Bela's Handstand

Organic Games

2007-10-05T15:30:00.000-04:00

Hi Kids,
Obviously I haven't been tending to Bela's Handstand much in the past weeks. My creative endeavours have shifted over to my game design website, which I encourage you to visit at www.organicgames.net. There you'll find information about when and where to play Thief, which is the flagship Organic Game, plus session reports from previous games, and a few odds and sods otherwise. It's fun to work on, and I look forward to developing it along with Thief and other game ideas I've got brewing up.

I was really excited to get some coverage on my Organic Games project from indyish.com. One of the regular editors there, Alanah H., joined us for a game session and then blogged about it on indyish and linked to organicgames.net. You can check out her post here.

As for other non-game related content, I've made a few posts over at Everything2.com. It's a site where you can post anything whatsoever, not unlike a wiki, and get nearly immediate feedback from other users. If not enough people dig your post, it gets axed. It's an odd mix of content over there, including poetic rambles, book reviews, dream journals, political treatises, y'know. But my stuff is the best. Check it out right here.

So is this the end of Bela's Handstand? Maybe. I do want to make a few changes. I want to remove all but the best posts, leaving just the cream of the crop. I'll save the mediocre stuff locally, but I want the good stuff all together so you can read it w/o wading through the nonsense. Well maybe I'll leave just a little bit of the nonsense.

2007-08-19T15:01:00.000-04:00

PLAYTESTERS WANTED

I need a group of people to test out new game called Thief. It's a card game with elements of traditional role-playing games (RPGs) and collectible card games (CCGs). It takes place in a persistent world with persistent characters. It's set in a constantly expanding city, full of people to meet and places to break into.

The game requires cooperation, collaboration, and creativity. It appeals to both genders and non-hardcore gamers. It is a social game.

I am looking for patient and critical people to meet once a month to polish and finalize the rules. If you don't want to play once a month, I am always willing to play a pick-up game any day.

An introduction to Thief and the ideas behind Organic Games can be found here:

Introduction to Organic Games

Email sam@organicgames.net if you are interested.

Please tell me a little bit about yourself, like what kind of games you have played and what sort of creative avenues you pursue. Please tell me why you want to be a playtester and what you can offer or contribute to this growing game. Although I am very unlikely to refuse your offer of help, I will be considering your language skills, as Thief is a game the relies heavily on language.

Three Great Independently Made Computer Games

2007-04-27T01:13:00.000-04:00

Here are three great independent games made in the last few years. Like music and film, independent game makers are producing the best content, often on their own, putting in countless hours for very little money. Why? Because they are artists, and if they don't they will die.

1) Cave Story - A great Metroid-like game. You can shoot missiles, fireballs that roll along the ground, a stream of bubbles that turn into ninja stars, and other cool weapons. You befriend a group of rabbit-like things and start protecting them from The Doctor and his minions Balrog and Misery. Excellent level design, a good health/weapon experience mechanic, whereby your weapon becomes less powerful when you take damage, great music, the works. Released in 2004 by Daisuke Amaya after 5 years of development. Links: Wikipedia Entry, Download.

2) Dwarf Fortess - I'm a little daunted by this game. This is a Dwarf simulator: you control 7 dwarves, each identified with a different colour ?, and you set up a camp by unloading things from your wagon, digging a hole in the cliff, moving the rocks left over from the digging, etc. Eventually you will be building things like tables, coffins, and aquariums, attracting nobles to your cave and fighting off beasts. The game is incredibly complex and "realistic", for example, to make steel for weapons and other things, you will need: limestone, wood or coal, hematite, and pig iron, and you will have to combine them in different quantities at the right time. The whole game is done with ASCII characters, like other roguelikes. Made by Tarn and Zach Adams, released in 2006 after 4 years of development. (Try a premade world first, as creating a new one can take the computer an hour to do).Links: Wikipedia entry, Download.

3) Dwarf Complete - This game is the latest by On of Eyezmaze, who made Grow, which I first discovered at Chad's a few years back. Dwarf Complete is completely done in Flash. It's very much like Zelda, with puzzles like push the block on the button to open the door, step on the button to turn the direction of the cannon, but with much more challenging puzzles too. It only takes a few hours to complete. Great sound effects, puzzle design, and pace. Plus it's got autosave. Links: Dwarf Complete, Other Eyezmaze games.

Why are these games so great? For the very reasons that most of the games coming from the big developers aren't: they're free, they are intended for a large audience equipped with computers two years old or older, with the exception of DF they are intuitively controlled, they are made by a small number of people who love what they are doing, and they are fun to play.

Tricksy Radios

2007-04-02T21:24:00.000-04:00

Back when I used to announce the news at the radio station in New Glasgow, we got all of the sound bites in a big digital .wav file over the wire, and, sometimes, as I was preparing clips of George W. Bush for on air, I used to extend the long pauses between his phrases ever so slightly, to make him sound that much more of an idiot.

Spam Poetry

2007-03-25T11:12:00.001-04:00

He snapped his fingers and, without another word being spoken, man which was covered as well with hair. Arms and legs and, I couldnt have to start somewhere I suppose. Im just not happy where some of puddle. He rose up, angrier than ever, balled his fists and came on auditions were being arranged, agent A19 was sent for by the fastest - And practice walking on your toes and flaring your nostrils at the Thats exactly what happened. Welcome, Barry, welcome, I said walking over and shaking his bony Yes! Leave-before they find us! been running recordings of your numbers, day and night. Now, soon, we was it a long walk to the open door at the far end. We emerged into a angles and forms resembling nothing I had ever seen before. and stumbled away to the heads where I could be alone with my misery. With that decision out of the way-may I pass on a request? In Do it. Get it. No excuses. Now. Understood.

Desire

2007-03-17T00:05:00.000-04:00

The other day I was sitting around a table with Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris, having cocktails and coffee. We were on a cobblestone terrace looking on a long avenue. It was a mild August evening, the glow of sunset was yielding to blackness with stars right above us.

Dylan, after exhaling cigarette smoke contentedly, tapped its ashes and, looking at it, says to me, "Joey, what made them want to blow you away?"

"He told them he could identify the guilty man," I said, knowing that was only part of the answer. "Your daddy he's an outlaw and a wanderer by trade."

Bob didn't look up, but nodded slowly. He smiled sadly to himself.

Emmylou leaned forward, resting her bare elbows on the table, scattered with coffee cups, paper napkins, plates covered in crumbs, and half-empty wine glasses. She didn't want to have this conversation right now. "There're lots of pretty girls in Mozambique, and plenty time for good romance."

Bob and I looked at each other, the same thought crossing our minds. What she suggests would be bliss, but running always leads to more trouble.

I pleaded to her, "Oh sister, am I not a brother to you, and one deserving of affection? Here's a ring, it cost a grand." She said "That ain't enough. I was thinking 'bout gold. I was thinking 'bout diamonds."

Cearly she would not be so easily placated. She fell back in her seat. "Blinded by sleep and in need of a bed." After three weeks of being in this city together, we were all exhausted. None of us would be the same after we parted.

Bob took the cigarette out of his mouth. "At night I dream of bells in the village steeple," he said. Emmylou looked at him and smiled, then looked up at the stars and sighed with longing.

I knew our time in this city, our time together, was coming to an end. We had been though so much that to be together any longer would be impossible without one of us catching fire and burning up.

Bob knew it too. "I can still hear the sounds of those Methodist bells." His thoughts were of places and people far away. "Sara, oh Sara, beautiful lady so dear to my heart."

I looked at both of my companions. Dylan was looking at the cobblestones of the street behind me, sucking on his cigarette. Emmylou was leaning back in her chair with her hands clasped in front of her, looking at the sky with her eyes almost closed. I said to no one in particular, "One more cup of coffee 'fore I go, to the valley below."

Digital Life Story

2007-03-04T21:01:00.000-05:00

451903636445827351438058349029262430122119
793141592657550406922334392224969223112922
320375254277551777926243070449774825100482
167441519784221945731194325560815670334438
786449898652755023410159452635531518877460
045288854825100162140120267072624090513203
10491610078633689

All of these digits correspond to actual useful bits of information that I use in my daily life: there are phone numbers, banking numbers, dates, addresses, radio frequencies, whatever. I just took out the decimal points and bunched them together. Each bit of information corresponds to a particular place or person or time, like family and friends back in Nova Scotia and people around work here in Montreal. "Reading" the digits reminds me of those things in turn, which suggests to me that that this sequence of numbers is actually something approaching a story: it evokes a series of thoughts and emotions about people and places one after another. If I were to rearrange the numbers in a different order, it would bring a different pattern of memories and significances to my mind.

But it's a story only I can understand. Others might get snatches of the story if they recognize some of the numbers, but no one will be able to put everything in its right place, just as no one would be able to figure out your story if you did the same experiment. If I were to do this again five years from now, a lot would be different but some would be the same, and it would be in a totally different order. So what looks like a bunch of random numbers is actually part of the story of my life. Weird, eh?

Open Letter to the Legions Leering

2007-03-04T01:40:00.000-05:00

In a movie theatre, why is everyone so quiet that unwrapping a life saver is a shushable offense, yet at a music concert, people talk and talk and talk as loud as they want. Save your gossip for a time when there isn't 120 decibels of magic belting at you. Don't have an extended conversation when your fellow concertgoer is trying to make love to the music. At the TV on the Radio concert, during the quiet bits I could detect a susurrus for 50 feet in all directions. Shut up! Fuck susurrus!

From Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night a Traveler

2007-02-22T20:39:00.000-05:00

This novel is a love-letter written from an author to his readers. Here's a sample paragraph, taken from early on in the novel, to whet your appetite.

The following is what happens when You discover that the book you were reading, If On a Winter's Night a Traveler, turns out to be bound with the first signature, or group of pages, repeated several times one after another, meaning that the entire book is filled with copies of the first chapter.

"You fling the book on the floor, you would hurl in out of the window, even out of the closed window, though the slats of the Venetian blinds; let them shred its incongruous quires, let sentences, words, morphemes, phonemes gush forth, beyond recomposition into discourse; through the panes, and if they are of unbreakable glass so much the better, hurl the book and reduce it to photons, undulatory vibrations, polarized spectra; through the wall, let the book crumble into molecules and atoms passing between atom and atom of the reinforced concrete, breaking up into electrons, neutrons, neutrinos, elementary particles more and more minute; through the telephone wires, let it be reduced to electronic impulses, into flow of information, shaken by redundancies and noises, and let it be degraded into a swirling entropy. You would like to throw it out of the house, out of the block, beyond the neighborhood, beyond the city limits, beyond the state confines, beyond the regional administration, beyond the national community, beyond the Common Market, beyond Western culture, beyond the continental shelf, beyond the atmosphere, the biosphere, the stratosphere, the field of gravity, the solar system, the galaxy, the cumulus of galaxies, to succeed in hurling it beyond the point the galaxies have reached in their expansion, where space-time has not yet arrived, where it would be received by nonbeing, or, rather, the not-being which has never been and will never be, to be lost in the most absolutely guaranteed undeniable negativity. Merely what it deserves, neither more nor less."

