Jeff Grubb's Blog, page 15

The Political Desk - Advisory Votes

 And the current feast of political choice starts out with an amuse-bouche ... broccoli!

Long-time readers know my opinions about Advisory Votes. The product of a semi-failed initiative which requires the state to ask about anything that even hints at an increase of revenue, but does not require them to do anything about it. The scare-language of the proposals makes it little more than a push-poll that lets people who hate taxes vent. So it's the therapy section of the ballot.

That said, it is nice to see a bit of transparency in our state legislature, so there's that. You really want to know what they're up to. We just need to find a better way to do it other than leading the ballot with this lead block of a vote.

Advisory Vote No. 39 Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5974 will increase the tax on aircraft fuel from 11 to 18 cents.  Will that cost get passed onto consumers? Probably. But then I have never known any business to drop prices as a result of getting a tax break, a subsidy, or a rate freeze. Vote Maintained. 

Advisory Vote No. 40 Engrossed Substitute House Bill 2076 will put premiums on ride-share operations to provide worker's comp to their gig employees. The ride-sharing companies are good with this. The unions are good with this. Oh yeah, I'm good with this. Vote Maintained.

And that's it - less than usual, but the fact that this sort of thing headlines the ballot may explain why a lot of people don't want to deal voting at all.

More later,

The Political Desk Returns!

<Cracks knuckles> OK, let's do this.
The ballots have shown up here at Grubb Street for the upcoming general elections in Washington State, and you're going to have to endure a bunch of relatively short recommendations for the next week. Hey, it's a tradition by now.
Let me start off by sending you in the direction OTHER people's recommendations and endorsements. The Seattle Times tends to be pro-business and centerish, and has been piling up their endorsements over time. The Stranger is leftish, hates cars, loves density, and is actually reported on races south of SODO this time, which is nice. Interestingly enough, these two major media outlets have been agreeing on a lot of candidates. Go figure.
There are currently 11 judgeships up on my ballot - State Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, and District Court. All of the candidates in these races are running unopposed. I don't know if that's because we are cool with the idea of checking in the judges every so often and then just renewing their contracts, or we just don't have anyone interested in running against them. In any event, Grubb Street does not endorse in single-candidate elections, other than congratulating to those who get another term. If you happen to have multiple candidates on YOUR ballot, Voting For Judges is a good source of info, though they are still adding to their database at this late date..
Surprisingly, there are no referendums or initiatives on the ballot this year. Further There are also no local offices this time out for my locality. That's cool. I appreciate the break.
Where do we stand here at Grubb Street? We lean politely left. We even verge on our good days towards positively progressive. As such, we will not be consciously endorsing any Republicans this cycle. Now, not all Republicans are the current whackadoodles that show up on FOX and right-wing radio, denying elections, vaccines, and rights for other human beings. But those of the GOP that are not in this broad category don't have any problem support the ones who are. The saying is that Democrats have to fall in love, Republicans have to fall in line. 
Looking at the rest of the local media blogroll,  Crosscut put together a nice overview, the Urbanist talks about a smattering of race related to their city management viewpoint, and the West Seattle Blog talks about the proposed changes to Seattle voting procedures. Progressives are here. Conservation voters are here.  I'll update this entry to keep you in the loop should others chime in.
And, of course, here is the Voters' Guide, in case one hasn't shown up in your mailbox.
 As always, I encourage people to be informed voters - check sources and make the best decision. You may not agree with me, but that's cool. That's why I am not God-King of Cascadia. Yet.
But avoid the whackadoodles. Seriously.
More later, 

Book: Through A Lass, Darkly

 Woman In The Dark by Dashiell Hammett: A Novel of Dangerous Romance, Originally published 1933, Alfred A Knopf. 1988.

Provenance: Purchase from the Tacoma Book Center. The Book Center is a small bunkerlike building in the shadow of the Tacoma Dome. However, it is a TARDIS, in that once you enter, you find walls upon walls of books, concealed levels and hidden back rooms that seem to go on for much longer than the building itself. The shelves are high, overstuffed, and extremely well-organized. Eventually, once the light rail from Seattle gets down there, the neighborhood will be upgraded to the point that a bookstore like this would no longer be able to afford its space, and it will become a Chipotle or something, but in the meantime, it is a place that I go to find stuff I cannot find elsewhere.

