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2025 – What a &@(#!ng Year!

2025 – What a &@(#!ng Year!

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Do you remember there was a Netflix movie that came out at the end of 2020 called Death to 2020? It was a mockumentary trying to make light of what an awful, awful year that was, hoping a little satire might make the pain more bearable.

Well, then along came 2025, the year of the MAGA apotheosis, that made 2020 look like a walk in the park.

This year was a disaster, Rhonda, a complete and utter disaster!

Yet, looking back, as a family we did so much in 2025. There was plenty of personal growth and accomplishment and the year could hardly be called a disaster from our domestickal perspective. We had some amazing times, and kept our chins up as fascism trampled its way across America.

Here is a retrospective.

January – The People’s March

We went to Washington DC and joined the People’s March on January 18. While there were a lot of people there, the energy was muted compared to what I remember from the absolutely gynormous Women’s March in January 2017. We were in the Trump 2.0 era now, with liberal Democrats reeling from the 2024 election loss.

My Triumphant Return to the Stage

The early part of 2025 was theatre-intensive. Aileen and I continued with our Pennsylvania Independence Awards adjudicator duties, which typically take us into April. We saw over twenty (20) high school musicals together.

A promo shot of the cast of Arsenic and Old Lace

At the same time, we were in rehearsal for a play we were both acting in, along with Tiernan. We were doing this while also working, and in Tiernan’s case finishing his first year at Kutztown University. Whew!

This was a dream role for Aileen: Abby Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace, first played by Josephine Hull in 1941. The play was being put up by Fleetwood Community Theatre, and we all auditioned together and amazingly all got cast. It was my first time performing on stage since high school over 40 years ago!

The folks at the community theatre were wonderful, and we had a great time. It was a learning experience for me – to at least learn that I could still memorize lines and not be paralyzed by stage fright, though unlike Aileen and Tiernan I had a small part. Much gratitude to friends and family who came out to support us.

Another exciting thing happened in the early Spring of this year – Lionel proposed to his girlfriend, Bianka! He surprised her on a “birthday” trip, making it out to be a special occasion for his birthday, but it was really a moment for him to break out an engagement ring. Our son has a fiancée now – they are growing up so fast!

April – Out on the Town and No Kings I

The first weekend of April was our show dates for Arsenic. Later that month, we saw our last high school show for PIA, and mid-month Aileen and I went to see Ani DiFranco at Union Transfer, a music venue in downtown Philly. It was a chance for us to feel young and hip again (OK, maybe not young, as we had to stand the whole time – achy!). Aileen even ran into someone from her “vagabond days” in the city – the Vagabond Acting Troupe being her theatre company that was founded in the 1990s, before her kids were born. She reminisced with him while I hovered patiently nearby.

The next weekend we got see the premiere of a short film that Aileen and Tiernan were in. They filmed it in the summer of 2024, and it was shown to cast and crew (and family members) on April 19th. The film has since made the rounds in some short film festivals. It’s about a family gathering, based on the creator’s real family, some of whom we met at the premiere. A lot of the crew were folks who work on Saturday Night Live, which is kind of cool.

You can watch the film here: Revere Street (PW: mcginley).

The cast of Revere Street at the premiere, April 19, 2025

Immediately after the premiere, Aileen and I headed into the city again – this time for the No Kings march. It was a bit chaotic, and again I got the impression there wasn’t a lot of energy behind protesting the Trump administration – not like I saw in the first go around. And he had already decimated the government with his unconstitutional DOGE program, which gave a billionaire donor more power than he ever should have had.

Come on, America, stand up for yourself!

May and June – Europa!

Yes, that’s right – this is the year we went to Europe. It’s no wonder 2025 seems like such a full year, since we spent over two weeks of it on the other side of the ocean.

In mid-May, Aileen, Tiernan, and I left the troubles of America behind and headed for Paris and Rome, and other spots in Italy. It was a trip of a lifetime for me, as I had always wanted to visit those two iconic cities. Aileen also wanted to show me the Cinque Terre, which she had been to on a visit when Lionel was very young, just before Tiernan was born. We hit some other major Italian cities as well – Milan, Pisa, Lucca, Florence – even if only for brief spells.

With all that was going on, we were a little worried about what it would be like as Americans traveling abroad. We even vaguely considered that there might be complications when returning home. Our worries proved unfounded. We had no trouble crossing borders; all our tranportation difficulties were related to the language barrier and the chaos of Italy’s train system (we went with public tranportation the whole way). Once in Europe, America seemed so far away I wondered if its problems were even real.

Totally owning being tourists in Italy, 2025.

I am so grateful to have had this experience, and can’t thank Aileen enough for putting it together. I know it was a huge amount of work to schedule all the transportation and lodging, and she did it all, with me only acting as a consultant for approvals. Our Rome lodging was right next to the Colosseum!

It was a thrill for me to be exposed to so much ancient, medieval, and Baroque history, and to learn how to naviagate an unfamiliar milieu, though it was also a challenge. As a travelling trio, we learned as much about ourselves as about the countries we were visiting. You can read my Italy trip retrospective here.

I’d say we got bit by travel bug for sure, and I would happily repeat the experience – maybe next time with a trip to the British Isles, another place I’ve never been. Though as squirrely as things are getting here at the end of 2025, I wonder if it would be wise for an American to travel overseas, at this juncture.

No Kings II

Shortly after our return to the United States was another No Kings event. This was the one that was taking place at the same time that Cheeto Mussolini was trying to get off on a military parade. Aileen and I debated going into the city, but decided in the end that it would make just as much sense to find a rally closer to home. We ended up going to one in Pottstown, about half an hour away.

