A Revelation
Where I grew up (South Texas), no one pronounced the "p" in raspberry. It was just "rasberry."
I didn't even know it was spelled with a "p" until well into adulthood.
I was working on the book this morning and there was a moment that called for a raspberry, or a rasberry. Unsure, I thought maybe I could just call it a strawberry because we said that as kids as well.
C was in the kitchen when I came out of the study.
"When you were a kid, did you call it "raspberry" or "rasberry?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"You know, when you skin your knee."
"I never heard either of those," she said.
"What?" I asked. "How is that possible/"
She responded, absolutely deadpan: "I was not an athletic child."
A Summer Respite
I assume you're all familiar with the necessary walk-ferry-walk-swim-walk-subway-walk journey when I swim, since I've written about it without pause for six months now.
Well, it may be gone for the next two months.
Astoria Park, which is within easy walking distance of our house, has an absolutely massive pool:
(thanks, Wikipedia)
It opened for the first time last weekend. Today, I went to see if I could swim laps.
It's not shown in the photo, but the area to the left of where the photo ends has four lanes for lap swim, only each lane is the width of 3-4 regular lanes. What this means is you can have 8+ people circle swimming in a lane and it's still easy. I passed one person the whole time and no one passed me. You never see the people on the other side of the lane.
Having a spacious feeling when you're swimming laps is a rare and prized experience.
This pool is also long. Really, really long, because it's 50+ meters (53, I believe). It makes for an endless lap.
Everyone was incredibly nice, which is what Astoria is like in general. What a place.
Friday Links!
Have a great weekend, everyone.
I genuinely wonder if any of these "gurus" are ever legitimate: The Real Love Company made her feel whole. Then ‘Daddy’ said to strip naked.
Another archive article from the remarkable Skip Hollandsworth: Poisoning Daddy: How a loving daughter and star student stole barium acetate from her high school chemistry lab, put it in her father’s refried beans, and almost got away with murder.
A terrific story: Mail Between Heaven and Earth: On Japan’s Post Office For Letters to the Dead.
Underrated: ‘David Bowie was a crazy workaholic’: Labyrinth at 40 – an oral history.
This is quite wonderful: For 60 years, an 84-year-old has let a deck of cards build his map.
What an incredible thing to see in person: We got a sneak peek of the final space shuttle set to go on public display.
From Wally, and he said it's one of his top three games: A team of Anarchy Online F2P ‘froobs’ defeated the MMORPG’s final raid boss after two years of prep. Grim times in the console world: Fears for Xbox as it puts its developers on the chopping block once again. This looks terrific, and since I live here now, I can even go see it in person: Exhibit showcases Jack Kirby and creation of superheroes. A national treasure: Cracking stories, Gromit: Wallace’s long-suffering canine companion to tell all in memoir. This is genuinely incredible, even with its limitations: The First Vibe Coded MMORPG Is Free, Open Source, and Surprisingly Complete.
GTA VI
The price of the "standard" edition for PS5 and Series X was announced yesterday. $79.99.
That's high, obviously, but it's also the one game that could get away with it.
The only problem is that it's effectively much higher than that.
Rockstar also announced that the "physical" copies of the game just come with a case and a code for download.
In other words, no reselling.
There was an entire ecosystem of used GTA V copies being resold over and over again. For GTA VI, that ecosystem won't exist.
This is why charging $80 for the game is ridiculous. Rockstar is already going to have much higher profits from the game because it can't be resold. They don't need to be charging $10 over what is already an inflated price point for AAA games.
If I owned the stock, I'd be thrilled with their announcement. As a consumer, though, they can pound sand.
[UPDATE: Rockstar is now claiming there will be a physical disk available "in the coming months." They appear to be scrambling in response to how pissed people are about their original announcement; if this was already planned, they would have announced it at the same time. I could actually see an "ultra deluxe" collector's edition with disc for $120+ with limited availability, which would have a minimal effect on the resale market.]
Calibration and the Dark Arts of Music Games
I'd totally forgotten how one of the expert level challenges in music games was calibrating your TV and audio to sync perfectly with the note charts.
There's always a tool inside the game, but it's usually not very accurate. To do it precisely, it has to be done manually. And doing it precisely, where the buffer before and after the note is the same size, and you hear when notes should be played, is how a music game envelops you.
