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Paul O'Brian writes about Watchmen, trivia, albums, interactive fiction, and more.

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PAX East 2010 Part 2: There’s More At The Door

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On April 1, 2010

In Uncategorized

After some suite chat, 2:00 rolled around, which was the time PAX was officially supposed to open. So a large contingent, myself included, headed con-wards. My first and most lasting impression of PAX is: PEOPLE. People, people, and also, more people. Behind them are other people, who block your view of the people already inside, and if you turn around, you can see a long line of people, stretching back farther than you can see. I feel like if I’d missed my plane, I could probably have walked a couple of blocks from my house in Colorado and gotten in line for the PAX keynote with Wil Wheaton. Good lord, there were a lot of people.

Serious luck was on my side, as I had Rob Wheeler along to act as my Virgil through the utterly overwhelming and confusing human ocean that was the PAX entrance. He’d attended the Seattle PAX the previous Fall, and had also scoped out the scene beforehand to pick up his Speaker badge. (More about that later.) He helped me navigate my way into a long entrance queue, along with Sarah Morayati, a very friendly (and talented, I later discovered) woman who came on the scene in the last few years.

Meeting Sarah was my first taste of a feeling that was to get very familiar over the next couple of days. I am, I discovered, Unfrozen Caveman IF Guy. It’s as if I’ve been in suspended animation for the last five years, and I thawed out at PAX, like Captain America looking up at the Avengers and thinking, “Who are you guys?” When Dante was born in 2005 (and really, a little before, as we were preparing for his arrival), I withdrew pretty thoroughly from the IF scene. I handed SPAG over to Jimmy Maher, I pretty much stopped writing reviews, I stopped reading the newsgroups, and I stopped visiting ifMUD. There have been exceptions here and there — my review of 1893, for instance, or my work with Textfyre — but for the most part, I have been absent. It turns out that a lot can happen in five years! I’m excited but a bit overwhelmed at how much there is to catch up on.

Speaking of overwhelming, when the line finally moved into the convention proper, we quickly heard that we wouldn’t make it into the keynote. We connected up with Stephen, and headed into the expo hall. This is about the point when sensory overload started attacking my brain cells, making it impossible for me now to retrieve my memories of who was where when. I know there was a group of us, and we met up with another group, and Mark Musante was there, and Jacqueline Ashwell was there, and Iain Merrick was there, and Dan Shiovitz was there, other people I don’t know very well were there, and probably lots of others I do but everything is blurring together because have I mentioned that good god there were a lot of people?

In the expo hall, there was also a lot of noise and sound. Wait, make that A WHOLE GODDAMNED LOT OF NOISE AND SOUND!!! And people. Of course. We watched Rob play Dante’s Inferno, which apparently involves Dante kicking lots of ass and not, as someone pointed out, fainting a lot, the way he does in the book. We watched Stephen play some game that involves falling and is impossible to Google because its name is something like “AaaaaAAaaaAAAAaaAAAAAa!!!!” We saw lots of booths and bright colors and LOUD SOUNDS and so forth. You get the idea.

After some time, I went with a subgroup of people to attend a 4:00 panel called “Design an RPG in an Hour.” It was crowded! I ended up leaning against the back wall. The panel was more or less like improv comedy, except take out the comedy and put in its place boilerplate RPG elements. What will our setting be? What is the conflict? Who are the protagonists and antagonists? What are their special traits? (i.e. What will their stat categories be?) It was pretty well-done, albeit dominated by what Stephen accurately termed “goofy high-concept stuff” from the audience. For instance, the guy shouting out “talking dinosaurs!” got a round of applause. I was happy to be there in any case, because there was a 5:30 panel on IF that would be in the same room, so I figured we’d stake out the good seats.