It wasn’t a march, it was just a crowd standing along the side of the road with signs for a couple of hours. But it was really well attended, despite the fact that it was raining. We got lots of supporting honks from passing cars (and a few middle fingers from MAGA types), and for the first time in 2025, the energy of the protesters was at the levels I remembered from the first time the loser was President. It felt good to be part of the anti-Trump movement, as the wannabe dictator was sending federal troops into Los Angeles, starting his war against the citizens of his own country.

The Summer of Alice

Some beautiful art from The Arts Bubble production of “Alice by Heart.”

Even while we were in Europe, Aileen was already working on the summer show for The Arts Bubble. The show everyone wanted to do was Alice by Heart, and after some tense weeks waiting to iron out an issue with acquiring the rights, we got the approval and the show was on! I thought it was a great choice for The Arts Bubble, as their previous shows have tended to be odd and imaginative ones, and Alice by Heart fits the bill.

In addition to the summer musical, The Arts Bubble was also doing an educational production workshop of a short play based on Alice in Wonderland, for younger students. If you don’t know what that means, it’s where students come in and write their own play and get experience on what goes behind creating a theatrical production. There’s often a fee the students have to pay, but not at The Arts Bubble, which is always free – or rather, “pay what you can” – and relies on donations.

As has happened in previous summers since The Arts Bubble started, I became something of a “theatre widower” with Aileen being so busy. I did take the occasion to visit my Dad and his wife at their beach condo, and to spend some time with my Mom. While I was up at my Mom’s, I happened upon a really cool edition of Alice in Wonderland in a Little Free Library, which of course I snagged to show to Aileen – it even made it onto the display table at the show.

Tiernan, as the Jabberwock, stares Alice down in The Arts Bubble’s production of “Alice by Heart“

The production of Alice by Heart was just incredible. Aileen directs collaboratively, letting the actors make choices and find their characters. Her cast of high school and college aged kids, as always, demonstrated that young students have as much talent as professionals. I don’t think I ever saw Aileen happier this year than when she was watching the Arts Bubble kids perform. She has said that it was one of the most fulfilling productions she could remember doing in a long time.

Thank you to the many family members who came out to support The Arts Bubble!

Summer Endings and Beginnings

Would you believe that, even as Aileen was directing Alice by Heart and helping with the Alice in Wonderland youth workshop, she was also in rehearsal for another show? It was a second dream role for her: Sister Aloysius Beauvier in Doubt: A Parable. The production was being put up by a new theatre company called Journey Theatric Sanctuary, and it was all the way out in Harrisburg, so that was a long drive for rehearsals!

I actually almost missed seeing the show, because I caught COVID while I was visiting my Mom (which means I did miss Lionel and Bianka’s engagement party, hmph). I went on an antiviral, and tested negative just in time to drive up from Virginia to catch the show on the one weekend it went up. All that hard work for just a few performances; it had been the same for Arsenic and Old Lace. But it was worth it for yet another triumphant moment in Aileen’s very long theatre career (it started when she was 7, she’ll tell you).

Jess Mooney as Sister James, Griffin Yeyna as Father Flynn, and Aileen Lynch-McCulloch as Sister Aloysius in Journey Theatric Sanctary’s production of “Doubt: A Parable”

Other things that happened in August: I launched my Substack, which is where I now do my posts of a political or social commentary nature, with this blog reserved for more personal stuff. I had my last visual therapy appointment, something I had been doing all year in an attempt to fix my bad double vision. I’m not sure if it helped a great deal, but it did teach me a lot about how vision works and gave me some good eye exercises to do.

A big life event was that I lost my job. My contract was not renewed for 2026, and as the company where I worked ends its fiscal year in August, the 31st was my last day. Once again, I was on the dole, looking for work. It had gone really well when the same thing happened in 2023, but this year the job market has not been as kind to me, and I’m still unemployed at year end.

But life goes on, and we must face reality, however grim (it’s not grim, I’m being dramatical). In September, Gavin took a long trip to Alaska, and Potato the cat moved in with us. Another new thing was that we started going into Philly to hang out with some of Aileen’s other old friends from the vagabond days. We called ourselves the “Philly Clown Party” and plotted further protests against the vile fascists running our country.

October – No Kings III and Much More!

In October, Aileen took me to the Philadephia Zoo, which I mention mainly because it was my first time going, odd since I’ve lived in the area since 2018. But the real thrill of the month was the No Kings protest on the 18th. We attended two rallies, one in Pottstown (same place as in June), and then another in West Chester, which had been scheduled for later in the day, making it possible for us to attend both.

Both events were well attended, and man, was that West Chester event jammed full of people! There was so much enthusiasm and it was thrilling to be a part of it. Aileen and I both dressed as clowns, and carried our awesome hand-made signs. I got such a high out of the experience I just wanted to do it all over again.

Aileen and I enjoy a meal after the 10/18/2025 No Kings protest in West Chester, PA

What else could we do, as mere citizens with almost no power, except to use our voice to protest the depredations of the administration? It was depressing to read about the awful ICE raids, and to witness our government paralyzed by an ineffectual legislature, and corrupted and looted by kleptocrats, but we just kept living our lives.

We went out to Reading to see Squirrel Nut Zippers, then later – for the really thrilling concert of the year (sorry, Squirrels) – to Philadelphia for Laufey! She is a very talented, up and coming young singer-songwriter and her live show was awesome!