Review: This book is very slight. To call it a novel is to seriously round up, as it was originally a three-part short story published in Liberty magazine in 1933. Tack on an intro by mystery writer Robert B Parker that ties it into Hammett's relationship with Lillian Hellman, bump up the spacing, give it wide margins and a header bar, and ... it's still a very slight book.

The story itself is Hammett distilled down to its basics. It almost feels like a script treatment padded out to a magazine submission. It is seriously a three-act structure. Chase the hero up the tree. Throw rocks at him. Get him down. Brazil, our hero, is in his cottage with his girlfriend when a babe in a tattered dress stumbles in, followed by her politically powerful boyfriend and one of his goons. Fight breaks out, the goons is injured, maybe fatally. Girl and Brazil go on the run because he can't go back to prison, but the powerful guy's people catch up with them. Brazil takes a bullet, looks like the bad guys win, and then we rally and get a rapid (one-page), last-minute denouement. 

It's Hammett at the core - Brazil is a tough former con who has his own code but sticks his neck out for nobody. The babe is the powerful guy's mistress on the run, doing what she must to survive. The cops are corrupt, the little people helpful criminals. The powerful guy? Psychotic but with pull. The writing? Punchy. It could have been a movie in 1933. 

It's lesser Hammett, but still Hammett. Probably exists in some collection of shorts as opposed to a single hardback. A good read, but nothing to go out your way for. Nice a discovery in a used bookstore that is bigger than it seems to be, and that's it.

More later, 

Book: Last Dragon, First Wizard

Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons by Ben Riggs, St. Martin's Press, 2022

Provenance: Birthday present, 2022. Read while at the Alderbrook Resort.

Review: This one is going to be a little weird for me. When I reviewed the authoritative works of Jon Peterson on early RPGs - here, here, and here, I could safely dodge out the side door by noting that his history ended before I really showed up on the scene. At best I am that guest-star that shows up in the second mid-credit scene after a Marvel movie. 

Not so here. I am definitely in this book. I was a source for Ben, and continue to be for some of his articles. Some of the stories in this book are mine. I stand behind what I said. They are the "truth" as in "Yep, I said this, mostly."

Those previous histories are origin stories - they start with the Castle & Crusade society and Gary's basement and the Horticulture Hall in Lake Geneva. and move up along the timeline to Gary losing control of the company to Lorraine Williams. Riggs covers that territory to give a base-line, but deals primarily with the Williams years - 1985 through 1997, when she in turn sold the company (through a roundabout manner) to Peter Adkison and Wizards of the Coast. It was a time of Second Edition and Forgotten Realms and best-selling novels and regular layoffs and crises. 

And there are a lot of witnesses and sources. I know my own stories, and I can identify a few of the others Riggs talked to by the tales that are told. And he talked to a lot of people. His history is well-sourced and no one individual's. By the same token, there are a lot stories remembered from 40 years ago, and the speakers (myself included) actually had the JOB of telling stories, so we need to take things with a suitably-sized grain of salt. Riggs recognizes this, and there is a good deal of "Jeff says this, but Flint disagrees with him". And that's a good thing. Our memories often play us false - Steve Winter and I spent an hour one evening trying to figure out the seating chart on the 3rd floor of the Hotel Clair, where the designers and editors were quartered. We couldn't quite put it together.

Also backing up all the anecdotes, Riggs had the numbers. I THINK he had access to the green sheets, which were our sales histories for all the products. They were huge printouts on green and white paper, hence the name green sheets. For a while the designers would get a set every month (and this was until 1989, since I did have the numbers for the Marvel boxed sets at one point). Then they stopped. It looks like Riggs got access to them (or more accurate info) and could track sales (and profitability) of the various products. And often the facts would cross over what the storytellers said.

Riggs is even-handed. Not all the traditional villains in the regular stories are villainous, and not all the heroes heroic in all situations. That's fair as well. 

