No writing, only listening
This is another 💦 Quickie with Angelo.
In this issue:
Angelo failed a Will saving throw;
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous;
Chopin 🍺;
Me apologizing for the "Chopin" joke;
😴🏠📦
I'm so tired.
I write this at 03h17. I should be sleeping; I know more than anyone, especially because today, I have to present things to the stakeholders of the company I consult to. But, because of unknown reasons — maybe the cappuccino I had in the morning or the sheer amount of black tea during the afternoon — I cannot sleep.
My back hurts so much that I bought a mattress without testing it. Yeah, I bought a bed online.
God will have mercy on my soul, will remember all the good times we had together — please, god, forget about the Ghost concert — and will do his god magic to make this the best mattress ever.
This week we did not have a longer text, as I promised two weeks ago. We will not have it, as I had no energy to write anything nor to get something from my box of written things (currently empty, shit). That's how things will go: whenever possible, to the best of my capacity, without pressure.
🎲😈🧚♀️
I'm at the endgame of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, one of the few games available for Mac I found on Steam. I had played some of the first Pathfinder CRPG and didn't like it very much, but this one got me so hooked that I already have more than 100 hours invested in it.
The game is a classic turn-based Computer Role Playing Game (CRPG) using the Tabletop RPG Pathfinder (TTRPG) as a ruleset. If you don't care about TTRPGs — wrong — the crucial keywords are magic-infused, sword and shield, angels, demons, fairies (?). It's a plot-heavy adventure in which you will need to read a lot to get what's going on, but you will also want to read it because the story is excellent and engaging.
Playing this kind of game is nice because I can do it at my own pace. I can explore every cave crevice, talk to every person before making a decision, and try different strategies to defeat a powerful enemy. This game is challenging — I confess to having lowered the difficulty in the last 20 hours because I wanted to finish it, and things were just too punishing. Having the option to not be pressured by a timer makes me feel like I am experiencing the best for me. Being able to skip kilometers of dialogue because sometimes I don't care is also great.
I recommend Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous because, even with some quirks, it's excellent storytelling around a beaten fantasy theme in which your decisions change the story's outcome.
If you want to try different CRPGs — shorter, for instance, or with different settings — I highly recommend:
Tyranny (absolutely fantastic story, not so long)
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (the first is excellent, but the second is *chef's kiss*)
Divinity: Original Sin (long but totally worth it. Play both — 1 and 2 — and experience the best CRPGs in the last decades)
(If you need to choose, go Divinity for quality or Tyranny for length).
🎹🎵🍻
In a burst of nostalgia, I hit play on one of the best melodic metal albums ever recorded — Rebirth, Angra — during its getting colder afternoon in my new apartment. When I got to the song below, I realized I had never listened to the original version… and got sucked into the infamous research whirlwind.
This song is based on Chopin's Op. 28 in C minor:
It dawned on me that I had listened to very few pianists — even though the keyboard in my instrument of pressur— I mean, choice. Richard Glass is one of my favorites in his minimalist style:
I then picked Spotify's "This is Chopin" playlist and put it on. It was morning — 7 something, sorry neighbors — and it played all day long. I discovered sublime, peaceful (sometimes not), uncomplicated melodies. Easier to digest than many virtuosos that I listened to during my life.
I had never listened to Chopin with attention before, and I'm glad I did now. It's funny because I love some of Bach's pieces individually, but I can't listen to them all day long. I feel like Chopin is calisthenics, exercising his strengths and showing weakness as a statement of humanity. Bach is a gym-bro on steroids, flexing each minor muscle and looking at the mirror, saying, "I'm so fucking hot right now; look at these pecs."
Since then, I have done this with the aforementioned artists and Mozart — a "group sports" kind of guy. I want to explore what we wrongly call classical music and learn more about it. If you have recommendations, let me know ;)
🍺🍺🍺
Only those who speak Brazilian Portuguese might have understood the "Chopin" joke, and I'm genuinely sorry about it.
It's 04:08 now, and I'm closing this lengthier Quickie. I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave me some public comments on Substack or send me a private message answering this newsletter from your inbox.