Tag: Philosophy

Clown School Weekend 2.2: What’s in a Game?

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That which we call Our Hero, by any other game, would play as sweet.

What is a game?

A game isn’t one thing, but a cluster of traits that, in sufficient combination, make us recognize something as a game. None of these are necessary, but enough of them is sufficient to make something a game. Some of those traits are:

  • Competition and/or cooperation
  • Ability to win and/or lose
  • Use of toys, equipment, and/or pieces
  • Play
  • Fun and/or pleasure
  • Turns
  • Rules
  • A self-contained world, protected from life’s other elements
  • Practicing skills useful elsewhere

The trouble of defining game is the trouble of defining any abstract concept: when we say “X is a game,” we mean it has enough of the qualities we associate with games for our brains to light up in recognition. Hence our endless debates, like whether a hot dog is a sandwich.

Games vary across cultures because the pleasures of play vary too. At clown school, we seek a joy that’s light and friendly; in sport, the joy can be vicious, even cruel. Have you ever watched a professional tennis final? They’re clearly playing a game — but not playing games.

Defining abstractions always circles back to the Supreme Court’s test for pornography: we know it when we see it. Still, shared language demands some definitioning (now a word). And that task grows harder as meanings and technologies evolve: even “simultaneous” doesn’t mean what it once did.

I like games. Always have. And by that I mean: I like whatever fires my neurons to say that’s a game. I like them better than mere activities; give me competition or a timer, and I’m in.

So:

  1. Games are hard to define.
  2. Games share recognizable traits.
  3. I like games.

I recently stumbled upon a definition for game by the philosopher Bernard Suits: “the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.” Elegant, but too narrow. It fits golf or chess, not politics or dating, where the obstacles aren’t unnecessary, just chosen. I don’t think “dating is a game” is metaphorical; I think it’s a real diagnostic description of how people behave in the world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein suggested that definitional meanings work by family resemblance rather than rigid borders. I’ve always respected the man; nice company to stumble into.

Maybe that’s why I love games: they’re how we practice living within constraints — voluntary or not — and still find joy.

Life, after all, is the longest game we play.

Game on.

Clown School Weekend 2.1: The Cleverness of Simplicity

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In which Our Hero dunks on century-old cinema

Charlie Chaplin is a comedy god. I saw his magnum opus today. It was… fine?

Not great. Not exciting. Not even that funny.

One or two strong laughs — the eating of the shoe, the dancing dinner rolls — but mostly, the movie made me sad. My film-buff friend assured me it was meant to. The pathos is why it’s endured, he said.

So we watch the Little Tramp suffer. The love interest betrays him. Our Hero suffers yet again. The sadness swallowed the play. I felt too much pity and fear to laugh.

I’m certainly more of a Marx Brothers fan. I like the clever. The sharp. The witty. The possible. Chaplin, by contrast, was morose. The Marx Brothers sparred with logic; Chaplin wrestled with circumstance.

I also saw three Laurel & Hardy shorts, and liked them much more. A quest to change pants, failing in ever-new ways. Elegant clownic escalation. Need a new beat: toss a crab in the pants. Simple. Repeatable. Because it was so limited, clever.

Clever comes from doing more with less. Laurel & Hardy did more with less. So did Chaplin, at his best: when dinner guests ask for a speech, he offers a dance instead (because it’s a silent film!). Cue the famous dinner rolls.

In clowning, the game is paramount. A simple, easy-to-understand game that provides boundless fun for the time allotted. Make the game simpler. Then vary it. Expand it. Loop it. Narrow it.

With clown, I don’t want a new game. I just want another well-played round of the same.

That’s what I’m learning in clown school: the joy of the repeat.

That’s what I’m learning in clown school: the joy of the repeat.

Clown School Day 10: How to Win by Losing

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In which Our Hero finally beats himself

I loved it when a classmate called me a douche. It raised a key question: Am I a douche?

To that, I had to answer yes. Because anyone who steamrolls friends at silly games is a douche. And I’d been playing silly games to win, despite frequently being much better than others.

A knight without chivalry is a douche. An assassin without honor is a douche. The powerful, when they flex on the powerless, are acting like a douche.

(He said this after I grabbed a ball he was juggling. Not a big deal. Still, a douche.)

I wrote in my notebook: Stop always playing to win. Try playing to play.

Then we started wall ball.

