Ten Day Meme: Day Nine

Day nine: two images that describe my life right now.

1. You're partway on a very long journey. You know it's going to take a very long time, but as long as you're moving forward you feel good about it. But soon you get hit by an enormous snowstorm and you have to take refuge in a hotel until it passes. There is so much snow right now that any you clear away is immediately replaced, but you know that unless you keep at it you'll never be able to get out. Still, for the moment you're stuck. The hotel is a nice place to be and you're enjoying being there, but you really wish you could keep moving.

2. Mmm, delicious cake. But pie is delicious too. Too many desserts are bad for me, but I can't help but like both.

Ten Day Meme: Day Eight

Day Eight: Three turn-ons.

1. Nice voices. I love deep, pleasant masculine voices. British isles accents are a bonus.

2. Broad shoulders. It looks strong and manly.

3. Abs. Abs abs abs abs ABS.

In a cowboy and larping mood-- thank God for The Stand!

Finally I think I have a schedule assembled for Festival. I did my best to accomodate the GM's needs and requests, in thanks for their willingness to run games. I am waiting until January 1st to post it like I said I would, but I am really excited. It's got some fantastic games on it, the majority of which are no older than second run, so there should be plenty of appealing options for larpers of every experience. Based on the advice of natbudin* and bronzite*, I think it will be up for a week to ten days before game signups go live. That will give people time to look at the games and make a plan, but still get people in the larps early enough to submit casting questionnaires and receive characters with enough time in advance. I have been encouraging people to sign up now, to see if I can get an idea of how many people are going to attend and see if my estimates were correct. When the schedule is up, expect another slew of e-mails calling you to look. :-)

Heh. When the games actually are open, I am going to be able to do nothing but continually refresh Signup Spy and see who's going for what. Can't wait! :-D

Saw True Grit last night with some wonderful company and loved it. The acting was awesome, I enjoyed the plot, and I absolutely adored the Restoration-comedy-style dialogue. I am now going to endeavor to write the character sheets for The Stand in emulation of it. The movie gave me a lot of inspiration, as I hoped it would, so I am excited to get to writing. It's an excellent film, and I highly recommend you see it. I wonder who will catch what the influence was when they play the game...

Ten Day Meme: Day Seven

Day Seven: Four turn-offs.

1. Excessive talkers. I get annoyed and overstimulated by constant chatter. Related to this is people who can't gauge their audience and hold others captive in conversations they aren't interested in but have no polite way to escape from.

2. Poor hygiene. Can't deal. Utterly repellent to me. Very senstive to unwashed-person smells.

3. Bad manners. Just makes a terrible impression of your considerateness, your taste, and your discernment.

4. Drunkenness beyond being a little tipsy. If you like getting out of your head so much, what's wrong with being in there?

Start signing up for Larpercalia!

Hello, lovely larping community!

Consider this your personal invitation to start signing up for Larpercalia: Festival of the Larps 2011! The schedule will be up for viewing on the website in a week or less, so please, flock you all to http://www.larpercalia.festivalofthelarps.com/events/431 and let me know that I will have the pleasure of your wonderful company larping with me this April. And make sure to tell your friends! It would be very helpful to me if you could all sign up for the con now, so I have an idea of whether or not I've got enough player slots on the schedule to accomodate you all.

Do it for your dear con chair. The last day of the con is my birthday, you see. And all I want for my birthday is a larp con. Won't you come celebrate it with me?

Your loving con chair,
Phoebe

Christmas and Jared

Had a very lovely Christmas with my family. We celebrated in much the usual way, by spending time together and cooking mountains of food. We did our traditional seven-fish Italian Christmas Eve dinner, though since this year we had shrimp, crab claws, raw oysters, smoked salmon, fried haddock, seared scallops, calamari in linguine, and my mother's peerless lobster bisque, we technically had eight! Christmas was particularly special, because Jared came to my parents house all the way from Chicago to spend it with me! Then we got in his car and drove back to Boston. What brought this about? So he can move back into town. :-)

Yes, Jared is finally back for good! He found a really nice house in Watertown with one roommate that I think he will be very happy in. He's still looking for a job, but he thinks it will be easier once he's local, and in the meantime he can at least do temporary work if need be. This week we will be getting him all the furniture and things he needs to move in. He's excited to get back to spending time with friends, so take note if you'd like to see him.

Ten Day Meme: Day Six

Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)

1. Jared

2. My mom

3. My dad

4. I'm going to count Steph and Jenn as one in this spot, as I want to put them both down for the reason of being "friend Phoebe actually confides in."

5. Bernie

Ten Day Meme: Day Five

Day five: six things you wish you'd never done.

1. I wish I'd never gotten involved with Alain. I am still ashamed I let someone treat me that way.

2. I regret all the times I lost my temper at people who didn't deserve it, but just happened to be in the way during times of upset for me.

3. I wish I'd written a thesis, preferably a creative writing one. I was so busy I thought I didn't need the extra work, but now I wish I had it under my belt.

4. I wish I'd stuck a little more closely to my athletic diet and exercise regime. Maybe not quite so extreme as I was for my sanity's sake. Still, it might have put extra strain on my mindset, but my body was amazing.

5. I wish I'd fought harder on the behalf of Tegan and Kathryn to move into Elsinore two and a half years ago. I think it would have been better for all parties involved.

6. Though it's finally worked out to an acceptable conclusion, I regret a casting decision in Hamlet that led to a person who caused a lot me a lot of pain coming into my life. I think if I hadn't cast that person, they never would have been in that position.

Ten Day Meme: Day Four

Day four: seven things that cross your mind frequently.

1. Jared

2. Must stay on schedule...

3. That would make a great idea for a story!

4. If everyone looked this good, we wouldn't need drugs, only mirrors.

5. I should totally LiveJournal about this.

6. God, I am so glad no one can read minds. I never want anyone to know I thought this.

7. Bernie

Ten Day Meme: Day Three

Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.

1. Listen when I talk. I developed the geek defense mechanism of assuming people aren't necessarily interested in what I like to talk about, so my default setting is to assume people aren't paying that close attention. It makes me feel special when you demonstrate you absorbed the things I said.

2. Recognize the ways I am special and unique from anyone else.

3. Have interests, pursuits, abilities, and passions. Do things, and care about things.

4. Take an interest in my work. Want to read my writing, play my games, see my plays, want to discuss them, and offer opinions and suggestions.

5. Have discernment. Be able to evaluate a situation for proper behavior, for proper response, for quality, for significance. Show me you have good judgment.

6. Be brave. No matter how afraid you are, push through it and get things done anyway.

7. Be good. Care about the right thing, and do your best to do it.

8. Be selfless. I admire it above almost anything else.

Boy goats

Years ago when I read Robinson Crusoe, I remember being very irked by a moment when Robinson is milking a goat and refers to the goat as "him." A boy goat doesn't give milk, I grumbled. But I just read that apparently boy goats sometimes do give milk. Huh. I wonder if Daniel Defore know that, or if it was just a lucky mistake.

Ten Day Meme: Day Two

Day Two: Nine things about yourself.

1. On every desk I've had since sophomore year, I have had a notepaper with the words "We were born to suffer. Remember that," on prominent display. Believe it or not, it comforts me.

2. I have a horrified fascination with pregnancy and childbirth gone wrong. I can think of few things more terrible or creepier. Though I am not as violently freaked out by it as I often play at being, I am especially haunted by the idea of lithopedions.

3. I think Julie Christie is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I wish she hadn't been young in the sixties with the terrible styling, but I think she's perfect. I especially love this picture of her. Possibly because here she looks very much like my mother did when she was young.

4. My favorite poem is The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, because it does everything right-- beautiful, musical, tells a great story, affecting, and technically perfect. A masterpiece on all levels.

5. You name a written medium, I have at the very least had an idea for a project in that medium. If I had the time and the discipline, I could write novels, plays, short stories, poems, TV shows, movies, comics, essays, columns, and everything else.

6. I would love to be famous, God help me. Of course, I still want my life totally private and not be ever bothered in person, so I'm sure that would work out great.

7. If I get married, I plan to take my husband's last name. I like the idea of everyone in a family having the same name. I would be equally satisfied if my husband took my name. The only way we'd end up with different names is if he wasn't willing to take mine and I absolutely hated his.

8. I take an enormous amount of comfort in the familiar. If I'm stressed or weary, I find myself wanting to watch TV I've seen a million times, read stuff I've read a million times, and order the same meal I always order. It's like I'm afraid I won't have the wherewithal to absorb or appreciate something new.

