Tag: Game

Clown School Break Day 53: The Honking Subsides

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero clowns down. 

“I think you’re done with this theme. I think sometimes you have good things to say about games and clowns. But I think you’re too forced into a narrow hole.” –My partner, regarding my blog. 

It’s nice to have people tell you things you already suspected but hadn’t fully admitted to yourself. 

I’m not at clown school and haven’t been at clown school for 53 days. 

I’m not going to the next available clown course. 

My time and mind and attention are focused elsewhere. 

This is the state of the world of the JuJu. 

So what? 

I think I open up the subject matter of the blog. That sounds funny. 

Or, as my partner likes to say, “Julian plans and Julian laughs.” 

🤡

———-

For those of you curious, here was my daily blog before she made that comment: 

Is Jumanji a game? 

IN THE YES CATEGORY: 

  1. There are players 
  2. Players take turns
  3. On their turn, a player rolls dice and moves pieces
  4. Players act in pursuit of winning. 

IN THE NO CATEGORY: 

  1. It is NOT fun
  2. It is NOT separated from the rest of the world. (In fact, quite the opposite: elements come from the game to attack you in the world itself)
  3. The most crucial parts of the game are not clear from the rules 

Conclusion: 

  • Jumanji is a 1995 film starring Robin Williams. 

Clown School Break Day 49: Following the (a)Muse(ment)

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero says yes

I emailed clown school to tell them that I will not be joining for Melodrama. Melodrama starts in just over 2 weeks. I will be somewhat in New York and somewhat in France. I could join. My foot will be near-healed. But I don’t want to go. Why?

  1. I’m buying an apartment. I’m currently in the final stretch. My attention is elsewhere. This is a better use of my time.
  2. I’m just not excited about it. I’m still very interested in the Bouffon class. Perhaps I will join for that in February.
  3. The most important reason: I’m not super-uber-jazzed about it. I have other professional work I’m currently doing. And if the specific course is not super-uber-appealing, I don’t need to take a slot from someone else / spend the time & money.

–

Also, I made $550 playing poker today. Woohoo!

–

[Also, stay tuned.]

Clown School Break Day 46: Trivia ain’t Trivial 

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero leads a team to victory! 

My team won at trivia. Thirty percent of trivia is assembling the right team. Thirty percent of trivia is knowing the right answers. Thirty percent of trivia is accurately knowing your knowledge. And the last thirty percent is knowing how to give 120%. 

In the team-assembling category, my team excels at movies, science, games, literature, and mythology. We are weak at sports. This week, there was only one sports question rather than an entire sports section. That’s lucky.  

In knowing the right answers, we performed strong. We missed only 6 of the 22 questions. While that might sound like a lot (it’s almost a third!), our big advantage is in the next point… 

We know what we know. When one of my teammates says “I know this one”, we bet hard. Today’s trivia involves a point-wagering system: for each round of three questions, you assign one a small number of points, one a medium number, and one a large number. You submit your point wager when you submit the question, before you know what all the questions in the round are. So a team that gets only one third of the answers right can equal a team that gets two thirds of the answers right, so long as the first team assigns points correctly and the second does not. 

And then there’s knowing how to give 120%. When we know the answer is “Mississippi mud [something]” and my team is waffling between Mississippi mudslide and Mississippi mud pie, Your Humble Narrator (in his acting role as Team Captain) submits the answer as “Mississippi mud (pie)”. Ergo, when the answer is revealed to be Mississippi mud *cake*, Our Hero’s team receives the point. (Deservedly? That’s not mine to judge; I’m just here to get points.) This gamesmanship also manifested in Your Hero’s tracking of the points (so as to note that we were shorted 2 points in the theme round, and then get those reinstated). 

And I guess one final part: uniting people to a purpose. Trivia is not important. We’re fighting for a $30 giftcard when our table is spending twice that. This doesn’t matter. 

But it’s fun to try. 

Clown School Break Day 45: What is Fun? 

JulianLeave a comment

What is fun? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more. 

Yesterday night I played a bit of poker, then stopped. 

I wasn’t obviously playing poorly. 

I just wasn’t enjoying it. 

What is fun? 

Why is poker more fun when you’re winning? 

Part is the monetary aspect: it’s not enjoyable to lose money. And while the monetary aspect in this case is not large enough to be life-affecting, it’s still relevant to the pleasure. 

