Playtime

PLAYTIME! PLAYTIME! PLAYTIME! PLAY

The games we play and why we play them.

BY Eduardo Gutiérrez Peña ILLUSTRATION XingXing Shou DESIGN Isaac McKenna

he circle comes together when the mestre in creativity. Most play is relatively inexpensive, yet

Tsounds the berimbau, producing a buzzing whenever I engage in more formal creative pursuits, sound unlike any other percussion instrument. I have always been deterred by the cost. I felt that I Para-na-weyyyyy, para-na-wey para-na, by my needed money to buy pigments to paint or a marble third capoeira class I had managed the refrains of one block to sculpt. Discouraged, I continued with writing of the songs and some basic steps. Our mestre fills in and running, two activities that were facilitated by my between the students singing, “Parana parana quando school and had few financial deterrents (a pair of shoes, eu era menino paraná eu era muito feio paranáaa” a pen, paper, and a library card are all you need). (when I was a child I was very ugly). It took me a few While having money could buy me the brush, I lessons to learn that my instructor was, for the most would still have to focus on a craft in order to underpart, improvising; my Portuguese was improving! The stand the bounds, and to break them. There are rules atabaque provides the bass to the berimbau’s whiny to writing as well, demonstrated most actively by call, and the game is set. grammar and punctuation, but those rules are in place

I took classes in Rio and Salvador and found the as the backbone for expression. In writing, rules are language around capoeira interesting. “Jogar” is the meant to standardize written communication. But verb attached to “capoeira,” meaning play. However, rules can also establish boundaries—and from boundthe verb takes on a life of its own and “jogar” becomes aries, play can be made. The sonnet and the haiku have the stand in for capoeira—a mixture of martial arts and some of the most rigid structures in written language, dance. Most capoeira games are just contactless spar- and yet the challenge of complying with the rules ring; however, a takedown is still possible in games, births innovation in imagery: word play. and an unexpected kick that stops inches from the In other ways, however, rules can restrict creativity. head is essentially a checkmate. Before and during high school, so much of my writing

Play enables us to embody different positions seemed governed by the rules of school. I was taught and strategies that would not be available to us any to analyze novels and poems, but not the process of other way. When engaging in play, we agree to logics making books and art. I remember being frustrated in different from those in day-to-day life, new rules my high school English class because other students that reflect elements of society (such as chess, cards, had learned grammar and punctuation since elemenand royal hierarchy). In social deduction games like tary school, and I thought my lack of knowledge of mafia, positions such as trickster, angel, or narrator the written word made me lesser. Later on, I realized provide the opportunity for people to shine or perish that not all college professors are English professors within these roles. I think of play as an experiment and learned that I could throw specific punctuation

PLAYTIME! PLAY

and grammar away until it seemed relevant to me of his own stiffness. Through his reflection, Richman My dad recently deleted Farmville from his phone, but again. At the forefront of my essays in college were my is able to separate himself from his edgy twentysome- he also expressed real concern for his virtual sheep. ideas, which made studying those same punctuation thing identity in order to follow those inklings of inspi- These games and forms of entertainment aim not to and grammar rules much more interesting. Rules and ration. My favorite part of the song is that you can hear teach us new things but to temporarily calm our anxiformalities are always there, but it is through engaging his mouth curling into a smile as he sings it. He knows eties around our productivity and output. The tasks with play that we learn how to dismantle the tools we his effect on the audience, but more importantly, he in the game become an elaborate to-do list and serve use to express ourselves. By engaging in new mediums genuinely enjoys the unique moment that he shares as a form of escapism into a world that we are already (such as a poem, or a novel, or a sport), we agree to with his audience. These instances are unique to live familiar with. Video games that attempt to recreate both put ourselves in a box and understand that box in performance, but Richman invites the audience into the dynamics of play are not seen as “adult games.” order to find its strong and weak sides and, ultimately, his story and even plays with the structure of the song Firewatch and other games serve as “walking simulaescape it. in order to compare what he saw as artistry before and tors” that guide a player through a story coupled with now. Embodying the opposite of the “stiffness” he exploration. Play in this sense becomes the solution to +++ sings about, he inverts ideas of what a musical artist is productivity and consumption. We are content with and how one should present oneself when addressing the objects already in our possession; we come to play I started therapy in high school and was deeply suspi- an audience. with what we have rather than use play to imagine what cious of it. I was 17 at the time and I remember being so I artfully dodge a spin kick to the head, but in my we don’t. worried about losing my edge—the source of my ideas crouching position, I feel the foot that I thought flew The few rules in capoeira leave room for interpreand creative output. As a poor kid in private school, I over me hinge into my ankle and just like that, I’m on tation. Everyone has their own style drawn from a host felt that my worth was measured by what I produced, my ass. of inspirations. Some take their lessons from a previous and my attachment to that production soothed the pain mestre, but inspiration can be found anywhere. In of feeling different. My hope was that if I could make +++ Rio, monkeys scampering on power lines might make things that explained who I was, then others would their way into a defensive escape in a game. There’s understand me. Living by this mentality, I believed Play is very intense. We engage most in play when no telling if your experimentation is going to work out that I could avoid the catastrophic possibility that we are children, still creating order out of the chaos until you face an opponent. someone would dismantle my ideas—and by extension, of the world. Child’s play can be so intense that it is me. My notions of creativity were bound to my fragile often mediated by adults and scheduled through play +++ ego. dates. Children need very little to make play—most

