Review: The Tarot Nova

Statistics.

What: The Tarot Nova.

Who: Dennis Fairchild and Julie Paschkis

Price: Retails between $5 and $20.

Size: Deck is a smallish, but standard, square-ish size.

Where: I purchased my deck at Barnes and Noble as a kit, here is an Amazon.com link.

Rating: ●●●●○

Upsides: The deck is a smaller, but standard, size. It's incredibly easy to handle and read. The quality is very high and the artwork, while simplistic, is not completely beyond comprehension.

Downsides: The complete Fortune Telling Kit is not without it's shortcomings, due to it's "novelty gift" nature.

Style: This is a standard "tarot deck" in the Waite/Smith Style. The entire deck is done in a marker-art technique of brightly colored, simplistic, scenes and characters on a black background. The back image is a similarly styled floral and celestial motif.The cards are titled outside of the image and there is a generous border all the way around.

The suits, and the Majors, all have colored corners Majors (Purple) are Cups (Blue), Swords (Yellow), Pentacles (Green) and Wands (Red). All cards are pipped with small, complimentary, scenes

Tricks and Treats: It's a pretty standard deck, but one that's appropriate even for children - either to learn to read on, or to be read for with. It is more inclined to respond like a friend would - "He's greedy" rather than "This gentleman may not, perhaps, be the best to get in bed with financially. Winkwinknudgenudge."

Verdict: This is a little, handy, simplistic, non-scary deck that reads very well.

Rating: ●●●●○

Review: The Dee/Baker Tarot

Statistics.

What: The Jonathan Dee Tarot Pack

Who: Jonathan Dee and Shirley Barker.

Price: Retails between $0.01 and $20.

Size: Deck is a standard size, cards are thin and matte finished.

Where: I purchased my deck at Barnes and Noble as a kit, here is an Amazon.com link and one for the Book.

Rating: ●●○○○

Upsides: The deck is a standard size, the cards are fairly sturdy resilient. They are packaged with a thin, hardcovered, book with various meanings and spreads. The layout is clean and simple, easily readable.

Downsides: Tuck boxes are not meant for the long-haul and this one practically disintegrated. The thinness of the cards means they bend very easily - though I think a well-worn deck is a sign of practice. The book is fairly pointless, and at one time it was wrapped in black paper and used as a shelf (on top of candle holders) on my altar. ;)

Style: This is a standard "tarot deck" in the Waite/Smith Style. The entire style of the deck appears to be a pallette knife-work painting. The back image is er... swords, or reeds or stalks on a block-printed-looking background. Faces are the same pallette knife styled art on a flat background of a bright color, depending upon the suit. The cards are titled outside of the image and there is a generous border all the way around.

The suits are Cups (White/Yellow/Blue), Swords (Red/Yellow/Purple), Pentacles (Orange/Green/Yellow) and Wands (White/Red/Orange). Minors are pipped on the number cards, with additions ranging from tiny portraits to pictoral scenes alongside them.

Tricks and Treats: It's a pretty standard deck.

Verdict: This deck has never read for me worth a damn, so I can't really deliver much of a verdict there. It's very, very, very inexpensive. The art style also annoys me.

Rating: ●●○○○

Review: The Hertz Vampire Tarot

Statistics.

What: The Vampire Tarot Deck w/Mini Book.

Who: Written and Illustrated by Nathalie Hertz.

Price: Retails between $5 (sale prices) and $20.

Size: Deck is slimmer, 2.5x5", round-cornered, and "Plasticoat" glossy.

Where: I purchased my deck at Borders, here is an Amazon.com link.

Rating: ●●●○○

Upsides: The deck is packaged in an attractive, semi-durable tuckbox with a small mini-book (stapled, not a folded sheet). The book is 35 pages, which is large for a deck-book. It is black and white. The layout is clean and simple, easily readable. The cards are nicely-sized for smallish hands and durable, which is nice, and the plasti-coat finish is slightly textured which helps with dealing and shuffling. 

Downsides: Tuck boxes are not meant for the long-haul and I assume this one will go the way of others in time... that is to say floppy, falling apart, missing the tuck-tabs...etc. The book is small, concise, and to the point. Almost too short, seeing as it's a deck-book. There are no frills and the spreads are minimal and standard. I really would like to see tarot authors create spreads specifically for certain decks. 