Poker is an intellectual exercise that I enjoy attempting to do well. It’s fun circumstance in which I strive to do something properly. That’s part of the joy that I get from sharing my hands with a professional poker playing friend: the interestingness of improving. 

It’s also a naturally exhilarating game. You can play well – perfectly, even – and still lose. 

Is fun just the distraction from suffering? That’s the etymology of at least one french word and one spanish word for fun. 

If so, are the times when I stop enjoying poker the times when it becomes too serious? When I’m taking it with too much heaviness? (Alternate hypotheses: my suffering outside of poker is too great for the distraction to work, or I’m not suffering enough outside of poker so the distraction doesn’t give me additional pleasure.) 

I think it’s closer to: I’m feeling fear. I don’t enjoy poker when I’m feeling a lot of fear. When the fear prevents me from playing well, I stop enjoying the poker. I clam up and that’s no good. 

Solutions: 

  1. Don’t play poker games where the stakes cause me to feel fear. 
  2. When you feel fear, notice it’s fear. Then put it in its place and make the right decision.

Amusingly enough, when I wrote that my today’s pokerplaying went from playing my B game to my A game. That’s nice! 😀 

Clown School Break Day 42: Making Spades for Poker Pros(pectors)

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero stumbles upon something interesting… 

My partner wants to improve at poker. She 1) has the sort of mind that could be very good at the game, and 2) wants to improve her comfort in situations where she makes the right decision but the outcome turns out bad. [She also 3) wants to improve her comfort in situations where she made the wrong decision and the outcome comes out bad.] 

We watched some theory videos together today. It was very fun. I enjoyed it. I’m excited for more! 

–

My partner asks whether there exist little poker drills, à la “hit the ball at this bucket” in tennis, so you can have fun while learning the skill. I said I didn’t know any. 

We therefore invented a way to teach a particular, very-important poker skill in a manner that’s actually fun. Perhaps we will expand this, refine it, and share it with others! 

… and I built an app for it! More info to come… 🙂 

Clown School Break Day 35: The New Player 

JulianLeave a comment

In which a new teammate joins Our Hero. 

What is it like to add a new player to an established team? 

Today we added a new player to our 3-person cooperative poker game. 

Upon adding this fourth person, we reverted back to the basic version of the game as it was a fitting level for them. 

Here’s what the experience was like for me: 

  1. Less psychologically engaging. The game was simpler so the intensity was lower. 
  2. More meta-play. I asked more questions, engaged in more conversation, made more jokes. We all did. The game itself was less of the game. We added other games to fill the empty space. 
  3. It was fun for a different reason. The relationship is one I care about. So I prioritized connection and play with this new player. The other players did too. We all wanted them to have a good time. So we left having enjoyed ourselves, but not as much due to the game itself as we had previously. Instead, it was more due to compersion. 

Our new player stepped away. We returned to our triumvirate crew. We took one round to re-acclimate and then clicked back into it. 

Perhaps much of socialization is knowing what game you’re playing at any given time and effectively switching between them. If you have more capacity, add another game. If you’re overwhelmed, let go more. If you’re welcoming a wobbly player you care about, play with them more (outside of the main game itself). And always know which game is most important. 

Clown School Break Day 21: The Egg Game

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero encounters an eggregious machine.

Walking through the casino today, I saw a brilliant game.
A perfectly engineered one.
A real bad egg.

It’s a slot machine called something like The Egg.

You put in your money. You slap the button.
Standard procedure.
Nothing shell-shocking.

But instead of reels to spin, there’s just an egg on the screen.

Every time you slap, the egg cracks a little more.

And when the egg is fully broken –
crack –
you win a jackpot.

The jackpots (at the $1 play level) range from about $3 to just over $10,000.
All of them are progressive.
They grow the longer you play. 

The egg takes a variable number of slaps to break.

It’s a well-made game.
Eggsactly balanced.

Here’s why.

1. It redefines winning.
You will win.
The only question is when.
Just keep putting money in until the egg hatches.

Winning doesn’t feel like if.
Winning feels like eventually.

2. You feel progress.
Every slap cracks the egg a little more.
You’re getting closer.
A chip here, a fracture there.

Are you actually closer?
Who knows.
But it looks like you are, and that’s all your nervous system needs.

3. Everything is a jackpot.
I watched a man spend $70 chasing one $10 jackpot and two $3 jackpots.

He won three times.
He lost $54.

But emotionally, during the process?
Sunny side up.

After he left?
Fried. 

