The Name Game

Responses welcome, especially playtest reports.

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Pick a name.

But first, divide into at least 2 teams and choose one person to be Paragon.

Pick a name. It could be someone famous, or infamous. Someone rich, or powerful. Someone good, or great. Someone who exemplifies a virtue. Someone you know. Maybe even someone here.

Brainstorm, then vote. If tied after a runoff, Paper, Rock, Scissors for it.

Now make up as many words as you can, using only the letters in the chosen name.

Keep track of every one's contribution by writing down the words and initialing which came from who. You might need a recorder if the group is big enough. If so, just make columns for each person's contribution, recorder.

You might add tension by having a time limit--say three minutes?--to come up with as words as you can. The paragon should act as timekeeper if you've time limits.

Don't forget to keep track of how many words each person made. Each word you made counts as a point for you.


Now create a master word list with all the words made so far.

The paragon will now arrange the words in order of likeness to the chosen name.

In teams, in secret, arrange the words in like manner, attempting to mimic the paragon's choices.

You might add tension by having a time limit--say two minutes?--or even just when the paragon is finished--to arrange the words as close to the paragon's list as possible. The paragon should act as timekeeper if you've time limits.

Compare the lists. Two items in the same order made a sequence. Every sequence a team made that matches the paragon's list counts for n-1 points, where n is the number of terms in the sequence.

Sum up team points, and declare the winning team.

Sum up individual points and team points, and declare the winning individual(s).

The winning person chooses the next name. The winning team nominates the next paragon.

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Example of Play

[Insert example of play here when you decide to become professional, Will.]

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Description

Team and individual game, requires one moderator.
Play for points, in ~10 minute rounds.
Setup ~5 minutes per round.

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Summary

Pick teams, paragon. Agree on time limits.

Pick name. Make words out of that name.

Make lists. Match sequences for team points.

Record winners of the round.

Kiwi!

High points:

0. Tuba music @ .02-1.22 = Marveloso!

1. Physics @ .31 = Yay for pulleys and friction.

2. ? @ .58 = Where does the hammer come from, again?

3. He has aviator goggles @ 2.05-2.10 = The goggles, they do nothing.

4. Wings @ 2.05-2.28? = The glory of futility.

5. Tears of joy @ 2.19

Goodnight, kiwi.

Lent 1 Saturday

The cock crowed again, and several of the Irishmen cried, 'Mac na h'Oighe slan.'

'What do the say?' asked Jack, tuning to Stephen.

‘Hail to the Virgin's Son,' said Stephen. ‘We say that in Ireland, when we hear the first cockcrow of the day, so that if we meet a sudden death before the day is out , we may also meet with grace.

(O'Brian, Patrick. The Fortune of War, Chapter Nine.)


I have loved the Aubrey-Maturin seafaring novels of Patrick O'Brian since our first acquiantance, which must have been these couple or three years now. I love the superstition above. If I might quibble regarding the self interested, ungenerous theology, the object of the hail at least is dear.

Crown Him the virgin's Son
The God incarnate born
Whose arm those crimson trophies won
Which now His brow adorn

As well, I have great affection for Crowm Him With Many Crowns, the hymn by Bridges, and later, Thring. I hadn't the foggiest notion before googling "Hail to the Virgin's Son" that one of the stanzas of the old hymn referenced the Mother of God, the Christbearer.

I do wonder what the crimson trophies are that his arm won,--is suffering a crown?

Crown Him the Son of God
Before the worlds began
And ye who tread where He hath trod
Crown Him the Son of man
Who every grief hath known
That wrings the human breast
And takes and bears them for His own
That all in Him may rest

The appeal to Jesus' dominion, to the coming of his kingdom, I rarely have heard so directly expressed. Perhaps I do not attend well. Like most hymns, I take more from reading it than singing it.

The "son of man." How absurdly evocative.

Best,

The Edge of the Pit

We are born, and we suffer until we go;
We live till we die, and that's all we know,
Neither what the purpose nor whose the game
To make us, break us, with pain and shame.
We are brought to a board where there's all we wish---
But the cook's gone mad and has fouled each dish;
We can plan and make; we can think and do---
But the prize is a husk, worm-eaten, too;
Our minds are a marvel, as all agree,
And our bodies as well, but the two don't gee,
So they live in a permanent tug of war,
To each the other a scab and a bore;
And we have two sexes, fashioned to mate
In the flesh so well, but their spirits hate,
So the joy of a body is no part
Of the soul's delight and dies in the heart
Of a gangrenous blight. Yet we plant the seed
For the force of our lust and callously breed
A brood to inherit our rotten lot
And to scorn and hate us, as why should they not
When we act the lunatic Judas goat
For the miserable get on whom we dote;
Though they are as silly and warped as we,
As doomed to despair and futility,
As bound to be robbed of whatever they crave,
As lucky in finally finding a grave.
But we blather to them what was blithered to us
And babble our praise of the barbarous,
So that they in turn can swindle their kith
With a pitiful, sniveling, coward's myth
Of the wisdom and plan behind it all;
"Sing praise and let the hosannas fall!"
Is the constant bellow of dupe to dupe,
The idiot maundering of the group,
All bleating their fables in coined belief---
But leave an adult to his knowledge and grief.

