You Use A Nail. You Rub The Amulet

Runescape. It's the largest free MMORPG -- an acronym for: Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. My older son gave it a whirl when he was in grammar school, but he got bored with it almost immediately. Not everyone does; according to Wikipedia, Runescape has ten million active accounts a month. I'm pretty sure New York City doesn't.

There are a lot of videos on YouTube like this one. It's the virtual equivalent of The New Yankee Workshop. Hmm. It's the virtual virtual equivalent of a construction tutorial. There is no person, and he's not making anything, to sell to other not-people, to get not-money.

These are strange and new concepts, and must be dealt with. It's not as easy as saying it's foolish and a waste of time, which is certainly the default position when you first see it.

My little son spent the most of his free time yesterday making structures out of Lincoln Logs. He populated them with little people, and put a plot to their interactions, then got his mother's cellphone, recorded a video of the proceedings on the cameraphone, which he narrated. Then he erased it and started over. When I was young I did much the same thing, just without any hope of digital video -- or even a phone that wasn't screwed to the wall, with a curlicue tether, and a bell like a four alarm fire instead of a little song that plays. There is some sort of common urge there, that is being fed.

I actually...

How do I put this? See, this is the sort of thing that must be confronted, and sorted out. I actually actually stand in a little room and Use A Nail to make furniture. I don't have an amulet, and the dungeon door market is a little slow just now, but still. I show others how to do the things I do now and again, too, sorta kinda like the video. I can't imagine everyone runs out and builds a deck after I post twenty pictures about doing it, so perhaps you looked at it solely for amusement. The shadow world and the "real" one can appear somewhat the same.

There is a possibility that it's me living in the shadow world, not the people making virtual tables for imaginary friends. I doubt it, but the concept must at least be considered. I could make real tables in my real workshop and if no one buys them, it would be me living in a fantasy world, while the Runescape authors are sleeping on a bed of Benjamins. And no one is making a thousand virtual tables on a screen for nothing, I imagine. You can buy virtual goods with real money, and people do.

But I spot the danger right away, and I wonder if others do. What are we training our children to do? How does the little man on the screen capitalize and run his little business? Watch the comment box.

You ring the bell.
The servant is on the way.
The servant goes to the bank.
The servant goes to the bank.
The servant goes to the bank
Butler: Your goods, sir...

A little later:

The servant has returned with logs.
You accept the logs.

There is a whole world being presented here. Something that has captivated many minds. We live in a world where many things are virtual and value is placed on them in ways that are not transparent. Expectations about the way life is -- or should be -- receive a kind of nebulous reinforcement, drilled by repetition. Opportunities to create a virtual system are considered the pinnacle of human achievement now. Opportunities to "game" those systems, as the author of the tutorial is demonstrating, are considered much more achievable than creating a system, and so are in the second tier of accomplishment. Simple participation in the system assures just enough status to keep people wandering around in it, and so there's a big bottom on our ecosystem food pyramid, though when all is said and done, it is all nothing.

I just described Runescape -- and the career trajectory of the Treasury Secretary, Subprime Mortgage finance, Credit Default Swaps, Carbon Trading Credits, Amway, 95% of all Venture Capital expenditures, the Stimulus Package, and the entire Blogosphere, -- this little virtual world I contribute pixels to.

There are no servants. People will tell you that there are, to make you one.

I've Lived A Long Time, Been Many Places, And Seen A Lot Of Things. The World Never Stops Being Sort-Of Amazing

To paraphrase Samuel Johnson: A Japanese Country and Western Band is like a dog walking on his hind legs. It may not be done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.

Mid Sixties. That Junior Walker Is Really Something, But Buddy And Stacey Need To Ditch That Lefty Guitar Player If They're Going To Make It Big

I Need Something Beautiful Right Now (Again)

I've too much to do, and not enough time to do it.

That's fine; we all seek out that situation, if it's not supplied to us already. The newspapers are always filled with things about simplifying our lives. It's nonsense, always. We'd fill up whatever space we made in our lives with something else, the minute we had a free moment.

