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Three games about religion
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Topic: Three games about religion (Read 65650 times)
Callan S.
Posts: 4268
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #15 on:
June 13, 2011, 01:05:44 AM »
Ron, I don't think I was forcing a definition that doesn't commonly occur. On the other hand I'm looking through Ophite and the more the direct references to the word 'religion' become a peripheral in the text, the more the effect I mentioned becomes peripheral. It seems pretty peripheral so far in the Ophite text, so perhaps me going into the details wont benefit the design process much. So I'll leave it at that.
Philosopher Gamer
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Ron Edwards
Global Moderator
Posts: 17707
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #16 on:
June 13, 2011, 05:54:32 AM »
Hi Callan,
Yeah. Meaning, yes, I'm with you on that definition or at least that phrasing of religion being commonly, frequently used. And I'll agree further in observing that many overtly-religious people (most observant, most sociologically committed) identify their personal faith with the details of their practice, although whether this is regional or religion-specific I can't say.
The construction I presented in my first post and in the video is definitely not the most common view. I didn't intend to correct you in terms of what's said or how it's said, and I don't think I chose my wording toward you personally quite right. Doing that is tough with this topic. All I ask is that my own phrasing be considered, as a contrast to the way your post put it.
Best, Ron
Marshall Burns
Posts: 573
American Wizard
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #17 on:
June 15, 2011, 09:10:54 AM »
This is highly interesting. Like, seriously. Man.
Ok. I was raised in an evangelical Christian household. Primarily Pentecostal (I grew up seeing people dance in the aisles and "speak in tongues" and thought nothing odd about it), but there were times when a Pentecostal church my parents were OK with wasn't available and we went to a different (but still evangelical) church. Just about everyone on my father's side of the family is religious. My grandfather writes gospel songs, and evangelizes at prisons and in foreign countries. My great grandfather has played guitar in the church band at my hometown's First Assembly of God for decades. I attended church every Sunday unless ill until my teens, when I was allowed the choice and gradually stopped going because I didn't find it fulfilling in any sense.
Frankly, I was sheltered to a great degree, particularly from things that smacked of the occult (something which evangelicals hold a great fear of, in my experience). For instance, I wasn't allowed to watch the Smurfs because what's-his-face, the bad guy, had a pentacle (misidentified by my parents and everyone else I know as a penta
) on his floor. That's probably the most absurd restriction that was placed on me, but there were plenty of others regarding what I was allowed to watch, do, and read.
I remember once playing pretend as a child and drawing material from a fantasy videogame, involving magic and whatnot, and my parents becoming upset. From that point, such videogames (Final Fantasy, etc.) were no longer played in our house. That restriction later vanished without comment or ceremony. When Magic: the Gathering got big when I was 10 or so, I was forbidden from playing it, and my mom treated me to a story of how my dad used to play D&D and found out it was evil, so he burned all his D&D materials and skulls formed in the smoke (I shit you not, she really told me that).
On the other hand, it was my dad who introduced me to RPGs with a game of Boot Hill (which went nowhere because I was 8 years old; it was beyond me at the time).
I can't pretend that being brought up in that environment had no effect on me. It's had plenty of them, both positive (I took to heart notions like mercy and patience that got bandied about), and negative -- coming to terms with my sexuality (heterosexual but decidedly non-vanilla, and that's enough info about that) was something of an adventure, and I distinctly remember being viscerally wracked with guilt and irrational fear after feeling up my girlfriend for the first time at the age of 15 (an incident which pretty much scuttled our relationship as well). I was in and of a particular subculture, and although I'm not part of it anymore, it's still part of me. It's also very much entangled with my (tangly) relationship with my father, and that's a whole 'nother can of worms.
I got into RPGs in my teens, around the same time I was granted freedom to abstain from attending church. It was also around this time that I became literate (I had been a reader since as long as I could remember, but I didn't start being
until then). It struck me as odd that my dad showed no interest in any of the RPG stuff (I was designing games even then) despite having introduced me to it in the first place, but I didn't call much attention to it either, and pretty much actively hid evidence of other games I was involved in (which involved religion-related content pervasively -- interestingly, these games were designed by friends of mine who didn't grow up in religious households). But my dad's disinterest wasn't entirely unwelcome either; I lived with a pretty much constant anxiety of being judged negatively by my father, a fact exacerbated by the fact that you cannot debate anything with the man due to an infuriating ability on his part to dismiss any dissenting argument from the floor (and it doesn't matter if he does it fallaciously; you're still not going anywhere with it). But that's getting into the relationship-with-my-dad thing, which isn't the same as the religion & RPGs thing.
It's interesting to me to look at the games I've designed and notice that none of them really deal with religion. My teen designs featured the D&D powerz list kind of non-religions, and that was as close as I got. Even the Rustbelt with its Faith rules doesn't really deal with religion; it deals with faith from a pop-psychological standpoint, and remains systematically unconcerned with actual
in terms of observance, doctrine, and institutions. They can be there, sure, but the game itself doesn't particularly care if they are or not. It's more about belief and how the character feels about that belief.
blogging at the Wizard Exploded Cookbook
Buy these four games at $2 each!
Posts: 2984
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #18 on:
June 15, 2011, 09:16:15 AM »
Not sure where to start; if you just find bio data valuable, I' guess I'll start there, although it's probably not very useful for your purposes.
My social context as a kid was quite religious, and being religious was generally considered to be coterminus with being a Good Person, but my family was not particularly involved. I couldn't actually tell you whether my mother takes religion seriously, for example, but for all that I was christened and sent to sunday school etc, that was just the normal stuff that people did. But when I wanted to stop going, there was no fuss. I guess I considered myself a believer in a fairly passive and informal way until the age of about 12 or 13, although it was actually after that point that I got involved with an actual religious group, primarily for social reasons. In some respects I was looking for a convincing argument, but in the end it only confirmed my developing atheism. I didn't really experience RPG as rebellious, because there was no pre-existing hostility as such, certainly not one I was aware of anyway, and I only encountered it after I'd been gaming for 4 or 5 years. The result was that I thought the whole saga was absurd and if anything it hardened my stance on what nonsense people were willing to believe simply because a preacher said it. But for some of the people I played with in those days, I think what you suggest is quite true, that it served as a medium of rebellion, although I associate that more strongly with black/death metal and sundry affectations to being a satanist.
At any rate, what I wanted to mention is that I think a potential 5th aspect to consider is simply data. That is, the structure of a social religious practice that carries some kind of authority can carry within it data of practical utility, even if it doesn't have sufficient information with which to logically justify the position it takes. For example, your classic Hollywood natives trying to appease and "angry mountain"; storing the information that the mountain can enter an "angry" state may be factually wrong, but if it carries from generation to generation the information that the mountain can be dangerous then it can gave social utility anyway. I suppose this might be folded into Culture, but it's not culture of the general establishment of right and proper behaviour sort; it is embedding an intuitively understood insight into the practical world without fully understanding it and relying on the continuity of practice to keep that data alive. Religiously mandated forms of ritual purity can be seen in the same light, in that although many of them are wrong, many of them are not and did probably contribute to hygiene and cleanliness.
I certainly agree that a huge amount of discussion about right and proper social structure, personal behaviour and morality etc, is conducted in a religious context. On the other hand I'm not really so convinced that the Abrahamic texts are much use in this regard, because they are all infused with a programamatic doctrine to establish monotheism specifically, and thus much of their content is aimed at a quite different purpose. But that quibble aside, I certainly see the value in exploring nominally religious texts for the information they contain on cosmology as understood by those people, for example. That element, the cultural one I guess, is that one that draws most of my interest, and where my frustration with RPG's to date arises. My problem with them is that they basically treat the characters as psychologically modern. Religion is thus not a perception of cosmology or right living, but specifically magical practices and anachronistic personal belief. The very distinctions between "magicians" and "clerics" is basically flawed, as is the idea people generally engage with a specific deity rather the pantheon as a whole (note: I know this isn't strictly true. People did attach themselves to particular cults; but the idea that someone was a worshipper of this god or that god in isolation seems pretty weird to me).
I guess a good example of the kind of things I would like from an greater exploration is exemplified in the scene from the Robin Hood Prince of Thieves movie in which Morgan Freeman's Moorish character has a brief rant about how he can't determine where east is in England so as to pray to Mecca. The sort of thing where religious practice is personally important to characters, where it prompts demonstrative and expressive play, rather than gods as patron or power sources.
As a note, another text you might find useful is the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours. Although obviously intended as a work of history, Gregory was himself a bishop who also wrote several tracts on the lives of the saints. The text is thus full of matters of primarily religious interest, such as the doings of church figures, signs and wonders observed, his doctrinal arguments with Visigothic Arians, etc. As such, while not a primary source for the matters of human reflection you mention, it is an interesting window on the practical life and views of an active agent of the church in a period significantly different to ours (the 500's). Like the instance he recounts where a particularly pious monk prays for a miracle which is granted by god, and all his fellow monks immediately beat the shit out of him so that he doesn't becomes puffed up with sinful pride at this achievement.
I also wanted to mention something about the Call of Cthulhu things said above. The trope of "defending civilisation against the barbarians" is a powerful and seductive one, and although often, indeed usually, infused with racist overtones, that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. The Romans weren't particularly racist, and it would be difficult to see the effort to preserve the empire against hordes of human-sacrificing barbarians as other than heroic. I know it's dodgy and often exploited territory, but it is so because because it is so evocative.
"He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast."
