The MAJOR FUN AWARDS go to games and people that bring people fun, and to any organization managing to make the world more fun through its own personal contributions, and through the products it has managed to bring to the market.
Brian Sutton-Smith (shown here with a passel of his playful progeny) - the same guy who said: "The opposite of play is not work, it's depression" - has been a friend of mine for 35-some years. I first came across his name in a book called The Study of Games that he and Elliot Avedon had co-authored. I was at the time working on my Interplay Games Curriculum, and was in the heat of searching for everything I could find out about games and the study thereof, and this particular book turned out to be a godsend. The next godsend occurred a few years later when I discovered that he was teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. I don't remember exactly what the next steps were, but for several years he brought his classes to my play study retreat center, the Games Preserve, and he, his students and I shared some wonderfully deep play together.
Dr. Brian Sutton Smith, author of The Ambiguity of Play, Professor Emeritus of the University of Pennsylvania where he taught in the Graduate School of Education and the Program of Folklore and Folklife, had this to say about himself:
"first of all I don't consider myself just an academic. I have reached that point in life where my initial pretenses of being a scholar and of being impersonal no longer serve as a convincing dis guise for myself. I've come to believe that a central issue in understanding life or social science or gaining wis dom about anything that is significant is to determine the way in which one's own internal narrative interacts with their personal scholarship. In New Zealand where I was born, I was deeply influenced by my aggressive and physically active older brother into considering play largely as a matter of power. My father was the Wellington chief postmaster who longed to be a university professor and was active as a storyteller and amateur actor. From him I got my academic interests in drama and in stories. These individuals certainly have influenced much of my life. I wish it was sufficient simply to announce that I have been persistently interested in play and that I think it's important." (from an interview with Dr Stuart Brown).
Dr. Brian Sutton-Smith, "...persistently interested in play and...its importan(ce)," Defender of the Playful.
I met Zalman more than 30 years ago. We have been friends ever since that first meeting. Deep friends. Sharing with each other our most profound insights, and our equally profound laughter.
Of all the people I've known who have had a positive influence on religion - any religion - Reb Zalman has been one of very few who has been a voice for playfulness as much as a voice for spirituality. With Zalman, there really is no difference. His playfulness has helped thousands of people to reclaim their spirituality, renew their connection with religion, and redefine both. He has gone far beyond Judaism, making connections between spiritual disciplines of every religion he can touch. And his touch is as light as it is enlightening. He brings love and laughter to all those who hear him. When he leads people in prayer, he also leads them in dance and song and an ever-deepening joy.
It is not an easy path he has chosen for himself. Zalman is widely known as a champion of silliness. Religious people tend to take things very seriously. So, for many, he is seen as a threat. Virtually unsupported by the establishment, he has found his own support. His laughter draws followers. His faith sustains them. His playfulness heals them. Instead of denying the forces that have denied him, he affirms those very traditions, and goes at least one step further. He embraces the best in all traditions, he celebrates the deep fun of each, and the deeper delight that exists between them.
If you've been watching any of the many well-documented, pervasive play antics of Improv Everywhere, you'll understand why they are being presented with the coveted title of Defender of the Playful. You may even, given such spectacular displays of in-your-face playfulness as in the Frozen Grand Central and Food Court Musical events, wonder why it took us so long to acknowledge their contribution to playfulness anywhere. Clearly, they are breaking boundaries, bringing play where no play has dared to go. And their MP3 Experiments are as least as fun and surprising and play-engendering for the participants as they are enticingly puzzling for their unsuspecting audiences.
But for me, it wasn't until their most recent mission, the Surprise Wedding Reception, that Improv Everywhere demonstrated the kind of playfulness that the award was created for. Take a look at one of their most celebrated, and closely related events, called "The Best Game Ever." This, too, was a surprise, and it most definitely led to the delight of everyone involved, players and performers. But unlike The Best Game Ever, the couple who served as the focus of the Surprise Wedding Reception were not so much surprised as they were invited to play. Though the host wasn't above the minor subterfuge of passing himself as a representative of the Mayor's Office, and describing the event as a "free wedding reception," this enlightened willingness to include everyone, the receivers as well as the givers of the performance, led to something that seemed to me much more inclusive, and, because of that, much more of an accomplishment for all playkind.
