I’m not proud of the fact that I spent 5 of my 6 hours at the New York State Fair looking for a deep-fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  (We spent the other hour sitting on the highway off-ramp waiting to park.)

But I will say this: The “Great” New York State Fair knows how to fry sh*t.  I put “Great” in quotes, not because it isn’t—it is pretty great—but because I think it’s funny that all you have to do to make something great is to call it that.  On a related note, I shall henceforth be known as The Excellent and Awesome Joshua B.

It’s true:  the Great NYS Fair knows how to fry sh*t and I, as it turns out, know how to eat fried sh*t.  Oreos, cheese curds, Twinkies, Snickers, Pop Tarts, dough, pizza… if they can get breading to stick to the sides, they’ll throw it into boiling hot oil and charge you 7 dollars.  They’ll even fry chicken.  Imagine that.

The holy grail of fried foods, as it turns out, is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Not sure why this is true; perhaps it’s because the PB&J is the best sandwich ever invented and frying things is the ONLY thing proven to make just about anything taste better.  But for whatever reason, it’s highly desirable.  And awfully hard to find.  As any holy grail should be.

We really did spend an awful lot of time looking for that fabulous sandwich.  But along the way, we had some other adventures too.  Adventures that involved milk, grilled chicken, and potatoes.

OK, all our adventures involved food.

Here are just a few of them:

25 CENT MILK.  AND COWS!
Having recently learned that cows make milk (see previous entry) I was especially excited to find out that the Fair has both cows and milk in the same place.  And 25 cent milk at that!  To be totally honest, I don’t really get the milk appeal, but Jason was very excited about it…

I have to take a brief interlude here to explain about my friend Jason.  Jason has what I consider to be a slightly unhealthy obsession with the Great New York State Fair.  Why unhealthy?  “It’s like my Christmas,” he explains.  I’m not sure what dreadful things Santa brought him as a child that 25 cent milk is more appealing, but whatever it was, Jason promised to be my guide to the Fair.  And he was, displaying a deft understanding of where to find just about anything in that maze of food vendors, carnival games, music stages, and livestock—including cows!

A quick visit to the NYSFair web site will tell you that milk is New York’s “official state drink”.  What they don’t tell you is that it’s also the official state drink of Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin.  (In Rhode Island it’s ‘coffee milk’, whatever that is.)  BTW, Nebraska has TWO state drinks.  Milk AND Kool-Aid.  No joke.

So I suppose in light of the state drink thing, it was only appropriate that I tried New York State milk at what was inexplicably called the “Rainbow Milk Bar.”  I guess because the milk comes in BOTH regular and chocolate.  But because I was a bit underenthused about the milk bar, I asked Jason to explain why it makes him so… giddy.  He responded with the following text message segments—each 160 characters or less…

“The Rainbow Milk Bar is a 60-year-old tradition celebrating a cherished New York industry…”
“…Drinking the delicious milk is a nostalgic experience that harkens back to a simpler time…”
“…in a day where the wholesomeness of milk is perverted by flavors and growth hormones…”
“…The Rainbow Milk Bar takes us back to a time where you didn’t need flashy packaging, high-fructose corn syrup, or hyper-sweetened drinks…”
“…Back to a time when all you needed was a quarter in your pocket and a smile on your face…”

We’re trying to get Jason a job writing tourism brochures for historical landmarks in small towns with old mills and civil war statues.  Seems appropriate.

Anyway, the 25 cent milk WAS delicious.  Although—are you listening Great New York State Fair?—the chocolate milk could use a bit more syrup.

What was more interesting to me was the butter sculpture.  Which rotated magically under its own power.  Or at least seemed to.  3200 sticks of butter were used to make the thing—enough to top 6400 large tubs of popcorn… God, I’m getting hungry.  And it was sculpted by husband/wife team Marie Pelton and Jim Victor, who also once created two famous football players entirely out of pepperoni, cheese and olives.  Wow.

This year’s sculpture was entitled “Dairyville 2020”, and the idea was to create a model for sustainable farms of the future.

