sunday afternoon - want to go a play?
You: Sure. What's it about?
Me: It's about a man retiring from his job running a gay conversion therapy camp in Idaho.
You: You mean ...
Me: Yeah, convincing young men not to be gay.
You: Oh.
Me: No, really, it's pretty good.
You: I bet.
Me: And it deals not only with gay conversion but end of life issues.
You: Yeaaaahhhh. I'm sorry, I just remembered I have an anvil in the oven and can't make it.

And yeah, on paper it looks like this could go horribly, horribly wrong, a cringeworthy very special Lifetime movie with a moral lesson for us all. But it is not like that because writer Hunter plays fair by his characters and refuses to let them fall (mostly) into caricature or give them the easy way out. He builds their nature brick by brick and makes them accessible, even likable. And that, given the subject matter, makes them all the more challenging.

OK, here's the set-up (with spoilers). Walt (Michael Williams, brilliant in the role) has been running a camp for troubled (read gay) young men up in Idaho for thirty years, and is finally listening to his ex-wife and fellow camp founder  Abby (Christine Estabrook) and is about to move to a retirement home, a phrase he hates. Walt agrees to take on one more young man, Daniel (Jack Taylor, also honest and engaging) , who disappears soon after arrival, even before Walt's ex and her current husband Tim (Rep alum R. Hamiliton Wright) arrive. Then Daniel's mom Eunice (Mari Nelson) shows up, along with the park ranger (Gretchen Krich) who is leading the search. Responsibility for the young man's disappearance spills into the fate of the camp and the responsibility of what Walt has done over the years. Much cognac is consumed. Oh, and then there is a forest fire.

Walt is erudite, thoughtful, and caring, plagued by failing facilities and a frustration with accepting his age. He is also very well-meaning. He keeps a huge volume on hand in his cabin on a stand, but it is dictionary, not a bible. In fact, no one prays onstage, no one quotes scripture at each other. These are very secular Christians, a more real-world type that dodges the hypocrisy leveled at those who abide by chapter and verse. Walt is frustrated by people assuming that his conversion methods involve shouting and electroshock. He's a much more gentle creature whose intentions are good even if his goal is questionable.

Walt uses words and feels those words leaving him as a sign of his own mortality. Abby. by comparison, has her own words and considers them her property, her way of enforcing her will on the surrounding world. Tim is Walt's replacement in her life, and there is a mirror between the two men, of what might have been had Abby and Walt remained together. Eunice is stressed out and burned out by dealing with her son, yet is not challenged as she slips into depression building her own fort and defense with her words. Janice, the ranger, is the most cartoon-like of the characters, coming off as a bit Fargo-esque, and uses words without thinking of their effects.

Were this an Albee play, all would be trapped in that tiny cabin and the stress kicked up by multiple rounds of accusation and counter-accusation until something snaps and everything goes to hell. But Hunter allows the characters the room to move, to leave, to go off-stage, to regroup, and to think. The delivery is low-key and human,as opposed to theatrical. And that makes this an excellent play.

It has its own weaknesses. The ending is abrupt, and I don't know a way to address it. There is no rising action, no swell of music, no look-to-the-future optimism or ironic fatalism. Just a sudden blackout that confuses and makes you want to know more. The audience does not know when to applaud. As we done? Where did we go with all this? What was this all about?

Where I ended up was with John the Baptist (what?). I know this is weird, but there are hints throughout the text. Walt lives his whole life and finds that someone else gets the revelation he has been seeking. Someone else gets the surety of faith. He discovers, much like John that he was put on earth to be the opening gig for Jesus. Ultimately, this play is a question of reviewing one's life and trying to determine if it has meaning. Its a big-ticket question wrapped in a play that I have trouble describing otherwise.

And it is worthwhile, an excellent example of theatre pushing the envelope in both presentation and subject matter without going over the top. It is a very good play, but I think a very tough sell.

More later,

The Super Bowl Narratives

If there is something that makes humans human, it is our ability, no, our desire to find patterns. To make connections. To tell stories. It is something we are very good at, such that clouds become herds of horses, smatterings of stars become legendary heroes, and a handful of stats indicate the economy is going great/going to hell in a handbasket due to the high ethics/moral bankruptcy of those involved.

And now, the Superb Owl. Championship game of the NFL. And that is not just enough, of course. It must have deeper meaning than merely men contending for a prize, and as a result, we see the rise of the Narrative. 

This year, the game is between my hometown Seattle Seahawks and the Peyton Mannings. Yes, it really is the Denver Broncos, but despite the fact that Denver has a plethora of excellent players (none of whom come to mind at the moment), every bit of coverage is going to be about the legendary quarterback who is going to a Superbowl representing a completely different city than his last time.  In fact, we can use a Manning-base Bechdel test here - You have to find an article that a) is about the Broncos, b) is about a player who is not Manning, and c) does not mention Manning and that player's relationship to Manning. Have fun.

Note that even our local weather expert, Cliff Mass, falls prey to this - comparing how well the Seahawks as a team do in aggregate against how well Peyton Manning does in sub-zero weather. Sigh. 

On the other side, the Seahawk articles will follow the traditional overlapping trinities found at this time of year. One player is chosen from the following categories - Quarterback, Running Back/Receiver, and Defender. There will be other players who are very, very good at their jobs, but we look at those positions, and then overlay the approved personality traits - The Cute One, The Loud One, and the Tough One.

Think I'm kidding? Look no further than the championship Steelers of my youth, with Bradshaw (Quarterback, Loud), Franco Harris (Cute (well, suave), Receiver), and Mean Joe Greene (Tough, Defender). It is a pattern, one the Narrative  thrives upon.