"Children cannot acquire democratic values through activities run autocratically by adults. They can and do, however, experience and acquire such values in free play with other children. That is a setting where they are treated as equals, where they must have a say in what goes on, and where they must respect the rights of others if they wish to be included."
Clearly we have found yet another Defender of the Playful.
This cow is brought to you courtesy of BePlayful.org. It lives on a page devoted to the A to Z of Playfulness. Here is a taste of this significantly playful pith:
angels, n. ordinary people creativity, n. being yourself danger, n. boredom, blind habit, addiction, workaholism happiness, n. gratitude for being alive laughter, n. the noise of a person fully alive magic, n. reality
This most playworthy site is written by David.
"David is a part-time student, part-time freelance writer, part-time peace activist, and full-time play maker.
"He is married to a beautiful lady called Siona, hasn’t eaten meat for three years (except for one minor disaster in a kebab shop), and rides a folding bicycle.
She calls herself Danna Bananas. Clicking through her online store, also called Danna Bananas, is an adventure in whimsy. She has assembled a collection of some of the most novel novelties I've ever encountered on one site - page after page of wacky, funny, laugh-provoking, and often genuinely playworthy tchotchkes.
Take, for example, Airfork One, "made of sleek stainless steel encased in food-grade, dishwasher-safe silicone. Just the thing to bring those mashed potatoes and peas in for a safe landing...Packed in a recyclable clear PET box." It's a fun thing. It's a functional thing. It is sensitive to the realities of child-rearing - embodying a game that hundreds of thousands of parents have played with their babies as they often desperately try to get them to finish their food.
It is for these reasons, and others manifesting themselves throughout her website, that Ms. Bananas joins the ranks of the select few, to be known now and forever more (or less) as a Defender of the Playful.
Danna Bananas, DotP, has managed to share with us her gift of playfulness. She offers us and the rest of the known universe access to silly, sometimes remarkably inexpensive (c.f. Finger Twister), sometimes the semi-miraculous (c.f. the bouncing-on-water Waboba Ball), and often the actually somewhat practical (c. also f. the Banana Handle. Again I quote: "...very appealing non-slip handle grip! You’ve never seen a chimpanzee burn himself on a hot pan, have you? Of course not! That's because Banana Handle's heat-resistant silicone construction protects hands, both human and primate. Slide the ripe yellow peel onto any pan handle and you are fully protected, hands down.") - inviting laughter, paving the way for play. And US residents don't pay tax! What more, I ask you, could you ask?
Games Above Board - An interview with designer/entrepreneur Martin Samuel
I was contacted by Martin Samuel of a company called Games Above Board. As I looked at his site, I got the impression that this game company was created by someone with a real passion for fun. I responded to his email, asking to know more about him, and his games. His response very much confirmed my suspicions:
Born and raised in Kenya, without the dubious benefit of TV, my Grandmother taught me all the classics (chess, draughts/checkers, backgammon, Ludo/Parchcheesi, Monopoly, Scrabble and any number of card games) and, as an only child, I played games with adults more often than with kids my own age.
It was a 1994 New Year's Day Resolution to accomplish something (anything) and by 07.01.94 I self-published Eclipse, my first 2-player abstract strategy board game, which went on to become Hijara courtesy of the now defunct Great American Trading Co. and listed in Games Magazine Top 100. Here's what the The Scottish Boardgames Association have to say.
My company, Games Above Board is a shop-window for my creativity and its wares are (possibly) for the enjoyment of others. I am also a drummer (professional for 20 years) and (published/recorded) lyricist. One of my song co-writes, "Turn To Me", is soon to be released on a new CD by my co-writer Lisa Nemzo.
My company's goals: It (hopefully) may inspire others to look within themselves, find their own forté and pusue such as, there is no guarantee of financial reward but in doing so, the sure sign of success is the satisfaction... and happiness happens!
