personal Archives - Page 9 of 15

Why I Hate This “Homeless Veteran Makeover” Video, and Why You Should Too

There’s been a video circulating over the past few days of a homeless veteran getting a makeover. I…am kind of surprised that I could type that sentence and then still need to follow it up with an explanation of why that’s absurd, manipulative and outright demeaning, but with 5.1 million views on YouTube and counting — and a constant presence in my social media streams — it seems that it really does need to be discussed.

So, please, if you haven’t already, add one more view to the video, and we’ll continue. Because as many times as I’ve seen this referred to as “inspiring” and “magical,” it’s really just offensive. And exploitative. And we should be embarrassed by it.

When I first came across the above video, it was spotlighted in this post. The title of that post assured me that the video would give me chills. That was kind of interesting since the thumbnail and description pretty much suggested they were just giving this guy a haircut, but I figured it was worth watching. After all, why would that give me chills?

Maybe at the end his little daughter that he hasn’t seen in years would come out and hug him, or something. That would still be manipulative, but it might also successfully provide “chills” so…okay.

But, nope. It’s a haircut. Oh, and they trim his beard and give him a tie.

Wow, chills. Except for the fact that I grew up in southern New Jersey, and “hairy guy trims his beard and puts on a tie” isn’t uncommon to anyone familiar with the concept of prom night.

So, fine. Chills or no chills, that’s not the point.

This is the point: as a culture — as a society…as a civilization — we’re already doing our damnedest to give every man, woman and child body image issues. All this video succeeds in doing is extending that particular neurosis to the homeless as well.

It’s sickening. And I realize that this requires further unpacking. So, hey, I’ve got some time. Do you?

Then let’s proceed.

The balance of content in the video is the giveaway. Or, rather, the clear imbalance. In a video that’s about two minutes and fifty seconds long, two minutes and twenty seconds are spent on the makeover. The assurance that the veteran Jim Wolf has turned his life around is relegated to two vague slides of text.

Ask yourself what’s more important, as far as the video is concerned. Is it the way he looks? Or is it the more positive direction his life has now taken? It’s not a matter of opinion; there’s a clear answer here. It comes down to the fact that he looked like a hobo, but has now been groomed and dressed up.

To me, it’s more important to know whether or not Jim Wolf left the studio to sleep in a gutter again that night. To the makers of the video, it’s more important to know whether or not he was wearing a tie when he did so. And that’s disgusting.

It comes down to more than just the amount of time the video spends on each, though: the execution is also telling, and more important when interpreting what’s happening here.

We start with an image of our subject, alongside a caption that reads “Jim Wolf, United States Army Veteran.”

That’s a name, and that’s a fact. That’s not a description.

Who is Jim? What’s his history? “Army Veteran” says precisely nothing. Did he serve overseas? Was he involved in any wars or conflicts? Where was he stationed? With whom did he serve? What years was he active? What was his role? What was his specialty?

Does any of that matter when determining whether or not to thank him for his service? Of course not. But it’s meant to illustrate just how vague a descriptor “United States Army Veteran” is. One veteran could have served in Vietnam and been the lone survivor of an ill-fated recon mission. One veteran could have served in Texas during a time of no conflict and filed paperwork all day.

I’m not suggesting that one is inherently better or worse than the other, but I am suggesting that the two human beings would have very different experience from each other. They’re both veterans. Fine. But that means nothing. As human beings, they’re worlds apart.

Of course, the video isn’t interested in treating Jim Wolf as a human being. When we aren’t even made privy to his years of service, there’s your giveaway that this isn’t about helping an individual; this is about the manipulation of the audience.

It’s also telling that Wolf doesn’t get any chance to speak. We don’t get to hear his story. I’m sure he has one, but the video is more interested in the fact that a disheveled man gets a haircut. What, exactly, is meant to be inspiring about this again?

Well, I’ll tell you: the music and the editing. That’s what’s meant to inspire. Not the substance (because there is none), not Wolf’s story (because it actively prevents us from hearing it), and not the assurance that Wolf is going to be any better off (because…well, we’ll get to that).

The score builds and layers and rollicks toward triumph, and the time-lapse nature of the editing hurtles toward a grand reveal. It’s a bait and switch, and one borrowed from the most deliberately misleading film trailers. It wants to generate a certain feeling in us, but it’s a feeling that the material itself cannot provide. It’s the hollowest possible kind of “inspiration,” and it’s one that only works because it withholds the humanity.

