So I received a test copy of Emma Larkins’ game Confabula Rasa today. From her page, it is an ” a cooperative word construction and storytelling game” where players take the role of kids who found scraps of paper in a creepy house in the woods. The way you win is that you have to figure out the story on the paper or the ghosts will get ya.

Now, I can’t give a review of the actual game, as it is a minimum of two players and I’m missing one. When we spoke earlier she also wanted to know if it’d also work as an idea-generating/solo storytelling tool. I kept that in mind when she asked if I would test the game.

Picking Apart The Scraps – First Try

I’m working on a personal poem side-project I’m keeping under wraps for now. I’m working on it at a strict rule of three and three lines per day. I wanted to see what the card “scraps” could do in generating ideas for lines. For the sake of my sanity and simplicity, I tossed the rulebook aside (sorry Emma!) and kept it to five cards:

I’d written one line earlier after noticing something from the design of tiled walls:

unique is a blue diamond –

and worked from there. The first word that came to me was the first I saw staring at me – sed, or thirst in Spanish. I jotted it down and went on my way as I scanned for what else came from this tangle of mangled letters.

This is where I made my first break using Confabula Rasa in Idea Mode. I found the word “crack”, which became pivotal to the line. From there I found other words – “dives”, “disarm”, “match”, “altar”, and “bed” -which eventually became the three lines I needed:

unique is a blue diamond –

cracked tiles forming entry

to an altar that matches a bed

Picking Apart The Scraps – Second Try

I used the Confabula Rasa rules this time to work on on a complete six-line poem this time around. I set up the deck as the rulebook said and dealt card. I started with the first word I formed, “one”, and went on from there. out came a logorrhea mess.

I was stumped for a while, so I actually had to use one of the mechanics of the game, the Power Card and played it so I could discard the card in my hand so I could play another. I found the product more creative but slightly rough and in need of an edit, so I won’t post it. It was interesting that I had to resort to the Power Card in order to keep going.

Additional Thoughts

Confabula Rasa as a creative engine shows these peculiar signs of promise if you aren’t inclined to play, or just don’t have a buddy on deck and feel like making a game of your own. Work along the rules still produces a playing experience of its own, and there’s enough there to make homebrew stuff.

I wish I could check out the entirety of Emma’s design right now, but from what I could do with it, I would recommend it as a novel way of thinking up new ideas. Writers looking for more unorthodox writing prompts can really cook up something with the scraps hidden in Emma’s cards.

I found an old tarot card deck that I might mix with this and make a Confabula Tarot mashup and see what I can do with it. But I do recommend this for an atmospheric experience with friends and family.

These were the best photos that came out of the chaotic fun I had at Governors Ball NYC I had last weekend. I saw around 19-ish acts, give or take a few more.

The interesting highlights were explaining Wu-Tang to a Guatemalan guy from LA who’d never heard of them, discussing US politics with a Canadian before the Avalanches set, and shutting down some punk kid who said he didn’t “respect” DJs.

As to why this was in reverse. It was after the Wu-Tang show that it occurred to me. I had started listening to them and by extension all of their work in earnest when I was in college. Flume, who I saw the night before, was now.  Tool who I saw on Sunday was emblematic of my teen years. It was as if I watched what I have been listening to for the last fifteen years in reverse, right in front of me. An oddly cathartic and spiritual feeling.

Here’s the link.

This year’s been rather crappy, no? People dying, authoritarian rising, all that jazz. Still, there were enough tunes throughout these 366 days that I could put up my yearly list. So, onwards with the Top 5 (would love to know your favorite albums from this year, btw).

Rihanna – Anti

The best way to describe Anti is that it’s Rihanna’s mirror, a subdued personal whisper with her best vocal work to date. There is the kind of Rihanna you expect from in “Work” and its ability to spill dancehall into the club. But this is a full-listen album. What starts with the electro-cool of “Consideration” ends with the intimacy in the ballad “Closer to You”. The ride between is Rihanna is her badass and vulnerable par excellence worth a good listen.

