Art and Abstraction in Waterston's "Clearing"

As someone who has spent a lot of time thinking, reading, and writing about (and listening to) music, I've always struggled to understand the visual arts.  Actually, my problem does not stem from music, but from language.  I'm a linguistic thinker, a slave to narrative and context, a conversationalist and - to the occasional chagrin of companions - a deliverer of monologues that resemble my blog posts.  In short, I am in love with language, with words, with how sentences are constructed and how stories are told and how arguments are made.  Little wonder, then, that I struggle to uncover the meaning of pictures.  "What," I ask, "Does meaning even have to do with it?  Meaning is a linguistic concept, and much art - especially abstract art - is not linguistic.  Whither meaning?"

A part of me wants to believe that modern art isn't supposed to have meaning, but that's clearly not true.  While I certainly cannot penetrate into the hidden meanings of giant blue spots next to giant orange spots, or little red rectangles, or massive canvases painted in a single glossy shade of pink, obviously some people can to the extent that there is a massive modern art community, complete with critics, connoisseurs, and museums sufficient to fuel the careers of a good many artists.  What do those people see, then, in the abstractions of abstract art?  What dialogues do they have?  What narrative is present?  And if not narrative, what emotional content?

You see, much as I am a linguistic thinker, my problem ultimately is musical.  In music - and especially in, for example, Beethoven - there is an undeniable narrative arc, simply because music takes place in time.  Every listener, no matter how tone deaf and/or untrained hears the same fundamental thing in the same order.  The same is true in a novel or a play.*  The story, whether literary or musical, unfolds in a certain way, as determined by the artist.

* Granted, in both music and literature it is possible to get things out of order, but that is not the intent of the composer/writer, usually.  Exceptions like Joyce's Finnegan's Wake - which is just as confusing no matter where one begins or ends - only further support the rule: there is a strong temporal, narrative sense in literature.

In a painting, on the other hand, the experience of the viewer is much more haphazard.  While we have certain tendencies (left to right, top to bottom), any given painting might strike us differently.  Where you might be attracted to the white splotches, I'm drawn to the blue "stars," for example.  While the black spindly branches might strike you as the key to the painting, I might not even regard them as important on first glance.

Being out of time, paintings allow the viewer to revise their initial impressions, of course, but that doesn't change that we remain subtly and heavily influenced by that first brush with the work.  Add in the propensity for art museums to contextualize art with neighboring pieces, with biographical information, or with descriptions of the work in question, and the process of constructing a personal narrative gets very muddled.

Which is not to say that doesn't happen in other media.  Indeed, it happens very much, and such shaping of the narrative is exactly the point of, for example, the Beethoven project that I've undertaken in this space.  What differs, then, is where that narrative comes from, and thus what "understanding" a piece of visual art even means.  Whereas the Eroica Symphony, in my opinion anyway, speaks for itself once you know enough about music theory and a little about history, I'm not necessarily convinced that the same is true in visual arts.

That's not totally fair.  I think that, if I knew more about composition and technique and so on, that works like the one that we are, slowly, coming to would speak to me much more directly.  I suspect, however, that a lot of what they would say would be "this is the style used here, this is the technique, this is the skill," and not "this is the meaning."  Again, this is my bias as a musician, but I feel as though music theory is a way to unlock, yes, compositional techniques, but more importantly, emotional, spiritual, and even political meaning in music.  Is the same true in visual arts, especially the more abstract works of modernity?*  I don't know, but I struggle with the possibility that either answer to that question might be true.

* To be fair, again, we might ask the same question of music, where modern composition has been divided into music for the movies (and TV and commercials and so on) and music that is extremely strange and abstracted.  Maybe the question I'm asking here isn't about art at all, but about modernity (or, I suppose, "post-modernity").  Hmm...

Without further ado - since we've adone enough already - here's the particular painting I want to share and discuss, briefly.  Briefly because I'll struggle to know what to say, for all of the reasons highlighted above.  Nevertheless, I want to share the work because, of all of the many hundreds of pieces of art I say during my recent visit to the bay area, this was the one particular piece that most caught my eye.  Why?  Well, that's the question I want to try to answer.  Here it is:

"Clearing" by Darren Waterston.  Displayed at Cantor Art Museum, Stanford, CA.

The title of the work goes a long way towards shaping the narrative that the viewer - in this case me - constructs.  "Clearing" may be a word with multiple meanings, but it has one particular meaning that strikes me as being the primary - though probably not the only - one intended here.  The black tendrils in this piece are reminiscent enough of branches, and the background enough of a kind of abstracted night sky that, at first blush, "clearing" seems to indicate where you are metaphorically standing as you look at this piece.  The space in the middle of the canvas - with the nebular/amoeba-ish mass and the little blue star-like dots are the night sky from a spot in the forest where the branches part.

I particularly like the sky analogy here because of the figure that looks like a nebula.  While we, perhaps, don't see those massive gas clouds when we look at the night sky, they are there, and this painting in that sense reminds me that, while behind the trees there are stars, behind the stars there are still more things that I do not perceive.  The clearing is, in that sense, only a partial one.

Of course, we still see the branches on either side of the clearing, which further remind us that our view of the space between is constrained.  Consider the second nebula behind the largest of the branches, and you'll see that, though it is just as large, just as complex, and perhaps even more aesthetically pleasing than the more fully visible one, it is also muddled and unimportant thanks to its backgrounding.  Only looking closer do you see that, actually, it is prominent in the narrative of the painting principally because it is partially obscured.

What strikes me most, however, about the painting is the ambiguity of meaning in the symbols.  This work is somewhere in between abstract and representational.  The branches are only just barely reminiscent, the stars not quite the right color, the nebulae a bit too much like water stains.  The random white, blue, and black spots that occupy other spaces in the work may suggest - in the case of the largest one in particular - a not-quite-right moon or other satellites, but they could also be the splotches that occur in a camera when looking near, but not at the sun.

Then again, the painting is too dark to be daytime, but too light to be nighttime.  Dawn or twilight perhaps makes sense, especially with the reddish "cloud" that hands across the top of the painting, but placing the piece temporally almost seems unfair.

It also is unfair to leave the ambiguous symbols with only one interpretation.  The branches could also be briars, I suppose, but are also not unlike the tendrils of a neuron.  Nebula, amoeba, water stain... Why not a ginger root?  And so on.  At a certain point, the representational value starts to break down, and while there are hints and suggestions here, there is clearly no single interpretation that does the painting justice.

Perhaps this is too obvious a point to make, but I'm going to make it anyway: if Waterston wanted to paint a clearing in a forest, with the night sky shining above, I'm sure he could have.  Perhaps, in our sophisticated artistic age, we take for granted that we're not supposed to paint that way (we're not supposed to write music in the romantic style or Petrarchan Sonnets), but that doesn't answer the question at the heart of this post.  What is it that work like this is trying to capture?  Is ambiguity, as such, really the point?  How many works can be about mystery and absence or nebulous meaning before it gets old?  Doesn't art about art have a limit?

In short, the question is "so what?"

And yet maybe that question misses the point, and therefore answers itself.  For some reason this painting spoke to me, not in words, music, emotions, or any other structure that I can access linguistically.  Maybe I'm missing the words, but maybe there simply aren't any, and the "meaning" of art is a nonsensical thing to look for, an artifice we construct because we so much predicate the linguistic.  Understanding isn't what one does with a painting because "understanding" is a word, and words need not apply.  Of course, paintings are (usually) still titled and described, but is that maybe because we're afraid to acknowledge that they might have something profoundly powerful about them that we can't access?