The first weeked in November, just after Halloween, we saw Terror of Mechagodzilla at the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, which was a lot of fun. We don’t usually get to see old monster movies on the big screen, and with a large, appreciative audience.

Also in Novermber, Lionel started streaming on Twitch. It was something he had been wanting to do for a long time, and of course we’ve been very supportive parents, watching him every time he’s live. He streams on Thursdays and Sundays. He started with Dead by Daylight, a survival horror game, but lately has been playing an adventure game called Outer Wilds. If you are inclined to watch Twitch streamers, why not give him a follow or come watch a stream?

November – Democracy Strikes Back!

In November, the government shutdown ended. In the off-year election, Democrats won bigly, with a Democractic Socialist winning the election for Mayor of New York City and Democrats flipping or holding on to key governorships. It was a heartening moment after all the bad political news of the year.

Thanksgiving was at my Mom’s this year, and it was nice to see everyone there. We had a great meal and played some games (would you believe my Mom played Secret Hitler?)

As the year wound down, we had a little more free time. Well, I had the same amount of free time since I’m unemployed, but Aileen had more because of school being out. We worked on some jigsaw puzzles, played some board games including lots of Scrabble® – an old standby game for Lynches and their Barreras.

Gavin and Aileen ❤️

Christmas was at our house, and was fairly low key and lots of fun. Tiernan’s buddy Bob, who’s in the army now, was on leave and came to visit. We also got to see Gavin’s brother and sister-in-law, who came to visit from Boston. We all went to the Surrealism Centenary exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Museum – really neat and on display through February 16 of next year.

They’re all still around for the New Year holiday, which we expect to celebrate with more fun and games.

Heading into 2026

Looking back, it’s hard to believe we did so much this year! Was this really the same year as Arsenic and Old Lace, and our trip to Europe? But there it all is, recorded in our timelines on our phones and feeds, so it must be so.

If you’re in those feeds, but didn’t make it to this post, no slight is intended. I’m just summarizing a very busy year here.

We got a lot done, even as our country was falling apart, and the world order was being scrambled as America switched sides from the Allies to the Axis powers. Another thing that’s hard to believe, but there it all is, recorded in our news aggregators.

All I can say to my fellow liberals is, have heart, and keep up the good fight. To the one or two Trump supporters who might read my blog, I hope you can learn to see an alternate vision of America, not the one that MAGA offers. America will be a better place if we respect laws, even international ones that can’t be enforced, for the sake of our greater humanity. We will be a stronger place if our government is run by qualified and law-abiding people of good character, not loyalists to one unhinged man.

America’s promise to the future has been, in its best moments, a promise of freedom for all people – regardless of their race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, and even immigration status. That, to paraphrase Martin Luther King , Jr., is how we live out the true meaning of our creed, that everyone is created equal. That is how we fulfill our ambition, as expressed by Thomas Jefferson, to be an Empire of liberty. I hope we can live up to that dream.

Peace out and Happy New Year!

Steve. Ocellus reminds you to VOTE!
“I Protest Hate Because I Love the USA” – No Kings 10:18:25

“I Protest Hate Because I Love the USA” – No Kings 10:18:25

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These are the words Aileen chose for one of the protest signs we brought to the No Kings event on October 18, 2025: “I Protest HATE Because I LOVE the USA.” A rebuke of the statements by GOP leaders that protesters were coming out because they hated their country. A protestation of the true meaning of patriotism: to stand up for what you know is right, despite the efforts made by the powerful to silence you.

I had a different message on my sign, not a statement of intent but a challenge to the GOP-led government: “3 BRANCHES ? OR 3 RING CIRCUS?” A critique of the travesty they have made of the U.S. Constitution.

The circus theme fit because we were there as clowns this time, representing the Philly Clown Party, a small but growing group of friends that started meeting up in the city this summer. It was Aileen’s idea to run with the clown theme, as a way to build connection through fun and play. Through tactical frivolity and joyful resistance. And to take responsibility for this greatest show on Earth that is the United States of America.

This is our circus.

These are our monkeys.

We were originally planning to go into Philly to march, but Aileen had to work in West Chester in the late afternoon, so instead we went to a No Kings in Pottstown in the morning (it went from 10 AM to noon) and then to the West Chester rally at 1 PM.

I must admit I was a little anxious as we were driving in to Pottstown that the rally might not be well attended, given all the mudslinging against it (that is mud, right?) by the administration. Boy was I glad to discover those worries were unfounded, as there were far more people than had been at the June rally (when, admittedly, it had been raining). The energy was amped-up, and there were even some folks in inflatable costumes, the new symbol of the Resistance.

Aileen met another Steve in Pottstown!
Me clowning around

We stayed in Pottstown for the full 2 hours, almost, giving ourselves a little head start out so we wouldn’t get caught in traffic. When we got to West Chester – wow! The crowd was huge and the energy was through the roof! This was our fourth protest of the year, ever since we went to the People’s March on Washington in January, which seemed desultory to me. This was the first time in a long time that I felt the same level of enthusiasm as at the Women’s March in 2017.

I honestly didn’t take a lot of pictures, which is why you don’t see many here. But I know you can find loads of photos and videos of marches all across the country, because they have been filling our feeds since Saturday. It’s a testament to the millions of Americans who see what is going on and are pissed off, and are also able to express themselves in peaceful and humorous ways. When the people feel that democracy has failed and that the government no longer represents them, they have no choice but to take to the streets.

By the end of the event I was on a high, wanting to do it all over again.

