new blog post! -- the next instalment of my retrospective. This one's about discovering types of larp other than the mainstream, in the early 90s.

blog.undyingking.com/larp-retrosp...

A message in Tifinagh script

There's something about receiving a message like this that triggers a very childlike wonder in me. I can't but hope that it's a secret code that's inviting me to come and find pirate treasure, or join the Space Spy Squad.
(Rather than a bot asking if I can contribute to the Tamazight wikipedia.)

"Larps based on or inspired by other things have been popular for as long as there has been larp, and they always will be. So I was thinking: what are the differences that relate to different types of source material? And what are the different approaches..."
blog.undyingking.com/larps-being-...

Approaching 40 years of larping, I wanted to try and capture some memories of my early experiences. So I've written about the first phase: medieval fantasy larping. This might not be of interest to anyone but me (and maybe to larp historians) but it starts here: blog.undyingking.com/larp-retrosp...

I've got a new blog post! -- about the lovely Laagland chamber larp festival, in Utrecht.
blog.undyingking.com/laagland-sho...

New blog post! -- about BOX: Northern Larp Festival, which was great.

blog.undyingking.com/box-northern...

thanks! I've given it a couple of goes at larp festivals over the last month or so, and people seemed to have a good time.

New chamber larp published on my website! -- The Anatomy Lesson.
"The year is 1632: the place, Amsterdam. Aris Kindt, a desperate violent criminal, mugs a passer-by in an attempt to steal their valuable cloak. Kindt is arrested, tried, and swiftly executed by hanging..."
holkar.net

New blog. "If a designer says ‘this larp was about X’ and you, having taken part in it, are like ‘oh but I thought it was about Y’ then you are right — for you, that is what it was about. And this [...] can’t change what you actually felt in the moment of play."
blog.undyingking.com/different-re...

This weekend just now it was The Smoke! -- and here's my blog post about it.

"The organizers work really hard to keep a warm and welcoming vibe going, in which empathy and kindness (for others and for oneself) are paramount…"

blog.undyingking.com/the-smoke-20...

"In my dream, I was in the painting, and it was a live scene — people clustering round and peering at the corpse, while trying to show their good side to the painter..."

New blog post, about a larp called The Anatomy Lesson: blog.undyingking.com/the-anatomy-...

new blog post! I was at Grenselandet, the Oslo larp festival, and this is (some of) what happened there: blog.undyingking.com/grenselandet...

Bottle of VO5 conditioner saying 'Revive Me Daily'

Whenever I see this bottle of conditioner (which is basically every day, as it lives next to my shower) I get earwormed by the Fine Young Cannibals.
(So now, you can, too.)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utvm...

iirc my group, finding this frustrating, house-ruled that a crit did max damage as far back as 1985 at least. Evidently word never reached the TSR/WotC honchos.

Here's another new blog post which is basically just a home for a recently-crowdsourced list of larp festivals that have happened in the UK. Thanks to everyone who's contributed so far!
blog.undyingking.com/larp-festiva...

new blog post! About the excellent Stockholm Scenario Festival:
blog.undyingking.com/stockholm-sc...

EW.

and another blog post! -- this time about the Immersion larp festival: blog.undyingking.com/immersion-th...

A new blog post, about some chamber larps that I've run / taken part in recently: blog.undyingking.com/recent-larps/

110 minutes! What is this witchcraft.

they're called wood pigeons! We have them too -- they have a very charming and distinctive call.

oh sorry, I only just saw this! No, it's a novel, with painted illustrations.

Front cover image of Swedish Machines, by Simon Stålenhag

New book from Simon Stålenhag has arrived!

Another blog post, about the larp Shadows in Time!
"… The characters are a group of people who each have the ability to travel freely in time and space … they do not age, but they’ve all been doing this stuff for at least several thousand subjective years…"
blog.undyingking.com/shadows-in-t...

A new blog post, about my old chamber larp Keep It in the Family: blog.undyingking.com/keep-it-in-t...

Feel like we need a term for the phenomenon where a political party interprets any election result, win or lose, as evidence of the need to tack further right. McSweeney’s Ratchet, maybe

AI as Normal Technology

Interesting analysis of AI as a 'normal' technology.
"...in contrast to both utopian and dystopian visions of the future of AI which ... treat it akin to a separate species, a highly autonomous, potentially superintelligent entity."
knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a...

Similes like this are so helpful; it seems really obvious when you say it out loud but there is a genuine perspective shift when you're emphatic that the point of your teaching is not to create 15 essays, but 15 students who can write an essay.

I've ordered the next two in the series now, fingers crossed they'll be as good!

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle meet Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club in an ingenious blend of classic and modern murder mystery.

I read this book, and it was terrific! -- excellent mixture of funny, clever, and intriguing.
Not cosy crime, but not gritty either -- somewhere inbetween.
Knives Out is probably a fair point of 'if you like that, you'll like this' comparison, I think.
www.penguin.com.au/books/everyo...