Robot Claw – Page 527 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

My Mum The Nun (part one)

July 12, 2012

My mum was a nun!

This is a story I’ve occasionally bandied about, and it’s high time I provided some sort of proof to back it up. After all, there’s no small amount of stature associated with being a Nun’s son, so I better be telling the truth 🙂

So here we go…

Look at her! That was taken on June 9, 1961, when mum was all of 16 years old. On the morning of this day she rode a train with her parents from Broadmeadow (not far from where she lives now) to Singleton, where the convent was, to join The Sisters Of Mercy. She was welcomed by a Nun that was once her schoolteacher. On that day mum shed her worldly name and became a postulant of the order. She would now be called Sister Mary Margaret.

What was life like as a postulant? Mum’s memories sound mostly positive, but to me the life seems tough. Lots of prayer, meditation and work (cleaning, gardening, washing). Each day was regimented and the various tasks occurred at specific times (controlled by a bell) and discipline and silence were both enforced. She recalls the days were long and tiring, but the time passed quickly and she was happy.

Six months have passed, and mum had now completed the postulancy period and was officially admitted into the order in December 1961. Here Sister Mary Salvio (mum had a new name by now) shows off her ‘Bride of Christ’ dress, which was on loan from a cousin. Mum’s comments on this picture recall that the nun’s had ‘vandalized’ it since it was too immodest initially 🙂

The above is a shot of Veronica and Reginald Sheeley (my grandparents) with their 17 year old daughter Sister Mary Salvio. I particularly like this photo. I’ll follow this with another shot taken on the same day (I assume):

The above shot (in colour!) shows Sister Mary Salvio (aka. ‘mum’!) with a friend of hers, Sister Marie Madeline. You can see the difference between the garments mum is wearing here and those of her postulancy, notably the veil over the Wimple. I don’t know why her friend has a black veil compared to mum’s white, but I assume it’s a sign of seniority. (Some quick research online seems to suggest Sisters Of Mercy always wore black veils, so again I don’t know why mum’s is white).

“The cake?” you ask? I don’t know! I do love how they displayed it on that beautifully crocheted tablecloth on that richly varnished table. I’m guessing the event was something special 🙂

Fast forward a few years for the above shot. It’s now 1963, and mum is 19 and now a junior professed sister (and now, mysteriously, wears a black veil). The new title means she’s taken temporary vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, which will last for two years until her final vows would be taken in 1965. At this point mum qualified to become a teacher, which is important since the Sisters of Mercy order is known (worldwide) for opening and running schools. Mum would receive some training, and then start working at a primary school.

These photos cover a scant 2.5 years, but I can only imagine how important they were to mum as a young girl. She’s provided me with snippets of memories, but the questions that remain unanswered are uncountable. Chief among them would be: “Why does a 16-year-old girl enter the convent?”, or more specifically “Why did *you* enter the convent?”

Mum suggested to me that during my next visit I interview her for the answers, and I think this is a good idea. So some time in the future you can expect an update. But in the short term there will be a few more photos, as well as some more memories, of mum’s days as a nun-teacher, and her eventual departure from the convent. Stay tuned!

Magic 2013 Prerelease Report

July 8, 2012

Yesterday I went to the prerelease of the latest MTG core set, Magic 2013. The format was the same as all the others I have attended: you get 6 boosters, and have to form a minimum 40-card deck from them using land provided at the store. Four rounds would then be played (each round is best of 3), and the top 8 of the 32 entrants would enter a series of final rounds for prizes.

I hadn’t looked much at the set prior to attending, but expected I’d end up playing a green/white deck since that’s usually what I do at such events. However when I started opening my boosters I just kept seeing good red and black cards. In fact once I’d opened and sorted everything, not only where the red and black piles slightly larger than the other colours, but the cards themselves were better as well. It was therefore an easy solution to play a black/red deck.

My deck contained the following (notable in brackets):
– 9 black creatures (Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis), Duty-Bound Dead)
– 4 red creatures (Goblin Arsonist x3)
– 4 black spells (Murder)
– 4 red spells (Reverberate)
– 2 artifacts (Ring of Xathrid)
– 2 dual lands (Dragonskull Summit)
– 9 swamps
– 6 mountains

2013 introduces the exalted keyword to black cards, and there are quite a few of them containing it. Exalted proved to be popular with many players at the prerelease, and in fact every single one of the 6 decks I played against utilized exalted cards (ie. contained black or white colours).

