Interactive Fiction

Zork.

Does that conjure any associations for you? A white house? Caves? "Take key"? Oh, for me, a computer nerd when computers had no hard drives, an amber screen was high-tech, and you couldn't find a computer that didn't have the monitor attached to the CPU, Zork calls up the same feeling as bringing home a thick fantasy novel when you're a pre-teen:

the prospect of a long, fantastic immersion in something other than the day-to-day. I played a number of these games--although, come to think of it, it's probably true that I never finished one. Hmm. But they were inspiring and engaging, and the first real computer game with any real depth. There were video games--Pac Man and Space Invaders were released in 78-79--but for a bookish guy like me, these text based adventure games were books come alive, literature you could crawl into. They feel similar to my memories of Dad's "pencil tree" stories, of vast spaces to be explored, of strange experiences, puzzles to solve, heroic deeds to be done.

So that was the early 80's, when Infocom was releasing its brilliant text games, and now, this genre-- called interactive fiction--has a almost exclusively non commercial life on the internet, with a bunch of afficionadoes designing and giving away their story/games for the sheer love of the form. It's one of these totally useless, in conventional terms, endeavors that just fills my heart with a childish joy. I suppose its the same joy I had early on with films, although my love for films has gotten more mature and complex over the years, but my love for IF has not. There's something just intrinsically funky about the whole art/craft of making these games. They really are like nothing else I can think of; there's a simplicity and innocence, and range of possibilities that is not possible in virtually any other medium. There's no novel or video game that, when you try something stupid, is going to directly admonish you for it, with something like, "Trying to lift that house? Ok, now you're carrying a hernia, knucklehead."

These games do not have the openness and hyper-responsiveness of modern video games (like Halo, for instance); you have to acclimitize yourself to the logic and syntax of the game, and by doing so, it's as if you're entering another culture. You get the pleasure of learning an articulated world and worldview, that at its best coherantly responds to you with unfolding discoveries of itself. There's a logic and limitation to the genre which, because of these limitations, make success that much more exhilerating. The constraints make the performance that much more enjoyable.

The only game I wrote as a kid was Whack that Skeleton, on an Apple 2e, when I was maybe 14. And I just wrote the second IF game in my life, a Christmas gift for Heather entitled Heather's Big Adventure. It was totally delightful to sit at her elbow, watching her explore this impossibly silly version of our home life, and getting to hoot together at shared in-jokes. And to let her in on the nefarious plot our landlord is engaged in, explaining what's in all those boxes in the locked basement downstairs.

Viva la if! Viva absurdite!

A Runner's Die

We spent the holiday weekend up at my parents' house in Sacramento, lazing about, being fed well. A couple of mornings I went on runs around the old neighborhood, through areas I've known for twenty-five years. I've been running now for about 8 months, alternating tri-weekly runs through Golden Gate Park with my weight training. And although I've been consistent with the practice, I can safely say I'm not a natural born runner. I'm not exactly sure what that is, but it's not me.

However, it's taught me a lot about pushing through boundaries, and I've gotten to be able to do the 25 minute track, up around Stow Lake and back, without stopping, just varying my pace and intensity. And in fact, the other day I did a 45 minute run, stopping only once, which was a lot for me.

But in Sacramento, the twenty minute course was too much for me to do without stopping several times. Is there less oxygen in the Valley? One thing is that the cold is different there than here, dryer and more penetrating, so my muscles did not seem to warm up and stretch out like in S.F. Be that as it may, the subjective experience was of hitting a wall that I couldn't get through.

