FUN FRIDAYS!

I thought it would be fun to share share a few links to some stories and pictures and people that inspired me today.

Discoveries that made me feel...

Happiness

Hunger

Curiosity

Contentment

Patriotic Pride

What are you feeling today? Care to share an inspiring link of your own?

Photos courtesy Photos8.com

Source: http://findingtheinspiring.blogspot.com/2010/08/fun-fridays.html

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Artisan Gallery Interview: IlluminatedPerfume

Interview by Jen of Polestar

I’d like to introduce you to Roxana of IlluminatedPerfume.

You are a very positive person, how do you focus on the good in your life and craft?

At some point, I think it was in art school, I realized that what you surround yourself with feeds you and becomes part of you. So, I decided to surround myself with successful people. After doing the Artist Way I took that a step further and slowly began to eliminate the things that depleted my focus and energy. Some of those were people, the main one was media. It's amazing how fear based the media is. To keep moving forward, despite when doors close, I focus back on what I love and am here to do. 

Where do you sell your lovely perfumes, aside from Etsy? 

At this very moment in time I have my largest selection on Etsy and some of the liquids on my website: http://illuminatedperfume.com/. The website has been going through a transformation which eventually will include the entire range and make it easier for me to upload.
I have been approached by several retail boutiques and stores but have not yet found the right fit. I'm very selective as to aesthetics, customer service, etc.
I also sell at a few shows, Comic Con (http://www.comic-con.org/) in San Diego has been really good for my perfumes, who would have guessed!?! I think it's because people who appreciate artists go there and they get the "art" in my perfume work.

I know you traveled to Ecuador (Is that right?) last year. How do your travels change and benefit your work as a perfumer?

Yes, last summer we traveled to Ecuador where my husband launched his workshops Artist As Brand (http://www.artistasbrand.com/). I have had the fortune to travel since I was three when my family moved from Argentina to the US. Traveling really opens your mind, it's crucial I believe for those with an art spirit to travel often. I find getting away from the studio infuses my creativity like nothing else. The smell-scape of each place is really interesting. 

You also gather an amazing array of artists who express themselves so beautifully on your blog. How big a role does your blog play in your business as an artist, and how does it inspire you as an artist?

The blog was set up in June 2007 by my graphic designer when she created the website. It wasn't my idea nor did I anticipate how much I would love it. The blog has been very helpful in creating community and showcasing what I do. Since perfume needs to be "experienced", unlike the other arts which are much more visual, the blog serves to give a deeper impression of the fragrances.
As an artist my blog is in a way like a sketchbook, which is why I titled it a "journal." I will create specific images and take photos with the blog in mind. It motivates me and helps to keep me on track.

Now I'd like to ask YOU the question you ask those who you feature on your blog! 
What is the one thing you find most inspiring to feed your creative spirit? 

Nature is number one, no doubt. I also get really inspired when I travel, hang out with really fantastic artists like our friends at Comic Con. Great stories, whether in the format of a film or a book, is good nourishment for my muse as well. 

What is your favorite scent from the natural world? 

1. I adore "fresh" air that is void of any aroma.
2. Hawaii, particularly Plumeria and Pikake. 3. The smell of the chaparral here in the Santa Monica Mountains, I love sage and woody, earthy scents from nature mixed with air.

If you were Queen of a village what would you wish for your kingdom? 

My Queendom is a sustainable utopia with a community of conscious, creative people who appreciate nature, harmony and beauty. 

How did you find yourself creating natural perfume?

My journey to natural perfume came through a little vial of Juniper essential oil during a sweat lodge with a group of women. The vapors in the little bottle opened up new avenues in my creativity as an Artist beginning with Aromatherapy. I became completely enchanted with the modality of medicine from nature that smells good! I wanted everyone to experience this in their lives. I gave up teaching art at Universities and Art Schools to teach aromatherapy as I studied natural perfume. Then, while at a Visionary Art workshop in Austria (http://www.roxanavilla.com/Europe.html), I became conscious of the connection between 14th & 15th century painters, alchemists and perfumers. This inspired me to fuse my passions into the creation of Roxana Illuminated Perfume. The word Illuminated specifically referencing illuminated manuscripts.

