One of the lamentable facts of my lifetime is the decline of American animation. Time was when you could come home from school and be regaled on a daily basis by two hours of quality cartoons during the Disney Afternoon. And there was C.O.P.S. and Swat Kats and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and MASK and Dino Riders ... really, what happened to good cartoons? And that doesn't even count the fact that I was a child during the great revival of good Disney movies: Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King. After that Disney movies kind of fluctuated between okay and not-so-hot. Oh, and Tarzan, which I would say goes all the way up to "pretty good" (it's one of my favorite movies, but that doesn't make it a good movie).

I would say that Mulan comes pretty close to "pretty good" too. Its soundtrack doesn't exactly sparkle, and Eddie Murphy is no Robin Williams, but it's got a good cast of supporting characters and the army schtick is pretty fun. "I'll Make A Man Out of You" is by far the best number in the show, and not just because it's got cool accompanying animation or good voice acting ("hope he doesn't see right through me!"). The use of the army in Mulan is really clever, though in my opinion underplayed because the show isn't marketed to people who know how to analyze literature. The army is what makes the whole gender-questioning thing work: as the great manly activity, it provides a forum to show that in point of fact none of these characters is men. Interesting side-note: they become men (that is, they become "tranquil as a forest, but on fire within ... swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moon") after triumphing over the villains. In other words, Shang's training didn't do it, and their self-confidence didn't do it: while masculinity is something which must be internalized to be held, it requires validated accomplishments to exist at all.

Anyway, the army also provides the venue for "A Girl Worth Fighting For," which is not exactly a great song but is wonderfully conceived. Well, with the exception of Mulan's line: "How about a girl who's got a brain? Who always speaks her mind?" (to which her buddies go "nah!"). That line should not be in the song, because it tries to reduce the masculine desire for "a girl worth fighting for" to some sort of chauvinistic objectification of women. In fact that is nearly the exact opposite of the truth, and it is a well-attested fact that men on campaign spend a great deal of time and emotional energy thinking about their women. Heinlein remarks in Starship Troopers that women are the ultimate reason men go to war. And I think that's true, for what symbolizes what makes life worth living more than Beauty's love?

Note that I capitalized Beauty there. I did that on purpose, because Beauty is an archetype who need not be beautiful. As the song points out, "a girl worth fighting for" has very little to do with physical attractiveness. What do the soldiers imagine their girls will have? Ling wants a girl "paler than the moon, with eyes that shine like stars," true - but he also dreams, "my manly ways and turn of phrase are sure to thrill her." Yao says, "my girl will marvel at my strength, adore my battle scars," and Chien-Po says, "I couldn't care less what she'll wear, or what she'll look like: it all depends on what she cooks like." To these wistful dreams all Mulan can say is, "huh?"

But what are they really asking for? What those lines are all saying is I want a girl who thinks I'm Somebody. Yao and Ling are looking for girls who will look at them and see something other than the pathetic losers they really are ("my girl will think I've got no faults, that I'm a major find"). Chien-Po is looking for one who understands what's important to him and thinks it's important too.

In my opinion there are other factors which make a girl Worth Fighting For, but this song touches on one of the fundamentals (besides - with that one stupid line aside - being a poignant exposition of character for the soldiers who are otherwise merely comic relief): if a girl is to be worth fighting for, she must think that you're a man worthy to fight for her. What makes Beauty beautiful is not what she looks like but the beauty she has to unveil - and the fact that you have stood at the bars of her woman's soul and been judged worthy for that beauty to be unveiled to.

My Bible study is reading a book called Wild at Heart, by John Eldredge. It falls under the category in Christian literature of "men's book," but I am going to discuss it here anyway because I think this one has some good stuff to say. Actually I suspect I'll have a great deal to say about this as I get further into it. Rose's Bible study is reading The Sacred Romance, which Eldredge co-wrote with Brent Curtis. She quoted me some excerpts from it because she said it "sounded like me" speaking. Which it did.

Eldredge's premise in Wild at Heart is that there is such a thing as the masculine soul (as distinct from, though not opposite to, the feminine) and that modern Christianity - and society at large, for that matter - has badly missed what that soul is about. I quote from his first chapter:

When all is said and done, I think most men in the church believe that God put them on the earth to be a good boy. The problem with men, we are told, is that they don't know how to keep their promises, be spiritual leaders, talk to their wives, or raise their children. But, if they will try real hard they can reach the lofty summit of becoming ... a nice guy. That's what we hold up as models of Christian maturity: Really Nice Guys. We don't smoke, drink, or swear; that's what makes us men. Now let me ask my male readers: in all your boyhood dreams growing up, did you ever dream of becoming a Nice Guy? (Ladies, was the Prince of your dreams dashing ... or merely nice?)

And again: Little boys yearn to know they are powerful, they are dangerous, they are someone to be reckoned with; and again, Adventure requires something of us, puts us to the test. Though we may fear the test, at the same time we yearn to be tested, to discover that we have what it takes; and further, The battle itself is never enough; a man yearns for romance. It's not enough to be a hero; it's that he is a hero to someone in particular, to the woman he loves. In short, Eldredge argues, "in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue."

If it isn't already painfully obvious to you why my heart resonates with this book, you have missed an essential part of my being.

I should interject a note here: Eldredge is not conceiving of the "beauty" as some sort of passive object. He is explicitly rejecting the message that the apex of womanhood is to be "tough, efficient, and independent," and I agree with him there. But he is not saying that a woman should be some sort of wilting flower trapped, helpless, in the highest tower. Instead, he proposes:

Not every woman wants a battle to fight, but every woman yearns to be fought for. Listen to the longing of a woman's heart: she wants to be more than noticed - whe wants to be wanted.

I am not a woman, but I think that's a fair statement to make. So too:

Every woman also wants an adventure to share. ... So many men make the mistake of thinking that the woman is the adventure. But that is where the relationship immediately goes downhill. A woman doesn't want to be the adventure; she wants to be caught up into something greater than herself.

And

Every woman wants to have a beauty to unveil. Not to conjure, but to unveil. Most women feel the pressure to be beautiful from very young, but that is not what I speak of. There is also a deep desire to simply and truly be the beauty, and be delighted in.

Of course Eldredge isn't a woman either. But at the very least I think he's got his finger on the essential character of masculinity, and so at the very least I think he's identified here the kind of woman that a man's soul will resonate with. The most poignant moment in all of the Song of the Lioness quartet is when Alanna (this is the Alanna who is a bazhir shaman, the finest knight in Tortall, the woman who killed Duke Roger) comes into the common room of an inn at the Roof of the World in a dress with earrings. Liam guffaws at her, and what does she say? "Sometimes I like pretty things." I believe that that scene, in one form or another, lives somewhere in the heart of every man.

There are two points I think deserve to be observed here. First off, Eldredge is not speaking in strictly metaphorical terms. I think (I haven't finished the book yet, but I think) he is speaking metaphorically, but he's also speaking literally. In other words, there is nothing wrong with the man's desire for adventure, or to be dangerous - yes, literally, to be a perilous character, capable of inflicting grievous personal injury. In fact, I think he argues (and I certainly do argue), the man who is afraid of force is a hollow shell of a man.

And here I mean all kinds of force: Are others almost afraid to challenge you in debate because they know you can back up your position and defend it ably? Do people know that throwing tantrums around you won't work, because you aren't afraid of social confrontation? Are people afraid to disappoint you because they respect you that much? Are people afraid to mess with your loved ones because they know that you won't take that lying down? And yes, are you willing to apply lethal force until rendered physically unable to do so if your moral duty demands it of you? If not, why?

All of this has given me a curious angle on video games. There are two curious facts about video games that people often find difficult to reconcile: the fact that they're violent makes them fun; and yet that does not translate into an enjoyment of violence by gamers (you will hear otherwise on the news, but as a member of the first generation of young men to grow up playing video games I will tell you the media are wrong. Anecdotes of aberrant cases will not make them right. If you want to see the real heart of the modern gamer on the subject of real violence, watch me break down and cry about Iraq in Rose's car on the way home from church. Or, if you want a thoroughly non-Christian view, I invite you to consider the views of the Penny Arcade, widely held to be representative of the geek gamer, in this news post). And I will not deny that I enjoy slicing people up with my lightsaber. Because it's just so cool.

Let's stop there and analyze that statement. What did I just say? What I did not say is that I enjoy the thought of walking out onto the Stanford campus with a lightsaber in hand and hacking up my fellow students - I wouldn't even enjoy the thought of hacking up a bunch of Dark Jedi who somehow infiltrated the Farm. I said that lightsabering people is cool. Because in Jedi Knight II it is: it gives you the feeling that you're doing stuff from the movies, that you are in control of a Jedi's weapon, that you are skilled and are a force to be reckoned with. When you take down your first saber-wielding Reborn warrior in JK II, you know you've reached it: that is the moment (to borrow another video game quote) you officially become ... badass. And because physical, dangerous badassness is a part of all the other, more "acceptable" uses of force, the whole thing is emblematic. The game affirms that yes, you have what it takes.

What about the adventure? Well, take a good long look at video games and I think you'll find that the really great ones do give you an adventure. Sure, games like Quake and Doom are little more than twitch-fests - but those are not great games. They'll be remembered for their technical innovations. TIE Fighter, now, and MechWarrior 2, and Half-Life, and Myst, and the great Blizzard titles like WarCraft II and StarCraft ... those will be remembered for the adventure, the sense that the force is being harnessed to a purpose. Those games give you a chance to be a hero, not just some gun-slinging machine. Those are the games that people will tell you are the greatest games man has yet produced.

