Modular Art

So I did make it down to my favorite local game shop yesterday, where I sipped a delicious IPA in the middle of the day while paging through copies of the 5E PHB and DMG. My time was rather limited, so it's possible in my haste that I missed an image or three. However, with regard to illustrations depicting actual peril, I found the count in both books combined to be zero.

Sure, there's a picture of a dwarf comforting a fallen companion (page 256 of the 5E DMG...in the "siege equipment" section?) who one might interpret as mortally wounded or something (and the dwarf doesn't look like a cleric)...but her eyes are open and she doesn't have any visible injury. Maybe she's supposed to have a disease (the next section) but there's no indication it's a fatal one...she could just have really bad stomach cramps or fever.

And, yes, there's a picture in the 5E PHB of a character facing a medusa and seeing his arm is turning to stone, but I have a hard time interpreting what this image is supposed to represent. Partial petrifaction? Is the character succeeding at their saving throw (and thus withstanding a "full body stoning")? Or have they failed their saving throw and the magical curse is taking its sweet time creeping up from his fingers? Or is it just his arm that met the medusa's gaze? Or does medusa petrifaction work differently in 5E?  I don't know...but he looks more startled (perhaps by a "near miss") than actually "zapped" and incapacitated.

Whatever. 5E is its own animal. I see the book still has the spell regenerate; is there a 5E condition called "maimed?" I kind of want to write 5E adventures that feature limb-chopping traps and monsters. Wonder how that'd fly.

*AHEM* Which is a fine segue to my last post on this subject of art (I hope). 

I often get the urge to write adventure modules...as in, write them for publication. Part of this comes from reading other bloggers' (often negative) reviews of recently published adventures and thinking, hey, even I could write something that doesn't suck. I mean, it might be mediocre, but at least it wouldn't be a terrible travesty...and it might put a buck or two in my pocket.  But, as with all my gaming ambitions, the main thing that holds me back from my enterprise (aside from a lack of time) is the need for artwork in a published gaming product. And that, my friends, was before I started doing this research/analysis of the last few days.

Because the truth is, before this work (yes, it's "work"...I've spent hours on this thing!) I didn't see much value in adventure art other than 'well, it's kind of expected from the consumer.'  I mean, who is the art for? A cover entices a buyer, sure. But the interior of an adventure module is supposed to be For The DM's Eyes Only...are we just putting illustrations in the book to entertain the DM? I will say I even considered writing and publishing a new line of publication called "Artless Adventures," describing both their lack of illustration and my own ham-handedness in a single phrase.

Now I'm thinking differently.

I've long held that adventure modules...especially the old TSR ones I grew up with...provided a very distinct value to the game. Specifically: they provided a model for how to design adventures AND (in some cases) provided additional advice on how to run the game and handle certain aspects of it. Without adventures like B2, X1, the S-series, etc. what would my dungeons have ended up looking like? How would I have structured my adventures and campaigns? These old adventure modules provide examples and context for the instructions found in the rule books...instructions which, to be fair, are pretty "bare-bones" especially if you consider the reader to have been someone with NO experience creating fantasy adventure scenarios (as I was, once upon a time).

But more than that, I now see the importance of these early adventure modules from the standpoint of the artwork they provide. These images of giants and Drow and robots and volcanoes aren't only providing seeds for the imagination...they are helping to describe difficult concepts and illustrate aspects of game play that might be unclear. Sure, they offer excellent pictures of "peril" (see Delta's post for some great examples), but they also offer images that might be tough to conceptualize from a reading of text alone. The inverted ziggurat or suspended disk cavern of White Plume Mountain; the open-floor pit chamber of Slave Pits of the Undercity; the shadow of the vampire tomb in Shrine of Tamoachan; Lolth's spidership (and the demonweb itself) in Queen of the Demonweb Pits. The artwork does more than entertain: it helps elucidate and cement ideas so that the participants (DM and players) have a firm understanding of the play occurring at the table.

Limited by imagination, remember? Feed the imagination.

