A Year in Pictures – Grave Candles

Grave Candles
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I don’t know the story behind it, but judging by what we saw in Poland, it’s a common tradition there to put candles in red vases and lay them on graves around Hallowe’en/All Souls Day. My husband got to see an amazing display of them in one of Kraków’s cemeteries at night; these are, of course, in Peksow Brzyzek, the cemetery we visited in Zakopane.

Kick their Starters (or Indie their GoGos)

<looks at subject line> Apparently I’m in a weird mood today. 😛

Found out recently that a friend of mine is running an IndieGoGo campaign to fund the post-production for a documentary on the Rocky Horror Picture Show phenomenon. Why the post-production only? Because they ran a Kickstarter to raise the money for the whole project, but so many of their pledges defaulted that although they officially made their goal and then some, they didn’t actually collect all the money they needed to finish the task. They’ve been traveling the country to film and interview the various casts, and the result is likely to be awesome . . . but they do need the rest of their funding. Since it’s an IndieGoGo flexible funding campaign, every bit of money you pledge will help — it isn’t an all-or-nothing deal.

And while I’m at it, I should mention that both the Not Our Kind and Daughters of Mercury campaigns are still running, if you haven’t checked them out already.

at the corner of Bourbon Street and Nostalgia Lane

The 20th anniversary HD remake of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers came out last week.

This is one of the few video game series I’ve ever really fallen in love with. It had drama! Character development! Random trivia about real-world history! My sister introduced me to it, and sat with me during my first playthrough, offering advice and possibly taking the controls from me when I couldn’t get past that one mummy in the mound. So, naturally, when I heard the HD remake was coming out, I a) bought her a copy as a gift and b) invited her over for a slumber party/playthrough evening.

First things first: the voices are different. Apparently they lost the original recordings in the intervening twenty years, and the result they got from stripping the audio out of the game files was not good enough. And I’m guessing they could no longer afford the services of Tim Curry and Mark Hamill. I was very apprehensive about this, because Tim Curry’s terrible Nawlins accent is such a memorable part of the game; what would it be like without him?

The answer is, much the same. They did an excellent job of casting voice actors who could match the sound of their predecessors. There were a few lines where I remembered the original intonation enough to cock my head at the difference, but the rest of the time, I forgot I was listening to a new voice. I’m sure that if I did a side-by-side comparison of the two, I would find places where the HD version is lacking, but it passes muster on its own — which is what really matters.

Things that are distinctly improved: the graphics! (Duh.) Holy crap, you can tell what things are. There are books in cases and bottles on shelves, rather than indistinct blobs on horizontal lines. Gram’s house has wallpaper! Rugs have patterns! It’s not the highest-quality graphics and animation — in particular, there’s the creepy thing where people’s mouths seem to be moving independently of their faces when they talk — but it’s a massive improvement over the old look. They’ve also changed up the gameplay a bit: the mime is still a pain in the ass, but getting past that one mummy just involves grasping the general principle of “you need to dodge,” rather than having to move to exactly the right spot, wait exactly the right amount of time, move again, wait again, and then finally break for the door. And the #@$@!!! beignet guy? IS GONE. Replaced by a much less Rube Goldberg-y solution to “how do I get into Mosely’s office?” (And a really creepy moment, too, which I don’t remember from the original.) There are a couple of new puzzles to balance out the simplification of the old ones: a lever puzzle in Magentia Moonbeam’s house that isn’t nearly as difficult as it might have been, a minor unlocking thing in the Gedde crypt.

