chrislehrich

Important Safety Tip

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:07:14 GMT

Thanks, Egon!

News and technical

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:26:57 GMT

Long time, no post, blah blah...

We're going to Japan in 2 weeks, for a year. I'm on sabbatical, Sarah's teaching, Sam will be in nursery school, Maia will be in daycare.

I'm going to start a blog from Kyoto, mostly about food, and I want some advice on programs, sites, and whatnot. So...

I hope for the site to look clean and clear, with the kinds of things you see in many of the nicer blogs around, along the lines of French Laundry at Home (on blogspot), Kyoto Foodie (not sure how posted), and so on.

Front pages don't seem to be usual, so I need to put some remarks on what the hell on the side, rather the way Carol Blymire does in her French Laundry thing.

So my questions to you all:

1. What do you recommend? Blogspot? Something else? I don't want to pay a fee for this.

2. Should I use a program to set up the post and then put it up, or will a good word-processor with HTML capacity do this fine if I know how to use it?

3. Photographs: what size (in pixels or bytes) should a good JPG be in order to be clear but not a pain in the ass to load?

4. Any suggestions about organization or presentation for clarity and smooth usage?

5. I am thinking about sub-posts on things that are a little dull or technical, where you'd click within a normal long post if you're actually interested. Any ideas how to go about this, or what would work well?

6. Indexing and searching seems to be done in various ways, from clusters of terms in varying sizes to normal searches to whatever. Any thoughts on what you like?

7. Last but not least, any ideas for a title? "Eating Kyoto" seems a little strange, "A Year In Food In Kyoto" tedious, and so on. As you know, I'm not good at this.

For those of you in email contact, my email won't change, so no worries there. And, of course, technically, I will be doing research on a new book. I will post musings about that here, probably, along with family and so on updates. If I think of anything clever to say about games and fantasy cultures and so on, I will put them on the other blog, under clehrich. But I don't know how much of that is actually going to happen: I have these grand plans, and then something always gets in the way.

What's New With You?

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 05:47:00 GMT

Hi Gang,

General updates and insanity to follow, so feel free not to read this if you hate me.

Maia is burpling along well, smiling and gurgling and doing the baby thing. Not much to say there, really, if you know much about babies. Oh – except she’s huge. I mean, like enormous. The doctor predicts 15 pounds at 3 month checkup time. Apparently she decided early that milk is a good thing and there should be more of it, so she just eats more or less continuously. Starting in a week or so, when Sarah goes back to teaching, this won’t be quite as accessible, and we’ll just have to see how she (either one of those with a feminine pronoun, really) copes. But Maia is entering the sweet spot where kiddies smile and laugh and have fun but cannot get away, so no big worries there.

Sam is basically bilingual with Japanese, though he doesn’t like to speak it. He loves daycare, and has recently discovered the magic of jigsaw puzzles – he does the ones for 4-year-olds (40-odd pieces) with aplomb, repeatedly, until he can do them in under 5 minutes. And, yes, he especially likes the ones with dinosaurs. I don’t know what it is about boys and dinosaurs, but I’m going to read W.J.T. Mitchell’s book and find out, I tell you. Tantrums are horrible and insane and generally appalling, but everyone else with kids roughly this age recently wants to kick our asses when we say this, as basically Sam is saintly by 2½-year-old standards.

Sarah is going back to work in a week or so, as I say, and we’ll just have to see. But she has tenure, so what can they do?

I’m fine, Assistant Prof, new book doing well, no great worries. Next semester is going to be easy-peasy, as I have the same old writing courses, but only two instead of three, and nothing else. My colleagues in the department are horrified by the workload, but to me it’s all the same old grind, as you know. I’m also working on a new book, of course, which is going to be deeply weird but a good deal of fun, at least for me. It’s a thing about music and ritual, and at this point to explain more clearly would require that I know more than I currently know. I do know, though, that one chapter will be on Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and one chapter will be on Takemitsu, and probably there will be chapters on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, and beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess. Lots of good fun setting Adorno and Lévi-Strauss into (violent) conversation, though.

I will also pass a recommendation on to y’all. If you think you just might possibly be able to stand opera in any form whatever, you must run out immediately and buy or rent the Criterion Collection DVD pressing of Ingmar Bergman’s film of The Magic Flute (Trollfloete). First of all, it’s wonderful. Second, it’s Mozart at his best, and if you don’t like this you are a turd-brain, which is an objective judgment. Third, it’s Bergman. Fourth, the most important role, Papageno, is sung by Hakan Hagegard, and this is quite possibly the finest recording of this role that currently exists. Admittedly, it’s in Swedish, but you will quickly get over it. If you have small kids, they will adore this film – Sam does, anyway, and I don’t think it’s because he’s some sort of prodigy. Anyone who checks this out and hates it should feel free to do something unprintable.

Beyond this, same old, same old. I will try to blog a little more often, but you know, I’m sort of busy, I can’t imagine why. But when we get to Japan, I promise to blog until you beg me to stop!

Sarah has some kind of web photo site with baby and kid pictures, and I will post the link soon.

Remember me?

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 05:45:36 GMT

So as of last count, I had a job, a kid, a wife, two books, some hobbies. Where do I stand now? I knew you were wondering, so I thought I’d post.

So the first thing, really, is that I have another kid. Maia Caroline Lehrich was born October 25, at 5:36 am. She is healthy, eating (drinking) like a horse (do horses drink?), sleeps the way all 4-week-old kids sleep, and is starting to look around and pay attention to what’s going on around her. Sam is taking this philosophically, on the whole; he has become a great deal more attached to Daddy, who now has to put him to bed, read him stories, and all that stuff he used to require Mommy to do. Initially that seemed to be anger: he was pretty ticked that Mommy brought this annoying baby home, and wanted her replaced to show her what’s what, but now he seems to have decided that Daddy is his because Mommy is Maia’s, except for occasionally when he really has to have Mommy (like when he’s hurt his finger and wants a Band-Aid even though it isn’t bleeding). But there have been moments, as when he demanded that his dinner milk be in a bottle, complete with nipple – you don’t have to be Freud to figure that one out! Mom is doing well, Dad is sleeping less than he’d like, but all in all we’re keeping it together, thanks for asking.

The second thing is that we’re going to Kyoto in August. Oy. I mean, fun, yeah, but oh my god. Sarah is getting a full salary and teaching a sort of semi-full load – this is a thing members of this consortium of American schools do, and it’s her turn. When we signed up, we didn’t expect me to have a job and then of course Maia and so on. Nevertheless, it looks like fun. I will be doing some research on the film soundtracks of Toru Takemitsu, for my new book on music and ritual. Takemitsu did a great many films, basically almost every really good film except for the early Kurosawa films and then everything by Ozu. Takemitsu was the dean of Japanese composers, the only unalloyed genius they’ve produced in music, and he was mesmerized by film as a medium. But nobody has written on this seriously! So I plan to make a start. Oh, and dick around in Kyoto too, obviously – is that a question?