- Leonardo da Vinci
Ron Edwards
Global Moderator
Posts: 17707
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #19 on:
June 15, 2011, 11:28:31 AM »
I'm liking this thread very much. I had no real idea of where to go with it except to see where it goes, and my current notion is that everyone's various posted details - analytical, scholarly, personal - are accumulating into a mine for each new reader. Who knows which piece will be inspirational in terms of later design and play, and along what vector? It's the richness of the mine itself which seems to be the thread's main asset.
More thoughts on the three texts themselves would be helpful too. I know most of my presentation so far has been a little standoffish about that, because they really aren't in either the textual or design shape which would benefit from ordinary critique. But I am interested in what they make people think about, if anything, as a couple of posts have done. Or who knows, any thoughts on the source material or the combinations I've chosen. It is my first set of RPG work that invokes the Grateful Dead throughout, for instance, and band-specific music of any kind has never been a major inspiration for me before.
Best, Ron
Hans Chung-Otterson
Posts: 54
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #20 on:
June 23, 2011, 09:02:14 PM »
Quote from: Ron Edwards on June 08, 2011, 09:54:44 AM
Essentially, I want responses straight from the heart. Whether it's your reading of the current write-ups, any attempt at playing them, your thoughts on religion in RPG settings, your personal accounts and admissions regarding religion and role-playing, all I care about is your honesty. As long as that's there, whatever you toss into this thread for those topics will help me a lot, and I hope to be able to provide interesting feedback that shows more about where I'm coming from with these ... well, not games yet, "things."
Hey Ron,
I was raised in the mid-80's and 90's in the Conservative Evangelical Christian traditions of those times. I
remember, as a kid, watching a commercial for D&D with my mom in the room, and expressing nothing approaching interest. My mom, however, declared "that's evil" at the TV. Fast-forward to my college days (early to mid 2000s) and I finally feel daring enough to buy 3.5 D&D books.
For my first year or so playing roleplaying games (2007ish), I was plagued by a kind of anxiety that reared its head every so often. For example, when I went to my first convention, by myself, the sense of this being a foreign community was palpable to me, and I did feel a real anxiety that
maybe this is actually wrong in some way, or demonic, and my mom was right
. My faith had changed a lot by then, and I had rejected the conservatism of my upbringing, but at this point hadn't (yet) come to the conclusion that there were deeply destructive elements to it still clinging to me.
Not sure where I'm going with this. I suppose it's just to say: yes, roleplaying was one of the most (safe) rebellious things I could do as a kid, but I didn't do it until I grew up, for fear that
they actually were evil
. Sounds ridiculous to me now, and probably to you, but it's the plain truth. It took me a while to shake that feeling, and as I get older, I'm beginning to really resent the faith (people, that is) of my childhood from barring me from something that I enjoy so much, and brings such life to me. In fact, my positive journey with roleplaying has happened (or maybe more than happened?) to coincide with a journey of faith where Doubt has come to be more and more important.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on June 08, 2011, 09:54:44 AM
I want to stress that none of them are about religious belief, which as I see it, is a huge non-issue which tends to blot out all the relevant issues about religion through its very non-ness. It's kind of the opposite of the elephant in the room that no one will talk about; instead, it's the elephant which is
in the room but which no one will shut up about.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. When I talk about my doubt I mean not an uncertainty about intellectual assent to a religious dogma, but rather that doubt is a part of the structure of faith. I know I'm going esoteric here, and I'll stop. I've been reading
Paul Tillich
lately, and I won't be able to fully articulate his thoughts on Faith & Doubt here, nor is it pertinent to the discussion. I suppose I just want to say: Hear, hear! I am excited to see your games about religion, but not about religious belief.
Just last week I wrote a draft for
a game about doubt
, and the importance of it, which is also
about the importance or non-importance of belief.
Thanks for the venue, Ron, and the thread. Always insightful.
Hans Chung-Otterson
Posts: 54
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #21 on:
June 23, 2011, 11:57:25 PM »
I want to add a little bit more of personal history, because when it comes to religious/church stuff, I think I assume a lot that people outside of that culture don't.
Here's this: In college, when I was first exploring RPGs, I was also part of a campus Christian fellowship (Intervarsity, if anyone cares), and spent a great deal of time leading Bible studies and organizing events and meetings and generally being a part of the leadership. All of my
friends still are Christians, and none of them play roleplaying games.
My wife is currently in Seminary, studying for her Masters of Divinity. I still self-identify as a Christian, but I think the whole conversation about the existence of God (or non-existence) is meaningless*. Also, I don't know what to think about the historical Jesus these days, which puts me on shaky ground with pretty much every Christian I know (including my wife, to some extent). If that sounds a little 'religious wacko' or 'don't you know about Science?' to you, I point you to Erik's quote:
Quote from: Erik Weissengruber on June 09, 2011, 07:25:22 AM
kids see few cracks in the view of the world presented to them.
This quote (and the larger part that surrounds it) seems so obvious now that I've read it, but I've never had that thought before. Of course! I had no alternatives growing up! So now I'm 27, and questioning whether Jesus rose from the dead and whatnot (and, more importantly I think: whether it matters to my faith whether Jesus rose from the dead, or was a real person, etc.), and it feels so difficult to get at any sort of historical truth about it: because all sides are throwing polemic, all sides, Christian apologists and New Atheists (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc.) alike whip me up into a frenzy and make me bewildered but
don't help me see anything
. Which I think is pretty much why I've discarded them and as well as all my stock in the "belief vs. nonbelief" issue.
Wow, am I going too far afield here? Obviously this topic has cracked something open in me. I think I'll leave my personal story and issues there, unless anyone has questions.
*in that it's literally meaningless babble to discuss the concept of God as a being beholden to the category of existence, one way or the other.
Posts: 601
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #22 on:
June 28, 2011, 01:00:44 PM »
I'll take a crack at the topic.
I suspect that we don't deal with religion much in RPGs because we don't talk about religion much in the US. We talk past one another about religion but money politics and religion are great ways to start a fight. This is so because we've always been a country of great religious diversity. The only way we get along is if we pretend to all be the same. As Mormon history shows, when we stop pretending people get shot. When you're in the minority you learn how to not bug people with your differences.
When Ron mentioned removing belief from the discussion of religion I saw an evangelical land mine right under foot. Belief in Evangelical Protestantism IS the religion. This is an example of how religious language can lead people to not communicate. The other one I see is the idea of people choosing their religion. That is a very Protestant idea. I love the Anababist idea but these are fighting words with other religions. Promising to raise your children Muslim, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, various flavors of Jewish, Hindu etc. No choice is involved at all - possibly lots of guilt - but no choice. So using religious language event in an analytical way is bound to be thorny. Exclude something and you step on a land mine, include something and you step on another land mine. Martin Luther found tons of pagan holdovers in the 16th Century after a thousand years of Christianity in that part of the world. So not talking and ignoring differences is maybe the best example of Old Time Religion (Punctuated with periods of extreme violence and forced conformity).
At least in the US religion is still very important. It is serious business. Jefferson championed the free market of religion as a democratic ideal. So here we've never had religious uniformity. One of my ancestors was an early circuit rider (ca 1810). Others were German Catholic who didn't learn English for 70 years after coming to the US. I'm a Muslim convert. My brother's are Taoist and Neo-Pagan. Getting a handle on this in a simulation game is daunting.
I was reading a book about the Ohio frontier a month ago and was especially interested in the chapter on religion. It was a perfect example of the hetrodoxy I described above. Methodist circuit riders, Calvinist Presbyterians and Social Progress Presbyterians right there in the same church, Quakers who got along well with everyone by keeping to themselves, and Shakers who where sometimes attacked because they lured men's wives into communistic celebacy. Throw in Catholic enclaves and the occasional Jewish tinker and it was a mess.
My oldest brother once summed it up nicely when he observed that Neo Pagens tended to recreate their childhood religion in their neo-paganess. I sum it up in a rule "You should never kill anyone over theology." It all comes down to the same - a big no talk rule.
I've got no problem with people trying to make sense out of religion in games. I just hope they see that the simulation/rationalization that they come up with is their own understanding of what it means and that generalizing it very far is gong to run them straight back into the mine field.
For instance: Dogs in the Vinyard: I voted for it to be the game of the year when it came up even though I gave the fedback that if the game was about role playing the religious police in Saudi Arabia doing the same thing would raise the hackles of a lot of people. They would get all anti-terroristie. When I project my emotional self into Pre-Statehood Utah I get the idea that the first Dog I saw would shoot me real fast, which kind of kills the empathy needed to get into the character.
I remember Ron telling me about working on a game set in Lebanon last year, a place where the land mines are real! It's a bigger mess than here (religiously I mean). I personally think that Islam is in the middle of a "Protestant Reformation" experience and is still in the late 16th Century in terms of how resolved it is. The European experience was 120 years of really violent war. Then people stopped talking about theology and moved into the Enlightenment (sort of). I can see gaming the initial rush of emotion and rigid belief and evangelistic zeal, The head crashing arguments with other religions that seldom change anyone's beliefs, the bloody massacres, and then the stunned realization that maybe they had better learn tolerance. I can certainly see games of humor looking at the silly inconsistencies of religion (very post modern). I can see games about cynicism, which are not very religious. I can't see a game where people start getting heart felt about their practices, institutions, and customs that doesn't slide into rancor. Simulation religious tension by experiencing religious tension doesn't sound fun but it does sound very American. We've been doing this live action role play game for centuries.
What about a role play game set at a Revival meeting in Kentucy around 1805? They got all the religious groups together then, along with the drunks, hecklers, and criminals. It would be a free for all. God only know what would come of it.
These are the thoughts the topic brought up. I've got no idea if they lead anywhere useful.
Chris Engle
Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games
Acts of Evil Playtesters
Posts: 314
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #23 on:
July 11, 2011, 09:13:29 AM »
In case people find it useful let me contribute a couple terms to the discussion:
ORTHODOXY: correct religious belief (for some definition of "correct")
ORTHOPRAXY: correct religious practice (ditto).