Wall ball is simple: hit the ball, it hits the wall, bounces once, next player hits. Compared to my group, I’m very skilled at wall ball. Last time I won the tournament (ahem, ladies 😉)

This time, I decided to try play. My game:

  1. Don’t die.
  2. Give the next player the easiest possible hit.

Using this approach, I eliminated only one person (on a challenging shot where a gentle hit might have put myself at risk). Still, I reached the finals.

At the finals, a question arose: keep playing my game, or now play to win?

I chose my game. Either he’d win, or he’d beat himself.

First to three wins.

He won the first point.

He mis-hits. All tied up.

I thunked one off the side.

He botched another.

Two-two. Next point wins.

He fired a zinger to the corner: unreturnable. He wins.

The crowd went wild.

Everyone loves seeing David beat Goliath.

I cheered too. It felt better than winning the tournament. That had been awkward. This was joy. I led the chant: “Speech! Speech! Speech!”

The victor obliged.

I don’t think I’ve ever thrown a game before. This didn’t feel like throwing. It felt like optimizing for something bigger.

I didn’t lose. I won at a bigger game.

Sometimes the point of the game is play.

In theater, the point of the game is the play.

—

Later, our class watched another student play a game on stage with the same man I’d met in the finals.

The student was far more skilled. My teacher said:

“When you play with someone much worse than you, you must have good humor.”

That’s why I’m here.

To learn good humor.

Clown School Day 9: Clown Fight!!!

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In which Our Hero proves he’s got rubber balls

Today I pissed off a clown.

It’s better to piss off a clown than to be pissed on by a clown.

We were playing 9-square. It’s like 4-square, but with 9 squares and more chaos.

I was playing legally. The rules say you can’t block another player, but you can wander outside your square. I was the King—the occupant of the center square—but I spent the whole game standing off to the side. Because: strategy.

The owner of that square complained.

The ref said my move was legal.

The owner complained again.

The ref asked me to move.

I moved.

Then I taunted the square’s owner.

The owner complained a third time.

The next ball that came to me…

I smacked it as hard as I could at her feet.

She was pissed. The crowd gasped. She appealed to the ref, who shrugged, as if to say: He played the game hard. What do you want me to do about it?

She stormed off. Later, I caught her venting to another player, confirmed later as badmouthing: “Can you believe that?”

Here’s what I learned:

  1. When I feel someone’s playing shenanigans, I get righteously pissed. When I get pissed, I get determined. And when I get determined, watch out.
  2. My classmates will now play differently with me.
    1. The fun-first crowd will avoid my wrath.
    2. The competitive ones will know I don’t back down.
  3. I may have just become the enforcer of clown school. Neither good nor bad—just a role.

It’s no coincidence that the person I clashed with was the second-best at the game. Competitive people find each other. And when they do, sparks fly.

I respect her. She plays hard. She got the ref on her side, a valid tactic. Later I overheard her admit she’d been feeling a bit touchy today. So maybe we both just hit the limit of our light play energy.

And she got me back. In the final round, she served me a tiny, dinky little ball: barely legal, perfectly placed. I was out. No one else noticed.

Well played. Respect.

(Though I’ve since heard others reacted to her venting with a kind of “Wait, what’s she mad about?” bemusement… so maybe the last laugh is still up for grabs.)

—

But what is this about, really?

Is this a story about clowning? About performance? About theater?

Maybe.

In a way, 9-Square is theater: it’s a miniature social hierarchy. The King in the middle. The peasants below. Everyone clawing their way upward by knocking someone else down. Game of Thrones played with rubber balls.

In singles, you play for survival and glory.

In doubles, it becomes a romance—your fate tied to your partner’s. You win not through aggression but through sync, trust, and conservatism.

It’s a lesson in status, alliance, and timing.

And like all good clown work, it’s about how you handle the fall.

—

As for my reputation: some classmates already dodge competing against me. Fair. For me, winning is part of fun, but the real goal is shared joy. I just happen to find joy in playing hard. Someone has to be clown game king: might as well be me.

Clown School Day 8: Nice, Simple, Social

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In which Our Hero makes a friend!

Once in a blue moon, you meet a person who feels like someone you’ve known your whole life. In my case, today’s was a trans, autistic, lesbian philosopher with eerily similar experiences to my own. Dinner started at 7 p.m. and ended at 11:30, including a long, leisurely walk around the park.

My goals at clown school are threefold:

  1. Learn the practicalities of clowning
  2. Learn the theory of clowning
  3. Make friends I’d like to spend time with after clown school

It’s nice to move forward on #3.