Of course, moving to Kyoto for a year is a big deal, what with housing, preschool and daycare (fortunately cheap and excellent in Japan – thank god for socialized everything in a very rich country). I won’t have an oven, so there go my glorious plans of baking the best bread in the Kyoto region; on the other hand Sarah and others are convinced that very rapidly all the local little markets will get to know the big white guy who doesn’t know much Japanese, always wants the odd, bone-in cuts, and carries a baby in a Baby Bjorn – and they will probably give me weird things because she’s just so cute. I have to work on my back so I can bow while carrying a baby across my chest!

Courses are proceeding acceptably, albeit I need to work on some things I didn’t expect to have to work on. For one thing, I was horrified to find that my senior majors in the required theory course not only don’t know what theory of religion is (or in fact what theory is), but actually a fair number of them had never considered for a minute the idea that religion might be a human cultural formation. So a lot of basic spadework to do there – but it’s rewarding.

Hobbies? When? No, seriously, I haven’t gamed since I had to drop Jere’s game whenever that was, a couple years ago almost, though I’m trying to scare up some other lapsed gamers among the BU faculty. My only real hobby is cooking, which I have gotten sort of insane about. Just a few weeks back Sarah gave me, for my birthday (Sept. 18, mark it on your calendars in red), a ticket to a demonstration class on technique with Jacques Pepin. It was fabulous! I don’t bubble much, as you know, but he’s just like on TV only a hell of a lot more so: much bouncier, funnier, and generally more likeable. He also drank about 1½ bottles of wine while we were there (“Cooking with wine? Yes! Always! [slurp]), which may have added to the bounce. But I have now learned to bone out a chicken – as in take out every single bone, leaving just a carcass that looks like an empty jacket, suitable for stuffing – in what currently takes me 8 minutes and I believe Chef Pepin when he says it can be done in under 1 minute (Martin Yan, who doesn’t bone out the legs, can do it in 30 seconds – it’s on tape). For those of you involved in the Turducken Incident, this puts a very different complexion on things: if you can do each bird in 10 minutes flat, max, and you make the stuffings a day before, the whole thing takes about 1 hour to put together and it’s ready for the oven.

I conclude with some suggestions for the dinner from hell all of a Monday night when you’re busy but at home, which I did tonight, to lovely results.

Chicken Ballottine (Roasted) with Gravy

1 3-4# chicken
2 cups stuffing (preferably without a lot of bread products – see below)
coarse salt and pepper
water
2 Tb butter

Bone out the chicken: Start with an extremely sharp boning or paring knife, and a heavy chef’s knife. Use the former except as noted. Note that all bones should be tossed in a pot for stock. Cut the bottom two joints of the wings off, leaving the top one attached. Cut on either side of the wishbone, pulling the skin back so you have access, and pull the wishbone out. Roll the chicken on its side, and slice down the backbone from the neck to the tail. Now pull back the skin a bit from whichever wing (shoulder) is on top, and wiggle the wingbone so you can feel and see the joint. Continue wiggling as you slice through the whole joint, tendons and all. Flip the chicken over and do the same on the other wide. Stand the chicken on its bum. Grab hold of one wing, and with the other hand put the thumb down along the neck and into the carcass a bit, along the surface of the ribcage. Shift your grip on the wing down until your thumbs more or less meet, and then pry outwards and down with the wing hand, tearing the meat away from the ribcage until you see the oyster down roughly where low back pain happens. Reverse hands and do the same on the other side. Now take two fingers of your off-hand (i.e. usually the left) and put them down the front of the sternum, on either side of the breastbone; with the other hand just above on the sternum, pull outwards until the whole front of the chicken is detached from the carcass. Note that the supremes or filets of chicken are still attached – don’t worry. Turn the chicken on its breast, leaning a bit to one side. Lift the up-side knee up toward the neck a bit, cut through the oyster and down toward the joint, and then pull that knee flat downward toward you, breaking the joint crossways (sort of as though you were to put your right foot on your left upper thigh and then pull your right knee straight down). The joint will crack; cut through it completely. Do the same on the other side. Pull the main carcass off of the skin and meat, and you’ve completed the first major step. Now grab hold of one thigh knuckle and cut all the way around just below where the bone is thin, being sure to cut through all the tendons. Scrape the knife-blade down the bone (you’ll hear a scraping noise reminiscent of fingernails on a chalkboard) on all sides until you reach the knee. Cut the knee the same way you cut the upper thigh, then scrape right down to the end. Put the bone back in the chicken the way it belongs, so it stretches out into the end of the leg, and you’ll see the knuckle at the end of the knee. With the back of the heavy chef’s knife (remember that one?), break the knuckle from the bone by whacking sharply downward through as close to the knuckle as you can. Pull out the whole leg from the meat. Do the same on the other side. Now return to the remaining wing-bones. Cut all around the inside knuckle, cutting through the tendons, and the push the meat down toward the other end of the bone. This leaves the knuckle and most of the bone bare; grab the end and pull it out sharply. You now have a completely boneless chicken, except for the two little knuckles at the ends of the legs. Last thing: take the ribcage carcass and put it breast-up. Run your thumb to one side of the keelbone, and as you do this pry the supreme (the one nice strip of meat) away from the ribcage. Do this on the other side too. Now the supreme, once removed, has a very tough sinew. To remove this, put the supreme so that the sinew is on the bottom and its end is toward you. Press the end of the sinew to the board with the end of your towel, and scrape your knife along the sinew away from you, fairly forcefully, until the supreme moves away from you and leaves the supreme behind.

All of this takes me about 7-8 minutes on my first try, Pepin 1 minute, Yan 30 seconds. Believe me: it is so much easier to do than to explain!

Next, fill your chicken. Lay it on its skin, as wide as possible. Put the supremes in the open spaces in the skin, midway between breastmeat and legmeat, filling in as evenly as you can. Sprinkle well with salt and pepper. Spread some stuffing (about 1½-2 cups) on the meat, being sure to shove some into the legs. Fold one side to the middle, then the other side, overlapping a bit, and then roll the stuffed chicken over so the breast is up. Tie the leg-ends together, and then tie up the whole thing like a roast (see your favorite cookbook or whatever for this), keeping it fairly tight but not excessively so — if you have a filling that will expand, you don’t want it to burst.

Take all those bones, sear them in a very hot pot until very brown and in danger of burning, add whatever vegetables and trimmings don’t escape your grasp, and then top up with water. Bring to a scant boil, skim well, and simmer very gently as long as you possibly can.

Sprinkle the chicken with salt, brush on some butter or oil or whatever (or nothing if it’s a fat chicken), and roast in a flameproof pan, as snug as you can, about 20 minutes at 450 degrees. Reduce to 350 degrees and roast until everything is about 160 internally, i.e. roughly 40 minutes, depending on your oven (or convection for about 30 minutes). Put aside to rest in a warm place or tent with foil.