Many religions define themselves much more by orthopraxy than orthodoxy. Even Catholic Christianity, which came up with the word "Orthdox," defines who is and isn't a member not by what they believe, but by whether they were baptized, period. From the point of view of Catholic (including Eastern Orthodox) theology, you are a member if you were baptized a member, no matter what you currently believe, because of the historical fact of your orthoprax baptism. (You may be a very *bad* Catholic, but you are still a Catholic, and excommunication does not make you not a Catholic, it makes you a Catholic who was very bad and is being punished.)
Catholic Christianity concerned itself more with Orthodoxy than most previous Western religion, including Judaism, and Protestant Christianity made Orthodoxy absolutely supreme.
In other words, Ron's insistence that we look at religion in terms other than correct belief is absolutely something that any anthropologist of religion would heartily endorse; defining religion by belief is a very provincial affair, at best a facet of a greater whole, even within an Abrahamic context.
Just droppin' a little science here, and completely failing for now to do what Ron actually asked for, which is give a response straight from the heart.
Posts: 415
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #24 on:
July 11, 2011, 01:49:00 PM »
This is an interesting and for me very complex issue. I am going to do my best not to ramble on too much and to make my points as succinctly as I can. No promises though and you have been warned. Oh and you will likely be offended.
First, my bio with regards to the question: I was raised Catholic, got a good education in a Catholic School for my first six years where I learned that I hated the idea of authority without wisdom or intellect. I am a fan of John Paul II who I think, was a visionary Pope as much as one can be visionary and still hold onto the old timers. I was fortunate enough to be a part open minded groups who favored mixing intellect with their religion and with a health dose of mysticism. I was an Altar Boy and never touched or approached inappropriately nor were any of the kids in my Parish that I know of. However, I do despise how the Church and ALL GROUPS from other religions to schools handle this subject. I was or I suppose am a Knight of Columbus. While I no longer consider myself Catholic or religious, I do not blame religion for all the evils of the world. I do admit I tend to cut the Catholic Church more slack than I do any other member of the J-C-M triumverate.
Anyway after Catholicism I went to a weak form of spiritualism and paganism before I got to my current state of beliefs. I think that religion is a form of science and science can be as dogmatic as any religion. I do not think they are mutually exclusive and I think the current crop of anti-theism is mainly a lot of people who are angry that Churches get tax free status and Santa Claus is not real. That is to say that humans lash out at the things of their childhood that they find may not have been true once they become adults. I think religion and science are both trying to explain the universe but I think that the method of religion tends to be very poor science. Thus its stuck with doctrines that are out of date or simply incomprehensible feel good nonsense. I will say that not once in a dark time have I ever said "Thank physics E-MC(squared)." Science is a cold doctrine that provides wonder and honesty but no comfort. So it is a matter of taste. I will say that science, as stated previously, can be very dogmatic and for something supposedly grounded in reality you can find a great many varying and contradictory theories... just like religion. I am one of the few that I know of who will admit 1) That Intelligent design and Evolution/Big Bang are not mutually exclusive and 2) That the question of whether there is a god-like being out there is still very much in question. We really have no evidence either way.
Growing up, my early role playing was encourage by a quiet intellectual father and not at all discouraged by my school or any priest. Mom disapproved but since I respected dad's intellect more, I was also okay with it. It was in no rebellion against religious beliefs. I formed my own opinion on both and was never bothered by the paganism of fantasy rpgs. I gamed primarily with Christians through HS and College. Since that time it has been a mixed bag. One of my best friends is an Episcopal Priest and yes, we still game. I will admit there was childish joy and something kind of rebellious when we gamed in his rectory.
I think you do see a great many people using RPGs as one of the tools of social rebellion. I also think as a youth and in some peoples minds its still a pure kind of rebellion. All the sex and killing is just talk, regardless of those who try to make a connection between school shootings and RPGs. However, as I got older and became a member of the RPGA and was going to Cons regularly I realized that gamers are a bunch of sexual freaks. I will include myself in this. The perception of the unwashed stinky fat gamer, while true in some cases, went right out the window. In fact, I find gamers to be much less conscious of body issues in their partners. Suffice to say there was a lot of fucking going on. It was almost hedonistic to be honest and I do not have enough data to make any reasonable cause and effect statement.
All the games sound interesting especially the "Red" game and using the idea of beauty. I also like the idea of madness, as I think that mental illness and mental breakdowns, while being debilitating for living in the "real" world, do offer those afflicted insight beyond what we consider to be concrete and normal. I also think or it has been my recent experience that those who have strong religious belief are often marginalized the way the mentally ill or mentally immature are marginalized. "Ophite" seems more like a thinking exercise, which is not a bad thing and it feels like it would be a great "Convention" game where people, away from their normal groups, might be more willing to open up to strangers. (or maybe not, who knows). "Relic" I have to say interests me the least. It sounds like an interesting historical delve for folks who did not live through it, but I lived through debate over relics and the inclusion of Mary in the Trinity and all sorts of weird Catholic stuff (no regrets) and so I do not need to explore it as such. Of course I may be missing the point of it.
Last point for now, I promise. The problem with religion in fantasy gaming is that The Church either plays the role of hero or villain and sometimes both. It is so locked into our Western idea of fantasy construction that its hard to imagine a world without religion. Who would do the healing if there are no clerics?! lol. In fact in those games religion becomes science, because the physics of the universe are entwined with these super powerful beings. I am not sure what a more humanist or naturalist approach to a fantasy setting might be but I would be fascinated to see it attempted.
Okay I did ramble lol but I hope it was useful.
Ron Edwards
Global Moderator
Posts: 17707
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #25 on:
July 11, 2011, 02:05:17 PM »
Hi everyone,
As before, I appreciate all the comments, and their sort-of-unconstructed nature is serving me well as the designer of these three ... "things," so that's OK even if it is a little atypical of what I try to encourage at the Forge.
I'd like to remind folks that my personal take on belief as a non-issue is merely a designer's point of view and isn't really subject to debate, so it's not like anyone has to make a case for it as central, or refute that case, or anything of the sort. I didn't raise that issue to argue about it but instead to explain or at least acknowledge the fact that that particular issue didn't show up during a
driven creative surge.
Perhaps over the next year or so I might look forward to some new game designs which do bring that particular issue to the table in a new and more effective way.
For the record, nothing stated so far has been offensive to me or within light-years of that ballpark.
Best, Ron
Posts: 1
Reply #26 on:
July 11, 2011, 07:40:35 PM »
I've known about the Forge for a few years now, and i've followed a couple of links to this site in the past. But i registered today so i could reply to this thread.
Because you listed a few things that 'defined' the people you see, the people you're talking about. That list was pretty quieting for me to read. (hell, i got here because i followed a link from Vincent Baker's blog...) I don't think they all describe me for reasons you assume, but�i have to admit, in the end, they are all accurate labels for me. A Christian Gamer.
So, from the heart:
I read the list and at first i thought i was so completely totally different, because i wanted to (it's unfair when others describe us better than we know ourselves). What i'm going to respond to is the 'need to say how much i am not of that old religion anymore.'
At first i said to myself, 'well, there's one thing that's NOT got my number.' But then i started to think about it. I realized that, if i went home, to my old church, to my family, to the places i grew up...i would not fit in. What i say, what i believe...they don't work for those people. But, more importantly, they never did.
My churchlife as a child is defined the most by not fitting in. The church i grew up in was amazing. Wonderful. The kids there were all attractive. The parents there were a healthy mix of struggling, honest, laughing, wise and flawed people. There were the perfect families that stood side-by-side with the broken people that couldn't live a 'church life' more than a weekend. We were accepting. We were loving. We were really big, too. And i never, ever in my life felt comfortable there. Accepted? Hell yes. Those people went out of their way to invite me to play basketball, or sing fellowship songs with them, or have a night were we watch TV and cook Chilli. They all enjoyed each others company, they wanted me there, too. That church and it's youth group was amazingly accepting. But i never, ever felt like i belonged. Never judged, never rejected. Hell, i felt like they were really trying to fit me into the picture.
There was no speaking in tongues, there was no definitive opinion on miracles. There were a lot of different takes on Jesus. And more than once i heard 'i just don't know' as the answer to my questions. *These were good people.* But they...were not like me.
Then, still trying to get it, still trying to understand, i wandered off, deeper into the south, and went to a religious college. And there, running under the nose of the old-world religious monarchy that ruled with all the fear and manipulation that i'd heard of in bad fantasy text, i found out what was lacking.
I found a group of guys playing *Stormbringer* in the dorm where i was staying. I found a group of people willing to play Nerf War after dark on a campus with a strict curfew. I found people like me. They believed in God in ways that did not always run smooth between us (more than once i was argued into admitting Homosexuality was a sin, more than once i was temporarily convinces Marriage and Child-rearing to be the path i HAD to take). And a lot of this worked because we found the stereotypical religion that used fear, behavior modification, and ancient text to lord over us...and we ...rebelled? Maybe. Or maybe we just�really liked Role-Playing Games, Anime, Comic Books, and dressing up in suits to see movie premieres.
I don't go to church any more. I am afraid of Hell, until i really think about it, and remember that i don't believe in it any more. I don't pray like i used to. But i believe in God, and i'm willing to put money down on Jesus. I've got a bible, and i read it when i'm sad or lonely. I talk to God, if it feels right, or my heart shouts. I don't have a 'fuzzy-wuzzy' church that i feel better about going to. And i don't have any real bad stories about the religious regime that i was forced to break away from.