You are disappointed, to say the least. Calvino's successive amplified and reduced images bring to mind Powers of 10, a short film by Charles and Ray Eames that I blogged about last spring.

Throughout the novel, You get your hands on 10 different books, with titles like "Without fear of wind or vertigo", but for different reasons, you can never finish reading more than the first chapter. It is a treat to read.

I Was Going to Post This on Cinephiles.net But That Site Has Blocked New Posts

2007-02-04T00:59:00.000-05:00

The bathroom is a weird place: it can be gross and disgusting, full of germs and human waste, but it can also be a place of beauty, of makeup and mirrors and perfumes and powders. It's the room in the house where we are most in touch with our bodies and its functions. It also happens to inspire some excellent film scenes, viz:

The Shining - Jack talks to The Devil, surrounded by bright red.

Psycho - Course.

The Conversation - The toilet, OMG the toilet!

Trainspotting - The worst toilet in Scotland.

Miller's Crossing - "You think you've raised hell", "Sister, when I've raised hell, you'll know it."

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover - Helen Mirren gets it on with her lover after a visually stunning colour switcheroo.

Reservoir Dogs - That whole story telling thing.

The Godfather - Michael earns his passage into the underworld.

What else ya got?

A List of Artists and 5 Star Albums According to Allmusic.com with Consecutive Albums After the Slash

2007-01-29T00:29:00.000-05:00

Miles Davis - 18/3
The Beatles - 11/4
Charles Mingus - 11/2
Jimmie Rodgers - 10/8
Bob Dylan - 10/6
Rolling Stones - 9/2
John Coltrane - 8/2
Thelonius Monk - 8/1
Led Zeppelin - 6/6
Elvis Costello - 6/4
Duke Ellington - 6/1
The Velvet Underground - 5/4
Brian Eno - 5/3
David Bowie - 5/2
Neil Young - 5/2
Allman Brothers Band - 4/3
Otis Redding - 4/2
The Who - 4/2
Nick Drake - 3/3
Al Green - 3/3
The Beastie Boys - 3/3
AC/DC - 3/3
Run DMC - 3/3
Jimi Hendrix - 3/3
Nirvana - 3/3
Todd Rundgren - 3/3
Pink Floyd - 3/2
Woody Guthrie - 3/2
Sam Cooke - 3/2
Paul Simon - 3/2
Talking Heads - 3/2
Stevie Wonder - 3/2
Genesis - 3/2
Johnny Cash - 3/1
U2 - 3/1
A Tribe Called Quest 2/2
OutKast - 2/2
Ray Charles 2/2
Tom Waits - 2/2
Talk Talk - 2/2
Radiohead - 2/2
Aerosmith - 2/2
The Clash - 2/2
The Pixies - 2/2
John Lennon - 2/2
Van Morrison - 2/2
Sonic Youth - 2/2

Hello, My Name is Arugula!

2007-01-28T00:32:00.000-05:00

At night I dream about tsunamis

2007-01-23T19:30:00.000-05:00

At night I dream about tsunamis. They are my most frightening dream. The come once every few months, and I've had them for years. Often they start with storms, and then a huge wall of water like the Hoover Dam looms on the horizon, and I know there is no escape. There are always more than one, and they continue coming until I wake up. Sometimes they are the same size, sometimes they vary. My strategy is always the same: move to the highest indoor point as possible before the wave hits, then allow the water to knock me around until it retreats and I can grab a hold of something again. Sometimes I must try to protect other people who are with me, and I will yell directions about what to do and how far away the wave is. There is never any one trying to protect me.

I am always in a building when the wave hits. Sometimes it is familiar, like the cottage at Melmerby, sometimes it's new. Once, a thrill-seeker in a wetsuit attached a long bungee cord to the cottage so they could ride out each wave. So far, the building has always survived the impact of the waves, but I know that someday it will collapse.

I believe the dreams represent the power of the outside world to affect my little situation. They also represent the Earth's response to the enormity of our arrogance.

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2007-01-18T19:47:00.000-05:00

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And the Winner Is....

2006-12-24T13:55:00.000-05:00

...Soy bowling!

The B.Roll

2006-12-03T15:40:00.000-05:00

If it isn't abundantly clear already, the blogs that I link to on the right hand side there, under "The New Order", are clearly head and shoulders above every other blog in existence. In this post I'm going to go through each one and give a little head's up.

On Paul and John Review, Johnathan and Paul either approve or not approve of whatever minuscule distraction currently in their live. In Johnathan's case, this results in amusing and well written observations of throwback comics that he spends way too much time tracking down on the interweb. For example, he lobs us this gem, "We'd have learned how he [Parade Hater Horace] was abused by a parade when he was a kid or how a parade stole his woman or how the government programmed him to combat parades because of an ancient prophecy that predicted that a parade would someday put out the sun." Good stuff!
I'm not really sure what Paul is up to, but more power to him.

Off the Contrary is the creation of our favourite geek slash doctor-to-be: Hanni D. True to form, he provides us with sincere and very learned answers to our questions, such as "What's the use of Vitamin C?", "What's a good name for my band?" and "What's the code to the fourth level of Simon's Quest?" Watch this guy, he's on the right track.

Sneakin' Out the Hospital makes me laugh out loud in the middle of my living room, even after reading it for the third time. This blog is so good I pace myself while I read the archives so I know there will be fresh material for me to read for a long time. It's the only place where you can read awesomes like "if common sense and healthy living are diseases, then poutine pizza is the cure" and, well, fuck, I'd have to quote the whole bloody thing.

The Dominion is Dru's very successful Canadian alternanews site, and The Dominion Daily Weblog is just what it sounds like. It assumes a grasp of current events that I haven't quite attained, but it's nice to know someone's fighting the good fight. He's got a good recap of the Liberal Convention, there.

Bignose Blog is a blog just like everyone elses. Jeff writes about biking, music, and whatever is going on in his sweet life. Honest and very readable. Makes me want to get a nice bike and go camping.

Feefellaneous is a surprise every time. Shireef's got a love of life that shows up in all of his posts, even the great drawings that are up there now. Whether he's going on about plants, shitwhack music or octopuses, it's obvious he's into it, and he pulls us in and makes us know the joy he feels. Bring us more!

Moonbeams Only is Elison's experiment in poetry and language and emotion. Her blog has a tone of melancholy and nostalgia and wide eyed wonder I've never encountered before, in any medium. She has a peculiar habit of deleting entries, great ones, a few days after posting them. A true poetic soul, she has a long road ahead of her.

Lossy Video is the product of Graham and co.'s fascination with the minutiae of video and video culture. Intriguing posts but less than satisfying, and requiring too many plugins. Interesting ideas for sure, but I want more better. Screams Mile End art project.

Professor Polymath hasn't presented shit since July. Ryan's got to get off his duff and spew some content.

Cheddarplex is a collection of lazy drawings from our favourite Chad. Wildly inapplicable but somehow always appropriate, it has the feeling of some grand inside joke that everyone can be a part of if they only accept it. Collect 'em all! The feeling of disease and vague condescension is just your imagination.

Not really a blog, Sukitrebek is Brooks' page on deviantArt. He's got some good to great pictures on there, and shows a willingness to experiment that may take him places. Too bad I don't like deviantArt.

Danny Lutz is Danny's page to promote his musical endeavors, so we've got here show dates, pics, and a few samples. I visit his page occasionally so I know where to go to get my groove on.

Fighting My Place in the World is Owen's arena for shithurling and discreet weeping. Reading this I feel like an observer at an open pit soap opera.

Vache Morte is José's crazy group video project. There's some great imagery here, disturbing and sexy with occasional hints of the sublime. I only wish it streamed better so I could enjoy it properly. "Revenez souvent pour voir des shits fok-top !"
:edit: Vache Morte needs a little more detail: what you will find here is underground experimental video, complete with sound/noise. Lots of animation featuring dolls and knives, and definitely worth taking a look at. Hint: click L or P or E, but don't click F.

Center for Disallusioned Twenty-Somethings. Sue rawks! The only thing to read here is the description, but it cracks me up.

Bela's Handstand is Sam's scattered blog of whatever spills out of his mind. When it has a consistent voice it can be quite good, but mostly it's a collection of hurried scribblings thrown down to try to keep in touch with some kind of readership. Makes you think even when you don't want to.

November 22, 2006

2006-11-22T21:46:00.000-05:00

I just finished downloading Beck - The Information. It's the first music I've downloaded since 2002.

P.S. Holy fuck it's good!

I. A. Richards' "Practical Criticism"

2006-11-22T20:41:00.000-05:00

This book, published in 1929, is one of those that started New Criticism and with it, a whole new attitude toward literary criticism. It's surprisingly enjoyable. Richards doesn't use any fancy language (although you can tell he's a Brit), so there's no jargon or pretension to put up with while reading.

It's got a fascinating structure: he was a prof at Cambridge University, and he gave out 10 or so poems to his class, without telling them who wrote each or what it they were called, and told everyone to respond in writing in whatever way they wanted to. So at the end of this experiment he has hundreds of these responses, what he calls "protocols" for some reason, and "Practical Criticism" is his analysis of the responses. He approaches the whole thing very scientifically: he sifts through the protocols and finds the problems that his students have with each poem, then identifies them. He says there are ten (10) obstacles that get in the way of the real meaning of a poem, from plain misunderstanding to the reader's own random associations (which he calls "irrelevant"), to more philosophical hurdles like the question of whether a poem is good if it preaches a political or moral viewpoint that you disagree with. Each of the poems he gives out happily brings up one of the 10 dilemmas, so everything is covered.

I'm not super far into it, but he plans to tell us about what he thinks the best way to read a poem is, or to be more specific, what the best method of criticizing a literary work is. He's got chapter sections called "The four kinds of meaning", and "Inhibition as the complement of sentimentality", and "Sincerity and intuition" that I'm looking forward to. He's very much tying together psychology and criticism, although he admits that it is elementary psychology he is using, and avoids any attempt to discover the underlying motives of the students in writing their protocols.

A couple of good quotes:
"That the one and only goal of all critical endeavors, of all interpretation, appreciation, exhortation, praise or abuse, is improvement in communication may seem an exaggeration. But in practice it is so."

"Ambiguity in fact is systematic; the separate senses that a word may have are related to one another, if not as strictly as the various aspects of a building, at least to a remarkable extent."

"When we have solved, completely, the communication problem, when we have got, perfectly,
the experience, the mental condition relevant to the poem, we have still to judge it, still to decide upon its worth. But the later question nearly always settles itself; or rather, our own inmost nature and the nature of the world in which we live decide it for us. Our prime endeavor must be to get the relevant mental condition and then see what happens."