And if you have to talk about a fourth player, you talk about the kicker. The kicker is the Ringo of the holy trinity, and doesn't need to have a singifying trait. 

So, for the 'Hawks, we have Wilson (Cute, Quarterback), Sherman (Loud, Defender), and Lynch (Tough, Running Back). We have a lot of extremely talents players (Kearse, Baldwin, Tate and the holy ghost of Harbin who will player a full quarter sometime this season), but those first three will be the stories. Along with the "character" of the team.

See, the last time Seattle went to the Superbowl (against Pittsburgh), the team was considered too NICE to be there. Seattle was a bunch of reasonable nerds with pocket protectors that would be mugged by the smashmouth, down and dirty, hard working type of football that Pittsburgh played. And indeed, that narrative played into a couple questionable calls that Seattle remembers bitterly to this day (Not that this seeking of redemption will be part of the Narrative - the Narrative does not like to examine the mistakes of the Previous Narratives). 

This time, the Narrative is shaping up the other way. Seattle is the black hats. We're the bad boys, the loud mouths, the chippy trash-talkers. The coach looks the other way for violations and the team has been heavily penalized. They are the scrapyard dogs, the fans are loud and obnoxious, they play nasty. They are almost ... Oakland. This is an 180 degree flip from the last time. But don't ask the Narrative about this - the Narrative moves in its own, private ways.

So look for these things in the next week as the hype engines fire up, and the sports folk talk about Russel Wilson's boyish good look and how uncouth our team is. And most of all, the Narrative will be how it will all be for naught as Peyton Manning and his team, the Peyton Mannings, cruise to victory. Until they don't.

More later, 

A Political Desk Pop-Up

A pop-up, in foodie terms, is a short-term restaurant set up with a clientele notified by twitter, rumor, and social media. In short, a foodie rave. It gives chefs a chance to experiment, young talent to get experience and (the cynic in me is strong these days) a way of sidestepping unions, reviewers, and local health inspectors. One week there is a private supper club in that storefront, the next week it is back to being urban blight.

So too does the Political Desk suddenly shows up, makes a couple announcements, then beats a hasty retreat to its lair. But there are things that need to be noted.

First off, in the Puget Sound area, we have some (very) local elections coming up. Didn't we just have a bunch of these? Well yeah, but these are for school levies (read, taxes which have specific goals). In the case of Kent, where Grubb Street is now situated, these levies are to renew expiring levies to fund schools, maintain educational programs (like bands) and provide equipment (Really? What happened to those used Mac Pluses we gave you twenty years ago?). Naturally, I vote YES on such matters, since I tend to like to have children around who are slightly less dumb and more cultured than the American average, but my cynical heart notes that we get to vote on spending money on our childrens' future, but no one really asks us when we open our pants (and by pants I mean coffers) to fluff Boeing.

Second off, there has been a change in the Kent City Council. Previously, you will remember that one of the candidates for office was charges with stealing nearly $300,000 from his own mother. This candidate, Ken Sharp, won the position, though just barely. This blog did not endorse Mr. Sharp, noting, among other things, that even if these charges were found untrue, he would be a wee bit distracted. Two weeks after being sworn in, Mr. Sharp has stepped down, as the charges (seven counts of first-degree theft) would be, in his words, a distraction. Yes, we called it here.

So, what now? Kent needs its seventh member of council. Previously, as when there was a death on the council, the council will consider candidates and appoint someone for the term (so no, you don't have to vote on this - I know that's a relief). But, this is happening relatively quickly. Like by end of day on Feb 7. So if you happen to live in Kent, have experience in civic, professional or volunteer organizations, have a high tolerance for bureaucratic organizations, and want a part time job that pays around $13K, here's the link to apply.

Per the Kent Reporter, three candidates have already applied, all individuals who have lost in the previous election. Bailey Stober was narrowly defeated by Mr. Sharp, and would be a solid choice. However ALSO as noted in this blog, he's had some problems getting his election finance records in order, and is being investigated by the Public Disclosure Commission (and the cynic within me notes that this investigation was announced hot on the heels of Mr. Sharp's resignation). Deborah Raplee was a write-in candidate in the Stober-Sharp race, and a previous member of council, which gives her the probable edge (oh cynical, cynical heart). Wade Schwartz lost in another race, and were I to put my two cents in, be my choice. But I don't get that chance because, um, democracy.

If only there was some OTHER election happening right now that we could hook this to, but such is the nature of things.

And with that, the pop-up closes down, before the fire marshals show up. More later.

The Monster Manual of Style

Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks by Keith Houston, W.W.Norton & Company.

The pilcrow. The octothorpe. The manicule. No, these are not creatures rejected from the 5th Edition Monstrous Manual, but rather occupants of font libraries, keyboards, old manuscripts, and software programs. Stuff that you may have seen but didn't know it had a name. These creations are the supporting cast of the alphabet, those symbols that did not make the cut for traditional A to Zed, but have survived in a odd symbiotic relationship, a typographic twilight zone, their fortunes rising and falling over time.

The pilcrow is the paragraph marker. Yeah, the one that looks like a backwards "P" mated with a "J" and shows up invisibly in your files to mark the end of the paragraph. The manicule is the old-timey hand that points at stuff and reminds you of the signs from a hundred years ago. The octothorpe is what us old folks used to call the "pound-sign" or the "numbers-sign" but you kids today call the hashtag. Shady Characters is full of them, along with the dash, the hyphen, the quotation marks, the @ sign, the asterisk, and the dagger (also called an obelisk, which makes me wonder about the true origins of Asterix et Obelix). And it is a cool guided tour through the lower planes of typography.