But, yeah�i don't�i don't belong at the church, i guess.
But i know now what the church really is, partially because of all the words on a thread like this. And i know that i don't belong there. Overall, no matter how much i want to say that list you used to describe the people you've met, i've go to say...that's me. You're right.
I don't know what you're going to do with it. I don't know who you're going to help or hurt by speaking to lots of people on the internet, at conventions, or over dinner somewhere. But i hope you're as accurate through the whole thing as you were when you described me and so many others that i know. Because it's a mirror. And it helps. I may not like what i see, but it's given me pause. It's quieting.
Posts: 118
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #27 on:
July 12, 2011, 05:41:45 AM »
Quote from: Ron Edwards on June 09, 2011, 09:10:03 AM
...To them and to the ministry there, personal belief matters greatly, it's at the center of all the observance and all the church activities. For instance, the baptism ritual was about nothing else. But to her, personal belief is kind of a minor and not especially interesting part of her desire to have church and observances be part of her routine. The discontinuity was strong enough to reduce her interest in participating in those observances and activities, quite a bit in fact, compared to her initial enthusiasm when we moved to the area. Our kids no longer attend the Sunday school there, for instance. By contrast, our third child was baptized in the thousand-plus-years-old church in Norrkoping, which includes the graves of my wife's grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great ... you get the idea. And that ceremony, steeped in concrete tradition unimaginable to most Americans, did not involve advocations of belief at all.
If I might jump in, just on this point- I can certainly agree that certain forms of ritual observance might be historically or culturally associated with particular religious institutions, but I'm not certain how this can be (A) separated from any other form of traditionalised behaviour-pattern, like the order in which one is supposed to place cutlery or dress for an interview, and (B) whether such observances are likely to persist much beyond the disappearance of underlying belief within the population at large (which seems to be borne out statistically, over the past century or so.) I mean, this all sounds like harmless granfaloonery in the style of a japanese tea ceremony, but I don't see how this kind of repetition for repetition's sake is exclusive to religious circles.
In response to Callan's original point, which might have been kind of deflected here- sure, I guess you could describe an RPG as a 'question', in the sense of an investigation or exploration of particular subject matter. But I don't feel this is any different from the 'rational' simulationist role-play of an 'irrational' character- The question is: How would a person
who does not question
his/her religious beliefs react in various situations- including situations that should logically cause him/her to question his/her beliefs? The
might be described as a fully-qualified hardline fanatic (at least initially,) but that doesn't stop the
being party to prodding and poking at the underlying metaphysical assumptions. I mean, regardless of whether you consider faith/belief/conviction to be integral to religious experience, to me that seems a perfectly valid premise for play.
Just my two cents.
Posts: 415
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #28 on:
July 12, 2011, 06:14:40 AM »
[quote author=Alfryd link=topic=31578.msg286866#msg286866 date=1310478105
If I might jump in, just on this point- I can certainly agree that certain forms of ritual observance might be historically or culturally associated with particular religious institutions, but I'm not certain how this can be (A) separated from any other form of traditionalised behaviour-pattern, like the order in which one is supposed to place cutlery or dress for an interview, and (B) whether such observances are likely to persist much beyond the disappearance of underlying belief within the population at large (which seems to be borne out statistically, over the past century or so.) I mean, this all sounds like harmless granfaloonery in the style of a japanese tea ceremony, but I don't see how this kind of repetition for repetition's sake is exclusive to religious circles.[/quote]
In my mind this also brings up the idea of cause and effect. Gender roles are important in most religions and with only a surface glance at the phenomena, one might conclude that religion, somewhat dominated by males, created the gender situation we have today around the world. When it could easily be argued that the same gender inequity existed prior to the modern religions (not everywhere but in many places) . So which was the chicken and which the egg? Will that inequality go away with the continued downplay of the importance of religion, at least in America? Gender roles are just one concept where religion may have been the instrument of a more secular belief.
[quote author=Alfryd link=topic=31578.msg286866#msg286866 date=1310478105
In response to Callan's original point, which might have been kind of deflected here- sure, I guess you could describe an RPG as a 'question', in the sense of an investigation or exploration of particular subject matter. But I don't feel this is any different from the 'rational' simulationist role-play of an 'irrational' character- The question is: How would a person
who does not question
his/her religious beliefs react in various situations- including situations that should logically cause him/her to question his/her beliefs? The
might be described as a fully-qualified hardline fanatic (at least initially,) but that doesn't stop the
being party to prodding and poking at the underlying metaphysical assumptions. I mean, regardless of whether you consider faith/belief/conviction to be integral to religious experience, to me that seems a perfectly valid premise for play.
I hope I am staying relevant and on-topic here, at least I am trying to. The first thing I will point out is the use of "irrational character". I am not saying that I disagree with that description of such a person, but the kind of person who sticks by their beliefs even in the face of some evidence is not always... well irrational. They may be relying on the science of metaphysics and one could argue that religious belief, if not institutions, are scientific in their own way. Do we call scientists who cling to old theories irrational? Sometimes I guess we do so perhaps the word does fit properly. It concerns me though that I may not and as a whole we may not have the language to properly and objectively look at a subject that everyone likely has an opinion on.
Lastly, and I apologize for what may seem like a side-step here, when I was reading the above the movie Erik The Viking came to mind. A character in the movie is a Christian, where everyone else is a pagan, and when the party getsi to Valhalla, he can't see anything because he is not a believer in their religion. Without spoiling, this situation ultimately has a hand in the resolution of the movie. I think that rules like that in a game might make for an interesting dynamic in play between competing religions.
Posts: 415
Re: Three games about religion
Reply #29 on:
July 12, 2011, 06:19:15 AM »
My apologies for the very badly formatted response... yinged when I should have yanged
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Funnily enough, I have passed many times (on the way to my sewing machine shop) the building in which Peggy's studios are situated and to be honest, lamented that yet another gorgeous Victorian school building has been converted into residential/business use. However, when I heard Peggy's studio was there, I was intrigued to have a nosey! It's a big complex and the building below is the one opposite to where Peggy's studio is situated.
And here is where Peggy's wonderful cakes and cookies are created...
It is a lovely bright, white, modern space inside, where Peggy's "Easter Treats Masterclass" shall take place. Peggy's courses are always booked up as soon as they appear on her website so I was so thrilled to get a place, I had been trying for some time.
We are group of 8 which is a good size and allows us all plenty of attention and the ability to see exactly what is going on as Peggy demonstrates. A couple of the ladies had come specially from Switzerland for the course. More excitingly, who did I happen to be sitting next to but Jane Brocket of "The Gentle Art of Domesticity" fame, whose new book on quilts I had only bought the day before. It's a small world!
I loved the floral photos Peggy had stuck up. When I asked her, she said they are for inspiration for making sugarpaste flowers - as well as being very pretty, of course. Peggy was marvellous, very personable and with perfect English (she is German), she was hands on every minute of the course.
Some of Peggy's creations flanked the doors...
This one is actually a fake cake! It was made for display at somebody's wedding and is waiting to be collected. The mind boggles at how many hours that must have taken.
There is a little corner set up with goodies to buy including Peggy's fab books. I am ogling the pink Kitchenaid mixer!
Time to get to work. As you may know if you have been reading my blog before, I have done a couple of one-day cake courses before and I have had to provide all my own equipment and cakes for those. The joy of Saturday's course is that all we needed was an apron and the rest was provided.
We begin by making piping bags from greaseproof paper. As would be the case throughout the day, Peggy made it look so easy and I pretty much felt like a 3 year old on the Krypton Factor trying to get the hang of it! We then mix some icing to the required consistency and have a go at piping. Eeek! This is MUCH harder than it looks!
However, we progress to colouring some icing and pipe outlines on the cookies. We then proceed to "flood" the centres (ie. fill them in) with icing of the same colour in a runnier consistency. The icing is provided for us in squeezy bottles which was a pleasure, mixing the icing to the right consistency is an art in itself. Peggy shares with us the secret to the lovely dotty effect you see on the bunny.
Once the biscuits have dried, Peggy shows us how to ice details on to the cookies. Ha, things just got trickier! She has a fantastically steady hands and her cookies look amazing!
Time to move on from the cookies to make daisy cupcakes. We knead some flower paste and set to cutting out the daisy shapes with a plunger cutter, which not only cuts out the shape but leaves a pattern on the flower petals, too.
We also make the centres and pop the flowers into an artist's palette to allow them to dry (I had a dodgy palette and my flowers were squashed!)
Time now to learn about fondant icing, you know the sort, the lovely, shiny, colourful stuff on Fondant Fancies. Gorgeously spring-coloured fondant icing is warmed up for us to use and Peggy demonstrates the technique of double-dipping the cupcakes.
Errrm, this is not so easy to get the tops all smooth!
All too soon, it is 4 pm and the day comes to a close. What a throroughly enjoyable (rather demanding!) day. Peggy happily signs my book. The cookies you can see in front of Peggy are the ones she iced (so tempting to suggest they are mine!)
Luckily, I am on a direct rail line to Clapham Junction so I am home (in torrential rain) within the hour and find to my delight that Mr HenHouse has been at it in the kitchen, too! This cheese and cider bread is baked by Leakers Bakery in Bridport and is famed - they are always sold out early on Saturday morning. The recipe recently appeared in one of the local freebie magazines we pick up when at the cottage, which Mr HenHouse kept a hold of. Now I have my very own baker!
And what did I bring home?
Daisy dot cupcakes...
Sadly, they moved around in the box on the way home and stuck to each other so they look a little the worse for wear.
The do taste yummy though!
And the cookies...
These were fun to do and the gingerbread ones taste delicious (have yet to taste the vanilla ones).