I have an extensive collection of old TSR adventure modules, but relatively few from the post-Gygax days. The few I do have are extremely hit-or-miss (and generally more "miss" than hit). The 2E Return to White Plume Mountain has some good pieces that help illustrate the certain unusual monsters that might otherwise be hard to conceptualize. But 2E's Return to the Keep on the Borderlands is extremely poor in this regard, providing almost nothing (save a good external view of the Keep) and even screwing up the illo of the minotaur lair (showing a chamber of three doors where no such place exists on the map). But the earlier 1E stuff, whether American or done in the UK, all do a good job of communicating concepts pertinent to the adventure scenario they present. Some of the UK stuff (UK1-3 and B10) is especially good at depicting tricky locations, events, and NPC characters with their art, illustrating fortresses and half-orcs and medieval towns in a way that really helps strengthen the imagination. 

There just seems...to my eye...to be a lot LESS of this in current adventure publications. And that is, I think, to be expected when so many of the adventures being published these days are being put together by poor independent shmucks (like me) scrambling to find any clipart to fill white space, rather than big companies with staff artists (like TSR, back in the day). 

Perhaps the big 5E campaign books WotC regularly publishes are better in this regard (I haven't purchased/read any of them, so I can't say), as they clearly have the resources to staff or outsource artwork of a higher quality and have actual real art direction. Then again, I do have a copy of Dragon of Icespire Peak (for 5E) and there are no images that spring to mind when I try to recollect. 

[hold on a moment...]

Okay, yeah...no. With the exception of an illo of a couple adventurers looking over a hill at Phandelvin, there's really no art portraying adventurers doing adventuring stuff in the book. There are full color illustrations of the monsters and major NPCs that will be encountered (good stuff that)...but I'm not sure DoIP expects much more than "PCs go to location/PCs kill monsters/PCs return to town." So...um. Yay? Is that a "win" for WotC's art department?

I mean, even the Dragonlance art showed PCs getting killed sometimes.

Yes, the "boobplate" is terrible. But
look! Dead adventurer!
It's like D&D or something!

The point of all this being: this stuff, this artwork (high quality or not) matters for how we conceptualize the game...and being a fantasy game, the ability to conceptualize is a key component to playing the thing. Just what that artwork illustrates serves to build our imaginations and inform our expectations of play.

Yes...we all have lots and lots of media to help give us an idea of what "fantasy adventure" means. We've seen Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and Star Wars and tons of other media: comics and cartoons and instagram extravaganzas. But those images alone don't inform what the (D&D) game is. The D&D game is its own thing. Its rules provide for a certain type of play. And while I may be snarky about what 5E does or does not do, the fact is I have no interest or concern for "5E game play." I play AD&D (and, before that, B/X). And, hey, there are other people who are still playing these old editions.  And people writing adventure modules for these old editions. And people buying and reading and running these adventure modules for old editions.

And so it matters whether or not the artwork ("a picture being worth a thousand words") helps describe the game play of these old editions. Because they're not really "old" if they're currently being played. Hell, they're not even out-of-print anymore (pick up your POD copies of AD&D core from DriveThru right now!). So the discussion is actually pertinent to games currently being played.

And THAT, I suppose, is my final takeaway from this week's "adventure" down beautifully rendered byways of art and illustration. Art is something that I need to attend to (in my own design and publication)...something helpful and important for showing players how the game is meant to unfold, not simply an expected bit of decoration. 

Man, am I glad I commissioned a lot of mutating PC illos for my Comes Chaos book!

: )

Addendum To "The Art Of Peril"

Something I completely failed to mention in yesterday's post on the subject of D&D artwork:

Despite what one might assume from the generally "down" tone of my last post, I quite like A LOT of the artwork in both 2E and 3E (or, as I call it, DND3). This may well come as a surprise to some. However, much of the art quality from both 2nd and 3rd edition D&D towers over the stuff in the 1st edition AD&D books. While many of the original 1E pieces are (rightly) considered iconic, the skill and artistry with which later illustrators execute their craft is, more often than not, simply better.