What I like about this book (and about books of this type) is that it is committed to following the development of a concept through time, and showing that the path is neither straight nor narrow. Our typography, like just about everything else, is a rugby scrum of competing concepts which are introduced, flourish, battle it out, are forgotten, and then show up in another context entirely,. Houston's material loops back through history several times, dealing with the Library of Alexandria, Roman (upper case), Carolingian Minuscule (lower case), glossaries, monks, movable type, linotype machines, unicode, and of course in the Internet. Things which work well for one domain may not make the jump to the next, and concepts which were left fallow suddenly see a renewed existence (your pilcrow, replaced by the empty tab at the start of the paragraph, now lurks in the bowels of that copy of Microsoft Word).

Houston keeps the story moving forward, while footnoting extensively. The book itself in 250 pages long, with an additional 70 pages of notes as every line demands a reference to its origins. It is that amazing combination of deeply researched and accessible at the same time.

The piece that I come away with is how we have treated text differently over time. In the time of the Greeks, writing was a memory device, where you knew the story and the text existed (often without punctuation or vowels, or spaces between words) as a prompt. In the time of illuminated manuscripts, the glossed notations took a life of their own, such that a book was expected to be marked up, corrected, and evolved. Book ownership indicated ability and willingness to argue with it. The tyranny of cold type forced another change and established the arbiters of what would and would not make it into typeface. And so to the present, where the Internet has produced its own solution to the often-attempted but never-delivered sarcasm symbol.

If you have a love of punctuation and iconography, this is a great book to move through, keeping to its various subjects but throwing open doors to new concepts and parts of history mostly forgotten. Keith Houston maintains his own blog where he continues his research as well a promoting the text. Both book and blog are worth checking out.

More later,

BeJouled

This is a restaurant story, but before I begin I should note that I am no stranger to spices and heat. Long ago, the Lovely Bride was writing the recipe section for the Dragonlance book Leaves of the Inn of the Last Home. For this project I was both a contributor (gnome chicken, a descendant of my mother's 'city chicken' - breaded pork cubes on a skewer) and a playtester - or rather, play-taster (I have had more courses of Otik's Spiced Potatoes than any man not working at the Inn of the Last Home should have had to endure).

But I was regular play-taster for another recipe in that book - Fizban's Fireball Chili. This was a meat marinade perfected by former roommate Frank, who was, in mad scientist fashion, looking for the perfect chili marinade - one where the burn would "start at the tip of the tongue and continue all the way through the entire digestive system". So I am no stranger to culinary heat. At least, not in my younger days.

[And as an aside, Frank's "killer" chili resurfaced when he visited us in Lake Geneva one year, and served it for our friends. Zeb Cook and Tracy Hickman got into an ironman contest as far as who could tolerate the heat of the chili the longest. Picture two men sitting across the table, sweat pouring down their faces, a small tub of sour cream between them. The first one to reach for the sour cream lost. But I digress.]

So, returning to the present, the Lovely Bride and I got a case of the culinary adventures. Seattle is a foodies' town, yet we have our preferences, the places we go back to, and I am always encouraging her to expand her horizons. So when a copy of Bon Appetit magazine showed up bragging about the Best Restaurants and tagging two of them in Seattle, she was intrigued. Moreso because both of the them, neighbors in the same space with different head chefs, served tartar. The Whale Wins has a lamb tartar, and Joule was shown with its beef tartar. The Lovely Bride loves tartar, and, given a choice between the two, Joule took reservations while The Whale Wins did not, so we opted for Joule. Both restaurants, side by side, were located in Wallingford, and after a few sundry adventures in driving and parking, the kids from the hinterlands of Kent arrived.

The space was large and open, and I recommended to the Lovely Bride that she dress for warmth. I knew that Joule did a Korean barbecue fusion, but had little more than that to go on (remember - Culinary Adventure!) The restaurant is bent around the chef's stations, with a counter overlooking (we like to watch our food these days, but that is another blog entry), the floor concrete but the noise level minor. The staff was polite and prompt, and, apparently learning from previous experiences, prompt on keeping the water glasses filled.

I ordered a gin and tonic with darjeeling, tamarind, and lime, called an R. Kipling, which was a good start. The LB ordered a persimmon drink that she found too bitter. We cross-examined the waitron about allergies and what such things as what honshimeji and parpadelle were, marking us fully as Kenterlanders. We settled on two beef tartars (hers without the aioli, mine with), splitting a noodle dish of spicy rice cake with chorizo and pickled mustard green. The LB, having moved through these culinary wilds successfully, chose a ribeye (with celeriac fries - and yes, I believe that after hours the chefs all get together and make up names like this). I was going to go for the short rib steak, then reversed myself and opted for the octopus, bok choi, and bacon vinaigrette. Kate went for a darker red with dinner and I went with an alberino, a white with sort of a pineapple twang to it.

In any event, the tartar, the cause for our travels arrived, and it was hot. Not thermally - that was at the perfect temperature, neither mushy warm or just-from-the-fridge cold. It was spicy. The salmon aioli moreso. Delicious and not overly spiced, but the spices used were hot. Not tastebud-destroying (I've had enough of that over the years), but definitely a challenge to the unprepared. The two of us exchanged worried glances that our adventurism may had led us into a dangerous part of culinary town.

The spicy rice cake (and note, it says spicy right there, in the title, so its not like we can blame anyone), was moreso. Tasty, crispy around the perimeters, but with more heat that I expected. I was starting to sweat, both literary and figuratively, as the main courses arrived, with the fear that we had ordered an entire meal from the flaming-hot side of the menu.

Then, with the mains, disaster struck. The LB reached out an snared what she thought was a dried beet from the plate and popped it in her mouth, only to discover that it was not a beet but rather a dried pepper - small, pungent, and with the power to strip the paint from the walls.The staff (who apparently are on the lookout for such things) were quick with water, though water does nothing for the heat measured on the scoville scale. Would I be looking for that tub of sour cream?