To deglaze the pan and make fabulous gravy, put the pan over maximum heat and listen. Assuming you are using a heavy, top-quality pan, you will first hear bubbling, boiling noises. Then you’ll hear frying noises, like bacon. Then the frying will subside, at which point pull it off the flame, wait about 1 minute, and pour the pan contents gently into a heatproof container (or a grease jar). Put the pan, which is now glazed with brown crusty stuff, back over the heat, add a cup or so of white wine or brandy or a combination, and scrape up everything with a wooden scraper. When it boils, pour in some stock, which of course is what you were simmering slowly all that time in the pot. Ideally, you should pour it into a strainer, then a fine strainer, then a degreaser, and then back through a fine strainer, which takes less time than you’d think. Pour in about 3-4 cups and bring to a rapid boil, and leave it there. At the last minute, throw in the 2 Tb butter and, off heat, shake the pan back and forth rapidly until it’s all perfectly smooth, by which point you had better have sliced the chicken and be ready.

When the ballottine has rested 15 minutes or so, cut the strings. Taste the gravy for salt, and season as needed. Slice the chicken in ½-inch slices, and pour on the strained gravy. Believe me, this is fabulous, and looks like more work than it is.

For stuffings, you can use just about anything that seems plausible. You can use seared spinach and mushroom puree. You can use paté and foie gras. You can use (as I did) some cheap ground pork, some chopped mushrooms, some minced onions, and a whole bunch of chopped sage because it seems to be still alive in the garden. Whatever — and you can use a breaded stuffing, if you like, but be careful because these have a tendency to expand if you use dry bread crumbs.

So here’s the short version:

Bone out a chicken and wrap around stuffing. Roast high until brown, then medium until done. Deglaze pan for gravy while resting.

Isn’t chef’s shorthand nifty?

No, seriously, I may not be Mr. Love Buns, but much love to you all, in the holiday season and everything, and those of you who are nearby, please give a call and come down to eat and drink and see the baby and the kid and all that. Sounds cheesy when you write it, but if it's heartfelt can you tell?

For People Who Like So-Called Memes Only

Wed, 02 May 2007 03:26:00 GMT

From shaharazad. The instructions, as he puts them, are as follows:

"Apparently, this is a list of the 50 most-visited tourist attractions in the world. Does not include places that are visited primarily as religious pilgrimages (Mecca, etc.). Bold the ones you have visited, italicize the places you would like to go, and then name one destination you would like to visit that is not on the list. "

I add: give each site you have visited between 1 and 4 stars (from bad to wonderful) for the experience you had there.

1. Times Square, New York City, NY: 35 million visitors every year *
2. National Mall & Memorial Parks, Washington, D.C. (Washington Monument, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the war memorials): About 25 million **
3. Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, Lake Buena Vista, Fla.: 16.6 million *
4. Trafalgar Square, London, England: 15 million ***
5. Disneyland Park, Anaheim, Calif.: 14.7 million ** (I was very small)
6. Niagara Falls, Ontario and New York: 14 million
7. Fisherman’s Wharf/Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco, Calif.: 13 million ?? (don't remember, I was teeny)
8. Tokyo Disneyland/DisneySea, Tokyo, Japan: 12.9 million
9. Notre Dame de Paris, Paris, France: 12 million
10. Disneyland Paris, Marne-La-Vallee, France: 10.6 million
11. The Great Wall of China, Badaling area, China: About 10 million ***
12. The Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Tennessee/North Carolina: 9.2 million
13. Universal Studios Japan, Osaka, Japan: 8.5 million
14. Basilique du Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre, Paris, France: 8 million
15. Musée du Louvre, Paris, France: 7.5 million
16. Everland (amusement park), Kyonggi-Do, South Korea: 7.5 million
17. The Forbidden City/Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China: At least 7 million ****
18. Eiffel Tower, Paris, France: 6.7 million
19. Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure at Universal Orlando, Fla: 6 million
20. SeaWorld Florida, Orlando, Fla: 5,740,000 **
21. Pleasure Beach (amusement park), Blackpool, England: 5.7 million
22. Lotte World (amusement park), Seoul, South Korea: 5.5 million
23. Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise, Japan: 5.4 million
24. Hong Kong Disneyland, China: 5.2 million
25. Centre Pompidou, Paris, France: 5.1 million
26. Tate Modern, London, England: 4.9 million ** (but see below on me and museums)
27. British Museum, London, England: 4.8 million ****
28. Universal Studios Los Angeles, Calif.: 4.7 million **
29. National Gallery, London, England: 4.6 million **
30. Metropolitan Museum, New York, NY: 4.5 million **
31. Grand Canyon, Ariz.: 4.4 million
32. Tivoli Gardens (amusement park), Copenhagen, Denmark: 4.4 million
33. Ocean Park (amusement park), Hong Kong, China: 4.38 million
34. Busch Gardens (amusement park), Tampa Bay, Fla.: 4.36 million
35. SeaWorld California, San Diego, Calif.: 4.26 million
36. Statue of Liberty, New York, NY: 4.24 million
37. The Vatican and its museums, Rome, Italy: 4.2 million
38. Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia: More than 4 million
39. The Coliseum, Rome, Italy: 4 million
40. American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY: 4 million
41. Grauman’s Chinese Theater, Hollywood, Calif.: 4 million **
42. Empire State Building, New York, NY: 4 million * (BAD vertigo)
43. Natural History Museum, London, England: 3.7 million ***
44. The London Eye, London, England: 3.5 million
45. Palace of Versailles, France: 3.45 million
46. Yosemite National Park, Calif.: 3.44 million
47. Pyramids of Giza, Egypt: 3 million
48. Pompeii, Italy: 2.5 million
49. Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia: 2.5 million
50. Taj Mahal, Agra, India: 2.4 million

Not on the list: Machu Picchu, Peru

Actually, I have to admit that these museums I've italicized mainly because I'd like to go to the cities. If you want accuracy, replace each museum with a corresponding concert hall and let me hear a good symphony. I hate museums, mostly. Yup, I'm a visual art philistine. Dance, too.

How To Read Lévi-Strauss

Tue, 01 May 2007 14:19:36 GMT

I recently noticed that I keep writing little sketches, on the blog and elsewhere, about why and how to read the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss. In this little essay, I'm going to talk about how to read him, so at least I can point people here when it comes up.

(In point of fact, it's really not necessary to defend reading him. If you're in one of those fields that has been affected by him -- and that's most of the "human sciences" broadly construed -- there is no real excuse for total ignorance. And as I've said in various places, if you don't read him you have no right to make tedious noises about how Structuralism is dead. It is dead, yes, but for good reasons that have to do with going beyond it, not because it was wrongheaded or something. So you can't say it's dead and mean anything intelligent unless you've read some Lévi-Strauss. People who do this are just aping their betters.)