As a work at home mom with a daughter what tips can you give other work at home moms? 

When Eve was first born and I was still working as a full time freelance illustrator I got real creative on how to juggle! The best tip I have is to be organized and align yourself with other mothers. I met a group of mothers who had birthed their babies naturally at the same birth center. We would trade off on watching each others babies and would support each other in raising our children holistically.

Where is the one place you would most like to travel to? 

Just one?! I suppose a tropical island would be really good at the moment. Also at the top of the list is NYC and Europe: London & Paris please.

Your husband speaks of the Mind, Body and Spirit in art; mind being the concept, the idea. How do you begin conceiving ideas for your perfume?

Most often the ideas ring the doorbell of my mind, whether I am sleeping, working on other projects or driving. At other times I create a perfume out of desperation, like Q, which was created specifically to bring awareness to the California native oak and save a small grove.
I am really blessed to have the opportunity to work with these incredible aromatics from nature, many times it is the beauty of an aromatic material that will inspire a fragrance.

On that same topic, body being the materials, what are your favorite materials and why? Are their any symbolic references?

Choosing one is real tough, I love them all so much. I am attracted to different aromas at different times. The most constant tend to be: Jasmine, Orange Blossom, Orris and Labdanum. The first three of these are extremely expensive, regrettably.
In general I use raw materials for both aesthetic and symbolic value. The use of symbolic elements is very important to me to tell a story but it is secondary to the beauty of the fragrance.

And finally, Spirit is the heart, the motivational aspect, the passion that moves you to create. What drives you to create? How does that spirit imbue and manifest in your work? 

Beauty is what drives me, I am completely obsessed with harmony and beauty. In my perfume company this manifests itself in all aspects, not just the juice. There is attention to detail in the crochet pouches, the boxes, the literature, the packaging, the imagery, everything. I must admit this is a bit of a burden, for most of the things I want to do I can't due to lack of funds. Inch by inch I continue to refine it, just like the alchemists with their pursuit of gold.

Thank you dear Jen, I am really grateful to have this opportunity to share a bit about myself and my passion for beauty and nature.

Be sure to visit Roxana’s links:
Etsy shop
Blog
Twitter

Source: http://artisansgalleryteam.blogspot.com/2010/08/artisan-gallery-interview.html

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Pilgrim

This is a pilgrimage. (A journey to a place associated with someone or something well respected, viewed as life's journey.) I started with Vancouver, which is just about as perfect a place as any to begin a quest or odyssey or journey. Its big, welcoming, beautiful, dense, lush, brooding, overcast and foggy. You can go from downtown San Francisco-esque city, to the mountainous bear infested forest, in however long traffic permits you to cross one of its bridges (if you're lucky...10 minutes, if you're not uhh.... you’re stuck for an hour or so.) I was very fortunate to have some pretty amazing tour guides that gave me a crash course in all the important Vancouver sites. Everything Olympic, the massive Stanley park (2nd biggest city park next to central park in Manhattan), the turn of the century looking suspension bridge, apparently built by the Guinness family and my favorite part, the giant sulphur mound that almost glows gold, no matter what the conditions. The only night I spent there, I slept on a house boat, which if you haven't ever, find a way to do it. Having my own float-home is rapidly becoming one of my top life goals. I managed to be there the weekend there was a Chinese fireworks festival in the water and it was pride weekend. It felt like everyone was celebrating Meghan's list. I know that's selfish but I'm going to pretend. After the night in the float home and the world's most efficient city tour, I got to the train station about an hour ahead of time. If you buy a sleeping class ticket (bunks included) you get to hang out in the fancy lounge where they have some guy with a keyboard singing weird songs, snacks and drinks and ac. We boarded the train and they announced they were giving away champagne (I think that was mostly due to the fact that the train was two hours late leaving, and there were a lot of old timers on the train.) It worked great! They were all psyched to be on the train and passed out after half a drink. The back of the train is all windows with an observation bubble on the 2nd floor and every single seat was filled with a sleeping octogenarian (the sun hadn't even set yet.)

