Mayday

Always

Emily gave me a book for Christmas that was totally my thing, and now she’s reading it too.

I’ve been on a good rhythm of reading this year. I’ve had a stack of books on my night stand. It’s partly the fault of all the “little free libraries” around the neighborhood. The one stack turned into two stacks at some point, and then a small stack appeared underneath the nightstand. If you were ever my college roommate, you’d know I love my multitude of little stacks of books, coins, and papers to sort or recycle. I’m sure it’s not annoying at all to anyone in this house.

So, what have I pulled from these free libraries, as I walk by? There’s the Obama pre-presidency memoir, also I couldn’t resist a money self-help book, or the 90’s book decrying the tech world. I’m getting through one book a month, lately. I found a novel called ‘The Cave’ (2000), and the cover said it was Nobel-prize winning. Turns out the author, Portuguese Jose Saramago, not the book, was the prize-winner. The book was a bit allegorical, kinda haunting, perhaps about living outside the modern world and all its rigid conveniences. It was almost riveting.

Another book, gifted to me, not from the street, was ‘All Of The Marvels’ (2022), in which the author reads the entire 500k pages of Marvel comics, and explains them in a few hundred pages. I have always been curious about Marvel, but I’m a completionist, so I’ve generally stayed away. The book was good, and really helped me understand the arc of Marvel and its tentpole series, pulling certain issues as examples. I don’t remember who gifted me the book, but if it was you, thanks!

Also I read ‘AboComix’ (2019), volume 3, in which LGBTQ prisoners across the country write and draw comics and this group releases them. Some are personal, some are not, some are dark, some are kooky. Reading through it is powerful and weird and funny and sad. I got the comic book from a local fair, and it had been on the to-read shelf for a while.

But the book Emily got me was ‘How To Do Nothing: Resisting the attention economy’ (2019), by Jenny Odell.

It pushes on us, to see how much our engagement is exploited. It makes the argument that being less useful may free us from being so exploited. Then it leads into a more holistic call for bioregionalism, a call to pay more attention to that which is around us locally, down to the plants and animals. It’s a feeling I relate to. I like different places being different, and don’t love the flattening of space and time that the internet and modernity seems to push. Emily predicted the regionalism example that would run through my head: I always found it meaningful how donut shops operated differently from California to New England. I like a Dunkin Donuts, but that doesn’t mean I want every region to have them. I like the northeast, but I also love the Cambodian mom-and-pop donut shops here in CA.

Unfortunately the book’s topics also brings AI to mind. I will keep it brief, because 60% of conversations end up discussing AI these days.

I often tell students that the best thing they can do is to set their game development goals small, because it allows them space to iterate. If they finish, then they can try again and do better. Friends who use AI often bring up how much more effective they are. One of the main things is often an abstract “it speeds me up 2x” or 3x or 10x. They let AI manage these side projects for them, handling esoteric or finicky details that would otherwise derail their day or week. There’s a quantity component to this argument. They can do more faster. And “more” is what I tell my students; finish so you can iterate, and do it again, and again.

But somewhere, I believe that “more” loses intention. Where do we say “again”? Where do we say, “and now, onto the next”? Where do we pause, where do we stay, or stand? In the book ‘How To Do Nothing’, the author is based in, and from the Bay Area. She calls on us to reflect on the destructive expansion of the United States, in contrast to the communities of indigenous who lived here for thousands of years. In our drive toward advancement, will we also wipe out the environment that had long supported a deep, rich biodiversity? I benefit from the medicine, the communication, the food, the aesthetic pleasures of modern society. But was “next” or “more” worth it? Must the drive presage destruction?

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• April’s been trying out vague word sounds as mimicry. I forgot how fun this phase is, as are many of the phases. She’s majorly understanding us now. Finn and her get in really funny loops of laughter with each other. He’s also really getting perceptive of details; we finished a 100-piece puzzle a couple days ago in maybe ten minutes.

• I have been tinkering away with Roll In One, now that there are 20ish copies remaining. I’ve got expansion ideas. I also have about 4 digital game pitches that I’m working through, a couple that I believe have real potential.

• Kublacon, California’s big board game convention was last weekend, and I teamed up with other locals to split a booth, and sold a bunch of my games. I also played a couple new games to me, Pax Pamir and A Fake Artist Goes To New York. One about Afghanistan in the 1800s being fought over by the Russians, Brits, and Afghans. The other a drawing party game. Both very good, though the latter was more stressful.

• Music. I’m gonna mention three albums on my brain/on repeat. Lion King soundtrack, Genesis Owusu’s new album, and Harry Chapin’s “Greatest Stories Live”. That live album was a staple when I was growing up, and Cat’s in the Cradle is good, but not nearly as powerful as many other songs on that album.

Until another time,

Randallion