And with the mains (and the LB getting over the explosion in her mouth), all things good returned. The steak was a perfect rareness (though they did not ask for doneness when they ordered, but it was done nicely nonetheless), and the octopus was incredibly tasty, cooked through but not gummy or rubbery. And bacon. Bacon with octopus. Never ignore the power of the bacon. 

We recovered both our wits and our tastebuds over the course of the meal, and had to pass on a variety of egg-based deserts. And in general, it was not what we expected, but it was something worth checking out. And when we got home, the LB said "You know, I think we should have gone for the LAMB tartar". And if we end up back there, on the other side of the building, I'll write that up as well.

More later,

A Merry Christmas

and a Happy Holiday Season from all of us at Grubb Street

More later,

Dyvers Blogging

So Charles Akins has nice little blog called Dyvers, and he has put together the Great Blog Roll Call for RPGs. And in addition to the Roll Call, he also targets the Best Reads of the Week. And this is great thing, even though that a lot of the description in the roll call has the horrible line "Dark since XXXX", meaning that they are rarely kept going and may have closed up shop entirely.

This is the fate of a lot of gaming blogs, and there are many reasons. A lot of cool stuff has already been said. People are in abeyance with diverse systems until the next D&D arrives. But most importantly, I think that is it because there are a lot more different platforms out there for communication. Long form blogging is a bit more of a challenge in a world where you can slap up an image, a link, or a stray thought at a moment's notice.

But there is a extremely comprehensive listing here, complete with additions and notes. here's what he says about Grubbstreet:

Former TSR author Jeff Grubb's blog. This bad boy mostly focuses on his life and on the world around him, though on occasion he will stray into old tributaries.Updates: Depending on what's going on in his area, between two and twenty entries a month. 

I think that's a pretty fair cop, and a warning that sometime, somewhere, I REALLY should start talking about gaming again. But if you're looking for real content, here's a great place to start.

More later,

Play: My Dear Watson

The Hound of the Baskervilles, Based on the Original Story by Arthur Conan Doyle, Adapted by David Pichette and R. Hamilton Wright, Directed by Allison Narver. Through December 15

This is a Rep production, top to bottom. You know that in this space I kvetch about how it is called the Seattle Rep, and then they bring in some successful company from elsewhere or a one-person show or puppets, for god's sake, and I opine how I'm not sure that it is living up to the Repertory in the name. However, this adaptation of the classic a Sherlock Holmes novel is both original and native top to bottom. Adapters Pichette and Wright are both actors whose work I've enjoyed, and I've appreciated director Narver's work as well. And the bulk of the capable and competent cast list use the winning phrase "was last seen at the Rep in..." and then lists some of the titles we've reviewed here.

In addition, this could be a play that could easily taken on the road and play with great success back east (take THAT, other Rep companies!). In the theater calender, this would be considered the "safe" holiday play - something you could bring the out-of-town in-laws to, and it pulls out all the stops for stagecraft and presentation. And, of course, the subject is well-known to everyone, as all have encountered Holmes to some degree or another through their years.

And Holmes is hot. We have the action-hero steampunk Holmes on the big screen. We have the sociopathic modern Holmes (US and UK varieties) on the little screen. We have numerous PBS-versions of Holmes still haunting the DVDs, and various other media adaptations. And we have the original texts of course. And of the Holmes stories, the best-known is probably the Hound of the Baskervilles, with its spooky moors and man-killing, glowing yeth hound. And while watching the play I kept referring back to the Basil Rathbone movie version, and I would not be alone.

So we have an extremely popular character in that character's well-known work. Do we call spoilers at this point? Do you have to say "The kids die" about Romeo and Juliet? Does Celine Deon's voice swell in song and you lean over and tell your seatmate "The ship sinks, you know."? But there are some differences between original and adaptation so let us call spoilers and be done with it. Some characters have evaporated, or have their roles taken up by others, and scenes occur that work in the play (they hold a dinner party for the locals to bring everyone onto the stage at once, for example), that are not necessary on the printed page. And it does change the story, but let me deal with the excellent actors, first.

Darragh Kennan is an excellent Holmes, fitting well within the various Holmesian hordes. His Holmes is smug, often haughty,but extremely competent. More than a touch OCD. He knows his tobaccos and accents but not his Shakespeare. He is often wrong. He makes mistakes. He is a much more human Holmes than the iconic version and Kennan plays up the self-satisfied, too-clever-by-half version of him well.

Andrew McGinn balances Holmes acerbic nature as the more welcoming, warmer, more human member of the partnership in Watson. Watson is a continual quandry in Holmesiana, is that he is a capable Doctor but often takes the back seat as the expository character, the one which Holmes reveals his thought process to, and thereby to us. As a result, he tends to come off as a bit of clod, while it is through Watson that we see Holmes in the first place. In Baskervilles, Holmes disappears for a good bit of the plot (part of the first act and almost the entirety of the second) and Watson soldiers on, collecting the clues and interacting with the locals on a level that a chilly Holmes never could.

Oddly, the character that steals the show (and there are several would-be thieves in the talented group), is Connor Toms (previously in Red) as the Canadian heir to Baskerville Hall, Sir Henry. Recently imported from the Great White, this adaption runs with the fish-out-of-water comedy throughout, the front-facing Sir Henry trying to shake hands with everyone, tip the servants, and insisting people call him "Hank". He runs into the very proper English with its stoopshouldered serving class and repressed emotions like a hurricane making landfall in Scotland.