We had a late lunch/early dinner afterwards, and another customer took this awesome shot of us together:

I know the government got the message, and I know the wannabe king is unhappy about it, but you know what? A clown’s job is to make fun of the king.

I hope you’ll join us in doing so.

The Philly Clown Party is just getting started, but we already have a YouTube channel. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/@PhillyClownParty

COVID-19 Retrospective

COVID-19 Retrospective

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Do y’all remember that we had a pandemic? And that it was a seriously big deal, that had the world in a panic?

At the onset, there were overwhelmed health care systems. As it went on, overflows of bodies. Mass graves. People were scared. This new virus was killing at an accelerated rate.

I remember watching a dashboard of the spreading infection. Before it really hit the U.S., thinking – maybe they’ll do something to stop it. Maybe the authorities will figure their shit out and it won’t be so bad here.

Then the red dots started spreading on the U.S. part of the map. It dawned on me that no, there is no stopping this. I called my boss to tell him I wouldn’t come to the office any more, but would work from home (lucky me with my email laptop job), and hours later got a notification that was sent to the whole company: don’t come to work.

We were in lockdown.

Remember how we knew so little about how this “novel coronavirus” spread that we were spraying sanitizer everywhere? There was actually a rumor for a bit that people were becoming infected when they pumped gas. We kept gloves in our car for the gas station!

And the shortages as people stocked up. Supply chains were in crisis. Suddenly it was revealed that toilet paper was the essential commodity of civilized life. Medical supplies in particular were in short supply, to the point that the Governor of Maryland was hiding testing kits from the Feds. Can you believe that shit?

Was it all a massive overreaction?

That’s such an unfortunate word, IMO, because it implies there is some way to know what the exact correct reaction should have been. But of course there is no way to know that, just as there is no way to know what the outcomes would have been had we made different choices as a society.

What if there had been no lockdowns? There would have been different rates of sickness and mortality and different effects on unemployment and inflation. But would these outcomes have been preferable, even if one could come to agreement on preferences? One can speculate, form a theory, but one cannot test the theory because, by the nature of time and choice, the data are not there.

The simple truth is, leaders faced a high degree of uncertainty, and the glaring fact that, in the initial waves, COVID-19 was an extremely deadly contagion. It both spread easily and had a high mortality rate, and it’s no wonder we were all spooked.

Just consider this: in 2020, COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease and cancer. That’s insane for a disease that didn’t exist the year before. It’s hard to imagine what an “overreaction” would look like for such a thing. Please do click on that link and look a little closer. For one age cohort, the core of my generation, it was the leading cause of death in 2021. No wonder we drank so much.

I made this chart using our actual spending in 2020, I won’t deny it

I remember how much I blogged about coronavirus in those early years of the pandemic. As the emergency eased, officially declared over by President Biden in 2023, I mostly dropped the topic. In 2024, COVID-19 was no longer in the top 10 causes of death. Accidents and strokes had restored their respectable statuses under heart disease and cancer, the twin grim reapers awaiting us all in our advanced years.

But the disease is still with us, of course, and it is still dangerous. I caught COVID just last month, in fact. I immediately went on the antiviral PAXLOVID, because I do not want that nasty thing multiplying in my body.

SARS-COV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID, is not like influenza or the common cold. It gets into your system and it does damage everywhere. Long term damage that could lead to long COVID, or to some other condition down the road that reduces your lifespan. As one substacker explains it, catching COVID is like smoking cigarettes – you can keep doing it over and over, but you will pay for it in the long run.

Is the pandemic over anyways? There’s no end date given on Wikipedia’s helpful page of deadly pandemics, so I guess not. There COVID-19 sits, nowhere near the death toll of the Spanish flu, history’s GOAT pandemic, but catching up to the slow burn HIV/AIDS.

Luckily, the U.S. is a world leader in medical research. Right? Oh no...

Reflections at the End of the World

Reflections at the End of the World

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Once more I am on the job hunt. So far, it doesn’t seem much different than in the past. There are positions out there for which I am qualified. I have registered successfully for unemployment compensation, as I have many times before in my life.

In my job searches, I am limiting myself to remote work. The convenience of it is too much to give up, if I don’t have to, and so far there have been multiple remote positions to apply for. But obviously, if the search drags on, I will have to cast my net wider and consider going back to commuting – perhaps only on certain days of the week, in the now common “hybrid” mode which combines working from home with working on site. The point is, I might not be so lucky as I was a couple years ago, when I easily transitioned from one remote job to another.

I worry, actually, that I might be really unlucky at this juncture. With insano-fascist-guy upending the American economy via his unhinged policies, the job market is in trouble. Companies facing the uncertainty of the times are freezing hiring. We might even be heading into a recessium. I’m almost 60 years old, not a good age to have my career suddenly stalled.

I recently wrote on my substack about the problem of “gerontocracy” – our political leadership skewing older than the population, and therefore being out of touch with the needs of the American people. I made the point that this is a bigger problem for Democrats than for Republicans, and helps explain the Republican rise to power. Currently my generation, the middle-aged generation, are the primary Trump supporters. Democrats are either the older generations on their way out, or younger Millennials.

A generational shift in power is surely going to be a fallout of this tumultuous social era. I can see – in the long term – MAGA burning out and the Millennials taking over with a more progressive agenda. At that point, Gen-X will be sidelined. With the demographic collapse making Social Security less sustainable, we will probably also be impoverished. There won’t be a lot of sympathy for us, especially if we’re seen as the ones repsonsible for the worst of what is to come.

