Lo these many years ago I attended South High School in Minneapolis, MN. And there I was cast unto a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And thus was I bitten by the bug of the theater. Forever after would I prance upon the wooden slats of the stage.

I have spoken here previously about the excellent theater program at South High School and the huge effect it had on me as both a person and as an artist. I’m not alone: Dozens of South High Theater alumni have gone on to professional careers in the theater (as documented by the South High Theater Alumni Alliance, which is hosted on this site).

Louise Bormann, who has served as the Artistic Director of South High Theater for 17 years, is retiring. Starting next year, the program will be taken over by alumni Ellen Fenster. In celebration, we are restaging The Importance of Being Earnest (which was first produced on the South High stage in 1994). Many of the leading roles are being reprised by the original actors (many of whom are now professional actors), and I’ll be taking on the role of Merriman.

Most of you reading this have no immediate connection to South High, so this probably means little to you.

But what should mean something is that this is a rollickin’ good show. If you live in the area and you’re looking for a good dose of entertainment, then you should come and see it.

The worst writing I have ever read.

(And I write that as someone who has suffered through multiple readings of the Eye of Argon.)

A sample:

Her hair had the sheen of the sea beneath an eclipsed moon. It was the color of a leopard’s tongue, of oiled mahogany. It was terra cotta, bay and chestnut. Her hair was a helmet, a hood, the cowl of the monk, magician or cobra.

Her face had the fragrance of a gibbous moon. The scent of fresh snow. Her eyes were dark birds in fresh snow. They were the birds’ shadows, they were mirrors; they were the legends on old charts. They were antique armor and the tears of dragons. Her brows were a raptor’s sharp, anxious wings. They were a pair of scythes. Her ears were a puzzle carved in ivory. Her teeth were her only bracelet; she carried them within the red velvet purse of her lips.

You really have to read it out loud to appreciate just how mind-numbingly awful it is. I found, when reading it to myself, that my subconscious brain just started skimming over things. It was only when I started reading it out loud that the Cthulhuian mind-rending began.

This is taken, by the way, from a published novel: Silk and Steel by Ron Miller.

I’m also fairly enamored of this pictorial rendition of the subject of the passage (although you really need to click through and read the full thing to appreciate it fully).

This has been making the rounds for a couple of months now, so I’m probably not the first person to note the similarity between this misbegotten narrative excess and the Song of Solomon. I suspect this is not merely an accidental resemblance: One of the characters, you’ll note, is named Spikenard. While many reading the passage dismiss this as merely some horrible fantasy name, Spikenard is actually the name of a flower which is mentioned twice in the Song of Solomon.

By pure synchronicity, a couple of days after reading this for the first time, I was reading 3:16 – Bible Text Illuminated by Donald E. Knuth, which expanded insightfully on the topic while discussing the Song of Solomon (pg. 96):

These songlets are examples of an ancient type of love poem called a wa?f, in which a beloved’s body is praised part by part, often making use of extravagant and far-fetched metaphors. For example, an Egyptian papyrus from about 1250 B.C. contains a fragment of a wa?f that says, “my sister’s mouth is a lotus; her breasts are mandrakes”. Wa?f songs appear several times in the Thousand and One Nights, and they are still popular in modern Arab poetry. A 19th-century wa?f includes the line: “Her bosom is like polished marble tablets, as ships bring them to Sidon; like pomegranates topped with piles of glittering jewels.”

So there is clearly a very specific effect that Ron Miller is going for. Does this make it better? Not really. I’d even argue it makes it worse. Miller has clearly put a lot of thought and care into rendering something that, in its actual execution, ends up being a mockery of the very thing it sought to create.

Understanding what Miller was attempting to create helps us to understand where it all went horribly, horribly wrong. But the skidmarks don’t negate the car crash.

The etymology of the English word “lord” is interesting: In Middle English it was laverd or loverd, which derived from the Old English hlaford (“master of the house”). But before that it was hlafweard, which meant literally “one who guards loaves of bread” (hlaf meaning “bread or loaf” and weard meaning “guardian, protector, or ward”).

On the other hand, a lady was hlafæta (“one who serves the house”) — or, more literally, “one who gives the loaf”.

In other words, an English lord was one who protected the food and an English lady was one who was responsible for distributing the food (presumably in a fair and efficient fashion).

I think this tells you a great deal about the English tradition of nobility.