My last run, on Christmas morning, I went past the horse stable, which this morning was horse-less, and down through what, in my adolescence, was the mansion neighborhood. Now they look like slightly upper-middle class ranch homes, analogous to how the Snake Canyon-like creek that Corey jumped over on his BMX bike looked, as I ran past it as a 38 year old man, like a little muddy rivulet. Then past the corner where I used to be picked up by the bus to being another traumatic day at junior high school, and down to the corner where, if you take a right, you'll start on the path that took Corey and I out to the wilds of Folsom Reservoir. But I turned left, taking me past the road where my friends Mike and Pat used to live, when I was 19. I contemplated going to look at the house, but didn't, for probably a layer cake of reasons. That was where I had my brief fling with drugs and alcohol, an important, but thankfully short time. Both of them are still living in Sacramento. Pat is a visual artist, and Mike is going on 10 years since his fall from his parents roof that damaged his brain and has put him permanently into a wheelchair. For many years I had dreams in which he showed up, as good natured and slovenly as ever, saying nonchalantly that they'd found a cure and he was fine now.

Then I turned back towards my parents' house, down a road that used to be blocked off to through traffic, past the trailer park where, when I was in junior college, I would deliver Pizza Hut pizzas the the same young guy, usually around 11pm. He, as I remember, tipped well. This was the last stretch of the run, and where that familiar wall arose, which shows up as my mind starting to kick out "Stop!" messages. It begins to feel like I'm running on fog. No just through fog, but on it, and trying to lean into it. It's been an ugly feeling.

Now, Heather and I went to see a film called The Fountain a few weeks ago (which has been, unfortunately and unjustifiably, panned...which I went along with till hearing a review by Stuart Davis). The protagonist, through three incarnations, progressively understands what death offers and stops fighting it; the ending sees him, facing dissolution into a supernova, ecstatically proclaiming, "I'm going to die!" He's realized that though he's facing the same loss of small "s" self that he's fought against in the previous two lives (as conquistador and scientist), this time he's dying into something, something more comprehensive, expansive not diminishing.

This scene came to mind as I ran down this street, and close to where I had crashed my bike, jamming a handlebar into my gut at age 13, I realized that the same logic applies to this runner's wall. That the my reaction to the fogginess was a reaction to what felt like both a loss of control, and a meaningless dissolution of self. Instead of going with that story, I found some faith that in this experience of breaching my own boundaries, there was something into which I could break apart. The rest of the way home was colored with joy, not bleakness, and the whole experience of fogginess was transformed into the happiness of connectedness and potential.

Stuart Davis

I wrote the last post listening to my new IPod, which is Heather's old model, but with a new skin (i.e., the decorative covering of the unit), a black and white yin-yang symbol. She gave it to me for Christmas, with a bunch of my favorite songs, including the whole soundtrack from Harold & Maude (one of my all time favorite films), Paul Simon, and three of Stuart Davis' albums.

Who is Davis? He's part of Ken Wilbur's Integral Institute, and a pretty amazingly talented musican and artist. I think I've gotten more turned on to the music through his video projects, the most recent of which is The Stuart Davis Show (link), which is a very trickerish approach to Integral theory. He can be credited with getting Heather to think there might be something to Integral than a narcissistic bald fuck. The brilliant thing, for someone interested in seeing Integral spread, is that he can go to places, and find people, who Wilber could never reach. So yeah, Stuart.

Here's some lyrics from his work:

(from "Good Wyrd")
I damn near died at the moment of conception
My-my-my daddy couldn't keep his erection
but you'd never guess it to see me today
'cuz I stand up straight (like a typical gay)
With a flock of baby birds that are stuck in my mouth
I wanna gag and gag till they come fluttering out
I'm living with lock-jaw and egg-shell cheeks
I keep dreading the day that they discover their beaks.

(and)
And you shudder at the thought
Of a cook or a kitchen.
Every since you were six
You could smell the religions
Boiling off the love
Into poisonous glue,
Recruiting the kids
Like the cannibals do.

(from "April Showers, April Tears")
What is the sound
of one hand slapping
your face
before your parents were born?

"I love you/ But I cannot mother your fears." (actually a rapper/poet named Saul Williams, on Davis' album What?)

