The Odd Communion: TRPGs, Poetry, Videogames, virtualworlds and more Andrea Coates

My next project for Pittsburgh is to have writers write about videogames. In general I think pop culture subject matter makes a poem fresh. It's relatable and it's not flowers or valleys and like I spend 2/3 of my day staring at a screen, so.

I live in a world most defined by the commercialsprawl thing that Andrea Coates talks about here*. Products, logos, not necessarily all bent to sell me things because the machine throws sparks, too. Nothing's perfect, and not too many people are at the helm.

In this popmedia sprawl lies video games, commercial structures included. Is it just my particular ///sidenote: check out this Andrea quote and the future of Alt Lit as it does not exist sadly:

http://www.fvckthemedia.com/issue43/feminarkist

In this popmedia sprawl, as I was saying, exists a fun and potentially valid future venue of art called gaming; the ultimate V.R. experience which is as well the future "3d experience" of other various digital medias. To a lesser extent, i.e. the poetry's equivalent, lies role-playing games, those on the tabletop, involving paper and pencils.////

///Ok, for the record, here's my life experience right now: I loaded up, on my twin brother's advice, the Donald Glover short film "Clapping For The Wrong Reasons" to watch as I wrote this piece. Somehow the video ended up paused and an Andrea Coates poem, Dear Shane Smith, started playing on Soundcloud in a background tab. Little did I know of any of this, as I thought the still image of Don Glover lying in bed while Andrea Coates' growly revolutionary message played in the background was, having not recognized the voice of A.C., that this was the actual Don Glover film. I thought it was pretty good.    ....All this while I try to type and simultaneously load up the Arcane Kids' faux-virtual-reality Soundcloud/Unity webdevice.... My computer threatens to crash. All my blogging may delete. I'm running a Chromebook which has very little RAM. You may begin to get a sense of the strained techno-interpersonal connections of my life. A.C. begins screaming as I try to pause the Don Glover movie which doesn't seem to be actually playing, the whole façade begins falling apart as the computer does crash, and I'm left with a digital silence at least along with my writing which was not deleted. This as I sit in my parent's house 1 year after a 5-year college english-degree completion with little-to-nothing to do during my 15-hour workweek. I can't write poetry because no one cares. I type up a blogspot.////

The obsession that has entered my life lately is the rpgs as made by Zak Smith, Patrick Stuart, James Raggi: Lamenations of the Flame Princess. A stripped-down version of D&D meant to semi-emulate original-edition D&D but built with more horror in mind. Kinda eldritch, kinda disempowering, kinda simple character creation to replace the dead characters who died fighting that evil thing at 1st level.

I find communion in these objects -- gametexts, online virtual webtoys, and yeah I guess videogames themselves-- when they occasionally create cohesion between individuals, as opposed to the more regular solitary cohesion between individual and produkt. I mean the online gaming experience, with its modulated microphone voices ringing through virtual death machines, these, your friends. I also mean sitting around a table and bullshitting about what you're going to do to a white dragon. There's dice involved, in virtual reality too, and these mechanical components seem to strain-- usefully-- against the more nuanced and forgiving social interactions. You can commit a player to death on the back of lady luck, and similarity, you can stomp a public server of noobs** if you've mastered the art of clicking and clacking fast enough. 

Poetry in these circumstances I think doesn't lie with the storywriting behind the gametexts- virtual or not- or with the social interactions, or with the mechanical interactions. I think the poetry connection lies in the making of love to a machine.  The obsequity of man serving machine, machine pleasing human, in an endless loop for hours. This in a possibly ritualistic formal setting between you and your friends. This is the kinda poetry I'm after, making sense of this digital-mechanical-psychological connection which bounces back and forth in my living room for days at a time. It's an odd communion.

~poetryburgh

*Note that this, the article I wanna talk about, wherein A.C. takes down Tao Lin for  a kind of rampant commercialism which both emodies his work as well as the environment we live in (as millennials, or really everyone on earth), this article has been been made private on Andrea's former blog. This too is the condition of internet literature: temporary publications. Everything is accessible but for limited times! It's hard not to feel as if I'm standing by the edge of grinding pit, digital publications being as vulnerable as they are... some of my favorite writing lost forever... As well it would probably be a good blog post to write about the increasing ability of artists themselves to sequester their own work from the free-online space.

**outdated...

Poetryburgh Reviews Canadian non-poet Andrea Coates's Blog: Watch As I Try to Label it "Insane" In a Good Way

SPRING BREAKERS 2.0: Only God Forgives \\ Trailer - Andrea Coates & Harmony Korine from Andrea Coates on Vimeo.

The above is one of Coates' videos, a near-unwatchable mashup right? Kinda masterfully dense collaboration of her own ideas of celebrity with her music and with pop images. I'm not discussing her videos for this post though, I'm discussing the writing on her blog at thehighwayoftears.blogspot.ca. I just have the above for color. Also if anyone knows more about Coates' current figuring in Canadian culture please email me at peterbowensewebb@gmail.com

Why is Andrea Coates good? She’s a radical, willing to see multiple sides of one issue, including the otherwise “insane” ones. I use the word "insane" not because I believe in insanity as a legit social identifier but because I think people will connect with what I'm talking about when I say it. Is that implicit-ly supporting the label "insane"? Andrea Coates would probably empathize with my use of it.

Coates understands that empathizing with all human beings is the project, and that a general sympathy for all humans isn't just a moral necessity, it's a pathway into interesting ideas:

"Nowhere in modern politics, in Canada or elsewhere - besides here, this blog - will you find an individual or association campaigning for the societal and economic rights of Organized Criminals as such. Which means, to my mind, the “Gangster Human-Rights Advocate” is a political niche waiting to be filled, and, considering I am the first person I know of to point to the absence of an Organized Criminal perspective in the public debate around recreational drug-policies, I think I ought to doodle it in. Not because I personally sell recreationals (rather I hang out with people who do and listen to their stories and give them advice), but because I am willing to take on the difficult task of empathizing with and articulating the position of the professional Organized Criminal in a hypocritical legal culture."