Now, this is a very cool thing. Some IF community folks pitched the idea of a PAX panel called “Storytelling in the World of Interactive Fiction,” and to our general delight, the PAX organizers made it part of the official con schedule! Going to this panel was one of the main reasons I wanted to come to Boston. So when it became apparent that PAX enforcers would be doing a full room sweep to prevent the very camping behavior I was counting on, it was time to make a new plan — and apparently, there was quite a line forming. So we snuck out before the panel ended to get in line.

And my goodness, it’s a lucky thing we did. When I first saw the room, I couldn’t imagine how we’d fill it with people wanting to hear about IF. But after we took our seats (which were quite good), people started to flow in. And then more came. And then more. The chairs: filled. The walls: filled. The aisles: filled.

THEY WERE TURNING PEOPLE AWAY.

I get chills again as I write it. I mean, I’m very sorry for the people who got turned away. I met several of them over the course of the weekend, and they were quite disappointed. But holy shit, what hath PAX wrought when we can cram a huge room with people interested in our medium, with tons more hoping to get in? It was stunning, absolutely stunning.

The panel itself was great. It consisted of some of our best: Emily Short, Andrew Plotkin, Robb Sherwin, Aaron A. Reed, and Rob Wheeler moderating. I won’t try and recap the panel, except to say that it was wonderful to hear sustained, intelligent, live discussion of IF. The charming Jenni Polodna, another arrival during my years on ice, wrote some very thorough notes about it, and Jason Scott filmed it, so you’ll probably be able to see it yourself sometime. Which, if you were one of those turned away, might help a bit.

All I know is that at the end, I felt like I had a whole lot of games I needed to play.

Top 10 IF games to play if you’ve been in suspended animation for the last five years

1. Blue Lacuna by Aaron A. Reed

2. Violet by Jeremy Freese

3. The games of the JayIsGames IF Comp

4. Lost Pig by Admiral Jota

5. Make It Good by Jon Ingold

6. De Baron by Victor Gijsbers

7. Alabaster by Emily Short and also a whole boatload of people.

8. The Shadow In The Cathedral by Ian Finley and Jon Ingold. [Hey, one I’ve played! I was even a tester for it!]

9. Floatpoint by Emily Short

10. Everybody Dies by Jim Munroe

PAX East 2010 Part 1: The Suite Life of Zarf & Co.

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On March 29, 2010

In Uncategorized

There were further travel adventures after the plane arrived — I found my way to the subway without any trouble, and got off at the right stop, but it was dark and raining, and I was quite disoriented. Lucky for me, there appeared on the horizon a lovely Au Bon Pain with free wireless access. I ducked in and got my bearings over a delicious lemon danish & chocolate-dipped shortbread. Mmmmm… empty calories. Also, let’s hear it for the Internet — it was so great to 1) figure out the right path to my hotel via Google Maps, 2) write Laura to tell her I’d made the plane, and 3) look up sunrise tables to figure out when I’d have a little light on my side.

Armed with this information, I walked to my hotel as the sun rose, and asked them if there was any way I could pretty please get into a room early so I could grab a nap before proceeding with the rest of my day. Unfortunately, they’d been sold out the night before, so they didn’t have any rooms open that early. They took my phone number and suggested I grab a leisurely breakfast — they’d call me when something opened up. The rain had turned to snow at that point, so I opted to stay within the hotel. They had a cafe with a nice (albeit hotel-expensive) breakfast buffet, so I camped out up there for the next couple of hours until they finally called me with the good news.

Got a room, got into bed. Blessed sleep.

At 12:30 I arose, cleaned up, figured out my train path, and headed over to the IF hospitality suite. This was a room in the Hilton arranged by Andrew Plotkin (aka Zarf) on behalf of the People’s Republic Of Interactive Fiction (a Boston-based IF group) to be a welcoming space for PAXies interested in IF. They printed up friendly fliers and everything (click images for larger versions):

Photocopy - the front side of a flyer advertising "The People's Republic of Interactive Fiction" Hospitality Suite at PAX East 2010, listing various IF-related events at the con and in the room.