Some of the changes are amusing. I opened the window in Schloss Ritter and was perplexed to see that the pile of snow had vanished, replaced by a puddle on the windowsill — until my sister pointed out that it’s late June and really, why was there ever snow there in the first place? Gerde no longer looks like she ought to be serving beer at Oktoberfest. Gabriel says “fuck” a few times, and I’m pretty damned sure that’s new. Other things I’m less sure of; weren’t you able to go to your grandmother’s house on Day One before? And you find the sketchbook there? I’m pretty sure the priest’s collar used to be in the vestry; possibly that got moved because the placement of hotspots would have made the door we think was the vestry too difficult to click on. And I wonder how much of the dialogue was changed, apart from Gabriel swearing. They’ve definitely altered the pronunciation of several of the voodoo-related terms (presumably to make them more accurate), and I think they may have added in some more context about things like the racial politics of Malia’s family being so influential in New Orleans.

Mostly it’s the same, though, with better graphics and a score that no longer sounds quite so MIDI. I’ll probably look at the original version again before I decide, but it’s entirely possible that this will become my preferred version to play. It’s nice to have the game look less primitive, and I will put up with a lot just to avoid that mummy and the stupid beignet guy. 😛

The real question is this: what now? Apparently Sierra was revived recently; they have a shiny website and everything, complete with what looks like a teaser for a new King’s Quest game. Will there be remakes of The Beast Within and Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned? Redoing the former would be interesting, seeing as how they’d probably have to just scrap the FMV entirely and redo the entire thing as standard point-and-click, but you could probably rebuild the latter quite easily, with some off-the-shelf 3D engine that would blow the original one out of the water.

Or — dare I dream — might we finally get a fourth game?

I’m trying not to get my hopes up. But if this remake sells well . . . who knows? 🙂

shoe shopping for the podiatrically challenged

I have bought a new dress for the World Fantasy banquet. I am sitting here trying to remember the last time I bought a dress that wasn’t a historical costume I paid somebody to sew for me.

I am failing.

As long as I’m on a roll of doing things I haven’t done in hmmmm let’s be conservative and say ten years?, I think I should also get new black heels. And this is where I turn to you, O internets, because I don’t like high heels (but I recognize their uses), and if there is any maker of heels who makes some I would actually like, I want to know about them.

My criteria are as follows. Each one should be footnoted with the caveat that I know I may not be able to get what I want, or at least may not be able to get all these things in one shoe. But I might as well try.

  1. Not too high of a heel. You may recall I had ankle surgery less than three months ago. My ideal would be maybe 1-1.5″; anything above 2″ is Right Out at present. And in general I prefer lower heels, because . . .
  2. Padding beneath the ball of the foot. I can and do use inserts to help with this, but it annoys me that we have an industry built around providing something I think the shoe ought to provide in the first place. I end up with a lot of foot pain if too much of my weight is on the ball of my foot for too long; it’s like my body is saying “we stopped doing this shit when you quit ballet at the age of eighteen, and aren’t going to put up with it anymore.”
  3. Arch support. Does this even exist in high-heeled shoes? If so, tell me, because my god do I need it. I have stupidly high arches, and wearing shoes that don’t support them gets painful quite fast.
  4. Allowance for a high instep. A lot of those strappy shoes put straps right across the top of my arches, which, as mentioned before, are quite high. Result: I feel like my foot’s being cut in half by my shoe. This one’s more of a stylistic thing than a characteristic I’m likely to find in a specific shoe manufacturer, but as long as I’m describing what I want, I ought to include everything.

Is there anybody who consistently makes shoes that match this description? Or even parts of this description? I could go to the store and try on shoes randomly until I find something that works, but I’d like to be more targeted in my shopping if possible. Seven years of dancing on pointe left me with an absolute lack of tolerance for badly-made or ill-fitting shoes, and a desire to avoid spending hours trying things on if at all possible.

Posner on Voter Fraud

I haven’t yet read the entirety of this dissent by Judge Richard Posner on the topic of voter ID laws in Wisconsin, but the words to describe the bits I have read are things like “searing” and “scathing.” This is a conservative judge who formerly supported laws requiring photo ID in order to vote, but his dissent is a 180% about-face that comprehensively calls out exactly what is wrong with such laws — ranging from the fact that they’re trying to solve a problem that basically doesn’t exist, to the fact that they don’t solve the problems that do exist, to the way they disenfranchise the “wrong kind” of voter.

