With Maria you get a cacophony of voices each one populating the world around and inside her.  We hear her family, her friends, L.A. rich lady, Mexican neighbor, children at a youth center, the devil, baby Jesus (leaving messages on Mama Bamford’s answering machine), her childish self, her dark self, her anxious self, her feminist self. . . I could go on.  Though one could lazily label her silly, just a weird voice lady, or as one radio deejay so inanely misread her,  a “schizophrenic,” if you listen closely you might hear how her woman of a million voices act quite brilliantly sketches what it feels like to be Maria — to inhabit her skin, her space, her mind.  And if we’re honest, we might find that all her “weird” characters, offbeat thoughts, songs and reactions are pretty familiar to our own experience.  You know that you at your core?  The one that likes popping zits, eating ice cream for breakfast, narrating the thoughts of your maniacally evil cat in Broadway style with jazz hands and aplomb?  Yeah, that’s the self we usually tidy up and edit out and that’s the one that Maria shares with us in public, on stage.

A few weeks ago, I actually had the (strange) fangirl pleasure of seeing Maria live in Ann Arbor, MI and it wasn’t exactly what I expected.  First off, I’ve always seen comedians perform in theaters, casino auditoriums, or arenas. The venues seemed to support the idea that the player we came to see was an artist, someone valuable, someone famous, or “big.”  However, the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase is a lot more like (or at least trying be like) the comedy clubs you’ve seen intermittently on Seinfeld or Louie.  Small cramped quarters. Brick walls. Teeny tiny tables. The audience is ushered in two people to a table and every table is crammed into a semicircular formation around a small spare stage decorated only with a saddish mural of a big city.  The cityscape looks like stage dressing for a high school play.  I could easily walk up to the stage, take the mic, do a jig if I so desired.  There’s none of that spatial separation — none of those markers that suggest that the performer is not like me, is better.  This makes me sad for Maria.  “She deserves better than this!” my mind screams, and a nervous knot ties in my belly.

I switch seats with my friend Erin — she joining my husband at a table for two, I filling a half seat next to strangers. And then the fun begins.  A drunk crew of somebody’s moms and dads out for a wild Ann Arbor night squeeze into the spots next to me. The tipsy star of their band immediately starts chatting me up. A woman “alone” at the comedy club — of course I desire his doting attentions! He entertains, he reads my Facebook phone updates over my shoulder. His wife and friends cheer him on for he’s so funny he should clearly be on stage!  Oh, a laugh riot this guy.  He wants to know is Maria anything like Paula Poundstone?  He likes Paula Poundstone.

Way to know a contemporary female comedian, buddy.  I quietly seethe.

“Nooo, she’s not really your typical stand-up.  She plays a lot with voice work. . .”

“OH, so she does voices.  Can she do Cher?  Sylvester Stallone?”

“No.  Um, she’s not really an impressionist.  She uses the voices to. . .”

“Does she do Arnold Schwarzenegger?  Oh, all right, voices! “

“. . . . . . .”

He went on to showcase his devastating display of comedy knowledge referencing everyone from Sam Kinison to. . . well, Paula Poundstone again.  I went on to call him stupid on Twitter and then concocted elaborate anxiety fantasies of him heckling Bamford, me sitting next to him mouthing to her, “I’m so sorry!”  My stomach at this point was well on its way to cat-o-nine-tails.

The first act was a boring newcomer full of expected and borderline offensive jokes that the old kids sure enjoyed.  Second up was Jackie Kashian — a friend of Maria’s and strong comedian.  Her work was more story-oriented and built around the ridiculousness of her family, and tales of her nerdish childhood.  Kashian’s style is confident, unshakeably so without being arrogant.  A fine line to walk but she walked it well and all while sporting her Powell’s Books t-shirt.  I liked her.  Dr. Comedy next to me was less pleased but still riding his buzz.