Incidentally, I will keep saying Lévi-Strauss "is" this and that, because as I keep reminding people, he's still going. He will be 99 this November. Santé!

When I started putting together a syllabus for a theory of religion course I am teaching next semester, I looked at a bunch of syllabi around for courses like this, and I noticed two things. First, a lot of people won't assign Lévi-Strauss to undergraduates, because he's "too hard." What that really means is that he's too hard for the teacher, not for the students. He's hard, yes, but on the other hand he writes very, very clearly, so if the teacher understands the material it can be taught. The students won't master the text, but then again they're not going to master Durkheim either, and people teach him. Same with Turner, Geertz, and the like. I notice that a lot of teachers also get cute: they say, "no, Lévi-Strauss has nothing to do with your favorite jeans, ha ha." Yeah, well, actually Lévi-Strauss says the jeans guy is a distant cousin, so let's not get too clever.

The other thing I noticed is that when people do assign Lévi-Strauss, they usually assign Structural Anthropology, which strikes me as idiotic. I tried it once -- anyone can be a fool once -- but to keep doing it? Didn't they learn from their mistakes?

So I thought it might be helpful to walk through a kind of course of reading. Nobody is likely to do all of this; that's not the point. The point is to take it as far as you want to, for your purposes, and track his thinking and your interests as you go, so that you get the most out of whatever you do intend to read. Here goes.

A Beginning

The first thing is to read Tristes Tropiques. Assuming you are reading in English, use the Weightman translation which is complete and excellent. What you should get out of this is an understanding of who Lévi-Strauss is, how he thinks, what he did ethnographically, and the like. You should, if you are reading with attention, come out mesmerized by Lévi-Strauss, whether you agree with or like him or otherwise. He is frighteningly intelligent, one of the true geniuses of the 20th century, and this book is a prose masterpiece. For those of you who know what this means, the book essentially would have won the Prix Goncourt, except that it is not fiction; they actually announced their regret, which is extraordinary. So read it as a novel and a meditation. Let yourself be swept away. Hold your critical comments until a second reading, if possible. Bear in mind also that anthropological field methods have changed pretty drastically since the 1930s, so some of the things he did and thought appropriate will shock you if you know much about ethnography today.

Okay, now you're ready. You know what he's like, and you've got some idea how he thinks, but how does he really think?

So now you read The Savage Mind, or better yet La pensée sauvage. The translation is execrable -- really irresponsible and just plain bad, with technical terms translated indifferently, sentences mysteriously dropped, and the like. Nevertheless the content is sufficiently powerful that it comes through anyway, mostly. If you are not very, very up on Sartre, you will not get much out of the final chapter, but that's okay.

As you read, try to work through the examples as much as you can. Bear in mind that Lévi-Strauss will often propose analogies that seem nightmarishly difficult, making things worse than ever. In a number of cases, however, that is because of a difference between your education and his. Specifically, when he went to school, every French kid was supposed to know about people like the painters Clouet and Poussin, and all educated people were supposed to have a clue about music as well, and so on. So he will propose analogies to this sort of material -- essentially classic European high artistic culture -- and if you don't know what he's referring to it can indeed make things worse. Note also that the same effect happens with bricolage, that most famous of analogies. Everybody in France knows what bricolage is, because it's a normal word from everyday life. Lévi-Strauss's particular usage is a little old-fashioned, but not much so; certainly any French reader would know just what he has in mind quite quickly. American readers don't have this reaction and get lost just when he's trying very hard to make it simple.

Anyway, work through this book slowly and carefully. He moves very fast, and you can lose the thread if you're not careful. If you do get lost, stop and back up. In many books, you can just plow on a paragraph or two and you'll pick it up again, but this is often not the case with Lévi-Strauss, particularly in La pensée sauvage.

At this point you are ready to follow a path of thought. To my mind, the ones that are most likely to be useful or interesting to follow are myth, structural analysis as a method, and art. You could go other routes, but I think picking one of these is probably most helpful.

Myth

If you want to follow Lévi-Strauss on myth, start with Myth and Meaning, which is interesting without being especially concrete about anything. Then The Jealous Potter, which is great fun, and then The Story of Lynx. If you still want to continue, now that you have some idea what you're getting into, start in on Mythologiques with volume 1, The Raw and the Cooked. The other volumes are From Honey to Ashes [seems to be out of print, which is odd], The Origin of Table Manners, and The Naked Man. If you actually get through all this with any idea of what's going on, you can count yourself among the very, very few.

At that point, you might turn to Structural Anthropology and read "The Structural Study of Myth" and to Structural Anthropology 2 for "The Story of Asdiwal." But these things will now read as preliminaries, which they are. I don't recommend reading them first because he changed his mind so much during the Mythologiques project. If you look at remarks on Lévi-Strauss's study of myth, you will often see these articles referred to and not Mythologiques. Well, if you do that, you don't really know what you're talking about, unless you have some good and stated reason for dealing only with his early thinking on the issue.

Backing up, Myth and Meaning is easy, by Lévi-Straussian standards, and The Jealous Potter is not difficult. The Story of Lynx is a bit trickier, but not bad at all. But The Raw and the Cooked is I think the most difficult book I have ever read. It is more difficult, for example, than the rest of Mythologiques, because by the time you get to volume 2 you have some idea what he's doing and how, which you had to figure out in volume 1. It is more difficult than any of the Derrida I have read: Derrida is often difficult because his language is so weird and idiosyncratic, and his ideas are very strange, but ultimately once you get the hang of it he's really just difficult. The Raw and the Cooked is lie another order of magnitude. I am convinced that a very large reason why so many people so happily accepted the pronouncements that Structuralism was dead, particularly in anthropology, was because it meant they didn't have to get through this book.

But it's really worth it. It's absolutely fascinating. By the end of the four volumes, you will feel like your brain has been blenderized, but in fact once it settles a bit you will actually think quite differently about a lot of things, and certainly you will think rather more clearly about a lot of things, whether you like it or not.

At this point, if you want to continue, I'd suggest going to methodology, but art would make sense as well.

Structural Analysis As Method

Here you will need to work more or less in chronological order, because you need to see how Lévi-Strauss's thinking has developed. Start with Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss, and if you haven't read Mauss's The Gift and A General Theory of Magic you may want to check those out as well, though it's not entirely necessary; reading Mauss's Sacrifice wouldn't hurt either. Properly speaking, Mauss co-wrote mostly with Henri Hubert, who should get a fair bit of credit, but Mauss always gets top billing.

Next read Structural Anthropology and Structural Anthropology 2, and then The View From Afar. Because these are all essays, they are digestible, and they cover the range of his interests pretty well. Now that you know what you're getting into, read The Elementary Structures of Kinship, which is foundational for his methodology.