9. It happens with shocking frequency that I do the right thing in a situation because of how ashamed I would be if anyone knew I did the wrong thing. My fear of that may not be totally healthy or in proportion, but at least it manifests constructively.

Ten Day Meme: Day One

What the hell, why not. It's not like I'm doing anything else productive right now.

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.

1. I don't know if you realize, but I have been working really hard to try and be nice to you and make you feel okay around me. But if you don't start responding in kind to it soon, I'm blowing you off. I'll take you as a friend if you're willing, but if you're not, it's not like I need you.

2. I really appreciate how often you reach out to me. Though part of me can't shake the feeling that you're not actually interested in me as a person, you're just being nice. I'm not sure why I feel that way.

3. I have so much contempt for you right now. The reason why doesn't affect me, at least not anymore, so I guess it's not my place to think anything, but my current opinion of you is really low.

4. I think you're wonderful and I care so much about you, but I worry that inside you're really sick. It doesn't make me think even a little bit less of you; I feel nothing but pity that you have to deal with it. If that is so, I pray that someday it heals.

5. It does him no credit that he only just now realized what you really are. It does you less credit that I knew three years ago. If my judgment could have been taken in place of his, it would have spared me three years of having to endure you.

6. I want so badly to tell you how messed up I think your perceptions are, and how silly you're acting because of them. If I thought you'd believe me, I'd tell you even if it hurt you on the chance it might get you to stop. It's because I really do care about you. But don't think you would believe me, so it's not worth it to cause you the pain.

7. The better I know you, the more I like you. I wish you felt the same about yourself.

8. Please stop trying so hard. It's distasteful and pathetic.

9. I thought you'd basically resigned yourself to never really being happy, but things you've said recently make me wonder if that isn't true after all. God, I hope so.

10. You have irritated me to the point where I'd pretty much prefer to not having to deal with you anymore. Unfortunately, given the politics of certain things, I don't believe that will be possible.

That was interesting. A wee bit attention-whorey and even slightly passive-aggressive, but interesting.

My grownup corner

In case you haven't been in the kitchen at Elsinore recently, let me tell you that lately it's been kept pretty nice. I like the way the furniture looks in it, the light wood of the table contrasting with the dark chairs, which is picked up by the wood board of the baker's rack and the gorgeous butcher block in the corner. As I think I mentioned, I got the butcher block when my brother moved out of his old apartment. His landlord wanted the building completely emptied of its contents, including this little beauty, which apparently did not belong to anyone-- which means I got to take it home. It is a piece of kitchen furniture that I'd coveted for ages and regularly sells for hundreds of dollars, so that was quite a stroke of luck for me. Last Halloween my dad also brought me six bundles of herbs from his garden, which look homey and nice hung all around. When I got my copper pan, I decided the best way to store it was to hang it on the wall on display. To complete the effect, I moved two of my oil flasks, Jane's mortar and pestle, and Charlotte's pretty glass onto the butcher block beneath it. Charlotte then put some flowers in the blue vase to complete the tableau. I have immortalized what I believe to be the prettiest place in the house in this photograph:

Sometimes I stand in this corner and look at the display before me and I can pretend that I live in a grownup house.

Home for Christmas

Home for Christmas now. Got up at 5AM to catch a 7:30 plane, and have settled in with the family to prepare for the holiday. This year Jared should be joining me at my parents' house, which will be lovely experience that we've never had before. I spent the day shopping with my family, buying supplies for Christmas and Christmas Eve dinner. We went to the lovely, enormous indoor farmer's market in town, which has locally-grown vegetables, farm-raised meat, and all manner of artisan breads, cheeses, and desserts. The guy at the counter where we bought veal and brisket told me I was pretty, asked where I went to school, and told me he'd give me two free homemade hamburger patties if I could tell him what a certain word meant. He was Jewish, and since I told him Brandeis I thought he'd ask me something in Yiddish. Instead, he asked the meaning of "ennui," which was so much easier I laughed aloud. Needless to say, I won myself a couple of burgers! It was a very fun conversation.

The house looks even prettier than usual today, all clean for company and decorated for Christmas. I plan to spend the next five days eating, working out, and writing. Won't be as restful as perhaps it could be, given how much work I have to do, but it should at least be a nice holiday with the family.

Lewis Shapes Me Still

Like so many young children who prove to be voracious readers, I started with what engrossed my interest— adventure, magic, talking animals, epic struggles. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis seemed a natural fit. They contained everything that lived in my imagination every day, so my love for them was instantaneous and undying; I must have read through those seven books a hundred times. But as many adventurous, magical, epic, talking-animal-containing novels as I read in my childhood, none of them stayed with me the way Narnia did.

Back in those days, before I tried to examine the appeal, I knew only that the stories felt so right to me. It was as if Lewis plugged the brain of someone else directly into mine, and all the visceral feelings that could not be described poured through me as if the book’s experiences were my own. He had an uncanny way of capturing so much of what was so important to an imaginative, idealistic child— wanting to do the right thing even if you don’t know what the right thing is, the guilt you feel when you act small and petty because you’re hurting and exhausted, and the true nature of bravery that isn’t so much about being unafraid as it is pressing on despite your fear. The way I felt through all of those things, all the good things I wanted to be and do, and all the bad things I hoped someone would forgive, Lewis seemed to understand, and so capably put into words.

As I ventured into writing myself, more than anything else I’d ever read I wanted to emulate this ability of Lewis’s— that of conveying how people really felt. Observing the way he did it, I endeavored to learn how to take all the unvoiced gut feelings of my internal self and translate them into words. As I grew, I wondered if there was anything else that could speak to me in the way Narnia did, more to feed the fires of my growing desire for writer’s knowledge. When I learned how much else Lewis had written, I had to read more.

In the Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis used the phrase “for the first time” as an expression of the experience of the numinous. To this day, I cannot hear the phrase without the same associations. In reading more and more of Lewis’s work, I discovered many new things that gave meaning to that phrase for me. Through him, “for the first time,” I met many things that were numinous to me. I read his other fantastical fiction, the Space Trilogy and Till We Have Faces. I read his satire, The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce. I read his Christian apology, Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, and Miracles. I read Surprised by Joy and A Grief Observed, his autobiographical works. Though I loved some better than others, every one of them touched me in a unique way, and each one taught me more about how the written word can touch you.

His Christian apology helped me with the questions in my own soul. I am a religious Catholic, but for me it manifests very much internally— a system of belief and values that informs the way I live more than something I often display obviously. I cannot usually connect with religiosity that is expressed more in form than in philosophy. But here was Lewis, for whom faith was not a collection of dos and don’ts, nor empty rituals, nor a lot of pedagogical Bible stories. As was the Deeper Magic from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it was simply the truth of the universe, inbuilt within the bones of the world. It needed to be examined and understood as much as chemistry and physics. Even when I did not agree with his point of view, the method by which he worked it out always made sense to me. For the first time, I had a framework with which to examine and codify my own beliefs.

Though his autobiographical works, I learned more about the life he’d led and the kind of man he was. His existence had often been a hard one— a lonely, difficult childhood, endless family tragedy, and a fraught struggle to come to peace with the nature of God. It was interesting to contrast his person with that of J.R.R. Tolkien, a contemporary of his and another author I’d grown up on. Tolkien was so certain of himself, of his identity and of the things he believed, and had been all his life. Lewis, by contrast, had none of the comfort of easy truths. Every truth he’d ever come to he had suffered dearly for, deconstructing, tearing his own guts apart so that he could examine every hidden piece. And for the first time I saw from where his grasp of humanity came. He knew himself at all costs, from the totality of his strengths to the depths of his weaknesses, that knowledge coming to him only by the stark, merciless self-judgment he enforced on his struggle to attain it. And from his self-knowledge came knowledge of man, by the same uncompromising process. He was so ruthlessly fair, clear-eyed enough to regard the complicated nature of humanity with just the right measure of judgment and compassion. He articulated both “Who am I, that it is so wrong that I should suffer?” and “I am such that my suffering does signify.” He was so full of that burning contradiction, so strange and yet so critical, of the everything and the nothing of our state, unafraid to at once accept the burden and claim the significance.

In seeing his own weakness, he learned what human weakness was. In seeing his own strength, he grasped the nature of human strength. He kept cutting, no matter how painful, until he exposed truth. And when he wrote, he had all the glory of that knowledge giving fire to everything he said.

