Edited by Pat Kane (email)


:: The Devil's Game ::

As may or may not be obvious, this column is usually written from Glasgow, Scotland. And it would be fair to say that the relationship between play and Scottishness is hardly without some friction.

My main political adversary in The Play Ethic book (coming early next year) is that redoubtable Presbyterian from Fife, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (and supreme ruler of the British Economy), Gordon Brown MP. His fervid zeal to create a "new work ethic" amongst the overly semiotic and hedonistic British poor is too reminiscent of the thunderous 18th century Puritan reformers for comfort.

When Scotland loosens its stays, or suspends its self-vigilance, all manner of phantasy and simulation emerges. Yet it's usually fringed with that Calvinist sense of pre-destination: no matter how much you strive to remake yourself, your success or failure is already a matter of celestial record.

So the protean McPlayer, at some point, always hits her or his hidden limits - and hard. For example, movies like Gregory's Girl - which show a bunch of Scottish teenage dreamers drifting through life's possibilities, toying joyfully with the consequences of their actions - are extremely rare.
Scottish movies are more likely to show their characters eventually suffering for whatever pleasures they pursue: from the notorious Trainspotting, through Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar, to the latest "ye'll-pay-for-it" fest, Young Adam (starring Ewan McGregor).

Yet as the Edinburgh Festival proves (whirling away over the other side of the country as I write), it's not that Scots can't throw themselves into the timeless joys of carnival and artistic expression. It's just that Scottish playfulness will always partake of the darker, more ancient rhetorics of play as much as the lighter, more modern ones (see my Brainwaves entry for more on this).

And historically, this is backed up by that strangest of Scottish Enlightenment fictions, James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. As Hogg's highly acclaimed new biographer Karl Miller puts it, the Confessions is a timeless mix:

a post-modern work which is also a pre-modern work, by a man who believed, not strongly but ‘to some extent’, said his daughter Mary Garden, in ghosts and demonic possession, and who produced a book with demons in it which is not, fundamentally, a superstitious book. It’s about the effects of puritanical superstition.

The post-modern bit is the fact that the story of its murder is told from the perspective of two different consciousnesses - or perhaps, the same consciousness divided. And only one of these consciousnesses believes in its bloody predestination: the other satirises the Calvinist anxiety. It's almost a struggle between play rhetorics - that of being played by the Gods (play-as-fate), or being the player of one's own life (play-as-freedom).

In an adroit review in the Telegraph, Andrew O'Hagan relates Hogg's sophisticated sense of the "performance of personality" to the hothouse atmosphere of literary Edinburgh in the early nineteeth century (Hogg was a lively hack, writing provocative pieces for Blackwood's Magazine). This quote from Miller focuses it all:

Hogg said on more than one occasion that to observe and imitate someone may be to control them. Part of him knew that this may be a devil's game which he himself was inclined to play… For one writer to copy, parody, rewrite, ghost-write, even edit, another may be to take on, and so to take, that other writer's identity… Parody is a function of personality, and takes part in its enigmas.

Though sometimes it's the most determinely unludic of cultures, it's good to be reminded that pursuing a "Scottish Play Ethic" might not be a historical anomaly, or even a contradiction in terms. And I haven't even mentioned Irvine Welsh's Porno...


:: Harry Potter and the Theme-Park of Brigadoon ::

Given that it's the Edinburgh Festival month, forgive me for pursuing another hot Caledonian play-topic: how does Scotland make the most of Harry Potter, the greatest ludic franchise of them all? (We're perpetually interested in The Franchise here at the Play Journal: it's a 13 year old daughter thing).

J.K. Rowling's commitment to Scotland is both residential (she lives in Edinburgh) and imaginative - the environs of Hogwarts are clearly set in a Scottish context, and much filming of the third movie has taken place in the Glencoe area.

Our lumbering tourist board is now attempting to belatedly mount the magic bandwagon, trying to leverage the same kind of global interest in the stirring mise-en-scene of Mr Potter, as New Zealand has done with The Lord of the Rings' location shots.

Surely the great target for Potterdom is the theme-park. The question is: where will it be located? There's already feverish fan-speculation that Disney have bought up the rights to the rides.

But everytime I watch that CGI tracking shot down towards Hogwarts school in its iridescent glen, it seems perfectly obvious what needs to be built: the Castle itself! I wrote a piece for the Sunday Times at the end of last year, suggesting it would be Rowling's legacy to the nation which helped her finish her first book:

Who will rustle up the billion pounds that it would take to build a exact replica of Hogwarts in the Highlands? Scotland’s global theme park created at a stroke, meaning God knows how many jobs, visitors and kudos?

Though given the grief involved in building the Scottish Parliament building (however beautiful it might turn out to be), the idea of another large scale construction project in Scotland might send people running to the heathery hills. Still, my campaign continues. If we build it, they will come...

And in the meantime: it's a well-known fact that J.K. Rowling's first book was funded by the state (through her single-mother welfare payments, and a £7000 Scottish Arts Council grant). Is this an indication of just how much imagination might be liberated, if we were all removed from economic necessity? Here's quite the most visionary appropriation of a children's book you'll ever read (more background here).


:: PlaySalon - more resources ::

Just some more links to enrich the discussion at our forthcoming Play Salon in Dundee. You're more than welcome:

Spirituality and the Computer Game Only slightly censorious and generally interesting canter through ethics research from Beliefnet.
Game Makers Aren't Chasing Women "There's a lot we know about women that's simply not being used by the publishing and gaming communities" (Brenda Laurel)

:: Play Times ::

Powerpoint for Conceptual Artists David Byrne (ex-Talking Head) dignifies the Monday-morning nightmare show. Buy his work here.

How to make your own luck The always-smart Daniel Pink on how thinking lucky makes you lucky. God does play dice - and it's OK.

From Propaganda to Prop-Agenda The profoundly playful Brian Eno mints a new world for our post-Iraq age of spin. "Prop-agenda is not so much the control of what we think, but the control of what we think about".

The Virtuosity Fix Proof that biofeedback can improve musicians' skills. Steven Johnson is exploring the whole terrain of playing consciously with the mind-body continuum. How far do we (or can we) go?


Join...