Now go back and re-read La pensée sauvage, which will look rather different this time around. If you still want to continue, jump over to the myth track and go on from there.

Personally, I think this approach is the least rewarding way to read Lévi-Strauss, because it is quite dry and you never quite get a full sense of what he has in mind. But some people like this stuff all by itself, in which case, good for you, I guess.

Art

This is a good deal trickier to run through directly, because there are essays and bits scattered all over the place. The only thing I know of that is absolutely central here, apart from all those discussions in La pensée sauvage, is Look, Listen, Read, which is mysteriously out of print; it was just reprinted a few years ago in paperback, so there are copies around.

Assuming you want to continue, I think probably you should read the introduction ("Overture") to The Raw and the Cooked, and the "Finale" to The Naked Man, and then there is some good material in The View From Afar and Myth and Meaning. Much of this is about music, you should know in advance. There are passing discussions elsewhere, in fact throughout his monumental oeuvre, but these would be the obvious "go-to" texts. Once you've read Look, Listen, Read, you'll have some idea where he's going and what he will connect up to the arts.

Conclusion

There are other texts, but not too many. Certainly if you've gotten through some large block of this material, you don't need my guidance, and if you've sat down and read straight through from myth to method to art, you should probably be teaching this stuff instead of me.

I will just mention a few things about secondary sources, in list form:

Marcel Hénaff's Claude Lévi-Strauss and the Making of Structural Anthropology is I think the best book overall, but it is rather dense -- as it should be, really.

Jacques Derrida's essay "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" (in Writing and Difference) is excellent and amazingly important, but you have to have read quite a lot of Lévi-Strauss in advance. Same goes for the brilliant discussion of "A Writing Lesson" (a chapter in Tristes Tropiques) in Of Grammatology.

Edmund Leach's Claude Lévi-Strauss is useful in its way, and short, but (a) it doesn't take us very far into his career, and (b) it is markedly hostile on a lot of counts, so it has to be taken with a grain of salt.

David Pace's Claude Lévi-Strauss: The Bearer of Ashes (out of print) I did not find especially useful, although there are some interesting gems and it is fairly approachable on the whole.

I haven't seen a lot else that is especially helpful for understanding Lévi-Strauss. Obviously there are interesting discussions and the like, but as things to help you read Lévi-Strauss, these are so far as I know the best. In the end, Lévi-Strauss is a better writer than any of these people, and he says what he means rather better than they do. So you want Hénaff because he covers everything and can help you when you get stuck, and you want Derrida because he turns Lévi-Strauss inside-out and does brilliant things with him. Myself, I don't want Leach or Pace as intros, because I think they're not helpful; I mention them only because they come up a lot when people go looking.

So that's my introduction to how to read Lévi-Strauss. Now get cracking, people -- you've got your summer reading list all set, so take a stack of Lévi-Strauss to the beach!

Okay, I'll Play

Tue, 01 May 2007 03:31:55 GMT

My Goodness

Tue, 01 May 2007 03:15:32 GMT

My book is up to #30,003 on Amazon, which is very high for this sort of book, and you can now do the "search inside" thing. I have received fan email from several scholars, two of whom are actually sending me things by way of congratulations.

I don't really know what to say.

Wow!

Hope they don't all hate it when they read it, whoever they are, is all I suppose I can say.

Jeepers.

More Single Parenting

Tue, 01 May 2007 01:01:35 GMT

So after some helpful comments, I tried a fairly straightforward approach. It was all easy, really, because Sam was with the neighbors (whom he adores) until after 7:00, and we had nice weather here for once so he'd been running around and was pretty exhausted. He'd already eaten a lot of dinner, so no problem there.

Took him home, rolled him around on his tricycle, and bribed him into the house with ice cream. He ate some -- actually a frozen fruit bar, which he prefers anyway and is a lot better for him. Actually he ate a whole bar, which is a lot for a little guy. And a couple animal crackers. And some grapes. Then we ran around upstairs, but he didn't like the bath or bed idea, so we went downstairs and watched Totoro, which I'm trying to convince myself is educational because I always run it in Japanese. By 8:20 he could barely sit up, so up to bed, into the PJs, into bed, a little brief moaning, and out like a light.

I did promise him that Mommy would be home tomorrow whenever he asked, but on the whole he seems to have decided to be brave. It's not easy, since this is now the fourth straight night without her. But tomorrow, if all goes according to plan, he will be in the process of falling asleep when she comes home, and then it's all good.

That's the plan, anyway. Cross your fingers.

On another note, I just taught my last proper class, finished my horrible admin letters, and am home free until next week when I start getting final exams and stuff. Two weeks and I am OUT OF HERE for the semester. Essentially nothing official until September. Yaaaayyyy!

Single Mothers Have My Admiration

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 01:51:34 GMT

Sarah flew off to Germany for a conference this Friday afternoon, and since then I've had Sam -- he's not quite two -- alone to myself. Yesterday I had a couple hours of shared babysitting, which means essentially a paid supervisor for playing with another kid. Sam was fairly saintly, although he did start asking about mommy rather more often yesterday than on Friday.

Today, all went generally fine, although it was clear he was a little stretched thin. I think he's getting a nasty cold, so have had to dose him with Tylenol, which fortunately he likes, but I'm sure feeling a little sick doesn't improve his temper. He wanted to go out all the time, but it's cold and nasty, so we went out anyway, well bundled up, and had an argument at 5:00 when the icy wind started and Daddy needed to make dinner.

Dinner time, he ate a little, but was not his usual chow-hound self.

Bath time, normally a huge thing for him, all about splashing and making a mess... a screaming meltdown. I have no idea what prompted it, in the immediate sense. I had to hold him down to scrub him fast and get him out and dry so his cold didn't get worse, which was no fun for either of us. Then I chased him up and down the hall for a bit, which perked him up, and then we read bedtime books. He was clearly tired, and ready for bed... and then it hit. I put him in the crib and he dropped on his knees and started sobbing, "mommy, mommy, mommy." I mean, you guys who've had 2-year-olds, you know what I'm talking about. This isn't tantrum crying, or pain crying -- this is deep anguish. I did the usual soothing things, and promised him mommy would be home soon, and he eventually decided to be brave. Since then, not a peep. What a great kid! But he's pretty upset.

Tomorrow, it's mostly not my problem, because I work ridiculous hours on Monday so he is on a rotating cycle. Day care, which is okay, then my neighbor whom he adores. Probably she (and her dog and her sister's kids) will keep him so distracted and entertained that he will wipe out easy.

Tuesday, day care, and then I pick him up and the nightmare begins. I've only got to get him through a few hours before mommy really does come home (assuming no delays and such), but it's going to be painful, if tonight is anything to go by.

How do single mothers do it? I'm a total wreck from one solid night-day-night with no breaks, and Sam is generally agreed to be one of the best-behaved kids his age around.

It doesn't help that Sarah is getting weather in the high seventies and low eighties, either.