The sun did set and I couldn't wait to get into my bunk. Could. Not. Wait. They fold the bed down out of the ceiling and turn the bench seats below fold into another bed. So it's like bunk beds with a heavy curtain that do a fantastic job of blocking out light, some sound and in general letting you feel like you're in your own space. I slept so hard. It had to be at least 11 hours. The train literally rocks you to sleep in your tiny little cave. And when you wake up it sort of feels like Christmas, except you don't run downstairs to the tree, you find the nearest window and are completely overwhelmed with nature. Its beautiful, expansive, enveloping, inviting, I could go on forever with adjectives. Its perfect. Although, I'm sad I missed the crazy cliffs and bridges that you apparently pass through overnight. Anyway, the next step is breakfast, and I was skeptical as usual. I’m vegan, so food can be difficult. I tried to call ahead and have them prepare stuff beforehand or at least give them notice but every time they said to just tell the waiter. Who, not surprisingly, had no idea what to do and offered me salad. I can get a salad at Burger King. Way to go, you totally get it! All we eat is lettuce and bark. The chef was indeed better prepared and came out with a pretty decent tofu scramble, definitely a nice recovery in the span of twenty minutes. The coffee is good and never ending. I can’t complain. Its a little awkward, but ultimately good that they make you sit with other people since seating is limited, so I understand why but yeah. No meals alone.

I spent the rest of the trip to jasper glued to the window, either reading or taking pictures. Its unreal. Mountains, lakes, tunnels, the forest, and no bears. No moose. No elk. NO BEARS. Let down. Is it so wrong to just hang some steaks out or something before the train passes through? I mean, come on, they gotta eat too. Right? I was only in Jasper for 45 minutes, I barely got to walk around but it looked nice. I wish I had gotten to spend more time there. Next time. It's funny, how when you lose someone, you end up spending more time making other people feel better about it than, worrying about yourself. In conversation you always finish with something like "but it's ok now because..." Its frustrating you feel guilt for it. Almost like you feel bad for putting that burden on other people? It's stupid and half the time I want to just let it hang there in the air. Mostly because it's not “ok because…” It sucks. It still sucks a lot. I’m trying to do something that I feel is important to Meghan and me, but that doesn’t lessen the blow that she’s gone. You know? I wish I could just say ‘my wife passed away’ and then not say anything and have them not feel like they need to say anything. It's really incredible to be in the same space mentally with the worst of the worst and be cognizant of what you're facing. Its not meditation or even dwelling, its just...yeah...facing it. Sitting down to have a beer with the biggest, scariest, bigfoot-like creature imaginable. You know exactly how terrifying it is because it’s right there in front of you. You know its capacity for destruction and pain. It has the potential to completely rip you to shreds and leave you a sad pile of waste. It is also almost a mirror. Terror has a way of reflecting your worth, your mettle. I have to be completely honest and I think quite apparent what the initial effect on me was.... I was completely scared and broken. I still am. I'm not even sure if I'll come out on top, but I know I'm going to try. Every last fiber is in scramble mode trying to find something solid to steady myself on. I need to catch my breath and find my bearings. I need an anchor for the world, to stop it or slow it just long enough to figure this all out. The train from Jasper to Edmonton was the same as the first leg. It was only 5 hours so I took a nap and read some and again stared out the window.

