Saturday, August 31, 2013

An alien symmetry

The progress of education in antiquity moves along as quickly as Marrou's prose is to read. Stops for sounding out the Ancient Greek he peppers it with notwithstanding.

So, by Marrou's reckoning, ancient Greek education had reached the point where the spiritual and intellectual had started to overcome (or at least come into conflict with) the physical in the time of Socrates and Plato (around the fifth/fourth centuries BC). During this period the influx of the newly wealthy was starting to cramp the space for the old style of education, and schools were slowly cropping up.

Curiously, these early institutions were argued against not just because they were viewed as a pretensions, but also because of an old Greek idea that education's not about putting knowledge and skills into people, but rather nurturing and drawing out their own inborn abilities and inclinations. Hence, the general limiting of education to the upper classes, those who actually had skills to nurture - unlike the peasantry who were, so it seems from reading Marrou, regarded as simply drones.

Of course, this comes largely down to money, too. Education, because of its physical basis (especially if it involved riding or fencing) was costly, and if you couldn't afford the equipment required, you couldn't do it. It was as simple as that.

But, and this is what marks the strongest differentiation between ancient Greek society and modern Western society, the physical beauty that you could achieve through the old education was quite different from our own. Quoting Marrou's quote from Aristophanes' The Clouds:

"If you do what I tell you, and apply your whole mind to it [participate in physical competitions/training with friends], you will always have a powerful chest, a good complexion, broad shoulders, a short tongue, massive buttocks, and a little rod. ...But if you follow present day practices [the contemporary intellectual education] you will have a pale complexion, narrow shoulders, a pigeon chest, a long tongue, bony buttocks, and a big rod..." (74-75).

Yeah. Apparently being physically active dissipates the body's energies and gives you a big butt and little "rod," while intellectual pursuits left you with some sort of excess of energies resulting in a small butt and a big "rod." I'm not even sure what to make of the whole short tongue/long tongue thing - though maybe tongue length is related to the medieval idea of gap-toothed people being loquacious and lusty (see Chaucer's Wife of Bath).

The ancient Greeks prized symmetry as the basis of beauty, and somehow reversing what was considered symmetrical doesn't just result in another kind of equally praised symmetry.

No more Mk-II

I had enough for the next title bout and could have entered it. Instead, I went and bought the latest model of the beam sword from Dr. Naomi. This is the Tsubaki Mk-III.

This one's the truest beam "katana" yet. Based on Thunder Ryu's katana (surprise!), it features a classic square cross guard and long hilt. Based on the way Travis swings it around in extra big arcs, it's quite a bit lighter than the Mk-II, as well. However, because of those big arcs and its light weight, it's pretty lousy for defense. Thankfully, the Mk-III's speed really makes up for that. Without the attachments to reduce the power it uses and to increase its reach, though, it's not yet perfect. 

Anyway, the thing that allowed me to afford this £50,000 sword and then recoup that amount (with a little extra to boot) is assassination mission no. 18. This is a timed free fight against a random group of respawning minions. It's in fairly close quarters so simultaneous kills are easy to pull off. You get £1,500/kill, but in three minutes it's downright shocking how close you can get to 100 of them. Add in the pocket change you pick up from each one, and you've got a very lucrative, short mission indeed. Much shorter than the 100 kill mission that gives you 5 minutes to get there, and in a tighter space too. At times what shows on the screen is veritably Quentin Tarantino's grindhouse wet dream - just absolutely absurd fountains of spraying, misting red blood that fill your view.

It sounds like it's way over the top. And it is. But somehow this hyper violence is removed enough from reality to keep it from being absolutely abhorrent. I've got Trauma Center: Second Opinion on my list of games to play, and am more worried about that one being too gory to take in my usual half hour doses. No More Heroes is just far too excessive in its violence to be anything other than an absurdist indulgence.

A different glimpsing of the same

Only just now is the stuff of Infinite Jest's plot getting underway, and it looks like there's something else happening, too.

Maybe one of the ETA players is from a town too close to the Great Convexity. There, the wastes of the area may have nurtured his or her nascent psychic powers, which still remain dormant. But, though unaware, this person moves things around the academy in strict defiance of gravity and sense.

Yes, the bit about Ortho "The Darkness" Stice's furniture moving around while he sleeps isn't just a strange aside among other strange asides, but seems to carry one thread of the plot. At least, the mention of other items winding up in places where they shouldn't be leads me to believe that it's more important than a one off bit.

This is also the part of the book where chronology begins to really churn around Interdependence Day, November 11th, in the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. Even though it was sections/chapters ago, we return to an earlier point in the Interdependence Day banquet. A point during the festivities at which Hal's near loss to Stice has caused quite a stir. And, we also get a little hint of what went on in Tavis' office. Just a wee little bit.

If what's happening currently in the book, vis a vis its structure is any indication, we're riding a swirl of a tale, rounding a core group of events and ideas over and over again from different angles and positions. Eventually, one that looks into that office through a window or vent or something has to be visible.

Friday, August 30, 2013

Tingle the catalyst

Any widely acclaimed Legend of Zelda movie can never star Link and Zelda. Their story has enough to it, but both characters have taken various different shapes in the minds of players. Instead, to succceed and to capture the essence of any Zelda game, the movie's focus would have to be a side character. Maybe Anju, or Malon, or Marin and Tarin.

Thankfully, Rosy Rupeeland shares this trait with the mainstream Zelda series.

The "get enough rupees to never have to work again" story leaves Tingle's character largely untouched by development. We learn more about him since he stars in the game (and by it's nature as a spinoff, we already know much of his character), but secondary characters are given much more depth.

Take for example the town's guard. He does little, but buys a lost button and medicinal potions for his wife from Tingle, and fights a fierce phantom for her sake. In the latter event, Tingle is reduced to a spectator and sidekick.

Ultimately, this kind of character development in the place of plot development works as well in Rosy Rupeeland as it does in other Zelda titles. Characters add colour to the world the plot builds, after all.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

The first of the last

In a surprise twist, I've gone ahead and started The Last Story. My roommate and I used to play console RPGs together on a regular basis, and once he found out about the game's pedigree he took an immediate interest in seeing what it's all about. What better way to do that than to play as a team, riffing on plot holes and character flaws together as The Last Story unfurls?

And, since it's a game on my list after all, why not blog about it.

The first thing that bites you as a player is the completely unexpected combat system. Rather than being turn-based, fights take place in real time, in fairly expansive environments that you can affect with your party's attacks and magic. True, much of the promotion of the game touted its combat mechanics as something that set it apart, but the control is more lockstep than you'd expect.

Rather than one button doing one thing and pressing that button to do said thing multiple times, the combat controls are similar to those of No More Heroes: Press the "A" button to attack, and you'll cycle through a few animations. The biggest difference, though, is that you need to be within range to actually attack - otherwise you'll just practice your hiding behind or vaulting over (if you're holding "R" on the classic controller) whatever is in your way. Otherwise, aside from the controlled character, Zael, having a handy crossbow with him, the controls are a matter of being within range and following the prompts in the lower right.

So far, my impression of the story is that it truly is the last of them. We've seen a couple of flashbacks and cutscenes to this point, and they've not been as exposition heavy as other RPGs' early parts. Most of the game's exposition - particularly of the characters' motivation comes from conversations had and scenes seen in the game's present. Though even then, some parts are missing.

For example, it may be a fine assumption to make, given the game's fantasy setting, but an explanation of why being knights is important to Zael and Dagran would be helpful. Plus, it would allow for some world-building. In the game's title card scene (that plays about 15 minutes into the game) we see a knight in a blue cape and gold armour standing fatefully and overlooking the city. He looks very cool doing this, and based on the get up he's a knight. But is this it?

From Zael's conversations with the others we can gather that there's a war that's going on in the outside world. Do he and Dagran want to become knights so they can do what they're currently doing as mercenaries but get more respect doing it? Right now that's the best guess I have aside from "being a knight is cool, I want to be cool, I want to be a knight."

Nevertheless, a game's story can't be judged from just under an hour of play. Especially an RPG's story. So we'll see how it plays out. We're already on chapter 3 of a grand total of 44, so there are still quite a few sessions left with it.

Pederasty

A History of Education in Antiquity's age, interestingly, doesn't show quite so much as you might expect in the discussion of pederasty and homosexuality in ancient Greece. After Marrou gets through the necessary clarifications, he goes to lengths to show that pederasty was  an educational system in itself.

Such an assertion might sound like an excuse for the practice, but Marrou's point centers on the connection between the adult and the adolescent. In Marrou's explanattion, their mutual affection and ardent striding to earn and maintain this affection works as a channel for the education of both. Marrou also points out that this male to male connection is a feature of classical Greek cultural and social ideals.

Most shocking, though, is the notion that the ancient Greek family simply could not be a center of education. The mother essentially left off raising the child (the son, I assume, Marrou doesn't specify) once he reached seven, and the father was too busy being a citizen to teach his son. So it fell to another older man to complete a son's education.

Add in the ancient Greeks thinking that a teacher who sold his knowledge to anyone was no teacher at all, and pederasty flourished. Even, thanks to Sappho and others like her, among girls and women.

Plot clarification

The so far elusive "plot" of Infinite Jest is starting to come into focus. Like an optometrist's patient, sitting the standard distance from the eye chart, looking through lenses to see which produces the clearest image, my ideal lens is about to snap over my still open right eye.