And you may quote me on the following:
What is the yardstick of your success? I measure mine in happiness.
Luanga Nuwame, the Homemade Games Guru, has dedicated considerable effort to teaching people how to make their own home made games. A professional game designer himself, Lue has produced a series of instructional videos on the design and production of personalized toys and games using only household materials. For example, a homemade beanbag toss, and, for another example, a set of magnetic refrigerator checkers.
For Lue, the making at home part of the homemade game, regardless of what game gets made or whether or not it's actually made at home, is key. Because, he explains, if you make a game, you can make it your own. You can embed pictures of family members or photos of last summer's vacation, making the game into a unique expression of the people for whom it is designed. The people at home. Yourself. Your extended family and friends.
Lue believes that making a personalized game helps people create something meaningful for them, personally. The "deep" fun part of it all, comes from people making the game together, for each other, and from the experience of seeing each other play a game that really reflects their lives together - experiences, favorite things, silly memories.
Making a game together helps create a closer family, explains Lue. "The fun of it lies in the interaction, conversation, contact with everyone. At the same time, making a game that allows you to express "you," means that every time you play the game, you are the star. Having something unique, that expresses me, uniquely, is deeply fun."
As a designer and instructor, Lue sees himself as being able to give families something that is really up to them to interpret, to personalize. He focuses on giving families the basics, knowing that with this kind of clarity, families and friends will provide their own content and ensuring it reflects their own selves. And therein, in the playful and personal connection between parent and child, friend and family, explains Lue, lies the fun.
Last November I wrote about Gwen Gordon, and her remarkable article "Play, the Movement of Love." Today, I am pleased to share her new website with you.
Gwen is a remarkable spirit, who has brought her profoundly play vision to as many people as she can touch, and there are many, all over the world. You can read and witness more of he work here. Download her videos, her essays, her stories. You will be inspired. And maybe even a little bit transformed. There is so much there. I leave you with a small taste, from her essay "Laughter for No Reason," in which I am anonymously present, hence, deeply drawn to:
"I notice that whenever I lose my sense of humor, it’s a sure sign that I’ve lost my perspective. As a friend of mine likes to say, 'the truth shall make you laugh!' No matter how difficult and heavy the facts might be, facing them makes us lighter. The truth makes us laugh because, after all, it sets us free and when we’re free, we’re free to laugh. With every joyful breath, we assert our freedom, reminding us that even ordinary life rests inside a bigger enchanted game, a larger truth in which all things hold meaning."
Nancy Nurse is one of the three clowns developed by one of the few people I know who has mastered the art of compassionate humor, Patty Wooten. Patty becomes this particular clown as part of her effort to lighten the often overwhelmed hearts of the nursing profession. Nancy Nurse, explains Patty, "is a wild, red-headed clown, armed with a combat belt of weapons; such as, bedpans, urinals, enema buckets, and over-sized syringes used to fight disease.. Her stethoscope is made from a garden hose and a toilet plunger which is great to use on those big-hearted patients... it can also be used to relieve constipation!"
Several years ago, Patty came down to one of my seminars at the Esalen Institute. She made us laugh so hard, and so deeply, and with such a loving purpose that, for many of us, fun became even more functional, even more central to our reasons for being.
Patty's attempt to bring a little joy to those who so desperately need it, has been a constant struggle for her. Bottom-line priorities, twelve-hour days, scant appreciation for their dedication and skills have all but overwhelmed the caregiving professions. And yet, Patty continues, when- and wherever she can, to heal with humor, to soothe with silliness.
REJUVENILE (made) a brief appearance this (Monday) morning in the first hour of ABC's "Good Morning America" in a story about play at the workplace. News flash: work is boring. A few office monkeys are fighting back with inter-department playground slides, break room foos-ball tables and other goofy innovations. Cue remark from yours truly on the importance of play and fun in the workplace and how these changes reflect the larger rejuvenile phenom.