As I've said, I don't know the answers to these questions.  In many ways, writing about art is almost as pointless as writing about language.  If you try hard enough, you're either reduced to talking about structure and technique or you start traveling in logical circles.  In some ways, I think, art drives you there even quicker, because it is so much more urgent than language, so much more removed from our mundane day-to-day experiences.  Looking at a piece like "Clearing," then may not tell me anything, but it certainly disrupts something, and I don't know what.  Maybe that's all that "meaning" means?

Psuedo-Art: Book Titles

I'm fascinated by the modern inclination towards combining mundane things together to make "high art."  You know, like modern art exhibits with microwaves sitting on top of a row of stained coffee mugs, or insanely famous paintings of soup cans.  Far from being offended by the notion that such seemingly random hogwash can pass as artistic, I'm completely sincere when I say I'm fascinated.  Stuff like that is so interesting.

Just as the world of visual art has transformed into something that is neither real, surreal, impressionistic, or any other kind of traditional category, there have been a great many works of music and poetry that do the same thing.  Carson Cistulli's poetry, for example, is the product of a time that has recovered from the fanaticism and occasional incomprehensibility of the beats only to discover that the same spirit is available in much subtler tones.

Perhaps the most understated locus for what we deem - for lack of a better word - "post-modern" art is in the way we title our books.  Gone are the days when a play about a couple of lovebirds is called Romeo and Juliet.  Gone, even are the days when we were satisfied with West Side Story as a retelling.  Now we demand far stranger combinations, which are yet unpretentious.  I think of a book I just finished - a book that is hardly destined for fame or worthy of historical mention.  The book was called Gun, With Occasional Music.

What's most interesting to me is that even mediocre books often have great titles.  Gun, With Occasional Music.  That's one of the most fascinating and compelling titles I've seen, and while the book is entertaining, it could hardly hope to live up to that title.  The cover only makes the title more effective (and yes, that is a kangaroo in a suit).  The fairly standard - sans kangaroo anyway - detective scene here has a title far too mysterious for a mystery.

I'm too disconnected from contemporary literature to dig up the most recent of recent titles, but perusing the nearest bookshelf brings up all kinds of strange and unexpected amalgams of words.  Consider a few, some famous and well-known, others already forgotten:
Insect Dreams: the Half-Life of Gregor Samsa
The God of Small Things
Stripper Lessons
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
A Confederacy of Dunces
House of Sand and Fog

Certainly there have been great book titles throughout history (simple though it may be, War and Peace is about as compelling a title as you'll find), but there's something different in these modern editions.  The cynic might say it's marketing, and I've fallen for the trap, but I don't think that's totally fair.  I think there's more effort put into crafting titles today in part because of the role of sales in the literary world, but also because I think they signal a recognition that books occupy a place somewhere in between the fantastical and the mundane.

A good title, then, is like a good haiku; it surprises, it intrigues, and it creates a whole sense of meaning all its own.  I have not read The God of Small Things, but it still works on my imagination.  And even having finished Gun, With Occasional Music, I can recreate an entirely different meaning from those four words than what the book itself suggests.

Artistic and Cultural Categories

I was recently alerted to a small maelstrom that has consumed certain corners of the Interweb. Roger Ebert - of film criticism fame - decided to take on video games, asserting that they are not and cannot be art. That is to say, they are not merely, in their current state, cave paintings waiting to become, with time and refinement, Rembrandts. They are, instead, some utterly non-artistic enterprise, not necessarily valueless, per se, but certainly not of significant cultural value.

Not surprisingly, there was a fair amount of backlash against Ebert, leading to a kind of retraction. That is, Ebert didn't back down from his position, but he did insist, essentially, that it was a bad idea for him to bring the subject up in the first place. He fired a final salvo shortly thereafter, discussing, among other things, the status of Huck Finn, and the definition of art.

Are video games art? That question doesn't really interest me that much. "Art" is one of those moving-target words that is intentionally vague and ambiguous and personal in such a way that it is almost impossible to define in any meaningful way. Why, in just my last post I argued, more or less, that soccer is art, a position that depends, frankly, upon my failure to define the term "art" in the post. Precisely because I let art be an imprecise category, I was free to fit a game and a sport into it.

Which is not to say that soccer isn't art, or that it is. The real point is that soccer - and sports in general - occupies such a central place in the culture of the world that, even if it isn't art, it is certainly something worth exploring and thinking about. Anything - whether it be, by some precise definition, art, a game, a diversion, or what have you - anything that captures the fancy and maintains the interest of some 3 or more billion people the world over is something worth taking seriously. Art or not, soccer is a cultural artifact that tells us a whole lot about how we understand the world, how we want to understand the world, and how we describe that understanding. You might say, the anthropologist is not picky about whether what he studies is "art" or not, but rather how much what he studies reflects or doesn't reflect the culture and personality of the society and its people he is interested in.

Of course, the anthropologist would also care whether or not the culture in question defines the activity or artifact in question as art. If we, collectively or individually, call video games art or, on the other hand, reject them totally, that says something about us, too. It is not, in short, the category "art" that matters, but the way in which that category is used that is most important.

I see, in Ebert's stand and the backlash against him, not some great crisis in the definition of art and the status of modern technology in a world where "kids these days" don't read anymore. Frankly, the kids are going to be ok, and no one has any idea what, 2,000 years from now, people will hold up as the great art of our age, if anything. No, the point of interest here is the fascinating clash of cultures, where Ebert represents a certain subculture which has a certain relationship with artistic categories, while those who are upset with him are acting out a whole other cultural position. What I respect about Ebert in all of this is that he seems conscious of his cultural situation in a way that the authors of many of his angry comments do not. But even that comes with his cultural territory, while the anonymous Internet complainer is anything but self-effacing and reflective, at least in his presentation of self.

What is in conflict here, then, is not video-games-as-art versus video-games-as-trash (at worst) or video-games-as-well-designed-commercial-products (at best). The "I know it when I see it" meme is all-too-easy in that case, and there's not likely to be any kind of productive dialogue. As spineless as it likely seems to hardened disciples of Shadow of the Colossus or World of Goo, Ebert's "forget I said anything" is probably the best thing he could say.

The actual conflict is subtler than that, because its categories are much harder to define. There's something of old-guard versus new-guard, established medium versus new medium. Video games, to a man like Ebert, likely seem like some ugly bastard child of cinema, but let us not forget that cinema was once an ugly bastard child of theater, which was in turn an ugly bastard child of literature, which was an ugly bastard child of spoken narrative. That is not to say that the Iliad recited by Homer is the only true art, and all else is some pale shadow by comparison. Rather, it is to say that the history of what we call art is not a clear-cut one, and that each new innovation is usually regarded with great skepticism, especially by the luminaries and critics of the other mediums.

Which is not to say that Ebert is some stick-in-the-mud who just needs to play games, and then he'll "get it." Ebert is exactly right, in fact. As he understands art, video games are not and never can become art, just as movies are not and will never be art to some dead guy from the 1800s for whom the medium would have no relevance or meaning. The thing is, in order for us to use any intellectual category, we need to have some relevant context in which we can develop our understanding, and what's more important, where we can be fitted into that cultural position. There is really no acceptance of or resistance to culture of any kind in a vacuum. Ebert, like you or me, is coming from a lifetime full of accepted norms, ideas, and beliefs, most of which are utterly inaccessible to any kind of self-reflection.

Let me put it this way: I believe what I believe about soccer and baseball (and video games) because I grew up in a certain way, with parents of a certain disposition, and because I spent time in schools, in relationships, watching movies and tv shows, playing games, listening to the radio, and so on. I never defined myself in some essential sense. I certainly made choices, based upon all of the cultural options available to me, but even the maverick and the rebel are such in contrast to something. When I say "nicht diese tone," "not these tones," I acknowledge both my resistance to the world-as-it-is and our accounts of it as they are, but also my immense debt to exactly that world. Were it not there, I would have nothing to resist, and I would have no categories - no words, I might say - that I could use to express anything.