The design intent behind my deck was speed coupled with buffed single attackers via exalted. I also through in a bit of direct damage and graveyard love (Rise From The Dead, Disentomb). It only took me a few minutes to put it together, and a few test-deals I made before starting seemed promising. Happily, the deck ended up working quite well, and here are the results of the qualifying rounds:

Round 1: My opponent was playing white/red soldiers token deck with a bit of exalted. His deck couldn’t hope to match the speed of mine and I easily defeated him 2-0 without ever losing a single point of life:

Round 2: A face-off against a very similar (red/black) deck to mine. I had more creatures, he had more spells, including 3 Murder’s (to my 1) and 2 Disentomb’s. My best play was to Reverberate one of his Murder’s to kill his irritating Xathrid Gorgon after he’d buffed it with several enchants and was about to kill me with it. Although I won 2-1 overall, the battle was hard fought.

Round 3: A battle against another green/white deck, full of weenie creatures that he was trying to buff. My 3 Goblin Arsonist’s really came into their own during this round, since I often used them as blockers to kill 2 toughness guys or to kill two 1 toughness guys each. Also, in every single of the three games against this guy I Reverberated his Captain’s Call, much to his amusement. I won overall 2-1, and was chuffed when – to the surprise of my opponent who didn’t know it was possible – I used the ability on the Ring of Xathrid to regenerate my Nefarox after he cast Planar Cleansing (note to MTG nerds: this action is why Wrath of God will never be reprinted; it’s too powerful). When I did this, he said “That’s why you deserved to win” 🙂

Round 4: My final qualifying opponent used red/black as well, and his deck was the strongest of the 6 I played against. Not only did he have astonishingly lucky rare draws (2 Nefarox’s, 1 Xathrid Gorgon) but he also had 2 mythic’s (Chandra the Fireblaze, Vampire Nocturnus). 2013 reprints Gilded Lotus, and of course he had that as well. It was quite astonishing to play two games against him where he had close-to-perfect draws and got his big guys out quickly and beat me 0-2 in the same way I had beat my first opponent! He was a nice guy though, so even in defeat the games were fun.

After the qualifiers I was 6-4-0, and made it into the top 8! This meant I was guaranteed booster packs as prizes, I just didn’t know how many yet. The win-loss ratio’s are wiped in the finals, so even though I had lost one qualifier round I still (theoretically) had a chance. I was realistic though: that last guy’s deck was a monster and I knew he’d beat me again if we faced up.

But it was not to be. The first round of finals paired me against a black/green deck heavy on removal (again 3 Murder’s!) and exalted creatures (note to Florence: this was ‘viking’). The first two rounds were traded 1-1, and it was down to the third. This proved to be an epic game, where he had a Xathrid Gorgon out and kept petrifying my creatures as I cast them. However he couldn’t attack, since I had more blockers than him and kept drawing creatures. Furthermore, he had a Ring of Xathrid on his Gorgon, and I had one on my Liliana’s Shade, and both had over 15 tokens! It was a classic standoff; we were both top-decked and alternated inactive turns until the 30th (!) draw when he drew the guy above, cast it, and put 18 1/1 Saprolings into play. I was doomed, and he won 2 turns later with only 1 card left in each of our libraries. I got the impression this opponent was not used to defeat (he had gone into the finals 8-0), since he became increasingly more serious and attentive as the rounds went on, to the point of being fixated during the last game which could have gone either way.

The finals were single-elimination and I was knocked out in round 1. My eventual standing was tie 6th, which netted me 3 booster packs as prizes. In one of them I found the reprint of one of my favourite cards of all time, with brand new art by my favourite MTG artist of all time. Happy day!

What’s that you ask? I mentioned 6 opponents?