One remark is unlikely to make the cut -- too often, the merry chattering bosses who institute "playful" reforms are putting window dressing on salt mines. There is little more infuriating than having a Wacky Fun Day hosted by an employer who skimps on health insurnace or restricts family leave. I don't think there's any doubt a genuinely playful attitude toward work can benefit both worker and the bottom line, but it's not about climbing walls or bobbleheads. It's about doing our work with the same wonder and imagination and sense of fun that too many workers ditch in the name of professionalism.
Christopher Noxon, you, too, have earned the full panoplay of rights and privileges due to a "Defender of the Playful"
Matt Weinstein, "Emperor of Playfair" has been advocating fun to colleges and business around the world. He and I started Playfair together at the Games Preserve, and he has taken it beyond our wildest hopes, and most ambitious dreams. Matt is the co-author of several entertaining enlightenments, like the book Work Like Your Dog
This is a picture of Bruce Williamson, at 2 years of age, on his way to becoming author of The Certificate of the Right to Play. With this certificate, you, too, can become "A lifetime member in good standing of the Society of Childlike Grownups." It is a delightful thing, this significantly silly certificate, demonstrating a keen, honest, heartfelt understanding of what it should mean to be a grown-up.
It comes from a fellow named Bruce Williamson, whose remarkably mature understanding of the nature of childlike grownuphood is reflected with clarity and a certain hard-won innocence on his Society of Childlike Grownups chock-full-of-resources website. Devoted to teaching us how to become Childlike Grownups, the Society offers us a spare little website, and yet it presents a rare depth of playful wisdom which is evident just from the titles of its main pages:
Amazed that I hadn't encountered Bruce before, I called him up, only to discover that we had met at the Games Preserve more than 25 years ago. Though we haven't crossed paths again until now, Bruce is clearly a fellow traveler, and a gift to all of us who follow the Playful Path.
Of all the endearingly silly ways to watch yourself waste time, Daniel Craig Giffen's Human Clock is by far the most of both - endearing and silly, which explains why it is a recipient of the coveted MajorFUN Award.
Everything on Giffen's site shows an almost maniacal dedication to human-scale whimsy. There are three clocks: digital, analog and text. Each mode is sillier than you'd expect it to be. To change between clocks, you go to an equally silly, but fully functional control panel that looks like something drawn by a fifth grader, and acts like a grown-up web interface. Try all three.
Then there's artist Yugo Nakamura's Industrious Clock. Not as human, perhaps, but it definitely conveys a certain "hand-made" humor. Nakamura's art, and playfulness, are even better represented by his "Surface" collection. Click on the small circles on the bottom of the page to explore.
Ze Frank receives the MajorFUN Award for being perhaps one of the most prolifically playful presences on the web.
There are so many examples of his work that he is sharing, virtually for free, that it is difficult to select any as truly exemplary. Let's begin with this rather straightforward collection of virtual matchstick puzzles. Why? Because it's what you'd expect from a collection of virtual matchstick puzzles: clear, challenging, easy to use, fun to solve. Not particularly playful, but respectful of play and the needs of players. Now let's try just one more game-like experience. It's a Memory Game. All right, it's Concentration. But notice how each image is animated? Now it's truly a virtual game, not just translating a card game into the electronic medium, but transforming it.
Now take a look at Ze's Animated Snowflake. Not a game at all, but a unique bit of interactive delight. Technologically sophisticated. Easy to understand. Lovely to behold.
And here's one more, well, maybe two more examples of yet another gift of Ze's playfulness. It's called "Blow." It's an invitation. People are asked to send in a picture of themselves, blowing. Ze adds their picture to a growing blowing collage. It's, well, silly. It's also an invitation to fun and sharing and community. And here's one more: My Cat Annie. It's a statement, is what it is, of the further reaches of Ze's playfulness. And, for those of us who wonder whether this world can be made more fun, it's a reason for hope.
The world of compter games, and, consequently, of computer game players, can get very harsh. Despite the endless possibilities of faster processor and more graphic glories and completely surrounding sound, most of our games are given over, as we are, to violence. Not that violence can't be fun. Not that there's anything wrong with violent games. Just that there are far too few respites. Ferry Halim is one of the few. A true respite.