I was struggling until I saw a Reddit post from 2015 about the correct method, which involved multiple passes, playing with the sound muted, etc. Then I had a massive moment of deja vu when I realized I'd already read this post in 2015.
And so it goes.
I also realized, after looking at RB, RB2, and Beatles RB yesterday, that The Beatles: Rock Band represents the absolute pinnacle of an entire genre. It's clearly so lovingly crafted, and with incredible attention to detail.
I remember being good at these games, once.
Keep On Rockin' in the Free World
Thanks to the incredible generosity of a long-time DQ reader, a PS3 Slim Ultra arrived via post this morning.
I've been setting everything up, along with downloading patches for Rock Band, getting the CRKD Les Paul to work properly in PS3 mode, etc.
There are certainly some teething pains, but honestly, it's nothing compared to the thrill of playing the games again.
I dabbled in Clone Hero last week, which is amazingly versatile and I enjoyed quite a lot, but it's just not the same without a progression system.
Plus, the Rock Band series is so iconic.
I realized today I've never gone through the guitar career. I started playing drums immediately as soon as it was an option, totally fell in love with them, and never spent much time with the guitar. I'd be playing them again if our space supported a drum set (it does not).
I'm going to be starting later today, I hope.
Here we go.
The Jersey Diaspora
One of the absolute best things about living in NYC is how many people (including me) came from other places.
I was walking home from the pool last week and it seemed like everyone in Astoria was wearing a football jersey from their home country in celebration of the World Cup.
It was spectacular.
Lots of jerseys from Africa and Central/South America. Mexico, too, of course. It was like wearing a flag, and it made me happy.
I tried to order a Cape Verde jersey after their unexpected tie with Spain, but they're sold out with a six seek lead time.
That made me happy, too. Maybe a few people will discover Cesária Évora's music after they buy the jersey. That would be a universal good.
P3 Obtained
Thanks to the enormous generosity of a longtime DQ reader, I'll have a PS3 soon. It makes me very, very happy that people still read DQ after so many years.
If You Happen to Have a PS3 Ultra Slim Laying Around Gathering Dust
Particularly if it's a model 4000 (particularly a 4301C or 4303C), I'd very much like to purchase it from you.
Why? I must decline to answer for secret reasons (along with E.B. White).
Oh, all right. Here's why:
That's right. I'm getting the band back together.
The Deceit of Accoustics
We went to see Widowspeak at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn last night.
Widowspeak is one of the bands I most listen to when I write because the lead singer's voice puts me into flow state almost automatically. They just released a new album and I was eager to see them. They're also a Brooklyn-based band (I think), so they'd be playing in their hometown.
The Music Hall of Williamsburg is a beloved venue that opened twenty-five years ago (and is closing later this year. It's small (650 capacity) and it has excellent sight lines, as you can see here:
In short, everything was in place for a memorable night of music.
There was only one problem: it sounded like shit.
Actually, I exaggerate: it sounded worse than shit. It was nightmarishly bad, with the drums and lead guitar pushed so far forward that you could barely hear the lead singer (the main attraction). Plus, the sound was muddy as well. I know all these songs by heart and couldn't make out a single word she sang.
After we listened for about forty-five minutes and it was already nearing ten, I told C we should go downstairs, go to the bathroom, and go home. It was getting late (for us, and it was 45+ minutes home), we were both tired, and while I was glad to see the band live, it had been a disappointment.
We went down three flights of stairs to the bottom level of the venue. There's a bar down there with bathrooms adjoining.
I stood by the bar in amazement because coming out of the speakers in the bar was the perfect sound mix of what was happening onstage, incredibly balanced and absolutely crystal clear. A masterpiece. C noticed it right away and said it sounded like a totally different band. Somehow, in the bar, they finally sounded like themselves.
There was a live video feed playing on two different screens in the bar area, so we actually sat down and listened to two perfect songs, thinking all along how ridiculous it was to pay money for a show to have to sit in the bar for the best sound mix.
I thought all along that the person in charge of their sound had just screwed up when they initially balanced the mix, but now I have no idea what went wrong. It wasn't a particularly modern venue and I wouldn't be surprised if the acoustics were terrible. So the mix going through the board (which may have been fed through speakers directly to the bar) might have been perfect, but once it went out into the venue, it was ruined.
