Blue Wizard : Second Impressions

http://sethflynnbarkan.com

Blue Wizard is about to Die is a book of poems about Video Games by Seth 'Fingers Flynn Barkan.  One thing i didn't say in my first impressions of this book is that these poems are pretty much EXACTLY what I'm going for with this blog.  Or, at least, with a lot of what I've written.  Particularly the memory posts.  The visceral, the nostalgia, the sense of memory, of childhood daydreams.  Teen Angst and vulgarity.   It's all in this book.  Really quite remarkable.

Video games are a refuge, but they were also a calling.  When I was young, many days there wasn't anything I'd rather be doing than playing an awesome video game.  And then other times, they were a way to escape when the rest of the world seemed shitty.

It should be noted that, while much of the spirit of this book is right on the marker, by now, I've really noticed a divergence from my own experience. First off, Flynn Barkan has a much deeper connection to arcade games than I do.  While I played plenty of arcades at the bowling alley, pizza places or TILT, our former Mall Hangout, I never got particularly good at any arcade games.  I just didn't have the time, the funds, or the skill.  

I've never considered myself to be a particularly skilled video game player.  I enjoy competing at games like Goldeneye, Mario Kart or even Street Fighter II, but I regularly have my ass handed to me by friends like Cortez, and later ZorTheRed or Ghost.   I'm not the worst, but I'm certainly not the best.  This, I learned early on.  The author of Blue Wizard, on the other hand, spends some time illustrating his expertise at various arcade games.  Additionally, he gets pretty lifestyle-gritty.  Smoking, doing drugs, that kind of thing.  Things that I don't associate with nostalgiac video game good times.

Finally, in this entire book (complete with citations and a list of the best games ever - nice to read)  He mentions an RPG all of once.  Well there you go.  That's the difference.  While I enjoy action games as much as the next guy, I also have spent equal amounts of time just playing RPG games.  RPGs made up a significant piece of the game-times pie that I baked for myself.  This is a portion of gaming not at all represented in Blue Wizard is about to Die. 

So, after the novelty wears off, I see that this author and myself are really quite different.  However, I don't think this is a bad thing.  Actually, it's a good thing!  A testimate to the variety of gamer identities out there.  And I don't have to like everything he does to appreciate his work. Which I do!  And I think you will too.   

-D

That Reminds Me.....

I don't know what I'd call this or what it means, maybe that's just for me to decide and for you to interpret.  The basic phenomenon is when you're doing (or encounter) one thing that reminds you of another thing.  Like the smell of pine trees and fruit roll ups reminds me of camping in Yosemite when I was a kid.  Wet bricks and chlorine remind me of swimming lessons when I was anywhere between 2 and, what 10?  Smells in the neighborhood that I grew up in are make me feel as if I was 13 again, walking home from Jr. High.   Anyway, you get the idea I'm trying to make.

So now I'm at work (I do residential caregiving-type work at an assisted living facility for seniors) and shaving a gentleman's face.  Everything is fine and nothing's out of the ordinary.  Until I get to the left side of his face.  Nothing is wrong with the gentleman's face and he's quite good looking for someone in their mid 90s.  So I'm shaving the left side of his face and all of a sudden I'm thinking about the Tchita Uplands from Final Fantasy XII.  I have no idea why this creeps up and it's happened on more than one occasion before I noticed that it was happening.  I don't think it has anything do with the circumstances as I don't recall any shaving side quests or marks in the game (although I didn't complete all the marks due to not having unlimited time).  Now every time I shave the left side of his face, I think of that area in FFXII, but now I'm not sure if it's because that feelings happened a number of times or because it actually is somehow reminding me of the game.

Another thing that comes up is that because I work at an assisted living facility for "seniors," there's music pumped through the speakers in all the hallways.  This is both orchestral, big band and popular music from the 1940s and 50s.  You know what game that I'm playing also has music from the 1940s and 50s?  Yup, Bioshock.  So a couple of times each day at work when I focus on the music that's being played, I immediately start thinking about Plasmids and Splicers lurking around the corners.

Another auditory cue that brings a memory/feeling back is the "aahh" noise during the HBO title/static sequence.  To me, it sounds a lot like the "aahh" sound from Eternal Darkness. (Comparison sounds clips on youtube were not available for comment).

I don't really know how to end this one, so I'll just wish everyone a pleasant weekend.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

I Can Remember Days At A Time