Flights of Fancy and Fantasy

Sun, 18 Aug 2024 12:19:00 GMT

While much of life is grounded in facts (high performance computing, climatology) or norms (psychology, politics), I occasionally delve into the aesthetic dimension, and this week has had plenty of that. At the beginning of the week, I started playtesting for a new fun boardgame by Benjamin Cadenza, "The Happiest Rat", who is well-versed in cant of rat fanciers and designing a very fun game as well. We've been communicating daily, which indicates both my interest in the game and design and their responsiveness! In other work in the field of Homo Ludens, I'm still working on getting a new issue of RPG Review out; my major contribution is a very substantial multi-session scenario for "Eclipse Phase" entitled "The Europa Sanctuary", which has all sorts of disturbing content. At the moment, the scenario is about 5000 words, and I still have a few scenes to go!

On Tuesday night Ruby and I had a special occasion (with an extra surprise) and went out for dinner followed by an excellent double-feature at Cinema Nova: "Betelgeuse" and "Little Shop of Horrors", two very good examples of artistic comedy-horror films from the 1980s. There is certainly the artisan's charm in special effects that are not computer generated. Also, there was some wry pleasure in witnessing an impressively showy and comic spectre who is also a selfish loser, along with a plant that starts cute and exotic but becomes a blood-sucking monster. In a related genre, Erica and I this week smashed our way through the last session of "The Umbrella Academy" which, whilst not as good as preceding seasons was still very good and had a satisfactory conclusion.

But the best piece of other-worldly art was this evening. Erica and I went to Hamer Hall to listen to the The University of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform (among some jazz pieces which it is best I don't talk about), Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" which is certainly my favourite symphonic suite; there's an excellent brief analysis on the appropriate Reddit sub. From this grand narrative, I cannot pick a favourite movement. With a complex balance and juxtaposition throughout, I am especially impressed with how literary characterisation is expressed through musical motif. There is good reason why music like this continues to be played over a hundred years after its first introduction; the composer actually studied music and sought to produce something lasting and important. That, if nothing else, is the secret of success in what is given the title of "high arts".

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Flights of Fancy and Fantasy