And, for the first time, I understood. His work hit me in the gut because his work encompassed the truth of mankind. This was it, I realized. This was why I loved his writing above all others. There were points of style, of course. I always have admired the way he manages to cap his paragraphs with the punchiest, most spot-on sentences that just perfectly conclude the point. But by and large his writing is unadorned, without flourish. He is not a writer of poetical device. He tells you exactly, straightforwardly, what he means to tell you. And in that, his plainspoken words were given gravitas and elegance by the perfection with which he reflected the human condition. That was the power, that was the beauty of all of Lewis’s varied work. His understanding of the human soul felt more real to me than that of any writer I’d ever read. I felt its realness in my bones, and my own view grew and changed through its influence.

That, I believe, is the key— to communicate the truth of such ethereal things, you must do the hard work of coming to grips with them. Perhaps no one can teach understanding of the self, or of humanity. But Lewis taught me how to go about seeking them. And the more I develop it, the more real, the more true, and the more powerful my work will become. By pouring it into my writing, perhaps my work will be able to touch others the way Lewis’s work touched me.

More than any other author, Lewis has shaped the writer, the Christian, and the person I am. Someday I hope I will write with the same significance, the same power to move as his did, and encourage someone else to try and capture their truth.

Dirty Twitter sellout

I have finally gotten a Twitter account. I feel like a dirty sellout, but I caved and now I have one. I was using Google Buzz anyway, which is basically the same thing except part of my mail client, and I like having lots of new things to read, so I figured if I'm going to be a microblogging slut I might as well own it. :-P Even though I think it's kind of a silly expression of an inclination toward narcissism and time-wasting, I can see why it appeals to me-- it's another outlet for my content-generation compulsion with lots of new, if brief, material that updates very quickly. My name is breakinglight11 if you'd care to follow me, though I warn you most of my entries are along the lines of "Stupid thing I observed about something only I care about." As an early commenter on Twitter said, if I were doing something really interesting, like a daring rescue or engineering a cure for cancer, instead of avoiding the mountain of writing I have to do, I wouldn't have time to Tweet it, nor could I adequately describe it in a single sentense.

Map board for The Stand

When I am home for Christmas, I want my mom to help me make a very important gamepiece for The Stand. Control of the land surrounding the town and the various features of that land matter a lot to the plot of the game, so I wanted a large and well-illustrated visual representation for it. What I want is for my mom, who is an artist, to draw or paint me a large detailed birdseye representation of the land on paper so people can see what it looks like and what visible features it has. I will then grid off the paper to parcel the land out. Things out on the land that have the capability to move around will be represented by miniatures. Each space will also have a little flap cut in it to make a tiny window that will conceal the non-obvious information about the space, which you can only open and examine if you have the proper knowledge or abilities.

Travel across this space is non-negligible. I haven't exactly worked out the mechanics of it, but in order to make travel across the board possible within a reasonable amount of time, you need to have a horse to ride. But all the town's horses died in a recent jag of illness; there's only one horse in human possession at the start of the game. So the only solution is to track down the local mustang herd and wrangle yourself a mount. I have yet to design it, but this process will be a minigame. Anyone is allowed to try to wrangle a mustang, though some people will have a Wrangler ability that will give them a bonus when they make the attempt. If you are successful at the minigame, you get a horse of your very own to keep, complete with a card with the horse's picture and stats on it. There will be a few different things you can do with horses, but the primary one is the ability to travel to areas of land outside of town for examination, claim, or otherwise.

Alone in a clean house

All my roommates have left for winter break. As much as I will miss them as individuals, it will be nice to have the place to myself for a bit. I will be away myself for a while around Christmas, but other than that I will be at Elsinore enjoying the brief period of solitude. Nautrally, my first act as soon as everyone was gone was to clean. I cleaned the whole house, from bedroom to basement, except for vaccuuming. I burnt out on cleaning before I got to the vaccuuming, so I guess I will leave that to later or even tomorrow. Still, I am always worlds more comfortable in my space when it's clean, so it is very nice to have the almost the whole place done.

I am now relaxing in my room with a cinnamon-vanilla scented candle and a mug of eggnog. Every time I drink eggnog I think to myself, "This tastes the way I always wanted... something... to taste." But I can never remember exactly what that something is. It might be milk-- the flavor of milk certainly is never what I feel it should be. But it makes me feel nice, and I can use the relaxation and comfort for the moment so I can get more work done this evening.

Photo editing

So as you may remember, I wanted a headshot board outside the theater for To Think of Nothing. Bernie took the headshots on my stupid point-and-shoot camera, and though they came out by and large okay, I wanted them to look really slick. Black and white was an obvious option, but then I started messing around on Adobe Photoshop Elements to see if I couldn't make them a little crisper. I took forever trying to teach myself the rudiments of the program-- as I said, it's a good thing Liz Baessler is so cute, because I spent hours staring at her headshot. I mostly messed with the contrast, the shadows, and the brightness, but I also figured out how to smooth out small imperfections like flyaway hairs, under-eye circles, and acne. I actually think I got pretty decent, if decidedly uneducated and unprofessional, at editing photos such that they looked pretty good in one way or another.

Yesterday, in the depth of my doldrums, I decided to amuse myself by playing around with some other photos. Since I was depressed, I indulged myself by using pictures of my favorite subject-- myself. I made myself a new profile pic out of the shot of me in my Halloween costume posted in thefarowl*'s Facebook album. I then took it a step further and upped the blue content to make the color of my costume seem richer and to cool down the brightness of my skin and the wall behind me. I actually think I like that version, which I posted on DeviantART, better than the one I used in my profile.

I also decided to challenge myself by taking a picture of myself that I hated and making it into something that I liked. nennivian* had an album of shots she took at a girls night dinner we had, and I was shocked at my acne-blotched skin tone and unbelievable helmet hair. So I put it in grayscale, cut the frame in tight, erased my acne, and played with the contrast levels until I got something that looked kind of soft and artistic. Here is the end result:

It reminds me of those pictures people use on the last pages of retrospectives about the life of some famous dead person. Heh, when I die horribly and young, as I'm certain I will, and somebody does a book about me, here's a nice shot for the end.

So much to do...

God, I feel overwhelmed. Not as completely depressed about life, the universe, and everything as I was yesterday, but I still am still weighed down how much I have to do. An essay, a one act play, two larps, more articles... God, that's a lot. It wouldn't be so bad if I could actually buckle down and focus, but my general melodrama of the moment is making that tough. This weekend (my first truly unbooked one since early OCTOBER) will have to be devoted to getting work done. Maybe I should work in hour increments on a given project, then switch to keep my brain engaged.

Of course, I haven't finished holiday shopping yet. I hate doing it, since I never know what to get and a large portion of my intended recipients don't like stuff anyway, so I have massively put it off. Maybe I'll just do a mass online buying jag tonight and call it there. :-P Better than what I did last year, which was venture out into the mall mobs that close to Christmas. I could barely get a parking space.

More Festival bids are coming in, thanks in part to the lovely ultimatepsi*, wired_lizard*, and captainecchi*, to whom I very grateful. We are much closer to my goal of a full schedule with between sixty and seventy player slots per time period. At this point we don't need everyone who I talked to about bidding soon to submit something, but we do still need some. I am debating whether or not it might be a good idea to encourage people to start signing up for the con, just to get an idea of how many player slots we're likely to need. Signups for Festival at large are open, so feel free to put your name in there now if you'd like, but I know I won't wait any longer than a week before the schedule is supposed to be published (first week of January) to start getting after people to let me know they're coming. That way I can be sure the schedule is the right size to accomodate them without any games having to drop.

Festival nerves

I was a bad thing Monday night, barely getting any writing done at all in favor of distractions, eating, and screwing around. I did do a couple of unrelated productive things at least, including washing and putting away all the clothes I own, assembling a few appropriate outfits for future events, and getting an actual hard workout in. Those were things that definitely needed to get done, but I was pissed at how shot my focus was. Tuesday was also a free night, and I made every effort to kick my lazy ass into gear. Now both my Resonance characters for this coming Monday's meeting are finished. That's a good chunk. I also even did some work on Merely Players and The Stand, though nothing concrete.

