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#Post#: 265--------------------------------------------------
BAD DAY ON THE MIDWAY (Project of the Week for 6th of February)
By: moleshow Date: February 6, 2017, 7:25 am
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just to follow up Freak Show.
#Post#: 266--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (6th of February): BAD DAY ON THE MIDWAY
By: dunwich Date: February 6, 2017, 8:07 am
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So, as I said on the Freak Show thread, I've mixed opinions on
this album/game/book/experience.
Having played the game several times over the years, I think
it's one of the most interesting and fun experiences The
Residents have made. The time limit forces you to play the game
through several times, and while I never fully completed it (the
'true' ending, I imagine, is identical to what the conclusion of
the book is), I always found it fascinating how the player
slowly uncovers tidbits of these characters lives.
Having said that, the music feels quite secondary for the most
part to the stories. Which is fine, but does make Have a Bad Day
feel like it is lacking somewhat. The stories themselves also
suffer compared to Freak Show. I find in the previous record,
and indeed in Gingerbread Man, there's a humanity to the
characters that really makes you invested in them. Bad Day, for
me, lacks that. Although the sometimes complicated and
mysterious backstories were very interesting to slowly uncover
in the game, I wish there was a bit more humanity there.
The book, which I got when it was released as a free e-book,
raised some other issues. I found the treatment of The IRS Man
to be quite disturbing, as he's essentially reduced to a
fetishised stereotype of a potent and virile black man. I had
real problems with how he was portrayed, perhaps also because
this never felt particularly obvious in either the game or the
soundtrack.
So...it's a mixed bag for me! Loved the game, mixed views of the
music, and very critical of the book.
#Post#: 267--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (6th of February): BAD DAY ON THE MIDWAY
By: eggoddleo Date: February 6, 2017, 3:47 pm
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I haven't played Bad Day on the Midway in years, I didn't quite
care for the eBook, and I have to admit that I never gave Have
A Bad Dayp and Bad Day Reconsidered serious attention. That
said, I went on a long walk to listen to both of these albums,
and I have to say, I think they're tragically underrated by the
Residents fanbase.
The MIDI sounds on Have a Bad Day evoke a sense of nostalgia for
people, like me, who played CD-ROM games in the '90s. Although I
didn't play Have A Bad Day until the '00s, I played many games
like it during the CD-ROM's heyday. I have to wonder if my
experience exploring CD-ROM worlds as a child was somehow
comparable to a Resident's childhood experience exploring the
carnival. Opening up a CD-ROM and firing it up in Windows 3.1,
for me, was like opening a cabinet of wonders. Have A Bad Day
emulates that world with its multimedia sounds and brings it to
your ears.
The digital timbre on Have A Bad Day brings us back tot he '90s,
yes, but it also brings us to the carnival, paying homage to the
metallic percussion of the music machine. Unlike the Freak Show,
where the MIDI sounds are masked with additional music and
studio magic, the MIDI sounds on Have A Bad Day are given room
to really sing, and the mechanical sounds prefigure Combo de
Mecanico and the Bobuck Contraption. It makes me wonder who is
making the interesting musical machines of today.
Sure, there is the Schick Machine, the installations of Frank
Pahl, and Wintergatan's Marble Machine, but the carousel and its
corresponding music box makes a fully immersive media
environment. Where are the machines we can walk, and play,
inside of today -- who is making them? Seriously, someone please
tell me.
Just as Have A Bad Day makes me think of machines and hardware,
Bad Day Reconsidered makes me think of software. Charles Bobuck
manages to pay respect to MIDI and musicbox sounds on this
remix, yet manages to completely subvert our expectations,
transforming a clunky old machine into an ephemeral ghost. But
agian, The Residents were on a frontier when they made their
foray into the world of CD-ROMS, who is on the cutting edge
today? If anything, it seems that people are doing the same as
Bobuck did on this album, by looking back, and making music with
floppy drives or pushing MIDI to its absolute limits. Of course,
there are EDM and IDM musicians who push the frontier of
software today, but I have to wonder how much of the future is
spent in the past.