Shameless Plug for Purple Garbage

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 04:05:57 GMT

Your solution to everything: buy this now.

You guessed it, this is the solution. I know, because I looked up my Amazon sales rating for The Occult Mind (which you should also run right out and buy), and they had this as a sponsored link. I know Ken will buy one -- he surely needs it. Ever seen his Kirlian aura? Not a pretty sight.

It may be garbage, but at least it's purple, one of my son Sam's favorite words.

Interesting, maybe

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:37:14 GMT

First of all, I just got my rush copy of my new book, and it's pretty cool. They even went with a black cover under the sexy jacket!

Second, I have just started what promises to be a long (and rather slow) series of entries about designing fantasy RPG cultures on my other blog, clehrich. If you care about such things, check it out.

I'm Too Sexy

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 04:38:28 GMT

Hey all, Amazon now has my new book with the cover. Check this puppy out! Should be actually physically available soon, but at least you can drool over the way-sexy cover.

Been a LOOONG time

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 04:07:21 GMT

Well well. Long, long time, no post. For those following my exciting daily life saga...

I GOT A JOB

Yes, that's right, hard to believe, but actually true. I am now, or properly will be as of September 1, Assistant Professor, tenure-track and all that, in the Department of Religion at Boston University.

In other news,

1) The book is due out April/May, look it up on Amazon and pre-order now, because those babies are just going to fly off the newsstands. The title is The Occult Mind: Magic in Theory and Practice.

2) Sarah is getting tenure, and thus will be Associate Professor.

3) Sam is hitting the terrible 2s and starting practicing his tantrum technique.

Beyond that, nothing much. I am slowly getting rolling with a new book on music and ritual, but since I have to prep new courses from the ground up -- lecture courses, too, so I have to know what I'm talking about -- that's been slow. No gaming; between Sam and the job situation there just hasn't been any time.

For those who want to play my brilliant, scintillating game "Shadows in the Fog," the new link is here.

I hope to get back to writing blog entries, here and at the gaming site; we'll see how it goes.

Cooking From Scraps

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 02:31:38 GMT

I was just reading the entry on Pantry Soup in Pease Porridge, and it inspired me to make some remarks on what I do when (as tonight) I discover quite suddenly that there's very little to cook with and it's time to feed the family. My approach is a little different from hers, but the concept is similar. This takes time, though -- you cannot do this in 40 minutes.

So the first thing is to really search around for what you've got, including random leftover bits and weirdness. Work in priority order: the most important is anything in the fridge or pantry that will rot soon, then anything in the freezer, and then finally dry goods. But it's most fun if you can do everything without opening a box or can.

So I had two onions, a couple limp stalks of celery, a fat carrot, a very limp parsnip, some elderly but not unhealthy spinach leaves, some garlic with the green growing out a bit, some cheddar cheese, and half a bag of big potatoes. The freezer had some random frozen crap, including some old green peppers and a bag of corn, and not including any sort of meat product that wouldn't require a huge amount of effort. The pantry had a very old, mostly empty bag of dried shiitake mushrooms, and nothing else I wanted to open new. This was clearing-house time.

So, first of all, you bake the potatoes. I like the microwave for this, because baking in the oven seems to take well over an hour every time, so the hell with it. While they're cooking and then cooling, you mix up a spice mix:

1 1/2 tsp each paprika, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, thyme
1 tsp each black pepper, mustard powder, cumin, oregano, sage, basil
1/2 tsp each cayenne, white pepper, and anything else that looks like fun

Mix everything pretty thoroughly. You will need more salt later, but there's no hurry.

Now start dicing. If you're slow with a knife, use the shredding blade on a Cuisinart. First chop the onions, celery, green peppers (that's the Trinity for the south), and parsnip; divide it into a bowl with 3/4 and a bowl with 1/4. Mince some garlic and throw it in with 3/4 bowl (with what you're about to do with it, it doesn't matter if some green is growing out -- just pull that off before mincing). Chop the carrots and throw in the 1/4 bowl. Add some corn to the 1/4 bowl.

Soak the shiitakes in a quart of hot water, and add a dash of soy; this substitutes for stock, weakly. When they're soft, chop the mushrooms into the 3/4 bowl and reserve the water.

When the potatoes are handle-able, split lengthwise and hollow out the skins. Chop the flesh and reserve. Spray the skins with a little oil, sprinkle the insides with a generous pinch or so of the spice mix, and bake at 350, open-side up, for 20 minutes, then flip and bake another 20 minutes, until nearly crisp.

Put a big nonstick pot on a big burner and turn it on full blast, then wait 3 minutes (yeah, I know... feh, it works). Add a small splash of oil and shake. Throw in the 3/4 bowl of veggies and half the remaining spice mix. Stir and scrape with a wooden implement (I have a kind of scraper/spoon thing) every 2 minutes for 6-7 minutes, until you're sure it's going to burn. (If you go overboard, add 1/2 cup of the "stock" and deglaze thoroughly.) When quite brown, add about 1/3 of the potato meat and start stirring and scraping constantly as the starch crusts the bottom of the pot and wants to burn. Keep scraping and stirring for 6-7 minutes, until you really cannot go on without burning; the crust will be dark brown and forming very fast and hard. Add half the remaining "stock" and deglaze thoroughly. Add all but 1/2 cup of the potato pulp, the rest of the stock, and the rest of the spice mix. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. The stew will be medium-thin and a lovely brown color.

Taste for seasoning. It should be very spicy and quite salty. Adjust accordingly: it must be overseasoned now or it will be wimpy later.

Add the 1/4 bowl of veggies (the carrots, etc.), stir, and cook about 15 minutes until the carrots are fairly tender; stir and scrape occasionally, and add a little water if it starts getting too thick.

Shred the cheese fine and put in a bowl with the spinach.

When the carrots are ready, pull the potato skins from the oven and get ready on plates. Add the remaining potato to the stew and stir vigorously until it starts breaking down; the stew will be bubbling thickly. Add all the cheese and spinach and stir for about 30 seconds or so, until the cheese melts and disappears into the stew. Ladle over the potato skins and serve.

One last note:

Feel free to change absolutely anything and everything here. That's the point. But there are a few basic tricks:

1. Caramelize the hell out of 3/4 of the veggies; this makes up for the lack of meat or stock and gives the impression of richness
2. Some of the potato has to be way overcooked to produce the desired thickness
3. Before adding the last round of veggies, it must be very overseasoned, as those veggies will lighten the salt and spice
4. It must also be very spicy, because the cheese and the spinach will cut that drastically
5. The whole trick of caramelizing is to keep doing it as long as you possibly can, scraping thoroughly, over high heat; if you add enough onions, it will brown fast; if you need assistance, add a little apple juice to deglaze with (this adds 5 or so minutes to the process but produces a lovely caramelization)
6. The end result will be thick, gooey, and brown -- that's intentional

Calling Creativity

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 03:40:09 GMT

So as you know, Cornell UP has accepted the book for publication; it'll be out in about a year.

