pitchfork

i wrote something on spec for kill screen and they kill-screened it :(

not enough personal sexual confessions i guess

ugh

the day i made love to metal gear solid: hardcore fucking solid snake

to me it reads as if the author is trying to write in this 'New Yorker'-ese--it doesn't flow naturally, though it gets better as the piece goes on

lots of passive voice, too

that's a good desc of p4k writing in general. trying to write in new yorker style when you can't actually write

i wrote something on spec for kill screen and they kill-screened it :(

they didnt want my piece abt 'sakura wars', dating and the 'ideal woman' either

the juggalo article seemed a bit Nathaniel West-ian

Please tell me that ocarina of time thing isn't real

it's an actual game, yes

It's better than sex.

http://pitchfork.com/killscreen/17-everybodys-doing-it-how-playing-legend-of-zelda-ocarina-of-time-as-a-30-year-old-reveals-its-magical-adolescence-of/

I think back now to the day I bought Ocarina of Time 3D. When I came home I felt a surge of excitement; I was finally going to experience this long-cherished title. I held the glistening package in my hand, expectant and ready. Then I saw my live-in girlfriend on the bed, much the same. I set down the plastic Nintendo box. Here was another Low Spot to explore. The mysteries of an imaginary kingdom could wait.

holy

When I was young, my house abutted acres of forest. One area in particular took on an aura of magic. It was called The Low Spot. After raking leaves or scooping dog poop, I would gather this debris in a wheelbarrow and push onward to the end of the woods. There, a dozen paces in, was a natural pit, a recess deep into the ground, capable of swallowing whatever found its way into this damp maw. I would roll toward the edge and tilt the wheelbarrow up, letting the compost tumble and fall into The Low Spot. Every time I came back, the trench seemed even deeper. Maybe it was growing. Maybe I'd be next.

Was his dog Clifford??????

a natural pit. a recess deep within the ground.

Twelve years later, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time released for the Nintendo 64. It was immediately heralded as one of the greatest games yet conceived. Peer Schneider’s review for IGN64 began with this declaration: “The new benchmark for interactive entertainment has arrived.” I remember a friend popping the gold cartridge into his system; I don’t remember much about that same friend for months, so enraptured was he by this new polygonal world. When it released in 1998, I was almost 17. The main conceit, that you were an elfish naïf destined for greatness, an anonymous boy growing into adulthood while slashing monsters and questing for rubies, didn’t resonate with me. Maybe I was too old already, hung up on swatting baseballs for my high school team or trying to look cool while standing in a parking lot. Maybe I wasn’t old enough, not yet matured beyond all that surface grandstanding. Maybe it was all the other stuff resonating in me, the jittery fluids coursing through my endocrine glands. I was more concerned with saying hi to Katie M. in French class than with finding the three Spiritual Stones. I already had two, and damned if I knew how to use them.

THIS IS JUST... NO

. Of course, any game we play (or book we read, or film we watch, etc.) will be flavored by our unique circumstances. But this particular journey, taken at this particular stage of life, seems less accepting of a player’s real-life projections. The first time I see the dark lord Ganondorf, his elongated nose and sharp features remind me of my brother-in-law. A cut scene explaining the creation of the Triforce, the Zelda series’ most important relic, resembles too closely a plot-line from Superman 2. Princess Zelda appears slightly mannish. Had I played Ocarina when it first came out, I doubt any of these distractions would have pierced the game’s fiction.

dude

omg

reading kill scrn kinda gives me some insight into the deep well of rage that whiney and strongo have access to

lol

reading kill scrn kinda gives me some insight into the deep well of rageLOLS that whiney and strongo have access to

As a young teen you lie on your bed, look up at the curved shadow on your ceiling, a tree limb or some other knobby protuberance

oh my god

I think back now to the day I bought Ocarina of Time 3D. When I came home I felt a surge of excitement; I was finally going to experience this long-cherished title. I held the glistening package in my hand, expectant and ready. Then I saw my live-in girlfriend on the bed, much the same. I set down the plastic Nintendo box. Here was another Low Spot to explore. The mysteries of an imaginary kingdom could wait.

OH MY GOD

don't even blame you for missing my post of that because i understand how you must have been sucked in

eye-scrapingly bad xp

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/42/ATribeCalledQuestTheLowEndtheory.jpg

"baby, when you lie on my bed like that you remind me of the compost heap behind my parents' house... so sexy"

can we theorize about "I held the glistening package in my hand, expectant and ready", like what is the idea there

"I want to dump a wheelbarrow of dogshit in you"

don't even blame you for missing my post of that because i understand how you must have been sucked in

haha yeah I was reading the article at that point and boggling

he's gotta realize how ridiculous this is

Of course, any game we play (or book we read, or film we watch, etc.) will be flavored by our unique circumstances.

coincidentally i watched a girlfriend play this exact game for the first time recently and it was fun because environments/situations that i was totally used to and just saw as technical problems w/ known solutions seemed to her like real places with real mystery and danger, like, when she saw giant fire-breathing dinosaurs she hid behind a corner and slowly crept around when they weren't looking instead of just running past them disinterestedly. made me appreciate the game more. which this article discusses! almost, for a second. before it returns to girl/compost-heap metaphors.

I really feel like "unique circumstances" is a euphemism for this dude

About

Jon Irwin writes essays, eats food, plays video games, and loves his niece and nephew. He also teaches Composition and Literature at various colleges in Boston.

He recently took a Staff Writer position with Kill Screen, a videogame + culture company. Other work has been published in LUMINA, Transitions Abroad, Down East, Paracinema, Monkeybicycle.net, GamePro, and Ann Arbor Paper, among other fine periodicals and websites.

In 2008, he was a finalist for the Francis Ford Coppola Journalism Internship. View the stunning video application that lost him the job here.

He is working on his first book, tentatively titled Enough: or, The Manny Diaries, about his year as a male au pair in France.

In 2009, he was selected for the PEN New England Discovery Award in Nonfiction.

Jon Irwin writes essays, eats food, plays video games, and loves his niece and nephew.

http://mlkshk.com/r/6BXL

I held the glistening package in my hand, expectant and ready. Then I saw my live-in girlfriend on the bed, much the same.

Doesn't this also imply the girlfriend was holding her own glistening package?

He is working on his first book, tentatively titled Enough: or, The Manny Diaries, about his year as a male au pair in France.

Me Write Shitty Every Day

http://ediblewrecks.blogspot.com/2008/07/encyclopedia-wine.html

reading kill scrn kinda gives me some insight into the deep well of rage that whiney and strongo have access to

― fart nosie (Lamp), Thursday, September 8, 2011 7:21 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

booming post

Gary Busey said...

Nice job!
July 31, 2008 10:47 PM

"I want to dump a wheelbarrow of dogshit in you"

I am still laughing my ass off at this

what the fuuuuuuuuuck @ this

this is totally making me nostalgic for the original Pitchfork, where every other review they published was as insane as this

as this article has proven, nostalgia can be a dangerous thing

Doesn't this also imply the girlfriend was holding her own glistening package?

First, I thought "are they playing Zelda together in bed?"
Then I thought "I want to dump a wheelbarrow of dogshit in you"

"I want to dump a wheelbarrow of dogshit in you"

I am still laughing my ass off at this

lol me too well done

24 hours later I am still having giggle fits

better giggle fits than giggle shits

plz i rly would like to read the n+1 article if somebody has a pdf :-)