Why? Because this last chapter focusing on the kidnapping of the engineer of Madame Psychosis (aka Joelle Van Dyne)'s late night radio show has revealed a key plot component. The A.F.R (aka the Wheelchair Assassins) aren't just after the tape of her performance (J. Incandenza's fifth take on Infinite Jest), but want her herself so that they can control the source of the tape's power, and finally have a proper bargaining chip. Though what they want to bargain for is unclear. Quebec sovereignty, I guess.

Taking a step back, I've drawn all this out of this previous chapter simply because there's no other reason for anyone to kidnap the engineer for Joelle Van Dyne's old radio show. Plus, the narrator notes that even though this engineer knows precious little about Joelle's current whereabouts "he is shortly to have occasion to wish he knew a great deal more" (625).

Very shortly that lens will swing down, and then the eye doc's chart will be high-def clear.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Under-your-nose obscurity

Requiring rupees for everything is one thing. Being obscure about where things need to be done is another. Thankfully, most Zelda games only feature the former. Rosy Rupeeland has a habit of mixing the two, unfortunately.

Where you need to dump the Super Soup in the Icy Plains graveyard is a prime example of this combination. You need rupees for the information/event trigger, and to buy the recipee involved. Then you need to work out where exactly you need to dump out a bottle of Super Soup to stir Chiko's grandmother's soul.

At first, my Zelda-honed instincts told me to dump it on the frozen headstone at the graveyard's end. But this had no effect.

After watching this blunder play out, I realized that an Icy Plains landmark resembled Chiko's clan quite closely.

So now I know what needs to be done (and have confirmed it with a guide), but still feel like I've somehow been foiled by Rosy Rupeeland's under-your-nose obscurity.

Sparta's rise and fall

Marrou's history of Sparta's education makes me wonder what the current research shows about the city state's rise and fall. The way that he describes it, Sparta was a place of balance and cultural achievement in the pre-classical period (before the sixth century BC). 

After that, though, when the state tried to solidify what made it great in an educational system, that greatness was choked off. Sparta is Marrou's example (no doubt the first of many) of a society that is too quick to develop and conservatively keep to an overly restrictive educational system. Not that Spartan education was just restrictive, but that it was enforced in a way that refused to change and so collapsed.

The chapter on this subject comes in under twenty pages, and though Marrou's references to his sources and endnotes are at a level that is not distracting, it seems like a breezy few pages to read. The conversational tone is definitely a grand help, but it's also something that betray's the author's assumption that his audience has a basic knowledge of events and figures from the periods of which he writes. 

Marrou doesn't press his references to the point of making his arguments and positions incomprehensible by the uninitiated, but I do feel like I'm getting a little less out of the book than I otherwise would be.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

No more continuity (sort of)

Despite the brevity of No More Heroes' alternating sections, it continues to innovate within its own universe. Instead of the third title bout being preceded by a standard slash and run section, you're put on a bus and locked into a mid-zoomed side-scrolling view as you fight minions on the way to the next title fight.

Then, continuing with an alternative execution, the third bout isn't a straight up fight but rather a match that requires you to interact with the environment and to be aware of your surroundings. The third ranked assassin, Speed Buster, is an old bag lady with a giant cannon. Travis can withstand the cannon's blast, but it knocks him down the deserted ruins of the street on which the fight takes place.

So, what you need to do is find alleys and breakable doors to enter to escape the cannon's blast and to preserve your progress up the street and toward her. Once you're close enough, however, the match doesn't turn into just another fight, but you find a way to destroy the cannon, and thus demoralize Speed Buster to the point where she admits defeat and is, as stipulated in the assassin ranking rules, killed.

Curiously, though the game keeps the death of Thunder Ryu constant after he's killed by Speed Buster, it seems that Travis' difficulty killing women, as seen in the fight with Holly Summers, has been completely forgotten.

The game also missed a great opportunity to be entirely insane in this fight.

When it was revealed that the third ranked assassin was a witch, and I saw the motel exit screen linger as Travis' cat Jeane walked out after him, I was sure that Jeane was that witch. Perhaps, though, that idea never occurred to Suda51, or it was deemed too predictable. Still, it would have been incredibly interesting to see the fallout from it. Plus, it would have added a weird dimension to the seemingly pointless play/pet sessions with Jeane that you can access at any time at the motel.

Not to mention, the requirement to kill a defeated opponent could have been an incredibly psychological moment for Travis had the witch been Jeane. But I suppose No More Heroes just isn't that kind of game.

Adding items to the list

Rosy Rupeeland's to-do list gameplay is starting to veer into fetch quest territory. But, it's doing so because of my own playing.

I need to make some soup for one of the townsfolk (Chiko's Mum), and have to collect the ingredients. Having thoroughly explored the Icy Plain, making this soup and handing it off will no doubt lead to the melting of the frozen headstone found in the graveyard. This defrosting definitely has to move the story forward, possibly leading to another dungeon, or possibly just working through some character stuff so that Chiko's Mum can get more depth.

Once again, I'm struck by how hard and frustrating this game would be without a guide. Not necessarily a walkthrough, but a guide to the best prices for things. Paying the least and asking the most possible makes the game easier to handle and takes away the danger of having to earn way more rupees than you'd need to actually finish the game. Collecting ingredients and items incidentally is great for this, but having to actually hunt them down is just bland.

The enemy designs are curious though. The Icy Plains are home to penguins that act like Oinkers, charging at you until they strike or hit a wall, and to weird polar bear/turtle hybrids. At least, that's how it looks.

So Rosy Rupeeland is starting to slow, but it's also nearing its end. Thankfully, part of my reason for playing this one through is to see the final boss and that's something that won't change. I'm confident the game'll live up to my expectations, too.

Does book density fend off deleterious spoiler effects?

All of that dull Gately-centered, beauracratic Ennet House stuff was worth it. Entirely worth it.

The scene I just read is on a level with the Eschaton game. Except, with Gately at its centre, the situation's chaos is channelled and controlled. Wallace definitely had a style that lends itself well to a wild brawl.

Particularly, his noting that the events and internal processes described take seconds to list though they happen almost instantly. Just having this notion at hand makes the scene so much more climactic.

Yet, I might also have some discussions with the friend who leant me Infinite Jest to thank for this effect.

Randy Lenz gets chased by the owners of his latest victim, and it looks like he has a good chance of being demapped. But, I know he still has to reveal a piece of non-plot information and so he must make it through. Knowing that Lenz survives this encounter I was free to wonder how he does it, to come up with theories as I read, and to excitedly watch if any of them play out.

The question though, is would I have experienced this scene in the same way had I no knowledge of Lenz' surviving?

Further, is it possible to spoil miniscule details in other books to gain the same effect, or is Infinite Jest one of the few books dense enough to allow such positive spoiling?

Monday, August 26, 2013

No more story

For a game that oscillates between hardcore violence and low level/wacky minigames, No More Heroes is short. Maybe even as is to be expected from such a game.

I mean, really, there's no story to it. A guy who's into Japanese pop culture and Mexican wrestling wants to be the top assassin in America. It almost sounds like something from Infinite Jest. But it never could be found in that tome, because that's where the story ends.

This guy wants to get into the panties of this woman who offers him the chance to fulfil his dream, and she promises she'll let him once he succeeds. You can add that to his motivation, actually.

If his psychology were delved into, his reasons for wanting what he does, then he could be compared to Orin Incandenza in some ways. In a way, the name Travis Touchdown almost grasps at the comparison, but never reaches it.

Cat finding and gas pumping are nevertheless (strangely) entertaining distractions between the game's bouts of violence. A mix that also sort of mirrors Infinite Jest's switching between acts of horrific violence/behaviour and slightly off and awkward plot meanderings. Well, kind of like how the biggest beetle in the field mirrors a lion in the Serengeti.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

A little cniht to pick

As a student of history and of language, I find the bits of Latin and Greek scattered throughout a A History of Education in Antiquity to be a neat puzzle to mentally translate (or just sound out in the case of the Greek) between sections. Though, the text proper isn't particularly difficult. Chapter one has so many sections to it, and is written in such a welcoming style that it's hard to stop reading.

Although, maybe the main reason that I find this book such a compelling read is that it's about ancient history. A history that can't be bogged down by minute political details because such things just aren't available. Though its conversational tone helps, and, based on what I've read in the past, might well be the mark of French scholarship. It's definitely a welcome trait, whether it's shared by all French historians or if it's exclusive to Marrou.

Yet, Marrou's use of the term "knight" does kind of bother me.

Technically it's not accurate, since, despite the cultural power of the word, it originates from a Germanic word "Knecht" meaning "servant" or "bondsman." From "Knecht" comes the Anglo-Saxon "cniht" which also meant "servant," but also referred to "boy," "youth," or "lad." Curiously, though "knighthood" today refers to a set of ethics and/or a social status, in Anglo-Saxon "cnihthād" referred to adolescence.

The reason why knights were primarily from the noble class was because the upkeep of a horse (let alone the purchase and upkeep of armour, arms, and other accoutrements), required of any mounted soldier in the employ of a lord or king, could only be afforded by the wealthy. Marrou's use of the word to denote a warrior with a noble spirit and who pays strict attention to social mores and manners nonetheless makes sense in the broader use of "knight" (particularly as an adjective), and criticizing him because of it is merely pedantic.

Nonetheless, once more inuring me to him, Marrou acknowledges this disparity of technical meaning and his use, and makes it clear that he's aware of his anachronism.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Slowly sweeping it together

Infinite Jest continues to become harder to put down. Maybe the Stockholm syndrome that's inevitable after reading the same book for so long is starting to kick in, or maybe something's finally happening. Either way, there's a tremendous energy to the narrative now. Where before the disparate characters and events seemed like scattered fragments from 100 vases, now it feels, as I read, that there's definitely something taking shape as these fragments are swept together.

