Unwinnable

Once, when I was in high school, my English teacher took a moment out of her lessons to compliment me on my attire. “That is a lovely shirt,” she said, stepping closer to me. “What are those? Strawberries?”

When she moved closer to me she gasped. My button-down shirt looked like it was a lovely, dark paisley from afar, but upon inspection it became clear that the chaotic whorls and patterns were made of bones – like the floor of a charnel house littered with the remains of the dead. I didn’t wear the shirt because I was an aficionado of mass graves or a proponent of murder, but because I appreciated art that provoked – it is the jolt that wakes a sleepwalker. (more…)

In everyday life we are surrounded by horrifying sights…We all know perfectly well that such things are ugly, not only in the moral but in the physical sense, and we know this because they arouse our disgust, fear and repulsion. Marginal as the voice of art may be, it attempted to remind us that…there is something implacably and sadly malign about this world.

-       Umberto Eco, On Ugliness

The first thing that struck me about Far Cry 3 is how much I dislike Jason Brody, the character whose skin I am forced to wear during my time on the Rook Islands. He is a professional tourist whose life revolves around thrill seeking and excessive drinking, the perfect archetype of the rich, white, directionless mook. He is empty of ambition, a waste of potential with an asinine haircut. (more…)