The same is true of Ebert, and, as I said, he seems aware of that exact fact. Admitting that he should not have brought up the subject was, it seems to me, a realization that his entire cultural framework is different than that of the 20-something-year-old men that populate the Internet, a generation that grew up on Mario and Master of Magic and Civilization and Grand Theft Auto. It's not to say we can't have a conversation, because there's a lot we share, too, but it is to say that we need to be careful about how different the categories we use are.

The Beautiful Game

This post is, ostensibly, about soccer. Hence the title. But really, it's about sports more broadly. Why do we care so much about what happens when grown men - exceptionally wealthy grown men - throw and kick round and oblate balls around variously-shaped fields? What is the deal with our global fascination with competition, whether it be corporate - as in club football, or the NFL, or the MLB - or nationalistic - as in the World Cup and the Olympics? Why, in short, are the people of Ghana so upset after today's match?

It was hard to believe, really, watching the end of it. The announcers kept talking about a script, ignoring that no one could possibly come up with something so improbable on sheer imagination. As if the drama of the sole African team remaining in a tournament played for the first time in Africa, pitted against one of the founding nations of the tournament - but a nation who has not won in 60 years - were not enough, the game went to extra time, and then to penalties.

None of that is unbelievable. What is unbelievable is how extra time ended, with a missed penalty that could have and should have sent Ghana to the semi-finals to meet a solid Netherlands side that had upset Brazil only hours earlier.

Back up. First, it's worth mentioning that this extra time looked like the standard fare. Both teams seemingly said to themselves "you know what, let's just hold here and do the penalty thing." That's not to say they gave up, but there's a certain caginess that goes with that last half-hour of cup soccer, especially because most players have already been on the pitch for 90+ minutes and, frankly, don't have a lot left in the tank. Recall the USA's loss to Ghana, and how winded and desperate the team looked while trying to secure an equalizer. Imagine those bodies not needing a goal, needing only to play good enough defense to keep the score where it is. That's why so many of these tied matches go to penalties.

So Uruguay and Ghana were exhausted, and they were tentative. Ghana had just come off of an extra time win themselves, and they were clearly hesitant to overextend their attack and give an opening on the break to Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez, Uruguay's top-flight striker tandem.

As extra time wound down, Ghana was awarded a free kick from far enough outside the box that a shot on goal was impractical. There were mere seconds left in extra time, and penalties were a forgone conclusion if only Uruguay's keeper could wrap up the ball or one of the defenders could clear it in whatever direction was most convenient. We were late enough that even conceding a corner would have brought an end to the match.

Instead, the ball bobbled around, and the keeper was beaten. Ghana put a shot on goal, only to see it kicked out at the goal line by a Uruguayan defender. The ball rebounded to another Ghanan player, who sent it towards goal again, where Luis Suarez did the only thing he could do, he batted it away with his outstretched hand. He was, of course, given a red card, and Ghana was given a penalty for the foul in the box.

This, alone, was unlike anything most soccer fans have ever seen. Suarez was sent off for the intentional hand ball, but he had saved Uruguay's World Cup, if only for a few minutes. He was distraught, of course, assuming that the penalty would be converted. The seconds between the handball and the penalty were odd for that reason: it was as if Ghana had scored - and they would have without Suarez's violation - but it was almost like a late-game NFL replay where no one is quite sure whether the receiver's feet landed in bounds. Or it was as if the ball was rolling towards the empty goal, but it wasn't clear whether it had enough momentum to cross the line.

Everything happened faster than that, though. Ghana's Asamoah Gyan stepped up and clanged the penalty off of the crossbar before Suarez could get down the tunnel. Upon hearing that Uruguay was still alive, he came bolting back towards the pitch, exuberant in the knowledge that he had, ultimately, saved his team and not doomed it, and all because of something done while he was 100 meters away and out of sight.

To Gyan's credit, he made the first of Ghana's penalties in the shootout, but Uruguay capped the dramatic victory by shooting with more composure. And just like that, Ghana's carriage turned back into a pumpkin. Like fans of England, Italy, France, the United States, and all of the other countries that have been eliminated - and let's not forget Costa Rica, Russia, and the myriad countries that were eliminated before the Cup began - Ghanaian fans watched heartbroken as the Uruguayan team celebrated on the field. On, in some sense, their field. Indeed, for that reason, and above all for the drama of the thing, this was a harder loss to swallow than any suffered by any other nation in the World Cup.

Soccer has become, I think, my second favorite sport (behind baseball, of course). It has been growing on me since I watched my brother play as a kid (I never played myself), and we imagined that he would one day be the striker that led team USA to World Cup glory. We were up at 3 in the morning in 2002 cheering on Landon Donovan and company as their hopes were crushed by Germany in the quarterfinals, but with high hopes for 2006 and beyond. I found myself, later, watching European Champions League matches in a packed common-room in college (it speaks to the oddities of St. John's that more students watched the European Champions Cup Final than the World Series).

But why? What is it about soccer? Indeed, what is it about sports? I find soccer incredibly frustrating to watch when I am rooting for someone. The ebb and flow of the game is so much more violent than in almost any other sport. Possession can change in seconds, and a near miss on the attack can - and often does - turn into a goal on the counter. In no other sport does the score mean so much. A team might spend 80 minutes chasing the goal they gave up in the 6th minute, abandoning their entire game-plan. Or a team might try to hold a 1-0 advantage against a superior opponent, giving up on attack entirely and thus living and dying with the bend and spin of shots taken from just outside the penalty area, hoping that the rebound doesn't end up on a striker's foot. Regardless, each goal transforms tactics, transforms strategy, and transforms the watcher's interaction. And so you can't lose focus for even a second, as a player or as a fan.

When I'm not rooting for anyone, that ebb and flow is fascinating. The tactics of soccer are unmatched, because they are as intricate as American Football whilst taking place in real-time. The physical skill needed to play the game is general - pace, stamina, strength, and so on help as much as in any sport - but also specific in that players must be able to direct the ball accurately without using their hands. The precision of the strikes of International stars makes it easy to forget how hard it is for most of us to kick a stationary ball 20 yards without it zipping around in unintended directions.

Is that it, though? Is it the combination of the mental and the physical that intrigues me, intrigues, indeed, the entire world? And what of baseball, or basketball, or cricket, curling, rugby, tennis, polo, or (our) football?

Drama has something to do with it, of course, and that drama comes from the finality of victory and defeat. Every sport, in the end, has more failure than success in it. For every champion, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of losers. In most Cinderella stories the evil step-sisters win. So what is more dramatic than victory? What more meaningful to a species that is always searching for meaning? Victory is something certain in an uncertain world, something we can hold on to, something we can unite around. It's no wonder fans say "we" when their team wins, "they" when the team loses.

I think it's more than that, though. Fandom that cares only about victory and defeat is shallow. Why, if victory is all that matters, am I happier watching the other nations - not the USA - in the World Cup? Why, indeed, was I a happier Rockies fan back when the expectation was that the club would battle for 4th place, and not for a playoff spot?

Victory alone is limiting, and dangerously addicting. Too many fans, I think, get caught up in wins and losses, get caught up thinking that what matters is the outcome of the game, or even of a play. What strikes me as more important, though, is the art of the games we follow. Indeed, I would argue that, in our modern era, athletic competition has become our more refined art form, our most respected creative pursuit. Just as the Romantic era honored its composers, and the baroque its painters, we're in the Athletic era, when art is spontaneous and physical.