I have to admit, though, that the note containing more of Steeply's questioning Orin is strangely Ouroboros-ian.

Early in the book we're told about a scene where a four year old Hal shows his mom the mold he's apparently eaten some of, and she starts comically running in tight circles shouting "Help! My son ate this!" (11). This crops up again in the note, when Orin relates the story as an example of his mom's obsessive compulsive behaviour (1040-1044).

It's too early to say whether there's any meaning to this event's reappearance. It could just be a touchstone of memory, something that Orin recalls vividly and so brings it out on two separate occasions. With a work this size, though, there's probably more to it than that.

My DS is not solar powered

Let's be honest here. Playing portable video games in the sun has never been a good idea.

Using real sunlight in a game (see Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hands) is a neat concept, but neat concepts don't make non-backlit screens easier to see in the great outdoors.

That's why I automatically flicked my DS off after resuming a slumbering session of Rosy Rupeeland while waiting for the bus. That's got to be why. Some deep part of my brain knew I'd give myself eye strain, or, much more immediately true, that I couldn't see anything no matter how much I wanted to.

And there's a lot to see in Icy Plain.

It's the game's required ice area, but nonetheless has plenty to discover within it. There're the landmarks to map, a bridge to build, an Oinker stronghold, and plenty of enemies to scrap with for scrap items. On top of all that, there's a blizzard that blocks your sight over a patch of the area that's a network of land bridges, and the initiating event for a second continent-wide sidequest to find the lost pieces of a broken airship.

Thankfully I'd only scratched the frosty surface of the Icy Plain before sun-blindly powering down my DS.

The beginning of an historical education

One book has been read, and now another's picked up: H.I. Marrou's A History of Education in Antiquity.

The original copyright is printed as 1956, and the book's age shows. I'm not currently reading many academic texts, but there's a certain formal conversation air to the prose that betrays its age. Its constant reference to the early middle ages as a "dark age," also gives away that it was written over fifty years ago.

Nonetheless, good scholarship stands the test of time, and this book was given to me by a professor while I was at the University of Victoria. This professor handed it off to me saying that it's a classic text about, well, the history of education, and that it gives a good indication of why the Western (North American?) educational system is the way it is today.

Having read the introduction, two things are clear.

First, sports and the acclaim given to those who excel in them is nothing new. Marrou quickly, yet persuasively, posits that this is so through to today because Western warrior societies preceded more administrative ones. Therefore, the primarily physical education of warriors is seated much more deeply than the primary education of scribes. The thesis underlying this trend is the second thing that Marrou has made clear.

An educational system isn't something that can simply be transposed onto a society, it is a reflection of the epitome of a society. Whatever a society values and strives for is what will be taught to its youth, a very straightforward idea. But, Marrou adds a caveat: a society must already know what it values to create a truly successful educational system. As a result of this requirement, ancient education systems were never cemented until after their respective civilizations had reached their peak.

With this second idea in mind, it's much less surprising that our own (North American/Canadian) educational system (in terms of its goals and ideal outcomes) appears to be broken. As a society (or, to use Marrou's word: "civilization"), we don't really know what we want - we have no real zenith because whatever it had been before the internet came about has been blown to pieces. The speed at which society, culture, and systems of living are changing because of technology also put a strain on having the sort of system that Marrou writes of.

Nonetheless, any root has to connect to its branch somehow. It might sound academic and dry, but I'm genuinely excited to see what the near past can tell me about the ancient past.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Non-standard fiction

Ennet House had almost become boring. But then along came Randy Lenz. Randy Lenz fills the page with the feeling that something bad is about to happen. Something on the level of the woman and the stillbirth or the results of the detergent-laced heroine.

But, aside from mass animal murder, that bad thing hasn't happened yet. Were Infinite Jest a standard work of fiction, it would be clear that manslaughter is in Lenz' future, but Infinite Jest is not a standard work of fiction.

After all, a standard work of fiction wouldn't have a student boldly interrupt a bizarre, Lynch-esque, high school football-based role play taking place in an after-hours office involving arguably the main character's mom and a colleague.

So what will happen with Randy Lenz isn't quite clear.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

A full life lived

Mental note: Don't live a controversial life if you intend to write an autobiography or memoirs and don't want to upset those close to you. After finishing Muggeridge:  The Biography, this is the great lesson I've learned.

Also, for an even read, don't frontload your life with debauchery. Spread that stuff out.

Seriously, though, the last three chapters of Ingrams' biography are in stark contrast to the book's entire first half.

Where young Muggeridge is a provocative and controversial figure, the elder Malcolm is a a man who finally finds the peace he has spent his life searching for. This arc makes for a fine life, and its ending could easily scare readers into action, but it also makes for a somewhat dull read.

However, this tedium only comes through in the book's narrative. Ingrams' style and prose stay strong throughout and help to keep a newcomer to Muggeridge interested through to the end.

This movie's title cards are just about all shown

Is Steeply supposed to be Tiresias? In Greek mythology, Tiresias is a prophet who was born and died a man, but who spent some time as a woman after striking copulating snakes.

Steeply's a man, but, for cover, he dresses as a woman and is convincing enough to fool Orin Incandenza. Since little's really known about Orin at this point in the story (page 538/981), that Steeply can pass for a woman in Orin's eyes doesn't necessarily count for much, but at the end of the latest Steeply/Marathe promontory chat, we see him looking sad and lamenting about how women can't readily sit in the wild when dressed as he is. Because of the "'possibility of things...crawling up'" (530), you see. Perhaps his being Tiresias is going a bit far, but there's so much room for speculation and interpretation at this point since so much of the book is overdetermined and intentionally overwrought.

The rest of the latest section of the book was just a conversation between Gately and Joelle. But, this conversation hearkens back to an earlier scene in the book, though, thankfully it breaks from the earlier scene in mind since they don't converse in nearly opaque Eubonics. Instead their discussion launches a full frontal assault of dense clause clusters into the reader's brain.

Nonetheless, the important (and completely spoiler rich) thing to derive from this chat is that Joelle is a major reason for "the entertainment"'s effect. Her deformity isn't a lack of anything, but an excess of beauty. So much of an excess in fact, that her visage has the same effect as the p-terminal stimulation that Steeply and Marathe had been discussing earlier: it causes the viewer/subject to forget all other needs except that for the pleasure caused by the visage/stimulation.

So Joelle stars in James O. Incandenza's fifth attempt at Infinite Jest. That is now known. What also's known is that the book's starting to get harder and harder to put down.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

No more dreamless sleep

Even though the map of Santa Destroy is rather small, you'd think that a city would have enough to it to keep locations from repeating. Yet, the fourth title bout brings you right back to the subway station. It's a fairly short visit, though.

In fact, just one section of the subway station involved fighting minions. After that Travis gets on the train, falls asleep, and then the way to the title bout lays before you. So why did it take me some 20 minutes to get through this short lead up? Because of Travis' dream.

While he sleeps a screen shows up, out of the blink to black. This screen prompts you to take the nunchuk out of the Wiimote. Once you do so, you're shown the title screen for a minigame: Pure White Giant Glastonbury. It's a bullet hell style game with a mecha anime art style that's thankfully forgiving enough to give you infinite continues. You probably don't need to beat the game, but I did, and so I can only guess that it helped out in some way.

The boss fight for fourth lent itself much more readily to my "wait-and-see" strategy than the last actual bout and so I was never thrown for much of a loop. The boss' d-pad/direction reversal gimmick forced me to think as I whittled his health down, but otherwise, it was basically a difficult minion fight.

A power dilemma

The middle decades of the twentieth century saw Malcolm Muggeridge move into much more lucrative endeavours, television among them. All the same, his story seems to chug along at this point, as if all of the most interesting things that will have have already happened to him. Or, maybe it's just that as he gets older it becomes more and more difficult for a twenty-something reader such as myself to relate to him.

Nonetheless, I can admire his constant desire to break with the common consensus. In particular, the idealization of political figures who, if viewed from a non mainstream angle, are as flawed as anyone else. Having heroes is fine, and maybe even necessary, but the sort of "can-do-no-evil" attitude toward figures like Churchill and Kennedy is troubling.

Giving so much power (in the form of attention and devotion) to one figure seems like an intractable part of human nature, though. It's as if, despite an inclination towards fairness and truth as moral standards, we still struggle with a drive for personal power and influence.

But, even if they're elected, there can only be one alpha human per group, yet with a proliferation of groups in our nearly truly interconnected world does that even matter?

Monday, August 19, 2013

A tingling conscience

Retracing my steps through the Insect Cavern to get what I'd lost along with my DS' battery power was easy. But the boss at the end of it all put up a true fight.

It was a return to the first boss, where Tingle has to drop bombs on the gnarled face lodged in the shell of a giant bug.

Ten balloons hold our green leotard-wearing hero up, and if they all pop then you have to begin the fight all over again. Ten balloons are enough, for sure, but the boss has two phases and your balloons carry over rather than being refreshed. Since there are some bullet hell elements to the boss fight, and Tingle's slower when he's lugging a bomb, the spread of little spherical bullets can be hard to avoid. Balloons will be burst. Plus, if Tingle's hit while carrying, the bomb explodes and he's thrown back.

It was a tough one, but not too hard a nut to crack.

Curiously though, halfway through delving into the dungeon again, Tingle's bodyguard got knocked out. At first, I left him where he lay, knowing that there would be no consequences for doing so.

