Daydreaming

King Aerlin the Third of Aelren did not like ruling.

He didn’t dislike it because of the wars, or the finances, or the elaborate diplomacy involved in placating half-drunk barons in jewel-toned doublets. No, his dislike was more fundamental. He simply wasn’t good at it.

He tried, at first. Earnestly, even. But policies blurred into parchment sludge, council meetings turned into passive-aggressive theatre, and every attempt to act “kingly” seemed to offend someone important. The advisors whispered that he was too soft. The generals claimed he was too hesitant. The high clergy said he lacked divine conviction.

He found solace in books, wandering his sprawling library with a glass of something amber in hand, or escaping to the gardens to sketch flowers he couldn’t name. On paper, his signature was elegant. In person, he was a walking apology wrapped in a crown.

But fate, ever fond of irony, had other plans for him.

And so it was that King Aerlin learned—while half-asleep at a council meeting about grain tariffs—that Lady Mirena of Lirenthal had been overheard plotting to kill him.

“...a subtle poison, Your Majesty,” droned Chancellor Vallis, squinting through his bifocals. “Very clean. Allegedly undetectable. She’s even assembled supporters, minor lords mostly. All quite impressed with her... ah, administrative acumen.”

Aerlin blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“She means to kill you, sire,” said General Rennor cheerfully, slicing an apple with a dagger far too large for fruit. “And frankly, if she were aiming to win hearts and minds, she’s doing a marvelous job.”

“Why is no one alarmed by this?”

“She’d be a more effective ruler,” muttered Lady Vyne, one of his oldest council members. “You’re sweet, Aerlin, but sweet isn’t a strategy.”

“She’s also thirty-three and unmarried,” added the Master of Coin. “Ambition tends to curdle when there’s no outlet.”

Aerlin stared at them all.

“So, let me be clear,” he said slowly. “A noblewoman is plotting to assassinate me, and you’re all... supportive?”

The room exchanged looks.

“She’s really very competent,” Vallis offered weakly.

And so, that night, Aerlin read the report in full.

Lady Mirena of House Lirenthal—originating from a side branch of her family—was born to obscurity and rose like wildfire. She managed estates with uncanny efficiency, implemented fair tax schemes in her region, and had allegedly turned a struggling orphanage into a self-sustaining institution in under a year. Her public works were admired. Her speeches circulated in pamphlets. She was rumored to read three languages and had once bested a general in a game of Go in under twenty moves.

She was, in short, exactly the kind of person Aerlin wished was in charge.

He closed the dossier and sipped his wine, thinking. Killing her would be a political nightmare. Letting her kill him would be—while somewhat tempting—not ideal for the kingdom. Or himself.

That left one option.

Mirena was not pleased to be summoned.

She arrived at the palace flanked by two silent attendants and clad in steel-gray silk, the color of dignity under threat. Her mouth was drawn in a polite, disdainful line. She curtsied with mechanical grace.

“Your Majesty,” she said, as though addressing a bee she hoped wouldn’t sting.

Aerlin dismissed the guards. “Thank you for coming. I promise I won’t waste your time.”

“Then let us speak plainly,” she replied. “You’re aware I’ve considered removing you.”

He appreciated her honesty. “Yes. I read the report.”

“Then I assume you’ve summoned me to threaten, bribe, or execute.”

“None of the above.”

That gave her pause. A tiny vertical line appeared between her brows.

“I want to propose,” he said.

A beat.

“Propose what?” she asked, cautiously.

“Marriage.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Look,” Aerlin gestured vaguely at a chair, then sat across from her. “Everyone thinks you’d make a better ruler. They’re not wrong. You’re smart. Capable. Terrifying. I, meanwhile, once got lost in my own wine cellar.”

She didn’t laugh. But the corner of her mouth twitched.

“So why not save everyone the trouble?” he continued. “You want the throne. I don’t. But if you kill me, there’s a succession crisis, maybe a civil war, probably famine—”

“I have plans in place for a famine,” she interrupted.

