Gaming in libraries

Despite all current and future technology, there are a lot of people in the world who are certain that libraries should be silent places full of books. Just books. They have some compelling arguments about why there shouldn't be music, food, or any other distraction available (God forbid someone uses Facebook on a library computer.)

I wonder what these people would say to the idea that video games have a place in libraries?

Game night at Portland Public Library

In 2009 the ALA released The Librarians Guide to Gaming: An Online Toolkit for Building Gaming at Your Library. Last year the British Library expressed an interest in archiving video games--which is not the same thing as having them available for play, but the British Library lets us play with very few of its nifty things, so it would be on par with the rest of its collection. And in December the first European video game museum was opened: ViGaMus, its goal to "give videogames the cultural, historical and artistic value they deserve." If you want to visit, book a flight to Rome.

Clearly there are also a lot of people in the world who recognize that videos games are not just something kids do to waste their time. With the tremendous amount of creativity and effort that goes into some games, they really are a cultural indicator, the same as any bit of art or literature. The stories have to be written, the characters created, each scene and setting designed and drawn. Of course whatever moral choices that exist and their consequences are indicative of what we as human beings believe and expect. I'm not just talking about role-playing games. The very existence of quick-play apps like Angry Birds, as-realistic-as-possible war games like Call of Duty, and dream games like Guitar Hero says something very loudly about human beings today: how much time they have, their hopes, fears, fantasies, and so forth.

And people recognize the importance of game content. The recent release of RPG Dragon Age 2 inspired praise and condemnation because the developers allowed the main character to "romance" all four main non-player characters (NPCs) regardless of gender. This meant that you could be gay, straight, or bisexual within the game. Homophobics squirmed and complained because one of the male NPCs was "too forward" to their male character (thus making them uncomfortable because it's okay if people are gay but not in front of them please) and a petition was launched by gay gamers calling for the lead writer to be fired because one of the male NPCs was "too forward" to their male character (thus inferring that all gay men are sex-fiends who will throw themselves at anyone. Huh.) This is just one example of how much people care about game content regarding real-world issues. I won't even touch the real-world issues bursting out of Grand Theft Auto.

The "too forward" character. Too hot to handle.

So people recognize these games have cultural significance, and the majority of people will play them sometime, whether at home all weekend or on the smartphone on the way to work. Also, some people have greater access than others--similar to the books we keep available at the library for everyone to read, regardless of income. But does that mean video games should be made available in public libraries? You tell me. I'm undecided. And I haven't even begun to list the problems such as space required, noise levels, costs, etc, let alone that... hey, don't they rot your brain?

Movies for writers: The Best

After last week's rant about Limitless I thought I should be positive about some of the movies for writers that exist out there in the big bad Hollywood world. And surprise surprise, it seems that the most important thing in a movie for writers is... character!

In Stranger than Fiction, Will Ferrell is Harold Crick, a quiet man who begins to hear a voice in his head that he identifies as his narrator. It describes every aspect of his life from the mundane (brushing his teeth, walking to work) to his feelings for full-of-life Ana Pascal, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. The idea that he is a character in a book is taken with a surreal lack of fanfare, and his search for his author is fascinating as well as touching.

It's great for authors for the investigation into what makes a good story, and whether an author must follow the formula or if they can abandon it to save a beloved character. And then of course for one amazing moment: when Harold finally finds his author and they come face to face. The look on the author's (Emma Thompson's) face is perfect, and it has every writer in the audience wondering, What if I met my character? Would I recognize them like that? What would I do?

Well, what would you do?

Let's ignore that this film was a book first, shall we? It's simpler that way. The Neverending Story sees schoolchild Bastian bullied and unhappy until he hides away in his school's spooky attic (why did my schools never have an incredible attic like this one?) with a very special book. Not only does he get to read the adventures of Atreyu in a fantasy world, but his involvement with the story grows so that he isn't just reading, he's creating the story. Atreyu isn't on his own: Bastian is the real hero. His heroism in the story spills over into real life so he defeats his bullies with newfound courage... and the help of a Luck Dragon.

Not only is this fable for how children (and imaginative adults!) read great books, it's about how a book isn't alive until the readers give it life. As a reader it makes me fondly remember every time I became a hero in the pages of favourite books. As a writer it makes me want to write a book that creates new heroes.

