Ravings of a Textual Deviant

“That cake is like a construction worker. Every time I walk by, I hear it saying ‘Hey, baby, you know you want some!’”

Today is as good a day to abuse poetry as any.

When we last left our Thursday night game, three of our group had been turned into toads. (It’s a long story.) Our first order of business last night was to see what we could do about reversing that unfortunate situation. We decided that we needed to advertise. My character took it upon herself to write the notice…in haiku. (She writes everything in haiku; this affectation is one of my personal all-time favorites.)

Seeking great wizard
To turn toads back to fellows
Reasonably priced

[contact information]

Fortunately, our companions are now more or less themselves again. And at a reasonable price, even.

A few weeks ago, I read somewhere or other that the most overused cliche of the year is “at the end of the day.” (I work with someone who uses this one all the time; it’s certain her most overused cliche.) So it occurred to me that what we need is a comprehensive program of cliche replacement. For example:

Old cliche: Like watching paint dry
New cliche: Like watching your hard drive defrag

Old cliche: Too many cooks spoil the soup
New cliche: Too many drama queens spoil the drag show

Unfortunately, I have yet to come up with a good replacement for “at the end of the day,” so I urge everyone out there to join in my effort to get some new tired old phrases into circulation.

For reasons which aren’t important, Ed and I need a key to his brother’s house. Now, that same house used to be Ed and Mark’s parents’ house, and Ed lived there for several years after finishing college, so he never returned the key.

No problem, I thought. We’ll just let ourselves in. But, being the careful person that I am, I asked Ed to make sure he still had the key. That led to the following exchange:

Ed: I don’t know.

Me: Please find out ASAP and let me know so that I can pick one up if you don’t have it.

Ed: Honey, the only way to know for sure is to go over there and try the 20 or so keys I can’t identify on my chain. We may need to find another way.

Me: Didn’t it used to be your housekey…for years?

Ed: A key looks like a key looks like a key. They don’t move. They aren’t good to eat. They aren’t dangerous, and you can’t have sex with them… why in the world would I pay attention to what it looked like? Hmmm?

I don’t even know where to start answering that question.

This is a roundabout way of saying “Mom, check your email.”

Last fall? Winter? Mom asked me to write a few scenes for Dark Pages I obliged. But there was one final idea that had resolutely failed to work itself out. I wanted to do a werewolf scene; originally, I wanted to do something with Oz from BtVS as an American werewolf in London.

Too anachronistic. Wouldn’t work. Much disppointment, the kind that requires a Ghirardelli cure.

On Sunday, Mom brought An American Werewolf in London over to help me along. Unfortunately, it ended up being anti-helpful; anachronism aside, the last thing I wanted to do was write anything for fear that it might even begin to suggest that wretched film.

Fortunately, I’ve managed to come up with something else instead, thanks to the wonderful people over at the Internet movie database. The scene is anachronistic, but not unforgivably so. Nothing to do with any film by John Landis. Written and delivered this morning. Done.

Now I can start stressing out over next year’s new scenes.

Last night, I was at the lab reviewing some new written procedure descriptions for K.

K: I think they’re OK, I just want a sanity check.

M: What are you going to do if you find any?

Me: Get rid of it, of course.

Don’t know much about history…but when has that ever stopped me?

Does joining a game with a lot of background thrill or intimidate you? What do you do to try to learn the background, or to compensate for not having it? If you GM, how do you help newcomers to a background-heavy game? What has worked for you as a player/GM, and what hasn?t?

I haven’t joined a long-running campaign as newbie in so long that I don’t know if I can even address this question. The idea is both thrilling and intimidating, I must admit. My feeling is that the situation requires an exceptionally competent GM and an exceptionally competent player. The GM has to avoid the appearance of deus ex machina (unless, of course, it would enhance the plot) while the player has to accept the fact that she’s always going to be on the outside of most of the in-jokes and such, especially at the beginning.