“I don’t doubt it,” he said with a smile. “But here’s a better way. Marry me. Rule as queen. I’ll stay out of your way. I’ll go to ribbon-cuttings and pretend to care about tournaments. You handle the real governance. And in return, both the kingdom and I survive and thrive.”

Mirena stared at him.

“This is not how power is transferred,” she said slowly.

“Neither is assassination,” he replied.

Silence fell. Then she said, “Do you have any idea what you’re offering?”

“Salvation?” he said, only half joking.

“No. Legitimacy. You’d give your crown to a woman the nobles barely tolerate, who has no royal blood—”

“Everyone thinks you’re from the side family. No one needs to know you were adopted.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

“So you’ve done your digging.”

“I wanted to know my potential future wife,” he said, unashamed. “Originally named Maeve, orphaned at six by the Frontier Crisis. Adopted at fourteen by Duchess Elen of Lirenthal because you looked and behaved remarkably regal. You’ve been hiding that ever since.”

She looked away. “It shouldn’t matter.”

“I agree. But it does. So use me.”

At that, she tilted her head. Studied him like one might study an unusually articulate frog.

“And what do you want out of this, truly?”

Aerlin paused. “I want someone competent in charge. I want the kingdom to survive. I want to go back to reading poems and failing at painting. And maybe... I want someone who doesn’t look at me like I’m a failure just because I hate ruling.”

There was another silence, but softer this time.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said finally.

“Frequently.”

She stood.

“I’ll consider it.”

He didn’t expect her to say yes.

But three days later, she returned.

“I accept,” she said simply.

The wedding was small, by royal standards. Mirena refused most of the excess and insisted the remaining budget be redirected to emergency granaries in the floodplains. The nobles grumbled, but they knew better than to challenge her now.

Publicly, the marriage was framed as a political union of stability and shared vision. Privately, the court whispered of the strange couple: the incompetent king and the ambitious queen.

They weren’t lovers. Not at first. But something like respect bloomed between them.

Mirena took to ruling like a sitsi to water. She restructured the tax system, appointed common-born clerks who proved capable, and brokered trade agreements that stunned the treasury into silence. She had little patience for flattery and even less for corruption. Several wealthy lords “retired” mysteriously after meeting with her.

Aerlin, for his part, became something unexpected: likable. He played the part of doting husband with a warmth that felt genuine. He hosted banquets, read to children at city festivals, and insisted on planting trees in every district.

“She rules the mind,” he said once in an interview, “and I, the heart. It works out.”

It did.

One evening, nearly two years into their marriage, they found themselves in the palace garden. The moon hung like a pale coin in the sky.

Mirena stood with her arms folded, watching the newly planted magnolias.

“You know,” Aerlin said from the bench nearby, “I used to be afraid of you.”

“You should still be,” she replied, without turning.

He chuckled.

“Why didn’t you go through with it?” he asked after a moment. “The assassination, I mean.”

She looked at him then. Her amber eyes were tired, but bright.

“I almost did,” she admitted. “But then I reread the reports. You’ve never ordered executions. You never raised taxes on the poor. You listened more than you spoke. And...” She hesitated. “You left most of the heavy lifting to others.”

“Because I was terrible at it.”

“Because you were honest about being terrible at it,” she said. “That kind of self-awareness is rare.”

He smiled, surprised.

“Besides,” she added, voice dry, “I didn’t want to run a broken kingdom. Better to fix it first, then take it.”

He laughed then, genuinely. “Romantic.”

They sat in comfortable silence.

Eventually, Aerlin said, “I like this. Us.”

She glanced at him.

“So do I.”

Some fire for your Friday. 🔥

This years Critical NW included over 100 fire performers who, through warm hearts, even managed to summon a fire dragon from the depths of hot coals at Fire Camp.

One of my favorite events of the year, by far, I felt fortunate to be surrounded by such wonderful and talented folks.

May we meet again in the woods next year with all the new inspiration gathered from this years adventures. ❤️

Photos by Hank of EspressoBuzz Photography

It started as “I can’t believe Disney made a movie where Merlin tries to get a squirrel to take Arthur’s virginity” and slowly became “I can’t believe Disney’s weird bestiality subplot actually solves the two biggest problems that cause Camelot’s downfall.”