Then, of course, there were the cows.  Jason was always yelling at me to pet things.  Baby cows.  Baby chicks.  Having grown in North Jersey, there weren’t a lot of opportunities to pet barnyard animals.  Of course, he’d also warn me in advance of petting anything… “Be careful! The cows kick.” “Baby chicks!  Careful… you could get salmonella.”

He also felt it necessary to ask every dairy farmer in the “Toyota Dairy Cattle Center”—(why exactly are cows sponsored by Toyota?)—if the brown cows give chocolate milk.  :: Hangs head in shame. ::

STUFF THAT ISN’T FRIED
Everything at the fair is fried.  EVERYTHING.  Well, almost everything.  I was starving on the drive up and begged Jason to stop.  He refused, saying there’d be plenty to eat once we arrived.  Which was an excellent theory, until he missed the off-ramp and spent an extra hour in traffic.  I was pretty much famished when we got there, and on a mission to find something legitimately healthy to eat.  Finally, after another hour of searching, we found the ONE vendor at the fair that offered a grilled chicken sandwich.  Luckily, there were plenty of terribly unhealthy options at the same spot for Jason to sample.  We grabbed something called “Potatoes O’Reilly”, which were basically thinly sliced potatoes, deliciously soaked in oil, and Jason got a bacon and cheese sandwich.  Here’s how Jason ordered…  Jason: “Hey, what’s on a bacon and cheese sandwich?” Girl: “…bacon and cheese.”  Jason: “Oh… OK… I’ll have one of those.”

EXTREME SCULPTURE
I always thought ice-sculpting was pretty kick-ass—that is, until I saw the “Master of the Chainsaw”, Brian Ruth.  His “X-Treme Power Sculptor” performance involves transforming ordinary logs into things that are, well, surprisingly dainty and cute.  Things like heron.  Aww.  According to nysfair.org, he’s there EVERY DAY, creating four pieces a day.  I truly hope that he’s available for events like weddings and children’s birthday parties—because nothing says young Bobby’s birthday like a sculpture that requires a metal cage, power tools, and safety goggles to craft.  Carve on, my friend.  Carve on.

THE NEON CHICKENS
I would honestly go to the fair just to see this in person.  I’ve seen people die food unnatural colors before just to make sure the kids will care, but I’ve never seen the principal applied to livestock.  Until now.  Green!  Blue!  Red!  These chickens are like an unwitting pop punk band in a cage.  And I’m SO all about it.

The neon chicken area is ALSO where I got to hold a live chick.  My live chick hated me.  And kept trying to jump out of my hands.   Potentially, to its death.  Baby chickens can’t fly, right?  But it seemed willing to endure the 4 foot drop to the floor below just so it would be done with me.  Jason couldn’t understand why I was so timid with the animals, but what with the salmonella warning, could you really blame me?

THE WINE SLUSHIES
I had never even HEARD of a wine slushy until I moved upstate.  Now, I’m not sure why they’re not available EVERYWHERE.  State fair veterans should pay attention here—there’s a change from last year.  Previously, the wine slushy tent was roped off from the rest of the fair, forcing slushy drinkers, who were clearly there ONLY for the booze, to make idle chit-chat with their fair-going companions… until they were finished and able to free themselves from the confines of slushy zone.  Starting this year, however, the slushies may roam free!  Free to wander over to the fried oreo tent—opening up the possibility for endless dipping combinations.  Free to head over the midway, where one might partake in my very favorite carnival game of all: lobbing dirty old baseballs at empty glass beer bottles.

However, there IS a tradeoff.  No longer can one buy a giant 20-ounch plastic souvenir wine slushy cup.  We’re now forced to buy 10-ounce flimsy plastic cup after 10-ounce flimsy plastic cup of slushy yum to get our wine buzz on.  Jason had thought we were limited to 2 cups per order, but, after I left the tent, he emerged a moment later with three cups—a practice he charmingly referred to as “triple-fisting”.  WARNING: Wine slushies can and do cause wine slushy brain freeze.  Drink with caution.  Or, at the very least, slowly.

