The Escapist – Confessions of a Crybaby
by John Walker on Apr.21, 2006, under The Rest
This week’s titular question is obviously a silly one. Answer: Yes. Next issue please! I think anyone who might take the stance that games cannot make you cry is either a sociopath, has never played Angel of Darkness and tried to walk in a straight line, or simply a big, lying coward. Begone, cowards! Today is the day of the ludicrously emotional – we shall triumph and probably get all weepy as we accept our victory.
New piece up on The Escapist. It starts to make sense eventually. And hidden within is a splendid interview with (Uncle) Charles Cecil – the nicest man in the whole games industry.
Brian
by John Walker on Apr.20, 2006, under The Rest
New Brian at the weekend, folks.
Rudder
by John Walker on Apr.18, 2006, under The Rest
While musicing, I want to mention the splendid new project by Bishop Allen.
In case anyone is wise enough to sit up and take notice at the name, the band features Christian Rudder. He was the co-creator of The Spark, many years ago before it became an advertising hoarding for Barnes & Noble, and the writer of the extraordinarily funny Science experiments. It was he that orchestrated the Fat Project, seeing if people could gain 30lb in 30 days, and the Stinkyfeet Project, in which he attempted to contract the most unpleasant illness possible by scooching around in the shower of the Boston Y, then sealing his feet in plastic bags for a month. He got trenchfoot.
The Spark was also famous for its hugely funny Tests, some of which remain in horribly sanitised forms, most gone completely. Rudder left as the ship sank into corporate evil, set up the never-used Crudder.com (which usually just links to current projects, but now appears to be a confessional about his swimming ability), and then, completely by surprise, revealed Bishop Allen.
Their first album, Charm School, is utter joy, and rarely sees a month go by without a listen, two years later. And this year they are launching a monthly project, releasing a four track EP diary entry, and posting it right to your house. February finally arrived this morning, after a broken disc came a couple of weeks back, and once more it’s four completely splendid tracks of intelligent, witty and sympathetic simplicity. I’m about to order March. (The discs aren’t named after the month they arrive in, but are biographically about the month itself).
There are mp3s on their site, and naturally they have a MySpace site for those who can’t cope with the regular internet any more.
Rudder also went on to co-launch the very splendid OK Cupid dating site-come-test site, which has the best Personality Test on the internet, and plays host to my horrible test from the end of last year.
He’s my favourite internet person. I celebrate him, while listening to his band’s fantastic music.
I Am A Robot Man
by John Walker on Apr.17, 2006, under The Rest
So now we know why The Beta Band lost their magic after the 3 EPs: They needed to break up.
The Aliens’ single, ‘Robot Man’, created by a couple of the former members, is the best song ever in the whole history of all time this week, and if the Universe is even vaguely correctly balanced, will bring back The Robot dance craze in a manner that will be both horrendous and joyful. To be lazy, it’s Daft Punk meets Primal Scream, with harmonies. And that’s all you need.
On Being An Idiot
by John Walker on Apr.11, 2006, under Rants
Right, get your notebooks out everyone. It’s time for another lesson in being not an idiot.
Reading through this nonsensical thread over on EG, Stuart Campbell steps in to explain something that had been misunderstood from his own article and referenced inaccurately. Someone else doesn’t understand and pompously criticises, Stu mockingly points this out, and as per usual in all forum-style conversations, the entire thing descends into tiresome gibberish.
However, it reminds me of a couple of important things to note.
The first thing is: the difference between someone’s being an idiot and someone’s being unintelligent is an idiot has no idea he’s unintelligent. And this leads to all sorts of problems. The person being unintelligent hears something that contradicts their own incorrect understanding on a matter and either learns, or retreats. The idiot takes loud offense. This is problematic, as it means the person being an idiot will only ever shout angrily, no matter the debate.
Let’s create a hypothetical example. Let’s say someone is angrily stating that a well-received and award winning film is actually terrible, and everyone who likes it is wrong. Others reply saying, “I agree! It’s rubbish! Thank goodness you said that!”. I, thinking that the film is rather splendid, and having detailed reasons why, reply saying why I think it is good.