And the beauty? What about her? Not many games give you a beauty to rescue ... but then again, some do. How many people felt just awful when they found out how Sarah Kerrigan had been betrayed - and how many people resonated with Jim Raynor's inability to save her? You spend virtually all of Jedi Knight II trying to rescue Jan Ors, desperate in the knowledge that she might be dead and you never told her how you feel. And, corny as it sounds, Blue Rose will be able to corroborate that the end of Red Alert II sent me into a wistful state of shock, because it turned out that Tanya Adams was more than Rambo in a sports bra after all. Games may not be able to harness the power of romance very effectively - but I think that's because we have never yet seen a great game. Great by the standards of games, yes. Great by the standards we apply to other art? Not even close. Give me a game like that and I'll show you how much potential there is in giving the player a beauty to rescue. These others only hint at it.

All of this leads me to suspect that the failure of the media and all those concerned friends and citizens out there to prove that video games are bad for your character is because they're trying to make a connection that isn't there. The violence and adventure in a video game affirms a man's heart, satisfies in some way the deep core longings of his being. That's what they appeal to - not some morbid desire for death and gore.

There is something peculiarly happy about listening to the Dixie Chicks' "There's Your Trouble." Maybe it's that this was the first Chicks song I ever heard. Or maybe it's just really good music. The nifty thing about the Chicks is that they have all sorts of cool instruments, and they play most all of them so they know how to use them, too.

So Rose's birthday was two days ago, and it was evidently a rousing success, which I am glad of. Other than providing the music (which wasn't even mine) I didn't have that much to do with it, so I won't give the complete blog-down to those of you who don't know where to get that yourselves. Still, I'm glad that she had a good birthday.

It's kind of amazing to me how far Rose and I have come since I started this as a way to let people see the parts of me that don't get much play at Stanford. If you check back in the archives, you can get an idea of just how far. I can still remember buying that blue glass rose with Shanah at Knott's, thinking it was the perfect gift to express how special she was to me and trying not to think about the all-too-real prospect that by the time I saw her to give it to her it would all be over. As it turns out that's exactly what happened, but I'm still glad that I got to give it to her. Even if my first uses of the Blue Rose blogname were irresponsible and immature.

The subject of my blog will have to do as a segue into what I actually intended to write about tonight: namely, fantasizing about my birthday surprise. One of the nifty things about Rose's birthday was that it brought together people from all different areas of her social existence. True, those disparate areas didn't mix very much, and there was maybe even some social tension - but she liked it, and after all it was her birthday. Now, I'm not saying that my friends could arrange for the guys to get up here, and I'm certainly not expecting anybody to try. But it would be awfully cool. I think the agenda for my ideal Stanford birthday would go something like this:

1). Play video games with guys (a little AvP action, a little Jedi Knight II, if only to show them how cool that lightsaber is). Maybe have some Smashing time.
2). Dinner out with the guys, to talk about nerdy gaming stuff.
3). Phoenix Earth session.
4). Dinner out with Shanah and Rose.
5). Movie with lots of people. Either something artsy (Moulin Rouge? Chicago?), cool (Alien Resurrection? Predator 2? Starship Troopers?), wistful (Beauty and the Beast? Tarzan?), or horrible (Dungeons & Dragons?).
6). Dancing with lots of people, including but not necessarily limited to the Ailouriskai and Alanna and Lady and Rose and Shanah and Chariessa.
7). Worship.
8). Storytime, either with something symbolically significant (Enchanted Forest? Song of the Lioness?) or that I can read really well (James and the Giant Peach?)
9). Family time, possibly combined with storytime.

Of course that's not a very practical plan, seeing as how it involves two dinners, the presence of the entire Phoenix Earth party, a Phoenix Earth session (which would require me to have a session planned in advance and would take about six hours out of the day), and a movie (which would take a minimum of ninety minutes). And not everybody on the guest list implied above would be comfortable with a worship set. And of course as much as I like dancing with Lady she'd probably feel kind of odd coming to a birthday party for me, depending on the guest list. But hey, a guy can dream.

I have figured out Dutch Schaefer (who is part of the Alien vs. Predator universe evidently because he's Arnold's character in the original Predator). I actually like Dutch more than Linn in a lot of ways. He has three great drawbacks: he can't jump (well, he can jump a little), his gun overheats after two bursts, which makes it nigh useless at long range, and he's slow. However, he has three great advantages: he has no weapon (or rather, his cybernetic arm is his weapon), so his offensive power isn't diminished when he gets knocked over, he hits harder than anybody else in the game, and he can pick up a weapon in the form of the pipe, which does massive damage and knocks people down with a single hit.

Dutch really only has two special moves, but they're pretty good. One is this kind of bull rush thing he has, which besides getting him in close where he can lay the smack down trumps most other moves in the game, including the smasher alien's charge attack. Second is his dragon punch thing, which only works when an alien is near by. That by itself isn't so great, but he falls in slow motion and you can blaze away with his smart gun while you fall, which makes it pretty cool and devastating against bosses. So it turns out that Schaefer's pretty cool after all, though I still prefer the predators.

Viennese is coming up soon, which I am very psyched about for a number of reasons. For one thing I have a wonderful date, who besides being pretty and witty and charming is one of my most favorite people to dance with. And besides Chariessa, there will be other lovely people to dance with as well, such as Rose and Shanah and Lady and lots others I'm sure except I don't remember precisely who all is going of the dancers I know. Additionally, Viennese gives me a chance to dress up and be gentlemanly, and generally have a high-class date. And I'm more or less organizing things this time around, which makes me feel competent and organized. Well, I am competent and I can be organized, but I generally don't feel that way at Stanford. So this is a nice change.

I've decided that I like playing the predator hunter more than the warrior. Linn may have more potential, but I'm not at all sure of that (though she does have a mightier gun, even if it's not as good for clearing paths as the famed predator shoulder gun). And the hunter is just so kinetic, especially once I learned that he has a higher-velocity version of Linn's "kick off of one alien and into another, then back again" move (though the hunter's version can't be repeated as often as Linn's). And this game is all about style, and the fact that everything on the screen is just so high-energy. I've even gotten used to the orange armor, and I have so mastered that Blanka-ball move he has.

I'm listening to the City of Angels soundtrack right now - have been for several days, actually. Although I think this show has some flaws in its writing, I really like some of its numbers. Stine has been added to my very short list of Characters I Would Love to Play (the others being Javert and Pontius Pilate). And of course I love to sing Stone's songs too - and I just love Gabby's songs, and Oolie/Donna's. This is music where the background is not boring (far from it, in my opinion), but isn't trying to steal the spotlight. And because the songs actually advance the action, rather than merely expanding on some point that has been made in dialogue, they really offer potential for acting, too. Ah, happy sigh.

I have a terrible feeling about this. Lord, let this cup pass from us - not to some other nation that we would pass our bloodshed to, but let the necessity pass from mankind. France is wrong. I don't like talking about politics, but France is wrong. "Iraq must answer their questions and cooperate more effectively?" No, Iraq musn't - because there is no compulsion upon them to do so. If they don't, then what? What is the "or else?"

But enough of that. I was going to blog about the great bane of my existence, The Stanford Fund, but my blogs have been very grim lately so let's have something more light-hearted. Such as a discussion of the great and august Alien vs. Predator, which it turns out you can buy in arcade machine format for a mere $240. Some day, I may do that.

In the meantime, Twilight gave me the game as part of my Christmas gift, and I've been working my attack-button-pounding skillz. Looking back on it, I think AvP was remarkable in its day (1994) for the fact that everything felt so kinetic. Older 3D-wannabe sidescrolling games feel kind of slow and wooden. Alien vs. Predator does not: stuff is flying around the screen all over the place, and you slip into this waltz-like state where you're doing stuff but not really thinking about it: just experiencing. Of course in this case you're not experiencing a dance, just the visceral thrill of watching cool stuff happen on screen - and maybe (if you're like me) screaming taunts at your exoskeletal foes without really consciously formulating the words.

AvP is an icon in my memory of all-too-brief, all-too-expensive moments in arcades (this was before arcades ceased to carry anything other than 3D polygonal fighting games, racing games, and DDR: The Really Final Mix, We Mean It This Time), when playing a video game was an emotional thrill ride. And now I own it for my very own, and have at last begun unlocking its mysteries in moments snatched from my work. I have mostly completed my analysis of three of the four characters:

Linn Kurosawa
Linn is your stereotypical cybernetic Asian gravity-defying female martial artist who totes a pistol and a katana and sports a combination of orange tiger striped pants and steel armor. For all that, she's incredibly cool. The way to play Linn is to never stick in one place. If you can get in among a bunch of aliens (placement is one of the things you learn in games like this; by "among" I actually mean on the edge of) you can whoop up pretty well, but what you really want to do is go bounding around the room kicking aliens in the face and jumping off of them to kick other aliens in the face, ad nauseum; and bound around the room stabbing aliens in the head with your katana. The martial arts skillz are really only there for when circumstances are such that you can't jump on people - or when you get behind them. Linn also has the advantage of being the only character capable of laying down sustained fire, since her pistol doesn't overheat but runs out of ammo (of which it has a lot). The downsides to Lt. Kurosawa are that her gravity-defying ways actually make it difficult to hit people sometimes (for this reason, the bigger they are, the more Linn has her way with them) - and she just has no reach whatsoever. Which is why man invented (so to speak)

The Predator Warrior
This predator (who is my favorite predator, on the basis of sheer cool good looks) totes a spear in addition to his cream-colored predator getup. It took me a long time to figure out the difference between the game's two predators, but I finally have it. The warrior is good for getting in amongst (and it really can be amongst, with him) a bunch of aliens and laying about until their acid-spouting bodies are all twitching, headless, on the floor. His melee attacks have both range, power, and speed - and he can lay about him in all directions, which is cool. The trick is that you have to know when to call the alien-bashing quits and bug out (pun intended). His aerial moves really only exist for the purpose of getting him in close with the exoskeletal baddies. This is in contrast to

The Predator Hunter
who is, as his name implies, best in a one-on-one context. The hunter is really a lot like a cross between Linn and the warrior, as evidenced by the fact that he wears orange but is, you know, a predator. He carries a double-ended glaive (except we have a katana and an Asian female in this game, so it's called a naginata) and while he can beat on aliens fairly well, he's really another bouncy character. This is because he has the capability of bowling over immense number of aliens while falling from the sky. Once they've all been properly knocked over of course you can lay into them with your naginata, but that's dangerous because he lacks the ability to cover himself from both sides in a melee as well as his warrior cousin. The hunter, I've found, is much easier to use than Linn while retaining a lot of her aerial nature - and of course he has that cool predator shoulder gun.