Finally, Maria came on and she was all that I hoped she’d be and more.  The packed closeness that had inspired claustrophobia was now cushioned by loud shared laughter.  The sticky crampedness that built stomach knots gave way into release.  Maybe this layout is part of the build up — it provides some of the necessary tension that jokes erupt out of, I pondered.  But Maria brought some of this discomfort too.  Her voice could be too quiet, I strained to hear, she babbled her weird thoughts, she’d close her eyes rehearsing what she had told us and what she had yet to say.  One could possibly think she looked unstable or at least fearful, uncomfortable on stage.  There was something true about this but also something that was just part of her performance. I knew she possessed the wherewithal to clean this up, look more “normal” if she wanted to, but she was choosing to show this process as it was.  She does not glibly glide from joke to joke, she gets there messily, truthfully.

But beyond this, I can’t really do her justice as her show relies so heavily on voice and intonation.  For a taste of her sense of humor here’s a story/joke she relayed about a conversation she and her new neighbor shared:

Maria’s new neighbor: I hope you don’t mind living next to a Mexican — you know we leave stuff on our lawn.

Maria: I hope you don’t mind living next to a white lady, because I’m gonna steal that stuff.

MANIFEST DESTINY!  It feels like it’s mine!

Old Kinison to my left did not approve.  He was sorry he didn’t get a chance to tell her to her face how badly she sucked.

Erin’s high-pitched laugh squealed behind me. I laughed tearfully.  Maybe she didn’t please everyone that night, but she sure punched some of us right in the comedy gut.

Now, for a comedian to be successful, assuming successful means garnering a wide audience, playing huge theaters, arenas, even, their material needs to hit a sweet spot of broad experience.  It has to fit into, explain and reflect the thoughts, dreams and fears of a good many people.  We tend to mark “the best” by measuring success in this fashion. However, there’s something special about artists like Bamford, performers who refuse to play to the standard and reach every person.  There’s something brave, kinda punk, kinda D.Y.I., feminist awesome about how incredibly close she keeps her comedy.  Her stories all spin out from her unique self and even when she ventriloquizes and lampoons those around her, she maintains the oddity and complexity of her own voice and perspective.  Her show was small, intimate, a little too close and that’s exactly where she’s at home and I felt at home there, too.  She might be too unsettling for even my weird friends, she might not be the next comedy sweetheart to sweep the nation, but she’s honest and amazing in her own right.  She might not steal your heart, but she may steal your stuff. . . and then tell a small crowd a very good story about it.

–

Ana Holguin writes PopHeart for The Idler.

So instead I’d like to continue to talk about the ways in which the game mixes RPG and 2D platformer mechanics — primarily how a strikingly simple design choice serves to open up what would otherwise be a fairly linear world. In the 8-bit platforming world which is my (admittedly outdated) primary point of reference, games largely ask the player to navigate in one direction, often from left to right. The basic model would be, of course, Super Mario Bros., which doesn’t even let you backtrack once the screen has scrolled to the right, but even when games like Castlevania include vertical and right-to-left elements in their level design, there’s usually a specific forward direction at any given time, and it’s rare for a game to ask you to retrace your steps.

This might be one of the most brilliant components of the 2D platform game — particularly in systems with severe technical limitations (like an 8-bit console), the 2D platform game architecture creates a perpetual feeling of active progress. The game, when played, is in constant motion, and that motion is always directed toward a specific end. Thus, as long as the player is in motion, they can be confident that they’ll eventually reach the goal. The game may include rewards for exploration — hidden power-ups, warp zones, or bonus areas — but even a new player can just keep moving forward and progress through the game.

Cave Story, on the other hand, pushes the player back and forth within a level like no other 2D platformer I’ve ever played. I’ve created a map below of the path I followed to complete the Bushlands level (known in some versions of the game as the Grasslands). [Click on the map for a larger version.]

You’ll note that in addition to all of the smaller back-and-forths, the game requires the player to return to the very beginning of the level at least three times. While the level largely follows a progressive back-and-forth — that is, you could basically divide the level in half, and the player is required to thoroughly explore the first half, and then can largely move on to thoroughly explore the second half — but then the game violates this neat division when it makes the player return to the beginning to fetch charcoal as a bomb component.