My conscience got the better of me one room later, at which point I went back, found him, and paid to revive him. Though after that neither he nor Tingle saw any combat, since all was clear from there to where the boss, and better bodyguard, waited.

Nonetheless, this occurrence holds my attention.

Does it suggest my style of play?

Is it a testament to the effectiveness of colourful characters and how easy they are to empathize with?

Or does it imply that I carry around a certain level of general, unfocused guilt, guilt that helping out a figure that's just pixels and programming assuages?

Retroactively playing something new

Although I don't see how it's particularly retro (aside from being for Nintendo's last gen console), Pandora's Tower is Nintendo World Report's current Retroactive title.

For readers unfamiliar with the podcast (and the sprawling news/opinion/review/information website of the same name), every few months Nintendo World Report will have its listeners cum forum members vote on a game to play more or less simultaneously so that it can be discussed. The highlights of this discussion are then featured on the podcast in a session that runs an hour or longer.

I've decided to buck the order of my games list a bit and add it in while the retroactive is on so that I don't get spoiled while listening to the podcast, but also because it's a game I've wanted to play for a while. Not to mention, it's one of the original three games that Operation Rainfall rallied together to bring over to North America. So I don't mind jumping it up the list a bit.

Getting to the game itself, after playing what is essentially the tutorial I have to say that it feels like it'll be a grandiose game. Maybe not in actual scale, since you're limited to a home base sort of place, and the thirteen towers (the game's interconnected dungeons), with no world between them, but definitely in scope. And in architecture. During the fly around in one of the opening cutscenes, it looked like one of the towers was inspired by Paris' Notre Dame cathedral.

There's a marked difference between said cutscenes and actual in game graphics, but over all it's a pretty thing to look at. Much in the same way that Twilight Princess is, in fact.

Actually, the first beast that you defeat for flesh (to give your cursed girlfriend Elena to reverse her curse - of course), even looks like one of the Shadow Beasts. Sans fancy steel disk mask, though.

It's too bad that the game's combat doesn't take similar cues from the Zelda series, though. Fighting is simple enough (hit "A" when there's an enemy nearby to attack, hit "Z" to block), but using the game's super important "Oraclos Chain" almost requires you to have a manual on hand.

First you need to point the Wiimote at what you want to hit, bind, stab, or yank out with the chain, then you have to hit "B" to acquire the target, and finish it all off with a shake of the Wiimote. If you happen to miss at any point along that sequence, you can start the whole thing over, but you'll need to hit "-" to pull back the chain, first.

I can appreciate the complexity that Ganbarion (the game's developer) is trying to bring in with the chain, but it clashes with the mild hurry that the game forces you into. Because, you see, between meals of beast flesh Elena reverts back to her cursedly beastly self and if you're too long away the curse will become irreversible. Early as I am in the game, there's probably very little risk of this happening. Also, being able to build the affinity between Elena and your character Aeron probably has some sort of delaying effect on Elena's reversion.

All of that said, though, when things progress beyond the first tower, you'll probably wind up ganged up on while using your chain. Even if it's not possible for monsters to smack you around while trying to use it, no doubt they'll queue up and wait patiently for their turn to bite or whack or clobber once you've put your chain away.

Hopefully, though, there's enough time to turn its use into an art form before any of that happens. Using the chain is clunky, but a welcome reprieve from button mashing, and a welcome challenge.

No more baseball

The Tsubaki Mk II would make a great baseball bat. It's got a circumference about three times that of the Mk I, and is definitely heavier. So the assassination missions wherein you replay the pitch and hit minigame from the Destroy Stadium pre-title fight hall run should be easier with it.

But my timing in the game world when it comes to baseball is as bad as it is in the real one.

I lucked out with the first challenge, hitting the third (and final pitch) square enough and with enough force to knock out all of the targets in one go. The second challenge, however, saw me completely strikeout. At least the 100 kill spree mission gets you a guaranteed £90,000. Any job or mission will fill out the required £400,000 for the next title bout.

One other observation I've to make, is that Santa Destroy is weirdly desolate. I mean, I just started to play Pandora's Tower (watch for the entry, coming out first tomorrow), and the only people you interact with in it are your cursed girlfriend and a travelling merchant/witch. Nonetheless, Pandora's Tower (which, geographically, takes place in as much a wasteland as No More Heroes) still has a more personal feeling to it.

Maybe it's all a matter of numbers.

Two (as of the first 30 minutes of play) drawn out characters will always be more engaging than an apparently infinite population of maybe 7 different character designs moving wordlessly and unceasingly along predetermined tracks. At least No More Heroes' combat is clearer.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Swerving away from the hoped for

I just finished page 527 of Infinite Jest. Though it's been mostly plotless so far, the net's definitely drawing in around the timid lagomorph that could stand in for this book's story, all of its greatest motive power packed away in the back set of legs, the front being mostly for show. And digging.

I point out the page I finished on because it's got the greatest cliffhanger in the book yet.

The famous Eschaton game was played what seems to be 100  pages ago, and only now are we seeing the disciplinary action that comes of it. Or at least all the nail-biting, anxiety-laden waiting that comes before said Eschaton-caused disciplinary action. All of that waiting ends on page 527, however.

We see Hal and Pemulis and the rest go into Tavis' office, and then the doors to his office are closed. Doors as opaque to us as they are to Hal and co. since we're brought back to Marathe and Steeply on page 528.

What we imagine is often better than what can be written, but I'll be monstrously disappointed if what happens to Hal and co. in Tavis' office never gets mentioned.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Milieu in Muggeridge

Throughout the middle of the twentieth century Malcolm Muggeridge had a series of adventures. He became more involved in literary circles, was a Special Intelligence Services agent in World War II, and ended up as editor of Punch, England's Mad. He also had a series of affairs and dalliances while away from England.

But all of that seems like status quo stuff when there's a wild marginal reference prowling about this biography's pages.

On page 101, while introducing Malcolm's dear friend Hugh Kingsmill, Ingrams mentions that he had enlisted in "a regiment if cyclists" during World War I.

"A regiment of cyclists."

A part of the British armed forces from the late nineteenth century to the end of World War I, regiments of cyclists are just as they sound: units of the army whose distinguishing feature was the use of bicycles.

Apparently, and as you might expect, these units were primarily used for communications purposes, but also saw some combat. Bikes are definitely stealthier than horses, especially if they're as well maintained as any piece of army equipment is sure to be, so such work suits them perfectly.

Once again, the greater value of this biography proves to be the broader milieu that's lit by the biographer's lantern as it swings over an intimate subject.

DS down

Well, the hubris of not bringing my DS' charger has caught up with me.

After getting the "Chrysalis" and heading to Teddy Todo, the battery died. This wouldn't be a problem had I access to my charger, but we're currently in different locales.

Still, getting interrupted in the middle of play wasn't as frustrating as I expected it would be. My DS shut off, I swore, and that was that. It could be that already knowing where to go softened the blow of having to do it again.

Or, maybe because of Rosy Rupeeland's procedural nature I don't feel like there were any stunning feats I'll have to redo or chance encounters I'd have to re-wait for. It's a fun game, but everything coming down to rupees, and there being so many ways to get them, makes for a sort of play that, in retrospect, seems too orderly to be as fun as it is in the moment.

Crawling through the latest dungeon

The Insect Cavern is the most involved dungeon yet. Just like the Wind and Earth temples in The Wind Waker, its complexity comes from the events that take place within it.

The three mini-bosses are among these events, but the reappearance of Teddy Todo is the big one.

The bodyguard from the first dungeon, Todo's working for the pirates and scouting the dungeon for treasure. His appearances are mostly informative until the dungeon's end, when he asks for the "Chrysalis." This item alone is what makes the Insect Cavern a challenge.

You don't find the "Chrysalis" after any miniboss battle, nor are there any clues to its whereabouts. You just have to explore every inch of dungeon. Thankfully, it's in a chest and not just loose, but without a traditional Legend of Zelda compass, chests don't show up on your map. Needless to say, there's a fair bit of backtracking.

Though, working your way through the dungeon for a second time is a great chance to change bodyguards and get a rupee good you'd otherwise miss. It might be a pain, but at least the game's efficiently designed.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

When the book becomes "the entertainment"

I thoroughly enjoy the fact that it's gotten to the point where Steeply and Marathe's being on the desert promontory is something that even the narrator/fictional editor of the book can't believe. That's how the "Still" that's appended to their section headings comes across, anyway.

Actually, as the net of the book's progress slowly closes over the plot, I find that it's becoming much more comic. Maybe because less of the comedy is implied and much more overt. Or maybe it's because it's just absurdist comedy. How else can you describe a nearly 12 page long joke with a sentence length punchline that relies on you having read the endnote pointed to on page one?

Although my memory of exact details has faded over the months in real time since I've read of him, the reappearance of Roy Tony's also pretty shocking. All I can recall is that he was somehow involved with the "junkie-losing-an-eye-to-laced-heroine" bit earlier in the book. But, since it's been a while since an act of random violence has happened, his reappearance (and some bookshelf talk from the friend whose copy of Infinite Jest I'm reading) presages something grisly down the line. Even if his outburst against the hug-adverse Erdedy is another comic moment amidst the book's increasingly plot-relevant events.

No more straightforward story

Suda51 has a reputation for weird and over the top stories and plot twists in his games. But never before have I encountered such a deeply atmospheric feel in a game.

Once you've paid your way into the fifth ranking battle and head out towards it you'll find a pool of blood in the parking lot. This turns out to be the first of many, as there's a dotted line of blood puddles all the way to the next battle's locale.