Now, the person hating the film has two choices. They can listen, and make arguments against to defend their position should they maintain it. Or they can make an irrelevant point that ignores anything that might challenge their position. The idiotic response is to choose the latter. So he says, “Everyone else thinks it’s rubbish. You’re the only one defending it. So that proves something, eh?”
Despite this being a frustrating nonsense, and certainly not addressing any of the points made, you have no choice but to respond to it. A simple solution would be, “Well, the most respected critics all defend it with their well-reasoned reviews. Now, can we get back to the points I made?”
“So now you’re saying only journalists are allowed opinions?”
There’s little hope in such a situation. The problem is, the person is refusing to listen, and refusing to accept the possibility that they’re being an idiot. So nevermind that their ‘point’ was succinctly proven wrong – instead they pretend that a totally different conversation took place, and respond angrily to that fiction. I am left in an ever-more confusing and frustrating position, as now if I wish to continue I have to defend the point – that I certainly don’t believe only employed film critics are allowed opinions, never have thought that, never would think it, wouldn’t say it, and perhaps most pertinently, didn’t say it. But the idiotic response has already won, as now I’m desperately defending myself against this most irrelevant of points, and any reasoned logic I once employed is lost in the bottom-wind.
The second thing is: no one seems to be able to recognise the difference between a particular behaviour described, and an assault on their entire character.
In the EG thread, Stu is impolite to some of the people who are rudely dismissing his words, ignoring what he’s saying, and instead pretending he’s making the arguments they want him to have said. They want those responses because those are the ones for which they have practised replies. They neatly fit into categories they recognise. So, as an example, it’s assumed that Stu is slagging off the game Geometry Wars 2. He’s not, and indeed he has very clearly stated that he likes the game. But now the above behaviour appears, and Stu is left having to defend himself against things he hasn’t said, and arguments he wasn’t making. And oddly enough, becomes frustrated and annoyed at having to do this. So he labels the behaviour – he calls it stupid, idiotic, childish, naive, etc. And here is the crux of this point: the idiotic response is to believe this is a description of their character.
Of course it’s a description of their current behaviour. This isn’t a difficult conclusion – it’s impossible for it to be anything else. Stu doesn’t know these people, has never spoken to them before. They write under nicknames, they are an anonymous blue name writing something stupid. However, “You are being a moron”, which is patently true in the above examples, is interpreted as “You are always, and have always been, a moron,” and the person indignantly hollers at this grotesque injustice. (For someone like Stu, who has a public profile, the idiot’s response goes a stage further as they attempt to exact revenge for their own imagined affront, and use the personal information they have on him to insult him personally. They become the perpetrators of the crime they so condemn, in what I shall now label the Idiot’s Irony).
And why? Because in both cases, the alternative is allowing the possibility of being wrong. And god forbid that we should ever be wrong! In fact, in a gross distortion of reality, it is being wrong that is understood as being idiotic by today’s arguing masses. This is such a horrendous mistake, and it breaks my heart. Recognising that one is wrong is so FAR from being idiotic. It’s the very opposite! It’s admitting that one has learned! Being wrong is a joy – it’s a time when you learned something new, gained knowledge, improved your intellect. And yet it’s so fiercely hated that both the above situations are the absolute norm. Idiotic behaviour with the inability to recognise itself. That way, you never have to be wrong. You never have to learn a new thing. You never have to think.
Post Disease Round-Up
by John Walker on Apr.09, 2006, under The Rest
So, as all that remains is the tireless, tiresome drudgery of a ceaseless cough, I appear otherwise to have survived the virus attack upon my person.
Things are getting back to normal, and I’m almost done catching up on missed work. This disease has cost me at least £1000, which is galling to say the very least. Please don’t think a week is normally worth £1000 in my life. This was as case of horribly bad timing. And dad, don’t panic, it’s £1000 on top of what I’d usually earn, and I’m not going to starve to death.
Brian will be back and regular from Wednesday – sorry he was gone so long.