Everyone got that? I like many of the pieces in these later editions. Some are extraordinarily good. The color plates in the 2E PHB and DMG are some of my favorites in any fantasy RPG I own (check p.7, p.72, and p.110 of the 2E PHB and p.8 and p.116 of the 2E DMG). And many of the less manga-y, MtG-type art in 3rd edition is stuff I find incredibly evocative...and inspirational (as in: it fires up my juices and makes me want to play the game). 

I don't get that from classic pix like "A Paladin in Hell" or the single-panel cartoon jokes in the original DMG. Sorry, no.

But as far as communicating what the game is about...as far as providing building blocks for the imagination (not just vignettes for one's daydreams), the first edition of AD&D does the best job of any of these three editions of the game. Yes, there are excellent, evocative pieces of art in the 1E books (I said later works were better "more often than not," not always) but MORE than just "good art" or "bad art" or "mediocre art" there is EFFECTIVE art. Art that is effective at communicating what game play is about. Game play is NOT about a lone monk taking out an umberhulk with a spear single-handedly (much as I like John Foster's illo on p.168 of the 3E DMG). Sorry...it just isn't.

[apologies...couldn't find an image]

And ALSO, just by the way: before 3rd edition I don't think much of this art had any real intentionality of "communicating game play" (or its perils) aside from 'let's put a party fighting orcs in this space, and let's have an illo of a cleric turning undead over here.' 3E's art seems to be placed in appropriate locations (in relation to text) and...outside the MM3...is generally captioned to show its pertinence to the instruction at hand.  1E and 2E just throws "cool fantasy stuff" willy-nilly all over the place. I think the main difference, though, is that many of the artists in 1E doing pictures of peril in the core books were long-time D&D players themselves and...consciously or not...brought a lot of insight for the game to their works. I believe this is a large part of why there are so many humorous illos in the first edition books.

I have one more post to write in this series, but I just wanted to add this quick note. 

The Art Of Peril

 Continuing from the prior post...

As several astute commenters deduced, this discussion on art in D&D was "goosed" into action by Delta's blog post on "old school" art from Monday. Delta's main point was that:

"...one of the biggest sensibility differences between old-school D&D art and and newer-school art is the amount of violence depicted against ostensibly player-character-types..."

I have some quibbles with Delta's conclusion ("flipping through the earliest 1st Edition materials, you're going to get the idea that in D&D, player-character life is cheap") but not with his declarative that the images presented are going to create particular ideas in the minds of the reader. Again, returning to my prior post, our imagination constructs ideas and images from memories, and memories at their base are generated from external (sensory) stimuli.

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy game that absolutely requires imagination (in all participants) to play effectively. I would go so far as to say imagination is probably the defining characteristic of role-playing games, as opposed to computer (video) games, board games, or card games, ALL of which are playable without imaginative input from the participants involved. As such the importance of exercising one's imagination (both through use and through assimilation of pertinent memories for use) cannot be understated. The ability to play the game is limited by one's imagination (or lack thereof), and as we wish to pay attention to how that imagination is cultivated, we should take a hard look at the purpose and objective of the game.

Dungeons & Dragons is a game of facing peril and overcoming its challenges.

This is clearly evident from the rules of the game. No, D&D is not a game about "telling stories;" as I have written (often) before, there are MANY role-playing games that are designed to create/tell stories (in many genres!) and that serve that purpose better than D&D. Folks using D&D as a vehicle to tell stories are pretty lazy (or else suckers for the marketing). Systems are not included to be ignored; dice are not rolled because players "like rolling dice." The fantasy world of role-playing IS designed to amuse, entertain, fascinate, astound, and escape reality. Yes, absolutely. But the game is designed with the mechanics it's given in order to face peril and overcome challenge. This is the reason for combat rules. And armor class. And hit points. And saving throws. Etc.

SO...given the above raison d'etre of D&D, let's take a look at the artwork that is Oh So Necessary for implanting those building blocks of imagination (integral to the game) and the job they do at conveying the perilous nature of the game.