The effect of all this, at least in my play, was to make the area much more of a map (in RPG terms) than a level (in 2D platformer terms). Rather than simply being able to progress (and then return to the teleporter after completing the level), I had to continue to re-explore, and continue to converse with Non-player characters (NPCs), just like returning to a town after defeating a major monster, accomplishing a specific goal, or acquiring new items in an RPG. In fact, the player’s relationships with NPCs in Cave Story are more dynamic than in many 40-hour RPGs I’ve played.

And, in all honesty, Final Fantasy XIII could learn a thing or two from Cave Story‘s level design. (Too often, running around in Final Fantasy XIII is like Super Mario Bros. without the jumping. Ugh.)

So, story next week, I promise, and I’m hoping to look back on how the robot works as a blank slate/player identification character compared to Ness from EarthBound. (My initial take is that the robot works a lot better, but I need to do some noodling as to why and how.)

Thus far, we know that Daniel is enthusiastic about Cave Story‘s power-ups, and Kevin is a bit skeptical about the jumping mechanics (which is a pretty big problem for a platformer). I’m curious to know, though, on the whole how is the game working for the two of you? What genre would you cram it into? What, as you head towards the end, would it take to make or break the game for you?

I can’t believe that we wrap up next week! Well, onward! (And maybe back again.)

–

Read Daniel J. Hogan’s week 2 post
Read Kevin Nguyen’s week 2 post

–

Gavin Craig is co-editor of The Idler. You can follow him on Twitter at @craiggav.

The Distant Hours was different. The cover grabbed my attention and pulled me into its world. The castle overlooking the moors with a blue-gray sky above told the story of the book as well as the liner notes. A letter sent fifty years ago finds its way into the hands of our main character Edie. Edie follows the letter’s path to the decaying Milderhurst Castle. There she meets three aging sister who helped Edie’s mother during World War II. The castle and the sister have secrets that Edie slowly discovers during her visits, unraveling her mother’s story among others in this gothic fiction.

I fell in love. I rarely judge a book by its cover, but really, that is what the covers are for. The art can pull you in as much as the description of the story, and it’s the first thing you see when picking up a new book. At the AWP conference I attended a talk about small presses and one of the authors said her favorite part of publishing with a small press was the control she had over the cover art. Her book was about a college-age woman who moved back to her hometown. It’s a coming-of-age novel and with a female protagonist it will appeal mostly to women. But the author wanted to at least try to get a few men to pick up the book. She had experience with large presses and knew they would put a close-up of a woman on the cover, probably with an out-of-focus field in the background and just as likely with her face out of the frame. That way all the women looking to buy the book will put themselves in the heroine’s place. The same effect is achieved when publishers put figures, usually women, walking away from the camera toward the sunset, or a beach, or that same out-of-focus field.

The author wanted something that would appeal to both genders instead of being pigeonholed into “chick lit.” I understand completely. Female torsos or backs are as prevalent in “books for girls” as guns and submarines are on “books for boys.” While the cover for The Distant Hours is beautiful, it’s a dark beauty and not necessarily feminine. The castle is on a hill that borders on being a cliff. The water below is filled with rocks; the clouds are coming in to cover the pale blue sky. This place holds secrets and might not be ready to let them go. Of course I had to buy it.

I hadn’t thought to pick it up again until this week because this is the week I finally bought myself a copy of Wuthering Heights. I went to a library sale and picked up a bunch of classics and history books to sell to the store so I could get myself some store credit and buy the cutest set of Gramercy Classics that came in a few days earlier. Among the books I sold for credit were two copies of Wuthering Heights. I sold a different copy of the same story I would be buying, and paying more money for, all because of the cover. The rest of the set includes Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, and Pride and Prejudice. The books I was selling from the library also included Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice, books I already own in different editions but wanted to buy again because they were little with matching covers and ribbon bookmarks. I’m a sucker for ribbon bookmarks. They feel so damn classy.

Covers are important, if only because they make people like me buy multiple copies of a good book because the new cover grabs my attention. I know Kate Morton really wants me to read her book, not just to buy it and then admire the pretty artwork. But the artwork is what got me to open the book in the first place, so no matter the quality of the book, the art deserves an honorable mention. Because it was so appealing I bought it and now I’ve finally started it. I’ll finish it this week while my Gramercy Classics set looks down on my from its prime spot at the top of my bookshelf.