I mentioned others engaged in stealing the show as well, both with main roles and as part of the ensemble. Rob Burgess as the horrified butler Barrymore. Marianne Owen as both Barrymore's wife and a wondrous turn as Mrs. Hudson, both tolerant and knowing where to draw the line with her famous tenants. Basil Harris as the Doctor who brings the case to Holmes and serves as an interesting mirror to Watson. Charles Leggett as the bad neighbor with a generations-long grudge, Quinn Franzen as the of-course-he's-a-bit-spotty butterfly hunter and Hana Lass as his slightly-psychic sister. Within the confines of the play, they have a bit more suspicion cast upon each in turn as Watson (and Holmes, when he appears fully) has to examine when dealing with a phosphorescent hound on the moors.

And here's the thing that offended at least one purest in our group - in removing a couple of characters from the book they messed with some of the plot, and ended up in a different final place than the novel. It is interesting, but given the shotgun approach to modern Holmes stories, it is perfectly permissible. But it does feel odd, given that so much is so right. And what bothered me that we got a "villains speech" at the end when the mastermind explains all, which doesn't feel right for Holmes as well. Holmes is the guy that gets it right, explains it all, pulls off the sheet to reveal the entire plan, and the culprit says "Ay, that's correct. It's a fair cop." Not here, and now, a week later, I'm still not sure about it.

The stagecraft, by the way, was the Rep at its best, filled with sliding walls and projected images. They choreograph a chase through Paddington Station that is positively brilliant, capturing the feeling and flavor through other members of the ensemble, sliding pillars, pirouetting staircases, and perfect timing. This is to handle something that theater handles badly, given its limitations - showing a chase which involves more than running from one side of the stage to the other.

So, Hound runs for another week, then must close, so you should order tickets. This was the first Sunday matinee I've been to in a long time where the main floor was sold out, and a friend who knew someone at the ticket office said there would be no rush (last-minute, cheap) tickets. It is popular show, well-down and well-presented, and sums up everything that Rep company is supposed to do for its audience. A very proper, Holmesian Christmas present, indeed.

More later,

Boeing! DOW Breaks 16,000!

I am amused by the pundits and politicians who rant about the Socialists in government. Mainly because we have an honest-to-ghod self-identified Socialist in government out here, and it looks nothing like the pro-business, too-big-fail, corporate welfare, Wall Street-fluffing breed they seem to have in our capitals, state and national. If those guys are Socialists, then they are doing something very, very wrong.

In any event, one small marker of economy, the cheerleading section from the Dow Jones, continues to surge ahead as the rest of us seem to be picking ourselves off the mat. So that's good, from what I've been told. 

Seattle is doing very well, by the way, as measured by my personal rule-of-thumb measure - how bad traffic is. And by that single-point reference (which is, when you look at it, what the DOW is as well) business is good because traffic is bad. More people are now clogging the concrete arteries on their way to jobs. You'd think that we'd put a bit more money into public transportation, but you would be figuring against how these Supposed Socialists in power really think.

Giving money to public transportation, or public anything, of course, smacks of Socialism, and as such has been studiously avoided in Olympia this past year. Giving money to a massively successful corporation on the chance that they will stay in town, well, that's worth a special session of the state legislature. Said special session doled out the largest single largest package of bennies ever to keep the semi-hometown team of Boeing producing its new 777x here in the Puget Sound region, as opposed to shipping off the work to other, non-unionized locations.

And when I say single largest package, we're talking about 8.7 Billion with a B. And that is on top of all the other bennies we roll out as we see Boeing continually eye other dance-partners. Oh, despite the fact the aeronautical giant is reducing staff here in the Puget Sound region ANYWAY. And the fact that we've done this dance before and seen plane production go elsewhere anyway.

But Boeing puts out the collections basket and folk line up. The state legislature. The guv. The union at the national/international brotherhood level, who caved to its demand of frozen pensions, no raises, and no guarantees, and recommended the local workers do the same.

And the local union looked at what they were asked to pony up for the promise of the 777x, declared it spinach, and said to hell with it.

And yeah, it was a pretty rotten deal. So rotten that even the pro-business, anti-union Times had to recognize the stench. Of course, now that the machinists have nixed the deal, management gets to cry crocodile tears as it ships stuff to other, poorer, less-uniony parts of the country.

And the Seattle Times now gets to condemn both the unions for costing all this growth, and the politicians for larding out all this pork in the first place. They get to play both sides against the middle. For a more rational view, you have to go the NYTimes to find it. And wow, I don't often say something like THAT too often.

I get the idea that Boeing hates its workers. It is pretty obvious. It moved its HQ to Chicago to get away from them. It tried to farm out its 787 production (labeled by one wit here as the "Dreamsmoker") to a huge number of smaller, cheaper operations. And then had to come back to its Seattle wonks to fix things when these third-party guys confused batteries with hibachis. And despite the fact the Puget Sound continues to produce the lions' share of planes, despite attempts to farm them out elsewhere.

My opinion? I support the local unions on this for doing the right thing. Yes, it may reduce the number of jobs (or reduce the angle of the slide as Boeing tries to weasel away from Washington anyway). But my commute sucks enough already - adding more people to the job pool is probably a bad thing. Plus the fact that new airplane interiors are apparently made for Playskool Little People, so its not like I going to be riding comfortably in these new, lowest bidder airliners.

Want me to change my tune, legislature? Sure. Fund public transportation and get a decent roads package through your spending-adverse minds. The cries for austerity are loud right up to the point where a large corporation is involved. Then the gates are thrown wide on the shadow of a promise that a company seeking to save every nickel will not try to welsh on the deal. And if you MUST insist on giving money to aerospace giants, let's invite Airbus over to visit every so often.