I have more respect than ever for the people working the sound board now.
Forbidden Solitaire
Well, this is something.
Ostensibly, it's a solitaire game, except it's combined with the greatest framing I've ever seen for a game of this type. Combine a Windows 3.0 desktop with news videos and documents from the 1980s with a first-person dungeon from the Interplay Stonekeep era (1995, roughly).
It's a big ask, but the game pulls it off perfectly. Absolutely excellent game design.
Oh, and great writing, too.
I don't know how long the game lasts (I'm 2+ hours in), but it's a real triumph of creativity.
You can see the trailer here on Steam (and purchase it, if you'd like. It's $12.79 on sale right now): Forbidden Solitaire.
UPDATE: I'm going to give a small, additional bit of information I should have disclosed originally. The game's central conceit is that you've somehow obtained a rare copy of a game from roughly the 1990s that was originally banned, and you've started playing it. Everything flows from there.
AND ONE MORE: It's campy. Gloriously campy, and the humor is terrific.
We Are All Cape Verde
Cape Verde was my team going into the World Cup because it's the home of Cesária Évora, one of my all-time favorite singers.
It's a collection of ten islands with a total population of around 500,000.
Eli 24.10 called me about forty-five minutes ago, telling me turn on the TV immediately.
Why? Because Cape Verde and Spain were tied 0-0 in the 80th minute at the World Cup.
I ran downstairs and got to see the last 10 minutes and stoppage time. It was glorious.
Cape Verde wins 0-0. There's no other way to write it.
Friday Links!
This is a magnificently written, heartbreaking story: The Paperboy’s Secret.
Perhaps linked to the scam center story I posted a few weeks ago: WOW: My Visit To Laos’ Creepy, Lawless “Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone”.
This is horrifying and demands to be read, as well as winning a prize for journalism in Europe (the "accept cookies" dialogue box is in Dutch, but click through and the article is in English): What the wounds are telling us: Doctors in Gaza observed a disturbing pattern: children with a single gunshot wound to the head or chest, a sign that they had been deliberately targeted. This emerges from research by de Volkskrant, which spoke with the doctors who are among the last international eyewitnesses.
Another fantastic piece of reporting from Pro Publica, this one about a raw milk farm and the inevitable disasters: The Milkman.
A riveting and heartbreaking story: My mother was forced to give me up for adoption. But when we finally met decades later, it was far from a fairytale ending.
This is remarkable: Some ancient microbes frozen with Ötzi the Iceman are still growing.
I grew up right next to here: Corpus Christi’s Water Crisis Sparks a Fight With Its Neighbors.
Animals keep getting smarter as we think of smarter ways to study them: Bonobos enjoy pretend tea parties and chimps think rationally: why apes are more like us than we ever thought.
From John S., a fantastic story: Scientists make sourdough bread using yeast found in 5,000-year-old mummy.
From Wally, and "real horror" certainly describes this country right now: These Fantasy and Sci-Fi Novels Are Full of Real Horrors.
Common Ground
I talked to someone in the locker room before swimming today.
He tends to be dressing after his workout just as I get to the locker room, and we're often only a few lockers away from each other, so we chat a bit.
The thing about this guy is he looks great. At seventy-fix! Super fit. And I've learned over the weeks that he works out two hours a day M-W-F and an hour T-T.
I told him how much I respected his routine, because I struggled with motivation, even though I always showed up. "It's not hard for me," he said, "because I made working out a religion."
"It is for me, too," I said, "except it's the Inquisition."
The Sleepers
The exhibit that made the most lasting impression on me last week at the MOMA was Sophie Calle's
The Sleepers.
Here's a description from the MOMA's
page for the exhbit:
Sophie Calle probes the boundaries between public and private life. In 1979 she began following people around Paris to give structure to her days. For The Sleepers, one of her earliest projects combining image and text, she shifted this practice of surveillance from the street to her bedroom. Over eight days, Calle invited 29 people—friends, acquaintances, and strangers—to sleep in her bed in consecutive eight-hour shifts, keeping it continuously occupied. When someone failed to arrive, Calle hired a bedsitter or filled the spot herself. She photographed the sleepers at regular intervals, took notes on their gestures and habits, and served meals and changed sheets. “I have an attraction, not to know somebody’s life,” she remarked, “but to know details, for example, which way he sleeps, on which side of the bed.”
