Kurt Pankau Dot Com

🌊 And I'm in so deep...  The vultures are stripping the world for parts, but you have to find joy where you can, so let's talk about a thirty-year-old pop song, shall we? Linger  was the second single from The Cranberries' debut album and also their breakout hit. It was released in 1993 in support of the cheekily titled Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? , accompanied by a nonsensical video (embedded above) that seems less interested in the band than in faux  C inéma Vérité. Their debut single, Dreams , was a bold statement meant to establish a sonic identity centered around frontwoman Dolores O'Riordan's thick and unapologetically abrasive Irish accent. But Linger  is a bit more subdued, less about leaning into the band's unique aesthetic than about using that aesthetic to support a musical narrative. It's a fascinating song and one that I've been somewhat obsessed with over the past few months. Specifically, I've been obsessed with t...

🤓 This is the Way... It's that time of year again when Kurt goes to a conference and plays lots and lots of new board games. Why not take a break from quietly despairing and check out all the new things I played this weekend? Rock Hard 1977 If you've heard one thing about this game, it's that it was designed by Runaways bassist Jackie Fox. (If you've heard a second thing about this game, then you've heard about the "candy" mechanic.) This is a heavily thematic worker-placement game about becoming a professional rock musician in the 70s. You have life experiences, a manager, and a day job, and you're trying to build up your chops, your set list, and your reputation so you can turn a demo tape into a record deal and start playing larger and larger venues and get the most fame. You can get yourself extra actions by eating candy. This gives you that extra little bit of pep to go to more hangouts after-hours, but you have to watch out that you don't le...

🏆 Because That's How I Beat Shaq... Hey y'all, It's getting to be that time of year, so if you're someone who is reading for things like the Hugos--and if you happen to enjoy my particular brand of weird--I would humbly ask that you consider my story  A Pin Drops . It's flash fiction, it's bonkers, and I have traumatized my friends with it. Perhaps it is something you could distract yourself with on this most stressful of days 🙃 Thanks, ]{p

🐀 Despite All My Rage... My wife has a sticker on her car that reads: "More rights for others doesn't mean fewer rights for you. It's not pie." It's one of those things that is so glaringly obvious that you shouldn't have to say it. And yet... we live in a country where sizeable portion of the population is voting for an "anti-woke" agenda, even if it will hurt them economically and infringe on their own rights--and potentially end democracy in America. How can people vote against their own self-interest like that? Are they that  motivated by racism, sexism, and homophobia? And the answer is no... but also yes... but also no. (But also yes.) The motivation isn't overtly about those things--although let's be very  clear that these people are  being racist, sexist, and homophobic, whether they're willing to acknowledge it or not. But what's actually motivating them is something more sinister, but also more understandable. It's abou...

⚠️ It's Dangerous To Go Alone... The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild  is my favorite installment in one of my all-time favorite video game franchises. It was the killer-app launch title for the Nintendo Switch and was hailed as a return to form for a series that had gone so deep on its own lore that... uh... I think the technical term is "it's head had disappeared up its own asshole." Breath of the Wild  reoriented the gameplay on exploration instead of story progression, and it was such a success that seemingly every other AAA series started putting out imitators. This is how we ended up with an open-world Sonic the Hedgehog  game, which is not a thing that needs to exist in any universe. While it's considered story-light for this series--most of the narrative is told in snippets of flashback--the storytelling is actually one of my favorite things about it. For starters, I am a sucker for being drip-fed parts of a narrative and being forced to fill in the gap...

🧑‍⚖️ It's a Little Bit Me, It's a Little Bit You... This last weekend was the 47th  Archon , the local speculative fiction convention here in St. Louis. I started attending as a panelist right after things opened up post-COVID. Needless to say, overall attendance was down and they were in pretty dire need of speakers, so I fast-tracked my way onto the "Pro" tier. I've gone every year since, and I've developed a bit of a reputation as a fantastic moderator. To wit, five minutes into my first Saturday panel. I'd just wrapped up my opening spiel and was about to start the discussion-proper when the panelist on my right turned to me with what I initially thought was exasperation. "Oh my god," she said, "can I bring you to all of my panels to moderate?" This panelist just happened to be the Toastmistress of the con. As Toastmistress, her schedule was stacked, so I can see her being extra appreciative. A badly-managed panel is exhausting to ...