About this funny little project

Welcome to Calvinball Variations, my funny little art project. 

It is, of course, partly cribbed from the Calvin and Hobbs comic and the strips where he plays Calvinball, a game that you make up as you go along, with the only rule being that you can't play the same way twice. My little art project is an attempt to explore what this means, and to find ways of having it live in this world. The simple truth that we're all just making it up as we go along is actually rather complicated. But I think it's worth sweating a bit to make more sense of it. 

So, onto Calvinball Variations. It goes like this. I invite whoever I can to some spot in a park, usually Prospect Park in Brooklyn, usually on Saturdays around noonish (when the weather is nice.) I start it off by introducing the three main elements of Calvinball Variations, which are:

1) the Experimental Principle: turn audience into performer into creator,

2) the Athletic Poetics Principle: import athletic movement into various art forms, 

3) the Play Principle: play rule creation games.

Then we talk a little about games, then we think about games, and then we play some. The games come from many different genres: running games, writing games, meditation games, sketching, theater, improv, clowning, dancing, games mixing all these games, rule creation games. Anything really, as long as you're moving and creating games. Then we think about what was played, then create new games, then play a few more, then think about what was created and played, and then create and play more. Then other things happen.

At the end we have orange slices. 

About this website

The pages below contain my deeper writings about all this. 

Some of these writings explore the logistics and techniques of various game and play genres that I've been stealing from and mushing together to help me develop fun (or even profound) little play sessions. Some explore the philosophies and ideologies that I've been tracking down and building out in order to make all these ideas about play all make sense, and even sing a little. There is also a bit of etcetera- things like schedules, notes on past sessions, links to other thinkers, etcetera. Finally, I've started transforming a few of these into spoken word performance pieces (trying to keep it alive through the winter), but these are their own animals, and constitute a connected but mostly separate project. I'm also always rethinking this, so some of the pages will be tests of new approaches.

Some of this writing is pretty good, with one caveat: writing is a recursive process. It's a game where you take a step and then fix that step, and then take another step and then fix the first two, then another step and you're fixing three, and on like that, so that by the time you're taken ten steps you've fixed fifty five. I had a vision, but it's one that evolves, and I struggle to keep up with the work of clearly articulating it, especially since the articulations in the pages below have a bit of a networked structure, so changing the form of one has implications for the rest. As a general principle, the backtracking work of making sense of our ideas can't keep up with our forward progress of having ideas. Regardless, I'm pretty far behind, but what has come out does have some nice substance. In any case, reading all or any of this this all isn't necessary for anyone who wants to come and play.

Where, When, Contact

Dates and locations have varied, but for now I've settled on Saturdays at 1, next one on October 25th, in the Rose Garden of Prospect Park. (It's those three concrete circles that were once fountains, in the woods near the top of the park, near Flatbush Ave, above the Veil of Cashmere.) This might be the last one of the season, as the winter is coming. I may turn to library games, or exclusively running games because integrating writing and other art creations are a bit tougher when it's colder. 

If you have trouble finding us, want to RSVP, or have any questions, feel free to email me at cgziemba@gmail.com. Also, please email if you're running late. 

It's free, but I wouldn't mind a donation, or we tend to go to Fiona's Bar after, where you could buy me a beer. I usually put it on nonsensenyc.com (which has the most amazing listing of strange and wonderful events in NYC, I can't recommend it enough) and have been testing out platforms to promote it: instagram, Luma, WithFriends, Eventbrite. But marketing is very very much not my skill set, so please feel free to bring friends. 

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Also, it's been both kid and dog friendly, and to folk who aren't athletically inclined, and even to folk who haven't experimented with poetics and play in a while.  It adapts based on who shows up. Finally, bring water, and shoes you can scamper around in. Optional to bring is a notebook if you're partial to yours, chalk, and a balloon (balloons are just fun.)

What's in the Pages Below

I've written a lot trying to explain all this, and it's broken up into hopefully manageable chunks in the pages below. Some of these pages explore theories of play and the overall philosophy underlying this project. Other pages explore the various methods I've been building out for creating games, and the different genres that I've been stealing from to make these games. You're absolutely invited, without having read any of this, to just show up some Saturday at 1 to play, but I do invite you to read some, as much or as little or as much as you like.

Some of it is very good, with one caveat: writing is a recursive process. It's a game where you take a step and then fix that step, and then take another step and then fix the first two, then another step and you're fixing three, and on like that. By the time you're taken ten steps you've fixed fifty five, and I know that my repairs haven't kept up with my progress. I had a vision, but one that is evolving, so it's hard to keep up with the work of clearly articulating it.

At the very bottom of this, below all the links, you'll see a bit of my plan for the next session, though they don't really get followed. This is built around indeterminacy and adaptation, and each day is built around whoever arrives.