First, I want to announce that Frank Woodward's documentary, Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (in which I appear), winner of best documentary at this year's San Diego Comic thingy, will be screened at the Chaplin Theatre on Saturday, October 4th, at the absurdly early hour of 1:45 p.m. It's part of this year's Shriekfest, whatever that might be. This will be the film's Los Angeles premiere. Frank tells me it's also been slated for festivals in Buenos Aires and Montreal.
Sunday night we watched Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001), which I'd only seen the one time in the theatre. I'd forgotten what a truly perfect film it is.
Monday, we got out of the house as soon as we could, which I think was about 2 p.m., and headed south from Providence. First, we visited Game Stop in Warwick, because they had the World of Warcraft "Battle Chest" (Wow plus the "Burning Crusade" expansion) on sale, and we picked up a copy for me and another for Spooky. Yes, it's gone that far. I'll return to the subject of WoW shortly. Anyway, after Warwick, we'd intended to drive down to Moonstone Beach, but changed our minds (we have two of them, most of the time) and instead headed east towards Beavertail. But there was to be yet another change in plans. In Jamestown, we decided that instead of going on to Beavertail, we'd explore the southeastern edge of Conanicut Island, around the ruins of Ft. Wetherill. The first fort built on the coast here was Fort Louis (named for the King of France, yes), erected during the American Revolution. Later, it was Fort Dumpling (named for Dumpling Rock), after being lost to the Brits during the occupation of Newport. In 1900, the fort was renamed in honor of Captain Alexander Wetherill, an infantryman killed in the Battle of San Juan during the Spanish American War.
We parked and spent the afternoon on the rocky beaches, surrounded by high granite cliffs (an unnamed granite formation dating from the Late Proterozoic), searching for bits of beach glass. It was a grand way to spend the first day of Autumn, and I was more in need of actual Nature than Ritual, so it was also a grand way to spend Mabon. I needed that nearness to Panthalassa. So, I lay for hours on the cobble-strewn beach, the clear water of West Cove literally lapping at my feet. It was a grey overcast day, and quite chilly, but no rain. There were ravens and gulls and cormorants. We found lots of glass, including some rare violet and pink bits. The only other people we saw, I think, were two guys who'd been scuba diving in the cove. There were sail boats, and the wind made my ears ache. It was close to a perfect day. There are photos below, behind the cut.
As for World of Whorecrack, and what should have been Level Grind Part Two, let me just say that nothing takes the gung out of your ho (or mine, anyway), like having to endure two hours (!) loading the game software and innumerable patches. My free trial was almost up, so I went ahead and activated a paid account. But, yeah, the software took for fucking ever to load. And load. And load. It was after 9 p.m. before I actually got back to, you know, playing. I'd hoped to get back up to Lvl 15 last night, but having lost all that time loading the game, I only made it to 13. Still, not bad for two nights. Mithwen advances. But. I am beginning to wonder why I bothered switching from the PvP server to an RP server. In two nights, and maybe twelve hours of play over those two nights, except for a few exchanges between me and Spooky, I have yet to see anything resembling rp. I don't mean that I'm seeing bad rp. I'm just not seeing any rp at all. Not even an attempt. I do see lots of annoying ooc behavior and chat. And there's more traffic on the new server, which is sort of irritating, and people keep challenging me to duels (I decline, as it makes no sense in story, and they make no attempt to rp the requests). So...I am left to wonder. Why does Blizzard bother with rp servers, and why do all these people sign in to rp servers, when no one even tries to rp. There's no attempt that I can see at being in character, playing someone who is actually a part of Azeroth. As near as I can tell, it's not that players in WoW can't rp, it's more like the concept is entirely alien to them. I begin to suspect it never even crosses their mind, what "roleplay" actually means. Fortunately, it's a good enough game that I don't really care about the missing rp, and I suppose I could form a group devoted to actual rp. We'll see. But I am annoyed that I switched servers and started over.
Oh, and last night, while I was trying to dump some loot in the bank in Darnassus, some goofball named "Thirstyblood" shoved a guild charter in my face and asked if I would sign it. I did, since it seemed like it would be more trouble to say no. I did not know this would automatically make me a member. Duh. Anyway, shortly thereafter, the guild was activated and the title appeared over my head —— "Unholly Strength." I "whispered" to Thirstyblood and asked if he knew he'd misspelled "unholy." At first, he said no, he'd spelled it that way on purpose. He then admitted "unholy strength" was taken. I asked to leave the group. He wanted to know if I was leaving over the spelling, and I said yes, for starters. At this point, he changed his story again, and said it was just how he wanted to spell "unholy," and made a stink about having a right to spell things as he wished. I said fine, wonderful, just please let me leave. Never mind that we're playing Alliance, so it's a given that we at least probably wouldn't think of ourselves as unholy. Or unholly, for that matter. The guy was getting really...apoplectic...over me not respecting his "right" to spell words as he "chose." But, after five minutes or so of this, he did finally eject me from the guild. I wanted to ask if he called himself "Thirstyblood" because "Bloodthirsty" (which would have been bad enough) was already taken, or if that was a personal choice, too. Jesus fuck, where does all the stupid come from?
Anyway, I have to get to work on Sirenia Digest #34 (subscribe!) and look over the page proofs for the B is for Beginnings chapbook...but yeah...photos behind the cut:
West Cove, view to the southwest, as the tide goes out.
Very low angle shot of West Cove, complete with my knee. View to the south.
More of my knee. View to the south.
An enormous Great Grey (or Tiger) slug (Limax maximus). I love slugs.
View to the southeast, looking towards Newport.
View to the northeast, and I think those are offices of the Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries, something of the sort. There's a little marina on the other side of the buildings.
An obviously defunct crab.
Great wondrous, slimy masses of sea weed as the tide retreats (view to the north).
The granite cliffs, a hundred feet high in places. View to the south.
Great Creek and Marsh Meadows Wildlife Preserve on the N. Main Road in Jamestown. View to the northwest.
A grand place to buy very, very fresh seafood, right in the middle of said marshes.
The Jamestown Windmill, also on the N. Main Rd., built in 1787, and in operation until 1895. View to the east.
All photographs Copyright © 2008 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac.
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