I spent roughly three hours this morning combing through the core books (PHB, DMG, and MM) of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions of D&D making notes on the artwork and just how much "peril" was communicated. Things I looked for were instances of evident fear (either on terrified faces or actual flight), instances of helplessness or restraint/capture, killing blows (i.e. an attack from which the individual was most definitely NOT going to walk away from without clerical assistance), "zaps" (from traps or magical monster attacks that may or or may not be lethal), and the presence of Already Dead Bodies. At first, I attempted to do a simple count for each book, giving more weight to some illustration over other (half a point for a scared face, two points for a killing blow that shows entrails/viscera, etc.), but the results were somewhat confused and, for my purposes, not nearly descriptive enough. So I went back through all the illos (again) and simply made tallies for each particular instance of each category for each book.

For an illo to be counted, the recipient of the "peril" had to be a PC type (the dragon on p.21 of the 1E DMG doesn't count, for example, as all the creatures being killed are kobolds). Overwhelming odds (the purple worm on p.166 of the 1E DMG) or potential surprise (p.91 of the MM, p.99 of the DMG3) were NOT counted for purposes of "peril" as such illustrations could simple be viewed as "precursors to heroism," or some such. Neither were the cover illustrations of ANY edition counted in any way (as covers are prone to change, even within editions)...only interior artwork was reviewed. Artwork taken from earlier products (2E illos include a LOT of previously published artwork from 1st edition) still count towards peril, as the illos were used in the core books and thus help teach the game to prospective players.

Here then are the results, as I calculated them:

1st Edition (AD&D)

Fear: 18

Held/Helpless: 12

Kill Shot: 8

Dead Body: 6

Zapped!: 7

Total: 51

AD&D 2E

Fear: 4

Held/Helpless: 1

Kill Shot: 2

Dead Body: 4*

Zapped!: 1

Total: 12

DND3 (3rd Edition)

Fear: 6

Held/Helpless: 10

Kill Shot: 1

Dead Body: 2*

Zapped!: 3

Total: 23

*Dead bodies! Okay...let's talk about these for a moment. Three of these four instances in 2E feature "bodies in repose" that may or may not simply be sleeping, they looked so peaceful (and no evidence of violence...see p.125 of the PHB2 and p.24 of the DMG2). The final one seems obvious; equally obvious, however, is the party's intention to raise their companion (p.116, DMG2). The "dead bodies" in 3E are even more "iffy" in nature: the caption on p.153 of the PHB3 tells me the individual is dead, but he looks more like someone having his leg regenerated. The other image (from the MM3) appears to be a mermaid helping a drowned man (p.135)...hardly "peril."

Oh, and speaking of iffy...the thing that's really absent from 3E, compared to the first two editions is any sensations of fear...hell, there's hardly any trepidation illustrated. The six instances of "fear" counted for DND3 all come from the MM3. Four counts come from the illustration of the tarrasque (where four small figures are seen running from one of the most tremendous threats of the D&D universe, p.174). Yes, I count each character as one "instance"...more fear, more death makes more impression from a single illo. The other two instances of fear in the MM3 are also instances of small figures running from gigantic foes: the remorhaz (p.155) and the red dragon (p.67). There are plenty of other illos where small figures stand toe-to-toe with impunity against huge and colossal monsters.

Yeah...no.

And that's what really causes me to shake my head in looking at these late editions. Just what do the art directors think D&D is about? What are they conveying to the reader? Because, I'll tell you that any adventurer who thinks he's going to stare down a purple worm in ANY edition is probably asking to be eaten. 

The illustrations of post-1st AD&D simply fail in communicating the perils inherent in the game. Keep in mind that 1E has plenty of illustrations that do NOT contain peril: images showing heroic confrontation, or fantasy and wonder abound in the pages of the PHB and DMG (whose share of "peril images" I count as 9 and 12, respectively). Yet, 1E still manages to communicate the danger of the game world to the reader. Not (as Delta concluded) that "life is cheap," but that fear and death are a part of the game.  This is preparation for the imagination. 