Learning that I could be creative and not sad was don’t need anything: they are able to transform sticks Play is very difficult, it requires commitment to a level a nice but not completely obvious lesson that I took and chalk into imaginative environments. The games of consciousness, even when it hurts. It’s hard to be from therapy. I had looked up to many creatives: Kanye they design can be beautifully simple, or a chaotic constantly attentive and attuned to our surroundWest with a microphone, Albert Camus in his car, Julio spiral of you-can’t-do-thats. Most adults in the United ings in order to rearrange them and make new meanCortazar with cats and a cigarette, and had justified States work for a living and cannot make time for play ings out of them. At 21 years old, I feel as though I am my depressive states with them. Even after joining the the way babies and children do. However, the adult forced to internalize adulthood at a rapid pace. I am Indy, I considered buying clogs and dark clothing to fit brain still longs for play. Numerous occupations still constantly learning about this world and yet have come in. I felt that my pain was caused by a reason that could require creative brains for the production of goods to few answers. In order to grow up we become numb not be understood by my classmates, and in search of and services. But most adult playthings serve only to to those things that afflicted us when we were younger: what to be, the mantra of the tortured artist stuck. My temper this longing, without fully addressing it. Many a parent becoming more attached to our new sibling, a idolization of a superficial image of an artist allowed forms of entertainment have long masked as play for middle school rumor. And yet to play in the adult world me to equate the artist's image, represented through adults, but the fundamental difference is that enter- requires us to look at those parts of us, the memories, their public perceptions and works, with their process. tainment is consumptive and not creative by nature. the stories, and transform something out of it. Unguided prior to therapy, I took their attitudes toward The masking of entertainment as play can be There are few things lonelier than marking out our their craft as a prerequisite for the craft. What I later best seen through our phones. We enjoy looking own paths. We spend our entire existence trying to learned is that many of the artists that I love, love play: at our phones and the internet not for the funny or understand and rewrite the rules to the game of life. For Nabokov made chess problems, both Toni Morrison devastating things we might find on those mediums, most of my life, I’ve felt different, whether it was being and Julio Cortazar have compared writing to puzzles, but because we are engaged in the search for those Mexican in a hick town or being poor in private school. and, in one of his recorded standups, Dave Chapelle posts. The refresh swipe can immediately create I would keep my ideas to myself so that they, and subsetalks about a jar full of punchlines that he pulls from a new perspective, suited for us, that is glanced at quently I, would not shatter. And yet, part of learning and makes a joke that must end with that punchline. and quickly ignored. Our phones prompt us to click how to play means playing with others. Collaboration Play for these artists is used as a situational challenge, and press, and they hold our hands through screens, is absolutely essential to play, and sharing knowledge similar to the one faced by the poet or the ancient play- making the internet more manageable. Using games of the rules can even enhance the experience. The wright. These artists use play as a way to visualize their or other apps designed to feed us a soothingly narrow chance to encounter and learn from another is worth mediums, and to exercise their abilities. They are able set of options, we are able to constantly and effortlessly the risk of self exposure. It opens up avenues of inspirato understand their own works in different ways and fit sate our curious brain’s deeper desires to explore and tion and the possibility to inspire. To quote the preface play to the needs of their works. make, surrendering the freedom to create in favor of the art history book Flash of the Spirit, “A tree cannot of blind consumption. Alcohol and many addictive make a forest.” +++ drugs stand in the way of play; they are the antidote to In order to receive my first belt, O bautismo, I must boring conversations and social awareness, they calm play with all of the students and the instructor. We My first capoeira class in Rio was in a basement our minds, rather than excite and engage the brain in make the circle, and I kneel by the mestre to begin. underneath the futsal field at Pontifícia Universidade the way that play does. Addiction reworks the brain’s The wall of sound is directed at me and my opponent. Católica do Rio de Janeiro. After teaching us some priorities, into a narrow trajectory of need and get, Slowly the music takes on the rhythm of my breath and basic kicks, the mestre decided it was time to play disrupting possibilities of new ways of thinking. my heartbeat. Me and my opponent are false mirrors capoeira. I tried to hold onto my position as an unseen Video games pull us into worlds made from a of each other, mimicking each other’s movements with observer, a task impossible in a circle, but conceded collective imagination and let us interact with those an understanding of the peril of a surprise swipe. My that I was expected to participate. I frantically studied worlds. This summer, I played The Legend of Zelda, a body registers exhaustion, but it has not registered the moving bodies, capturing nothing because I did single-player game, with my 13-year-old brother and the demands of the game. Soon, I am spinning and not know what I did not know. Come play they said, no experienced real tension over how we were going contorting in the white space left by the other body, one’s here to embarrass you. about the open world. On his turn, I would get upset we are missing kicks just slightly and on purpose to

I chose a bit of Jonathan Richman, an artist from with him because I wanted him to complete tasks in keep the game going. And then with the beating of the Massachusetts. In his song, “Monologue About order to explore the world, while he was perfectly fine drums, and the choir encircling us, we are caught in Bermuda,'' he sings about being in a “stiff” proto- learning how to cook spicy turnips. I kept egging him to trance and have no choice but to continue the game. punk band until visiting Bermuda and meeting “The complete tasks until he told me he just wanted to enjoy Bermuda Strollers”—a group of geezers in dark glasses the virtual world. I had to check myself in that moment who have a “fat guitar sound” and employ a looser style. and wonder why I was so obsessed with completing EDUARDO GUTIÉRREZ PEÑA B’ 21 bought clogs Richman marks this as the beginning of the end for tasks, completing the game. Many video games for Indy clout. the Modern Lovers, the band that he founded and led, are designed to satisfy a person’s need to complete admitting that The Bermuda Strollers were catchier. things. In many role-playing games, there is the idea In the seven minute song, he humorously refers to of farming, which involves collecting enough game himself in the third person to contemplate the origins skills and currency to advance to a subsequent stage.