Changing Titles:
Calvinball Variations,
Silly Running Games,
Free Rule Moves/Free Moves Rules/ Free Move Rules (which seems to be the best of these three words: Moving and Free Rules, Moving with Free Rules, Free Rules and Movements, Free Rules for Movements, Free Moving Rules, free-moving-rules, Free-Movingrules, freemoving-Rules, free Moving rules)
Changing Subtitles:
Theory and methods for playing rule creation games and a current effort
Universal Legislators in a Kingdom of Ends
Tasks to teach the playing of free move rule
Run without rhythm (breaking up your rhythm
Move fast enough to encounter many many strange things and slow enough to notice them
We begin with the following question, to which we will return, many times:
How do you play rule creation games?
It's irritatingly self-explanatory: create rules and play according to them. Not particularly helpful, but I think it's best to start with the simplest and most essential formulation. To note, a pure rule creation game couldn't exist, not for humans anyway, not outside of our imaginations. Such a game would require no pre-existing rules; you'd need to invent gravity and words and even the idea of invention, and even the idea of rules. Too overwhelming. The next question might do more to further us along:
What is this game of Calvinball Variations?
The answer is, again, a bit irritatingly simple and vague: it is my own current effort to create a rule creation game, as recorded and explained in this website. I won't say that much more here, other than Calvinball Variations is also not a totally pure rule creation game. As I said, such a thing couldn't actually exist. I'll be assuming a few pre-existing rules, such as gravity and that humans enjoy storytelling and running around (if not running.) I'll also be taking little bits and bobs from other games (much more on this later) and have drafted a few little agreements. I promise the answer to next question won't be so irritatingly self-explanatory, simple, or vague, though I don't promise that it won't be irritatingly recursively-referential, intricate, and specific:
How does one learn how to play Calvinball Variations?
This site is designed as a wheel or a labyrinth. You start in the middle, on the Hub for Game-Pieces and Sets page, and radiate out to explore the various pieces and sets (ex: Sets and Pieces, Classic Calvinball, Jury Instructions and Nullification, Silly movement games, etc, and I would start with these four specifically). There are lots of different ways that people play at making rules, lots of games where creating games is the game (think comedy improv, surreal poetry games, interactive theater, role playing games), and my "sets and pieces" are interpretations and adaptations on some of these little games that I've been collecting and sometimes creating.
So, start in the middle, go out to explore and learn, then return to the middle and integrate what you learned into a growing network in your mind. Think about how to create rules so that these little bits and bobs can be played. And notice how any game piece or set can be integrated and adapted to any other game piece or set to build a new game. The spokes here connect not only to the middle but to any point on the rim.
To note, some of these sets and pieces are more theory than method. They won't so much help you create rules as they will help you understand the philosophy of rule creation games and Calvinball Variations, as well as my formulation of Game-Pieces and Sets. But they all talk to each other. Theory enriches method, and engaging with many methods helps us achieve a deeper, and more beautiful philosophy.
How can I play Calvinball Variations?
At the moment, I'm doing them on Sundays at 1pm in the Peninsula of Prospect Park (which is south of the Nethermead, across the water from Lefrak, and another few hundred meters past Smorgasburg.)The link to the page Schedules, Maps, and Extras shows where and when to play and how to sign up (though you could just show up if you wanted to.)
Go here to learn some theories and methods for playing:
Go here to find out when and where you can play:
Note- I'm not sure I will ever totally finish this site or these explanations. It's possible- I'm thinking of drafting 64 total Game-Pieces and Sets, and each new one requires editing others so that there is consistency across certain repeating structures, and I might model the overall structure on the I Ching (long story) so it could take a while, but there does exist a hypothetical state of completion. In the meantime, Calvinball Variations is still very much playable, and the playing will push this little project further along.
However, at this moment (10/17/24) this site is still pretty messy and getting reworked. It's a weird creature that' I'm building from the skeleton out, and I'm not sure I'm even past laying out the spinal chord. It's published a little too early, and I apologize that the drafts are still so rough. Regardless, I'm grateful that you've come by, and hope that your coming by is that little piece that gets it off the ground.
Basically, I'm of course far from the end, but still a little too close to the beginning. You are welcome here regardless.
Help Finding the Nethermead
Otherwise, here is a description of where it is in relation to some other features of the park:
The Nethermead is almost exactly in the middle of the park (it literally means "lower meadow") and is where a lot of folks let their dogs run around in the mornings and evenings. Inside Prospect Park, the main paved loop is called East Drive or West Drive. This main loop is bisected by two other paved roads; the south one is Well House Drive, the north one is Center Drive. The Nethermead is halfway up or down Center Drive.
The Nethermead is not the long meadow, which on the left/West side and adjacent to Park Slope, and which starts at Grand Army Plaza near the library, moves south west past the Picnic House and dog beach, and ends at the baseball fields. The Nethermead is southeast of the long meadow, and if you take the path that starts at 9th street in Park Slope, cuts across the long meadow, passes the dog beach, goes into the some woodland and passes Fallkill Falls, you'll reach the Nethermead.
If you're coming from the east side of the park by Prospect Lefferts Gardens, come in at the entrance at Ocean Ave and Lincoln Road (if you're coming in at the Prospect Park subway stop here, get out at the south part of the station, turn right onto Lincoln Road and you'll hit the Ocean/Lincoln entrance) keep going straight on the drivable road (this is Well House Drive), go past where Smorgasburg happens (you'll probably see some folk at the picnic tables sunning their plants), go over a little bridge, and then take a right when you see the Maryland Monument, go another 100 meters, and you'll hit the Nethermead.
If you're coming from the southwest near Windsor Terrace, come in at the entrance along Prospect Park Southwest between 11th street and Windsor Place, hit the loop (here it is called West Drive) and keep going past it onto a drivable road called Center Drive, and you'll see the Nethermead on your right about 200 or so meters in.
If you're coming from Prospect Park South, find the loop entrance where Parkside/Ocean Parkway/Coney Island/Prospect Park Southwest meet, hit the loop and go left/Northwest. You can turn right onto Well House Drive, go about 500 meters, turn left onto a slightly smaller path when you see the Maryland Monument and go another 100 meters. Or you can turn left onto Center Drive, go another 200 meters and you'll hit the Nethermead on your right.
