Mo Holkar

thanks! I've given it a couple of goes at larp festivals over the last month or so, and people seemed to have a good time.

New chamber larp published on my website! -- The Anatomy Lesson.
"The year is 1632: the place, Amsterdam. Aris Kindt, a desperate violent criminal, mugs a passer-by in an attempt to steal their valuable cloak. Kindt is arrested, tried, and swiftly executed by hanging..."
holkar.net

New blog. "If a designer says ‘this larp was about X’ and you, having taken part in it, are like ‘oh but I thought it was about Y’ then you are right — for you, that is what it was about. And this [...] can’t change what you actually felt in the moment of play."
blog.undyingking.com/different-re...

This weekend just now it was The Smoke! -- and here's my blog post about it.

"The organizers work really hard to keep a warm and welcoming vibe going, in which empathy and kindness (for others and for oneself) are paramount…"

blog.undyingking.com/the-smoke-20...

"In my dream, I was in the painting, and it was a live scene — people clustering round and peering at the corpse, while trying to show their good side to the painter..."

New blog post, about a larp called The Anatomy Lesson: blog.undyingking.com/the-anatomy-...

new blog post! I was at Grenselandet, the Oslo larp festival, and this is (some of) what happened there: blog.undyingking.com/grenselandet...

Bottle of VO5 conditioner saying 'Revive Me Daily'

Whenever I see this bottle of conditioner (which is basically every day, as it lives next to my shower) I get earwormed by the Fine Young Cannibals.
(So now, you can, too.)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utvm...

iirc my group, finding this frustrating, house-ruled that a crit did max damage as far back as 1985 at least. Evidently word never reached the TSR/WotC honchos.

Here's another new blog post which is basically just a home for a recently-crowdsourced list of larp festivals that have happened in the UK. Thanks to everyone who's contributed so far!
blog.undyingking.com/larp-festiva...

new blog post! About the excellent Stockholm Scenario Festival:
blog.undyingking.com/stockholm-sc...

EW.

and another blog post! -- this time about the Immersion larp festival: blog.undyingking.com/immersion-th...

A new blog post, about some chamber larps that I've run / taken part in recently: blog.undyingking.com/recent-larps/

110 minutes! What is this witchcraft.

they're called wood pigeons! We have them too -- they have a very charming and distinctive call.

oh sorry, I only just saw this! No, it's a novel, with painted illustrations.

Front cover image of Swedish Machines, by Simon Stålenhag

New book from Simon Stålenhag has arrived!

Another blog post, about the larp Shadows in Time!
"… The characters are a group of people who each have the ability to travel freely in time and space … they do not age, but they’ve all been doing this stuff for at least several thousand subjective years…"
blog.undyingking.com/shadows-in-t...

A new blog post, about my old chamber larp Keep It in the Family: blog.undyingking.com/keep-it-in-t...

Feel like we need a term for the phenomenon where a political party interprets any election result, win or lose, as evidence of the need to tack further right. McSweeney’s Ratchet, maybe

AI as Normal Technology

Interesting analysis of AI as a 'normal' technology.
"...in contrast to both utopian and dystopian visions of the future of AI which ... treat it akin to a separate species, a highly autonomous, potentially superintelligent entity."
knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a...

Similes like this are so helpful; it seems really obvious when you say it out loud but there is a genuine perspective shift when you're emphatic that the point of your teaching is not to create 15 essays, but 15 students who can write an essay.

I've ordered the next two in the series now, fingers crossed they'll be as good!

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle meet Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club in an ingenious blend of classic and modern murder mystery.

I read this book, and it was terrific! -- excellent mixture of funny, clever, and intriguing.
Not cosy crime, but not gritty either -- somewhere inbetween.
Knives Out is probably a fair point of 'if you like that, you'll like this' comparison, I think.
www.penguin.com.au/books/everyo...

thank you!

Free Short Stories – A Tasting Menu from Wonderland Press - Wonderland Press Strange tales, sharp truths, and stories with bite. Read free short stories in every flavor, from flash fiction to folklore, served with fireflies and mead.

Links to a bunch of free stories from the amazing Wonderland Press!
Being me, I most liked 'The Man Who Ate Gene Wolfe'.

ok so not everyone is going to like this new blog post, about larp safety practice, by me and Laura Wood, but we feel it's important to say -- and if you disagree, then so be it, but we hope that you'll accept our good faith at least.

blog.undyingking.com/about-green-...

Evan with the wisdom here!

The Futures aren’t Bright, the Futures are Orange   And in today’s financial news, a sharp fall in the competence and capability markets have led to a rise in dolour against such a pounding and a yen to return to a rational world.   The SADSAQ index has plummeted by a further 22%, following severe marble losses. Intelligence and acumen slumped by 34% and 45% respectively, while credibility tumbled, grazing both knees and fracturing its collarbone.   Elsewhere, the FFS 100 index has seen a 12% rise in incredulity, as shares in buffoonery and idiocy continue to soar in response to another record-breaking day for the US president at the laughing stock exchange.   Brian Bilston

This is called ‘The Futures aren’t Bright, the Futures are Orange’.

7 OPTICAL ILLUSIONS THAT EVERY GRAPHIC DESIGNER SHOULD KNOW - Nostalgic Dolphin Studio A round-up of the most common optical illusions in graphic design with solutions simply described.

Interesting and useful stuff here about how things don't always look the same size or shape as they are, in design: nostalgicdolphin.com/7-optical-il...