C. Thi Nguyen on what he calls “stupid games”:
Stupid games have the following characteristics: first, they are only fun if you try to win; and second, the most fun part is when you fail.
His examples are Twister, Telephone, Bag on the Head (?), and “most drinking games.”
I love the idea of stupid games just in general, and specifically as they relate to the argument C. Thi Nguyen makes in Games: Agency as Art: that games are an art form in the medium of doing, voluntary struggle in pursuit of an otherwise unnecessary goal.
Am I only now realizing that, under this argument, Edward Fortyhands is a work of art? I counter with — why wouldn’t it be? William McGonagall “gained notoriety as an extremely bad poet” according to Wikipedia. Are his poems not art, just because they’re bad?
His bio continues, “who exhibited no recognition of, or concern for, his peers’ opinions of his work.” Is that not the truest, most artistic spirit one can have in approaching their own work?
This revelation is actually, physically affecting me. I don’t know what to do with all of this energy. Let my legacy be Mona Lisa Fortyhands. Let it be Sailing to Disaster.