Grace and forgiveness

So the truck seems to be dying. It has creaked and popped, in the back right wheel well, for the last five months. Nothing has fallen off. No flames have erupted from anywhere. But it keeps popping and the mechanic has twice been unable to diagnose it.

Then, on the 23rd, I come out from work and find the truck stone cold dead. I'd left the lights on--something I've mostly trained myself out of, as it used to be an, apparently, unconsciously cherished habit--and it had not survived the cold night. It's really at moments like these that you see the intrinsic nature of automobiles: 2 tons of inert metal. A co-worker gave me a jump and I was on my way...till the card died in a turn lane two blocks away. With the help of few fellows, I pushed the car off to the curb and thus commenced the Car Drama, in this case the cast being myself, a friendly young tow truck driver, a young man screaming at me from his speeding car (for the anti-war sticker?), a harried car parts clerk, and a beautiful blue-and-gold macaw. The upshot was a new battery and a car making it back to the city. Did I feel the story, the sage, the trauma was over? Deep down, under the layer of denial, under the muscular contractions, under the gauzy memories of past car debacles, lay a crusty layer of doubt.

Which turned out to be the reality, as the next day, en route to my body worker (that, incidentally, is not something I would have said 10 years ago), the truck's battery monitor read about half, and coming out of my session, having hoped to drive it to the mechanic around the corner, found it again expressing its essentialism. So, again through the Drama, with a different cast. And this was the day Heather and I were planning on driving up to Sacramento to commence Christmas doing with my family.

And whose fault was this? Who was hoping the half-lit battery light on the dash was just another symptom of the car's age, rather than a sign of impending drama? The elves? No, twas moi.

So, being utterly at fault for the situation and for us being stranded in S.F. (or facing a big car rental fee or a bus ride), I was surprised and actually quite moved by the mercy that came from Heather (who said that the dim light meant something) and from James (who eventually loaned us his car to drive up to Sac). They both could have, quite justifiably, raked me over the Coals of Repentance, but instead they talked about their own vulnerability to acting stupid and being in denial.

Though a fairly trivial instance of mercy, it felt like a genuine dose of that good stuff nonetheless. Not being a religious person (Mom used to like to call us "happy heathens"), I've certainly had such experiences, but hardly been accustomed to frame them as grace. But that's what it felt like, being given something I really didn't have any rights to, didn't do anything to acquire. That's pretty heady stuff, eh? So, sweetness and depth out of what is a pretty prosaic event. Thank you, little sick, powder blue truck from Japan.

Morning in Redwood City

It's a grey, overcast morning at my work site in Redwood City. I'm sitting in the office, looking out the sliding glass windows that presumably, before the agency bought the building, someone's bedroom. The stairs and deck are all painted a darker shade of the sky's grey tone, although a futia colored plant sets off the bleakness with its wild pink-purple tone.

My tasks this morning have included giving the food shopping money to a man who I shushed a few minutes before, when he was blasting, and singing along to, the radio in the garage. The tune of the morning was "Santa Baby." I've given out medications to a few people. Virtually all of the residents here are on psychotropic meds to help turn chemical zips into chemical zings. When I began in this field, the idea of medications was quite anathma. Then the stories started coming in from clients about how dead they would be without the meds--for instance, the young man who had stopped traffic on the Bay Bridge by running naked, and unmedicated, against the flow of traffic. My position is much, much softer on the issue these days.

In a few minutes I'll go wake up people for the morning meeting, which exists basically to get people out of bed and moving into their days. This house used to not have such a morning prod, and people would sleep till all manners of horrible afternoon hours. We decided that it was important, for all the grumbling, that there be more structure and flow, and it has worked out well.

At 10am, I'll be off shift and heading back to the city, to hit the gym, then do some work before seeing an afternoon client. The coming weekend at my parents' house is a welcome break from city and work life, as we get to go up to Sacramento, where life is a little simpler, a little slower, and people wave to you with friendly smiles. Ahh...