What if Wolf spoke? Well, he probably wouldn’t sound like Ryan Gosling or Alec Baldwin so it’s not worth hearing him. After all, he might sound human. Or, worse, he might sound like the actual homeless guy that he is. You know…raspy and sick and probably a little upset that the country he served is now content to let him sleep outside on frigid nights. We can’t let that come across, otherwise the haircut might seem…oh…a little silly.

Wolf has a problem. That problem is the country he lives in. That problem is that country’s approach to dealing with the sick and the poor and the unemployed and the homeless.

That problem is emphatically not going to be solved by a haircut, a shave, and a necktie. And yet this makeover video wants you to come away feeling that it is solved that way. Because that’s easy. That’s visual. And, what’s more, it’s easy on the eye.

This constant whitewashing of our problems is the problem.

You don’t fix what’s wrong with your society through makeovers, through songs, or through speeches. You stand up and you say, “This is wrong. This is a problem. And we are going roll up our sleeves and we are going to fix this because if we see something is wrong and we don’t do that, then who are we?”

And then you know what we do?

We actually do that.

We don’t make a video about it.

We don’t circulate a link on Facebook.

We don’t wear a ribbon or put a sticker on our car.

We get. The fuck. To work.

And if we don’t do that…then who are we?

Of course, all of my points above are moot in the face of the fact that this Homeless Veteran Magic Haircut (patent pending) turned Jim Wolf’s life around.

Right?

…right?

Well, let’s look at all two of the unverifiable sentences that suggest that that’s the case. The first one reads, in its entirety, “Since filming, Jim has taken control of his life.”

Huh. Well, ya don’t say.

What does that mean exactly? What can that mean? The lengths to which the video goes to keep any specific information about Wolf away from us is almost frightening.

Forget Wolf for a moment. Do you have control of your life? Do I? Of course not. How could we? Life is full of curveballs and unexpected obstacles and problems that need to be overcome. What does it mean to “take control” of one’s life?

Does it mean you find employment? Find love? Manage to scrape together enough change to buy groceries? Live through the night? Get handed a blanket by a good Samaritan?

It’s different for everybody. Which is why it’s entirely meaningless. It’s a nice thing to hear, but it says, again, precisely nothing.

Jim Wolf is not a human being. At least, not in the eyes of this video. Jim Wolf is a homeless veteran, brought into a studio to be made a spectacle of. The filmmakers don’t care about him, and they didn’t. If they did, they’d know something about him. And therefore so would we. Instead, for all we know, he’s back on the streets.

Oh, but the second slide reads (again, in its entirety), “He is now scheduled to have his own housing and is attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for the first time ever.”

Well, that’s more specific. …kinda.

What does “scheduled to have his own housing” mean? It still sounds suspiciously like “nothing” to me. And does that mean he’s still sleeping on the streets? Couldn’t Degage Ministries — who so kindly pulled a homeless man off the streets to solicit donations and then released him back onto the streets — give him a place to stay? Maybe they did, but then why wouldn’t they say that?

After all, if their objective is to inspire me with this magical video, I can say conclusively that I’d be far more inspired by hearing that some ministry gave a homeless man food, clothing and shelter than I am by hearing that some ministry gave him a haircut and a pat on the back. And I’d hope to God that you would be, too.

There’s also a grammatical issue with the AA claim, as you can’t keep “attending” something “for the first time ever.” Due to that I’m not even sure what the truth is. Did he go once? Does he keep going? I think it’s the latter, but how would they know that? He can stop at any time. And even if he doesn’t, should this really be his priority when he still doesn’t have a place to live?

The video isn’t inspiring. The video is sickening. By taking a homeless man and framing a shave and a haircut as the solution to his problem, they’re robbing the problem of its bite. They’re making it something we need to worry less about. And, what’s more, it makes all those dirty, bearded homeless people look like they just don’t care. After all, if they really wanted to turn their lives around, they’d put on a tie. Just look what it did for old Jim Wolf!

Don’t circulate the video. Please. And if somebody you respect does, send them here. Or talk to them about it.

You’re not stupid if you looked at this and felt inspired. That’s what it was designed to make you feel.

But you shouldn’t feel inspired by anything that takes a serious, profound problem with the very core of the society in which you live, and presents it as trivial and easily overcome.

You’re better than that. And Jim Wolf, whoever he is, wherever he is, deserves better than that. The truly respectful thing to do for Wolf would be to treat him as a human being. This video decidedly does not.

