Greg Sanders

Blood on the Clocktower Review

The town storyteller has been found dead in this twist on social deduction games. Use your powers to root out the identity of the demon or hide your villainy. Even if your character dies you can still talk and retain one last vote as a ghost.

Yesterday was my first time playing Blood on the Clocktower, all four times as the game’s storyteller. This party game works similar to Werewolf or Mafia. In those two games there are alternating day and night turns: a small evil team secretly chooses a player’s characters to die at night, and during the day all the players vote to execute a player’s character they think is on the evil team.

Turning to Blood on the Clocktower specifically, the good team must kill the demon that leads the evil team to win. As in many of these games each player has a hidden role, in addition to being good or evil, that may grant helpful powers or unhelpful abilities.For example, the Empath knows the number of adjacent evil characters, while the Drunk’s player believes they have a different role but is in actuality powerless and being passed misinformation.

The storyteller is like a gamemaster in RPGs and is a key differentiator for Blood on the Clocktower from other social deduction games. They are empowered to shape the scenario to maximize in-character drama and out of character fun. So for example, the aforementioned Drunk player might have drawn the token for the Inspector and believe they know one of two players has the role of a specific evil minion. But the Storyteller is operating with full information and instead points to two innocent players chosen to seed an interesting conflict.

Another key change to the game is that players with dead characters retain the ability to speak in the game and hold a single last vote they can cast from beyond the grave. I think this is a pretty good fix to the classic problem of player elimination, because saving your vote for a pivotal decision could turn the tide and win the day for good or evil.

We played four games. The first two had 11-12 players and ended in climatic last days before team evil clinched the victory by reducing the number of living characters to two. The third and fourth games had 8 players and both had victories by the good side, once with a clever deduction by the Slayer who used a once per game ability to eliminate the demon and then once with good taking a fairly early lead and rolling on to victory. There was also some first day weirdness. I made a few rule mistakes with thankfully minor consequences as well as a few judgments that I regret because, while they complied with the rules, they were not the most fun choices.

On the balance, the game lived up to the hype for me. My mistakes aside, most people had fun, and I greatly preferred it to other social deduction games I’ve played. Being the storyteller was a different experience than playing, but came with the delightful dramatic irony of knowing who is lying and the being able to partially see through their tactics. The game also provides a fair amount of guidance on how the storyteller should use both the rules and social engineering to increase the odds that a good time will be had by all and avoid the bullying or other unpleasant manipulative tactics that social deduction games can inadvertently encourage. I specifically liked the traveler roles, which can be added for a late arriving player or be given to a player that may need to leave early without disrupting the game.

My pleasure comes with a few caveats:

Critique: The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis (Chapter 3)

Lewis is consistent in arguing that greater things build from lesser, so affection, the first of the four human loves he considers, is basic but no less important for that (for an introduction to this project, see the prior post).

Affection for Lewis is shaped by persistence, familiarity, and roles. Childhood friends, family members, pets, schoolmates, and beloved nurses or teachers are all listed as examples.

This warm comfortableness, this satisfaction in being together, takes in all sorts of objects. It is indeed the least discriminating of loves. . . But almost anyone can become an object of Affection; the ugly; the stupid; even the exasperating. . . It ignores barriers of age, sex, class, and education.

He then proceeds to cite the four animal friends in the Wind in the Willows as examples of “the amazing heterogeneity of possible between those bound by affection.” 

Co-reader Monica was charmed by one particular passage that notes how affection is enhanced by being different from the classic conception of soul mates or the like:

Made for us? Thank God, no. They are themselves, odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed.

The familiarity that is its basis can also be its limitation. Affection can be tied to the person as we came to know them, good and ill, just as one’s sense of someone’s height may be set by how they stood out when we first met them and not their stature in maturity. Even a change for the better may be regretted. The gift-love of affection is what we can offer and not necessarily what the other person needs. In many cases, for parents and teachers in particular, “the proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gift. . . Thus a heavy task is laid upon this Gift-Love. It must work towards its own abdication.”

Finally, the chapter makes an interesting distinction between spiritual health and mental health:

But, greed, ego-ism, self-deception, and self-pity are not unnatural or abnormal in the same sense as astigmatism or a floating kidney. For who, in Heaven's name, would describe as natural or normal the man from whom these failings were wholly absent?

So, how can affection grow into something more dynamic? The next love, friendship, will explore that, but its definitions are far thornier. Nonetheless, I was intrigued by Lewis’s strengths and failings and this next chapter is also the one that justifies the critique. 

Image Source: Nisa yeh on Flickr, used under a creative commons language.

Review: Rights of the Reader

Daniel Pennac's Rights of the Reader was recommended to me in part because I’ve been dissatisfied with the pace of my reading for some time. I found it an interesting exploration of why young people in particular may be alienated from reading and how they might be wooed back:

You can't make someone read. Just as you can't make them fall in love or dream. . . .
You can try of course. "Go on, love me!" "Dream!" "Read! Read! Read, goddamit I'm telling you to read!" 'Go to your room and read!"
What happens next?
Nothing

So, I'm the sort of weirdo that was not at all alienated by how we typically do English classes. I did sometimes run behind: I embarrassingly faked my way through To Kill a Mockingbird, not because I was blocked directly; I'd just fallen behind and lost track of the assignment.

But one of my fondest memories of English classes, I believe 9th grade, was to write a more critical book review. I'd initially suggested a Xanth book and my teacher, kindly but wisely, suggested I could find something more demanding. I went with the adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Film adaptation novels are hardly the highlight of sci fi canon but it was still a good moment for looking at some pulp more critically.

But while I don't even recall my line of argument in my essay, I remember my excitement at discovering compilations of critical reviews. People deeply engaging with texts, over thinking in their way, but in polished form.

Pennac’s focus is elsewhere. He convincingly argues that we should be reading aloud more when cultivating a love a reading. He argues said love can be lost when going from reading to kids to "and now you can read on your own, get on with it." He tells stories of engaging the words rather than making it an analytical assignment. He quotes Flannery O'Connor:

If teachers are in the habit of approaching a story as if it were a research problem for which any answer is believable so long as it is not obvious, then I think students will never learn to enjoy fiction.

I feel like the book is missing a typology of different and not mutually exclusive reasons people enjoy reading, though I think the book does well to focus on those most alienated, even if this limits the degree it speaks to my own reading rather than that of younger people I hope to encourage.

After the cut, I’ll cover his 10 rights and how I’d modify them for what I want for myself.

Review: Five Women who Loved Love, Ihara Saikaku

Five women Who Loved Love is written in a period of value transition in Japan. There is regular reference to ukiyo which the introduction notes can be translated as either the world of sadness (drawing on Buddhism) or the floating world. The later gets at both the glamor and the precariousness involved in the stories. The stories often felt like an intensification of chivalrous romances involved with breaking of the rules and death. But the chivalry analogy this is not quite right as the characters in the stories are largely townsfolk rather than samurai.  Moreover, the bustling and commercial seventeenth century Osaka is Ihara Saikaku’s home and townfolk are also thus a core audience.

I found the stories often frustrating, often with implicit social critiques that were quite funny but with an at times outright misogynist narrator adding unwelcome commentary on gender relations. As is my present habit I skipped the introductory essay, but in my case this had been a mistake. I’d been left wondering if there was a Tokugawa era version of the Hayes code: the characters can have their bawdy romances so long as they are punished. The end essay helpfully elaborated that the criminal code made affairs or running away with the daughter or sister, let alone wife, of someone of higher stature a capital crime. The five short stories in the book draw, to greatly varying degrees, on the names and sometimes highly dramatized stories of people who’d lived in the author’s era or a generation or two before. The transition to a new era was happening but strict social codes where very much a factor and the characters are often rebels who win some popular acclaim. Even without direct critique, Saikaku tells a story that criticizes these laws and may have skated the edge of what was safe to publish.

I found it most interesting as a cultural artifact, if an often troubling one. For all the death, there's not much graphic violence, though what the women feel forced to put up with is often deeply disturbing with two of the stories involving resigned "my reputation is ruined I may as well have an affair." As the introductory essay comments, the writing style is not novelistic and I found it difficult to get a strong sense of the characters of the leading women, especially at the moment of pivotal choices.

Some of the moralism from the narrator is fairly shocking to me, i.e. complaining about the disloyalty of widows who remarry rather than becoming nuns. That said, while this is a critique of women, he also notes it applies to the male lead in a story who accepts a new partner after tragically losing two pretty young men to sudden love interest death syndrome. The role of homosexuality in Japan in the book is not tied up with in moralism from Saikaku, and the stories show multiple instances including oaths of fidelity and a prominent role in the theater, which was often limited to males by regulation.

I think the audience that might most appreciate it would be those that are culturally curious about classical Japan and want to go deeper than the “oh, Japan” reaction and have a sense of cultural history in a light weight and fast paced set of alternatingly funny, tragic, and always somewhat problematic stories. I’ll close with a passage from the first passage of the first book that gets at the experience of reading these tales and their sometimes black humor. Content warning, blithe treatment of suicide:

Seijuro [just disowned] could only say, “It’s heart-rending,” and thought to himself that he would take his own life, if only Minakawa would not insist on joining him.

She guessed what he had in mind, and said: “You are thinking of taking your life. Alas, how foolish! For, however much I should like to say, ‘Take me with you,’ I still have attachments in this world and cannot. In my sort of work one’s heart belongs first to this man, then to that. Let us simply call our affair a thing of the past.” So saying, she rose and left him.

Crushed by theses unexpected words, Seijuro abandoned his plan of suicide, . “How fickle these whores are! Read any time to cast away old lovers.”

But as he rose in tears to leave, Minakawa came back clothed in garments of white, ready now to die, and clung desperately to him. “How can you live? Where will you go? Oh, now is the time to end it all!” she cried, pulling out a pair of knives.

Seijuro was almost speechless with delight to find his lover faithful after all…

Bird of North America, Urbanite Theater Sarasota, FL

Birds of North America is a two-person play about a father and daughter over a series of autumn bird watching sessions. The father is a staunch environmentalist and prides himself on a scientific mindset and the daughter finds her initial career doing copyediting for a conservative website he rather disapproves of.

The characters, played by Stephen Spencer and Denki Rongé, are both well realized and the bird watching does give a chance to track the world shifting around them. I think Denki, playing the daughter Caitlyn, in particular had a chance to show a lot of emotional range as she tried to maintain an often painful relationship and Stephen showed how John brought the same outlook when he was, by my politics, right and when he was sabotaging his own work or committing one of the most painful acts of mansplaining I’ve seen on stage. The Urbanite theater staging was evocative and had good sound design for the bird watching itself. I’ll definitely keep the Urbanite in mind in future trips. Spoilers after the cut.

John Proctor is the Villain?

This premier play at the Studio Theater in DC is a tale of an honors English class in a one-stoplight town in Georgia grappling with the Me Too movement and countercharges of witch hunts in the Spring of 2018. If the premise and the  critique it explores of the Crucible sounds dry to you, don’t worry; the play, written by Kimberly Belflower, delivers ample comedy and well-characterized high school drama. Teacher Carter Smith (Dave Register) is excited to transition from sex ed to a unit on Arthur Miller’s critique of McCarthyism and Red Panic by way of the Salem Witch Trials and - once the premise is established - both represents the standard read of the play while engagingly drawing out the students. Try-hard Beth Powell (Miranda Rizzolo) and Atlanta transfer student Nell Shaw (Deidre Staples) have done their homework and are in parallel founding a Feminism Club along with friends, which is met with some skepticism by guidance counselor Bailey Gallagher (Lida Maria Benson) for being potentially divisive. The club quickly gives preacher’s daughter Raellynn Nix (Jordan Slattery) a chance to shine, as Jordan’s slightly spacey line delivery is a source of many laughs and recalled for me Osaka from Azumanga Daioh, while still holding up as things got more series.

The lighter tone of the early play quickly encounters complication, romantic heartbreak and betrayal, the return of missing student Shelby Holcomb (Juliana Sass), and the inevitable arrival of accusations of sexual assault and exploitation at this small Georgian town. Under David Muse’s direction the whole 9 person cast (rounded out by Rsea Mishina, Shawn Denegre-Vaught, and Zachary Keller) delivers the comedic, intellectual, and dramatic beats. To be frank, I’m a bit too out of it pop-culture-wise to track all of the Taylor Swift jokes and analysis of Lorde’s Green Light, but I think it gets the teenaged voice right and got enough to follow along and crack up at a discussion of Twilight in the context of sex ed. The strength of the play is the character work, the interactions of the students and their teacher, the patter and even dance, ideas grounded in real people.

Speaking of he ending in vague terms, I think Belflower’s script does succeed at her stated intention of challenging the default interpretation of the Crucible, namely that John Proctor as written is not just a flawed hero, but also abusive to servants and crossed a line worse than adultery by having an affair with a 16-year-old in his employ. The celebration of teenaged girl culture is not just fun but celebrates solidarity, a valuable counterweight to “woman beware woman'” stories. However, I felt that some of the more interesting provocations and questions did not have quite enough room to play out. The rousing finale was well-acted and executed but didactic in a way that left me wanting to be more challenged. Even so, thanks to strong characters well portrayed, I was glad to have seen the play.

Spoilers after the cut.

The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe

A classic in Japan that is remarkably popular for its bleakness. The protagonist, we learn in the first chapter, has gone missing. We then pick up on his travels to an isolated village, driven by his hypothesis that it is a prime spot to make his name in his hobby by finding a new species of insect. He has a lot of thoughts about sand, its physical properties, its larger meaning, how we can live around its shifting destructive power. These discussions were the highlight of the book for me as was the physicality of the language, the feel of sand on the skin, the dryness of throat, and separately knowing what it is to be betrayed by sleep.

One early passage gets at the musings:

Certainly sand was not suitable for life. Yet, was a stationary condition absolutely indispensable for existence? Didn’t unpleasant competition arise precisely because one tried to cling to a fixed position? If one were to give up a  fixed position and abandon oneself to the movement of the sands, competition would stop. Actually in the desert flowers blood and insects and other animals lived their lives. These creatures were able to escape competition through their great ability to adjust. . .