Customer Service

      Yesterday was an odd day in my exposure to customer service. I had to bring a portable heater back to the hardware store around the corner from my office. Heather and I had bought it over the weekend to replace the hardy but ailing mini-heater she's had forever, but got one that turned out to be too weak for our heat-seeking needs. So on the way to work, I swung by--well, actually, first I went to the bank to make a deposit, and was again stunned by how young the workers are. I saw the woman who waited on me last week, who told me after a friendly chat that she was a senior in high school. My impression was that she was somewhere in her early twenties, college age, until she said she was graduating soon. "What are you studying?" "Oh, no, I'm still in high school." I had a strange inner recoil, something that happens in my line of work when I'm talking with someone who seems to be "high functioning," and then announces that their recent bike ride to the store was difficult because he had to share the seat with a dragon. There's a sudden recognition that you're not on the same playing field, and then a quick readjustment. I'm not sure how fair this is...but it happened.

     So back to the hardware store: I went to the counter of this space-challenged, and therefore hyper-stocked local store, and announced my need to return the heater. The manager was summoned by the counter person without saying why, and I went off to shop for several lengths of chains. The shower curtain was getting totally mildewy, so we replaced them last weekend, but the worse problem was the way the curtains would be caught up in some kind of thermal complexity field, and drift inward while we showered, sticking to most skin surface. So I had an idea to hang chains from the curtain rings, so that the weight of the hanging chain would hold the curtain against the tub, and save us from a claustrophobic showering experience. (Which reminds me of a movie trailer I saw on TV as a kid, almost as impactful as the Alien and Jaws ads, which had a young couple showering in a haunted house. As they abluted, the doors to the shower were frozen by malefarious spirit(s), and the walls of the shower slowly moved inwards to crush them to death. I didn't shower comfortably for many years.)

     So I bought the chains and returned to the counter. The young manager was waiting for me and gently and politely explained that they could not refund it, only exchange it, and pointed out where it said that on the receipt. I absolutely hate contesting this kind of thing, so I just accepted graciously, and really did understand the reasoning (for instance, he said some people will buy a heater when it's cold outside, and then return it when it warms up), saying no problem, I'd just bring it back when I had time to look for a more powerful heater.
I turned back to pay for the chains, when he came up again and told the cashier to refund the cost of the heater. Furrow brow-ed, I asked what the change was, and he responded, "I don't want to hassle you about this." And then, "Yes, I'll have to answer for this," at which point I patted him on the back and we all finished our business.

     So, what to make of that? One conclusion is that it doesn't pay to be a dick to authority figures, and treating them as human (from Harold and Maude, when Maude says to the policeman: "Oh, don't be officious. You're not yourself when you're officious. You know, that's the curse of a government job.") Nor does it work to be greasy and subservient. Something in the acknowledgment of the human in the uniform, without an agenda other than valuing human (not role-bound) interactions, can transform a situation. I can't say I was totally divested of interest in outcome--I'd preferred to get the money back--but not acting only from that seemed to impact the fellow.

     This was really obvious in the interactions with the SFPD a few weeks ago, over the scooter's expired registration. I think that my not losing track of the officer's humanity (they seemed SO young and SO human) helped make the encounter non-traumatic for me, and also to help resolve the situation without a huge fine or anything else nasty (they got to the point of confusion with the strange details of the case, and just let us take the bike home, telling us to get it registered and hide it until then). It's pretty sure to me that if I or Heather (she was beginning to boil over) had blown up at them, or got righteously indignant, they would have had no problem impounding the bike and telling us "tough shit." I guess the upshot is, don't treat anyone badly.