Thank you for your service, Jim. And I’m sorry this happened to you.

On Noise to Signal

Over on his own excellent blog, John Hoare recently wrote up this piece about Noise to Signal.

I’ve alluded to Noise to Signal before, but never really spoke about it directly. There’s a reason for that, and that reason is I’m still not sure what to say.

There are things about it that I loved. Adored even. And there are things about it that frustrate me to this day. (That probably says more about me than the site, I admit, but there you go.) And so it’s difficult to just come out and say “Here’s what went down…” because…well…I’m not even sure I know.

But John’s belated farewell sort of inspired me to do one of my own. It’s not an airing of dirty laundry or anything like that…but rather a chance to look back at a site that I helped shape in some way, and that I wrote for over the course of several years, and that still feels to me like a brilliant experiment that didn’t go anywhere near where it could have gone.

It was a pop-culture website, but it was one — by design — without a particular focus. It covered music, movies, books, television, video games…is any of this sounding familiar? The fact that I carry an echo of the site in the title of my current blog wasn’t deliberate, but it might still be less than coincidental.

It was good. We had an extraordinarily talented staff. But, as John says, “the remit was just too wide, and the tone inconsistent. By trying to cover everything, we ended up covering nothing well.” (I’m excerpting there; I do encourage you to read the entire thing in context.)

And he’s right. Absolutely correct. If I take issue with anything there it’s that the remit was too wide, because I really don’t think that was the problem…it was more in how we handled (or failed to handle) that freedom. But otherwise he’s right. There was a variance in tone, simply because there were so many writers and no consistent style for which to strive. Everybody brought their own talents to the table, but there was no attempt made to join them together. I had A and John had B, and instead of figuring out how to maximize each of our skills we just stuck some A over here and some B over there. We could have done better.

And in terms of covering nothing well, he’s right about that too. Apart from my day-after reviews of The Venture Bros. season three, I don’t think I ever finished a series that I started. And while it would be bad form to mention anything another writer did or didn’t do, I’m sure you’d find that they could name plenty of big plans they never saw through as well.

That seems to be a lot of what John pulled from the experience. What I pulled from the experience, though, is the importance of having an editor.

I blame nobody for that. I was at the point in my career (ha ha!) that I would have bristled at somebody telling me I needed to be clearer, or halve my word count, or — heaven forbid — choose a subject somebody might actually want to read about.

But that was the younger me. I knew everything. And because I knew everything, and because I had a website to which I could publish everything, I ended up spinning mountains of bullshit. Well-intentioned bullshit, sure…but that’s still bullshit.

I got the job at Nintendo Life due to two articles that I wrote for Noise to Signal. I reviewed some WiiWare games and the Nintendo Life editors liked what I did, so off I went. What I found was an entirely different experience; this was a site that knew exactly what kind of content it was looking for, and it wanted writers that could produce content within those guidelines.

They hired me because they liked my writing…but I still had to play by the rules. They had certain points they wanted each review to hit. There was a format that needed to be respected. If I wanted to stick around, it was up to me to find a way that I could mix my A with their B. It took me probably a full year to finally adapt to that, and I’m amazed they stuck with me and my well-intentioned bullshit that long. But the fact was that it was a hard lesson to learn.

Having said that, it was also a tremendously valuable lesson to learn.

You don’t become a great writer by pounding out ream after ream of nonsense. That gets you nowhere. You become a great writer by pounding out a ream of nonsense, having intelligent people look it over and reveal to you how far you ended up from your intentions, and then pounding out another ream of slightly better nonsense. And you repeat that. If you really care about writing, you repeat it forever.

There were behind-the-scenes issues at play as well (which John alludes to), and the kind of drama you’d expect from getting 10 or so strong personalities together without rules and saying “Publish anything!” But, ultimately, that was my takeaway. The value of editing. If you think the stuff I post here is vague and meandering…baby, you ain’t seen nothin’.

I tried hard at Noise to Signal. We all did. And we had a great group of readers and commenters that it was really difficult to say goodbye to. (Of course some of them are here now, so…thank you.)

Ultimately, though, its formlessness meant it either had to adapt into something more solid, or dissolve totally.

It dissolved totally.

But I learned one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned as a writer: that fact that I wrote it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any good.

There’s a reason Detective Fiction is working its way through the hands of so many proofreaders / editors / critics before I’ll post even an except here. And that reason is that I finally know better.

