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Awesome and Terrifying

[…]claims that the sublime is “itself a system, one that morphs and adapts to each period’s critical caprice” (5). While I believe that stretches the definition of system, I am well-persuaded that the ecosublime is, as he argues, an efficient term for describing an alertness to holism often found in contemporary represented or mediated environments. Less so am I convinced, however, that the sublime or the ecosublime bodes much for non-fictional worlds, i.e., our own. Rozelle argues that “there is no effective difference between the natural sublime and the rhetorical ecosublime; both have the power to bring the viewer, reader, […]

9/11 Never Happened, President Bush Wouldn’t Let It: Bob Dylan Replies to Henri Bergson

[…]very quick and sure about something. It’s more deliberate. It’s more like you’ve been working in the light of day and then you see one day that it’s getting dark early, that it doesn’t matter where you are – it won’t do any good. It’s a reflective thing. Somebody holds the mirror up, unlocks the door – something jerks it open and you’re shoved in and your head has to go into a different place. Sometimes it takes a certain somebody to make you realize it [as seeing and hearing Mike Seeger did for Dylan, in this account]” (Dylan 2004: […]
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An Inside and an Outside

[…]components of writing’s conditions: why write with any assumption that you are making some critical extension outwards from your own person, some glorious annex to your personality? Words are conditioned by and toward their own occasions. Why write thinking you will be rewarded for it, encouraged to continue, given money, sex, and fame? “If I Were Writing This. . .” has the immediate effect of showing that “The Invoice” was indeed a direct appeal for encouragement of an immediate sort. Both poems affirm that communication cannot easily effect what is desired (money and sex), though one chafes at the feeling […]

Recollection in Process

[…]internally elaborating, writerly persona that is distinctive of ebr – unafraid of sustained critical thought (aka ‘theory’), attentive to current events (aka ‘ideology critique’), professional in presentation but never for a moment forgetting that we’re writers here. Generally when I ask people to write for ebr…well, they write for ebr. I personally don’t know of any good reason to read a review or critical essay in any medium, if in the process I don’t learn something new about writing. I don’t mean just finding out about a work under review, or informing oneself about what’s current in media, academia, and […]

On Character Creation in Everway

[…]characters. This step helps players develop their characters more thoroughly and engages the whole group in each player’s story. For the gamemaster, however, it’s an opportunity to be sure that the free-form nature of character creation hasn’t left the character missing important details. Question and answer is important for: – Engagement: Listening to a player talk about their character is widely recognized as dull. It’s like listening to someone recount a dream: it means a lot more to the talker than to the listener. The Q&A process, however, turns the monologue into a dialogue. It makes character exposition much more […]

Revolution 2: An Interview with Mark Z. Danielewski

[…]world – like, let’s get out of this confinement, Thoreau kind of thing. Seems to be a theme working its way in from the fringes. MZD: And looking for real sources of empowerment, real sources of freedom. Not simply becoming part of the rock-n-roll revolution, which has already been corporatized by these cannibalistic groups that orchestrate and entangle teens, sell them this idea that they’re liberating themselves. KB: Punkwear at the Gap. MZD: Exactly. KB: Commodifying the rogue. MZD: What’s the album again? KB: Funeral. “If my parents are crying, then I’ll dig a tunnel from my window to yours. […]
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The Sounds of the Artificial Intelligentsia

[…]is the eloquent phrase “eternal networks”). This DJ/VJ writing style makes way for a kind of critical overwriting that, at its core, is underwritten by the creative unconscious. Think of it as a mash-up of open content, social software, critical media literacy, and manifest hackerdom. It’s fully invested in narrative thinking, in processing the digital art persona as a distributed political fiction. Rosi Bradiotti, in the introduction to her book Nomadic Subjects says: The nomadic subject is a myth, that is to say a political fiction, that allows me to think through and move across established categories and levels of […]

Making Games That Make Stories

[…]characters who must work together to solve a murder that one of them committed. The members of the group are assigned characters, each of whom knows certain key facts about the others. They take turns to present pieces of evidence that can be canceled out or combined to form chains of means, motive, and opportunity, until one character has their guilt “proven” to the satisfaction of the group. Each Youdunnit case is about a specific murder – the specifics of the crime and the various potential murderers are all detailed – but can be played multiple times with different outcomes, […]

On Hip-Hop, A Rhapsody

[…]body counts, gratuitous obscenities, and treacherous women. ‘[S]tandardized formulas were grouped around equally standardized themes, such as the council, the gathering of the army, the challenge, the despoiling of the vanquished, the hero’s shield, and so on and on’ (Ong, 1982:23). Even so, street-level credibility did not guarantee memorable, dramatic performances. Words had to flow. Bards, across the globe, were duty-bound to rock a house party at the drop of a hat. Their skills and exploits were later documented in printed accounts such as The Mwindo Epic (West Africa), The Tale of the Heike (Japan), the Bible (for example, in […]

Geek Love Is All You Need

[…]Twofers or conjoined twins are sufficiently present and visible that they form a distinct minority group, demanding civil rights and proclaiming pride in their identities – San Francisco, in particular, is a haven for twofers, just as it is in actuality for gays and lesbians. Half Life is narrated (or, more accurately, written, since the process of writing the text we read is itself narrated within that text) by Nora, who feels alienated both from the twofer community, and from “singleton” (i.e. “normal,” unicephalous) society. Her twin, Blanche, has been asleep since childhood (since puberty? this is hinted but not […]