Nor does he neglect the partisan component here: his dissent points out that all the states with strict photo ID laws and most of those with non-strict laws are politically conservative at the state level, while those which require no ID at all skew liberal. And the kinds of people who are disenfranchised by voting obstacles are also more likely to vote liberal. This is not a “both sides do it” kind of problem, where we can waggle our fingers and move on. Whether or not you agree that it is a concerted effort with the goal of stopping “those people” from voting Democratic, it is a concerted effort with that result.

Here’s a tidbit for you: the poll tax that was outlawed in 1964, adjusted for inflation, is substantially cheaper than the average cost for a low-income voter in satisfying a photo ID requirement. You may not be forking over the cash directly for the right to vote, but when you figure in documentation, travel, and time spent away from work jumping through the bureaucratic hoops, it ends up costing in the range of $75-$175. For people who are having trouble feeding their children, this is an inexcusable price.

I haven’t been following the judicial situation well enough to know what effect, if any, Posner’s dissent might have. The fact that it’s a dissent, i.e. a statement disagreeing with the ruling, suggests that it won’t be much. But I have some hope that seeing a conservative judge come out swinging on this topic might shift the winds a little. There are a number of really scummy things going on in American politics these days, but this is one of the worst: it strikes at the very heart of our ability to make things better.

A Year in Pictures – Cornice in the Egyptian Avenue

Cornice in the Egyptian Avenue
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Leading up to the Circle of Lebanon is an area called the Egyptian Avenue. This is the cornice of one of the mausoleum doorways along its length, crumbling to show the brick beneath — another example of how Highgate’s decay, while not good on its own terms, is photographically appealing.

The Littlest Green Belt Goes Back to Kobudo

I haven’t been to a kobudo class since Okinawa, i.e. late July. But there’s a seminar this weekend, and although I’m only going to one part of it — I figured I should stay away from the bit that’s going to be done on a basketball court, on account of the brace I’m still wearing makes slipping on the floor a high probability — I decided it would be a good idea to start going back to class.

(Haven’t been to a kobudo class since July, haven’t hit the minimum required classes for the next test, and despite that I got told I would be testing for my next belt the first Friday in November. Possibly it’s just as well that I’ll be at World Fantasy then and can’t possibly come. Except that the next test will be in December, which is also when I’m likely to be doing my next shodan-ho test in karate, and holy Mary mother of god I am not doing those tests back to back. I may just have to admit that to Shihan’s face and beg for mercy, i.e. postponing the kobudo test until January.)

I’ve never felt like I’m that good at kobudo. It’s unclear to me how much of that feeling is because of the disparity between my karate and kobudo skill levels: I felt like I was a better karate green belt than I am a kobudo green belt, but I also had less sense of what I ought to be doing back then, and therefore less awareness of how I was falling short. It’s clear to me, though, that I’ve got more skill than I thought I did — and not just because I still remember the kata sequence. I’ve had other periods where, for one reason or another, I missed kobudo for a long time, and when I came back I always felt really clumsy and off. This time, though, I’ve been gone for two and a half months, and when I came back . . . I felt okay, actually. Not 100%, because my footing is still less than entirely secure, and worrying about that distracts me from what I’m doing. And I’m definitely on the rusty side. But I didn’t feel anywhere near as incompetent as I expected to, which means more of the technique has gotten embedded in my brain than I thought. It’s pleasing to know that.

Exhausting night, though. Class isn’t constant exertion, but even so, two hours on your feet doing stuff will take it out of you — and god knows the senpai who ran the kobudo class wasn’t taking it easy on us. We basically ran every kata twice, saijutsu kihon gata ichi and ni, kiyan no sai, nakandakari no sai, then we switched to bo and it was donyukon ichi, donyukon ni, and then cho un no kun sho not twice but three times, with very little breathing time in between any of it. That’s fifteen kata, yo. That’s tiring. Especially when you aren’t used to it anymore.

