Immersion

Games are often judged on how immersive they are, and how well they draw you in and make you believe you are a part of its worlds. This goes especially for roleplaying games and computer games. However, sometimes you might feel you've immersed yourself in a game world too much, such as when you consider whether an action is worth risking a life point or not, or you expect to gain a decent amount of experience points for a night out on the town...

... and of course, sometimes you go too far... seriously...

but then again, I never did get into the Myst series

The Ides of March, 2008

Beware the Ides of March, proclaimed to soothsayer in warning to the original man of the people Gaius Julius Caesar. I can speak for hours on the greatness of the original Caesar, on his skills as a warrior, his political acumen and his love for the people of Rome. And the Romans love for him, as well. He's a role model for future political actions, and the one man to compare all other leaders with. And on this day, the Ides of March... he was murdered.
All good things come to an end, and the great democratic leader was felled by 23 individual knife wounds given to him by friends and allies. His blood would flood the Senate floor where he had served the Roman Republic and it's people in so many different capacities. And while one can argue that he should have seen such an act coming, given all the colourful omens that preceded it and the fact that he was a renowned military leader and political tactictian, the assassins were able to catch him off guard while he was receiving their petitions.

The Roman Senate was corrupted by their own petty jealousy and feared that Caesar, whom they had themselves given the title of Dictator-for-Life, was becoming to powerful and popular among the Roman people. The fact that he treated his enemies with the same decency and friendliness as his allies also shook them up a bit. The Senate organized themselves into an execution party, that included long-time friend and adopted son of Caesar, Brutus. Most folks believe that Caesars final words were directed to him - in English it is quoted as "And you, my son Brutus" and in latin "Et Tu Brute", which just means "You too, Brutus?" A better lating would be "Tu Quoque, Brute, Fili Mi?" However sources on this are flimsy at best, and there is only one source as far as I can tell, and it tells that he actually spoke in Greek, and cried out: "Kai Su, Teknon?". No matter which version prefered, I would think he was to busy getting stabbed to point out each and every participant, and even if he did... he wouldn't be so polite about it.

So what were his last words? There's no way to be sure, but history agrees that as the military genius he was, he was able to see what was going on pretty quickly. He analyzed it. And came to a conclusion. And soon after the first few knives struck him, he yelled out - "But this is violence!" And he should know, he had lead many a battle, and successfully so. To the end, he was a General, and an observer. He knew violence when he saw it.

And thus he died, bleeding at the Senate floor. Surrounded by his friends and allies, the people whom he had given power, and had rewarded him for his great work.

On this day, we honour the greatest statesman of all. In memoria, Caesar-baby. Rome will be reborn.

(The BBC has the full story on his murder)

Tony Wakeford and Reeve Malka Interview

Last summer I had the pleasure of spending a weekend with a lot of friends and great artists, among them were one of my favourite musicians, Tony Wakeford along with his lovely wife Renee Rosen. Tony is behind the alternative folk (read neofolk, dark folk or whatever you prefer) project Sol Invictus, and is involved with several other similar projects.

Both Tony and Renee are lovely people, and it was great fun meeting them, and we still keep in touch from time to time. They are wonderful musicians, and songs by Sol Invictus are played at least once, every day, at my place. But the music often becomes overshadowed by the past, which some people seem unable to let go off. And no matter how many times Tony distances himself from past affiliations, meaning the British National Front and that sort of rather tasteless thugs, people still keep trying to use this against him.

It's sad really. It just proves how certain elements of the so-called "left", has actually just left their senses and abilities to reason far behind in their hunt for ideological purity. It's what happens when your ironclad dogmas get the best of you. You become easily confused by facts and blind to the truth. Okay, I'll admit it, it's more annoying than it's sad - though I still feel for the parents who brought these sort of lunatics in to the world and probably tried to raise them as best they could.

Well, to the point... I actually have one this time. Tony Wakeford recently gave an interview to Peter Webb along with his collaborator and producer, Reeve Malka from Israel. In this interview he clears up his past once more. The interview deals with past, present and future projects, and how he now feels about his association with the NF. At one point he states, regarding right wing politics;

"I don’t have any interest in it whatsoever. I find it quite alien. For me the past really is another country."

You don't have to be any clearer than that in my eyes. The interview is pretty long, but also very enlightening and interesting, and I heartily recommend reading it. It's been published on the web by the good folks at Evening of Light, which I'm told is a spiffy webzine, but so far I haven't had the time to look around much.

I also recommend checking out Tony's music, which you can buy through his own label, Tursa, or even as digital downloads through Woven Wheat Whispers and eMusic. His label also has some decent music of him and his associates on its myspace page. I also advice you to check out Sol Invictus on Myspace. There's also a few clips out there on youtube and elsewhere, like this rather shoddy video of a performance of one of my favourite Sol Invictus songs, Media;

I hope the recent interview quiets some of the ungrounded allegations and suspicions against Tony Wakeford and his collaborators... if not, we'll keep ignoring them. Drown them out with great music.