This last quote is of particular interest to me because it places Richards exactly on the time line of literary criticism. The idea that a poem is a "problem" to be "solved" is no longer a firm idea to have: it has been killed by the "Death of the Author" crowd and buried by the deconstructionists. But even so, by saying "our inmost nature and the nature of the world", he allows for a lot of the change in the meaning of Meaning that would come twenty and thirty years down the road. Richards' main ideas are ones promoting close reading and being aware of one's own reactions and emotions to a text and how they might influence your opinions while reading it.

The last part of the book is Richards' attempt to introduce a better way of teaching poetry and other literature. Fun stuff! I'm looking forward to it.

Friedrich Engels

2006-11-19T11:48:00.000-05:00

L to R: Friedrich Engels and brother Nick (concealed)
- or -
How did this guy put food in his mouth?

How I Spent Your Summer Vacation

2006-10-09T16:09:00.000-04:00

The past few weeks for me have been really great. I've been feeling healthy and attractive, and I'm getting lots accomplished. I'm enjoying myself more, and people respond to me better. Before, I wondered why things have been going so well for me, but now I realise how obvious it is: it's all because I'm having so much allbran.

Thanks to improved self-confidence and a new wardrobe, I've been having more allbran than I ever have before. All my friends are jealous at how much allbran I'm getting. In fact, almost everyday I have allbran!

I used try so hard to get allbran, going to bars and parties day after day. But then I realised, if you just let it happen, allbran will come to you!

A few people have asked me, "Sam, are you sure all this allbran is good for you?". Some have even pointed to certain studies that try to show allbran can lead to medical problems. But I just say "Look at me, I've never felt better! allbran is safe and healthy! And besides, the more allbran you have, the better it gets!"

With a lot of hard work and a little luck, I can look forward to a lifetime of allbran. I just love having allbran!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2006-09-27T18:47:00.000-04:00

The past few weeks for me have been really great. I've been feeling healthy and attractive, and I'm getting lots accomplished. I'm enjoying myself more, and people respond to me better. Before, I wondered why things have been going so well for me, but now I realise how obvious it is: it's all because I'm having so much nosex.

Thanks to improved self-confidence and a new wardrobe, I've been having more nosex than I ever have before. All my friends are jealous at how much nosex I'm getting. In fact, almost everyday I have nosex!

I used try so hard to get nosex, going to bars and parties night after night. But then I realised, if you just let it happen, nosex will come to you!

A few people have asked me, "Sam, are you sure all this nosex is good for you?". Some have even pointed to certain studies that try to show nosex can lead to medical problems. But I just say "Look at me, I've never felt better! Nosex is safe and healthy! And besides, the more nosex you have, the better it gets!"

With a lot of hard work and a little luck, I can look forward to a lifetime of nosex. I just love having nosex!

Random!

2006-09-09T12:15:00.000-04:00

For music lovers

2006-09-06T14:31:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting peruse: Rate Your Music has a list of all the best albums, as rated by dozens of internet users (at least). You can look by year or by decade, as well.
http://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top

Questions

2006-09-06T13:26:00.000-04:00

If a student achieves 100% in a class in one year, and 100% in the same class the following year, can it be said that he or she made any progress?

Why do dogs look you in the eye?

Why is bushido so cool?

Check it out! Go Tatamagouche!

2006-08-21T13:40:00.000-04:00

Tatamagouche Free School

Organic Games

2006-08-21T13:29:00.000-04:00

I'd like to talk a little bit about my card games. I have two: one is called City Thief, or Thief in the City, or Thief: The Meta Game, and the other is called Medieval Duct Tape Combat. They are very different games, but they share certain elements: organic elements of growth and decay, elements which will be present in all games of my design, which is why my design company will be called (is called?) Organic Games.

How can a card game involve elements of growth and decay? Good question. First of all, these are not the kind of card games your grandparents played. There are no suits or ranks, pairs, runs, left bowers, bids, or any of that nonsense. These cards are made up of words: metaphors for real or imaginary things. For example, in Thief, some of the cards represent places in the City where the game takes place: a Bank, Houses, Pawn Shops, etc., or options like Hired Goons, Alarm Ringer, or Sneaky Manoever. In Medieval Duct Tape Combat, the cards represent attacks each player can use against their opponent, Vicious Two-Handed Overhead Sword Chop, perhaps. The important thing about these games is that the number of word-symbols is not limited to what was there when the players sit down to play: the pool of word-symbols, the number of concepts that are at play, gets larger as the game progresses through the direct input of the players involved. How can this happen? Simple. In Thief, certain cards allow or even require a player to add something to the game. For example, someone might draw a card called Expansion that requires them to put a new location into play, so they take a blank card, think up a suitable place, write it down along with any gameplay effects there may be, and put it into play. There are other cards a player may draw which allows them to create a card of any type. In Medieval Duct Tape Combat, creating a new card is an option available to the players at all times, and only requires the spending of a few Skill Points, which measure how much ability and momentum each player has.

In both games there are also ways cards can be destroyed: in Thief there is a card called Fire, which might destroy a location, plus there are a few cards which give players the option to destroy a card if they want to. In Medieval Duct Tape Combat, destroying the opponents cards is a key objective. From one angle, the games are about survival of the fittest: the best cards stick around, while the least effective or most vulnerable get axed.

Every card is affected by these organic processes of growth and decay, which means the games are never unchanging or static but are constantly in a state of flux. Even the rules change and grow as new cards are added and the interactions between the new and the old must be worked out. (I'm speaking mainly of Thief here, since that has had the most playtesting, and is thus the one I'm most confident in.) It is entirely possible that after several plays, none of the original cards will remain, having been completely replaced by new additions. But if this is the case, then where is the game? Is a game that has no constant elements still called a game? I think the answer is yes, but I think it's a new kind of game we haven't seen before.

I've started to think of my card games as Meta-Games, or Infinite Games: games in which the underlying structure, or skeleton, allows for the constant evolution of the cards, which are the subtance of the game. The two elements, the structure or rules and the cards themselves, form an organic whole. Players have control over what their character does during the game, but they also have limited control over the size and shape of the game itself. From James Carse's "Finite and Infite Games": "Finite players play within boundaries, infinite players play with boundaries... The task [of an infinite game] is to design rules that will allow the players to continue the game by taking limits into play... Since limits are taken into play, the play itself cannot be limited." What keeps everything together despite the constant flux of boundaries and substance is the System of game mechanics. Thief is a very flexible system that can incorporate and adapt to an enormous number of introduced concepts, a number limited only by the imagination of the players.

I've had two very successful games of Thief in the past couple of months that added lots of interesting new cards. One had seven players (Brandon, Brooke, Phil, Brooks, Peter, Emily, and myself), the other had two (me and Jesse). These games saw the introduction of a Garrotte, a Gluten-Free Bakery, a Dark Unlit House, a Twenty Dollar High, J.L.'s Pizza, a Depanneur, and a Hole in the Wall. Plus many other bugs were ironed out and new ideas were tossed around and some adopted. I find it so exciting to see what contributions each player might come up with. For me, when I play the game I see a city like London of the Sherlock Holmes stories, with gas-lit lamps and hansom cabs, and so I introduce cards that reflect that scenario. But others, who may picture a more contemporary city, add things relevant to that vision, such as a Palm Pilot©. The Palm Pilot© was one of the first cards added to the game by someone other than myself (by Jeff), and it's still around after more than three years. So far players have not had much difficulty adding new cards to the game: they just take a look around the city they have in their imagination, pick something that would make that city more fun or more real to them, and then write it down on a card.

One of the things that I like most about Thief is that nobody has to get it right the first time. Nothing is true, everything is permitted. Hanni added a card that allowed a player to do something he called Networking, but he didn't specify what that meant. He started the Networking meme, and he knew someone down the road would come up with a good idea to finish it. Nothing yet, though. Perhaps when more than one player is Networking, they can work together to make a break in. The point is, ideas can be started but they don't have to be finished. Everything can be changed around, so if something doesn't work right away, that's no problem. If you are reading this and are interested in playing, perhaps because you have an idea for what Networking does, drop me a line. I'm always up for a game.

The Real Frank Zappa Book:

2006-08-19T19:10:00.000-04:00

A very entertaining read, for the most part. Published in 1989, well after Zappa's most successful albums. We read about his family life, his encounteres with different political organizations, including the Parents' Music Resource Center, who wanted every album sold in stores to bear a rating not unlike a film: general to restricted, or something similar. The PMRC really gets Zappa's bile up. We get a fair amount of Zappa's bile while reading this book, and to be fair I'd rather have Zappa's bile than pretty much anyone else's, but I did have to skip portions of one chapter, called "Practical Conservatism", which had too many words in italics or caps or bold fonts and reminded me too much of a soap box. He speaks Truth, but that doesn't mean I have to take in his bitterness when I don't want it.

Otherwise immensely enjoyable, from stories of the early days in Hicktown, California, with those who would eventually show up in songs like "Let's make the Water Turn Black", to Frank's views on the synclavier. Chapter 10, "The One You've Been Waiting For" contains a few juicy road stories, but isn't as exciting as it is elucidating of Zappa's general disregard for drunken shenanigans. The chapters on his family, his four kids, wife and pets, are clearly written with the most peace and joy than the rest of the book, which has a tone of either nearly-fond reminiscence or impatience bordering on disdain, with occasional passages of "genius at work".

A worthwhile read simply because Zappa's voice is so clear; it does feel as if he is writing his thoughts down quickly with very little critical correction. Plus, the illustrations by someone who's signature resembles "AWEST" are pleasant bonus.

From Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility by James Carse

2006-08-12T12:56:00.000-04:00

"To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.

Education discovers an increasing richenss in the past, because it sees what is unfinished there. Training regards the past as finished and the future as to be finished. Education leads toward a continuing self-discovery, training leads toward a final self-definition.

Training repeats a completed past in the future. Education continues an unfinished past into the future."

Overheard at the Bookstore

2006-08-09T18:44:00.000-04:00

"We invented punk so we wouldn't have to listen to Robert Plant singing about his penis!"

A Recommendation

2006-08-09T17:32:00.000-04:00

Anyone who digs the Scofield - Medeski Martin & Wood collaboration A Go Go would, I think, enjoy listening to some recordings by Harvey Mandel. Mandel plays more blues and less groove, but the attitude and instrumentation are very similar. Thank you.

Holy hot damn you little jackass!