Failing to prepare the mind with art showing only heroic confrontation, victorious parties, and happy tavern scenes (a lot of these in 2E for some reason...) is going to lead to false expectations and, I can only imagine, DM fudging and protectionism to stave off player disappointment. At least in 2nd edition, which is close enough to 1E that players should be gaffled just as readily for stupid shit as in the original Advanced game.  In 3E, I suppose disappointed expectations can be avoided with careful use of that edition's complex challenge system and obsessive attention to optimal "character builds."

Anyway... some folks asked me about B/X and how its art helps illustrate the perils of that particular edition. By my method of calculation there are only two instances of character peril illustrated in the contents (both in the Basic book; both of the "zapped!" variety). My own B/X Companion (which was illustrated to my specifications and in like vein to the original books) contains only two instances of peril, one each of the "kill shot" and "dead body" variety (actually, just a severed arm being gnawed by a Baba Yaga-like hag). That ain't much peril. However, Moldvay's basic book supplements this by providing detailed play examples (in both the Encounter/Combat section and the Dungeon Mastering section) featuring player character death. Gygax does likewise in the 1st edition DMG (p.71 and then p.97-100...the latter describes a particularly gruesome PC demise). While such textual examples are helpful in making explicit the perilous nature of the D&D game, I don't think there's any debating the old saw "a picture is worth a thousand words." More images of peril would go a loooong way.

Fortunately, we also have adventure modules to help us out:

"Uh-oh."

By the way, I also calc'd out the first edition Fiend Folio art because I consider it part of my personal "core" AD&D volumes, even if the numbers weren't added above. Here's how that most grim and perilous tome stats out in terms of communicating "peril" through its artwork:

Fiend Folio (1E)

Fear: 12

Held/Helpless: 22

Kill Shot: 8

Dead Body: 2

Zapped!: 2

Total: 46

I think the fact that the total instances of character peril in the FF alone is more than the combined core books of 2E and 3E says quite a bit about the game's art direction post-1988.

[I don't own copies of 4E or 5E so I can't comment on those particular volumes. However, as game play for those two editions are fairly distinct from earlier editions...even 3E...perhaps those editions' artwork conveys exactly what they're supposed to communicate]

Comments, as always, are welcome.

: )

Imagination & Art

"[the rules] provide the framework around which you build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity -- your time and imagination are about the only limiting factors, and the fact that you have purchased these rules tends to indicate that there is no lack of imagination..."

Thus wrote Gary Gygax in the first paragraph of his introduction to Men & Magic (OD&D, volume 1), and every Dungeons & Dragons rule set since have included some similar words regarding the importance of imagination to the playing of the game.

Just what is imagination? The dictionary definition ranges from "the formation of a mental image or concept of that which is not real or present" (AHD) to "the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality" (MWD) to simply "the ability to create pictures in your mind; the part of the mind that does that" (OED). Conceptualizing ideas...especially visual ideas (images, pictures)...would seem to be the main purpose/use of one's imagination, and we can thus infer that it is this ability (to mentally conceptualize images) that is so important to the D&D hobby.

It's important to a LOT of things (duh) but it is of utmost importance to a tabletop game that utilizes no board, and that requires participants to create mental images in their heads of the action occurring with little more than a handful of dice, textual notes, and narrated description to help. Players that fail to possess exceptional imagination will have a damnably hard time playing D&D, especially if the Dungeon Master, too, lacks the faculty to visualize and/or effectively describe their vision. Fortunately, imagination as a mental faculty can be exercised, becoming stronger with training and effort.

What might not be readily apparent, however, is the importance of external stimulus to imagination. Imagination, as a process, involves arranging the relationship of ideas and images to form a mental construct, but these ideas/images/relationships are not generated from nothing, nor is their significance/meaning. Instead these things come from our memories, both long- and short-term, and while memories can be created from our own imagination, their original impetus must necessarily derive from outside ourselves, from something learned.

FOR EXAMPLE: to a person unfamiliar with the term "minotaur," no mental image can be constructed with the simple utterance of the word. However, if I explained that a minotaur has the body of a man and the head of a bull, the person could use imagination to construct an image in their mind...provided they have learned (i.e. have memories) of both "a man" and "the head of a bull." Lacking one or both of these terms, the imagination will fail to produce a concept of a minotaur, unless more elementary descriptions are used.