–

Kelly Hannon works in an indie bookstore, is editing her first novel, and blogs about annoying people at www.letterstopeopleihate.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyMHannon

But first, a quick aside. Gavin pointed out you do not have to fight Balrog, the “Oh Yeah!” shouting baddie, in your first meeting. He asks if you want to fight, and well, I selected “No,” just to see what would happen. Balrog said, more or less, “OK, see you later,” and left. Interesting.

Back to the power-ups — Cave Story has you collect items which increase the power, or Level, of your weapons. With each Level, the weapon takes on new abilities. It is a double-edged sword, however. Each time you take damage, so does your weapon, and after several hits, your weapon Level drops, making you weaker. This was an unique mechanic, which added a bit of extra drama to boss battles.

I had a lot of fun powering up the weapons to their maximum Levels, just to see the difference it made. Missiles became larger, rates of fire were increased, and so forth. My favorite discovery of the game was when I realized I could propel myself skyward using the powered-up Machine Gun. Just press Down and Fire — no more pit deaths or trying to make difficult jumps. Granted, one must exercise caution — the Machine Gun’s ammo needs to recharge after a lengthy burst.

The variety of weapons keeps the game fresh too, as each weapon has its own advantage or disadvantage. For example, the Fireball just bounces along the ground (not unlike in Super Mario Bros., just larger). This makes the weapon pretty much useless for ground-to-air attacks, but the Fireball can plow through herds of enemies on hills or slopes. The Bubble weapon was also fascinating, as it doubled as a shield (handy for running through a cloud of baddies).

It seems I get a new weapon every few levels or so, and I look forward to seeing what the rest of the game offers. I just hope I don’t end up having to use jelly beans against baddies.

–

Read Gavin Craig’s week 2 post
Read Kevin Nguyen’s week 2 post

–

Daniel J. Hogan’s webcomic and humor blog, Clattertron, is nearly jelly bean free. Follow him on Twitter, @danieljhogan.

But I started to get sick of those recipes. We always keep a few packages of shelf-stable gnocchi in the cupboard to make gnocchi with chard and white beans, but when I went to make it last week, I realized I was groaning about the idea of eating it again. That recipe makes a TON of leftovers that don’t taste as good as the fresh stuff, and I just did not want to be eating that shit for the next week. Not to mention the sort of middle-aged sadness of doing the same thing over and over again and aren’t I supposed to be young and doing new things and OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME. Eventually the fear of monotony won out over my lazy ass, and I decided to break out of the rut and find something new.

None of that changes the fact that I already had gnocchi in my cupboard and that gnocchi is delicious. Lately I’ve been sidelined from working out by a fucking TOE injury, so I’ve been trying to eat more vegetables to keep myself from losing all the health. I normally sauté some zucchini in olive oil when I make honey-soy broiled salmon, but otherwise I have no idea what to do with it. I found this recipe for gnocchi with zucchini ribbons (?) and parley brown butter from eatingwell.com. I had no idea what zucchini ribbons were or how butter got brown, but it sounded pretty so I went with it.

I wanted to get out of the rut but I’m still lazy, so I also chose this recipe because it doesn’t have a lot of ingredients: zucchini, tomatoes, gnocchi, parsley, butter, parmesan cheese, some spices, and I swapped out the shallots for garlic because ew shallots. To make the zucchini ribbony, the recipe said to use a mandoline slicer. I have no idea what that is, so I just used a potato peeler. I sliced off the ends of the zucchini first so I could stand it up, and cut thin slices downward until I got to the seeds. I didn’t expect mine to look as good as the picture, but they did look pretty cute, if sort of unsettlingly fish-like.  I chopped everything else up while I boiled the gnocchi.

Next, I had to brown the butter. The recipe said to cook it for about two minutes until it starts to brown. That sounded straightforward until I actually started doing it, and then I got worried that “brown” was too close to burn and that I wouldn’t know the difference and then EVERYTHING would be RUINED. While the butter started to melt, I furiously started googling “what does browned butter look like please help” and found something of Alton Brown’s. Most people on the internet, including Alton, seemed to be browning huge pots of butter for some nefarious purpose, whereas I was only doing a tiny slice.