Sports - as they stand in the modern world - are an outgrowth of the spirit of jazz. In almost every competition what draws us are those extemporaneously constructed solos set against the background of a familiar theme, and supported by an able band. Just as in the 30s bebop listeners would bob along with a Charlie Parker solo, knowing that Dizzy was right behind him, and that the rhythm section had his back, we love to watch the artists of modern sport, their foils, and the teams that make it possible. Indeed, like in music, while we honor those stars, we know that, deep down, the best player in the world is nothing without a good team, just like Bird without a good drummer keeping the beat.

Don't get me wrong, competition is not incidental to sports. Competition is not incidental to any art. The need to be the best, to out-do one's opponents, to achieve victory, all of that is a huge part of why athletes and artists (and indeed anyone) does what they do. Victory and defeat - we might as well say life and death - are an integral part of the canvas of human experience. Without them, there's no art at all.

Is it any wonder, then, that soccer is called "The Beautiful Game?" Is it any wonder that there's a special place in the Baseball Hall of Fame for the Vin Scullys of the world, who nightly turn competition into words and stories and art? Is it any wonder, indeed, that we have "Halls of Fame" to begin with, or that elder statesmen in every sport strive to instruct young players in the history of the game?

I suppose it's hard to describe watching Ghana lose to Uruguay this afternoon as beautiful. It was hardly that. But it was every bit as moving and as surprising as a piece of music nonetheless. I don't mean, ultimately, that is was like something from a movie, as the announcer described, but rather, that it was so much better than that. Here was art for arts sake, sport for sports sake. Sure there's all the money, all the hype, all the over-extended metaphors (of which I too am guilty, I suppose), but, in the end, there was something pure that sits below all of the silly language we're reduced to using when trying to describe anything meaningful in the world.

The Beautiful Game, like any game, isn't really all that profound. What makes it so gripping - what makes me a sports fan - is that it seems so profound even when I know it isn't. The cynic in me suggests that maybe all art is like that. Even if it's not, even if some things really are profound, I think that sports occupy that seemingly-profound space because, despite their unscripted, unpolished, sometimes brutal, often money-grubbing exterior, the heart of why we play and why we watch and why we care does matter, even if none of the particulars do.

The Scientific Process (feat. Vincent Van Gogh)

I've teamed up with a fellow LDT student, and we're heading towards the first draft of our proposal for a Master's project. I should say, rather, that our proposal is due tomorrow, and we're in the process of constructing something like a draft. Really, our problem is that we have more writing than we can possibly use to fill our 2,000 word limit, and we still haven't written everything we need to write. Such is proposal writing.

Anyway, I won't get into the project too much yet, since I'm sure I'll be sharing more about it as it gets more advanced, and because I want to leave room for a little suspense and imagination. Instead, I want to offer a few thoughts that are central to what we're doing: the scientific process. What, in short, really is the scientific process? How should it be taught? How is it used? What does it look like?

There is, of course, no systematic agreement about what the scientific process is and exactly which steps should be a part of it. Indeed, there is much debate about whether it should be called the "scientific method" or the "scientific process." I choose process because I think that fits better with my conception of how it operates, but "method" is more historical (Francis Bacon deemed his work on the matter a method). Nevertheless, there are generally five steps, through which the scientist is meant to proceed in order (methodically) in order to come to a better understanding of the external natural world. Those steps are as follows:

1) Observation
2) Question
3) Hypothesis
4) Experiment
5) Conclusion

Generally speaking, the scientific process is taught like this, as I said, with perhaps some linguistic modifications. It is not uncommon, of course, to call out the iterative nature of the scientific process - that is, that a conclusion might just qualify as a new observation - but there is general agreement that these steps in this order more or less make up the effort of science, and they are not accidentally a prominent feature in science standards and benchmarks across the country.

Do scientists really follow this process? That is not so clear. It certainly seems as though observations, questions, hypotheses, experiments, and conclusions are important parts of the act of doing science, but are they always used sequentially, in just that order? Reflecting on thought-process in general, it is not clear that we always begin with an observation; rather, we might start from a hypothesis or even an experiment. We might say that we are, nevertheless, making an unconscious observation to get there, but does that substantively change the process, or not?

More telling, however, is when we go from observation to question, back to observation. Or when we go from question to question. Or when we go from question straight to experiment without formulating a hypothesis. All of those things unquestionably do happen. Sometimes, before experimentation, we pass through a long series of observations, questions, and hypotheses. Sometimes, unfortunately, we jump straight from questions to conclusions, favoring action over information-gathering (especially when there's insufficient time to test).

That's all abstract, so here is an example. To keep this broad, I'll use a famous work of art rather than a physical and scientific phenomenon. By analyzing a piece of art, I also want to point out that the scientific process is a heuristic tool useful in more than just science:



Observation - I see houses in this painting.
Question - Why are the lines in the houses so much straighter than lines elsewhere.
(Unconscious) Hypothesis - It has something to do with the nature of houses.
Question - What else is in the painting?
Observation - I see a large green thing.
Question - What is that?
Hypothesis - Maybe it's a tree or a bush?
... (note that here I could do the "experiment" of looking up interpretations)
Question - OK, what else is in the painting?
Observation - There seem to be hills, and a highly stylized sky.
Observation - The lines in the hills are less wavy than those in the sky, but they are still soft and flowing.
Observation - The sky is quite swirly.
Observation - The painting's title, Starry Night, tells me that the yellow spots are starts, though somewhat abstracted.
Observation - The big "star" on the right is actually the moon!
Hypothesis - The moon is meant to imply the sun in this painting.
... (again we could "experiment" here, but I'm trying to stay on the path of my initial question)
Hypothesis - Van Gogh is painting natural things with more and more flowing lines than man-made things.
Observation - The church steeple is quite prominent.
Experiment - An analysis and interpretation of the painting suggests that Van Gogh painted this whilst desiring to reconnect with nature. He was in a psychiatric hospital, and was disconnected from the world literally as well as figuratively - a fact augmented by his recent decision to cut off his own ear, which landed him in the hospital to begin with.
Conclusion - The town in Starry Night is soft and forgiving, but remains less free than the natural aspects of the scenery. The steeple could signify a very human sense of hope, but could also be a menacing intrusion on a much more beautiful and interconnected natural world. It does not seem to me that Van Gogh is arguing anything - least of all a "return to nature," - but nevertheless he expresses a stirring (which seems just the right word) picture of the contrast between the form of nature and the forms constructed by man, all-the-while knowing that his painting expresses more than fulfills his desire to bridge those gaps.

A few things here. First off, I don't have the slightest clue whether this interpretation - my "conclusion" - is at all reasonable. I do know, however, that I arrived at it by following a certain process, which I have traced out above. Part of the reason for giving an example with a work of art, here, is to emphasize that scientific knowledge is not unlike the interpretation I've offered here. A scientific conclusion may be reasonable, but it is hard to claim with certainty that it is necessarily correct. Even expressing the actual, and more verbose, process of scientific thinking - as opposed to the 5-step formula we generally teach - there are steps that I've likely left out (I did go back and add a unconscious hypothesis, and could likely add more, but you get the idea).

At the very least, there are points of contention throughout the process I've laid out. Where did I observe, and where did I hypothesize? How many of those observations were genuinely observations, not constrained by hypotheses I had already built? How well did I do in asking questions that did not lead to an expected answer? All of those things I should reflect on, because a good scientist tries to be objective, not by destroying his subjectivity - an impossible task - but by becoming conscious of what directions his subjectivity is likely to pull him in. Indeed, I might ask, is it problematic that my conclusion was in part determined by the prejudices and beliefs that I brought with me into the analysis? If not, would it be problematic if a scientist doing, say, pharmaceutical research, were guilty of the same thing (that is, expecting or desiring a certain outcome)?