The book quickly takes a turn for the surreal as we see that the outer edge of village involves trekking above huts that exist at the base of sand pits as if an ant lion made an arrangement with a literal carpenter ant. Without giving too much away the story focuses on the man and the title woman in the dunes. She has some depth of character, in what she endures, what what she resists, and how she tries to reach out. However, she ultimately remained a cipher to me in ways that made the novels bleakness harder to bear. More on that after the cut.

Review: Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

From my youth I’ve been a Star Trek fan. Core to the appeal to me is the vision of a hopeful future, one with dilemmas and danger but no longer a prisoner to scarcity. The appeal has not faded since I’ve become an adult (happy belated 100th to Gene Roddenberry), and while I do enjoy Deep Space Nine and some nuance in my Trek, I think many attempts to make it dark or mature can miss the point. I was drawn to the Iain M. Banks’ Culture series, because Culture itself is a variation of a utopian Federation-adjacent civilization that explores a range of themes while still believing in the possibility of a diverse and abundant future.

The story starts with the tale of a ship’s computer, a Mind, seeking escape and refuge and only partially finding it. In Culture, the question of whether the Enterprise’s computer is alive is unambiguously yes. Indeed the hyper-intelligent life forms captain their own vessels which display their personality with  ship names like “No More Mr. Nice Guy” or “Prosthetic Conscience.”

However, while the quest to rescue or capture that Mind is the core quest of the book, its protagonist is not just a sort of human, but an ideological enemy of the Culture: Bora Horza Gobuchul. Horza is a skilled infiltrator capable of slowly changing his shape and more to impersonate another. He works for the Iridians, a tri-legged, potentially immortal species both smarter and stronger than most humans but also typically devout, giving rising to ship names like “The Hand of God 137.” There’s no place for other species in the Iridian religion, but he supports them anyways for reasons he explains when competing to win the loyalty of a planet while opposed by  Culture Special Circumstances Agent Perosteck Belveda.

“At least [the Iridians] have a God, Frolk. The Culture doesn’t. . .They at least think the same way way you do. The Culture doesn’t. . .”

“You want to know who the real representative of the Culture is on this planet? It’s not her,” he nodded at the woman [his opposite number], “It’s that powered flesh-slicer she has following her everywhere, her knife missile. She might make the decisions, it might do what she tells it, but it’s the real emissary. That’s what the Culture’s about: machines. You think because Belveda’s got two legs and soft skin you should be on her side, but its’ the Iridians who are on the side of life in this war.”

The novel is not directly about this debate; instead it is full of adventure, often set in epic speculative locations like the a massive ring station that sustains its own ocean and gravity with centrifugal force, or concepts like the absurd game of Danger where players can blast complex emotions at one another and fans will tune into to what players are feeling or be caught in the splash themselves. Whether or not you root for Horza, he is a capable charmer, and he needs to be as he and his rag-tag group of companions face a series of challenges that - despite a captain’s words to the contrary - are anything but “easy in, easy out.”

The tone of this first book is not Star Trek. It’s often satirical, regularly tragic, and frequently more focused on survival than exploration. The start of the story often left me discombobulated, intentionally so I think. One chapter after the one-third mark just put me off, testing boundaries without offering much to hold my interests. For me, the novel truly hits its stride as an ensemble comes together with relationships and competing loyalties shaped in adversity. Indeed, the perspective of the story broadens in the finale as suspense steadily builds and the casualties mount.

Consider Phlebas has its rough patches; at times I had trouble grasping the visuals of some of the settings and wonders, and it took time (and a handy list of names) for me to really come to care about some of the supporting cast. Similarly, as the epigram from the Waste Land that gives the book its title indicates, it helps to have some taste for the outré and the tragic. But for me the story is a triumph that kicks off the Culture series in a such a fitting way, by exploring the perspective of one of its enemies. (For a more critical take, see Abigail Nussbaum). I eagerly look forward to the next book in the series.

After the cut, some light spoilers and a bit of international relations.

Supplemental: Hooligans and Convicts

At the end of the trip last week, I’d ask asked my companions what stood out for them in Hooligans and Convicts. Inspiring was the term they’d most often used to describe the play.

One standout was a scene describing the use of hunger strikes by imprisoned suffrage activists and the forced feedings was particularly well done. It was not presented gratuitously or graphically, but both made clear the political logic of the protest and the horror of force feeding. The latter has a special resonance with me, going back to a surgery nearly a decade and a half ago. In my case the purpose was not nutrition so there were no dubious meals to face, but believe me when I say that even in a cooperative and caring environment having a tube down one’s throat is no picnic. In her case, she judged that the British authorities would let her weaken but not die in custody, and then seek to re-arrest her once she gained sufficient strength.

My companions also raised the nature of the disagreements amongst the civil rights leaders. Their efforts were united at the Seneca Falls convention, but as depicted, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wanted Frederick Douglass to delay or oppose the 15th amendment unless women were included in the expansion of the franchise, where he naturally cited the urgency for the African American community and in this portrayal noted that while white women could at least hope to influence partners, women in Black families had no representation whatsoever. Later the 19th amendment passes without provisions against poll taxes and measures to preclude Black women and alongside President Wilson’s backsliding on race. The play addresses this by telling some of the story of Mary Church Terrell and others that fought to make sure all female citizens could vote. The messiness and partial victories are important for an honest depiction of history, and I think they do help ground the nature of progress and show the way people kept fighting even when their part of a broader coalition was neglected.

The debates and speeches excerpted also brought a fresh appreciation of the incisive and clever responses and statements made by the women as they were challenged and told to keep their place. One particular way I feel inspired is to want to engage more with the primary sources and learn more of the figures myself and to bring a similar mindset when facing the challenging problems both within our nation and abroad.

Play: Hooligans and Convicts

Tonight we went to see Hooligans and Convicts at the Winnipesaukee Playhouse. It’s a musical play commissioned by the theater for the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment, with the debut delayed one more year due to the pandemic. The play is a historical review, with a modern teenager as the framing mechanism for with seven actresses and actors taking on a multitude of roles. Earnest and didactic at times, I think the play benefits from looking at the relationships between leaders, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass. The play also crosses the pond to look at the militant suffrage movement in the U.K. and leader Emmeline Pankhurst. Pankhurst gives the play its name based on the terms of derision a magistrate threw at her. Those [historical figures] included goes beyond some of the bigger names to include a mix of movement members, including African American women whose organization were relegated to the back of the march in support of the 19th amendment.

My favorite performance was from Rebecca Tucker who played both Anthony and Pankhurst, both quite juicy roles of charismatic speakers who brought them alive. Our whole group enjoyed it, learned a few things, and left with some things to think about. In particular, one theme that stood out to me was the role of children and pregnancy in the movement that often isn’t given the same level of attention in histories of civil rights struggles.

[Edits: Some small fixes for clarity and addition of pictures.]

Review: Garden of Words, Makoto Shinkai

Together with my spouse, we’ve been watching through the collective opus of Makoto Shinkai, whose films Your Name and Weathering with You received theatrical releases in the United States. Shinkai has a hard-earned auteur standing, in part due to some common visual elements (weather,  trains, a certain sort of photo-realism settings) and thematic elements (distance, connections, and timing to name three). His work ethic is remarkable, as shown by Voices of a Distant Star, which is intimidating, although that’s also true of the whole anime industry.

Garden of Words is a novella of a film about a focused male high school student, with a particular vocational goal, and a tentative not yet middle-aged woman who share a habit of playing hooky on rainy days in Shinjuku Gyeon National Garden. It’s more literary in mood than in content, a character study that crosses age lines without forgetting the distinct responsibility of a student and an adult. In case you fear it sounds too serious, I should also reveal that the female lead starts out enjoying beer and chocolate under the gazebo, in spite of signs forbidding the former. It’s beautiful, and if the concept appeals, it’s a great place to start with Shinkai, as my spouse commented he’s really got his aesthetic at this point, and at forty-five minutes, it keeps a good pace while having the room to explore both lives.

One reason Shinkai sticks with his fans in part is because he has a remarkable blend of romanticism and pragmaticism. He’ll leave us wanting a connection to happen, sometimes desperately so, but also aware of why it couldn’t or even shouldn’t. There’s a melancholy to his work that’s recognizable, even if our barriers are perhaps not so high or our courage and commitment not so remarkable.

There are ways I’d love to see him branch out next, including having more room to explore adult lives. There’s more I’ll want to say about his works, but for now, I’ll just recommend this one and savor it for a time.

Image source: Film promotional poster via wikipedia.

[Update: Minor editorial fixes. Refined a bit after watching interviews in the extras]

The Rise of Fanfiction: A Star Wars Critique

Thanks in large part to the Disney corporation, public domain is largely closed off. Much of blockbuster culture is either some franchise or inspired by source material prior to 1923. We’ve also seen a rise of fan culture, enabled by conventions and the internet, that seems to increasingly be a tail wagging the dog of cultural production. For anyone  that did any reading, let alone writing, of fan fiction back in the day, especially in multi-author stories, much  of this feels very familiar.

So turning to Star Wars, I’m more of a Trek guy. I’m not really a J.J. Abrams fan, though I  do appreciate his aptitude with casting, visuals, and set pieces. I think Film Critic Hulk is correct in his critique of Abrams’ storytelling prowess (spoilers start halfway through), but story creation isn’t everything. If Force Awakens had been more of a straight retelling of Star Wars, with variant characters and worlds but many of the same beats, I think Abrams could have avoided  many of his weaknesses. I don’t consider that a condemnation; the majority of plays I see have been previously produced or adapt longstanding material, although some of the fun is certainly seeing things that are less familiar or from other cultures.

However, in watching the Rise of the Skywalker, and thinking back to the Last Jedi, I was reminded by the way that fan fiction in shared universe could easily feel like a tug of war. Again, I’m not the first to point this out,  but concepts from improv comedy, such as acceptance and reincorporation, are necessary, but not sufficient, to collaborative storytelling. Acceptance goes along with the phrases “yes and” or “yes but” where one performer takes a concept from another and builds on it or complicates it. It’s a trait that needs to be consciously trained and while not common in  children, I’m not sure most adults are that much better at it either.

I do not think acceptance or reincorporation are incompatible with subversion or critique, which was the biggest strength of the Last Jedi,  and still my favorite of the new trilogy. However, it does restrict your authorial discretion. For example, even a meaningful nod to the Knights of Ren would have come at the cost of some other element Rian Johnson cared more about. I think Johnson did a better job in Last Jedi’s  strongest plotline, where Luke’s line “Why would I go to the most unfindable location in the galaxy if I wanted to help?” works as an example of “yes but” and while people are still arguing about it, that part of the film got the most buy-in. Furthermore, one advantage of acceptance and reincorporation is that it helps avoid contrivance by giving the story some set parameters. It’s generally easier to get audience buy in, particularly for plot outcomes and themes they disagree with, if they are built using materials they already accept.

A failure to reincorporate does get at a great critique Abigail Nussbaum notes in her review of The Rise of Skywalker (spoilers):

It's a particular shame because, waiting in the wings, there was a character and a plotline that could have cracked this entire trilogy wide open, made it something special and new and taken the franchise forward, and which instead was completely squandered and ignored. I am talking, of course, of the one new thing The Force Awakens brought to the franchise, the idea that stormtroopers are brainwashed child soldiers, and that some of them might choose to rebel. Abrams himself did very little with this idea once he'd introduced it, and Rian Johnson, though obliquely referencing Finn's past in a storyline that saw him embracing a global morality as well as a personal one, left the broader implications of stormtrooper rebellion untouched.

So turning to The Rise of Skywalker, I think it had many of the strengths and weaknesses of  fanfiction and extended universe material. And spoiler warning from here on out.

Highly engaging 'Shipment' rekindled my affection for satire (Forum Theater, Silver Spring, through 6/13)

I recently saw a horror play that, with the exception of an amazing entrance and particularly clever scene or two, didn't do that much for me. That's just a matter of taste; when I want to be made uncomfortable and a little scared, I want the focus not on supernatural monsters but frightening topics with which I actually wrestle. The Shipment's genuinely dangerous topic is focused on the African-American experience as perceived from within and without with special attention to portrayals in the culture.

Let's get a disclaimer aside: if you aren't at some level able to handle sustained vulgarity, skip this one. The stand up comic scene near the beginning is too much to handle otherwise. Similarly if uncomfortable but entertained and bracingly toyed with but in good hands isn't a place you want to be for 90 minutes, then it's not for you. However, if you dare brave experimental theater, know that this is a 90 minutes of entertainment that is very attuned to craft, entrancing dance, multilevel portrayals, and moments of great wit and beauty.

For a full discussion you can see the Post's review or an even more detailed review of an earlier production in the Root. The short version is that this is a variety show that wrestles with the format of minstrel shows past and some of their present descendents. The five players take a variety of roles which echo one another. This isn't a parody primarily concerned with an arch version of a particular story; it's outright satire and far more vicious to its source material. This can easily misfire, but with playwright Young Jean Lee and director Psalmayene 24 we are in able hands. Changes of scene bring new provocations, but also relief.

As an audience member, particularly in the first half, I felt connections as much to the five actors as to the characters they played. Particularly in the middle section, a stylized take on an after school special on urban African American poverty, each character was played one step removed with tactical choices made on when to commit and when to stick with stylized and stilted portrayals. In much the same way that a favorite comedian can bring a range of history to even a thinly sketched character, this kept me engaged with the actors when a lesser performance would have just had me alienated from the characters. The play doesn't wallow in ironic distance. That would be too easy. Instead it walks a thin line of discomfort as Shannon Dorsey plays a conventional mother character at the start of the scene only by the end to tell an absurdist parable of the origin of a very damaged world through the lives of disfigured cranes. Similarly Mark Hairston's earnest and emotionally vulnerable prison radical is a very different approach on sentiments earlier expressed by his shock comic.