I still haven't figured out the fourth character, Dutch Schaefer, who's a big hulking American cyborg with a smart gun for an arm. It may be that I already know all there is to know: being a white man, he can't jump; but having a gun for an arm, he sure can beat on people. Which is all there really is to it: walk up to them and beat on them. He actually does have the most powerful gun in the game, I've noticed, and he has this dragon punch move that lets him shoot while falling in slow motion (Linn and the hunter have the same move, but without the slow-mo part). I think that mastering that move will prove to be a critical part of playing Dutch, since it would let you beat on aliens until you're surrounded, then leap out of the fray and pepper them with gunfire. But let's be honest, he's neither female nor non-human - so how cool can he be in the end?

Sometimes I wish that Blogger had a "current music" thing like Livejournal does. It seems like a lot of blog posts get inspired my music - or anyway a lot of mine. Right now for instance I should be revising a story for my fiction class, but instead I'm blogging because I'm listening to Shania Twain's Up! (specifically "Forever and For Always" and "It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing") and I feel like blogging. If someone ever writes a book about my life, I hope they take the time to seek out the girls in it. The fictional ones, of course, like Alanna and Honor and Cimorene and the Babysitters' Club that have shaped my idea of what it means to be a romantic and a man whose word is worth something. And also the real ones, like Rainbow and Princess and Thea and Shanah and Chariessa and Blue Rose and of course Maelana and Mother, and maybe the Ailouriskai and all the rest who are too many to remember. Of course there are other ways of getting at my life, but I feel like there's something special about the girls: not just that there are daughters of Eve for whom I have conceived what I hope will be a permanent affection, but that I believe God has laid out the plan of my life such that the girls are, more often than not, agents of His plan (you can tell I'm feeling profound because I bothered to capitalize the divine pronoun). How can I forget watching Star Wars I with Thea at Universal Citywalk, passing underneath that arch that proclaims that the most beautiful girls in the world pass beneath it and thinking how true it is? Will I ever visit the Commons without remembering waiting for Princess because she was late, not that it mattered once she was there? And I could say similar things about Stanford girls, but for modesty's sake I will refrain.

This is a change of topic, but I've been meaning to blog about Iraq for some time now and this is as good as time as any because Up! has switched tracks to "In My Car (I'll Be the Driver)," and while this reminds me of Thea's Explorer and driving down Valley Circle with Rose and riding in Shanah's Ginger and all sorts of other girl-related topics, it kind of breaks the wistful mood anyway. So Iraq.

I don't really have an opinion on Iraq, and I admit to some confusion as to people who do (because I don't really, deep down inside, believe that I'm a 1/300 millionth part ruler of the United States). Do I think we're going? Yes, absolutely. Do you know anybody who doesn't think we're going? Do I wish that we weren't going? Well of course I do - the thought of war with Iraq makes me sick to my stomach and makes me want to cry, actually, as I imagine it does for a great many of the fighting men and women on both sides of the Iraqi border. I understand better than most of my peers, I think, just what kind of human suffering armed combat in the modern era entails - and I'm sure I understand it infintely worse than a great many uniformed citizens who are preparing to thrust themselves and their subordinates into the teeth of what Dionysus yesterday called "the deadly lead."

Yet forward they shall go all the same when legitimate authority orders them to do so, and I think they will be right to do it. I wish, with Frodo, that none of this had ever happened - but it has happened, and the question now is what to do about it. We can sit back and hope that good comes out of Iraq, we can sit back and hope that Saddam comes out of Iraq, or we can go in and take him out. And when we do, as it looks like we shall before the next Orientation Show, I will pray that our boys be granted good targets, that they go into combat with stout hearts and no fear of death but that which is common to man (Americans home in body bags? Of course they'll come home in body bags! Are we so far degenerated that we now fear death with the rational mind?), and that those who must die die quickly. If once war is begun, in my estimation, let it be prosecuted not with the dentist's pick but the hammer. Else the valor and victory, the sacrifice, the courage of fighting men in the face of unimaginable terror means nothing. And it ought to.

All of this, you will see, ignores the propriety of toppling Saddam in the first place. As I said, I don't have an informed opinion about that. I think that Saddam's regime has twisted priorities and that the people of Iraq will be better off without him, but I have not bothered to do the research to back that opinion up. I don't see that it particularly matters, because so far as I can tell we're going in one way or another, barring act of God.

Then again, God would be no god worth my fealty if he weren't capable of averting a mere political inevitability. And if you don't think that he's capable of averting the inevitable, then I submit that you don't understand the fundamental reason why the Old Testament is included in the Christian Bible. So until we do go in, I will pray that the Lord make the fighting unnecessary - not because I believe that death is an evil that ought to be avoided (what then? Does the man who wears the helm of salvation fear to be dead? And if a man does not wear that helm, or if he refuses it, whose fault is that?), nor because I believe that the suffering of a family deprived of father or brother or son is an evil that ought to be avoided (what then, do we now declare the pain of the heart to be evil?), nor because I believe that either side's soldiers fight for an unjust cause (will they fight for politics, or for their buddies? And who will say that a man should not lay down his life for his friend?) - but I will pray that the aims of God be accomplished without war because I do believe that God is grieved by the sorrow of those who cry out to him in their affliction, and because I do know that he is a great deliverer.

I'm listening to Enya's "China Roses" right now after a late lunch and some of Dr. Turtledove's Ruled Brittania - which, I own, is brilliant. There is a special genius, close to my heart, that allows an author to so cast his words that the reader wishes things were as the writer presents them, and not as they are. It is a genius that I think Heinlein had, and perhaps why I believe I shall love Stranger in a Strange Land while Archimedes may not. It is true that an author with such faculties is possessed of enormous power, a power which one might argue is dangerous - after all, such an author might shore up the morals of his time by writing an Honor Harrington as easily as he might undermine them by writing a Gillian Boardman. But the tool may be used for good after all, and so I do not think it is fair to disparage this dreaming daimon, the possession of which is the pinnacle of the writer's craft.

My discussions with The DM are becoming almost daily, for which I am grateful. The other day we hit upon the identity crisis that Phoenix Earth suffers from: is it allegory or not? Is it to be like Narnia, principally wonderful for the fact that it is a Christian universe? Or is it to be like Middle Earth, which is essentially a Christian universe but is principally wonderful for being Middle Earth?

I think, perhaps, that that is the wrong way to think about it. What I want from Phoenix Earth is for people to experience it and wish in their hearts, "oh, would that it were so!" Then the question of allegory does not matter, really. If I have done my job well then it will be that wishing for the reality of Phoenix Earth will accomplish all my ends. My aim as a writer will have been fulfilled, for I will have written a good story that makes people's hearts yearn for something grand and true. And in the yearning my aim as a man will have been fulfilled as well, for if I have done my job well they will be yearning after something grand and true - and, if I have done my job well, something grand and true and real.

On Goddesses ...

Rose's lucid comment on dance got me thinking (by the way, thanks for commenting. It's always interesting to know who reads this). I mean, it's pretty obvious that dance is not strictly abandonment - at the very least, whether leading or following, I've got to be paying attention to the music and my partner, and those are deliberate, rational acts. And since I spend most of my dance time leading (it's what I'm best at, and it's the easiest way to dance with girls), my dancing is usually even more cognitive. This is because with all but a tiny handful of partners (and only one consistently) I need to figure out how she's dancing and what she can follow, and adjust myself accordingly.

So all this got me thinking: when I think of dance personified by the Footloose Doll, what do I mean? I think what I mean is that I imagine my worldview as largely dominated by three goddesses, or heroines (goddesses in the sense of personified ideas, heroines in the sense of idealized role models). Each of these represents the extreme of some value. I don't want to reach the extreme, but I do want to participate in it. The first of these (in no particular order) is the Dancer, the Footloose Doll. Her value is that of abandonment, the loosing of restraints, the giving in to lawful passions. I don't think that dance is that, strictly speaking, but I do think (as Blue Rose pointed out) that it is something like that. And for me, the best moments in dance are those when cognition virtually ceases, and the waltz spins both time and space into a spun-sugar halo that settles above my partner's head, and there is nothing to think about because there is only the now. Such experiences are, I think, important in the life of a mature human being. So it is that the Dancer's value is abandonment.

The second goddess is Honor Harrington. Honor is the goddess of service, leadership, and duty. She represents that pinnacle of leadership, where a leader's authority comes not from her position but from who she is - she is that kind of woman who commands the sort of loyalty that comes from genuine love. She is the personification of how you earn that kind of loyalty: by pouring out yourself for those that you lead//serve, by somehow giving all you have to everything you turn your hand to, by being superwoman. She represents meekness, because such an exceptional woman is devoted with all her soul to the legitimate authority placed above her. She seeks not advancement but only to perform her job fully and completely - and because of that advancement comes to her. If a man wishes to be called a man, he must understand and participate in these values of the servant-leader exemplar, and so this is Honor Harrington's value.

