Artisian Dice Bags!

So excited! My new dice bags from Greyed Out Productions came in the mail today. I'd ordered two: his Ork-inspired design, and a reversable grey/red flat-bottomed bag.

The ork skull looks fantastic. The bag is a kind of linen...not something you expect for a dice bag, especially when felt (and Crown Royal bags, for some of us old-timers) is the norm. There are a couple of layers to the bag; it feels like it will pretty hearty.

The reversable bag is something different. I haven't seen many flat-bottom bags. Its deceptively large; it looks like I could keep a nice bit of my collection in there. The black and gray interior is sharp. I can see myself actually swapping my dice out, just to be able to reverse the bag. Sound odd? Yeah, but I'm funny like that.

The craftsmanship on these bags is extrordinary. The seams are very well-done. There's obviously a great deal of care that's been taken in the design and construction. The positions of the drawstrings, for example, is thought out to make better "seals" when they're drawn. They feel like they will last.

The bags are a little more expensive than I would normally pay for dice bags. However, when I finally decided to make my purchase, I looked at it as buying art. Buy these bags, and you're buying quality products made by an artist.

Check out greyedout.etsy.com for artwork, dice bags, and even shirts.

A month and a half since my last post! How horrible! I fear I may never take this blog seriously enough.

Gaming-wise, I can't complain about my schedule. I'm running The One Ring finally...a friend and I have traded spaces..he gets to play while I run the game. I have to say, running One Ring and planning for it is like writing a research paper over and over. I love the experience (not what you expected, eh?). Castles and Crusades is still going strong.

I've had an on-again/off-again game of Battlestar Galactica going. I don't have the heart to tell my players they're really playing Twilight 2000.

"Don't fear anything for your letters, they are burnt one by one and I hope you do the same with mine."

The above quote was attributed to the French sculptor, Camille Claudel. I can sympathize with the notion. I've burned a lot of letters, as well as notebooks, sketchbooks, blogs-posts, photos...I've never had a problem destroying my own art. It takes a great deal of willpower to destroy letters sent to me, though. I still have birthday cards and letters sent by friends years ago.

There's something special about written correspondence. The feel of the pen across the page is an important element. I go to letter writing with the same spirit I go to a canvas or to a notebook. When I'm letter-writing, I feel like I'm crafting a work.

You real a great deal of letters when you study literature. The correspondences between authors and their friends, professional acquaintances and family provide much-appreciated insight into why their works. I gained a greater appreciation of artists like HP Lovecraft, Robert E Howard, CS Lewis, Kurt Vonnegut, JRR Tolkien, etc., etc., when I read their personal correspondences.

I recently joined a correspondence club, with the finally getting a chance to use the nice stationery and my fountain pens. I received a nice letter from a young woman in the UK. She likes geo-caching with her family and horseback-riding. I told her about the pine barrens of New Jersey, and sent pictures from a historical site in Pennsylvania. I appreciate the opportunity to share. Great experience, and a good opportunity to share art.

She's been right there, and I never listened

I just discovered that Patti Smith did a very blues-grassy version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." You can almost imagine, in another world, a mid-40's Kurt Cobain nodding to this, with a sense of appreciation born out of a sense of humor about his own product. Its a version that has the same kind of nihilistic overtone, but not as youthful. An anthem for the underemployed post-graduate with two kids.

It has a perfect placement on the compilation album, Outside Society. You feel like you'v followed Patti through her artistic life. After listening through the whole album, you can believe that the same girl singing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is the same one who, years before, sang, "Gloria." You believe her when she groans out, "Jesus does for somebody's sins, but not mine." You can hear what she's seen.

Maybe every artist, once they hit a certain point in their careers, in their lives, should do a cover of that track. Where are you as an artist? Lets hear your "...Teen Spirit."

Deconstruction

I have a habit of destroying things I've put my heart into. Its cathartic, emulating the disturbing satisfaction of a suicide. I can't count the number of pages that have been torn up, thrown out, burnt, shredded, and discarded. Maybe it makes me stronger as an artist, builds up emotional callouses. It gives me the fortitude to stand up to editing, or critiques. Or maybe its just like picking at scabs, never letting something heal. Or maybe its fear of success. Wasn't that disease that was discovered when we were at our most successful? What a uniquely American ailment. Or it could just be that I get tired of something, and the passion runs out.

I don't have that problem when I work with others, though. I feel like I feed on the excitement the other people add to a project. Maybe that's why I don't feel any self-destructive impulses when it comes to gaming. Its almost like I'm cheating as an artist.

After-action for my second Marvel Heroic RPG

Okay, I had an idea...what if Black Tom Cassidy was arrested and tried in London? I jotted down some notes, changed things around when I saw someone posted awesome stats for Purifiers, and moved on from there.

We played half the adventure tonight. Summary: I need to read the rules again. I also need some work with pacing.

Also, I really like the game.

Okay, I'm going to bed now. The cat is acting odd.

Stream of consciousness

I've been working on a new game. Its about ghosts, and people who hunt for them. I have some solid pages down about the mechanics, and character creation. I think I know what I want to look for when it comes to artwork. I know my source material. I know the genre. I've studied what ghost stories mean to American culture. I understand scary stories.

But what does a ghost represent, and why am I so obsessed about stories about them? And why is it so hard to write about them?

My wife talked to me about what ghosts mean to her. She's really practical. To her, the meaning is really simple: its a person's lack of willingness to let go. A ghost is about our baggage. What haven't you been able to release? That's probably what will manifest.

Its elementary, I suppose. If you're going to write a ghost story, think about the stuff that hasn't been resolved.

I haven't been able to get any further than the mechanics. Every time I try to write about the ghosts themselves, about what they represent and about how people interact with them, I'm stuck. I'm not ready to talk, in a game, about what a ghost means to fictional characters.

Here's a funny story...I needed a palate for my paint. I have this old crystal dish that my mom used as an ashtray. As a matter of fact, I only ever knew it as an ashtray; I don't think it ever had any other purpose when it was in my mom's possession. It took effort, but I used it as a palate. I made a dumb comment about it on Facebook, just to ease the tension, a little something to help rip the bandage from the wound, I guess.

Does that analogy make sense? It has to do with my mom, too.

So, we were talking about ghosts. I've been jotting down notes about what ghosts mean in different cultures...about the angry poltergeist, about the Victorian haunters.

I had this professor in college who told us that we'll know what's real, what's true, when it comes to us in the still, small moments in the night. They're the things that wake us up. I'd forgotten about that. He always helped us get over what ever baggage we had when it came to academia. Remember what is real.

Grief is real, sure. But so is the creative process. So is the written word.