THE CHEAP SEATS
The Great New York State Fair has a truly phenomenal line-up of concerts this year.  Aerosmith, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Sean Kingston, Tim McGraw, Rascal Flatts, Kellie Pickler—whoever’s doing their booking is doing a kick-ass job.  Of course, they can only bring in the big names if we go and buy the big tickets.  So make sure you support the shows.  Try to pay for at least ONE show this year…

And do as I say, not as I do.  Because I’m way poor right now.  And couldn’t afford a ticket for Rihanna.  Who I really, really, really wanted to see live.

See, there’s a story here.  A long, long time ago (5 years) in a land far, far away (NYC), I worked at a radio station and actually met Rihanna in person.  She had just released her first single and I, frankly, wasn’t sure how far she was going to go as an artist…

God I’m a f*ing idiot.  I mean, stupid beyond reason.  I couldn’t have asked for one little autograph?

Anyway, ever since then I’ve desperately wanted to see her in concert.  So thank God, again, for my NYSFair veteran Jason.  He told me that if you REALLLLLY wanna see a show and REALLLLLLY don’t have the cash, there’s always the super-obstructed cheap-ass viewing option.  THIS was my view of the last half-hour of the Rihanna concert.  All I paid was general admission to the fair.  And as you can see, I was NOT alone…

THE FRIED PB&J
Only ONE DAMN VENDOR at the fair makes fried PB&J.  And let me just say this: the other fried food vendors aren’t always that happy to direct you to their competition.  But who else are you supposed to ask?  There’s not exactly a fried food map to the fair.  After hours of searching, we finally found the PB&J people.  And man, did we hit the jackpot.  There’s almost nothing they wouldn’t fry.  In fact, their sign says it all: “You bring it, we’ll fry it.”  Quite an offer, considering the guy that created fried beer in Texas burned himself on the deep fryer several times before figuring out you had to wrap it in a pocket of pretzel dough first.

Now here’s the thing about fried PB&J…  Um, it really isn’t that great. Certainly not worth the 5-hours quest.  And it’s not the fault of the fryer!  Certainly, they used good ingredients.  Their PB&J tasted great on its own.  And the fried coating tasted great on their cheese curds.  But some things simply aren’t meant to be fried.  I know; I’m as shocked as the next Chicken McNugget addict!  …now fried oreos on the other hand…  it’s like somebody wrapped up heaven in a nice little pouch of powdered sugar and delivered it straight to the state fair.  :: contented sign ::

ANYWAY
This is clearly not a consummate guide to the Great New York State Fair.  In fact, it’s not even a consummate guide to the FOOD of the New York State Fair.  And that’s about all I covered.  If you consider neon chickens food.  Which clearly I do.  But the bottom line is you just need to go explore on your own.  Find your own neon chicken.  Find your own fried PB&J.  And maybe even find something at the fair that isn’t food.  You never know…

Flashmobs are a lot less dangerous then they sound.  Really.  But if I’d never heard of one, I’d personally avoid it at all cost.  Seriously, who decided to combine the phrases “flash flood” and “angry mob” and thought that people would come running to take part?

But come running they have.  In fact, if you were jogging down the Vestal Rail Trail behind the Parkway Subway on Tuesday night, you’ve already seen a flashmob in person.

But let’s go back to basics.  For those of you who have been living in a hole for the last 5 years and are just discovering the ‘interweb’ for the first time, “What is a flashmob?” Wikipedia, clearly the most reliable reference material ever conceived of by man, defines a flashmob as “a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then disperse.”

That’s right, my friends, flashmobs are the Seinfeldian cousin of the political rally.  People assemble for no reason whatsoever, perform a task that has no intrinsic value, and then disassemble to no place in particular—although, realistically, they probably disassemble to get plastered at a pub down the street.  (After Tuesday night’s Rail Trail flashmob, a few of us reassembled at the outdoor seating of the Vestal Uno’s, apparently chosen because “it has more shrubbery than the outdoor seating of the Vestal TGI Friday’s.”)