Still though…it was a hell of a ride. RIP, NTS.

What is Detective Fiction?

Here’s something some of you don’t know about me: a few years ago, I finished a novel. It was called Afterbirth: The Comedy of Miscarriage, and it was around seven years in the making. That was a long time to spend with one project, and, as you might expect, I was substantially invested in it. I still am.

It was — and I guess is — the autobiography of a sperm. Our single-celled hero narrates the circumstances around him, the generations of couplings and false-starts and abandonments that culminate in his fertilizing off an egg…and eventual miscarriage. Needless to say he’s rather bitter, and much of the fun of writing this book had to do with the narrative perspective. What would have been, on its own, a story of a young man who does something foolish with a younger girl, suddenly became this massive, epic sprawl…simply because that moment, that night, that one bad decision — and the bad decisions that led up to it, and the bad decisions that followed from it — formed, for this narrator, his entire experience of life. The smallest thing was now the only thing. Everything was reconfigured and filtered through a unique and cynical perspective.

It was literary, it was jarring, it was dark. It was also unmarketable.

Because here’s something you do know about me: I’m a nobody.

Getting agents and publishers interested in this deliberately shifty, chronological scramble of loss and dissolution — hinging (though not explicitly so) on an act of statutory rape — was a tough sell. If I had a name…a name that people recognized…a name that people cared about or wanted to care about…it would have been another story. At least potentially. As it stood, it wasn’t the kind of gamble any agent or publisher in their right mind would have made.

I believe in the book. I’ve spent enough time with it and gotten enough glowing feedback on it that I know it’s very good, and that a certain type of reader would absolutely love it. But I don’t begrude anyone for not wanting to publish it. Why would they?

So I decided about three years ago on a course of action: I would write something that was marketable.

Why? So that I could market it. And hopefully get it published. And even more helpfully develop myself as a name people recognized, cared about, or wanted to care about. I’m not surprised at all that a literary mindscrew by a literal nobody faced nothing but rejection. But what if that literary mindscrew had some pedigree behind it?

I decided to write a pastiche of the detective fiction genre. This wasn’t for any particular reason except that “pastiche of the detective fiction genre,” as vague as that description is, still lights up some very clear expectations. It’s more marketable simply because there’s so much I don’t have to market. You hear that description and you immediately know the kinds of things to expect. You may not know the particular melody, but you sure as hell know the key it’ll be played in. And you, phantom agent, phantom publisher, will know from that alone whether it’s something that would interest you at all.

I felt a little cheap when I started writing it, because I wasn’t writing from the heart. I was writing something to sell…I wasn’t writing to express myself. I was writing something good, or at least I hoped I was, but it was a very different feeling from Afterbirth, which came from the heart in all kinds of ways. Afterbirth was born of my love of deep and confounding literature, of my darkest social and romantic and emotional fears, of my fascination with fate and circularity and patterning. Detective Fiction was born of my desire to be a published author. It was a very different thing.

And so I wrote, and I read. I researched the genre enough — just enough — to become familiar with how this type of story had to work. I read James M. Cain. I read Dashiell Hammet. I read Raymond Chandler. And I was amazed at just how good these books were. As much as we look back on hard-boiled detective fiction as a sort of ropey escapism, there’s actually a good amount of poetry in there…particularly in the case of Chandler, whose conflicted love for his own hero Philip Marlowe bleeds through the characterization in such unexpected and beautiful ways. I was impressed…but I was just writing a parody. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want it to get too good…that’s what ruined Afterbirth.

Detective Fiction was the story of Billy Passwater, who in the summer of his 29th year decides to become a private detective. Billy has no certification, no training, and no desire to take any of this seriously. But he has a pretty sweet fedora, and that’s a good enough start.

It was fun to write that much. I set it in south Florida, because I was familiar with the area and I thought the overtly tourist-friendly facade would make for a nice contrast to the noir-inspired elements of the book. It was a fun and immediate contrast that, I think, ended up informing the book in lots of ways I didn’t expect.

But at about the halfway point, something happened. A chapter more or less wrote itself without me. I had slid the pieces into place — as the author I kind of had to, but beyond that I can’t take any conscious credit — and the next thing I knew, we were off in a whole other direction. This happened at what is now the midpoint of the book…central in so many senses of that word.