The third goddess is Alanna of Trebond (not Alanna the dancer who visits the Ailouriskai every Monday). Alanna's value is that of personal determination and of emotional compartmentalization. Alanna is a heroine who reminds me that if the world comes crashing down on your head, still you can press on. She reminds me that happiness is not a virtue - that it is a nice thing, a wonderful thing, but it is not something that you absolutely must have. She reminds me that emotions are wonderful things to be savored - but that when there is a job to be done, they can and oftentimes should be set aside until the necessity has been met. Emotions can't be turned on and off at will, but a truly grown adult should be able to act independent of them. So this is Alanna's value.

Of course this is not an exhaustive list of my virtues. But these are the Natalian virtues which are old enough to be assigned goddesses who are fictional heroines. There are others whose exemplars are real people: for maturity in worship and raw closeness to Jesus, the Hawaiian; for wisdom and spiritual discernment, Maelana. And there are others who yet have no exemplar, such as the value of childlikeness and the related values of gaming and dance. Some day, I am sure, those values will have their goddesses. And some day I will meet the goddess glaukopis who is both an exemplary woman of God and the woman I will marry - and who knows whether even Alanna, my oldest goddess, will be replaced by that woman?

Red Jenny and Alanna lent me their dance music collections so I would have some waltz music to take home for Thanksgiving's little dance lesson. Because of this, the size of my mp3 collection has increased considerably, and I find myself with a great deal of dance tunes (like any sensible individual with a virtually empty 120 GB hard drive, I simply copied the contents of both CDs). I don't even know what exactly I have yet, though fortunately it mostly came organized. I do, however, have the Brian Setzer Orchestra's "The Footloose Doll" in my swing collection.

In case you aren't familiar with this song (an omission which I encourage you to rectify, if only so this entry makes more sense) I reproduce the lyrics of this song here:

Look at that chick
In the silvery dress
She's got a cool tattoo
And her hair is a mess
And every single guy in the joint
Is just watching her dance
Dance ballerina,shimmy on down
It's your turn to swing
It's your night on the town
A little gin goes a long way
So please pass it around

She's the footloose doll
Dancin' like a hurricane
She's the footloose doll
I don't even know her name
She's the footloose doll

Now standin' at the bar
Was long cool Eddie
He had a few
And he's not really steady
But he had his peepers
Fixated on the footloose doll
She called out "Hey Eddie"
He was there in an instant
She said, "You know you kinda look
Like Gene Vincent"
That was all he needed to hear
And that was all she wrote

She's the footloose doll
Dancin' like a hurricane
She's the footloose doll
I don't even know her name
She's the footloose doll

Now if your ever in town
And wanna try your luck
The footloose doll
Can really shake you up
But never underestimate
The power of the feline cat
They found poor Eddie
By the side of the road
His clothes were all torn up
And his car had been towed
He never had a chance with a chick
Like the footloose doll

She's the footloose doll
Dancin' like a hurricane
She's the footloose doll
I don't even know her name
She's the footloose doll

Apologies for the length of that. The reason I find this song noteworthy (besides the attitude - every bit of attitude in the lyrics is present in the music) is that it's a good bit of Jungian psychology. That is, it describes the archetype (my archetype, at any rate) of the Dancer. And I'm not referring to my Sweatshirt Girl here, I speak of The Dancer, as a concept.

If you are reading this then you likely know that I like social dance a lot (it's even possible that by the end of the year I'll like swing). What you might not know is how much dance of all kinds has always terrified me - and if you know that, you might not know that I have always longed to dance (and if you knew all three of those things, give yourself a pat on the back because you're more than halfway to understanding my relationship to dance). Ever since that fateful day in kindergarten when Mrs. Church put on that music and told us to dance - that day when I had a choice to dance or not, and I chose not to dance, for that day and for nearly fifteen years after - dance has held this terrible fascination for me. And because of that, there is this figure of The Dancer in my worldview. Like Alanna of Trebond or Honor Harrington, The Dancer is an archetype whose characteristics incarnate some part of me. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen. I may not be defined by dancing the way Antilles is defined by his CD collection, but in an important way I am defined by dance.

So what is she like, this Dancer? Listen to the song and you'll get a fairly good idea; that's why I consider it noteworthy. The Dancer is strong, yes - all my female heroes are strong while at the same time undeniably feminine - but Alanna and Honor have weaknesses; the Dancer has none. She is an almost elemental force, wild and dangerous but alluring, even inviting. She's the epitome of cool, the girl burning up the dance floor during her birthday dance at Jammix whom everybody wants to dance with and everybody wants to be as good as.

If you think that this boils down to the Dancer being an archetype of the untamed maiden, you're right - but not wholly right. Yes, the Dancer is wild and untamed, and there is a certain vague idea in my head that if she can somehow be domesticated wonderful things will happen. But it is not just that. She is dance itself, as well, and dance is her. Dance is the faculty of abandonment, of lawlessness, wild and dangerous but alluring: dangerous because lawlessness is the enemy of order and duty and everything that I have so desperately wrought myself to value; alluring because for all that I recognize that the day will come when it will be safe for me to throw off the inhibitions and just be: sweep the girl off her feet, burn the roadhouse down, do all those things that I've always wanted to but didn't dare or wouldn't let myself. Things like dance.

It recently struck me that my Stanford life is positively filled with girls. There are no less than ten such specimens in Testimony, to say nothing of the Ailouriskai, Phoebe, Cythereia, Alanna (who comes by so often now, more's the delight!), and next quarter Thalassa and Blue Tango will return. It's as if somebody crowded the female side of my life into northern California, and left all the males down south. Not that I don't enjoy being surrounded by lovely ladies, mind. It does give me pause to think, though. I wonder how much of the behavior differential between Stanford and home is due to the gender imbalance in my social sphere.

Consider that up here I go to great lengths to establish myself as one of the girls, so to speak. Down home I don't do that, and I don't think it's just because there are so few girls in my social sphere. Even with Princess and Thea I didn't behave like that. What is different up here? Partially of course I'm making a deliberate statement about what I think of male stereotypes. Partially it's a way of interjecting a tiny bit of acting into my campus life, where affectation is so common but acting so rare. Partially it's because my support structure here pales in comparison to the one I grew up with, and I try to compensate with a special emphasis on gallantry. And partially it's to increase the amount of time I spend with girls. And I mean that in a very literal sense. I like being around girls. I like studying their behavior, I like trying to get inside their heads, I like practicing to be a good date when I go somewhere with one of them.

Partially too, of course, it's a reflection of the fact that while I celebrate the division of the human organism into two gendered halves, I don't think those halves are really very different at all. But they are different, different and wonderful. Retaking Social I, this time as a follow, has pointed this out to me. There is something about dancing with a girl that is entirely independent of the dancing part. What I mean is, if you give me two partners of equal skill but opposite gender, I will probably enjoy the dance with the girl more than with the guy. There is something magical about the presence of a girl that makes the dance that extra bit better. Speaking of dancing, I recently compiled my "waltz favorites" playlist, and it inspired me to write my Social I essay. Here it is:

A friend of mine recently asked me why I like waltz so much. He’s a swing dancer from Los Angeles, and so far as I know has never danced a waltz in his life. I don’t mean to imply that he isn’t a real dancer, of course; he’s been a part of the LA swing scene for years. I was surprised at his confusion, though: didn’t I find the music boring, he wondered? And that’s when we discovered that he thought of waltz as being done to classical music. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised at that. Most people probably think of waltz in the same way my friend does. All the same, I was surprised.

I recently compiled a playlist of my favorite waltz tunes. The effect of the music is hard to describe: if you imagine that it made lightning course through my veins, caused my heart to leap into my throat, and lit a fire behind my eyes, you will have some idea of what I experienced. No doubt the audiences of the great romantic composers felt something similar when they waltzed for the first time to the music of that era—I do not. But when I listen to the waltzes of my generation, the dance enters my body like a ghost and possesses me with the aching need to counterbalance, to spin and be spun, to drive across the floor with a momentum that is unstoppable and yet leaves me weightless in the arms of my partner. How could anyone find this music boring?

Of course my friend probably hadn’t ever seen people waltz to “Erin Shore” or “Caribbean Blue.” But I think that that is only part of the answer. When I listen to a good waltz, I can picture myself waltzing to it—I can all but feel my partner in my arms. In fact, one of my criteria for a good waltz tune is whether or not it conjures up that image in my mind.

But wait—if I didn’t already love the waltz, the songs would never have become imbued with the power to conjure the dance. And why precisely do I love the songs so much? Because they do have that power. There is a cycle at work here: dance and music run together until one is scarcely separable from the other. The dance is not complete without the music—and the music longs for the dance.
My point? I could be writing all of this to recommend to my fellow leads that they learn to dance with the music. But while I think that is a good idea, it is not why I wrote these ruminations. The truth is that I wrote them down because I was listening to that waltz playlist, and I felt that I had to unpack some of what I was feeling or I would explode. Boring, indeed!

Addendum: apparently that motto should read "eithe diamenoien hoi hetairoi," (long live the Companions) which I think sounds all right poetically but is in my humble opinion less suited to bellowing. But I think that Meg Anassa is correct that it ought to be an optative of wish rather than a third person imperative (isn't the idea of a third person imperative weird?), so there it is. And "eithe diamenoien hoi hetairoi" sounds better than "diamenoien hoi hetairoi" or "ei gar diamenoien hoi hetairoi," all of which mean the same thing.