You can also find similar etymological roots for other familiar titles: A duke is literally “one who leads”. An earl, on the other hand, was literally a “warrior” or “brave man”. (But it’s even more interesting to note that “earl” was an Anglo-Saxon term. It was equated with the French title of count when the Normans arrived. The term “count” derives from the Latin comitem, which means “companion”. Tells you something about the clashing traditions of nobility in England post-1066, eh?) In Old English a sheriff was the “chief of the shire” (scirgerefa, from scir– meaning “shire” and –gerefa meaning “chief, official, reeve”).

One of the things I enjoy doing while creating a fantasy setting is to create original titles of nobility and position. Not a lot of them (because nobody is really interested in turning a gaming session into a fictional language lesson), but just a few scattered here and there. Think of it as spicing or emphasis… or just a touch of the unnatural.

For example, a number of small nations and city-states in my campaign are ruled by syrs. For example, Dweredell is ruled by Syr Arion. This title is derived from the Draconic word for “lightning” and originally referred to the equivalent of  “duke” or “governor” in an ancient empire that once dominated wide swaths of the world. The empire used “lightning” as a title because the syrs ruled through the threat of destructive power. (Which tells you a great deal about the empire.) When the empire fell, the local syrs were in a position to consolidate power.

There are two tricks to introducing terms like this: Moderation and context.

First, don’t use a lot of them. And introduce them at a very slow pace. (I average about one every 20 sessions.) These things are spicing. And like all spices, less is usually more.

Second, introduce them through the simple and expedient means of using them in context. For example, the first time a group of players entered Dweredell they went looking for the leader of the city. After a Gather Information check I told them they could find Syr Arion at the Twin Keeps, and off they went with nary a question.

Another group started a campaign in the city-state of Amsyr and when I said “you receive an invitation from the syr to attend upon him at the palace”, one of the players asked, “What’s a syr?” And I said, “A local title, like a duke or a prince.” They said, “Oh.” and off we went.

Similarly, in my current campaign, nobody even batted an eye when I started referring to female knights using the title Sera. (Thus, Sir Kabel and Sera Nara.) (Why not use “dame”? For a variety of reasons.)

In both cases the term sort of settled into the common vernacular of the group. And when some of those players later learned that the term nainsyr meant “let there be lightning” (because it was the command word for a magical sword), maybe some connection was made (either consciously or otherwise).

Or maybe not. It doesn’t really matter: My mission was already accomplished. I had already leveraged them a little further away from Generic Fantasy World #961.

I came to this novel by way of Gary Gygax by way of Appendix N of the 1st Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide by way of James Maliszewski at Grognardia.

I think it’s safe to say that, if not for that rather remarkable (and lengthy) chain of recommendations, I would probably have never read this slim volume — which, as far as I know, was published in 1963 and never seen again.

Sign of the Labrys is a post-apocalyptic tale of the sort commonly found in mid-20th century science fiction. What sets it apart is that it is also, although it doesn’t strictly look like it at first, science fantasy. (This becomes clear fairly quickly, but the exact reasons for its fantastical nature constitute a spoiler so drastic that I won’t even hint at it here.)

The ways in which Sign of the Labrys inspired Gygax’s dungeoncraft become both rapidly and intriguingly apparent: Sam Sewell, the protagonist of the tale, lives in a vast underground complex of modified caverns that was built as a refuge before the collapse of civilization. The apocalypse thinned out the population (killing nine in ten) and eradicated central authority, leaving behind vast catacombs of uninhabited space which small, spontaneous societies have repurposed in a variety of ways.

In short, Sign of the Labrys reads like a strange hybrid of Dungeons & Dragons and Metamorphosis Alpha. Here we find a clear predecessor of Castle Greyhawk: A multi-cultural, subterranean menagerie laid out in a pattern of levels and sub-levels connected by both the well-known thoroughfares and a plentitude of secret passages and hidden ladders.

This, by itself, would have made Sign of the Labrys a fascinating and worthwhile novel for a D&D afficionado like myself. But I also found the novel to be very entertaining in its own right. Addictive, in fact. It’s got a page-turning, pulpy pace mixed together with some nigh-poetic language and a strange, enigmatic mystery that leaves you yearning to know the answer.

Stylistically Sign of the Labrys reminds me quite favorably of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore. It possesses the strange, otherworldly, and fantastical approach to matters of science fiction which characterizes the best of their work. Particularly Moore’s. Like Moore’s classic Jirel of Joiry stories, Sign of the Labrys reminds me of Alice in Wonderland smashed through the broken mirror of another genre’s conceits and set pieces. If I were to say that Sign of the Labrys periodically reads as if the author had taken a tab of LSD before sitting down at her typewriter it would not be wholly inaccurate. (It would, however, be rather less than charitable, as St. Clair’s writing is not merely a drug-induced rambling. In fact, it works consistently towards a larger stylistic and revelatory purpose.)