4. It’s intelligible.
Most modern slot machines are incomprehensible.
You don’t even know what the rules for winning are until you’ve played for a while.

That confusion creates a false sense of mastery:
“I’m learning the game.”

You are—but learning doesn’t help.

The Egg is different.
Egg → crack → jackpot.
No shell game.
No mystery meat.

Immediate understanding.
Immediate hook.
Egg-ceptionally approachable.

A game egg-zactly positioned to attract newbies. 

5. It creates tension – and guarantees release.
The egg will break.
That’s the promise.

When that suspense releases, however,
the yolk (“joke”) will already have been on you. 

6. Your action feels causal.
Slap the button.
The egg jiggles.
A crack instantly appears.

Your body doesn’t care about RNGs or payout tables.
Your body says: I did that.

7. You can mash.
On a normal slot machine there’s a pause between spins.
The Egg?
You can mash the button 30 times in 30 seconds.
(I saw a guy mash 70 times in under 3 minutes.) 

So if you spend $40 and win $20, you feel frustrated.
And to relieve that frustration:
Have you considered mashing the button?

The feedback loop is tight.
The illusion of control is strong.
The design is…
let’s be honest…
eggstraordinary.

That’s it.

I’ve cracked it.

And now I’m walking away, before I get completely scrambled. 🥚

(Author’s note: I did not actually play the game. I am not a fan of slot machines. I did, however, admire it from afar. Here’s a video of someone playing it.) 

Clown School Day 18: You Must Play the Game

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero misquotes Shakespeare.

“This above all: to thine own game be true.” —Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 3.

It’s very easy to forget the game.

But the game is the most important thing.

Some performance is only game. Tennis, for instance, is only game: and look how much money that earns.

The Rehearsal

My scene partner and I rehearsed today. We lacked pleasure because we had forgotten the game.

The original game was simple: I make my partner lick a thing. Like when children find a bug and dare each other to eat it.

It wasn’t fun anymore. We knew it was coming. We knew he would do it. There was no tension, no conflict.

So we changed it.

Now, we begin with a eulogy for a piece of the space: “We are gathered here today to say goodbye to the power outlet.”

Then we play rock-paper-scissors.

The loser, as a ritual of farewell, must lick it.

As the scene escalates, so do the lickables. The floor. The bottom of a shoe. The teacher.

We didn’t have a game. Now we have a game.

The game? Rock-paper-scissors.

But with stakes!

The Farce

In Improv class, I realized the rule applies to everything.

We played a farce: a train compartment. One person enters, perfectly normal except for one grotesque tic. They repeat it. Then a second person enters, takes pleasure from that game, and — after a long time enjoying their tic (longer than you think) — adds their own tic, heightening the first. Then a third person. Then a fourth.

The game is simple: take the game from the person before you, heighten it through your play, and pass it on.

Simple is nice.

Simple is hard.

You have to feel the scene. Is it falling down? Are you talking over the game with “train compartment” nonsense? Are you heightening or dominating or smothering?

When everyone played the game, the farce appeared by itself.

When someone forgot, everything froze.

The game makes the show. Always has. Always will.

The Handstand

This morning, I flipped upside-down.

My first handstand (wall-assisted), then onto a peer’s back, who rolled me forward, turning us both into a ball.

A new game: gravity as partner.

I’d forgotten the joy of inversion.

The Father

My father arrived in Étampes today. He wants more than anything to see a class.

I’d love to have him: to share my play space. The school forbids it.

No visitors, no cameras, no phones. We even sign a “no recording” oath, like monks taking vows.

Why so strict?

Because clowning is vulnerable.

I’ve seen people bare grief. I’ve seen them make absolute fools of themselves (and not the good kind).

Once, a student scraped his false teeth along the floor before popping them back in. The room gasped. Disgust and horror.

Once, I yelled at the teacher. Their instruction felt like trash; maybe provoking me was the point.

This isn’t for YouTube. This is for us.

The school protects its game.

It keeps the outside world out, so the play inside can live.

The Lesson

The game is everything: the lick, the tic, the flip, the secret room.

When you forget the game, everything dies.

When you play it, life appears.

Protect the space so you can play the game.

Then find the game.

Release all else.

Play the game.

And when you lose it, start again.

That’s what makes it a play.

Clown School Day 17: The LeBron of Tic Tac Toe

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero learns that leadership means getting the simple things right.

THE SETUP

The game is simple: tic-tac-toe.

The complication: teammates.