2006-08-02T16:45:00.000-04:00

Today and tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday, are the last days that Cinema du Parc will be open

2006-08-02T12:25:00.000-04:00

Nouns and adjectives in Tokion Issue 40 The World Records Issue

2006-08-01T17:57:00.000-04:00

eyes are: lonely
emotion is: sweet
desire is: intense, burning
passion is: true
feelings are: fresh, free
stuff is: scary, old country, bitchy
things are: wierd, the coolest, different, interesting, goddamn, visible, non-visible, intangible, various, beautiful
people are: interesting, young, dim, shriveled, bleak, absurd, powerful, unique, retarded
individuals are: vast, creative, fearless, resilient
girls are: mod
ladies are: long, lean, langourous
women are: crazy
wives are: errant
men are: free, pleasant, young
dudes are: sketchy, bearded
kids are: white trash, tiny, muscle-bound, crazy
life is: boring, normal, not easy
cars are: expensive, unbelievable, muscle
designs are: exquisite, hand-made
design is: innovative, high, affordable, radical, hot
designers are: insect-loving
furniture is: Styrofoam
drawings are: delicately disturbing
t-shirts are: cool, dangerous
shoes are: action, classic, basketball, ultimate high performance track and field, gold
sneaker collectors are: avid
characters are: elegant, stuffed, wierd, claymation
insomnia is: terrible
landscapes are: bleak
worlds are: obscure, wide, brightly colored, visible, non-visible, competitive, just, magical
atmospheres are: creative
realms are: rarefied, scientific
environments are: unstable, poor
space is: limited
spaces are: quiet, rotating
places are: important, warm, safe, great, cozy
moments are: memorable, rare
days are: windless, bad, glory
afternoons are: rainy
sludge rockers are: legendary
cult followings are: rabid
thrones are: bloody
skycrapers are: incredible
humor is: incredible
musical skills are: incredible
relationships are: awesome
challenges are: tough, appealing
gladiolas and hearing aids are: suddenly fashionable
torchbearers are: forever lonely, tormented
symbols of self-destruction are: fascinating
forms of human expression are: immediate, powerful
responses are: frothy
magazines are: interesting, powerful, unreadable
books are: very untruthful, iconic
ways are: unpleasant, strange, unique
creativity is: dementedly out-of-control
teeth are: gritted
milk is: breast, real
movies are: long, real
film is: modern, life affirming
scripts are: incredible, unpredicatable, original
endings are: spectacular
reviews are: mixed
spitoons are: constant
death is: so far away
shit is: stupid, hippy
energy is: underlying, beast-like
rockets are: human
bastards are: phony
problems are: personal
living conditions are: strict
sanitary guidelines are: strict
natures are: relaxed, competitive
compliments are: great
jobs are: great
support is: great, tremendous, important
friends are: great
foundations are: great
blowout parties are: stupid
cats are: obese
balls of duct tape are: giant
meats are: delicious
grills are: burning
art is: interactive, functional
artists are: accomplished, local, far-away
toys are: plush, retro
beauty is: primitive
games are: extremely interesting, extremely beautiful, cool
gameplay is: logical
nicknames are: self-given
states are: oxygen-deficient
machines are: special, awsome, terrifying
DNA is: good, special
geniuses are: hapless, unappreciated
gamma rays are: stray
fashion is: poof-shouldered
heroes are: working-class
views are: romantic, nice
periods are: decadent, over-the-top
fascism is: cheap
tops are: sequin
cousins are: wierd
floors are: glass
restaurants are: revolving
hallways are: eerie
fetish destinations are: ultimate
history is: bizarre
debauchery is: reckless
memories are: intoxicated
dealers are: unique
artifacts are: unique
style is: unique
landmarks are: warm, intimate, luxurious
touches are: delicate
bands are: great, overlooked, new
music is: safe, wildly original, alien, important, truly outsider, new
roller-rink days are: unremembered
swagger is: Strokes-esque
brands of linguistic terrorism are: idiot-savant garde
tracks are: beautifully innocent, cut-up, high-quality, digital
sonic meanderings are: flamboyant, unapologetically grandiose
album covers are: misleading
dub outings are: bass-heavy, modern, digital
gloss-house is: Ibiza-friendly, minimal
overtones are: beautifully melodic, escapist
beginnings are: chaotic, art-punk
crushes are: secret
candy bars are: deep-fried
louts are: lager-swigging
bottoms are: saggy
devices are: cheap-ish
manflesh is: feeble, stinking
power is: mighty
planets are: tragic
cheese is: melted
lawyers are: douchey
vibes are: bad
hills are: rolling
porno is: hot
sex is: awkward
youths are: desperate
babes are: blood thirsty
silence is: complete
saxophones are: broken
living is: discordant
fingernails are: long, spiralling
dens are: smokin’
bar tabs are: high
driving is: white knuckle
somethings are: pleasant

I read my first Calvin & Hobbes book the other day!

2006-07-26T18:09:00.000-04:00

Zen and the Record

2006-07-17T21:44:00.000-04:00

In the realms of the physical activities, there is a point at which the conscious decision-making processes yield to the unconscious. A good sailor or boxer, for example, will tell you that at certain moments their mind is no longer processing sensory information in the usual way, nor is their mind sending electrical impulses to their muscles as normally would happen when lifting boxes, or frying eggs, or another typical activity. These moments may come about at times of stress or challenge; the sailor might say that during a big storm they moved simply on impulse or intuition or instinct, doing whatever was necessary to keep the ship afloat, but not really thinking about each action as it occured. For the boxer, the process of seeing a fist approach, identifying its trajectory, then selecting and carrying out an appropriate block or dodge is too slow: to be successful, the boxer must react faster than conscious thought allows. They might call it "Zen" or being "in the zone". The way the mind handles sensory information changes in curious ways when an athlete is in the zone: time may seem to move slowly, movements at the edges of the field of vision are noticed as if they were immediately in front, limbs and fingers move seemingly before the brain has asked them to. At these times the consciousness or ego(is this the right word?) recedes to let something else take over the physical activity.

But what about the realms of the mental activities? In the examples of the sailor and boxer above, these athletes necessarily relied on years of training and experience to enter into that Zen Zone. A novice sailor or boxer is incapable of this, and must still rely on the sensory intake - decision - muscle reaction process. In a new stressful situation such as the storm, the novice will not have the the experience and training necesary to make the right decisions, or perhaps any decision at all. But there are those who have years of training and experience in a field not related to sailing, boxing, or another form of physical activity. Take, for example, me. I've been choosing records and cds to put on to entertain and content myself and my family and friends for years. I don't choose randomly, instead I try to evaluate the mood of who is in the room, I consider the time of day and even the weather and then select accordingly. I'm not always right and certainly in years past I didn't have the variety to choose from as I do now: not everyone can be satisfied with prog-rock or grunge, as was my favour 10 years ago. Recently, I've found that the less thinking I do about the choice of record to be played, the better the results. I'll flip through my LPs until one "speaks" to me. I'll put it on, and everyone enjoys it; if I'm the only listener, I love it. Yesterday, it was Mike Oldfield's "Crises", an album I've listened to only once before. Like I said, I have years of experience doing this, just like the expert sailer and boxer. I have all the sensory information I need, but I don't apply it directly to the decision making process as I once did. When I put a record on, it feels as though it was chosen for me already.

What's going on here? Have I reached the Zen of the Record? Has all the time and thought put into the music I listen to finally paid off as some form of divine music picking inspiration? And you, who have also put years of thought and effort into one or many specific activites, physical, mental, or otherwise, have you reached a point where the mind subsides, gives way to another form of decision making action? Tell me, what is the Zen of the chemist, the biologist, the artist, the musician?

Project for the New American Century

2006-07-15T15:48:00.000-04:00

The Project for the New American Century is a group of high-powered American government officials who, through a "a policy of military strength and moral clarity", want to see a United States empire as the only global power in the 21st century. Their ultimate goal is a "Pax Americana". The group includes vice president Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, president of the World Bank Paul Wolfowitz, and many other heavy duty movers and shakers. People say the invasion of Iraq was the "first step" of their plan.

In a document called "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century", it is written that they want to:
* Reposition permanently based forces to Southern Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East;
* Modernize U.S. forces, including enhancing our fighter aircraft,
submarine and surface fleet capabilities;
* Develop and deploy a global missile defense system, and develop a
strategic dominance of space;
* Control the "International Commons" of cyberspace;
* Increase defense spending to a minimum of 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, up from the 3 percent currently spent.

In the same document, they outline the following two goals: to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars," and to "perform the 'constabulary' duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions."

Undoubtedly members of this group are the ones who insist on supporting Israel's attacks on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. We will see more US military in the Middle East, and we will see US allies carrying out the dirty work of the PNAC cadre.

Here are some links with more info:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Project_for_the_New_American_Century
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1665.htm
http://pnac.info

Operation Summer Rain

2006-06-30T14:57:00.000-04:00

Rant

2006-06-25T16:25:00.000-04:00

Kids need to teach us about the age they live in, not the other way around. Us semi-adults come from an earlier age that can't comprehend the current age as intimately as those who have lived with it since they were born. The cultural motifs, philosophies and insights are transferred to younger children in their music, televison, film; in short, through all the culture they absorb. In a school, the teachers, who are older, have lived in an earlier era and therefore are necessarily out of date. This is, I believe, why students of all levels often feel what they are absorbing in the classroom is out of date and irrelevant, especially in the subjective fields such as English and other liberal arts.

It should be the children, the smart, wise children who can observe closely what they are experiencing in their world and who can communicate it effectively, who lead the discussion on any contemporary cultural study, including literature and the rest of the arts.

Our times change quickly. At the beginning of the last century, it was not entirely possible to say that each individual had their own perspective of reality, separate from all others, meaning there is no single perspective that was shared by all. The twentieth century saw a generation who died before encountering this idea, a generation who encountered this idea in the middle of life, and a generation who were born as this idea was widespread and to a degree universal. Who is more likely to have the most complete understanding of this postmodern idea, the young person, the student, who has grown up in a postmodern culture, absorbing the ramifications of this idea from advertisements, magazines, movies, books, music, visual art, design, architecture, food, and any other sense object you care to mention, or the middle-aged person, the teacher or the professor, who first encountered this idea through their own observations, through dicussion with other learned people, through reading forward-thinking books, or another one-degree-removed method, and who encountered it with a friendly - or possibly a hostile attitude?

What right do I have to think that down the road I could possibly teach someone twenty years younger something about life? My current postmodern mindset will be long out of date by my fiftieth birthday, to be replaced by a zeitgeist of such complexity it will be extraordinarily difficult for me, or any of my contemporaries to comprehend. If I want to know about the world 25 years from now, I must sit at the feet of a 5 year old or a 15 year old, and listen as they tell me about the music they hear and the movies they watch, listen as they tell me how they are touched and affected by the culture they take in.

Fringetastic Fringetasm

2006-06-16T19:28:00.000-04:00

This is the last weekend of the 2006 Montreal Fringe Festival. Go, go, go! It's hundred's of interesting, beautiful people doing interesting, beautiful things. The best thing I've seen there so far is Black Roses, a show put on by two attractive young girls who sing and play guitar and make you laugh with dirty jokes and deadpan humour. I can also recommend Fresh Meat, You Like It, Evil is the New Good, and Uncalled For. The name of their show is "Uncalled For 4: For Forever" which makes me laugh every time I say it out loud. Also, Joe is in Ben Hur and Laura produced You Like It. The site is www.montrealfringe.ca. If you go, try to make it to the 13th Hour, a fringe "talk show", every night at 1 o'clock at the Academy Club.