Shrug?

After a few minutes of running between my computer and the stove, I decided to wing it. I waited until after the butter was foamy, when it looked maybe a little bit golden, and decided that was good enough for me. Anything cooked in butter is going to taste fine, anyhow. I added in the cute zucchini:

Aw.

From then on, the rest of the recipe moved super quickly, only cooking each ingredient for a minute or two before adding the next. The strangest thing about this recipe was that it wanted me to add nutmeg. NUTMEG. Isn’t that like, for coffee and hot cider and desserts? But I figured the people at Eating Well probably know what they’re doing, so I stirred it in along with a few red pepper flakes, like some of the commenters suggested.

LADIES AND GENTS — I cannot tell you how effing tasty this is. I don’t know whether it was the nutmeg or if browning the butter makes it extra delicious, but it was so good I made it again the next night. The recipe is supposed to be 4 servings but Charlie and I ate the entire panful in one sitting. The zucchini hardly tastes like a vegetable at all; it was almost like a sort of noodle. Even the picky 8-year-old version of me could probably have been tricked into eating this. I might use a little bit less parsley next time, but even that is barely worth mentioning. Instead of being my usual modest self I could not shut up about how good this was and how awesome I am. I was happy to be out of my rut, but I’ll gladly climb into a new, butter-filled one.

—

Jill Kolongowski is a writer and editor living in San Francisco. When she’s not cooking, running, or reading, she sometimes blogs at jillkolongowski.com. Follow her on Twitter at @jillkolongowski.

The Gamers’ Club is playing Cave Story. Read “Let’s get retro” by Daniel J. Hogan, “Platform mechanics” by Kevin Nguyen, and “Jumping into story” by Gavin Craig

“It’s easy to wonder if the Caps and the Canadiens might have been altogether better off keeping the coaches they started the season with. After all, Boudreau was just signed to a two-year contract with the Anaheim Ducks, so couldn’t Ovechkin have gotten over himself? And I’ve seen Martin on some lists as a potential Hunter replacement for the Caps, just to make things weirder. There’s obviously no way to know. Inevitably, more coaching switches will go down between now and next postseason, but these two organizations will be the teams to watch. Their ability to weather a revolving door of coaches — and possibly players — may help other general managers with their hiring and firing decisions, whether they know it or not. Or at least, a GM might think twice before firing a coach to try and stir the pot.” Read “Stirring the pot: How coaching changes landed two ice hockey teams in hot water” by Yael Borofsky.

“Farscape was why my spouse and I bought a TiVo. It was a show we discovered not long after we got married and that we were soon watching faithfully. But we discovered after our babe was born in 2001 that live television watching wasn’t compatible with baby minding, and we rediscovered the unreliabilty of taping shows on a VCR. We couldn’t do without Moya and her crew, and so we bought a first-generation TiVo, along with a lifetime subscription to its services. We’ve been proselytizing the joys of TiVo ever since (we’ve upgraded to a recent model and have hacked that to increase its memory). But Farscape had disappeared from our lives for a while. It went off the air, and although I’m pretty sure we own it on DVD, I don’t tend to remember to watch my DVDs. But with its appearance on Netflix Instant, nothing can come between me and Ka D’Argo again.” Read “Farscape: Soap in space” by Sarah Werner.

“Since TECT, the machine to which humans had conceded the government of their lives, ordered Sandor Courane into exile on Planet D (which the colonists inevitably called Home), he had no choice but to go. And on Home, Sandor found respite from his failures on Earth (TECT had mercifully given him 3 chances: as a basketball player, a science fiction writer, and a factory worker) and a community whose work filled him with pride. But Sandor also discovered that on Home, there were two types of colonists: patients infected with a terrible fatal neurological disorder, and prisoners to take care of them as they forget everyone and everything they once loved. What caused D syndrome? Why would TECT let this happen?” Read “TECT Knows Best” by Suzanne Fischer.

That figure would return as I moved forward to show me the story of the world and the people who came before me.

