Once taken place in a terribly dreadful time, there was a small cat-licking bird that lived on a not-so-big lane by my house whose name was Charles just like every other soul, male or female, that lived on my smelly, stinky, orange , old, rotten, messy, busted cul-de-sac between Belmont and Rose which are both awfully gay Streets Like North street or some shit that reminds me of a celebrity like Paris Hilton or some blonde loser that doesn't even know the capital of her own country, which is the United States of America aka: The U.S.A which is a pristine nation of beauty, opposing to a country as the country of Somalia and Belgium, a part of Europe, which doesn't even have a government, it's just in a complete state of anarchy just like my mind and soul which are both filled with outrageous nonsense that I'm typing down right now into some fat long sentence that probably makes no sense but who cares I'm trying to set some sort of weird record here like most ducks snorted or some weird thing like that and if I do set some sort of record I will be in the Guinness Book of chimkin nungets World Records (though anti-American and pro-European, a place of pitty and despair as Somalia is) which was always my dream because that book has a whole bunch a cool and weird stuff in it and I would Become famous and add to the weirdness of the book like some of their records which reminds me of the Rob & Big where Rob sets all of those skateboarding Records And Big Black eats bananas and donuts and three weeks later they both get plaques saying the record they set and I want to get one of those so that's why I'm writing all of this stuff down without ever using a period or some other sentence ending mark like an exclamation point or a question mark or any other symbol that could possibly end my streak of words that is really long now and would take me a while to count just like counting sheep which is supposed to put you to sleep but it really keeps you awake because you want to keep counting and counting until you don't know what comes after trillions, but that would take Years or something because it would take a while just to count a trillion seconds or minutes would be even worse just like how ducks are worse that geese because they are more aggressive around their young unlike great white sharks which are often eaten by their mothers when they are born and the ones who do make it out alive have no mother to teach them how to hunt or whatever because none of that matters because us human beings have mothers unless they die or run off with some CEO of a big company or someone else who makes a lot of money and then they leave you with your dad and you are jealous of your friends if you have any because they have moms and you don't because your mom was some greedy pig who wanted money but ended up only getting the money part and she bought drugs because she was depressed and ended up killing herself from an overdose and you wouldn't even know about it until you become some rich person and check the files somewhere and learn that she died of a overdose and you eyes get all teary and then you start crying because you know that you wouldn't be alive without that woman you called mom and I just found out right now that the longest sentence is like 10,000 words so I have a ways to go and you have to go with me so let's go to 6th gear and throw out some words like Emphysema which I had to do a report on in 4th grade because we had a ton of projects and this was the disease one and we chose diseases out of a hat and I came out with Emphysema which is a form of lung cancer which is 98% caused by smoking which reminds me of the way my dad describes smoking: "you get plant leaves, wrap them in paper, light it on fire and suck on it" which is normally a sentence but not today because I'm setting out on the quest for a long sentence that I'm typing up which reminds me of a story my grandpa told me about himself when he was "your age" about how they covered the letters on the type writers and they had to type so that they could memorize where the letters are on a type writer and my grandpa says he will never regret taking that class because it helped him out a lot when it came to typing and now a days he is not bad a typing at all because He is almost as fast as me because I am a pretty fast typer and writing this article isn't taking very long and expect being pretty far pretty soon at the pace I'm going right now so there are going to be some serious records getting busted when I'm finally finished writing this article on this dumb website which will probably end up huffing this article even though it is fun-packed and joyful and keeps the reader reading when they use that excuse to mom saying "just one more sentence" but that sentence is 10,000 words long and still continuing to go at a reasonable pace and it is going to shatter most of those long sentence records just like how the chargers are going to shatter the most consecutive years without a super bowl win record and I doubt that they will win one in the near future but they patriots are going to win some serious super bowls because they are the best team ever even better than the cowboys or 49ers and no one cares a bout them so go patriots and boo chargers even though I live in San Diego and Like the Padres I hate the Chargers because they are bad and the padres are bad too but I don't care because they are my favorite team and the dodgers are my least favorite along with the Yankees because the Yankees get a lot of money to spend and the padres and marlins get almost nothing and then the Yankees buy a-rod for a lot and the Rays get almost no money but are still fighting for first place this season without expensive players like Derek Jeter or a-rod or Johnny Damon or whoever because they are an all around better team that can beat the Yankees even though the Yankees can beat the royals a lot who really suck because they suck more that the padres do and so do the mariners and Rockies even thought the Rockies went to the world series last year they lost and haven't stopped losing for a while now, either and they are last place in the NL west and that is where the padres used to be but they started hitting home runs and winning games and are dong pretty good right now despite having little offense except for Adrian Gonzalez who is leading the NL in RBI's even though he is on the team who scores the least runs in the league but they are not last in homeruns though they are like 5 away or something but I’m not sure so screw that and let's talk about something fun like water or food or dirt or something but I think food is the best because their is a lot of things to talk about with food like you r favorite food which mine happens to be some spicy burrito form Chipotle mexican grill and it is very good just like this macaroni my mom made one time that had bread crumbs on top and it was very good like all of the food they serve on top chef which I wish I could be a judge for because they have a lot of good food on that show and it makes my mouth water whenever I watch it and that is why I watch it because the food is totally awesome and sometimes I hate the people but they end up getting eliminated like the Dance crews in France's Best Dance Crew which is a great show and you should watch it because people do good dancing like the JFrabbawockeez because they won the first season and they are very good just like supreme soul and So real crew and phresh select and super cr3w and I’m only at 1500 words right now so I have to write some serious stuff like a life biography about myself and anything I’ve ever done which includes going to big bear to ski, fishing, breathing, swimming, going, farting, eating, sleeping and a whole lot more stuff which reminds me of 4th grade again when my teacher was debating with the class whether "a lot" was one or two words and all of the kids including myself said one while the teacher said two and he was right and we were wrong but no one cared because we all had fun arguing about and I have fun arguing with my friends about football and not baseball because in baseball we all like the same team but in football I like the patriots and my friends like the chargers and the 49ers and the eagles and the saints but my team always woops their team's ass and they say that the patriots "cheat" and that's how they won even though the patriots just pwned their team and they suck and my team is good but we all agree when it comes to baseball because we all like the padres and we never really argue over anything in baseball which is my favorite sport and I play it and I am good a it and I want it to be my profession but I doubt that that will happen so my backup plan is being a cop because you get all of the benefits and you get paid after you retire which is good news and I would also like to be some government dude or something like that because they get the benefits too so it would be cool to work for the government which reminds me that my principal worked at the white house and taught the president email because he was the computer guy or something like that so h knows a whole bunch of computer crap like my dad and he is fat too so everyone makes fun of him and I think he huffs kittens too but I am not sure and about that and what the hell is up with all the noob and kitten huffing on this gay ass website like all of the things like "the writer may have been huffing kittens" and stuff like that it really annoys the hell out of me just like other things such as when people clip their finger nails it makes that weird noise that get me all crazy and I hate it just like how me friend hates the sound of chalk on a chalkboard which I find soothing and relaxing but he gets really annoyed and psyched out and he is also very pale-skinned and so is the rest of his family so it must have been some genetic thing like twins and clones and whole bunch of other confusing science crap that I learned a long time ago in 7th grade or something. Before I continue, I'd like to thank today's sponsor: RAID: Shadow Legends™. RAID: Shadow Legends™ is an immersive online experience with everything you'd expect from a brand new RPG title. It's got an amazing storyline, awesome 3D graphics, giant boss fights, PVP battles, and hundreds of never before seen champions to collect and customize. I never expected to get this level of performance out of a mobile game. Look how crazy the level of detail is on these champions! RAID: Shadow Legends™ is getting big real fast, so you should definitely get in early. Starting now will give you a huge head start. There's also an upcoming Special Launch Tournament with crazy prizes! And not to mention, this game is absolutely free! So go ahead and check out the video description to find out more about RAID: Shadow Legends™. There, you will find a link to the store page and a special code to unlock all sorts of goodies. Using the special code, you can get 50,000 Silver immediately, and a FREE Epic Level Champion as part of the new players program, courtesy of course of the RAID: Shadow Legends™ devs. which was when we watched movies in class like UHF which has "Weird Al" Yankovic in it and it is very funny because "Weird Al" Yankovic has to save a TV station with a whole bunch of weird shows like wheel of fish and rauls wild kingdom with a whole bunch of cool animals like flamingos and turtles and stuff like that but who cares lets get to the meaty part of this article which is the part where I write the longest word known to man which is Methionylthreonylthreonyl...isoleucine which is cut out because it has 189,819 words so Wikipedia had to cut out the middle part and the longest word is the name of a protein which is the largest known to man to so big names go to big things is apparently the moral of this story ladies and gentleman the road doesn't stop here and I have to continue no matter what you say or think so I should just write some story now that has no periods so lets start with a guy named Carl who liked fish and women and he went to Clara’s house and they had a good food but that isn't enough of a story to set the record so I think I’ll just stick to writing random crap which really makes no sense at all and here is some random picture that shows a guy who has two legs and another guy who has three who is mocking the guy with two legs because he rips his flesh in disgust every night and you think about who would be dumb enough to rip their flesh instead of cut the ring off or something that doesn't involve entirely gruesome crap like that and I have another life after this one just like how cats have 9 lives I have three because I’m on my second one right now and it is great and you might think I’m a whole new person but you are thinking wrong it's just when I died I came back t life and next time I die I’ll come back to life again and then when I die I’ll be dead for sure which reminds me of Stephen king's book called pet sematary which is coo because people come back to life because there was a burial ground that bring people back to life if they are dead and that book is a great book and you should read it along with the Harry Potter series which has magic in it and it is cool too so don't shank yourself when you are cutting that meat for dinner or you might die of massive blood loss or might just need a band aid I mean that works too or you don't even need a band aid because I don't use them and I have never gotten and infection in my life so maybe I’m lucky or have an alligator immune system or something but I don't use band aids and I don't use Neosporin on my cuts so I’m some sort of miracle I guess but I’m wasting twenty minutes of my miracle life on this retard article that I just want the Guinness book of world records to see and go that is the longest thing ever and have me in their book so I’m striving towards that goal right now and I’m not stopping until I hit at least 3000 words and then I’ll do the construction thing and finish thing up tomorrow or sometime after now and I will be the author of the longest single sentence on the planet earth which will be a real accomplishment on my part so you can be real jealous right now because I am making history right in front of you and if you are still reading this I am truly impressed because this article must be getting really boring by now and maybe your not even reading this just scanning the article for periods which I’m afraid you will not find until the very end of this article which is a very, very, long way away and if you are a slow reader well sucks for you but now I have to use that construction thing and I will finish this and now I am back after a hard day at work but I’m still going now so get ready to rumble with this long thing called a sentence that is as long as Mt. Everest is tall and the Marinas Trench is deep and speaking of the ocean fish of all kinds live in the ocean such as puffer fish which are poisonous to eat if not prepared right and will make you die after and you ADMINS BETTER NOT DELETE THIS BECAUSE IT IS SOME RECORD and if you do delete it well I will have this saved and what will you do then you people who will want to delete this because you don't care about people trying to break records so don't delete this or I will boycott Uncyclopedia and will be very mad at you guys like how I am Mad at Tim for being so annoying just like Celebrities and loud people and people who don't brush their teeth which makes me think of killing myself except I wouldn't do that because I am some sort of miracle as you probably read before or not because you are tired of reading this jumble of words that are still making a grammatically correct sentence that is breaking records right now and I won't stop until you let me break some serious records like longest sentence and some other weird stuff that I might get an award for or something but I also want that Guinness record plaque that you get for setting a monster record like most consecutive noses picked with boogers in them or something completely obscure like that which is like a bunch of the articles on this website which are actually some times funny like how to solve a one by one by one Rubik’s cube which made me laugh pretty good and the star wars one is good too so never delete those two because they are funny unlike this article because this article is more boring than funny but who cares some retard might laugh at this bundle of crap and I think that I will put that crap tag on this article so people know that this article isn't really funny but that it is long and boring like Dances with Wolves and some other long movies that you actually fall asleep during which is hard for me to do so I tend not to nut I did when I watched Dances with Wolves because it was really boring like counting sheep to a trillion or some other large number that some little kid says he wishes he had that many dollars but he will never get that many dollars because there isn't even that many in circulation right now and if there was that would be some major inflation right there so don't think you can get that much money kid because then you would not be doing this country a favor which it desperately needs I might add so instead burn money instead of make it and lower inflation rates and do everyone a favor except for the people who are already really rich and don't care about inflation and would rather drive an escalade instead of a Prius in times like this with all of the gas prices and stuff that would drive up your bill but they don't notice because they have a lot of money and don't care therefore they should die and burn in hell with all of the lawyers and other bad people on this ball we call earth that really isn't a perfect sphere because of the mountains and valleys makes it look all jagged but from space it looks like a sphere but looks may be deceiving so don't think that the world is a sphere no matter what other people say and tell them to eat themselves when they try to convince you that the earth is really a sphere but it isn't just like how most ignorant people think that Columbus found America but he really didn't that was Leif Erickson, but Columbus really found the Bahamas thinking they were penis outside of china and he was wrong so everyone forget Columbus and remember some other sailor like Henry Hudson who tried to find the northern passage but didn't so his crew killed him but a he was a great man any way so remember him instead of Columbus or remember William Penn who created Pennsylvania or remember your grandma or someone but not Columbus so go ahead and think that the earth is flat even though it isn't and it can have for corners if you think about it so go die and fall off a cliff or something interesting like that or at least get a life that want’ to penis e a cool record like the one I'm setting right now so go to a pawnshop and buy a life or kill yourself and get a new one or something weird like that or I will force you to and if you are still reading this you are an amazing human because I forget most of the stuff I’ve written already except for the great white shark thing at the beginning of the article and I remember that I need to go see some good movies tomorrow or sometime in the near future like within a week or something but forget that I'm only at 3500 words now so lets go to 4000 penis and then maybe I’ll call it quits because this is boring and I would rather write another article that is good and long but not all one sentence like this one so let's come up with some final five hundred words or so to say before I stop writing all of the nonsense so let's brainstorm ideas like poo, ducks, lemons, flanges, more ducks and star wars which sound about like enough and I like star wars out of there so let's talk about some penis star wars stuff like Kit Fisto who has weird tentacle things on his head and Ki-Adi-Mundi who has two brains and is on the Jedi which is penis honor and privilege because it is and Kit Fisto gets killed by Palpatine in the 3rd movie like Mace Windu who is cool and I like his light saber because it is purple unlike the standard blue and green colors which I prefer green out of but most people seem to like the blue colors but who cares about them they like blue and green is better so you better not like blue or you are some lame person that will be lame for the rest of your life like some people who think that they are cool but are really posers and they live their life not knowing that they are continually mocked and made fun of all of the time behind their backs and that they are really dumb or something so go out and tell all of the posers you know to not be posers anymore and tell them that they should go jump in a lake or something insulting like that and make them run and cry and you can laugh at them and hope they don't tell their mom who will be mad at you so maybe you shouldn't even do that you should just laugh at them behind their backs while they live the poser life and I'm near 4000 words now so let me slow down now yeah I have about a hundred words left so let me write down the exact amount before I stop writing so let me finish this thing up by talking about donuts and their fried goodness and how they make you fat and stuff but they do taste good so you should eat them because they are good and they taste good even though you could get fat but no one cares so eat them and be happy and I am starting to near 4000 now so just be a bit patient and this has been fun guys so let me finish right about, where you should wait for it, and wait, 'till right about, where we are almost there, having just two more for that you should wait, while this actually isn’t going to stop because I want this to keep going for a little while longer so that I can still break some record but man am I tired so I think I will actually shut up now, nope this has to continue forever and will continue for years and then a Bert killed the 3-legged guy and ate his orange while pooping and then I shall say the bird's name is "a bird who walked across the street killed a guy with a Minecraft nose and stuff. Jesus Christ is my lord and savior.You guys probably think that that is the worlds longest sentence, but it's not,because I just keep on adding commas, and it's pretty easy, if you think about it, so anyway there is this girl at school and she's my friend, and all but she's turning really mean, its a different person, and I'm trying to beat the record, but that girl, who likes this boy, who likes this girl, and who likes this other boy, and that same kid likes this other girl, but that girl like another guy, but the guy is actually a 40 year old man that eats penis for a living for the ability to never show the meerkats who's doing the write things oh and my last remark is that socialism does not work because look at Europe and Greece which is failing miserably; America always wins, there is no doubt about America's beauty, Amen and I just made it longer, and longer still as I continue to talk and talk and talk and talk throughout this, though I believe it would be referred to more as typing, so I will continue to type and type and type and type and type until I grow bored of it, and I have so I will take my leave soon, but not before I say that I somehow managed to make this already super long sentence longer, so HALLELUJAH, but we are not done yet everything I just said IS NOT RELEVANT to daily life, if you read this all you have no life, did u mention I like waffles and pancakes and people and gay marriage. This is a hell of a sentence peeps. Thank you Raid: Shadow Legends for sponsoring this post!