Seeking

[…]looked at him curiously, let go of the pendant and nodded. “The ad was very explicit. It’s a code, you know. I don’t lie in the ad. I said who I was and what I wanted. I’m divorced, have been for eleven years. I don’t want another husband, nor do I want a Long Term Relationship. Secret encounters, occasionally, purely physical. Only one requirement.” “Well-endowed,” Kenneth managed, still leaning forward into his frozen smile. “Exactly. These ads are sometimes successful, sometimes not. This time, I fear, not.” Kenneth didn’t really want this woman, but he couldn’t stop now. “You haven’t […]

Introduction: ceci n’est pas un texte

[…]and Walter Benn Michaels) this electropoetics release proceeds from the premise that literary studies must come to terms with the fact that it is no longer business as usual – No matter how you look at it, speed is a morally coded concept. With its etymological roots tied at the groin to success, to think speed is to invoke a java applet alternating flashing SPEED / All Others Pay Cash. that writing in the information/digital age both upsets humanist assumptions and makes clear the ways in which the information/digital age upsets many of our assumptions about time and space, body […]

Inside God’s Toolbox

[…]than the (sometimes quite distant) approximations Jackson unearths from comparative religious studies. Here’s a quotation from philosopher of science Bas Van Fraassen that says it more clearly: There is a reason why metaphysics sounds so passé, so vieux jeu today; for intellectually challenging perplexities and paradoxes it has been far surpassed by theoretical science. Do the concepts of the Trinity, the soul, haecceity, universals, prime matter, and potentiality baffle you? They pale beside the unimaginable otherness of closed space-times, event-horizons, EPR correlations, and bootstrap models. (258) This, in short, is the problem that Jackson has. Religion is presented alongside mathematics, […]

Emotion Engine, Take 2. Jeff Tidball Responds to the Second Person Collection as a Whole

[…]However, I think it’s very likely that story-game designers will eventually discover that it’s critical for the former (emotional investment in character and story) to be different and separate from the latter (investment in winning). If they are not discrete, one or the other – probably the story – becomes the redheaded stepchild. That is to say, we will be exactly where we are today, with story-games whose narratives consist of nothing more than accounts of connected events. Perhaps the most interesting tension that could arise in a story-game would be a tension between a player’s ego-based interest in winning […]
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Storytelling Games as a Creative Medium

[…]to do that because my books tend to be based on situation rather than story. . . . I want to put a group of characters (perhaps a pair; perhaps even just one) in some of predicament and then watch them try to work themselves free. My job isn’t to help them work their way free, or manipulate them to safety – those are jobs which require the noisy jackhammer of plot. (160-61) King is a lone writer, with total control over the outcome of his story. Many Storytellers fancy themselves to be a kind of “performance novelist,” acting out […]

One Story, Many Media

[…](Imps, Mancubi, Pinky Demons, etc.) Marines Mars base Moving through corridors Opening doors Color-Coded keycards Triggered events Different levels With these lists, I was able to focus in on the things that board games were good and bad at, and the things I needed to retain the Doom “identity.” Obviously the board game wasn’t going to be able to rely on any sort of animated graphics or sound. Additionally, there was no way to capture the freewheeling adrenaline blast of the computer game – board games simply played too slowly for that. However, board games had their strengths. They were […]

Dungeons, Dragons & Numerals: Jan Van Looy’s Riposte to Erik Mona

[…]but nonetheless, as the player solves subplot after subplot, he always has the feeling that he is working toward it by increasing his character’s skills. Hence, in a role-playing game, an obstacle is never just an obstacle, but also an opportunity to reach a higher level or find a magical sword which will later serve to finish the ultimate quest. Turnau (2004) notes that the growth idea is also present in Tolkien’s work, especially in Lord of the Rings which he describes as a “sort of cross between Arthurian legend and the Bildungsroman.” However, he notes a profound difference between […]
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On And Then There Were None

[…]life is a worthy one, in my opinion. I’ve presented here only one example of story and gameplay working together, instead of being segregated. Gameplay and story need not be at odds with one another. And story need not be confined to the ghetto of cinematics. Reference And Then There Were None. Awe Games. […]

Editors’ Introduction to “Computational Fictions”

[…]to operate incorrectly. There are limits to what this proceduralism can accomplish. A competent group of Dungeons & Dragons players can simulate any eventuality and deal with any action or communication attempted by the players, while even the best computer RPG can barely prevent the dialogue of computer-controlled characters from becoming painfully repetitious. Any action too far outside those already imagined by a computer game’s design team is usually either met with an uninteresting response or is simply impossible to carry out. But this is only to say that given our current state of technological advancement, there are things that […]
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Jeff Tidball Responds to the Second Person Collection as a Whole

[…]However, I think it’s very likely that story-game designers will eventually discover that it’s critical for the former (emotional investment in character and story) to be different and separate from the latter (investment in winning). If they are not discrete, one or the other – probably the story – becomes the redheaded stepchild. That is to say, we will be exactly where we are today, with story-games whose narratives consist of nothing more than accounts of connected events. Perhaps the most interesting tension that could arise in a story-game would be a tension between a player’s ego-based interest in winning […]
Read more » Jeff Tidball Responds to the Second Person Collection as a Whole