I love fiddles. I'm sure I've mentioned that before, but in case I haven't let the record reflect that a properly played fiddle makes everything seem bright and cheery. "Brother found work in Indiana; Sister's a nurse at the old folks' home ..." such words are right up there with "Bring it up, Marty!" with their ability to make me smile. The Dixie Chicks have that ability, which is why I truly consider them good artists: inasmuch as art aims at manipulating the emotions (which is the essence of my definition), the Chicks are rather masterful artists. "Li'l Jack Slade" is an instrumental piece that actually speaks to me - one of a single-hand handful of pieces of music that I can understand without lyrics. That's pretty impressive, if you ask me.

I had a realization today while reading Turtledove's Striking the Balance. Now, I think that Turtledove is a pretty fair author, and as a thinker about science fiction I'd say he's the best I know of. I think he's a pretty fair writer, too, but he is not a genius writer - by which I mean that his sentencecraft is better than average but not really standout. I don't really have a better word for it than "sentencecraft," so I shall have to attempt a definition. By "good sentencecraft" I refer to that phenomenon whereby you are reading a book and you just fall into this kind of rhythm where the author's words are so well fitted together that their very arrangement is art by itself. But it's not rhythm, not really. When real rhythm is off, it's painful. When sentencecraft is not good, it's just nondescript.

So much to my surprise, somebody commented. Evidently people still read this. I wouldn't have the leisure to blog right now, though, if it weren't for Meg Anassa's migraine on Friday. Not that I would wish a migraine on anybody, let alone our current didaskole, but Jesus did use that to my full advantage this weekend as far as leisure goes. And by "our" of course I refer to the Companions, hoi hetairoi, my Greek class. Ever since last fall, when I embarked upon this great Hellenic journey, I have been blessed with the most phenomenal Greek class. This is what college is supposed to be like: careening through the halls of academia with Antilles, Neani, the Dark Age King, and the Didactic - and of course our fearless leaders, of whom Meg Anassa is the current - watching movies and discussing Star Wars, signing our names in Greek and generally having a blast learning stuff. My life would be immeasurably poorer here if not for the Companions. Diamenontwn hoi hetairoi! (Isn't that a cool motto? I could definitely bellow that at the top of my lungs while charging into the teeth of Darius' army, lance in my hands and horse between my legs. Not that I know how to ride, or how to use a lance).

Anyway, the other great advantage of not having Greek to read tomorrow due to Meg Anassa's migraine is that I was able to go home this weekend and have a wonderful time. Returning to the Cove is and remains a wonderful experience. I don't want to trumpet the virtues of my family too highly, but so far as I'm concerned evil exists outside the Cove. All is warmth and safety and sense and love. Seeing my sister is particularly good, as Adelphe has become my model for my peers as women. I should point out here that in Natalie, "woman" need not be particularly different from "man." Those words, when used in a moral sense, are merely gender markers. That is to say, when used to refer to moral states of being, "woman" in Natalie means "female man," and "man" means "male woman."

The reason for this is that I have decided that what makes a "good man" is essentially the same thing as that which makes a "good woman." There are a few differences, naturally, to account for deity-specified gender roles, but by and large I think that the virtues that make a good man are the same virtues demanded of a good woman, since those virtues (in my opinion), are not framed in terms of gender but in terms of Christ-likeness - and so it is that the apostle can say there is neither male nor female, since the truly important things about being human has nothing to do with your gender (I'm breaking with Heinlein here; mark your calendars) but how well you resemble the Christ.

On a final note, Blue Rose and Alanna sat in on a session of my D&D game. I am both glad and sad about that. I am glad because, as Rose said, now she understands what I'm talking about when I talk about roleplaying. I think that's good. I also got to see Alanna again (she comes over regularly now; that's cool), too. That is also good. However, I don't consider my D&D game to be a particularly satisfying from a roleplaying\\artistic standpoint, which means I don't consider it a very good example of what roleplayiing can be. I feel rather like somebody attempting to explain the concept of visual art, and the person I'm trying to explain it to has finally seen her first real picture: except that it's one of those medieval illustrations with no sense of depth or perspective. It's not bad art for what it is - but visual art can be so much more! What I really wish is that Rose, and all those other folks who ask me about roleplaying, could see a Phoenix Earth or Infernal Gaslamp session.

And speaking of Phoenix Earth, no luck yet. Neani is interested, and I think I could get one of the guys in my D&D game interested. Shanah might be interested, though I'm not holding my breath - although I consider Phoenix Earth (that is, Phoenix Earth with the crew) to be very good roleplaying indeed, it presupposes certain attitudes on the parts of the players: attitudes such as an amenability to engaging in violence in life-threatening situations, or the acceptability of using violence in defense of the innocent (quote from the combat packet: "Although the point of Phoenix Earth is not to put characters into life-threatening situations, this does happen with alarming frequency."), and I'm not sure those are attitudes that Shanah has, so Phoenix Earth itself might not be attractive to her even though I suspect roleplaying as a concept is. That means that I'm two players short of a quorum - and I have no idea where I'm going to get the other two. Oh well. Mr. Clean has begun what he calls "faux Phoenix Earth" back home, with all new players, and it's been a smash so far. I shall content myself with that.

The Dixie Chicks are playing over my speakers once more, and their new CD Home has been promoted to my new favorite country album. I certainly don't envy the Chicks their recent financial and legal troubles, but listening to this music reminds me of a lot of things. The irrepressible grin on my face reminds me of why I love being a performer. There is a happiness that shines through this CD that lifts me up - and it truly does shine through. The Chicks had fun with this, you can tell: and that reminds me of how happy you can be when you do what you were made to do.

This issue of what I was made to do - what I am, to put it another way - has been much on my mind lately. Let me explain:

The "self" does not interest me as a rule. I usually care much more about what I should be than I do about what I am. It's like taking ground in an offensive: you don't stop short of the objective. The ground you take on the way to the objective is important, but it's not what you should be focusing on. Or to put it another way, it's like scoring a 1600 on your SATs. Sure it's nice to have done it - but once you've done it, you move on rather than sitting there congratulating yourself.

So I don't usually think too much about the parts of my "self" that are admirable (the ground that Jesus has taken, if you will, or the exams that I've scored well on). And I don't think too much about the parts of my "self" that are despicable, except with an eye towards how I should improve. And really, the parts of me that are admirable are not so admirable that they shouldn't improve. So my introspection is usually done with an eye towards where I should be more than trying to figure out where I am. Self-analysis is, when all is said and done, a means to an end.

But there is another way to look at the "self" in the present, which I think is admirably summed up in the following Kendall Payne lyric:

I wanna feel something sweeter than this sin
Cover me in leaves; roll me over again
I've been everybody else; now I want to be
Something closer to myself.

That's talking about something much deeper than simple descriptive introspection. It's talking about "who I am" in the sense of "who God made me to be." And that I think is something much more worth knowing than merely finding out "what am I like right now?" So who am I?

To begin with, I am a writer. When God conceived of me before the dawn of creation, he conceived of a person who would love the manipulation of words for its own sake. There is an impulse built into my soul to take words into my mind and shape them into objects of delight. When I am playing with language I feel the joy of the Lord.

I am a storyteller. When God formed me in my mother's womb he fashioned me into a person who loves to use his words to take other people away. When I write fiction, I feel the delight of doing what I was made to do. I feel God smile when I am roleplaying because I am doing what I am designed to do.

I am a gamer. I was born to never grow up. For my father and I, gaming is a necessary part of life. Without it our wonted optimism falters, our serenity is disrupted. Gaming helps me to take joy in life. I am refreshed by it.

One thing I am not is a dancer. I love some kinds of dance, of course: I love waltz, I love polka, I love hustle. I enjoy swing - when I'm not listening to the old self-doubt that tells me I'm not good enough to do it. Other kinds of dance I don't mind, but I don't love. But I don't love even the waltz for its own sake the way I love roleplaying for its own sake. I love the waltz because it is a picture of romance: of two learning to be one, of learning how to sacrifice without diminishing themselves. I love the polka because it is a picture of freedom and delight as I fly along the surface of the floor. I love the hustle because it reminds me that deep down inside, I want to be cool. I love all three of those dances because I love the way they make me feel when the movement is smooth and flawless. In short, I love what those dances do to me.

But it is the dances who do things to me, and that I think is different than storytelling or gaming, where the elation comes from inside me. For Shanah Van, or for Red Jenny, I do not think that is true. I think those girls are dancers by nature. As Shanah put it, dancing is her sanity.

But for me, dancing is not my sanity. It's something I do for fun, and something I do because with every fiber of my being I long for what it holds out to me. Roleplaying, now - roleplaying is my sanity. Roleplaying lets me write, game, and tell stories all at once. So when Red Jenny got me invited to the game she's playing, I said yes despite the fact that it's D&D 3rd - and when the Viennese Ball Opening Committee asked me to dance with them (which would have meant sacrificing Campus Crusade's weekly meeting), I said no.

Well, here it is over a week since I've been back and interest in Phoenix Earth remains rather low. Curiously, this is not as disappointing as I had thought it would be. As Mr. Clean reminded me, I can be assured that the crew back home is most interested indeed. And really, that's okay for now. I have the opportunity to play with lots of folks up here through the Stanford Gaming Society, but I'm a little put off by that whole deal, to tell you the truth. Mind, it's not that I think that they're bad players, or that they'll be way better than me. It's just that the vibe I get off of those games is that they're, well, games. And while I admit that that kind of thing can be fun, I don't roleplay to play a game. I do it to tell a story through the vehicle of a game, which is another thing altogether. And then there's the prevalence of the D&D 3rd edition (which I will refer to hereafter as the D20 system, though I realize that's slightly inaccurate).