Those are some depressing thoughts, I know. It’s just where my head is at right now. It would be just like my generation grow old just as the gerontocracy was being eliminated. Another boat missed.

I’m going to take advantage of the time I have been given to do more writing. Maybe some political activism.

And I would appreciate more subscribers to my Substack if you can: https://stevebarrera.substack.com/

Peace out.

ChatGPT Be Good to Me

ChatGPT Be Good to Me

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Aileen was dealing for a while with an extremely annoying support issue. It involved access to an account that had been hacked, the details of which I will not go into. Suffice it to say, she was stonewalled by the company’s tech support.

She eventually turned to ChatGPT to try to find a solution, since her repeated efforts were being thwarted. This computer program turned out to be quite helpful. Much of its advice simply confirmed what she had already determined through other kinds of searches. Specifically, this advice was to collect evidence of original ownership of the account and of it being hacked, and persist with contacting the company daily and sharing this information through all possible avenues, even when there was no response or the response was obviously from an automated system.

It certainly all made sense. But what was particularly compelling about the computer program’s responses was how logical and well layed out they were, and that they had a reassuring tone, offering not just practical support, but also moral support. The AI-generated responses read like a pep talk, encouraging her to keep trying, acknowledging how difficult the situation was, and praising her for keeping up the good work. They sounded sympathetic, like ChatGPT was her trusted friend. She showed me one of the responses, and it oozed positivity and compassion. No wonder people are willing to pay for AI girlfriends or boyfriends!

Aileen told me that this was how she wished people would react when she went to them for help, instead of just throwing their hands up and declaring the situation hopeless, as was typical. I was a little nervous; I knew I hadn’t been much help. How could this AI be more supportive than me? I am a lowly human, it’s true, but I am also Aileen’s friend and partner!

Why do humans have so much trouble being supportive of one another? Well, the simple truth is that when you ask for help, you are asking for another person’s time and energy. And people are loath to give that up; humans are always seeking to hold on to and defend their autonomy. This leads to challenging conflicts, but there is reward in overcoming the challenge, and working with someone else for mutual benefit. In this way you build a relationship with another person, in a way you simply can’t with a chat program, however real its texts might seem.

Humans also have difficulty maintaining a supportive demeanor because they are subject to emotions, which might interfere with clear thinking or a measured tone of voice. I know this sounds like a sci-fi plot point, but an AI chatbot is a machine, so naturally, its answers are logically consistent and it can sustain a conversational tone indefinitely. Nothing can ruffle its train of thought, so to speak, because it doesn’t have one.

The account access issue was eventually resolved, though the resolution didn’t really have anything to do with ChatGPT’s advice. It just took time, presumably because of a backlog of cases at the company. Nonetheless, Aileen informed the chatbot in the still open chat window and it had a congratulatory response in the same supportive tone it had been using throughtout their conversation.

Huge congrats again — you turned a frustrating situation into something powerful. Let’s make sure others don’t have to go through the same thing alone.

See what I mean?? I do think, however, that I have proven clearly that AI isn’t autonomous and doesn’t possess consciousness and is not worth getting into a “relationship” with.

Please don’t leave me for an AI, Aileen!

Italy Trip Retrospective

Italy Trip Retrospective

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We’re back from our trip to Europe! As I wrote in my last post, we traveled to Paris, from there toured Italy, including Rome, then returned to Paris for a few days. I was really excited to visit these iconic cities, steeped in ancient and medieval history. Here is a little retrospective on how the trip went.

We certainly had a lot of fun, seeing new places and experiencing the cultural differences between two European countries and our native home, the United States. We had to adjust to new languages (though plenty of people spoke English in both France and Italy) and to new protocols of etiquette. We had to learn technical aspects of navigating the ground like how streets are identified and how the trains and subways work (we were traveling entirely by public transit, so at least we didn’t have to figure out driving!). We hit snags right away – even just getting out of the airport in Paris and on to the right train to the city proved challenging, as we tried to understand the ticketing system and work around the language barrier with the attendants.

I enjoyed being immersed in these Old World locales, even though it was disorienting at first and it took some time for us to become confident city-hopping travelers. Paris I thought was a very modern city, elegant and beautiful in its core, though in its outskirts it had urban blight to rival that of the Philly area where we live (that’s saying a lot). Paris felt cosmopolitan – a world city – whereas the Italian towns and cities, including Rome, were Italian – in your face with their history and culture and cuisine. Where Paris was elegant and baroque in its beauty, Italy outside of Rome was rustic and charming, and being there felt like stepping back in time. Rome was an insane chaos of monuments and buildings from all of human time, with all of the human race crowded into it taking selfies. It was an exhausting madhouse and I absolutely loved it.

One fun thing that happened on our trip is that we met up with our friend Kim, a seasoned international travel who was in the region and spent a day with us in Rome. We toured the catacombs of St. Calixtus with her, and hung out with her in the Renaissance-Baroque part of the city (to the north of the ancient ruins part). It was quite a treat to meet up with a friend from Pennsylvania while we were halfway around the world from home.

On our journey, I have to admit, I would sometimes hit a wall, overwhelmed by the novelty of our situation. I had this bad habit of panicking and freezing up, which was not conducive to getting around, and would upset Aileen. As a group we had conflicts, sometimes when we got lost, and sometimes when we pushed too hard. The latter was mostly because I was manically trying to see as much as possible, motivated by anxiety about the prospect that this was my one and only chance. This was not how Aileen wanted to vacation – she wanted to relax!