Edmonton was strange. It’s pretty difficult to get around there and there are only two streets in the city with anything happening. These two streets are separated by a river…its not convenient. I didn’t get it. I rented a car and drove down to Banff the following day, which was frustrating. Everything in Alberta is frustrating. I was in literally the middle of nowhere and stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Four times. Four. The Four and a half hour drive magically turned into seven. But I made it and it felt ok there. It’s definitely a tourist trap city but it’s convenient to get to some pretty insane nature. I think if I did it all over again though I would try to find something a little more off the beaten path. I went for a drive after throwing my stuff on the bed in the hostel and saw elk and a lot of rivers. Really big rivers. At one particular bend I ran into a group of probably 30 photographers all staked out to take the exact same sunset picture. It was kind of weird how much effort and preparation they
were putting into an image everyone else there was going to have. The next morning, I got up early with the intention of driving to Lake Louise, but not before the promised free breakfast at the hostel. Laughable at best. The girl at the desk had put out half a loaf of bread and a tub of margarine. I honestly didn’t understand and had to go back upstairs to ask her where it was. She confirmed that, yes; free breakfast meant the hostel was going above and beyond the call of duty with 6 slices of Wonder bread and margarine. For the entire hostel. Thanks. On to the Lake!

It took me about 45 minutes to drive there and it was already packed at 9 in the morning. They even had traffic directors in the parking lot. So crazy. So, naturally I decided to go exploring and found another lake, Lake Moraine, which was awesome and empty. They had signs on the trail saying you can only hike if you’re in groups of four because of the bears! So cool. From Lake Moraine I took the long way out of the park headed to Calgary. I felt like I was leaving something behind. It was definitely
sad being there and being alone and not talking to Meghan about random things. She would’ve lost her mind watching me hand feed the chipmunks (I know, I know, you’re not supposed to do that) but instead I had to share that with middle aged couple from Quebec. Banff is incredible, don’t get me wrong, but it felt unsatisfying. Meghan had been to Banff when she lived in Calgary and I was hoping to find some remnant of that or feel her presence or see something that altered my outlook. I
didn’t find any of that. I didn’t feel anything. Maybe I'm putting too much pressure on it or setting my expectations too high.

In Calgary I met one of Meghan’s best friends, Joleen, for the first time. That was a huge comfort and relief almost. It felt safe, like safe from the world for a minute where I can be near to a part of Meghan. I got to see where Meghan lived and worked and we did things that they would’ve done when Meghan was there. It was great. Like adding tiny pieces to this massive puzzle. The most unsettling thing happened though. Joleen and her mother told me that the second I got into

Joleen’s truck they felt Meghan there too. It felt the same as when Meghan would ride around with Joleen. That spun my head and I don’t know why. All of these expectations I’m setting for places and supernatural experiences I'm hoping to have are backwards. Or I'm thinking of it backwards. I’m not going out to find Meghan, I'm taking Meghan with me. I didn’t have that realization then. I left Calgary more confused than when I got there. I drove back to Edmonton in silence. Well, silence in my head at least. It was just quiet and kind of a blur.

The next night when I got on the train I felt like I was ending something, or almost like setting fire to it. Its like I'm burning
every bridge I cross. I don't mean I'm severing all ties or ruining relationships. I mean to say I'm not going to give myself an out or a retreat. I know the best things for me are ahead. I know that much good is before me and if I give myself an out, I might get scared and retreat into oblivion. I have to keep going and always forward. And that’s what leaving Edmonton felt like. I came out scraped, but still alive knowing I can’t go back. It's best to dust myself off, ruin all possibility of retreat and keep going.
I met some really great, genuine people, rolling through the prairies and got to share Meghan’s story. I’m actually doing it. I’m doing what I set out to, because of and for Meghan. The big picture is fulfilling, even though these small steps along the way don’t all feel like it.

I spent the last night in the back car with the observation bubble. It felt like everything was right. For that hour or two, everything felt ok and I felt content. The train really is the prettiest and most romantic form of transportation. It's like a chain of lanterns snaking it's way through the forest in the night. It's so perfect and calming and naturally fosters reflection.
Meghan chose well.

if you're interested in seeing all of the pictures from the trip so far, go here

Source: http://ms-mae.blogspot.com/2010/08/pilgrim.html

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Color Me Inspired: Graham & Brown

I personally am not a huge fan of wallpaper - especially the putting up & tearing down business. But hey, it does add a lot of personality and can be used in small doses, say in a closet or to line the back of a bookcase.