All in all, it was a wonderful day and if you are interested in this sort of thing, I would definitely recommend a course with Peggy.
(Yes, the Easter decorations are out in force in the HenHouse.)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
After payment you will immediately receive the data from the PSN account to install the game Battlefield 4 ™ Premium Edition
1. Go to this link https://account.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/login.action
2. Enter the e-mail address and password bought on PSN account and press the button Sign In.
3. Open the Account. In the left column, select the item Media and Devices. On the main part of the page click on the rectangle Game, and then press the Disable all.
Warning! All further actions strictly from your console.
4. In the Users create a new user and log in as a new user.
5. In the PlayStation®Network, select Register.
6. In the menu that appears, select Use an existing account - it was her, not to be confused!
7. Then enter your login (example: email@example.com) and password (example: 777psn) you purchased from your account and go to the system by activating the account, as the main.
8. Upon completion of the destination account menu appears Sign In and the user can enter the network PlayStation®Network, using an existing account.
9. Enter the Playstation Store and select View uploaded files to open the list of content located on your account, download all that you are interested in the background (wait for the full injection is not necessary).
Warning! After downloading the game - do not go for the purchased account, as well as do not delete user!
10. You go to your main account, and after all the downloads you can safely play.
11. Warning! you may not change the password.
$ 15.00
$ 15.00Buy Now


text:
The Briggs Carriage Company
Amesbury, Massachusetts
By O. R. Cummings
June 1994
A Forgotten Industry is the history of three streetcar builders, the Newburyport Car Manufacturing Company of Newburyport and the Ellis Car Company and the Briggs Carriage Company of Amesbury in the northeast corner of Massachusetts Essex County. All three ceased production prior to 1905 and so completely have they been forgotten that any mention of them today to Newburyport and Amesbury residents supposedly knowledgeable about local history frequently is greeted by a blank stare and sometimes a "Huh!"
The Newburyport concern was the oldest, being organized in late 1887 by Edward P. Shaw, better known as E. P. Shaw, a Port City man who was one of New England's most active street railway promoters and contractors during the last decade of the 19th Century. The Ellis Car Company came into being in 1889 while the Briggs concern started building streetcar bodies a year later. Products of all three companies enjoyed fairly wide distribution, particularly in New England, but were also sold to many horse and electric railways outside the six-state area. As best can be determined. none of the companies ever constructed any steam railroad rolling stock.
While Ellis was forced to quit as a result of a fire in April 1894, the Newburyport Car Manufacturing Company and Briggs flourished until shortly after the turn of the century when they started to encounter really stiff competition from such major New England builders as the Laconia (N.H.) Car Company Works, the Wason Manufacturing Company of Springfield, Mass. and the Osgood Bradley Car Company of Worcester, Mass. All three of these were capable of large scale production and able to offer prices which Newburyport and Briggs simply could not match. Briggs ceased building streetcars in 1903, and Newburyport followed suit early in 1904.
No physical traces of either the Newburyport or Ellis plants exist today but all four buildings in the Briggs Carriage Company complex still stand and are used for a variety of purposes. Fortunately, there are numerous pictures, and two cars built by Newburyport and one outshopped by Briggs are preserved at trolley museums in Maine and Quebec. No Ellis-built cars or car bodies are known to exist.
Except for some hand-written lists of streetcars manufactured by Briggs from 1890 through 1893, no records or documents of any of the Newburyport and Amesbury streetcar builders are known to exist. However, historical data about all three appear in issues of the Street Railway Journal, a trade publication which first appeared in 1884 and was known as the Electric Railway Journal from 1908 through 1931. Feature articles about the Newburyport, Ellis and Briggs companies appeared in the magazine soon after they began production and thereafter there were frequent news notes about orders received by all three. The American Street Railway Investments manual, issued annually by McGraw-Hill from 1894 to 1914, listed all street railways in the United States and Canada and frequently identified the builders of their rolling stock.
The basic material for this story was researched separately but cooperatively by Gerald F. Cunningham, a native of Haverhill, Mass., and 0. R. Cummings, formerly of Newburyport. After the former's death in May 1990, all of his notes were turned over to the latter by Mrs. Cunningham. Additional research in the files of the Newburyport Daily Herald, the Newburyport Daily News, the Amesbury & Salisbury Villager and the Amesbury Daily News at the public libraries in Newburyport and Amesbury was undertaken by Cummings, who compiled the tentative lists of streetcars produced by each builder. Corrections and additions will be welcomed.
Most of the illustrations herein are from the collections of the Messrs. Cunningham and Cummings, who obtained the photos from a variety of sources over a long period. Some were furnished by the late Charles D. Haseltine of South Portland, Me., the late Richard L. Wonson of Fall River, Mass., the Manchester Historic Association of Manchester, N.H. and the Public Service Company of New Hampshire. Others came from the Ould Newbury Historical Society of Newburyport, the late Carl L. Smith of Charlton, Mass., John D. Rockwell, Jr. of Middleboro, Mass., the late Charles C. Holt of Saugus, Mass., the late Charles A. Brown of Sutton, Mass., the late Charles A. Duncan of Danvers, Mass., the late Harold D. Forsyth of Marblehead, Mass., the late Russell Goodall of Sanford, Me., the late Dr. Frederick N. Sweetsir of Merrimac, Mass. and the Howell Sell collection at Railways to Yesterday, Rockhill Furnace, Pa.O.R. Cummings 105 Theresa Court Manchester, NH 03103-6693 June 1994
Amesbury Streetcar Builders
The Briggs Carriage Company
Amesbury, Massachusetts
1890 - 1904
By O. R. Cummings - June 1994
Copyright 1995
By Harold E. Cox
Printed and sold by
Harold E. Cox
80 Virginia Terrace
Forty Fort PA 18704
Amesbury's second streetcar builder, The Briggs Carriage Company, had its modest beginnings in 1866 when Richard F. Briggs started building so-called "jump seat" carriages in a small wood frame building at 99 Friend Street. His business grew rapidly and in 1874 he purchased the brick mill building of Adieu & Clark on the south side of Cedar Street, about opposite Poplar Street. Z. F. Briggs & Company was organized about the same time and the enterprise was expanded to include the manufacture of both carriage pans and bodies. An additional building on the south side of Cedar Street was erected in 1882 and another was constructed on the north side of Cedar Street, about opposite the present R Street, in 1887. The firm became known as the Briggs Carriage Company at the same time, incorporation under that name following in 1894 after the death of the founder.
Whether the entry of W. G. Ellis & Sons into the streetcar building business influenced the action is unknown, but at some time during 1889 Briggs Carriage Company officials decided to seek a share of what appeared to a lucrative and growing market. A new two-story brick factory was erected at the northwest corner of Cedar and Poplar streets and once this was complete and equipped with machinery in 1890, Briggs began soliciting rolling stock orders from street railways.
The Street Railway Journal of August 1890 said that the Briggs car factory was 60 by 220 feet in area and that its two floors were connected by an elevator. It added that the woodwork was produced in the carriage factory nearby and noted that George Fowler, formerly with the J. G. Brill Company of Philadelphia, was foreman of the car shop and that the very first order received by Briggs was for four 8-bench open cars, Nos. 26-29, from the Manchester Street Railway, which operated an extensive three-foot gauge horsecar system in New Hampshire's Queen City. The magazine said the cars were handsomely painted, the groundwork of the seat end panels being Concord green with colored border and bright trimmings, and that their interiors were finished in cherry and ash.
Produced by Briggs for the Manchester Street Railway in later years were eight 16-foot closed horsecars, Nos. 30-37, in 1891-92; two 10-bench open horsecars, Nos. 38 and 39, in 1893 and seven 10-bench open electric cars, Nos. 76-82, and a luxurious parlor car, the City of Manchester, in 1897. The parlor car will be described in some detail later in the chapter. When the Manchester company electrified and standard-gauged its system in 1895-96, Nos. 26-39 had to be modified extensively so new trucks could be attached and motors and other electrical equipment installed.
Once Briggs advertisements started appearing in trade publications, orders began to pour in and in June 1891 the Street Railway Journal reported that the company was very busy and that its factory showed signs of great activity. Among cars shipped in 1891 were one 16-foot closed car and six 8-bench opens to the East Side Street Railway of Brockton; one 18-foot closed car to the Thomson-Houston Electric Company for operation in Whitinsville, Mass.; four closed and 11 eight-bench opens to the Allentown & Bethlehem Rapid Transit Company in Pennsylvania; five 16-foot closed and four 8-bench opens to the Brockton Street Railway and one 9-bench open car to the Waterville & Fairfield Railway & Light Company in Maine. Unlike Ellis, Briggs had no convenient railroad siding and the streetcar bodies had to be trucked to the Amesbury freight yard of the Boston & Maine to be loaded for shipment.
Received in 1891 was an order for the initial rolling stock of the Rockland, Thomaston & Camden Street Railway in Maine's Knox County. This consisted of three 20-foot closed cars and six 10-bench opens which were shipped in 1892. Ten more open cars were shipped to Allentown that year; two open cars each were built for the Cottage City Street Railway of Martha's Vineyard and the Winnipeg Electric Street Railway of Manitoba. Canada and four 10-bench opens went to the Natick (Mass.) Electric Street Railway. Ten 16-foot closed cars were constructed for the Interstate Street Railway of Providence, R. I. and other shipments included five closed cars for the Montreal Street Railway, one 8-bench open to the Marlboro Street Railway, one 18-foot closed car to the Augusta, Hallowell & Gardiner Railroad; two 18-foot closed cars to the Mousam River Railroad of Sanford, Me.; a double truck freight car to the Thomson-Houston Electric Company for the Rockland, Thomaston & Camden, two closed cars for the Norwich Street Railway and seven closed cars to the firm of Shaw & Ferguson.