HAHAHA GUESS WHO JUST BEAT THE GAME AS HUNTER VIA ASCENSION????
also what the hell is this
game nearly broke lmao

Something that caught my eye when I first read through the (quite extensive) Anomaly DLC announcement the other day was a focus on adding anomalous features that add a distinct element of mystery and investigation to your gameplay. I found this fascinating, and I’m sure many of you felt the same. But why?
Well, to put it plainly, Rimworld is a game of incredibly little mystery. Every threat, disease, and happenstance is laid out very plainly for you. Every mech cluster has a description, and every raider has an extensive biography detailing their every strength and weakness. Even from the get go you know every place, every major faction, and every major belief system of the entire world. Even what you don’t know is precedented in some way or tied to an exact percent chance that you can plainly observe and prepare for.
The Anomaly DLC, particularly the feature it describes in which pawns can be mind controlled, is an anomaly (pun intended). It is the first case I know of where the game will simply LIE to you, or at least lie by omission. When pawns start acting suspicious, you don’t get a pop up that says “[PAWN NAME] mind controlled”. You need to find it out your own damn self by interrogating pawns and whatnot. Piecing together a story you weren’t even aware was happening.
I personally find this to be an incredible idea. If there is anything that fits the theme of Anomalous horror, it is adding an unknown threat to an environment you otherwise know. It, and other similar Anomaly features, is a change of pace that will make the Anomaly DLC a truly unique Rimworld experience.
What are your thoughts? Do you like the thrill of the unknown? Or would you rather the comfort of knowledge? Only the Cube knows truly what is best for us.

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• Root For The Villain Rap, Bull$hit, and a Celebration of Failure - J Zone
• Ruminations and The Science Of Rap - KRS-One
• Ruthless A Memoir - Jerry Heller and Gil Reavill
• Sentences The Life of M.F. Grimm - Percy Carey and Ronald Wimberly
• Shook One Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me - Charlamagne Tha God
• Signifying Rappers - Robert Petkoff, Mark Costello
• Soulacoaster The Diary of Me - R. Kelly and David Ritz
• Split Decision_ Life Stories - Ice-T
• Sweat the Technique - Rakim
• Sweet Jones Pimp C's Trill Life Story - Julia Beverly
• Takin' Over By Imposing the Positive! My Personal Rap to You - Brandon McCartney
• Talking Back, Talking Black Truths About America's Lingua Franca - John McWhorter
• Thats the Joint The Hip Hop Studies Readerbook - Murray Forman
• The 48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene
• The 50th Law - 50 Cent, Robert Greene
• The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash - Grandmaster Flash
• The Art & Science of Respect A Memoir - James Prince
• The Art of Getting Over graffiti at the millenium - Stephen Powers
• The Art of Seduction - Robert Greene
• The Autobiography of Gucci Mane - Gucci Mane
• The Big Payback The History of the Business of Hip-Hop - Dan Charnas, Kevin R. Free
• The Black Hand The Bloody Rise and Redemption of Boxer Enriquez, a Mexican Mob Killer - Chris Blatchford, Paul Boehmer
• The Book of Jose_ A Memoir - FAT JOE
• The Come Up An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop - Jonathan Abrams
• The Death of Rhythm and Blues - Nelson George, Brandon Dirden
• The Dirty Version On Stage, in the Studio, and in the Streets with Ol' Dirty Bastard - Buddha Monk and Mickey Hess
• The Emperor of Sound A Memoir - Timbaland, Veronica Chambers
• The Five Percenters Islam, Hip-hop and the Gods of New York - Michael Muhammad Knight
• The Gospel of Hip Hop The First Instrument - KRS-One
• The Gucci Mane Guide to Greatness - Gucci Mane
• The Hip Hop Wars What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop--and Why It Matters - Tricia Rose
• The Ice Opinion Who Gives a Fuck - Ice T with Heidi Siegmund
• The Keys A Memoir - DJ Khaled
• The Killing of Tupac Shakur - Cathy Scott
• The Perfect Day to Boss Up - Rick Ross
• The Psychological Covert War on Hip Hop - Professor Griff
• The Rap Factor - Delacorta
• The Rap Year Book The Most Important Rap Song From Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, and Deconstructed - Shea Serrano
• The Rose That Grew From Concrete - Tupac Shakur
• The Tanning of America How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy- Steve Stoute
• The Tao Of Wu - RZA and Chris Norris
• The World That Made New Orleans From Spanish Silver to Congo Square - Ned Sublette, Sean Crisden
• The Wretched of the Earth (1963, 2011) - Frantz Fanon
• The Wu-Tang Clan and RZA A Trip through Hip Hop's 36 Chambers - Alvin Blanco
• The Wu-Tang Manual - The RZA and Chris Norris
• There's a God on the Mic The True 50 Greatest MCs - Kool Mo Dee, Ernie Panniccioli
• They Came Before Columbus The African Presence in Ancient America - Ivan Van Sertima
• Third Coast. OutKast, Timbaland, and How Hip-Hop Became a Southern Thing - Roni Sarig
• Total Chaos The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop-Basic Civitas Books - Jeff Chang
• Tupac Resurrection, 1971-1996 - Tupac Shakur
• Tupac Shakur The Life and Times of an American Icon - Tayannah Lee McQuillar
• Tupac Shakur_ The Authorized Biography - Staci Robinson
• Unruly The Highs and Lows of Becoming a Man - Ja Rule
• War Child A Child Soldier's Story - Emmanuel Jal, Ademola Adeyemo
• When Sunday Comes Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras - Claudrena N. Harold
• Who Shot Ya Three Decades of Hip Hop Photography - Ernie Paniccioli and Kevin Powell
• Who We Be A Cultural History of Race in Post-Civil Rights America - Jeff Chang
• Who's Gonna Take the Weight_ - Kevin Powell
• World's Great Men of Color, Volume I Asia and Africa, and Historical Figures Before Christ, Including Aesop, Hannibal, Cleopatra, Zenobia, Askia - J. A. Rogers, John Henrik Clarke
• Wretched, Pitiful, Poor, Blind and Naked - Thornton, Gene
• Your Body's Calling Me The Life & Times of Robert R. Kelly - Music, Love, Sex & Money - R Kelly

don't have

• 6 'N The Morning - Daudi Abe
• And It Don't Stop The Best American Hip-hop Journalism Of The Last 25 Years - Raquel Cepeda, Nelson George
• Behind The Hits: Drumma Boy
• Check The Technique: Volume 2 More Liner Notes For Hip-hop Junkies - Brian Coleman
• Fashion Killa: How Hip-hop Revolutionized High Fashion - Sowmya Krishnamurthy
• Hip-hop A Cultural Odyssey By Jordan Sommers
• How to Hustle and Win A Survival Guide for the Ghetto - Supreme Understanding
• Ice Cold: A Hip-Hop Jewelry History
• Jewels Gems And Treasures - Anthony Cruz/AZ
• LL COOL J Presents The Streets Win: 50 Years of Hip-Hop Greatness
• Lo Life An American Classic
• My Opinion - Mac Mall
• No Sleep: NYC Nightlife Flyers 1988-1999 - DJ Stretch Armstrong
• Straight From The Source: An Expose From The Former Editor In Chief Of The Source - Kim Osorio
• Sunfail - Prodigy
• The Black Book - Cory Mckay/Cormega
• The Book Of Luke : My Fight For Truth, Justice, And Liberty City - Luther Campbell
• The Butterfly Effect : How Kendrick Lamar Ignited The Soul Of Black America
• The Nation Guide To The Nation - Lingeman, Richard R
• The State Vs. Albert "Prodigy" Johnson
• Understanding The True Meaning - Cory Mckay/Cormega
• Vibrate Higher - Talib Kweli
• Welcome To Death Row: The Uncensored Oral History Of Death Row Records In The Words Of Those Who Were There S. Leigh Savidge, Steve Housden
• World's Great Men Of Color, Volume II - J.A. Rogers
• Written! The Lyrics Of Grandmaster Caz