We had a good talk about these issues when we were in Rome, and agreed to be more communicative, and more open to one another’s needs, and that we should slow our pace down a bit. The overall tone of our vacation improved after this talk (led by Aileen, who has the high emotional intelligence quotient in our group). I think it’s fair to say that we learned as much about ourselves as about the places we were visiting on this trip. It was a tempering test of us as a vacationing trio, and we came out stronger and, I’d like to think, ready for more international travel.

Could we have prepared better? It’s hard to say. We did watch a lot of YouTube videos by experienced travelers before leaving, which gave us some good advice and a lot of other advice that turned out to be bunk. I tried to pick up conversational French and Italian by studying phrasebooks, but nothing stuck. I think our approach of just diving in worked out, and we learned enough to make some adjustments to how we pack for travel, and to how we spend our time and money once we reach our destination, for the next time.

Here are a few quick tips for the American on a short touristy trip to Europe:

  • Take the bus tours! They are worth the high ticket price, since they save you so much walking. We did it in Paris and I wish we had done it in Rome.

Owning being tourists at the Trevi Fountain
  • Don’t worry about looking like a tourist. You are in a tourist destination surrounded by other tourists. Just own it.

  • In the same vein, don’t try too hard to speak the language of the country you are visiting (assuming you are not actually a fluent speaker). Learn to say hello, please, and thank you, and be polite. You’ll get by just fine.

  • Don’t do table dine-in every meal. It won’t always be a great experience, and you can enjoy take out or even food prepared in your rental accomodations just as well. This won’t only save money; it will also save time and hassle.

  • Your debit and credit cards from American banks should work in Europe, though you might want to doublecheck with your bank that your debit card is activated for international use. Debit card transactions will have a fee tacked on, but credit card transactions won’t. And cash is handy, so I recommend getting some Euro bills and coins – your U.S. bank should be able to provide them.

In addition to our bank cards working seamlessly, our smartphones did as well, after upgrading our Google Fi family plan for the duration. Having this indispensable tool of modern living handy at all times definitely made it easier to overcome the culture shock and to navigate the unfamiliar terrain. Google search came to the rescue many times. Aileen had visited there 20 years earlier, but what a different experience it was without the Internet in her pocket. I don’t know if I could have done this without a smartphone, but then again I can’t remember at all what life was like before they became a commonplace.

Even though I had my smartphone, I didn’t bother keeping up with the news. I didn’t want the distraction, and I found that, as time blurred and I forgot what day of the week it was, I also forgot all about U.S. politics. It seemed so distant and insignificant. We did tune in to the news on TVs in our rentals on occasion, just to see what it was like, even though we couldn’t understand the newcasters hardly at all. The big stories were Gaza and Ukraine, and local politics. Occassionally there would be some passing reference to something the U.S. was up to, but it didn’t seem like it mattered much to Europeans. Or even to us, so far from home, which is weird for me to say since I obsessively blog about politics. I almost questioned if I should bother any more!

One thing I did do with my smartphone was take lots of pictures and post them on Facebook, contrary to the statement I made at the end of my last post. It was just so easy to keep up with this familiar pattern of behavior, in this age of the pervasive Internet.

My beloved Renaissance wall in Lucca, complete with bastions

It’s good to be back in the U.S., though I must admit I felt a little “reverse culture shock” on coming home. Dulles airport seemed kind of sparse and – shall I say it – provincial, compared to Charles de Gaulle. I noticed that the announcements were in English – as in just English – whereas at CDG they had been in French, English, and Mandarin. I guess we know where the Chinese middle class is going on vacation. And Americans are definitely dressed down compared to Europeans, and also friendlier and more easygoing. We’re a people who embrace a casual way of life, no doubt about it.

As I said, I think we got bit by the international travel bug, and I hope we do this again, maybe next year? I know Tiernan would really like to visit Japan. I thought we might try a place where English is the native language – I’ve never been to the British Isles, or to the land down under. If we went to Scotland, maybe Gavin would join us? A world of possibility lies before us.

We’re Going to Italy!

We’re Going to Italy!

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I’m really excited to announce that Aileen, Tiernan and I will be taking a trip to Europe in the second half of this month. We’re flying to Paris on May 17th, and from there touring by bus to Italy by way of Milan, and onward to Cinque Terre, Tuscany and Rome. It’s a trip of a lifetime for me, as I’ve always wanted to see the iconic sights of these destinations, and to steep in their ancient and medieval history. I have been to Spain and the south of France, but never to Paris or to Italy. Aileen has been to these places, but she’s a sweetheart and wants me to get the chance to experience them, too, so was willing to repeat the trip. Tiernan says he doesn’t care about where he is; he just likes being with us.

In addition to the enticement of visiting well-known touristy locations, seeing the ruins of the old Roman Empire, and enjoying delicious cuisine and wine, I am excited about the fact that our itinerary more or less overlaps with a famous expedition in military history. This would be the route taken by the French King Charles VIII when he invaded Italy in 1494, kicking off what are known as the Italian Wars.

Map is from this site: https://jostwald.wordpress.com/tag/italian-wars/

These wars were pivotal in military history, as they marked the transition from the medieval to the modern era in warfare, when gunpowder weapons started coming into common use, replacing the old way of fighting with muscle and steel. They introduced what is called a “revolution in military affairs,” which caused a significant shift in the balance of power. When Charles VIII invaded, it was clear to all that advancements in the development of siege artillery (cannons) had made the medieval castle, long dominant in European affairs, suddenly obsolete. This completely undermined the power of nobles to resist their kings, in time ending the feudal system of the Middle Ages and bringing about the early modern age of absolute monarchy.