 Photos courtesy of  Centsational Girl

If I were to take on a wallpaper project, there's no doubt I'd go with Graham & Brown. Their wallpaper collection is to-die-for. And even better, you can shop their collection and see photo after photo of wallpaper used in homes. Here are a few of my top picks:

http://www.grahambrown.com/us/index

Source: http://casadecrystal.blogspot.com/2010/08/color-me-inspired-graham-brown_17.html

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I Never Got Dungeons

(Being an extended gripe about cargo cultism, having to craft one's own tools, and related shortcomings of the Pyrites Age of gaming when compared to the present day.)

As a larval gamer I never 'got' dungeons.

It's not that the claustrophobia of dark places, the dread of wicked eyes shining from the darkness, and the glitter of trapped treasure in hidden vaults below the earth, held no allure for me. More likely it's because dungeons as dungeons were rather out of fashion by the late 80s.

Visual Media?

The only pop-culture referent we had for trap-filled, monster-infested tombs which made a lasting impression on me were Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Seven^H^H^H^H^H Mysterious Cities of Gold cartoon, and the kids TV cheese of Knightmare. The Dungeons and Dragons cartoon? Not so much.

Fantasy films? We had some good stuff: Krull, Dragonslayer, Conan, Dark Crystal, Labyrinth ("Come inside, meet the missus"), Beastmaster and Willow ("Throw the baby in the volcano, not-Frodo!"). Yes, they were fun, but they were also the kind of film that could afford microdungeons of four or five rooms at best. The dark lordling with a half-a-dozen minions in his Shed of Doom typical of 80s fantasy films was mercilessly ripped on by Sir Terry in "Last Hero", and the backyard pyramid of Beastmaster is still a laughing stock in our circles. Arguably the best dungeoncrawl/dimension-hopping caper on offer: the Fortress of Ultimate Evil section of Time Bandits and its terrifying Flying Cow Skulls (once again Terry Gilliam wins a game he's not even playing).

Erm. How about games thicky?

Even things you'd expect to make for good dungeon fodder (like the gamer gateway Choose Your Own Adventure books) were of little utility. By their very nature these consisted of rigidly defined railroad choices regardless of whether your character was ostensibly travelling overland, visiting a city, travelling astralspace, or dungeoneering. That's a limitation of the medium though; there's only so much that can be achieved in less-than-400 entries. That said, Livingstone and Jackson's Fighting Fantasy, J.H.Brennan's Dragonquest and Jo Dever's Lone Wolf series pushed the envelope of what was possible within the inherent constraints of the medium. Fighting Fantasy even spun off the super-simple, super-fun Fighting Fantasy RPG series (AFF, Out of the Pit, Titan, Dungeoneer, Blacksand, Allansia), and J.H.Brennan wrote the comedic storygame ("You play you") known as Monster Horrorshow. Fantasy role-playing, yes. But sprawling, dynamic dungeons? Only kinda ...in a good light ...if you're being generous.

Unfortunately the famous, market-leading American game - you know, the one with Dungeon right there in the title - was of equally limited use in my initiation into dungeoneering. Mentzer Basic was over-specific in some regards; too vague in others. Yes, the dozens and dozens of monster descriptions were (and are) nice, but where was the other half of the equation, the blatantly missing 'how to' guide for dungeons? How’s a newby gamer actually supposed to build an interesting version of the Mines of Moria, or even a one shot funnel dungeon worth the crawling? Simply shipping Keep on the Borderlands with the Basic Box, in the same way that Isle of Dread was shipped with the Expert Box as an introduction to wilderness exploration, would have made things so much clearer.

The AD&D core books were likewise opaque on the all-important subject of dungeoncrafting. Yes, the One True DMG gave you rules for random dungeon generation, but only the very driest and most semi-complete of worked examples (pp94-97). Elsewhere a cornucopia of evocative prompting, when it came to the defining core of the game (dungeon crawling), the DMG proffered little practical advice beyond Uncle Gary's faux-magisterial "create and fill at least three levels". Little sense of the dungeon as a dynamic setting escaped the singularity of High Gygaxian pomposity and relentless brand building wickedly parodied by Kenzerco's Hackmaster.