Still in a low-level state of neurosis regarding Festival games. I am considering my options about what to do if things actually do get desperate. (They're not yet, for the record, I'm just paranoid.) I am starting to send nudging e-mails to people I trust asking if they'd consider running something, even if it's someone else's game or something they've run before. Though my preference has been for new games, I am more than happy to consider older ones at this point. Maybe not ones that have had TEN MILLION runs (not Mary Celeste, maybe not Marin County) but I am not opposed to games with three or four goes under their belt.

One thing I am not eager to do, though it is a possibility, is run another thing myself. I am already running The Stand and Resonance and that feels like quite enough. I had planned on giving Oz a break for a year or so, but it's only fifteen players, which is the right size for what I need, so it would probably serve. Thing is, I had things I wanted to play that I wouldn't be able to in that case. I guess I could run it on Sunday, which isn't totally fitting since it's not an excessively light game, but that wouldn't be the end of the world. Or maybe I could let someone else run it. I still feel a bit weird about that idea. I do believe my ultimate goal is to become a well-liked-enough larp writer that my larps appeal to people in places I can't get to-- I like the idea of my larps being published works --but I'm still nervous about whether or not I could teach someone to run it right. Also, I would be kind of sad missing what happens in a run of my game. I may talk to Jared just to see what he thinks. Not settled yet, but we'll see.

Want games, want games, want games...

My schedule for the upcoming week is very light. I am seriously considering keeping it that way at all costs; I have and will continue to have a lot of stuff to get done, and extended periods where I am allowed to just work without interruption means a greater likelihood of actually accomplishing something.

Getting a wee bit nervous about how few Festival bids there have been. Even if everyone who told me they were going to bid does bid, that still gives us no more than forty-five player openings per timeslot. I was hoping to have more like sixty-five or seventy. Some people have told me that people are just procrastinators and I should expect a flood of bids right before the December 31st deadline, but I'm not certain. So please, if you were thinking about bidding something, or know someone thinking about bidding something, I ask that you give it a go. The earlier we can get a schedule going, the better prepared we can be.

Today I made the signups for the "pinch-hitter" lists. If you recall, the idea is to have lists where people sign up to hang out near the gamespace for an hour or so at the beginning of each slot to indicate that they are willing to jump into a game at the last minute in the event of a player drop, so a GM knows where they can find them if necessary. The idea is that you will be able to be on a waitlist simultaneously with being on the pinch-hitter list, but once you get into a game you must be removed. Also, it should be noted that this is not an expectation that you will play ANY game that has an opening, just that you are available nearby to the GMs and are potentially interested in jumping in. It has been speculated upon that this may lead to an increase in player drops if they know that someone will be there to pick up their slack, but I have concluded that it is better to have four drops that we know can be filled so that the games are not compromised than one or two that don't get filled and end up hurting the larps. And hey, if this turns out to be a terrible idea, well, this is a grand experiment, and in that case I take full responsibility and we'll never do it again. But who knows-- might just be crazy enough to work!

Tea party with Tegan

Again I am forcefully reminded of how much against my nature it is to hope. In trying again at something at which I failed in the past, I have to really fight to keep the fear of it happening all over again from paralyzing me. I confess I have no hope of this time being any different. But I am reminding myself again and again that there can only be a chance if I try.

Yesterday I didn't get much done, but instead I was pleasantly surprised by an afternoon and evening of socializing. twilighttremolo* mentioned on Facebook that she had Thursday off and planned to be in Waltham for the day, was anyone available to hang out? Having not much seen her or gotten to spend any real time with her lately, I asked if she might be interested in afternoon tea. We had a lovely time chatting over Earl Grey, and I learned that she is adapting an early gothic novel into dramatic form for the BORG play this upcoming semester. I can't wait to see what she does with it. It was very nice getting to spend so much time talking with her, AND I got a chance to use my lovely bone china tea set that Jared gave me. :-) Afterward, our little tea party expanded to include katiescarlett29*, in_water_writ*, and Bernie in what was described as a "social katamari ball" and we all went out for a nice dinner at Watch City. Bernie had to run a little bit early, so I took the rest of us back to my place for BSCF. The night went a bit later than I would have wanted, but it was a very nice time with very good company, so I am pleased.

I am trying to keep from worrying. I need to stay relaxed, and just do my best to deal with all the things on my plate. Nice days like yesterday help.

Writing progress, writing projects

Though yesterday was not as productive as I hoped it would be-- I ended up taking a long nap, which I needed, but it ate up more time than I would have liked --still I have accomplished a lot lately. I finished brushing up my old cut of Othello, a play so long it simply does not do to perform it unedited anymore, and passed it along to Jane and Emily for them to work on over winter break. I am making lots of progress on The Stand, a game I am trying a new style of work on, that of holding off writing character sheets until I have totally hammered out the plot. Normally I just write as it occurs to me, and the sheets end up taking forever. I think this method may make the process go more smoothly once I finally get down to it. I've gotten one out of three characters done for the next Resonance meeting. I have kept up with my every-other-weekday posting schedule for my Examiner.com articles. And, in a department that has frustrated and demoralized me a lot recently, I finally got back on the horse and gave another shot. I won't say any more about it in case it doesn't turn out, but failure and not trying have the same end result, so I figure the only way to have a better outcome than that is to give it another shot. We'll see what happens, I guess.

Still, there is a lot to go. Those two other Resonance characters have to be done by the meeting this coming Sunday. I need to get to the point where I actually can start breezing through those Stand character sheets like I hope I will. And over the next month, the script for Merely Players needs to be finished. That's not a small amount of work right there. But I am pleased with the projects I'm working on; I'm proud to be part of them and though sometimes I just want to lay in a lump and whine, "I don't waaaaaaaaaant to write anything!" it is always worth pushing myself in the end. ;-)

Steamthello!

Hold Thy Peace officially has a show for spring semester! We will be performing The Tragedy of OTHELLO, the Moor of Venice, directed by the lovely aurora_knight* and meamcat*! They are going to doing it in a steampunk setting with everyone having clockwork enhancements except for the Moor, whose Otherness will be represented by his plain, boring, fallible humanity in contrast to their technologically-altered superiority. I think this will be an excellent, exciting, and visually stunning production and I'm very happy they're getting to do it.

The side project also got through! Merely Players, as marigumi* and nennivian* suggested we call it, will also be going up next semester. This metatheatrical and melodramatic little piece commenting on the nature of putting on a show with a troupe will be coordinating with Othello to exist side by side and expand HTP's repetoire a bit further. I was very pleased to see how many people were interested in it. Should give me some options on creative casting. Now I just have to finish the damn thing, don't I?

Tonight, then, shall be for writing. I have nothing else on my agenda, so I believe I will staying in, working on scripts, character sheets, and various and sundry writing projects that currently are on my plate. I shall have to make myself a nice dinner, get comfy, and settle in to work.

Bits and pieces



A year or so ago, Jared's parents went on a Mediterrainean cruise and brought me back a woven scarf in various shades of pink/purple/blue on black. At the time I didn't really think it was my style; it was a little over-embellished for my tastes and I don't usually wear patterned things. At first the only way I really cared to wear it was as a wrap over my mesh shirt, a look I still enjoy when it's warm enough and not totally in poor taste. ;-) But as I tried to dress more like a grownup, I realized what a versatile accessory it was. It complements a surprising array of colors-- black, white, cream, gray, navy, green, purple, pink, blue. It occurs to me that I've always chosen solid scarfs because I thought they would coordinate better, but shockingly this patterned thing goes with more outfits than any of my others, and because it's so striking-looking I get compliments on it all the time. Perhaps patterns, at least in scarves, might be the way to go in the future.

Winter's Tale cast party was last night. It went beautifully well, filled with nice friends and good food. Jared helped me clean the house and then Bernie and Charlotte helped me cook. We made a Rachel Ray chicken dish with apples and onions with a basil-tomato-mozzarella bruschetta on the side, while lots of other snacks and treats were brought potluck by the guests. I was reminded what a great cast Winter's Tale was blessed to have, not only because of their talent but because of what great people they are.

Proposal meeting tonight. We shall have a new show, or two, for next semester. I am excited for Hold Thy Peace build on the momentum Winter's Tale has generated and keep improving the quality of output. Onward and upward, as they say. :-)

Domm'd

Played in Leash this past Saturday. I must say, though I had my reservations, I ended up really enjoying it. My character had a strong BDSM element to it, and while I was not bothered by that fact, I knew it was going to take some boldness on my part to be able to act like that toward other people in public without feeling totally embarrassed. But I relished the acting challenge of contrasting that part of the character with her normal quiet, more goody-goody personality, so I figured there was no point in doing it if I didn't do it all the way. Jared helped me make a costume that would be easily hidden under my big old rust-colored suede blazer (really need to get that thing tailored), and I decided that it would be best if I arranged with someone who I was comfortable with and vice versa to have a little scene. I settled on morethings5 as a personal who fit that bill, and would make the scene interesting. So, though I had a wee bit of trepidation, in the end I just went for it.