And so another quarter is past, and I must post. It is a law I find, that the more distraught I am the less diction I command, and yet--

The above is an excerpt from John Myers Myers excellent _Silverlock_. If you are unfamiliar, by all means, go read the book. Save catastrophe I'll wait until you're back.

Good. Now you know that although the above is marvelously pithy, it is by no means the common tone of the novel; in the words of the immortal Wm. Goldman, there is "Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles." Although in truth there are rather more strongest men in the world in _The Princess Bride_, and rather more ennui, despair, selfishness, transformation, and the recovery of hope and promise in _Silverlock_. Also far more poetry. Some day I'll post on the excellence of the "Death Lay of Bowie Gizzardsbane," and track down all the allusions of "The River Runs South."

What occasions my theft of words is the last month having the longest succession of depressions of my life. I shall write as if explaining, though I do not intend that this should ever be seen by any but me: I have occasional weakness emotionally whereby if I become down, I can not get up to face the day(s), usually two or three. In this last month, I didn't report to my job or worship God for three weeks. I made it up enough not to soil myself and to eat every two or three days, but I could find no drive.

Edited 2008 Apr 16 Wednesday to note that this set of depressions lasted longer than any other in my life; if measure made sense in oblivion, I'd say it was worse than any other period of my life. That I've risen since Easter I can exemplify thus: a friend and I ate lunch today, and he didn't understand why I was so severely afflicted--I had explained some of my triggers to him previously, and so he suggested that I might hate myself due to latent pedophilia or homosexuality. I then laughed that off, which is my example of grace--thank God, I do not struggle in those ways; if I did, would I have the strength to write this? Would I still write at all? And my friend's point was not gaucherie or cruelty: there is hope enough for us all. Even for me. Even those who conflate sex and children, or who unlearn manhood and become as women, to men; or unlearn womanhood and become as men, to women.

Jonah 1/1 SSDD

Jonah 2 (The Message)

1-9 Then Jonah prayed to his God from the belly of the fish. He prayed:

"In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to God.
He answered me.
From the belly of the grave I cried, 'Help!'
You heard my cry.
You threw me into ocean's depths,
into a watery grave,
With ocean waves, ocean breakers
crashing over me.
I said, 'I've been thrown away,
thrown out, out of your sight.
I'll never again lay eyes
on your Holy Temple.'
Ocean gripped me by the throat.
The ancient Abyss grabbed me and held tight.
My head was all tangled in seaweed
at the bottom of the sea where the mountains take root.
I was as far down as a body can go,
and the gates were slamming shut behind me forever—
Yet you pulled me up from that grave alive,
O God, my God!
When my life was slipping away,
I remembered God,
And my prayer got through to you,
made it all the way to your Holy Temple.
Those who worship hollow gods, god-frauds,
walk away from their only true love.
But I'm worshiping you, God,
calling out in thanksgiving!
And I'll do what I promised I'd do!
Salvation belongs to God!"

It looks like the grave he refers to is the ocean deep, whence he had been cast after he the storm. If so, he must have prayed while about to drown. The interesting thing about this is that the fish that swallowed him was God's answer. Very much a from the frying pan to the fire situation. Once would think God would have more sense!

And this is where it starts to get interesting, because it's right here that Jonah composes his prayer of praise. It's right in the middle of the problem he's wandered into that he acknowledges God's holiness, his saving grace in the prior problem, and worships him. He even acknowledges God as Master, and the God who saves.

It's fascinating to see the next chapter, how Jonah is completely ed at God because the Ninevites repent (now these where the Assyrians, who would flay captives before a city to show they meant business. [Thanks, Mr. Spain.]) Jonah's aggravation was based on God showing mercy to whom he wished to show mercy. Almost as if Jonah thought he could do a better job of being God, than God.


The reason I blog this is that I have definitely been disobedient--run from God, as it were; and God has definitely let meet the consequences of life without him. I pray I may quit myself at least as wee as Jonah and praise God for his healing me and saving me once again, before I address the next problem. And the next, and the next, and the next.

Australian Pigrims Possess the Quotation of My Desire

Thank you, interweb.

http://www.backyardmissionary.com/2007/01/disturb-us-lord.html

Disturb us, Lord, when

We are too well pleased with ourselves

When our dreams have come true

Because we dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst for the waters of life;

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our efforts to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land

We shall find stars.

We ask you to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push us in the future

In strength, courage, hope and love.

Best. Sermon. Ever.

Rick's really on this week, and it's great to hear it. It's better to be part of it.

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As an aside, I'm thinking of having my (right) ear pierced*. To mark this body and this life as God's, ala the Hebrew bond-slave, the man who chooses to put aside a barren, impoverished freedom for a richer slavery in a great house.

What do you think?

*Does an exclusive left ear piercing still connote bein' a wee bit lavender?