As you may have guessed, a part of opening up the scientific process like this - understanding it as a dynamic and iterative process that need not proceed "in order" and can happily dance around especially in the early stages for a long time - is opening up dialogue. Science, contrary to much modern pedagogy, is actually one of the liberal arts, and the division between science and the humanities is less than helpful. My choice to analyze Van Gogh instead of photosynthesis implies this bias on my part, but I hope that you can see by virtue of my selection that scientific thinking is critical thinking, just as much as literary or artistic analysis, and that science should embrace dialogue.

With that in mind, I want to pose a final question. How could we express this messy, but genuine, version of the scientific process more succinctly, thus making it easier to digest and, hopefully, easier to talk about?

Towards Defining Great Music, Part Two: On Genre and Deciding Greatness

In trying to decide what is great music – and whether such a thing exists – it is important to consider the genres of music that have dominated and defined their particular times. Genre might as well be, here, a substitute for context, or even for culture more broadly, and is therefore intimately tied in with taste, but it is nevertheless a useful way of categorizing an incredibly complicated phenomenon.

In any given era, there are seemingly uncountable genres and sub-genres of music. It is tempting and simple to simply divide music into two camps, “art” and “popular.” But that is a misleading attempt, because much of what we now consider “art music” was wildly popular at the time, and much music that is written primarily for the sake of a popular audience is nonetheless artistic for it.

Similarly, we might divide music into “spiritual” and “secular” music. While not a meaningful distinction in contemporary music, historically there is a significant difference between the purposes and forms of the two. Indeed, for a long time “spiritual music” and “art music” were essentially the same thing, with popular, secular (and thereby vulgar) music serving an entirely different function and performed by an entirely different set of musicians.

At the other extreme, we might choose to define genres of music narrowly. The minuet and the fugue might be separate, as might the 12-bar blues and the 16-bar blues, or the symphony and the concerto. A narrower understanding of genre might help us to compare pieces under those frameworks – and it strikes me that most reasonable narrow divisions are actually formal constraints – but they don't necessarily help us to find great music.

Perhaps the most common delineation of genres in music is the chronological one. That is, classical music is divided into distinct eras, each of which has a distinctive but related (by the “progress” from one understanding of harmony to the next) style. Beginning with the medieval era, Western music is traditionally said to have gone through the following eras (in order): Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern. Some nit-pickers also slide Nationalist in between Romantic and Modern, or at least alongside, but that's of more political than musical interest.

While I don't think any of these approaches really properly captures what I mean by “genre,” I think they are useful nonetheless, especially when considered together.* A genre is, in short, the combination of the context in which the work was written (that is, its historical, geo-political, and philosophical situation) and the purpose for which it was written (that is, whether it was written for the sake of religion, art as such, popularity or notoriety, or what-have-you). The historical side of that equation is something a composer has essentially no control over, and if there is an argument for or against the existence of great music from a particular time period, it ought to therefore confront the context and the not the composers of that time.**

*I will avoid, for the time being, the thorny issue of modern music, because that is where 'genre' becomes especially uninformative in trying to qualify music. I promise, however, that I will have a whole post in this series specifically devoted to modern music.

** Indeed, we don't really speak of “Great Music” from the Dark Ages primarily for this reason; the social, political, and religious realities of the time made great music all but impossible. Of course, it is also possible that, rather than making great music impossible, context instead made the transmission of that music impossible. Likewise with the Greeks. We cannot evaluate their music – even though discussions of it abound in their writings – because none of it survived. Accessibility is a necessary condition for greatness, and music, after all, must be heard.

So the question becomes, what is greatness? Is it relative, or absolute? Does it even exist?

It seems to me that the simplest claim is that greatness is merely the sorting of music in a particular genre by quality, as is generally agreed upon by those most versed in the language of that genre,* with some help from popular opinion, and as confirmed by the experts who learn that language later and confirm the former judgment. I realize that's a fairly long-winded “simple” definition, but I think the components all make sense, and I'm inclined to use it moving forward. Because of that, I want to go through the definition in a little more detail, to make sure it is clear and to argue for each part.

* Those with the most taste, as we might say, drawing on my last post.

First off, this definition of greatness assumes that greatness is not Platonic, dealing with eternal forms, and rather is a relative measure of art against the other art from close to the same time. That is not to say we don't set up a non-contextual scale, comparing music from the 1800s to music from the 1600s, deciding that Bach is perhaps greater than Wagner, but that Wagner is greater than Vivaldi. Rather, it is to say that, before we compare Vivaldi or Bach to Wagner, we compare them to the other, lesser known composers of their own time, and we recognize that those “lesser knowns” are lesser known for good reason.*

* By way of analogy, there is endless debate amongst baseball fans as to who the greatest player of all time is. Babe Ruth still has a lot going for him because of how much better he was than his contemporaries, but then again Willie Mays faced what was probably a higher level of competition. Barry Bonds may have been a cheat, but he faced an even higher level of competition and managed – by whatever means – to life himself well above it. The point being, there's no way to really decide who's the best baseball player, but it is fairly widely acknowledged that, comparing Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Barry Bonds against their contemporaries, it's hard to say they were not great. Though undoubtedly Willie Bloomquist is an exceptional athlete and phenomenal baseball player by most any measure, he is “lesser known” for good reason when compared against Albert Pujols.

As for how the greatest composers of an era are decided, a great deal of that happens well before we modern folk ever had a say. Beethoven was anointed great and his music preserved because his contemporaries understood his music to be great. The same could be said of Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, and the myriad other household name Classical composers. This, however, is an important part of greatness; the recognition of the experts of the time.

While certainly Beethoven was helped by broader popularity, it was the favor of both his fellow musicians and of the more austere, academic critics of music which carried him. Of course there was also substantial negative reaction to much of what he wrote, and a good deal of misunderstanding, but that too we might label a condition for greatness. On the whole, however, it was widely recognized that Beethoven was incomparable among his contemporaries even at the time, a judgment that came from a combination of expert opinion and general enjoyment of the music he produced.

Retrospect, however, is also important in determining greatness. At the time, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was met with mixed and, frankly, a good many negative reviews. Beethoven was, in summary, an old, deaf man grasping at straws, full of grand ideas but no longer aware of how to really write music. In retrospect, however, it is Beethoven's contemporaries that were grasping at straws, unable to understand a treatment of harmony and form that was heretofore unheard, but that anticipated the evolutions in music theory that would occur over the next century during the Romantic era.

Only hindsight, it could be said, can judge whether the wild and crazy ideas of a great mind will be prophetic or insane. Perhaps it is no mark of greatness, and merely of fortune that in this case Beethoven was the former, but I believe that oversimplifies a complicated situation. An important quality of the prophet is not merely predicting the future, but helping to make that future happen. In Beethoven's case, his greatness was not in anticipating what Romantic music would bring to fruition, but in planting the seed such that his was the only flower that had any chance of growing in the first place.

It is easy to look at transition points between historical genres and find great composers, of course, because influence and greatness are easy to confound. While a great many changes may be inevitable – for example, the progress of music theory in its essence may have been almost exactly the same had Beethoven never been born – the way those changes occur is subject to the influences of a great many men and women, and some manage to have more influence than others.

Even within a fairly static genre, however, we might find greatness. Mozart, brilliant though he was, did not live long enough to see the transition from the Classical to the Romantic eras. While much of his music may have pushed the boundaries of what was common at his time – another potential mark of greatness – he did not possess nearly the influence that Beethoven did historically. And yet we might argue that Mozart was the greater composer. Regardless, that he stood out both now and then above his contemporaries is largely unquestioned.