Then, once you head into the tunnel at the grisly trail's end, you run down a hallway with breaks for beating minions along the way. But you also follow a shadowy, trenchcoated person the whole way down.

The stark white area at the tunnel's end is shocking, but hardly prepares you for what's beyond.
At first, the fifth ranked assassin Letz Shake seems like the standard No More Heroes boss. He powers up his gimmick and Travis dashes toward him, looking like he's going to strike before Shake's super attack launches. All of that gets interrupted, however.

The trenchcoated guy breaks into the fight, disposes of Shake, and challenges Travis before disappearing. So the fifth rank bout is a non event, completely dashing expectations.

Yet, nothing better could have happened for the game. By the nature of its design, No More Heroes should be boring and dreary to play through. It's things like the appearance of the trenchcoated Henry and the gruesome path to fifth that keep the game unexpectedly fresh.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Facts in the USSR

Two more chapters into Richard Ingrams' biography of Malcolm Muggeridge I have a much better idea of why he mattered and a fine sense of why I had no idea of who he was.

In chapter IV, simply titled, "Russia," (though it was still the USSR at the time) Ingrams chronicles Muggeridge's interest in Russia as a socialist paradise and how this interest turned into disillusionment and depression once he actually moved to the country. Once Muggeridge started going around as a freelancer and a correspondent, it became apparent that the socialist dream was just a front and that under Stalin millions were set to die of starvation. The observation and subsequent reporting of this were what made Muggeridge famous.

It wasn't that he was the only foreign journalist in Russia at the time, not by a long shot, but rather that he was the first to successfully write honestly about it. Others had tried, but either recanted once their articles reached publication because of political pressure, or just never managed to get them into print. With the exception of Muggeridge and a handful of others, it was as A.T. Cholerton put it: "Everything is true except the facts" (57).

As per why I had never heard of him before this, his import on the international front was a phenomenon locked into the 1930s. After all the 1930s were a time when the idea of socialism was popular among intellectuals and middle class members throughout Europe and America (which country had sent the Bolsheviks $66,000,000 for food in the 1920s (66); and which country officially recognized the USSR in 1933 (69)). As such, Muggeridge was a rare anti-socialist voice in the Western press at the time, though now such a stance seems almost common sense.

Having read more, I can also see why I was told that I ought to read this. Again, like most people graduating with some sort of arts degree, Muggeridge never lead his life with a solid plan but usually acted more on impulse. Speaking for myself, I'm not overly impulsive, but can still relate to living without a plan to which I stick like needles on a fir.

On a bit more of a petty note, it may be voyeuristic, but I find the letters and diary entries that Ingrams includes in his retellings of the various episodes in Muggeridge's life pretty incredible. It's easy to have a whitewashed sense of the past from text books and cleaned up cinematic accounts, but actually being able to read people's correspondence and personal writings really makes it clear how messy things could be. And, taking place in the mid twentieth century, how much attitudes towards things like sexuality were taking a more accepting turn.

Just a feeling

In Rosy Rupeeland, you'll feel it when you're ready to take on the next boss. All of the sidequests will be wrapped up, and you'll have a handsome sum of rupees on you. And then you'll just know. It's a feeling of completion that can only come from having finished off your mental "to do" list.

But entering a dungeon's no mean feat, especially as you get later in the game and need to go through more and more elaborate steps to get in. Like riding on the back of a giant queen bee to an otherwise unreachable mesa. Something I've not yet done.

Instead, I'm wondering about whether or not I should sell off these gems that I was given. A mole man obsessed with jars gave them to me, you see, and so I wonder if they have some sort of special significance. If I sell them, will I lose them forever?

It's not like Rosy Rupeeland has a place like the Isle of Forfeit in Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals where you can buy back what you sell. Though it's also not like such valuable things have been essential for sidequests in the past. Even when they have been, they've always been traded for rupees.

So now it appears that there's one more thing on to my "to do" list before heading to that dungeon.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Definitely no Marathe-on

We've heard a lot about them. There's been an entire endnote dedicated to their quasi-initiation ritual. Marathe, one of their numbers, figures prominently on the book's increasingly frequent promontory scenes. But only when the narrative's attention turns from Gately's speeding off to Cambridge to a small odds and ends shop run by two Quebecois do we actually see the dreaded AFR (wheelchair assassins) in motion.

The last 20 pages of Infinite Jest have been pretty intensely about the plot. Marathe and Steeply have just talked about p-terminals, pleasure experiments, and the "happy patch;" and those two Quebecois shopkeepers have unknowingly brought in master tapes of James O. Incandenza's pleasure overloading movie that has been dubbed "the entertainment" (Infinite Jest III, I think, without referring to the books' filmographic endnote); and the AFR has come in with full force to get those masters back.

As with the rest of the book so far, nothing's moving visibly forward yet, but there's something coming.

Reading this book has been like slowly uncoiling a sleeping Ouroboros from its tail to its head. I feel like I've just passed the hind leg.

But, though nothing concrete event-wise has happened, the scenes between Marathe and Steeply continue to develop the underpinnings and relevance of "the entertainment" to the current political situation. Their scenes don't have much of anything happening in them, but they're nonetheless weaving the dream of what might be once "the entertainment" hits the mainstream.

To some readers, this inaction comes off as boring, but really, it works on a meta level as a parallel to the book as a whole. For what they're discussing on that outcropping is really what the plot of the book might turn out to be. The reason for their indefiniteness being that, because they're characters within the book, they cannot know for sure what will happen within it. But they forecast anyway, from their utter ridiculous Tucson-viewing vantage point.

No more dull combat

Despite what I've written here before, No More Heroes' combat isn't just about mashing buttons. You can be successful doing so, sure, but there can also be some strategy in the game's combat as well.

After all, strategy is essential for the free fight, one hit K.O. missions that open up between title bouts, though it's not really all that important to the necessary fights in the game. Still, it's helpful to remember that you can move the Wiimote up or down to shift between mashing "A" to hit high or low when going up against minions with some form of mêlée weapon.

The different beam swords you can buy over the course of the game change things up, too. The latest one, the Tsubaki Mk II is like a greatsword. Travis holds it two handed, and wields it like a tree trunk. It's not the slowest (at least not yet), but it's definitely the most powerful weapon (as of yet). Because it's slow but powerful, it makes swatting through swathes of enemies much easier. No doubt it'll make reflecting projectiles a lot easier, too.

Monday, August 12, 2013

It's about time I started on this bio

Getting back to my main reading list after making my way through some borrowed books, I've started into Richard Ingrams' Muggeridge: The Biography.

Admittedly, it's another gift book, but from when my collection was almost entirely kept in old paper boxes. Also, admittedly, it was given to me with instructions along the lines of "you should read this" that carried a subtext of "as soon as possible." Five years' time stretches the old ASAP out a bit, but I'm glad to finally get to it.

Before starting I had no idea who Malcolm Muggeridge was and why he was important. Four chapters into the book, this hasn't really changed.

He was a journalist and writer who had strong left leanings, who struggled with religion throughout his young life, acted impulsively, and regularly rebelled against the people or institutions with which he worked. My best guess is that "you should read this" was said when I was given the book because he, like many who study English at university/college, never had a strong sense of what he wanted to do once out in the real world.

It may also have been said since I was given this book around the time that I was on my way out to South Korea to teach English, while Muggeridge had done the same in India and Egypt around the same point in his life. So there're a few things in the biography that I can relate to, including 20-something Muggeridge's interest in Russia.

Anyway, being written in a very prim English sort of way, there are a few sentiments that I find curious. At the head of these is something from a diary block-quoted on page 39.

The diary is Rosie Dobbs' (Kitty Dobbs' mother, and Muggeridge's mother-in-law), and in it she opines on what she foresees as the result of "freer sexual union between men and women": that children will commonly be raised by the state, that women are merely trying to "become second class men," and that these trends could "end in degeneration and sterility of the race[.]"

They're the sort of sentiments that you'd expect from a woman who'd grown up in upper middle class England of the 19th century and lived to see the roaring 20s, but they're nonetheless notable since they're still expressed today in some circles. Is the end just always near?

"To do" list driven gaming

For a game about a NEET (someone not in employment, education, or training), Rosy Rupeeland is a weirdly "to do" list driven game.

In part the game plays like creating and working through a series of "To do" items because of its "everything-costs-and gives-rupees" mechanic. So to progress through certain events or to activate certain plot points you need to fork over the right amount (or more) to the character (or characters) involved. To have enough to manage this, you, in turn have to actually have those rupees handy, and to earn rupees you'll inevitably turn to one or two tried and tested methods.

What works well about the game's rupee-based everything is that whenever you come into an area for the first time there are a number of things to do to boost your rupee stash substantially. There will usually be a quest or two (or three), new items that let you create pricier soups/juices/medicines/etc, or one-time item drops involving a few precious stones/gems. Plus, if an area has a dungeon, its payout will more than likely equal or just squeak past what you need to open up the next area.

Nonetheless, each time I sit down to play this game I find myself creating a mental to do list. "Explore the new area," "map all the landmarks," "get ingredients needed to finish sidequests," "complete sidequests," "prep for dungeon," "face dungeon," etc. It sounds like the standard, basic outline for playing through most adventure games, but I'm much more aware of myself doing it as I play Rosy Rupeeland than I would be if I was playing through anything else.

The conclusion that I draw from all of this is that in Rosy Rupeeland the steps between plot points are much clearer because their parameters are so well defined.

