Caliban - Opinion and Righteous Anger

Not since Leather Goddesses of Phobos have I spent so many hours on a game, and that was quite some time ago.

I'm talking about Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo DS hand-held gaming system.

I bought myself a DS on a whim just before Christmas and immediately found myself playing Tetris on it. Old habits die hard.

But I had bought this other game, this thing with the Mario Brothers, characters I had vaguely heard nothing about in recent years. I knew they were popular and that Nintendo had been behind them, but I had basically missed out on them. I never owned a Nintendo console, you see.

In fact, the last console I owned was my Atari 2600, back in 1980 (unless you count the Xbox that I won in a raffle at LISA 2001, but sold on Craig's List without even opening). Since then, the only video game I've owned was an Atari Lynx, back in 1989. I bought another a couple of years ago, just for the sheer nostalgia of those old games, which I still think knock spots off the ones kids play today.

Anyway, after quickly reaching the limit of my skill with Tetris, I decided to crack open the Super Mario 64 game I'd bought. I only really bought it to see what it would be like to play a game that had been specifically designed for the DS and used its touch-screen to the full. The only other games I had bought were GBA games, which the DS can also play, but which make no use of the DS's special hardware.

So, I started to play Super Mario 64 over Christmas in Providence. It took me a while to get into it, as I hadn't really played this type of game before. Progress was slow. I managed to collect just a few stars and found it difficult to get used to the wealth of manoeuvres that the characters can perform, if one only has the manual dexterity required to manipulate the touch-screen as required.

I persevered, though, and eventually I started to enjoy the game and get better at it. I soon realised that this was a large game, however, and was going to take quite some time to complete.

Well, to cut a long story short, tonight I finally finished it, almost three months after starting it. I've been playing this game many hours a week since I purchased it, so it represents great value for money. I managed to clear all 15 levels, each of which contains 7 stars, each star involving a different mission to acquire it.

Those 15 levels are thus good for 105 stars. A further star can be collected in each level by amassing 100 coins as one works one's way through the course. That brings the total number of stars in the levels to 120.

There are hidden levels, however, which contain one or two stars each. Occasionally, a seemingly insignificant character will hand you a star if you stop to talk to him. One way or another, the total number of stars on offer rises to 150 and tonight I managed to grab the 150th star.

Lest you think that's all there is to the game, there are rabbits scattered all over the course. They reveal themselves at different moments, at different times and in different locations, depending on which character you happen to be at the time: Yoshi, Mario, Luigi or Wario. These characters also have to be found and released from within the game, as certain stars can only be acquired using the special powers of one of the characters.

Anyway, back to the rabbits. If you catch these rabbits, they give you a key. Each key unlocks a mini-game, which is basically a quick and uncomplicated extra game on the cartridge that you can play when you just have a few minutes to spare. The main game, on the other hand, has so much in it that you really need a few hours at a time to play it.

There are seven rabbits per character to find, making 28 in all. Tonight, I found the 28th rabbit and unlocked the last mini-game on the cartridge. I've been so busy with the main game that I haven't played most of the mini-games, but, funnily enough, Sarah has, as the simplicity of those games appeals to her more than the convoluted nature of the main game.

For sheer entertainment value, Super Mario 64 has to be just about the best $30 I've ever spent. It's kept me busy for three months, made me smile, made me swear, amazed me with its imagination, depth and scope, confounded and frustrated me when I couldn't figure out the solution to certain puzzles.

And now I've finished it. I have my life back! It's hard to imagine not spending at least an hour on it each evening, trying to find those bloody stars. I'll have to find something else to do now, like continue to search for a suitable name for Franbert...

Sarah and I have decided to retain the services of a doula, Kristin Evans, for the birth of our first baby. We met Kristin at our childbirth preparation class, where she is the teacher.

We um-ed and ah-ed for a while over whether we needed a doula to complement our midwife, but eventually decided that it would be nice to have some extra support before Rosanna arrives. Given Sarah's temperament, there's a not insignificant chance she'll tell me to fuck right off at some point, but Kristin has more credibility and can probably retain Sarah's respect when her patience with me will be wearing thin.

This takes the pressure off me a little bit. If I forget how to help Sarah with her breathing during her contractions, I can be sure that Kristin won't. That's not meant to sound like I'm going to shirk my duties -- I'm not -- but it's nice to know that someone else will be able to pitch in if I prove useless as a supportive birth partner.

Of course, Rosanna will be there, too, but she'll be focussed on the medical stuff. Kristin is more for the practical, emotional and spiritual needs of the mother.

It's going to be cool, I think. Hopefully, the house won't feel too much like Piccadilly Circus (that's Grand Central Station, for the Americans out there) with all of these bodies ambling about. Whatever happens, there'll be a little baby at the end of it all, so I don't imagine we'll care much about anything by that point.