It is almost inevitable that a discussion of great music will end up being a discussion of great composers, because individual pieces are even harder to categorize and qualify. Nevertheless, we might approach pieces the same way, but with a stronger eye towards the theory in each piece. There are a great many musical devices and techniques that underlie even this discussion of what a musical genre is, and while it is reductionist to discuss composers without that theory, it is at least possible. Discussing the music itself without the theory itself would be impossible, because music theory is the very language that allows for the discussion to have meaning.*

* Without music theory, it's easy to get trapped in the pitfall of unarguable metaphor. “This piece is like a waterfall, that one like a giant rock.” While those connotations and images may percolate in the heads of some listeners, trying to have a discussion and trying to determine quality under such terms is about as productive as teaching First Graders differential calculus. That's not to say the images and emotions that we feel aren't important; indeed, they are the point. But just because a piece of music (or anything else) makes you feel happy or helps you imagine daffodils doesn't mean that it is great. It must also stand up to analysis and contemplation. Some might argue this is a view that encourages cynicism, and I won't disagree. But I will say this: while a great deal of music might be beautiful, happy, melancholy, or any other number of things, only music that remains beautiful, happy, or melancholy when you are cynical about it is truly great. If you are afraid that thinking carefully and critically about a thing will decrease rather than increase your enjoyment of it, perhaps it is not a thing worth enjoying after all.

With that in mind, we'll spend the next post discussing music itself. What is music, after all? Music has undeniable power, and is ubiquitous in our culture. Indeed, the music industry has been at the forefront of copyright law and the effects of digital distribution primarily because we take our music much more seriously than we take our movies, our pictures, or our words. Why is that? What is the power of music? Tune in next time, but don't expect answers.

Towards Defining Great Music, Part One: On Taste

To the uninitiated, the sculptures of Auguste Rodin come across as detailed, but vulgar and often hideous. Shakespeare's plays, likewise, seem mildly amusing, but fundamentally stuffy. Wagner's operas boring and dissonant. Dali's painting simply bizarre.

But who are the initiated, and by what standards do they judge? Is it the art itself that makes Great Art, or is it the ego of the person viewing that art, and the fear of seeming unsophisticated at rejecting a composer, painter, or playwright?

I do not presume to be able to answer that question, as it has too many sociological and psychological implications I'm not capable of tackling. But I will admit that the difference between Rodin and other sculptors, to me, is something I do not fully appreciate. I take it on authority that Rodin is a Master, and that his art is profound. When I experience it, however, I am baffled.* Human? No doubt. Intricate? Likewise. But its hidden, subtler virtues I have not the language or experience to appreciate.

* That I get to experience it at all is likely most of the battle. What is greatness without exposure?

Music is much the same. Without hesitation I claim that, to really understand “Great Music,” you have to know the language. Beethoven can be rousing to anyone, Mozart joyous, and Wagner mysterious (or awful, as the case may be), but without understanding dominants and tonics and substitutions the intricacy of the music comes across as little more than that. “Intricacy,” “subtlety,” and “beauty” become stand-ins for “I don't know why, but I like it.” Indeed, some listeners take this stance with pride: better to love music and not understand than to be discriminating and thereby limit the breadth of what moves you.

It is, in the end, impossible to argue against that position, but to me it smacks of choosing ignorance over knowledge because, in the end, ignorance is easier. There is, however, no black-and-white duality here. In all things we all choose knowledge and ignorance in various degree, waiting until the level of our understanding suits us, and electing to forgo further knowledge-gathering at that point with the pride of a conscious decision rather than the regret and humility of one who has too little time, capacity, or desire to know more (of course, we might feel both pride and humility). That the former is a rationalization of the latter seems obvious; “I know as much as I need to” is a refrain heard more often – or at least spoken more sincerely – than “I don't know enough,” especially when matters of taste are involved.

What qualifies as “a matter of taste,” too, is often up for debate. Today we take for granted that music has to do with taste as much as food. Indeed, what qualifies as good food in our modern world is probably more widely agreed upon than what qualifies as good music. Our broad tastes in music mirror our generally broad tastes, of course. With the possible exception of hard sciences like chemistry and physics, it's hard to claim that our society believes in the inherent superiority of one idea or another in almost any field. “To each his own” is a post-modern cry.

The post-modern world is staunchly individualistic, but is also unquestionably filled with deference to the authority of those 'experts' whose tastes are similar. Our political beliefs are shaped primarily by those authorities we agree with, our taste in movies shaped by those reviewers who's choices most often please us, and our musical preferences mapped by the record labels and critics that most capture our particular habits. All of those, in turn, are shaped by the way we were raised.

Even though we are generally self-confident, we find that we must have some authority, because as strong as our individualism may be, rarely are we willing to go so far as to claim that we, individually, know what is best. We know that we do not know the language of politics, movies, or music nearly well enough to decide for ourselves, and so we defer, defer, defer, until the very act of deference is what most determines who we are. As long as our deference is to authority we 'trust.'

Where does that trust come from? In many ways it's self-fulfilling, though of course mitigated in many realms by experience. If I trust a politician has beliefs similar to my own, but then I perceive that he does not live up to that trust, I am unlikely to vote for him again (unless, of course, he is a member of my party and I am indoctrinated enough to vote against my actual preference for the supposed good of said party). Even that perception, however, is colored strongly by the initial trust I grant. Once a fan of Pericles,* it is much easier to overlook, forget, or otherwise ignore the differences between one's personal preference and the political actions of the deemed-trustworthy authority.

* In the interest of avoiding an unnecessary foray into modern politics, I'll go with Greek instead. Though you may not know much of Pericles, it is fair to say that, at his time, he was probably even more controversial than the people we have around today.

Which is to say that we are complicated, we humans. Even the claim to simplicity – “I am a simple man” – is wrought with complexities, effectively meaning the exact opposite. More often than not, simplicity is complexity unexamined, and not true simplicity at all. Or, put another way, simplicity is complexity in disguise, dressed up (or down) for the sake of understanding, conversation, or propaganda.* All language is inherently reductionist, and working with concepts requires a great deal of categorizing and connecting ideas that probably ought not be grouped together.

* Which may be the same thing.

Whither taste, then? Taste is a word we use, I believe, to excuse ourselves from thinking critically about things we enjoy, but instead wish to take for granted. Oh, we may permit some degree of careful thinking, allowing a comparison of works of art within a preferred genre, weighing whether one song is better than another. Indeed, “good taste” is usually marked by knowing the language of a particular genre, so that the great can be separated from the good, which can in turn be separated from the poor. That's not to say that 'taste' is a bad thing, then. Far from it. But how often do we really examine not just what the language of a particular art form is, but where it comes from as well? How often, in other words, to we turn taste not just on the members of a genre, but on the genre itself?

Is it the art itself that is great, or is it the context in which it is produced that allows for “greatness?” Are those even separable? Our American, Puritan, and democratic prejudices might lead us to claim that hard work is a necessary condition for great art, but while Beethoven was known to slave over every note, Mozart's style was quite the opposite.* Is he therefore not great? On the other hand, we might defer to authority, allowing greatness to be decided by expertise. But the language those experts use is often the language that was developed, not to determine greatness, per se, but to justify the very tastes that lead to preference of one piece or genre of music – or literature, or painting – over another in the first place. Then again, what else than this do we mean by context?

* There is even a myth that every piece he ever published was a first draft.

Taste – and we might just as easily say culture – is all tied up in language, like so much of what we do and think. When dealing, however, with art (however broadly we might define so vague a term), we run into a problem of translation. Language is conversational and, in its origins, honest. Art, in its origins, is dishonest. Not willfully misleading, mind you, but not directly representational and denotative in the way that conversational language is meant to be. The more important the word to our day-to-day operation, the less vague it is, generally speaking, meaning there is always more argument – and more art – made about the abstract than about the concrete. Even the below painting of a simple thing is famous in spite of the simple thing pictured. Instead it is favored for its abstractions. The components – the bits of language – are honest, but the mixing together confuses us, acknowledging all the while the inherent abstraction of painting (and, likewise, the written word, and probably too the spoken word; let alone music).