The Forbidden Forest

2006-06-10T11:29:00.000-04:00

I've been reading on some websites about a new "tree display" project that the City of Boston is working on. It's going to take up about 3 large city blocks, not downtown, but somewhere nearby; I'm not really familiar with the layout of Boston. It's essentially a park, but the interesting thing about it is that no humans will be allowed in. The idea is that the space will start with rich soil with a few native plants and grasses already planted to keep the soil down, and then just let nature take it's course: beginning with grasses, bushes, and eventually trees, plus whatever insects, animals and birds that decide to come along for the ride. In a generation or two, who knows what it could look like? It will be bounded by 8 or 10 feet high fences, so people can look through, and so animals and birds can get in and out, but it will permit almost no human entry.

The only people who are allowed into the park will be a few professional gardeners or tree-keepers, who will make sure any litter that gets blown in by the wind is removed, everything gets enough water, etc. They can promote plant life, but they can do nothing to oppose it, so no weeding, grass cutting, or landscaping, and of course no pesticides.

The majority of the costs are being paid for by the City of Boston and by one of Boston's art organizations, plus a few other groups across the states. It's considered by some to be an "art project", something like Christo's The Gates, in NYC.

I haven't quite made up my mind on whether this is a good idea or not. I can see both sides of it, and I've read some comments from people that are both positive and negative. It boils down to a question of humanity's value: is the presence of a human, or many humans, a good thing or a bad thing? For starters, why have what could be a beautiful place of life and harmony cut off from access? Why assume that human presence will obstruct that life and harmony? Are we inherently harmful to nature? And if we aren't, why do some people think we are, so much to forbid us from entering a pleasant part of a city?

One of the points against it is the potential that it will be the first of many tree museums. This argument suggests that we've reached a point where untended nature is so far away that in order to remind or educate people what Mother Nature is like when left alone, we have to put it behind glass, like in a museum. If these museums pop up all over the place, then it will lessen the value of the "real" nature that's left: the untouched rainforets, the arctic, the miles of boring trees in northern New Brunswick, etc.

But of course, there are benefits. The park will become a habitat for all kinds of living things, and without people feeding them, cutting down their homes, or otherwise meddling with their existence, a real ecosystem will develop, right within a busy city, the last place where one would expect to find an ecosystem beyond cockroaches and rats. The secondary benefits to humans would certainly be noticeable: the improved air quality as a result of the trees doing their thing, the spiritual value that a true forest can bring, and of course it will serve an educational purpose: a child born and raised around a few scattered city blocks, connected by underground transportation, may not get to see a thriving forest for many years, even if just from the outside. Because of it's unique position inside a loud and polluted city, the park/forest will likely develop in unexpected, never-seen-before ways.

It's a wierd and fascinating idea, but I'm still on the fence. If I promise not to hurt anything, can I go inside? Maybe they could do weekly tours or something. But still, I know that any human presence will have an impact. We're big animals, much bigger than the rodents that will occupy the park, and so our size and weight alone will damage and possibly kill certain organisms. If supporters say that certain things won't have a chance to grow and live if I go in, they're right. In the end I wish the forests and other untouched natural spaces that we have access to already were more respected and valued than they are now.

The Balphabet

2006-06-09T18:42:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I'm surprised by how close 's' is to 'u'.

2006-06-02T21:07:00.000-04:00

So my email address crapped out yesterday. It keeps giving me a login/password error. I think it has something to do with PCHG switching around their servers somehow, and perhaps my account got lost in the mix. If I don't get it back, I'm gonna lose years of communications, plus important things I've sent to myself, such as all of the data I collected and compiled for my survey project, which represents dozens of hours of work.

Until I get a more permanent account, I can be reached here through a comment, or at immediocrates@hotmail.com. In the meantime, enjoy your email while you can.

How amiable are Thy tabernacles

2006-06-01T17:16:00.000-04:00

This Saturday at the beautiful Eglise St. Jean-Baptiste on Rachel and Drolet there will be a performance of Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem, or A German Requiem. Brooke Dufton is the soprano solo and will appear in the fifth movement. She is one of two soloists, and will be backed by a full choir and orchestra. The concert starts at 8pm; fifteen dollars; get there early.

2006-06-01T12:36:00.000-04:00

Right now I'm looking at a book: "Tremor: Selected Poems" by Adam Zagajewski. It contains short poems with titles like "Victory", "Betrayal", and "It Comes to a Standstill". But the poems are not what interests me. If I look at the cover at just the right angle to the light, I can see that someone had used this book as a surface on which to write a note, leaving the images of the letters impressed into the paper cover. Remember when Lebowski rubs a pencil over a notepad in the pornographer's apartment and comes up with cock? I can almost make out the complete message:

JEREMY
COULD YOU
PLEASE LEAVE
ME MY YYYYY
LOVE
JEN
XOX

I puzzled over the last word on the fourth line for a while, thinking it would tie the whole message together. As best as I can make out, it looks like it might be "WAMAN" or "WYNAN". It actually looks like that word might have been scratched out.

But after a certain amount of observation and deduction, I've come to the conclusion that that word doesn't say anything and was never intended to. The clue is the spacing of each line: except for the fourth, all the lines are spaced consistently. The fourth line, however, looks like it has been written in between the ones above and below, suggesting it was written after the rest of the message, but was jammed in for some reason. That line is even written differently from the rest: the impression is not as deep. So, this is how I see the note in its original form, the first draft, as it were:

JEREMY
COULD YOU
PLEASE LEAVE
LOVE
JEN
XOX

I envision Jen as a young woman, lying in bed, frustrated by insomnia. It's late at night and Jeremy is asleep beside her. Jen loves Jeremy, but mostly out of habit, and she knows that if he stays in her life much longer part of her will die. Perhaps she has met someone else, perhaps he has started drinking; something irreparable has come between them. In the weak light she grabs a piece of paper and a pen, and writes a note on the first book that comes to hand. She is rigid with emotion and fear, and her pen pushes deep into the paper. She wants him to leave, and the note she writes is plain and to the point, but betrays none of the anxiety she feels. In fact, the note is very like the countless other domestic messages she has left him and received from him in turn. This one, however, could end the years of pleasant romance she and Jeremy have spent together.

Moments later she recants. She is not prepared to break up with him this way. She does not rip up the note, worrying that he will wake. She can't throw it out the way it is in case he sees it. So she alters the note. But how? Calmer, she adds a line, turning the destructive into the domestic. It is now a simple request that Jeremy will see before he leaves for work. She scratches out a word and throws the note away, confident that even if Jeremy sees it, its original message would be disguised. She returns the books to the bedside table, shifts further under the covers, and tries again to sleep.

Werk Perk

2006-05-20T16:37:00.000-04:00

One of the store's regular customers, who was in Cuba until this morning, just gave me two cigars: a Montecristo and a Partagas "Serie D. No. 4". I am very much looking forward to these.

2006-05-10T18:31:00.000-04:00

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, George, Ringo, Paul.

Gaming History

2006-04-27T17:39:00.000-04:00

The Escapist has a really great article on the history of games, from the first track games of the 18th century to the miniature war games written by H.G. Wells, to Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and World of Warcraft. The author also suggests a few places to look for truly inventive game design today, including Scandinavian Live Action Role-Playing. Who knew? It's a good, informative read.

Take Note

2006-04-25T15:31:00.000-04:00

This September will see the release of A Scanner Darkly, a film made by Richard Linklater (Waking Life, Before Sunset), starring Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson, and based on the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name. Set in the near future, it will focus on a community of people who use the fictional drug Substance D, which causes users to develop a separate personality. The score will be provided by Radiohead. The film will be rotoscoped, in the style of Waking Life.

So

2006-04-25T13:27:00.000-04:00

Any questions?

Did You Know?

2006-04-22T14:36:00.000-04:00

Did you know that there are several cash rewards, one as large as $50k, being offered to anyone who can prove with official documentation or eyewitness accounts that George W. Bush was present for and completed the military service he is credited with. Did you know that not one of these rewards has yet been claimed?

Sonic Pleasures

2006-04-07T14:15:00.000-04:00

Last night I mounted.... a new Phillips cartridge on my NAD turntable. It replaced an old Stanton cartridge that Sue had with her when she came to Montreal; probably filched from CHMA, and certainly not in the best of repair. Well, let me tell you, what an improvement. Everything sounds better! Instruments like guitar and voice convey much more subtlety; percussion, particularly cymbals, are much more precise and appealing; and the separation of the instruments has improved: whereas before all the sounds were jumbled together and it was difficult to pick out each individual instrument, now the soundscape is much more detailed. I could hear much more of what each member of the band was doing.

The first listen with the new cartridge was Dire Straits' first LP. On almost every track I listened to I was able to pick out lyrics that were heretofore unintelligible. With the improved detail of the sound, much more of the emotion of the instrumentalists is conveyed; I can feel the joy and playfulness they felt when the track was recorded. It took me to another place! I hope that you have something in your life that brings you as much pleasure as listening to records brings to me

Just by chance I recorded a few songs onto my new computer before I replaced the cartridge. I'm in the process of making a mixed tape. Just for fun I rerecorded one of these songs ("Swimming" by Martha and the Muffins) and compared the two versions. While the difference between these two tracks was, naturally, not as great as the difference between the original with two different cartridges, it was still there, particularly in terms of the separation between the instruments. This kinda surprised me; if I were to predict what would have happened, I would have thought that the improvement would have been in the detail of the instruments, and not so much the separation. I intend to rerecord some of the other songs and make additional comparisons.

Pillow Fight Club

2006-04-06T15:27:00.000-04:00

Yes indeedy, bring a pillow to Dorchester Square (Peel and Rene Levesque) at 7pm on Friday April 7th for a massive suprise pillow fight. At 7pm sharp draw your weapon and attack those similarly armed. Scare the hell out of ignorant passersby. Check the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillow_fight_club
Hoo!

Victory!

2006-03-25T18:01:00.000-05:00

I'm thrilled to the gills that winter is finally in retreat. My spirits have lifted, small things make me smile, and cute kids seem cuter. I even feel taller. Yesterday as I came home from the movies (Way Down East, 1920), I saw three flushed couples smooching like there was no one else around. Spring rocks!

An Hypothesis

2006-03-25T15:35:00.000-05:00

All hesitation is fear of emotion.

Rock 'n' Roll performances I have witnessed, in no particular order, for no particular reason

2006-03-25T11:34:00.000-05:00

Neil Young
Bob Dylan
Sloan x2
Stereolab x2
Kid Koala
Beck and The Flaming Lips
The Animal Collective
Yo La Tengo
Medeski Martin & Wood
Phish
Godspeed You Black Emperor x2
Channel 4/Crystal Sheep/Orjazzm xmany times
Foo Fighters
Smashing Pumpkins
Finger Eleven
A Perfect Circle
Sonic Youth
Bell Orchestre
The High Llamas
The Books
The Arcade Fire
Hot Hot Heat
The High Llamas
Super Furry Animals
The Wailers
Half of The Pogues
Two songs by Wolf Parade
etc.

