issue 2: roads to the past
Hello and welcome (back). This is Issue 2 of “a bit of bird words” and, like the leaves on the trees, we’re…changing colors? Falling? Maybe we aren’t like the leaves on the trees. Anyway, let’s get to it.
Game of the month: Sonic the Hedgehog CD
Sega/Sonic Team, 1993 (Sega CD)
Some preamble: this month was the release of a brand-new Zelda game, which meant I was hustling a bit to finish some of my outstanding games. This actually left me with a couple of days of “down time” to fill with shorter games, and among the ones I played, I want to shout out Sonic CD in particular.
Even as someone relatively familiar with retro games, Sonic CD is a surprise. The first impression of the game might be “chaotic” or perhaps “slapdash” just from seeing how maps are laid out, the way rings overlap impassable walls and springs send you flying back and forth endlessly. It has a real hacked-together feel, like an unofficial romhack of Sonic 1 rather than an officially-developed game. This actually makes the game cool; Sonic is already positioned as being the cool, edgy mascot against the sterile and safe Mario, but to release a game that seems to flaunt its sharp edges? That adds a new layer of cool.
I had a real good time seeking out every hidden generator in the Past versions of each stage and also managed to track down 4 of the Time Stones before finishing the game and getting the “good ending.”
Games finished this year: 35 (+6)
Book of the month: Oku no Hosomichi/おくのほそ道, or The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Matsuo Bashō, 1702
I wrestled with almost every book I read this month in some way. Sometimes that wrestling was productive and sometimes I was simply profoundly annoyed.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North falls in the first category. Haiku is one of my hobbies; like many of my past and present hobbies, I thought I could just jump right in and play around without taking the time to understand what the masters of the past have done. It’s perhaps a childlike way of building a new passion—I’m imagining the joy of children learning to paint for the first time—and there’s plenty of merit in that approach, but I decided that maybe I should read some haiku before writing more of my own.
I had already discarded some assumptions about the art form, but reading a real master illuminated for me just how much I did not know about haiku—or other types of Japanese poetry, as this book is another form, haibun, a mixture of prose and haiku—and the version I read has a lengthy introduction about the history of these poetic forms. The poems that resonated with me would simply take my breath away, lost in the moment of trying to see what Bashō saw. His words were lessons: be present. We are not just in the world, we are of the world.
As the leaves change and the wind blows colder, I hope that you, too, take a moment to see the world around you and marvel at the beauty of it.
Books finished this year: 60 (+7)
What else?
We celebrated our six-year anniversary this month and I finally got a haircut! My tolerance for long hair grows shorter and shorter each year.
I did, in fact, order my supplies for my Techo, which should hopefully arrive sometime soon. I’m also thinking about picking up a new camera to explore photography again—currently I’m looking at an Olympus Trip 35, but I’m not sure if I want to go fully analog again. If you have camera recommendations or any good sources on the topic, let me know!
My recommendation for today is to play Music Catch 2; the default song, “Leaves in the Wind” by Isaac Shepard, is “the song of autumn” for me, and has stuck with me since first playing the game in 2007.
Thanks for reading. You can check out what games I’m playing on Backloggd and what books I’m reading on The Storygraph.