Novel Arguments
May 21st, 2012 § 4 Comments
Lorrie Moore, Ramona Ausubel, the supremecy of their short fiction, the failure of their novels, and mostly myself.
by Lisa Hanson
I’ve long ago established myself (at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and every birthday celebration of my young life) as difficult to please. Where novels come in, I’d like to think of it as aesthetic sophistication, but let’s be real – it’s 75% lack of attention span and 25% elitism.[1] In spite of the fact that I have a 17% chance[2] of finishing a new novel, even if I paid the full hardcover price (!), and my answer to the dreaded question “What’s your favorite book?” is usually the unoriginal and probably not true answer Jane Eyre, of late, I’ve found myself obsessed by the prospect of writing my own novel.
Yeah, I just joined that club.
She’s Crafty
May 14th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Why Minecraft is not like delivering pizza.
by Bob Dorff
A friend of mine once remarked, “There’s no dignity in delivering pizza.” While I have no doubt that certain practitioners elevate the process, pizza delivery is one of the worst service area positions. It combines all of the demeaning elements of being a restaurant waiter with a self endangering twist. Unlike the waiter who saunters from table to table, the pizza delivery person is forced to run an ever-changing gauntlet behind the wheel of a two-ton death machine. Most disturbingly, the end of this exercise in death avoidance[1] offers an uncertain payoff. The people who placed the order might not be there, the address might be wrong, and the tip might be small. In short, being a delivery person sucks. It’s strange, then, that most video games turn their players into little more than delivery slaves.
one singing loudly
May 11th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Tupelo Hassman’s Girlchild and the non-fiction of fiction
by Griff Maloney
white trash
noun Slang: Disparaging and Offensive .
1. a member of the class of poor whites, especially in the southern U.S.
Did you know that the phrase “White Trash” is almost two hundred years old? That’s a long history for such an actively used pejorative. There’s evidence of common usage in letters stretching back to the 1830’s; it’s strange to think that people were being called “White Trash” before the civil war. That’s at least 25 years before the chapter “Poor White Trash” appeared in A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s examination of the dirt poor whites who were looked down on by both land owners and slaves. Stowe helped to popularize the phrase and it’s been widely used since. In modern parlance it’s often styled as a humorous phrase, in books such as White Trash Etiquette: The Definitive Guide to Upscale Trailer Park Manners. The sort of ha-ha gift that you get a relative you don’t care much about for some holiday or another. After reading Tupelo Hassman’s first novel, Girlchild I’m not sure that there are enough humor books in the world to take the sting and stigma out of the phrase…
“It was cheap, and it hadn’t killed me.”
May 9th, 2012 § 3 Comments
How Lee Child’s Jack Reacher isn’t Batman, and why this bothers me.
by Matthew Rickart
INTRODUCTION TO BOOK REVIEW
In the second episode of the BBC crime-drama Luther, the eponymous London detective’s ex-wife says of him, “I think if he’d read a different book by a different writer at just the right time in his life, he’d be a different man.” I would recommend Luther to just about anyone other than a racist family member. 1) Because Idris Elba is basically a handsome tank of a Brit. 2) Because John Luther’s character encapsulates everything that makes Batman so oddly relatable for everyone, but removes that potentially awkward cape/superhero thing. Detective Chief Investigator John Luther is terribly broken, both by internal conflict and external forces, and he is often wrong, but we will never fault him for it. We’ll only ever fear for his instability because of the harm it may put him in the way of.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Blobs
May 6th, 2012 § 1 Comment
On DrinkBox Studios’ Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack and a little bit of Steve McQueen
by Griff Maloney
My Playstation Vita was somewhat of an impulse purchase. I had a little bit of money come in and I wanted to get myself something fun. Often with new handheld launches there aren’t that many games available and sometimes you find yourself wondering what you bought such an expensive paper weight for. I’ve never really regretted buying a system, but I certainly felt like the Vita might end up being a cobweb collector until some better content was released. That feeling vanished once I started up Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack. Ringing up at just $7.99, this little title from DrinkBox Studios is without a doubt one of the best titles available for the Vita, and it alone convinced me that the Vita was was worth my money. It’s a great example of the kind of quality work that a small studio is capable of, and I hope we see more and more games like it in the future.
