Can I offer you some crying? No? Just a cherry tomato, then.
Hello darlings. Contents:
1 - A sad game to cry about.
2 - Sock Puppets is an award-winning RPG. The award is tomatoes.
2.5 - Interlude - The puppet is done. His name is Herman.
3 - On Physalis.
4 - Everyone in my Discord server is cooler than me.
1 - A sad game to cry about.
I made a game. I’m told it makes people cry. In lieu of describing it, I’ll ask that you read it. It’s one page. It’s called Chuck & Noodles. Here’s the link. I’ll wait.
…
All done?
How was it?
This is my second game about the bittersweet reality of growing up; something I only realized after writing.
This idea was born when some of my friends (hi) were joking about an imagined game titled Chuckin’ Noodles. They pitched funny games about line cooks! Businessmen! Messy children! Spaghetti divination! Then I made Chuck & Noodles and ruined the party.
The game was also made as an entry to the Pregens Jam, hosted by the folks over at Dice Exploder (a stellar podcast). The jam isn’t officially over for another month, which means I’m ahead of schedule*. This is something that has perhaps never happened before.
2 - Sock Puppets is an award-winning RPG. The award is tomatoes.
I love local conventions. I love that they’re universally bizarre and idiosyncratic, with traditions and cultures and venues that are all the product of their specific place and time. Please, give me a website that could have been made in 2004. Give me weird games run by weird people. Give me a church basement.
My most-local convention is called Cangames. It’s been running for 47 years. There are board games, RPGs, war games, and artisans peddling nerdy crafts. Every year, I stare at the elaborate foam constructions made by ancient men, who stand around their toy soldiers with rulers in hand.
This year, I was running my game Sock Puppets.
Sock Puppets is… somewhat of a spectacle. The first half hour is spent casually chatting as you all make puppets from paper bags.
The next hour is spent hissing passive aggressively at each other as you play out a failing children’s television show. What this means is that, for the first time ever, ancient men with rulers were staring at me.
One man (not ancient) approached me wearing a convention t-shirt. He asked me if I was going to be at the con on Sunday. I put down my puppet and said, “Maybe! What’s up?” And he said, with a cryptic smile, “There are awards”.
So I went to the con on Sunday.
I walked up to the front desk. I said, “Hey, I heard there are… awards?” The man at the desk confirmed. I asked when the awards were, and was told there wouldn’t be a ceremony since the man who used to run it retired. Fair enough. I said, “I might have won an award.”
The man at the desk said, “What makes you think you won an award?” This was a very cool and innovative way to trigger my imposter syndrome.
I said, “A man in a convention shirt walked up to me and said that… there are awards.”
The man at the desk said, “Oh, who was it?”
There is no way to know how much time passed as I stood processing that question. Stars were born and died, probably.
I said, “I don’t know.”
The man at the desk said, “Hmm. Maybe Todd.”
But Todd was not there. So left and returned later.
Someone new was at the desk. This time, I knew what was happening, and I had a tidy little speech. I said, “Hello. It is possible that I may have won an award. A man walked by me yesterday and said awards exist. He was wearing a fancy t-shirt. His name could be Todd.”
The person behind the desk said, “What was the award for?”
This was another question that left me slack-jawed like the puppets that brought me there. Working together, we determined that the only possible answer was, “Best Addition to an RPG”. (There is no “Best RPG”.) I would later learn that my competition was a game with dice made of sugar cubes.
But the award was not there (and neither was Todd), so off I went again.
At this point, I got a text from the con’s RPG organizer: I had indeed won the award. So I showed up later that night and claimed my prize: an adorable, extremely campy plaque with a dwarf on it.
But that was not all I had in store for me. The two RPG people now behind the desk (bless you, Kevin and Jason) looked at each other and smiled. Kevin said, “You need your tomato!”
I said, “What?” as he pulled an entire tomato sapling from behind the front desk.
He passed me the plant and said, “We have extra!” like that explained everything.
I said, “What?” again.
He shrugged and said, “Local con!” like that explained everything. Which in some ways, it did.
Anyway, here is my tomato plant.
This has been my favourite story of the season. My wife has heard it 500 times.
2.5 - Interlude - The puppet is done. His name is Herman.
I finished the puppet I spoke about in previous editions of this newsletter. It turns out his name is Herman.
I told you I would say the puppet name if you subscribed. (Maybe you didn’t read the last issue. Better not miss another one.)
3 - On Physalis.
At the cusp of fall, lanterns begin to appear across farmer’s markets in Ottawa. Paper pulp baskets, filled with brown husks that taper to a pretty point.
In each lantern is a strange little treat: golden berries, sweet and tart. To tear apart the husk is to rip open wrapping paper; the two joys are the same.
These berries are the fruits from several species of plants in the Physalis genus. The berries have many common names: ground cherry, aguaymanto, uchuva, goldenberry. They are also sometimes known as the Cape gooseberry, because European settlers grew it in South Africa (a continent it is not from) and called it a gooseberry (a plant it is not related to).
I doubt anyone is surprised that European settlers were very bad at naming things.
The berries are a treat. They’re closely related to tomatillos, which you might have guessed from the husk. Physalis berries are what one might imagine when first learning that tomato is a fruit: they taste a little like a pineapple, a little like a sweet cherry tomato.
Yesterday I husked a basket of Physalis berries with my mother-in-law, placing them in a small bowl. Then I laughed. Our harvested, puppet-earned, yellow cherry tomatoes were sitting on the counter in a similar small bowl, looking almost identical.
Play a game with me: are these cherry tomatoes, or Physalis berries?
It’s a trick, I’m afraid. Five of these are tomatoes, and five of these are husked Physalis berries. Can you tell which ones?
September is a month of change. New beginnings, endings, connections, opportunities. It’s so busy that I often forget about my little lanterns until I see them again, all wrapped up and waiting for me.
When I see them again next year, I will think of these words I wrote to you.
4 - Everyone in my Discord server is cooler than me.
I think this might be a recurring segment. I have a small but lovely Discord server where people often share glimpses of their life or art. This makes me very lucky, so I’m sharing bits of it with you.
This week, we’re going to look at a few pictures. These were taken by folks in my Discord community, and graciously shared there. Each tells a small story of beautiful decay.
Cassandra shared a picture of a cicada, still clinging to a stem after its death.
Matt also shared a picture of a plant. This one grew stubbornly from within a split railroad tie.
The last picture comes to us from Martin, who found the strange remains a beer bottle on a walk through the woods.
I want to talk a little more about Martin before I sign off this letter, because this bottle holds a community inside it.
Martin maintains a tiny photography project in the quiet basement of another Discord server we share. Each day he shares a photo; no context, no comment. Some pictures are familiar subjects. Some are beyond recognition, just colour and form. They transfix me.
It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that Martin’s photography project has changed how I look at the world. His work is a daily joy that has inspired more than just me: many of us have started taking thoughtful pictures of mundane things from new vantage points. It's become one of my favourite small rituals: reconsidering what I see, and looking at what others have shared.
This week, the project celebrated its first birthday. So here’s a small collage of some of the photos that Martin inspired me to take over the past year.
With that, I’ll end our letter today. Maybe you enjoyed this? If that’s true, I’d invite you to subscribe. Maybe join the server, if it suits you. If it fits the shape of your day.
Goodbye, darlings.
Warmth,
Kurt
*Okay, sort of ahead of schedule. I technically designed a second, bizarre and elaborate larp about the six captains of a zeppelin world: Pinpoint. It’s also for the jam. We’ll see if it comes to fruition.