Memes

I will not be around this Monday, so there will be no Monday Mashup. This is tragic! To compensate, I will satisfy the legions of people (all two of you) who kvetched about not getting your Partridge Family. Fine! Here’s your precious pre-fabricated pop band. I know nothing about the Partridge Family other than that they travelled around in a school bus and sang. Or lip-synched, one or the other. Anyhow, I’m sure there was music and travel involved and on that thin, tenuous reed must our mashups be built. Oh, wait — for the research-minded, there’s an episode guide. Hey, Ray Bolger played the grandfather, so there’s a Wizard of Oz connection.

Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere has been a novel, a BBC miniseries, and may one day be a movie (original). Right now, however, it’s going to be a mashup. At the basic level, it’s a story about a fantastic world underneath the city. I personally find that the Underground puns are fairly significant, because they help link the wildness of the world to the reality of the city — without those allusions, goofy as they can be, the real London would have less meaning. It’s not just a fantastic world beneath the city, it’s a fantastic world that mirrors — perhaps echoes — the city. What else, what else? Door is deposed nobility, which could be fun to play with. The Goblin Market is cool. The Marquis de Carabas is the kind of figure one might well like to use. Ditto Croup and Vandemar… heck, lots of cool characters. By the by, we’ve added another gaming meme — the excellent Wednesday Weird (original) — to the gamememe mailing list. Every time a meme from here, the Weird, or Game WISH gets posted, subscribers to gamememe get an email. It’s the easy way to keep up on your meme postings.

Another mashup from Kirt “Loki” Dankmyer today: “Hotel California”, by the Eagles. Read the lyrics (original), remember the times when they seemed like the deepest thing in the world, and… mash!

I thought I’d done this one before, but careful examination reveals that I have not. Thus, this Monday we’ll pay homage to the Oscars. Glitter, awards selected by popular vote, all eyes on the gowns — that sort of thing. (Lensmen next week. Promise.)

Today, being a holiday, did not feel much like a Monday. Ooops. Anyhow, I’m going to steal a mashup from Jere today. He says he’s seen a lot of campaigns that draw from T.S. Eliot’s " The Waste Land." I’ve never been lucky enough for that, although I did once play a paladin who drew religious inspiration from an old battered copy of Selected Poems. (Eric Hargan’s Catholicworld campaign. Eric is now writing policy studies for the Federalist Society, among other lawyerly pursuits.) But I risk digressing into the treacherous political waters so evident in my previous post. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not yet April; it is not yet the cruellest month. Still, we may still breed lilacs before their time is come.

I promised the Lensman series, and thus the Lensman series will be mashed. Onwards, stalwart companions! If you haven’t read the Lensman books, you should. They are a fundamental part of science fiction history; get past the sexism and you’ll find a surprisingly liberal — even radical — set of ideals. Particularly in Children of the Lens. You’ll also find big explosions, and everyone likes big explosions.

Wish #87 (original) asks: What are three or more web sites you’ve used recently as a player or GM? Why do you use them? What do you get from them? 20’ by 20’ Room, of course! But also: ThePulp.Net, which is the best source for pulp info, plus links to lots of free pulp ebooks. The FAS IRP, which is the Federation of American Scientists’ Intelligence Resource Program. Essential for modern-day espionage/technothriller games. And for Feng Shui. ...

Since I’m hopelessly behind, I’m going to combine WISH 86 (original): What can the GM or other players do to help “midwife” the character creation process? And WISH 85 (original): What inspires you to create characters? Do you have partially-developed characters in mind for use when you get into a new campaign? Do you shop characters around, or do you come up with new characters when you get into a campaign? Why? If you GM, are you bothered by receiving a solicitation for a “generic” character, or does it enthuse you to get a solid proposal even if it’s not closely tailored to your game? ...

Since Godzilla (Quicktime trailer) is being re-released in the United States in the original version, I figure it’s a good time to mashup that very movie. The scoop on all things Godzilla (original) is long and intricate; feel free to draw from any element of the mythos.

One tough cop. One tough killer. Ten thousand mashups. Hard Boiled. Gotta be one of the best action movies of all time. Tequila is the cop who accidentally killed an undercover cop and is wracked with guilt. Tony is another undercover cop who is torn between honor and duty. They team up to take down a gunrunner. Action sequences of rare and surpassing excitement, many of them set in a hospital, ensue. Before I get into my concoction, a free offer (sounds better than a request): if you have subjects you’d like to see mashed up, by all means email me or post ‘em here. My choices are always shaped by my preferences and prejudices, which hardly seems fair. Confound and delight me.