We got jokes

"The world today"

In an effort to once and for all understand “ludology” (the study of [video]games and how they convey meaning), I googled “ludology” and latched onto the first interesting looking paper I could find. It happened to be a 2007 Ph.D. dissertation by Gonzalo Frasca, the guy who runs, or ran, Ludology.org. What follows is a fairly embalmed joke he dissects to illustrate what the elements of “play” and “games” are. 

By way of set-up, he explains that way back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries his home country Uruguay was overrun by working class illiterate immigrants from Spain, particularly from Spain’s northeastern region Galicia. As tends to happen when a large influx of language-impaired foreigners come in and do all the jobs the upper classes can’t bring themselves to do, the diverse Spanish immigrants were monolithically referred to as “Galicians” by the locals, and became the butt of many jokes.

As many of these jokes go, this particular one involves a Galician guy called Manolo (all Galicians in jokes are named Manolo, which is a common nickname for the name
Manuel.) A man is walking on the street and he runs into Manolo, who is frenetically feeding coins into a Coke vending machine. Manolo puts a coin in, retrieves a Coke can and repeats the process over and over again. The man, puzzled at the pile of unopened Coke cans sitting next to the vending machine, asks Manolo "Hey, what are you going to do with so many Coca-Cola cans?" Manolo keeps feeding the machine with coins and replies: "I donʼt know but as long as I keep winning, I'll keep playing!" 

The joke makes fun of Manolo, who is dumb enough to mistake a vending machine for a gambling one. Even though both machines are different enough, they have one big
element in common that may have caused Manoloʼs confusion: they both take coins. The main difference is that the Coke vending machine always delivers a can for a fixed amount of cash while the gambling one only exceptionally offers a reward. Both share a similar interface: a slot where you are supposed to introduce your coins. Both provide some kind of feedback: a soda can in the first case and hopefully a big cash reward on the second one.  

This joke is based on the elusive difference between play and not play –or, if you prefer, between play and work. Manolo confuses the vending machine with a game and he believes that he is enjoying a strike of good fortune. He does not see the Coke cans as the product of a purchase but rather as a reward from a game. Additionally, his final reply shows, he is not that much interested in the reward itself –the cans of Coke– but rather on the fact that he is winning. In his mind, he may be playing but to an external observer familiar with vending machines, he is not playing at all. Regardless of the designerʼs –and social– intentions towards the Coke machine, Manolo is enjoying himself and using the purchase mechanism for play. We may laugh at Manolo because we think that we know better (and technically we do) but he is having a good time and who are we to judge him?

In other news, The Misery Index has made it to page two of the Google search results for "gum dildo."

Artist Jennifer Linton reclaimed her life from the baby who stole it

Jennifer Linton created My Alphabet, (all of which is available to view on her website) as a way of reclaiming her life in the face of parenthood’s demands. She quotes the Guerrilla Girls, who in a 1989 poster quipped that women artists have “the opportunity to choose between career and motherhood.’” Linton defied the expectations of both so called “womanhood” and so called “adulthood,” by seizing “nap schedules and playdates as opportunities for creative output.” To many who feel the demands of real life are crushing to their true selves, she could be viewed as a sort of hero.

Your standard illustrated alphabet for children is depoliticized, and intentionally dumb. Usually involving animals and unremarkable objects -- O for Orange, T for Train -- they present the world in bits and idealized pieces that create a world of safe nonsense for our young ones, a fantasy zone where no one calls you fat, no one calls you a fag, and where the constant silent scream of the world at large can’t keep you from learning your ABCs.

Life is only a bit easier after learning the alphabet. Arguably, you’re one step closer to being able to read about the latest terrorist attack or Donald Trump tweet. But it’s disingenuous to say that Linton’s alphabet offers a more honest alternative to children’s literature. Linton's alphabet is for us, the sullied and profaned, we who have already had language imprinted on us and have suffered its ravages.

Typical childhood realness

What life is actually like

Illustrated alphabets for children are made for children by adults. They represent the world we want our kids living in, a world of smiling Apes eating Apples, a world where a Duck is fucking stoked to be beating a Drum, and where Frogs can wear Frilly dresses and Fans if they want to, Fuck the consequences. Illustrated alphabets by adults and for adults are invariably entirely about style, or entirely about sex, or entirely ironic. Ours is not a world of Bears eating Buns but of Bombs killing Babies, of Commercials asking for Cash.

In the end, Jennifer Linton seems to have succeeded where so many others have failed. She's integrated her family life with her artistic practice, in a way that doesn't compromise ideals, in a way that reminds us that the concepts that plague or control us in daily life are, in many respects, learned. 

You can buy Jennifer Linton’s alphabet in a “perfectly bound” edition (or as an ebook) at this Blurb.com page.