Photocopy - the back side of a flyer advertising the IF Hospitality Suite at PAX East 2010 - a faux IF transcript about finding the suite.

When I got there, I was pleased to find that it was pretty crowded! Not only that, it was full of people I’d known online for more than 15 years! Zarf was there, of course — we’d never met, although we’ve been in the same community since 1995. Also there was the estimable Stephen Granade, another guy I’ve known since the very beginning but never been face-to-face with. A few people I’d met at an IF gathering several years ago, so I wasn’t completely overwhelmed with face-to-name energy, but still, it was pretty amazing.

Top 5 awesome things about the IF suite

1) The swag! Robb Sherwin put together a great IF promotional CD (this, but updated with newer stuff) to give out to visitors. There was also a nifty postcard, with art on the front and a handy how-to on the back. Plus: badge ribbons, stickers, buttons, and nametags!

2) The food! Zarf & co. were kind enough to provide lots and lots of chips, M&Ms, and soda, and others brought delicious treats as well. Across the hall, Ben Collins-Sussman and Jack Welch even provided beer! Woo hoo!

3) The energy! At any given moment, there were usually two or three conversations going — newbies connecting with veterans, different subsections of the community interconnecting, people getting acquainted who had never really met before. People talked about IF, and also about their lives, what was happening at the conference, and what was for dinner that night.

4) The special guest stars! Don Woods, co-creator of the original Adventure, came to an IF panel and chatted with folks. I got to hang at the edge of a conversation between Emily Short and Steve Meretzky, so I got to thank the latter for his work, which has meant a lot to me over the years. Especially A Mind Forever Voyaging. Wow. Jason Scott hung out for a while doing his larger-than-life, bursting-with-anecdotes thing. It was a bit like a bunch of indie bands hanging out together, and then occasionally Paul McCartney or Robert Plant might drop by.

5) The people! I suppose this is a superset of the previous one, but holy cow, this room was PACKED the entire weekend! There was something really special about this locus of passion and force about IF. I loved talking to people who were new to the scene. I loved talking to people who had become community celebrities in the time I’ve been out of the loop. I loved talking to people I’ve known for years from the other side of a screen. I loved being in that room.

Prelude to PAX: Drive Like The Wind

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On March 28, 2010

In Uncategorized

Thursday, January 25

You’ve been looking forward to it for months: a unique gathering of interactive fiction authors, organized around the huge gaming convention PAX East and the new IF documentary GET LAMP. As is your habit, you’ve arrived at the airport plenty early — you pull into the the shuttle parking lot at 9:15pm for an 11:25pm flight. You open the trunk to see your suitcase and… wait. What about your laptop case? What about your little travel bag? Good lord, what about your TICKET?

Oh no.

DRIVE LIKE THE WIND
A non-interactive recounting by Paul O’Brian

Shuttle Parking Lot
It’s dark, and the lot is full. The bus waits to take you to the airport. Of course, the airport is for people who have plane tickets, unlike yourself.

Your car is here, with the trunk open.

> LOOK IN TRUNK
No matter how many times you look, your other bags do not appear in the trunk.

> SWEAR
That doesn’t help. Well, maybe it helps a little.

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PAX Bostonia

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On January 24, 2010

In Uncategorized

Looks like I am going to PAX East, specifically the IF activities. WOO HOO!

Let’s have a round of applause for Laura Wilson, spouse extraordinaire, who very graciously offered to take on childcare for the weekend.

Easy Ready Willing Overtime

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On January 23, 2010

In Uncategorized

Over the last several years, I’ve evolved a Christmas tradition with my friends Siân and Kelly, in which my gift to them is a mix CD of songs that I’ve been listening to over the last year. (The year goes November-October, so that I can send it in time to Britain, where they live.) Siân often reciprocates with a mix of her own. More recently, we’ve started writing “liner notes” to accompany these mixes. I just finished writing up the liner notes to the compilation I sent her for Xmas 2009, titled Easy Ready Willing Overtime. Since it turned out rather detailed, and I haven’t posted anything here for a while, I thought I’d add some links and throw it out here.

