{"id":742,"date":"2008-11-05T01:31:09","date_gmt":"2008-11-05T05:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/?p=742"},"modified":"2008-11-05T01:35:17","modified_gmt":"2008-11-05T05:35:17","slug":"being-played-by-electronic-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/2008\/11\/05\/being-played-by-electronic-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Played by Electronic Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my opinion, game, game, game and again game<\/em> by Jason Nelson is aggravating.\u00a0\u00a0There isn’t one aspect of this work that appeals to me.\u00a0 Regardless of the statement it makes, I would never want to engage it again, and I probably would not recommend it to anyone.\u00a0 Unlike Hamlet<\/em>, Othello<\/em>, Romeo and Juliet<\/em>, and the Bible<\/em>-one of the most enduring works of all time and a work that Nelson ridicules-game, game, game and again game <\/em>most likely will not stand the test of time.\u00a0 (I couldn’t stand it for 15 minutes.)\u00a0 Related to our class, I find myself questioning over and over, what is art?\u00a0 And I keep coming back to my own personal criterion:\u00a0 Does the experience make me a better person?\u00a0 Writers like Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Booker T. Washington, and Harper Lee have contributed to my personal growth and have enhanced my life.\u00a0 I can honestly say that their works have made me a better person.\u00a0 Nelson has the opposite effect on my psyche.\u00a0 He successfully irritates me.\u00a0 I am more attracted to some form of beauty than any form of annoyance.\u00a0 And, yes, I think it is true…beauty is in the eye of the beholder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I appreciate the exposure to textual media, but I can’t help but notice something curious.\u00a0 Electronic literature is not overwhelmingly popular.\u00a0 Most everyone is familiar with Asteroids but not Arteroids<\/em>.\u00a0 Most everyone is familiar with Orson Wells but not Orson Whales.<\/em>\u00a0 When television\u00a0eclipsed radio, the new technology was better and everyone wanted to own a television.\u00a0 I can remember when a high school friend told me that cassette tapes would replace albums.\u00a0 I couldn’t believe it, but within two years, I had purchased a cassette tape case and had filled it with cassettes.\u00a0 I am building a personal library of books that I love-Shakespeare, the Bible<\/em>, Anna Karenina<\/em>, To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>, etc.\u00a0 I want to include all of Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespeare films in my DVD collection, but…I don’t think\u00a0I will\u00a0include\u00a0the Bomar Gene <\/em>or game, game, game and again game.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Today, when we discussed the difference between conventional games and counter games, I (finally!) began to see that many of the game related works we have explored are deliberately the antithesis of what I naturally expect and enjoy.\u00a0 I guess I’m a little slow, but this finally helps answer another question I have frequently asked myself, “WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS?!”\u00a0 Art that is counter to the norm has a more jarring effect than art that conforms to the norm.\u00a0 Prof. Sample used the term upside down related to counter games.\u00a0 Shakespeare employed an upside down device in his works.\u00a0 It is called topsy-turvy (referred to in I Henry IV.i.83) and dates back to Saturnalia.\u00a0 So, this is a technique that has proved to be effective in art through time.\u00a0 (In the Hunchback of Notre Dame<\/em>, Victor Hugo employs the same idea related to the Feast of Fools.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Electronic literature definitely turns things around and shakes things up.\u00a0 Sometimes it’s dizzying!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just in case anyone is interested in exploring the topic, Leo Tolstoy wrote an essay entitled “What is Art?”\u00a0 Excerpts can be found on-line at\u00a0 http:\/\/www.csulb.edu\/~jvancamp\/361r14.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my opinion, game, game, game and again game by Jason Nelson is aggravating.\u00a0\u00a0There isn’t one aspect of this work that appeals to me.\u00a0 Regardless of the statement it makes, I would never want to engage it again, and I probably would not recommend it to anyone.\u00a0 Unlike Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and the … Continue reading Being Played by Electronic Literature<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":745,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}