For your memory.

All of which is (hopefully) really basic stuff to grasp. But fantasy role-playing games are not so basic (not even the basic ones!) and require substantially more mental gymnastics to play effectively...and even more so when one considers not only the need to use the mind for imagination (in play) but also the need to formulate strategies and tactics based on both situations/scenarios presented AND the rule set being used. That's a lot of computing power for the poor brain to handle (and, perhaps, part of the reason that some folks find the playing of D&D to be beyond their abilities).

All of which is preamble to declare the immense importance of artwork to the role-playing game. We've all heard the old saw "a picture is worth a thousand words" but in the sphere of fantasy RPGs, a picture's value may be even more valuable. Those visual illustrations found in the rule books work to imprint memories in the minds of the reader...memories that will be used in the process of imagination to form and arrange concepts and mental images, providing meaning and significance that will become the foundational building blocks needed in a game that often times emulates situations not found in our "normal reality." What is our mental image of an orc or goblin or dragon? How about a lucerne hammer or studded leather armor? From where do we draw our memory of a magic-user? Is it a man in cape pulling a rabbit out of a top hat?

Consider for a moment how important it is for an RPG like Dungeons & Dragons to provide visual images as "seeds" for the imagination; consider what you, dear reader, would be left with for your imagination withOUT the illustrations provided in countless fantasy gaming products. For me, I know that as a child I was exposed to many fantasy images prior to my first encounter with D&D...it was my love of all things fairy tale and fantastical that first drew me to a game involving the same.

[I would guess that the bulk of my gaming is informed by primordial memories of Ray Harryhausen "Sinbad" films, with a huge helping of Rankin-Bass Hobbit on the side]

[younger gamers would probably draw their mental images of fantasy from Jackson's Lord of the Rings films (can you believe those things are 20 years old?!) ...or perhaps Harry Potter.  *sigh*]

Anyway, once you've considered how important artwork is for a fantasy role-playing game, and how integral such artwork is to the formulation of a foundation for imagining the actual (in-game) action that occurs during play, I'd invite you to reflect on just what that artwork illustrates in the instructional, core texts of "the world's most popular role-playing game," and how said artwork differs across editions of the games. And then consider how those differences in artwork might influence differences in play.

I'll be writing about that in my next post.

; )

Orcas Island

East end of Buoy Bay; 10:01am. There are far, far worse places to be hungover.

Orcas is so lovely, but far more so when one has wealth and leisure. Our friends, who own the guest cottage in which I currently sit typing and enjoying an unobstructed view of the Sound, have been here for years...many more years than I've known them (and I met them in '98), and over the decades they've continued to acquire and improve their expansive property here.  The "cottage" in which my family is staying, rests on the site of the original cottage that they first had built when they came to the island...but it is now anything but "rustic," sporting solar panels, high-speed internet, beautiful furnishings, tasteful design and decoration, and enough bed and bathrooms to easily contain my family and in-laws (who are still traveling with us). 

The "big house" where the owners stay (at the top of the hill, rising behind me) also has a beautiful, unobstructed view, but I prefer to be closer to the water. A short trail leads down the cliffside to the beach (also owned by these folks) where my son has spent much of the last two days perfecting his rock-skipping talents. Yesterday afternoon, we saw three orca whales (transients...the kind that hunt seals) off the coast. Early in the morning, I saw a beautiful horned deer, dancing on its hind legs as it pulled down apples off the tree outside the window. I should have taken video, but I was trying very hard to forget the chain of my cell phone.

The coffee I'm drinking is from Seattle.

There is no need for the escapist fantasy afforded by Dungeons & Dragons here. Orcas Island IS an "escapist fantasy." Today, we will probably hike Mount Constitution and maybe kayak along the shoreline. Soak up the good energy, recover from drinking too much wine, perhaps relax in the hot tub, before our return journey tomorrow (via ferry) to the mainland. 

Mmm. And now my family is up. As a man possessing very small amounts of leisure (and no real wealth to speak of), I am once again called into action. Blissful musings of (fantasy) island living must now be set aside. I hope you are all having a peaceful and restful weekend.

