More Higgins Armory info

A reliable source sends me the following for redistribution:

A good friend of mine happens to be a member of the Board of Directors
of the John Woodman Higgins Armory Museum, and this is some of what I
learned from him at breakfast this morning.

The Higgins will remain open throughout the rest of the year (presumably
calendar 2013), so there's still time to see what they have on display.
(And my 6'5" tall friend will get one more opportunity to portray King
Arthur and Gandalf on the appropriate special days....)

The "core collection" of the Higgins Armory Museum, consisting of only
about 250 pieces, will be transferred to the Worcester Art Museum, which
will devote a permanent gallery and a limited amount of other display
space to it. The remainder of the Higgins's pieces-- most of which are
not currently on display because they don't have the room, and
comprising over 1,000 items -- will be *auctioned off* in New York City
by a commercial firm. I do know that Sotheby's was among the firms
trying to get the business, but I do not know who will conduct the
actual auction. (Who knows? This may be an opportunity for someone in
the SCA or your tribe of friends to acquire something real ... though I
doubt the stuff will go cheap.)

The roots of the Higgins's problem go back a ways. The museum's
marvelous old steel building, although historic and architecturally
significant, was a real albatross. They looked into replacing all the
windows (and you know there are tons of them, as the facade is primarily
glass!), and were told by numerous contractors and suppliers that it
could not really be done -- no one could quite figure out how to
accomplishit. Heating and cooling the building were tasks that seemed to
involve the rest of the surrounding natural world as well, and it was a
continuing, very very expensive proposition. The museum's furnace died a
year or two ago, and while they had a backup furnace, the cost of
installing a new primary unit was prohibitive and added more fuel to the
fire, so to speak.

The 2008 recession caused them to lose a lot of money from their
endowment ... apparently it was invested at much greater risk than
prudence or common sense might have dictated. The Board recently hired a
new director who has specialized in turn-arounds, but he was unable to
find a good way out that could keep the institution going. The previous
director also apparently had a habit of misrepresenting to the Board the
true state of the Museum's finances as well as understating its
expenses, and she evidently dug the hole even deeper. The proposed
course of action -- closing, transfer, and auction -- as well as other
possibliities, has been under discussion for over a year by the Board.

Well, that's what I know. It's a sad state of affairs for a marvelous
institution and collection.

Lego Batman 2

Just finished playing Lego Batman 2. The basic formula is the standard Lego one, with lots of smashing bricks and unlockable characters. Similar to the first Lego Batman, Batman and Robin have many different suits providing different abilities. They are generally cooler than the suits in LB1, however, and each one has at least two major gameplay functions, so the designers can vary the challenges a bit more.

New to this installment is a GTA-style explorable Gotham City that is impressively large and detailed. It's clearly heavily inspired by Anton Furst's "Gothic meets Deco" designs for the 1989 Batman film, with giant statuary holding up lots of the architecture. When those giant human figures are actually gigantic Lego minifigs, the effect sits delightfully between creepy and charming. The game mechanics of clearing fog of war from the map of Gotham, and of finding the many, many collectable objects scattered around it, are well-tuned to my taste. The map has a "Scan" function that hits the sweet spot between making things too easy and frustrating needle-in-a-haystack searches.

Also new to this game is the fact that the characters are all fully voiced. Standouts: Troy "Booker" Baker gives a fine performance as Batman, and Clancy Brown reprises his animated role as Lex Luthor. The voicing allows the designers to craft a surprisingly intricate plot which, again, hits a sweet spot for me. The writers clearly have a love for superheroes and their long history, while at the same time understanding how fundamentally silly many of their tropes are and being willing to make fun of them. I had a number of legitimately laugh-out-loud reactions to plot twists, and even, surprisingly, one heart-stoppingly tense moment of "I can't believe they *went* there". [The script even has a couple of funny call-outs to Batman: Arkham City, a game with similar love for the source material, but less ability to laugh at themselves.]

_Jimmy the Kid_, by Donald Westlake

Not long ago, I finished reading Westlake's Parker novels. They are stories of a professional thief who is a complete sociopath, but is so incredibly competent at what he does that you end up rooting for him, even though he's an awful human being. Westlake's other major series, the Dortmunder books, is almost the inverse. Dortmunder is also a professional thief, but he and his friends are comically *in*competent, yet full of amusing and entertaining character traits, so they are fun to read about.

_Jimmy the Kid_ is the third Dortmunder book, and comes with a fun, meta surprise. Dortmunder's friend comes to him with an idea for a new caper: (paraphrased) "I read this great book about a crook named Parker. Let's use his plan from the book!" The Parker book in question, _Child Heist_, was never published in our universe, but the glimpses of it we get here are classic Parker. Westlake does a few compare-and-contrasts, where he actually includes a complete chapter of _Child Heist_, showing Parker carefully pulling off some action, then follows that with a chapter showing the corresponding action getting flubbed by Dortmunder and friends. It's the kind of thing that could get out of hand, but he stops doing it before it wears out its welcome.

For those concerned about triggery content, be assured that nothing bad happens to the kidnap victim. For that matter, nothing *too* horrible happens to anyone: No deaths, a few relatively minor injuries, and lots of embarrassment. Recommended.