I know it’s a minor point, but I still love the notion that people are still finding ways to rewrite the story so Arthur can f*@# the squirrel.

Legendary Bluesman Buddy Guy on His Buzzy Movie Role in ‘Sinners’: ‘It’s a Dream Come True, to Be Honest… I Did It to Help the Blues’

Damn right, he’s got the blues… and the scars to show for it. A surprise extended cameo at the end of “Sinners” [spoiler alert!] reveals that Sammie, who is played as a youth in the 1930s by Miles Caton, survived the film’s long night of terror, thanks in part to how a resonator guitar can be used as a weapon. And he has lived on in the form of someone who looks and plays very much like Buddy Guy. It is Buddy Guy, of course, still around and still arguably — no, inarguably — the most legendary blues guitarist walking the planet.

Variety caught up with Guy, 88, on the phone from his native Chicago, where he still plays at his club, much like the aged Sammie in “Sinners” still plays at his. Guy says, “If I could get quite a few more people speaking like you, I might consider myself as a movie actor.” Then, he quickly adds, “No, that’s just a joke coming from me.”

But before we get with Buddy, a few words from the film’s composer and music producer, Ludwig Göransson, who worked with Guy on his performance and on the song the bluesman plays at the end of the film, “Travelin’.” A month before shooting, Göransson went out to Guy’s Chicago club and got to swap not just musical ideas but tales of old bluesmen like Son House, who was one of writer-director Ryan Coogler’s inspirations for the part. Then, in New Orleans, they filmed the all-important epilogue with Guy on the very first day of the shoot.

“He had a long day, on what was actually our production’s day zero,” says Göransson. “There’s quite a lot of dialogue he has, actually, and also, there were a lot of technical things that needed to happen with Michael (B. Jordan) and Hailee (Steinfeld) with her eyes and their vampire teeth. And I was just amazed by how Buddy Guy could withstand this 12-hour workday when he’s 88 years old. I was worried when we finished off with the song, because he has been doing dialogue and acting for eight, maybe 10 hours. But once we did the last scene where he is actually playing guitar, it was such a magical moment. We had a whole crew there on set, but it’s like you could hear a feather drop on the ground. It was very much of a goosebump moment.”

That last sequence has poignance for an audience, certainly, if you know who Buddy Guy is. If you don’t, it still intuitively translates, believes Göransson. “I was wondering, what are kids, our younger demographic, gonna think? But every time we screened the film, no one even asked, ‘Who’s that?’ It’s almost like, even if the people didn’t know who he was, there’s like an instant feeling that this is something else — like, you’re seeing a magician do a magic trick.”

Here’s our conversation with Guy, who will be out on the road this summer doing his “Damn Right Encore” tour, including an L,A.-area date at the Cerritos Center on Aug. 10.

Did you have to sit in the makeup chair for quite a while get those scars applied?

Yeah, and I didn’t know they could do that. I was saying, “What the hell is this?” when they said, “We’re gonna make these scars on your face.”

Movies, man… As a kid, I loved the Westerns, because I grew up riding horses in Louisiana on the plantation, and seeing those old cowboys like Gene Autry, playing the acoustic guitar while riding a horse… I can’t imagine that’s me now. It’s a dream come true, to be honest with you.

This is a long way from a singing-cowboy movie. How did you feel about being in a horror film?

I saw a little something when they was shooting it. This guy (Michael B. Jordan) comes close to me, and I didn’t know he had these vampire teeth, and they got a close-up on him when he smiled. I said, “Oh my God!”

How were you approached to do this?

Well, they came into my club here in Chicago, and I was surprised. They say, “Look, we want you to play this little part that’s called Sammie.” And I’m saying, “Well, let me see”… Because I don’t have a high school education to be reading long scripts. I did learn how to read and write. I’m like BB King: I’m not fast at it, but if you give it to me and give me time, I can memorize it. But the older you get, the less you can memorize. Whatever can help the blues stay alive, I’m all for it, and I will try anything. I said, I don’t know if I’m good enough to do that. But I’ll give it a try, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, at least I’ll say I gave it a try.