This watershed moment in the evolution of politics has been identified as the dawn of the modern “state” – understood to be a political abstraction that exists independently of the people who comprise it. The state arose from the necessities imposed on the wealthy Italian cities caught up in these wars. In the face of military advancements, they now needed extensive new defensive constructions and large, reliable armies – and the fiscal apparatus to maintain these. They needed permanent ambassadorial legations in one another’s courts, and espionage networks to keep up with shifting alliances. In the course of this evolutionary process, sovereignty shifted from the person of the ruler, where it had resided in the medieval conception, to the bureaucratic state constituted to serve the ruler.

A seminal figure of the time period was the political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli. His famous work, The Prince, is often interpreted as an apology for tyranny. According to Philip Bobbitt’s excellent book The Garments of Court and Palace, Machiavelli’s real argument was to distinguish between a ruler’s personal and governing ethos. In other words, in the context of ruling the state, in the interests of the society for which it was constituted, a ruler should not be expected to behave according to standards of personal morality, as codes of honor had demanded of medieval princes. A new political era had arrived.

In the democratic revolutions that came in later centuries, the concept of sovereignty shifted even further. The state evolved, from an entity that served as a tool by which the prince’s will was exerted, to a formal representation of the will of the people. It was no longer ruled by a monarch, but rather administered by representative officials – at least in theory. But in the course of this evolution, the thorny problem of how the state can serve its constituent’s needs and also avoid moral transgression remains unsolved, as testified by the killing fields of modern times.

Yes, these are the thoughts inspired in me by taking a trip to Italy. On the path followed by the invading forces of a French king in the 15th century, many Renaissance-era structures still stand in the 21st century. For example, the city of Lucca, where we’ll be staying at one point, retains the walls that were constructed starting in 1504 – part of the wave of defensive fortifications that sprang up in the aftermath of Charles VIII’s campaign.

I’m bringing along a copy of The Art of War in Italy by F. L. Taylor, considered a classic in the field of military history. As I read it, I will be looking for signs of its lessons in my surroundings.

I will have my smartphone with me, but not my laptop, and probably won’t post much for a few weeks.

Wish us a bon voyage!

My Triumphant Return to the Stage

My Triumphant Return to the Stage

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In a little over a week, Aileen, Tiernan and I will be performing together in a play. I haven’t acted since Aileen and I were in high school in the 1980s, when we were in the Drama Club together.

Yes, that’s right, I will be making my triumphant return to the stage, after a 40 year hiatus!

Aileen and Tiernan, of course, have been doing theatre together for as long as I’ve known them both – though always with Aileen directing and Tiernan acting, so this is the first time they will be together on stage. Aileen has been doing theatre since she was 3 years old, and used to put on plays in her back yard when she was a child.

The show we are in is Arsenic and Old Lace, a classic from the 1930s. It’s been adapted to film, and you may be familiar with the story. I will say nothing more – no spoilers!

My return to the stage is the logical culmination of my shared lifecourse with the vagabond girl.

First, we reconnected at our high school reunion. We built up our friendship long distance, and after a couple of years I moved up to where she lives. We have a lot of interests in common, and it was natural for us to form a partnership.

She was even willing to play board games with me and go to gaming conventions with me! And I was willing to be absorbed into her theatre life. I helped her with Arts Bubble productions, and I joined her as an adjudicator for the Philadelphia Independence Awards. It was inevitable that I would eventually join her for an audition, and it was our good fortune that we were both cast in this production of a show she has always wanted to do.

I’m pretty sure this has been her long term plan for me all along. 🙂

If you are a reader who lives anywhere near Reading, Pennsylvania, perhaps you could come see our play? It’s only two performances – the evening of Friday, April 4 and a matinee on Saturday, April 5. Tickets are available here:
https://fleetwoodcommunitytheatre.com/tickets.html

Self-Portrait in Pencil

Self-Portrait in Pencil

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This is a self-portrait I drew with a pencil. It came about because our youngest son, Tiernan, is studying art at Kutztown University. They have a short winter session in which his classes are 100% online. He had an assignment to draw a self-portrait, and there was a short instructional video from his professor to go with it.

Aileen and I offered to do the assignment with him and we all watched the video together. We’re kind of getting a three-for-one deal on the class, assuming we stick with doing all the assignments, though Aileen and I won’t get course credit (this is called the free rider problem).

So anyway, the professor gave quite good instructions, I thought. He explained the proportions of the face – for example that the eyes are at about the halfway point, and that when drawing them you should first consider the size and shape of the orbits. You should start with the outline of the skull, then get all the parts of the face in according to the proportions, and then fill in the details. With professional grade pencil and eraser it’s easy to draw lines for reference and then get rid of them for the final product.

We set up a mirror and a drawing pad on an easel so we could all do our drawings. I think mine came out pretty good. I did have it a little easier because I didn’t have to draw my chin or even my mouth really, since I have so much face fuzz. The shape of the skull isn’t quite right; it’s actually too wide. But the details of my eye sockets, with their impressive puffiness and deep shadows, are fairly accurate.

I put a lot of attention into those eye sockets. Drawing this portrait felt like a study in the imperfections of my face, like I really got to know its unique and asymmetrical contours. Those eye bags come from incessantly staying up late and refusing to give up my habit of alcohol consumption. My life etched onto the surface of my face, growing ever less resilient with the passage of time.

