Dear Will Wright,
So now you've made SimCity, SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000, SimEarth, SimLife, SimCopter, SimAnt, The Sims, and, today, you released Spore [I had considered buying myself a copy as a reward for completing a dissertation prospectus draft today... but as the day drags on I'm wondering whether that draft will ever get finished]; under your name or following your lead, we've had sim civilizations, sim rollercoasters, sim sex.
All of that shit is brilliant, obviously, but it has no storyline. I was hoping maybe you would start work next on SimTroy. Think of it: major poetic minds in various European cultures have told stories that unfold during the same finite historical moment in or around the same city walls: Homer, Virgil, Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, Robert Henryson, William Shakespeare, Brad Pitt. With your help, we could tell all the Trojan stories at the same time, in real time. The user, a random Trojan or Greek, could wander through the city and overhear (or join) any one of these dramas -- because part of the thrill of them is that they all happen simultaneously. Step inside the walls and help Pandarus bring together two young lovers. Step outside and battle alongside or against Achilles or Ajax. Join the funeral games. The trick is that all the NPC in-game dialogue would be translated as directly as possible from the great poetic works, creating a Troy that is a mishmosh of various cultures (and populated by a bunch of antisocial gamers).
Also, I think you might do well to switch hairdressers. Right now, your message seems only to be "behind simulation after simulacrum after simulation, all there really is is terrible, terrible hair."
All best,
Matthew
Friday, September 5, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
In which Matthew remembers the Titanic
A week ago, I was bored, so I texted Brandi six times in a row. Each text contained a different-sized section of the lyrics to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." Three of them were cut so as to end with the words "go on," separated by a series of spaces, as if introducing the text that followed. The final one ended with "go on/and on." One message was just the word "near"; one was just "far." The whole performance was very spare and evocative. She was touched. I really do hate her so very much.
And today, I came across Paul Strohm's riff on a similar theme (Theory and the Premodern Text, 2000): "Troilus [and Criseyde, Chaucer's poem about love during the Trojan War] executes writing's most solemn cultural assignment, which is to connect the past with the future. It is always about the burdens of its own prehistory: the abduction of Helen, the narrowed options imposed by the precondition of the Greek siege. And it is no less about its own unhappy future: the end of love, the fall of Troy, Troilus's own death. It is founded in a moment of enlarged temporal vision -- the prophet Calchas's recognition of Troy's inevitable doom -- a recognition it always tries to forget and never succeeds in forgetting.
"One might say, drawing on a more recently popular image: this ship's iceberg was already out there when it set sail; an aspect of destiny rumored, discussed, but never embraced ('taken on board?') as an inevitability. I mention this 'schlock icon' in order to suggest that our culture has its own fascination with the concept of a present held hostage to the past and future. A present that, however banal, gains a certain luminosity from our retrospective knowledge of its ephemerality. Just as I was writing this essay I encountered a story in the New York Times about the very high auction price of a boarding card for the Titanic. The boarding card (framed, auctioned by Sotheby's, reverenced) is the icon, or mark, of a wound in time, a moment when time is fractured or divided within itself, a major part of its meaning reliant upon retrospective illumination."
And today, I came across Paul Strohm's riff on a similar theme (Theory and the Premodern Text, 2000): "Troilus [and Criseyde, Chaucer's poem about love during the Trojan War] executes writing's most solemn cultural assignment, which is to connect the past with the future. It is always about the burdens of its own prehistory: the abduction of Helen, the narrowed options imposed by the precondition of the Greek siege. And it is no less about its own unhappy future: the end of love, the fall of Troy, Troilus's own death. It is founded in a moment of enlarged temporal vision -- the prophet Calchas's recognition of Troy's inevitable doom -- a recognition it always tries to forget and never succeeds in forgetting.
"One might say, drawing on a more recently popular image: this ship's iceberg was already out there when it set sail; an aspect of destiny rumored, discussed, but never embraced ('taken on board?') as an inevitability. I mention this 'schlock icon' in order to suggest that our culture has its own fascination with the concept of a present held hostage to the past and future. A present that, however banal, gains a certain luminosity from our retrospective knowledge of its ephemerality. Just as I was writing this essay I encountered a story in the New York Times about the very high auction price of a boarding card for the Titanic. The boarding card (framed, auctioned by Sotheby's, reverenced) is the icon, or mark, of a wound in time, a moment when time is fractured or divided within itself, a major part of its meaning reliant upon retrospective illumination."