And for Boeing Execs? Here's the secret to breaking the unions - pay your people in Texas and South Carolina better. No, seriously. Ten years of competitive wages in those areas will raise the tech levels of the work force and make the unions here looks like some ancient dinosaurs. Unions come into being because the management does not deal square with its employees. It is hard to argue about freezing worker pensions when your CEO's own pension went up by $20 Million last year. Practice a little of that corporate wisdom, and you will, long-term, win.

Otherwise, you're looking at coming back to Seattle workforce when your "lowest possible bidder" triple-seven starts getting cranky.

More later,

Also Fifty Years Ago

More later,

[The Update: Writing this after seeing the 50th anniversary show and, while it had more loose ends and plot holes than an half-knitted sweater, it was truly a glorious, wonderful thing, the pacing and comparisons between the personal and macro plots weaving together, advancing the character entirely, and both providing a resolution and setting things up for the future. So I'd like to take that egotistic moment and talk about the various incarnations of the Doctor from a personal level. There are none I would truly hate, but a couple places where the entire operation has gone astray. In general, they are a pretty good group.
   One, William Hartnell, was the archetype, and cannot be viewed save by through the black and white glasses of the past. I only saw a handful of his shows, and he plants the flag as the acerbic old professor, the type that every other Doctor plays against to some degree.
   Two, Patrick Troughton, is a bit of a mystery to me, after all these years. I've only seen him in one or two versions (usually the one involving Cybermen), and in his team-ups with later Doctors. More comforting than patriarchal, he has always been one of the "funny" Doctors.
   Three, John Pertwee, was such a creature of his era. The action hero Doctor, working for UNIT, confined to earth, and filled with all the things that made Britain so very British for me. This Doctor, the Avengers, and Monty Python explained what life was like in modern England. With Sarah Jane. And with Autons.
   Four. Ah. You always remember the first Doctor you encounter, and in college, for me, it was Tom Baker, with a long stretch of episodes that we got out of the Chicago public TV station (and yet, whenever I happen to catch one these days, it is always "Giant Robot"). The Bohemian Doctor, with a slew of suitable and increasingly interesting companions - Sarah, K9, Leela, the two Romanas. Yeah, it went silly more often in the later span with Doug Adams, but still, this is the real Doctor to a lot of us.
   Five. Peter Davidson, who was young and vulnerable and we had seen previously in the states as the feckless vet in All Creatures Great and Small. Often bewildered. In one of those wanderings astray, he had a pack of companions at once. Never understood the Adric hate, but I never cared much for Turlough for being the world's oldest schoolboy as well as the continual pawn of evil.
   Six. The Colin Baker Doctor was not a fave at the time, but I am more willing to give this part of the series credit for attempting to be different. A dislikeable Doctor, darker stories, higher body counts, an American companion, more moralizing (often heavy-handed), non-linear storytelling. Yeah, the low point for that era was the Trial of the Time Lord, but C.Baker himself I could not really dislike.
   Seven, with Sylvester McCoy, was a tonic in comparison. Patrick Troughton for the new generation - more elfish and amused with himself. A very comfortable Doctor, and Ace made the best of the later-day companions.
   I fear I never gave Eight, Paul McGann, much of a shot, I'm afraid. An Americanized movie from Fox felt like cultural imperialism, and the shoddy way McCoy was regenerated just left me upset. Yet McGann kept the fires burning on audio and in other media during the dark years without new TV Shows, and I was glad to see that he got a proper sendoff in this clip.
   John Hurt, who is ... The War Doctor? Eight-point-five? The Missing Doctor? Probably he will be the New Nine and everyone else just shifts back one, fits neatly into the cosmology. He fills a required whole admirably, and in the 50th is just spot-on. He pulls off the miracle of walking into everything and making everyone believe he had always been there.
   Chris Eccleston, the Old-Nine-Now-Ten was a perfectly suitable reintroduction to the line. Closer to the Pertwee action hero end of the spectrum, the reboot gave him a dark past without overwhelming him
   David Tennant, Ten-now-Eleven is my personal fave among the new group. Bright and exciting, he was bolstered by good companions with Rose, Martha, and Donna. The stories got a bit much in magical timey-whimey pull-the-solution-out-of-the hat, love-will-find-a-way but he evoked a lot of T.Baker for me. And I liked the glasses. In fact, I think that's one reason I liked the anniversary show so much was his presence.
   Matt Smith rounds out the proper Dozen (nothing to say about Peter Capaldi's Doctor, as we haven't seen much), now that we close in on the end of his tenure, was an OK Doctor for me. His Doctor roiled through manic and clever and confused, and falls in the Peter Davidson era, particularly when he threatens to get overwhelmed by his own companions. River Song comes into her own here, along with the Ponds and now Clara, who stood in very well for the entire line of companions in the 50th.

So, yeah, the 50th Anniversary show is worth catching, even if you've drifted off in the past couple years. It does a good job sealing up a nice little chunk of Whovian History, and continues the team-up tradition of inter-Doctoral bickering. And four of the actors who played Doctor Who were involved in a very amusing, backstage, inside-production comedy right here, and you should check it out. Yeah, a lot of the jokes depend on you knowing about the actors involved, but the sight of Colin Baker standing on his riding lawnmower to get better cellphone reception is just worth it right there, Yeah, go check it out.]

Fifty Years Ago

Dallas Times Herald Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

More later,

[Update: Someone asked: Why this picture? Part of it is because it was new to me - the PI was running the events of that day as a real time Twitter feed and this shot was taken shortly before the motorcade entered Dealey Plaza (I tracked down a better copy later, credited correctly). Part of it was because it seems so innocuous, so unsuspecting. And part of it because it sets the scene, and JFK does not dominate it.