There is a balance every narrative game has to find between what the game gives you, and what it leaves for you to find. My first trip through the game was carried almost entirely by what was given. There was the experience of the world as I traveled through it, and there was the story of the world as revealed in the visions/cutscenes between levels. Every vision showed a little bit of where I had been, a little bit of where I was to go next, and a little bit of what had happened. It’s brilliantly difficult to be more specific than that, as the visions are images entirely free of text.

There is an entire meditation, in Journey, on writing. The visions are iconographic — the graphemes it uses are representations of embodiment and embodied action, and like all representation, it operates by demanding interpretation. The revealed story — the story communicated through the visions — is perfectly clear and perfectly ambiguous. Life, living cloth, both flora and fauna, emanate from the energy of the mountain. People begin to direct energy, first into greater cloths, and then into structures which use cloths as energy sources. The people attain great heights, and then the energy starts to flicker. There is a tearing of the cloth. New, terrible machines are built under storm and cloud. The world is covered in sand. A single traveler appears, and moves through the ruins of the world to the mountain.

All of this is recorded. All of this is shown. None of it is explained. None of it has meaning independent of the traveler and the player’s experience. The traveler reconstructs the story by moving to a place in the world where a new chapter can be told. While the story, like all stories, is dependent on an imagined past, the play itself re-creates the story from the very first play. Without the traveler, without the reader, without the player, the writing is just an encoded possibility, a hope for a story. Every book, every game, every story is a ghost, a trace, a breath waiting for a body to enliven.

–

The second time I played Journey, I was a companion. I was initially indifferent to others. The game has a trophy given when the player encounters 10 other players within the game. I earned this trophy on my first playthrough, as I moved forward and left other players behind. The second time, however, I met a traveler in a white robe.

Unlike most games with online multiplayer functionality, Journey doesn’t give players a way to talk to each other using voice or text. Instead, you can press a button to make a noise (which varies in tune with the game’s soundtrack) and create a single luminescent glyph.

There is an entire meditation, in Journey, on language. Because you can “talk” quietly or loudly by tapping the button lightly or holding it down with greater pressure, the game’s single hailing action can be incredibly expressive. I soon realized that the other traveler was calling my attention to places in the world I should explore. I found new ruins, hidden flowers, and secret glyphs which added to the story told in the visions. We had a way to acknowledge each other, to keep track of each other, and, most interesting of all, to chatter. Sometimes our speech had a clear purpose — “Come over here!” “Thanks” “Can you see me?” — but sometimes it was more a way to share excitement, or nervousness, or wonder. That is, it was a conversation in which clear communication was taking place, but in which that communication was entirely indifferent to individual words. It was a striking reminder of how much of a conversation is carried by tone and context rather than grammar and syntax.

As we moved through the world, the traveler taught me, and I was able to say thank you. In the moments of greatest beauty, we sang to each other. We were not only acknowledging each other, but acknowledging the world, and participating in it.

–

I returned to Journey after my two complete playthroughs for a number of smaller, partial attempts. After the game is completed, the end of the first, tutorial level becomes a gateway where the player can jump to any of the later levels, rather than having to play the whole game in order. I collected the glowing symbols I had missed. I found the final hidden glyphs. I earned a white robe of my own. I tried and failed to take on the role of teacher.

So the third time I played Journey, I put the robe away. I gave up the external signs of experience, and simply entered the world again.

There is an entire meditation, in Journey, on humility. While the story is dependent upon the player as a reader, an actor, a participant, the world itself endures unchanged. In most games, replay value is measured by variability of outcome — different choices resulting in a different story, different actions leading to a higher score. Journey has no score, and the world, the symbols, the glyphs, the visions, and the outcome are the same every time. You may approach the mountain alone or with a companion, clothed in brown or white, with a long flowing scarf or with almost no scarf at all. The mountain always strips all of these things away. The end is always the same.

And yet Journey is the only video game I can think of which I’ve played from beginning to end three times.