Two teams of 11 players, across a ten-foot-by-ten-foot tic-tac-toe board. Each team has three handkerchiefs of their team color. At the sound of the drum, the first player sprints to a spot on the board, drops their handkerchief, and sprints back to tag the next player.

When all three of your handkerchiefs are placed, your move is to move one of your handkerchiefs instead of placing a new one.

At three in a row, you win the point.

THE ESCALATION

How is this so hard?

First, foot faults. Were both of your feet inside the square where you dropped the kerchief? If not, your placement doesn’t count. (More than one clown kicked the game board itself, forcing a complete game stop and reset.)

Second, speed. Your next teammate goes when your previous teammate tags them. If you dawdle, the opponents may get two moves to your team’s one: a death knell in tic tac toe.

Third, skill errors. Can you picture the board as it currently is, and how you would like it to be after your play? Can you balance both your team’s desire for three in a row with the importance of blocking the other team?

Fourth, panic. If you’re not sure where to place the handkerchief, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the twenty clowns yelling at you.

THE CHAOS

If this sounds intense, that’s because it is. It’s the most competitive I’ve seen clowns in four weeks of class. One clown classmate commented to me: “Usually you and I are the only two trying to win. In this game, everyone is.”

And the best part: it’s tic tac toe.

You know, the game that even a monkey can play.

When I played this same game in the summer course, I was dubbed “the LeBron of tic tac toe” by a Boston-accented TikTok star who’d gained school-wide notoriety for roasting himself in a Trump impression.

This time, my team came out to a strong start. 2-0 in the lead.

Their team called a time out.

From across the board, I could see one member of their team — a former death row attorney now turned stand up comedian — giving an impassioned speech.

Members of my team jeered at him. I thought of strategic elements I wanted to share — if unsure, play the middle or corners, not the sides; run back quickly to tag your teammate — but kept them to myself, unsure how to make them land. I didn’t want to come off as the pushy, out-for-victory teammate.

The game restarted. Their team came out on a tear. They won three of the next four points, and ultimately took the match 11-9.

All game I mused to myself: What had he said? They started to coordinate so well. What strategies did he share? How did he inspire them to listen to his suggestions without coming off as pushy?

THE REVELATION

At lunch, I asked him. I complimented him on his success, then I asked what he had said.

“Oh, that? Some of our team didn’t understand the game. I just explained the rules.”

There’s a Polish expression I enjoy that translates to “Not my circus, not my monkeys”.

Unfortunately, this is my circus.

And unfortunately, it is not populated with monkeys.

Clown School Day 11: The Joy of Gibberish

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero finally speaks his native tongue

I did it! I clowned! Wahoo!!! !!!! !!!!

Here’s the sitch:

Our head teacher asks for five people who don’t speak Chinese. I step forward. She plays a Chinese song and we’re told to mime along. Then she turns down the music and says: keep going. Continue the song, in this language we do not speak.

I have been preparing for this my whole life.

I’ve always loved imitating sounds. Not faces, not gestures, sounds. The cadence of languages, sirens, shower water hitting my rubber duck. It’s always been a private delight.

Today I let it out. I imitated the music of a language I don’t know, and loved it. The audience loved it too.

It gets better.

On Friday I asked our teacher how to tell when something works. She said: you have to look at the audience and see.

I already knew that, but I needed to hear it from her.

So today I looked. I saw the joy light up their faces. One woman — the same who’d argued with me on Thursday — beamed with glee. My roommate was glowing, proud to see me not only succeed but to know I was succeeding.

And so I kept playing. Kept singing. Kept sharing that joy.

Good news: I have a skill people love.

Bad news: in America, this skill is considered offensive.

Five years ago at a rodeo in Wyoming, I was doing a southern accent for fun. My travel partner told me it was unacceptable. She thought I was mocking. Maybe she was right; maybe she wasn’t. Either way, I stopped.

Now, at last, I’ve found a place where the same instinct — my delight in sound and voices — brings laughter and connection instead of tension and fear.

Sometimes I wander around the house doing silly voices. Usually, people shut this down. But in clown, it’s beautiful.

Or maybe it’s always been beautiful, I just need the right place to perform.

🤡

[My travel buddy of the last two years would like to add this note about me: “I’ve also noticed when traveling that you [Julian] pick up the accent and speech pattern of folks you chat with. I often worry that folks will find it offensive, but, tbh, I think they don’t usually notice and seem to like it.”]