Among cars shipped in 1893 were a 20-foot closed combination passenger/baggage car and three more closed cars and four opens to the Rockland, Thomaston & Camden; a 20-foot closed car to the Waterville & Fairfield Railway & Light Company; four 10-bench opens to the Concord Street Railway in New Hampshire; six 8-bench open cars to the Aurora (Ill.) Street Railway; six 18-foot closed cars to the New London Street Railway and three 18-foot closed and three 10-bench open cars to the Norwalk (Conn.) Tramway. Also known to have been produced in 1893 were four 10-bench opens for the Plymouth & Kingston Street Railway and a 20-foot closed combination passenger/baggage car for the Haverhill & Amesbury Street Railway.
Little information is available about Briggs shipments in 1894 but among them were another 20-foot closed car for the Waterville & Fairfield and four 10bench open cars for the Calais (Maine) Street Railway. Produced in 1895 were one 20-foot closed car and two 10-bench opens for the Norway & Paris Street Railway in Maine's Oxford County and four 13-bench open, two 14-bench open and sixteen 20-foot closed cars for the Brockton Street Railway. Deliveries in 1896 included two 20-foot closed cars, a 20-foot combination passenger-baggage car, four 10-bench opens and a double truck box freight car to the Somerset Traction Company of Skowhegan; two 10-bench opens to the Biddeford & Saco Railroad and one 20-foot closed and two 10-bench opens to the Brunswick Electric Railroad, all Maine properties, and three 20-foot closed cars to the Chester & Derry Railroad in New Hampshire. Two 20-foot 2-inch closed car bodies. Nos. 50 and 84, went to the Union Street Railway of New Bedford in 1897.
The combination passenger-baggage cars produced for the Rockland, Thomaston & Camden and Haver-hill & Amesbury Street Railways and the Somerset Traction Company were essentially identical except for roof type. The body of each was divided by a bulkhead into a passenger compartment, which had two longitudinal seats, and the baggage section, which had a large sliding door on each side. All three initially had open platforms at the ends.
The RT&C car was conveyed about 1900 to the Norway & Paris Street Railway, which sold it a year later to the Augusta, Hallowell & GardinerRailroad. It subsequently became the property of the AH&G's successor, the Augusta, Winthrop & Gardiner Street Railway, and was destroyed by fire in Augusta in 1907. The H&A car is known to have been retired prior to 1909 but the fate of the Somerset Traction car is not recorded.
Developed by Briggs about 1895 was an attractive new design of 20-foot vestibuled closed car. The first versions featured a rectangular monitor roof with a gracefully curved top, convex-concave panel sides, seven drop-sash windows on each side, a single sliding door in each body end bulkhead and vestibules with three drop-sash windows at the ends and either a single-leaf swinging door or a two-leaf folding door on each side. There was a single fixed step at each door. Some of the cars had two longitudinal seats while others had 10 reversible transverse and four short longitudinal seats, the seating capacity for either arrangement being 28. The interiors were heated and lighted by electricity and pictures show that many had incandescent electric headlights permanently mounted on the dashers.
Companies purchasing cars of this design included the Somerset Traction Company, the Norway & Paris Street Railway, the Waterville & Fairfield Railway & Light Company, the Benton & Fairfield Railway, the Portsmouth, Kittery & York Street Railway, the Lewiston & Auburn Horse Railroad, the Brunswick Electric Railroad and the Lewiston, Brunswick & Bath Street Railway in Maine, the Exeter Street Railway in New Hampshire, the Chester & Derry Railroad, plus the Amesbury & Hampton, the Norton & Taunton and the Plymouth & Sandwich Street Railways in Massachusetts. The LB&B, A&H and P&S cars had steam coach instead of monitor roofs. A 25-foot double truck model was also available and at least one was purchased by the Norton & Taunton.
Try as it might, Briggs was unable to obtain any orders from either the West End Street Railway or the Boston Elevated Railway, possibly because its bid prices were higher than those of other builders. In a move to demonstrate to the Elevated the high quality of its products, two sample 25-foot vestibuled closed cars were shipped to Boston about 1899 for tests on the surface lines of the BERy. Whether they actually were purchased by the BERy is uncertain but the two bodies were sold in November 1900 to the Waterville & Fairfield Railway & Light Company for $2,759. They became W&F Nos. 13 and 14; were revamped for one-man operation by the Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland in Railway in 1922 and were retired nine years later.
Briggs may not have scored in Boston but two of the largest orders ever received by the company came in 1899 from two properties later absorbed by the Brooklyn (N.Y.) Rapid Transit Company. Built for the Brooklyn City Railroad were 25 open cars of the 13-bench type, eventually BRT Nos. 675-699, while produced for the Nassau Electric Railroad were fifty 13-bench opens (later BRT 850899) and 25 double truck closed cars with eight windows on each side, which became BRT 2175-2199. All were of Brooklyn rather than Briggs design and some of the opens lasted until 1934, the closed cars being retired during the 1930-33 period.
The American Street Railway manual of 1900 reported that among other owners of Briggs cars were the Amherst & Sunderland Street Railway in Massachusetts, the Dunkirk & Fredonia Railroad of New York, the Stamford Street Railroad in Connecticut. There may well have been more but, in many cases, the manual listed only quantities of cars owned and gave no further details.
During most horsecar era street railways generally operated open cars during the summer and closed cars in the fall, winter and spring but after tamed lightning succeeded hayburners as motive power, many companies found it very expensive to own and maintain rolling stock designed only for seasonal use. At an early date streetcar designers began developing cars which could be converted from closed to open (and vice versa) as the weather dictated and in 1896 the fledgling Duplex Car Co. of New York City obtained patents for a type of fully-convertible trolley. The car had curved sliding panels of a type similar to those found on a roll-top desk and each panel, which had a curved plate glass window near its top, could be pushed upward into a roof recess when it was desired to convert the car from closed to open. A single running board was provided on each side. While the earliest cars had open platforms, it was not long before vestibuled types were produced and these usually had a single fixed step at each vestibule door. Due to their unique shape, they were commonly referred to as "barrel cars."
Because the Duplex Car Company (which maintained a Boston office for a time) had no plant of its own, it arranged for them to be produced by different builders, including the Jackson & Sharp Company of Wilmington, Del. and the Briggs Carriage Company, both being permitted to use their own roof and vestibule designs. What may have been the first Duplex car ever built was demonstrated in Concord, N.H. in December 1896 and a December 27 newspaper story about the trials was illustrated by a crude drawing which showed that it eight panels on each side, open end platforms, transverse seats and double trucks. The car was purchased about 1898 by the Concord Street Railway, on which it became No. 29, and it was in regular use until the tracks of the Concord system were rebuilt and widened from three-foot to standard gauge in 1903. The car had vestibules in its last years of operation and a picture suggests that these vestibules were of Briggs manufacture.
Duplex cars were available in both single truck and double truck versions. Briggs is known to have produced single truck cars for the West Roxbury & Roslindale Street Railway in Massachusetts and the Exeter, Hampton & Amesbury Street Railway. Both had 21 ft. 8 in. bodies, measured 32 ft long overall and 8 ft. 8 in. wide. Each had nine panels on each side and 16 reversible transverse seats accommodating 32 riders. The Somerset Traction Company and the Templeton (Mass.) Street Railway each owned one double truck car and the Dover, Somersworth & Rochester Street Railway of New Hampshire and the Bellows Falls & Saxtons River Street Railway of Vermont each owned two. Four were acquired by the Waterville & Oakland Street Railway of Maine and while the builder of eight owned by the Honolulu (Hawaii) Rapid Transit & Land Company is uncertain, all had some distinctive Briggs characteristics. Another was purchased by the Nelson (British Columbia) Electric Tramway Company.
There was one major trouble with Duplex cars (at least in New England) and that was the tendency of their side panels to become distorted and stick in wet or damp weather, making it virtually impossible to lower them on a rainy day or raise them when sunny skies returned. As early as 1911 the DS&R removed the running boards on its two cars and made the sliding panels fast so they could not be moved. Somerset Traction riveted steel plates to the sides of the car to eliminate the convertible feature. Insulation was provided so the car could easily be heated in winter.
The West Roxbury & Roslindale car subsequently became the property of the Old Colony Street Railway and its 1911 successor, the Bay State Street Railway, and was scrapped in 1919. That one on the Exeter, Hampton & Amesbury Street Railway still was on the property when rail service ended in 1926. The Dover, Somersworth & Rochester was motorized in 1926 and the Somerset Traction Company was abandoned two years later. The Templeton Street Railway car became the property of the Northern Massachusetts Street Railway in 1913 and some of its body parts are preserved at the Seashore Trolley Museum. As for the eight Honolulu cars, their monitor roofs were removed about 1920 and about 1926 the sliding panels and windows and the running boards were removed and the sides were enclosed with heavy wire screening. All were scrapped in 1934.
The first of two luxurious parlor cars produced by the Briggs Carriage Company was the City of Manchester, Manchester, built in 1897 for the Manchester Street Railway. Measuring about 30 feet long overall, it had two eight-observation platforms, a 14-foot enclosed center section and a rectangular monitor roof. There was ornamental wrought iron grillwork on the platforms and the interior of the center section was finished in mahogany and oak and had quartered oak flooring. Draperies were provided at the beveled plate glass windows and small cupboards in each corner (for the storage of edibles and potables) had plate glass mirrors on their doors. Furnishings included a number of wicker and leather chairs which could be moved about on a thick carpet. In short, it was a Victorian parlor on wheels. Two fixed seats were provided on each platform, which was protected by spring roller curtains and the roof end windows were etched with the name of the company.