And that’s when I realized who Billy was. Or, rather, when he showed me who he was. That, yes, he may have started as a sort of blank character I could force through the meat-grinder of familiar tropes and hallmarks so that we could all have a good laugh…but once I saw who he was I had an entirely different book on my hands, and most of the time I’ve spent writing Detective Fiction has been re-writing Detective Fiction. Because from that moment on, I knew things about him that I didn’t know before. He was an ugly character. These elements of the genre that I carried over shaped a very different type of hero in this new context. I was writing for a clown…but the moment I saw him without his makeup on, I recognized him as a criminal. It would still be a comedy, but with a different kind of punchline.

Despite my resistance, I had written a good book after all.

What I have now is a 258 page novel that’s still a pastiche of the detective fiction genre. However it’s also the story of delusion, of stubborn refusal, of accountability and passive cruelty and make believe and the refusal to grow up.

And I love it.

And it’s still — dare I speak so soon? — marketable.

It’s in the hands of my trusty group of proofreaders now. They’ll read it and they’ll give me feedback and I’ll take that into account and I’ll give it another rewrite bearing their comments in mind.

And after that I’m going to solicit agents again…and this time I’ll have something of much greater interest to them.

It’s a straight-forward narrative. It’s full of clues and cues and red-herrings. It starts in one place, and ends up somewhere else. It has a single protagonist with a clear objective.

It’s also got blackmail. And comedy. And murder. And sex. And palm trees. And a baseball bat covered in blood and fur. And some more sex. And karaoke.

Oh, and he solves a mystery at some point. Doesn’t he? He tries to anyway. And I sure hope he does, because otherwise I don’t know who will…

It’s something I can sell. And while I’m still ashamed of the fact that that was my primary objective in writing it, creating a great work of straight-forward genre fiction was my objective in re-writing it.

I hope I’ve succeeded. Because I really like it. And I think you will too.

With any luck, you’ll get to read it one day.

Keep your fingers crossed. Even the best manuscript needs a lot of luck.

And after my proofreaders get through with it, I will have the best manuscript.

We can do this.

Go Read: Full House Reviewed

So lest anyone fears this is turning into a Breaking Bad fan blog…I’ll write about another show.

LOL JK. But I’ll write about someone else who is writing about another show: the guy over at Full House Reviewed.

Go check it out. Because it’s incredibly funny.

I used to love Full House when I was a kid. Looking back I have no idea why…even then there was far better stuff on television. But, whatever, I liked it. I thought Jesse was cool, I thought Joey was funny, and I even thought Kimmie Gibbler was attractive. (Was I really the only one??) I guess I was all kindsa fucked up as a kid.

But rewatching this show now? Jesus.

Some shows and films and songs age a bit poorly, and you might feel a bit silly for having enjoyed them unironically at some point, but man oh man was Full House just total and utter garbage. A lot of these ongoing review blogs end up reaching for jokes to make and downplaying something’s effectiveness, because they kind of have to. The stopped clock ends up being right at a certain time of day but the blog must go on.

Not so here; Full House never gets anything right. It’s an absolute perfect target, and I end up feeling ludicrously proud when he points out some of the same issues I’ve had when I happen to catch a re-run as an adult. (And seriously…why is that show re-run at all?)

Anyway, yeah. Go enjoy that, while things are relatively quiet here.

I’m working pretty hard on Detective Fiction right now, and I couldn’t be happier to report that. For those of you who don’t stalk me, that’s my novel, and it’s around three or four years in the writing now. I’ve got a good draft complete…and now I’m at the point in the process that sees me getting it into some kind of shape that I wouldn’t be ashamed to send to an agent or a publisher.

Needless to say, it’ll take another four years.

But I’m excited. I’m very happy with how it came out…so while it still needs a lot of work, I can’t wait to get it out there and see how folks react to it. That’s going to be the really fun part.

I’ll talk more about it some other time, for sure, but I have a little story about Full House.

I stopped watching it in fifth grade or so…whatever year that would have been for me. And in sixth grade, my friend Lucas Monaco (which is a name I wish I invented) mentioned some new episode over the weekend or something. I said, “You still watch Full House?”

I was a huge bully back then, as I am today. I always beat people up and make fun of them for the things they enjoy, and then I give them a purple nurple. So he was terrified!

…no. It wasn’t meant to be confrontational at all. I was just surprised. But he sort of hesitated and said, “Yeah. But it’s not as good now that Jesse owns the Smash Club.”