Reading the book brought back a lot of memories of my time at TSR, not all of them good. There are a lot of stories untold by this volume. Dragon Dice. Dawizard. The Christmas our bonus consisted of a discount coupon on a turkey (not even a turkey, but a discount coupon). Various executives who were let go right after buying a house in the area. And some good things as well. Radio Free Roger. Quote of the Day. Peter, when he took over the company, not only returning the original art to the artists, but also tracking down the original designers of the SPI games he inherited and returned their rights as well. And pranks, like the time when Lorraine stole Design VP Mike Cook's brand new Aerostar (he was very proud of it), loaded it into a truck, and got him down to the loading dock claiming he had to "See what Random House had just returned." The back gate of the truck then dropped to reveal his brand new vehicle.

This is an important book in that it covers the period between the Gygaxian years and the Adkisonian era. Riggs may toss the word "genius" around a bit much (and sometime in my direction) but we did have a fantastic crew of creatives working there at the time, and there are more stories to be told.It is a worthy addition to the behind-the-scenes lore of TSR. And now we need to launch into the WotC years, the history of Magic, and the eventual sale to Hasbro. 

More later,

Play: Civics Class

 What the Constitution Means To Me by Heidi Schreck, Directed by Oliver Butler, Seattle REP through 23 October.

Last Sunday, we abolished the Constitution, but more about that later.

What the Constitution Means to Me is sort of a one-person show, but it isn't, really. The initial framework is a series of debates sponsored by the American Legion where young people debated in front of veteran's groups for cash prizes. Playwright Heidi Scheck performed in these debates as a kid, and used the prize money to go to college (state school, thirty years ago). As a result, she developed a deep love with the Constitution, but in the years since realized that it wasn't the the great document that she thought it was, particularly when it dealt with people who were not male, Caucasian, hetero, and land-holding. In this way it is similar to the previous Where We Belong which featured a woman who loved Shakespeare, but realized that the Bard did not love her, or her heritage, back.

But the Legionnaire's debate is just a framework. Cassie Beck as  Heidi soon expands the argument into a deep examination of her own life and the lives of her maternal ancestors. And she comes up with the conclusion that the Constitution is not the protective document of equality that we need it to be. She returns to the debate repeatedly to use it as a jumping off point for other stories from her family's history, and makes the case about the failures of this document over history. Gabriel Marin is the Legionnaire moderator who is supposed to keep the debate on track, but is eventually relegated to muteness by Heidi's experience.

And then the discussion changes. Heidi discards her young persona and speaks as a grown woman, then the actress Beck steps outside the role of Heidi to talk about hers. Then Marin steps out of his role as the moderator to discuss his own experiences. Then we bring Mara Gonzalez Moral, a local high school student, out to debate whether the Constitution itself should be abolished (The debate was excellent, by the way - I never want to get into an argument with Mara Gonzalez Moral). Then a member of the audience was chosen to vote on who won (Abolish, argued by Ms. Moral, carried the day). 

The performances were top-notch, and Beck carries the brunt of the play as Heidi. Marin shines when he steps out of character. Ms. Moral is incredibly sharp and light on her rhetorical feet. The set design is imposing, immobile, and very, very male - the interior of an American Legion hall, the walls lined with the imposing photos of white (overwhelmingly), men (almost exclusively) in uniform. 

So what does the Constitution mean to me? Its not a melting pot or a quilt. Because I view things from my standing as a designer. It is an operating system, and the Bill of Rights is the day one patch. The additional amendments are ongoing updates, which remove exploits (Yeah, black people are people, not property) and nerf bad ideas (I'm looking at you, three-fifths compromise). The performance touches on Jefferson's quote that the Constitution should be rewritten every twenty years, I say that with amendments we can engage in continual updates and improvement without that timetable. We have a solid foundation, we just need to expand on it, and to interpret it to the advantage of all citizens. So I would have voted Keep (but the Abolish arguments were pretty solid).