Looking at the downtown Dallas of that day, the thing that most modern Americans would notice is that it is a security nightmare. Open windows, low buildings, fire escapes down the front of buildings, a large (but not huge) crowd of well-wishers. You see the security guys on the running board of the police car and on the back bumper of the limo alert, scanning the crowds.

The other thing I notice was about the car. It is what in those days would be considered a stretch limo in that it had three sets of seats. And that back set of seats, where the President and First Lady were sitting, were higher than the seats in front of them, to let the crowd get a better view. Look at the molding on the side - it rises after Mrs. Connally, and still Jackie is more exposed, higher up.

I mention this because the "smoking gun" of conspiracy theory is the so-called "magic-bullet". The bullet from Oswald's gun passed through the president, and into John Connolly, but the trajectory doesn't line up. This, of course, indicates there were other shooters, or multiple shooters, or the Comedian was on the Grassy Knoll. Unless of course, the President was sitting on a raised seat, which he was. Of course, the "magic-bullet" has worked its way into conspiratorial history, so this will rattle no true believers, but the evidence is there.]

A Late Anniversary

So without much fanfare or notice, we passed the ten-year mark here at Grubb Street, which was longer than a lot of my employment at most places over the years.  The first post was a modest one:

This is a test. This is only a test. In the event of real content, enlightenment would be provided. 

And real (well, mostly real) content followed. The next post was about the history of the original Grub Street. The next entry I learn how to do headers. By the end of the first month, I'd done a restaurant review (Canlis), a book-on-tape-review, made fun of a local politico, and called someone a pinhead. After that I was off to the races.

Over ten years. According to the sidebar, over 2000 posts. Mostly the same backdrop and organization as we started with. Most of the same spelling and grammar errors. It has slowed a bit, and part of that is because one-shot comments or pictures now go out to Facebook or Google+. But for long-form tomfoolery I keep coming back to blogging.

This is not, and was never intended to be, a successful blog. Blogs that survive by bringing traffic back again and again do so by selecting an audience and a theme and sticking with it. If you want to talk about broccoli, every post is about broccoli, and your audience comes to your blog because of your broccoli knowledge, and both you and your audience self-select. Similarly, if you hatge asparagus, and your blog is filled with every asparagus recall and health warning about asparagus and crackpot theories about how asparagus was responsible for the Fall of Rome and again, you end up with an audience of asparagus haters. ("Yeah, I hit all the red lights on the way to work today. Thanks, Asparagus")

But I find that boring. It is tough enough for me to get through a full political season, or a theater season, or talk about collectible quarters on a yearly posting without freestyle medication. But I will confess that I am sympathetic to those who follow this blog in the faint, faint chance that I will get back to talking about games. And we will. Sometime.

By the same token, this is hardly a personal therapy blog where every problem is suddenly blog-cast out to the rest of the world. I don't write anything I don't want my Mom to bring up when I call home. But I do like the sense of variety. If this blog is selling anything (other than my most recent book or game - say, did I mention that Scourge is a really good Star Wars novel?), it is selling my public persona - amused and amusing (I hope). Thoughtful and on occasion thought-provoking. Not scary. Creative, capable, and available for the creative odd job.

Anyway, with the non-anniversary, I finally went back to the Google Dashboard and starting looking at feedback. I don't take comments on this blog (I do take email, but since that denies the public posturing of comments, I don't get a lot of them), but I can scan the number of hits particular entries have received. Here's what the top scorers since 2007 (which is when the feature apparently came on line) are:

An article about Spelljammer.
An article about Christmas Layoffs at WotC.
A political article about the recent Advisory Votes. Seriously, what's the deal here? Was I the only guy in King County writing about this?
An article about how D&D always competed with itself.
An article about the original Marvel Super Heroes game.
An article about the Forgotten Realms comic books.
One of my "DOW Breaks" articles, which became a regular feature where I pretend I know anything about economics.
And article about Lovecraft, and the difficulty of loving the writing and hating the writer.
A review of Playing At The World.
A link-filled summary of the first year's anniversary of Guild Wars 2.

So, were I smart guy, I would obviously fill my blog with stuff about the "Good Old Days" and not deal with anything else. But I don't, because this blog is for me, which means that sometimes I will talk about interesting stuff, and sometimes I will talk about interesting stuff FOR ME. And I'm pretty happy with it, and you know, the Internet is a big place, so you asparagus-haters can go off an find some other blog to follow.

And oh yeah, I'll get back to talking about gaming any time now. Really.

More later,

What Other People Are Doing

Just some quick updates on friends:

Troy Denning and Ed Greenwood will be joining Erin Evans up at the Northgate Mall Barnes & Noble tomorrow (Thursday) at 7 PM, to discuss the new Forgotten Realms series, The Sundering.

Tim Brown is closing in on the close of his Dragon Kings Kickstarter, with less than a day left. It has made its funding, but check it out!

Bruce Cordell has also made funding for his new RPG, The Strange, but it is worth checking out as well.

And lastly, our local Tolkien expert John Rateliff has had his magnum opus, The History of the Hobbit, appear in the bonus features of the new release of The Hobbit movie. Cool beans, indeed!

More later,

Meanwhile, Last Night

Left to Right: Becky, Jennell, Stan!, Lorelei, Rob, John, Me, Will, Dave, Scott. Picture by Bruce Cordell.

This photo is from a gathering of my writer's group, the Alliterates, at our habitual watering hole. Bruce Cordell took the photo (he would have been sitting between me and Stan! (who's back is to the camera). Steve Winter, who is also a member, was off camera to the right, but this was the group for the evening. I've put it up on other social networks, but I just want to talk about the composition.