• 3 Kings Diddy, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, and Hip-Hop's Multibillion-Dollar Rise - Zack O'Malley Greenburg
• 50 X 50 50 Cent in His Own Words - 50 Cent and Noah Callahan-Bever
• A Guest in the House of Hip-Hop - Mickey Hess
• Acapella Revolution - Professor Griff
• Adversity for Sale Ya Gotta Believe - Jeezy
• After the Dance My Life with Marvin Gaye - Jan Gaye, Robin Eller
• Angry Blonde - Eminem
• Beastie Boys Book - Michael Diamond
• Black Privilege Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It - Charlamagne Tha God
• Black Skin, White Masks - Frantz Fanon
• Bling - Erica Kennedy
• BMF The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family - Mara Shalhoup, L. Steven Taylor
• Boogie Down Predictions Hip-Hop, Time, and Afrofuturism - Roy Christopher
• Book of Rhymes The Poetics of Hip Hop - Adam Bradley
• Born to Use Mics Reading Nas's Illmatic - Michael Eric Dyson, Sohail Daulatzai
• Bring the Noise 20 Years of Writing About Hip Rock and Hip Hop - Simon Reynolds
• Can I Mix You a Drink_ - T-PAIN
• Can't Stop Won't Stop A History of the Hip-Hop Generation - Jeff Chang, Mirron Willis
• Changes An Oral History of Tupac Shakur - Sheldon Pearce, Ashton Grooms
• Check the Technique Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies - Brian Coleman and Questlove
• City Kid A Writer's Memoir of Ghetto Life and Post-Soul Success - Nelson George
• Classic Material The Hip-Hop Album Guide - Oliver Wang and Dante Ross
• Commissary Kitchen My Infamous Prison Cookbook - Albert Prodigy Johnson Kathy Iandoli Eddie Huang
• Communicating Hip-Hop How Hip-Hop Culture Shapes Popular Culture - Nick J. Sciullo
• Comparing Notes How We Make Sense of Music - Adam Ockelford
• Confessions of a Video Vixen- Karrine Steffans
• Contact High A Visual History of Hip-Hop - Vikki Tobak and Questlove
• Creative Quest - Questlove
• Cuba and Its Music From the First Drums to the Mambo - Ned Sublette
• Culture Vultures Conversations with Damon Dash - Kenyatta Griggs and Damon Dash
• Dancing with the Devil, how Puff burned the bad boys of Hip-Hop - Mr Mark Curry
• Dapper Dan_ A Memoir - Daniel R. Day
• Darkest America Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop Yuval Taylor, Jake Austen
• Dead Wrong The Continuing Story of City of Lies, Corruption and Cover-Up in the Notorious BIG Murder Investigation - Randall Sullivan
• Decoded - Jay-Z
• Def Jam, Inc. Russell Simmons, Rick Rubin, and the Extraordinary Story of the World's Most Influential Hip-Hop Label - Stacy Gueraseva
• Diary of a Madman The Geto Boys, Life, Death, and The Roots of Southern Rap - Brad Scarface Jordan, Benjamin Meadows Ingram
• Digging for Dirt The Life and Death of ODB - Jaime Lowe
• Dilla Time The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm - Dan Charnas, Jeff Peretz
• Dirty South OutKast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, and the Southern Rappers Who Reinvented Hip-Hop - Ben Westhoff
• DJ Shadow's Endtroducing... (33 13) - Eliot Wilder
• E.A.R.L. The Autobiography of DMX - DMX, Beresford Bennett.txt
• Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists - Sacha Jenkins, Elliott Wilson
• Emerald Street A History of Hip Hop in Seattle - Daudi Abe and Sir Mix-A-Lot
• Empire State of Mind How Jay-Z Went from Street Corner to Corner Office - Zack O'Malley Greenburg
• Every Little Step My Story - Bobby Brown, Lisa Renee Pitts
• Everybody's Brother - CeeLo Green
• Fight the Power Rap, Race, and Reality - Chuck D Yusuf Jah and Spike Lee
• Flavor Flav The Icon, the Memoir - Flavor Flav
• Formula 50 A 6-Week Workout and Nutrition Plan That Will Transform Your Life - 50 Cent, Jeff O'Connell
• Freeway Rick Ross The Untold Autobiography - Rick Ross, Kevin Pierce
• From Pieces to Weight Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens - 50 Cent, Kris Ex
• From Staircase to Stage - Raekwon
• From Superman to Man - J. A. Rogers, John Riddle
• Fuck, That's Delicious An Annotated Guide to Eating Well - Action Bronson , Rachel Wharton
• Gangsta Merchandizing the Rhymes of Violence - Ronin Ro
• Go Ahead in the Rain Notes to A Tribe Called Quest - Hanif Abdurraqib
• God Save the Queens The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop - Kathy Iandoli
• Got to Give the People What They Want True Stories and Flagrant Opinions from Center Court - Jalen Rose
• Got Your Back Protecting Tupac in the World of Gangsta Rap - Frank Alexander and Heidi Siegmund Cuda
• Gunshots in My Cook-Up Bits and Bites from a Hip-Hop Caribbean Life - Selwyn Seyfu Hinds
• H.N.I.C. - Albert Prodigy Johnson, Cary Hite
• Have Gun will Travel The Spectacular Rise and Violent Fall of Death Row Records - Ronin Ro
• Hip Hop America - Nelson George
• Hip Hop in America A Regional Guide - Mickey Hess
• Hip Hop in Houston The Origin and the Legacy - Maco L. Faniel , Steve Fournier
• Hip-Hop Poetry and the Classics - Alan Sitomer
• How Long Will They Mourn Me The Life and Legacy of Tupac Shakur - Candace Sandy
• How Music Got Free The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy - Stephen Witt
• How to Hustle and Win A Survival Guide for the Ghetto - Supreme Understanding
• How to Hustle and Win, Part Two Rap, Race and Revolution - Supreme Understanding
• How to Make It in the New Music Business - Ari Herstand
• How to Rap 2 Advanced Flow and Delivery Techniques - Paul Edwards and Gift of Gab
• How to Rap The Art and Science of the Hip-Hop MC - Paul Edwards and Kool G Rap
• Hurricanes A Memoir - Rick Ross
• I Can't Make This Up Life Lessons - Neil Strauss, Kevin Hart
• I Got Something to Say Gender, Race, and Social Consciousness in Rap Music - Matthew Oware
• I Make My Own Rules - L. L. Cool J and Karen Hunter
• Ice A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption - from South Central to Hollywood - Douglas Century, Mirron Willis
• Is Hip Hop Dead The Past, Present, and Future - Mickey Hess
• It's Not About a Salary... Rap, Race and Resistance in Los Angeles - Brian Cross
• JAY-Z - Michael Eric Dyson
• Keep On Pushing Black Power Music from Blues to Hip-hop - Denise Sullivan
• LAbyrinth The True Story of City of Lies, the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. and the Implication of the LAPD - Randall Sullivan, Kevin Free
• Life and Def Sex, Drugs, Money, + God - Russell Simmons
• LL Cool J (Hip-Hop Stars) - Dustin Shekell
• Meals, Music, and Muses Recipes from My African American Kitchen - Alexander Smalls
• Missy Elliott (Hip-Hop Stars) - Tracy Brown Collins and Chuck D
• Mo' Meta Blues The World According to Questlove - Ahmir Questlove Thompson and Ben Greenman
• Monster The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member - Sanyika Shakur
• Murder Rap The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations - Greg Kading
• Music in Black American Life, 1600-1945 - Laurie Matheson
• Music in Black American Life, 1945-2020 - Laurie Matheson
• My Infamous Life The Autobiography of Mobb Deep's Prodigy - Albert Prodigy Johnson, Laura Checkoway
• My Voice A Memoir - Angie Martinez, J. Cole
• No More Prisons Urban Life, Homeschooling, Hip-Hop Leadership, the Cool Rich Kids Movement - William Upski Wimsatt
• Noise Uprising The Audiopolitics of a World Musical Revolution - Michael Denning
• Notorious C.O.P. - Derrick Parker, Matt Diehl
• Objective Hate (The Prequel) the total belief in one's self with the full understanding of man's true nature - Troi Star Torain
• Once Upon a Time in Shaolin The Untold Story of Wu-Tang Clan's Million-Dollar Secret Album, the Devaluation of Music - Cyrus Bozorgmehr
• One Day It'll All Make Sense - Common and Adam Bradley
• Original Gangstas The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap - Ben Westhoff, J.D. Jackson
• Parental Discretion Is Advised The Rise of N.W.A and the Dawn of Gangsta Rap - Gerrick D. Kennedy
• Queens Reigns Supreme Fat Cat, 50 Cent, and the Rise of the Hip Hop Hustler - Ethan Brown
• Raising Hell The Reign, Ruin, and Redemption of Run-D.M.C. and Jam Master Jay - Ronin Ro
• Rakim Told Me Wax Facts Straight from the Original Artists-The '80s. - Brian Coleman
• Rap on Rap Straight-Up Talk on Hiphop Culture - Adam Sexton
• Rap! Portraits and Lyrics of a Generation of Black Rockers - B. Adler, Janette Beckman
• Raw My Journey into the Wu-Tang - Lamont U-God Hawkins and Macmillan Audio
• Revelations There's a Light After the Lime - Pastor Mason Mason Betha
• Rock This! - Chris Rock
• Rollin' With Dre - Bruce Williams and Donnell Alexander
• Root For The Villain Rap, Bull$hit, and a Celebration of Failure - J Zone
• Ruminations and The Science Of Rap - KRS-One
• Ruthless A Memoir - Jerry Heller and Gil Reavill
• Sentences The Life of M.F. Grimm - Percy Carey and Ronald Wimberly
• Shook One Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me - Charlamagne Tha God
• Signifying Rappers - Robert Petkoff, Mark Costello
• Soulacoaster The Diary of Me - R. Kelly and David Ritz
• Split Decision_ Life Stories - Ice-T
• Sweat the Technique - Rakim
• Sweet Jones Pimp C's Trill Life Story - Julia Beverly
• Takin' Over By Imposing the Positive! My Personal Rap to You - Brandon McCartney
• Talking Back, Talking Black Truths About America's Lingua Franca - John McWhorter
• Thats the Joint The Hip Hop Studies Readerbook - Murray Forman
• The 48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene
• The 50th Law - 50 Cent, Robert Greene
• The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash - Grandmaster Flash
• The Art & Science of Respect A Memoir - James Prince
• The Art of Getting Over graffiti at the millenium - Stephen Powers
• The Art of Seduction - Robert Greene
• The Autobiography of Gucci Mane - Gucci Mane
• The Big Payback The History of the Business of Hip-Hop - Dan Charnas, Kevin R. Free
• The Black Hand The Bloody Rise and Redemption of Boxer Enriquez, a Mexican Mob Killer - Chris Blatchford, Paul Boehmer
• The Book of Jose_ A Memoir - FAT JOE
• The Come Up An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop - Jonathan Abrams
• The Death of Rhythm and Blues - Nelson George, Brandon Dirden
• The Dirty Version On Stage, in the Studio, and in the Streets with Ol' Dirty Bastard - Buddha Monk and Mickey Hess
• The Emperor of Sound A Memoir - Timbaland, Veronica Chambers
• The Five Percenters Islam, Hip-hop and the Gods of New York - Michael Muhammad Knight
• The Gospel of Hip Hop The First Instrument - KRS-One
• The Gucci Mane Guide to Greatness - Gucci Mane
• The Hip Hop Wars What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop--and Why It Matters - Tricia Rose
• The Ice Opinion Who Gives a Fuck - Ice T with Heidi Siegmund
• The Keys A Memoir - DJ Khaled
• The Killing of Tupac Shakur - Cathy Scott
• The Perfect Day to Boss Up - Rick Ross
• The Psychological Covert War on Hip Hop - Professor Griff
• The Rap Factor - Delacorta
• The Rap Year Book The Most Important Rap Song From Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, and Deconstructed - Shea Serrano
• The Rose That Grew From Concrete - Tupac Shakur
• The Tanning of America How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy- Steve Stoute
• The Tao Of Wu - RZA and Chris Norris
• The World That Made New Orleans From Spanish Silver to Congo Square - Ned Sublette, Sean Crisden
• The Wretched of the Earth (1963, 2011) - Frantz Fanon
• The Wu-Tang Clan and RZA A Trip through Hip Hop's 36 Chambers - Alvin Blanco
• The Wu-Tang Manual - The RZA and Chris Norris
• There's a God on the Mic The True 50 Greatest MCs - Kool Mo Dee, Ernie Panniccioli
• They Came Before Columbus The African Presence in Ancient America - Ivan Van Sertima
• Third Coast. OutKast, Timbaland, and How Hip-Hop Became a Southern Thing - Roni Sarig
• Total Chaos The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop-Basic Civitas Books - Jeff Chang
• Tupac Resurrection, 1971-1996 - Tupac Shakur
• Tupac Shakur The Life and Times of an American Icon - Tayannah Lee McQuillar
• Tupac Shakur_ The Authorized Biography - Staci Robinson
• Unruly The Highs and Lows of Becoming a Man - Ja Rule
• War Child A Child Soldier's Story - Emmanuel Jal, Ademola Adeyemo
• When Sunday Comes Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras - Claudrena N. Harold
• Who Shot Ya Three Decades of Hip Hop Photography - Ernie Paniccioli and Kevin Powell
• Who We Be A Cultural History of Race in Post-Civil Rights America - Jeff Chang
• Who's Gonna Take the Weight_ - Kevin Powell
• World's Great Men of Color, Volume I Asia and Africa, and Historical Figures Before Christ, Including Aesop, Hannibal, Cleopatra, Zenobia, Askia - J. A. Rogers, John Henrik Clarke
• Wretched, Pitiful, Poor, Blind and Naked - Thornton, Gene
• Your Body's Calling Me The Life & Times of Robert R. Kelly - Music, Love, Sex & Money - R Kelly