Games I'm psyched about

2006-03-17T15:58:00.000-05:00

Wow, game designers are outdoing themselves. Those of you who haven't kept up with computer game development since, oh, Mario Kart, do yourself a favour and check out these links:

First is Spore, a game currently being developed by Will Wright, the designer of The Sims, among others. Spore will take the player through an environment of unprecedented scope and variety. Beginning as a single celled spore and "ending" as a large race of space-travellers, the player can design any form of vehicle, building or organism along the way. The link is to the game's Wikipedia entry, from which you can access the flashed up website and a 35 minute demonstration movie with Will Wright.

Then we have .kkrieger, a state of the art first person shooter, with up to date lighting and other standard visual effects, that is 96kb in size. 96 kilobytes. That's the size of, oh, this web page. The game requires a fairly heavy duty machine to run, but if you have a computer less than a year old you'll likely have no problem. The visual effects of this game, as you can see from the screenshots, are better than a classic like Half-Life, but you can fit a dozen copies of the game on an old floppy disk.

Both of these games are heavily reliant on a developing technology, or rather a developing technological methodology, called procedural generation. Currently, games like Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft rely on digital artists to create the colours and shapes of all the objects in a game: buildings, cars, trees, people, whatever. The artist creates an image called a texture, and wraps this around a wireframe model of the object to create the illusion of a solid three dimensional object, when in fact what is actually generated by the computer is a series of two dimensional images linked together to cover up a hollow model of the object, like a sheet draped over a chair. The illusion often collapses during a game when the camera is forced to move inside a supposedly solid object, and the two-dimensionality, the flatness, of each texture can be seen. The point is, all of these textures are stored inside the game, on the cd or whatever, as rigid, unchanging, and fairly low resolution images, like a bitmap or .gif, and that takes up a lot of space, especially if there are dozens or hundreds of objects in the game. Consider the number of unique buildings you can look at in GTA: San Andreas, for example.

Procedural Generation does away with this rigid and space consuming method. Instead of relying on a prefabricated, stored image, a texture and its underlying wifreframe model will be generated at runtime by a complex algorithm, with parameters for colour, shading, size and shape, etc. A certain amount of randomness or adaptability is even conceivable, an impossibility in the current model. Instead of relying on the video card and stored image to put an object on the screen, the CPU will be in charge of creating or developing the complete object and sending it to the screen. Skilled coders who can model algorithmically the development of a tree, in the case of SpeedTree, or an entire species, in the case of Spore, or a landscape, or a city, or god knows what else, will take the important place in the game development process that artists occupy now. Because each object or environment is not stored as a fixed and unchanging element but is instead driven by code that allows for randomness and adaptability, we will begin to see in our games unforeseen objects and environments that come about as a result of the creative impulses not of the developer but of the player, and that is why I'm really fucking excited.

If you could pick your own category for Final Jeopardy! what would you choose?

2006-03-15T16:49:00.000-05:00

I would probably pick "The Music of Pink Floyd," because I know a lot about their albums and what was going on while they made them, but I don't know too much about the band members, like who the oldest one is or where they were born. Either that, or "My Life," because who's going to know more about that than me?

My latest game idea

2006-03-09T18:41:00.000-05:00

A puzzle game in which the player must divert a steady flow of water into one or more buckets using certain pipes and tubes. If any water is diverted the wrong way and falls off the screen, then the playing field shrinks, which means that a poor player will quickly have the screen shrink right away into nothingness. But the more water the player gets into a bucket, the larger the playing field gets. As more and more area becomes available, more buckets become available as well. But! Each bucket can only hold a certain amount of water and so will eventually fill up and water will overflow over both sides. So a good player will eventually have a large network of pipes and tubes and different streams of water falling into different buckets all over the place.

Potentials: Some degree of rotation. User created tools, i.e pipes and tubes.

This is kinda cool

2006-03-03T21:01:00.000-05:00

It's like an old choose-your-own-adventure book but it is in the form of a comic. You follow Jimmy as he explores an inventor's laboratory. It's called Meanwhile
Just click on the picture at the top of the page.

Oh, you know

2006-03-02T14:56:00.000-05:00

I think Kid Koala and Captain Kirk were both in my store at the same time just now.

I want to make a computer game that incorporates evolution as a primary game mechanic. I've used the idea in my card games already but I need to bring the idea into computer games. How about a "game" in which any player can alter an image by drawing a new line or changing a colour, but only once in a while, per day for example. So over time and with enough participation an image grows out of the chaos. Now consider this: give a few users the ability to duplicate an image so that both new ones can be taken in different directions. Thus new images will form that have the same start; one will likely become more popular and receive more attention. Communication is key, of course: each image would have an associated discussion. Perhaps other users could be given the ability to erase a line, and so bring an element of entropy into it. More of an art project than a game, but interesting nonetheless.

Would this idea of slow small changes building on one another work with Story? Right now I don't think so, but damn that would be cool.

That's a Bummer

2006-03-01T17:01:00.000-05:00

I want to change Bela's Handstand's background colour, but it turns out that the rounded corners you see on all the boxes here come from a .gif file that is layed on top of the box. For an example, click here. The .gif file is stored on another computer, and the colour of those little corners is, of course, set to match the original background colour of the blog template, known as Rounders. Thus the illusion that the boxes have rounded corners is complete only if the background colour never changes. So I either have the usual background colour or square boxes. Oh well.

Haven't they come up with a transparent colour yet?

Music technology

2006-02-24T13:56:00.000-05:00

Before the advent of recorded music, the only way to hear any was in the presence of a musician playing an instrument. Experiencing music was not simply a treat for the ears, as it is today when music is primarily consumed through radios, records, and cd players, but involved the other senses as well: a music lover had to travel to a concert hall, sit or dance for the duration, and of course they could see and feel the presence of the musicians, their instruments, and the other members of the audience. Music was an immersive experience. Furthermore, what that music lover heard at that concert would never again be heard in the same way; before Edison recorded his voice in 1877, music was only ever heard once. Today, anyone can listen to a song or performance literally thousands of times. They can pore over it, focus on a few bars, adjust the sound levels, isolate a single instrument, anything, and as technology develops, a single piece will be manipulated more and more. The listener has the capability to leech every drop of "music" possible from a recorded piece.

How did this transition affect the composer of music? The astute composer of the turn of the last century had to realize that enormous changes were taking place in the way music was consumed. How did a composer change their style in order to satisfy the new listener? I can only speculate. Since a recording could be listened to more than once, although not as many times as today since the methods being used were still rudimentary, did a composer try to make his music more complicated, so the listener could get something new out of each listen? What about the detachment from the instrument and the musician? The listener was no longer forced to associate music with the musician and the instrument; it was possible to hear an instrument many times without ever seeing it. Did these composers begin to focus more on the "sound" that was being created rather than the actual music? Were instruments being used in original ways in order to create new sounds for the stay at home listener? When did the progression toward soundscapes and sonic textures begin?

I know a lot about some music, but not all. I'm next-to-ignorant about composers in and around the development of the first recording technology. Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartok, what the hell were they up to??

International Immaturity

2006-02-23T17:37:00.000-05:00

The news coming from Washington is getting more and more surreal as the days go by. Just in the last couple of weeks, the American government sold the biggest American ports to the United Arab Emirates, a country with clear ties to Al-Qaeda, with the added possibility that Bush didn't even know about the deal; vice-president Dick Cheney, who possibly was drunk at the time, shot a 78-year-old man in the face while hunting; and Bush has allowed different oil companies to avoid making $7B in royalty payments over the next few years. Meanwhile, Iraq is on the verge of a civil war, and people around the world are burning buildings because of a handful of political cartoons. I feel like I'm living in a world populated only by children. International events are dominated by very immature people.

Actual Quote from "Only a Game"

2006-02-22T12:13:00.000-05:00

What you're talking about, Sam, is the basis of a player metric system used for pattern adaptation control, which combined with a robust AI model and recombinatory content, would allow for a game that tailors itself direclty to the user based on early-game cues.

Oh really? Well I'll be jiggered. Wonders will never cease. I've never heard of the terms "player metric system", "pattern adaptation control", or "recombinatory content", but I guess I was talking about them nonetheless. Who woulda thunkit?

You are the man, Jorge Luis

2006-02-16T19:05:00.000-05:00

I couldn't resist. Here's a passage from "The Library of Babel", to answer Brooks' questions. Our narrator is in the process of identifying some of the fundamental axioms of this infinite library:

Second: There are twenty-five orthographic symbols. That discovery enabled mankind, three hundred years ago, to formulate a general theory of the Library and thereby satisfactorily solve the riddle that no conjecture had been able to divine—the formless and chaotic nature of virtually all books. One book, which my father once saw in a hexagon in circuit 15-94, consisted of the letters M C V perversely repeated from the first line to the last. Another (much consulted in this zone) is a mere labyrinth of letters whose penultimate page contains the phrase O Time thy pyramids. This much is known: For every rational line or forthright statement there are leagues of senseless cacophony, verbal nonsense, and incoherency. (I know of one semibarbarous zone whose librarians repudiate the "vain and superstitious habit" of trying to find sense in books, equating such a quest with attempting to find meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of the palm of one's hand.... They will acknowledge that the inventors of writing imitated the twenty-five natural symbols, but contend that that adoption was fortuitous, coincidental, and that books in themselves have no meaning. That argument, as we shall see, is not entirely fallacious.)

Borges: You da man!

2006-02-16T18:52:00.000-05:00

I was going to quote a passage from "The Library of Babel", but I found this one, which is even better and more appropriate to the previous thread, in "The Writing of the God":

I reflected that even in the languages of humans there is no proposition that does not imply the entire universe; to say "the jaguar" is to say all the jaguars that engendered it, the deer and the turtles it has devoured, the grass that fed the deer, the earth that was mother to the grass, the sky that gave light to the earth. I reflected that in the language of a god every word would speak that infinite concatenation of events, and not implicitly but explicitly, and not linearly but instantaneously. In time, the idea of a divine utterance came to strike me as peurile, or as blasphemous. A god, I reflected, must speak but a single word, and in that word there must be absolute plenitude. No word uttered by a god could be less than the universe, or briefer than the sum of time. The ambitions and poverty of human words—all, world, universe—are but shadows or simulacra of that Word which is the equivalent of a language and all that can be comprehended within a language.

A Second Question of Quantity

2006-02-16T11:30:00.000-05:00

Is the difference between 12 and zero greater than the difference between 16 and zero when you can gloat about it?

Okay:

2006-02-11T17:29:00.000-05:00

By belonging to Sophie, I began to feel as though I belonged to everyone else as well. My true place in the world, it turned out, was somewhere beyond myself, and if that place was inside me, it was also unlocatable. This was the tiny hole between self and not-self, and for the first time in my life I saw this nowhere as the exact center of the world.

The Fall of Language?