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
In which Matthew celebrates Reevesday
A Most Excellent Reevesday to one and all! Today is the annual day, across the world (and various realities, but particularly in Beirut, Toronto, LA, my own private Idaho, and Minnesota), when devotees gather to celebrate the life and work of an international superstar. Once a year, you might say the whole earth stands still.
The day involves a range of cultural activities including readings and dramatizations from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, cocaine-addled pub crawls and high-speed bus chases. Enthusiasts often dress in black leather and Oakleys to celebrate Reevesday, and they hold Dogstar sing-a-longs in overstuffed phone booths. Hard-core devotees have even been known to attempt marathon readings of the entirety of The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, The Animatrix, Enter the Matrix, The Matrix: Path of Neo, The Matrix Online, The Matrix Comics Vol. I, The Matrix Comics Vol. II, and The Lake House, while Laurence Fishburne rolls his eyes in dismay.
The first celebration took place in 1964, and a major five-month-long festival (A Most Excellent Feeling Minnesota 2004) took place in St. Paul between 1 April and 31 August 2004. On the Sunday in 2004 before the 40th birthday of their hero, after a night of ice hockey and demon rides, 10,000 people in St. Louis meditated in a postmodern pseudo-Buddhist trance on whether the sound "whoa" (their equivalent of "om") really does sound like a cool breeze over the mountains, then swallowed fistfuls of red-dyed pills and died suddenly.
The day involves a range of cultural activities including readings and dramatizations from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, cocaine-addled pub crawls and high-speed bus chases. Enthusiasts often dress in black leather and Oakleys to celebrate Reevesday, and they hold Dogstar sing-a-longs in overstuffed phone booths. Hard-core devotees have even been known to attempt marathon readings of the entirety of The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, The Animatrix, Enter the Matrix, The Matrix: Path of Neo, The Matrix Online, The Matrix Comics Vol. I, The Matrix Comics Vol. II, and The Lake House, while Laurence Fishburne rolls his eyes in dismay.
The first celebration took place in 1964, and a major five-month-long festival (A Most Excellent Feeling Minnesota 2004) took place in St. Paul between 1 April and 31 August 2004. On the Sunday in 2004 before the 40th birthday of their hero, after a night of ice hockey and demon rides, 10,000 people in St. Louis meditated in a postmodern pseudo-Buddhist trance on whether the sound "whoa" (their equivalent of "om") really does sound like a cool breeze over the mountains, then swallowed fistfuls of red-dyed pills and died suddenly.
Monday, September 1, 2008
In which Matthew fantasizes about a chick fight
There's an empty glass podium with a tasteful reading light and coral drapes in the background. There's the click of sensible heels approaching. And Hillary Clinton steps up to the plate. And she looks fabulous, and surprisingly relaxed. The cameras roll.
"My fellow Americans, and dear supporters: I fought my way into a near win in the Democratic primary despite my gender -- I dealt with double standards in the party, the opposition, the press, and certainly the voting public. And in the end I bowed out gracefully. Relatively gracefully.
"Senator McCain has chosen Governor Palin, meanwhile, because of her sex, and only because of it. That is not progressive. That is sexist, and insulting. McCain has turned his vice presidential nomination into a vain publicity stunt, timed perfectly to eclipse press attention on Barack's big second-act opener. And he did steal the headlines briefly, until God (obviously a Democrat) staged a bigger stunt in response, stealing the RNC's thunder and dropping it just outside New Orleans. Not enough to do too much damage, but enough to remind us and the press of Katrina, and of who the GOP really is and has been. I can't shake the mental image of Governor Palin, face frozen in a smile, doing a stilted beauty queen wave on a parade float that is actually floating up Bourbon Street thanks to a party who is constantly on vacation, who refuses to even take the vice presidency seriously, openly referring to it as 'a job that involves attending funerals and checking on the health of the president.'