Now, don't get me wrong. As a gamer myself, I do appreciate the virtues of the D20 system. From a gaming standpoint it's really rather impressively optimized for allowing players to beat merrily away at imposing ranks of monsters who exist for no particular purpose other than being beat upon. And it's not that I don't think that the D20 system could be used to tell stories - I rather expect that the game Red Jenny is involved in will do just that. But I think that when a good story is told in that system it's in spite of the system rather than because of it.

Allow me to elaborate. Roleplaying games exist on a continuum, with pure storytelling at one end and pure gaming on the other. The hobby actually started out on the pure gaming end. The further to that extreme you go, the more rules and restrictions you find yourself mired in. If you want to emphasize storytelling, then, you've got to either do away with rules entirely or else find yourself a system that mimics reality as closely as possible. A good roleplaying game consists fundamentally of a world - a set of universe laws (e.g., "physics remains unaltered; magic works in the following ways; here is the technology level we're at and the current state of knowledge") - and within those laws anything that would be possible ought to be possible in the game, and my intuitive sense of the world ought to apply to the results the rules of the game churn out. If I jump, I want the rules to say I come down. And this is where my problem with the D20 system lies.

My beef consists of two parts. First is the question of classes. I have no particular problem with the idea of classes, but I think the D20 system mplements them poorly because it plays too much with causality. Take the example of a paladin. A paladin in the 3rd edition is a holy knight with some vaguely defined devotion to righteousness, whatever that means. Because of this devotion he or she is granted several supernatural powers (by "righteousness," apparently ... but I digress). Now that's all well and good; I can accept a world where righteousness is some sort of force of nature or even a personal being. But the truth of the matter is that people play paladins because of their powers, not because of what they are. This is pointed out by the fact that if a mage decides to devote himself or herself to the pursuit of righteousness, what does he gain by it? A bunch of ethical restrictions, that's what. Of course the mage could just decide to level up as a paladin ... but that's to say that so far as the game is concerned the mage only gains the benefits of devotion to righteousness when he becomes a paladin. It's the way the game rules work, but not the way game reality works. A person's class should be defined by what they do, not the other way around.

Then there's the question of what classes are even available. Leveling up in D&D translates, essentially, into the ability to beat things more effectively. Now, that's all well and good so far as it goes ... but what about the other parts of life, the ones that don't involve mayhem? There are people who spend their whole lives studying etiquette, which is most assuredly a non-violent pursuit. Where is the provision in this system for skills and classes that are strong in the mental and social aspects of life (and no, wizards don't count. All of their arcane study has one ultimate goal: beating on things)? I don't object to carnage and mayhem in a roleplaying game, but most of life is nonviolent. And the D20 system utterly fails to model that.

Second is the question of armor. This is my huge and eternal complaint about the D&D system. Consider the example of a man wearing plate mail who is struck by a sword, and the example of a man wearing street clothes who is struck by a sword. According to the D&D system, I have a vastly inferior chance of wounding the man in plate. This is true. However, granted that I do wound them both, I will deal exactly the same damage to each.

This is obviously absurd. The only conceivable representation of this is that I have actually penetrated the clothing of both men and my sword is literally inside their bodies, displacing an equal amount of tissue. Now, I won't deny that that's possible - plate mail can certainly be penetrated by muscle power. But that means that every time I damage somebody in the D&D system, I leave them with a gaping hole in their armor. Which is obviously absurd (and let's not even think about how bludgeoning a man in plate has the same effect as bludgeoning a man in civies. Explain that one to me, if you can). Armor does more than deflect a blow, it also lessens the force of it. The system needs a damage resistance quality built into its armor - not just into the feats of certain classes - in order to accurately mimic reality. And that doesn't even begin to mimic the effects of a gun: if I shoot a man in plate and a man in civies they are both very likely to take comparable amounts of damage. Why? Not because the bullet does more damage to one than the other; it's still the same bullet. If I shoot a man in plate he falls down; if I shoot a man in civies he falls down - he doesn't explode or anything. So weapons too need a characteristic that allow them to bypass or partially ignore armor.

And then let's consider the question of wounding. There are, I believe, two methods of inflicting harm to the human body: tissue disruption or tissue displacement. A bludgeon (or a penetrating weapon that doesn't penetrate the skin) inflicts tissue disruption through the transfer of energy. We know that that can be damaging and even lethal (c.f. the case of the hoplite who dies of a head wound without his helmet ever being penetrated, or the man whose ribs get broken when a bullet strikes his bullet proof vest). But it's a very different quality of armor that stops tissue disruption as opposed to tissue displacement. Take the case of chain mail: a man in chain is reasonably well protected against most swords, for instance. He is less well protected against a maul. A man in thickly padded armor is reasonably well protected against bludgeons, but not less so against a sharp object. There needs to be some sort of distinction there, and in the D&D system there isn't.

And finally we get into the question of the type of attack. The plasma jet evolved by a shaped charge round is defeated by significantly different physical properties than defeat a kinetic attack, or an energy one. A rubber suit will protect me just fine from your chain lightning, but not from your sword. Rolled homogenous steel will protect me just fine from your sword, but not from your plasma jet (or your fireball). Where's the distinction? Why do we have a world where all those types of attack exist and a rules system that isn't even passingly aware of it?

Of course the argument against all that stuff is that they slow down gameplay. But I would argue that gameplay is not what roleplaying is about (and if you disagree, by all means go ahead and use the D&D system). Roleplaying is about acting, about telling a story. If we must have rules let them enhance the experience of the game. Let them give the players insight into what exactly just happened. Let them give the DM suggestions about how to narrate what just went on. Let them introduce an element of chance into the narrative. But let them be grounded in the narrative and never stray, or else they are inhibiting the point of the game itself.

So I've got an hour before my next class and my last post was kind of a downer, which I try not to do. So I think I'll post. I am torn between terror and giddy satisfaction.

I've got several reasons to be disquieted, but my disquiet has been pushed into terror by the simple fact that I'm taking Intermediate Fiction Writing this quarter. I'm taking it with the same instructor as I had for beginning fiction writing, and she even remembered me, but I am still extremely apprehensive. Malinda's (since she's an instructor who I don't count as a personal friend, she doesn't get a blogname) class was a lot of work last time, and I don't expect it will be any different this time - except I'll be a lot busier this time around, or anyway I fully expect to be. And besides the pressure of turning out these stories, there's the added restriction of "no genre fiction." I don't normally read so-called realistic fiction, because I want my fiction to edify and inspire me with tales of good triumphing over evil, courage over cowardice, and honor over selfishness. In short, I want my fiction to be about what ought to be, not what is. I already know what is! Not that I doubt my ability to write good realistic fiction. I just don't care about it the way I care about fantasy and science fiction. And I am afraid of not having enough time to write good stories, and having other people workshop work that I know isn't good.

I suppose I'm also afraid that nobody will ever take seriously the writing that I care about. I know intellectually that that's not true - this is just one more part of my education where my duty is to play a game I don't care about. And I'm sure it will improve my craft, thus enhancing the work that I do care about. But sometimes it's hard not to think that nobody up here appreciates Christianity as an intellectual and philosophical system, and that prospect is at once disheartening and deeply offensive. Back home I can be assured that even my non-Christian friends respect my religion as a tradition that absolutely must be understood, either because they're still not sure what to think about it or because they realize that they live in a society that was at one point predominately Christian (and is, to be fair, still the most religious society on the planet). In some cases (e.g., The DM) it's especially my non-Christian friends who think that Christianity is worthy of treating respect. But up here ... I mean, what would it look like if I took a Phoenix Earth manuscript to the English department and asked for serious critique of a work of Christian science fantasy? I can't help but fear that the response would be ... well, misunderstanding.

And of course, then there's the fear that they just wouldn't care. I sent out an e-mail to the Stanford Gaming Society the other day announcing my intent to run a Phoenix Earth campaign, time and interest allowing. Time ... well, I'll make time for roleplaying. Gaming is too important to me, to much a part of who I am as a moral and spiritual being, for me to cut it out of my life entirely. Even if I can only run one session a month, I'll do it. But interest ... now, interest is another story entirely. These people don't know me, they don't know my system, and they don't know my world. Would you join a game like that? I'm not sure I would. And even though I know that those restrictions mean that a lack of interest in Phoenix Earth up here won't truly mean anything, it will be disappointing.

But that's enough depression. The other side of me is elated. With the exception of Malinda's, I'm taking classes this quarter that I'm truly and honestly excited about. And Testimony ... well, Testimony has had two really good shows in the past couple days. I don't mean to brag, but we rocked. And as many of us no doubt have noticed (and in some cases already posted), the Orientation Show order gave every impression that The Powers That Be have recognized that we are, in fact, very good. And not only that, but apparently we got a positive flood of auditonees since the last time I checked! How wonderful is that?

And, if that wasn't enough, I had Social Dance I today for the first time. I'm taking the class as a follow, and I was initially a little wary about the whole thing because I was reflecting that while I do want to be skilled in all sorts of dances, I don't actually like all types of dances. And I want to be skilled in all sorts of random things (like fencing - ooh, I think I'm gonna like that class!), so that's nothing particularly special. But I had forgotten how very fun dancing can be, and how fun the Dance Master's classes are. I came out of that class with a big grin, the kind that signifies an irrepressible, inexpressible joy - the kind that I used to get after a date with Princess or Thea. Yes, life is generally looking up.

I am also quietly pleased, despite some initial envy issues, to be serving on Testimony's [leadership\\officer] core for this year. Because I think we have a good team, and I think that we have a good possibility of actually being a spiritual covering for the group - and I am glad to have been called to be a part of that endeavor. This may not (never will be) the cove, but it is for the moment home. So I am home, writing stuff that I care about, listening to "Dust on the Bottle," ... and, of course, in good health.