I was hoping to be able to provide a nifty flash widget or something with each song, but apparently LiveJournal does not allow those sorts of Javascript shenanigans. So instead I’m linking to the mp3 version of each song on Amazon, which generally has a 30-second sample of each tune. I am a big fan of buying digital music on Amazon, as they deliver regular mp3s rather than other DRM-infested funky formats. Where no mp3 is available, I linked to a YouTube version, for the sake of at least making the song available to hear. In addition, I threw in links to the CDs and some other miscellaneous links.

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Toy Stories

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On November 7, 2009

In Uncategorized

The last chapter of The House at Pooh Corner begins, “Christopher Robin was going away.” In it, the animals in the Hundred Acre Wood throw Christopher Robin a going-away party, and when it’s over, he and Pooh find an enchanted place in the forest, a circle of trees where “they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky.” The boy, who is going away to boarding school, discusses all the things he’s learning, and the bear dimly tries to keep up. The boy, who loves to do Nothing, wistfully says that he won’t be doing Nothing as much anymore. “They don’t let you,” he says. He asks Pooh never to forget him, and hopes that whatever happens, Pooh will understand. But Pooh, of course, doesn’t understand what he’s supposed to understand. It ends:

So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.

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Young Liars

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On September 28, 2009

In Uncategorized

Kristen Wiig plays a recurring character on Saturday Night Live named Judy Grimes, whose schtick is that she’s a travel expert, but gets much too nervous on air to give any travel tips. Instead, she just keeps negating herself, making a statement and then saying, “just kidding.” As the sketch winds up, she eventually dives into some rapid-fire, bravura, all-in-one-breath monologue along these lines:

I’m fine. Besides, I… can’t come back another time because I’m too busy — just kidding, I’m not busy — just kidding, I am but I don’t have any time for you — just kidding, I don’t know how to make time — just kidding, but I know how to make pies — just kidding, I don’t — just kidding, I do, and I’ll make one right now — just kidding, I can’t, because I don’t have a pan — just kidding, I do, but I gotta buy sugar — just kidding, I have what I need, but I don’t have a stove — just kidding, there’s a stove under here, it’s hot — ouch! — just kidding, there’s no stove under here, there’s one at my house, let’s go there right now — just kidding, we can’t all go together, it’s hard to travel in a group — just kidding, we can’t do it because my car’s not big enough — just kidding, we’re in right now, this whole studio’s my car — just kidding, it isn’t — just kidding, it is — beep, beep! Get out of my way! — just kidding, we’re not in my car — just kidding, I wrecked my car — just kidding, I ran into a tree — just kidding, it was a bush — just kidding, it was a man, he was very upset — just kidding, he laughed — just kidding, he died — just kidding, it was a dream — just kidding, it wasn’t a dream, it was a movie I rented — just kidding, I bought it, and now I regret it, it wasn’t very good — just kidding, it was okay — just kidding!

This is exactly the narrative structure of David Lapham’s Young Liars. Oh, it starts out coherent enough. There’s a great premise — a guy in love with a girl who has a bullet in her brain, which makes her utterly fearless, obedient but unpredictable, and constantly in danger of death. There’s a bevy of fun supporting characters. There’s a breathless, rock & roll aesthetic, which veers from extremes of violence to heartbreaking tenderness. There’s a bunch of compelling, plotty twists and turns, intriguing flashbacks, and dark foreshadowing, with a killer climax at the end of issue #6.

Unfortunately, it then goes on for 12 more issues.

