So he flew from the pit with the moon round his waist

Thursday music corner: Virginia-born American indie-rock / alt-country singer Neko Case (b.1970) has had a rich solo career and built strong connections with Canadian musicians, including performing as part of the punk collective The New Pornographers and appearing as a trio with k.d. lang and Laura Viers under the designation 'case / lang / viers'.

Case released her first album The Virginian as Neko Case and Her Boyfriends in 1997, and in total has released seven studio albums plus two live albums, with the most recent being the largely Stockholm-recorded Hell-On, released in 2018. Case's arrangement of the traditional spiritual John Saw That Number appeared on her 2006 album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. The album was recorded in Tucson, Arizona, apart from the a capella introduction to this track, which was recorded in a stairwell at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto.  

Case is performing American shows in June and July, including four co-headline gigs with the Indigo Girls in Washington and Oregon.

Neko Case - John Saw That Number (2006)

See also:

Music: case / lang / viers - Atomic Number (2016)

Music: The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers (Live on Letterman, 2014)

Music: Neko Case - Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth (2009, Sparks cover)

Dueling billionaires are no substitute for democracy

The increasing dominance of money from the super-wealthy would be less of a problem if their attitudes were the same as those of most other Americans. The power of Democratic billionaires presumably would balance the power of Republican billionaires. But in reality the rich have quite different priorities from average Americans. Dueling billionaires are no substitute for democracy. According to a Pew Research poll, a large majority of Americans, regardless of party, are worried about jobs and wages. Yet when political scientists Benjamin Page and Larry Bartels surveyed Chicagoans with an average net worth of $14 million, their biggest concerns were the budget deficit and excessive government spending. And no surprise these wealthy individuals were also far less willing than were other Americans to raise taxes on the rich and more willing to cut Social Security and Medicare. They also opposed things most other Americans favored, such as increasing spending on schools and raising the minimum wage.

These wealthy respondents also differed from the rest of America in their political influence. In the previous twelve months, two-thirds had contributed (an average of $4,633) to political campaigns. A fifth had "bundled" contributions with others. That bought them the kind of political access most Americans only dream of. About half had recently initiated contact with a U.S. senator or representative, and nearly half those contacts concerned matters of narrow economic self-interest rather than broader national concern. Mind you, this is just the wealthy of one city, Chicago. Multiply it across the entire United States and you see who our elected representatives are listening to and why. The survey didn't even include the wealth and political clout of Wall Street and big corporations. Multiply the multiplier.

- Robert Reich, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, London, 2020, p.65-66.

Cherries by pigeon-post

The historian al-Maqrizi recorded one very non­routine use of homing pigeons. In the late tenth century, the fifth Fatimid caliph al-Aziz loved the cherries of Baalbek. As a treat, his vizier -- in effect, prime minister -- arranged for 600 homing pigeons to be sent off from Baalbek to Cairo, each carrying a silk bag attached to either leg, with a single cherry inside each bag. The pigeons had 600 kilometres to fly. If they left in the morning, al-Aziz could have had fresh cherries for dessert that evening, with enough left over for his many guests.

- John Man, Saladin, 2015, p.259-261

You'll see men with no future, they were wiped out in the war

Thursday music corner: Mozart Estate formed in London in 1999 under the name Go-Kart Mozart, led by singer / songwriter Lawrence Hayward, who only goes by his first name. In 2018 Lawrence changed the band's name to Mozart Estate. Under both names combined the band has issued five albums and five singles since forming. 

The jauntily bleak Relative Poverty is the lead single from the most recent album, Pop-Up! Ker-Ching! and the Possibilities of Modern Shopping, released in January 2023. The single was released in a special vinyl edition for Record Store Day. It had originally appeared in an earlier version on Go-Kart Mozart's fourth album, 2018's Mozart's Mini-Mart. Speaking to the Guardian's Ryan Gilbey in July 2022 from his East London council flat, Lawrence points out that the poverty he refers to definitely isn't of the ironic variety:

“There came a point where I learned to live on nothing. I’d have two pence in my pocket, and I’d find a bench on the King’s Road hoping someone would sit next to me so I could ask for a cigarette. No one ever did because I looked so rough.”

Mozart Estate - Relative Poverty (2022)

See also:

Music: The La's - Doledrum (1990)

Music: The Chills - Doledrums (1986)

Music: UB40 - Food For Thought (1980)

Skidding but the expression remains pan

Thursday music corner: London art-punk band Wire were formed in 1976, four months after the Sex Pistols' culture-shaking performance at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall. Wire's initial burst of energy lasted until the band split for the first time in 1980. After a five-year hiatus the band re-formed in 1985 for a further seven years; since 1999 Wire has been active in some form.

The band released three albums and six singles in its 1970s incarnation. The first album Pink Flag (1977), which despite disappointing sales at the time of its release has gone on to be regarded as a classic of the genre, with a widespread influence on many other artists including Elastica's Justine Frischmann and Graham Coxon of Blur. As at 2023 Wire have released 17 studio albums and 24 singles.   