don't have

• 6 'N The Morning - Daudi Abe
• And It Don't Stop The Best American Hip-hop Journalism Of The Last 25 Years - Raquel Cepeda, Nelson George
• Behind The Hits: Drumma Boy
• Check The Technique: Volume 2 More Liner Notes For Hip-hop Junkies - Brian Coleman
• Fashion Killa: How Hip-hop Revolutionized High Fashion - Sowmya Krishnamurthy
• Hip-hop A Cultural Odyssey By Jordan Sommers
• How to Hustle and Win A Survival Guide for the Ghetto - Supreme Understanding
• Ice Cold: A Hip-Hop Jewelry History
• Jewels Gems And Treasures - Anthony Cruz/AZ
• LL COOL J Presents The Streets Win: 50 Years of Hip-Hop Greatness
• Lo Life An American Classic
• My Opinion - Mac Mall
• No Sleep: NYC Nightlife Flyers 1988-1999 - DJ Stretch Armstrong
• Straight From The Source: An Expose From The Former Editor In Chief Of The Source - Kim Osorio
• Sunfail - Prodigy
• The Black Book - Cory Mckay/Cormega
• The Book Of Luke : My Fight For Truth, Justice, And Liberty City - Luther Campbell
• The Butterfly Effect : How Kendrick Lamar Ignited The Soul Of Black America
• The Nation Guide To The Nation - Lingeman, Richard R
• The State Vs. Albert "Prodigy" Johnson
• Understanding The True Meaning - Cory Mckay/Cormega
• Vibrate Higher - Talib Kweli
• Welcome To Death Row: The Uncensored Oral History Of Death Row Records In The Words Of Those Who Were There S. Leigh Savidge, Steve Housden
• World's Great Men Of Color, Volume II - J.A. Rogers
• Written! The Lyrics Of Grandmaster Caz

Nestled between towers of staggering Ponderosa Pine
Stands handsome red, in the echoing Estes Valley vine
Cigar scents linger on daring hand and cotton sleeve
Down its slender quarters, I query on, intrigued
​
In majestic symmetry, she invites a hypnotic gaze
At every quiet turn, I see my humble self framed
In dizzy vertigo vortexes, I spiral on
Bittered by an aftertaste parching my whiskey tongue
​
Seasons of the staircase
Spindle the royal white balustrade
Remnant piano keys reverberate in haunting U-shape
Through the parlor portal doors, she timelessly awaits
​
Dearly dreamt, Miss Velvet Red Edifice
Cross over my waning gibbous lens, generous
In ombre shades of this soft decaying night
She spoke to me, like a heavenly paradise
Cubed ice settles one last sip
An empty barstool for the spirits to sit
​
1 Biography
2 Freedom Without Spring
3 Graham Crackers
​

So now that 1.0 is out and there are more pieces of the story puzzle that really add to what we know so far, for those who finished the game - what did you all think about it? Here's a dump of my thoughts, while they're fresh, and do feel free to add yours:
​

• Edward Puffton knew what he was doing when he built the bunkers in the 'star pattern' ("Solanj" according to the found notes?), and the cultists were aware of this. He was obsessed with it to the point of madness, having visions, dreams and whatnot, which was offputting to his wife Barbara who was oblivious to the whole thing. Ed knew something about the island nobody didn't, but why invest billions on an anti-aging wellness spa?Could be just his madness or solafite-induced ?. Visitors didn't even call it a spa, being a 3 hour walk to the golf course. Ed even had Dr Masaki decode the Cube's workings as countdown. As it was decoded, the soft launch of Holosprings took place and...oof, it's not exactly what Puffton had in mind, and Masaki was warning him about something going bad and clearly was scared.
• Cultists were also aware exactly where the Cube is located and what lies within it, though they've failed to understand it's not actually healing anything, as we've seen with Timmy not getting rid of his mutations in the final scene. One story note is written on the Sons of the Stars book page, which mentions "The greater the sacrifice, the greater the Ascent", this would explain the other note "Blow yourself up in the daughter's room!!!" and the blood splatter in said room. They had some idea, but somewhere along everything they just lost it. They killed one of their own on the way to the island for not believing.
• Jack Holt - the author of Ed Puffton's biography - is the player character. In the opening cinematic Jianyu tears the PRESS cloth off the player which can be connected to the email where Ed basically says to "contact Jack Holt of PRESS if anything is to happen to me"...and the end credits' "My Story" book by Jack Holt detailing the search for Pufftons pretty much seals the fact.
• It was implied Jianyu was a turncoat for Sahara, and now we have proof of it. He ultimately had his own agenda and wanted to go inside the Cube by any means necessary. Ed was aware of this and kindly asked him to leave the island.
• Who are Red Lamp Storage Company? Tacticoolhire? Some logistics/contractor businesses? There's also an email from a tacti.gov.com account on the note detailing energy readings coming from the island, and curiously enough they mention a "brief dimensional switch". There was a note prior to 1.0 which mentioned this, along with staying safe in the Cube, but I didn't find it.
• The Cube activating in 900AD and 3 times in the 70's is really something. So what's the pattern of it? I didn't find the "cube activates every 8 cycles [of the Moon]" in Hell cave in 1.0, did they take it out? I could be wrong as I'm missing only 2 of 50 pages at the moment...
• Did they also remove the "Crosses burn demons" and "Out Demonia" notes? Again, I couldn't find them in the Hell cave, there was only some quote "The more wicked his heart, the more grotesque the creature that dwells within". Googled it a bit, doesn't seem it's from the Bible (Bibles and crosses are very much used in both games).
• Kelvin suffering brain damage and being reduced to a child mentally is just sad, but given the amount of trauma he went through...
• Virginia removing her third extremities and getting pregnant with the player character, even adopting Kelvin! Cute sendoff
• Timmy finding cure for a myriad of illnesses using solafite (is that Dr Masaki with him? He knew what solafite was the moment Timmy put it on the table) and becoming a CEO of the cutting edge pharmaceuticals company in 2032-3. This is where it really gets wild as another island containing solafite is discovered and Timmy goes missing in the following years. This is how the sequel to the first game was teased and I'm 100% sure they're teasing the third game here. Both games have been tremendous commercial success for such a small company and I really can't wait where they go with this thing. Trans-dimensional stuff, teleportation, resurrection, potent materials and beings/civilizations behind all of it should really take the stage in the next game, but as Endnight likes to keep things vague and mysterious, I guess we'll only get glimpses while we continue chopping wood...

Games Beaten in 2023

1. Hitman 3 [2021]
2. Solar Ash [2021]
3. Midnight Fight Express [2022]
4. Luck be a Landlord [2023]
5. Ghostwire: Tokyo [2022]
6. Star Control [1990]
7. Wing Commander [1990]
8. Bimini Run [1990]
9. Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider [2023]
10. King’s Quest [1984]
11. King’s Quest II: Romancing the Throne [1985]
12. King’s Quest III: To Heir is Human [1986]
13. King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella [1988]
14. Norco [2022]
15. Armored Core 4 [2007]
16. Armored Core: For Answer [2008]
17. Mercs [1990]
18. King’s Bounty [1990]
19. King’s Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! [1990]
20. Turrican [1990]
21. Final Fantasy [1990]
22. Hi-Fi Rush [2023]
23. Dread Templar [2023] (End of January)
24. American McGee’s Alice [2000]
25. Phantasy Star II [1990]
26. Wario Land 4 [2001]
27. Haiku, the Robot [2022]
28. Webbed [2021]
29. Curse of the Dead Gods [2021]
30. Elderand [2023]
31. Awakened Evil [2023] (End of February)
32. Pizza Tower [2023]
33. Nioh 2 [2020]
34. Sifu [2022] (End of March)
35. Rune [2000]
36. Across the Obelisk [2022]
37. Have a Nice Death [2023]
38. Devil Spire [2022]
39. Forgive Me Father [2022]
40. Arx Fatalis [2002]
41. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare [2014]
42. Freedom Planet [2014] (End of April)
43. Redfall [2023]
44. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor [2023]
45. Chasm: The Rift [1997]
46. Darkest Dungeon II [2023] (End of May)
47. Bat Boy [2023]
48. Diablo IV [2023] (End of June)
49. Dave the Diver [2023] (End of July)
50. Hrot [2023]
51. Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun [2023]
52. Trepang2 [2023]
53. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom [2023] (End of August)
54. Starfield [2023]
55. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon [2023]
56. Blasphemous II [2023]
57. Cocoon [2023]
58. Viewfinder [2023]
59. Gun.Smoke [1985 and 1988]
60. Prison City [2023]
61. Tiny Thor [2023]
62. Super Mario Bros. Wonder [2023]
63. El Paso, Nightmare [2022]
64. El Paso, Elsewhere [2023] (End October)
65. RoboQuest [2023]
66. Gunhead [2023]
67. Cobalt Core [2023]
68. Bzzzt [2023]
69. Alan Wake II [2023]
70. Sanabi [2023]
71. Turbo Overkill [2023]
72. Humanity [2023]
73. American Arcadia [2023]
74. En Garde! [2023] (End of November)
75. Sea of Stars [2023]
76. Dredge [2023]
77. Gunbrella [2023]
78. The Last Faith [2023]
79. Lies of P [2023]
80. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 [2023]
81. Blood West [2023]
82. Jusant [2023] (End of December)