It's an oddball, creative idea, and her execution was creative as well. She took roughly five photos of each person, usually while they were sleeping, and along with the photos was a bit of typewritten text about what they said and did while they were there.
It doesn't sound like anything special, but with three sleepers a day over eight days, and four to six pictures of each person, she wound up with enough photos to ring three walls of a long room. The cumulative effect become more and more pronounced as I went along the walls, studying the images and text.
This was my favorite one, and it was the last one in the exhibit:
The text read (in part):
Then I accompany Daniel D. to the door. I thank him for coming. He answers: "In the end all these people disgust you profoundly. Thanks for having been able to stand us."
A Progress Update
The book formerly titled This Doesn't Feel Like The Future which now (temporarily) has no name is moving along.
I finished the rewrite of part three on Sunday.
The second section is essentially finished, or almost there, so that leaves the first section, where there are multiple issues I need to fix. I think I can complete the changes by early August, though.
That would leave about four months for refinement and polishing, and then a couple of weeks for formatting, etc.
The end of the year publishing date is a possibility again.
A Carnival
There was a carnival in Astoria last weekend.
I have many fond memories of carnivals as a kid, of walking about half a mile to an empty field near my school every year and stepping into a magical world.
I had a neighbor on my street who worked for much of his life in a carnival (his wife, too). He taught me how to speak carny, a language used by the workers to talk amongst themselves without customers knowing what they were saying.
For a kid living in a town with just over 7,000 people, it was fantastic.
This carnival was not that.
It still had all the same elements (they haven't changed that much over the years), but the space was far too small, and there were twice as many people as the space could actually support. It was chaos, generally, and not fun at all.
Still, though, just walking around and seeing the rides and the food trailers, it brought back so many special memories.
One thing has changed over the years, though: the prices.
Check this out as an example:
That's the basketball game, the bog-standard one where they use smaller rims and it's almost impossible to make a shot. You might need to click on the image to enlarge it to see the prices, but to have a chance at a jersey, it was $10 a shot.
You could also try to win a crappy stuffed animal and it was "only" $10 for three balls, but I didn't see many people going for that. Almost everyone wanted a jersey.
Here was the incredible thing: I saw multiple people pay $10 for one shot and not even reach the basket. Far short, in some cases. Grown-ups! Always men, too. What a disconnect between the illusion of athletic skill and reality.
MOMA!
We went to the MOMA today and I am fried beyond belief, for some reason. Here are some random pictures from today with very little explanation.
First, the city itself, with a view I've never noticed before today:
The choice of background color is remarkable in this next work. In person, it makes the image almost three dimensional when you're viewing from the right distance:
This is an absolutely stunning photograph:
This painting was magnificently dark, but it also had many different shades of darkness:
This was, according to the artist, some kind of cathedral to birds or air or something. Unfortunately, that's not what I saw. I saw the repressive totality of the authoritarian state (potato, potahto).
Conundrum
I like salmon, but C doesn't seem nearly as keen.
"I was going to pick up some salmon, but I don't think you like it as much as I do," I said.
"I do like it," she said.
I've only seen you eat it at Hamido," I said. "Never at home."
"I like salmon," she said. "I just don't like it undercooked or overcooked, which are the only two ways I prepare it."
Pablo Torre Finds Out finds Mamdani
I believe I mentioned a few weeks ago that Pablo Torre won a Pulitzer for the investigative reporting in his podcast
Pablo Torre Finds Out.
Almost no one does sports journalism anymore, but he does, and he's terrific when he does it. What he's also great at, though, is being goofy. Somehow he switches back and forth seamlessly between the two.
He interviewed NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani this week for his podcast, and the entire segment is so funny and genuine. Mamdani is one of the most engaging politicians I've ever heard, and he so clearly embraces life in a way that other politicians (most of whom always seem entirely miserable) just don't.
Vampire Crawlers (completed)
I made it to the end of the existing Vampire Crawlers content today and it's an incredible value at $9.99.
It would have been an incredible value at $19.99, too.
It's a fantastic card game, one of the funnest card games I've ever played, and it fits perfectly into the Vampire Survivors universe.
Highest marks, and if you have a chance to pick it up, I don't think you'll be disappointed.