The second half, after an achingly beautiful vocal performance and a scene changing palette cleanser, gives the cast a chance to play what seems a more conventional parlor comedy. Mark Hairston goes from earlier broad character types to a vey specific neurotic partygoer who, despite his insistence that he read a study that seltzer water might rot your bones, portrayed the sort of very real person I'd want as a guest. Gary L. Perkins III similarly went from a stock character rap inguéne to the person who was slightly too good for the party, an outsider there in part because the host

Technorati Tags: Forum Theater,Silver Spring,Young Jean Lee,The Shipment

liked him more than his actual friends. Dexter Hamlett goes from an oft malevolent puppet master to a character whose secret puts him in somewhat in the power of another, at least when it comes to picking the evening's entertainment. The other two players take a similar turn, but to learn why the cast is only allowed real depth at the end, I'd recommend watching the play yourself.

So how did it rekindle my love of satire? Like one of my fellow audience members, I tended more towards to British than American satire, probably in part because the distance makes it easier. I do enjoy the Daily Show and Colbert, but that's less often work that I'm directly implicated in and discomfort more often comes from interviews and the interaction of people out of character with those in character. By comparison, actively uncomfortable satire has also been particularly prominent in our culture of late as a catchall defense for offensive speech or discussion of French satire after the murders of Charlie Hedbo staff. That said, the most insightful piece I'd read recently was by Film Critic Hulk on Fight Club (warning, caps). A key insight from that piece is that a failing of Fight Club is that it is too compelling in terms of the nihilism it is sending up. He compares David Fincher's work to Paul Thomas Anderson, who "implicitly understood that in order to undo the seduction and allure of his pornographic inclinations in Boogie Nights, he essentially had to spend half the length of the film completely undoing that. He clearly understood the responsibility not to being indulgent."

I think everyone involved with this production understood that responsibility and took it very seriously. I meant it when I called the production dangerous at the start. There weren't any walkouts the night I went, but that's not true every night. This would be easy material to botch at any stage of the production and even though I found it successful and discomforting, an African-American woman in the audience who made the earlier comment about satire also found herself angered by the stand up comedy bit and felt it punched down at times. This is an area where I think Forum Theater's after-production discussions really shine. Dramaturge led up a strictly voluntary chat with about a half dozen of the audience members. I think it's important that art challenge us, but Forum understands the responsibility of satire in my view. I particularly appreciated actor Dexter Hamlett joining the conversation, although I did not fully recognize him at first as he shed at least ten years when he went out of character. I do think that the way we talk about race has changed some since the play was first written, and the way the stand-up trades on a range of taboos may now distract from rather than heighten some of the power of the scene (there's a line about walking on eggshells that made the whole bit worthwhile to me). But every part of this play left me with moments I hope to long recall. If you'll be anywhere near Silver Spring, go see it. If you miss this show, check out the Forum's future offerings. They've never let us down.

Production photos by Forum Theater available on Flickr by C. Stanley Photography. Technically they're all rights reserved, but I think this is how they're meant to be used. Correct me if I'm wrong there.

Passion Play: A series of plays within a play

Two weekends ago we saw Passion Play at the Forum Theater. We rather enjoyed it, but we'll keep the review brief as we didn't write it up in time; it went off tonight.

Still, the Forum Theatre once again delivered on this one. We were drawn in because between the two of us we'd seen two of Sarah Ruhl's prior plays: Dead Man's Cell Phone and Eurydice.

The setup is straightforward and effective: three Passion Plays in three different locations - Elizabethan England as Catholics come under increasing pressure, 1930s Germany, and South Dakota in the late 70s through the 80s. Tonya Bechman plays a pivotal leader in each case, a role that manages to be dark, absurd, and effective.

If you don't know the term, the Passion Play is a bit of religious theater, often performed in a church, depicting the last days of Jesus and sometimes more than that. There's continuity between actors and roles across the eras, although the sibling, friend, and lover relationships are scrambled with each new era.

For us the standout performances were Jon Hudson Odom as Pilate and Megan Graves as the Village Fool/Violet. Each of the three acts works well, but in these characters the play really shines as the third act ties together what's come before and gives honest accounting of what has and hasn't changed between the eras. The finale was earned and plays with Jesus' motif of staying awake for the coming of the Kingdom in a way that I found insightful.

Online video won't replace teachers, but it can help educate

I read a fair number of skeptics of massive online university systems, and they tend to be emphasize that the personal attention and labor of teaching cannot easily be automated. Most of us aren't autodidacts which is why public libraries themselves didn't make schools obsolete.

However, if you're motivated, you can learn things from books alone and I think that video courses, like the Ling Space by friend of the blog and Japan traveler Moti Lieberman, can add something to what we can learn from books. The recent episode on phonemes, the individual sounds that make up language, is a great example of this. Moti is an engaging speaker who actually has taught before, which is the equivalent for this medium of the way good writing can draw you in.

But that misses the real added value that comes from the video: incorporation of sound and images. In linguistics, sounds are very important. For those of us who don't know the international phonetic alphabet, we need someone to speak different pronunciations in languages we don't know for them to really sink in. Pure audio can help there of course, but much as teachers use blackboards or dry erase markers, video can help emphasize what concepts are related to the audio you're hearing.

I found this really valuable, in part because I'm a terrible student of languages. I have some French, less Japanese, and even less Mandarin despite having done classes of varying  duration in all three. I also went through speech therapy as a kid, so I have an intense personal connection with the way the t, and particularly the th sound is made. Language tends to impact us all, albeit in different ways. While I'll never be a full-on student of the subject, some prior parts of my life are making more sense now that I understand some of the underlying concepts. If you're curious at all, I think this might be a good place to start, as it shows what you can get from video that you might not from another non-classroom approach.

Programming note; Planning to resume travel blogging and soon to post on the protests in Hong Kong. I'm sorry for the break, it was driven not by the one night of LWV work but by a larger set of end of the fiscal year deadlines. Happily FY2015 doesn't look nearly so frantic.

The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber by Julian Rubinstein: Review

A Transylvanian named Attila Ambrus makes a daring escape from Ceaușescu's totalitarian Romania to try to make his luck in Hungary. Unfortunately, being a third rank goalie for a middling hockey club doesn't really pay the bills, especially as the Soviet Union falls apart and the nation begins a rough transition to a capitalist system. Fortunately, Attila is a charming and resourceful gentlemen and quickly finds ways to make end meet through pelt smuggling and a bit of bank robbery.

Rubinstein has found an amazing true story to anchor this non-fiction tale. Attila himself is fascinating and despite a variety of poor life choices has the pathos to provide this story its core. Critically, while no doubt a criminal, the man is a robber, not a gangster, which is why he became a widely adored Robin Hood-esque figure in his adopted land over the course of more than a score of often whiskey-fueled heists.

However, the book is more than just the superbly reported slice-life tale of a strangely compelling criminal. The book also follows the adventures of the police officers chasing him, but in a larger sense it tells of the triumphs and more often travails of Hungary and, to a lesser extent, Romania, as they chart a post-Soviet path. Suffice to say, Atilla is hardly the biggest crook in the country. This is a great story and an important one, as Prime Minster Viktor Orbán has been in the news in recent months for all the wrong reasons.

I would recommend the book for anyone with an interest in heists or contemporary Eastern Europe. But first and foremost, it is a character study of a fascinating man, by turns extravagant and self-effacing, who does extraordinary things in interesting times.

Source: Present from Moti, thanks Moti!

What can happens when you set an orchestra in motion?

Copland’s Appalachian Spring is a fairly well known and loved bit of Americana and a ballet piece in its own right. This past spring, the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra at the Clarice Smith Center gave a performance of that piece I believe will be with me the rest of my life. I was overjoyed to discover today that it is up on youtube. I do not doubt the recording won’t compare to having been there, particularly when by necessity the technical aspects of dance and concert both must make compromise when performed by the same people simultaneously. But watching Liz Lerman’s choreographed piece again still leaves me crying, both for the memory of the entire experience and the story told by the two lead dancers.

The performers had to memorize a twenty five minute piece in addition to simple choreography, to the extent that doing something wholly unfamiliar with your instrument, such as swinging one’s contra-bassoon, can be called simple. This fit the frontier nature of the piece quite well, as you’d multiple people circling around said contra-bassoonist in a way evocative of line dancing or see the brass sections standing together to represent part of the town waking up. The two dedicated dancers acted both as the leads and to an extent the conductors, walking through and at times directing the action. The skill set and blending of art forms is perhaps most like a marching band, but the tone and mix of instruments is starkly different than any such band I’ve ever seen.

For a more elegent review, I recommend Anne Midgette's review in the Washington Post:

On Sunday afternoon at the Clarice Smith Center, the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra offered a literally moving performance. Playing Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” from memory, the musicians stood, and walked, and swayed, and danced, and even lifted each other and their instruments. From the very first notes, when the players offered quiet arpeggiated awakening phrases from one side of the stage, gently bathed in quiet blue light, the performance felt powerfully, viscerally emotional. Freeing all the latent creative forces in those usually still players brought a powerful sense of release. I finally realized, in a kind of epiphany, that this is what “moving” really meant…

Or best of all, just watch it for yourself.

Source: Tickets from my mother who saw the show with us. Thanks Mom!

Review: Journey

Journey, by thatgamecompany, has already been well considered by adoring critics, but we wanted to briefly interrupt our travelogue to give our impressions. I played it for the first time on Saturday and had a chance to watch Kate play last year. We both loved it. One playthrough is about the length of a film and the name is quite accurate; the game is a pilgrimage through wondrous and at times frightening lands towards the glowing mountaintop on the horizon. There are challenges to unravel, secrets to find, and threats to avoid. However, they are all minimalistic to focus on the core themes of the game and make it accessible even to those often neglected by high profile video game releases.

So does it even qualify as a game? Yes, for two reasons. First, Michael Abbott argues that the mechanics serve the aesthetic and help the player achieve flow, a meditative sort of enjoyment that videogames are well-suited to deliver. In addition, on a less theoretical level as Jason Killingworth discussed the jumping is just delightful.

“Psychology has proven that the behavior of our physical body directly impacts our emotional state. Test subjects who were tricked into arranging their facial muscles in the shape of a smile were more likely to claim to find a cartoon amusing. In the same way, a game that effectively imparts a sense of physically lifting off the ground will engender in the player a sympathetic emotional response of uplift and inspiration. Journey’s leap has a frolicking grace to it. Not only do you lift into the air, but your character will occasionally even twirl playfully like a sea otter before drifting back to earth. You may even grin while doing it.”

Going into a little more detail, your character can make small jumps just by navigating the world, but with the power of their elongating scarf or the help of the various friendly fabric creatures that inhabit this stricken land, you can for a time bound into the air. Your ability to do this is limited by geography and the charge on your scarf, but in either case is readily charged by visiting with the wildlife or spending time close to your traveling companion. In this way, the leaping is moderated but unlike power pellets or a time-based recharge, the way to replenish the power ties you closer to the world and your companions.

The companions are where the real wonder of the game comes in. After the first stage, you will often be paired with another player, elsewhere on the internet, but given only the most rudimentary means of communication. Perhaps surprisingly, this results in interaction that is entirely different than the hostility that too often defines online interaction. This was entirely intentional. Jenova Chen, one of the designers, discussed his influences and motivations with Simon Parker of Eurogamer.

"I believe that there are only three ways to create valuable games for adults. You can do it intellectually, whereby the work reveals a new perspective about the world that you have not seen before. The closest thing I can see to this is Portal. The second way is emotionally: touching someone. You can touch kids emotionally very easily, but it's far harder to touch adults because they are so jaded.

"The only way you can touch an adult is by creating something especially relevant to their lives, or by creating something that is so authentic that it becomes empowering. In order to reach those heights you have to reach catharsis. So that after the strong emotion the adult can begin to reflect on his own, start to find meaning in his own life. That's how I can see I can make games for people around me. The third and final way is by creating a social environment where the intellectual or emotional stimulation could happen from other people. Those are the only three ways."

Earlier in the piece, he noted that that third piece is often challenging because most multiplayer videogames are about killing one another. It’s well worth reading the entire piece, about how they choose to take out many of the puzzles, elaborate interactions, and even collision detection while working to reinforce the loneliness of the places.

And it works. Scott Juster discussed how this changed his outlook to fellow players. So many of the discussions of Journey focus on what happened with their companions, be it Jamie Love’s and Brendan Keogh’s reviews or the collection at Medium Difficulty and the Journey Stories Tumblr.

We shall post a discussion of our own Journeys on a future night.

Image credit: Promotional screenshot from thatgamecompany.

Interrupting Review: Legend of Korra: Book of Change, Episodes 1-3

We’ve enjoyed both prior seasons of Legend of Korra, although they both had weaknesses in their endings. That seemed in part driven by taking on a bit too much and then not being able to rely on finishing them in subsequent seasons. There also tends to be a turn towards fewer shades of gray in the endings than the start.

So far this season has done fairly well on two fronts. First, it has been reincorporating often antagonistic characters and forces from prior seasons or shows as part of the new status quo. I’d actually like even more of that, but there’s been a great start so far. Second, the characters face problems that resist easy solutions for sensible reasons. This will probably prove even more true as they try to take on Ba Sing Se, a corrupt, oppressively unequal monarchy that seems to be in a position roughly comparable to China at the end of the Qing Dynasty.

One somewhat costly change is that they’re no longer posting full episodes on the website fully after broadcast. We missed the show times, so I did end up buying the first three episodes in HD at about $3 each. I’m okay with that, although I’m a bit annoyed that they took a few weeks to put them up. If they’re going to charge, please at least let us catch up to the where the show is now.

Okonomiyaki, Hiroshima-style! 2014-05-26

Hiroshima loves okonomiyaki! How can I make such a bold statement about a city? Well, it has a three-story tall building full of okonomiyaki stands, Okonomimura, in the central business district. I think that qualifies, don’t you? Happily my wife Kate also loves okonomiyaki and the last time she had it was with our friend Coby in L.A. This is in large part my fault, as my diet restrictions on mammals and cephalopods runs right up against some favored ingredients in the cuisine.

