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I don’t really remember my college roommate being that into baseball cards, but The Onion is the world’s finest new source, so I suppose I have to believe it.

Things seem to have quieted down a little on the “videogames as art” front, so I’ll tell you the following.

Took a tour of the Erie County Holding Center this week. In the library therein, the dictionary had been opened to “utopian socialism”.

Esquire recently published an article about the fact that serious criticism on videogames does not exist. No incisive essays, no erudite articles, just “dude, looks like Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy* is gonna be sweet” stuff. As someone with experience reviewing games, I feel I must state the following: videogames are not art. They just ain’t.
It takes a lot of artists to make one, and some of them can have truly brilliant imagery, but I have yet to see the game that’s art. Artistically presented maybe.

In my (albeit limited) experience, professional criticism often takes one of two forms:

A) The secret decoder ring. “Here’s what the artist/author/composer is trying to say, dimwit.”

B) The petri dish. “Here are all of the religiosociopoliticaeconoclimatic factors kicking around in the spacetime locale in which the artist/author/composer worked. Put it all together, and how could he not end up writing this? Hmmm, dimwit?”

These approaches require that the author actually be saying something, whether he means to or not. I’m just not seeing it. When I sit around and talk about games, relevance never comes up. This is due mainly to the fact that it’s not there.

I mean, come on. Let’s give it a try.

“The major statement made by Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 comes to its zenith when the audience unlocks Darth Maul as a playable character. At that precise moment in the play experience, expect to turn to your fellow aficionados and reverently gasp the syllables “skateboarding is totally fucking awesome“. “

“In summary, after witnessing the stunning victory of Natalie Cook and Kerri Ann Pottharst at Sydney, Team Ninja’s 2001-02 Japan had begun to taste the beauty of the occidental sport of volleyball, which, in combination with the new Xbox’s hardware and man’s enduring fascination with breasts, made a perfect world in which to develop Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball.“

Please.

The decorative style in the B A Start household can most easily be described as “libraryey” or perhaps “libresque”. We like us some books. Her Worshipfulness, though, has often bemoaned the fact that a collection more often lacks uniformity, looking hodge-podge and patchwork.

My solution: why not pick up some large collections? We’d use them, and they have a standardized look. (Can you see how my nefarious plan is working? Slowly but diligently I move towards attaining my life-long goal of owning the OED.)

Here are some I’ve had my eye on:

The Harvard Classics — the “five-foot shelf” meant to equal a liberal arts education. Haven’t been in print for years, but a little Ebay action should do it.

The Loeb Library — The left page is in Greek or Latin, the right page the English translation. Both pages contain the foundations of Western thought.

The Oxford English Dictionary — Online subscription, shmonline subscription. If the full 20-volume version seems like overkill, too bad.

Dear Mark, Johnny, and Greg –

I write to you to apologize. As you may remember, at Goose’s wedding we sat together. I had tied my tie with a windsor knot, and each of you had tied his with a half-windsor. When someone commented on my more formal, dare I say stately, knot, I took the opportunity to mock you, saying that I was the only person at the table who did not look as if he was going to his first communion. This was, perhaps, a bit much.

Please accept my apology. Also, the fine folks at Brooks Brothers have put together a site to help us learn even more knots. I couldn’t help but think of you.

Yours,

Alex

I do dig these old posters.

Looks like ma bookie Del is slowly working his way towards stardom, his likeness appearing in an ad for what appears to be for a videogame in which you point at the sky and say “Holy shit, it’s the Christ!”. Maybe you kill demons or something.

I normally eschew discussions of religion on B A Start, but here’s what bugs me about the rapture. So, all the good people go to Heaven and everybody else stays of Earth, which has recently been transferred to new ownership. What kind of Heaven is it to watch loved ones suffer at the hands of Satan? I mean, you get up there, look around, and notice a few coworkers are missing. Doesn’t that bug you a little when they hand you the harp, the knowledge that people you know will spend a thousand years being tortured? Or is that the kind of thinking that gets you kicked out. Either way, it just doesn’t sound all that heavenly to me.

Unbearably hot weather marks the beginning of a season in the B A Start household; time to start figuring out what to dress as for Halloween.

The great conversation lasts months, with scores of concepts tossed aside until the winner is declared. Then, the day before the event a final switch-up is made, and well-planned wigs, props, and oddly-colored glasses find themselves put out to pasture without even seeing use.

In the past few years, I’ve been Buddy Holly, the Invisible Man, and the Mad Hatter. What will this year’s jam sessions bring? Only the Ghost of Halloween Future knows for sure.

Today’s lunchtime conversation: Fraggle Rock.

The Doozers, the benevolent hard-hatted fairies of the Fraggle world, baffle me. What a horrid existence, consumed by the sisyphean task of building and rebuilding their radish-steel buildings, only to watch as the relatively giant fragglekind eat them for pleasure.

Perhaps, though, they have attained some atlantean zen society. If it weren’t for the sons and daughters of fraggledom, they would be able to build their sugary utopia in days. What, then, would they do with themselves? Life without work is misery, so why not create an impossible task for you and yours? An entire species devoted to an unattainable ideal, happily plugging away towards it until judgement.

This, clearly, is the secret of their people, known only to the eldest of the Doozer elders. And the Trash Heap, of course.

Sorry for the lack of posts, diligent B A Starters. Been running around like a looney tune since the last installment.

I’ll take a quick moment for this rumor. Allow me to say that I doubt it. What about Mark Hamill?