Like Ginger, I love the smell of a long-running story. Lots and lots of yummy plotline goodness. However, I have a huge amount of sympathy for anyone who has to walk into the group as the new person. My Thursday-night group recently brought on board a couple of new players. They’re both experienced gamers, and a fun couple of guys as well, but they’re new to the way my long-established group does things. We’ve got twelve years (or more) of jokes, gossip, and dirt on each other. A couple of us have known the “new guys” socially for some time, but not everyone in the group does. None of us have deliberately tried to be exclusive–quite the opposite–and as far as I can tell, our new guys fit right in…but they’re still the new guys. Stories are always changing and progressing, but when new people join (or established players leave) the players’ interpersonal dynamic changes. In my limited experience, it’s been for the good, so far.

#92 asks about burnout.

Have you ever gotten burned out as a gamer? What did you do to combat burnout? Which things you tried helped, and which ones didn?t? Which ones would you recommend to a gamer with burnout?

I’ve gotten burned out on campaigns, systems, and even groups, but never gaming in and of itself. I love my hobby, and with a few exceptions, I’ve been privileged to game with very good friends since I was an undergraduate. (Ten years next month; time does indeed fly!)

Personally, I find that a change of scenery is always good. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut, whether it’s always the same setting or genre, same type of character, or the same people. For me, gaming is all about the story, and stories do need to end eventually. It follows, therefore, that a campaign that doesn’t move or wanders aimlessly burns me out faster than anything. (I’m having that problem with the Lunar Ellipse right now; I think there was too much early buildup and not enough payoff. Any suggestions for moving this game along are enthusiastically welcomed!)

For the burned-out gamer (or anyone suffering burnout of one sort or another, really), I’d suggest the following; if a permanent change of scene is not practical, find a way to take a sabbatical. Yes, you can. If you’re not having fun, why are you staying in the game in the first place? Read something that has nothing to do with your current campaign. Get people outside your gaming group together for board or card games. Take a class in something you have always wanted to try. In short, do anything that has nothing to do with the source of the burnout. You can always go back, and when you do, who knows what new ideas you’ll bring with you?

As Cathy says, even if you don’t like what you see at the Stutz Artists’ Studio Tour, there are plenty of things to make fun of. I liked what I saw and I got to make fun of something–what more could I ask for? Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see nearly as much as I’d have liked (perhaps only 2/3 of the show) but I still came away just this side of sensory overload.

My first stop, of course, was Francie Broadie’s studio. (Francie has done a couple of very nice–and affordable–custom pieces for me, and is therefore entitled to the first shameless plug.) Both her paintings and her jewelry are just like she is–bright and fun. If you manage to get over there tomorrow, be sure to ask about the watches; they aren’t on display because they don’t have batteries, but she’ll probably sell you one anyway. Moon Stumpp/Belladonna Tails Studio has more high-end beadwork pieces, in a style that is quite different, but just as lovely. If pressed, I would describe it as “boutique-y.” The other jeweler I visited was Magickal Dragon Designs. Tina and Marti Icenogle’s work incorporates fused glass and silver, and while it definitely has an air of fantasy art, (as you might expect to see at a convention dealer’s room) it’s tasteful rather than over-the-top.

Staying in three dimensions, I was extremely taken with Michael Smith’s bone-textured, clean-lined “Fossil” sculpture, which looked like a large prehistoric fish skeleton as imagined by Frank Lloyd Wright. Michael Swolsky’s metal sculptures are also worth seeing; oxidized-metal trees share wall space with layered, geometric, multi-metal patchwork and heated-treated prismatic copper butterflies with curvy cutout wings (”Like garden sculptures, only good,” I said to my mom.) A couple of fabric artists, Stephanie Lewis Roberts and Walter Knabe had what I can only call (in my best Ab Fab voice) gorgeous things. Lewis Roberts’ work involves dyeing, printing, quilting, embellishing, and sculpting fabric into kaleidescopic, exuberant, free-flowing soft sculpture. My favorite piece was “Water”, which had opalescent paint over more shades of blue than I can count curling into waves. Knabe’s work is more orderly, but no less imaginative; you’ve probably seen some of his stationery products in nice gift shops. He combines French and Italian brocade patterns with botanical and architectural designs and calligraphy (Chinese style-characters or flowing English script) in strongly contrasting colors. He’s done work for the Indianapolis Artsgarden and Orchards in Bloom, and works in a wide variety of media, including ceramics, paints, and textiles.