The first successful flash mob, legend has it (and by ‘legend’, I again mean Wikipedia), was held at a Manhattan Macy’s June 3rd, 2003.  A group of 100 participants assembled around a giant rug on the 9th floor of the department store and, when approached by bewildered salespeople, explained that they “all lived together in a warehouse loft and searching for a ‘loverug’ large enough to accommodate the entire group”.

Since then, flashmobs have evolved into everything from mass pillow fights in urban parks and silent discos in underground subways to massive reenactments of Michael Jackson videos.  The silent disco—one of my favorite kinds of flashmob—involves gathering a large groups of people into one place with IPods and headphones who then listen to their own favorite song and dance about wildly in anything but unison.  A flash mob true-ist will tell you that a flashmob MUST be organized on the Internet by a group of volunteers bent on doing nothing more than having a senselessly good time.  They’ll tell you that a publicity stunt planned by a corporate marketing department DOES NOT COUNT; nor does Oprah’s giant staging of the Black Eyed Peas track “I Gotta Feeling”.

What’s perhaps most unusual about the flashmobs that have cropped up in Greater Binghamton over the past few weeks is that they’re all organized by a church: Grace Adventure.

Grace Adventure bills itself as a “church without a building”.  A recent e-mail from the church’s pastor, Annette Snedaker, goes something like this: “We all know that young adults are a missing population in today’s churches.  Let’s face it: the population in general, is declining in churches.  But yet, the world needs people reaching out to others in love and compassion more than ever!  So… there are a group of us trying to do something that will bring young adults back to talking about their spirituality, and making a difference in the community in non-traditional ways and spaces.”

And to get rolling, Grace Adventure has staged two “freeze mobs”.  One at Spiedie Fest and the other at the Rail Trail.  A freeze mob is a form of flashmobbing wherein participants synchronize their watches, stroll casually into a public place, and then all freeze at the exact same moment.  After a few minutes, they all unfreeze and proceed about their business as if nothing unusual has happened.  Check out this very famous freeze mob at Grand Central Station to get acquainted…

Now the Grace Adventure people have chosen to flashmob for a cause.  A different cause each time.  Their Spiedie Fest mob was designed to support CHOW; participants were asked to bring canned food before they took part.  And their Rail Trail mob was held to support the Southern Tier AIDS Program’s “Dog Gone Fun on the Run”.  People were asked to bring pet food or doggie toys to the event.  To give STAPs event the extra push, many of the freezers stood still with Doggone flyers in hand.

I’m gonna make an admission here: I had my doubts about the Rail Trail flash mob. For one thing, you need a critical mass of non-participants to make these things work.  Luckily, the good weather had brought out a decent amount of early evening strollers, runners, and dog-walkers.  My other concern was that we only had about 20 people there to take part.  But what I realized right away is that ANY out-of-the-ordinary behavior interrupting somebody’s early evening routine gets attention pretty quick.  Even if the interruption only comes from one nutball.  Now multiply that effect by twenty.

One two-some from our group held a freeze-frisbee game in the middle of the path.  A family stood off to one side, all in a row, as if frozen in the middle of their afternoon walk.  And as you might expect, half the fun is watching the spectators—which ones turn their head, which ones stop to look, and which ones, faced with the unexpected, try to ignore the event as if doing so would stop it from happening.

Grace Adventure isn’t content to stop with Flashmobs.  They’ve got a whole slate of non-traditional church events planned, including “Theology on Tap” at Kelly’s in Endicott, an “open house” held at Mad Mouse Saloon, and a “Teahouse Talk” at Vestal’s famous bubble tea joint behind Denny’s.

