the wisdom of sages The Sage Speaks: Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 14:05:07 -0500 Sender: "Invention list, Florida Media Arts Center" From: Greg Ulmer Subject: the sage Mr. Mentality was skeptical about many things, and did not approve of gambling. However, after many unsuccessful attempts to secure grant funds, Mr. Mentality decided to look into other ways to raise money, including the state lottery. After learning how the game was played, he selected six numbers, based on a secret procedure of his own devising. Still skeptical, he did not yet purchase any tickets, but only put the process under observation. Each week he checked his hypothetical ticket against the winning numbers, and smiled knowingly when there failed to be even a single match. No need to throw good money after bad, he reflected. One day it came about that Mr. Mentalities' hypothetical numbers and the winning lotto number were identical. The jackpot was not of an historic size, but still amounted to several million dollars. Satisfied that it was possible to win after all, Mr. Mentality subsequently bought a ticket every week. sagely glue

GAME. I have to admit to pleasure in certain kinds of games. Games that involve chance and mathematics, numbers or images, sets of things, though any calculating I do is intuitive rather than numeric, based on observation and risk — dependant on my mood at the time. This love of Poker, Pontoon (also called Twenty One) and Five Hundred around Nana's kitchen table has not translated into a passion for screen games. Leibniz — who invented some kind of calculating machine (I can't say 'first', or of what kind because I'm not sure how that would figure alongside say, the abacus) — suggested "'a comprehensive study of games, dealt with mathematically'; first 'all the games which rely on numbers'; next, 'the games which also involve position, such as backgammon, checkers and especially chess'; and after them ' the games which involve motion, such as billiards and tennis'."[1] Given Leibniz's categories for games, I can see that the games that fail to interest me are the games of motion and position (time and space). Added to position and motion is narrative — and if narrative be the stuff of identity, character and plot — I haven't seen/felt one yet that sutured me in or stitched me up. [1] [1] Peter Remnant and Jonathon Bennett, ed. and trans., Leibniz: New Essays on Human Understanding (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P. 1996): n. lxiv Audio sampled from "Mr Mentality Show" a video made by Gregory Ulmer and the Critical Art Ensemble and presented at "Internet Heuretics" Keynote Address, Incubation Conference hosted by trAce International Writing Community. Nottingham-Trent University, England, July 2000.: http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/incubation/archive/2000/audio/ulmer.mp3