Ferry Hallim demonstrates that all it takes to make something as interesting to play with as violence is a little applied whimsy.
Whimsy. Hallim is a master of it. His games are true diversions, invitations to worlds that simply don't take themselves very seriously. He is the creator of light-hearted games that are bouyant enough to lighten-up even the dark of desire and the heavy of heart - at least for a few minutes. Like the game Summer Walk, where you make three bird-like things hop into the good floating things, to the tune of the pleasant guitar. Or A Cupid's Day where you, as Cupid, shoot arrows into clouds.
Whimsy. What a powerful concept.
Ferry Hallim is the newest inductee to the MajorFUN Hall of Fame.
There's a lot of reminiscing going on about how kids used to play back in the days when kids were kids. It's a good kind of reminiscing, a sweet nostalgia for the inventiveness and irrepressible, undeniable spirit of play. Unfortunately, we almost always follow those moments of wistful wonder with the conclusion that kids nowadays just don't do those kind of things.
Streetplay is a faith-restoring site - restoring our faith both in our memories of childhood, and in childhood itself. Streetplay's collections of photographs documenting actual kids in actual play, here, and around the world, yesterday, and today, provides us with incontrovertible evidence of the preeminence of the playful spirit.
Then again, there's the nostalgia part. Surely you didn't forget those long summer afternoons playing Stickball? And who could forget Halfball? Or, for that matter, Skully? Reading about those games, seeing the photos and film clips, even if you never played them, is a journey into the past, present, and future of fun. It not only documents what we used to do, it reminds us that we can still do those things, that we have a heritage to pass on to our children and children's children. And our children, and children's children have a heritage to pass on back to us.
This is a remarkable site. Rich in depth and detail, preserving and nurturing a wealth of rock solid invitations to play. It is free. You can help support the site by purchasing cool stuff from their store. There are no advertisements. A genuine gift to us all.
Today's MajorFUN Award goes to Rafael Lozano-Hemmer for his "Relational Architecture" projects, as exemplified by his body movies piece - (this link takes you to a very large quicktime movie, requiring a fast connection and great patience - all well worth the effort).
In this remarkable work of art, Lozano-Hemmer invites people to play via complex and subtle uses of light and technology. I quote from his website:
Body Movies transforms public space with 400 to 1,800 square metres of interactive projections. Thousands of photo portraits taken on the streets of the cities where the project is exhibited are shown using robotically controlled projectors. However, the portraits only appear inside the projected shadows of local passers-by, whose silhouettes measure between 2 to 25 metres high, depending on how far people were from the powerful light sources placed on the floor of the square. A custom-made computer vision tracking system triggers new portraits as old ones are revealed.
Body Movies effectively transforms a public square into a public playground, where strangers play with light, shadow, and each other. It illustrates every principle I can think of that characterizes an effective play environment: It supports almost any degree of involvement. Players can choose to ignore it completely. Players can watch other players at play. Players can dip into and out of it at will. Players can get silly and stay safe, get serious and take risks, become fascinated and fascinating, play alone or in groups. Players can spend hours figuring out how to make it do things.
Lazano-Hemmer came to my attention via an email I received from Madamjujujive, aka Julie Ferguson, a contributor to two of my "Blogs o'Fun" - Metafilter and Everlasting Blort. She knew that I'd be at least as excited as she was about her discovery of the art of as described in this discussion on MetaFilter. I mention this by way of thanks, to Madamjuvujive, Rolo, who passed the lilnk on to the MetaFilter community, and to the many wonders and powers of we who blog.
Today's MajorFUN Award goes to (aka Stevanne Auerbach) for her lifetime, one-woman campaign to help people make the connection between good toys and effective parenting.
I've known Dr. Toy for maybe 20 years and consistently been impressed by her good heart, her commitment to children, her dedication and fortitude. She had at one time created an amazing resource for kids and parents - a toy library and museum - a "Games Preserve" for toys and teaching the wisdom of play. Money was never her prime objective, and, sadly, when her museum was affected by the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 and forced to close she was never able to amass the resources to rebuild. In 1986 she lost everything in a five alarm fire in her home and office in SF (fortunately her book The Toy Chest had already gone to the publisher and was printed. Limited copies are available from Dr. Toy.)