But what I like about this photo is how evocative and well-lit the scene is, making it look almost like an oil painting. We have already talked about the comparison with the Last Supper. The center of the picture, over Rob, John, and Lorelei, is the best-lit and the center of the work. Bruce took this at a moment when we talking in one relatively big group (due to the size, throughout the evening, we had three or four conversations going at the same time). The figures are naturally posed because most of us didn't realize Bruce was taking a photo (except maybe Lorelei, with her arms folded). I don't remember what we were talking about, though I always use my my hands when making a point, and the sight-line was between me and Jennell. The background is well-lit, but other-worldly, its color palate separated from the muted hues inside the bar.

It is rare when a random photo creates this sense of story and a uniformity of feel. It looks like Lorelei, Rob, and John are sitting in judgement as Jennell and I make some arcane points. It was a passing moment, but captured. No one is caught off-guard or looking dorky as a result. It is one of those chance things that just works.

And that's pretty cool. More later,

Veteran's Day

More later,

The Political Desk - Wrapping Things Up

After giving a couple days to settle, most of the results are pretty set. Late returns can flip the results, with the smaller elections having the most likely chance of suddenly changing sides. 

I-517 - The Inititative Protection Initiative - NO
I-522 - The GMO Labling Initiative - NO (apropos of nothing, the Farmer's Assurance Provision, also known as the "Monsanto Protection Act", which protects seed companies from litigation from their completely safe, currently unlabeled product, was just extended for three months. (um, yaaaaaay)).

Advisory Votes 3-7 - 3-4, 7 Maintained, 5-6 Repealed, not that it matters anyway.
King Count Charter Amendment No 1 - Yes
King County Proposition No 1, Medic One - Approved

King County Executive - Dow Constantine
Metropolitan King County Council District No. 5 - Dave Upthegrove

Port of Seattle Position No. 1 - John Creighton
Port of Seattle Position No. 2 - Courtney Gregroire
Port of Seattle Position No. 3 - Stephanie Bowman
Port of Seattle Position No. 4 - Tom Albro

City of Kent, Mayor - Suzette Cooke
City of Kent, Council Position No. 2 - Jim Berrios
City of Kent, Council Position No. 6 - Ken Sharp (Maybe. This one is still hanging fire, with only a couple hundred votes between the candidates, but has been fairly stable. Should Mr. Sharp win, the voters will have to sit through his upcoming criminal trial. Um, yaaaaaay).
Kent School District No. 415, Director District No. 5 - Maya Vengadasalam

Soos Creek Water and Sewer District Position No. 2 - Larry West
Soos Creek Water and Sewer District Position No. 3 - Gary G Cline
Public Hospital District No. 1, Commissioner No. 3 - Barbara J. Drennan
Public Hospital District No. 1, Commissioner No. 5 - Tamara Sleeter

And in the bonus round, The City of Seattle went with the progressive machine candidate as opposed to the progressive independent, and King County re-elected the relatively inert Republican for county commissioner. 

More later,

Play: Banana Fanana Fo-Fita

Bo-Nita by Elizabeth Heffron, Directed by Paul Budraitis,  Seattle Rep through November 17

Let me be clear about this: I strongly support the presentation of original theater in this town. I'd much rather watch a new original production by a locally-working playwright, refined in-house, than the touring company of some road-tested, marketing secure presentation. And that WILL take you into risky waters, both for subject matter and presentation, and most of all into the deadly territory of the one-person play.

Ah, the one-person play. A single actor before you. It saves on cast and such complications like wardrobe or blocking, but for every K of D or Humor Abuse, you run the risk of a Thom Paine, a play that continues to rankle in my subconscious, much like "anything with puppets" rankles with the Lovely Bride.

And is Bo-Nita a K of D? No, but it is still pretty interesting.

Here's the short form: The entire play is a narration from Bo-Nita, 13, who is waiting for her mom after school. Bo-Nita is a bundle of anger and rationality and hormones, a precocious, self-aware, self-raised woman-child made old before her time, operating in the zone of that just-getting-by America with a scam-planning mom, a succession of her boyfriends, and a stoner grandma.  And she is telling a story about the time she had to deal with the apparently dead body of her stepfather, which grows weirder and stranger with each looping scheme and flashback.

And I'm watching this all, and something tickles the back of my mind. Unreliable narrator, under-aged protagonist, predatory stepfather, heart attic. Mature, as they say, themes. Am I watching a presentation of Vladamir Nabokov's Lolita?

And I check on the Wiki after I get back home. [Note 1 - I have not read Lolita; a knowledgeable friend pointed me to the superior Pale Fire at the time. And Note 2 - Since I am not a libertarian Republican Senator, I can't quote Wikipedia directly as my own work] And yeah, that's a good summary. Heck, even the protagonist/play's name is a head-nod, fed through "The Banana Song". But it uses the bones of the Nabokov piece and dresses it up in a belly-dancing outfit, and ends up rich in both humor and pathos. It takes it in a different direction.

And Hannah Mootz, as our singular unreliable protagonist, plays 13 very well, aware of her world and still naive at the same time. She has to negotiate around some concepts with language that may be a little old for her, but acquits herself wonderfully.

There was a bit of technical sabotage in the sound system for our performance. In order to get across the idea of the setting, there is a radio playing in the background. The problem was that the radio noise was running too loud, and creating not the feeling of a shared space in which Bo-Nita is talking, but rather that someone left a radio on while setting up the other theater. Worse, when Bo-Nita went into flashbacks, the radio noise continued, which left me wondering if it was an error. I was not alone - one of the other patrons was asking around during the play about it, which set the performance back further.

That aside, how was it? Pretty good. Not at the top of one-person performances but hardly bad. It does need some more time to get the tech and language down (I was doing mental calculations about when the mom and grandmom would be born to get Bo-Nita to 13 in 2013, which is usually a troubling sign of engagement). But good marks for something original within the confines of the Rep.

More later,