Adaptation begins with Charlie Kaufman sitting at his keyboard, trying desperately to write and wondering if he has an original idea in his head. He's adapting Susan Orlean's book The Orchid Thief into a movie. He doesn't know where to start. He worries about his life and whether a muffin will help him write. He promises himself a treat if he writes. He puts his hands on the keys. He takes them off again. Repeat.

Charlie agonizes over every detail and we hear it. He puts himself into his story and he changes the characters and their careers, and we see it all happening around him: he's writing his adaptation, and also the one we're watching. His paranoia is weirdly endearing because it's recognizable in every writer. This is someone who cares so much about their writing it dominates every moment of their life, even when they should put it away. His brother Donald (also played by the surprisingly talented Nicholas Cage) attends screenwriting seminars that promise to make everything very easy, and it drives Charlie crazy, because it shouldn't be easy. Yet finally Charlie gives in and goes to one of the seminars, giving us this brilliant moment when he asks the expert about his story, "What if nothing happens?" The expert replies:

"Nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your fucking mind? People are murdered every day. There's genocide, war, corruption. Every fucking day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every fucking day, someone, somewhere takes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love, people lose it. For Christ's sake, a child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman. If you can't find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don't know crap about life! And why the FUCK are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie? I don't have any use for it! I don't have any bloody use for it!"

Charlie says, "Okay, thanks."

This is such a great movie for writers it almost fails as a movie. The latter part of it is supposedly written by the other brother and changes from a literary meander to a bewildering thriller. The lessons aren't learned by the characters so much as Charlie, the writer. By the end of it we know nothing about Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, but everything about Charlie Kaufman. That's kind of the point, and and it's kind of a weakness, but completely a strength.

Welcome to the confusing world of writing.

Any other favourite movies for writers out there?

Movies for writers: Limitless

This weekend I saw the film Limitless. It has a great premise: a guy who can't get it together discovers a wonderdrug that unlocks the other 80% of his brainpower, and then he can't lose. But to begin with, the guy's a writer. So I have some opinions about that. (Spoilers below.)

It starts out with a voice-over: our hero saying something like, "Here I am a few months ago. What kind of person looks like this by choice? A writer." He's got longish unbrushed hair and his clothes make him look like a homeless person. He seems tired and depressed. His girlfriend leaves him for being useless, and it is revealed that he has somehow acquired a book deal (for an unnamed kind of book: fiction? non-fiction? who knows) without having written a word of the book. We get a montage of him sitting in a room ("The trick is to stay in the room!" he says, proving he's been Googling writerly quotes like the rest of us) doing everything but writing while the cursor blinks on his laptop screen.

At this point I don't mind. Considering that as I write this post my hair is long and unbrushed, I'm in my bathrobe and I don't even have a book deal, how can I mind? And there's a great exchange between him and his brother in law, who asks, "Are you still trying to write?" Owch. Too accurate to offend.

It's when he takes the pill that troubles start. One of the first things he says is, "Now I know what I have to do, and it isn't writing. It isn't books." And then he plays the stock market to make some money, has sex with a lot of willing women, and eventually goes into politics.

I'm not offended as a writer because the slacker job was writing and the brainy job was politics. I'm offended as a human being who understands character. It makes sense that the first thing he wants to do is make money, because that's just obvious for anyone wanting to live in his world. Make some money, then do your thing. And the sex, well, no comment there. But how much sense does it make that a guy who let the rest of his life go to waste for the sake of his writing would decide, once all his brainpower had been unlocked, to go into politics? Does that require the same personality type at all? It seems more like he had a personality change a well as a brain-boost. And I'm sorry, but are we pretending that very intelligent people want to be politicians now? Does that ever happen? Think of the smartest person you know. Do they want to rule the world?

Despite its great premise, Limitless comes across like a story written by a non-writer. Not just because our hero doesn't seem to care anything about his writing once he's smart, but also because he seems determined to fit into whatever the masses think is a smart activity rather than whatever he might have thought if he'd had a real personality. I was disappointed, in case that wasn't clear. I give the film two out of five coffee cups.

What do you think? If you're a writer, and if you were given a chance and a few more braincells, would you give up this slacker life and run for Prime Minister/President?