Doug Niles' Dungeoneers' Survival Guide was likewise a chocolate teapot. Despite the name the book had almost nothing to do with dungeons. In truth it was the AD&D spelunking, mine management and subterranean ecology sourcebook: useful in a Silver Age fantastic realism way, but grossly misnamed. Miles of tunnels, caverns by the acre, but hardly a bleedin' 10'x10' corridor or pit trap in sight.

So where was all the good stuff? The common cultural referents and 'how to' guides? It took me several years to find, but it turns out to have been squirreled away in the (now-classic) mid/high level modules of course. Now, for all their merits, mid- to high-level tournament modules not being the most intuitively obvious place for the neophyte dungeon designer in search of inspiration to look.

*toothgrind*

Thank the dice gods for MB's Advanced Heroquest. It may have been a board-and-minis game created around the time that GW shifted from being 'us' to being 'them', but it had about the best section on combining set piece and random dungeon elements that I'd read to that point. And it was in distro in my particular (infested with inbred Marshwiggles) backwater of the UK . At last, tombs worth exploring! Barrows worth the digging! Evil cult temples worth the sack! Dungeons worth a damn! There’s a good reason AHQ commands absurd prices on the second-hand market to this day.

So yeah. I learned about proper dungeons from the kiddies version of WFRP, not from D&D. From the black comedy setting that wants you to die only after you've suffered for our amusement, rather than from the famous pulp-influenced, rags-to-riches game. For me it was Bogenhafen; not Greyhawk. The Undercity of Middenheim; not Castle Maure or Undermountain. Karak Eight Peaks; not D1-3. HWOBHM; not 70s psychedelic rock.

Appendix N and the Rich British Traditions of Folklore and Fantasy

I'd done my homework as a larval gamer/history geek. Anything with swords, castles, folklore, myths or legends was devoured with an omnivorous disregard for source, quality or coherence. Kevin Crossley-Holland, Roger Lacelyn Green and W.H.White had (and retain) honoured places on my book shelves.

The expected fantasy books weren't much help to me when distilling the essence of dungeoncrawl from the vapour of genre nuance. Games Workshop's fantasy novels and shorts collections were stark and witty, but kinda dungeon-lite. The TSR D&D novels ranged from *meh* to execrable. Most of EGG's Appendix N existed strictly as aspirations to be snapped up on the rare occasions they appeared in libraries or thrift shops. Lovecraft was known, but was deemed old and a bit weird. Fritz Leiber, Two Gun Bob, Karl Wagner and the like were relative exotica. C.L.Moore, Klarkash-Ton and Leigh Brackett were well-kept secrets entirely beyond my ken. Yep. Like I said earlier, f-ing parochial Marshwiggles was we.

The two titans of British fantasy in my formative years were arguably J.R.R.Tolkien and Michael Moorcock. Leastways, they were the most-cited common currency in the geek circles I moved in. I know the Eternal Champion tales have temple/tomb raids, godling-monster shankings, and quests for portentous shineys aplenty, but these things all played a distant second fiddle to the ennui-soaked philosophising. Elric is too busy being Sartre-with-a-sword to check for pit traps. For all Moorcock's prodigious breadth of invention it's not traps, hazards, and monsters that first spring to mind when thinking of Duke Hawkmoon's quest for the Runestaff, or Corum Jhaelen Irsei's one man crusade against the house cards of Swords.

Similarly the Blessed Tolkers, for all his virtues as a mythmaker, writer of dying speeches, and chronicler of overland travel really handwaved his crawls.

• The Barrow Downs? An evocative, frightening episode instantly turned to crap by the advent of a witless, yellow-booted avatar of cozy folkiness.


• Moria? Three day journey through a ruined subterranean city, three chambers described, two fights.


• Paths of the Dead? One glossed-over talk encounter and some Legolas expo-speak.


