Wednesday 10 October 2001

Pic of the day: Revisited. The role playing game Daggerfall has hundreds of towns and villages with seemingly random names. One of these villages is Longing, and there is an armor store with great prices. It is, appropriately, called Longing Mail. After all those years, I still get other associations ... :)

Longing for the magic

After some weeks with only the most sporadic playing, I've been summoned back to Daggerfall. I may be able to resist the pull for a short while, much like Thomas Covenant in Stephen Donaldson's acclaimed trilogy The chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. But eventually I too am pulled into a world filled with magic and wonders. Luckily, I'm not quite as immersed as that fictional character. But there is definitely a parallel.

It is probably not a coincidence that I love fantasy fiction where people are summoned or otherwise magickally transported into a different world. In my opinion, this is one of the best angles of fantasy fiction, because it combines the familiar and the exotic. We automatically feel connected to the protagonist, because we are both from the same reality. It's kind of like going to a foreign country and meeting someone from your own state. You feel there is a bond, even if you wouldn't even like them if you met them at home.

Besides, I seem to be particularly easy to summon. It even happens in my dreams; not every night, but certainly every month and sometimes more often. I wake up from a dream in which I have lived in a different body, under a different name, with a different family, different friends, even a somewhat different personality. The body differs, the soul differs, but somehow the spirit remains. Even without any memories of Magnus Itland and his world, there is something there that is the same, and brings back the memories of an hour in another person's life. Some of these dreams are mundane, while some are magical.

***

Daggerfall may not be the height of computer graphics, but it has a truly enormous game world. There are so many different things one can do; no game need to be the same. The game is not strongly scripted, I can do pretty much whatever I want to. The current character, still very new, is a "skill warrior", combining blades and unarmed combat and mysticism. Guess who has watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon this Monday ... :)

***

Speaking of which, SuperWoman called! She made excuses for not having got her computer connected to the Internet yet. (Now look at that picture again. Heh.) She wanted to hear what I thought about one particular Swedish ISP. And of course she had a lot to tell, because we hadn't spoken since she moved to Sweden to start working at a hospital there the 1st of this month. Yeah, so it's like two weeks since we met, but it feels a lot longer. Which reminds me of something else, but let me finish this first.

I mentioned (when she had told me that there was 1 video rental outlet in her town) that I had bought a DVD player after I saw one on her machine. (My machine, technically, but you know what I mean.) She was quite interested in the fact that it was possible to play DVD on her PC, she had not noticed this. And when I told her it was just to put the DVD in and close the tray, she grew even more interested. I told her that I had watched Crouching Tiger, and of course she had too, and she had a better explanation of the ending than I had. Her first reaction when I told her about the DVD, however, was "The Matrix!". Hmm. I remember the day ... no. I won't go on and on. I wrote about it when it happened. That is enough.

Evidently she is very satisfied with the hospital and the people who work there. It doesn't hurt that almost all her colleagues are male. For some reason, she generally prefer men as friends and comrades. With me, as I replied, it is exactly the opposite. Perhaps that's why we get along so well. Incidentally, it seems most of them are already married or something similar. Well, what do you expect? They are rich and smart. (Things that do not automatically go together in Scandinavia - many intelligent and well educated people have moderately paid jobs, and a huge student loan to pay back.)

While Sweden is very similar to Norway (except for the higher taxes and a less American-inspired lifestyle), there are some restrictions to her work which frustrate her. She aired the possibility of moving to Kristiansand (the city where I work) for the last 4 months. I carefully avoided commenting on this in particular, only expressed my sympathy with her working conditions. I'm already making a fool out of myself as is, am I not? I love friends! And some friends more than others, I guess. But physical distance means nothing to me, right? I seem to remember that.

***

I am not changing topic here, but today I read an article about the science of tunes that get stuck in our head. It is indeed suspicious that there is no mention of this whatsoever in historical sources. It seems to be a fairly new phenomenon. Perhaps it was made possible by electronic media that allows us to hear the exact same song several times. In the past, each performance was subtly different, I suppose it could have some effect. That, and people probably did not have quite that much time to enjoy their music.

LeVay, the author of the Satanic Bible, claimed that Satanic music was the type that got stuck in your head. I guess the poor people that caught the Barney (sp?) song there will agree with him, but mostly I think it is bluster. I don't think Satan would testify in favor of that guy at all, to be frank. He seems like someone who was making his own religion to get chicks, or at least attention. Of course, I am not so familiar with Satan and his ways that I can say this for sure.

But I doubt Chris de Burgh ever was a Satanist, and it is a documented fact that around the time when SuperWoman came home from Germany, I had the tune Missing You running in my head off and on for more than a week ...

Fantasy worlds, indeed.