Looks like I got over my reservations, I guess. :-) And Jonathan was an excellent scene partner. Thank you, dear, for rolling with me! I also ended up going off on bleemoo*, with whom I did NOT confer beforehand, but I think that turned out okay as well! Again, thanks for being such a good sport!

Beyond that, the game is good overall, with good plot and lots of reasons for characters to interact. I like how the powers and mechanics were just very flowy, and yet did not interfere too much with each other. I liked it very much and would recommend it, provided you're comfortable with dark and mature themes. There was more intense stuff than just my character's, and a lot of it was kind of twisted, but I enjoy that stuff so it didn't bother me. So my compliments, hazliya* and elenuial*! I am suddenly now particularly interested in Better Off Dead when it runs at Festival, but I doubt I will have time for it with all my other committments. :-(

Also, on Sunday I played in Lise's FantasyCraft game. The mystery is really starting to emerge, and I think the plot she designed is really very clever. I love being Ophelia and getting to say inappropriate things. I also am really happy about the company being who it is, which makes the game even better. Jared tagged along to the game this time and then we all went out to dinner afterward, which was lovely. All in all, this was a fantastic weekend full of lovely lovely gaming.

Side project, go!

So HTP seems like it's interested in doing another side project show, and I have been asked to write the script. What I was thinking was a sort of cabaret-style Shakespeare revue presented as if by a small Shakespeare troupe who seems to be on the decline but becomes revitalized when a bright new talent auditions and helps them shake off their gloomy past. Inspired a lot by the structure of the Wrathskeller, the storyline would frame the performance of a number of Shakespeare scenes that would support the metaplot. The basic story is set, so now I have to figure out how to illustrate what I want through the Shakespeare scenes and the dialogue in between them. I had a great planning session with Steph and Bernie last night, which nailed down the cast of characters and figured out some possible scenes. It still needs a name, though-- I'd like to name it after the "troupe" in the story, but I don't know what to call that troupe. Something that is a Shakespearean reference, preferably. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to offer them here.

Red leather and chains, oh my! ;-)

When I was home for Thanksgiving last week, my mom gave me one of her jackets that doesn't fit her anymore. It is waist-length in a gorgeous red leather that is soft as butter. It's just a little too big, but that just means I'll be able to wear layers under it for warmth. I really love it, so expect to see me wearing it a lot this winter, since even staying indoors lately I still seem to need a coat.

Nice, huh? I like it a lot. 

Last night I was struck with an idea for my Leash costume. I am definitely going with the leggings and tall boots, but I was stuck on what to wear on top beyond I knew I wanted an outer layer to represent my main personality and an inner layer for my alternate one. I think the outer layer needs to be a big, fuzzy, good-girl-looking sweater, particularly one I can get on and off easily for when I switch. The inner layer... well, I don't want to ruin the surprise reveal, but suffice it to say I have an idea that involves repurposing the chains on my bondage pants. ;-) I think they're detachable, right? I didn't get a chance to experiment with it last night, so today I'll have to do some messing around to see if my idea is even vaguely feasible.

Yesterday when I was at the drugstore I saw they were selling a lot of Sylvania kitchen appliances on massive discount. Among them was a three-cup mini food processor for thirteen dollars, reduced to ten if you mailed in a rebate. I have been tempted by mini-processors before, since they are less expensive than the full-sized kind and more convenient for certain jobs, but always passed on them thinking I should just save my money for the real thing. Still, this one was so cheap, I figured why not try it. I'm a little afraid I will totally get what I paid for, in which case it wouldn't even be worth it, but who knows, it might be serviceable. Of course, the minute I mentioned all this to my mom on the phone this morning, she asked if I wanted a real food processor for Christmas. So now I feel a bit silly. Ah, well. It might be nice to have a full-sized one and a miniature one depending on the cooking job.

Finally the last packed weekend

Jared is going to be in town this weekend! He has an interview at a nonprofit in Springfield, which is sadly a bit of a drive away, but at this point I will just be happy to have him within driving distance. He'll be closer and more accessible than he was in Chicago at least, and for that alone I am happy and optimistic. But after the interview Thursday he'll be coming into Waltham to spend the weekend.

I also got a silly little writing gig on a website called Examiner.com, where you write a few short little articles a week on a topic you're interested in, and depending on a lot of factors including pageviews, you get paid something for it. My first two articles have just been old LiveJournal entries I've adapted to fit their guidelines, which I did because I should be busy this weekend and I wanted to make sure I got in at least two before the end of the week. I don't expect a lot to come of it-- I think I've made twenty-nine cents so far --but who knows, I guess it's worth a try. This is my profile if you'd care to toss a click to two my way. Much obliged.

Even before Jared was coming, my weekend promised to be busy. Saturday will be Like Putting a Leash on a Rocket Launcher in which I have a pretty out-there character that will require some pretty, uh, uninhibited behavior. Heh. Ah, well, it will be an interesting challenge, and we'll see how it goes. I'm playing one of the E-phos and as such have a dual personality. I'm wondering if there's an easy way to represent that with costuming. At the moment I'm thinking I'll wear my black leggings and tall boots, but not sure about what to go with on top. Maybe I'll wear two layers of top such that the inner layer represents the alternate personality and can be revealed whenever I switch. And then there is the next session of captainecchi*'s tabletop game on Sunday. Must check on where we will be meeting for that.

All in all, it should be a very fun, active weekend. Also, it will mark the last weekend in the "I am totally booked up" series, and I will finally have some free time on Saturday and Sunday again. Knowing me, I will immediately fill it all with activities.

Today-- work

Today is for getting things done. I have a number of writing projects that I need to buckle down on, and the good start I got yesterday makes me all the more keen to make a dent in them. I finished my Resonance characters and brought them to the meeting, and today I was struck with an idea for another that I can do for the next meeting. I wrote it just now, and I can cross off one of my three. Yay! Heh, I have a funny tendnecy to write one of my assignments immediately after the previous meeting and forget to do my other assignments until the day before the next one. *eye roll*

But now I shall move on to other things. I have a lot of stuff on my list right now, because idle hands are the devil's blah blah blah. My plan is to go home, cook myself a big tasty pot of cream of broccoli soup, and munch this warming brew all day while getting my writing done. My list as it currently stands:

- Work on The Stand
- Write at least 2 more sheets for Resonance by the next meeting on 12/12
- Finish going over my cut of Othello to give to aurora_knight* so that if her proposal goes through she can work with it over the break
- Work on putting together a script for a cabaret-style Shakespeare revue performance put on by a fictional Shakespeare troupe, because HTP seems interested in doing another side project this coming semester

A restful, if unproductive, Thanksgiving

I have been a bad blogger, not writing a single entry over my Thanksgiving break. But the break was so pleasantly low-key and relaxing I just didn't have the drive to do it. After the insanely busy three previous weeks I've had, doing nothing but hanging with my parents, cooking, eating, sleeping, and playing with the dog was all I wanted to do. It was very restful, though, so I hope I can proceed more energetically and productively from here. Merlin is a lovely dog, very gentle and sweet. He was a bit nervous when we first arrived, clutching his little armadillo baby and pacing around, but he calmed down quickly and became our friend. It was very good to have a dog around the house again.

Home, and the ritual of Thanksgiving, is much the same as it ever was-- there was something very comforting about the holiday being the exact same kind of nice as I remember it --except that my dad's beer brewing hobby has taken over large chunks of the space. The basement, which is finished and like another room of the house, was filled with huge cookpots and bags of grain and complicated rig used for boiling the water and transferring it from pot to pot. Werts in glass carboys sat in various locations around the house in plastic tubs with labels on them, covered by cardboard boxes to keep out the light. Dad has something like thirty gallons of beer going, and is really excited to talk about and show people what he's done.