     And finally, after work I go to Blockbuster to pick up the last discs of the 5th season of 24 (which we're burning through like a junkie on check day), and to return a defective disc of the same series. I went to the counter with the new ones, and told the fellow about the defective one. He rang it up as defective, then when checking off the new discs, realized that I wasn't replacing the defective one (following?). He sputtered that he couldn't exchange it that way (ie, give me a credit towards the new discs), but that since he already had entered it into the computer he would have to. I said, "Ok," and let him do whatever, but I think he was feeling bamboozled by me, because he kept telling me about how this was not protocol. It was a much different interaction than at the hardware store, where I felt I could join with the manager, that we weren't combatants. With the video jock, though, I was on the other side of the battle field, and my amiability didn't make a difference, as, I assume, I was labeled a cheat and that was that. Finally, I said, as he reviewed the problem again, "Ok, I get it." And that settled that and I was able to leave.

     So, that's my review of customer service for the day. I hope you not only learned some tips on product returns, but maybe something about the inherent humanity in all beings, even clerks.

Ken Wilber and Impermanence

I'm listening to a dialogue between the philosopher Ken Wilber and Stuart Davis about the "ideal" spiritual practice, from the website Integral Naked. This is Monday morning, after a weekend during which I learned that Wilber was having a medical emergency, involving seizures and heart irregularities. He was admitted, apparently unconscious, to the ICU, and it looked a bit touchy for a while. The last word was that he had had a reaction to a medication he was on (Wilber has what is basically a chronic fatigue condition), and that under medical care, is going to be fine, though he has to be in the hospital for a week of dialysis.

This, it's fair to say, hit me as hard as when a friend in Russia told me his wife had a potentially lethal disease. I was reading the forums on IN, and dozens and dozens of people wrote in to express their love for the man and fear that he was going to check out so early in the game. Especially as Integral Institute gets its baby feet underneath it, and is beginning to reach out in so many dimensions, the idea that Wilber would kick off was just so sad. When the good news came through, that Wilber wasn't going to die (now), one forum writer said, "Ken, please no more lessons on impermanence for a while." My sentiments, too.

Trip to the Outback

Heather set up a surprise weekend, this weekend. First I found myself at a Calistoga mud bath/jacuzzi/massage, immersed in my first clay-peat moss mud bath in my entire 38 years. The stuff was so thick that you could have comfortably layed right on top, and not sunk at all. Which meant, as our attendant Kim instructed us, you had to kind of scrunch and schmoosh down to get yourself good and covered by the guk. And you can't put your body down too far, as it's blistering hot down at the bottom. We were in there ten minutes, during which, because Heather had the idea of whipping a gob of mud at me, I beat her to the punch, landing a mud loogie in her eye. Kim must have seen this behavior before, because she patiently wiped it out of her eyes and didn't call me a pig. Nice woman. After emerging from the primordial ooze, we showered--it takes a bit getting that claying mix out of the various bodily cracks and crevices--then dipped in the sauna, and after drying, went to another room to slowly cool down under a light blanket, in a dark room with soothing music. Ahhh....

Finally, we were brought to the massage room for an hour rubdown. You know those massages where it feels like the Great Earth Mother is working on you? Mine was the exact opposite, a Kali massage. Rebecca yarded away at my tight tendons like she was going to break them in two and somehow release me to a higher realm. But I didn't say anything, because I wanted to experiment with going at a massage in a different way. So I just went with it, without judgement, and took what she had to give in good faith. And interestingly, when I arose, there were no bruises and I felt energized. Though, come to think of it, it might have been just that gush of energy that follows a near death experience.

Then we stayed at Safari West, up in a tent overlooking the animal enclosure. Sarari West is a 400 acre, mostly African animal preserve, that supports itself from tourists like us taking their tours and staying in the remarkably posh tents. Below are some pictures from our sojourn.

Here's a blue and gold macaw:

And a harlequin macaw:














When I awoke this morning, and pulled down the tent flaps, this giraffe was looking dead at me from about 25 feet (I couldn't snap my damn cell phone camera fast enough to catch him):














And here he is off in his frosty paddock. We conjectured what he might think about having to deal with frost.














And finally, a wild Heather about to attack: