icons/interests

[arethinn]

heartssdesire asked about:

andrew chumbley

The late Dentarthurdent Andrew Chumbley was a British sorcerer/witch/mystic/something. He wrote (most famously)The Azoetia, Qutub and ONE: The Grimoire of the Golden Toad, and I guess some other private-edition books for his magical order, The Cultus Sabbati. The system of practice described by or embodied in his works is also known as "Sabbatic Witchcraft". The website of the publisher, Xoanon, seems to have gone the way of all things, although according to Fields bookstore (who resells), Xoanon itself is alive and well. You can see more about Chumbley in his Wikipedia article. The thing he's probably best known for amongst the general pagan populace is the sky-high secondhand prices of his out-of-print books -- ONE isn't available for love nor money, and Azoetia currently will run you anywhere from $500 to several thousand dollars, depending on the edition, condition, whatever.

lumiel

Related to Chumbley. Lumiel or Azra-Lumiel is a teaching angel who appears in the path. It is sort of another way of saying "Lucifer" -- xe is an Opposer who brings knowledge (at least as I understand xir).

zork

The seminal text-adventure game, at least from the perspective of the general computer gamer (it too has its predecessors), written for a mainframe in 1977-1979 by some guys who would shortly become the founders of Infocom. (See http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/timeline.html for a brief history of Infocom.) Xyzzy? Plugh!



Malkavian antitribu symbol from Vampire: the Masquerade. Malkavians are crazy, to a one, and antitribu are vampires who have decided to join the "other faction" (the two major ones being the Sabbat and the Camarilla; loosely the bad guys and the good guys, though it's a lot more complex than that). For Malkavians, who are Camarilla by default, this means a Sabbat Malkavian, which, well, ain't something you want to meet in a dark alley, to put it lightly. My first Vampire character ever was a Malk, and I have a soft spot for them in my heart, as well as a couple of interesting experiences invoking or contacting Malkav (the clan progenitor) as though he were a real being (insert chaos magic / pop culture magic here).



A food item from Neopets. "Galactic Starry Cupcake" was the name on either the file or the "pre release" text on the "new Neo-items" website I was looking at, although I'm not sure that's what the object is actually officially called now. "Galactic" and "starry" are good words for me, in some senses, and "cupcake" is a bit of a running joke between me and enotsola.



Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank from Mystery Science Theater 3000, laughin' it up mad scientist style.

Comments

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

XYZZY and PLUGH are from Adventure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure).

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know (as I said, "it too has its predecessors"). They're also in Zork though.

[enotsola]

It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue... as if you were a cupcake!

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

I suppose they'd wash me down with grues' milk (which has to be kept in a lighted refrigerator, lest it go fresh)?

[alces2.livejournal.com]

First, it is a bad thing that you caused me to become interested in Andrew Chumbley, since the cheapest books by him I can immediately find are over $900 which means I must keep looking and who knows how this will end. Compulsive behavior? No, no, no. Second, for some reason the antitribu symbol reminds me of what an IUD might look like. Possibly not a good thought but what came to mind. Continuing, unnumbered, I already sort of knew a little about lumiel. Games aren't really my thing, can't concentrate that long usually, especially when I have 14 or more other things which are on my mind. Anyway, I following a link and found things of interest. I'm glad I followed the link.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

My advice re: Sabbatic books is to get on either the Xoanon mailing list for notifications of new publications (the address was somewhere in the east Bay last I checked, but I can't remember), or Fields' similar notification list. Of course, that only helps you get new releases (Daniel Schulke is the current Magister of the Cultus); I feel your pain on the "back catalog". Fortunately I got a copy of the 2nd ed of Azoetia when it came out, and one of what Chumbley said was the last of a reprinting (?) of Qutub way back in 2001 when I wrote a letter to him, which means I am probably sitting on about $1500 on my bookshelf. O.o

[alces2.livejournal.com]

Although I'll keep looking for the earlier editions I will take your advice and find both of those mailing lists so I can at least attempt to see the new material. Sounds like you're sitting in a good place.