In the end, I found Sign of the Labrys to be delightfully entertaining. And since, like me, you are unlikely to encounter it by chance, I shall pass on the same recommendation that was given to me: From Gygax to AD&D to Grognardia to me to the Alexandrian and thus to you…

Find a copy if you can.

GRADE: B-

Margaret St. Clair
Published: 1963
Publisher: Bantam Books
Cover Price: $0.60
Buy Now!

Wow. That was really bad.

I just got back from watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine and I feel absolutely compelled to warn others from wasting their money on a cinematic travesty. What’s particularly remarkable about this disastrous failure is that the first half of the film is actually quite good. It’s not a cinematic triumph by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a solid, entertaining popcorn film.

But then, a little over halfway through the movie, a switch is flipped. Something incredibly stupid happens, and from that point forward the entire film becomes nearly unwatchable: The plot, the characters, and even the editing all become insultingly idiotic.

It’s as if the two halves of the film were made by completely different creative teams.

You probably won’t believe me. I’d certainly seen people giving the thumbs-down to this movie in various places around the ‘net before deciding to go and see it anyway. But consider this: I actually left the theater thinking X-Men 3 wasn’t a complete disaster. (It was a huge disappointment and completely wasted the opportunity created by the first two films. But it was passable.)

And I’m telling you that X-Men Origins: Wolverine is an unwatchable travesty.

From this point forward we’ll have SPOILERS so that I can rant a bit.

(1) First, allow me to reiterate that I thought the first half of the film was actually quite good for a popcorn action flick. The opening sequence with the young brothers; the montage sequence over the opening credits; and Hugh Jackman’s performance through the next section all made the film very entertaining.

(2) First Warning Sign: The scene where Logan is getting injected with the adamantine skeleton.

Stryker: “By the way, here are your dog-tags. Because even though you’re completely naked, laying in a tub of water, and about to be injected with molten metal, I think you should be wearing these.”

Logan: “I want new ones.”

Stryker: “What do you want them to say?”

Logan: “Wolverine.”

Stryker: “Really? Okay. Well, damn. Okay, everybody hold on. Logan, you just stay laying right there. Everybody else just hang out. I’m going to go have completely new dog-tags made.”

And they do…!

(3) Second Warning Sign: Agent Zero has just been killed trying to kill Wolverine.

Nameless Dude: “Agent Zero had no chance. You would need a gun with adamantine bullets. Like this one right here. That we have had all along. And could have easily given him.”

Stryker: “Wasn’t Agent Zero’s mutant power his ability to shoot guns really, really well?”

Nameless Dude: “Don’t forget his ability to leap around like a jackrabbit.”

Stryker: “Right. I see we’re theming these mutant powers well. But since he could shoot really well, wouldn’t it have made more sense to give him this gun?”

Nameless Dude: “… dude. You could have said something like an hour ago.”

(4) The Stupid of No Return: The first time Gambit attacked Wolverine, it made perfect sense. The second time Gambit attacked Wolverine? That was stupid. Really, really, really stupid.

(For those who haven’t seen the film: Gambit hates Sabretooth and wants him dead. He sees Wolverine with his blades to Sabretooth’s throat and hears him say, “I’m going to kill you.” So what does Gambit do? He attacks Wolverine and stops him from killing Sabretooth. Thirty seconds later after Sabretooth has escaped? Gambit is asking Wolverine to help him kill Sabretooth.)

(5) The Rest of the Stupid: I’d try to list it, but there’s really no point. After the Stupid of No Return, virtually every single second of the movie is stupid. So I’ll just highlight one particularly egregrious bit of stupid…

(6) Professor X is a Dick: Remember in the first X-Men movie when Professor X knows nothing about Wolverine? Turns out, he’s a dick. Not only is he telepathically monitoring the entire finale of the movie (and thus probably knows exactly who Wolverine is), but even if he somehow missed Wolverine’s presence telepathically it turns out his first twenty students (including Cyclops!) were all rescued by Wolverine himself!

The fact that the Cyclops himself doesn’t recognize Wolverine makes sense (because they’re actually quite careful about making sure he’s blind and never even hears Wolverine speak). But Professor X? He’s a dick.

Unless they get Bryan Singer back, this is probably the last X-Men movie they’ll be conning me into seeing for awhile.