Monday, September 13, 2010

PAX Double Whammy

Let me sum up:
My reaction to....

1) The PAX Wedding Proposal





2) Tycho's post regarding his Mom and gaming

The high point of the show for my Mom was watching "Of Dice and Men" the first night. Playing host to dramatic theatre is not, strictly speaking, in the PAX charter. We talked about moving parts on Wednesday, but if you want to talk about some moving-ass parts, a stage performance constitutes an authentic whirligig. It takes some fucking balls to put on a show anywhere, let alone in a converted convention room. Something special must have happened in there, though, because people wanted to talk about it for the remainder of the show.

My mother has never entirely understood roleplaying. I don't intend to belabor the point, but when I was a young man it was the position of our church that Dungeons & Dragons held within it the clustered seeds of apostasy. She was so bewildered by what she had seen during Of Dice and Men that she made it a point to attend our D&D Live panel, where her son and his friends played this mysterious game on stage. The devil did show up, true, and we did go to hell, just as the clergy had suggested we might. Except in the actual version of events, as has happened so many times, we stood against the King of Lies at the very gates of his damned realm and emerged triumphant.

My mother came up to me after the panel was over, saying, "I'm sorry, Jerry. I'm sorry." She wiped the corner of her left eye with her thumb. "They told me it was something else."

(CW)TB




Let me splain:
I have yet to attend a Penny Arcade Expo. My husband was at the original Necrowombicon--30 dudes hanging with Gabe and Tycho at a mall arcade and food court. He's old school. We fantasize about moving to Seattle one day, and dressing up fancy for the Child's Play Charity Auction each year.

In the meantime, I sate myself with such PAX news as pops up on the internets. Last Friday I heard that new hire Erika got engaged onstage during the expo, so I popped over to youtube to check out some video of this momentous event. I then emailed my husband so that he could feign surprise at the fact that I'd cried during said video. He mocked me roundly, and then pointed out that Tycho's Friday post would also likely make me cry. It did indeed.

I've actually only played D&D once, in an adventure made possible by lovely DM Kato (one of Geek Tears' 8 kindly followers to date). My husband kept inviting me over to play during high school, but his parents usually weren't around, and my parents didn't like the idea of me alone in a house with 4 testosterone fueled nerds and a bag of dice. But I love the game. I love everything it gave my husband. I also love the ways that families evolve and change over time...Tycho's post speaks to this quite niftily. I still remember the wonderful moment when I realized my Mom had gone from viewing the "The Simpsons" as something crass and offensive to something she was comfortable laughing at. Anyhoo, the photo of me reading Tycho's post doesn't show tears very well. But I love my husband laughing at me in the background.

Incidentally--this little blog usually gets 2-4 hits a day, driven almost entirely by traffic from my youtube channel. When I saw I'd gotten a whopping FORTY hits today, I new something was up. Thanks to Cyriaque Lamar from i09 for posting a link to my Dr. Mrs. the Monarch video and to stealthyslyth and Veg1v0 on the twitters making internet bird noise about it. And for any folks moseying this way for the first time--welcome! Ummmm, I'm a geek who cries easily. When I'm not working on my PhD in clinical psychology I enjoy making silly costumes and doing stand-up. Let's be pals. I come bearing gifts.







~Geek out

6 comments:

  1. That's some very...wooow °__O...accurate and well done costumes :)
    Also, you make quite both a lovely Harley and Ms Dr. Girlfriend/Monarch!

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  2. May I ask what your reaction was to Watchmen? I'm a hard-bitten guy and I've read the graphic novel more than a couple of times in my life, but the film brought a tear to my eye in more than one part.

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  3. So my play is making people cry who haven't even seen it? Now I'M going to cry. AGAIN.

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  4. Prolix Wag--that's art, baby. Well played, and thank you.

    Smeagol 92055--good call. I've got posts lined up for the next couple weeks, but I will add Watchmen to the list. Pretty much all Rorschach's big moments undo me.

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  5. I wondered this when I saw your Somewhere Bat Free performance-- how on earth do you keep that adorable nighty from falling off? :)

    Anyway, you make a lovely Harley and Monarach! Keep up the great work!

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