Writing

When your kids lose teeth, they may be inclined to write extensive letters to the tooth fairy, making specific requests or posing questions. While this is an endearing act to be sure, you’ll want to stop short of penning a false reply. Instead, see this as an opportunity to educate your children about the era of universal corporate bureaucracy, cost-cutting, temporary… read more

Christopher Schaberg and Mark Yakich have written a lovely little book called Checking in/Checking Out, about air travel. It’s a two-sided book meant to be read from both ends. Schaberg’s side is about his experience working for United in Bozeman, Montana, and Yakich’s is about his attempts to overcome a fear of flying. It’s charming and as lovely to hold… read more

Tod Papageorge shared with me a talk Garry Winogrand gave at MIT in 1974, which he (Papageorge) introduced. An audio recording from the University of California Riverside’s archive captures much of the lively question and answer period, which included a wealth of fantastic material. Here are two of my favorites: A photograph has to be rational. It has to be… read more

Apropos of two of Levi’s recent posts about materialism and fictions, I thought I’d share this excerpt from an interview with photographer Tod Papageorge. He’s responding to a question about the need for photography to have a moral responsibility, something Susan Sontag had suggested. It’s always been puzzling to me that capacious minds like Sontag’s, to say nothing of those… read more

Popular game enthusiast site Kotaku just published an article by my friend and game writer Leigh Alexander, about my last two games, Cow Clicker and A Slow Year. My good friend Frank Lantz makes several appearances. I guess I’m not going to say much more about the article, except that I hope you’ll go read it.

Lately I find myself talking a lot about contemporary “misuses” of computer media. That is, about trends that make partial use of the properties of such media, or that (in my view) mistake some less interesting, less promising, or less relevant set of properties as primary. For example: treating the microcomputer as a mere network appliance rather than as a… read more

Two seemingly unrelated things happened to me yesterday, which further reflection revealed to have surprising connections. First, I spoke on a panel at the Online News Association conference about games and news. Julia Schmalz (now of Bloomberg, formerly of USA Today) and Rajat Paharia (of gamification vendor Bunchball) were the other panelists. I presented my approach to newsgames and offered… read more

Via University of New Mexico-based philosopher Iain Thomson, this recruitment video Sony Pictures Imageworks commissioned to help their Cali-bred brethren open up to the idea of moving to a new satellite office in Albuquerque. As someone who grew up in Albuquerque and worked with various divisions at Sony Pictures Entertainment, for me this video offers a strange blend of two… read more

I’d previously shown you Leo Burnett Sydney CEO Todd Sampson advertising a popupar Australian TV show called The Gruen Transfer, about advertising techniques, while wearing a Cow Clicker t-shirt. Here’s a shot of Sampson on last week’s episode, in which he proudly dons the shirt. You can watch the whole episode online for another week or so. Tune in at… read more