Instead of simply being (to take an example from the mask trading sidequest in Ocarina of Time) "take the "Keaton Mask" to the soldier at the Death Mountain gate and then return the profit to me," Rosy Rupeeland would have you pay an exact price (or more) for the mask (that you guess at, or use a guide to find out), force you to pay/accept a set amount (or more/less) from the guard upon delivery (guessing or using a guide again), and then require the same upon announcing the completion of the job to the Happy Mask Salesman. Because your objectives are clearly delineated along the lines of rupees, "to do" lists seem naturally to spring up.

A theory involving foil

There's some reason that's given relatively early in Infinite Jest, for the Ennet House halfway house being on the same grounds as the Enfield Tennis Academy (ETA). What this reason is has been lost to the book's spiral stair like past - most of which I'm now through.

But I've got a theory.

Schtitt, one of the coaches at the ETA, has a very specific philosophy. At the core of this is the idea that you should take qualities of yourself that you don't want any more and jettison them from yourself so that they cannot come back. Such is the work of anyone looking to go pro.

It's also the work of the people at the Ennet House trying to get clean. Those who actually want to recover from their addictions are trying to separate themselves from it. But, weirdly, some of the people at the Ennet house have certain personal or physical deformities that arose out of their addictions. It'd be very easy for the book to just write these characters off as hopeless addicts, but I think there's something more at work.

Ennet House and ETA are somehow foils for each other, reciprocally highlighting each's strengths and weaknesses. In the next 400+ pages anything could happen.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

No more pretense

No More Heroes' latest title bout wasn't any more strategic or precise than the previous one. Actually, it takes a step back from requiring precise timing. Instead, the battle with Holly Summers, a woman with bandoleers full of grenades, is all about being frantic.

You've got to dash about the beach where the fight takes place, avoid the pitfalls she's dug before the fight, and get to her early enough to stop her from launching her indefensible (but escapable) rocket assault. Maybe I was missing something, but doing all of that nonetheless yielded a victory. This is also a fight that rewards bullheadedness, since the "Max Health" boxed up in a corner makes it possible to just barrel into her, mash "A" through her attacks, replenish your health once you're critical, and hope for the best.

Being on a beach, we're all reminded of one of Travis' motivations to get to the number one assassin spot. During the intro cutscene, he's oiling up a sunbathing Sylvia, and goes a little too far up her leg. The scene almost plays like what you'd expect from an anime's obligatory hot spring episode, but doesn't quite sell it since Travis doesn't get a nosebleed or turn way with a fully flushed face. Perhaps my having forgotten just what he does do in reply to Sylvia's "Go any higher, and I'll kill you myself," says something about this lack.

The scene after the fight is just as strange, as Travis buries the corpse of Holly Summers by tossing it into the final hole to be filled, grenades and all. I half expect that when I pass by the beach during the upcoming cash gathering session, a giant column of sand will shoot up out of the blue.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Agreeing to disagree

The Four Agreements comes to a close you'd expect. After going over the the book's titular subject, and then tying it all up with a glimpse at how it can be applied, the penultimate chapter of the book deals with the possible effects of actively practicing what's come before.

Reading things like Evelyn Underhill's "The Dark Night of the Soul" and the anonymous The Cloud of Unknowing (two books different in subject matter from The Four Agreements, but similar in purpose) has set the bar high for any sort of mystical philosophy that I come across. As such, The Four Agreements, because of its light tone and rhetorical flourishes, doesn't really measure up.

Ruiz touches on some important points, but this book is more of a gateway into thinking in a different way rather than one to challenge and rankle one who already does so to any significant degree. Ruiz's writing about what a person's best is is still excellent, but it's the only high point within. The rest is too thin, and leans too heavily on the anecdotes that Ruiz provides. This gives the book the tone of a motivational speech, and that's not really what I look for in my philosophy. Though finding motivation in heavier fare is always welcome.

If you've not done much reading into mysticism or ancient knowledge systems, then The Four Agreements is a fine place to start. Otherwise, it makes for a quick read and a [] refresher.

A game with heart (but no heart pieces)

Rosy Rupeeland is a goofy game, but it's got a lot of heart. The scene where Aba and her real father, the town Armourer, are reunited is a great example of this. It's a scene that shows that the two are undeniably related, and includes a nod from Junglo, her former father, sealing the deal.

But what makes the scene is the way that Tingle gingerly walks behind a tree once it starts. How many main characters will step out of an event that doesn't involve them?

Aside from that, the game trundles onwards. The revelation of the "Tingle Bomb" item is the most Legend of Zelda-esque moment yet, though. And it's noteworthy, since item-driven exploration hasn't been a huge part of the game until now.

As you might expect, these explosives allow you to destroy small rocks and bring down cracked walls, meaning, as far as I can figure, that the game's large bodyguards are now useless in dungeons. Formerly, they were the only way to deal with such obstructions.

Maybe even further down the line, there'll be something that makes the medium-sized, lock-picking bodyguards obsolete. For now though, I can only dream.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Talking a bit of Schtitt

Maybe I just like the way that David Foster Wallace handles accents. His use of eye dialect really works for me; I can almost hear Schtitt and Marathe while reading their dialogue. It no doubt helps that I  find Schtitt's tennis philosophy to be utterly fascinating.

It's nothing overly intricate but it reminds me of the sort of thing I was exposed to while learning Hung Gar kung fu. All of that "stay in the moment" and "you and the technique/opponent are all you need to focus on" sort of stuff seems to apply generally to individual sports, but still. The idea of self transcendance through self control definitely underpins the appeal of Schtitt's philosophy for me.

In fact, self mastery seems like it could be the ultimate introvert achievement in the same way that synchronizing with a group could be the ultimate for extroverts. Though there's no doubt some crossover between those groups.

No more grinding

The assassination missions that open up after beating Destroyman make No More Heroes' grinding laughably. Purely and simply laughable. In particular, Assassination Gig 07 makes grinding no problem whatsoever. Finishing it yields about £100,000 and so far the missions have required £300,000 or less.

So now there's not much to complain about after sessions. Except for the fact that my Zelda combat training has made me far too used to taking enemies on one by one while they more or less queue up. This is problematic only in the Free Fight missions, but they're a sizeable part of the sections of the game between title fights. So it seems like skipping them cuts out major parts of the game. Though, really, it's not a game with a lot of content - most of it's repeated over and over and that's that.

Actually, watching the original trailer for the game makes me wonder if maybe there was more game planned at first. At the very least, a major style change took place between that trailer and the actual game. Most noticeably, everyone's much more gaunt. It looks like there's a healthy flush in everyone's cheeks in the trailer.

See for yourself. Below are the original trailer, and a video preview of the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCr3zvDh7K0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ1SIAWWw1s

Thursday, August 8, 2013

The fourth agreement but no fourth way

The Four Agreements continues to be written in the same tone and with the same diction as a cheesy motivational speaker. But. The fourth agreement itself ("always do your best") is something that I find interesting and energizing.

Ruiz explains the agreement as simply as the statement itself, but adds the twist that your best will fluctuate. He notes that it will wan when you're sick, wax when you're well-rested and feeling empowered, and bounce around the charts for every state in between. This added facet to an otherwise simple statement gives it depth that I can appreciate, and as something of a perfectionist the idea that my best fluctuates really speaks to me. Plus, I'm always a fan of philosophies that encourage you to do what you want to do, to follow where your passions lead. Though, I'm also well aware of the complications implicit in doing so as an adult.

Ruiz touches upon the difficulty that adult responsibilities bring to his simple imperative, and turns them aside by taking a page from another work of pop philosophy, The Secret: work and act for the job or action itself and not the reward and you'll get rewarded anyway. Couple this approach to the problem of rent and bills and balancing incomes with expenses with Ruiz's brief explanation of fears and the need to overcome them, and you've got a potent note to finish on.

At least on the surface.

The meat of The Four Agreements comes in the last few chapters, the first of which deals with the "how" of the book. How do you go about enacting these agreements to change your life? He offers somewhat adequate answers, but anyone looking for a step by step guide should look elsewhere. This section of the book seems to be especially plagued by the "create-a-crisis-then-offer-a-solution" pop philosophy formula, and so Ruiz' answers and advice are interesting but too angled for my liking.

In a nutshell, the three ways that he puts forth (making me wonder if there's a Fourth Way available) are to face your fears one by one to undo your bad agreements; to starve what he calls the parasite of your internal Judge and Victim by taking control of your emotions; or to live with the constant knowledge that you could die at any time and so must strive to keep from dying while unhappy (which, in Ruiz' formulation, is the state of those who are not self-aware and not striving to return to a state of true freedom).

Ruiz treats each of these ways with perhaps as much depth as the agreements themselves, which does much to strengthen his book as a whole. However, much more of the coverage of these ways is actual discussion and explanation rather than anecdotes and rhetoric, leaving the book, as of the end of chapter six, feeling uneven.

Wanderings in Rupeeland

Like any other Zelda game, Rosy Rupeeland really rewards exploration. Even if it's just digging somewhere you normally don't, it's a game that practically requires you to explore and experiment to advance at a steady pace. Though I've not really done much experimenting where it might count most: in Tingle's kitchen.

The kitchen in Tingle's house is where you can mix the ingredients you find out and about and get soups/sauces/juices/etc. from the process. I've underused the free cooking option in favour of making discovered and bought recipes, and really I don't think I've missed much. With a continent and 1/3's worth of ingredients it's pretty easy to create things that can sell for a handsome sum of rupees.

Sidequests are also useful for raising your Hylian funds. Again, exploration is the best way to come across these. I would've completely missed the one involving the character Aba and her true father had I not gone to sell Junglo a "Jungle Vitamin," the raising of which requires a fair bit of leg work itself.

