Robin D. Laws's Blog, page 57
November 14, 2013
November 13, 2013
FordWatch: RoFo Goes Shakespeare
Tonight we went to see the Royal Shakespeare Company theater-in-cinemas production of Richard II starring David Tennant. Beforehand there was a featurette-style intro including an interview with director Gregory Doran. When he described the title character as desperately clinging to power despite all sense, mordant laughter rolled through the Toronto audience. Followed by another knowing guffaw as Richard was described as a petulant, self-pitying figure. However, in the play itself, we did not see the implicitly promised soliloquy in which the embattled leader apologized for lying about his crack intake but promised to move on regardless.
November 7, 2013
November 5, 2013
FordWatch: Doug Ford Lashes Out at Police Chief
In a move so brazen I’m having a harder than usual time maintaining my satirical detachment, Toronto councilor Doug Ford, brother and enabler-in-chief to drain-circling Mayor Rob Ford, has now called on Police Chief Bill Blair to resign. His offenses? Having described the Ford crack video to the press, and having quasi-rescinded Ford’s invite to the annual police gala. Ford smears Blair as unaccountable because he went on a fishing trip with a Ford-approved police board appointee.
In a statement that in no way encourages us to recall his well-documented former occupation as a mid-tier Etobicoke hash dealer, Doug Ford said, to a media scrum, “Am I supposed to be intimidated by the police chief? The police chief doesn’t intimidate me.”
In the team of Tweedleford and Tweedleforder, Doug is supposed to be the voice of reason. To fully comprehend the throes of this meltdown, hear the above and below quotes in Pacino’s Scarface voice.
October 31, 2013
October 25, 2013
World War Cthulhu
The title says it all: Cubicle 7’s newly released fiction anthology World War Cthulhu combines tentacled cosmic horror with the 20th century’s darkest era. Edited by Jonathan Oliver, it includes such darkling luminaries as Greg Stolze, Sarah Newton, and World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar.
My story, “The Egyptian”, reveals the wartime career of infantry sergeant Tyler Freeborn, formerly of Miskatonic University, and his uneasy bond with the title character, an on-again, off-again soldier who fights with terrible ferocity. If your only concern is to get your unit through the war, and Nyarlathotep reports for duty, do you turn him down?
Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Watch Out, Boys, He Has the Power of Transcendentalism
In the latest episode of our golden, leafy podcast, Ken and I talk Lovecraft's Vermont, new nerd TV, RPG music and Emerson's Transcendentalism.
October 24, 2013
October 18, 2013
Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Next To the Opposite Hex You’ll Be Like a Ferret in Heat
In the latest episode of our consarned podcast, Ken and I talk scenario presentation, digital cemetery maps, in-character RPG prose and unrescuing Mussolini.