Annette Snedaker took a moment away from planning the future of religion as we know it to answer a few questions about freezemobs and other fun nonsense…

So I missed the Spiedie Fest Flash Mob; how did it go?  What was the idea there?
Hilarious!  6 folks from Grace Adventure showed up and then we recruited about 15 high school students there. The things people say as they walk by a group of "frozen" people is quite funny!  They say things such as, "Do you think she will move if I….(fill in the blank)"  The Spedie Fest mob was for CHOW.  Everyone brought a non perishable food item.  We decided on CHOW because we realize people have been hard hit with the economy the way it is right now. 

Where’d you get the idea for the mob. Any particular stunt you saw on the Internet inspire you?
The idea of a mob came out of the fact that I was a youth leader a year ago and my youth group talked about doing one.  I looked it up on You Tube and decided it was a great idea.  Unfortunately, we never did one as a group, but I forwarde the idea to Grace Adventure.  I hope some of them come do one with us!  We would love to do a dancing mob someday like the one that took place in Grand Central Station.

How have people reacted so far?
I’m not sure if you mean to the mobs or to Grace Adventure.  To the mobs…people think its a fresh, easy, and fun way to bring awareness to a cause.  Folks are excited to get out there and make a difference in unique ways.  Its a way to do something for the community that leads to laughter, meeting new people, and making a difference.  People want to help, but sometimes they don’t know where to begin.
To Grace Adventure, people have reacted very positively.  Honestly, the fact that we are a church still scares people.  There is a lot of "baggage" with the word and organization we call church.  Sometimes people say, "I’m not a church person" or "I’m not religious."  So I’ll ask, "What does that mean?"  A lot of times it means they feel they will be judged, not that they don’t belive in a God.  It’s so sad and awful that church has the reputation of judging and building barriers, but I understand why.  I have seen church hurt people;  People I love and care about.  So Grace Adventure is trying to break those barriers down!  The church has done a lot of good in this world too!  So the more I get to know someone and once they start meeting people on the Grace Adventure team, they see that we really are a group of people trying to do good, but are not set on one way of believing, talking about God, or practicing spirituality.  There are more people then one might think who are looking for some type of faith/"do-good" experience in their life, but would never find what they need in a traditional church.  Honestly, as a pastor, I am much more comfortable outside a traditional church as well…probably for the same reasons a lot of other people are. But I believe there is a God calling us to lend one another a hand.  (But do I think God is a guy?  Heck no!  Do I believe the Bible is the infallible word of God?  Nope.  It was written by men who, just like you and I, were on a faith journey trying to describe and learn from their own experiences.  So there is a lot to learn from it, but also a lot that is completely irrelevant to our lives today).

Does your idea of building the church through community involvement have a model?  Another church?
A model?  I have researched and been trained in starting a new church; however, I do not know of any other church that has no building.  As far as I have heard, Grace Adventure is the only church I know who NEVER wants to be put in a building.  Office space?  Maybe.  That sure would help me find my dining room table.  But a building where we gather?   Not in our future!  We want to guarantee ourselves and the community that we will always be present and active…doing what our God calls the church to do, which is to get off our butts, get to know the community around us, and try to meet their needs.  Church is something we should DO…NOT a place where we go. 

Besides Flash Mobs, what other adventures do you have up your sleeve?
Up our sleeves?  Haha!  We have ideas coming out our pant legs too!  We are really excited about the upcoming Theology on Tap, Alzheimer’s Walk, Doggone Fun Run, CHOW walk, a flash mob on Veteran’s Day to benefit another undecided organization, mission trips to NYC, Arkansas, and other places. We have an Open House coming up for people to come check us out.  We will offer free pizza and soda.  Its at the Mad Moose on August 31 and our band will be playing known tunes from Lady Antebellum to U2.  Join us for a bite to eat and to meet the Grace Adventure team!  We have a lot more ideas, but we are about 20 people strong right now.  Once more people come on board, we will be able to do more!

We all know Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace have made it easier to answer some of life’s greatest questions. Questions like: 

So what do Binghamton, my Mom, and the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons all have in common?

Stick with me here…

A long, long time ago (I was 13), in a land far, far away (North Jersey), my mother asked me to explain: “What is this Dungeons and Dragons thing all about?”