Notes from clown school today:

  • Blindfolded ball pickup: Walk toward a ball with eyes closed, then pick it up. The key is counting the right number of paces, then walking normally even when, near the end, excitement floods in.
  • Chair swap game: Don’t let others rattle you. Don’t move until you have agreement.
  • One structure of game: One vs. Group. A bunch of people beating up on one idiot (à la Monkey in the Middle). Perhaps funniest when all are idiots.
  • Some people are more confident than they are right. One classmate especially.
  • Idiots trying very hard at something they’re terrible at → very funny.
  • Smart people tease each other; idiots conspire.
  • Regardless of external intensity or internal emotional intense, I must still speak in a BIG, BOOMING VOICE.
  • Idiots playing smart games → lots of apologizing.
  • A conspiring group mirrors fighting over limited resources; one-on-one intellectual duels mirror fighting for extraneous desires or abstract pleasures like honor.
  • Teaching hunch: if someone ends on a mistake, they dwell on it, therefore learning faster.
  • When the major/minor switches → fixed point.
  • A “miser for pleasure” hoards joy inside instead of sharing it.
  • Loud creates an impulse. The important part is the impulse.

Clown School Day 7: First Impulse

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In which Our Hero fails via simian ejaculation

“At the sound of the drum, you must make the sound of an animal ten seconds before it has an orgasm,” said our teacher, in his typical Swedish accent.

I chose my animal. I spotted others’ mistakes. I planned my route. I considered the method by which I was likely to fail. And then, when the time came, I failed. Bombed. Flopped. Crashed. Kathunked.

We were playing a game of cannibal chairs. It’s exactly like musical chairs, except your teacher is from Sweden. And when you’re out, if your animal’s orgasm is enjoyable enough, you’re saved.

Some students latch on to the impulse right away. They grab the failure and they start DOing. Prancing about the stage; braying like a donkey; mooing like an aroused cow, etc. Others take a beat. I decided I would be in the second category.

My first impulse is often fear. So I decided I’d wait. Take the second. Build the second wave instead of grasping at the first splash. First impulse is for those who ride external energy; second is for those who find it inside.

I noticed this dichotomy when a friend failed to find a chair, then walked to the side of the room, thunked the wall, and began his performance. The three seconds pause allowed him to collect himself. When he arrived, he arrived. His face was open, eyes shining. We loved him. Life saved.

When I failed, I latched onto the first impulse. I flailed. Yuck.

My first impulse was, as it so often is, fear.

My second impulse. Security. Comfort. Presence. That can be beautiful.

Another lesson I will need to incorporate.

One I have learned before.

Perhaps one day my first impulse will lack fear. Perhaps one day it will be honed enough to succeed. Until then, it is mere panic. And panic has no place in clown.

Clown School Day 6: Putting the Text on the Game

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In which Our Hero attempts to cohere the visual-auditory media 🧐

Should the game be a visual metaphor for the scene, or should it be an unrelated game?

My suspicion is the former. A coherence between the game and the dialogue makes for richer depth of audience experience. It does, however, bring increased danger of “playing the text”, which is bad.

The scene is Taming of the Shrew, Act II Scene 1. The scenario is: Petruchio (me) commences his wooing of Kate (my classmate). The game is… well, that’s what we’re deciding.

We want the game to be not so on-the-nose as to be boring (ie “playing the text”). I also want the game to be sufficiently related that the visual experience parallels the auditory experience.

My partner suggested catch. I think it’s a sufficient, satisfactory choice, a serviceable game. I wonder if we can elevate the experience by mirroring the text more. Dodgeball instead of catch, for instance. Or we line up a row of soda cans behind us and have to defend them while the other throws a ball to knock them down. These games mirror the text: verbal prods à la dodgeball; or Petruchio attempts to knock down Kate’s defenses → Kate fires back → we repeat.

It’s fun to watch people play a game. It’s fun to watch multiple communication media cohere. I think ideal theater is both.

—

My roommate received five zeros today. The most zeros I’ve seen. Brutal.

When he strode onto the stage, the teacher said, “This guy never understands anything.” Then, after he spoke one single word, the teacher banged the drum to kick him off stage. He walked back to his seat. She said “You get zero. No: zero is too good for you. You get double zero.” He said, “I understand it now: give me another chance”. She said, “It’s Monday, so I give you another chance”. He returned to stage. He spoke one word. She banged the drum and bestowed upon him three more zeros.

An hour later, I saw him at home. He told me he understood what he had done poorly. Her zeros had taught him. He went to the bar to socialize with friends.

