Monday morning has been grey, cloud covered. Consistent with the forecast, a short and ferocious downpour of rain occurred a few minutes ago. Curtains of rain. I heard the force of water beating upon the exterior roof here at Starbucks.

I remembered the final diminutive vegetable seedlings that I planted over the weekend. The tiny plants hold promise for me. I anticipate admiring a process of day to day development, and enjoyment of the shape and color of resulting vegetables. And also the gathering/harvesting, a process of preparation, and even the social process of meal staging and shared consumption… It strikes me that gardening is an extended process, a dance embedded in the cosmic wheel of nature. Life itself invites one to ‘get with the game’.

As soon as I return to our house, I intend to check the tiny plants situated in our raised garden beds. I hope they survived the deluge of earlier today.

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I am at the halfway point of my book club read for the month of May: Games, Agency As Art by C. Thi Nguyen. As I have progressed chapter by chapter the material grows in interest. Granted the material edges toward academic philosophy demanding focus in order to follow the author’s arguments. So far though, the work of comprehension is worth it.

The goal of game designers is to shape a particular practical activity, but they must shape it through the active, and often creative, agency of the player…

This might seem like something of a miracle. The game designer needs to reach through the active participation of the player and create relatively reliable aesthetic effects, even when the players are substantially freely exercising their agency.

Games, Agency As Art by C. Thi Nguyen, chapt. 7 The Distance in the Game, page 141

I made a note in the margin. Consider a possible game-god! Why I am here is so that I can play the game with you…

Here is our tune for today. City of Blinding Lights by U2. I thought immediately of Paris!