Rock n’ Roll High School
May 3rd, 2012 § 5 Comments
or, How Shinji Mikami avoided making Russian Democracy
by Bob Dorff
SWEET
VANQUISH is dumb. Every time I have seen the game’s name in print, it’s written in all caps, and when you hit the start button at the title screen a gravely-voiced gentleman intones “VANQUISH” in a way that combines a yell and a sigh. The main character is a straight laced U.S. operative (we are endlessly reminded that he works for DARPA) named Sam Gideon. That’s a kickass name for your all-American hero. Indeed, Sam’s entire life is devoted to being totally effin’ radical. Though VANQUISH is set in the far flung techno-future, Sam smokes cigarettes. As far as I can tell, he is literally the ONLY PERSON who does this. It’s totally gnarly. Sam spends the game taking orders from Elena, the game’s lone female character. Elena is often shown from camera angles that allow players to look up her skirt. On one of the loading screens, text informs us that Elena has THE HIGHEST I.Q. OF LITERALLY ANYONE, EVER. This does not seem mission critical to her job, and does not affect the game’s ability to objectify her.
There and Back Again
May 1st, 2012 § Leave a Comment
or, There and Back Again [Too Quickly]: thatgamecompany’s Journey and its many expectations
by Griff Maloney
There is a mountain in Tibet named Kailash. It sits at an elevation of 21,778 ft and is 4,327 ft tall. It is gently rounded and snow capped, a mountain that would be somewhat unremarkable if it were not a site of deep spiritual significance. Mount Kailash is the divine mount where Shiva, destroyer of ignorance, meditates and a prominent seat of spiritual energy in four of the oldest religions in the world. Every year thousands of Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Bonpos make the 32 mile trek around the holy mountain whose name in Sanskrit means Crystal or Jewel. To set foot on the slopes of the mountain is considered a grave transgression and no one has yet summited Mount Kailash. Those who have been offered the climb by the Chinese government have so far declined based on religious grounds. It remains one of the few places in the world whose mysterious nature has not been dispelled by modern exploration.
THE VIDEO GAME NOVEL WE DESERVE
April 26th, 2012 § 1 Comment
Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One and the waning grace period of video game immaturity
by Matthew Rickart
I put off reading Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One after it was published last summer because I often worry someone will beat me to the video game novel I dream of writing. I stopped worrying about this when I found out that Cline had written the script for Fanboys, a comedy centered around a bunch of guys who, in 1998, attempt to break into Skywalker Ranch to steal a copy of The Phantom Menace so their buddy can see it before he dies of cancer. While it sounds like a subplot from one of Kevin Smith’s less restrained movies, it also bespeaks a sort of soulful earnestness: nerds have hearts.
Well. Yeah.
Top Hat and Tales.
April 16th, 2012 § 3 Comments
Why we and our children should play less Angry Birds, more Professor Layton, and remember to recycle.
by Matthew Rickart
I have worked with kids for a while now. Children and teens of all ages, some autistic, some not, others with Tiger Moms. I’d like to offer you all some advice, based on personal experience:
Pax Postmortem
April 10th, 2012 § 1 Comment
Part Two of our PAX EAST walking tour.
by Griff Maloney
Those crazy cosplayers...
PAX can be a little overwhelming. [If you put the attendance of both PAX Prime and PAX East together you’d outnumber the Roman Legion.[1]] Add the teeming masses to the hubub and fanfare around the AAA titles and its easy to miss the smaller gems of the show. In fact the bigger studios have started this annoying practice of simply walling off their entire booth as a gated playtest/presentation area. Effectively turning the convention floor into a ziggurat of matte black corporate branded walls. This may work as effective crowd control [Rockstar’s booth had a wait time of 3 hours] but it ruins the best part of a convention, namely talking to the creators and reveling in shared interests. Without the human element [Even the bits of human element dressed as male versions of Lara Croft] the convention feels less like a celebration of things we love and more like a corporate carnival. Each big studio booth a rigged carnie game where you trade your time for a t-shirt like some tired e-hooker.