In those issues, Lapham breaks down everything he’s built up over the first six to replace it with something else. And then he does it again. And again. And again. Oh, the next part of the story is Sadie’s coma dream. Just kidding, it’s real and she’s an alien from Mars. Just kidding, a different character is the alien. Just kidding, the narrator is a schizophrenic. Just kidding, he’s sane but he’s being manipulated by a conspiracy. Just kidding, the conspiracy is the aliens. Just kidding, the aliens are taking over the conspiracy. Just kidding, the aliens are just a metaphor for corporate takeover. Just kidding, the narrator is a liar. Just kidding, everybody’s a liar. Just kidding, this is all stories told by a psychotic washed-up rock star. Just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. The first time one of these shifts happens, it’s intriguing. Then it’s shocking and enthralling. Then it’s confusing. Then irritating. Then maddening. Then really, really boring.

I read all 18 issues of Young Liars in one day. Stray Bullets made me a fan of Lapham, so I decided to subscribe to YL, but my time is highly circumscribed, so the series started and ended before I began reading it. What this experience crystallized for me is that I deeply dislike this narrative structure. Don’t get me wrong — I dig some reality-bending in a story. It’s a great spice. What I do not dig is when the story’s basic reality gets fractured so often or so severely that I no longer know what the story’s basic reality even is anymore. If I go long enough with no idea what is real, it turns out I really no longer care what is real, and the whole thing gets much less interesting. Plus, I completely lose faith that interesting plot danglers from early on are going to be paid off in any coherent way.

I read a great dissection of Heroes, which very accurately described it as a narrative Ponzi scheme, constantly borrowing from the future to disguise the fact that it’s actually based on nothing. This is Young Liars‘ problem as well. Between this, the disappointing run on Detective Comics, and the indefinite cessation of Stray Bullets (along with my vanished faith that that series will ever draw its strands together), I think I’m done with David Lapham now. He’s a fantastic stylist, but it turns out I’m only impressed by that when it’s paired with good storytelling.

Giving 110%

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On September 8, 2009

In Uncategorized

This is something I sent out at work, and it got a good enough reception that I decided to post it here as well. We’re in the midst of a massive project at CU, replacing the student system and a bunch of peripheral systems with Oracle PeopleSoft products. There is a lot of pressure, a lot of intensity… and a lot of status reporting. Some of that, especially as it travels up the chain, takes on a glossy, nonspecific quality. In talking about it with Laura, we were reminded of another place where that kind of status reporting happens…

My ESPN-loving spouse started this train rolling, and it became unstoppable. Now I just have to write it all down. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

Project Status Report, consisting entirely of clichés from sports interviews. (With substitutions, where appropriate.)

  • It is what it is.
  • There were factors beyond my control.
  • We came to code, but I’m not gonna lie, it’s been a tough match so far.
  • This time around, the software problems just wanted it more.
  • But I’m just gonna settle down, focus on doing my best. I can only control myself, you know what I mean? I’m gonna step up, and from this point forward, I’m just gonna focus on my game. I mean, work. That’s what matters, sticking with my guys, doing my work. I’m gonna do everything I can to get this project to the Superbowl. I mean, completion.
  • I’m a team player. It’s not about me, it’s about the whole team. We have to pull together.
  • It’s been tough out there, but we’ll get our game back. It’s still early in the project. We’ve got a lot of go-lives after this one, and we’re just gonna take it one go-live at a time. We’ve still got a long timeline ahead of us. We’re not circling any go-live on the calendar. Every go-live is important.
  • Replacing student systems is a professional business, you’ve gotta understand that. Stuff that happens out there, it’s not personal.
  • It’s easy to see the things that went wrong in this go-live, but there were things that went right. Anyway, this go-live is not over. We’re gonna get back out there and give it our best, stay focused, and take it to the next level.
  • We’re gonna get back into the office next week, practice the things we need to practice, take another look at the PeopleBooks, and keep working hard.
  • I’m only thinking about the next go-live on the schedule. It’s not about momentum — the project happens one go-live at a time.
  • I’m just glad to be here. I want to help the project any way I can.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 3 revisited

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On August 9, 2009

In Uncategorized

Early in my Buffy-watching project, I swore off both DVD extras and Television Without Pity recaps, because they were just way too spoiler-laden. Now that I’ve finished watching all episodes of Buffy and Angel, I’m (slowly!) going back through the whole saga, reading the recaps and watching the extras.