- http://thehighwayoftears.blogspot.ca/p/marijuana-legalization-in-canada-where.html

With the above, the "insane" perspective is a way to examine drug politics. But I also label Andrea as "insane" because you'd identify the celebrity-identification that she does as a common pattern of "insane" people: claiming that celebrities stole ideas from her, calling the owner of VICE her future he-doesn't-know-it-yet-but-he-will-be-my boyfriend; we've all seen enough examples of this practice to dismiss it out of hand. But Andrea uses the practice (self-consciously) to display the rather particular lines of power which draw out from celebrity to individual, and to conjecture the bounds of our current, and possibly future society:

"Shane Smith is letting Tao Lin, Specifically, as the Literary Writer of Highest Rank in the VICE Cotterie, get away with suggesting his Wife / GFs / Crushes for Employment @ VICE over Women of Notable Literary Talent because Shane Smith himSelf harbours a Fantasy of forcing a Literary Woman into the Position of having to Sxually please him for his Attention as an Artist, but SS cannot act on this Fantasy with the Ease Tao can as a Mere Peon of his, because what with Technology xposing People as it does, EveryOne would know about the Affair and it would reflect Poorly on SS as a Boss: so he lives the Fantasy out Vicariously, through Tao Lin, and in doing so attracts the Attention of the Woman he wants to force into this Position, who is me, the First Person to pick up on the Trend @ VICE and get Angry about it, who will subvert the Fantasy and make it reflect Well on Shane Smith and I as opposed to Poorly, by coming up with the Apology Idea: if SS apologizes for VICE’s Misogyny Generally, the Public will forgive him for taking a Mistress, and he can go on accumulating Power in CEOland with Moral Impunity. Coming to an Understanding of how Hierarchy works has been Vital to my figuring out how to subvert Feminine Xploitation : Once Hierarchal Power Relationships are made Visible, it is amazing how Much More Human Activity makes Sense, and how Much Clearer where to apply Pressure to promote Change becomes."

from: http://htmlgiant.com/interviews-2/an-artic-fox-interviews-andrea-coates/

What Andrea does here: proposes a conspiracy between Tao Lin (former prince-king of Alt Lit) and Shane Smith (founder of VICE) wherein the gender power dynamics of the Alt Lit scene and their respective publication through VICE are semi-credibly analyzed. She then proposes, and in fact, predicts herself to be the solution: her own brand of gender-politics and her physical self will caulk Shaun Smith's anxiety and allow for a less misogynistic publication.

This is, again, a move of empathy, twofold: first, she finds an empathetic solution to VICE's misogyny, and second, she legitimizes her own nonentity/celebrity relationship. Empathy for the self is a powerful thing and by drawing a larger obfuscated politics through her own person, Andrea manages to conceive both a potential understanding of VICE as well as a more workable future.  I don't think it matters that this plan is unlikely to work; it's sorta like speculative lit.

~poetryburgh

Cory in The Abyss & The Poet's Meme

Cory in The Abyss, scrolling, gives me the sensation of a long scream of desperation; anxiety; tender moments played through a frustration so immense that they conglomerate into a cultural hellstate. As the Blackness in our culture resides in nothing; as sex is parodied long past the point of an actual sex life; these things are generally dealt with humor, to make the mixture universally palatable; but as this humor is an absurdist humor, the deeper faults of comedy come to the surface, to be solidified into meme.

I think Cory memes form a cogent narrative across the page, as compared to the general splay of something like imgur.com. "Cory" is one particular creator who does have a tone and a business; his message is pop-art burlesque, basically, carnivalesque parody of what's new, what's political, what's lightly taboo. This breaks down in some points to semi-poetic noncommentary, a collage of various cultural bright points into a dream or nightmare upon waking. It's very Lisa Frank.

Cultural significance of The Abyss = the cultural significance of Lisa Frank= image making, with the intent to market. Essentially Cory is "on blast." He's attempting to produce something relatable. Thus his memes are for their own sake. That there is a significant part of cultural commentary in the mix may very well be there just for the appeal. It seems hard to isolate.

Lisa Frank

Cory in The Abyss 

"Cory" himself's a poet. He's going to apply to grad school for poetry. As his greatest success is perhaps in something not-at-all poetry there is perhaps a lot to be said; I would like to say that the cross-cultural connections of poets are particularly potent for being imaginative and for existing in a space where the current culture has to be entirely fled. I would like to embrace "the new" wherever it comes up and I believe that memes as combination of collage and cellular distribution are "new." As a model for poetry they, I think, accomplish some of poetry's greater goals. That being said I feel a great hesitance when confronted with The Abyss; something feels shallow. Where's the next step. A missing depth in the memes. Still searching.

***POETRYBURGH'S VISION FOR THE UNIVERSAL VIRTUAL FUTURE: ***

1,000 people out of work will still do something and if it's not crime it might still look obscene. Let's say goodbye to the era of workmanly cause-and-effect and embrace the era of confounding cultural astigmatism where attention is everything and love evaporates in the deep-settled mines of a forgotten past. Nostalgia overflowing essentially into substance. This before or perhaps after the Matrix gets ahold of us, the dulling effect first thought practical seen to be overridden by enormous leechlike neural networks of blazing paranoia. Can culture itself be reduced to a pure, homeostatic oil? At least in the form of latticed image this seems possible.

~poetryburgh