And the third time I played Journey, I met a traveler. Somehow, I was better as a guide in the brown robe instead of the white, and I showed my companion the better paths. As we approached the mountain, in the final wind and snow, we were separated, and I did something I had never done before. I waited. When my companion was blown from the path, I sat in one place so that he could climb back and we could finish the journey together. Even then, somehow, he got ahead of me without my having seen him, and I found myself rising to catch up. I’m still not sure if I was mistaken somehow about his having lost the path, or if I was inattentive, or if he found a new way. None of these things seems likely, but I know for certain that we were separated and found each other further ahead. My patience, apparently, was nothing compared to my companion’s, as he waited for me to finish waiting for him. We entered the mountain together, to begin again, alone.

–

The first time I played Journey, I saw the world.

The second time I played Journey, I learned the language.

The third time I played Journey, I was part of the world.

I may yet return.

–

Gavin Craig is co-editor of The Idler. You can follow him on Twitter at @craiggav.

There are a zillion good reasons to fire a coach, but seven firing/hiring stunts in about two months raised eyebrows. Was it groupthink, coincidence, or just a lot of pot-stirring?

In reality and fairness, each of the coaches should get a full season in behind the bench before being evaluated. But if we’re going to peek early, now that we’re more than half way through the Stanley Cup Playoffs (although in my world they are already over) it’s an interesting time to tentatively take stock.

Of the eight teams that swapped coaches, five — the Hurricanes, the Canadiens, the Ducks, the Maple Leafs, and the Blue Jackets — didn’t make it to the playoffs.

Of those that did see the postseason — the Capitals, the Blues, and the Kings — only L.A. is still in contention with the third round underway.

Even if the L.A. Kings win the Stanley Cup, the results make it pretty tough to draw many conclusions about coaching changes and postseason success this year.

What the coaching switch has done so far is made for some soap opera-style drama — two teams are currently coach-less — so we can talk a little bit about the old default strategy of stirring the pot.

The Montreal Canadiens were terrible this year, but Randy Cunneyworth, who was brought in to replace Jacques Martin, stirred Hab nation to a boil. Cunneyworth is already back out the door — not because the Canadiens were bad, although they were, but because he can’t speak French. With a losing record on the books, the Canadiens still have no idea who’ll be in charge next.

Right now, though, the Capitals are providing even more coaching suspense.

As the Washington Post reported in its postseason recap, the Caps dropped a high-caliber coach in Bruce Boudreau to take a chance on Dale Hunter, who wasn’t even sure he wanted to coach in the NHL.

The Caps had a respectable and downright exciting postseason run (though they barely made it in), but Hunter already resigned his position, even after being lauded for instilling discipline and “accountability” in the streaky team.

From the Post article, it sounds like the coaching hire has been mired in controversy from the start.

“…the notion that Hunter had implemented sort of magic elixir of a system is a myth. Boudreau was in the process of changing the Capitals’ approach when he was fired for essentially one reason: Alex Ovechkin didn’t want to play for him anymore because — ironically — Boudreau began insisting on accountability from everyone, including his superstar. Hunter was a different voice saying many of the same things — to the team in general and to Ovechkin in specific.”

As if Ovechkin weren’t enough to handle, following the season there were rumors that Alexander Semin, the Capitals other leading forward, didn’t want to remain with the team because, as his agent told ESPN,  the team “decided to change directions.” Now he’s denying those rumors. Still, it’s likely his decision could be influenced the by the coaching pick.

In the meantime, the style and performance of two teams is in utter limbo. If the GMs were hoping to stir the pot (and not just follow the herd), they succeeded. Though not in the way I imagine they planned.

It’s easy to wonder if the Caps and the Canadiens might have been altogether better off keeping the coaches they started the season with. After all, Boudreau was just signed to a two-year contract with the Anaheim Ducks, so couldn’t Ovechkin have gotten over himself? And I’ve seen Martin on some lists as a potential Hunter replacement for the Caps, just to make things weirder.

There’s obviously no way to know.

Inevitably, more coaching switches will go down between now and next postseason, but these two organizations will be the teams to watch. Their ability to weather a revolving door of coaches — and possibly players — may help other general managers with their hiring and firing decisions, whether they know it or not. Or at least, a GM might think twice before firing a coach to try and stir the pot.

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Yael Borofsky is a writer, editor, and Philadelphia sports fan. Follow her on Twitter @yaelborofsky.