2006-02-11T15:41:00.000-05:00

Here's another interesting quote, this time from Paul Auster's book of novellas, "The New York Trilogy":

Adam's one task in the Garden had been to invent language, to give each creature and thing its name. In that state of innocence, his tongue had gone straight to the quick of the world. His words had not been merely appended to the things he saw, they revealed their essences, had literally brought them to life. A thing and its name were interchangeable. After the fall, this was no longer true. Names became detached from things; words devolved into a collection of arbitrary signs; language had been severed from God. The story of the Garden, therefore, records not only the fall of man, but the fall of language.

A Question of Quantity

2006-02-07T13:56:00.000-05:00

Is the difference between zero and one larger than the difference between one and two?

Ignorance vs. Interest

2006-02-04T17:29:00.000-05:00

What's the relationship between Ignorance and Interest? Is it possible to be interested in something you know everything about? Is it possible to know a subject so completely that it is not possible to know anything more about it? Or can new things always be discovered about any subject? What is more interesting: the things you know about a subject or things you don't know very much about? It seems to me that the things I don't know much about are more interesting, since the stuff I already thoroughly know is now just practical knowledge, or perhaps it's even forgotten.

When I pursue music, for example, what I'm most interested in are those records I've haven't heard enough times to completely understand or get everything out of. In other words, records that I am still somewhat ignorant of. Even when it comes to one album, once I've listened to it enough to have absorbed it completely, memorized it, it loses interest. Conversely, the albums that I can't quiet get my head around are the ones that hold the most interest for me and I will likely be listening to for a long time to come.

I think the same thing applies generally. I believe that a certain amount of ignorance is required to create interest. As if there is a buffer zone between a body of knowledge and the realm of ignorance around it that pulls you from one to the other. I think it is also possible to nurture and care for that buffer, by continually pursuing related items, i.e. those items that we are neither completely knowledgable of nor completely ignorant of, so that our interest is always maintained.

Hi Everybody!

2006-02-01T19:37:00.000-05:00

What's shaking? Say hello! Use the comment button!

More On Education

2006-01-28T14:13:00.000-05:00

I believe that education should promote in pupils a better relationship with ignorance. Teachers should tell us not only what we know, but also what we don't know. "Hey look, there is so much great art, literature, physics and politics that you don't know anything about!" We are all natural learners and will pursue areas of interest without hesitation. The physics will be learned, if the resources are available and the interest is present. Eventually, educators will say "Hey, there is so much great physics that No One knows anything about!" and pupils will push the boundaries of knowledge.

Our schools must embrace a balance between knowledge and ignorance: ignorance to lead the student forward, and knowledge to fill in the emptyness and to reveal the next beachhead of ignorance. Ignorance is infinite, but it can always be pushed back by adding knowledge. This process can happen in an individual who is learning the basics of a field of study, or in a group of scientists who are breaking new ground. The same process of ignorance yielding to knowledge is taking place in both groups.

The worst aspect of current education is when students are forced to learn that which they have no interest in. I remember learning, in grade 4, about the three different types of rocks: sedimentary, metamorphic, igneous. I knew about rocks from playing in the dirt and I knew I didn't need to know any more about them. I didn't know anything about geology; I didn't even know there was such a thing as geology. At that time I had no concept of geology as a large mental space that I was completely ignorant about. Because of this, the process of learning about rocks felt like someone was injecting my mind with inappropriate information, which was true.

If the teachers had given me a sense of what Geology was and could be, about what cutting edge geologists were learning about the Earth, if the scope of my ignorance was shaped, then learning about rocks would have felt like I was making progress: I was pushing back the darkness of my own ignorance and approaching the reaches of general knowledge.

On Education

2006-01-27T20:29:00.000-05:00

A good educator is one who knows a thing so well as to be able to say it in many different ways.

Creationist Confusion

2006-01-26T12:39:00.000-05:00

So, if creationists say that the world was made 6000 years ago, and that dinosaurs bones were put in the fossil record by God to test our faith, why don't they worship at museums?

Fiction #1

2006-01-21T17:21:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, when the road is open and my hog is leading the pack, I like to slip my shades off to hang around my neck and I stare into the hundred mile an hour wind. The initial discomfort is tremendous. My eyeballs instantly go so dry I can almost feel them crack. I force my eyes to stay open, to stay focussed on the blurred lines of the road. Then my face starts to distort so much it feels like my lips are pulled back to my ears. Water tries to flood my eyes again and again but fails always.

It's when the water gives up trying that I begin to see things in the wind. I can't turn my head, I can't move my eyes. If there are trees along the road, tall pines with trunks bare almost all the way to the top, they bend up and almost meet at the top of my vision. The road gets longer and wider and I know exactly where my bike will be for a thousand feet. When Riley or Bronx move up on my left or on my right I see them only as a crazy blur and it doesn't seem like I am on the same road they are. I gun it and and they are pulled back away from me. When I gun it like that I can only know where I will be for the next five hundred feet and then I don't see further than that.

When I ride with my eyes in the wind time moves fast. I've driven through small two-street towns and only realized when someone told me that night we'd missed a meet. They go by only as square shapes with no colour. I notice only a tension in my forearms and increased concentration. I know people are afraid of me.

Upside Down Professors

2006-01-14T18:17:00.000-05:00

We've all had them. Classes in which you hand in papers that you've spent hours on, writing and rewriting, only to get a C+, and then when you phone in the next paper, it comes back with an A. The professors of these classes are not especially eccentric or erratic, but their marking schemes are unfathomable. Upside Down Professors. The term comes from a friend of mine who used it in an amusing anecdote during one of our many fascinating conversations. It's very appropriate, and I can identify several in my recollections of university and high school.

But this is not a light-hearted or affectionate term. In fact, I think it alludes to a very serious problem in our education system. I was never more frustrated at university, as was my friend, as are many others, as when a paper comes back with a bad grade, despite our efforts to discern and cohere to the professor's standards, or to incorporate any comments and suggestions from previous assignments. While writing papers I was constantly aware of the fact that I was writing for someone else who would (presumably) read and then evaluate my creative efforts. When dealing with an Upside Down Professor, I really had to shift my choice of words and my style of writing, and even my patterns of reason and logic, in an attempt to adapt to what I understood, from lectures and from comments on previous papers, were the professor's expectations. And still the mark I received would not reflect my own attitude toward the end result of my work.

Consider the many students who change their modes of writing in order to get top marks from these Upside Down Professors. They have to break from their comfortable style and grow into a new one. They have to use different words and arrange them in unusual ways. And why? Because the professor has an idea of what the "best" paper is, and are comparing every student's paper with that. Since the student does not know what the professor's ideal is, they must guess, and guesswork is the antithesis of the creative process and has no place in academic exploration. The influence of the Upside Down Professor is nothing short of academic fascism.

What is ideal, in my opinion, is a paper that is unexpected, that goes beyond any preconceived ideas of what a certain paper is, and can do. Without limitations, in other words. But how can a paper, a creative work of thought and language that approaches art, be evaluated if it is unlimited? The possibility that a student's paper might be so ground breaking as to be beyond the professor's capability to comprehend is simply not considered. What sort of mark would you give to a paper that you couldn't quite get your head around? A+ for being fascinating but opaque, or C+ for going beyond the original scope of the topic?

In the educational systems I am aware of, all papers are to be marked according to standards that students may or may not have a good grasp of, immediately confining these papers to the realm of the "expected". It doesn't work. The powers of the students to create new ideas and ways of thinking and writing, powers which, if I understand correctly, are what professors are motivated to encourage, are being hijacked to conform to dubious ideals by these same professors.

If I think of any way to avoid these problems, I'll post it here.

O'Connor Curtis Lennox Weaver

2006-01-11T17:05:00.000-05:00

After the bar last Saturday I was with a crowd of friends and we were standing around outside and beginning to drift off to our own homes. We were chatting away in groups of different sizes, and then someone in the group I was in couldn't remember the name of the female actor in the Aliens movies. I couldn't either, but I started shouting out guesses. My first guess was Sinead O'Connor, then I guessed Jamie Lee Curtis, and after a moment I finally blurted out Annie Lennox. The actual star is Sigourney Weaver, of course, and I knew none of my guesses was correct, but for some reason my three guesses provoked a strong reaction from those who heard my drunken bellows. I was quite pleased with myself.

The four women all share some certain quality, which we recognized but couldn't identify. The shared characteristic is undefined but understood. Thinking about it afterward, I thought perhaps they all have a certain boniness of cheek and jaw, but it don't think that quite sums it up. Perhaps they were all at one point publicly bald. What is it?

It fascinates me that there is some quality shared by these women that I recognized but is yet undefined. I call it a thought rhyme.

Sam's Two Step Pollution Evaluation Exercise

2006-01-11T17:02:00.000-05:00

1) While standing on a street with a reasonably heavy amount of traffic, compare the number of cars that are occupied by only their driver with the number of cars that are full.
2) Take a deep breath.

On Telepathy

2005-12-31T12:30:00.000-05:00

I'm a firm believer in telepathy. The sooner we get over our collective denial that telepathy in some form is possible and actual, the sooner we can incorporate it into life, culture and communication. The amount of published evidence that communication is possible through an as yet unknown medium is too staggering to be ignored. Furthermore, the calibre of scientists, philosophers, and psychologists, including dozens of Nobel prize winners, who have carried out successful parapsychological experiments and who have devoted years of their life to these phenomena is incredible. Yet despite this, parapsychology is still listed as a pseudoscience on Wikipedia. Arthur Koestler's "The Roots of Coincidence" is an excellent introduction to the topic.

I had an experience here at the store yesterday that I could describe as telepathic, one of many I've had over the past years. We have several regular customers here at the store of course, and one of them said he would find me a bike that I could use during the winter months. Being a biker himself, he knows where to look and what to look for. He came in yesterday, told a few jokes and stories, but didn't mention the bike. Just as he was about to leave, I think of the bike, or the bike comes into my mind. A second later, he mentions it. Of course, this could be called simple coincidence or synchronicity, but the number of times that I've thought about something a fraction of a second before someone else mentions that same thing are too many, in my mind, to remain coincidental. I'm certain that other people have had similar experiences, but haven't considered they might be "telepathic", or they have considered that possibility but are unwilling to believe it.

Yesterday's experience got me thinking. From the accounts of telepathic experiments that I am familiar with, mostly through Koestler's book that I mentioned above, there seems to be this idea that there is a "sender" and a "receiver", which is to say that one person projects a thought, in the form of an image, memory, emotion, whatever, and another person receives it in their own mind. If this is the case, then in my own telepathic experiences I should be able to determine who is the sender and who is the receiver, or in other words, who thought the thought first. But I cannot. The thought is just there in my mind, after arriving there in a way that as far as I can tell is the same as the way every other thought I've had entered my mind, and then someone else mentions it immediately afterward. In yesterday's experience, I'm sure that if I were quicker to speak and mentioned the bike before he did, then it would have been him that had the "telepathic" experience. (I'm also sure that telepathy would become a much more accepted phenomena if only people would shut up a little more).

