**Golden Loam Cover Image (process)** • gouache and colored pencil on paper, finished digitally
Brianne Farley • Cover made for Traverse City Musician Laurel Premo

In This Issue: Tori Amos, Mid-90’s CD stores, a mercifully brief digression into eyebrow hairs, queering role-playing games, disability stuff

In Praise of Tori Amos

by Brad Kik || 1,518 words (6 minute read)

(This is a love letter, not an album review.)

Middle-age has added two flaws to my growing list, both unavoidable. First, hairs of startling length growing out of my eyebrows, and second, nostalgia. I’ll speak no more of the former, but oh, nostalgia—the fondness with which I remember my teens is proof that I’ve forgotten most of what actually happened. I’m declaring this now, up front, because all that follows will stink of nostalgia. I can’t help myself any more than I can stop those damn hairs from growing.

First, the dry facts. Little Earthquakes is the debut solo album by the American singer-songwriter Tori Amos. I was freshly seventeen when it was released in the US — on February 25, 1992 — and I can stick a pin in mid-March when I first encountered it, late in my junior year of high school.

Oh, to have five minutes alone with that scrawny high school butthead. The choices I would caution against! The big decisions I would encourage! The permission I would give to just be. What a waste of daydreaming, this kind of hopeless reflection. No matter my present post-hoc regrets, though, I would happily sit back and watch that awkward teen walk into a music store and come out holding Little Earthquakes.

The three flavors of suburban music stores were well known to every middle-American nineties kid…

The Warp — Ideas and Inspiration

My friend Pepper wrote a song called “Living on the Edge of the Bell Curve”—a raucous testament to human flourishing outside of the mainstream. Lately on my mind are some specific versions of that: queerness, neurodiversity, and disability.

|| 1 || Each February, Kickstarter runs an annual project called #ZineQuest, which invites creators to bring forth resources for their favorite role-playing games, or invite new ones from scratch. Lots of these can be supported for $5 or $10 and come to you as a digital download.

This has become a home for lots of visionary alternatives to (and subversive re-imaginings of) the battle axe and fireball RPGs of the 70’s and 80’s. Here are some examples, with links to their websites if I could find them:

Back Again From the Broken Land - “Play as small adventurers returning to your hometown after playing a humble but crucial role in the fall of Doomslord.”

Dungeon Bitches - “a game about queer women banding together. It’s about trauma. It’s about community. It’s about pain. It’s about survival. But most of all, it’s very gay.”

DETHRONERS - “Dethroners is a complete adventure game of weird fantasy and shifting narrative control. One player is the Divinity, intent on solidifying their power and crushing a nascent rebellion. The others are Renegades, bold souls who seek to liberate the world. As the Renegades score major triumphs, they literally tear pages from the rulebook, claiming facets of the Divinity's authority.”

Grasping Nettles - “a worldbuilding game about a community and its story over the course of generations. You take turns dictating various things about a world of your creation. Actions include defining factions, describing locations, discovering issues, creating characters, starting projects, catching glimpses of other communities, and framing scenes.”

Weirdwood - a game of dreams, nightmares, and the darkness in between. The characters are dedicated to protecting an unsuspecting world from a mysterious realm…. hunting fell creatures or thwarting the ambitions of those who seek to bend the Weirdwood's power to their own selfish ends.”

Wise Women - “players take on the roles of witches living in a remote village, where life is difficult and people often fall prey to supernatural creatures. The witches have the ability to use magical properties of plants to protect their community and help it prosper, but their skills are viewed with suspicion and prejudice.”

Some other amazing games that were not part of the #ZineQuest project but worth a mention here: Coyote and Crow, Wanderhome, Dream Askew / Dream Apart and A Quiet Year / The Deep Forest (check out everything by Avery Alder!).

If you’re interested in playing any of these games, let me know. I’d love to start a weekly gaming group in Traverse City or Bellaire dedicated to these out-of-mainstream titles.

|| 2 || I wrote so much about neurodiversity that I had to delete it as a Warp item and start a new essay. Look for that soon. In the meantime, you must be content with Autistic Science Person, an incredibly thoughtful blog that explores tools for ASD folks while affirming their right to exist without being subjected to trauma disguised as therapy.

|| 3 || Still in the gaming world, I’m interested in the subreddit Disabled Dungeons, which plays host to conversations about disability both inside of the imaginary world (“People keep asking, Why have disabled people in a world with magical healing?’ Isn't that like asking, ’Why have farmers in a world with Create Food and Water?’”) and around the gaming table (like this dyslexia-friendly styling code for making TTRPG documents).

|| 4 || Finally, both because we’re creeping toward Samhain/Halloween, and because one of the ways my neurodiversity manifested as a child was as an abiding love of horror movies, here’s Paste’s 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time. Their number 5 is my number 1: John Carpenter’s The Thing.

The Weft — News and Events

|| 1 || In case you didn’t hear about it soon enough, know that The Alluvion General Manager Application will remain open up until the time when we fill the position. You can still apply. If you have the skills of a concert presenter combined with a service industry manager, and if you believe in radical hospitality, particularly as elucidated by Ora Wise as “a focus on accessibility, generosity, sensuality and beauty, grounded in the belief that these experiences and elements of life should not be exclusionary or considered superfluous,” then take a look. It just might be your dream job. Base salary is $56,500 plus benefits.

|| 2 || Two Film Screenings. First, on Wednesday, October 12th, the Grand Traverse Area Citizens' Climate Lobby will be hosting a screening of The Biggest Little Farm, along with local apple cider and cookies. Brad will be there as a guest speaker, and lots of your favorite non-profit groups too: NMEAC, SEEDS, Great Lakes Incubator Farm Grand Traverse Conservation District, Clearwater Network (Sierra Club), and Groundwork Center. Attendance is free. Doors (and cider) at 6; film at 6:30.

Second, MBPN’s Barn & Color Tour Weekend: The Michigan Barn Preservation Network will be hosting a screening of the 2017 Emmy-award winning documentary The Barn Raisers, along with refreshments and discussion, on Friday, October 14th.The following day features a bus tour of historic barns and fall colors, offering inspiration and guidance from visits and conversation with those who have gone through the process of revitalizing historic rural barns. Find more details, and register, here.

|| 3 || Quick links to fun stuff around town:

Northern Michigan E3 and The Little Fleet are hosting Indigenous People’s Day today at The Little Fleet, 2 to 4 pm. [FB event]
Alluvion partner Andrew Lutes is playing at Earthen Ales tonight, 4 pm [FB event]
Mammoth Distilling is hosting Metanoia: writers night to share poems, short stories and personal essays, Tuesday 7 pm at their TC Cocktail Lounge. [FB event]
Taproot Cider House’s Cider Day is coming up next Saturday from noon to 4 pm, and includes music by Brotha James, cider pressing, pumpkin carving, and of course lots of cider and donuts on hand. [FB event]

|| 4 || Hill House alum Charming Disaster have a fresh Kickstarter up, to fund their new album Super Natural History: songs inspired by magic and science — and an accompanying oracle deck. Find it here.