Well, I'm back at Stanford and more or less moved in. My gear is where it should be, Goochy is atop his lightning ball, and Hoplomachos looks down on me at my computer from his perch atop my bookcase.

My sister, meanwhile, is at Pepperdine, and I must say that I am vaguely jealous. Maelana is proud of her school, and I can't say that about mine. It's not that I'm ashamed of Stanford, mind you, but there doesn't seem to be anything about it that's really worth being proud about. It's smart, reasonably innovative, and morally mediocre. We have a surprisingly strong believing community, of course, but the institution itself is ... not much of anything. But I suppose it's really fairly rare to find a school or company that one is actually proud of, so all that is by the by.

What really vexes me about being back here is the way I seem to become more of a creature of emotion on this campus. The pettiest things can send me spiraling down into a self-pitying funk. It's like I'm contending with the spirit of this place, a spirit of self-importance ... which, come to think of it, sounds precisely like what I am doing. I shall have to take steps accordingly. I am glad that Eliani returned On Basilisk Station to me. In places like this it is good to have role models like Honor Harrington to remind me that there is a better way to live.

Of course, despite its various failings, I do still want to be back at Stanford. This is where I belong, and this is where I shall stay. And after all, I would do well to remember that I am here to grow up ... and one can hardly expect God to have sent me to a place where living was easier than home to grow me up. Besides, I have big plans for this year. The biggest of which is beginning the process of marketing Phoenix Earth, which process I will be pursuing on two different tracks. The thought fills me with trepidation now that I have actually begun to investigate what that entails, but I shall press forward. Phoenix Earth is not just my baby; it is my testimony. It's a story that I think deserves to be told. So I shall tell it, if I can.

I'm in the process of upgrading my computer to Windows XP, so I'll take this opportunity to fill in all who are interested about Zingaro and Palermo. We'll go in increasing order of complexity.

Zingaro Nature Preserve was essentially a beach, but it was the best beach that I'd ever been to. I guess it was a fifteen or twenty minute drive from the dig house, and people went fairly frequently - I guess there were maybe four or five trips to Zingaro over the course of the dig, which is pretty good for six weeks. You had to pay two euro to get in (~$2), but that was ok because the place was absolutely gorgeous. You got to the beach itself by walking, and after you walked through this big tunnel cut into the rock (for which you were heartily glad, given the ferocity of the sun) it was like you had entered Jurassic Park or something. The Mediterranean stretched out before you to your right, windswept and a deep jewel blue, and ahead and to your left were these great cliffs that jutted into the air, and were all the more dramatic for the fact that they were covered in the greenest grass despite the precipitous incline. The first time we went we hung out on this rock outcropping and swam in the water (which was absolutely clear and warm enough that even I didn't get cold). That was cool, and I got to meet people on the dig for real for the first time. But the sun and complete lack of shade, plus the fact that the rock we were on was inhabited by tiny worms that would poke their heads out of the holes they'd burrowed into the rock and bite you, detracted somewhat from the trip.

The second time around we hiked around this outcropping - and hiked for about thirty minutes in sandals, which was less than pleasant despite the spectacular vistas it afforded. I was very glad for the CamelBak I was carrying. The beach we got to, however, was worth it. The water was even clearer than before, and really shallow for about sixty yards or so, so you could see the bottom really clearly even without goggles. The beach was little pebbles instead of sand, which was all to the good in my opinion since sand has an irritating habit of gluing itself to you when you're wet whereas pebbles do not, and these pebbles were just as soft as sand. And the beach was this sheltered cove, too, so we even had shade. Oh yeah, and the beach was almost deserted. Quite phenomenal.

So, as Her Majesty would say, to Palermo then! Palermo is Sicily's largest city at about 700,000 residents. It felt like a big city, anyway, even though I know 700,000 isn't all that much compared to the places I've spent most of my life. I went with a group for the weekend in an attempt to ration my leisure activities (which, at the dig house, were essentially limited to cards, books, music, and Phoenix Earth) by doing something that got me out of the dig house. As most of you know, I'm not much for big cities (in point of fact, they make me uncomfortable), but I figured the company would be enjoyable. As it was; I got to know the Conservator and Tango on that trip.

The plan was to walk around the city enjoying the sights for the first day, those sights including the outdoor market, big cathedral, and a number of smaller ones throughout the city, renting a hotel for the night, and then visiting the archaeological museum and catacombs on Sunday. So we mostly wandered around for the first day. The outdoor market was noisy and sprawled for street after street of the most random stuff: lingerie hanging from lines drawn across the street, bootleg CDs, coffee percolators, handpainted ceramics, groceries, and on and on. The cathedrals ... well, I guess I can't say much about the cathedrals, which is strange because they were really breathtaking. I am most indebted to Chaminade (my high school) for giving me the ability to appreciate and comprehend Catholicism. That has proved important any number of times, and it came in handy again when taking in the cathedrals at Palermo. The thought I had most was taken from Gladiator: "I didn't know men could build such things." There is something curious about cathedrals, which I find neither beautiful (despite the beautiful artwork) nor stately (despite the grandeur of the architecture) but simply ... well, grand.

We stumbled upon a traveling exhibit of Elymian Sicily that first day, which was really cool because they had the niftiest stuff in it. There were several stelae that they had dug up, which gave a chronology of this one site (unfortunately I couldn't read the Greek, to my great frustration). We saw some reconstructed pithoi, which were huge (and rather ugly) and I also saw some bronze arms: a bronze spearhead (ceremonial, I conjecture), a greave, three helmets ... it was so cool.

The hotel was only a one-star hotel, but it was remarkably nice. The room (well, my room; we got three) was rather spacious, even, and certainly clean. And the amenities were nice. Anyway, the next day we saw the archaeological museum, which was like the traveling exhibit only a hundred times cooler. And all the stuff was rather poorly displayed, so our little group went around explaining stuff to each other. We saw a whole bunch of sculpture that still had the original paint on it, which was way cool for the Conservator since that's what she's interested in, and whole pieces of temples, and vase paintings of all kinds - most particularly interesting to me were those depicting hoplite battle, since those very paintings are critical to our modern understanding of what went on on the Greek battlefield.

The catacombs were also interesting, but from a more philosophical standpoint. They were mostly in use in the 16th century, if I recall correctly, and haven't had another interment for about 80 years. Some people thought it was creepy - which I guess I could see, given that the bodies were just there within arm's reach (beyond the chain-link, of course) and some of them were kind of falling apart. Mostly I thought it was interesting to contemplate the mindset of a people who would inter their dead that way, and wonder how much of it was sociopolitical and how much of it was actually theologically motivated. The latter was particularly interesting to me since the text seems to indicate to me quite clearly that when the Resurrection occurs we get new bodies ... so what use in preserving the old ones?

So that was about the size of my big outside adventures. Now you're all caught up with Sicily. And I'm about to go back to school, so probably I'll have to skip the rest of summer unless there are some specific requests.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’m back. I’ve actually been back for some time, if by “back” you mean “in the United States rather than Sicily,” which of course is where I was for the first six weeks of summer and the principal reason I stopped blogging. Not that I ever intended for this to be a consistent news update. Blogs are information dumps and nothing more, and there is something distinctly ungentlemanly about expecting people to read your blog rather than talking with them. Speaking Natalie will remain an exercise in Speaking Natalie.

All that notwithstanding, I do understand that many of you are probably curious about Sicily and how it went. So here I sit with Martina McBride singing over my speakers to tell you about Sicily and how it went. For convenience’s sake I will divide this post into three main sections: where we were digging, how we were digging, and what we were digging. This will likely be a very long post, but if you don’t want to read it (or want to stop reading once you realize how long it is) don’t feel bad. I give you leave to stop. Really.

For those of you who don’t know, let me give you a little background on our site. I was digging at a hill in western Sicily called Monte Polizzo, which in the 6th century BC was home to a settlement of a people whom the Greeks called Elymians. We don’t know what they called themselves, or if they even thought that the “Elymians” were a single cultural group, so until we find out how the Elymians thought of themselves, Elymians they shall stay.

The basic picture we get here is that the Greeks and Phoenicians did their colonizing thing in the 8th century BC, which is how you get Phoenician (i.e., from Lebanon) cities like Carthage out in the middle of North Africa and Greek cities around the Black Sea. Naturally both peoples colonized Sicily (well, okay, the Phoenicians only sort of colonized it, but for purposes of our discussion let’s just say they did). For a while the natives and newcomers coexisted in relative peace. Around the 6th century, the Greek cities started wanting more land (after all, you need a hinterland if you’re going to be a proper Greek polis) and things got kind of ugly. The Greeks being a rather nasty militaristic people, the Elymians got the short end of the stick and started fleeing inward to these hilltop sites which were miserable to live on but easy to defend against the faceless bronze-clad bourgeois hordes. Monte Polizzo is one such site.

So that’s where we were digging. As far as how we were digging: The town of Salemi, which is where we were staying ‘cause it’s right near the hill, has been kind enough these past several years to provide the dig with a house at its own expense. This is essentially because we’re the biggest thing that happens to Salemi all year, excepting the Mafia – I mean, the pharmaceuticals industry. So every day, except for Sundays and every other Saturday, we’d get up about 0600 and stagger into our digging clothes and go outside. Going outside was absolutely necessary, for two reasons: 1). The dig house, like virtually all buildings in Salemi, had no air conditioning to combat the humidity; 2). The food was outside. So we stumbled outside, and those of us who drank coffee (which does not include me) drank shots (from little plastic shot glasses) of coffee from these aluminum percolators whose handles were only technically attached to their bodies, which made pouring coffee (or worse, making it) somewhat hazardous. Then we would battle the meat wasps for the materials to make our lunches and stumble into the vans and cars that would drive us most of the way up the hill. Standard load-out for a digger was four liters of water, though as it turned out we generally didn’t drink that much. We left the house by 0630 and were generally on-site by 0700.