Delivered in Manchester on August 13, 1897, the City of Manchester initially was painted royal blue and cream and had gold leaf trim and lettering. It rode on a four-wheel truck purchased from the Peckham Truck Company and was equipped with General Electric motors and controllers. According to a newspaper description of the car when it arrived in the Queen City, the truck was nickel plated but pictures show no such embellishment.
Acquired primarily for the use of Manchester Street Railway officials, notably its president Charles Williams, the City of Manchester could be hired (initially for $5 daily) by small private parties who wished to charter something more elegant than an ordinary street car. It was a familiar sight on Queen City streets until the World War I years, then gradually fell into disuse. Stored for a long period in one of Manchester Street Railway's operating carhouses, it made its last trip on September 6, 1929 when it ran to the end of the Valley Street line, back to downtown Manchester and then out on the Massabesic Lake line to the Lake or Youngsville storage barn. Here it reposed until 1938 when its body was sold to a private party for use as a playhouse for his children. In 1952 the body was purchased by a member of the New England Electric Railway Historical Society and moved to the Seashore Trolley Museum. It has since been restored to as near its original condition as possible and is operated at the museum from time to time. It has been returned to Manchester twice for display during special events and attracted numerous admirers on both occasions. It is the only Briggs-built car known to exist today (except for Car #6 which is inside the litle stone house on Mill Road in Hampton, N.H., built in 1935).
Similar to the City of Manchester was the single truck parlor car Lawrence built by the Newburyport Car Manufacturing Company for the Newport & Fall River Street Railway in 1898. It was nearly 34 feet long overall and its 18-foot closed section had four instead of three windows on each side. Painted brown with gold trim, it became No. 2697 of the Old Colony Street Railway in 1901 and during World War I it was used to spread the wheat conservation message of the U. S. Food Administration on tours throughout much of eastern Massachusetts. After the conflict ended, the car was placed in storage in the Portsmouth carhouse of the former N&FR and was scrapped after vandals extensively damaged its body.
Two years after the City of Manchester made its debut, a double truck version was produced for the Lewiston, Brunswick & Bath Street Railway in 1899. Costing $7,000 and named the Merrymeeting, it was 40 feet long overall, there being a 10-foot platform at either end and a 20-foot closed section in the center. As on the Queen City car, the end platforms were enclosed by ornamental wrought iron grillwork, the platform floors being covered with rubber matting. The car had a steam coach roof and there were olive green plush draperies at the windows and a matching velvet carpet on the floor of the closed section which was provided with movable easy chairs and four tables for use by card players. A cupboard at each end had plate glass mirrors on the doors and one held an ice water tank. The interior finish was of mahogany and the exterior of the car was painted olive green with straw trim, Merrymeeting appearing in gold on the convex panels of the closed section. It rode on Peckham trucks; was equipped with Westinghouse motors and controllers and had both hand and air brakes, the compressor for the latter being axle-driven.
Delivered to the LB&B at Bath, the car made its first trip from the Shipbuilding City to Lewiston on May 13, 1899 and carried a party of company officials and invited guests. The Lewiston Evening Journal of that day said passengers reported that the car "ran like a boat, without a jar and with a bird-like velocity." Like the City of Manchester, it was available for charter by private parties and one of these was aboard on July 10, 1900 when the Merrymeeting ran away on Main Street, Lewiston, after its brakes failed. As it moved downgrade, its speed steadily increased and when it hit a switch at the north end of the North Bridge across the Androscoggin River, it split the switch and continued broadside across the span to Court Street, Auburn, where it finally halted. There were no injuries to any of the passengers and no collisions with other vehicles and once the brakes had been repaired at the LB&B's Lewiston carhouse, the special party continued to its destination.
The LB&B was succeeded in 1907 by the Lewiston, Augusta & Waterville Street Railway and on September 14, 1908 the Merrymeeting made the first trip over the LA&W's new line from Lewiston to Winslow via Gardiner, Augusta and East and North Vassalboro. General Manager Harry Ivers and other railway officials were aboard when the car left Lewiston about 4 p.m. and headed for Winslow. Because trolley wires had not yet been strung between Augusta and East Vassalboro, the parlor car had to be towed over this part of the line by a small steam locomotive normally used to draw construction trains. With the state Railroad Commissioners aboard, the car left Winslow at 1 p.m. the next day and arrived in Augusta in the late afternoon. After an overnight stay at the Augusta House, the party continued onto Lewiston. Regular trolley service between Lewiston and Winslow was inaugurated on November 24, 1908, a two-hour headway being maintained until December 1 when hourly service was substituted.
It was the custom of the Railroad Commissioners to inspect all trolley lines in the state annually and during both the LB&B and LA&W they were figuratively wined and dined on the Merrymeeting. The parlor car also carried many charter parties, favorite destinations of which included New Meadows Inn in West Bath and Tacoma Inn between Lewiston and Gardiner.
But, like the City of Manchester, the parlor car was little used after World War I and it was scrapped in 1923 by the Androscoggin & Kennebec Railway, LA& W successor in 1919. Pictures show that in later years the car rode on Laconia trucks, was equipped with a motor-driven compressor, and was painted in a livery much simpler than the original.
By the end of the 19th Century the carriage business was beginning to decline and in 1900 the Briggs Carriage Company started building bodies for the Locomobile Company of Bridgeport, Conn., which had begun producing steampropelled automobiles in 1899. After a strike beginning on January 1, 1903 and lasting three months, Briggs officials formally decided to halt streetcar production (they had no orders anyway) and to concentrate on automobile bodies and horse-drawn wagons.
Four Duplex double truck convertibles were on hand when streetcar building officially ended. These were shipped to the Waterville & Oakland Street Railway in Maine in early June 1903. As one of them was being moved to the Amesbury freight yard on June 8, its roof struck a trolley wire of the Haverhill & Amesbury Street Railway on Elm Street, causing the wire to fall to the ground in a shower of sparks and producing a short circuit. Until a wire crew arrived to make repairs, the Duplex couldn't be moved but eventually it reached the freight yard and was started on its way to Maine. The four cars became Nos. 2 even through 8 on the Waterville and Oakland, and were Nos. 20-23 of the Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland after 1911.
The Briggs streetcar business effectively was turned over to the newly-organized Southern Car Company of High Point, N.C. (Edward R. Briggs was Southern's first secretary-trcasurer) which continued production until 1917. The Briggs influence naturally was very strong in Southern's earliest cars and, indeed, Southern used pictures of Briggs cars in its initial advertising in trade publications. As best can be determined, Southern sold cars to only two New England railways, the Norwich & Westerly Railway and the New London & East Lyme Street Railway, both in Connecticut, but its products enjoyed wide distribution in other states, particularly those below the Mason-Dixon line.
Shortly after the Southern Car Company went out of business, Perley A. Thomas, a former employee, purchased the High Point plant and organized the Perley A. Thomas Car Works. It built streetcars for many U. S. cities, including New Orleans, La., until 1930 when production ended. The company then turned to the bus manufacturing field and it is still in business today (1993), specializing in school buses with all-steel bodies. Perley Thomas cars remain in operation today in the Crescent City, where they are run on both the St. Charles Street route and the new Waterfront tourist trolley line, while others have been preserved at trolley museums, including the Seashore Trolley Museum and the Connecticut Electric Railway Museum of East Windsor, Conn.
As for the Briggs Carriage Co., it sold its car building plant to the F. S. Merrill wheel "manufactory" in May 1903 and the building still stands. Last occupied by Eastern States Distributors Inc., it was vacant in May 1993. A structure immediately to the west, used by Briggs to store completed streetcars, carriages and wagons pending shipment, was occupied for many years by the Henschel Corporation and now houses ARC Technologies and DM Precision Tool Sharpening.
G. Scott Briggs is trying to locate a Briggs Carriage built in the Town of Amesbury in Essex County, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The early business name was R. F. BRIGGS & CO. and may have been just Richard Francis Briggs doing business as R. F. BRIGGS, a sole proprietor. It became the BRIGGS CARRIAGE COMPANY successor to R. F. BRIGGS & CO. in 1874.
On October 4, 1887 the business was incorporated in Massachusetts. The production span for carriages was probably 1856 to 1904. The company originally manufactured carriages, wagons, bodies and gears. An advertising poster dated January 1, 1880 showing 24 models proclaimed the BRIGGS CARRIAGE COMPANY was "the largest works in New England."
In 1880 its gross was $200,000.00 (about $3 million in 1996 dollars); manufactured 1800 carriages and had 125 employees. In 1893 4 carriages were displayed at the World Columbian Exhibit in Chicago, Illinois. In later years BRIGGS CAR CO., likely a division, built streetcars (trolleys) during 1890-1903 and automobile bodies by hand without attribution or labeling on the bodies (circa 1900 e. g. Locomobile).
In 1904 the street car and wheel making machinery moved to High Point, North Carolina as did Edward Roberts Briggs. The High Point operation was ceased about 1915. The Amesbury operation was closed out in 1926. Of additional interest are any carriages made in "The Carriage Centre of the World, Amesbury, Mass., USA", Briggs Street Cars/Trolleys or automobile bodies crafted by Briggs.
Scott's mailing address is G. Scott Briggs, 5561 Arezzo Drive, San Jose, CA 95138-2210 and Email address is firstname.lastname@example.com . His home telephone number is 408.238.2202 (collect calls on a located carriage will be accepted) and home FAX number is 408.238.2116.


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One Direction pose at the Logies last year.
If ever there was a pop group perfectly engineered to fuel the fantasy lives of adolescent girls (and a subset of grown woman and gay men), it's One Direction. The Simon Cowell-managed and -manufactured fivesome are equal in looks and charm (if not necessarily in talent) and sing about parties, kissing, and girls who don't know they're beautiful, in songs tailor-made for the Twilight generation.