The dish is a grilled one, typically prepared in front of the customer either at a common bar like the one in the picture to the right or at grills at the table. The word basically means grill what you like, so this isn’t really a cooking gimmick so much as intrinsic to the style. Ironically, the only available local option we know about in Howard County is premade, so I can’t get it without pork. All of the chosen ingredients are combined to form a pancake-style final product, although the Hiroshima style is a particularly large one, in part due to its inclusion of cabbage and noodles.

We picked a place by going up to the third floor, walking to the pack, and then sniffing. The back right place had a pleasant odor, and though almost all of the menu items contained pork, I was able to request a special order. Our noses served us well; our range of selections were all quite good and our server was quite the charmer. She already had a smattering of relevant English questions and worked with Moti to start to master follow-ups. She’d learn from him to go for “Where in Canada?” or the like after people named their country of origin and then tested it out on the other people at the table.

I don’t have the card handy at the moment, but I intend to specifically list the name and location of the place, as we’d all recommend it to anyone visiting the city. Kate continues to love okonomiyaki in all its forms, and I should perhaps just come up with a written Japanese explanation of my preferences. That said, we consistently had a fun time with later places that served it, and it’s popular throughout Kansai; don’t miss an opportunity even if you aren’t in Hiroshima.

Review: The Last Days of Judas Iscariot; Forum Theater @ Silver Spring through 6/14

Judas is on the docket for the trial of the millennium in purgatory, catatonic with guilt and unable to speak in his own defense. Fortunately, he has a lawyer ready to take on figures from Mother Theresa to Lucifer himself. This courtroom drama is vulgar and philosophical, hard-hitting and comedic, and full of characters that are contradictory but unlike Judas are quite capable of speaking in their own defense.

That last point is one of my favored criteria for all fiction: a range of characters capable of full-throated defenses of their viewpoints that are forced by circumstance and dialogue to make the hard case for themselves. At no time is this more clear than back-to-back showstopper witnesses: High Priest of the Sanhedrin Caiaphas and Roman Governor Pontius Pilate.

All the more remarkable, the play does not rest on its characterization; the debates show a remarkable intellect and a firm grounding in actual history, to the limited degree that it is known. The playwright, Stephen Adly Guirgis, is happy to speculate, particularly when it comes to the asides and the characterization of St. Monica, who takes after her namesake boulevard. However, it maintains a broader relevance by favoring the report of the four Gospels when other sources are not available and avoiding reliance on any esoteric revelations. The play shows its commitment best when, in my opinion, the second most guilty character in it defends himself by noting that the very plausible case against is notably lacking in proof. The playwright achieves this wisdom the old fashioned way, by making heavy use of great writing that came before it, incisively choosing from and at times challenging well-loved writing on relevant topics rather than seeking to start from scratch.

I fear that that last paragraph understates the appeal, but worry not those with little interest in theology. This play has absolutely no interest in how many angels can dance on the head of the pin or what exactly communion means. And in the end, even questions of theodicy fall away as the strictly human implications of the debates move to the fore.

Finally, all of this would just be a book review were it not for the excellent direction by John Vreeke and performances by the cast. I’d normally prefer to go through and call out performances by name, but we’re presently in Japan and have not had much time to write and we wanted to post this in time for people to go see it. However, in doing a last Googling to finalize this piece, I did see that Frank Britton, who memorably played Pilate, was attacked and robbed after a cast party. His performance was one of the ones that exemplified all I’ve said above and our best wishes go with him. As for the rest of the cast, I enjoyed the actors and actresses that were new to me and it is quite exciting to see returning faces often playing very different roles. I’ll be renewing my subscription without hesitation after this show.

Book review: Nothing Left to Wish For

Nothing Left to Wish For is a swashbuckling tale in an unforgiving desert world. The story starts with sky pirate Esmeralda, Esme for short, leading a raid of a local potentate’s ship seeking a rumored treasure of immeasurable value. Protagonist as pirate isn’t that unusual, particularly nowadays, but the real reversal comes when she discovers the nature of the cargo, an effete young man who declares himself Sasha, the governor’s son and worth a prince’s ransom. Esme and Sasha face a range of dangers (which notably includes each other) as they both seek their freedom in a harsh world.

The world Andrew Schneider crafts is fantastical, but with a consistency that will appeal to fans of steampunk, space opera, and genres in between. The runes that power the flying ships are also used in weapons and enable the grafted arm Esme uses to captain ships and flying carpets and to give her an edge over her opposition. However, this shortcut often comes with a cost, as attested to by the lower level denizens of the flying cities, suffering from rune rot and ignored by the masses barely getting by in their own right.

How does nothing Left to Wish For stand out from the pack? The author is a friend, but even so I’d say there’s something more remarkable about it even in a genre where heroines and dying worlds are not uncommon. Esme isn’t coming of age; the dark story is suitable for young adults but stars a woman with some questionable choices, a broken engagement, and a few years already behind her. Such women may be common in comedies and romances, but are less frequently seen in adventures.

Nothing Left to Wish For is by turns exciting combat, treacherous ruins and adversaries, and exhilarating piloting. Esmeralda, and her interactions with those that she works with and against - often simultaneously - are quite memorable. She occupies a space between the rare archetypes of female hotshot and anti-heroine. If that appeals, but you want more of a sample of the writing and the world, check out the Noir prequel story: Cool with plenty of water. However, no pre-reading is necessary before taking the $3 plunge for at Apple, Barnes & Noble, Diesel, Kobo, or Smashwords.

Image of cover from AndrewGSchneider.com. Cover by Sarah Schanze.

Theater Review: Les Misérables at Toby’s Dinner Theater

This was my first live Les Miz, and it did not disappoint. We’d previously seen the film, listened to the 20th anniversary soundtrack, and we both separately read the book in high school. For those not familiar, the musical is a bombastic epic, with solos for many in the ensemble often interwoven in the same song, telling the story of downtrodden inhabitants of revolutionary France.

The risk of a show like this is that it’s an inherently big production. The show runs three hours, with intermission, and that’s only possible with a relentless pace that directors Toby Orenstein and Steven Fleming sustain. Set designer David A. Hopkins and lighting designer Lynn Joslin pull off evocative sets despite the challenges of working in a mid-sized theater in the round. The main trade-off comes at the expense of guests with small bladders who are requested to keep their seats: all four directions have doors and balconies and all may come into use from scene to scene. That’s a small price to pay to be so close to the action. Drew Dedrick’s sound design deserves a special mention; combined with the musical direction by Christopher Youstra the sound often gave a sense of place, particularly in the sewers of the second act.

For a detailed review, see Amanda Gunther’s extensive write-up. The principals all perform well and the costuming by David Gregory and Shannon M. Maddox does a great job of letting Daniel Felton’s Jean Valjean portray the same man over a range of decades and circumstances. However, it was Lawrence B. Munsey’s performance as Javert that caught my attention; this particular relentless inspector does not experience a dramatic turnabout so much as suffer a slow disillusionment before the leads’ final confrontation.

As I mentioned in my review of the film, one of my favorite parts of live theater is the freedom to choose where to direct my attention. Sometimes this means noting standout singers like Tobias Young in the comparatively minor part as student radical Combeferre. More often though, this means focusing my attention on favorite characters. This was well rewarded; MaryKate Brouillet’s Eponine, though a love-struck waif, portrayed the street smarts and bittersweet emotional range that makes me so fond of the character. The Sun had found her early performances a bit self-conscious but if that was once the case, it was no longer true when we saw the show. The only false note for me was a matter of the theater’s choice of direction and adaptation: the fast pacing made her pivotal reappearance at the barricade a bit abrupt.

Our favorite performance, though, was that of revolutionary student leader Enjolras (Ben Lurye). The character, across a range of adaptations, has  consistently been a charismatic one, particularly when chiding Marius (Jeffrey S. Shankle) for his love at first sight. However, he’s also an ambiguous one, unafraid of violence and a bit too accepting of martyrdom. Lurye’s interpretation was fascinating to watch as Enjolras came to realize his plan was coming off the rails.

In short, we highly recommend it, and may well attempt to catch another show before its November 10th close.

Side note on dinner theater - basically the theater opens two hours before the show starts, and there’s a solid buffet meal awaiting you. I liked their taste in wines, but do be sure not to drink too much, as this is really not the show to slip out during.

Technorati Tags: Theater,Toby's,Les Miserables,Musical

Agnes Under the Big Top

Running until Saturday the 28th at the Round House Theater in Silver Spring, a production of the Forum Theater Company.

The Post’s preview enticed me to this production. I didn’t let a subsequent poor review of the play, if not the actors, dissuade me from enjoying it.

Agnes Under the Big Top is a series of immigrant character studies with a subway theme. It was the subway that pulled me in; I hadn’t even realized that this would be the third play I’d see this year with my high school friend Nora Achrati in a big role. Thus, I am a bit biased, but I still disagree with the Post’s second assessment.

The characters are a mix of two Bulgarians who left the circus life, the Liberian who is the title character, an Indian striver (Jason Glass) , a busker playing a variety of roles (Jon Jon Johnson), and a bedridden American (Annie Houston). Their experiences were not exactly the stuff of the American dream. Indeed, much of the play focused on the stories we tell each other and ourselves and how they help or harm us.  At ninety minutes and with a pay what you want ticket price, if the elements of that setup intrigue you and you’ve got room in your plans for a Silver Spring visit this Friday or Saturday, I’d recommend checking it out.

My favorite of the characters was Ed Christian’s Shipkov, a former ringmaster-turned-subway operator. Weighed down with cynicism, he’s still the inveterate showman, prone to holding forth as he trains a new apprentice. While the tone is dark, he, along with much of the show, was quite funny and the flashbacks to his past made his present condition all the more heartbreaking. Shipkov and Rosa, Nora’s character, once had a loving relationship that fell apart for a reason I did not expect but that felt achingly real. I found this a particularly impressive feat, as Rosa was speaking Bulgarian for most of the play but her feelings shone through. My favorite of Shipkov’s monologues was his complaint about present culture where many dream of being on the stage with little appreciation of the work that goes into doing it right. I definitely revisited this sentiment last Saturday while watching a few Flugtag skits that would have greatly benefited from the assistance of someone with some actual training.

I was also quite impressed by Joy Jones as the title character, Agnes, who makes a fairly effective argument for just stretching the truth a bit.

However, the specific mechanism of her last big decision rang false to me. There is much that proper storytelling and perspective can do, particularly in the lives of the characters of this play. However, there are also very real limits to stories and I don’t think magical realism should be allowed to trump an act that does great harm to another.

Technorati Tags: Theater,Agnes Under the Big Top,Silver Spring,Forum Theater

Source: Tickets purchased by Kate, thanks Kate! Although I did contribute a bit by donating to the Busker who also performs before the show, a good reason to come early.

Review: Charles Stross: The Bloodline Feud

There’s a trope in speculative fiction where a comparatively normal person from our world can travel to another place or time where they typically become a hero using the skills, knowledge, and values they picked up at home. It’s a storyline that dates at least back to Mark Twain and a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.  There’s a sub-genre where our hero, rather than being stuck in this other world, actually travels back and forth a few times and may pick up supplies from home. Think Inu Yasha, Adam Strange, or to a lesser extent Escaflowne.

Take that setup, and imagine it were written by John le Carré. In the Bloodline Feud, the alternate dimension has largely medieval technology but is a realistic alternate timeline for Earth with no magic beyond the dimension-hopping conceit. Intervening in this world is prone to draw pushback and other people with this power have had generations to think through how to use it. The result can read like a cross between a primer on developmental economics, a venture capital history, and a crime family drama.

I’m a fan of Charles Stross and in this series, he gives me what I want, good and hard. The world is well thought out, the rules consistent and easy to understand, and the characters act in ways that incorporate the second-order implications of the premises.

Sadly, while I enjoyed the book and read it with increased fervency, I can’t broadly recommend it. The story fascinated me whenever the characters went exploring different worlds, but the parts on intra-family intrigue did not draw me in to the same degree. Similarly, there were a few reveals that were plausible and worked to further the political thriller plotlines, but reduced my interest in a few characters. While the protagonist is not an anti-hero, I wonder if my problem here might be the same reason I’m not as interested in, say, the Sopranos or Breaking Bad: the travails of criminal families only hold so much interest to me. Ironically, the inclusion of this tradecraft is part and parcel of the realism I like.

This won’t be enough to dissuade me, but I’m going to limit my recommendation to those that are actively intrigued by the idea of a thought through tale of an independently acting modern developed world citizen put in a less developed environment with the resources to make a difference. If that does appeal, I’d recommend picking up the omnibus editions if you can get them, as while this was first put out as two separate books, they work better together. I intend to keep up with the series.

Image source: Promotional image from Tor books.

Book source: Merchant Princes picked up by Kate and Omnibus editions picked up by my mother in London. Thanks Kate and extra thanks Mom!

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus: Critique

Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is the power behind a traveling carnival show that on its surface is past its prime. The young Anton (Andre Garfield) is an ineffective hawker, Dr. Parnassus’s daughter Valentina (Lily Cole) is nearly sixteen and dreaming of an escape to an ordinary middle-class life, and voice of wisdom Percy (Verne Troyer) can only do so much. However, as a belligerent passerby learns, the power of the show is quite real and can send patrons on a glorious adventure through their imagination before depositing them at a soul-endangering choice. The “good” doctor has already made a poor choice or two in the past, and as the film starts, the Devil (Tom Waits) is ready to collect. Magic notwithstanding, the situation seems hopeless before the arrival of a mysterious hanged man (Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Collin Farrell).

Heath Ledger’s last film and Terry Gilliam’s latest, the Imaginarium has been out for a few years now, so this post will contain vague spoilers to allow more complete discussion. For those leaving the post at this point, I’ll leave you with a song that gets at the story from Valentina’s point of view.

