A Hard Blow

About a month ago I attended an NYU Game Center Lecture that featured Jonathan Blow. The lecture didn’t shed any new light on Braid’s “meaning of life” that Soulja Boy hasn’t already eloquently illustrated.

Topics covered:

• How Little Boy Blow was the only kid who thought about death and the meaning of life in his school
• Lego games suck
• Not taking his words out of context and posting them on a blog
  
• Flower is inherently stressful
• No design docs, no focus testing, no problem
• What is fun?
• Did us kids know what an NPC is? Is that jargon too technical?

After the lecture ended, I approached Mr. Blow. I explained to him that since Braid does not have a physical, retail form – it is in essence immaterial, and thus doesn’t exist – I was without such a fictional Braid case for him to autograph. Instead I brought a copy of Sneak King along for him to sign. He hesitated, looked at the newly presented box and it’s dressings of yellow, worn ‘used’ stickers. I asked him if he could sign on the $1.99 sticker if possible. He gawked at the box blankly then gave a strained wheeze of a laugh. Unamused, he looked up at me with the expression of a disgruntled cauliflower that won a Danny McBride look alike contest. The incriminating gaze lasted for a while. He seemed to be using that time to calculate how he would best dismiss the request, or possibly thought about rewinding time to the moment when the lecture ended, and alternatively make haste out of the room.

He said that he was opposed to the tradition of idolizing celebrites, deifying them with autographs and that he would not cooperate. Low blow, dude. “ It’s cool,” I said. “ I’m just going to sell it on eBay anyway.” His grimace remained static. “ Would you at least pose for a picture while holding Sneak King?” “ Uhh… no.” Now I was defeated. Weighing the awkward gravity of the situation, the host of the event jumped in, “ I would be happy to sign it as Jonathan.” That’s what I call blowback. I nearly blew my appreciative load right there. Heyo!

Jonathan sat idly by and did not object. I passed the host a Sharpie I brought and he went to work. “ I’m going to write your name the way I think you would.” Outfoxed and outflourished. Whenever I look up at the top of my desk, I’m comforted by the sight of Sneak King standing majestically with his shadow tickling the forged name of J. Blow.

During this time, Gabe asked Jonathan what he thought of the Soulja Boy review of Braid. He replied, “ I don’t care. But he seemed to be having fun with the time mechanic, so that’s good.”

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