Monthly Archives: January 2006

Unofficial Crew Call

the mindlab

This is an unofficial crew call for readers of Protozoic who would like to be involved in the shooting of Ameviathan: The Green Machine. Over the next couple weeks, and very possibly more if I quit teaching, I’ll be involved in a number of activities ranging from scouting locations (this weekend for example the ever-beautiful Megan will be aiding me scout) to painting boxes. Of course, I can’t pay you money, but I can promise you things like credit where credit is a due, food, shelter, good times and the spinning of Blue Oyster Cult tunes. Who knows – it may even look good on your resume’.

So if you think you would be interested – contact me. Chances are if you are reading this then you know me personally, but if you don’t – all you have to do is drop me an email here at the site and I’ll give you more details of how you can be involved.

In another life, I was a dog

Uncategorized 
Barking senseless.
Falling in love
everyday
all over again.

There I bit a pound
out of Eliot's 
cats.
I didn't have a reason really, 
other than they annoyed the shit out of me.

I barked at Sylvia too,
to get her head out of the oven.
She died.
The holidays were black that year.

And Emily.
I guess I was her dog.
Running down by the sea.
Barking.
Incoherently.

Them’s Me Magic Spells: The twisting paths of live action roleplaying.

the mindlab

The recent Ultima entries brought the subject of Live Action Roleplaying (or “LARPing” as it’s known in the “industry”) to mind. But I was a little hesitant to post this stuff on such a highly accredited website as to Protozoic. As Loki has pointed out information on this hobby abounds on the internet already and I hate to fool anyone into thinking the stuff I’ve written on LARPs is particularly more informative than any existing LARP-ocentric sites already out there.

The stuff below may serve as a general introduction and outsider’s totally biased critique of LARPs, but does suffer slightly from being pulled straight out of my ass. Not that I’m saying anything made from whole cloth, or even in part intentionally fictitious. But while I’ve followed table-top roleplaying games (RPGs) in general alot over the years, as I’ve mentioned at other times, I sort of steer clear of LARPs. I’ve picked up a few tidbits about them here and there, but my knowledge of LARPs is about as informed as my knowledge of football: I might have a vague ideas of the rules and paraphenalia, and maybe remember an amusing anecdote or two someone told me about the game, but when it comes to the background, sub-culture, and details of specific games/teams/conferences/etc. then I’ve been pretty much willfully ignorant of the whole deal.

Still, even though my understanding might not be perfect, I would like to discuss it at the moment. So, for the sake of argument consider the following a primer written by an outsider, or better yet a straw dog to be beaten apart so as to stimulate more elucidating discourse.

With that excessively long disclaimer…

Continue reading Them’s Me Magic Spells: The twisting paths of live action roleplaying. →