And here's the thing - we CAN make it worse. Let's go back to "originalist" thinking and restrict the franchise to those who originally held it - not just white, but Northern European White (maybe French, and sure let the Nordic provinces in). Various shades of Protestant. Definitely male. And they have to own property. Renters? Right out. Have a mortgage? Sorry, you don't really own your land - the bank owns it. In fact, the bank gets to vote on your behalf. Corporations are people as far as free speech? They get your vote instead. We can even dress it up like corporate shareholder meetings - you get to vote, but everyone who does not vote has their votes decided by the Board of Directors. Now that paves the way to a cyberpunk universe.

So, back to the play itself. Not your standard play, nor a true one-person monologue. Deeply personal on many levels. Well-done and harrowing in places. Extremely well done. Worth the Sunday afternoon. 

More later, 

Game Tsundoku

 So during my recent "break" I've picked up a lot of books, fully intending to read them. As a result I about fifty pages in on a half-dozen works of fiction and nonfiction that will either be finished or confined to my shelf of abandoned books. In Japan, this is called tsundoku (apparently - "letting books pile up.")

Ditto games. Between lurking around brick and mortar game stores and Kickstarters fulfilling, I have a new collection of RPG books that have shown up. And many are for games I do not play or will not have any opportunity to play. Most, though, are good reads. 

Oh, and as always, I am commenting on them of first appearance. I read part of them, but in no way do I delve deeply enough to give a full and proper review (I really think you need to play games to really review them). As always, be aware and be warned.

AND, since someone asked, the photo is taken with them displayed on my living room coffee table, which resting atop my living room's hardwood floor. The table (and a lot of the living room furniture) is from a mall store called "This End Up" from 40-some years ago, which specialized in furniture that looked like repurposed shipping crates. I call the style "Early Indestructible".

Let's see what we have. 

Beyond the Ring (Kate Baker, Christine Beard, Jim Cornwell, Crystal Frasier, Steve Kenson, Ian Lemke, Jason Mical, James Semple, and Pete Woodworth, Edited by Josh Vogt and Evan Sass, Green Ronin Publishing, 128 page hardbound) I picked this up at Olympic Cards and Comics down in Lacey. Stan! Brown and I make a road trip down there every three months or so, and this was one of the pieces I picked up. Now, it is highly unlikely that I am going to play a session of The Expanse RPG, but I really, really, like their sourcebooks. They are well-written and well-presented and do a great job pulling me into the universe. This volume moves the story (they're based on the novels as opposed to the TV adaptation) past the point where the galaxy is suddenly opened to human settlement, and the effects thereof. Includes rules for creating your own brave new worlds. Nice job.

Terror of Octobernomicon (Daniel Purcell, Francesca McMahon, Marek Golonka, Helen Yau, Walter Attridge, and William Adcock, edited by Mike Wilson with Lisa Padol, Golden Goblin Press in associating with Shoggoth.net, 112 page softbound) This Kickstarter one was supposed to showcase new talent in conjunction with Shoggoth.net, and I was surprised that it disappoints in comparison with other books from Golden Goblin. Going through the first couple adventures, there are some logic flaws, the art is not up to the quality of previous releases, and it suffers from the "The Curse of Cthulhu" with the maps - the maps don't really match up with the text descriptions. The mythos creatures are new and nice additions to the system, but I'm not sure how they fit in with their adventures.

Wildsea (Felix Isaacs, Mythopoeia Publishing in association with Quillhound Studios, 368 page hardbound) This was a Kickstarter and the final product was pretty impressive-looking. The setup is that the world where plants have gone wild, covering everything with toxic mile-high trees. You are a sailor on a ship that cuts through the top layer of this canopy. The character races that have grown up in this world include humans, cactus-people, and humanoid spider colonies. It has a lot of really wild ideas, and its engine ("Wild Worlds") seems to descend from the Blades in the Dark side of the gaming universe. The book itself is impressive, a hardback in landscape (long-wise) presentation. Yeah, this is one I'm going to cruise through.

Spelljammer Adventures in Space (Christopher Perkins, Wizards of the Coast, three 64-page hardbound books with DM's screen, slipcase) I will fess up - I actually ended up buying a copy at the Mox Boarding House after most of my local stores had sold out. I understand some of the grognard grumbling - the page count is just about the same as the version we did mumble-de-mumble years ago, but the production values are extremely high - three hardbacks and a GM screen in a slip-case. And there is a lot of room for independent designer expansion in the form of the DM's Guild. I was surprised that they did not continue the ship design ideas that they first played with in Ghosts of Saltmarsh hardback, but that's their call. I'm happy with what we did all those years ago, and pleased to see that it has made a bit of a comeback.