However, what sets the mainstream Zelda games apart from Rosy Rupeeland is their much more evenly paced progression. Rosy Rupeeland requires you to hit quotas of rupees, and with almost everything in the game costing you some amount or other, those quotas aren't always directly reachable.

The reason it's called Infinite Jest?

There's not much to say about Gately's latest chapter. He struggles with the conception of god, and we see more and more of his existence in Boston AA. Some of his memories surface, and we get a glimpse of how he started on his way to alcoholism. 

We also read of the story of the two young fish and the old fish. This comes up on page 445, and involves the old fish leaving the young fish dumbfounded with the question "How's the water?" The young fish can only look at each other and say "What the hell is water?"

A minor detail in a book of minor details, this little story seemed to have special significance to David Foster Wallace. This apparent importance is based on his reusing the story in a 2005 commencement speech. It's not much to go on, but the idea behind the story (that the most obvious truths are often the hardest to talk about) really permeates much of Infinite Jest

As a reader you can see what the characters miss, you can see the book's water. Though, of course, the characters don't talk about it. Not just because they can't see it, but because it's part of the book's comedy. As a whole, Infinite Jest like a solid block of dramatic irony - though it informs the audience of what's going on only if they're aware that they can see the books interconnections, its water.

It's this optional level of the book that makes it great, even if it's not something that's immediately comprehensible. 

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

No more boredom

I think I've found my rhythm in No More Heroes. So long as there's not much to buy between title bouts, saving up for the next one can be relatively quick. Relatively.

The game definitely becomes much more interesting and much more fun once you've unlocked Lovikov's combat techniques. Being able to dash, and seeing enemies on your minimap are fine, but the jump strike and the jumping downward strike are two things that make combat much more than Wiimote flailing and button mashing. There's almost strategy to it now, since the jump strike knocks opponents back, allowing for an instant finishing move, and Travis' increased strength makes it easier to daze enemies, leaving them vulnerable to wrestling techniques.

Plus, completely unexpectedly, the lead-up to the seventh title fight continues to innovate the "hallway-of-enemies-before-the-boss" formula. Not by too much, perhaps, but still. It's the atmosphere of the lead up that sets it apart.

You go into a subway, that's completely deserted, make your way to the train, fight your way through it, and then go through another apparently abandoned subway station. After returning to the surface you find yourself at a warehouse/studio space and fight your way through to the boss. None of the enemies are particularly difficult, but the intro video for the title fight is entertaining, and the boss battle that follows is excellent.

In the style of so many 3D fights with the Legend of Zelda's Ganondorf, part of the battle involves hitting Destroyman's projectiles back at him. The rest of the fight breaks with this classic pattern and requires you to wait for openings in Destroyman's offense/defense to attack. Executing wrestling moves on him does major damage and is incredibly satisfying. The challenge of this boss fight, and the degree to which they seem to be actually steadily increasing in difficulty, makes it likely that this could still turn out to be a decent game.

Just so long as the grinding doesn't get ridiculous, though it looks likely that the entry fee for the last fight will be £1,000,000.

Rosy rupees, vague grind goals

For all of my slagging on No More Heroes for being a true grind, at least you know what you're grinding to in it. The fountain that Tingle lobs lobs rupees into with wild abandon just gives vague hints if you've not hit the magic number with your latest contribution.

This indefinite quality of the rupee-guzzling spring on top of the slowly ascending tower is a neat reference to the fairy fountain in Link to the Past that told your fortune. That, too, was a fountain that gave out vague answers. Though the number of its required rupees values could be pretty easily figured out.

There is some sort of a pattern to the values required to let Tingle move onto new areas. But after a significant break in playing the game, the earlier part of said pattern has been lost to me. Strategy Wiki has a handy guide to the game's prices, though. And really, without that guide it would be an even greater slog than the most punishing of JRPGs or the most fetch quest-ridden of adventure games.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Agreements two and three: The problem of fiction

Fantasy lives in Mexico. Don Miguel Ruiz' way of explaining himself is full of colour. This makes his philosophy readily accessible to even the most casual reader. Yet, it also makes it sound overly simple.

To some extent it is, and that's also part of The Four Agreements' appeal. Telling anyone that enacting four commandments will change their life for the better is a sure way to get their attention. I only worry that the agreements are a little shallow.

Taking nothing personally and making no assumptions are, indeed, good ways to live, but I'm not satisfied by Ruiz' explanation of how these things work. What troubles me is an apparent emotional solipsism in Ruiz' philosophy.

Such an outlook follows from taking nothing personally, but what also follows on that is the idea that if everyone becomes impeccable in their emotional world, there will no longer be fiction, an art form that relies on assumptions and drama.

Perhaps fiction (and poetry) are agreements in themselves, and of the sort that Ruiz calls "black magic." That doesn't seem too far fetched, since Ruiz' system lends itself to a sort of utopianism similar to that of Plato's Republic. Regardless of that classical connection, those are agreements without which I could not live.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Farming in Rupeeland, grinding in Santa Destroy

Despite their thematic differences, Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland and No More Heroes have something in common. Between these games' dungeons and boss fights are grind sections. After you complete a boss lead-up and boss, you need to get enough rupees or cash for the next.

However, the places where Freshly Picked's grinding (or rather, farming) takes place are much more colourful than No More Heroes' Santa Destroy. The areas that Tingle goes through are dotted with all of the charactrs you'd expect to find in any other Zelda game. Plus, because of the tone of the game, they're much more memorable than the unreactive zombies that populate No More Heroes' desert city.

Ultimately, though, where Rosy Rupeeland shines is in how little farming is necessary. After Tingle takes down a boss he finds almost 3/4 of what he needs to extend his reach to the next area, if not more. And that's regardless of how well you perform in a dungeon.

True, the same thing can be acheived in No More Heroes, but only if you ace the fights with the minions and their boss. Tying the reward so closely to your performance is fine, but given how dull the grinding in No More Heroes is (making "grinding" the more apt term), doing so punishes slip-ups rather than tolerating them. Such a system does nothing to encourage experimentation, unlike Rosy Rupeeland wherein experimentation is practically expected of players. Being in an interactive medium, it's that push for experimentation that makes Rosy Rupeeland more entertaining.

Happy John Galt Day!

On a John Galt Day jaunt to the Guelph Civic Museum, I stopped off in the gift shop. While browsing, I came across a slim volume called A Brief Sketch of the Early History of Guelph by one Robert Thompson (a first year settler). The $1.50 price tag wasn't enough to keep me away, and being fresh from a lecture on John Galt (Guelph's founder), my bibliophilia had no trouble taking over.

Thompson's account (written in 1877) mixes lists and anecdotes. The lists are his way of describing the town, its amenities, inhabitants, and placement in contemporary Upper Canada (check). The anecdotes splash colour over this canvas. Amid those colours, there's comedy to be found.

From early morning shin-steppings, to a debate about what should be featured at a fair, the comedy is quintessentially Scottish. However, the one story Thompson sets up as a real knee-slapper (an account of a Doctor Dunlop's saying the newest settlers need to thin down) falls flat. You just had to be there, I guess.

Returning to John Galt, if you want to check out his bibliography in a version that features full digital copies of his works, click here.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Getting all the balls

I now know all that I can know in No More Heroes. Technique-wise that is. All of the Lovikov Balls have been found, and all seven of the hidden techniques have been learned. It was a good way to distract myself from grinding up to £250,000. I'm now about 25,000 away from the next title bout. Hopefully the hidden technique that grants a bonus based on rank speeds up the whole cash gathering process.

Actually, the techniques learned in exchange for the Lovikov Balls are pretty useful. Particularly the one that lets you dash if you hold down "B." The ability to move faster than the jog, but more slowly than the motorbike was really handy in homing in on the Lovikov Balls. They're interesting things, those balls, from a technical standpoint.

When you approach a spot on the map that marks one of the balls you won't be able to see the ball. But, as a clue that you're in the right place, a tune that sounds a lot like the Wii menu music will play. The ball doesn't actually show up until you get quite close to the exact spot that's marked on your map.

On the one hand, I wonder if this is just to make the balls harder to find (which can't be the case, because it only delays rather than deters their discovery), or because drawing them once you approach them was easier on the game's processing speed.

Whatever the reason for the balls' appearing only when you're near to them, having collected all of them makes me feel like the game is one step closer to being finished. Also, you can ride your motorbike off of a ramp and into the ocean, but as of right now doing so appears to do nothing except drop Travis and his bike back at the No More Heroes motel.

Lay away book special: The first agreement

P.D. Ouspensky's In Search if the Miraculous is the most in depth modern book of mysticism that I've read to date. It's not from the pen of the leader of that branch of mysticism (G.I. Gurdjief), but it is a great exemplar of a common formula in 20th century sales pitches/mystical gurus' self-presentation: create a crisis, explain how it can be overcome and weave what you're selling into that explanation.

Though Don Miguel Ruiz has some good things to say in his The Four Agreements, this same formula can be found all over its first two chapters. Even on a paragraph by paragraph basis. Take for instance, his explanation of the word "impeccable:" He states outright that it means "without sin," then gives a sound etymology and definition, and restates its definition clearly. Adding those two latter steps makes the revelation of the word's meaning more dramatic, but are unnecessary.