But hey: it’s the only way I’ll get used to it again. 🙂

Housing hunt (on behalf of a friend)

EDIT: Sadly, it turns out the timeline was even shorter than I thought. Thanks to everyone who offered help.

Some of you have seen this already, but I’m trying to cast my net as widely as possible, and that means canvassing all my available outlets.

A friend of mine is looking for a place to live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and if this is going to happen, it needs to happen fast. Her main requirements are that rent be less than $1200 a month, and that the place allows cats. It doesn’t have to be close to public transit (she has a car), and it doesn’t have to be centrally located — she’s even looked as far afield as Santa Cruz. She’s willing to share with a roommate, though an individual living situation would be preferable. Craigslist etc have already been tried; this is a hunt for options that aren’t on the usual radar. So if you happen to know of any leads, please do let me know ASAP: like I said, this has to happen fast if it’s going to happen at all. (I don’t have an actual deadline, but I’d guess that if there isn’t at least a strong lead by Friday, it’ll be a moot point.)

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

two Kickstarters

These both came to my attention recently, and deserve a signal boost:

Daughters of Mercury — this is an art project, creating portraits of trans women “how they want to be represented, either complicating the conventional portraitist’s art of flattery with the dynamics of gender dysphoria, or celebrating features stigmatized as masculine as a woman’s features.” I know the woman behind the project, and I also know an increasing number of trans women (one of whom brought the campaign to my attention), so there’s a personal weight to this one: I’ve been thinking a lot lately about gender identity, passing or choosing not to pass, etc, and there aren’t any simple answers. But we can accept trans women for who and what they are, and I think projects like this one are part of how we can do that.

Not Our Kind — this is an anthology built around the theme of “outsiders.” Not only does a friend of mine (Marissa Lingen) have a story in it, along with several acquaintances of mine, but the topic sounds pretty dang appealing. I’m pretty sure I’m going to love the heck out of it . . . but first it needs to be funded, so.

Go forth! Support!

A Year in Pictures – Highgate Trio

Highgate Trio
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This gives you a notion of how closely packed the monuments are in Highgate West. (Although there was a recent burial there — as in, within the past few years — the place is almost completely closed to new additions.) I very much liked the three-tiered effect these had, all in a row; the only thing that would have improved it was if all three used the draped-urn motif. The Victorians may have had a bunch of different funerary motifs, but pile up enough of them in close proximity and you start to realize how repetitive they got . . . .

A Year in Pictures – Highgate East in Ivy

Highgate East in Ivy
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This is from the eastern portion of Highgate Cemetery . . . which is ostensibly the less overgrown part of the site. And indeed, there are large portions of East that are perfectly well maintained — but get off the main paths, and you soon find yourself in a wonderland of headstones and ivy.

A Year in Pictures – Zakopane Jesus

Zakopane Jesus
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I had to resist the urge to title this one “Bored Jesus Is Bored.” Apparently this sculptural motif is actually called “Contemplative Christ,” but man, he just looks tired and disappointed to me. 😛 Anyway, this is one of the graves in Peksow Brzyzek in Zakopane, and as you can see, it isn’t your standard Western headstone. (Also, I am exceedingly fond of the moss.)

We All Fall Down

After the Napa quake a little while ago, I found myself curious. I’ve known for a while that the Hayward Fault in the East Bay stands a decent chance of tearing loose in a big way. If I’m still here when that happens, how bad will it be? What will it feel like for me, on the other side of the Bay? How will that compare to what I felt during the Napa quake? (How frightened am I likely to be?)

If reading about destruction from earthquakes is likely to upset you, don’t go behind the cut.

(more…)

A Year in Pictures – Circle of Lebanon

Circle of Lebanon
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This is one of the more famous bits of Highgate: the “Circle of Lebanon,” so named for the Cedar of Lebanon that stands atop the central part. It’s at the upper end of the “Egyptian Avenue,” and together those two areas form a rather spectacular display of Victorian funerary extravagance.