She said it in that tone of voice that parents occasionally adopt, as if to say, “I’m only asking because I think it’s possible you might have gotten mixed up with something that I don’t understand involving sex, drugs, rock & roll, satanic cults, or, most likely, all 4, and I’m very much hoping you can explain it all away for me so that I can return to my can of Diet Coke and a very special episode of Geraldo where I’ll be indoctrinated with even more irrational parental fears.”

Keep in mind, this was the same troubled tone she used when learning that I was “Surfing” “That Interweb” in “Her House”.

Joshua
Well… Mom… Dungeons and Dragons is kinda like a board game.

Mom (excitedly, comprehending)
A board game!  Like Monopoly!  That’s not so bad!

Joshua
Well yes, except there’s no board…

Mom (disappointed, bewildered)
Oh.

Joshua
Or like a video game.

Mom (jubilant, understanding)
A video game!  Like Tetris!  That makes sense!

Joshua
Well, yes, except there’s really no television or joystick or cartridge or anything.

Mom (defeated, confused)
Oh.

Joshua
It’s really a bit like a card game—

(Mom holds her hand up.)

Mom
Is it a sex thing?

Joshua
Mom!

Mom
Cause if it’s a sex thing, you can tell me.  Or a drug thing—are you smoking something?  Cigarettes?  Crack?  Heroin?

Joshua
Mom.

Mom
…Forget it.

(Mom exits, stage left, presumably to drink her Diet Coke and watch Geraldo.)

Yes, Mom, didn’t understand Dungeons and Dragons, and neither did the world.  In 1979, a mentally unbalanced boy named James Egbert wandered into the steam tunnels at Michigan State in a failed attempt to kill himself, and the PI that was hired to find him blamed the whole thing on Dungeons and Dragons.  It turned out to have nothing at all to do with D&D and everything to do with Egbert wanting to kill himself, but the damage had been done.  From then on, the game held a pretty big stigma.  And so did the people playing it.

But what’s the REALITY of D&D and why in God’s name does Binghamton have anything to do with this blog entry?

Well one of the people at the forefront of “de-geeking” the D&D franchise (and perhaps even de-demonizing it) is Binghamton-born author Shelly Mazzanoble.  A few years back, she wrote a book for makers of D&D called “Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girl’s Guide to the Dungeons & Dragons Game”.

From the very beginning, she takes on your perceptions about who the “typical D&D player” is…  Action hero Vin Diesel, comedian Stephen Colbert, Queer as Folk regular Hal Sparks, and child actor Wil Wheaton: all closet D&Ders; none of them geeks.

Well yeah OK, Wil Wheaton’s a pretty big geek.  But he also played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Which is pretty damn cool.  If you’re a pretty big geek.

And some of these people aren’t just casual gamers.  Vin Diesel reportedly had the name of his D&D character tattooed on his stomach while filming xXx.  That’s some seriously butch action cred.  Heh.

The point is, D&D players come from all walks of life.  Even uber girly girls.  Like Shelly Mazzanoble:

“I get pedicures, facials and microderm abrasions.  I own more flavors of body lotions, scrubs, and rubs than Baskin Robbins could dream of putting in a cone.  I organize my shoes by heel height, sort my handbags by strap length…” and so on.

And yes, she, as it turns out, is also a D&D player.  But she wasn’t always.  Mazzanoble more or less stumbled into her promotions job at (D&D maker) Wizards of the Coast by answering a generic help wanted ad—no company name.   It wasn’t long before she was working at an office that not only tolerated… actually encouraged their employees to play games during the workday.

I have to be honest and tell you that I thought her book would read like a promotional pamphlet for the game.  But it doesn’t.  Mazzanoble’s approach dispenses with gamer clichés—pimply faced loner teens with Dorito-stained hands in dark basements—right up front and allows us to look at the real world of “role-playing” with fresh perspective.  It’s fun, witty, smart and will make it clear to anybody who cracks the spine—future gamer or not—why D&D appeals.  And it also makes me hope that we’ll even more of her work published sometime soon.  (She’s already had two plays produced in Seattle and several short stories appear in notable magazines/newspapers.)