Later.

Buddy

My dog died on July 1st. Now I'm down to just one running beagle.

Not that he was much of a runner anymore. He was a bit more than 13 years old, and he blew out his ACLs (or the dog equivalent) last June. While the injury healed, he limped along ever after, struggling with what was probably arthritis (which the vet told us was prone to afflict dogs recovering from ACL tears).

That's not what did him in, however. I did. Which is to say, I had the dog hospital euthanize him. He had been taken there by the kennel, suffering from a pneumonia and laboring, unable to breathe, without assistance. Blood work and diagnostics showed issues with both his kidneys and liver, possibly due to some undetected cancer. I'm certain it didn't help that, of my two dogs, he was always the one that was high strung, a bundle of nerves, prone to fear and not especially comfortable around strange people. When I got to him, it looked like he hadn't slept in a day or more. For an old dog that slept close to 18 hours a day. Which is to say: he looked terrible...and miserable.

The kennel called me Sunday night, to tell me what was going on. Monday morning I was on a flight out of Bozeman. I was able to get to the hospital shortly after 2pm. He was happy to see me. He couldn't get up (too weak), but his breathing became regular even without the oxygen, and he almost immediately went to sleep, finally relaxed. Finally, somewhat, comforted.

He died at 3pm. The next morning I was down at SeaTac by 7am catching a flight back to Bozeman and the rest of my family. We drove to Missoula, where we held an impromptu wake for him at Big Sky Brewery. I limited myself to a couple pints since I was doing the driving.

I'm not writing all this to eulogize my dog: I'm not going to talk about his life, his foibles, or the things that made him special to my family. I'm writing this because I feel its a story I need to recount in order to move forward and write non-dog-related content on this blog. 

I'm sure it sounds strange to some that I'd spent so much effort or expense on a dog (hey, what are credit cards for?). He was just a dog, after all...not a spouse or child or parent dying in some hospital bed. But he was someone who'd been more a part of my life, and for whom I'd been responsible, for longer than most human beings I know (hell, my oldest child is only ten)...I couldn't just flush away a life over a phone call. I couldn't just let him die in a box, surrounded by strangers.

My uncle (who is eight years older than me) just lost his wife of 25 years last December to cancer. Because of Covid, he wasn't even able to be with her till the very end. He's only just starting to recover from the experience. I think about how many people lost human loved ones over the last 18-19 months, and who were unable to be with their family and friends because of the pandemic, and it just makes me...so...sad. The immensity of it. One of my wife's friends in Mexico...younger than myself...died of Covid a few months back, leaving behind a wife and a couple kids. He was unable to see them. That. Sucks.

My dog was...well, just a dog. But we loved him. And he was the lesser of our two beagles. If it had been my older dog who'd been in the hospital, our whole family would have driven back to Seattle to be with her. Buddy always had been the low man on the totem pole.

Anyway. Just needed to get that all off my chest. 

July 4th

8:41am, Leavenworth, WA.

As usual, I am in a darkened hotel room, the rest of my family sleeping. It has been a long, long road trip…much longer for me than it was supposed to be, as I had to make a plane-assisted detour halfway through. More on that later (when I’m not typing on a phone).

I have a feeling that this year’s holiday celebrations will be somewhat subdued and/or melancholic…at least for me. True: many, many folks are happy and excited about things opening up, about life feeling “more normal.” But as we celebrate the country’s birthday, it’s clear that this has been a rough year for her, and for the things she’s supposed to stand for: truth, justice, and all that jazz.

Since my politics bore the majority of my readers, I’ll leave off talking about them (for now). To be honest, I’m a little bored talking about them myself, and especially bored trying to find new ways to express my contempt and disgust in a way that is “less offensive.” 

*sigh*

All right, time to get my family up. We have a complimentary breakfast to hit before getting back on the road.

Enjoy your Star-Spangled Holiday, my fellow Americans. Try to remember those truths that our founders declared to be “self-evident” on this date, waaay back in 1776. The next time I blog will not be from a cell phone, I promise!