Disrupting Monkey, Laughing Raven

Disrupting Monkey, Laughing Raven

Here is a talk about trickster archetypes and games and play that I did in October 2021 for Upsala University’s Transformative Play Initiative. It builds off of ideas I initiated in my 2019 Playful By Design talk at UIUC.

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Magic of the Tricksters’ Dance

This began as an answer to a post from my friend online and game design peer, the awesome Kate Bullock. The question was “What is your magic?” I answered the post but decided to expand on my answer and talk a bit more about my interaction with the world with …

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The Tomorrow That We Dream

What follows are my notes, which make for a rough transcript, of my talk to the University of Kansas’ Digital Storytelling Colloquium from November 4th, 2020. The video can be found here. Opening I’d like to first acknowledge, during the crazy times of this particular election, that we are still …

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On Resilience

I have been told by quite a number of people that I have a certain emotional resilience and a tenacity for working at a problem. I sometimes say that I attribute the development of that particular part of me to years of play tabletop roleplaying games, video games, board games, …

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Rambling Thoughts on Utopias, Speculative Fiction, the Matter of Black Lives

I’m sitting here, in this Covid world, experiencing its emotional ups and downs while I watch all the things that are shaken loose as the slowing down caused by the pandemic, beats the bushes. My mind wanders to my own design process and the things I think are important. The …

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Back on Track

Hi all! I’m very long overdue for an update about my goings on and doings. Last year was something of a whirlwind of stuff. And this year has been an even greater swirl of social change, upheaval, sickness and awakenings. As I’ve been watching the ongoing reports of covid in …

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Reaching

Time for a ramble. My rambling brain is rambling non-stop. It’s my observation that humans have such a wide range of biodiversity and neurodiversity and much of it is oppressed and pathologized by normative culture. Things like skin color, autism, intersex, sexuality, relationship patterns all fall within this. I think …

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Wistful

The sky sighs rain onto asphalt and steel. The distant applause of passing cars celebrate mushrooming umbrellas which sprout from office doorways and wander into the urbane urban stream seeking nourishment. There is a flash, and the sky bellows and roars. It briefly drowns out the mumbling of vehicles dressed …

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