Writing

Stuff that I have written.

  • The Sunday Poem: If Trees Did Not Stop Growing

    Hours Categories The Sunday Poem
    Comments 7 Comments

    We spent some time today at the park at a Cub Scout event, and I fell asleep on our blanket on the grass, staring up at the maze of intersecting branches, and at the smooth-trunked trees that vaulted to the blue. I was struck by how alike the grasses were, the same shapes and forks and blind reaching for the sun, the way that the water grasses arching over the little stream were hiding tadpoles from my glance, and the way the bigger boughs made the sun dart in and out like flashing flickers on a fish – was something watching us?

    It made me think, if trees are just huge grass, then what grows huger still?

    If Trees Did Not Stop Growing

    The trees are dense with cellulose,
    are grasses overgrown. They fork
    the sky, they prize the stratosphere

    And if they got there, what?
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  • The Sunday Poem: Apples

    Hours Categories The Sunday Poem
    Comments 2 Comments

    In Latin, the words for “apple” and for “evil” are similar in the singular (malus—apple, malum—evil) and identical in the plural (mala).

    – Wikipedia

    This apple from Tajikistan gave birth to all the fruit:
    The red ones, gold ones, tart ones, green and russet hues.

    Each branch was mated to a branch carried over miles
    And honeybees deployed in ranks to stoke the woody fires.

    The names themselves are everywheres: from Fuji to Orléans,
    Grannies, Coxes, McIntoshes and countless other brands,

    Which carry in each half-cut star and in their very style
    The memory of Kazakh slopes where first they grew in wild.

    The blossoms spread, pink and pale verging on the blue,
    Until we had the legends: the gold ones Hera grew;

    The one that Eris tossed to Paris, causing wars in Troy;
    Immortal orchards grown in eddas, Idun’s deathless joy;

    A snow white princess poisoned; Atalanta’s race;
    Johnny and all those orchards over which he traipsed;

    The tree of knowledge, good and evil, our original sin.
    This is quite a burden for fruit to bear within.

    We have made the apple ours, and on it grafted history,
    And yet the breed runs on, profusions to a tree,

    This fruit humanity resents, but loves and needs.
    Every apple carries still inside those bitter seeds.

  • ATOF in Game Informer’s top ten game books

    Hours Categories Game talk, Reading, Watching, Writing
    Comments 5 Comments

    I got an email about this recently, but haven’t seen it myself. Apparently Game Informer picked the top ten books on gaming, and A Theory of Fun is on the list at #9. Perfect timing of course, given that it’s out of print and I get three inquiries a week on how to get ahold of a copy. Working on it…

    David Kushner, author of the excellent Masters of Doom (which I have the galleys of somewhere around here, and which came in at #1) managed to type in the full list. I’ll have to see if I can find a copy of the article.

    Edit: here’s the article.A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster. In this book, Koster aims a bit higher than the normal historical analysis of the game industry. Instead, the former chief executive officer of Sony Online Entertainment aims to define just what terms like “game” and “fun” actually mean. His answers are fascinating and a must-read for anyone concerned with the art of video games, but what’s more impressive is that Koster – an eccentric and highly skilled writer – actually manages to make this high-brow discussion accessible and, yes, even fun to read. Through an often hilarious mix of academic discussion, first-person anecdotes, and hand-drawn cartoons, Koster brings the reader closer to understanding what role games of all sorts play in human life and what we mean when we say something is “fun.” All in all, it’s a fascinating and unique book that should be required reading at the world’s many video game college programs.

  • The Sunday Poem: Building the Globe

    Hours Categories The Sunday Poem

    We heft the oak beams, one two three, each count
    A sturdy truss; smooth hewn and splintered, blunt
    And heavy, painted gaily marbled, dun
    And costumeless. By numbers shall we know
    Their place, when Southwark greets our lumber load;
    The Theatre is no more, and soon we’ll have a Globe.
    In Shoreditch now there stands a hole, on lease-
    Land Burbage didn’t own. And past the trees,
    By open fields, his Men will have a Streete-
    Built O, wherein proud Oberon will prance
    And Lear cry out his woe; where faery dance
    For groundlings’ sake, and Puck plays out his pranks.
    We’ll sift the straw and lay it straight on top,
    And paint anew the spangled sky aloft
    Above proscenium’s boards. We’ll stop
    The crowd with good stout rails, so high-pitch boys
    Can stain their lips and flounce their tails, and raise
    A ruckus to the skies, the center of our noise.
    But first, we must dismantle, first we take
    Apart. If all the world’s a stage and planks
    Are how it’s made, then for our Good Lord’s sake
    I hope he spent his seven days as well,
    Assembling worlds in beams of thirty ells,
    A Shakespere for his script, Queen Bess, and all
    A-toiling midst the sound of London’s bells.

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  • The Sunday Poem: Peace

    Hours Categories The Sunday Poem
    Comments 7 Comments

    Peace shouldn’t be quiet, clouds soft and pliant,
    A mellow sky scene in blue.
    Peace should be blaring, a jazz band past caring,
    A squabble of children and you.
    The clangor of pots, your eyes full of spots,
    Buttercups growing in dew.
    Peace is invention, it’s sustained attention,
    It’s chemistry going kaboom.
    It’s racing of go karts and artichoke hearts
    And farming in Kalamazoo.

    It’s silence as well, but the silence of bells
    The moment they still for a few;
    An aftershock sound that echoes around
    And gives way to rush and to hue.
    It’s not smug inertia, safe from what hurts ya;
    Pain is what gives us the glue.
    It’s temperate intemperance, all quantum events,
    Mosquitoes buzzing canoes.
    A whole raucous party, that’s peace’s priority:
    Space to be scattered and true.