Good catch! The store owner had cancelled one of the four prerelease events due to low signups, and therefore had extra boxes of boosters he had to distributes. So he was running a side-contest “Beat me for booster packs!”. He made his own deck, and played any challenger and gave them a free booster if he won. I accepted his challenge after I was knocked out of the finals, and actually lost! But since it was a good game and we had a good chat (I discovered he worked for Wizards Of The Coast for a year about 10 years ago), he gave me a booster anyway 🙂

Review: Ceromonies (Fields Of The Nephilim)

July 5, 2012

The new Fields Of The Nephilim album is entitled ‘Ceromonies‘. It’s a double live album, with the songs recorded during gigs live in London back in July 2008. The package also contains a DVD containing some of the songs, but since the format is PAL I am unable to view it (without changing the region on my Mac…)

Each of the two CDs has it’s own name, ‘Ad Motem’ and ‘Ad Vitam’. The arrangement of songs onto each of the two CDs doesn’t seem to follow any specific criteria, and the full track listing covers the entire history of the band (original album the song was from in brackets):
– Trees Come Down, Harmonica Man, Preacher Man (‘Dawnrazor‘)
– Moonchild, Celebrate (‘The Nephilim‘)
– Wail Of Sumer, And There Will Your Heart Be Also, Psychonaut (‘Elizium‘)
– Shine, Penetration, Zoon (Wakeworld) (‘Zoon‘)
– From The Fire (‘Fallen‘)
– Shroud, Straight To The Light, Xiberia, Requiem, Mourning Sun (‘Mourning Sun‘)

Live albums are tricky things. Often released solely to extract a few extra dollars from fans between studio albums, more often than not they are listened to once or twice and shelved. Some bands are exceptions to this – I personally find Rammstein‘s live albums to be magnificent and almost better than the studio work – and the difference seems to be how creatively the band interprets their own music. Furthermore, live performances have a life that is not easily captured in a recording. I can still vividly remember certain things about many of the live performances attended more than I can remember exactly how I felt about the way the band played their songs that night.

Fields Of The Nephilim is one of those bands that, for me, evokes a Pavlovian reaction when I listen to their songs. It’s impossible for me not to think about my last year of high school when I hear Psychonaut, or recollect vividly the days of Newcastle University, The Hanged Man concerts and late nights out with friends when hearing most anything from Earth Inferno. Indeed, were it not for FoTN, I may never have met KLS! This band was the soundtrack for a very important part of my life, and always will be.

So listening to any Nephilim album is, for me, a good thing (well, except perhaps for the ‘official bootleg’ that was Fallen). That said, I’m sad to say Ceromonies may count itself amongst the ‘shelfwarmers’ as far as live albums are concerned.

The performances are great (the above video is from the included DVD), the packaging is great, Carl’s voice is (mostly) great, the recording quality is great and the songs are (of course) great. But the arrangements are where things get a bit iffy, and the selection of material is for me, disappointing.

Even though three years had passed since the release of Mourning Sun, the tour from which this album was recorded was to support the album so it’s not surprising that about a third of the songs are from that album. However, since I prefer the earlier (pre ‘Nefilim’) material, I would have liked more from that era. Song choice aside, the second disappointment of the album is how similar to the studio versions the songs sound. It’s been 20 years (in some cases) since these songs were first released, but some of these performances could almost be the studio versions with a bit of crowd noise added. And where a song differs from the album, it’s the same difference as it was two decades ago. One such example is Trees Come Down, which – will powerful and effective on Ceromonies – is a pale imitation of the version recorded in 1989 and immortalized on the Forever and Ever live bootleg:

And therein lies the biggest problem with Ceromonies. During their lifetime, this band has released almost as much live material as studio albums. So one would imagine another should not be forthcoming unless it offered something new. Ceromonies does not; it’s not as good as the 1991 live album Earth Inferno and not as good as either of the two live DVDs Forever Remain (1988) and Visionary Heads (1991). Yes it has new material, but the songs are too similar to the album tracks and (for me) of lesser quality (the superb ‘Mourning Sun’ excepted) compared to older works. More importantly, Fields Of The Nephilim is a widely bootlegged band, and even their most famous concert from the Town and Country club back in 1989 was bootlegged and released (as the very, very, VERY good live album ‘Forever And Ever’). Ceromonies therefore isn’t even as good as a live bootleg!

That said, I’m glad I got this release. Not only as a collector, but since it inspired me to dig out the old albums and listen to them again for the first time in at least a year. While Ceromonies may have been ultimately disappointing, it’s only because Fields Of The Nephilim as a band is so very, very good. I’m glad this new CD inspired me to once again realize just how good 🙂