Some Forever, Not For Better

Right, now, where were we before I was interrupted? ... Oh yes, I'd written almost all of this entry and then lost it because it came after the last Time Capsule save. Tch. Ah, right. Had just left The Peaceable Kingdom. We did stop in the coffee shop next door. It was one of many. The Peaceable Kingdom's owner said whatever the building because it would not be another restaurant or coffee shop. We were just there to use the bathroom.

Across the street was one of the few other shops of interest to us. It's Vault of Midnight, the major comic book and gaming shop in town. (And it's a little unsettling to me to realize the Lansing area has a broader variety of comic book shops than has Ann Arbor.) We weren't looking for anything particular which is how I ended up spotting and buying a DC Showcase Presents collection of silver-age Superman comics. I didn't know if this was a wise purchase for me, since I'm trying to read less stuff ironically, but I do so love that era's loopy blend of small-stakes and outsider-logic storytelling.

Also I spotted a book collecting O Soglow's The Little King and some other comics projects. I like Soglow because just look at his art, of course. Not quite enough to buy the book, on the grounds of budget (and this before I had the computer expense! If you know someone needing a little mathematics done please hook us up), but enough to flip through. Also this was amusing because I had that morning noticed on Comics Kingdom a strip with The Little King, one of the most famous mute characters in comics, somehow giving a speech on radio. And I flipped the book open to a strip in which he had to somehow give instructions over the phone. I suppose we're just supposed to take it as convention that he's the only character whose speech balloons we never see, but, you know?

And bunny_hugger ran across Mysterium, a game that looked compelling. It's a cooperative game. One player is a ghost, trying to give the other players, psychics, visions that will solve its murder. The ghost can communicate only by passing out vision cards, these beautifully painted surreal, dreamlike images. But it was just pricey enough that we thought it wise to wait, and read reviews, and see if the bookstore where she works might get a copy. The reviews confirmed she'd like it, and the bookstore had a copy, and it was seventeen dollars cheaper that way. We've played a few times and enjoyed it so far; we're looking forward to having a proper group to play with.

I believe we had just enough time to poke into Encore Records, beside the parking garage, before the movie. Not that there was time to browse, but that the shop would close right after or soon after the movie ended and five minutes in a record store is better than none. I don't think I picked up anything, but bunny_hugger did and I'm not sure if we listened to it the next day.

Trivia: Rutgers College's Board of Trustees elected Theodore Frelinghuysen as President in September of 1849. He refused the post, repeatedly, before finally accepting in April 1850. He was inaugurated Commencement Day, the 24th of July, 1850. Source: Rutgers: A Bicentennial History, Richard P McCormick.

Currently Reading: The History of the Calculus and its Conceptual Development, Carl B Boyer. Originally written 1939, and updated 1949, so that's why the author feels like he can pull a sentence like this: ``Pythagorean deduction a priori having met with remarkable success in its field, an attempt (unwarranted, it is now recognized) was made to apply it to the description of the world of events, in which Ionian hylozoistic interpretations a posteriori had made very little headway.''