I don’t know what happened to Lucas Monaco.

He’s probably a successful television critic.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf is disarmingly disarming

Years ago I dated a girl who loved Animal Crossing. Her friends loved Animal Crossing too. That’s not surprising…it was a massively popular game. I had nothing against it; I’d just never played it.

They booted it up one day and passed me a controller and helped me start a new character. I had no control over what my character would look like, and as soon as the game started I was responsible for paying off a home loan and making pointless deliveries to animal-people I didn’t know or care about.

That was the game. Also I had to be extra nice all the time to the animal-people or they’d move out and then, I guess, I’d feel bad about it.

It didn’t click with me. I got nothing out of it. Again, it was a hugely popular game so I figured I just wasn’t cut out for it. There was no appeal. As Mario I could rescue a princess and as Link I could swordfight and as Olimar I could command armies…but Animal Crossing just gave me a dead-end job in a virtual town and that didn’t feel like enough of an escape from my dead-end job in my real town.

Flash forward to a few weeks ago, however, and I got Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I love it. Genuinely, truly, I think it’s a brilliant game. Even though, from what I can remember at least, it’s very similar to the game that left me cold so long ago.

Things change. Contexts shift. The world spins underneath you and if you’re not paying attention you end up in a different place altogether.

I’m in a different place altogether.

And Animal Crossing: New Leaf is a perfect — I’m not using that word lightly — little Zen garden.

It’s what I need.

The game doesn’t just give you a virtual town full of virtual trees to shake and virtual clothes to wear and virtual bees to chase you around.

It gives you a place to breathe.

Does it sound sad that someone — anyone — would have to turn to a video game in order to find a place to catch their breath? I don’t think so.

We all need to find a place like that.

Usually, for me, it’s in a book.

Other times it’s in a particularly insightful film.

Sometimes it’s in a conversation over a cup of coffee with somebody I care about deeply and may never see again.

This time, it’s digital. And it’s a world wherein I can rely on things.

Sure, I can hurt the feelings of the animal-people…but why would I? If I’m asked to deliver a package from the frog to the ostrich, I could keep it for myself…or I could follow through and get words of grateful excitement from her. The characters in Animal Crossing appreciate everything you do. They may only be characters…but that kind of appreciation always feels good.

Which is what impressed me about the game most of all. When I first started playing New Leaf I thought I’d go into it with ironic detachment. Why not? A silly little isolated village with its sunshine and rainbows and friendliness? Come on. So I named it Narcisso in tribute to the complex, layered deviousness of the central city in The Crying of Lot 49 and posted silly things on the town message board.

But…that didn’t last.

Because, without ever censoring me or pleading with me or forcing me to change my attitude…Animal Crossing changed my attitude. It disarmed me…

Sure. I could post mean things. And I could anger my villagers. And I could chop down all the trees.

Go for it, the game said.

But while you do that…the rest of the characters will be over here. Enjoying themselves. And appreciating each other. And, well, being happy.

A lot of games struggle to keep players interested in doing good. They funnel you on a path toward the villain. They prevent you from sending profanity to friends. They oppressively lower your gun if you aim at a friendly character.

Animal Crossing simply makes good behavior preferable.

Want to piss off the aardvark in your neighborhood? Good. You can. But if you’re doing that…why are you doing that?

Wouldn’t you rather share a moment with that aardvark on the beach at sunset? Wouldn’t you want to be her penpal when she reaches out to you because she’s lonely? Wouldn’t you want to make her day by changing into that t-shirt she was so excited to give you just because you’re you and she appreciates that?

It’s addictively, disarmingly, sweet.

It’s a virtual town, as silly and pointless as that virtual, silly, pointless town I tried to enjoy years ago.

But I’m in a different place now…and the value of having a place to breathe — a town that will always have a place for me, no matter what — is immediately apparent to me in a way that it never was before.

We can play a war game because, in reality, we’d never be able to survive a war. We can play a game about a post-apocalyptic wasteland because, in reality, we’d never want to see one. With Animal Crossing we can play a game about making others happy…because we know, in reality, it’s never that easy.

It’s no substitute for the real thing.

Nothing ever is.

But it’s nice, sometimes, to visit a world in which comfort and appreciation are reliable aspects of daily life.

The sky is blue, the water is clear, and the dog plays guitar for you on Saturday nights.

It’s your world.

Because, in reality, it’s not.

And as long as it’s yours, you might as well make it a great place to be.