Of course, there were a large number of painters and graphic artists whose work was on display, and I can’t possibly do justice to all of them. Jerry Points‘ style immediately reminded me of the artwork in the front matter of the Sandman compendia volumes; it would complement Walter Knabe’s textile work nicely, come to think of it. My favorite pieces were “Southern Comfort,” “Homage to Raphael,” and “Southern France.” The Spears’ studio (Bryan and Bruce, not Britney) looked like the inside of a casual dining restaurant–the kind with various signs and other random “antique”-sale stuff on the wall. My take on it is that it’s designed to appeal to straight guys. I’m happy to say that Susan Mauck showed her work again this year. My favorite pieces were the fish paintings, which are an Impressionist take on Chinese-style scroll paintings. Another returnee is Laura LaFarge, whose work is a little bit Edward Gorey, a lot of comic-book color, and occasionally sparkly. Ric Epley’s work was a mix of (unimpressive) drippy-paint-on-canvas that might have been a dropcloth in a former life and Rothko-inspired textured geometrics that were not bad at all, although some of them are so large that you really need more space than his small studio to really take them in. Finally, Lynn Morton Walker didn’t limit her painting to canvas; she also had some decoratively-painted chairs–one of which had a gold, bronze, and cream marbled-paper pattern on a pink background–picture frames, mirrors, and objets.

Unlike last year, I didn’t see very much photography, but I didn’t get through the entire show (four floors, six areas per floor). BPL Images had some crisp, black-and-white and sepia photos, mostly portraits, cleverly displayed outside the studio. The displays inside the studio weren’t quite so clever, but the work is compelling enough to speak for itself.

There were a few unusual offerings this year as well–wines and beauty products. Simmons Winery, of Columbus, IN. had a tasting area set up on the third floor. Mindful of the fact that I was going to have to drive home at some point, I only tried two of their twenty-some products. The Chambourcin was, as advertised, dry and lightly oaked, with lots of rich fruity goodness. The peach wine was much sweeter than I usually prefer, but it was so smooth and had captured the essence of peaches so well that I would happily make an exception–and a granita–of it.

I stopped in Paint Cosmetiques very briefly; it’s an upscale, boutiquey line with pretentious spelling, but a wide variety of eye and lip colors. There weren’t any testers available, so I can’t speak for the products first hand, but they did look very good on the drag queen who was modeling them. Whisper Canyon’s bath and body products were given minimal presentation, but looked very nice. I thought that the petroglyph soaps were particularly clever–chunks of soap that looked like rocks with a variety of designs “chipped” and painted into them. Another series of soaps looked like amalgamations of mineral crystals. There were also several types of creams (hand, foot, face, etc.). Apparently the mango-peach is the best-selling frangrance, and if it’d been ice cream, I would have had some on the spot. Personally, I preferred the lime-ginger scent.

Oh, and what did I make fun of? I won’t reveal the artist’s name, but I will say that I probably should not have been surprised by the contents of her studio, given that she had a very bright, quasi-expressionist female nude hanging outside her studio door (”Oh look,” I thought upon seeing it. “Technicolor breasts.”) I entered the studio and saw a large, almost-cartoonish, full-length portrait of Jesus with arms held out in front of him, in a kelly-green toga and Lucille-Ball-orange hair in a 1930s ‘do, stigmata, with a very stern expression. I murmured to a fellow attendee, “It’s Jesus with Joan Crawford’s hairdo, directing traffic.” She somehow managed to keep from laughing until we actually exited the studio…but I didn’t hear anyone disagree with me. (”I can’t believe you said that,” she exclaimed. I’m not sure why not; it’s exactly the sort of thing I’m likely to say…even when I haven’t been sampling wine.)

I’ve never wanted kids, (for a variety of reasons) but even if I did, here’s something that would make me think twice. It’s been a long, hard road for women’s rights, and the last thing I want to is to give them all up to become an animate incubator because a bunch of facists with no medical training think that they know what’s best for people they’ve never met. A parent is expected–required–to make decisions about a child’s life and health after birth, but an expectant mother can be forced into medical procedures that are known to be detrimental to her own health or face criminal penalties! Why on earth would I possibly want to have a child if I have to consult the criminal code before the obstetrician?