Puppy love?

I admit it, my relationship to the wonderful muscial The Sound of Music, might be a bit... strange. It dominated large parts of my childhood and formed my identity. My interest in young nuns and young men in tight german uniforms most likely comes from an overexposure to this movie during formative years. Blame my parents for not letting me watch Rambo-movies.

On the other hand, no one can deny that it is a timeless masterpiece, even if they do reject me invites to Sound of Music Sing-a-long-events at my gloomy bachelor pad. The music is wonderful, the story is magical and the lyrics are witty... you would think that you couldn't go wrong with it.

Then again, you probably haven't seen this version of "Sixteen, going on seventeen"

Have I offended anyone, yet?

I'll have to admit it, the death of Gary Gygax kept me from writing here... either that, or I had plenty of stuff to do elsewhere. Anyways, I was thinking about another side of myself, that I probably should bring forth.

People say I have a disturbed sense of humour. Among my collection of books you'll find collections of ethnic jokes, entire books on Jewjokes, Gayjokes and assorted other lowbrow topics. Humour that entertain and offends. This is where the intelligent and the ludicrously stupid meets. This is where the small minded bigot expresses his doubts, his fears, his entire weltanschauung, and where the over-ironic intellectual finds his risky amusement.

As a folklorist I have an excuse to indulge in those most tasteless of comedic genres, it allows me to sit here and drink some fine single malt whiskey and laugh heartily at lovely little bits like this:

And if anyone can tell me where it's from, I'll be very happy. I need the rest!

The death of the storyteller

I've written this a couple of times already today, and there are plenty of people who have done the same, so I'm keeping this short.

Gary Gygax, the father of roleplaying games, died today (March 4th, but I guess its past midnight now). And we're all grieving in our own special way - looking through old gaming books and throwing around D&D jokes.

The co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons was one of the seminal people in the hobby, more than anyone else he was loved and hated by the gaming community. He was especially loved for starting it all, and giving us the framework and rules that we could distance ourselves from or break. A lot of us has criticized Gygax and D&D, and rightly so, we've even cursed him and the game from time to time, because it wasn't what we wanted from a roleplaying game. On the other hand, we could never forget that without Gygax we would have nothing to compare our expectations to. Nowhere to start from. He gave us that start. He was the giant whose shoulders we perched ourselves on, and he was every gamer's uncle.

And therefore, he was loved and respected.

Personally, I will be forever grateful for the gift of roleplaying games. It game the tools and settings to learn the craft of storytelling, something that has become a part of my life. Both my writing and my academic work always return to one thing - the stories we tell. And not to forget the stories I want to tell myself, as a writer of fiction and of roleplaying game supplements.

Thank you Gary, for all that. And so sorry you didn't make your saving throw, and even more sorry the cleric didn't have a resurrection spell handy.

Next session, I promise.

Sweeney Todd: The Disappointment of Fleet Street

Of course, I haven't forgotten this blog. I've just been busy, that's all. Other than writing, I've gotten around to seeing a couple of movies, one of them was the very anticipated Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Based on the Stephen Sondheim musical. You gotta love that, right? Because everybody loves Tim Burton, it's mandatory actually. Everybody loves Johnny Depp, that's mandatory too. Actually I think it's mandatory to want to have sex with him. And everybody loves Alan Rickman, though I don't believe that's mandatory yet. We're getting there though.

These people aren't allowed to make mistakes, and we apparently easily forget the ones they have (Planet of the Apes, anyone? Shame on you Tim!). Now, I have to admit, Sweeney Tood was a good movie. Not their greatest work, by far, it was a pretty standard deald. Everything looked like what you would expect it would look like when Tim Burton is comfortable with what he's doing. Which also means, no crazy, or great ideas, like in Beetlejuice or Batman. The thing is, and now I'm getting closer to a point I promise, is that its a musical about a brutal murderer and his manipulative accomplice. How can you go wrong? I love musicals, and I really don't mind that the actors arent "great singers" as some have complained. I mind though, that it's a poor musical. Not because of Burton or the others, but because the original Sondheim-musical is extraordinarly tame for the topic. And while Burton saves it with evoking images, and a bloodfest that pust Dario Argento to shame, the music simply doesn't really match it.

But hey, I'm still willing to forget. I'm still not disappointed. It's still a good movie.

But then... the travesty, the disappointment. Seriously folks. You have Anthony Stewart Head on set, you've announced he's going to be in the movie - and then you leave him with one single shot and a simple line? Where's the singing? Now, I may be overreacting a bit here, but I'm a huge Anthony Stewart Head fan, and not because of his role in that Buffy-thingy, but because he's a lovelt british actor with style and a great singing voice. An entertainer. And one of my favourite recordings is of this man singing Sweet Transvestite on Dark Refrains - Rocky Horror Disco Show.

And when I see him in Sweeney Todd, if only for just a second, I expect to hear him singing. Not just fade away into the overall scenery.

Seriously folks, I was disappointed.

Other than that, it was good.