Aileen says I would be prettier if I smiled, but that’s just my resting concentration face I guess. 🙂

Two More Board Games from the Top 10 List

Two More Board Games from the Top 10 List

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Here are two more games for my GeekList about the top 10 games on my BGG user profile. They are both “old school” games that younger generations might not recognize, but that gamers my age would possibly remember from their youth.

Why am I making this list? Simply put, because I want to dig up my gamer past and put it on the Internet. I have all these artifacts that are like a record of my gaming life: beat-up old copies of games with customized rules and components, and piles of notes and ideas.

Obviously I’m not going to scan and digitize all of that, but I can at least put together some online content that captures that information – frankly, for posterity. Then, when I’m gone, you can still go to my profiles and get an idea of what it was like to be a game enthusiast in the late 1900s and early 2000s, should that interest you.

So, without further ado, two more games from my top 10:

#8 Illuminati

In my teen years, I was one of a certain breed of nerd who obsessively read The Illuminatus! Trilogy, the conspiracy theory novels by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. You could spot us carrying our dog-eared copies of the big red omnibus edition in the hallways of my high school. We all fancied ourselves fringe intellectuals with a keen understanding of the world denied to our mundane peers. We were resonating with the countercultural vibe of that time period.

How far down the conspiracy rabbit hole I really fell I could not say. Probably I enjoyed the genre with tongue firmly in cheek. But one part of Illuminatus! fandom was playing a card game called Illuminati, published by Steve Jackson Games. I know I played it in high school, because I have a fond memory of playing at one of the old GenCons, where I actually won a copy of the game in a tournament. I wrote about it in this sesson report, where you can see a picture of the copy I won, which I still own: The Gnomes of Zurich Take Over the World Sometime in the Early 1980s.

This was also a popular game at the WarGamers Club in college. The game came with blank cards so you could make up your own, and I still have those in my old copy. Here’s a couple of examples (I have others but they are not in great shape):

In the late 80s one of my friends ran a really cool play by mail (PBM) version of the game. He printed out a set of rules (which I still have) on perforated computer paper, written up as a roleplaying game he called “The Secret Wars.” The way it worked was your PC was the head of a conspiracy (which you could make up and could be anything you wanted) and acted as an agent. You could recruit more agents as NPCs, and build up a conspiracy power structure using rules like in the Illuminati card game.

Each turn, each agent and each group would get an action. All of this was submitted by mail, and after a bit you’d get back the results. What was so great about it was, since it was all done by mail, you actually had no idea how many players were in the game and what the big picture was. You had to slowly figure it out based on your correspondence with the gamemaster.

I don’t think the game ever officially ended, just sort of faded out. I ran my own game in the early 90s with new friends I had made in college, and still have all those notes and papers. It too faded out after a while. It’s hard keeping up with a play by mail game. With permission from my friend who gave me the rules back in the 80s, I’m planning to transcribe them into a digital document and upload them to BoardGameGeek and to my personal web site (it’s a medium term project of mine).

I’m not sure I would want to run another PBM Illuminati game in today’s political climate, with conspiracy thinking actually being an existential threat instead of a mere countercultural affectation. But it sure was fun when I did it before.

In the late 90s/early 00s collectible card games were the rage (I guess they still are), and an Illuminati-themed version was made called Illuminati: New World Order. I briefly got into it, but I never had enough cards to make a really competitive deck. I remember liking it though.

Although it’s been 20 years since I’ve played any version of Illuminati, this game will always have a special place in my heart for all the zany, subversive fun it has provided.

#6 Cosmic Encounter

This is a game that was hugely popular in my college years. It is very chaotic and luck based, unlike the kinds of games that are popular today. It also has a storied history, with many different editions published as the rights passed from game company to game company.

Back in those days, we would have considered this game, and games like Illuminati and Nuclear War, to be “medium weight,” or games to play when you only had a couple of hours, not a whole day. They were all random and chaotic, too, but that was how we liked our games back then.

I first played the original Eon edition with a group of college friends. The game has a goofy space conquest theme, and each player has one or two Alien powers. Each power comes with a matching card called a Flare. In this edition, you didn’t discard the Flares when you played them, which made them more powerful (and also made sense given the name). Later editions made it so that the Flares were one time use.

I know I’ve played the West End version, but the one that I’ve played the most is the Mayfair edition. I own a copy, with all the expansions stuffed into the main box, well worn from many, many plays. Even after I graduated from college, I was able to find players throughout the 1990s.

We had a game group at one my old jobs where we played at lunch time every Wednesday. This was actually at the dawn of the Eurogame era, and we played games like Settlers of Catan as well, but since we were older generation, we were comfortable with a game in the older style. When we played Cosmic, in order to expedite game play we would pick our Alien powers ahead of time. One of the guys in our group created a Unix program that generated random powers. Once we each picked our powers, then he would set the game up, including the Flares, so it would all be ready to go when our lunch break began.

In the 2000s, I haven’t had as much luck getting this game to the table. I played the Fantasy Flight version once but wasn’t thrilled, probably because I only played the base game. The few times that I’ve brought Cosmic to the table in recent years, it hasn’t caught on. I think it is too chaotic for today’s gamers, who are used to games which accomodate sure-footed strategizing. In Cosmic Encounter, the luck of the draw can overwhelmingly favor one player over the others. Some combos are insanely powerful, and others weak and ineffective. But I’ve always loved how frenzied and chaotic this game is, and would gladly play it, with all expansions, any time anyone asked.