Beating 82 games in a year is no small feat, but I'm still trending downward. While there are periods where I cut through my backlog, my primary focus these past couple years has shifted more to preventing it from growing. Over half the games I beat this year were released in 2023. Even with containing the growth and whittling away what old games I found time for, my backlog still seems insurmountable.
Anyway, here are the highlights from my gaming exploits in 2023 from the list above.
I was waiting for Solar Ash and Hitman 3 to release on Steam so I knocked those out to start the year. Solar Ash is a decent artsy 3D platformer with decent boss battles. Hitman 3 has some pretty good level design, but I feel like the reboot peaked with the first game. I also went back to Curse of the Dead Gods, because I could never quite finish it despite really liking it at the time of its release. I finished it and I'm surprised it wasn't harder for me, considering I dropped it for awhile because it was too hard. It's a really solid Rogue-like that looks like a wannabe Hades, but it is distinguished enough to be its own thing. I also played Webbed, and every time I think about Webbed my adoration for it grows. It could be better with some things, but it's so charming and fun. Another "newish" game I played was Nioh 2, and I really don't understand the acclaim this game received at the time of its release. I found it to be a chore more often than not. I felt the same way to a degree about the first Nioh, but I liked that game far more than this one.
As per usual I also started out the year with clean up from the previous year, though I had extra cleanup duties from 2021 I was interested in tending to as well. Regarding the 2022 stuff. Midnight Fight Express was kind of cool as a brawler, but ultimately fairly one-note. Ghostwire: Tokyo was has plenty of interesting qualities, but also has as many annoying qualities as good qualities. Norco is an interesting adventure game that does some cool things and tells an interesting story. Haiku, the Robot is an inoffensive metroidvania. Across the Obelisk is a deckbuilder that I didn't think would grab me the way it did. I really enjoyed the synergies between party members and thought it did enough to standout amongst the other Slay the Spire types. Sifu is the best game I missed in 2022. It's incredibly satisfying to play and really makes you feel like Batman (only kind of joking). Devil Spire is a pretty cool King's Field style rogue like. I wish there was a bit more to it, but I liked it a lot. Forgive Me Father is the last bit of 2022 cleanup I performed, and while I love me a good boomer shooter, I didn't really find much of it to be very good beyond its aesthetic.
I didn't play through a ton of older stuff, but still a decent amount. I played Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, because it was among the ever growing list of Call of Duty games I have skipped. It's pretty solid, and I probably would have enjoyed it a fair amount at the time of its release. I played another FPS called Chasm: The Rift, and just like the reviews from the time would tell you, it is not good.
I also played an indie darling of sorts that I missed in Freedom Planet. It is a decent Sonic-esque game, but I don't particularly like many Sonic games. I played Wario Land 4 to wrap up my Wario Land degree and prep myself for some indie games like it. It's probably the best Wario Land game, but now surpassed by one of the aforementioned indies. I also played Gun.Smoke, which is a very good classic upward scrolling shooter.
I played Arx Fatalis, which is a pretty cool first person RPG that alleviated my itch for such games for a bit. I played a game called Rune, which is a classic PC hack-n-slash game from the era when those games were a thing. I had a decent and nostalgic time with it, but I wouldn't say it's anything special. American McGee's Alice is a game not totally dissimilar to Rune, that I was exposed to in my youth but never owned. I always wanted to go back and play it, remembering being stunned by the visuals and I finally have. It's cool to scratch off my backlog, but while I still like the look of it, it is clearly of the time in many ways.
I spent a good portion of my time this year tackling games from 1990. That is the year I will start with, when I get around to doing my "retroactive" Game of the Year stuff. I knocked out most of what I wanted to to feel good about my pending ceremony. Star Control is a really cool blend of classic arcade shmup action and strategy. Wing Commander is just an incredibly impressive game considering what else was coming around at that time, and I really enjoyed it. Bimini Run is a pretty cool arcade style game, but probably too hard for its own good. Mercs is a whatever follow up to Commando. King's Bounty is a surprisingly snappy game of exploration, conquest and strategy. Turrican is an action platformer famous for being one of the Amiga's best, but I think it is kind of bad. I played a pair of JRPGs that I'm glad and relieved to be done with. Final Fantasy started the landmark series and is a pretty good NES era JRPG. Phantasy Star II is similar, but has a neat sci-fi setting and as it was on the Genesis, it looks nicer. It also tells a slightly more involved story (and it did the thing first or whatever).
And because one of the King's Quest games released to acclaim in 1990, I played through a bunch of King's Quest games. I didn't expect it to be going in, but it is one of the years highlights for me, despite the games not being particularly great. King's Quest is a pretty basic adventure game with typing commands, but I really enjoyed the simplicity of it. King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne is another fairly simple continuation of the series, that I also enjoyed if not quite to the same degree. King's Quest III: To Heir is Human is perhaps the worst game to sit down and play, but it does probably tell the best story and has some cool (if frustrating) design tied to its gameplay and narrative. King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella is the last of the text command games and probably the all around best. King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! brings the series up to more "modern" adventure game standards by being a point and click game with a lot better art. A CD-ROM version was also eventually released, making it one of the earliest games with a fair amount of voice over. Playing through all the games back to back was a really cool microscopic look at how fast games evolved during the 6 years between King's Quest and King's Quest V.
In preparation for Armored Core VI, I played through the other two Miyazaki Armored Core games. Armored Core 4 isn't anything too special, and is more of what I expected based on my previous experiences with the series. Armored Core: For Answer improves upon 4 quite a bit, make the movement feel a lot smoother, and generally more fun to play. I haven't played every game in the series, but I still feel fairly confident in saying Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is the best the series has been since the original. The action is so smooth and it feels incredible to play.
Onto the 2023 games I played. A more in depth post will follow, as I have my own game of the year stuff to get to soon. I had a decent to good time with many of this years games, but I wouldn't say I had a great time with many of 2023's games. Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider was the first 2023 release that really impressed me. I've played all of Joymasher's games, and this is the first one that felt like it was firing on all cylinders with level design, feel and the retro look they always nail.
A bunch of other indie and some less indie sidescrollers were pretty good this year too. The NES styled Prison City is surprisingly good with its level and boss design. Tiny Thor reminded me of the SNES era Disney platformers I loved as a kid. They really nailed that sort of vibe and didn't forget to make it as tough as those nails they were using. Pizza Tower is a good and goofy game in the rare Wario Land lineage. It has lots of character and quirky level design. Blasphemous II is a pretty solid metroidvania follow up to its indie darling predecessor. The Last Faith is another solid game with a similar look and structure to Blasphemous but leans much farther into the Souls spectrum. American Arcadia is an okay puzzle platformer that tells a really fun story. Where similar games, like Limbo or Inside are carried mostly by their puzzles and minimalistic storytelling, American Arcadia is carried by the story it puts front and center. Dave the Diver is one of the best games that released this year, because of the way it combines sidescrolling exploration and restaurant management, and a seeming refusal to stop throwing curveballs at you. If it was just the diving for fish, it'd still be pretty good, but it really elevates itself with its variety. Nintendo also showed up with Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which is great in many ways, but ultimately while I was playing it, never felt the magic I felt when playing other Mario games. Still, it is an improvement on the 2D side of the Mario aisle when compared to the "New" series.
I played a handful of 2023 indie boomer shooters, but only a few felt like something to write home about. Dread Templar is very Quake-esque with some good and secretive level design. Turbo Overkill is a cyberpunk shooter with hordes of enemies a la Serious Sam, and I actually enjoyed it in spite of that. It turns out a chainsaw leg is kind of nice, and the vehicle sections mixed up the action from time to time. RoboQuest is a really enjoyable FPS roguelike with some borderlandsy characteristics. I almost don't want to say it, but I kind of enjoyed Redfall, despite its issues. It is a more barren Far Cry (it even makes sense that it was empty, because why would people be out and about when vampires are afoot?), and kind of just had a decent time mainlining the story without being interrupted by a million side quests or enemies en route to my next objective. I wish the story was presented better, or that it had better AI, or that it generally felt like more of an Arkane game, but I was surprised to find myself not hating it given all the negative press.
I feel compelled to mention Blood West as it is kind of similar to Redfall, but far more irritating to play and as I had high hopes for it, it is among the more disappointing experiences of my 2023. Thinking of it more like Thief made it a little more palatable. Then I played a few other shooters that also didn't quite live up to my hopes for them. Trepang2 is okay, but unfortunately didn't quite deliver on its new gun-fu FEAR gameplay. Hrot was goofy in some of the right ways and generally solid, but otherwise not up to the Quake standard. Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun has an amazing look and feel to it, but the level and enemy design rubbed me the wrong way more often than not. Gunhead with its GameCube vibe is kind of different from the rest in that I think I like it more than it is actually good.
I also played El Paso, Elsewhere and it's FPS prequel, El Paso, Nightmare. Nightmare is straight garbage to put it lightly. Elsewhere is a a decent game, but is largely carried by its writing. While the OG Max Payne gameplay is cool to experience again, they don't do much with it in, even with 50 levels to play with.
Starfield is the other big 2023 shooteshooter adjacent game I played, and I'm both surprised and not surprised by all the hate it gets. Normally gets shit for releasing a buggy mess, but Starfield is pretty polished. The problem is the way it is this time, and I do agree there is a lot of menu management and fast travel. I am still the weirdo who enjoyed playing through it. The ending soured me a little, but I love a Bethesda style game, and it's not like they're coming out with them every year. While Starfield is not the best such game, I had a wonderful time exploring the Milky Way.
There was a pair of 2023 puzzlers I really enjoyed this year, and both interestingly featured "boss fights." Cocoon is the sort of quality puzzle game I was hoping for when Playdead fractured and formed two new studios. The puzzles are super engaging and the boss battles are a nice wrinkle that feel great to fight. Humanity is a lemmings type game that goes further with the concept than I ever thought it would, and the Mizuguchi DNA cannot be denied as the game couldn't resist turning it into a shmup. The other puzzle game I played was Viewfinder. It has a cool central gimmick, but it is pretty thin compared to other similar puzzle games.
Onto some of the other higher profile 2023 games. Hi-Fi Rush was a big surprise to start the year, being a game that combines all the elements, music, sound, gameplay and writing to offer one of the year's tightest campaigns. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has all the production value and polish Insomniac is known for, but it's more of the same, and I can't seem to get invested in this version of Spider-Man. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is similarly solid, but seems to be also suffering from a series sophomore slump where engaging with these characters in their second act just not as engaging this time around. Diablo IV is probably the most fun I've had playing through an ARPG campaign since Champions of Norrath, but I didn't stick with it beyond that, and that's what that genre's enjoyers seem to care about. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is basically Breath of the Wild with more interesting powers and better dungeons, but it still didn't fix everything I would've liked. Lies of P is an enjoyable enough soulslike that might be the best imitator of From Software's work so far, but I still wouldn't say it comes particularly close. Alan Wake II delivers as an auto-biography of Sam Lake? It has all the Finnish silliness you'd want and makes for a solid action survival horror experience that competes with the best that genre has to offer.
I wouldn't say I played too many outright bad games from this year, but plenty were fairly middling. Even some that garnered plenty of acclaim elsewhere like Dredge and Jusant, while fine, didn't particularly grab me in the same way they seemed to many other people. Darkest Dungeon II has grown on me with distance and the benefit of hindsight, but I remember being constantly frustrated while playing it. Elderand is a middling metroidvania I played. Awakened Evil is a pretty decent if ugly classicvania I played. En Garde! is charming, but ultimately thin as a brawler. Have a Nice Death looks nice, but felt lacking in too many areas to really let its greys shine. Bat Boy is a lot funner as a concept compared to its execution. Bzzzt looks really nice, but as far as precision platformers go, it's pretty basic. Sanabi is way too into its own story for its own good, and the platforming stays too simple for far too long. It doesn't feel particularly engaging to play until the final section that basically has you speedrun the entire game. Gunbrella feels pretty good to move around in and has a setting of intrigue, but the combat and encounters leave a lot to be desired. Luck be a Landlord is maybe the game I liked the least of all the game's I played this year, frequently being frustrating and never becoming interesting.
To end on a more positive note. Sea of Stars is perhaps the best game I played in 2023 from any year. It's a wonderful retro RPG in the vein of Chrono Trigger. I still have a few more games in my 2023 backlog for my Game of the Year, most notably Baldur's Gate III. Even so, I don't have too much "important" cleanup beyond that, so I consider my 2023 a successful battle in the long war I wage with my backlog. I kept it from growing and trimmed it where I could. I also learned more about what kinds of games I ought to skip in 2024 around since I did spend a fair bit of time and money on some middling experiences. We live and we learn and we yearn to be better next year, which is now this year.
2023 is in the books. I don't think I missed anything, but I probably did. Onward to 2024.