I just finished season three of Buffy for the second time, and am amazed anew. What a marvelous achievement. It’s just such great television, and this time through I found myself appreciating a couple of things that had passed me by the first time:

*** Spoilers after this point ***

1) I liked the Mayor the first time around, just because his milk-and-cookies qualities made such a great contrast to his evilness and batshit insanity. What I appreciated about him this time, though, was the fact that because he really didn’t care about them, he was able to speak the absolute truth to Buffy and Angel. I loved the scene in “Choices” where he tongue-lashes Angel for selfishness in relation to Buffy. Everything he says is absolutely dead-on, and highlights the fact that even though they don’t look it, Buffy and Angel are a ridiculously May-December relationship. There’s a strong argument to be made that Angel is taking advantage of her — whatever she’s had to go through, she’s still an 18-year-old (if that) girl. The mayor’s genuine disgust with Angel in that scene is a fantastic way of completely dooming their relationship from an unexpected direction.

2) The resonance of the classroom scene in “Earshot” is just a thing of beauty. The Othello discussion serves the purpose of showing Buffy’s sudden classroom smarts, and her peers’ reaction to it, of course. The teacher’s explication puts focus on Buffy’s anxiety about Angel and leads us in to the attempted mind-reading scene, of course. But let’s take a look at what Buffy actually says about Iago:

“Well, he, um, he sort of admits himself that his motive are… spurious! He, um, he does things because he, he enjoys them. It’s like he’s not, he’s not really a person. He’s a, the dark half of Othello himself.”

The dark half of the protagonist? Doing evil for the joy of it, with spurious motives? Ring any bells about anybody from this season? Oh, right: Faith. Of course.

And listening to the DVD commentary from writer Jane Espenson reveals that this scene was heavily rewritten by Joss. Of course it was.

Etta James at the Boulder Theater, 6/13

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On June 21, 2009

In Uncategorized

I became an Etta James fan in kind of a backwards way. Being quite the dedicated Eurythmics fan back in the 80’s, I even paid attention to their quirky little side projects. One of these was the soundtrack for a 1989 movie called Rooftops, which I never saw but was apparently fairly awful. Dave Stewart did some songs for it, and one of these was a track called “Avenue D”, on which Etta was the vocalist. I didn’t really know who she was, aside from the fact that I recognized her name and knew she’d been around a while. I did read a little article saying something like, “Dave Stewart does his best work when paired with a soulful singer, and James certainly fills the bill.” I was at NYU at the time — I actually remember listening to the 45 at Tower Records, liking the song, and buying it. I really dug her performance on that song. I looked into her a little more (which in those pre-Internet days meant just paying attention to what records of hers were in the stores), and found that she had done a comeback album the previous year called Seven Year Itch. A friend and I split the cost of the cassette, and I really liked that too. I bought her next couple of records, then lost track of her for a while.

10 years or so later, I became conscious of “At Last”, again in a backwards way — Stevie did a cover of it at a benefit concert where everybody sang standards. I fell in love with the song then, and heard Etta’s version later in the movie Pleasantville, and loved it again. Still, I never got around to pursuing her further, until this past Christmas, when I put The Essential Etta James on my Amazon wish list, and received it. I’d been listening to it a lot in the car when I heard that she was coming to Boulder in concert. I decided that I needed to go, and I found a fantastic ticket online: 2nd row aisle seat.

