Another thing we learned as children is that nothing is more important than fun - not eating or sleeping, not getting well or doing work. Nothing.
The reason it's so easy to forget - from the time we go to school we're taught, patiently and repeatedly, that there are always other things to do first, before we can have fun. Things like: cleaning out desks, filling out worksheets, doing homework. And as we get older, there are just more and more of these things that have to be done before we can have fun - get a job, find a spouse, build a house. And then eventually there are so many of these things that we simply forget why we were doing them in the first place.
Until we get old enough to retire, and finally there's so little else to do, that just maybe, if we're lucky enough, something'll finally remind us: Everything's done. Now. Now we can have it. Yes now we can have fun.
I wrote the following to a colleague, Bruce Williamson, who, like me, after 30 years of teaching people to play and play to people, finds himself oft-despairing about the apparent challenges of continuing on this path.
In this nut's shell - I think it's all packaging. Has nothing to do with who we aren't and everything to do with who we are. What we have, as elders, is a wisdom that's not available to youth, and consequently, not that easily recognizable as a thing worth caring about. Everyone wants to become more playful, to play more. Elders. Youngsters. And when they get to see what marvels of playfulness we "elders of play" have to offer (because some product we have made has somehow semi-magically found its way to them), they are delighted, excited, inspired.
I think this culture has different assumptions than the culture we grew up with. But the humanity hasn't changed. The need to play hasn't changed. So we have to, you and I, find other ways to do what we are, other ways to share that with people. Like maybe podcasting. Like maybe CDs. Performances. Theatre. Like maybe a different audience in a different guise.
I think we just have to play on, you and I, and not let go. Not ever.
Now that I have to go into an actual city every actual week, I find myself thinking more often about the strangely harsh realities of people in other cities, like in Baghdad. Which is why I am so tickled by my latest, and arguably silliest creation: BERNIE DEKOVEN'S POLITICALLY CORRECT ANTI-TERRORIST DEVICE
Yes, that's correct, politically-speaking, you, too, can now feel smug and secure as you descend into the turmoil and terror of everyday city life, simply by wearing your completely Official, Bernie DeKoven, More Than Reasonably Polite, Anti-Terrorist Device.
Save yourself, correctly, for only $1.75 plus shipping and stuff.
And, should you find yourself experiencing an even more altruistic bent, consider buying a hundred of 'em and sending them all to the next Mid-East Peace Talks.
Linkity is a fast-action word / card game from Simply Fun that is most definitely FUN in a Major kind of way.
The deck consists of 81 cards. Each card has a single letter on it, along with a cartoon of a letter-shaped bugs. Why bugs? According to the manufacturer, there is "no particular reason - we just liked the bugs." Players are dealt hands of 7 cards. After the first card is played, players compete to put the next card down - while saying a word that starts with the letter on the card, and is related to whatever word the previous player used. Let's say Tamara starts with the letter "A" and say "Apple." Let's say Rick throws down his "S" card and says "Slice." And then Celia, throwing down her "G" card says, naturally, "Golf." See, the word "Golf," though having nothing to do with the original word "Apple," can be demonstrably linked to the word "Slice." Hence the name of the game: Linkity.
Each player (3-8) begins a round with seven cards. Players don't take turns, they simply go as soon as they can think of a contextually appropriate word that starts with a letter that appears on one of their cards (though you can only put one card down per turn) and has something to do with the word just said. And yes, of course, players can challenge each other (greatly adding to the intrigue and potential silliness of play). The first player to use all her cards wins the round. The rest are penalized one point for each card remaining in their hands. A full game requires three rounds and takes maybe a half-hour.
Since there are no turns, you really have to think fast, and often creatively in order to win. It's this creativity-under-pressure that adds both to the hilarity and intensity of the game, and adds to the temptation to try words that aren't quite exactly, well, linked. Which adds correspondingly to the party-like spirit of the whole game.
When playing for the first time, disregard the first round. This gives everyone a chance to get a good understanding of the slightly subtle concept that a word needs only to relate to the immediately preceding word. The game works best when players are of roughly equal ability. So, if there are kids around, let them play their own game. They deserve it.
There are two kinds of Childhood Truths, and one of them is eternally true, true as any other kind of truth, adult or divine.
It's that kind, the childhood kind that are true forever, that form the basis for Deep Fun.
It's the kind of truth that was taught to me, when I was a child, addressing my Inner Adult. Truths I promised to remember and defend with a maturity of purpose beyond my years.
I wrote a little article about it. About the a certain kind of truth we learn as children - I guess you'd call it a "youth truth" - that is eternally true. True beyond childhood. Beyond adulthood even. True unto death.
This is the first time I've said anything about my work having anything to do with children, publicly, at least. My life in games has focused heavily and fairly consistently on adults. Yea, the very formation of the Games Preserve and my involvement with organizations like the New Games Foundation and institutions like the Esalen Institute, have all been firmly rooted in play as something for adults to do together, with each other - something true, and meaningful, and empowering, and loving, and safe and often hilarious. And all that time, I've had to struggle against the notion that what I'm doing and asking other people to do is, well childish. From my perspective, Deep Fun has always been a profoundly adult experience.