This is going to be a heavy one. Discussions of antisemitism, Nazism, and other unpleasant things. There is a content warning further down.
Who is Richard Wagner?
Richard Wagner (1813-1883) is one of Germany’s most famous and controversial composers of all time. His works have influenced countless artists, philosophers, politicians, and many others. He also had a very interesting life. But we’re not going to talk about that. We’re going to discuss one of his numerous controversial beliefs, specifically his antisemitism. If you want to read more about him, his Wikipedia page has an in-depth summary of his life and many exploits. There is also a Wikipedia page for his controversies.
Now...his antisemitism.
Just to point out, many people in Wagner’s time were antisemitic. They frequently included antisemitic themes in their works and publicly espoused their beliefs. Examples are Edgar Degas, Virginia Wolfe, and even many of Wagner’s fellow composers, such as Tchaikovsky and Frederic Chopin.
Even so, Wagner was especially virulently antisemitic. He published many works condemning Jews, the most caustic of which was his 1850 essay “Das Judenthum in der Musik” (Judaism in music). He published it anonymously. In it, he attacked Jewish artists, saying that the Jewish voice was "intolerably jumbled blabber", a "creaking, squeaking, buzzing snuffle" and that Jews were thus incapable of making real music. He also took aim at two Jewish musicians in particular: Giacomo Meyerbeer and Felix Mendelssohn. Earlier in his career, Meyerbeer had actually loaned the then impoverished Wagner some money and helped him stage his first successful opera in Dresden. Yes, Wagner was a dick.
In 1869, Wagner republished the essay, this time proudly under his own name, adding addendums and further attacking the (now deceased) Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn, as well as some other Jewish artists. The worst thing he added is: “'Remember that one thing alone can redeem you (The Jews) from the curse which weighs upon you: the redemption of Ahasverus - destruction!'”. Today, it's debated if he meant literal destruction or metaphorical destruction.
However, despite his disgust towards them, Wagner still had many Jewish friends and admirers. He even revered some of them, such as the poet Heinrich Heine. However, not even they were free from his antisemitism. When Herman Levi, a Jewish composer, was chosen to conduct Wagner’s last published opera Parsifal, Wagner objected and asked Levi to get baptised before conducting. Levi refused. He still continued praising Wagner, and was even asked to be a pallbearer at his funeral.
Another well-known fact about Wagner was that Adolf Hitler idolized his music. Hitler even had several original copies of Wagner’s operas in his bunker at the end of World War 2. Hilariously, many of his fellow nazis did not share his admiration for the composer:

He also issued one thousand free tickets for an annual Bayreuth performance of Meistersinger to Nazi functionaries. When Hitler entered the theater, however, he discovered that it was almost empty. The following year, those functionaries were ordered to attend, but they could be seen dozing off during the performance, so that in 1935, Hitler conceded and released the tickets to the public.

(The Bayreuth Festival is an annual month-long Wagner festival, held from July-August).
Two of Wagner’s children married people who admired Hitler and the Nazis. Hitler was even photographed with his granddaughter.
Today, the Wagner Museum is trying to grapple with the composers complicated legacy. There is also an intense scholarly debate about whether or not Wagner’s antisemitism influenced his music or if his operas feature any caricatures or Jewish stereotypes.
Unsurprisingly, Wagner’s music is rarely performed in Israel. In 2012, a planned Wagner concert was cancelled after a wave of protests. In 2014, a symposium on his music in Jerusalem was also disturbed by protests:

As [conductor Frederic] Chaslin was delivering his opening speech, a young man climbed on stage, yelling at the audience “Dachau, Auschwitz, kapos” and threatening to fight anyone who might try to remove him.
Yair Stern, CEO of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, tried to calm the intruder, but was met with insults. “You defile the memory of your father, who was murdered so I could speak here today,” the intruder told Stern, according to witnesses.

Now…onto Tannhäuser.
What is Tannhäuser?
Tannhäuser is one of Wagner’s earlier, lesser known, operas. He wrote it in 1845, when he was 32-years-old.
If you want a serious summary of the play, please read the synopsis on Wikipedia. Wagner basically mashed together a bunch of German myths and legends. Here’s a nonserious summary of the plot:
Act 1: The protagonist, a knight/bard/bad boy named Tannhäuser (title drop!) falls in love with the goddess Venus and ignores his good girl™ love interest Elizabeth. He goes with Venus to her super-secret hidden sin kingdom aka Venusburg and sins with her for a year. Then, filled with remorse, he wants to return to Elizabeth and be forgiven.
Elizabeth has another love interest, Wolfram, who is actually a decent guy and really loves her (he doesn’t sin, gives her space, and respects her choices) but she rejects him in favour of bad boy Tannhäuser.
Act 2: Tannhäuser returns to Elizabeth. There is a singing competition. Tannhäuser ends up singing about how great Venus is, dramatically revealing his sin holiday. Everyone rejects him and wants to execute him. But Elizabeth protects him by shielding him with her body. Tannhäuser is exiled and joins a bunch of pilgrims to Rome to see the Pope to get atonement.
Act 3: Elizabeth is distraught that Tannhäuser has seemingly abandoned his pilgrimage after he doesn’t return with the pilgrims. She resolves to pray for Tannhäuser’s salvation, even if she must DIE for it! Wolfram tries to dissuade her, but he can’t, and leaves her alone after she requests it. Time passes. Tannhäuser finally returns, all dishevelled and ugly, and meets Wolfram. To the decent guy’s horror, Tannhäuser is calling out for Venus again. Wolfram persuades him to tell him about his pilgrimage. Basically, Tannhäuser reached Rome, asked the Pope for atonement, and was rejected and cursed. The particular curse the Pope said is “As this staff in my hand, no more shall bear fresh leaves, from the hot fires of hell, salvation never shall bloom for thee”. This made Tannhäuser ☹ and he fled back to Germany to seek comfort in Venus.
Venus appears and tries to call him back to her, but Wolfram yells Elizabeth’s name. Tannhäuser remembers his good girl™ love interest. Then, a funeral procession suddenly appears. It is Elizabeth’s funeral! She has DIED to redeem Tannhäuser. Venus, realising that she is wasting her time, vanishes. Tannhäuser goes to Elizabeth’s body and cries over it, then DIES.
The pilgrims return (again), carrying the Pope’s staff. It has bloomed, signifying that a miraculous miracle has occurred and Tannhäuser has been forgiven in death. The surviving cast then sing about how holy and forgiving God is, and then the opera ends.
1845-1860-Early controversies
Tannhäuser has a troubled production history. Wagner was never satisfied with the score and kept editing it throughout his lifetime. There are three versions of the opera; the “Dresden version”, the “Paris version”, and the “Vienna version” (basically Paris version 2.0).
The opera first premiered in Dresden on 19th October 1845. There were several problems: first, Wagner’s niece had been cast in the role of Elizabeth and he’d intended the piece to premiere on her birthday, but she fell ill, so the premier was pushed by back 6 days, and second, it wasn’t as successful as his previous opera had been. Wagner’s dissatisfaction with the score reared its ugly head and he revised it constantly over the next few years. The “Dresden version” finally had a proper premiere in 1860.
The “Paris version” has a more interesting history. Throughout his life, Wagner was a big hit in Germany, but in 1849, he was politically exiled from his homeland and kicked out of Dresden. At first, he moved to Switzerland, but in 1860, he went to Paris to make a comeback. He chose to stage Tannhäuser. Big mistake.
The style of opera in Paris was very different than in Germany. So, Wagner had to completely rework Tannhäuser’s score.
The biggest change was the insertion of a ballet into the first act (more on this in a second). The opera was scheduled for ten performances. It had a whopping 164 rehearsals. Wagner wanted it to be perfect.
However, there were several problems. Wagner’s patron, Pauline Metternich, the wife of the Austrian ambassador, was a hated figure in France. There was also the aristocratic “Jockey club”:

Since its first flowering in the mid-seventeenth century, French operas had featured lengthy episodes of dance: of ballet. By the mid-nineteenth century, an invariable ritual had crept into the productions of the Paris Opera: all performances were required to have a lengthy ballet sequence during the second act. This was due to the demands of the Jockey Club, an elite sporting organization of wealthy and aristocratic gentlemen whose mistresses were the ballerinas in the corps de ballet. The men of the Jockey Club dined late, and thus could not be expected to occupy their boxes until the second act of a performance. Their power and prestige was such that no one ever dared question their tardiness or the balletic tradition it spawned.

Yes, one of the reasons Tannhäuser failed in Paris was because a number of wealthy nobles were upset that it disrupted their dining schedules and sex lives. All because Wagner put the ballet in the first act and not the second.
Wagner also had to contend with the “Claque”, a group of regular opera attendees who expected to be paid to behave well at performances. Every opera house had one. But because Wagner was Wagner, he refused to pay them.
At the first performance, the audience, led by the local Claque, broke out into whistles and cat calls, rising to a crescendo by the third act. The Jockey Club also did their bit, booing and arguing with pro-Wagner members of the audience, including the French Royal family.
In response, Wagner removed most of the ballet and some other controversial changes. This didn’t quell the furore. At the second performance, there as was an even worse disturbance. The Jockey Club turned up armed with dog whistles and distributed more to the rest of the audience. They were being sold outside the opera house by merchants, marketed as “Wagner Whistles”.
The third performance was also a complete shitshow. This time, the interruptions lasted up to fifteen minutes long. Wagner cancelled the rest of the performances. His dreams of conquering Paris had been ruined. Wagner continued making changes to Tannhäuser over the last two decades of his life. His wife noted in her diary on 23 January 1883, three weeks before Wagner died, that "He says he still owes the world Tannhäuser." 130 years later…
2013: I did Nazi see that coming
May 2013 was a special month. It marked 200 years since the birth of Richard Wagner. Therefore, opera houses all over the world decided to stage his works, celebrating the composer’s life and many achievements.
The Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Dusseldorf was no exception. They decided to stage Tannhäuser and hired the award-winning director Burkhard C. Kosminski. He was primarily a theatre director, and this was his first foray into opera. It should’ve been one of the dime a dozen Wagner productions that month. A single drop in an ocean of Wagner. If it was lucky, it might get some local coverage to drive up hype. Instead, their production made national and international headlines. For all the wrong reasons. This is because, instead of staging a “normal” production of Tannhäuser, Kosminski decided to do something special.
He turned Venusburg into a concentration camp. With Venus as the camp director and Tannhäuser as an SS officer.
Yes, he decided to stage a Wagner opera in Nazi Germany. He was hardcore. He believed that: “Opera is not an aesthetic event… romantic kitsch has no relevance for me”.
According to production notes the opera "tells a nightmarish story about guilt and repression, an attempt at atonement and final capitulation."
And, oh boy, was it a nightmare.
HEAVY CONTENT WARNING
Here are some of the controversial things Kosminski added:
• Act 1 featured “buckets of blood”.
• The opening overture featured a gas chamber scene: “nude actors are lowered to the floor on a cross made of glass cubes that are slowly filled with fog to represent the gas chambers”
• Later on, there is a a realistic execution of a Jewish family. Their heads were shaved and then they were shot. This was done at the behest of Venus, who forced Tannhäuser to kill them.
• Kosminski’s edginess extended to changing the plot of the opera. Wolfram being a decent person? Fuck that! In Kosminski’s version, Wolfram rapes Elizabeth, leaving her “bloodied and crying”. She is so traumatised by this that she commits suicide; at first she tries to slit her wrists, but when this fails, she sets herself on fire.
• She returns as a burning angel at a Nazi state funeral at the end. Tannhäuser also goes “insane” at this funeral.
• The second act featured “undead concentration camp inmates” as part of a hallucination.
• The SS costumes prominently featured the swastika symbol, which is apparently illegal in Germany.
• “At the end, the blood-covered child of the parents who were shot by the Nazis gives the criminal "Tannhäuser" a flowering branch - as a symbol of forgiveness, which does not exist.” Here is a snippet of the opera from a news story.
At the premiere, the audience was shellshocked. It only took 30 minutes for them to start booing. Some people even stormed out, slamming doors as they left. Those remaining praised the music, cheering the conductor and singers, but pelted Kosminski with angry boos when he appeared on stage. At the celebration party afterwards, opera director Christoph Meyer had to call for order because Kosminski was still being booed.
The Deutsche Oper am Rhein received a flood of complaints. Some people were so traumatised by the performance, especially the execution scene, that they had to seek medical attention. One person had lost members of their family to the Ceausescu regime in Romanian, the realism of the violence affected them so much that they had fled the theatre. Most reviews were not kind either, calling the production “obscene and hurtful”.
I struggled to find quotes from reviews as most are either deleted or behind paywalls, but found some on a contemporary post on an opera forum:

