Episode 79: Take That, Entertainment
March 7th, 2014 | Robin
Grab your retrospective popcorn and hunker down in the Cinema Hut as Ken and Robin review their movie top tens for 2013.
Responding to popular demand, the Consulting Occultist assesses competing new claims of having cracked the cryptobotanical mysteries of the Voynich Manuscript.
In Ask Ken and Robin we hit the dimmer switch to address Richard Fryer’s question on lighting effects at the gaming table.
Then a ghostly romance unfolds as Ken’s Bookshelf unexpectedly reunites with the revenant spirit of an old favorite tome purveyor, returning from the west with lighter wallet and heavier luggage. What happened in the parking lot might surprise you!
Once again Fenix Magazine occupies the coveted anchor sponsor slot. After ten years delighting the Swedish gaming scene, they’re now bringing the Best of Fenix to English-language GMs and players with their now-active Indiegogo campaign.
Don your chivalric armor to also thank sponsor Atlas Games, now unveiling Knightly Tales, the exciting new expansion for their classic Once Upon a Time card game.
Staging a no-knock raid to flash its badge and confiscate your mi-go fetuses, it’s Delta Green: Tales from Failed Anatomies, now on Kickstarter. Robin has a story in the main book, and Ken in the bonus selection, so it’s only fitting that we should welcome Arc Dream Publishing to our sponsor stable.
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1) I resent, bitterly, the implication about actors’ masturbatory habits: the only time I had to play a habitual wanker it was in a dark and nasty thing set in a mental hospital and I had no difficulty separating the character from me. Look, you try portraying someone whose only character note is: keeps one hand inside his trousers. (I also once played Fatty Arbuckle in a stage show of HOLLYWOOD BABYLON. That was more fun but no less artistically awful.)
2) On a more scholarly note, I don’t know that ‘come’ as a term for orgasm was Shakespearean. I do know that ‘spend’ was the more common usage in Victorian English. A search says ‘come’ in the sexual sense goes back to 1650 so maybe Shakespeare’s usage was different.
I ran Masks of Nyarlathotep a few years ago using Trail rules and green glowsticks for spooky! Seeing the character sheets was a problem the first night but one stick per player turned out to be about bright enough.
So the Tezcatlipoca-entity Dee contacted in his scrying mirror dictated a herbal guidebook to him? Should we be comparing Nahuatl and Enochian?
Titles from Ken’s book haul:
The Prisoner in the Opal, by A.E.W. Mason
Spirits, Stars, and Spells, by L. Sprague and Catherine de Camp
Shakespeare’s Bawdy, by Eric Partridge
Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights, by Marina Warner
Kenneth Anger: Demonic Visionary, by Alice L. Hutchison
The Dark Lord: H.P. Lovecraft, Kenneth Grant, and the Typhonian Tradition in Magic, by Peter Levenda
Dark Star: The Hidden History of German Secret Bases, Flying Disks & U-Boats, by Henry Stevens
Book Ken didn’t buy from the back of the Fields’ truck because it was $108:
The Moonchild of Yesod: A Grimoire of Occult Hyperchemistry, by Karl Stone
“Book Ken didn’t buy from the back of the Fields’ truck because it was $108:
The Moonchild of Yesod: A Grimoire of Occult Hyperchemistry, by Karl Stone”
This was available as a free PDF from the publishers, but they seem to have taken it down in favour of a free PDF about the hacker group Anonymous.
Fantastic – I can stop taking notes on this podcast …. since it seems that all my work has been done for me.
Portland Confidential: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Rose City, by Phil Stanford
The Cicero Spy Affair, by Richard Wires
The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington, by Jennet Conant
Professors of Perfidy, by Alan Hynd (great hoaxters)
The American Murders of Jack the Ripper, by R. Michael Gordon
British Dragons, by Jacqueline Simpson
Tutankhamen: The Exodus Conspiracy, by Andrew Collins and Chris Ogilvie-Herald
The Cygnus Mystery, by Andrew Collins
Ritual America: Secret Brotherhoods and Their Influence on American Society: A Visual Guide, by Craig Heimbichner and Adam Parfrey
The Science of Ghosts, by Joe Nickell
This Haunted Isle: The Ghosts and Legends of Britain’s Historic Buildings, by Peter Underwood
The Lords of Avaris, by David Rohl
Robin’s film list:
Room 237;
Stoker;
Drug War;
Only God Forgives;
Before Midnight;
Inside Llewyn Davies;
The Wolf of Wall Street;
12 Years a Slave;
Her;
The Act of Killing.
Ken’s film list:
Much Ado About Nothing;
Before Midnight;
Frances Ha;
The Great Gatsby;
American Hustle;
Gravity;
Inside Llewyn Davies;
Upstream Color;
Only God Forgives;
Her.
Hi Guys! Just started listening to the show after hearing Ken on HP Podcraft. Its now in my top five casts to give a listen. Could you put up a summary of your top movies ? I just watched Upstream Color last night and Europa Report last night on Netflix streaming based on your recommendations. I enjoyed both immensely! Still trying to wrap my brain around Upstream Color.
Would you say that the “sound collector/pig farmer” was in league with the “brain washer/taser man” ?
Mine were;
The Act of Killing
Her
12 Years a Slave
The Wolf of Wall Street
Inside Llewyn Davis
Before Midnight
Only God Forgives
Drug War
Stoker
Room 237
I did actually put up both lists, with IMDb links, but I think it got stuck in the moderation queue for actually having links in it.
The links all work – at least they do 4 months later.
Mine were:
Her
Only God Forgives
Upstream Color
Inside Llewyn Davis
Gravity
American Hustle
The Great Gatsby
Frances Ha
Before Midnight
Much Ado About Nothing
But I just saw The Wind Rises, if that counts as a 2013 movie, and it would come in at the new #8.
The Wind Rises is a 2014 US theatrical release, so you can carry it over for next year’s list.
I’ve become a faithful listener in the last couple of months – diggin’ it. I’d like to offer a topic suggestion.
It’d be interesting to hear you guys discuss the subject of using asynchronous information among your players. To wit, conveying certain observed or previously experienced information to some players and not others. Obviously, the method & competency with which a GM pulls it off is probably as much a subject as the value of the tool itself. I’m making a point of using this device more during my sessions & would love to hear your thoughts on it & experiences with it.
Cheers
Sean
Is it too soon to ask Hite to riff on the missing Malaysian flight?