But, the fact is, that what I've learned about play I learned mostly when I was a child, addressing my Inner Adult while my Outer Child was busy at play. Eternal truths of eternal youth, true beyond all the untruths and half truths of childhood. And as an adult who plays with other adults in most adult-like manners - professionally, even - it was one of the last things I wanted to admit, that all this is based on, rooted in, what I've been able to learn from children.
But today, when I looked at the Deep Fun site, and at Junkyard Sports and at Major Fun, the truth was unavoidable. All the truths about play and life that I teach as an adult, I learned as a child and learn still from children. And what I have best learned as an adult, is how to teach them to other adults.
"Learning from Children." It's what I've done, been doing. Learning from Children about play. And the people I've been touched most deeply by are those very people who also learn from children, from childhood. Which led me to one of the most giggly Googles I've ever experienced, to find suddenly how connected my work in play has been, to so many disciplines, and to people who write articles like these:
Learning From Children "Spend time with children. Learn more about laughter, spontaneity, curiosity, acceptance, resilience, trust, determination, and your imagination. They are here to teach us!"
Being Playful - learning from children - Check out this wonderful abstract: "This paper explores children's understanding as a resource and inspiration for interface design and beyond. From children we can understand innate intelligences and skills, including a sense of number and the nature of play. Play is possibly one of the origins of imagination, which in turn is essential for our own creative thought. Surprisingly few adults engage in creative play, but it is when adult-like rationality and child-like imagination meet that we can best produce effective and innovative solutions. Even writing a paper has aspects of playfulness, such as the puzzle of phrasing an abstract in exactly one hundred words... or so"
TEACHING THE WAY CHILDREN LEARN "Constructivist classrooms operate on the premise that learning in school need not, and should not, be different from the many rich natural forms of learning that students have experienced before they have ever entered the corridors of a school. "
Stand by. My course with Tracy Fullerton at the USC School of Cinema/Television CTIN 534: Experiments in Interactivity I has a blogsite. The first class meets this Thursday. I go to lolly and gag with the fortunate few in the name of better games and more fun, of spontaneity and improvisation and a grade.
In the mean time, the blog awaits. Complete with syllabus. Hyperlinked.
"Cirque du Soleil began with a very simple dream. A group of young entertainers got together to amuse audiences, see the world, and have fun doing it. Every year, the audiences get bigger, we continue to discover new places and ideas and we're still having fun." - Founder's Message
Here's another contribution to our growing understanding of playfulness - a commentary by the evermore colleaguial Roger Greenaway. I quote it in its totality. Why post it in it's entirety again? The answer will be obvious momentarily:
"Today's playfulness message reminds me of something I was reading yesterday from the Praxis Peace Institute: '...peace requires an active and conscious co-creation process. It is not a passive state or a pause between wars; consequently, peace cannot take root in a passive environment.'
"The connection I make is that playfulness is not the absence of something like work, seriousness or depression (Brian Sutton-Smith's opposite of play) but is 'an active and conscious co-creation process.' Of course, the suppression of play can be equally conscious - in Roald Dahl's Matilda, the monstrous bullying teacher, Mrs. Trunchbull, says: 'Me a baby! How dare you! I was never a baby!'
"We have a culture in which the language of parents and teachers discourages play. I have been trying to do the opposite. One small step, as a teacher, was refusing to call 'recess', 'break' or 'interval' anything but 'playtime' - a word that most teenage children associate with primary school. At one of the first primary schools I visited as a student teacher all the teachers including (and especially) the headteacher would go out into the playground at playtime and play with the children. I thought this was the norm. Unfortunately it was just a wonderful exception!"
"My inner playground was getting pretty interesting when I realized that gravity, scale, color and sound could be controlled by me in an instant"
Some new rides for your "personal playground" from friend and artist Bob Gregson:
"My inner playground was getting pretty interesting when I realized that gravity, scale, color and sound -- and whatever else -- could be controlled by me in an instant. I could play hide and seek with my tiny two selves on my shirt as I sat in the dentists chair (I hid in a crease and almost slipped off but was able to grab onto a button). Also, the walls and ceiling could be manipulated (I squeezed the hygenist into a corner -- the naughty Bob). Then I escaped out the window and enlarged myself -- with each foot placed on the top of a trailer truck going down the highway. Thank goodness they were going about the same speed! I also found myself in some silly spaces of my own invention -- or twirling mirrors to see who would be reflected when they stopped -- whoever might pop into my head (Ed Sullivan? Grandma Moses? Captain Crunch?...and why them?!)."
BERNIE DEKOVEN'S POLITICALLY CORRECT ANTI-TERRORIST DEVICE
Linkity
The deck consists of 81 cards. Each card has a single letter on it, along with a cartoon of a letter-shaped bugs. Why bugs? According to the manufacturer, there is "no particular reason - we just liked the bugs." Players are dealt hands of 7 cards. After the first card is played, players compete to put the next card down - while saying a word that starts with the letter on the card, and is related to whatever word the previous player used. Let's say Tamara starts with the letter "A" and say "Apple." Let's say Rick throws down his "S" card and says "Slice." And then Celia, throwing down her "G" card says, naturally, "Golf." See, the word "Golf," though having nothing to do with the original word "Apple," can be demonstrably linked to the word "Slice." Hence the name of the game: Linkity.