She resumed evaluating toys and consulting to rebuild her life. Her web site was the first site on the internet devoted to toy information. The San Francisco International Toy Museum opened in 1986 at The Cannery in Fisherman's Wharf and served over 50,000 children until it was forced to close. Dr. Toy is working with a dedicated group to relaunch a new toy museum in Oakland.
Her spirit is clearly indomitable. Her Dr. Toy award is recognized throughout the industry.
You wouldn't think that making balloon hats could evolve into a spiritual path. Unless you happened to stumble across a website called "The Varieties of the Balloon Hat Experience." As the authors explain:
In 1996, Addi Somekh and Charlie Eckert began traveling to different places in the world to make balloon hats for people and take photos of them. The goal was to show people all over the world laughing and having fun, and to emphasize the fact that all human beings are born with the ability to experience joy. In total, they visited 34 countries and have over 10,000 pictures.
I am amazed at what a rich, luscious, thoughtful, inspiring, and profoundly gift this Balloon Hat Experience proves to be: the amazing gallery of Balloon Hatting around the world, the gallery of Threes - depicting stories of love and balloon-hatted glory in series of three images.
"In the Navajo tradition we have what we call Chi Dlo Dil, or a Laughing Party, for a newborn. The Laughing Party is the first laugh you hear from a child. It's usually around six weeks. It's the baby's first expression to the world, saying 'I'm ready to interact.'
...At the party everybody sits around the baby and has a big meal and plays with the baby. The person who makes the baby laugh first plays an important role in the child's life."
Nancy Evans, Shiprock, NM (Navajo Nation)
And this piece of poetic anthropology about the meaning of hats from Mary Holmes is Professor Emerita of Art at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
The head has always been a battlefield. We think of ourselves as livingin our head. Our most important acts aren't performed by our hands or our legs. We think and speak with our head. So the head becomes sacred. It has meaning. Which is why there came to be so much meaning attached to hair and headdresses, to what they look like. And it has enough meaning that it¹s worth fighting about ...I have great faith that hats will come back, because they have been important to humans for millennia. And the balloon hats give people, at least momentarily, a return of that experience of dressing the head. I think that's why it evokes that bubbly, giggly, happy response. People feel that at last they have the recognition they deserve.
I give you a MajorFUN Award, o Balloon Hatters of the heart.
If you like games enough to want to expand your repertoire beyond the offerings of commercial conglomerates, or if you are an independent game producer hoping to get the word out, DiscoverGames.com could prove to be a major find.
Founder Mary Couzins explains:
I have been through the process having invented and produced five games myself including one licensing/consulting agreement with University Games. I started DiscoverGames.com to help other game inventors. There is strength in numbers. That was obvious the first time we went to Toy Fair as DiscoverGames.com. I had been there previously under Game Geste with my games. Many industry people (retailers, licensors, manufacturers) walk past your booth if you are a 1 or 2 game booth. As DiscoverGames.com we were jammed with people the last 5 years. In addition we receive over 250,000 page views per month. Hasbro, F X Schmidt, Mattel, University, as well as European and Australian game companies and many others all visit. They search for new product at our site because it is the only place Independents can get together. Several of our members have received licensing agreements (both here and abroad) due to our services (including myself).
We do not review product. All games are welcome. We are here to help you promote your product by taking it to Toy Fair (the biggest industry show) in New York, in September your game would go to The Toy and Game Inventor Forum pn Las Vegas (where we are not only exhibitors, but I am a speaker on the Inventor Success Story Panel), in the summer possibly GenCon and Origins, promoting your game on our site, we do emailing to over 7,200 people in the industry, and you would be eligible to participate in our postal mailings to catalog (March), retail people (August) and our press release mailing in the summer/fall. Members also have available to them many industry lists, retailers who will carry their product, tips for saving money and have access to the private member bulletin board. In addition, I give out my home number and will try to help you in any way I can.