While I'm talking about the albums, I should mention that
"Randy" (if we can even call him that in context of this album)
makes a significant contribution with Daddy's Poems. The lyrics
feel as if they're bits and pieces put together at randomy --
mostly, because they are -- but it works in context of this
piece, proving to aspiring writers that the odd rhyme or phrase
is worth holding onto.
Finally, I have to bring it back to the videogame, and what
waits next on that frontier. Homebrew videogames have boomed in
popularity in recent years, reminding one of the shareware
revolution of the '90s. One might think that the advanced
capabilities of computers would mean that it takes a team of
professionals to make a decent videogame, but consumers are
pleased with 8-bit and charmingly animated games, though none of
them seem to a creative team with an grand conceptual identity
like The Residents behind the work. I have to wonder if this
still applies to VR games. Is there such a thing as a charmingly
antiquated or so-bad-its good VR game?
Listening to Timmy Is Now an Adult from Bad Day Reconsidered
takes me away to a virtual world, where I'm Timmy, all grown up
now, floating through a software environment that has come apart
at the seams. Lottie and Dixie are old now. The Midway has
rusted to the ground. Everything is coming to pieces. And
somehow, things seem better this way.
EDIT: It turned my YouPube links into embedded videos, which is
gross, so I fixed that.
#Post#: 268--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (6th of February): BAD DAY ON THE MIDWAY
By: moleshow Date: February 10, 2017, 10:21 pm
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i feel like the game gets all the love when discussing this
project... which is fine, but there's value in Have A Bad Day
and the Bad Day book too. (i have not gotten all the way through
the novel- i uh... there's just, there's just this setup i have
going where... you know...)
from the 2 times ive played the game, it is amazingly immersive
for such an old game. im not much of a gamer myself, but i
really got a strong urge to explore it all, all the different
avenues... plus the aspect of it being randomized in its
events... as a game, it's really, REALLY good. fun to replay.
fun to explore.
i take quite kindly to the concept that the Midway is an
amusement park where the people are the rides. in their
cartoonish traits, its hard to ever be bored with them. but of
course, since we're talking about The Residents here, the
characters are inevitably strange and sad in their own ways.
Dixie is at the mercy of the world around her and is utterly
unable to cope with it, Lottie has a lot to deal with too-
seeing as she can't simply disown her serial killer son, Ted, a
freaky looking fella with a fixation upon all that is ugly. the
IRS man has turned to government perhaps as some would turn to
religion is his times of need. Ike is... nevermind him. he is a
man who tried to overcompensate for what he could never give his
father. Otto tries to compensate for time spent not being
feared. Dagmar seems to be fairly okay, although the overt acts
of performative sexuality aren't exactly signals that everything
is Just Fine.
some of these rides are hilarious, some are tragic, and some are
morally complex. but Timmy cannot perceive that much if any of
it is not fun- it all seems great to him. unlike the folks at
the Midway, Timmy isn't bitter about some aspect of his life in
any meaningful way. which leads me to the point that i don't
find it to be irrelevant that he cannot be killed in the strange
world of the Midway. he lacks the "ugliness" of hatred, spite
and bitterness within people.
it also takes the concept of "people as freaks" to a further
extent. the Midway is filled with people who are in some way or
another... strange. they behave strangely and care about strange
things. and their suffering is vivid, as well as pronounced.
generally, i don't have any particularly meaningful things to
say about this project. i think it'll take a couple more months
of chewing on it to really come to a fun/insightful conclusion.
#Post#: 269--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (6th of February): BAD DAY ON THE MIDWAY
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: February 11, 2017, 12:02 pm
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Gods Teardrops reminds me of something to do with Wormwood. Not
the bitter taste. Nor the incredible adjustment of perception
that is possible with a decent Absinthe. "Bad Day On The Midway
reminds me of Life A Users Manual by Georges Perec. "Bad Day On
The Midway was a departure for computer game experience. In
retrospect, "Bad Day On The Midway was an awful game. The visual
presence was sort of better than but worse than other games. The
soundtrack was superior to contemporary games such as Streets Of
Rage 2 and Tetris. The same ethical dimension found in, for
example, God In 3 Persons runs through Bad Day On The Midway.
