Here in Houston, autumn's still distant, but that doesn't stop me from dreaming of cool, crisp weather, (some) fallen leaves, intensified studies, and a painfully long-delayed replay to one of the best video games ever, Bully. I start classes on Monday, whereupon I have to prove my worth to the Chinese department so that I can get a scholarship to the Middle Kingdom next summer. This year my teacher is a native putonghua/zhongwen speaker, which makes the semester all the more intense. If all goes well, she'll put up with me; otherwise, I'm gonna be in a situation so miserable, and so unlike all the other failures in my life, that I won't know what to do. I never know what to do, but at the age of thirty-one, my chances of surviving flat-out rejection are a) lower than I'd like and b) nightmarish, as in hound of hell.
Apologies, folks. Sleep well- you have no clue how much an extra blanket runs.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
"31st birthday"
On my birthday
there were nine
(I think it was nine)
bodies under sheets,
bodies and sheets alike
carved from marble. I didn't
know it at the time,
which was good.
Delay begat more power.
What will happen tonight
that I won't understand
until tomorrow?
there were nine
(I think it was nine)
bodies under sheets,
bodies and sheets alike
carved from marble. I didn't
know it at the time,
which was good.
Delay begat more power.
What will happen tonight
that I won't understand
until tomorrow?
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Quotidiana/Musing
My girlfriend's sitting next to me writing up some kind of LARP-style adventure I'm to embark on, with the help of friends, this coming Saturday in celebration of my 31st birthday. We're listening to MC Lars, whose 2008 gig at the White Swan was, we've agreed, was one of the best shows ever. I like commas and long sentences. Now I'm gonna watch "I'm On A Boat," 'cause it rules.
I want to recommend that all y'all watch GET LAMP, Jason Scott's new documentary about text adventures. It's fantastic, even if you've never played a video game that didn't rely on graphics. His other film, BBS: The Documentary, is equally stirring, and is also worthy of your discretionary dollars/euros/yuan. If, like me, your consciousness managed to enter the flow of history at a time when both or either of the phenomena Mr. Scott's documentaries were prevalent, they'll be even more striking. My seemingly unbreakable attachment to the artifacts of my youth- many of which are artifacts of a time when I was far too young to really make the most of 'em, but which survived in recognizable enough forms for me to revel in what came before as well as the latter-day iterations- is only reinforced by Mr. Scott's work.
Now, this isn't about nostalgia. (Not entirely, at least.) This is about recognizing the things and events that in retrospect and at the time shaped my world- and still do. Text games and non-WWW sites still matter. Sure, 99% of the games I play and sites I visit are graphics- and WWW-based, respectively, but that doesn't mean that the remaining fraction are negligible. Investigating games like Galatea and logging onto SDF via SSH are important, not only because they're reminders of what life as a computer user was like a decade and a half ago, but because they still matter. People still enjoy and make great use of resources that seem outdated or outright foreign to the majority. That is why they matter.
I could extend my argument to a number of other subjects, most notably heavy metal and role-playing games. The "retro" movements in both of those fields are not purely nostalgic, but draw elements from the early finest hours of said fields in order to produce useful, enjoyable modern results. There's no denying that history lessons in any subject can be grasped and twisted to the point of slavish recreation, but the best of anything that left a mark on the past should serve as both a milestone and a jumping-off point for future work.
I suspect Jason Scott would be with me on this poorly-argued train of thought, but who knows. Thanks for reading, and I'm either sorry or pleased that this post wasn't just poetry.
Time for bed. 再见，朋友。
I want to recommend that all y'all watch GET LAMP, Jason Scott's new documentary about text adventures. It's fantastic, even if you've never played a video game that didn't rely on graphics. His other film, BBS: The Documentary, is equally stirring, and is also worthy of your discretionary dollars/euros/yuan. If, like me, your consciousness managed to enter the flow of history at a time when both or either of the phenomena Mr. Scott's documentaries were prevalent, they'll be even more striking. My seemingly unbreakable attachment to the artifacts of my youth- many of which are artifacts of a time when I was far too young to really make the most of 'em, but which survived in recognizable enough forms for me to revel in what came before as well as the latter-day iterations- is only reinforced by Mr. Scott's work.
Now, this isn't about nostalgia. (Not entirely, at least.) This is about recognizing the things and events that in retrospect and at the time shaped my world- and still do. Text games and non-WWW sites still matter. Sure, 99% of the games I play and sites I visit are graphics- and WWW-based, respectively, but that doesn't mean that the remaining fraction are negligible. Investigating games like Galatea and logging onto SDF via SSH are important, not only because they're reminders of what life as a computer user was like a decade and a half ago, but because they still matter. People still enjoy and make great use of resources that seem outdated or outright foreign to the majority. That is why they matter.
I could extend my argument to a number of other subjects, most notably heavy metal and role-playing games. The "retro" movements in both of those fields are not purely nostalgic, but draw elements from the early finest hours of said fields in order to produce useful, enjoyable modern results. There's no denying that history lessons in any subject can be grasped and twisted to the point of slavish recreation, but the best of anything that left a mark on the past should serve as both a milestone and a jumping-off point for future work.
I suspect Jason Scott would be with me on this poorly-argued train of thought, but who knows. Thanks for reading, and I'm either sorry or pleased that this post wasn't just poetry.
Time for bed. 再见，朋友。
Monday, August 02, 2010
We are
We are the rotting corpse
That strides the earth
We are the neural path
formed from a lifetime of silence
We are the collapsed vein
of every addict's final moment
We are the written word
written by the word for the word
We are the ragged mess
that is the dilettante's true garb
We are the snowy peak
attempted by the Beast
We are the bleeding black
that swallows the westbound sun
We are the hempen noose
around the heretic's neck
We are the red raw lesion
in the side of a leprous body politic
We are
We are
That strides the earth
We are the neural path
formed from a lifetime of silence
We are the collapsed vein
of every addict's final moment
We are the written word
written by the word for the word
We are the ragged mess
that is the dilettante's true garb
We are the snowy peak
attempted by the Beast
We are the bleeding black
that swallows the westbound sun
We are the hempen noose
around the heretic's neck
We are the red raw lesion
in the side of a leprous body politic
We are
We are
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