Anyway, before we get too far into a “who’s older than whom” argument, let me say that I’m digging the choice of Cave Story as our Gamers’ Club game. I’m sometimes a bit jealous of the world of indie or other unusual downloadable games that exist in the PC world or on the XBox Live Arcade service. I do have Steam installed on my Mac, but it’s old and underpowered, and I’ve been burned before, spending hours downloading a game only to find that my lappy couldn’t even open it. So I’m blissfully happy to not only be able to get Cave Story on WiiWare, but to have something to do with my woefully underused Wii and an excuse to pull my WaveBird out of storage. (I’m a little bit put off that the game is $12 on WiiWare when it’s only $10 on Steam, but I’ll get over it.)

I’ve played about an hour and a half of Cave Story so far, and already it’s grabbed me in a way that EarthBound never did. I’m not deep enough into the story to say much in narrative terms about why that might be — and I’ll admit that I do want to go back to EarthBound on my own another day to try and figure out why so many classic RPG fans love it so much — so my initial take is that Cave Story does a really great job of mixing the architecture of the 2D platform game with the narrative techniques of the classic 2D RPG. (That is, it’s another example that game architecture isn’t determinative of genre.) The game uses platform mechanics to allow the player to navigate the world, but RPG mechanics to deliver the story. The player jumps from ledge to ledge to get around town, and explore new areas, and has conversations with non-player characters (NPCs) to find out what to do next.

And for me, right now, that mixture is magic. The platformer elements add a bit of challenge and interest as I’m exploring, and the RPG story elements give me a reason to keep exploring, and to keep jumping in the difficult parts. I’ve written before that I’m not a big fan of platformers, but I’m enjoying Cave Story, and looking forward to playing more.

There’s more I’m looking forward to talking about, hell, we could probably do an entire post just listing the cultural and video game references — the Balrog alone cites both Lord of the Rings and Kool-Aid Man, and there’s something very Metroid about the way the game makes you navigate vertically and horizontally, and retrace your steps rather than moving in a single direction à la Mario. Finally, I’m curious to know if anyone else noticed that when the Balrog asks if you want to fight, you can actually say “no” and he goes away. If the game is short enough, I my play though a second time just to find out if not fighting the Balrog has an impact later in the game. (I wanted the “experience” triangles, so I didn’t fight the Balrog in the demo, but I did fight him in my current playthrough of the full version. I also did some grinding in the graveyard, killing and respawning the knife-slasher frog until my pistol was at full power.)

I’m actually a bit giddy, boys. It’s taking all my willpower to not start chanting “Genres are not to be mixed. I will not mix genres.” (That’s right. I just threw down some Derrida. Bla-dow.)

Onward! Next time I talk about the actual story, rather than just acknowledge that it exists.

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Read Daniel J. Hogan’s week 1 post
Read Kevin Nguyen’s week 1 post

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Gavin Craig is co-editor of The Idler. You can follow him on Twitter at @craiggav.

What blew me away when we first started watching the series was how far removed it was from the imaginative and visual universe of Star Trek. There’s no crew of brethren searching for scientific knowledge, no utterly foreign aliens, no discrete episodes with uplifting morals. It’s a sprawling soap opera in which the crew of the living spaceship constantly argue and jostle for dominance and reveal secrets and longings and shifting alliances. The villains — and, oh the evil chasing Creighton and Aeryn and the others is evil indeed — are also complex and sometimes allies in the moment, even while never to be trusted.

The best way in, if you haven’t seen the show before, is to start at the beginning. But be forewarned: the series was cancelled abruptly, so what should have been a cliffhanger was, for many years, the ending. You’ll be able to watch beyond the fourth series to the 2004 The Peacekeeper Wars mini-series that tried to wrap things up more equitably. But that sudden ending was the biggest betrayal I’ve come across in television. I’m still bitter about it. I’m actually a bit reluctant to return to the show with the full force of love I felt for it before. I’ll dip my toes in once and a while, but I can’t immerse myself anymore. You should, though. Your heart won’t get broken, I promise.

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Sarah Werner has two sons, at least one job, and too many books to read. As a result, Netflix Instant is her constant companion. She blogs about books and reading and is known to a corner of the twitterverse as @wynkenhimself.