"How the irony stings, when Sarah Palin has the gall to try and take up my mantle, to break a glass ceiling which I've only cracked -- by positioning herself to take away my right to choose.
"I've already gone on record and said 'No way, no how, no McCain.' I don't know how I could make it clearer to my former supporters, especially the women, that a write-in vote for me, in this close election, could send our rights back into decades that predate women's liberation entirely. Here's one last try: if you are a former supporter of my campaign, and you withhold your vote from the Democrats, or vote Republican, out of spite or a vendetta or bitterness over my unfortunate but fair loss of the primary, you are a fucking retard. I will personally come to your pathetic lonely home, backhand you across the face, kill your cats, and tear down with nails of rage any posters or buttons or shrines which bear my name. You have no right to them.
"As for my supposed successor, who was busy popping out baby after baby after baby after baby after baby at home in North Bumblefuck while I fought for women's health and rights across the globe, but now has pretensions to even make reference to my campaign as she builds her own: I know you'll soon be trounced by Joe Biden and everything. He'll come out looking like a mean old man and it'll probably win you votes.
"But a week before the vice-presidential debates, let's do one of our own. For the ladies. You and me. Lincoln-Douglas style. Next Wednesday, here in New York State, at the motherfucking Susan B. Anthony House in Rochester, bitch. I will show you, and my daughter, what a real feminist, and a real woman, can do. And you are of course welcome to invite Track, Trig, Pippi, Wippi, Trip, Tralala, and however many other kids you'll have popped out by that point. Bring it the fuck on. Thank you."
"My fellow Americans, and dear supporters: I fought my way into a near win in the Democratic primary despite my gender -- I dealt with double standards in the party, the opposition, the press, and certainly the voting public. And in the end I bowed out gracefully. Relatively gracefully.
"Senator McCain has chosen Governor Palin, meanwhile, because of her sex, and only because of it. That is not progressive. That is sexist, and insulting. McCain has turned his vice presidential nomination into a vain publicity stunt, timed perfectly to eclipse press attention on Barack's big second-act opener. And he did steal the headlines briefly, until God (obviously a Democrat) staged a bigger stunt in response, stealing the RNC's thunder and dropping it just outside New Orleans. Not enough to do too much damage, but enough to remind us and the press of Katrina, and of who the GOP really is and has been. I can't shake the mental image of Governor Palin, face frozen in a smile, doing a stilted beauty queen wave on a parade float that is actually floating up Bourbon Street thanks to a party who is constantly on vacation, who refuses to even take the vice presidency seriously, openly referring to it as 'a job that involves attending funerals and checking on the health of the president.'
"How the irony stings, when Sarah Palin has the gall to try and take up my mantle, to break a glass ceiling which I've only cracked -- by positioning herself to take away my right to choose.
"I've already gone on record and said 'No way, no how, no McCain.' I don't know how I could make it clearer to my former supporters, especially the women, that a write-in vote for me, in this close election, could send our rights back into decades that predate women's liberation entirely. Here's one last try: if you are a former supporter of my campaign, and you withhold your vote from the Democrats, or vote Republican, out of spite or a vendetta or bitterness over my unfortunate but fair loss of the primary, you are a fucking retard. I will personally come to your pathetic lonely home, backhand you across the face, kill your cats, and tear down with nails of rage any posters or buttons or shrines which bear my name. You have no right to them.
"As for my supposed successor, who was busy popping out baby after baby after baby after baby after baby at home in North Bumblefuck while I fought for women's health and rights across the globe, but now has pretensions to even make reference to my campaign as she builds her own: I know you'll soon be trounced by Joe Biden and everything. He'll come out looking like a mean old man and it'll probably win you votes.
"But a week before the vice-presidential debates, let's do one of our own. For the ladies. You and me. Lincoln-Douglas style. Next Wednesday, here in New York State, at the motherfucking Susan B. Anthony House in Rochester, bitch. I will show you, and my daughter, what a real feminist, and a real woman, can do. And you are of course welcome to invite Track, Trig, Pippi, Wippi, Trip, Tralala, and however many other kids you'll have popped out by that point. Bring it the fuck on. Thank you."
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