Shotguns and Sorcery (Matt and Marty Forbeck, Full Moon Enterprises, 280 page hardbound) This was a Kickstarter, with a nice autograph from the authors, father and son Forbeck. There have been a previous number of incarnations of this project (Cypher System from Monte Cook Games), short stories) and this is the most recent, for 5E. The setting shares the background with games like Lost Citadel - the world is fallen, and all that remains of civilization is one city. Unlike Lost Citadel, it is moved a bit forward in tech (more gunpowder weapons) and sets up a tiered social system - goblins at the lowest levels, a dragon acting as the protector at the top. The game has a lot of noir sensibilities, but the art, title, and sepia-toned cover takes me more in the direction of fantasy western. Looking forward to digging in deeper.

Book of Ebon Tides (Wolfgang Baur, Celeste Conowitch, Kobold Press, 256 page hardbound) This was a gift from one of the authors, and I am delighted by it. I have been tangentially brushing up against the Plane of Shadow for years, as it was the source of many monsters in 1E but never fit in neatly to the established planar arrangements (I ultimately made it a demiplane, which undersells it). The Book of Ebon Tides gives me a LOT to play with - new spells, classes, peoples, godlings, fey courts, shadow roads and lots of opportunities. It links up nicely with Kobold Press's Midgard setting but works for your campaign as well. Adds a lot of depth. This is one I am reading (and probably looting).

Sand and Dust: The Arrakis Sourcebook (Andrew Peregrine, Morphius Entertainment, 152 Page hardbound) The core RPG (Dune, Adventures in the Imperium) swallowed the entire Dune mythos (including the books by Frank's Herbert's son) in one fell swoop. This one drills down on Dune, the planet Arrakis, the desert planet, the home of spice, the most important substance in the universe. The setting talks about other eras, but concentrates mostly on the Harkonian years before the Atreides take over and kick off the first novel. This is a system I will read but never play, but the source material is cool. 

Historica Arcanum: The City of Crescent (Sarp Duyar, Metis Creative, 410 Page hardbound) This was a Kickstarter, and is the sort of thing I really support - cultural RPG products created by people of those particular cultures. In this case, the book is set in a fantasy 1850's Istanbul by a publisher out of Turkey. A good part of it is a major adventure involving a variety of factions and politics, with additional material to fill out the background. The format is A4 (which is taller than American hardbacks), the paper is thick and glossy, and the graphic design is excellent. One thing I wish I did get was a smaller bound-in map of the city itself, which would help with the navigation. A lot of stuff going on in the text, but my favorite part is where they note what they were lying about regarding 1850's Istanbul, in particular the fact that in 1850 Istanbul WAS Constantinople.

And that's it for now, More later when I accumulate another table's worth.

Play: Odd Couple

 Swimming While Drowning by Emilio Rodriguez. Directed by Roy Arauz, Arts West, through 23 October.

Much to the delight of the people of Seattle, the bridge to West Seattle has opened again, and we can now reach out to that pleasant and distant oasis. With the start of the new season of Arts West, the Lovely Bride and I headed out for dinner at a favorite sushi place and a play. En route, the restaurant called on the LB's cell, and we were told that they had an unexpected plumbing prob and had to cancel service for the evening. We rallied and ended up at a Greek place called Phoenecia where we dined on small plates of lamb, green beans, hummus, and burrata cheese. And then theatre.

The play itself was... OK. A two person one-act, which already doubles the manpower of the Rep's initial outing. The plot is slight - two young teens in a gay homeless shelter quarreling and eventually building a relationship and making themselves better. Angelo (Gabriel FitzPatrick) is perky, newly runaway, sensitive, and a would-be poet. Milia (Broderick Ryans) has been on the streets longer, is toughened up, and for much of the early going just wants to be left alone. The stakes are fairly low, but very personal, and the two come to terms with who they are and where they want to be going.