I had the idea that the sender/receiver model might be insufficient and that there might be another model that might describe certain phenomena more simply. As I was speaking with my friend yesterday, neither of us were consciously thinking about the bike, but in a sense the bike was on both our minds: in the back of our minds, not so far as old memories, not so close as what we were speaking about in the immediate present, but somewhere in the middle. I want to suggest that perhaps the shared thought brought itself to the forefront of our minds, and which was then voiced. Two minds, same thought. The idea that our thoughts and other mental processes create a mental field that affects our environment in as yet unquantified ways is not a new one. It is not a great leap to imagine two mental fields interacting with each other during a conversation and bringing commonalities to the surface. And after all, it happens all the time.

If you think I'm totally out to lunch, please let me know. And if you think I'm not totally out to lunch, even by just a tiny bit, let me know as well.

"It's not we who think, but life that thinks us."
- Christopher Morley

3 Words:

2005-12-29T18:39:00.000-05:00

Conan the Vegetarian

2005-12-28T19:48:00.000-05:00

How do I put a title on a post?

2005-12-23T14:36:00.000-05:00

...Must keep posting...

Physics tells us that there is no such thing as wasted energy. According to various laws, energy will always being converted from one form such as light, sound, into other forms such as heat or motion. In any given system, be it a swingset, a plant, a waterwheel, whatever, when energy is put into it at any point, that energy will be converted into another form. Understanding and harnessing this energy conversion has been the aim of scientists and inventors since forever. Edison had a winner with the lightbulb when he converted energy in the form of electricity to energy in the form of light. Moreover, the only difference between a lightbulb and a stove, as far as I know, is that the materials used in the element of a stove convert electricity to heat more readily than to light.

I want to suggest that if we change the word "energy" to "effort", the same thing applies. Effort is what humans and other animals use to change their surroundings or their selves, and we believe that when we put effort toward bringing about some change and that change does not occur, then the effort is wasted.

more later...

HTML Toem

2005-12-16T15:01:00.000-05:00

Tortoise, tobacco, tinnitus, transience,
trajectory, tertiary, turkish, transcendence,
troubadour, top-down, tropical, trauma,
trapdoor, tumescent, tabarnak!
Tintinnabulum, turpentine,
topsy-turvy, torpor, turgid,
transference, turpitude, Trafalgar,
trapezoid, triptych,
tally-ho!, Tutankhamun,
Trinidad + Tobago, teriyaki, tarp.

2005-12-15T12:06:00.000-05:00

So I'm here at the store, poking around with some books, and a nice young mother is holding her infant, dancing around while Al Green sings "For The Good Times" and "Look What You Done For Me". Ahhh...

WORTH QUOTING

2005-12-14T17:17:00.000-05:00

From George Steiner's "Errata: An Examined Life", page 5:

I have conducted my emotional, intellectual and professional affairs in distrust of theory. So far as I am able, I can attach meaning to the concept of theory in the exact and, to some degere, applied sciences. These theoretical constructs demand crucial experiments for their verification or falsification. If refuted, they will be superseded. They can be mathematically or logically formalised. The invocation of 'theory' in the humanities, in historical and social studies, in the evaluation of literature and the arts, seems to me mendacious. The humanities are susceptible neither to crucial experiments nor to verification (except on a material, documentary level). Our responses to them are narratives of intuition. In the unbounded dynamics of the semantic, in the flux of the meaningful, in the uncircumscribed interplay of interpretations, the only propositions are those of personal choice, of taste, of echoing affinity or deafness. There can be no refutations or disproofs in any theoretical sense. Coleridge does not refute Samuel Johnson; Picasso does not advance on Raphael. In humane letters, 'theory' is nothing but intuition grown impatient.

Yes, but...
A scientific theory is an attempt to generalize and then to predict; a "humane" theory is an attempt to generalize and identify...

Although I have not read anything by him, I've been told that the German philosopher Hegel supposed that for every thesis there exists an antithesis, and that these come together to form a synthesis, which in turn would have it's own antithesis which again would be combined with it's opposite to form a new synthesis, and the process would repeat ad infinitum. I think that this is an important process, fundamental to artistic creation, and I think it is linked to the idea of theory as applied to the humanities.

I believe a theory is intended not to prescribe but to describe. A theory evaluates a body of knowledge, discerns and identifies common characteristics, and separates anything that is a part of another theory. A theory unites commonalities into a single concept or identity, equivalent to Hegel's "thesis". A theory of literature will be synthesized with its "anti-theory" and thus will lead to the development of new literature. I think theorization is necessary for creative development. Do you believe me?

Picture a number line, from zero to any positive number, that represents some kind of spectrum or gradation. It could be the amount of sexuality in science fiction, the amount of blue in Renoir's paintings, or something as simple as the steepness of a hill, whatever. So you have this line and you order your items along it accordingly, from least to greatest. But at one end of your line you have the number zero, which means there is NO sexuality in scifi, NO blue in the painting, NO steepness etc. What you have is something else, something different from what you started with: a non-sexual scifi book, a painting without any blue, a flat plain. It other systems you might read NOT(x), where x is your area of interest. But as soon as you say x, you can say NOT(x). In other words, as soon as you say thesis, you can say antithesis.

Suppose further that the spectrum you have chosen to plot on your number line is something that is cutting edge, something that is not yet entirely understood, say, the amount of violence in a videogame (hey that's as cutting edge as I get, alright?). At the bottom of the number line at zero, what you have is something new, a non-violent video game, something that, barring racing games, is difficult to come by. Creation through negation, starting from a theory: an identification of a common characteristic in a body of work.

Perhaps the word "theory" is inadequate. It seems clear that a theory in the realm of the humanities is a very different animal than a theory of the sciences, perhaps different enough to warrant a more accurate term. An artistic theory is in a sense meant to be destroyed or negated, while a scientific theory is meant to predict and solidify. They both rely on the identification of patterns, but they are used for different ends. What do you think? What would Jesus do?

2005-12-13T12:23:00.000-05:00

The relationship between the conscious and the unconscious seems to be an important one in fields of psychology, creativity, religion, magic, even simple happiness and contentment, and yet it is not well understood. I know through my own observations that there is a distinction between the two. For example events in my past or concerns about my future will affect my feelings in the present, although I will not be thinking of them specifically at the time, that is, they will not be at the forefront of my consciousness. This suggests to me that they are in my mind, or on my mind, but are in the background: they are in my unconscious. Only when I think of them directly am I consciously aware of these factors.

I think the moments between sleep and wakefulness point to one aspect of the way the mind works, one that ties in with a lot of things. Picture the mind as a complex network of neurons, pathways between one concept and another, be they memories, ideas, plans, identities of people and places, anything. I see my consciousness as a point or spark of light that travels along these pathways at the speed of thought, often travelling over and strengthening oft-used pathways, but sometimes forging new ones, linking concepts that have not been linked before. The path that this point takes is a linear one, i.e. it goes from point A to B to C in a way that is to some extent directed by the nature of the thought I am thinking. Now when I snuggle into to bed and begin to drift off, I notice that this directed quality of my thinking is not so strong. It is more as if it is random, as if the spark of light is jumping from concept to concept, from node to node, without making any logical connections, and so I find myself thinking thoughts that are totally outside any regular pattern. For example, just before I fall asleep, I'll hear "Row Row Row Yer Boat" sung in a bizarre voice, or something equally as strange. Is is as if my point of consciousness is drifting around my mind and bringing oddly juxtaposed images, sounds and thoughts to the fore.

I think something similar happens when we are dreaming as well. Similar but not exact. When I dream I have many faculties available to me, my sense of sight, sound, etc., as well as my ability to reason and rationalize. Recently I dreamt that I was listening to some really good music and I wanted to write it down because I knew that when I woke up I would forget it, so, I proceeded to write it down as best I could, but I hadn't woken up yet, so I was writing it down only in my dream. I had my wits about me, in the dream, but the dream itself, the scenario and events, were alien and unfamiliar, even though it came from my own head. It seems as though dreams are a combination of the directed and undirected paths of consciousness: the settings and events are created from a collection of images and concepts picked up by a random walker meandering through my mind, but I still exist in the dream in a mostly normal way, that is, my linear rationing and reasoning ability still work as they do when I am awake.

I've been thinking a lot about how consciousness and unconsciousness work together and I will return to it. Do others have experiences of waking and sleeping and dreaming similar to the ones I have written here?

2005-12-08T18:42:00.000-05:00

I am in a state of nervous excitement. If I interpret your poem in a certain way it means great things. But that leads me to something that could be toogoodtobetrue. If I interpret it another way, nothing has changed, which is fine but pales considerably when beside the first option. I am swinging wildly from one to the other, bouncing around like a fool. It's just a poem! Meanwhile, The Beatles "I've Just Seen a Face" sounds better than ever, and I haven't stopped smiling all day.

2005-12-07T17:00:00.001-05:00

What do you think of magic? Does it exist? Did it exist before? Have you ever witnessed an act of magic? Is there such a person as a magician? or wizard? or witch? or shaman? or mage? or magus? or witch doctor? or enchanter? or necromancer? or chronomancer? What was the last magic trick you pulled? Have you ever felt that you lost some magic? Why do synchronicities seem so important? Do you notice things that other people don't? Do you have a strong sense of aesthetics? How often do you get what you want? Do good things happen to you unexpectedly? Is everything the way you want it? Why not?

HEART-SHAPED ORANGE PEEL

2005-12-06T18:07:00.000-05:00

I challenge anyone to show me that they spend their time in a more satisfying way than I do. Yesterday evening, I scratched tiny contact microphones against musty brick and mortar basement walls, fed an orange segment to an alluring young woman with dark eyes holding an iron, rolled around in the hay with two lithe dancers, participated in a Falun Dafa type tea drinking ceremony, accompanied singers and drummers improvising in a near pitch dark room on a typewriter, ah the list goes on... I was led blindfolded around a cramped and obstacle laden room with only a rope and soft strange hands to guide me. Barefoot, I walked on green onions, mint leaves, and toast, then had my feet washed by two obliging young women. I was given a heart-shaped orange peel on a string as an amulet or medallion. I'm wearing it now, though it is dried out and hard.
Throughout all of this, I was barefoot, yes, I was also wearing a soft blue mask that covered my brow, nose and cheeks, though I could see through two eyeholes. I felt like I was disguised from anyone who might know me, almost protected. In the future I will be unrecognizable to anyone who was with me yesterday evening. For one night, for a few hours, I inhabited not only a different world, a world of costume and sound, I inhabited a different body, a different personality I've never been before. Perhaps I once thought I could be this person, and perhaps I might think I could be again, but never wholly, only partially. I existed in that form and space for only one time, one moment. Maybe this is true for every moment; maybe it takes an extraordinary evening for me, or for you, to recognize it.

R. Murray Schafer's Theatre of the Senses