The stellar cast delivers, the Imaginarium itself shows off Gilliam’s visual genius, and the film contains thought-provoking theological and political critiques. I think the most interesting conflict is between a man largely broken by living with the consequences of his mistakes and another who constantly reinvents himself.

However, the Gilliam makes a critical mistake with increasing  consequence as the film ends: he denies Valentina agency. I think this critique may best come from a film made a few years earlier:  MirrorMask. That film starts with a similar premise: a young woman raised in a carnival environment who desperately seeks escape. She even makes youthful mistakes of spite and at times is dependent on others for rescue. However, the hero of that story consistently maintains agency while Valentina is explicitly objectified as the men of the piece compete for her love and her soul. Even trustworthy Percy says that it’s a mistake to tell her the truth and Tony refers to her as the “prize” without the other characters objecting. I don’t think Valentina needs to be the protagonist nor shouldn’t be allowed to make terrible choices; everyone else certainly does the latter. However, the other characters pursue their own interests while towards the end Valentina largely reacts, bouncing from one patron to another.

The end of the film pivots on the fact that, charmingly, the Devil is a bit too fond of Parnassus to do his job properly. Unfortunately, I’d say the same is true of Gilliam’s plotting. Dr. Parnassus pulls a clever trick near the end, but the story is contorted in order to increase that moment’s importance. I’ll allow the fiendish Mr. Nick to pull his punches, but the big reveal on Tony is over the top, nice guy Anton never grapples with his worst moment, and Valentina explicitly rejects the chance to run her own life.

The price Dr. Parnassus pays and his final relationship with his daughter works, even if I find her end state unsatisfying. I don’t think the problem is that Gilliam is too easy on an alter ego character. Unlike Ghost Writer, which also critiques Tony Blair, I don’t think the film falls apart both morally and thematically if you treat the protagonist as a stand in for the director. Instead, I think the problem is that Dr. Parnassus’s prominence in the end undercuts the arcs of the other characters, a problem that probably would have been avoided if the story had been thought through from Valentina’s perspective.

Source: Think I bought this for myself; correct me if I’m wrong.

Image Source: Promotional image via Wikipedia.

Review: The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen

"You know what a president actually is?" he asked. "An unreliable narrator."
"Really." She sensed a speech coming.
"He's the one who tells us how it is, right? And we fall for it, we read along with his story and let him construct the reality around us. We want to be entertained, soothed. Until one day, we hit that certain chapter, right, an suddenly we see the light and realize, Holy s***, we've been lied to the whole time. Reality ain't like that all. His story was bulls***. But by then, it's too late. We've all been suckered, and we just have to follow along with his little plot."

The Revisionists is a quintessential D.C. novel, from the setting to the fact that whole acts' titles refer to jargon such as 'green badges' in reference to contractors. This fact may be remarkable, given the sci-fi framing of a story about a man sent back in time to ensure that the right calamities happen in order to ensure his future. However, as Moti notes in his review, they don't really clash. I suppose D.C. takes all sorts from all places, so why should the future be any different?

The book tells the story of four characters, the aforementioned time traveler, an Indonesian maid, a lawyer who recently lost her brother in the wars, and a former spook now working for the aforementioned contractors. The first act, before they really become enmeshed in one another's stories, is somewhat slow going, leavened by the sci-fi storyline. Once they start interacting and complicating one another's lives by trying to do the right thing in a compromised way, the story kicks into gear. The characters all face alienation and come to realize that they aren't quite as clever as they think they are, but the book doesn't counsel despair so much as the realization that hard choices are not so easily dodged.

I think a real strength of the book is that it actually grapples with last decade as lived by many middle-class D.C. types. This isn't a war novel so much as a homefront novel, as the lawyer's loss of her brother draws her into becoming a whistleblower and the former intelligence agent recounts the story of how he was drawn into the national security apparatus because he found the world common to many literary novels to be unreal. This is a world of moderates making questionable decisions and leftists that are so far out of the system to be ineffective, with little middle ground. While the prose didn't always have me enraptured, I enjoyed the match between the conflicting viewpoints and think the story managed to be unblinking without being merely cynical.

I liked the ending more than Moti, although we both interpret a key ambiguity of the book in the same way. My only notable critique is that I think the decision to go with a possible tech transfer to North Korea as a key plot element was a mistake. The DPRK model is one with no appeal outside their borders; they offer neither freedom, nor growth, nor an appealing market for sales. I could see going with the PRC in the relevant role or an authoritarian ally of the U.S.  Not every element of the North Korean plotline was bad; one dark chapter told a story coming out of the DPRK that definitely added to the book. But I think their involvement undermined the believability of the villains as it makes them not just evil but also quite foolish.

Source: Moti, thanks Moti!

Film Review: Les Miserables

We were pleased. Lowered expectations at the outset, based on criticisms from varying reviews, may have helped. Neither of us had previously seen a live production, although Kate had watched the 10th anniversary concert.

In general, I'd call this an actor's production. While there was spectacle, the director had a remarkable cast and emphasized that by making heavy use of close ups. The common observation was that Russell Crowe doesn't quite have the lungs for the traditional Javert, but he acted the role well. My favorite portrayal versus my beloved CDs was that of the urchin revolutionary Gavroche who had a few expanded songs and was very much a character in his own right rather than just a mascot.

I think the biggest risk the director took was being heavy-handed with his cinematography. There are a fair number of ensemble songs and the camera work, not just the voices, makes clear where our attention should be at any moment. I think that's simply necessary with disparate medleys like One Day More!, but I suspect those more familiar with the show might be a bit put off to not have the freedom to focus their attention as they like. I know I habitually pay more attention to the actors in minor roles when I've seen a play a few times.

From a political science perspective, I enjoyed Charles Walton's take in Foreign Affairs and do agree that it did have a notably pessimistic take on revolution. The revolt was exciting but from the size of crowds and the numbers of the soldiers it was easy to tell that they never had a chance.

"Hooper’s cinematic rendering is stunningly staged and brilliantly performed, but it cuts the author in half: it gives us the religious Hugo, not the revolutionary one. It tells the story of individual redemption through an odyssey of Catholic conscience, not of France’s collective redemption through political violence."

From a Kate perspective, the most entertaining part of the film is Enjolras' expressions as he listens to Marius moon over Cosette.  Our sympathies are totally with Enjolras.

Review: Twilight of the Elites by Chris Hayes

The book has already been ably summarized by Aaron Swartz over at Crooked Timber (worth reading the whole thing):

Our nation’s institutions have crumbled, Hayes argues. From 2000–2010 (the “Fail Decade”), every major societal institution failed…

Hayes pins the blame on an unlikely suspect: meritocracy. We thought we would just simply pick out the best and raise them to the top, but once they got there they inevitably used their privilege to entrench themselves and their kids (inequality is, Hayes says, “autocatalytic”). Opening up the elite to more efficient competition didn’t make things more fair, it just legitimated a more intense scramble. The result was an arms race among the elite, pushing all of them to embrace the most unscrupulous forms of cheating and fraud to secure their coveted positions. As competition takes over at the high end, personal worth resolves into exchange value, and the elite power accumulated in one sector can be traded for elite power in another: a regulator can become a bank VP, a modern TV host can use their stardom to become a bestselling author (try to imagine Edward R. Murrow using the nightly news to flog his books the way Bill O’Reilly does). This creates a unitary elite, detached from the bulk of society, yet at the same time even more insecure. You can never reach the pinnacle of the elite in this new world; even if you have the most successful TV show, are you also making blockbuster movies? bestselling books? winning Nobel Prizes? When your peers are the elite at large, you can never clearly best them.

The result is that our elites are trapped in a bubble, where the usual pointers toward accuracy (unanimity, proximity, good faith) only lead them astray. And their distance from the way the rest of the country really lives makes it impossible for them to do their jobs justly—they just don’t get the necessary feedback. The only cure is to reduce economic inequality, a view that has surprising support among the population (clear majorities want to close the deficit by raising taxes on the rich, which is more than can be said for any other plan). And while Hayes is not a fan of heightening the contradictions, it is possible that the next crisis will bring with it the opportunity to win this change.

My favorite points:

Meritocracy and Equality of Opportunity do not deserve the moral weight we give them:

Hayes draws on Robert Michel's iron law of oligarchy as an inspiration for his theory as to  why meritocracy fails:

"The Iron Law of Meritocracy states that eventually the inequality produced by a meritocratic system will grow large enough to subvert the mechanisms of mobility. Unequal outcomes make equal opportunity impossible. The Principle of Difference will come to overwhelm the Principle of Mobility. Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them, or to selectively lower it down to allow their friends, allies, and kin to scramble up. In other words: 'Whoever says meritocracy says oligarchy.'" p. 57.

In comments, people often say that the American system is not genuinely meritocratic. I put as much weight on that as those that say the Soviet Union wasn't really communist.

Meritocracy gives the education system an impossible task:

Freddie DeBoer further develops the interaction of meritocracy and education (note that I disagree with his conclusion in the piece on the grounds of practicality and desirability):

Because our system now depends on the idea that children are universally capable of being educated to certain necessary levels to benefit our economy. Globalization and neoliberalism — the basic economic consensus of policy elites — destroyed working-class jobs and incomes and sparked a furious attack on labor’s ability to unionize and collectively bargain for better conditions. Yet the neoliberal policy apparatus still needs a mechanism to improve wages for those at the bottom, in part to improve their living conditions and in part because the economy requires them to be consumers as well as producers. Having cut the legs out from underneath the traditional mechanisms of social mobility for uneducated Americans, the necessary step becomes plain: educate all of them. Questions about whether everyone can be educated to the necessary level cannot be countenanced, to say nothing of whether this system breeds zero-sum competition for limited “skilled” jobs.

Our vexed arguments about education reform stem from our refusal to acknowledge that we are constrained by reality, regardless of the needs of our economic system.

Matt Yglesias regularly notes the incongruity of teachers arguing that students' socioeconomic traits are the main factors determining their success. However, that is not primarily an argument that teachers don't matter; it is just an explanation as to why even good teachers cannot boost up their students sufficiently that education can get the median wage going again. Good teachers might be a jet engine lifting up students, but that doesn't mean they have the power to get them into orbit. This does not mean that money spent getting better teachers is wasted. I believe the marginal returns on education to be quite high; it just means that even valuable education reforms won't do for workers what strong unions once managed. I do think that DeBoer overstates the "zero-sum" nature of competition for skilled jobs. There are a fair number of skills still in fairly great demand that may not be able to replace the unskilled work of yesteryear, but are still at a point where adding a worker increases the demand for other workers. However, there are also fields like law, where the education system at large is rooking people into accumulating great debt for often dubious job prospects. I think that situation has persisted as long as it has because LSAT-ing your way to success is entirely in line with the myths of meritocracy.

Look for fraud, not bubbles:

Eager to avoid repeating their mistakes, many pundits constantly ponder whether this or that is the next bubble. Chris Hayes shows that why this is mistaken. The problem with the housing boom wasn't excessive enthusiasm, it was widespread fraud. The basis of the problem has been understood for centuries:

Thomas Gresham: "In this wild, unregulated monetary world, you had two different type of coins floating in circulation: "good" money, which was pure and properly weighted, and "bad" money, which was debased and did not contain the amount of it purported to contain. In such a situation people got pretty good at identifying what was good money and what was bad;  what they'd do was use bad money for exchange while having the good money. Eventually bad money became the only money in circulation… fraudulent actors drive out the honest if fraudulent actors receive no sanction for their action." p. 92-93

Hayes also notes this pattern in the steroid scandal in Enron, Major League Baseball and cheating under Michelle Rhee's education reforms in Washington D.C. (He contrasts that with Chicago where Steven Levitt was hired to monitor for cheating and managed to prevent widespread scandals.) Hayes cites William Black's description of these cases as "Criminogenic environments" where corruption became endemic. To me, the connection to bubbles is obvious, as providing an easy path to success feeds on itself and in business or financial sectors may redirect resources from legitimate enterprises.

The term Fractal Inequality:

It's a lovely term that updates what Lewis Carroll called the inner ring phenomenon. Status competition is like an onion: as you manage to break into one layer there's always another inner ring. What's changed in my view is globalization: elites now compare themselves to others at events like the World Economic Forum at Davos, not just those in the same town, state, or even country.

The book left me with three questions:

How important was globalization to this phenomenon? I think there is a cosmopolitan global elite in a way there really wasn't in prior eras. But even if I'm right, how big of a driver of inequality is this phenomenon? Similarly, what's the relationship between trade and inequality, and can trade deals be fashioned such that all the gains don't accrue to the top?

Do civil service barriers help? In the think tank where I work, the difficulty of corporate-government cooperation and of hiring government workers from the outside is regularly decried. This may lead to you correctly pegging most think tank as meritocratic (note: I'm speaking for myself here as always on this blog). But this leaves me curious: to what extent do civil service rules actually manage to put a break on the emergence of a meritocratic elite? Or have they been made obsolete by a churn of employees departing for better-paying corporate work and an increased reliance on contractors?

How does our present situation compare to pre-WWII history? I'd take meritocracy, with all its faults, over aristocracy in a heartbeat, although I suppose there's something to be said for competing sets of elites. Hayes does note that the meritocracy manages greater diversity than older forms of elite governance, but I'd be interested in a bit more history which might reveal to what extent the vaunted American 1950s were a postwar aberration or a phenomenon that had been replicated in other times and places.

The Magician King by Lev Grossman: Review

I enjoyed the language and the world of the Magicians, but I was left cold by the lead. Quentin was a privileged git who was realistically sketched, but who angered me with his judgmental moping. He's still the lead, but now that he's become one of the four rulers of the magical alternate dimension of Fillory he's actually grappling with how he should live his life rather than bemoaning his failure to find happiness. He also shares this story with the extended flashbacks of Julia, a childhood friend he left behind when he was accepted into the arcane boardinghouse Brakebills. She is now also a Queen of Fillory, but hers was a black market education, attained through hustling and without the safeguards of the academy. While her story is not without happy moments, the end of the flashback is enormously dark. The end to the book I will not spoil, but I found it far more satisfying than the ending to the Magicians which notably suffered in its final chapter.