The actors are fine. FitzPatrick has the greater challenge in that his character is extremely irritating in that persistent, relentlessly perky way. Ryans is more grounded as a character, and his Milia is always reacting to Angelo's continuing attempts at engagement. The two bicker, warm up to each other, sleep, leave, share their past, and eventually make their own choices. Angelo's initial poem, delivered flat and unadorned, grows over time to show the character's own personal growth at the end. The staging is good, isolating the room in the shelter on a small, uneven platform, surrounded by the tables and chairs of a nightclub performance space.

And it was ... OK. It will not really re-align your worldviews. The LB was reminded about real-world people we've known over the years - teens and others who we homeless and troubled, so it touched her. And that's pretty much the baseline for a good experience. 

More later, 

Play: Crossing Borders, Choosing Sides

Where We Belong by Madeline Sayet, Directed by Mei Ann Teo,  Seattle Rep, through October 9th.

One-person plays are good for theaters - limited number of people on stage, one central actor. Pacing is set by the actor. Room to explore in real time. A strong performance carries the entire piece.

One-person plays are terrible for theaters - that one person gets sick, there is no performance. In this case, a recent illness forced us to reschedule about three times (that's on us, by the way - we kept moving it to places where we already had commitments - the REP was more than understanding, and in the end we were in the first row balcony seats). 

However, it was worth the wait. Where We Belong is an extended personal meditation on survival of indigenous people and their culture in a colonizer's world. Sayet is native Mohegan, the tribe that gets noted elsewhere as "Mohican", as in "The Last of...." She is also an expert in Shakespeare and English Literature, and has sought to justify her place in both worlds. 

Her stories are both personal and historic. She tells of growing up and trying to embrace the dominant culture while remaining true to her birthright and birth name. And aptly demonstrates that having a Mohegan medicine woman as your mother puts the traditional Jewish Mothers to shame.  She talks about borders, moving back and forth to England to study, as well as moving back and forth between world. 

She also talks of history - Samson Occam and the founding of Dartmouth College, Mahomet Weyenomon, the tribal leader who sought aid from King George II, and Fidelia Fielding, Flying Bird, the last fluid speaker of the Mohegan Language. And Sayet addresses the sterling example of  colonialism - the British Museum, where the spoils of empire are laid out in glass cases and hidden in dusty storerooms. 

One piece that I did not know, and that struck me as intriguing, was that the Mohegans were once part of a larger tribe, the Pequots. The Pequots chose to resist the English settlers, and part of the tribe chose to instead separate from them, becoming the Mohegans. And this is the very sort of thing that Graeber & Wengrow talk about in The History of Everything - the freedom to separate, to go one's own way when one cannot remain. I found the connection meaningful and supporting Graeber and Wengrow's idea that the native peoples of the Americas created and contributed to the foundation for the European Enlightenment.

Throughout the performance Sayet was engaging, personable and knowledgeable, sarcastic and wise. She prowled the stage, kept hydrated with multiple bottles of water, and controlled both the stage and the room. The stage itself was relatively sparse - bulbs and light tubes from the ceiling, a curved floor resembling the ocean, divided with a strand of piled earth. And a small island that duplicated (I discovered later) the monument to Mohamet in London. The strand, in effect, was a border between worlds, that Sayet has to cross repeatedly.

All in all, an excellent presentation and well worth the wait. Go see it.

More later,

Another Change in the Life

 The challenge of sharing personal information is that there is an internal pressure to continue to share personal information.

Back here, I mentioned that I had a new job. Now I feel a need to post that I have ANOTHER, ALL-DIFFERENT new job.

I left Amazon for a new position with a small independent operation. Which, to be polite, did not work out. Details of woe and intrigue are only available to those who buy me a beer at a convention. Well, 1d4+1 beers.

In any event, I have spent the past two months looking for a new job. And it was pretty straight-forward, and I found a lot of opportunities, before joining up with the fine folks at Zenimax, working as a senior writer/designer for Elder Scrolls Online (ESO). I am still working from the home-office in Panther Lake, but the bulk of my colleagues are on the East Coast. 