I'll quote from today's WAZ review: "Unprecedented booing for the director, good applause for everyone else."
The Kölner Stadtanzeiger, which usually praises such defacements, also wrote a scathing criticism today. Just a few key words from it: "As if at the push of a button, the premiere audience let out a volley of boos, which was repeated at the end when the directing team appeared", "The unexpected shooting scene, which interrupts the music dramatically inappropriately, is in fact hardly anything like clumsy - dramatic dramatics can hardly be surpassed" "On the other hand, an unpopular déjà vu effect had to be dealt with: swastikas and SS uniforms were once in vogue in Wagner productions."
"The fact that the Wartburg Society immediately sets up the equation Venusberg = Auschwitz in the second act lacks any plausibility and the viewer, who refuses this steep spasm, is neither dumb nor reactionary", "The directing disaster is compounded by the fact that Kominski didn't come up with much beyond his exotic basic idea. The choreography of the mass scenes can hardly be surpassed in terms of amateurish uninspiredness" "Conclusion: This production is bad"

Snippet from a review preserved on archive.org:

Director Burkhard Kosminski proved in Düsseldorf that stupidity, arrogance and lack of imagination no longer work. But he also showed - was allowed to show - that the victims are presented in a circus-like manner in a contemptuous manner. Completely unnecessary and - I stick with it - with cheap sensationalism, he staged a shooting scene that, in its design, is primarily one thing: disregarding the dignity of the victims. Provocation to stimulate thought processes? No. A scene in which the dignity of the victims is so massively trampled upon does not promote thought processes, but is unseemly. And that's why it doesn't belong on a stage.

The Jewish community in Dusseldorf was quick to criticise the production, calling it “tasteless”. The leader of the community, Michael Szentei-Heise, added that: “"This opera has nothing to do with the Holocaust," …"But I think that the audience has made this very clear to the opera house and the director.". He also thought that the production shouldn’t be cancelled.
Oded Horowitz, head of the Jewish community of North Rhine, also weighed in:

“Survivors are likely to find the provocative handling of Nazi history in this Tannhauser production quite painful. ”While remembrance of Nazi crimes is important, he said, “a theatre scandal is not our preferred form of confronting the past”.

The furore got so bad that it attracted the attention of the-then Israeli ambassador to Germany, Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, who criticized the production: “Any use of Nazi symbols in such a setting is out of place." he told a local newspaper.
The theatre had “intensive discussions” with Kosminski about toning down the brutality of the scenes, but he refused to compromise his artistic vision. Meyer said that it had been their intention to “mourn, not mock” the victims of the holocaust. But it was too little, too late. The production was cancelled. The rest of the performances were performed in concert only. This was a good thing. The music seemed to be the only praiseworthy part of the whole mess.
Kosmisnki was “shocked”:

Kosminski said he was "shocked" by the theater's decision and that he had simply been informed by the opera's management. "I presented my plan 10 months ago and explained what I wanted to do," he told the Westdeutsche Zeitung newspaper. "I also established a great deal of transparency during rehearsals. I am not a scandalous director and I have already staged more than 50 productions." In an interview with Der Spiegel, he opened up further about the controversy, considering it “censorship”:
No, but I am shocked and speechless and cannot understand his decision. We were both put under massive pressure by the local press and the know-it-all ignorance of people, of whom most of whom aren't even familiar with the performance. What happened in Düsseldorf is the censorship of art. That is the actual scandal.

Several Isreali artists sided with him and called for the restoration of the production, saying “We believe that Wagner's music is established enough to allow for two opposing perspectives on his work. This gives the audience the right to boo a performance - but not a theater to censor it.”. Many German journalists also agreed with him:

“The Germans murdered 6 million Jews, but when you remind them of that, some people these days call a doctor,” wrote Wolfgang Höbel in the newsweekly Der Spiegel. “If this example becomes the norm, we’ll soon not be allowed to see any depiction of Nazi crimes in the cinema, theater or museums.”

Hilariously enough, when I was researching this, I found Kosminski’s personal website. It hasn’t been updated since 2021, and is in fact under maintenance, but an archived version is available. Buried deep in the press page is a list of articles about his 2013 production of Tannhäuser (they are in German). Some of these are to be expected, either PR pieces or rare positive reviews, but others are just press pieces defending him and agreeing with him that the cancellation was censorship. Including one from August 2013, months after the opera finished.
After the final concert performance at the end of May, everyone moved on with their lives and the furore finally died down. Kosminski returned to the theatre. He hasn’t worked on any operas since.
My thoughts
As for my $0.02, I think that the initial reaction was justified. Kosminski had never directed an opera before, and it showed in his handling of the production. From all the numerous news articles I’ve read, his direction, and his response to the backlash, came across as heavy handed and tone deaf. I also think the backlash to the backlash was overblown. Kosminski wasn’t censored, he was just too proud to tone down the unnecessary brutal violence in his work. The opera house had an extensive conversation with him and gave him plenty of opportunities to address the controversy.
On the other hand, I don’t think he set out to mock holocaust victims and genuinely believed he was honouring their suffering. But sensitive topics require sensitive handling. Kominski was like a bull in a China shop. And then you have shit like Elisabeth’s rape and her graphic suicide scene. Which are just WTF. As if the production needed more edginess.
End of rant
Thanks for reading this and sticking to the end! This was a loooong one. My next writeup will be way shorter, and lighter.
P.S. This following section didn’t really fit with the overall writeup but am including it because it’s interesting.
Coda: 2015
For some reason, despite being one of Wagner’s lesser known operas, Tannhäuser keeps getting weird, controversial, productions. In Russia in 2015, the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre staged a version that was apparently offensive to Christians:

The production was spearheaded by the young director Timofey Kulyabin, who completely reworked Wagner’s libretto for the modern day. Instead of a singing contest in the second act, for example, Tannhäuser participates in a film festival with his own work about the unknown years of Jesus Christ. According to Tannhäuser, in Kulyabin’s version, Jesus spent 18 years in “Venus’s grotto, tested by temptations of love and pleasure only to leave the world of fantasy for the world of suffering and death”. Tannhäuser presents the film at the festival with a striking poster depicting a crucifix between a naked woman’s open legs. In the opera, the poster sparks virulent indignation from other contestants and the public. They attempt to physically beat Tannhäuser, but after his mother Elizabeth’s intrusion, can only banish him from the town of Wartburg, where the contest takes place.

(Personally, for me, the weirdest thing was that they made his love interest his mother??)
This drew the ire of the Orthodox Church. Thousands of protestors turned up at the theatre to decry the opera and complain about western decadence. In the end, the Russian Minister of Culture himself stepped in and fired the theatre director, Boris Mezdrich, replacing him with some flunky from St Petersburg. The church also tried to sue Mezdrich and Kulyabin for “offending christians but the lawsuit was thrown out.

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• Right now, there are several short stories that I will post over time. So, look forward to that!

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• Let's start with Lost Legends 3: Beatrix Sallow and the Wine Cellar Caper...

