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.

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?

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.

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