• Cirith Ungol? One spider and a bunch of morale 5 Orcs running from a gardener.


• Beren and Luthien stealing their way into Angband? Glossed.

Bad show J.R.R! Failing to anticipate the future progression of a subculture which arose after you departed this vale of tears, one which I imagine you would have had little enough in common had you encountered it in your day. I thought you were supposed to be a clever boffin type. What good are your wonderful books to a poor confused proto-DM? (apart from the obvious) ;)

Help Unsought, plus Evocative Quotables

My formative literary dungeoncrawl? Not really a dungeoncrawl at all (certainly not a Conan, Fafhrd & Grey Mouser, Waylander iron-thewed competent hero one), but rather a couple of chapters from Tadd Williams' Tolkien-a-like fantasy doorstopper trilogy Memory, Sorrow and Thorn (aka: what G.R.R.Martin's SOI&F is trying to be). To whit, chapters 13, "Between Worlds" and chapter 14, "The Hill Fire" of The Dragonbone Chair. I've included a few passages below:

"He sank down onto the gritty tunnel floor, weeping with helpless, strengthless anger, a barely beating heart in a universe of black stone. The blackness was a choking thing that pressed on him, squeezing out his breath."
-- p225

"The passageway squirmed into the stone heart of the Hayholt, a smothering, winding, cob-webbed track lit only by the glean of Morgenes' crystal sphere. Broken spiderwebs performed a slow, ghostly dance in the wake of his passage; when he turned to look back the strands seemed to wave at him, like the clutching, boneless fingers of the drowned."
-- p227

"The heat was oppressive, and the air was thick with itching smoke. [...] The tunnel flattened, turning now neither left nor right, leading down a long, eroded gallery to an arched doorway that danced with a flickering orange radiance."
-- p230

"But still, there were angles in the dimness that did not seem natural: right-angled creases on the moss-girdled walls, ruined pillars among the stalagmites too orderly to be accidental. [...] From the corner of his eye he saw one of the shattered columns of the gallery suddenly standing straight, a shining white thing carved with trains of graceful flowers. When he turned to stare, it was only a clump of broken stone once more, half-shrouded in moss and encroaching earth."
-- pp238-239

"The silent lake, a vast pool of shadow below him, lay at the bottom of a great circular hall, bigger by far than the foundry. The ceiling stretched immesurably upwards [...] At the centre of it all, the dark figure lifted a long slender object and the beautiful chamber shuddered, shimmering like a shattered reflection, then fell away..."
-- p241

If you have the time and inclination, I'd heartily recommend reading the whole as an example of scene-setting. Loneliness. Disorientation. Hunger. Mystery. Confusion. Hallucination. Terror. Despair. Now that's a dungeon crawl!

It might have been a case of right place, right time, right mind; but that section of that one unexceptional brick of extruded book-like fantasy product was, for me, the difference between seeing a lightning bug and being hit by lightning (pace Twain). Now that I knew what I was looking for - crushing weight, claustrophobic immurement, and a sense that surface dwellers are naught but ignorant interlopers - I actively sought out similar material.

Combine elements of The Dragonbone Chair with the ponderous quality (Anthony Burgess' phrase, not mine) and austerity-era gothic subfusc (that's mine) of Meryvn Peake's Titus Groan & Gormenghast, from which selected artwork and passages follow:

Gormenghast cover art by Mark Robertson

Don't you just want to know what's around the corners and up the stairs?
I still do, 18 years after first seeing it.