In enjoying the end, I disagree with Alyssa Rosenberg (important spoilers abound) who has an excellent suggestion for a narrative change to the final chapter, but finds that Quentin's changes are largely derived from Julia's suffering in an old and unfortunate trope. I think multiple reasons are established, but I don't have much to add beyond what I put in the comments on her blog.

I would recommend the book to anyone who enjoys Grossman's writing and characterization, even if they weren't fond of some of the characters in the Magicians. The thornier question is do I recommend the pair of books to someone who has read neither? While my endorsement isn't as strong as Moti's, I'm going to go with a hesitant yes for fans of modern world fantasy and stories that lean heavily on the interior lives of their characters. On the latter point, it may be simplest to just check out the first book and read a chapter or three. If you don't get the urge to quote lines to other people in the room, then put it down and don't look back.

Source: Recommended by Moti and checked out by Kate from Howard County Libraries, thanks to all three.

Quick Review: Hamlet's Hit Points

Hamlet's Hit Points by Robin Laws is a book that proposes a system for analyzing fictional works as if they were story-oriented role-playing games. The core system is breaking the story down into beats which involve procedural and dramatic ups and downs for the protagonists. There's more breadth than that summary implies, but on the whole it's a fairly simple system and along with the commentary is definitely inspirational. The phrase 'hit points is more there for alliteration, the system does not examine any such values for characters but instead looks at the ebb and flow of their fortunes.

Are you interested in the theory of RPGs? If so, do you think of the system as primarily a conflict resolution mechanism in a cooperative game? Are you unsatisfied with your ability to emulate some of your favorite stories using present tools and want to understand the why (if not necessarily the how)? Then I'd say buy Hamlet's Hit Points. It's a fairly swift read, available in print or a variety of electronic forms, and a fairly unique form of criticism to boot.

For more, including applicability to running RPGs, check out the Hamlet's Hit Points entry on the Inherent in the System wiki.

[Updated: Grammar fixes.]

Lincoln: Review: A good film about Lincoln and Congressional politics

As is often the case, I found that Alyssa Rosenberg summed things up nicely.

Lincoln is at its most clear-eyed, and its most-effective, when the movie tackles the question of how to muster votes, and bipartisan votes at that, for the end of slavery, a section of the film dominated by Stevens and Secretary of State William Seward (David Straitharn). The two men begin the movie in very different positions, Stevens as a life-long advocate for the end of slavery and racial equality, Seward unconvinced of the Amendment’s viability or necessity. “Since when has our party unanimously supported anything?” he asks his president, particularly given the prospect of the South suing for peace. “Why tarnish that luster with a battle in the House?” But Lincoln makes himself clear: he will have the Amendment in January of 1865, even if it means buying off lame duck Democrats who need employment when they leave their offices in March. “If procuring votes with jobs is what you intend, I’ll procure from Albany the skulking men who are suited to this shady work,” Seward tells Lincoln, resigned to his task.

I think that there is a fair case to be made that it doesn't do a great job telling the larger story of abolition as with the exception of a great corporal at the start, the African American characters are often passive in an ahistorical manner. However, the film is called Lincoln, after all. It might be best viewed with Glory for the time being although I think there's also room for a great film about abolition.

I actually would prefer to be writing about how I liked the film's portrayal of politics: rough and tumble at times but also requiring genuine skill and yet historically offering a means for progress. I think it also did a reasonable job of depicting politics in wartime. Corey Roberts above cites some unfortunate statements by Tony Kushner; I thought the film itself fairly clearly favored pushing for the 13th Amendment even if it meant possibly delaying the end of the war and the subsequent death toll at Petersburg. I also thought that the relationship between Lincoln and Stevens was one of the more interesting ones of the film and that it noted the importance of principled radicals in politics even if arguing that at times they should compromise if only for appearance's sake.

However, I think the importance of African American contributions, which the film points to at several times but does not accord a main role (e.g. one that could be filled by Fredrick Douglass) deserves enough mention that I'm closing by linking to Ta-Nehisi Coates' discussion of the Civil War as having three factions. The reason I think this is so vital is that the Civil War, the war to end slavery, is often used as a moral benchmark when considering other wars. However, our use of it is highly damaged if we forget that slaves and freemen and women were vital to victory. It was not a humanitarian intervention on their behalf; it was a war that they vitally committed to the extent they were allowed to do so.

Update: Kushner clarified his meaning in a manner I found quite satisfying and in keeping with the film. I don't want to endorse his viewpoint necessarily, but it's a perfectly reasonable one. It also was in keeping with my reading of the film.

Deadly Premonitions: Horror Game Critique

Deadly Premonitions is a trailblazer. The genre is a new medley: open-world horror. I'd say the medium was No More Heroes driving and Laura Bow (or Sleep No More) adventure games voyeurism on a bed of a Shenmue style of world. The feel was David Lynchian, I think; I'm not actually a big David Lynch fan. I saw Inland Empire with friends for much the same reason I played this game and I'm glad I did but I haven't felt any desire to repeat the experience.

So why play the game? Well, it's more fun than the one David Lynch film I've seen. That doesn't compel you? Well try this on for size:

So who should play this game (or more likely wait until March 2013 to play the director's cut)?

 

Skyfall quick review: Variations on a theme

My friend Omar's immediate response to the film was that it evokes the Bond franchise more than the past two Daniel Craig films. I had replied that for me it evoked classic filmmaking more and thus early Bonds.

However, on further pondering, I do think that it did quite clearly pick up themes toyed with by both Goldeneye and Die Another Day as well. Alyssa Rosenberg has a review that covers most any point I'd like to make, and I'd emphasize her mentions of the National Gallery and Severine.

So what to add, I think I will wander into spoiler territory here:

1. As an international relations type, I should mention that cyberwarfare does not work that way.
2. I did not actually find M's are you afraid speech especially compelling. Well delivered to be sure, but the 'everything is cyber' parliamentarian is rather a strawwoman. I'm not really sure what real world argument the film tracks to if any.
3. However, I think the choice of strategy at the end was interesting and telling. Bond went low tech and low armament to fight on home turf instead. That strategy worked to minimize the civilian and police casualties that had been ramping up earlier in the film. That strategy was also effective, albeit with a real cost. It was a choice I found to be more interesting than the earlier debate.
4. Wonder how this film plays in the Scottish independence vote. Interestingly enough, Bond tends to say England rather than Britain, despite being born in Scotland. I have no special insight here, I'm just curious.

As for the review, if you enjoy Bond films or action heavy spy films, I suspect you'll find this quite satisfying. I've drifted away some from the genre over the years and that doesn't seem to be changing, but this was still a fun visit for me. I feel the film respected me and  merits some respect in turn. Finally in Bond's first confrontation with his nemesis he used a line that will enter the top 10 Bond quotes.

Extra Lives by Tom Bissell: Review

Tom Bissell's recent post on Dishonored reminded me that I should stop taking the easy road with books I had mixed feelings about and actually review something I loved. His book Extra Lives qualified. This review comes perhaps a bit late, even the backlash against Bissell, or at least his imitators, is now a fading memory over at Critical Distance. Nonetheless, I devoured his book of essays about video games and I  wanted to specify why.

First off, the man has style. The book's nine essays each using a different game as a framing mechanism and say something different about the medium. It is perhaps warrants a demerit that he tends to write about his experiences with games rather necessarily critiquing them in the manner of a game designer, but I think that better positions him to write out about larger questions that designers by necessity put aside. The most extreme example is the essay that ends the book and is available from the Observer on Grand Theft Auto and Cocaine, but this book should not be mistaken for a memoir and while that essay entranced me when I first read it, it was not my favorite.

What drew me to the book was Bissell's firm command of why I enjoy game but also why they are problematic. Even most of the best games often use violence as a crutch and have their stupid moments. As a English major, he naturally has a particular interest in those games with poor writing, but he also works through the wide array of reasons for that. Comparatively few of them, at least amongst the better games, could be solved simply by hiring more and better writers. That said, he certainly does not wish to abandon story:

Yes, as difficult as it sometimes is to believe, games have authors, however diminutive an aura he or she (or frequently, they) might exude. What often strikes me whenever I am playing a game is how glad I am of that hovering authorial presence. Although I enjoy the freedom of a games, I also appreciate the remindful crack of narrative whip–to seek entertainment is to seek that whip—and the mixture of the two is what makes games such a seductive, appealingly dyadic form of entertainment… I want to be told a story, albeit one I happen to be part of an can affect, even if in small ways. If I wanted to tell a story, I would not be playing video games.

Ultimately, the book raises more questions than it answers and undercuts itself with harsh realities nearly as often as it enchants. That is inevitable, it is the state of the medium. When he does provide answers, I don't even always agree them but perhaps especially when I disagree I feel I've learned from grappling with his suggestions.

The book helped me work out my theory of why I rather enjoy videogames, as well as various forms of RPGs that Bissell was not trying to address but that he speaks to even so. They give experiences, a chance to test out strategies towards living, try out paths not taken, or better yet chase down dreams that were precluded by detail birth or utterly impossibly to begin with. When other players are involved, some of the weaknesses fade away as there is another human that can react directly to the ways you try to affect the story and that can shatter the pleasing illusions of uber-competence bred by single player, particularly when quick loads are at hand. Travel appeals to me for much the same reason, I find that to be a more fulfilling habit on the whole, but also a far more expensive one. Thus, as for my favorite games, I must agree with a line from chapter one: "It was a an extra life; I am grateful to have had it."

The Magicians by Lev Grossman: Critique

[Updated with valuable comment] The Magicians is a literary novel about a boy who discovers that he's a wizard and goes off to an exclusive magical academy instead of college. Capfox gets at what's best about the book (read the whole thing):

If you've heard about this book, you've probably heard that it's like Harry Potter or Narnia but more grown-up, where grown-up is generally taken to mean it has more drinking and sex. And to a certain extent, that's true: our hero, Quentin Coldwater, finds his way out of a normal, humdrum life he's unsatisfied by, and into Brakebills, a magical university where he makes new friends, masters a lot of magic through lots of discipline and hard work, and has a variety of adventures. And yes, there is drinking and sex. You can see where the comparisons came from…

The writing is fluid and evocative, and there are definite deconstructions and take-offs from Narnia and the Harry Potter books. The characters are well-sketched, for the main ones, and are complex enough to feel both likable and not likable at the same time. The choice of themes and the building of the relationships really resonated with me. It took a bit for me to get set up in the story and feel attached to everyone, but I ripped through it afterwards. The very end part of it was a bit odd, as it didn't feel as earned as the rest of the story, feeling more like a sequel hook, but I'm very much looking forward to reading the sequel, so I can't punish it too much. In fact, I think I will go start that now.

For me, the end of the novel was actually an anti-sequel hook. The main character, Quentin, was often pretty unsympathetic and while that turned around some during the finale the last chapter settled my opinion that he was an entitled prig and the chapter before that wasn't so much better. That said, I do agree on the writing; I found the characters plausible and the world well-thought through, although your mileage may vary there as it left a writer friend of mine cold.

In any event, my big problem with dear Quentin is that he wasn't ambitious enough to be a failure. Life keeps handing him prize after prize and he makes no real effort at contentment nor chasing a greater good. Alyssa Rosenberg points to the lack of career counseling, and I suppose that's true enough, but it seems to me that by the time you get to college you should have picked up that once your subsistence and higher needs are covered you should make some effort to help people or otherwise make the world a better place even if it doesn't get you the crown of a magician king. I know lots of bright people that I see parts of in the book, including myself, but they all managed to at least make a good faith attempt at enjoying their circumstances and/or pursuing a vocation. As for Quentin, I feel like those ridiculous schools that try to ban the Potter books should instead substitute The Magicians; it might be a far better way of convincing children that magic is a tool of an entitled elite that's everything that's wrong with America.

I'm somewhat curious about The Magician King. I liked some of the ensemble - admittedly most of all those who came to bad ends [with one notable exception] - and I found the portrayals empathetic and the language alluring. But unless the proletariat of the Narnia-analogue have a chance at revolution against these privileged bright young things, I will come away most dissatisfied.

[Comment from Mai-Anh on my Google Plus feed: "In the end, I liked it better once I reframed it to look at Quentin not as a hero or even a protagonist, but as the "representative symptom", almost." I completely agree. I'm not sure to what extent that was what Grossman intended but he did reveal just how entitled Quentin was in a variety of ways, most notably the reappearance of a character who wasn't so lucky/skilled as to make it into Brakebills.]

Death Note Manga: Critique

Death Note's core starts with a fairly simple premise: A top high school student named Light comes into possession of a notebook with the power to kill anyone he wants, as long as he knows their name and face. He uses that ability to kill those he deems criminals, choosing most of his targets based on the television news. He is soon opposed by L, a mysterious master detective facing a particularly daunting challenge as Light's supernatural methods are exceedingly difficult to trace back to him and have an initially unknown methodology. This challenge is compounded by the fact that Light is quite willing to kill anyone who gets in his way, a murderousness limited only by his desire to avoid raising suspicion to himself.

This is a rather well known series, which is part of the reason I read it. I worked through books 1-7 (of 13) because Kate was going to donate them to the library and I was curious. The writing does make for an effective cat and mouse thriller, there's a nice ensemble of supporting male police officers, and the character design is quite effective at differentiating the players, which is vital when dealing with a more realistic setting. That said, I was content to skim at points and to stop reading after a logical breakpoint in book seven. See subdee over at Hooded Utilitarian for a trenchant critique that does reveal the ending.

The key excerpt:

There was so much bad faith moralizing in that series. A single sociopath high school student was going to make the world a better place by killing already-apprehended criminals, who were waiting in jail for their sentences to be decided, using a magic notebook. This would deter other criminals from committing crimes, leading to a better, crime-free world. Because it’s the countries that have a transparent, (semi-)functioning justice systems and active, (semi-)free cultures of journalism, that report on crime and imprison criminals according to the rules of law, that are the worst off, am I right?