(Translation: This is not a pipe)

It is not my hope or my expectation to unwind language, and to make clear a thing which is frighteningly unclear to me. Indeed, with every paragraph I feel I am plunging myself and the reader further into confusion rather than bringing us closer to clarity. That, however, is closer to the point. Our tastes are as whimsical, contextual, prejudicial, and largely unexamined as our language itself, because ultimately they are one in the same. Without the language to discuss – or at least to indicate – our tastes, would those tastes exist?

The argument, however, is that there is such a thing called “Greatness” in art, a thing which transcends mere taste. That is not to say that taste does not sometimes prevent us from loving great art. It most certainly does. It is also not to say that taste does not play some role in determining greatness. Rather, I believe that the authority here is not merely the outcome of happenstance and snobbery, however much it looks to be.

How ought we decide greatness in art – and more especially in music – and what that greatness looks like are our next questions, and will be the subject of coming posts. But I believe it is important to understand that, much as I am convinced that some music is inherently better than other music – and not therefore to be belittled because it is no longer prominent among the fickle tastes of the masses – the path to that belief is a sticky one, and one that I am hardly confident in. It seems to me, regardless, a reasonable position, and it ought to be more clear when we dive next time into music itself, rather than skating on these overly broad – and therefore dangerously thin – philosophical sheets of ice.

Favorite Games, Part Two

And now the thrilling conclusion of my favorite games. There are five more, making for a nice, well-rounded eight.

The Russell Crowe Award for Gladiatorial Combat
Gladius
Tactical RPG

Actually, the reason I award Gladius is not because it is a gladiator game, but rather because it is a competent and engaging tactical RPG. There are a great many good RPGs, a few good turn-based strategy games, but almost no good games that combine the two. And yet this is a natural combination, because a good way to make RPG combat deeper and more strategic is to make it turn-based, like a game of chess. That, of course, means the AI has to be better, which usually means that the graphics will be worse, and that fewer people will buy it, and so on.

The result is that, because the masses like their high-paced, gory first-person shooters (FPS) and real-time strategies (RTS), other genres get often overlooked. More than anything, the RPG model gets folded in the the RTS model (Warcraft 3) or the FPS model (Deus Ex or Bioshock; even Fallout 3 falls into this category). Gladius did not have an exceptional AI, and the story was fairly bland but the gameplay was wonderful. The depth of strategy available to the player and the variety of unit-types found throughout the massive game world was truly staggering for a large-scale, commercial game published by Lucas Arts.

Surprisingly, Gladius was released on console only, even though it is, in almost every way, a game meant for the computer. Though usually multiplayer doesn't interest me, Gladius was meant for it. The AI had no hope of outsmarting the player in so complex a game, so another human would have made the best opponent. Unfortunately, the game's only multiplayer mode was a toned down, single-battle involving, by necessity, only combatants from your saved games in the campaign. On the plus side, the campaign could be played cooperatively (and, as my brother could tell you, was). All in all, a fine gaming experience, but its lack of commercial success - despite uniformly excellent reviews - has prevented a sequel, and the genre remains underrepresented.

The Defenestration of Prague Award for Historicity
Europa Universalis
Real Time Strategy / Simulation
It's hard to really call EU a "real time strategy." The game is certainly not turn-based, but the passage of time can be paused at any moment so that your nation can be assessed, orders can be issued, diplomacy attempted, and trade expanded. The game is more simulation, because none of those things involve the RTS formula: secure resources, build mass of units, destroy enemy base. But I say EU is an RTS nevertheless because in some sense it is far more "real time" than any other game. Rather than processing in arbitrary weeks or months or years (or turns), EU progresses through history - from whatever starting point you choose within its range - day-by-day. When your English forces discover the new world it is not on turn 100, or even in 1492. No, it happens on the 27th of May, 1492.

Doesn't that mean the game takes a long time? Well, you can speed it up to a fairly brisk clip, but yes. Processing hundreds of years of history means processing hundreds of thousands of days. And the length of the game is only the beginning. As I've mentioned in previous posts, EU includes just about every nation existent at any time between 1450 and 1850. The Holy Roman Empire - which famously was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire - is indeed split into its dozens and dozens of member states. Russia begins split between barren wastes, Muscowy, and Novgorod. Japan - if you have the Magna Mundi Mod (which everyone does) - actually goes through its protracted Civil War during the 15th and 16th centuries, meaning it is split into a sizable collection of provinces.

And you, the player, can experience any part of that world at any time period you choose, and that is the beauty of the game. You can, for example, play:
- America at the time of the War for Independence.
- The Mayans or the Aztecs right as they make contact with Europe.
- China, as it strives for dominance in Asia.
- Sweden at the onset of the 30 years war.
- Castille as it fights the Reconquista against the Moors.
and so on.
Europa Universalis - especially EU 3 - is a sandbox. History does not unfold as it did. But that is part of the fun. If you, as the English, crush the American Revolution, what are the implications for the rest of the world? Moving further back, what if Portugal colonizes the Eastern Seaboard instead? Further still, what if England fails to unify the British Isles, and instead Scotland becomes the major British power?

I name my award after the defenestration of Prague because, while the broader historical progress is the heart of the game, the kinds of events that pop up from time to time are such that you might actually see a defenestration. For a game with such breadth, EU sacrifices little in depth (it sacrifices primarily in graphics, but too much glitz would be distracting in this kind of game anyway), which is why it is the gold standard of historical simulation, and the single largest reason that Paradox Interactive is able to survive in the world of Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and other major developers.

I've reserved the final three games here for last because, while this is by no means a list that goes in order, I believe these are the best of the best. It's splitting hairs, especially because - as you may have noticed - there is a substantial amount of variety in the genres and principles of gameplay of the games I have listed so far (a trend that will continue in these three). Nevertheless, the following occupy that special place of "game I would happily play through again, even though I've played through at least once before."*
* Open-ended games like Civilization IV and Europa Universalis don't really fall into the "would play through again" equation, of course. What separates them, I think, from this group - albeit by a hair - is that they are more obviously superficial. It is hard to believe that you are truly the all-powerful, all-seeing monarch of a country that lives for hundreds (or thousands) of years. While I prefer strategy games in many ways - because they make you think - they are abstractions in a way that RPGs are not.

The Monteverdi Award for Pioneering an Art Form*
Shadow of the Colossus
Adventure

*Monteverdi is widely considered the father of the opera.


Shadow of the Colossus is a rare, beautiful gem of a game. More than any other game I have every played, it is a work of art first, and a game second, and the first game in this list for which I have felt compelled to include a screenshot. The story is touching and mysterious, as the main character is compelled to battle, one-by-one, a series of giant Colossi in order to save his beloved from death. More than that I won't say, because the game leaves it all unclear.

Which is why the game works so well. You are not merely pitted against these dozen colossi - each clever and innovative in their own way, each requiring a unique strategy to defeat, and each stunning in their artistic merit - you also have to navigate through a rich and detailed world, seeking these Colossi. It is also a barren world, filled with ruins, none of which are explained. What civilization exists or existed? How did you get to this wild, unpopulated place? Who is this entity that can save your beloved, but only if you defeat the Colossi? Where did these Colossi come from?