So what did I do in my "time off"? Well, first off, I hesitate to call it time off, since what really happened was that I suddenly gained a new job, which was securing a full-time position. I hit the metaphorical and electronic pavement, renewing old contacts and scanning the linked-in for related positions. I had lunches with a lot of former colleagues. I filled out a lot of forms. I read. I played a lot of games, in particular games for companies that I was interviewing for. For example, I FINALLY uncracked the copy of ESO a colleague (now boss) gave me a couple years back. And that was all good. 

 But also I stopped blogging for a little bit, taking a break from that part of my life as well, though not intentionally. A LOT of blogs have gone by the wayside over the years, and it sometimes feels like I one of those old guys who keeps a short-wave radio in the basement. Some bloggers have graduated into paid accounts, some have moved onto youtube and twitch, and some have just run out of things to say. And that's cool. I think I'm going to stay with it, for a little while, if for no other reason than to bore others with plays, books, and collectable quarters. And the Lovely Bride has heard all my stories. 

So, new deal is that I am working with a company on the East Coast and concentrating on writing. That's good for the moment. I can use some stability for the time being. And if things change again, I will post. Or maybe not this time.

More later, 

Play: Swashbucklers on the High Seas

She Devil of the China Seas by Roger W. Tang, Directed by Kiefer Harrington, Theatre Off Jackson, Through 27 August, 2022

How we got there: The Lovely Bride and I had previously attended a performance of miku and the gods at the Arts West, put together by Pork-Filled Productions, and in the program book there was an ad for an upcoming production, She Devil of the China Seas, which was the story of Ching Shih, the Pirate Queen of China from the early 19th Century. I had brushed up against her story a number of times, and indeed, there was an unpublished character for the Crucible game that was based on her. Anyway, we decided to take in a play at a new venue as a result.

The new venue was at the Theatre Off Jackson, a small performance space in the International District south of downtown. The front of the theater is a bit odd, and it may have been a garage at some point in its history, and has a florist as a storefront. Its current incarnation was a performance space for plays, live shows, and trivia nights. The theater space was actually really good - the stage tucked in the corner, the rising rows of seats with good leg-room, and had about 140 seats (slightly less for this performance, for reasons which would be apparent).

Here is the general tale - Ching Shih (known by many western names) is the "Wife of Ching". Ching was a successful pirate and raider, and upon his death, Ching Shih took over the family business, built up the pirate fleet, raided mercilessly until the Imperial Court bought her off.  

This is not the story of the play. That's what happens later. Instead Ching Shih is named here, as Ye Tse. Her parents are killed by pirates and her younger sister Hei maimed in the attack. She survives as a prostitute before attaining a revelation and deciding to go into the pirate business herself, joining the crew of Ching/Zhang Ngoi. She and Ngoi build a relationship of mutual respect and affection, while Hei gets involved with  Ngoi's son, Zhang Boh.

Oh. And there are gods, an evil sorceresses and a dragon puppet involved as well, so we are not cleaving too too tightly to the original legends.

There is a lot of swordplay, and the actors make full use of the hall, such that the aisle seats are taped off to keep a safe distance from the performers wielding live steel. So there is action happening behind and alongside the audience as well.

In a world of short performances, She Devil is the full-course meal - two and half hours, but the pacing is excellent and moves effortlessly though the plot. There is precious little downtime, and I can't think of a sequence I would pull for timing. Indeed, the direction floods the stage with the ensemble at several points, such that you are not quite sure if you missed something with all the activity going on.

The actors are just excellent. Kristina Ora commands the stage as a cocky, determined Ye Tsi. Anna Saephan is her more vulnerable but studious sister. Van Lang Pham is a perfect Zhang Ngoi, and Aaron Jin delivers as his overly serious son Boh. Eloisa Cardona is a wonderfully malevolent sorceress, who seeks to make Ye Tsi a hero, but one under her control and influence. 

This is an origin story, and is primarily about Ye Tsi's ascendance both to power and to full realization of her personal growth. The story is solid, the lines pop, and the swordplay is in full swashbuckling mode. Its a good play, and deserves a both a wider audience and a sequel.

More later,