Monday, March 29, 2010

Maximize benefit

"efficiency" has a connotation of dry-mouthed banality;
"Maximize Reward" or "Maximize benefit" sounds more fun.

Maximize benefit by means of fun.

During the trip to Boston I handed out like 23 zines. It's possible that those people will read this; That layer of association is a bonus. The experience of handing out zines is definitely increasing my capability in social interaction and dissemination of my procedural rhetoric. Passing out zines in a hip city is just one new and exciting experience of which i want to maximize the benefit by having a good time.

I think I'd like to go ahead and start a list of recent experiences that I would like to maximize the benefit of through fun activities:
-walking around a moist thaw city and being amazed that people are always around.
-attempting to fathom the population density of Boston and the exponential complexity when I begin to think about the idiosyncratic lives of Boston's citizens.
-Considering how much more applicable modern art is in a city setting.
-Enthusiastically exploring the concepts and designs of a city which produces economic benefit and integrates with a mammalian ecosystem.
-Exploring the demand for arcades and possible satisfications of that demand.
-Accepting and understanding the influence of setting context when observing graffiti and other arts.
-Getting my city on.
-Loving a field of naturally occurring crudités.
-Making a videogame called "city-jogger" where you get multipliers for not stopping and you have to dodge pedestrians, avoid cars, time cross-walks, and the setting is super interesting. Fully crafted pedestrians that you can learn about and observe, but are encouraged not to do so with automated reward systems for speed and distance.
-Developing and disseminating my concepts of gamer community.

7 comments:

Ryan "Cacophony" Clough said...

Thanks for the zine.

I enjoyed a lot of your words.

But I feel much of your ideas
are convoluted by semantics,
and your desire to sound
artistic in language,
where the art in your ideas
is sufficient as it is.

Your message may be better communicated
by simplicity.

Something zen-like.

clydebink said...

I want to know what you mean Ryan.
Is your comment in reference to the zine or this particular blog post, or any specific blog posts of the past or just my style in general?

I definitely allow my ideas to be convoluted by semantics, a lot of my ideas actually come from word play that I then re-interpret the results of. For instance, I might rhyme words and then think about what those pairings would imply. So I'm glad you picked up on that tendency, it shows that you are observant.
"The desire to sound artistic" I feel a need to defend against, so that's the one I'd really like to know your opinion on, because I'm not sure if I can see myself.

I would certainly like my stuff to be more simple and accessible, but because I show the work (like a math problem) I have a hard time balancing accessiblity for the reader and myself just being able to figure out what my message is. The obviopus answer would be to refine the message into something easily digestable after I've developed the message on another page.
Anyway, I'm really happy that you commented so sincerely, and I would love to hear more of what you think about what I've explained to you here and anything else I've done on the blog or zine. Thanks. I hope you comment more.

clydebink said...

Hey Ryan,
If you have any suggestions for writing methods, I would love to try them out.
I think today I'll experiment with simplicity. Just as I understand it, but Id like to experiment with how you understand it.

Ryan "Cacophony" Clough said...

Hey Clyde.

Particularly, I was thinking of your Zine.

When I began to look at some of your other work, I found a lot f the concepts to be a bit more clear, so either it was just the Zine, or maybe me acclimating to your style.

I really shouldn't judge about the desire to sound artistic. I think that just came out because I'm a mostly utilitarian kind of guy. Looking back, it's not really my place to criticize that aspect of your style.

And consider me biased, as I have a particular love for minimalism.

I'll try and remember to keep up with your blog.

You remind me a lot of my friend CJ (though you are different in many ways as well) http://imreallyawesome.com (a lot of his deeper journals aren't open to the public though)

Ryan "Cacophony" Clough said...

Ahhhh, you were there for PAX.

Maskes a lot of sense now.

Your video game theme, that is.

clydebink said...

"convoluted " is an understatement when applied to the zine. The thing those matri are quite dense.
Thanks for showing me your friend's blog. His stuff is really up my alley and I don't know how I would've found it if you hadn't mentioned it.
You can criticize whatever you want on my blog, I'm just glad you have an opinion, and I'm curious about what that opinion is.
I'm a fan of literary minimalism too, some of my biggest influences are fortune cookies, Basho, greeting cars and bumper-stickers. Some of my stuff is long, some are short.

Ryan "Cacophony" Clough said...

Yes, the matrices were difficult to follow at times.

And no problem,
I always enjoy reading his blog,
even when it's stuff I don't necessarily agree with.

It's great to see his thought process,
especially since its often such a fresh view from mine.