"The walls of the vast room which were streaming with calid moisture, were built with grey slabs of stone and were the personal concern of a company of eighteen men known as the 'Grey Scrubbers'. [...] Through the character of their trade, their arms became unusually powerful, and when they let their huge hands hang loosely at their sides, there was more than an echo of the simian. [...] Through daily proximity to the great slabs of stone, the faces of the Grey Scrubbers had become like slabs themselves."
-- Titus Groan, pp27-28

"...feeling that here at any rate was his one chance of escaping these endless corridors, followed as best he could in the hope that Mr Flay would eventually turn into some cool quadrangle or open space where get-away could be effected. [...] as his erratic shape approached the next guttering aura he would begin by degrees to become a silhouette [...] a mantis of pitch-black cardboard worked with strings."
-- Titus Groan, p42

or with the overheated Faery Queen fever dream of Moorcock's Gloriana,

"...its outbuildings, its lodges, its guest houses, the mansions of its lords and ladies in waiting, have been linked by covered ways, and those covered ways roofed, in turn, so that here and there we find corridors within corridors, like conduits in a tunnel, houses within rooms, those rooms within castles, those castles within artificial caverns, the whole roofed again with tiles of gold and platinum and silver, marble and mother-of-pearl [...] And in those forgotten spaces between the walls live the human scavengers, the dwellers in the gloom"
-- p9

"A short flight of stairs took her up into barbaric, blazing torchlight, into a hall of asymmetrical splendour, whose ceilings rose and fell and whose walls were studded with huge gems, whose tapestries and murals showed crowded, obscure scenes of antique revels. [...] she had passed them by, pushing open doors into another, darker cavern, filled with the odour of heated flesh, of blood, of salty juices, for this was where her flagellants convened..."
-- pp72-73

Montfallcon and Ingleborough [...] continued their journey [...] through wider, vaster halls, full of decaying pageantry - banners, armour, weapons - dull and dusty, into the echoing gloom of that cathedral of tyranny [...] where rats now ruled, and spiders danced their precise, oft-repeated steps, and shadows moved, scuttled and were gone. [...] Their human figures were dwrfed by obsidian statues of grotesque and anthropoidal aspect - broodind statues, perhaps still dreaming of the heated, morbid and fantastical past..."
-- pp 124-125

"...the tunnel turned, dropped, climbed, leading them away from Dignity and Charity and Grace and all the other sober demands of office, until they entered a high gallery, all intricate, barbaric carving, with ancient beams supporting a ceiling of panelled wood, and the lanterns casting shadows, displayed inhuman faces and peculiar representations of animal forms [...] They investigated little rooms which still contained narrow beds and benches, lengths of chains and manacles [...] They descended pitted stone and heard water but never saw it. They found wax, so fresh-seeming it might have fallen from a candle an hour or so since. [...] They heard voices, laughter, cries, the rattle of implements, footfalls - fragments of sound [...] as if space itself possessed different qualities within the walls."
-- p171

"More tunnels, another gallery and then, leading from this landing, a stairway into a wide, dark, deserted hall that might, two or three centuries earlier, have led to an outer door. [...] The stairwell zigzagged up, storey upon storey, and through the rococo railings faces peered, as prisoners from bars, regarding her with frank but neutral curiousity. The faces were oddly distorted, not by the filigree of the banisters, but in keeping with their bodies."
-- pp234-235

or the weird and wonderful, gas-lit underworld of C.S.Lewis' The Silver Chair, which epitomised the life of the dungeoncrawler in one haunting refrain:

"Many fall down, but few return to the sunlit lands."

and you've got a particular sensibility going on which is, IMO, pure essence of dungeoncrawl.

So, it ultimately took a cheesy Anglia TV kids show, a Warhammer spin-off board game, and a Tolkien knock-off fantasy series to explain the point of dungeons to me.

Thank goodness those old days are gone.
Thank goodness for the thrumming brainhive of the internet (never again need gaming newbs labour in isolation and ignorance).
And thank goodness for the OSR.

Thoughts? Opinions? Heckling cries of "Did you never watch X...?"

edit, and semi-related: having only recently slighted Talislanta as a Tekumel wannabe setting, I am currently in the midst of an orgy of humble pie consumption on the matter. Why? Because Stephan Michael Sechi has made an array of Talisalanta setting pdfs freely available (fill yer boots here!) to the nebulous ghost people of the interwebs. Truly, he is big; I am small.

Source: http://vaultsofnagoh.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-never-got-dungeons.html

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