The original title was Magic in Theory and Practice, an allusion to Crowley as most of you know. But all the reviewers, as well as the marketing people and the faculty board, agree that this title is bland, uninformative, and basically bad. So I have to come up with a new one -- I've got a while yet, but I'm not having flashes of brilliance here.

So I'm calling for suggestions.

The book covers a fairly wide swathe of mostly early modern magical material: the Hermetica, John Dee, Giordano Bruno, Athanasius Kircher, Tarot cards. There is an enormous amount of theory, working more or less progressively from Eliade and Yates through to Levi-Strauss, J.Z. Smith, and Carlo Ginzburg, ending more or less with Derrida. Comparison is a central issue, as is language and to some degree writing. The memory of a magical Egypt (AEgypt, as I call it referring to John Crowley's book of the same name -- he gave permission) is a core trope weaving things together. Most of the material is more or less early modern, but some ranges out into Japanese drama, Chinese writing systems, the whole "mana" question, etc.

The plan is to have "Magic in Theory and Practice" be the subtitle, since after you've read the book you may see that it's the perfect title; the problem is that before you've read the book the title isn't helpful.

Now one good friend of mine who is a novelist remarked that a good title, if it has two parts, hinges on the relationship between the two parts. So two possibilities, just so you have some idea how to get thinking, are:

Language, Comparison, Memory: Magic in Theory and Practice

Toward the Occult Mind: Magic in Theory and Practice

Now both of these are pretty weak titles, I'm the first to admit. But they do perhaps give some sense of where the book stands, what it's about, and so on.

It's very academic and dense; the faculty board of Cornell was a little taken aback, and that's saying something (but they also adore the book). It's primarily dense because it is intellectually extremely rapid; if you've read Levi-Strauss, you know he's something of a hero to me (although he's very often wrong about things, and the last chapter actually calls him on a lot of it), and it may help to realize that I also think he's a kind of model prose stylist in some respects.

If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. If you come up with the perfect title, I'll even send you a free copy.

A couple of notes:

I don't like "cute" titles, the sort of tedious semi-puns too many academic books use
I don't like quote titles (i.e. quoted phrases) unless they are truly brilliant and relevant
I don't, in fact, like subtitles: I wanted the book to be Magic in Theory and Practice, full stop
I dislike titles that begin with participles; that device is overused

The perfect title is clean, clear, and resonant; it contrasts with "Magic in Theory and Practice" in a complicated and subtle way, and yet stands by itself forcefully.

Your move...

In case you were wondering...

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 03:51:06 GMT

The book has been accepted at Cornell, and the contracts are in the works.

Now I just have to finish polishing and get rights for the images and I'm finally done.

Then I have to figure out what the next book project is....

The Book Saga Continues

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 04:31:58 GMT

[begin gloat]

Got my second reader response the other day. For those who don't know, an academic press usually sends a manuscript to two anonymous readers, generally quite distinguished people in the field or fields in question, who provide extensive commentary. This commentary usually ends up determining whether the press will take the book or not, and if so how much revision the author has to do.

So the first response is from a distinguished anthropologist who disclosed his name (I won't do so). The second is from an obviously very well-read early modern historian; I think I know who but he or she kept it secret (as is normal).

The first response ends up saying that of the thousands of books the guy owns, he keeps about 20 close at hand for constant inspiration and stimulation; he lists Benjamin, Huizinga, Ginzburg, Troubetskoy, Simmel, etc. He says my book could readily take a place on that shelf.

The second response ends up saying that pretty soon my books will have to be evaluated the way you evaluate books by Derrida or Jonathan Z. Smith, i.e. entirely on their own as simply beyond normal disciplinary-type boundaries and limitations.

My editor is now pretty damn sure the book will be taken up: it's up to the faculty board, of course, but I've never even heard of reviews that look like this, much less expected to see them.

Now I just have to do one more serious run-through for grace and style, and I think it's in the bag.

[end gloat]

The question, of course: what's next? I'm actually sort of at a loose end mentally, because I've never been without a book project on my plate since my third year in grad school, i.e. 1994.

My Little Savage

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 03:35:30 GMT

"... but also good to think." (Claude Levi-Strauss, Totemism)

"Oh my god! They killed Kenny!"

That's my Sam.

Well, Jess asked....

Democracy in Action

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 03:28:57 GMT

Okay everyone, time to get writing. Please ask your congressman to support H.Res. 635, 636, 637, sponsored by Rep. Conyers (MI). These demand an investigation of misinformation and so forth in the runup to the Iraq was, and censure Bush and Cheney for their involvement.

You should be able to find the summary texts at this link. If that doesn't work, go to http://thomas.loc.gov, click Bills/Resolutions, click Search bill summary & status, and page through to the last page. You'll see them down at the end, just before the one congratulating the Gateses and Bono (oy).

Then you just email your congressman and let's pray it works.

Post-Partum Depression

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 04:21:03 GMT

It's funny, but when the semester ends I always get a little low. I don't know why, really, since by rights I ought to be thrilled to have time to myself, but I'm finding it difficult to pick up a good book and get cracking. Maybe that will change in a couple of weeks.

Part of it, of course, is that I am swamped with cooking things. On Friday I go to my mother's house, and I'm supposed to make some tapas for midday munchies. Meatballs, stuffed mushrooms, broiled mussels. All easy stuff, no problem, but today I didn't seem sufficiently motivated even to go to the store to get ingredients. On Saturday we go up to my mother-in-law's house in Vermont, and on Sunday I'm supposed to make this very lavish meal for seven.

That's not going to be a picnic, either, because the main course is a whole roasted beef tenderloin, and I've never done that in my life. I have good, reliable instructions, but I'm worried. What I have to make over the course of the day is just a salad, a soup, a sauce, mashed potatoes, and some braised root vegetables. That stuff is all easy, because in advance (as in, Thursday) I have to make the prep: the soup, the salad dressing, and the sauce base.

But the sauce base is complicated. I'm making the classic sauce for this -- sauce Bordelaise -- and to do it right you have to make a lot of strong beef stock and a little brown beef glace. That means going to the store tomorrow and buying about 10 pounds of knuckles and trimmings, then simmering them for many hours, then straining, then reducing, straining again, and then for the glace reducing even more. Once I get going it's easy, but it's a daunting prospect to get started on.

Meanwhile, I feel I should be reading about witchcraft and possession, but can't seem to get motivated for it.

Still, I did just get Peter Ackroyd's London: The Biography, and it looks like good fun. Someday I suppose I'll run Shadows in the Fog and get to make use of all this wonderful material.

I think I should probably just have a glass of wine and go to bed.

But I also feel I should be learning how to play chess. And reading about witchcraft and possession. And reading about music theory. Somehow, it's all just too much right now. Sigh.