Ultimately, the brilliance of the game is in leaving all of that unanswered. The player, rather than being given an explanation, is presented only the phenomenon of a beautiful and terrifying landscape populated by nothing but ancient and powerful machines. The answers to most of your questions, as a player, will not be given, and so you must explore the possibilities for yourself. What answers you do get come in the form of one of the most touching and powerful ending sequences in any game I have ever played. Which is hardly surprising, given the artistry of the game as a whole. What little speaking occurs in the game is subtitled - as it was not originally in English - but that only adds to the mystique, and feels somehow "correct."

The Jedi Award
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
RPG

This game was and remains one of the finest RPGs ever made. Usually games made under the umbrella of a long-standing and commercially successful franchise are awful. The publisher recognizes that a good game is unnecessary because, ultimately, the name sells itself. There are quite a few Lord of the Rings games out there that, frankly, suck, but were commercially successful because they bore the words "Lord of the Rings" on the box.

Much credit should go to Lucas Arts for bringing in Bioware to make Knights. Rather than relying on the name and the chance to wield a lightsabre, Lucas Arts brought in the best of the best to make an RPG for the ages. Far from leaching off of the Star Wars name, Knights actually contributed to the name, in many ways saving it from the awful new movies.

What made Knights such a good game? Undoubtedly much of it was the chance to become a Jedi - a role-playing experience even the least nerdy of the nerds could not miss. Beyond that, however, there was the in-depth morality system, which made Knights one of the first games to include multiple endings based on whether you followed the light side or the dark side.

The most endearing aspect of the game, however, was the story. Knights of the Old Republic boasts a better story (and better "acting," though only voice acting) than any of the Star Wars movies. The characters are all, to a person (or droid) memorable, and there is a plot twist so surprising, handled so well, that it is still regarded as one of the greatest moments in video games. I won't give it away, but it's way cooler than "Luke, I am your father."

There was also a sequel to Knights, which was a fine game as well, but Bioware backed out and so the game was made by Obsidian instead. Ultimately, the sequel couldn't match the original, and while it expanded and complicated the morality system and included influence within your cadre of companions, it lacked the punch of the original. Bioware, in the meantime, went to work on their next two projects. One was called Jade Empire, an excellent game in itself, though hamstrung by its commitment to the console over the computer. The other is the final game in my list, and the real spiritual successor to Knights.

The Dirk Gently Award for the Whole Package*
Mass Effect
RPG / FPS

* Of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Douglas Adams at, I would argue, his finest.

What can I say about Mass Effect? It was, at the time, Bioware's most ambitious and most successful work. It remains - in the opinion of this humble gamer, who is now mired in their current effort, Dragon Age Origins - their finest work as well. Mass Effect was brilliant for many reasons, first and foremost being the feeling that you were in a movie. I'll talk about a few key features.

The entire game was voice acted - indeed, it set a new standard for voice acting - including the main character. Rather than moving mutely through a talkative world, Commander Shepard (you) are just as vocal as everyone else. Bioware provides, for each piece of conversation, a short snippet capturing the essence of what you're going to say, but when your character speaks, he (or she) speaks in full sentences and paragraphs. Dialogue is more highly scripted than in many games, in order to make this feasible, but the result is worth it, because your character is that much more believable.

The gameplay itself is excellent as well. Though essentially a first person shooter at battle time, much of what happens is dictated by the conversations that you have and the missions you choose to take on. In battles, as well, you can manage and direct your teammates, giving the game a strong tactical feel, even if it is in real time. Battles almost always take place in areas with plenty of cover for both yourself and your foes, so some firefights can last many minutes. Moreover, regardless of your class - there are three to choose from - you will have an array of abilities and powers at your disposal to help you overcome the mass of enemies that the will be thrown against you. Mixing and matching these abilities with those of your teammates requires some serious forethought.

Of course, the real "movie" feel to the game comes from the story. It is not especially creative in itself, following the "save the galaxy" standard, but the world that it takes place in is unique. What I mean is, while Humans exist in the Mass Effect galaxy, a great many species that are not Humans do as well, and those are not taken from the standard Star Trek, Star Wars, or Master of Orion options. As you explore the game world, you'll come across various races and technologies that each have their own, voiced entry in your journal. These "codex" serve to immerse the player in the game world.

Even though the story is fairly standard, the way it is accomplished is not. Many quests require decisions that do not necessarily end well. It is not only possible, but likely that you will finish the game down a squad member or two (or more). Rumor has it than in the upcoming sequel - to be released next year - it will be possible to finish the game down the main character. If that's not bold and different, I don't know what is.

I am picky about my games. While I have played many, there are actually few that I play all the way through. Often the game becomes too obvious, too easy, or too artificial long before the final battle. Indeed, those final battles are often anticlimactic (Mass Effect's, sadly, is). But some games warrant more than one play through, not just to explore alternate endings - if they exist - or a variety of character types. No, some games are just that good. Mass Effect I have played twice, and the second time I actually did more side quests than the first. There are not many games I can say that about (Knights of the Old Republic and Gladius are the only others, off the top of my head).

Why share all this? Well, for those of you who are gamers, I know that you may not have stumbled across some of these games before. For those who aren't, I want to point out - as I stated in the first post - that games are improving and becoming culturally significant works of art. Bioware is at the forefront of that effort, but so are lesser known companies like Stardock, a developer with an excellent business model that is refreshingly customer-oriented. Check out their upcoming Elemental: War of Magic to see a game that is poised for excellence in strategic depth, artistic merit, and open-ended gameplay. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that a great many of the best ideas for games come from independent developers. Of my own list, Out of the Park Baseball is developed not by some huge corporation, but by an individual programmer in his spare time (in Germany, at that). Europa Universalis, too, is the product of a smaller company, though at this point they could hardly be called an "indie" developer. I didn't speak to Mount and Blade, but very well could have. It was developed by a husband and wife team, and includes the most realistic combat engine you're like to find anywhere.

The point being, there is a lot of money being poured into the gaming world these days, but there's also a lot of artistic fervor and passion. From a gamers point of view, this is an exciting time, when each year brings innovations that put to shame the games of the past (even if you sometimes have to search hard for the truly innovative games). From an educators point of view, this is a time when the possibilities of leveraging games for learning and teaching are finally becoming clear and feasible. From a writer's point of view, this is a time when games are finally catching up to movies and novels in terms of the content they offer.*

*The story goes that, when developers wrote their games in the 80s and 90s, they would ask who on the development team had taken a creative writing course at some point in their education. That person would then write the plot and dialogue and so on. These days, companies higher screenwriters and novelists and so on to write their games. The difference is apparent.

Are games a waste of time? That's the biggest question I haven't addressed, I think. Movies take a couple hours, most games take at least a dozen, and many take substantially more. I would argue, though, that games exercise the mind - imagination, problem solving, and so on - far more than movies do, and certainly more than most TV does. Games are interactive, strategic, difficult enough to be a challenge, but not so difficult as to make you miserable (well, some are). They are a whole new art form, and while games, like any artistic medium, are split between the blatantly commercial and the purely artistic (with most occupying somewhere in between), it would be foolish to condemn the whole genre because what is most well publicized and well known is also crappy (most of the EA Sports games, for example). If that were fair, we'd have to condemn all movies for titles like Transformers and Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay is, after all, the Electronic Arts of movies).

In short, games are far from a waste of time. Don't believe me? Try one out, but try a good one. The sticky thing, for me, isn't whether games are a waste of time, but whether I have time to play them. I certainly find them less important than classwork or a job, but I also find Sophocles, Plato, Shakespeare, and Beethoven "less important" than those things. Indeed, the preponderance of games in the modern world gives me hope that we may yet overcome this grave societal addiction to work (and by extension, money) that has corrupted our spirits and poisoned our environment for far too long. The play of a culture - its type, intensity, and passion - might be much more indicative of health than productivity. But that, my friends, is a post for another time.