The first agreement itself ("be impeccable with your word") is a fine thing. However, while explaining the concept, he refers to how your word can be damaging to yourself as well as others. Again, this is quite all right, but in the previous chapter he strove to show that people do not know their true selves. Therefore, defining how he is using "yourself" in his explanation of the first agreement would help to clarify it further. And, for a book that's been about putting things simply thus far, clarity is essential.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Readjusting to Rosy Rupeeland

Going back to Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland hasn't been easy. Particularly because I have no idea how many rupees I've already contributed to getting to the next area. As far as I can tell, it's time that I move on, though.

The mapping of the Steamy Marsh has been completed, and it looks like everything else is wrapped up there. Some more rib steaks from the monkey-like things perched on the area's mesas would be good to get, though. That's all I'm missing for the Meat Soup recipe that the town chef is asking me about.

Otherwise, the greatest transition between this and Radiant Historia is the battle system. It's not the shift from turn-based to something more action-oriented, but the tone of them is what makes it a strange jump. Rosy Rupeeland's battles are pure cartoony slapstick. Not to mention the double purpose of rupees as HP. Sitting at 20,000+ makes Tingle alone into something of a tank, though there is a high price on any solo victory.

Lay Away Book Special: A good end, but troubled by Zoe

The Wheel of Ice recovers in its final fifty pages. Everything gets resolved, there's that familiar pang of regret felt by the Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie as they once more must leave on the cusp of celebrations, and there's the characteristic cliffhanger, which, more often than not, involves something going wrong in the TARDIS.

I've seen and heard enough Doctor Who to be aware of all of that, but I'm not sure that I've seen enough of the show while Zoe is an active companion. I understand that she's supposed to be from the future, and the product of an educational system (not to mention a culture) that prizes logic and calculation above creativity and emotion. But the reason that she went with the Doctor in the first place (which reason is specifically referenced in The Wheel of Ice) is to broaden her horizons and to see what, aside from logic, is out there.

For the most part, Baxter shows Zoe doing just that, and any sort of apprehension on her part is explained away by it being so close to her own time. What she sees around her, the drudgery, the poverty, the strife, it all makes her uncomfortable since it's so unlike her own time despite much of the tech and ambitions being similar.

This discomfort is fine in most events and cases, but she seems oddly stiff in the final chapters of the book where she's responsible for babysitting Casey, Phee's younger sister. Not just stiff in the way that someone who's not fond of or used to children would be, but almost to the point of her seeming to be some sort of logic-only robot. As this part of Zoe's arc moves forward she loosens up and becomes more comfortably supportive, but the way there felt forced.

It makes sense within the story that Zoe would be put on babysitting duty, as she had been before, but placing this part of her development parallel to Jamie's running about with kids from the Wheel to disarm a bomb, and the Doctor and Phee's trip to Mnemosyne's core make it seem like she's being shuffled off to the side. It just doesn't sit well with me.

Aside from that smudge, Baxter keeps well to Doctor Who's internal logic throughout the book's ending. In fact, making the beginning and the ending bookend the story as they do completes the sense that this story isn't something just recently created, but that it's a novelization of some lost Second Doctor serial.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Lay away book special: The Wheel starts wobbling

Baxter makes a bold move in the penultimate fifty pages of The Wheel of Ice. Where before chapter followed chapter rather closely and major events weren't skipped over, he breaks both precedents here.

Apparently there was quite the kerfuffle around Phee's going back to Mnemosyne after the previous party had to flee a more war-prone make of the Blue Dolls. But we're not privy to that forum's details and Baxter leaves little about it in the scenes following. I had to make sure I hadn't missed a chapter, since the references to the debate sound like previous instances of references to other events that happened earlier in the story.in the narrative 

Similarly, we're outright told that the rings of Saturn are the memories of the ship embedded in Mnemosyne. There's no scene or revelation delivered mid-chapter, we're just outright told. Though, strangely, in the chapter after the secret of the rings is told, the Doctor has a bit of dialogue that could easily have been the big revelation of said secret.

This seemingly switched pair of chapters, along with bits like "Jo Laws called a council meeting in her home in Res Three. A meeting of sorts." make this section of the book feel rushed. It's almost as though Baxter had to edit things down in great haste.

Fortunately, the book's ideas and its fantastical elements remain in tact. Now all that's left is to pull off a grand ending.

Notes on Radiant Historia's ending

Wow. What an ending that was. No doubt, it helped that every node was finished and so I was treated to the "true ending."

In said ending, everything works out all hunky dory, and everyone is left living in a world that is on track for entirely avoiding destruction by desertification. Every loose end is wrapped up, and every character's arc comes to a fine end. Plus, as nothing but the best imaginable icing on top of a game that's already a fine cake, what's best described as a mildly upbeat anime-style end them is sung over the closing credits. Incredible!

However. Anything this great stirs some feeling of the opposite sort to. Turn back now if you don't want some of the game's end spoiled.

First, as you may expect, it's hinted that Stocke is still alive somewhere somehow when Kiel and the Rosch brigade show up as Rosch wraps up erecting graves. According to Kiel a man who was accustomed to living off the land helped them - a man dressed in red. After this scene we're shown what happened when Stocke's soul was sacrificed. Long story short, it wasn't.

Heiss, using the last of his strength, peers into the future that Stocke had envisioned and finds that the world isn't as doomed as he had thought. This causes a change of heart, which is enough for Heiss to have the awakening required to make him a proper sacrifice. The awakening being a desire to give one's own life for the sake of another. Heiss, having given up his soul, freed Stocke to return to the world, and this is the final thing that you see before the pitch perfect credits roll.

Within the world of the game this is a great ending, everything is, as mentioned above, hunky dory in the end. Plus, from a storytelling perspective, though it easily could've, the game refrains from going wholly Hollywood with its ending since we don't see any of Stocke's reunions with those who fought for him and alongside whom he fought. This is especially a good move in the case of Raynie's arc, since it's much more powerful to leave it with her waiting for his return so they can begin their life together. No scene of their reunion could match what each player imagines, and so not showing it is the better move.

Breaking up this chronology, though, let's go back to the final boss fight.

After defeating four powered up enemies from earlier in the game, you go on to fight the Black Chronicle itself and then the three layered The World Ends With You/Final Fantasy VI-style Apocrypha.

The first fight of the final set (the one with the Black Chronicle) is perfect.

Just as with Skyward Sword's final battle against Demise, it uses the game's battle mechanic in a way that's practically perfect. In this fight the only way to actually damage the Chronicle is to push another enemy into it/it into another enemy, and then attack that other enemy. Plus - the Black Chronicle can outright disable any of your characters' commands. Being between levels 61 and 64, though, made this battle short and so the book didn't have much chance to wreak havoc with my commands.

The second phase of the final boss battle, as was the case with Skyward Sword's Demise, takes a step back from the genius use of its game's characteristic battle mechanic. Anything to do with the game's featured battlefield grid is done away with as each layer of the Apocrypha fills the entire enemy side of the screen.

Instead, Apocrypha's one claim to challenge is its barrage of status effect causing attacks. Curiously, though, despite its having a group attack that causes "sleep" and another that causes "curse," it had only a single character attack that caused "stone." Needless to say, Apocrypha took some whittling, but Marco, Raynie and Stocke eventually brought it down.

It my have just been character's stats, but there did seem to be some fluctuation in Apocrypha's magic resistance/weakness, but there was no way to tell when this changed, or if G-Frost/Fire/Thunder did extra damage simply because somewhere a digital d20 was coming up with 20s instead of 15s, so to speak.

Overall, Radiant Historia's ending is a truly satisfying way for the game to come to a close. The series of boss battles leading up to the final scenes might not make you feel like you've achieved much, but as a whole experience, the game well deserves the accolades it's been given as a great game and a stellar RPG. 50 hours can't lie.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Why pair partying with toil?

Infinite Jest's chapters vary wildly in length. Actually, before I even get into that, chapters in Infinite Jest aren't numbered or named, but instead are set off by specific (or non specific) dates.

The chronology jumps around a little bit, but I haven't been paying strict attention to it and the plot hasn't suffered at all for it. Perhaps Wallace inadvertently commented on this quality of his novel when he pointed out that Mario's puppet show movie about the dawn of Interdependence got some of its chronology wrong, but was on the whole more entertaining than the longer, more chronologically accurate ONANtiad of his father, the Mad Stork, J. Incandenza.

Anyway, Infinite Jest's chapters vary wildly in length. The longer ones tend to be broken down into sections, but these sections aren't always sequences. In the most recent chapter (about Mario's puppet show movie, Don Gately, and the maniacal Eric Clipperton) its different sections don't jump around in chronology (directly) but instead in focus. Actually, except for the one about Gately and his job cleaning up the hellish mess left everyday at a men's homeless shelter, every section of this chapter is focused on the evening festivities at ETA.

The Eric Clipperton parts, though obviously from years (months?) before, are after all nonetheless part of an elaborate flashback meant to explain a single reference to the suicidal tennis player made in Mario's puppet show movie.

So back to the bit about Don Gately and his janitorial duties. Why is it paired with the festivities at ETA, specifically an account of the dietary rules-free feast and accompanying film? Gately's duties happen in the morning, so they could be hinting at the aftermath of Interdependence Day celebrations, but that would be too easy.

They could also be paired up simply because Ennet House (of which Gately is a resident) is mentioned when the narrator notes that an Ennet House resident was manning the ETA gate when Clipperton showed up one early morning.

This would make some sense, as it fits in with the book's sense of the narrator's being constantly reminded of other, marginally related details, by all of the details that he/she is spouting for the sake of hyperrealism.

But is all of this extra detail meant to make sense? Are all of the sections even narrated by the same person, or is this book just a collection of accounts edited into one two-brick-sized tome?

As of yet, the bricks have said nothing on that.