Causing deaths and saving lives in a first person puzzle game.
This is not the high point of game culture.
The British Board Of Film Censors passed "Bad Day On The Midway
as a certificate 12 (AZG129210) uncut on 29 March 1996. Any
copies purchased before that date in the UK would be illegal.
Technically a video nasty. Nobody, of course, would ever
consider purchasing an uncensored copy. Nobody. Particularly,
nobody would consider purchasing a copy in Tower Records -
Dawson Street (Sráid Dhásain) - in Dublin (Baile Átha Cliath)
and transporting it across The Sea to Liverpool. That would be
wrong. Possibly illegal as it would be importing an "uncertified
work" which would never please the Censor. They did pass it
uncut for 12 year olds, though. I suspect a lack of deep
appreciation of the general genre of computer games on the part
of the Censor.
It was never a great game. The ability for macromedia to deliver
the kind of content that gamers desire was never really there.
The platform that Bad Day On The Midway was developed on was
just too primitive. The overarching puzzle - of how to prevent a
death - was far too radical for gaming where genocide was the
the route to the high score. Like much computer entertainment
from the past, it has aged badly. As different reviews over time
demonstrate. True there is a huge amount to play with, but it is
as a toy not a game.
[quote]
"If there's a star here, it's the graphic design: a rich
swamp-rot mindscape overseen by Freak Show's Jim Ludtke with
contributions (in the tales within Bad Day) from such
underground-comix stalwarts as Richard Sala, Paul Mavrides, and
Peter Kuper. Kuper's take on Otto the rat keeper's grim
backstory is particularly breathtaking: As the funky, stencilled
images unfurl across your monitor to the unsettling strains of
the Residents' music, it's clear that a whole new way of telling
stories is being born."
Entertainment Weekly (November 24th 1995)
[/quote]
[quote]
Bad Day is a product of the fertile imaginations of The
Residents, the anonymous performance artists whose first twisted
CD-ROM offering, Freak Show, demonstrated an enticing potential
for the medium. With Bad Day, they've come even closer to what
may be the next genre of entertainment: interactive graphic
novels. With graphics that perfectly match the story's mood,
hauntingly upbeat music, and superbly crafted characters, the
twisted design team has forged a story that is engrossing and
entertaining throughout.
GameSpot (May 01, 1996)
[/quote]
[quote]
In conclusion, Bad Day on the Midway is a game that you either
love or hate. Frustrating, weird, and disorienting, it is lesser
of an adventure game than an interactive story.
Adventure Classic Gaming (Jun 06, 2010)
[/quote]
Which highlights the problem for the Residents: Critics always
think they know better than Artists. Critics who can pull
magnificent references, out of a nether orifice, to the
Frankfurt School or Deconstruction or Umberto Eco's Open Reading
may not be the best authorities on the question, "is this a good
game?". In pursuit of a good game there is generally a balance
between graphics, sound and gameplay. The mechanics of gameplay
are notoriously difficult to make entertaining. Greg Easter
designed a Mark Of The Mole Game for the Atari VCS/2600. This
game was never completely finished. However there is a
description of the gameplay which has features in common with
the Lucasarts "Loom" (1990). Both "Loom" and "Mark Of The Mole"
foreshadow the Virtual Reality approach of using multiple modes
of input. An idea that reappears in Bad Day On The Midway.
The game is time limited. Which essentially restricts how you
can attempt to hear the music. True, there is are other ways to
hear the music, but, conceptually the Residents were making the
music part of the game. Unlike the bleeps and boings of
contemporary computer games or music as background, this was a
definite foregrounding of music as part of the work. Much the
same as anybody being able to use autotune but only one or two
people using multiple tracking to build up chords and sound
texture from autotuned voices, Bad Day On The Midway is not
simply doing what is being done before.