It wasn't like this when I was growing up. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the talent was just as uneven and the songs equally corny, but even within the boy band genre, the "cute one" was a one-man role (alongside the "bad boy," "shy one," and the "one with the talent"), rather than a prerequisite for appearing on stage at all.
But One Direction differ from the all-male singing groups that came before them in other, less superficial, ways as well. Take the video for their latest ditty, Kiss You, in which Harry Styles, riding on a motorcycle behind Zayn Malik, reaches forward to cheekily tweak his band mate's nipples. Or their previous hit, Live While We're Young, in which the boys wrestle, hug, and play with giant inflatable banana. Not to mention the countless TV appearances, interviews and live concerts in which the band have groped or mock-kissed each other for the cameras.
Yep, there's a definite whiff of the homoerotic about 2013's foremost boy band.
Groups of young men who sing, dance and wear brightly coloured jeans (or back in the 1990s, plastic trousers and tight t-shirts) have long been objects of sexual mockery. 'N Sync, the American boy band famous for launching Justin Timberlake, was the butt of homophobic jokes long before Lance Bass came out of the closet in 2006. The Backstreet Boys? "More like the Backdoor Boys," the turn of the millennium joke tittered.
One Direction are no different. No sooner had the band's Kiss You video hit YouTube than a parody emerged with jokes about "gay leprechauns," "dropping the soap," and liking men's butts. Hilarious, no?
But what distinguishes One Direction from their predecessors is that rather than trying to fight these stereotypes by gushing about women and being careful not to stand too closely together, they play up to them. They flirt. They roughhouse. They touch each other's bottoms at concerts, and perform at gay nightclubs. They also have girlfriends. People may call them gay, but (most of the time, at least) they don't give a toss. Because for the One Direction generation, being "gay" isn't a bad thing.
In fact, amongst the demographic Harry, Liam, Louis, Zayn and Niall occupy, this kind of behaviour is common, says UK masculinities researcher, Eric Anderson. Anderson is the author of a 2010 study which found that 89 percent of 18- to 25-year-old self-identified heterosexual men had kissed another man on the lips - and in most cases, there was nothing sexual about it. "This is what young men of that age do in the UK," Anderson says. "Touching, hugging, cuddling, and bum/testicle slapping are all ways you show your mates that you love them."
It's a shift that is deeply tied to a broader decline in – and increasing unacceptability of – homophobia, Anderson believes. In periods of high "homohysteria" he argues – places and points in history in which same-sex attraction is both widely recognised and reviled – men will keep their distance from each other in order to avoid being labelled as "gay." At when homohysteria is lower, men are able to be more freely intimate: whether that means One Direction-style horseplay, friends holding hands in the Middle East, or rugby players posing with their arms draped around each other instead of standing with their arms solemnly folded.
Australian sociologist Michael Flood has observed a similar blurring of boundaries between straight and gay cultures, pointing to the rise of the metrosexual, the hipster, and indeed of men like himself: for whom going to Mardi Gras or hanging out with same-sex attracted friends is second nature, but who go home to female lovers and partners. He calls them "straight queers."
But this blurring has been "very uneven," Flood warns. "It's much more common amongst urban young men than rural young men. It probably goes along with particular peer cultures as well. You'll find fewer straight queers in death metal or pub rock than in hipster cultures, cafes and so on." And while the prevalence of homophobia is lowest in the 18 to 24 age group, it is significantly higher amongst 14- to 17-year-olds. Not to mention that One Direction are playing with gay culture in a safely heterosexual space. "Coming out would be different," Flood maintains.
Then again, it seems that in this case, coming out isn't really the point. One Direction's mock kisses and crotch grabbing may garner attention on YouTube, but they represent the flirtatious tip of a decidedly more platonic iceberg. Beneath them lie a myriad of more subtle intimacies, and a gradual shift to a culture that allows men to banter, make body contact, and even love each other a little bit, without it marking a threat to their status as men. In other words, a culture that allows young men to enjoy the kind of friendship and intimacy that has traditionally been associated with young women.
As for One Direction themselves? When asked by an American interviewer why they grab each other's butts and crotches on stage, Niall replied, "See, that one, that one's just to make the girls scream, isn't it?" "See, [Harry's] done that, and the crowd's going crazy," chimed in Zayn.
"We do it for a laugh," they concluded.


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Can you explain why the Bible refers to body, soul and spirit; yet a pastor will say we are only body and spirit?
The way we understand the references in the Bible regarding "soul" and "spirit" is that they are synonymous terms. There are times when the author uses "soul" and times he uses "spirit," but the words are intended to communicate the same reality: that aspect of man's nature which is non-corporeal.
This is seen, for example, if you compare Genesis 2:7 and Ecclesiastes 12:7.
Genesis 2:7 (KJV), "then the LORD God formed the man of dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul."
Ecclesiastes 12:7, "and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it."
In the former passage it says that God breathed into man "the breath of life" but then it goes on to say that the man become a living soul. The latter passage calls this soul in man a "spirit" which will return to God when he dies. The word spirit is often used to describe this aspect of man's being (such as in Ps. 32:2). Another place where soul and spirit are used synonymously is 1 Samuel 1:15, "But Hannah answered, 'No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the LORD.'"
Also Job 7:11, "Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul."
This is an instance of a poetical form called parallelism. This second part of the verse parallels in meaning what you read in the third and last part. Job's anguish of spirit is the same reality as his bitterness of soul. Soul and spirit, then, are not two different entities within man, but two words describing one and the same entity.
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Chaplains and Military Personnel


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For my non-Twitter readers (wait, seriously, you don't have a Twitter?), #FriFotos is a weekly themed collaborative hashtag where travelers contribute their best and favorite photos. This week's theme is 'sand,' and while I've got thousands of pictures from the sandy beaches of my homestate, Florida, I thought it would be more exciting to share my brief recent experience at Death Valley National Park.
Niko and I made a short visit to Death Valley National Park on our way out of California. After weeks of San Francisco diners, mountain cabin retreats in Willits, and meeting the largest trees on earth at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, we jetted off towards Las Vegas for an evening of luxury – if you can count the Excalibur as luxurious. Niko had never been this far west before, so it was a treat to shuttle him around California, spewing out factoids and acting like I was a seasoned west coast traveler.
We stopped by the first ranger station to 'register' our car using my annual National Parks pass, and picked up a map to scope out what natural attractions we could stop by on our way towards Las Vegas. The only thing that wasn't miles out of the way were the Mesquite Dune Flats, so we navigated our way through the desert towards them.
You really can't miss 'em.
Niko will be proud to hear me finally admit that I was a total brat during our visit to the dunes. Hot, bothered, and suffering from a desperate case of the munchies, I was a huge downer while Niko happily tromped through the sand. He pleaded with me to take a picture standing in the dunes (the top photo), and I was a major wench about it, miserably dragging my sandaled feet across the piping hot sand and faking a smile – but hey, it turned out pretty well in the end.
While I was wallowing in a pity-party about my lack of snacks, Niko ignored my blues and went for a little romp in the dunes. It was undeniably anti-climactic, but he insisted on jumping off one of the dunes into the sand. His failed attempt at an epic moment definitely quelled my negativity a bit – even though he inevitably tracked heaps of sand into the car afterwards.
Next time we head through the west, I'd like to spend much more time exploring Death Valley National Park. During my first visit to Death Valley, I was driving across the country with my entire family after a year of living in San Jose, California. The hottest temperature we recorded was a sweltering 123 degrees, and naturally, our van's air-conditioning died in the middle of the desert. Literally everything we owned melted, from my mother's red lipstick to my stick of deodorant. It was an adventure to remember, and one I'd totally love to relive.


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When I returned from Germany after covering Gamescom, the last thing I was expecting to be waiting for me in a UPS box was a bottle of Dream Day Wedding-labeled Merlot.
The package came from I-play, purveyors of fine casual games, in celebration of the release of hidden object game Dream Day Wedding: Bella Italia. After all, nothing says Bella Italia like a fine Merlot from Trader Joe's, bottled by the Charles Shaw Winery in Napa and Sonoma, California.
While I can't say that Dream Day Wedding: Bella Italia is the sort of game I'd ever consider playing, I feel I must take this opportunity to say how much I enjoy having bottles of alcohol shipped directly to my apartment. Saves me a run down to QuikTrip for some Boone's Farm.


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Oral History of British Science
An Oral History of British Science is a national collection of in-depth, life story audio interviews with scientists and engineers accessible to everyone interested in the recent history of science and technology in Britain.
The programme is an initiative of National Life Stories in association with the Science Museum, and with support from the Arcadia Fund.
John Nye, Juneau icefield, Alaska, 1967
An Oral History of British Science is a national collection of interviews with over 100 leading UK scientists and engineers, telling the stories of some of the most remarkable scientific and engineering discoveries of the past century as well as the personal stories of each individual. Remarkably few scientists have previously been interviewed at length about their life and work, and this archive remedies that absence while preserving their memories for posterity to be used by researchers now and in the future.
Interviews, which last 10-15 hours, have been recorded under the project strands Made in Britain and A Changing Planet, and range across a variety of disciplines, which already include aeronautical and civil engineering, atmospheric and climate change science, computer hardware and software, electronics, geology, geophysics, glaciology, instrumentation, materials, meteorology, molecular biology and oceanography. A number of shorter, on-location video interviews have also been filmed.
Further information about An Oral History of British Science, including the case for the programme, interview methodology and outputs, is available in the Oral History of British Science project proposal.
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