So what IS D&D already?

I’ll quote from Shelly’s text:
“In a D&D game, players are typically part of a team united in an effort to achieve a common goal.  It’s like this: a group of people sits around a table, similar to how they would sit if they were scrapbooking or eating Chinese food or planning the neighborhood’s next blog party.  The Dungeon Master…weaves the tale, which includes various entry points where the player characters must decide on an action.  After a lot of dice rolling … players take turns controlling the fate of their characters … until victory or defeat has been accomplished.  Then the story continues.  It’s essentially cooperative storytelling around the table.”

OK, might not SOUND exciting right off the bat—this is probably the driest passage in the entire book—but it is exciting.  Read the whole book.

I was actually familiar with “Confessions…” long before I knew that Shelly was from Binghamton; the fact that she turned out to be from the Southern Tier was just a perfect opportunity to discuss my childhood dork obsession on this blog.

And to continue to spread the gospel that role-playing ISN’T just for dorks.

Shelly (otherwise known as 134-year-old sorceress Astrid Bellagio) took a few moments away from slaying orcs and taking names to answer a few questions about “Confesssions”.

Being that you grew up in Binghamton—which, let’s face it, is IBM geek central—there must have been a bunch of little geek-spawn D&D players around. Any memories of what the scene was like in Binghamton?
Sadly I came into my geekdom late in life so if there were any geek-spawn pockets of D&D players around, my Sweet Valley High reading, soap opera watching, Duran Duran listening self was probably making fun of them. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s true because a friend I reconnected with on Facebook told me I made fun of him for playing when he discovered where I work and what I’ve been up to. Please allow the 9 year old me to publicly apologize to the 9 year old Dave. Maybe everything I’m doing now is really just my way of repenting.

As a self-proclaimed “pedicure, facial, and microderm abrasion” girly-girl, how did you end up working at the home of Dungeons and Dragons?
I know, right? Seems like the last place I’d end up or even know existed. I’ve been at Wizards of the Coast for over 10 years and have loved every one of them. It’s a creative, passionate, fun company. We have to have fun—we’re a game company!

I found the job listing in the newspaper of all places. The company name wasn’t listed, nor was what they did. It was just an ad for  “promotions coordinator” and I happened to have lots of promotions experience. About 3 minutes into my interview I knew I wanted to work there. Fortunately I was hired as Promotions Coordinator for Magic: The Gathering. Trading card games were totally new to me. I didn’t have cards that attacked each other or could cast magical spells on my opponent when I grew up. I had Hungry, Hungry Hippo and Operation! But if there’s one thing consistent about all gamers it’s that they love to teach so I learned pretty quickly.

I always feel like a person’s D&D character says something about them as a person (duh). What does your 134 year-old elven sorceress say about you?
Oh my beloved Astrid… Well, she was my first D&D character and I think I treated her the way a lot of new parents treat their first child. I was absolutely paranoid that she would die so I didn’t really let her get too involved in combat. Fortunately she was a sorceress and wasn’t expected to get up close and personal with the bad guys.

Astrid is the epitome of my girly side. Discovering how much I loved the game, and how outside the stereotype of a typical game I was, only heightened Astrid’s uber-feminine side. In a way I was using her to break down stereotypes. Don’t get me wrong—we are a lot alike. I do love shopping so I made sure she was always outfitted in the best designer adventuring gear—Balenciago Bag of Holding, Jimmy Choo Boots of Speed. She hated fighting animals—even if they were beating the tar out of her party. She was always friendly and optimistic and studious.

I’m much more lax with my current character, Tabitha Sparkles (tiefling wizard), much the same way parents are with their second child.(I’m the second child so I speak from experience.) Tabitha is intentionally the polar opposite of Astrid. I didn’t want to get attached to her—or at least not that attached to — so I made her bitter and antisocial and impetuous. I discovered that D&D characters are a much more resilient than I thought and I’ll gladly sacrifice a few hit points in exchange for the excitement of being in the middle of a fight with a bunch of bug bears.