In April, my final presentation received a zero. The one thing I had practiced for three weeks: when it came to my final performance, zero. “First zero of the day”, my teacher told me.

Somehow, being first didn’t help.

Maybe that’s the game: collecting zeros until you crash. And the moment you give up: you receive your first one.

Clown School Weekend 1.2: Phoning It In

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In which Our Hero phones it in with a brief reflection (it’s the weekend, after all)

I started memorizing lines this weekend. The school doesn’t care what the words mean: only that you say them exactly right. It’s strange to memorize language as sound instead of sense.

I’ve been using a first-letter mnemonic I found on YouTube, which works surprisingly well. Combine that with the top-secret trick of practicing right before bed and again first thing in the morning, and the lines get codified much faster.

That’s all for today. Tomorrow begins Week 2 of Clown School. Onward! 🎭

Clown School Weekend 1: The Tragic Flaw

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In which Our Hero contemplates monkey business

Why is it funny to watch someone trying so hard? Repeating the same failed strategy over and over? Exaggerating a single specific trait?

Is clowning the humor version of a character’s tragic flaw? Is the same element that drives us to extrapolate a whole character from one personal or physical or psychological deformity also the same that makes us love this repetitive, heightened, exaggerated play?

Do monkeys clown? They certainly have tragic flaws. Do they goof? Perform mockery? Satire?

—

I visited a clown performance today. Half a dozen clowns stuffed into one small stage. One read the story of Snow White and walked oh so slowly across the stage. Another pantomimed a horse and played the audience like a musical instrument. A third sang Disney songs and perhaps was a burlesque performer not a clown. My favorite was a clown singer. Here’s what he did:

  • Appeared on stage in a shiny jacket and ascot to announce “and for my final song…” (which is already a funny opener)
  • Followed it up by announcing it would be “one from my new album…”
  • Cued the DJ by referring to him as “song boy”
  • Performed precisely three funny gestures
  • Sang the beginning of a song
  • The song had some small snag, so he stopped and refused to sing again until we the audience showed him enough love (eg by demanding an encore)
  • Repeated from the beginning

I loved the whole thing. My only gripes were 1) the women behind me who were talking during the show, and 2) the ending could increase our love for the performer rather than merely end it.

I have a few hunches on how to execute #2. I’ll share them with the performer when I see him. (It’s unfortunately not legal to execute #1.)

—

The funniest-in-concept performer was a poet who wasn’t obviously a clown nor obviously a poet, who prompted the audience to not know whether it was intended to be earnest or funny. I couldn’t stop laughing.

After the show, I approached this poet. I needed to know if he was real or not. My conclusion: he’s a real poet who really did just find himself repeating reordered sequences of the same sentence of words at an underground clown show.

Maybe that’s the secret: the clown, the poet, and the rest of us: each repeating our flaw until it becomes a performance worth watching. And perhaps that fact is the funniest of all.

Clown School Day 5: The First Presentation

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In which Our Hero learns that punctuality is for mimes

Monday after class, every student except one gathered outside the studio to form teams. That one was me. I was off to buy sushi. A grave mistake.

Earlier that day, we had received our first presentation assignment. “In groups of 5, show us or teach us a game”.

On Tuesday, my default group (as it was the only group missing a fifth) suggested we assemble after class. I have a meeting after school every day, so I vetoed this idea. We scheduled instead to meet at 9:15 the following morning.

On Wednesday, four of us assembled at 9:15am. The last arrived at 9:20, at which point one of us agreed to babysit a small child until 9:25, which became 9:30.

On Thursday, one of us forgot we had a 9:15 rehearsal. He arrived at 9:25.

On Friday, one of us texted saying she would be 10 minutes late. She was actually 17 minutes late.

This place is full of clowns.

—

For our presentation, we played a game.

On one side, a large bird of prey screeched his desire to eat tiny chickens.

On the other, a mama bird defended her children.

We were light, airy, generous, friendly, open, and with impulse. And then, if we succeeded, we had to add text atop the game. It’s very easy for text to kill the game. But we care not for text. We care for impulse and complicité and game.

My group was the first to succeed.

It feels good. I’m excited for more!

—

Comments from this week:

  • “I’m afraid to shout because it makes me cry” — a student
  • “Your arms are floppy like you smoke hashish” — a teacher
  • “Did you have nazis in your family?” — a teacher, upon learning one of our students is German
  • “You speak in a toilet voice” — a teacher
  • “I think you’re funny for the wrong reasons”. —my roommate, about me