Totems Without Taboos

"Exquisite Corpse: Game of folded paper played by several people, who compose a sentence or drawing without anyone seeing the preceding collaboration or collaborations. The now classic example, which gave the game its name, was drawn from the first sentence obtained this way: The exquisite/corpse/will drink/the new/wine."

--André Breton

I found it amusing to discover that a seemingly innocent children's game I used to play could have such a subversive history.

Like seeing Alexander Calder's mobiles now adorning nurseries.

Army of Me.

Shadow Complex
To claim that Shadow Complex is an homage to Super Metroid is an understatement. The game plagiarizes just about every aspect of Metroid's winning 16-bit formula and adds no signature of its own -- except, I guess, the 2.5D perspective, which is quite a headache visually and mechanically. Not to say the game isn't a fine way to pass a few hours (about 7 or 8 to get a full 100% by my count), but Shadow Complex lacks the atmosphere and (rather surprising) emotion that made Super Metroid one of the finest of its generation [the encounter with the title creature rivals what Valve pulled off with Portal].

As for the Orson Scott Card controversy, I am simply pleased that this debate exists at all in the gaming discourse.

Grade: B

To my best friend and enemy, England

I was watching PBS last night, because I don't have cable or satellite and only have about a dozen channels, and there was a show on about how nerds in England reenact Arthurian legend.

Now, this shouldn't have been surprising. (I am aware of the Medieval Times/LARPer subculture.) But then it struck me: The English can't really reenact The Civil War. Their racist, reactionary population has to come up some other excuse to hate the "other," get drunk and party.


And, yet, they still wonder why our TV, movies and video games control the worlds culture.

Pop Quiz III

Without looking at your notes (wikipedia or otherwise), please answer the following:

The Orion is scheduled to replace what space related project?

A) Soyuz
B) MIR
C) Space Shuttle

[Partial credit will not be offered for improperly bubbled answers.]

Background information: ironically, after complaining about the improbability of being selected for the Mob in 1 vs 100, I was picked a couple of weeks ago after a hot streak. I managed to outlast 68 other players until I was stumped by this question. I was one of only two people to get the question wrong, so I guess it is fairly easy, but I thought I would poll the denizens of the blogosphere to see how embarrassed I should be. Incidentally, the "One" ended up taking the money right after this question, so while I didn't lose any M$ points, I still felt pwned in front of 70,000 elite gamers.

Public Service Announcement #1

District 9 is overhyped and not worth your money.

That is all.

I can't help but share. . .

heh heh I said "but."

I guess these laptops are really thin or something. I imagine the thrower says "boo yah!" a lot. It just seems right.



Oh, thanks to Alana G for the hookup.

I Want to Be Donald Draper

AMC's series "Mad Men" starts up again on Sunday. If you're not watching by now I don't really know what I can say. "Mad Men" is easily the best show on television.

Did Jared Hess finally decide to make a movie with a story?

"Can I trust you?"

Asked the stranger at the coffee shop. "I have to run back home and grab a power cord. Will you watch my laptop for me?"

I shrugged, not entirely sure this was not a scam.

A life of magical thinking.

My mom was diagnosed with cancer.

Don't worry. She had surgery and everything should be fine.

Looking back on the ordeal, I realize now that I probably should have been more concerned. After all, cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide. But my mom explained the procedure with such sanguine disposition that the gravity of the situation never quite dawned on me. She even described her missed trip to Orlando to visit her brother as the universe's way of clearing her schedule for treatment.

Usually, I bite my tongue at those fatalistic, and quite often unhelpful, pronouncements my mom likes to make ["Maybe the restaurant being closed is just the universe's way of telling us that we should eat at home tonight."]. But in those vaguely terrifying hours when my mom was in surgery and the unassuaged guilt of things left unsaid crept up on me, I realized we all engage in magical thinking in our own ways.

Prior to this month I never seriously considered the prospect of losing a parent. Intellectually, I was aware of its inevitability, but it always felt like a forever distant horizon. While we all imagine ourselves to be the protagonist of our own stories, I assume nobody's self-narration accounts for premature bereavement. It is a silly and entitled lie, yet what is the alternative?

I would like to think that I could sublate this knowledge into some higher consciousness, but honestly, I am just glad everything worked out in the end this time.

1.7% Have Horns

On July 24th, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released A Portrait of Mormons in the U.S. It is a generally interesting statistical survey, so go ahead and click if you're so inclined. I'll just point out a couple things that relate to our blog demography. First Mormons have grown to 1.7% of the U.S. population, exactly the same as Jews. Look for more Other Side of Heaven coming to a box office near you. Jehovah's Witnesses are at .7%.

Mormons have a relatively high retention rate of childhood members compared with other major religious traditions. Seven-in-ten of those raised Mormon (70%) still identify as Mormon, a figure roughly comparable to that seen among those raised Catholic (68% are still Catholic) but somewhat lower than among those raised Protestant (80% are still Protestant and 52% are still in the same Protestant family). Jehovah's Witnesses, by contrast, have a relatively low retention rate (only 37% are still Jehovah's Witnesses).

Mark and I are both in the minority here, I don't call myself Mormon and I'm pretty sure Mark calls himself a Jehovah's Witness (correct me if I'm wrong Mark.) I'm curious if Sam and Ben would call themselves Jews, I would guess they do, but I think that identifying as a Jew is a little bit different than identifying as almost any other religion in this country.

Next there's this graph which reflects feelings on the "Importance of Religion" This is typical of a similarity in devoutness of Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses that is seen in the study's numbers on church attendance, scripture reading, prayer, receiving answers to prayer, sharing faith and belief that their faith is the one true faith.

As a former Mormon, or forMo as the kids are saying these days, I can understand why the devoutness numbers and the retention numbers are relatively high. I would think that the two are corollary. But if I rely on that as an explanation I'm confused about the Jehovah's Witness' high devoutness numbers but sort of surprisingly (to me) low retention numbers. Anyone have any hypotheses? Does the no birthday party thing really leave that big a scar?