BLOG IS NOW SPLIT

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 20:23:19 GMT

This blog is now me talking about everything EXCEPT RPGs.

The new blog, clehrich, is about RPGs.

Please update friends and links and whatnot accordingly.

Splitting the Blog

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 04:31:09 GMT

Soon, as in this week, I will split this blog into two.

1. Chrislehrich, which will be me mumbling about my things and my life and my kid and my profession and so on. Think Daffy Duck: mine mine mine, down down down, go go go.

2. Clehrich, which will be me being absolutely scintillating at every moment about RPGs. Okay, I can at least promise it'll be about RPGs.

Please plan to shift your Friends lists and so on accordingly. I hope everyone will want to read both, because they love me and love me ranting about RPGs, but I will not in any way be horrified if, mysteriously enough, everyone suddenly just drops the whole thing.

I am still thinking about Ben Lehman's suggestions, and others I have had along the way, and we'll see. In any event, Chrislehrich will remain, and be me ranting pointlessly about why I cannot get a job. As for me and RPGs, something will happen, but I'm not sure what. Stay tuned, same bat-LJ, same bat-whatever.

Thoughts on Chess and Theory

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 04:24:40 GMT

I’ve been meandering in chess theory for a little bit, now that I’ve finished grading at last, and I wonder… is there something to be said here? I mean, chess is of course a game, and it has a lot of theory.

My current spin is that chess theory is not unlike arts theory. The point of chess theory is to train potential players for the actual situation of play. And I wonder whether that might not be what Ron et al. have in mind for RPG theory. But if so, I think it’s a false analogy.

The point about chess is that there are a fixed set of constraints. From setup to movement, there are in fact a finite (but large) number of ways to play a chess game, and that entails that at each given moment (position) you can read the situation. Thus Crafty and other sophisticated chess engines are capable of determining best moves, strength of position, and so forth.

My feeling is that in RPGs, there are as yet no absolutely determined constraints. Once upon a time, it seemed obvious that you had to have a GM, a set of combat rules that looked like X, and so forth. And you had to use dice to displace authoritarian and partisan expression. But now every one of those things is clearly up for grabs: we have diceless systems (in the strong as well as the weak sense), we have systems in which combat is more or less ignored or treated as a variant of some larger dynamic, and of course we have lots of GM-less systems. So it’s not clear what the constraints of RPG play might be. And I think the LARP folks over in Scandinavian lands have taken this to an extreme, in interesting directions.

Extending from this point, I think it could well be said that arts-type theory (including most engineering theory and so forth) is founded on the assumption that there are known or knowable constraints and that the object of theory is to codify what is known and to constrain action (design, etc.) from that basis. So in electrical engineering, the idea is to know what we know about how electricity works in known systems, and then to determine what might be the most efficient way of achieving a fixed objective given those constraints. This assumes (a) a set of constraints, and (b) a known or determinable objective. And I think neither of those things is true of RPGs.

That’s not to say that it cannot be so. It’s certainly possible to determine arbitrarily a set of constraints, and then build an efficient engine to achieve an equally arbitrary set of goals. But as a general descriptive theory of RPGs I do not see that this is even potentially workable.

Chess theory is an interesting example here, because it’s so obviously determinate and founded upon determinate lines. The purpose is clear: win the game. The constraints are clear: the rules of the game. And this means that chess theory is a research project into lines, here in the technical sense: what if someone plays ...a6 after a Ruy Lopez opening? Well, there are a finite number of results, so what do you do? Similarly defense against the Italian opening, or white counterattack against the Sicilian opening, and so on. These things all presume a desired result (your side wins) and a fixed set of rules. And so if you look into chess theory for more than 8 seconds you’ll run into the idea that this or that line is not well researched (or is very well researched) because of historical reasons (e.g., Bobby Fischer said it was great so everyone cares, or Garry Kasparov said this was a useless method so everyone ignores it, or whatever).

RPGs, however, do not work this way. We have no determinable objective, and it seems to me that the Big Model is an attempt to codify or classify objectives in a broad sense. We have no absolute constraints, and it seems to me that the Big Model fails here in that it refers a great deal to broad classifications (Techniques, Stances, etc.) rather than seeking particularity. In short, I think the Big Model is an attempt to found a chess-like theorizing upon a gaming for which we do not yet have the necessary prerequisites. Not that the Big Model is useless—it’s a necessary and useful attempt. But it can only be made more precise by a clearer statement of its purposes.

If we were to say, “We want to define a theoretical model given that we want Story Now and we want our games to be approachable in the following quite specific ways,” I think you might well find that the Big Model is a fine basis for theory. If, however, you do not want that result, or more importantly do not want that kind of result, that particular model will turn out to be unhelpful. It’s rather like reading a lot of stuff about how to play the Sicilian Defense when you’re white and intending on an Italian game: interesting, and potentially comparable, but barring being a grandmaster really not that applicable.

I guess I’m saying that the first step is to move toward a scientific theory, describing the known phenomena in broad terms comparable to other phenomena. My feeling is that myth and ritual provide strong comparisons here, although I admit that lets us in for some really hairy analytical problems. But I think that this kind of theorizing would provide a structural foundation for broader understanding and also for design; in the latter case, it would provide a context for new thinking that would open up new possibilities and also, perhaps more importantly, allow the possibility of recognizing the limitations of any given development. I think John Kirk’s book does exactly this, without any self-consciousness, and I consider that an extraordinary achievement; it’s why I’ve been so gung-ho about his book. He’s found a new comparison I would not and could not have formulated: computer programming design. And on this basis he has established a firm foundation for analysis. My sense is that his book, if taken seriously, leaves smoking rubble in place of his predecessors, because it reveals just exactly how basic RPG systems work. With this kind of thing increasingly in hand—and I do not think that John’s book is in any sense a completion—we will begin to see the basic constraints, and with that we will be able to ask about limits, boundaries, breakage, and rules. Eventually, we might even have enough constraint to talk about RPG theory in the same sense as chess theory. But if you ask me, that day will never come, because RPGs will turn out not to work like that: there will not turn out to be absolute boundaries, and so even the acceptance of boundaries within a given set of rules will turn out to be choice rather than acceptance of the inevitable.

Meanwhile, I continue to muse on whether harmony and polyphony have any comparability in this sense….

Request for Minor Assistance

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 22:15:52 GMT

If you know much about how LJ works, please

As I noted earlier, the sudden activity on this blog makes me think I should divide things in two. This blog will become my forum for wambling about my kid and my job and my books and so forth. Then I am going to create something new for gaming stuff, where I think most of the activity will happen.

Now I can see two ways to do this, and I want your advice and suggestions.

First, I could create another LJ.

Second, I could create a "community," which appears to mean a kind of moderated or unmoderated list. I don't have the time to do regular moderation, so I'd make the community open to anyone and allow any postings.

What do people think?