Between Tower Records in Dublin there is a sea filled with
Islands. Ynys Môn (Anglesey), Ellan Vannin (Isle of Mann), Holy
Island (Ynys Gybi), Walney Island, Lambay Island (Sheep Island),
North Bull Island, Ramsey Island, Bardsey Island, Calf of Man,
Barrow Island, Roa Island, Ynys Gaint, Piel Island, Hilbre
Island, Ynys Castell, Ynys Gored Goch, Chicken Rock, Middle
Mouse, East Mouse, Puffin Island and on and on. Luckily, there
has been regular shipping between the big island and the little
Island since about the fifth century. The shipping lines are
used to avoiding them - even when they are Saint Tudwal's
Islands but get called the Studwells; or Dalkey Island which may
simply be a figment of the pen of Brian Nolan nee Flann Obrien.
Which is achieved by taking the Middle Way between England and
Ireland or Wales and Ireland. The Middle Way is not to be
confused with the Midway or, indeed, the Middle Passage.
The Middle Passage was the euphemism for the slave trade: the
part of the trade where people were shipped from Africa to the
New World in exchange for finished goods from Liverpool to
Africa. Which is not to say that there was no slave shipping
from Liverpool - or Bristol, for that matter. Simply that the
Middle Way is not the Middle Passage. This is what you get when
you are Timmy: a presence in a world that is ethically and
morally more complex than you can even aspire to be. It is a
world that is largely hidden and access is controlled: such is
the nature of Obscurity and Computer Games. Rules everywhere.
To get from Tower Records on Dawson Street you have to avoid
Kildare Street (Sráid Chill Dara). If you fail to do that then
you can end up in the National Museum and that will distract you
into visiting the Natural History Museum on Merrion Street
(Sráid Mhuirfean). Which will have you running out of time for
catching the Ferry at eight this evening. Which, even though it
is four o'clock, is closer than you think. Even if you get
distracted by the Derrynaflan Hoard
HTML http://traffickingculture.org/encyclopedia/case-studies/derrynaflan-hoard/<br
/>you should be shifting along. It is pointless to hang about.
Indeed, until you sight The Poolbeg Chimneys you are really not
in a position to relax.
Before the Good Friday Agreement in 1999, travelling from
Ireland to England was always a bit more fraught with tension.
Because of "The Situation" it was common to be searched. In the
1970s it was common to have records and books confiscated on the
way into Ireland - and equally on the way out. The Censors were
particulary upset by things such as newspapers with topless
women and most David Bowie Records such as Aladdin Sane was
banned because it promoted something or other. The latter might
well have been that the Customs Officers were collectors rather
than Censors. You never know. Travelling with forbidden goods,
such as an uncertified computer games, was always an invitation
to detention. Which was more of an inconvenience than you might
think.
So it was that, turning up at the Customs with a copy of "Bad
Day On The Midway was a little more fraught than returning from
the shop and attempting to get things to work on a computer that
might or might not have the right CD-ROM Player. It was no help
that I was also transporting a copy of "Haveth Childers
Everywhere. (first edition), signed". Which is the danger of
going to the Port Of Dublin Via Cathach Books. These are always
considerations when you are wandering around the emerging Free
Market. The 1990's was a good time, since you could purchase
"Bad Day On The Midway and a James Joyce first edition and skip
over the sea with a good deal of ease -without a passport even.
The copy of "Bad Day On The Midway got checked out and,
suprisingly, was not on some Index Librorum Prohibitorum as was
the Joyce scribble. Thus managing to return to Liverpool without
any upsetting diversion to the big boy's prison and with a
substantial profit on the Joyce nonsense.
So that would be the first time I actually trafficked in high
art. Which may have been the Joyce or may have been the
Residents.
Realising that the game had no save facility was actually the
single most annoying thing as I was practicing being a transient
- wandering around Europe with software engineering spanners in
tow. Gradually, in retrospect, after listening to the Have a Bad
Day soundtrack, it dawned upon me that the useful comparison is
with Life A User's Manual by Georges Perec. Wherein the Theory
Of Obscurity gains some kind of intellectual substance.