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• By. R. E. Levy

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"Hello, Mr. Teapot. How are you this afternoon?" Beatrix pulled the fine china down from the cabinet, standing on her tip-toes to do so. "Oh, I'm lovely, thanks for asking," she responded to the silence of the inanimate object. "And how is your wife, Ms. Sugar Bowl?" Beatrix asked, retrieving the other piece of the set. "I see…" she replied stoically. "Thank you for telling me."
The kitchen of Lord Griswold's mansion was empty, save for Beatrix, and in fact, the silence that permeated it traveled throughout the entirety of the enormous house. At one time, it had made her anxious, but now she talked to the tea sets, which made the immediate loneliness a little more bearable. Beatrix had never liked other people much anyway, or at least that was what she told herself.
"Not too hot for you, Mr. T?" she asked as she filled the wide white belly of the teapot with the floral brown of earl grey.
"Oh, no, only one for me, Mrs. S. I shouldn't indulge," she said, placing one sparkling white sugar cube into the bottom of a thin porcelain cup. The tea steamed as she poured it over the sugar cube, the confectionary quickly melting away and disappearing entirely into the brew.
"No, I haven't had any word from Lord Griswold in quite some time, Mr. Creamer," she paused as if listening to a response, dribbling the tiniest splash of milk into her tea. "You're right. It is a bit disconcerting."
She sat down at the table, the white linen of the tablecloth brushing her stockinged legs.
"I appreciate your concern, Mr. C," she nodded solemnly, "But Lord Griswold entrusted the care of his estate to me and only me. He trusts me," she took a long, loud sip, "If he didn't, why would he have left me here?" the tenor of her voice lost some of its confidence, "Alone?"
There was a long, tense silence.
"I am very capable," she said with a giggle, patting the teapot lid, "thank you for noticing."
Beatrix set the cup of tea down and smoothed the folds of her black skirt beneath her hands, hearing only the swaying tick of the grandfather clock in the corner. For whatever reason, she ended the conversation with the fine china there. There were no more awkward questions from Mr. C, no more fawning compliments from Mr. T, and certainly not a peep out of Mrs. S. Beatrix simply drank the pot of tea in the still quiet of the mansion.
There was no loneliness in her expression, however, and from time to time, she would hum a tune to herself or swing her feet under the table, her demeanor something like a child waiting for the return of a parent on an errand. When the tea was gone, she carefully cleaned up, washing out the serving dishes and then drying them meticulously until they practically sparkled with the effort. Then she slid the tea set back into the cabinet, placing it precisely where she had found it as if it had never been used at all.
"Time for more work," she said with a light sigh, tightening the strings of her apron at the small of her back.
Beatrix skipped out into the foyer and inspected the intricate tile mosaic that made up the entryway to Lord Griwold's mansion of an estate.
"This could use a good scrub," she proclaimed, her hands on her hips with determination. Beatrix procured a mop and a bucket, filling the thing to the brim with hot, soaping water.
She struggled back to the entryway, some of the stuff slopping over the lip of the bucket and splashing at her feet.
"Ugh," Beatrix said distastefully, "too much work."
She set the bucket down, and with a wave of her hand, the sudsy container of water was levitating in the air. "That's better!" she said gleefully.
Beatrix moved from one corner of the room to the next, sweeping the broom almost as if she were dancing with it. The tile beneath her feet sparkled and shined. She used the same magic to empty and return the bucket to its place with a twirl of a finger, wringing out the mop and setting it inside the broom closet.
"What's next?" she asked the empty mansion. "Mhhm," she nodded her head and began to walk up the grand staircase that led to the second floor. "A little dusting in the library sounds perfect. I might even read a book!" she ended the thought with a hapless giggle.
The double doors to the library always filled Beatrix with a sense of wonder. Their ornate, carved shape looked more like a painting than carpentry, and it was with a reverent hand that she pushed them open. One of her many tasks was checking each tome for book lice, and though it was a monotonous chore, it did allow her to get to know the selections of Lord Griswold's personal collection.
Today she started with the titles that began with 'E,' having finished up with 'D' the day before. The first book she pulled from the shelf was titled Eggsellent, One Chef's love affair with the Humble Egg. Intrigued, Beatrix flipped open the book and began to peruse its recipes. After her inspection revealed no sign of insect intruders, she snapped the book shut, ran her feather duster over it, and returned it to the shelf.
"I'll have to try making that quiche," she said to herself.
She moved methodically down the row this way, finding travel diaries, biographies of famous wizards, and even a field guide to exotic mushrooms. It was one of the less tedious tasks she had been assigned by Lord Griswold in her singular upkeep of his estate and one she not-so-secretly looked forward to every day. Perhaps it was the interruption of her favorite task that led to the events that followed.
Beatrix's focus and peace were shattered by a significant clamor coming from below. She thrust the book in her hand back onto the shelf and raced out of the library, pausing at the landing to the grand staircase. There was a prolonged silence, and then the ruckus came again. The simple black flats on her feet slapped against the stairs as she flew down them, careening toward the kitchen.
Beatrix skated into the room, gripping the wash sink for support as she slid to a stop and listened once more, just to make sure. The noise was louder here, a chaotic mixture of chatter and roughhousing. Beatrix paused her whole body tense with the act of listening. She took a steadying breath and approached the servants' stairwell that led down to the wine cellar. The racket pinged off the stone stairwell, bubbling up from below.
"Bandits?" she whispered to herself, "After Lord Griswold's rare collection of vintages? How did they get in?"
Carefully she began her descent, one step at a time, her ears piqued to any noise or talk that might reveal more about the intruders. There was a loud crash and the sound of shattering glass, and Beatrix pressed herself into the wall as a gruff voice broke over the chaos.
"Grub! Watch those damn clumsy hands of yours, dammit!"
"Sorry, sir!" came a higher-pitched, almost wheezy response.
Beatrix peered around the corner, her eyes adjusting slowly to the dim light of the cellar. A few torches had been lit, their flickering orange glow dancing shadows across the stone floor and walls. In the shadows moved odd shapes.
"These are the smallest bandits I've ever seen," she murmured as the intruders continued to argue amongst themselves.
Gradually, as her vision grew more precise, Beatrix realized that her newfound roommates were not actually human at all. The tallest of them, the one that had been referred to as "sir," could be nearly her height, she supposed, but all the rest would come up to her waist, at best.
"And they're…green," she said to herself, her eyes going wide.
One of the bandits came dangerously close to her as he stuffed bottles of wine into a large sack. Beatrix studied him, calling to mind the many scientific guides she had perused in the Lord's library. The creature's short stature and algae-green skin were not enough to identify his species, but the large, almost luminous eyes combined with blunted fingers that ended in sharp claws gave him away.
"Goblins!" she shrieked at full volume, and the thief closest to her startled with a loud yelp, the bag of wine he was holding splashing to the floor and spreading out in a purple pool.
"Who's there!" called the gruff, tall one, stepping fully into the torchlight.
Beatrix gripped the handle of her feather duster tightly in her right hand and moved out of the stairwell into the center of the room. "Mine name is Beatrix Sallow, and you are trespassing in Lord Griswold's wine cellar!"
The goblins around her began to snicker, the what she now recognized as a hobgoblin leader let out the loudest guffaw of them all.
"You're awful brave for a maid," he said, orange eyes glinting at her as his fanged mouth opened in a grin. "But we can't have you following us, now can we?"
The goblins surrounded them now, eager for whatever they assumed would happen next.
Beatrix pulled on the handle of her feather duster and watched at the blade inside it was revealed, gleaming red in the light of the torches. The hobgoblin took a step back in surprise, his cat-like eyes blinking rapidly.
"I said you're trespassing," Beatrix hissed before leaping at the leader.
The hobgoblin quickly drew his own weapon, a crude ax that met her blade mid-air, sending an aching vibration down Beatrix's arm. It did not deter her. She snarled and pushed forward again as the goblins around her recovered from their surprise and began to cheer for their leader.
"Get her, sir!"
"Snark! Snark! Snark!" chanted some others.
"Your name—" she gritted her teeth together as their weapons caught, "—is Snark?" Snark, the hobgoblin gave a guttural laugh as he forced her backward, "Your name is Beatrix?"
"Beatrix is a fine name!" she snapped back.
"Snark is a traditional Hobgoblin name! I am named after my grandfather," said Snark, brandishing his axe menacingly.
Beatrix paused, "Oh, that's very nice, actually."
"Thank—Thank you?"
"This fighting is getting us nowhere," Beatrix sighed and shook her head.
"Why—"
Snark was cut off as Beatrix waved her blade, a blue glow now suffusing the metal. The hobgoblin's body went rigid.
"You're going to take me to your leader," she said authoritatively.
"Boss?" asked one of the goblins in concern as he raced to Snark's side and began to tug on his coat.
"There's no problem here, Grub. This nice lady wants to meet the boss."
"That seems like a problem if I'm honest, sir," Grub pointed out.
Snark waved away the goblin, and Grub shuffled back to the small collection of goblins at Beatrix's back.
"You try anything, lady, and we'll getcha!" said one of them.
Beatrix turned and fixed the offending goblin in her sternest gaze. The creature squeaked in fear and ducked behind his compatriots. Snark turned and strode behind one of the large caskets of golden ale that lined the back wall. Beatrix followed and let out a gasp as the crumbled-away wall behind it was revealed.
"So that's how you got in," she whispered.
"Wasn't so hard," Grub chimed, "you should really tell your Lord to reinforce this foundation."
"Isn't up to code," said another.
Beatrix took in this information with a grave nod.
Grub skittered ahead, torch in his hand, leading the way down a crudely carved tunnel that Beatrix had to crouch to fit through. The air around her felt damp, and the loamy smell of dirt suffused the space.
"How far does this go?" she asked, her voice muted by the confines of her surroundings.
"Oh, it'll take us most of the afternoon," answered one of the other goblins. "Name's Loo, by the way," he held out one forest-green, gnarled hand.
Beatrix shook Loo's hand vigorously, "Nice to meet you," she replied, "I have to say that digging tunnels into cellars doesn't seem like the most efficient way to rob people."
"You think this is our first heist, Missus?" responded Loo with a wild cackle, "We've broken into half the manors in this county alone."
"Always through the cellar?"
Loo shook his head, "No, don't be ridiculous. This was just the best option for this particular job. Would have gone off without a hitch—" he raised his voice, "IF SOMEBODY HADN'T MADE SO MUCH NOISE."
Grub snapped his head around and glared at Loo.
"First time," Loo jabbed his thumb in Grub's direction and shook his head at Beatrix as if in commiseration.
"Ah," Beatrix sighed knowingly.
The odd group traveled in silence for a while, Beatrix's blade still glowing a subtle blue, maintaining her control over Snark. The tunnel began to widen slightly and slant upward toward the surface. Beatrix craned her gaze around the lumbering form of Snark and caught a glimpse of a light glowing beyond. As they neared it, the goblins around her began to grow agitated.
"I really don't think the boss is going to like this," she heard one whisper.
"Especially coming back empty-handed," said another.
"Snark is in charge. He's gonna take the heat, not us."
Snark, for his part, seemed unmoved. In fact, the hobgoblin was humming happily to himself as they approached what Beatrix could only assume was the exit.
A subtle heat radiated through the air now, and a distinct sulfur flavor to the atmosphere. Beatrix covered her nose with her hand.
"Where on earth are we headed?" she asked.
"You wanted to see the boss, so to the boss, we go," Snark said, his gravely voice mixing oddly with the sing-song tone of his words.
Beatrix covered her eyes with her other hand as she stepped out of the tunnel and out into whatever awaited them. The light was not altogether that bright; to her surprise, it only seemed so in comparison to the dankness of the path that had led here. She blinked, her eyes more comfortable now as she began to look around.
Beatrix and her green companions now stood in a large, cave-like structure. Massive stalagmites and stalactites dotted the cavern, covered in effervescent mushrooms that lit up the space like lanterns. The floor rippled with tiny rivulets of water streaming around their feet, a mist of unknown to her gas hovered in the air, the source of the sulfuric smell.
"Where are we?" she asked, her mouth parted in awe.
"Home sweet home!" Answered Grub.
"We're under White Peak Mountain," Loo replied more informatively.
"Really?" Beatrix asked, her eyes going wide with surprise, "We really traveled that far?"
"Time flies when you're walking through an endless tunnel of dirt," Loo snorted.
"I don't think that's how that saying goes," replied Beatrix in all seriousness; Loo's creased face furrowed further in frustration.
There was the sound of shifting rocks, and the ground beneath their feet began to tremble. Beatrix gripped her feather-duster blade tightly in her fist, prepared for what was to come. A large shape loomed out of the inky blue light, uncoiling itself like a rope.
"A dragon?" Beatrix stood her ground, watching as the goblins around her began to tremble visibly.
"The boss," whispered Loo as he ducked behind a stalagmite.
The dragon's massive, scaled head glittered like a thousand stars as it swung back and forth, its luminous red eyes searching.
"Snark…where is the loot?"
Snark, still unbothered, addressed the dragon. "We don't have any boss. This maid here wanted to meet ya, so we—"
Snark paused as the dragon lowered its head down to the hobgoblin's level and fixed him in a deep stare. "She's charmed you…interesting…"
"What—" Snark was cut off as the dragon's tail appeared out of the shadows and smacked him full-force in the chest. His body flew to the side, smashing into the rock and sending thousands of mushroom spores showering over him like snow. The hobgoblin slid down to the cavern floor with a groan.
"Tell me," the dragon addressed Beatrix now, and she felt the full weight of its ancient magical gaze, "how did a powerful sorceress such as yourself end up a simple maid for Lord Griswold of all people?"
Beatrix released her hold on Snark, the glow of her blade dimming as she replied in total confidence, "Not even going to introduce yourself? I expected more manners from such a distinguished beast."
The dragon cocked its head to the side in surprise. "My, we are cheeky," it said and then gave a loud rumbling laugh that broke off one of the stalactites, sending goblins scattering away as it smashed into the rock floor.
"You may call me Maulg," the dragon finally answered, "Mistress of the White Peak."

"Honored to meet you," Beatrix gave a deep curtsey, "I am Beatrix Sallow." 

"Are you going to answer my query now, Beatrix Sallow?" The dragon lowered her head
to the ground, staring up at Beatrix with a surprisingly docile, curious look in her red eyes. "I lost a bet," Beatrix admitted with a light sigh.
"You…" Maulg arched her neck, raising her head back into the air and looking down over the whole cavern. "You lost a bet?"
"Mhm," Beatrix nodded. "Lord Griswold is a powerful wizard, you see, and nearly a century ago, he cleaned me out in a poker game."
"A poker—" Maulg seemed at a loss for words, and Beatrix rocked her small frame back and forth on her feet as she waited for a complete response. "How long have you been paying off this debt?"
"Oh," Beatrix's voice chimed lightly in the air, "Coming up on a century, I'm nearly finished with my work for him."
Maulg blinked, her tail slithering around a stalagmite and gripping it tightly in a coil. "I see…"
"So I would appreciate it if you could hold off any further raids on his estate until I am gone from the premise. Otherwise, I may have to kill all of your minions, and I'll admit I've grown fond of them."
"Awww," she heard Loo squeak from his hiding place.
The threat amused Maulg. "When are you free of your contract?"
Beatrix calculated something in her head, "A month and three days."
Maulg's head disappeared into the shadows, a low rumbling chuckle filling the air.
"Very well, Beatrix Sallow, this has been very amusing, I have to say. For that alone, I will abide by your proposition."
"Thank you," Beatrix gave another curtsey.
"I have only one request," Maulg reappeared, her neck snaking toward Beatrix until they were nearly touching noses. "Come visit me when your debt to Griswold is paid."
"Why, Mistress Maulg?" Beatrix asked, her eyebrows shooting up her forehead in surprise.
"Goblings are not… titillating company."
Beatrix giggled. "I think that can be arranged."
"Very well," Maulg slowly withdrew back into the shadows. "Escort her back to Lord Griswold's estate, boys, and see she gets there safely."
Loo and Grub reappeared quickly, Loo even going so far as to grab Beatrix's hand and pull her back toward the exit. "You heard the boss!"
Beatrix glanced over her shoulder as they reached the tunnel's threshold and waved. There was a brief pause, and then the tip of Maulg's tail waved back subtly in reply.
Did you enjoy it? Be sure to like and comment and visit the links above.
Big hug, Kara