As much as I enjoyed hanging around with the family, there were a number of things I meant to get done, and I didn't work on any of them. The first priority is getting the characters I owe for tonight's Resonance meeting written up. I've got two of my required three finished, but I'm not sure what to do about the last one. I also need to get cracking on The Stand. I got a few casting questionnaires back already, which pleases me immensely, and I hope that now that the holiday is over people will have time for them. But the upshot is I have a lot of writing to do, and I'm slightly annoyed with myself that I didn't use my time off more efficiently. Ah, well, nothing to do from here but go forward, and buckle down.

Travel plans, I hate them

So I am now kind of grouchy with my brother. We are supposed to be going home to Allentown for Thanksgiving tomorrow, which means we will be driving back together. The trouble is that tomorrow is the busiest travel day all year, and I want to leave as early as possible so as to not hit traffic and get stuck in it for hours and hours. The sensible thing to do, and the easiest on me, would be for him to come over and spend the night at Elsinore tonight, so we can just jump in the car in the early morning. But he's got to film a thing tonight and he hasn't gotten packed yet, so he says he doesn't want to. Which means in order for us to get on the road at an efficient time, I have to get up even earlier, drive into Somerville hopefully before rush hour, and pick his ass up before we can even start heading home. Makes things a heck of a lot harder on me. As if I didn't dislike traveling enough already, what with the severe propensity toward motion sickness. Grumble. Ah, well. In return for my allowing this, he has agreed to drive the whole way and not play his music loud so I can catch up on sleep. I guess that won't be so bad, and it will be worth it if we actually do manage to get home without getting trapped in traffic.

SLAW 2010 Report

Am now back from my lovely weekend of larping at SLAW. This was kind of my weekend of "games I am not sure about," since in an effort to expand my larping horizons I signed up for all games that were not to my typical inclining. By and large this tactic was a success, and I had a very good weekend overall.

Friday night Charlotte, April, and I all played in Martha Stewart's Guide to Interdimensional Summoning (and Basting a Turkey.) Fortunately Charlotte had reminded me just before the game that it actually took place at a party and not at a business conference like I originally assumed, so at the last minute I changed my costuming plan. I thought I looked quite nice, wearing my black asymmetric cocktail dress with my white gold anniversary necklace, the nearly-matching silver infinity earrings, silver pumps with the perfectly-matching silver bag, and my silver-gray pashmina over my shoulders. Though I had a good time in it, this game was not to my taste. It was a game purely about schmoozing, with most interactions conducted solely for their own sake, which is totally fine, I just tend to prefer a little bit more plot. I did end up bonding with the demon who had been my childhood imaginary friend, but I did it mostly as a favor to him-- he needed it and I didn't, which I think may have been a common thing about demons and humans in the game. Glad I tried the game, had a nice time, but it was not exactly what I was hoping for.

Saturday morning I drove Charlotte and Ryan in early so that they could play in their morning games. I had nothing in that slot, so I decided to go cruise a nearby thrift store. It was a very nice, well-organized Goodwill, and there were lots of stuff to choose from. Unfortunately most of the things that caught my eye weren't in my size, but I find it amusing how often even in the thrift stores my eye is drawn to items from Express. Very frequently I see something I like the cut and styling of among lots of random pieces on the rack, and when I check the tag, Express is the maker with surprising frequency. I ended up taking home a fantastic black sweater with a drapey fold-over collar, two dressy knee-length skirts, one with an orange and white cloudy pattern and the other with swirls in various shades of red, and the neatest thing of all, a low-sided oval pan with a copper bottom and a stainless steel interior. It needs polishing, but this pan that looks just like it is selling for hundreds of dollars, and I snagged this one for four. Score! I'm not sure what you would call such a thing-- it's oval kind of like a gratin pan but only has one long handle, and the sides are too low for a saute pan --but I look forward to shining it up and cooking with it, which will promptly require shining it again. :-)

Pleased with my haul, I returned to WPI to grab lunch and get into costume for The Sound of Drums. I wasn't sure if it was going to be my cup of tea, and I was fairly certain I would like Two Hours in London, but natbudin* had highly recommended it and I trust the man's judgment. So, in the spirit of the Try New Games weekend, I went for it. My costume wasn't terrible, but it was weaker than my usual standard. Despite playing a sixty-plus-year-old, I did end up wearing my brown tribal-looking bikini with my brown pashmina tied around my waist like a skirt, and Charlotte kindly lent me her huge patterned green scarf to wrap around my shoulders. This mostly concealed all the decidedly-not-sixty-year-old body in the bikini, and I made some attempt to paint age makeup on my face, but I didn't white my hair and overall looked pretty much like the vain twenty-something I am. Also, I think I lost my brown and white headband scarf at the gamespace afterward, which I am annoyed with myself about.

But the game itself was excellent. The world is very full and well-thought-out. I loved my character and was incredibly busy throughout the whole game. I also had great interactions with Susan, who was my brilliant-but-mad younger sister, and Ryan, who was the troubled outsider with the haunting in his soul. I even got to use my badass spiritual strength to beat up a fallen god! It was awesome. The culture they built, with its ways and its norms that were so different and unusual, was really well-made. There was one small instance of "Christianity as the great bogeyman of non-mainstream living" that irked me, but otherwise I thought they did a really nice job of establishing the foreign people. There was also lots of interesting story told, which pretty much makes any game for me. Overall, I think this was my favorite larp of the weekend, and the one I was most glad that I took a chance on. Congrats to Tory and Lily for making it!

Saturday night was Clarence. By this point I was really dragging, energy-wise. This weekend marks the third week in a row of little sleep and poor eating, and I think I am reaching my limit. Luckily for me, Clarence is a game that is impossible to screw up, and I was playing an AGM so I could afford to be reactive rather than active. Fortunately, others were doing a fantastic job of pushing the game along. This run was blackbagged and carried off over the shoulder by electric_d_monk*, whose portrayal of the fanatically German-nationalist GM Bucher drove the events by sheer force of personality. By the end of the run, we had vampires passing on their nationalities as well as their vampirism, resulting in bronzite*'s General and rigel*'s Carmilla being determined to be genetically perfect Aryans who of course must then go on to spawn the Master Race. With the use of the time accelerator to hasten their growth, soon we had six little Ubermensches prancing about named after the Von Trapp children singing songs from The Sound of Music. And naturally, these unstoppable German supermen went on to take over the world and some surrounding planets, leaving Brewer as Kaiser of the Earth and Mars. It was a typically insane run, but the birth of the Master Race, I think, was a uniquely amusing touch.

"Allow me to explain zee rules of Der Kriegspiel."

Sunday lightgamer* was nice enough to let me ride over with him and twilighttremolo*. I was signed up for In the Jungle that day, the final game of the sort I wasn't sure what I'd think of. But I like the work of emp42ress* and simplewordsmith*, so I wanted to see what it was like. My costume was like most of my others this weekend was a little half-assed, since I tend not to keep worn-out clothes around, but I settled on an outfit that when my parents last saw me in it told me I looked like a bum. I figured that would work. It is a game about hobos, a pure conversation exercise where we do nothing more than talk to each other in character. The game was at bare minimum cast, but it was a good one, including myself, natbudin*, rigel*, nyren*, beholdsa*, and electric_d_monk*. Being in it with such good larpers helped a lot, keeping the converstion interesting and helping ease some of the awkwardness I was feeling about just having to spitball. Not something I'm certain I want to do again any time soon, but I enjoyed the experiment in this instance and I'm glad I decided to give it a try.

Now I am exhausted. I have been going at a breakneck pace for the last three weeks and I simply can't go any more. I have been kind of hoping that if I have one day where I sleep really well and eat properly it will fix my weariness and the mess my digestive system has been in, but I think I need a more consistent effort to really fix things up. Wednesday I will be going home for Thanksgiving with my brother, and I'm hoping to reset myself over that break with healthy eating and enough rest. I have things I need to get done in the near future, such as writing more Resonance characters and getting out the casting questionnaire for The Stand, but as cool as my activites have been, I think my body needs a bit more of a break before it will feel back to normal again.

Official Festival bid invitation

Hello, lovely larp community!

My name is Phoebe Roberts. As you may know, this next April 8th-10th I will be chairing LARPERCALIA: Festival of the Larps 2011, Brandeis University’s very own free larp convention. This will be our sixth annual event in Waltham, MA, and we want every year to keep getting better. In an effort to get the schedule set down early, I hereby invite anyone who’s interested to submit bids for games they would like to run at our Festival this spring. From now until January we will be accepting bids, and hope to be able to present a relatively finalized con schedule by the beginning of that month.

