{"id":3156,"date":"2011-01-16T08:41:40","date_gmt":"2011-01-16T12:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/2010\/10\/12\/"},"modified":"2011-01-16T10:50:04","modified_gmt":"2011-01-16T14:50:04","slug":"the-age-of-disco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=3156","title":{"rendered":"The Age of Disco"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rebecca
\nIllustration by Will Hobbs<\/a><\/p>\n

In my opinion, my husband is a genius when it comes to table top role-playing games. When it comes to ideas and variety of storytelling techniques, there are few I\u2019ve encountered that can compare to him. (For those of you unfamiliar with the kind of games I\u2019m talking about, I\u2019ll direct your attention to an interview with game designer Steve Kenson <\/a>who did a great job discussing RPGs for beginners.) Jim has this neat ability to see or hear a snippet of something and suddenly just whip out a great idea. Routinely I\u2019ll sit with him in the car and just start throwing out random thoughts and ideas about something he\u2019s considering and generally the dumber the suggestion the more likely it is that he\u2019ll evolve it into something awesome. One example, a villain who is a master of Feng Shui that kills people by rearranging their rooms in a way that blocks the necessary flow of energies for survival. That started with me suggesting that if a game is set in modern day San Francisco you needed some kind of hippy\/new age villain.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that kind of awesome that made it so when one day Jim said to me, \u201cHow about a disco martial arts setting?\u201d I knew it could be bad ass. All the fun of the 70\u2019s, complete with disco music and dancing, but the martial arts were actually a part of the disco dances of the era. I immediately fell in love with the idea. In fact, I loved the idea so much that I instantly came up with the idea for an introduction vignette in which one of those disco warriors talks about the time in her youth spent fighting a secret war couched in disco. Of course, my fangirl levels of excitement can\u2019t actually force Jim to create something when his head isn\u2019t in it, so my little story has been just hanging around on my computer waiting for some love. That\u2019s when I decided that although I\u2019m not really a fiction writer, (or a writer, for that matter) this story was pretty fun and that I would share it with Magical Buffet readers.<\/p>\n

So here, for your enjoyment I present to you what I\u2019m currently calling \u201cThe Age of Disco\u201d\u2026\u2026 (By the way, I totally call dibs on the disco martial arts idea! Mine! Mine! Mine!)<\/em><\/p>\n

I’d been watching her for months. Three or four nights a week I see her climbing either out of, or back into her bedroom window. The whole neighborhood is populated by the aging, those of us racing towards retirement. A veritable paradise to a 16 year-old girl looking to sneak out of the house; just wait until all the “old folks” are asleep and the night is yours. I doubt she ever realized that I’m a bit of a night owl. <\/p>\n

Tonight I watched her climb out of the window and race off into the night. After her departure I climbed up and stuck a note to her window, “Come over tonight, or I’ll rat you out to your parents. Tina” She’ll come, I know her type.<\/p>\n

I was once a 16 year-old you know; climbing out of my bedroom window, catching a cab, hopping the subway, and dancing my way through every disco club the city had to offer. I wasn’t out for a thrill and I wasn’t looking for love. I just wanted to dance. Fortunately, as I’m sure my young friend has discovered, when you’re a 16 year-old girl willing to show a little skin, there isn’t really a line you can’t jump to get into a club. I’ve noticed the smudged ink on her hands; she’s been stamped at a multitude of bars.<\/p>\n

After months of dancing my way through some of the finest, and sometimes sleaziest, discos the city had to offer I finally settled on my home base. It was a small storefront club. It boasted none of the trappings of most other clubs; no velvet rope, no bouncer, no neon sign; just a small plaque by the door with the name “Tony’s”. The interior was relatively drab. There was a small bar, a wooden dance floor, and a modest raised platform where the DJ spun some of the best disco the era had to offer. Yes, good disco. I had danced there for months before I finally met Tony.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a>There was a rumor that Tony, despite being an African American, had actually spent 10 years in China before returning to the U.S. to open his club. I assumed it was a rumor designed to give a sense of international chic to what most people would consider a dumpy, small time disco bar. One night I was out on the floor, dancing with some schmuck who thought he had a chance, and the next thing I knew, I was dancing with Tony instead. He was older, and black, and everything my parents would fear for me if they knew I was out on my own at sixteen. If they had ever realized what had happened to me, I would have never seen the outside world again.<\/p>\n