braindump

or, things I thought about and liked this week

I need a haircut.

Never trust a man who needs a haircut.

Every once and a while my memory tunnels back through the decades and spits me out at some random moment in time.

This morning, the phrase a day in the life of a poolshark popped in my head and I kept repeating it not really knowing why. Then, just ten minutes ago, I remembered this song from this band that probably no one else remembers, let alone ever knew existed. I mean, they’re not particularly good and even this song isn’t really that good, though it does pin me lepidopterally to the seventeen year old maniac I once was.

Been a hectic week over here, which is a good way to describe every week since the end of February.

an update about a baby and a hospital

I don’t ever really have time to do anything and yet I need to keep doing things. And so I run from place to place, do this and that, and never feel like I’m accomplishing much. Of course, this is pretty typical of the newborn lifestyle so it’s not exactly a surprise. But you forget. You think you’ll have more control this time partly out of hubris and partly because you simply forgot.

Now I hold my newborn while I play Elden Ring while everyone else sleeps. I’ve never played more than an hour of a FromSoft game, so it’s been a steep learning curve of dying, dying again, and finally dying better. There is a generative narrative to all this death and determination, where every victory feels both earned and expansively ecstatic.

So I lay back, bairn on my chest, while I swing my silly sword and cast my nervous spells and sometimes the rapid racing of my heart literally wakes him up.

The game is thrilling in a way that’s different from any other game I’ve played. Because, sometimes, it’s often kind of boring. There’s an emptiness to the world. You could say the same thing of Hyrule in any Zelda game (especially Breath of the Wild), but Hyrule feels more home to me, and more emotional. The landscape of Hyrule sings its melancholia into the air.

Elden Ring has a similar flavor but I feel still a stranger in it. Though there’s one extremely cool experience about playing this game. It has to do with owning a space.

I’ll try to explain.

When you first enter an encounter in Elden Ring, you’ll probably die. The game is designed to just ravage you at the start to teach you an important lesson about the game. And so, later, when you encounter other enemies, you’re playing conservatively. And this persists even now, some ten plus hours into the game. When I enter a new area or come across a new type of enemy, I skulk and cower, trying to suss out whether it’s going to annihilate me or if I have a shot at winning.

You die. You die again. You die better. Then, finally, you succeed and you stand over this enemy, excited by your own accomplishment. At a certain point, however, you gain a sort of confidence with these enemies. You no longer cower and creep behind them but jog right up to them, dance about with your silly sword, until you take them out without getting hit.

Now you own this space. It’s gradual and full of trial and error, but there’s a heady sensation, now, to just walking into encounters without fear. Like I’m playing Mario instead of this bizarre and brutal game.

I didn’t mean to talk about Elden Ring, but I guess I couldn’t help myself. It’s that kind of game.

I keep listening to this cover, too, because it sure is pretty.

J David Osborne 🦌 @brbjdo

In a few months I'll be dropping my first attempt at sci-fi fantasy. It's inspired by Miike, Akira, Winter's Bone, and Elden Ring. This is the most fun I've had writing in a while. Which is the whole goal, just making the coolest shit I can think of. Cover by @TonyMcMillen

My good friend J David Osborne has a new book coming out this year. It’s a good year for lovers of weird independent art made in Oklohoma. Particularly of interest to me with this cover art is that I have been stuck on this image for almost a decade. I don’t think I’ve ever told him about this obsession with antlered people, so it’s funny to see it pop up spontaneously in someone else’s art.

I keep writing stories about growing cities out of mushrooms because I once read something at some point about using fungi as building material. Ever since then, I’ve been sort of obsessed with the idea of growing cities, bioluminescent and biodegradable. Everyone is named Crow or Coyote and I’m telling stories about a future pope and a version of catholocism that feels more ancient than modern. Which is to say, a more flexible and diverse form of ritual and ecclesiastics.

I dream of antlered skulls and people wearing masks.

Also, been reading those Elena Ferrante books everyone was raving about years ago and, boy howdy—they good. I’ll probably write something about them after I finish them all and watch the TV show. But I’ll say this now:

Wiley Dufresne was often a guest judge on Top Chef (the best reality show) and though his culinary career was defined by innovation and experimentation with form and flavors, he was most blown away as a judge when a contestant made him the perfect omelette.

If you’re not sure how what that has to do with Elena Ferrante then just wait a while for me to write this thing, because, right now, I don’t know how to say it better than the perfect omelette.

And I think about this often: the perfect omelette. Especially as I begin to teach myself how to make a videogame. I’m prone to wild ideas and kitchen sinking stories and novels, so it’ll be a new kind of challenge to focus and try to execute one or three things perfectly, rather than assault you with a conceptual storm to keep you always slightly off balance.

And so how do we get to the perfect omelette?

The same way we get anywhere in life: just shut your eyes and run forward and hope you only stumble a little bit and don’t break your nose on a brick wall.