We know what the average guy gets out of gaming—fighting stuff, winning stuff, getting the girl, etc. If you had to sum up your book in, oh I don’t know 15 words, what’s the “girl appeal” of D&D?
Socializing, imagining, creating stories, looking out for your friends and eating and drinking a lot.

In your book, you list off a few “closet gamers”. Anybody that really surprised you—or somebody who you found out about after the book came out?
The last celebrity I heard about that surprised me was Eliza Dushku who said (via Twitter) something along the lines that she was raised on D&D.

Knowing what I know about D&D and the people who are attracted to it, I’m not usually surprised to find out someone in a creative field plays or played it. D&D is such an imaginative game that has often been credited for helping to hone creative writing, storytelling and character building skills which lends itself perfectly to anyone hoping to land a job in television or film. In fact, one writer from a television show said D&D was like a “secret handshake in Hollywood.” Like if you are in a meeting and make an obscure D&D reference and someone across the table laughs, it’s an instant connection.

OK, so in my extensive research in advance of this interview (reading the first 13 pages of your book and looking at your Facebook profile), I haven’t yet discovered how your girlfriends reacted to your gaming habits—or the book. Could they relate? Did you convert any of them?
Well, they know where I work so they’re used to the stories from around the office, but still a few were surprised that I started playing D&D—willingly. At first I got a lot of “That game is still around?” and then a lot of “They make you play that? How sad.” I had to do a bit of convincing to make them realize I wasn’t being forced to play D&D—I really liked it.

I wanted them to try it at least once so they could see what the game was really about. Everybody has these weird misconceptions about what goes on in a D&D game (strange accents, costumes, teenage boys in basements.) You can do all of those things if that’s what you’re into but you don’t have to.  I’m sure that if more people realized that D&D can be played at a dining room table in the home of an investment banker by men and women in jeans and button downs they might be more inclined to try it.

I didn’t convert any of my girlfriends (yet) but they had way more fun than they thought they would. And they have a new understanding for what the game is and the people who enjoy it which is a huge part of what I was trying to accomplish with Confessions.

Every gaming guy WISHES his girlfriend GOT Dungeons and Dragons… or Worlds of Warcraft… or Quake 4. And you do. Which begs the somewhat personal question… do you get hit on a lot at industry events? (And no, this is not me hitting on you.)
Aw, how disappointing! To be honest, I’m not the most perceptive when it comes to deciphering the difference between friendly chatter and flirting. I do go to a lot of industry conventions and I have the pleasure of meeting a lot of D&D players. What I get a lot of is people telling me about their characters. Maybe that’s their way of hitting on me?

Astrid on the other hand used to get hit on all the time. I’d actually get email that said “For Astrid” or “Please pass this on to Astrid.” I was never very sure how to respond to those.

Beyond the world of Wizards of the Coast for a second… what are you writing? What’s next from Shelly Mazzanoble?
Beyond the world of Wizards of the Coast, I have a collection of short stories that have been horribly neglected on my hard drive but I still pretend I’ll get back to work on. I also have a non-fiction work in progress about my mom because she’s such a funny person and should have a book about her. If I don’t write it someone else will.

Within the world of Wizards I have been writing a monthly column for Dragon Magazine called Confessions of a Full-Time Wizard and I’ll continue to do that as long as the editors let me. If you’re looking for some crunch with your coffee then this column is not for you. I like to write about the social aspects of D&D like what happens when members of your group quit or move away and you have to replace them or the terror I felt when my boss forced me to DM for a group of new players around the office. Bosses get away with that stuff at Wizards.

You can read Shelly’s monthly D&D column online here. And if your now prepared to get your geek on with the rest of us, you can begin your journey at Jupiter Games in Vestal or Fat Cat Books in Johnson City—they’ve got just about everything you need.  Godspeed.