If you’re interested in running something, please fill out the bid form on the Festival website. If you have any questions about Festival, whether you’d like to run something or just what it’s like to attend, don’t hesitate to e-mail me and I’d be happy to answer anything you want to know.

Here’s to another great Festival, and looking forward to seeing you all in April!

Your loving con chair,
Phoebe

The Stand has filled!

Hooray, The Stand has filled! And not only filled, but with lots of lovely friends and great larpers I am very honored are willing to devote a slot at Intercon to playing my little game. I promise to do my best to make it worth your while. And totally not precast everyone I know... ;-)

SLAW is this weekend, and I totally spaced on costuming for it until last night. So I spent a half-hour before bed digging in my closet and drawers trying to pull stuff together. Martha Stewart should be easy enough; it takes place at a business conference and my character is human, so business attire should suffice. I'm planning on using my red blazer over my white wrap blouse and my black suit skirt. Tights and plain black heels will finish it off nicely.

The Sound of Drums proved a lot tougher. It's a tribal game where we're supposed to dress as if we made our garments out of the things we could gather or hunt, and I was pretty much at a loss. Then I found the brown bikini I wore as Bast, and dug out some of my more earth-toned scarves and pashminas. My first instinct would be to just wear the bikini with the large brown pashmina tied at my hips like a sarong, which would be vaguely in the milieu, but my character is an old woman and I think dressing like that would look way too young. I guess I could white my hair and thrown something else over my shoulders with that to age it up a bit, but it's not perfect. The other alternative is to wrap the brown pashmina around myself like an appropriately crude dress, tying two corners of it behind my neck and then something around my waist as a belt. Not sure what shoes I would use; maybe I'd just go barefoot.

Clarence it probably doesn't matter what I wear, but I'd like to think of something halfway appropriate. I'm playing an AGM, so perhaps "street clothes" appropriate to the period would work. I could wear the long black skirt I bought for the Labor Wars with a nice button-up blouse over it, maybe with the lace shawl over my shoulders.

In the Jungle I guess I need to look like a street kid. I think for that I'll go with ripped jeans, my oldest tennis shoes, and my rattiest sweatshirt, probably the white hoodie at this point. I don't tend to keep my worn-out clothes, except for one set to use for working in like during tech week, so my options will probably be limited on what looks appropriate for this part.

I guess all that's not bad for not thinking about costuming until two nights before.

To Think of Nothing statistical analysis

For my own edification I have analyzed the amount of lines, the frequency of lines, and the amount of stage time each character in To Think of Nothing has to compare the reality to my perception.

"Lines spoken" means the number of sentenses spoken. "Occasions speaking" means the number of times a character speaks before another character speaks instead. "Pages onstage" means the number of pages in the script between the character's entrance and exit. "Line density" means how many lines a character speaks, on average, on each occasion they speak.

There are a total of 702 lines spoken in the play. They are spoken on 339 occasions. The play is 18 pages long.

AGLAEA:

31 lines spoken
24 occasions speaking
17 pages onstage

31/702 lines = 4.42% of lines in the play
24/339 occasions = speaks on 7.08% of all occasions of speech in the play

17/18 pages = present onstage for 94.44% of the play
31/17 = 1.82 lines spoken per page onstage
24/17 = 1.41 occasions of speech per page onstage

31/24 = line density of 1.29 lines spoken per occasion of speech

EUPHROSYNE:

45 lines spoken
29 occasions speaking
17 pages onstage

45/702 lines = 6.41% of lines in the play
29/339 occasions = speaks on 8.55% of all occasions of speech in the play
17/18 pages = present onstage for 94.44% of the play

45/17 = 2.65 lines spoken per page onstage
29/17 = 1.71 occasions of speech per page onstage

45/29 = line density of 1.55 lines spoken per occasion of speech

THALIA:

45 lines spoken
32 occasions speaking
17.25 pages onstage

45/702 lines = 6.41% of lines in the play
32/339 occasions = speaks on 9.44% of all occasions of speech in the play
17.25/18 pages = present onstage for 95.83% of the play

45/17.25 = 2.61 lines spoken per page onstage
32/17.25 = 1.86 occasions of speech per page onstage

45/32 = line density of 1.41 lines spoken per occasion of speech

PALAMON:

71 lines spoken
31 occasions speaking
14.75 pages onstage

71/702 lines = 10.11% of lines in the play
31/339 occasions = speaks on 9.14% of all occasions of speech in the play
13.33/18 pages = present onstage for 74.06% of the play

71/13.33 = 5.33 lines spoken per page onstage
31/13.33 = 2.33 occasions of speech per page onstage

71/31 = line density of 2.29 lines spoken per occasion of speech

ANDROMEDA:

76 lines spoken
35 occasions speaking
17.75 pages onstage

76/702 lines = 10.83% of lines in the play
35/339 occasions = speaks on 10.32% of all occasions of speech in the play
17.75/18 pages = present onstage for 98.61% of the play

76/17.75 = 4.28 lines spoken per page onstage
35/17.75 = 1.97 occasions of speech per page onstage

76/35 = line density of 2.17 lines spoken per occasion of speech

SELENE:

85 lines spoken
37 occasions speaking
14.75 pages onstage

85/702 lines = 12.12% of lines in the play
37/339 occasions = speaks on 10.91% of all occasions of speech in the play
14.75/18 pages = present onstage for 81.94% of the play

85/14.75 = 5.76 lines spoken per page onstage
37/14.75 = 2.51 occasions of speech per page onstage

85/37 = line density of 2.30 lines spoken per occasion of speech

DAMON:

115 lines spoken
50 occasions speaking
14.75 pages onstage

115/702 lines = 16.38% of lines in the play
50/339 occasions = speaks on 14.75% of all occasions of speech in the play

14.75/18 pages = present onstage for 81.94% of the play
115/14.75 = 7.80 lines spoken per page onstage
50/14.75 = 3.39 occasions of speech per page onstage

115/50 = line density of 2.30 lines spoken per occasion of speech

CASSANDER:

234 lines spoken
101 occasions speaking
18 pages onstage

234/702 lines = 33.33% of lines in the play
101/339 occasions = speaks on 29.79% of all occasions of speech in the play
18/18 pages - present onstage for 100.00% of the play

234/18 = 13.00 lines spoken per page onstage
101/18 = 5.61 occasions of speech per page onstage

234/101 = line density of 2.31 lines spoken per occasion of speech

...

Wow. The first thing I noticed is that the distribution of lines was a lot less even than I perceived it to be. I feel like when you're watching or reading it, it feels much more balanced and every character is just as involved as every other character. I'm glad it feels that way, even if it isn't. I knew Cassander spoke more than anyone else, but speaking a full third of the lines in the play? Whoa. He and Damon are the most verbose characters in the play, and I love how even though Palamon has the shortest amount of stage time, he speaks more lines than characters who spend more time onstage, and his line density is just as high as those others-- when he's onstage, he is often the center of attention. :-)

It also goes to show that part size is not a good indicator of importance. Every character is pretty much equally important to the story, and yet they are not equal in amount of lines they speak or number of occasions on which they speak them. I firmly believe this, especially with Shakespeare.

This is probably not interesting to anyone but me, but I find it fascinating to examine.

Getting going on larps



Wrote my first Resonance character yesterday. I feel like I came up with a clever way to represent the concept I chose from the concept list, so I'm pretty pleased with it. My one concern is I'm uncertain whether or not the sheet contains a little more information than is supposed to be revealed at the part of the game when this sheet would be read. I guess I'll find out at the next meeting. I need to write at least two more before then. They're short sheets, so once I have an idea there's no problem, but I need to have sufficiently clever character ideas before I can get started.

I just noticed two more people signed up for The Stand! That brings us up to six men and one woman. I am very pleased by the presence of the names I recognize. Final round of signups for Intercon go live tonight. That means you can sign up for as many remaining games as you want. I am finished signing up for things, as I am already playing two and then GMing too, but I will be interested to see and hear what other people do. Resonance filled up first round (wow, yay!) but I'm excited to see who's going to end up going for The Stand. I think it won't have any trouble filling once things open. Jared thinks he's going to be one of them, so he can help me GM it at Festival.

Which reminds me. I will be making an official announcement about this soon, but I'll give early warning to all of you that I have decided I would like to have a schedule up for Festival of the Larps by the first week or so of January. That means between now and then you should be sending in your game bids through the Festival website. Over the next month and a half I will be assembling the team to evaluate bids, which gives you all plenty of time and yet still gets the schedule up way in advance. So think about your bids, and get them before January!