By my reckoning, I got to see Dead Can Dance 9 times between 1986 and 1996, before they finally split up in 1998. I also saw Lisa perform solo in 1995 and Brendan in 1999. I consider myself very privileged to have seen the band perform so many times and at such different stages in their career and development. They were, without a shadow of a doubt, the most moving and awe-inspiring (quite literally) musical act it has even been my profound pleasure to witness live.

Anyway, imagine my surprise and unfettered joy when I learnt that Lisa and Brendan had decided to reunite for a new tour and possibly some recorded material. One problem: I found out about this way too late. No, the tour isn't over, but it has begun, and I've already missed the opportunity to return to my native Netherlands to see them perform in The Hague.

On the other hand, the band are playing a couple of dates in London in early April. If only I could go.

Well, why can't I? Money (or rather the lack of it) isn't the hindrance it once was, so why not hop on a plane to England for a few days? Nah, that would be crazy, right? On the other hand, who the hell cares? So went the conversation in my head for the first minute or so after I realised that the tour had only just begun and that pulling this off was actually possible.

I became so excited at the prospect of subjecting my ears and emotions to this wonderful music one more time that there was really no way I could stay away. I barely slept that night, waking Sarah and rambling incessantly about the fact that Lisa and Brendan were once again making music together.

Thanks to the many applications of the Internet, I've now secured myself a flight and a hotel, plus a ticket for the second concert in London. I hope to pick up a ticket for the first night within the next few hours.

I'll be boarding a Virgin Atlantic flight on 4th April from San Francisco to London Heathrow and returning again on the 8th. Not a long stay by any means, but I'm only going for the concerts, so why hang around any longer? I'm giving myself a day to get used to the time differential, but I really want to get back to Sarah as soon as I can. If the concerts were later in the month, I'd be faced with a real quandary, forced as I would be to choose between my pregnant wife, with whom I've been in a relationship for five years, and Dead Can Dance, with whom I've been in as equally meaningful a relationship for nineteen years. You can scoff if you like, but this is heartfelt stuff. This music is seriously special to me and has been a reassuring thread in my life for half my years on this planet.

It turns out that Dead Can Dance are also recording 13 of the concerts on this tour, each of which will be released as a limited edition run of 500 2 CD sets. In addition, there will be a box set of all 13 concerts, limited to 100 copies. So, one way or another, there will be only 600 CDs of each concert pressed. We're talking commercially packaged, silver disc CD releases, too; none of your gold disc, quick production crap with no proper box. These will be fully mastered recordings from the mixer desk.

The box set doesn't come cheap, especially with the exchange rate of the Euro to American Monopoly money figured in, but for me, this item is an unnegotiable must-have. I don't consider myself very materialistic, but this item I simply must have, at virtually any price. There's pretty much nothing else that I care about so much that I could be exploited by cynical marketing, but where Dead Can Dance are concerned, I'm pretty easy prey. Not that I consider this to be cynical marketing, however; owning 13 Dead Can Dance concerts across 26 CDs is my idea of bliss, although it remains to be seen how variable the set that the band plays each night will turn out to be. Initial reports are that there is little variance from one night to the next.

Anyway, I'm totally fucking psyched about this. I'm such a boring bastard, that I do very little else with my hard-earned. The only money I've spent in the last few months has been on fixing up our ten year old car and purchasing baby products as we await the arrival of Franbert.

Everyone needs something to get worked up about, and music has been my thing for as long as I can remember. Nevertheless, there are few if any bands left in the world apart from Dead Can Dance for whom I would fly across the Atlantic on a knackering three day sojourn, notching up a 20,000 km round-trip and requiring a week off work. I'm glad I still have it in me, to tell you the truth.

I feel 19 again and am reminded of standing outside the Town & Country Club in Kentish Town in June of 1986, waiting for the doors to open, so that I could witness for the first time the spectacle that was and is Dead Can Dance. My girlfriend had just left me and I was feeling as miserable as sin.

That night would begin a lifelong involvement in and love of the music of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, whom, after 1998, I thought I would never see perform together again. Now, at age 38, I will. A mere couple of months removed from becoming a father, the opportunity to experience this music once again first-hand somehow takes on an extra poignancy.

I can't wait.

My ex-girlfriend, Jo, is currently in Canada, documenting in her blog the brutality and inhumanity of the commercial seal cull currently happening in that country. It's written straight from the heart and tells a gripping story, although she has yet to witness the actual barbarism of the cull itself.

If you like seals (and I don't mean wrapped around your shoulders in the form of a coat), I suggest you give it a read. She's made of stronger stuff than I am. I don't think I could witness the sights that she is about to behold and not be profoundly changed by the experience.