Perec was a member of the OULIPO (Ouvroir de littérature
potentielle). Once you are a member you can never leave - much
like Freak Show. Which, if you consider the nature of sets and
membership in mathematics, makes perfect sense. In Life A User's
Manual ( La Vie mode d'emploi), there is a description of the
work as "novels" - plural not singular. Which is composed of a
set of 100 chapters - one unwritten as it corresponds to the
basement - which form a narrative based on "The Knight's Tour"
on a ten by ten chessboard. Which has the reader hopping from
chapter to chapter as if at random. It is entirely possible to
navigate the work in a different order. For example, simply
begin at the first chapter and read through to the last. Each
chapter is simply a building block that the Reader assembles.
Ultimately the identity of the real story of 11 Rue
Simon-Crubellier is obscured by a linear reading. Highlighting
the nature of the Theory of Obscurity as being a route to
practice and not vicious abstraction. Which, for Perec, the
constraint is a self conscious demand on the Reader. For The
Residents, with "Bad Day On The Midway there is no overt demand
for the Listener to do anything: everything arises from what the
Player does.
There is an element of metempsychosis in "Bad Day On The Midway
- a recurring theme in James Joyce's modernist novel Ulysses
(1922). The thematic puzzles of death and moral quandry and the
game mechanic of metempsychosis do not make a good game. But it
does ensure that the music is navigated in a way that is unique
to each Listener. Every Listener of Bad Day On The Midway had a
different listening experience that was, in fact, intended to be
different. Which places Bad Day On The Midway right back in the
centre of The Theory Of Phonetic Organisation and the Theory Of
Obscurity.
In truth, nobody but the Residents can actually know the
internal story of Bad Day On The Midway, everything else is
hypothesis. There is a lot of speculation about the fate of the
midway, the man in the coma, a killer, a plague, and even the
Taxman - who could be, just as easily, The Census Taker. The
voice acting and the artwork are far superior to the gameplay.
Which, perhaps, begins to show the generational gap between the
Residents and the post-computer world. Bad Day On The Midway
anticipates the kind of multilayered content that is routinely
found in more recent games such as Skyrim - which has an entire
library
HTML https://www.imperial-library.inf
o/books/skyrim/by-category of
backstory. While Skyrim relies on the trope of books, Bad Day On
The Midway has people as living books. In the metempsychosis,
there is a realisation that all of the characters have an
interior world that is obscured from the Viewer. The stream of
consciousness from Timmy hints at this interior world, but, in
reality there is no great revelation of the interior world of
Others.
[quote]
some are flowers
some are weeds
some are sewers
and some are seeds
some are sailors without a sea
and some are sorry
just like me
[/quote]
Which makes the twelve tracks of Have A Bad Day a mere hint of
the depth of texture in Bad Day On The Midway. There are
479,001,600 permutations of the twelve tracks. Which highlights
the randomiser, inherent in the program presentation of the
material. The exact way the goals change varies from play to
play leaving the Player with a on in a half billion chance of
playing the same game as another person - even if that person is
simply yourself two days later. The lack of a save facility
makes that randomisation of the experience always subject to
memory. Which requires that all experience of Bad Day On The
Midway is a recollection. It is a form of therapeutic
metempsychosis that leads to anamnesis: remembering what it is
that you have forgotten. Which is, according to Socratic
tradition, part of whatever it is the knowledge is. The whole
experience of Bad Day On The Midway prefigures the novel S
99013) by Doug Dorst and is reminiscent of Pale Fire by Vladimir
Nabokov. Bad Day On The Midway is almost as if Freak Show had
elements removed, piece by piece and replaced resulting in Bad
Day On The Midway. It could, almost, be as if the Residents were
musically exploring Theseus' Ship Paradox in a way that goes
beyond the anagrammatics of twelve tone serialism.
Which leads to the latest incarnation, the Randy Rose Novel: The
Residents' Bad Day On The Midway. As though the exact form of
the work has not yet taken place. Much like A Humument: A
treated Victorian novel, by British artist Tom Phillips (1970 et
seq.). A Humument
HTML http://www.tomphillips.co.uk/humument
is an art book created
over WH Mallock's 1892 novel A Human Document; Phillips' title
resulting from the partial deletion of the 1892 title: A
Hum[s]an[/s] [s]doc[/s]ument. The Listeners' experience is being
taken further and further away from the source of the
experience. Until, at some point we will remember Dagmar and
Timmy in some new configuration involving a murder, perhaps of
Mickey The Mumbling Midget.