First Resonance meeting

For the first time in days, today I woke feeling somewhat refreshed. I don't know if I actually slept better or if I'm finally catching back up, but it's good to not get up feeling almost as exhausted as I was when I went to sleep. Still, I plan on taking it easy today. My only responsibility is to see that Jared gets to the airport okay. It was a lovely visit, and so nice to have him around for the show. I'm very pleased with how well we used our time together, him being helpful and supportive when I had to be at the show, and spending quality time together when I didn't. He even helped me with all the chores I neglected in favor of build and rehearsals this past week, so now I am almost caught back up. With any luck he will be back again soon, so I am in a fairly positive mood.

Had my first meeting with the Resonance team last night. I was given the whole rundown of the game and how it works, and I am very impressed with the concept. It was described by emp42ress* as a "choose-your-own-character amnesia game," which means that we won't know what kinds of characters will end up being in the game until the players choose them, and then "remember" more and more about who they are as they make their choices. And in addition to being experimental, it's going to be intense-- the storyline is a real emotional wringer. As always, I am honored to be asked to work with them-- they are such talented larp writers, and they encourage me to expand my horizons into nontraditional, experimental styles that I probably would not have attempted on my own. The writing process for this game is different than any previous one, so I'm excited to try my hand at it and see how I do.

Close of Winter's Tale

Finally Winter's Tale has done. I couldn't be happier with how the process went. I remember Caesar's tech week going very well, but this for Winter's Tale was even better, due to a confluence of lucky circumstances, an abundance of technically skilled people, and the strong sense of camaraderie that has enabled everyone to work so well together. This is certainly one of the best-looking shows we've ever had. The set is gorgeous, the costumes are strong, the lights are more beautiful and complex than anything we've had before, and we worked better together than we have on build for any other show. Even our strike went beautifully.

 Our actors were amazing. Plesser is fantastic, bringing humanity and soul to his character, growing in nuance with every show. To se him working to build a performance unlike anything he's done before was fascinating. Gigi has this beautiful quiet dignity that she brings to roles, a refusal to be compromised and to cave in to adversity. Her firm, upright stillness makes an excellent counterpoint to everything else that happens onstage, giving her an unassailable serenity that draws the eye. Emma's sweetness as Perdita makes me glad to have her in the club. Lenny is unbelievable, funny and fascinating as Autolycus and easily the most fun part of the show. She and Jenna as Clown, who was clever and hilarious, really stole the show. Chris brought warmth and charm to Florizel. Nicole's Paulina was skillful, intense, and powerfully captured the eye. Nati rose admirably to the challenge of his difficult character. And of course, for pure facility as an actress, none of us equal Caitlin. She is so natural, so believable, so talented that she makes it look effortless. Her voice is powerful and conveys so much, her body is held so exactly, her movement is so dynamic and illustrative. To see her filling the stage while so many of the rest of us struggle to keep from physically stagnating leaves me in awe. She is the best of us in so many ways, and I admire her so much.

Now I am extraordinarily tired. I am incredibly happy with how things went, but now I need to crash and recharge. Congratulations to Steph, who has done such an amazing job bringing everything together, and now is inducted into the sacred society of HTP directors.

Signups for Intercon K so far

I have a lot to get done today, so I must be quick. I just wanted to mention that I signed up for Clockwork Cafe at Intercon for the first round and for Snaf U in the second. Clockwork is a Brit game, and not only do those fill fast but also I don't get a chance to play anywhere except Intercon, so I'm very happy about that. I chose Snaf because it's a Brandeis classic that has run a million times and I haven't played it yet, so I didn't want to miss it again, who knows when it'll run next? My Saturday afternoon and evening slots are taken up anyway by GMing The Stand and Resonance, so by the second round my morning slot was all that was left to decide. I think that will be all for me this year. One of these cons, I'm actually going to manage a light schedule.

Jared signed up first for Clockwork Cafe as well, which pleases me because he's never played a Brit game before, and it'll be nice to have a game together. His second choice was Never, Never Again because it sounds cool and he likes the work of Andy Kirschbaum. He'll have to tell me how it is; it really does sound cool. (I have to write that Peter Pan-themed game at some point.) He hasn't decided what to do third; at the moment I think The Stand is his first choice, but I'd be okay with him waiting to play it locally.

Heh. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard or seen on my LJ Friends page "I want to play in the Stand but I'll probably wait for third round/Festival," I would have already paid for my hotel room this year. :-D Thanks for the interest, guys. Waiting until Festival is totally cool with me, but at this point it looks like it'll have to be the all-Stand Festival in order to accomodate everyone. ;-)

Day two of Winter's Tale build

We have a set! I arrived at a little after 1PM yesterday to help, and sadly found that besides Bernie and Plesser only a handful of others had shown up to help. We were a wee bit disappointed in the cast and crew for that, but there was nothing for it except to get to work. The framework of the set was already in place, so the next job was to attach the fronting to all the platforms. That is always a harder job than I expect it to be; it requires somebody to know how to use the router and the jigsaw, neither of which I do, and a lot of careful inching to get the pieces to fit just right. Our small but intrepid band finally got the whole thing put together as more people showed up, who were promptly ordered to attack it with rollers and black paint. It's always remarkable how fast things like this can go when they are swarmed by a large group, so that was finished in short order.

Unfortunately, since the paint got put on later than we'd hoped, the first run on the stage was delayed by having to wait for it to dry. The run went well, for all that there was a ton of starting and stopping to figure out how to adapt our blocking to the stage. The possibilities and limitations of platforms for an actor's physicality are, for me at least, near impossible to internalize without actually working on the set. Fortunately we seem to be properly utilizing the space, and I look forward to tonight's run, which will be expected to go as smoothly as we can make it. I will have to do a mental shift away from my build mentality and get my focus back on acting again.

I am endeavoring to become as theatrically omni-competent as possible. Not only does it make me more useful as a member of the cast and crew, I feel I improve as a director the more I absorb about how shows are put together. It pleases me immensely to look at this set and see how much of the process I contributed to. I built frames, I put on tops, I attached legs, I anchored things together, I affixed fronting, and I was also one of the detail painters working under the director of the lovely Miss Liz Baessler, who served as our scenic charge. It's a very satisfying feeling, to know one is capable, and that if need be I can accomplish so many necessary theatrical tasks under my own power. I also like that people trust me to get so many jobs done right.

The set looks very good now, especially since all the small visual imperfections in the structures are masked by the paint. Painting went very late, but for the most part it was fun because there was music playing and lots of people laughing and singing. Seeing Plesser dancing around after all the long day's work he had put in made me happy in my belly. Not to mention how happy everything was making Steph. :-) Also, when I was painting on the vines over the cobblestone pattern on the set, I was ridiculously pleased with myself for this dual-wielding brush technique I developed. In my dominant hand I held a thicker brush laden with the lighter green base color, and used it to apply most of the vine's shape. In my off hand I had a narrower brush with a watered-down darker green color, and traced over the lines of the light green. Then I went over it again with the thick brush in my dominant hand, using it to blend the two colors together. Though my left hand is by no means as adept as my right, the tracing work was simple enough that I could manage with it, and having a brush in each hand made the application and blending of the two colors go faster. I wonder if any artists work like this regularly. I was absurdly proud of myself for coming up with it.

This afternoon will be all about lights, lights, lights. Focus is the only major job remaining, and I for one am praying that things go smoothly. As I've mentioned, lighting is the one aspect of the theater I feel like I don't know anything about, and I have spent two twelve-plus hour days in the theater, so I am hoping there are enough other people who can be useful in this that I can relax a little bit. I'd like to take a shower and maybe a little nap. Focus always seems to go painfully slowly for me; I remember the one for Caesar seeming to take forever, though I don't remember what the hold up was. This time we have one of the most ambitious lighting plots we've ever had, including DMX-controlled color scrollers. :-) Very fancy! I'm incredibly proud of Bernie for that. There has been a DMX machine in the Shapiro Theater for ages, but it's been sitting unused because nobody could figure out how to get it running. Well, Bernie has been fiddling with it and got it to work. Ha! Good for him. :-)

So we're in very good shape for this point. I am tired but not exhausted as I have been on other builds, and with any luck by the end of today all technical elements of this show will be set and ready to go. Steph, your baby is about to be born. Here's hoping that the rest of this day sees a shower. a nap, and a light plot!