Anti is a departure to her normal work, that’s undeniable. There’s electro-R&B cuts like “Needed Me” and “Desperado” There’s also the ambition in putting a Tame Impala song on the album and melding it into superbly in “Same Ol’ Mistakes”.

Favorite Song: “Love on the Brain” pushes Rihanna’s voice to her full potential. The spirit of doo-wop and heartbreak conjure this constant shift between a vulnerable hush and despondent howl.

Flume – Skin

His debut was vibrant, the soundtrack of nighttime wonderland and the festival grounds rumbling with sonic glee. Skin brings Flume into another territory, a richer sound that uses the mix of garage, pop and hip-hop sensibilities, making a richer sound than can be expected from a dance album. It’s ethereal and glitchy at times (“Take A Chance”), and brusque and dreamlike in others (“Wall Fuck”).

He takes R&B-infused bass and uses it to make a glitched-out love song in “Say It”. A proof of that previously mentioned juxtaposition is in Kučka’s quiet by hypnotic voice mixed with Vince Staple’s verses in “Smoke & Retribution”.

Favorite Song: “Never Be Like You” is Flume’s attempt at an R&B jam mastered to its finest point. Kai’s voice moves between breathless and immediate, bringing her lyrics of forgiveness the right levels it needs.

A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service

So many hip-hop albums were already crowned AOTY by the time ATCQ released We Got It From Here… but it’s fashionably late release still went toe-to-toe with some of the biggest albums of the year. It’s tough to make a rap album with the bloated socially conscious rap scene that exists today. Q-Tip, Jarobi White and the late Phife Dawg were not held back by this and still made song after song that mirrored the topics of black America over Q-Tip’s signature beats.

And the beats are interesting. They’re modern but are still made from the DNA of the golden age of hip-hop. Does it make it dated? Perhaps, but compare the work on a song like “Melatonin”, which has a vibe similar to those from previous albums, to “Solid Wall of Sound,” which meshes Elton John and Jack White into this trippy space filled with pseudo-patois rhymes. There are so many songs that retain the spirit the group has had since its beginning but don’t sound like they’re phoning it in.

Favorite Song: “We The People…” is perfect “fuck your gentrification” hip-hop. I can sound a bit on-the-nose but that’s the way Tribe’s always been. Q-Tip and Phife trade verses laying out the problems people of color have are having at the moment, over a simple drum-and-bass ride, and it works so goddamn well.

Savages – Adore Life 

Never has an album talk about the vulnerability of love sound like it’ll kick you in the face. The London quartet laid bare what it means to love and live as a woman in this world but in a harsh, somber sound. They’re love songs set to the tune of the roses on fire.

Jehnny Beth’s pervasive goth-like haunting captures the dark romanticism, while Gemma Thompson’s and Ayse Hassan’s post-punk burn provide the engine for Adore Life‘s ominous voice. Fay Milton’s drum work brings the necessary urgency on songs like “Evil” and “Sad Person”.

Favorite Song: “The Answer” is love distilled in chaotic form. It starts with a seething riff and Beth’s wail of “If you don’t love me…” before unleashing a volley of violent drums and relentless lyrics on the inquisition of passion. Love is the answer, but the question is turbulent.

David Bowie – Blackstar

Danny Brown, whose album is on my honorable mentions, said something regarding Blackstar that we both share. He said how Bowie died to make the album it scared him. That wasn’t the case for me. I found it beautiful that David Bowie left the Earth on his terms, leaving one last statement and version of himself that we had never seen.

We’d seen the alien, the Berliner, the pop star, the modern reinventor, the elder statesman. On Blackstar we are in the private room with Bowie the Phantom Ascendant. You can hear that on the title track and in his voice throughout. There’s a particularly haunting part on the outro to “Dollar Days” where Bowie says “I’m dying to…” in repetition. In retrospect, it has a stronger meaning we should keep to our hearts.

Favorite Song: “Lazarus” was amazing for two reasons. First, of course, it’s the perfect swan song of a man comfortable with his coming end. Second, it actually makes jazz rock sound modern and relevant.

