Matthew Stadler's Personal Weblog

I'm super excited about this new weblog way of writing and grateful to the Urban Honking weblog group for sponsoring my personal "blog." Expect me to post about once a week.

So last Thursday, I threw my "Oregonian" in the bag after a quick glance at the Jack Ohman cartoon, and took off from PDX bright and early Thursday for a long weekend (OK, five days, who's counting?) in Paris. Awfully sorry to have to miss the Seafood and Wine festival, but I figured they'd have enough of both in France. I'd brought a few different possibilties for reading along on the plane, but when I realized that The Atlantic's big feature story was "Jihadists in Paradise" (yikes!) I ended up with Obama's "Audacity of Hope." Yes, I know the Post rolled its eyes at what they called the "Mr. Obama Goes to Washington" tone, and they may have a point, but the guy can write. And you've got to love a politician who says he's "so overexposed that I make Paris Hilton look like a recluse." We won't hear anything like that from Mitt Romney anytime soon.

Connected in Chicago, and then got into the City of Lights about 10 AM. Oscar Wilde quipped that when good Americans die they go to Paris, and despite the rain and chill I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Of course that leaves wide open the question of where good Parisians go when they die. Maybe Ted Haggard can help them out with that one. I was sorry to get the news in Paris that the famous Rue de Rivoli art squat has finally been shut down by authorities. Proust wrote, "Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments," but I suppose you can't recreate reality ad infinitum when the zoning laws are against you.

Such places are having their doors shut all over town, and the French think it's a lamentable attack on high culture. "This is all about Nicolas Sarkozy," said the theatre director who ran Le Barbizon (that was another well-known art squat; don't think me too well-read here, it's just something I happen to know.) Sarkozy's center-right, in the way only a Frenchman can be center-right (what would it count as over here, I wonder?) and I'd love to see him try and go on Colbert. The Word of the Day could be Camembert. I had some, by the way (Camembert, that is) in a cheese tray that came as my final course at L'Os a Moelle, a bistro near the Eiffel Tower. The phrase apparently means "Marrow Bone," which, you've got to admit, is no weirder a name for a restaurant than "Blue Dragonfly" or "Noble Rot." (Timothy Egan and I had a wonderful flight of Old Vine Australian Reds once at Noble Rot; I'm not criticizing them!) Just don't ask me to pronounce it.

I did manage to get out to the Marmottan ("off the beaten path," they say, and it definitely is) ostensibly to put in an appearance at the Camille Claudel exposition, but really I was more interested in seeing Monet's early works. I strolled through the basement room that contains several drafts of "Water Lillies," a few of which look like they were painted on mind altering drugs. The neighborhood is a bit Washington DCish - towering old apartment buildings, intermittent greenspace. I had to take a taxi out to the Marmottan, since the public transport was disturbed by a large labor protest. This apparently happens every week or so in France; the public sector is upset about pension reductions. It's hard to imagine that many Americans upset enough about anything to take action on it, other than Congress being annoyed that Nancy Pelosi said they’d actually have to work five days a week Although I saw on Wonkette that since Congress reconvened, they haven’t actually worked one single five-day week yet.... (Forgive the sarcasm; it's not like I worked five days this week, but still...) And even if we Americans could muster some nice European-style political outrage, we'd probably forget the issue as soon as "American Idol" came on. (Did you know, incidentally, there's a whole discusion going on online about the possibility that some "Idol" contestants are so inept at discerning social cues that they don't realize they're being humiliated? "Does humiliation require self-awareness?" one blogger asked. Now there's a philosophical question. I know I'd have felt a little better if I hadn't been aware I had no idea how to say "L'Os a Moelle." )

I should change the subject, because I've probably already been upstaged in reflecting on such questions by BHL (that's actually how the French refer to Bernard-Henri Levy, the writer "New York Magazine" called "a rock-star French philosophe" - you know, the guy who did the big re-enactment of de Toqueville's cultural-analysis trip through the USA) in "American Vertigo" (isn't that a U2 song?) So... back to my travel narrative. Not much left, I'm sorry to say, other than the fact that I was afraid for awhile my flight wasn't going to go, since a number of them were cancelled due to the strike. But all was well and I got back just in time to see on Channel 8 that I apparently was grabbing a Booya Juice smoothie at the airport just about the same time they were arresting that sexual predator there. Too bad it was all secret, or I could have been on the news, my jet-lagged face weary with Parisian excess but still speaking up for the safety of our youth. Just kidding; it was a great five days, and I don't have to go back to work till tomorrow morning. Before then, can anyone tell me what happened on "Lost"?