Life is richer, and fuller, than at any time in the past. I'm not that old, but I remember the limitless road of drudgery laid out in front of me when I was a young man. Get a job, do it, make your replacements on this mortal coil, watch Gilligan's Island, die. Join the sepia ranks of the anonymous.

Work and family are still all that matter to me in the world, that hasn't changed; it's the dreary wallpaper of everyday life that's improved, and I'm all for it.

Sometimes I catch people wishing for misery, nostalgic for a time when they were forced by circumstances to huddle together. They feel lost out in the landscape of life, and want company. And if you're not willing to go back to their crabby world, they'd like to thrust you back into it. No thanks.

I know people I would not have known if this box of electronics wasn't on my desk. I've seen places I've never been to, and will never visit. I know things I would not have known. I've been reminded of things that would have remained forgotten. I've seen that anybody that thinks they know very much about any one thing is a fool, and that anyone that thinks they know very much about everything is a total ass, and should mind their own business.

As I said, I'm busy, and pressed for time. I've seen the inside of one room for too long. I need to see something beautiful right now.

No sweat.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Carpenter Poets

Reader Jason Gordon wrote to tell me about the Carpenter Poets:

On a Thursday night back in 2004 one of the men came into James's Gate Pub with some poems from a book called "Hammer" by poet and carpenter Mark Turpin. Inspired by what they read, this group of Jamaica Plain carpenters challenged themselves to each write a poem: a poem about their work, a poem about carpentry.

Thank god for the Intertunnel; if it wasn't for this intellectual periscope I have going here, I'd never know about nuthin'. That's about a 50 minute drive from here, and I'd never hear about it. At first blush, I thought I'd never seen such a thing, and wondered at it. I've written a few lines of doggerel for a lark here, but I'm no poet, though my feet are longfellows, har har. Upon reflection, I realized I'd participated in something similar my whole life.

Not poetry, though. Music. I've played music, for money, with dozens of carpenters and painters and general contractors and cabinetmakers. Hmmm. Oh yes, I forgot; set painters at Universal. Welders. Carpet installers. Pool masons. Plasterers...

I realized all of a sudden that the majority of musicians I've known have worked with their hands at the same time. If you watch the video of my son playing in a pick up combo of his father's friends, there's a General Contractor/framing contractor and a shingle sidewaller turned cabinetmaker in there along with me, who is a -- well, whatever I am, I fit in there. Only the drummer was an academic -- a college professor. If he didn't show, Lumpy the plumber would take his place, so we could have gone the whole megilla if we wanted to.

We were the opposite of the stereotype. We weren't frustrated musicians working menial jobs waiting for our big break in music. We liked our day jobs and played music for a little money and some laughs. Only the contractor types were worth a damn anyway, as far as music. A real music job is very much like a building contract. You have to plan, and show up on time, and stay sober, and understand the logistics of the equipment. You have to be able to set up and repair your broken tools on the spot. You have to work closely with others. You have to figure out in advance what the customer wants, and deliver it skillfully. There's a great deal of heavy lifting, generally at two AM in a sketchy neighborhood. You have to work whether you're sick or not; the only serious injury I've ever had since becoming a wood butcher was a chisel stuck to the bone in the meaty portion between the thumb and index finger of my left hand about a dozen years ago. That's the spot the neck of your instrument rests on. I assure you I was on a plane to Denver two days later to play with my hand wrapped like a mummy.

We had lots of guys come and go that had way more talent than many of us that stuck. Talent don't matter all that much. You gotta show up. That seems to be hard for artiste intellectuals to understand.

I see the Carpenter Poets, and I see many things. Above all, I know they'll show up and the poems won't be half done. Their performance won't be a sneer towards the listeners because the performer thinks they deserve a better class of audience. It will be real, and real is hard to come by in this world, and precious.

I feel better about the world knowing the Carpenter Poets are in it, doing the two things in this world worth doing to me. I feared I was a brontosaur, and there's a comet in the night sky.

The Carpenter Poets.

Hilaridad Ensues

My son the loon was required to produce a commercial for an imaginary restaurant of his own invention. In Spanish. I cannot recommend having a mouthful of coffee while pressing the play button.

Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990)

He named it "The Promise of Living."



Funny, I've been promised a living my whole life, and it never seems to show up. Ah well.