The thing is, while Death Note did a pretty good job of painting Light, the [megalomaniacal] serial killer high school honors student who lucks into the possession of an instrument of mass murder, in a negative light (because power corrupts and only the corrupt seek power), it didn’t really have many characters who were much better – who were morally upright and competent.

Light's plan was incredibly simple-minded while surrounded by incredibly sophisticated measures to save his own neck. I think the book failed to address, in even the most general way, the second-order effects of such a campaign on criminals and the issue of wrongful accusation. Nonetheless, like subdee I think the series has its points. It does a fairly effective job of being a thought experiment on the dark instinct that 'we just need to kill criminals'. The series answer seems to be "I'll do you one better, let's have one of the smartest guys around implement your clever plan and see how it works out." Turns out wielding that sort of power unchecked makes you a monster even if you stay somewhat sane and that when ideological allies gets involved things get very messy very fast. Similarly, the characters with consciences will line up against that plan and be willing to risk their lives to stop it. I think this may be diluted by later manga - from what I understand of the actual ending it probably could have played out with serious time skips in the back half of book seven - but there's no real point commenting on books I haven't read.

That said, I have largely lost my patience for characters that are extremely clever about manipulating convoluted rules that are specific to the novel or series. The final Harry Potter novel was particularly bad about this when it came to wand rules. Death Note isn't quite as bad; it sets up new rules every chapter with key ones coming in place well before they get used, but I still just stopped caring about the new rules and Light's elaborate explanations of how effectively he exploited them. No doubt he's a terrific rules lawyer, but I only give big points for cleverness when there's a simple set of starting rules or the rules have some metaphorical or literal basis in the real world. To be fair Death Note actually pulls off most of its cleverness without relying on rules of transfer and its use of memory loss led to a great plotline with a sympathetic Light.

In the end, I think Death Note 1-7 delivers on its cat and mouse thriller promises. That said, if you already get that it's wrong as a general rule to go around killing criminals, then I'm not sure there's much to learn from it.

Source: Kate, thanks Kate!

Review: Guidebook Android App for 2012 Otakon

Are you the type that's always desperately searching through a convention/conference schedule? Hopping from a panel to a screening in search of a free seat or more exciting content? Addicted to your smart phone and wanting to apply it to ever more aspects of your life? Then I heartily recommend the Guidebook Android app. It may also be available for the iPhone; I haven't checked.

I'll be attending Japanese anime/manga/culture convention Otakon this weekend up in Baltimore and downloaded the app after hearing about it from Omar. It has exceeded my expectations: the schedule is searchable, you can easily add and remove events from your own personal schedule, and it even offers reminders. However, the best part is that it seems both fast and robust. Even the slightly clunky bits, like the listings for fan parodies and AMVs which presumably had to be updated at the last minute, aren't really a problem.

While I'm writing this up in the context of Otakon, I think I'd find it handy for professional conferences as well.

Feature for which I'd be willing to buy a premium version: The main additional feature I would like would be the ability to share schedules and maybe check-in to events. I'd put my price point for such a feature at $5 for a premium app or the like. I some how doubt that there's enough demand to make it worthwhile, so for now I'll appreciate the features that are there and try to remember to "like" my favorite panels as I go.

Sleep No More (3 of 3)

After wandering away from the bar, my last hour began watching a scene in a bedroom and coming to the increasingly strong and eventually undeniable realization that there was a secret passage in the room. I feel a little silly in my hesitation to use it; the elevator operator introducing us to the show encouraged boldness and if the chance to follow a secret passage isn't the time to be bold, I don't know what is.

That said, this was perhaps my most conventional hour. This definition of convention includes nudity, male nudity at that, so worry not, we're still talking experimental theater. However, I have taken to heart out of context advice from over at L'Hote: don't be afraid to do something even if it might make you look like a stereotype or a naïf. So, after my sojourn through a hidden gateway I resumed exploring and travelled down to the lower levels of the Hotel. There's a grand ballroom that was at the time of my arrival functioning as Birnam Wood. Rather cleverly, the ballroom is surrounded by a balcony which makes it one of the better spots for mass gatherings and having one's choice of multiple scenes. Passing through the mobile forest, I walked into an altar to see MacBeth praying. Rest assured, his dear wife soon arrived to put a stop to that in a manner that was perhaps more vampiric than traditionally seductive.

While both impressed me - playing the dead as MacBeth did briefly can under circumstances look as challenging as playing the quick - I chose to follow Lady MacBeth into the ballroom as she readied the space for a dance. That proved to be one of my more memorable choices, as she came walking in my direction and after I made one small step out of the way I realized she was headed towards me rather than past me. She took my hand, stroked my palm briefly, gave it a light kiss and then closed it around nothing at all. This is not one of the vaunted one on one scenes - the cast do choose people for simple interactions as I witnessed a handful of times later that night - but I'll admit, the odd sensation of interacting with a character probably hooked me into seeing that particular plotline through.

If you don't know the rest of the tale of the Scottish play, you probably shouldn't hear it from me. Suffice to say the cleaning off of blood was handled quite well and left MacBeth as exposed as his wife had been earlier, but for him it was at a far lower point in his life. The downside of following one of the main plots is that there are far more observers about, but the principles made use of all of the space available to them and I never felt crowded out of the action. The show ends as the ghostly guests are gathered together, for a scene that I'm told plays different for the final iteration of each set. We were then let out to live music at the initial bar to discuss what went down and gird ourselves for the long trek back to Brooklyn.

So after that show, my main gameplay tip would be to focus on big picture exploration. I might also recommend leading off with a more conventional experience of picking an actor or perhaps an object to follow and then setting of on your own after you come to recognize a few more of the players and how they fit together. On a more practical note, a watch that lights up can be quite handy and contacts are to be preferred to glasses if at all possible. Finally, I largely avoided spoilers, but if you're likely to only go once it may well be worth finding some online playbill or the like. I generally found the experience was enhanced when I knew who someone was. For tips on performing well as an observer and getting a one-on-one scene you'll have to go elsewhere, but I think it is safe to say that being an active observer and being quick to follow things that catch your eye is quite often rewarded.

Source: Bought my own ticket, but only made it up because Matt suggested it and did most of the driving. Thanks Matt and thanks Brainy Gamer for initially piquing my interest. Also, thanks to Ian and Kris for the lodging!

Sleep No More (Part 2 of 3: Here there be spoilers)

At midnight, the story began anew in the Hotel McKittrick. I was wandering the third floor cemetery and discovered that pointing statues are oddly capable of evoking my fear. Perhaps because I was never certain that there would not be a living statue - a legacy of too much D&D and the odd street performer I'm sure - and because of a sense of dread at what they might be pointing out. The ambient music largely heightened the effect, although the number that Lady Gaga sampled to start the extended video for Born this Way may have subsequently lost its power to frighten me. Regardless, the musical cue and the actions of my fellow masked guests drew me to the main bedroom of the MacBeth's.Continuing into what might be considered spoilers, a nurse came in and prepared and laid out a dress for Lady MacBeth by the bath. Multiple copies of a letter were also left waiting for her, describing the recent good news her husband had received. Or at least that's what I thought it said; cursive has long been my nemesis and the darkness doesn't help, but a working knowledge of the Scottish play will do wonders.

The Lady's scene left her quite exposed physically as she prepared for her bath and emotionally as she danced with her joy at her husband's advancement. Upon his return the mood stayed celebratory for a time, but again through dance they argued and made up, came together and clashed. I am no connoisseur of dance, but could pick up the gist of scenes in plays I knew, even when they weren't necessarily occurring in order. Similarly, while the show made some use of side rooms guarded by black-masked staff, the sheer agility required to run dance scenes amongst observers is truly impressive.

As the MacBeths went about their business, I decided to go exploring and went up to the fifth floor: the hospital and forest maze. The hospital itself was quite fully-realized, although I don't think it drew me in quite as much as other settings. I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect both from personal experience reasons and because they are a common setting for survival horror, few of my favorite stories or moments have taken place in such. Watching the nurses was interesting; they had their own fairly creepy routine which was fun to watch in short snippets but I wasn't tempted to follow them. That changed when I was walking in a room with cut pages hanging off lines of strings, taking up much of the corner. I had studied them for a time, not divining their meaning, when a nurse walked in and revealed several of the secrets of the room. Even better, she then proceeded to the forest maze, climbed through a gate, and found a fellow nurse in a locked hutch in the corner of the maze. While this was happening the number of people observing the scene steadily increased - big moments typically happen in accessible spaces - but witnessing the prelude made it all the more thrilling. I have no idea what any of it meant, but watching the dance of the two nurses was the weird and wonderful moment that most defined the show for me.

Satisfied with my exploration of the fifth floor, I proceeded back to the fourth, where the elevator first let me off before I chased after an actor. This was the town of Glen Gallows which was home to a number of small shops and two rather different classes of bar. A second of hesitation in following an action scene I stumbled across cost me the chance to witness an interrogation scene, but there was some consolation in wandering into Hecate's Bar and witnessing a dance by the character known as the sexy witch. This was followed by an encounter between two characters that was almost normal by comparison and a valuable reminder that when sharing a drink with a suspicious person, make sure they take the first sip. Subsequently, I enjoyed the puzzle-solving satisfaction of helping fellow observers try to piece together a torn-up note. I never actually pursued this strategy, but I do wonder if following items rather than people might be a good way to learn more about how the various stories interwove.

I'm not sure of my timing, but I think around this moment, the the clock struck one and the final hour began.

Sleep No More: In which my adventure gaming heritage distracts me before midnight (part 1 of 3)

Sleep No More is a form of theater as immersive setting: actors rush between intertwined stories while visitors navigate the ambient gloom. It takes its inspiration from Macbeth and Hitchcock's film version of Rebecca, but the real romance of it is getting to see a play where the backstage is just as fully realized as what is typically shown to the audience, a sort of survival horror version of the conceit behind Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. The audience members all wear white-beaked Venetians masks, ones that may startle you if seen in the mirror and that helps your fellow voyeurs fade into the background as ghosts of lesser importance.

The nominal Hotel McKittrick, location of the show, is in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. The show is up to three hours, but you may need to arrive well before your ticket time in order to get that early call to the elevator. The check-in process was pleasingly efficient; the coat check fairly mandatory if you have any bags, but it would be a good idea even if it wasn't. The hotel lounge was a fully realized velvet room that left me vaguely apprehensive that the protagonist from Bioshock would be bursting in at any moment to slaughter us all. The bar is a pleasant place to wait for your card to be called, and you do want to be called earlier. The start times are necessarily variable to avoid overcrowding but the end time is fixed. We arrived at the hotel at eleven and discovered a substantial line; I think I made it to the show itself less than a half hour before midnight.

The elevator let me off on the fourth floor, the town of Gallows Glen, and I looked around a few of the rooms before I gave chase to an actor who went flying through to the stairway. I successfully arrived at the places of rest floor (bedrooms and a cemetery), but I lost the actor. Exploring the bedrooms was an excellent consolation prize as they managed to be creepy using a variety of approaches from bizarre to insidious. Some of the advice I heard suggested treating the Hotel McKittrick as an adventure game setting (sans kleptomania): appreciate the amazing staging by rooting through drawers, glancing through books, and seeking out what is hidden. However, while I found little details like an array of letters scribed on a bedframe, I came to reject that strategy. If a letter, a mirror, or a wardrobe draws your eye, by all means take a closer look, but unless you've planned multiple trips there is far too much going on to spend time on a pixel hunt. Instead I alighted to the cemetery which soon enough led me to my first scene.

2012-06-30 Journey to the Northwest

We were extraordinarily lucky in our vacation timing, as when we left the D.C. area there were temperatures above 100 degrees and thunderstorms causing widespread power outs. During the first few rainy days locals were apologizing for the weather; we gladly informed them that no apology was necessary. Our flight out to Seattle was straightforward; the only point of note is that this was my first flight where Southwest had both the technical capacity and legal authority to offer wifi on the flight. I passed on this revolutionary opportunity as I didn't feel like paying the fee, $5 if memory serves, although some future flight will no doubt dun me for my internet addiction. The airport itself was a bit more exciting as we got our Seattle transit smart cards:  One Regional Card for All (ORCA). That said, we misused our Orca cards on our maiden trip and managed to miss the validation stations. We felt chagrined about that we docked our cards on the way out rather than the way in.

We used a Budget rental car place off 4th Street; it was a great location and we were relieved that they let us immediately leave our car in their garage as parking in Seattle starts at $4 for a half hour. We walked over to the Seattle Public Library on advice of Kate's coworker. The design is quite distinctive and modern with curves on the outside and any number of observation points and views out as well as towards the often open architecture on the inside. My favorite gimmick was the book spiral, depicted on the left. The hallway gently ramps letting bibliophiles walk through the entire Dewey Decimal System without needing to use stairs or elevators.

After seeing the library we walked down to Pike Place Market, known for its fresh fish and produce and thus quite a pleasing olfactory experience. We bought groceries and flowers and walked by the shops on the lower level. Kate was excited to see the original Starbucks, although she put off her pilgrimage through the line until later in the evening when the line was shorter. After seeing the market we enjoyed a late lunch at the nearby Crepe de France, which surprised us by the ampleness of their entrees. Our lodging was a timeshare in Birch Bay, some hundred miles to the North near the border, so we did not stay too late in Seattle. The journey up was  beautifully adorned by fog which clung to the hills in a manner that I found difficult to capture on camera despite reminding me of Kurasawa films.

Review: Founding Farmers in Rockville

My family went to Founding Farmers near Rockville a month or two back for the first time. It's a chic new chain known for its emphasis on organic and local produce. It can be rather busy on a weekend afternoon. We'd made a reservation but despite accidentally arriving rather early we had to wait to be seated until a bit after our reservation time. Similarly, we waited for forty-five minutes for our entrees to arrive; that was partially due to a miscommunication about whether we wanted beignets as an appetizer or dessert but was still a bit frustrating. Our one other problem was the noise level; the place is fairly wide open in a way that makes conversation more difficult without the benefits of live music or the like.