We are also working with game companies (Hasbro on down to our independents) to put on a huge consumer show set for Labor Day weekend on Chicago's Navy Pier next year. This type of show has been popular in Europe for some time. We think it is time it be done in the U.S. There will be life size games, game shows on the Skyline Stage, dockside inventor signings and much more. As I am sure you know, there are no game shows aimed to the family in the states (GenCon and Origins are a different segment of the game world). In Europe such shows are very popular.
I want people to rediscover game playing. Get to know your kids in a non-confrontational way. It is a good excuse to get together with your neighbors (or anyone).
For the huge collection of independent games, for the innovative, modestly priced service to independent game producers, for the vision, fortitude, and heart needed to produce a game show aimed at the family, DiscoverGames.com gets a MajorFUN Award.
Blow up words (not worlds). Hear funny, human-made sounds. Play the MajorFUN Award-winning Arteroids - "A literary computer game for the Web — the battle of poetry against itself and the forces of dullness."
Note that this game is actually funny, and fun, and, well, puzzling in a poetic sort of way. Try the play mode. Increase the level. Note - this is very cool.
Part of the idea of Arteroids is to investigate the slide of game, play, and art into one another. When is a game art? When does a game impose a competitive emphasis that rules out certain types of play? If the text becomes unreadable, it rules out certain types of play that are simply a part of reading. But, also, when the text becomes unreadable, it makes for a better game, if you like playing the game.
Arteroids shifts the focus between game and play, between text as readable literary object that gets its primary meaning from the meaning of the words to text as meaning via sound, motion, and destructive intent. When does "poetry" mean poetry, and when does it mean arteroid? It is a question of velocity, density, and other such concerns of visual (even multimedia) rhetoric, of emphasis and intent. This slides around in Arteroids.
What are the possible roles of language in dynamic multimedia work for the Web? Can poetry go here and live? Well, judge for yourself.
My own feeling is that a synthesis of media and arts, including text, along with things like programming and its domain of art such as computer games, changes them all in certain ways, limits them and expands them in ways that are challenging and generative of new media language.
A bit more about Jim: "I've been a programmer since about 1990. Before that, I worked in radio/audio and did a literary magazine. My site has been up since 95. The Canada Council gave me a Senior grant to do Arteroids. Currently, I'm Artist in Residence at a college in Toronto.
I announced MajorFUN Award to the DeepFUN group, and was delighted to hear that Roz Trieber has announced her candidacy:
At this time of my life I switched from bugs to people that means changing from a medical technologist to a health educator turned humorist. I have branded myself "silly" by wearing a "beanie" hat (like Cecil and Beanie) covered with silly buttons. I wear this hat everywhere including business and social functions.
I am involved in many business and civic organizations. People laugh, chortle, guffaw and point their finger. We laugh and I observe more people change a frown to a smile and say "you made my day."
I'm silly, funny, and include laughter and the unexpected in all of my presentations. Publicly, I'm the lady with the beanie hat on. I actually have several hats that go with different outfits. Talk about coordination!
He deserves paradise who makes his companions laugh. --The Koran
Roz calls herself "The Naturally Funny Lady who wears a "beanie hat" all of the time"
Brian Sutton-Smith (shown here with a passel of his playful progeny) - the same guy who said: "The opposite of play is not work, it's depression" - has been a friend of mine for 35-some years. I first came across his name in a book called The Study of Games that he and Elliot Avedon had co-authored. I was at the time working on my Interplay Games Curriculum, and was in the heat of searching for everything I could find out about games and the study thereof, and this particular book turned out to be a godsend. The next godsend occurred a few years later when I discovered that he was teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. I don't remember exactly what the next steps were, but for several years he brought his classes to my play study retreat center, the Games Preserve, and he, his students and I shared some wonderfully deep play together.
Luanga Nuwame, the 
Last November I 
Nancy Nurse
This
At this time of my life I switched from bugs to people that means changing from a medical technologist to a health educator turned humorist. I have branded myself "silly" by wearing a "beanie" hat (like Cecil and Beanie) covered with silly buttons. I wear this hat everywhere including business and social functions.