-----

i did not get any philosophy books because it turns out they had all been taken already. the man offered me many other items of lower value at no charge, and these items all burden me to this day. (they also burdened me all the way back home in a more physical, embodied sense. some of these lower value items were heavy.) but the one thing of real interest that i took away was a hold on a library book called What art is, on his recommendation. he knew the author, he said, Arthur Danto, and seemed to hold him in high regard.

i don't hold Danto in high regard, he's just a guy who i heard about once, but i'm ready to begin reading his book, What art is.

let's go.

-----

when i met Moose, it turned out he was a man named Mustafa, which immediately explained most of the name (like -- when i met a guy who was wearing a shirt that said "burger" (well, it was "borger," but close enough, there was a picture of a burger) and it turned out his nickname was "burger" and the next time i saw him he was wearing a different shirt that said "burger" (and had a different picture of a different burger) -- but in reverse) and we performed the prophecied transaction. he handed me $40 (one twenty and four fives, i think) and then looked at the book i was reading at the time, ART & FEAR, and asked something like, "do you like philosophy?" to which i of course responded by looking at the book i was reading at the time, which i now realize is mainly about the fear of not being as brilliant or well-regarded as Mozart but had not at the time quite realized that, and said something like, "yes."

so the man who was buying the yellow sling bag from me, or Moose, or Mustafa, asked me if i wanted to go into another room with him to look at a bunch of philosophy books that he and one or more other unknown people (i did not know much about Moose-or-Mustafa, but i knew more about him than i knew about these one or more unknown other people -- he used only the collective pronoun "we," as in, "we are trying to get rid of all these philosophy books") ("for free," he added, seeing the suspicion on my face or whatever other reaction i was having) were trying to get rid of.

i said sure.

i had been walking for about and hour to meet a person who my partner had found on a local stuff-selling app (like craigslist or kijiji, but this one was called karrot) i knew this person only by

1. the transaction we were to perform at the appointed hour: $40 for a yellow sling bag -- which we had received essentially for free from the manufacturer on the grounds that we wanted it only for parts -- they even made us prove that we had purchased the bag previously by providing an order number before selling it to us for an extremely reduced price -- but then discovered
   a. the only thing wrong with the bag that they were selling "for parts" was a bit of dirt or makeup or something
   b. the bit of dirt of makeup or something was easily and completely washed off
   c. my partner didn't actually want to do the thing with the parts that she thought she wanted to do --

and 2. the person's username on karrot, which was "Moose."

what do you let in
to your body? 101 doesn't exist
and i let it all in, receiving, a receptacle, a site for reception

i'm a bad student, i thought
i'm not learning what i should learn

(they're not teaching
what my body needs
to know, i know now)

there's no school i've ever been to where they teach
self-sovereignty

we're all paintings in our galleries;
our own curators,
our own security guards.
art thieves.

you touched me
YOU TOUCHED ME
i've never been more
afraid of not knowing
the rules of the game
you're playing with me

you touched me
YOU TOUCHED ME
i didn't know the rules of the game
you're playing with me

Classical to Romantic -> the audience's expectations, Beethoven(?) caused a big stir

in Geller's A Video About Digging A Hole he suggests that "the reason so many of us get wrapped up in games is a simpler, more instinctual satisfaction. You do an action and get immediate, positive, feedback." (7:04) and later describes the feeling of digging a hole in real life as having "An undeniable effect on an otherwise inscrutable world."

but here's the problem: we aren't having an undeniable effect on an otherwise inscrutable world; the source of the feedback isn't connected to the world at all; we're being tricked (and perhaps agreeing to be tricked).

from Agency As Art, retrieved here

p. 23

"The designer creates, not only the world in which the player will act, but the skeleton of their practical agency within that world. . . . The designer's control over the form of the player's agency is part of how the game designer sculpts the game's activity. Games can offer us more finely tuned practical harmonies because the designers have control over both world and agent."

--- grammar

part of why AAA rubs me the wrong way is its use of language, its written style. this sentence is badly constructed in an ugly way (whereas, poetry may be badly constructed in a beautiful way, but so can prose): "The designer creates, not only the world in which the player will act, but the skeleton of their practical agency within that world."

why the intervening clause? let's remove it and see what we get: "The designer creates but the skeleton of their practical agency within that world."

the 'but' should have been inside. "The designer creates the skeleton of [the player's] practical agency within that world."

ok, is that the extent of my complaint? "The designer creates, not only the world in which the player will act but, the skeleton of their practical agency within that world."

no, still weird. actually, maybe it's not supposed to be an intervening clause? "The designer creates, not only" --> this sounds like 'not only' is an exception to 'the designer creating' in general. hmm

"The designer creates not only the world in which the player will act, but the skeleton of their practical agency within that world." oh i like it much better without that comma. with the comma it reads like "The designer creates." as a standalone statement, then "They create not only the world..."

i can imagine this working in some cases. but not in this case, yuck. ok, it's that first comma. good interruption, let's get out of here.

--- /grammar

Basically what Nguyen is saying here is

- The designer creates the world the houses the player's action
- The designer defines the player's agency within the world
- The designer sculpts the game's activity.
- The designer can achieve something with all this control. ("finely tuned harmonies," writes Nguyen.)

sometimes walls are structurally necessary. i think Christopher Alexander's work on patterns makes the most sense as an immediate touchstone for this for me.

but ok, i started this because i wanted to answer 𝖈𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖗𝖊 on bsky.
i said, "the greatest trick games ever pulled was convincing gamers and game devs that their medium has some kind of monopoly on interaction."
and 𝖈𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖗𝖊 replied, "I think accessibility is why. 70% of all humans on earth have a device that games can be played on. I think the ease of access and ease of use is the factor in games interactive domination. Not saying it's good, it's status quo. What do you want the state of interaction to look like?"

and ive been trying to answer this question but it is not coming easily... what do i want? i think i want a 'games' that doesn't center/prize 'interaction'. but how much do definitions of and approaches to games do that? i'm skimming Agency as Art now...