Honorable Mentions

Kanye West – The Life Of Pablo

Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool

Sturgill Simpson – A Sailor’s Guide To Earth

DJ Shadow – The Mountain Will Fall

A Tribe Called Red – We Are the Halluci Nation

Danny Brown – Atrocity Exhibition

Frank Ocean – Blonde

Chance The Rapper – Coloring Book

Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels 3

To continue my thought process of the first year of Haiku Mixtape (I’ve decided to continue the mixtape) here’s the next ten-plus one more.

Legend  of Chavo Guerrero – This is the first request haiku, from my good friend Rob. Now, I’m not a big Mountain Goats fan, but I do like wrestling and a challenge, so I used those two and created something from it. I like what I made, even if it might now be my strongest work.

Stack-O-Lee – The movie is mega-forgettable (I only watched it once) but man, what a version of the blues classic. Read the haiku, and while you do imagine Samuel L. Jackson crawling out a sludge with that guitar and playing that song. It works, doesn’t it?

Party And Bullshit – I posted this around my brother’s birthday, so this is a present of sorts. This is straight up a description of the parties he’d throw in the basement back in high school. No-nonsense Write What You Know on this one, my people.

Dimed Out – We begin the 2015 Top 5 songs haiku now (you can read the review here). I played with how I saw the album as a whole, the Titus Andronicus shows I’ve been to (hence the mosh pit reference) and our kindred Jersey attitude.

The Hills –  Fun fact: he just won two Guinness World Records! And the best part is that one gets the help from a song that is low-key about cocaine! This haiku, however, comes from the single that conveys the darkness in his mixtapes upgraded for a wider audience. I just listened to the song, and let it wash over me until it became my own words.

Lionsong – Bjork’s break-up song warrants a break-up haiku, I thought. The use of “cage” came for the chorus, from this idea that formed in my head of someone trying to come out of one.

Artangels – I remember when I was writing this one while listening to the song  and really enjoying the process, you know? It’s so saccharine but Grimes takes it to a place that’s not too tired, so it inspired me. The chorus uses French, so I went along with doing the same.

How Much A Dollar Cost – This haiku is a summation of the story Kendrick Lamar’s tells in this song. I know people are fans of the other ones, but there so many  powerful words in this one – it has this vibe of a gospel or parable. That was what I tried to convey here.

Run Away With Me – A nice switch from the previous haiku. Carly Rae Jepsen’s song was a mix of 80s nostalgia with her want to escape, hence why I used that word and “retro”.

Silent Shout – I’ve wanted to write this for a long time – It’s one of my favorite Winter Songs. There’s multiple versions of this, and even when I was in Photoshop mode, I wrote a new one on the spot that I felt described the song and how I feel when I hear it.

Interlude Haiku – David Bowie – This was sadly my first Interlude poem after Bowie died. I played with the fonts to show the man’s genius in changing styles. I put in two references (Earthling  and pale duke as a nod to the Thin White Duke), and in the background I placed an cropped part of his distinctive eyes as drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz.

I’ve been reading a lot of new poetry from a lot of new sources lately. There is one pervasive thought that’s gone through my head, the more I read the stanzas, digest their stanzas, flow.

“Fuck, I lost so much feeling, haven’t I?”

I am really not trying to throw shade at any poet, I know people are bleeding the words they need out of their hearts and there is some pieces that are divine in quality. , I think to some extent I have lost that connection. I feel bloodless, and read things in such a detached, almost clinical mind.

So I’ve gone back to the beginning, and opened my ancient Word files filled with stuff from almost a decade-plus ago. A good amount of it is terrible, of course, but I can see that in those words created by misplaced teenage crushes and unnecessary angst there was a flavor of me that was more raw. I need that taste again.

That’s what I’m trying to reclaim at the moment. I’m taking back the old poems and dismantling them. This time around I’m working under two simple rules.

1. Remove all vestiges/instances of love. I don’t think about it at the moment, I see no point in talking about something that isn’t a part of me.
2. Try to keep to the rules of Imagism – clear concise portrayal of the image. Or to quote William Carlos Williams, “No ideas but in things”

The idea may not be new, nor some of the ideas. But something can grow from an object if it is taken apart are built into a new piece of art. At least, that’s what I hope.