Dot Dash, a non-album track, was Wire's third single release, issued in 1978. Issued forth at a furious pace, its typically opaque lyrics may or may not refer to perilous night driving, although a simplistic reading of Wire lyrics is seldom a rewarding exercise.

Wire - Dot Dash (1978)

See also:

Music: Wire - Outdoor Miner (UK #51, 1978)

Music: The Stranglers - No More Heroes (UK #8, 1977)

Music: Chelsea - Right To Work (1977)

Royal Hotel, Featherston

Royal Hotel, Featherston (1868)

 

Because baby, the thrill has gone

Thursday music corner: Soul singer Ann Sexton (b. South Carolina, 1950) has been performing and releasing music since the late 1960s. She had hit records in the US with tracks such as You're Gonna Miss Me (1973, R&B charts #47) and I'm His Wife (You're Just A Friend) (1979, R&B #79). Later she also found a following on the UK Northern Soul circuit with tracks like You've Been Gone Too Long. It was the B-side of her 1971 Impel Records single You're Letting Me Down, backed by the Masters of Soul. After a long period out of the music business in the 1980s and beyond, Sexton returned to live performances in Europe in 2007.

Ann Sexton - You’ve Been Gone Too Long (1971)

See also:
Music: Shirley Ellis - Soul Time (1966)

Music: Laura Greene - Moonlight Music In You (1967)

Music: Eloise Laws - Love Factory (1973)

An AI-generated Dungeons & Dragons campaign

Obviously loads of people are mucking around with ChatGPT and similar sites at the moment, seeing what they can do. Seeing Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves yesterday reminded me that while there are already plenty of random adventure idea generation sites out there, it would be worth trying out the new AI approach.

The result of my ChatGPT query set out below are promising, which isn't too surprising given how much D&D content there is on the internet. The core ideas are reasonably well-formed, if a little hackneyed. The AI fails to provide nuanced details such as suggesting specific Forgotten Realms locations for the adventures, and it doesn't really understand the concept of 'low fantasy' (a less mythic milieu, rather than the super-powered 'high fantasy' of powerful magic, mighty kings, gods and immortals). And surely any starter adventure worth its salt has to include a mandatory kobold encounter?

---

Query: Write an outline of a 'low fantasy'-themed multi-adventure Dungeons & Dragons campaign for starter players set in the Forgotten Realms world.

Response: Sure, here's an outline for a low-fantasy D&D campaign set in the Forgotten Realms world:

Title: Shadows of Faerun

Premise: The players are a group of adventurers hired by a local lord to investigate strange happenings in a nearby village. The lord has been hearing rumors of dark magic and otherworldly creatures, and he fears that the village may be in danger. The players must explore the village and surrounding areas, facing various dangers and uncovering a sinister plot that threatens to unleash an ancient evil upon the world.

Adventure 1: The Haunted Village

The players arrive in the village and discover that it is indeed being plagued by dark magic and other strange phenomena.

• They explore the village and surrounding areas, investigating the source of the disturbances.
• They eventually discover that the local necromancer has been using forbidden magic to raise the dead and control the minds of the living.
• They confront the necromancer and put an end to his dark plans, but not before uncovering hints of a larger conspiracy.

Adventure 2: The Forgotten Tomb

The players follow a lead to an ancient tomb that is said to hold powerful magical artifacts.

• They must navigate a series of traps and puzzles to reach the tomb's inner sanctum.
• There they face off against a powerful undead guardian and retrieve a powerful artifact.
• However, they also discover that the artifact is cursed and may have unintended consequences.

Adventure 3: The Cult of the Dragon

The players hear rumors of a cult that worships dragons and seeks to bring them back to power.

• They infiltrate the cult's stronghold and discover that they are planning to summon a powerful dragon from another realm.
• The players must prevent the ritual from taking place, fighting off cultists and their dragon minions.
• They are ultimately successful in stopping the cult, but they also learn that there are other, more powerful cults at work in the world.

Adventure 4: The Demon's Curse

The players encounter a village that is being plagued by a demonic presence.

• They discover that a powerful demon has been summoned to the village and is possessing the minds of its inhabitants.
• The players must track down the source of the summoning and put an end to it before the demon can do more harm.
• They discover that the summoning was orchestrated by a powerful mage who has been experimenting with forbidden magic.

Adventure 5: The Final Confrontation

The players learn that the mage they encountered in the previous adventure is part of a larger conspiracy to unleash an ancient evil upon the world.

• They must travel to the mage's stronghold and fight their way through his minions to reach him.
• In a climactic battle, they confront the mage and his dark master, a powerful demon lord.
• They must use all their skills and wits to defeat the demon lord and prevent the apocalypse.

Conclusion:

• The players are hailed as heroes and rewarded for their bravery.
• However, they also realize that there are still many threats to the world and many more adventures to be had.

See also:

Games: Spinward Marches naval shipyards, 17 August 2022

Games: Republican candidates as D&D characters, 29 October 2015

Games: Random adventure generator