February 8th 2007
I woke up in snowy Bend today, feeling slightly gnomish. The Finnish Cultural Fund granted support to our new initiative, International Study of Games Cultures in their annual Gala yesterday. This work will start this summer, initially looking at similarities and differences between Finnish, Korean and American games cultures. Cool!

February 10, 2007
Best things are often simple. I’d say it’s worth checking out this classic text adventure; BBC offers a 20th anniversary edition to it with a new interface. Link: BBC - Radio 4 - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - The Adventure Game

February 12nd 2007
Personal diary, game studies, events, science fiction & I took two days of holiday this week, starting tomorrow. This is to do some work, as every day that I am at “work”, will be spent on meetings, seminars, teaching or various administrative tasks, which need to be done, but which I do not consider proper work, in that deeper, more qualitative sense of the word. So, I have to get some holidays to focus on the creative aspect of science and scholarship. Perverse? Maybe, yes. There will be a session on the relationship between science and science fiction in the university’s science fair “Tieteen iltapäivä ja yö” this year that I will be hosting. We have three professors, from different backgrounds, and from different angles, discussing the role of creativity in their work, and how they perceive fictional speculation from their own position. That should be fun enough — there should be interesting examples and discussions coming up.

I just spent some wishful minutes in updating my Amazon.com Wish List to include some novels and short story collections from Neal Asher, Charles Stross, Richard K. Morgan and Dan Simmons that I wish I would have some time to immerse with. GDC 2006 is also coming up. There will be two tutorial days (seminars) where I will be participating as one of the speakers, but happy to be in a minor role in both of them: “The Social Dimensions of Gaming" (DiGRA & IGDA co-operation) is coordinated by T.L.Taylor, Bart Simon and friends and will “bring together expert social scientists doing research on game design, play and culture to work with designers in generating useful vocabularies for making sense of the social dimensions of digital games”. There. And then there is the “Game Curriculum Workshop,” coordinated by Katie Salen and Katherine Isbister, which “brings together some of the best and brightest developers, scholars, and students to take an in-depth look at game curricula — now, and in the future”. Welcome to drop in and participate, if your road takes you either to the Eugene campus, or to San Jose this year.

Feb 13-2-2007
I was in William Stafford. I am one of those people (an increasing breed) whose work largely consists of maintaining processes that are based on messages, meetings and other collaboration via communication (or waiting/dysfunctionalities of that communication). In many days there is a train-trip to Eugene (2 x 2 hours), or a flight travel to some foreign destination (anything up to a dozen hours in bus, taxi, airport and aeroplane - and then the same back again). It is an eternal frustration to get the work done with the whatever limited online time I have available. Eugene - Portland train trip for example should be optimum working time, particularly when you are equipped with a 3G/GPRS network card, like my laptop. But no: the connection is breaking down, the email program is all the time jammed, and it is very hard to participate in any of those oh-so-urgent processes. (Why they are urgent, what is happening to all of our time these days…) I try to keep travels to old-fashioned reading of paper documents, but many issues are those oh-so-urgent ones, and if a full day is spent off-line, that will only mean that you need to take care of all those messages in the evening, on your “own time”. Even air travel carriers are now talking about allowing mobile communications; when shall a simple train travel stop meaning becoming an amputee, unable to hear, see or participate? (Make your refs: cyborg subjectivity, posthumanism, prosthetic and/or amputated condition, posthumanism…)