[quote]
No one knows where it goes
or even if it cares
why people stare
and think about
lost time
when its sickly and not very full
time is a sheep shedding wool
that could have become a sweater
[/quote]
The Dagmar, Timmy, Mickey murder will be an artefact of memory.
Our making something that does not exist. Like time's sweater.
The sounds of Bad Day On The Midway are the thing that people
claim to remember. Yet, in reality, the majority of the
soundscape is never remembered in any great detail. It is not
like the endless replaying of Santa Dog that etches the shifting
interpretations of the chorus into memory. Bad Day On The Midway
is much more subtle. It transforms the Listener and the Player
into a new kind of Audience: an Audience that, like the river of
Heraclitus, is never the same twice.
Much of the genuine innovation of Bad Day On The Midway comes
from the infrafine presence of people like Steve Cerio who
collaborated with with legendary animator Jim Ludtke on the
“Dixies Kill-a-Commie shooting gallery" for Bad Day at the
Midway. Which is the reason for awards being won. The fact that
the gameplay was poor is not a great criticism: it points to
where the real passion, innovation and power is. Layered into
the work are people being voices such as Diane Alden, Molly
Harvey and even a visual appearance by a Homer Flynn
look-a-like. The depth of work is not, for the most part, in the
sounds but in the organisation. The manner in which the entirety
of Bad Day On The Midway is actually organised. Despite the
almost omniscent viewpoint of the Game Player, you never
experience everything.
Which means that the replay value of the game element is at a
premium. Yet, the gameplay does not stand up to scrutiny.
Subsequent games have done the same sort of
puzzle-exploration-mystery-solving better. Few have done it with
any of the cultural depth that Bad Day On The Midway provides.
Many games only have gameplay. It is the hook for most games
produced as freemium: there is no depth simply a Skinner Box.
Which is fundamentally different to Bad Day On The Midway which
manages to be part of the transition from the Mark Of The Mole
kind of game production, where the Mole characters were built up
pixel by pixel and constrained by the scarcity of memory and
processing power, into the modern, industrialised, studio
production methods of Electronic Arts or Bullfrog. Bad Day On
The Midway was constrained by the content management abilities
of Macromedia which was revolutionary but simple in comparison
to systems such as Unity which are facilitating a return to the
kind of game and toy production that Macromedia enabled.
Bad Day On The Midway seems to have fundamentally changed
something about the Residents. All of the sounds produced after
Bad Day On The Midway have an added dimension. Revolutionary as
the Mark Of The Mole Game would have been as a "Band Making A
Game", Bad Day On The Midway marks the point at which no band -
no matter how traditional or experimental - could ignore the
digital world. All of the sounds produced after Bad Day On The
Midway seem to be Internet ready: capable of being a component
of a larger work and not simply a thing standing alone. The
inevitable synthesis of The Theory Of Phonetic Organisation is
for Musical Work to be an element of a Gesamtkunstwerk. Which is
where the gameplay becomes an incidental. A means to an end.
Which is yet another metempsychosis.
Between Bad Day On The Midway and Freak Show there was a
dimension added to whatever it is that the Residents do.
Something about storytelling that began to transcend the simple
narrative technique of reading out aloud to children. The shift
was toward the kind of ethical, moral and philosophical
complexity that was beginning to emerge from the nature of a
world connecting cultures across the globe. Eskimo might well
have shown how that cultural collision ends badly but the shift
with Bad Day On The Midway was not about that kind of gross
level. Something about Bad Day On The Midway[i] was about
narratives becoming an interaction, an experience and not simply
the passive acceptance of the weird.
Somewhere in Schipol Airport, I lost my copy of [i]Bad Day On
The Midway. Should you find it I would be happy to have it
returned. I rely on the Have A Bad Day disc to entertain me -
and a nice hardback book. Such is one of the problems of
wandering about: you lose more than you keep.
#Post#: 383--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (6th of February): BAD DAY ON THE MIDWAY
By: moleshow Date: April 20, 2017, 12:27 pm
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