I’ll be in that militantly defensive position over flu for a while now, not allowing anyone to call their snivel or cold anything close, until they too haven’t been able to put their own socks on. It’s a stupid and petty illness that just renders you useless for a really long time, with no serious implications or factors that merit any decent sympathy. Boo to flu, I say.
I want to say a HUGE thank you to some people who went far out of their way to look after me last week. Housemate Hicks, Jo Dolby and Stu Campbell were each incredibly kind, and completely super-lovely, going to the shops for me and buying supplies and remedies, and to Amanda Ricard who amazingly, with her afternoon off, came across town to drive me the 200 yards (up the steepest hill in the world) to the doctors. You people are stars – thank you.
Man Sits Up Shocker
by John Walker on Apr.06, 2006, under The Rest
Today’s the first day since Sunday that I’ve been able to sit up for more than twenty minutes.
It’s weird to be this ill, without it being in the least bit serious. I feel as though my head is filled with wet socks, and my arms weigh about twice as much as they should, and it still hurts like crazy when coughing (lots of the time then), but today I’m able to be awake more than asleep.
I’ve found this before with being ill – there’s a moment right after waking up in the morning the cruelly tricks you into feeling lots better than you actually are. With the exception of Tuesday, when I woke up feeling like I was being punched in the head, every day this week has offered a cruel lie of hope. Even this morning had a false start – I got up at 9am, felt surprisingly human, sat down on my chair and then ten minutes later was back in bed and asleep for another two hours.
Now I’m wobbling in my chair, but at least sat up, and have been for a couple of hours. I think I’ll be in bed before long, but it’s progress! And how ridiculous – to be pleased with sitting up for a bit, when all that’s wrong with me is a passing virus. There’s no glory in flu.
Playing Doctor
by John Walker on Apr.03, 2006, under The Rest
I need your help.
My cough is so incredibly painful that I’m going insane.
I haven’t the energy to walk anywhere, but have to do something about the barbed wire encased stinging nettles currently on fire in my neck before I claw my own throat out.
Tell me your remedies. If pharmaceutical, I’ll find arrangements.
Especially something that will let me sleep.
In Her Eyes – Final
by John Walker on Mar.30, 2006, under The Rest
She has been alive for one week, but still three weeks early for the world. She is too small, too unfinished, encased within her plastic box. The air is filled with electric bleeps and the hiss of refined oxygen. Her shrivelled skin is not yet ideal, her hands too small, her eyes unopened. She has no consciousness of her situation, inside her plastic box.
There is the unheard sobbing, endless desperate cries. There is a weakness to the sound, the tone of exhaustion, those dry cracked noises. Unheard by ears too small to understand, and those too far away.
***
She is standing astride the wretched divide of life and death. She rules it.
She is at the apex of living, the peak, the most alive any human has ever been, and will ever be. To be more alive than this would mean to cease being human, to explode beyond. But she was to be the highest human of all, to reign in this place. To ascend. She would become ordinary among the immortals. But she was also to be human, more human and more extraordinary than any around her.
She is also alive in flame.
She is also about to win. She is about to defeat her final enemy.
The WUMP… WUMP… WUMP… is now alone in daring to challenge her.
***
It is a significant day. It is a significant moment in a significant day. It is a moment that is life defining, life changing.
It is smaller than so many memories but far more momentous. It is more crucial, but small enough to miss.
This moment shines.
***
Broken pieces, fragments of ideas. The sub-atomic particles of thought. Stretching narratives. Stolen glimpses. So it goes.
All her life the WUMP… WUMP… WUMP… had ruled her. Had controlled her. Had forced her mind, directed her, bullied her, mocked her, held its tyrannical authority over her, laughed at her weakness and belittled her existence. Spiteful, hateful noise. Cruel noise. Dominant. Her whole life had been a puppet’s dance to its rhythm. It will end. It will not win. It cannot be allowed to win. No more.
***
She is encased in the box, her cries can’t be heard. Her body is too fragile.
***
Now: Victory.
***
WHUMP WHUMP WHU-