February 14, 2007
Portland, Ore., USA, Well after midnight yesterday I got back from last week’s IPerG pervasive games workshop in Bend. If you take a look at my Flickr photos, you see lots of swan, geese and other wildfowl, that I only afterwards realised are the prime candidates for getting a lethal bird flu these days. Well, the flu seems to be the same one I had even before the trip, or maybe you could mix them together, coming up with new viral combinations, then letting them fight it out in your own body? Oh, just another rather tired game idea…

February 15, 2007

Out whole day today, shooting mostly landscape photos in crisp winter sun. Luckily the battery did not run out, temperature was again c. -20C. This image of frost flowers was slightly edited afterwards in Photoshop, and fine-tuning the light levels did make the shape stand out more clearly. On a more philosophical tone, I have been following the discussions of some people on how the desire to photograph, or otherwise document your life and experiences potentially alters the situation and thereby your entire life. On the other hand, you might start seeing everything you do just as a raw material for your productions, but on the other hand it is also possible that you pay more attention to the tiny details of life - your activity might be the amplifier to life experience.

During the week of February 16 – 23 was very eventful. As I stayed in Portland Oregon for what was one of the busiest weeks I ever had away from work. My flight was delayed but, going to the screening of the new movie “Zoo” was very interesting and informative. Also the night was just beginning as I was with two of the main pieces of the movie. Charles Mudede (writer) and the director Robinson Devor both very intriguing and very thought provoking suggested we head off to a local strip for some late night drinks. Which is something I haven’t done every since I got married. I had one to many drinks. As we discussed the movie, I felt kind of awkward while at the strip club and tried to block it out. The week just kept on getting very interesting yet exciting. I was also introduced to a famous political dissident, in the “West Hills” and to my surprise when I arrived there were two well known Oregon authors KEN KESEY and Merry Prankster. We were to have a lavish dinner severed with a fine wine that Ken Kesey brought over from his personal wine cellar. I was getting a lot of praise from Ken but, of course at this time he might have had one to many. He was commenting on one of my first and lesser know novels which at first I was a little uncomfortable but saw the humor because of how drunk he was and it was a learning experience. Before I left for the hotel Merry Prankster had a idea of volunteering at the local library and asked if I was interested. It was a local reading for elementary school students. And the topic of discussion will be “Marcel Proust”. I was asked my thoughts on “Marcel Proust” and what came to mind was “Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.”. Ken a little drunk still said he was impressed and said to make sure I’m at the library before 9am. That afternoon I decide to relax and take a walk through the forest. I was just ten yards into the forest and I could hear a kind of yelping but, at the same time a growing sound. So I decided to investigate where it was coming from. As I approached a bush in the clearing I came upon a wolf that was in severe pain and seemed to be stuck or trapped. I was very concerned but didn’t know what to do because of it being a wild animal and it severe pain and not wanting to take the risk of getting bitten. But, I couldn’t just leave the animal to die. Then all of a sudden I remembered I had my cell phone and called my friend I met from the other night at the screening. I gave Charles a call and since he knows the area better then me I asked him if he could call some type of animal rescue to help the wolf. After I had explained to him the situation, he called the local animal shelter and they took it from there. I waited until they came and set the animal free. I almost broke down in tears when they freed the animal. I really felt I made a difference in someone’s life. Well an animals at least. It was it such pain. They told me the wolf should be fine and they said it was more scared then injured. I felt really moved by this experience. Charles gave me a ride back to the hotel and joined me in the lobby for some drinks. I ordered us a couple of drinks and discussed the events of my very eventful week here in Portland Oregon. As we sat there and drank, Charles brought up the name William Stafford. He asked me what my thoughts were about what he has done in regards to poetry. I said Stafford’s poems are often deceptively simple and complex vision upon closer examination. I have to agree with James Dickey, writing in his book “Babel to Byzantium, notes that William Stafford’s natural mode of speech is a gentle, mystical, half-mocking and highly personal daydreaming about the western United States. Charles said he was also a little skeptical of some of his work and also on how deceptively simple but, that’s the genius of Stafford’s work. I responded with, to a certain extent that is true. As we finished our drinks we exchanged numbers so we could stay in touch because, I had an early flight in the morning to catch.