Style: This is a standard "tarot deck" in the Waite/Smith Style. The back image is a simple tribal-gothic swirl of black on red with a border.  Faces are a watercolor style, lineless, painted look with thin borders of black, on which the title and numerals are printed, lined with a thin blood red border directly around the art. The art itself is bordered on two sides with a gothic vine-and-leaf motif on gray, in a "Tombstone" style.
The Majors have a style that is gothic-tribal, with fairytale-like clothing and hairstyles. The "quality" of the art itself is a little lacking in anatomy and perspective, but it fits with the over-all impression of the deck and does not exactly detract from it. The suits are Cups (filled with blood), Swords (held by funerary monuments and statues), Pentacles (depicted as shields, discs, coins and flowers) and Wands (depicted as metal-tipped stakes). Minors are pipped on the number cards, with additions ranging from tiny portraits to pictoral scenes alongside them. Trumps (there are four for each suit) are bestial royalty holding the suit's token.

Tricks and Treats: Like all vampire-associated decks they are trickier to read. Some card meanings are reversed or augmented by the deck and readings can get especially nuanced when it comes to "Strength" in a Vampire tarot.

Verdict: The deck reads pleasantly, it's got a bit of the "Thoth" flair for the dramatic, throwing out whizz-bang cards on blase topics to keep the querent interested. It's very, very, very "Goth" - and that can be a hurdle for some people.

Rating: ●●●○○

Review: The Place Vampire Tarot

Photo by J. Burgos from Amazon.com

Statistics.

What: The Vampire Tarot Book & Deck Boxed Set.

Who: Book and Deck by Robert M. Place.

Price: Retails between $5 (sale prices) and $30.

Size: Deck is roughly 3x5", square cornered and glossy.

Where: I purchased my deck at Hastings, here is an Amazon.com link.

Rating: ●●○○○
 

Time Off.

I'm taking a break from the woo-woo-internets for a while. Recent encounters have left me rather more raw than I ought to be, and that has in turn caused me to redirect my ire. To those who have gotten the less-than-flat edge of my flaming sword, I apologize.

During this time I'll be clearing up issues with responsible parties directly, online and off, and likely formally severing my ties with a few persons and groups.

This is also a time I need to be taking to work on writing (the long-suffering Familiar-book), and gearing up for my fall-time duties.

I woke up singing "Grow For Me" from Little Shop of Horrors, and realized it's an encapsulation of my frustrations. That I literally popped awake humming it says something about how persistent the message is. I can't keep feeding the man-eaters, or they'll just get bigger and hungrier.

I've given you southern exposure
To get you to thrive.
I've pinched you back hard,
Like I'm s'posed ta.
You're barely alive.
I've tried you at levels of moisture
From desert to mud.
I've given you grow-lights
And mineral supplements.
What do you want from me- Blood?

Moment Of Clarity - The Oh Shits.

There are moments of clarity, and then there are Moments Of Clarity. Those life-shakers that change the way we see ourselves, and the way we conduct the course of our life from thereon.
Usually, we realize we'd been on this particular course, unawares, for a long time. Groping toward something we could only roughly grasp with instinct rather than intellect.

And then we grasp it, fully, and the Oh Shit's abound.

Gasp.

In the recent wake of entries about nonconformity, or "different cognition" and how anything other than middle-of-the-road needs to somehow be hyper-vigilant about not becoming batshit crazy - fuck that noise. This wild witch has weird shit happen, questions it until it hurts - and finds it just as beautiful in the morning.  So, here is a story of weird shit, things that border on insanity, but that changed my life forever - for the better.

The Foreplay.

I don't recall how old I was, precisely... 14 is a good, rough, estimate. I was already practicing whatever this -thing- is that became "Witchcraft". I was also routinely suffering from allergy attacks that, by all rights, should've been taken care of at a hospital. But they weren't "so" bad - I'd take the dose of OTC antihistamines suggested by my doctor (read: A LOT) , the symptoms would fade, I'd pass out... all would be well in the morning.

Except that night. When you have mysterious food allergies, allergies to your own hormones, allergies to perfumes and additives... sometimes a perfect storm crawls up your back when you're busy, and rodgers you dry. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't breathe.