When I got there, I was thrilled to find that it was indeed one of the best seats in the house. I had a perfect sightline to everything, and was wonderfully close. There was an unannounced opening act, which was a drag — I’d asked Laura to cover childcare so I could get to the show on time. If I’d known, I’d certainly have come much later. Anyhow, after that, stagehands started setting up Etta’s stage, including a big comfy leather seat with the word “Etta!” inscribed on the front. At 9:00, her band filed onstage, along with somebody who didn’t introduce himself. He greeted the crowd, said “Miss James is in the house!”, and then introduced The Roots Band. (Not The Roots, who appear on Jimmy Fallon’s talk show, but rather just a bunch of touring musicians.) It was cool — a horn section, two guitarists, keyboard, bass, and drums. So then The Roots Band proceeds to vamp for 10 minutes.

Finally, Etta herself comes out, sits on the chair, and opens with “Come To Mama,” a song from Seven Year Itch that I’d known previously when Bob Seger recorded it (as “Come To Papa.”) In Seger’s hands, the song has a clear sexual subtext. Coming from James, the subtext becomes supertext, with lyrics like “If you feel like a horse chomping at the bit / Call my number, 777-6969, I’ll get you a fix.” But lyrics aside, OH MY GOD. It was easily the most sexual performance I’d ever seen, and I’ve seen both Tori Amos and Liz Phair (the latter of whom suffered a wardrobe malfunction that exposed her bare breast to the audience for the better part of a song.) Etta sang the entire song while absolutely pawing herself, and I mean her entire body, giving special emphasis to lines like “I’ve got your favorite toy / Guaranteed to bring you joy.” We are talking about a 71-year-old woman here, a grandmother, whose son is actually in the band, as her drummer. It was, to say the least, a little shocking. I wasn’t really bothered by it (though as a friend of mine pointed out, would you want to watch your mother doing that night after night?), but I was pretty floored. She continued in that vein the entire show. She never stood up, but her hands never rested much either. When singing “I’d Rather Go Blind,” she elaborated: “Sittin here thinkin’ of your kiss, and your… mmmmm, you all know what I’m talkin’ about.” And the song after that was called, “I Want To Ta-Ta You, Baby.”

While Etta’s libido has never waned (at least if her stage shtick is to be believed), I’m afraid the same can’t be said for her mind. For one thing, she clearly thought she was in Canada. “It’s been a long time since I’ve played in Canada!” she said. “I’m so happy to be back!” I thought she was joking at first, but then in the next song, she introduced her guitarist with, “This is Joshua. He’s Canadian, too!” She also introduced “I’d Rather Go Blind” by saying, “Here’s a song my sons and I wrote together.” Now, that song was first recorded in 1969, when James was 31 years old. The Internet doesn’t seem to want to tell me when her sons were born, but it does tell me that the song is co-credited to Ellington Jordan, not Donto and Sametto James. Oh, and then there was the long introduction where she said she was going to do a song by one of the baddest chicks of all time, Janis Joplin, and that song is called, “You Can Leave Your Hat On.” Written by Randy Newman. In 1972. Two years after Joplin died. All I could do was shake my head and laugh.

Her voice, though, still sounds amazing. She kept stealing glances at the lyric sheet next to her, but that didn’t stop her from nailing every single note. She also had a terrific stage presence, despite remaining seated the entire time. She was always playfully, bawdily bantering with the audience, even as she was performing songs. In “You Can Leave Your Hat On,” after she sang the line, “Suspicious minds are talking / They’re trying to tear us apart,” she would very clearly mouth the words “FUCK THEM.” It was hilarious.

Unfortunately, while the music was great, I didn’t get to hear it for very long — at 9:55, she said good night, and walked off stage, only to immediately drive back on astride a little red Rascal scooter. She sat back down in the chair and sang “At Last”, sounding phenomenal. And then… that was it. She left, stage lights came up, just an hour after the band had come on. That was very disappointing to me, as the ticket hadn’t been cheap. I quite understand that it’s probably hard on her to play very long, but if the length of your show is going to be much less than is conventionally accepted, your ticket price should be well below the standard too.

All in all, it was one of the strangest shows I’d ever seen. I loved the music, and was greatly amused by the rest. But I sure wish I’d known to come late, and been ready to leave early.

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