Of course getting to the site included walking the last ten minutes or so, which wouldn’t have been bad except for the severity of the incline. But once we got to the top (and I do mean the top, as in the highest point on the hill) of Monte Polizzo we could take a breather near one of our rock piles or under a tarp. Oftentimes the hill would be shrouded in thick white mist that rolled by with a beauty that was almost eerie; half the time I expected Ringwraiths to come striding out of the mist. On mornings like that you could see your shadow projected onto the mist, and visibility was less than fifty yards. It was beautiful.

The soil at Monte Polizzo was really hard once you got through the top soil, so we dug with pick-axes. I’m told that in wetter climes, such as Britain, the soil is so soft that you can’t even use a brush on it because you’ll smear the layers too much that way. At Monte Polizzo, we literally ran into rocks that were easier to chop through than the “soil.” So we used big picks to take out large amounts of dirt (this stuff laughs at shovels unless it’s already broken up by a pick), and small picks to take out small amounts of dirt, and we only broke out the trowels when there was absolutely no other choice. You’ll probably wonder if we didn’t break stuff, blasting into the soil with big metal blades (naturally we used the blade end of the pick, rather than the pointy end) all the time. And, well, yes, we did. But if we ever broke anything truly important, which was pretty rare, the folks in the pottery lab could always put it back together. And it’s either dig with picks or don’t dig at all. Besides, pottery is surprisingly resilient. Many of the sherds we dug up could take several direct hits from a small pick and show only scratches. There’s a reason this stuff has lasted twenty-six hundred years.

Except for the first two days, when we laid into the local vegetation with picks and sickles to clear a plateau for the new Zone D and moved all the rocks dug up last year, the work was actually surprisingly light. I mean sure I moved several metric tons of dirt by hand, but over six weeks that’s not all that hard. The procedure is essentially to pick off a layer of dirt about a centimeter thick or so, then take your brush and dustpan and sweep it all up and dump it in a bucket. That stuff would eventually get sieved, so we didn’t have to be too careful, but the truth of the matter is that it was generally pretty easy to see the pottery, bones, or iron that we were digging up. And of course the wall was fairly unmistakable, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Weather on the hill was generally pretty clement, and up at the very top of the summit (Zone A, where I was working) there was a nice breeze for most of the day. But it was quickly apparent that nobody who wasn’t deathly afraid would live up here voluntarily. Every so often the nice breeze would turn into a scouring sandstorm that blasted across the hill and made life absolutely miserable. Dustpans would get blown for fifty feet or more if you put them down wrong, and every single particle of dirt you dug up got picked up by the wind and blown into somebody else’s eyes. Then there were the days when it was miserable and chill, and the fog enveloped the hill all the way through noon. And the days when the breeze didn’t come and the air was so still you wondered why it didn’t fall to the ground like a bunch of atmospheric marbles and you just baked. But most of the time it was relatively pleasant, if you brought plenty of water (the nearest spring is naturally down the hill, which would have meant a long walk for our Elymian friends).

At 1030 we’d break for about fifteen minutes, and at 1130 we’d break for lunch for half an hour. Then at 1430 we’d pack up our finds for the day and drive them back to the dig house, where we’d wash the bones and pottery and put them into these plastic trays called cassettes to be taken away into the lab and never seen again.

But what were we digging, you ask?

Finds-wise, we dug up mostly broken bits of pottery. Monte Polizzo is literally covered with pottery; the stuff littered the ground on the way up to the site. My tango-dancing friend whom I will refer to as Blue Tango worked in Zone D, half of which was literally carpeted in pottery – that’s about twenty-five square meters of the stuff. And there was lots of bone, too, both burned and unburned. We dug up a lot of that in Zone A, though hardly as much as one of the Zone B trenches (which, to be fair, was digging up a bone-working workshop). Most of our bone was pretty small – if you cook bone enough apparently it turns all white and black and blue and shiny and then it explodes, so naturally the burnt bone fragments were all very small, usually smaller than your pinky nail. But even the unburnt fragments were fairly small in our area.

We also dug up a fair amount of metal stuff. Mostly the metal finds were unexciting, just little lumps of rusted iron. But sometimes we found cool stuff: e.g., three bronze Punic (= Carthaginian) coins, two bronze pendant earrings (or possibly necklace pendants), a bronze key (we think), an iron javelin head. That stuff was all pretty cool. When we dug up something fairly rare like that we’d call over the GPS rod or the infrared range-finder team and get the 3D coordinates of the object where we found it, so somewhere there’s a three-dimensional map of our hill with individual rocks and building stones mapped in, and you can see the relationships of all of our “small finds” to that. Wherever that is, I’m sure it’s very cool.

By far the coolest stuff in Zone A, however, was the buildings. Monte Polizzo was a settlement, and two of our zones (B and C) were digging up houses. Zone D was digging up a storage courtyard (which had some man-sized storage jars, or pithoi, lying in the ground where they fell. It was way cool; those jars are totally going to get reassembled). Zone A was digging up a religious structure.

I say “religious structure” instead of “temple” because we don’t know very much about Elymian religion. We don’t know what their temples looked like, or even if they had the concept of “temple.” We do know that there were two altars at this site, both of which had oodles of burnt bone around them (some of it worked, presumably from Joe’s Worked Bone and Antler, down in Zone B). The center of the zone was dominated by a circular structure with thick stone walls (like, two meters thick) that contained the remains of terracotta basins which still contained ashes. So obviously religion was important to these people (this “temple” is sited directly on the highest part of the hill, at the center of the settlement) and included sacrificing very select parts of animals (as it turned out). My trench in particular was chasing a low, curving enclosure wall of stones that came off of the main circular structure. We ended up finding a small … well, rectangular space right next to the enclosure wall, barely wide enough for a man to lie down in. Don’t know what it was – a closet, a strongpoint of a wall, or what. Very interesting though.

So that’s essentially the dig in a nutshell. Professor Morris will be giving a lecture sometime in the fall to update folks about what exactly they’ve concluded now they’ve had time to look at this season’s data crop, and you can go to that if you want. I’ll post an announcement about it here. Sicily was, however, interesting for other reasons.

First and foremost – indeed the primary reason I went – was the amount of spiritual growth that took place over this trip, despite the lack of fellowship and teaching. There was some very good worship out back behind the dig house with just me and God and my mp3s, and that of course was merely the beginning. But that’s all I’m going to say about that. I just didn’t want to gloss over it entirely.

It was also interesting for the people I met. The Newspaperman, the Archaeologist, Blue Tango (no conceptual relation to Blue Rose), Songstress, the Conservator, the Assassin, and of course Her Majesty Padme Amidala. If not for those people my days at Sicily would have been incredibly dull. I may even look some of them up when I get back to campus. I wouldn’t mind spending more time with the girls, anyway. The guys … well, I’m glad I met them on the dig but they aren’t precisely the kind of people I’d normally hang out with. No, I don’t have crushes on them, and yes, they almost all have boyfriends. Besides, only the Songstress is Christian.

Most interesting of all from a wisdom standpoint was watching the people in charge, however. This dig was quite the exercise in watching different styles of command. I have come out of the experience with the conviction that authority – real authority, the loyalty-inspiring kind that makes performers devoted to a director or makes soldiers follow an officer into certain death – comes from the confluence of two factors. These are competence and character. A person with much competence and no character cannot command his subordinates any farther than they will go because it benefits them. Likewise for a person with much character but no competence. A person with both, however, may wield true authority: people will follow such a person against all rules of self-preservation, sacrificing personal comfort, scheduling convenience, or indeed their lives (at the extreme) for no other reason than who that person is. (This confluence of competence and character is, by the way, the heroic talent of the epic heroine Honor Harrington, and why I hold her in such esteem). Steven Pressfield put it succinctly into the mouth of Alcibiades in Tides of War: somebody asks Alcibiades how you lead free men, and he replies quite simply, “by being better than them.” The dig provided several examples of good and bad authority.

At the low end of the spectrum was our House Manager, who was a genial guy most of the time but had a short temper and a tendency to snap at people for unjustifiable reasons because he was annoyed at little things they did earlier. It wasn’t even that the man wasn’t good at what he did; he was. But he didn’t display sufficient strength of character for that to matter. He was a man who had position but no real authority, for he commanded no respect.

This was all in marked contrast to Trinity and Professor Morris, our assistant director and project director respectively. Both of those individuals were equally good at their jobs, but they displayed real concern for the wellbeing of the members of the dig – when I got left behind one day Trinity not only exempted me from pottery washing but bought me a beer (well ok, so I don’t drink beer, but it’s the thought that counts in this case). That shows the character necessary to wield authority. And then of course there was my zone supervisor, Lady Margaret, who will be teaching me Greek in the fall and whom I shall refer to as Meg Anassa (literally, Lady Meg) as well as Lady Margaret (it’s a Zone A joke). How pleasant it was to work under a woman who spoke well of me when I did a good job, who brought pastries and frozen juice boxes up to the site for us on special occasions, and who was involved in every detail of her zone’s excavation without hovering over our shoulders all the time? I am, by the way and needless to say, quite pleased to have the opportunity to have a class with her.

Well, I expect that will do it for the moment. If you want to hear about side trips to Zingaro Nature Preserve or Palermo you can certainly ask me about those, but I think I’ve read your eyes off enough for one post.