You know, I don’t know too much about movies. I made one a little bit with Tommy Lee Jones about 15 years ago (2009’s mystery-thriller “In the Electric Mist”). And when something like this comes along, I do it to help the blues.

It’s a mission, not just a profession, for you.

There’s very few radio stations other than satellite who play blues now. And the older people I learned from is no longer with us. But when I was coming up, on the AM stations everybody’s records were being played. There was gospel, jazz and the blues, and everybody knew who the late Lightnin’ Hopkins was. But nowadays, man, if you don’t tell ’em, they don’t know it. They’re like, “Who is that? Who’s Muddy Waters?” My grandkids don’t know nothing about the blues until they hit 21 and come up in the club while I’m there, and they say, “Granddad, I didn’t know you could do that!” So I’m 100% trying to support it so the next generation of white or Black kids can hear it and know more about the blues that was created way before the British type of (blues-rock) stuff come along and all the different types of music we have now. Muddy Waters and BB King, I knew ’em before they passed away, and they told me, “Man, if you outlive me, just try to keep the blues alive.”

So it just makes me feel good to see something that is letting people know a little more about it.  So when they told me I had an interview with you, I said, “Yeah, I’ll take it.” Because anything we can do to help the blues stay alive, I’m for it. I’m in for it.

This movie seems like it is going to go a long way in furthering your mission of bringing the blues alive for new generations. And you certainly do your part in it well…

That’s the part I love to hear coming from somebody else… when somebody says, “I think it’s pretty good.”

I remember BB King talked about how he made a record with John Lee Hooker, and he said it took one take, and John Lee just jumped up out of the chair and said, “That’s it!” Well, I don’t say that, because I never know if I did a good job. Even when I play for a live audience now, sometimes I tell ’em, “I’m not the best in town, but I’m trying to be the best till the best come around.” But I watch your face. If you got a frown on your face — if whatever I play don’t move you — I say to myself, “I didn’t do a good job.” And sometimes I just do little tricky things and I see a smile, and I think, “I must’ve hit the right note.”

You have a humility about what you do, which is surprising, after you’ve been a guitar hero for so many decades.

I still know a lot of guitar players, man, that is better than me. I’m just being honest with you. Because sometimes I see young people come up now playing a lick, and I’m saying, “I’ve had this guitar in my hands for 70 years. How come I couldn’t find that lick that this young kid, like Kingfish or Johnny Lang, did?” I got it from the people that invented it, from Son House, Fred McDonald, and all those people played that music for the love of music. They wasn’t making a decent living. Some of ’em had day jobs, including me. In 1967, I was driving a tow truck and playing the music here in Chicago at night.

You perform a lot at your club in Chicago, but you wrapped up your farewell tour last year, right?

No, no, no. They put that in: “farewell tour.” I’m having kind of a delayed farewell tour; maybe after this year I might say that. But I’m still playing some of the big festivals. Bobby Rush, Willie Nelson and me, they call us the last of the 89- and 90-year-olds that’s still out there, and that’s kind of kept me to say, “Buddy, you better go back out there and play a little more, because there ain’t nobody left after you of that age that’s still standing around.” Because BB King was in a wheelchair for maybe four or five years before he died, and I’m not on crutches yet. So I want to at least go another year.

We hope to see you when you’re out on the road.

Well, if I’m coming there, I always invite people like you in my dressing room. And I always have a shot of cognac, because I’m still nervous. That’s the only time I take a drink: when I gotta go on the stage. I got whiskey at my house, but you couldn’t find my fingerprints on the bottle, because it never crossed my mind (to take a drink) until I gotta go to the stage. I’m like, I know I can’t please nobody, but lemme get a little shot of cognac so I can hope it’ll make me feel like you’ve given the best that you have.

But with or without that, you have to be confident you can still deliver for an audience.

Age takes effect on your voice, your walk, whatever you do as you get up into your 80s. And damn, I’m near 90 years old, man. You can’t do what you did when you was 25 or 26. But I’m gonna give you the best I got, and that’s all I got.

Are you able to accept that you’re a movie star right now?

I guess God wanted the little robot to enjoy some sushi 🍣 🥲