da: A smiling human with short hair, head tilted a bit to the right. It's black and white with a neutral background. You can't tell if the white in the hair is due to lighting, or maybe it's white hair! (purple jag)
[personal profile] da
This was an excellent weekend away.

The Laurie Anderson concert was good. I think it wasn't as good as her albums, musically, although some of her stories have taken hold in me. I have no way of judging whether these are true, mind you. One such story: NASA was working on a project to robotically augment space-suits for extra muscle-power (think exoskeletons), and splint body-parts that got hurt, and the ability to treat astronauts with shots of morphine or adrenaline or whatever drugs they needed. Then, the project got bought by somebody else... the US Army, for use in desert warfare. Another story, less depressing: she asked Thomas Pynchion if she could turn his novel Gravity's Rainbow into an opera. She wrote up a proposal, sent it to him, and to her surprise, he wrote back and said, "Sure. That would be wonderful, an opera. There's only one requirement- I would like the entire opera scored for one instrument. That instrument should be the banjo."

She said, "Can you imagine hours and hours of banjo opera? Some people have the nicest ways of politely saying "'absolutely no way possible.'"

Today, I walked Rover to Ithaca Falls and let her swim around. I went to Quaker Meeting, which is increasingly seeming less familiar to me , but somehow that feels OK and the way things go. There was good worship, and I did get to talk to some dear friends after Meeting.

In the afternoon, I played board-games at my hosts' house for a few hours. I can recommend Mystery of the Abbey, which plays like Clue, but with more variables to track, and a monestary theme (every four turns, everyone returns to start, which is Mass; you can give each other confessionals, which involves looking at cards in their hand; and so on.)

Oh, and in ten minutes on The Commons, I was accosted by both a Socialist Worker and a Jehovah's Witness. The Jehovah's Witness was polite, but the Socialist Worker wasn't, so I didn't pick up his magazine (sorry [livejournal.com profile] melted_snowball).

I had fun road-tripping with [livejournal.com profile] bats22. Among other things, he gave me some interesting ideas for things to do with a microwave...
And now, to bed, because tomorrow's a work day.

Date: Monday, 23 January 2006 06:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] melted-snowball.livejournal.com
Glad you had a good trip. Sorry I wasn't home when you called...

Date: Monday, 23 January 2006 03:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] epi-lj.livejournal.com
OMFG, I would so go to see a banjo opera of Gravity's Rainbow composed by Laurie Anderson. Like, I would pay a lot of money for that.

Date: Monday, 23 January 2006 04:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] da-lj.livejournal.com
Heh. That had been my first thought, too; but she seemed pretty negative on the idea. ;)

Date: Monday, 23 January 2006 03:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] epi-lj.livejournal.com
Oo! I posted a comment without reading the rest of your post. I've been looking at Mystery of the Abbey. That's neat to hear about it. I have another game called Wadjet, which plays like complicated Clue. I love it, but nobody else in my gaming group does, so nobody ever wants to play. :(

Date: Monday, 23 January 2006 04:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] da-lj.livejournal.com
Haha. According to google, wadjet's most authoritative links are to a site which calls it how their top-ranked "worst game ever played" :) With a reputation like that, how could I not give it a try?...

Though, it does sound like the latter parts (hours?) of the game involve a bit of repetition if players are unlucky.

Date: Monday, 23 January 2006 05:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] epi-lj.livejournal.com
*hehe* To be honest, I think I like it out of nostalgia more than out of game quality. I used to *love* Clue, and the gameplay is pretty much exactly the same but more drawn out and convoluted. I don't think it needs to stretch on to hours, though. Usually our games of it last... an hour? It's certainly not the worst game I've played, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're really really into Clue or really really into board games with very pretty pieces/boards. It's a gorgeous looking game.

Date: Monday, 23 January 2006 08:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] da-lj.livejournal.com
Hm. Not so much the former, certainly.

Mystery in the Abbey is quite pretty, too.

And it comes with a little bell, to ring when it's time for Mass.

Date: Monday, 23 January 2006 07:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dr-tectonic.livejournal.com
I love Mystery of the Abbey, which I prefer to describe as "Clue without all the suck."

Date: Monday, 23 January 2006 08:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] da-lj.livejournal.com
Hah, that's a splendid definition.

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