Those complaints aside the food and drink were both quite good and did live up to the promised local and organic appeal. I thought the entrees ranged from good to great. Portion size was variable, my grandmother's macaroni and cheese was overly abundant by my mother's dish was a bit small. Also I did like that that the standalone meals weren't too expensive; the costs come more from the enticing selection of drinks, appetizers, sides, and desserts. I don't think all restaurants need to do that, but I like when the more frugal and the more extravagant can dine together without too much fuss.

All and all, not a bad experience, but I'd recommend sticking to times when they're less busy.

Review: Half Revolution

Half Revolution tells the story of a group of friends living near Tahrir Square at the start of the Egyptian Revolution. They all have strong ties to Egypt, although they do represent a mix of nationalities. The story they tell is an interesting one: they are quite supportive of the revolution and do go out into the streets; however, their role is unsurprisingly more that of the documentarian than the full-on revolutionary. This isn't to say that even though they eventually leave, they aren't taking real risks when they're out filming. One of the group  is beaten by Mubarak's thugs and all of them become increasing fearful as the hardliners take the streets near them.

Note at the start that I do say it is the story of the friends, not the revolution. This isn't to say that they don't try to tell the story of the revolution; they get the reactions of people on the street and do get footage of the action. However, I think the cosmopolitan nature of the group of filmmakers works  against them to an extent as the full story of the revolution ultimately belongs to those that couldn't leave. Similarly, while we got a variety of expressions  from people on the street, we didn't get much in the way of interviews with key leaders or representative samples.

This not to knock the filmmakers. I think they had two choices: to go with a short  film, perhaps less than a half hour, that just told the story of the revolution and relegated themselves to full observer status, or to tell their stories, which does add to what we know about what happened while also giving us characters to relate to a sense of the fear they were working under. Directors Omar Shargawi and Karim El Hakim have done Egypt a service in my view and may well represent the start of what I suspect will be a larger phenomenon of filmmakers with the necessary talent and skill to record events that they happen to be on scene for. Likely, future key events may even have multiple such filmmakers on hand, and they will have the option of working together to give an even wider lens to such key events.

Photos of Tahrir Square and the burned National Democratic Party headquarters by myself and my mother. Available under a creative commons license.

Source: Silver Docs Tickets from my mother. Thanks Mom!

Review: Tea or Electricity

The documentary opens on the mountain village of Ifri in Morocco. There's minimal agriculture and no industry of note: mostly breeding and herding of livestock with some collecting of nuts and timber. We soon cut to a government crew coming out to the village after stopping in the market of a nearby town stocked with consumer products likely in their second or third lifetime. The government electricians make it out to the village with some difficulty - the last part of the journey is on foot - and tell the residents that they'll be back to bring electricity when the seasons allow. They don't have time to stay for tea, but do have the opportunity to hear that while electricity is fine what the residents really want is a road.

My mother and I wanted to see this film after witnessing a similar tale in Egypt. Director Jerome Lemaire's motivation was similar but much more audacious; he went into the extraordinary four-year film project after observing the electrification process in other places. As you might guess, getting on the grid has a wide variety of implications: it requires improvements to the road with free labor from the villagers, it adds light to the nights and learning to read need no longer be done by candlelight, cell phones become a practical possibility albeit with poor reception, television arrives and with it knowledge of a wider world and consumerism, and the minimum expectations for life change as even the poorer residents add a few light bulbs. Part of what makes this story fascinating is that the people of Ifri are not naïfs; the men of the village are well aware that change will come and that some of the changes will exploit them. One of the residents and more interesting characters argues for bargaining for lower prices and no flat fees by adopting village-wide solidarity as he has heard has been done elsewhere but there's few takers.

The film is done in the modern style where the director takes a light hand and his voice is rarely heard except when he's asking the locals questions. I think this approach works well, as we get a fuller picture of the villagers in their own words and it greatly reduces the temptation towards didactic story-telling. I'd say the only weakness of the style is that it denies us some pieces of the larger context and at times reduces the amount one can learn from the first viewing. Seeing a map would allow us to better track the villagers use of local government equipment for road building and track the progress of the electrical towers. An interview with electrical officials would reveal that the villagers are right and that the electrical project will pay for itself from the government's perspective after five years of use, a fact that only came out during the Q&A. Finally, name and date overlays would help us track a wider range of villagers and better understand the pace of change. That said, I think it can be reasonable to use footage out of sequence, so perhaps clear divisions between the four years would not have been possible.

This film is effective, well-organized primary source material; it allows anyone interested in development see it in progress in a way that even many field workers may miss. Just imagine gathering footage over four years in a village that lacks electricity! For me the key takeaway is that this is how a transition from a informal economy to a formal economy works. The villagers of Ifri ended up trading their labor to make infrastructure improvements as well as some of their farm animals to pay the connection fees and buy light bulbs and such. Poorer villagers could effectively  get discounts, not just by having fewer light bulbs but also by doing some of the installation work themselves and by disguising their limited ability to pay as long as they could. The rural poor often have more localized assets than you might imagine - that's a good part of why they haven't left for areas with better condition - but in the Q&A Lemaire said that he expected with the arrival of television more of the children would head to the cities to get work. That said, the downsides of rural life are not glossed over: we see funerals during the film and the work of the parents, both male and female, looks arduous and in the long term backbreaking.  I'd gladly see a sequel to this charming, humorous, and often lovely film that looked at what happened over the next four years to Ifri after the initial glow of the television had faded.

Source: Silverdocs tickets from my mother. Thanks Mom!

Image credit: Promotional poster taken from Cinenews.be. Remaining photos are of electrification in rural Luxor, Egypt. They were taken by myself and my mother, available under a creative commons license.

Review: Harold Goldberg's All Your Base are Belong to Us

All Your Base are Belong to Us is an interview driven account of the rise of videogames. Each chapter focuses on a small set of key figures or companies and tells their story in a manner that reminds me of long form pieces in the Washington Post's Business section. I don't think it breaks new ground when it comes to well known feature such as Nintendo's Miyamoto, but most of the industry does not hold such a celebrity status so I learned more even about companies and designers I'm quite familiar with. For those that aren't newcomers to games journalism, I'd recommend skimming the selected notes chapter in the back to determine which chapters are most likely to be of interest based on who is interviewed.

On the downside, the prose of the book was more likely to push me away than draw me in. It often has an overly-familiar style that can be tricky to pull off, particularly when the videogame invoked emotions and sentiments described in first persons passages didn't tend to match my experience with the games in question. Similarly, while I think Goldberg is probably dead on when he emphasizes the importance of salesmanship by indie game designers, I didn't come away from the book bustling with new ideas or with a notably different take on videogames. He also sometimes falls into the trap up game triumphalism, while he willing to critique the widely acknowledged failures of those he interviews, his description of the strong points of their successes tends to be unalloyed. Picking an example from near the end of the book, his write-up of Shadow Complex makes no mention of the controversy regarding Orson Scott Card. A long discussion was not necessary, but the subtitle of the book is "How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture," the boycott attempt driven by a reaction to Card's social conservative activism seems well within its purview.

So in short, I think this book is a best fit for those curious about the corporate and entrepreneurship side of things; that have a lot of interest but a little information about some of the games and companies profiled; or that enjoy Harold Goldberg's prose in his online game journalism. Those primarily interested in games criticism should probably look elsewhere, although I'm grateful to Goldberg for mentioning Ian Bogost's persuasive games which apparently argues that games have a procedural rhetoric that can be convincing in a different way than other forms oratory rhetoric. That's a concept I'm quite interested in and a book I'll have to add to my wish list.

Source: Borrowed from my mother-in-law. Thanks!

Just had my first experience with Capital Bikeshare

Capital Bikeshare is a subscription system in D.C. which allows you to check out bikes at one location and return them to another. If you check the bike in again fast, in 30 minutes I think, there's no charge. I got a subscription when I saw a discount for them earlier, it took a few days to get my pass so you can't just grab and go when first you feel interested. Anyways, this is the first time I've used them in large part because during my earlier attempts I underestimated the force it took to remove a checked out bike.

There is an app called spotcycle that helps you find stations, although it doesn't seem to be integrated into Google Maps in such a way that helps you pull up directions. I ended up just running spotcycle while walking and then pulling it up again when pulled over at a corner near my destination. To the degree that your cycling between familiar locales this won't be a problem but it can be a bit trickier when first starting out.

On the whole I found biking in D.C. and easier prospect than I expected. There's a reasonable number of bikers about and a fair number of bike lanes if you're willing to adjust your route a bit. Tonight, I'd been making a trip to Adams Morgan, a neighborhood notably without a Metro stop, and bikeshare really does seem like a great way to do it.

I'll keep experimenting with the system. I'm curious whether I can use it to get to my occasional appointments at Georgetown University Hospital or as a means of reasonably reliable conveyance to Union Station when the hour is late and Metro trains are less frequent. Time will tell, but I had a good time riding so I'm happy to experiment. Now I just need to bring my helmet into work.

The destinations themselves, Bourbon and Bier Baron, were quite pleasant. I'm not a huge bar person but they both offered a pretty good experience on a Wednesday night.

Legend of Korra continues Avatar's tradition of excellent antagonists

Sympathetic antagonists are one of my favorite things in fiction, if for no other reasons then that they add variety to the stories. If the enemy is nihilist or totalitarian evil then their degree of success is just a matter of how dark the pieces is. However, if the threat actually has a sympathetic cause, in this case standing up for ordinary people in a city largely run by those with special bending abilities, then it is far from clear how things will shake out.

I don't want to get into too much speculation at this point. Let me just say instead that if you were a fan of the first series be sure to check out Legend of Korra. This is particularly easy because the episodes are available, with commercials, for free online. Coming in without having seen the first series won't tell you as much about the world and will indirectly spoil some things about the ending. However, if you don't have an easy means to get a hold of it then I'd say that the core plotline should be perfectly enjoyable and the 70 year time skip means that the world in question is a very different one.

Review: The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss

Post-Revolutionary War America isn't a setting I've read much about before, let alone as the basis for a novel that is in part a financial thriller. The Whiskey Rebels trades off between a disgraced Revolutionary War spy and an upcoming would-be novelist.  The former primarily stays in the great-ish east coast cities of the day while the latter travels with her husband into the wilds past Pittsburgh. The actual Whiskey Rebellion itself doesn't play that big a role, as the period is wrong, but that's no demerit to the story.

Both the leads are good characters, with a plausible mix of flaws that I felt the novel sometimes forgave but rarely whitewashed. The prominent supporting characters include a slave whose promised freedom was wrongly delayed, a lady whose high stature provides her little protection against her husband, and a vicious Jewish special agent working for Alexander Hamilton. As that list should show, the characters come from a variety of backgrounds which enriches the historical setting of the novel.

The story is a mix of conspiracy thriller and frontier adventure with the rise of the Bank of the United States, hated by the eventual Whiskey Rebels, being a core plot element. I rather liked this as it was a part of history I knew a bit about but was on the balance more ignorant than informed. At the same time, it was quite relevant to our modern era.

Almost to my surprise, the ending was particularly solid. I don't want to give anything away, but I'd say it managed to stay true to the values and cleverness common to the rest of the book. That can be particularly hard to pull when the main characters can be tricksters in their own right, which makes the successful implementation all the more satisfying.

Source: Moti, thanks Moti!

Things other games should steal from 4th edition DnD

I've actually been playing some version or other of the venerable system since college. However, I'm not really the target demographic of the next edition as I'm not that into fantasy and quite like non-combat mechanics, and D&D Next aims to be the arch-typical version of the system rather than moving in a new direction. There will doubtless be modules of interest to me, but this seems like a good time to say my goodbyes. The points below are meant to be my favorite parts of the edition, not the best in any objective sense. 

Special powers that can be used freely (encounter powers and at-wills): 4th edition made fairly heavy use of powers that could be used at will or once per scene. If I'm playing in an environment where supernatural abilities are in play, I like to be able to use them freely. The once per scene (or encounter to use the technical term) powers did this particularly well, because they could be substantial without being game breaking. This combined well with 4th edition's encouragement to freely reflavor things: the mechanical effect may be defined but it is easy enough to ascribe the source to anything you desire.

Mechanically meaningful non-attack powers (utility powers and themes): As I mentioned above, I'm not quite a stereotypical story gamer. While I enjoy challenge and conflict, I'm just more interested in confrontations that aren't violent, let alone lethal. 4th edition D&D offered two notable new sources for such abilities: utility powers, which came along every few levels, and themes, which help define how a character starts out. Good flavor and mechanical matches particularly matter here and D&D delivers with powers like allowing rangers to keep someone from falling over a ledge by catching them with an arrow or allowing those skilled in the ways of magic to use technobabble to help get them out of a social problem once a scene. This is a mechanical space that could in theory be filled by feats, a game element that sometimes involves prerequisite but is typically chosen from a vast list. The selection of utility powers is more limited; you have to qualify for them via class, theme, or skill. This encourages them to be more defined, easier to balance, and makes their numbers less overwhelming. Also critically, neither utility powers nor themes are charged with doing the heavy lifting of making a character effective, which gives more room for flavorful selections.

Digital tools: I think the character builder and online rules compendium has been rather game changing. I've paid the subscription fee happily and haven't even minded that much when the character builder went from desktop client to web tool.

Design that draws from a wide range of games: This is sometime mentioned as a knock against 4th edition, particularly in reference to video games. However, I'd say that video games and board games have both advanced greatly over the past decades. Not all changes have been for the best, but I think we have a much better idea of what it means to get the underlying math right. This matters to me as a player, because knowing that I've checked the box when it comes to effectiveness gives me freedom to be playful. This matters far more as a GM, as getting a solid balanced system should be one of the big perks of going to larger companies for games. Playtesting, R&D shops, and system updates all take hard work and are well worth paying for.