To endorse the statement, visit:
https://www.luther.edu/just-action/islamophobia/
Monday, December 07, 2015
Sunday, December 06, 2015
Best Books of 2015
These were favorites of this year in a variety of genres.The Art of Asking, Amanda Palmer (best memoir, life-changing)
Girl in a Band, Kim Gordon (best memoir, creativity expanding)
Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God, Kelly Brown Douglas (best analysis of emerging theological category)
Culture and the Death of God, Terry Eagleton (best literary criticism on secularity)
Negative Certainties, Jean-Luc Marion (best translated phenomenology)
The Wake: A Novel, Paul Kingsnorth (best English not in English)
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates (best non-fiction, epistolary)
Bonhoeffer's Black Jesus, Reggie Williams (best theological history)
A Legend of the Future, Agustin de Rojas (best Cuban science fiction)
The Politics of Jesus: A Hispanic Political Theology, Miguel de la Torre (best Jesus, liberation)
On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, Alice Goffman (best deep ethnography)
Hidden Inheritance: Family Secrets, Memory, and Faith, Heidi Neumark (best #lutherancreative)
The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West, Todd Green (most important book)
Christo-Fiction: The Ruins of Athens and Jerusalem, Francois Laruelle (incomprehensible comprehensible philosophy of Christ)
What Should We Do With Our Brains, Catherine Malabou (the book I recommended most often in 2015)
The Age of the Crisis of Man, Mark Greif (idiosyncratic literary criticism)
Numenera
The Love of God: Divine Gift, Human Gratitude, and Mutual Faithfulness in Judaism, Jon Levenson
Making All Things New, Ilia Delio
Johannes Bugenhagen, selected writings (best Reformation era collection)
Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers, Avivah Zornberg (best biblical criticism)
The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi (best near future science fiction)
The Folly of God, John Caputo (best new presentation of a theological position)
The Mission of Demythologizing: Rudolf Bultmann's Dialectical Theology, David Congdon (also best historical theology)
The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World, Andrea Wulf
Heidegger's Confessions: The Remains of Saint Augustine in 'Being and Time' and Beyond, Ryan Coyne (best cross-over between philosophy and theology)
The Lion of Rora, Cristos Gage (best graphic novel about Waldensians)
Decreation: The Last Things of All Creatures, Paul Griffiths
Slow Pilgrim: Collected Poems, Scott Cairns
The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus, Tripp Fuller (best Jesus, zesty)
Friday, December 04, 2015
The Board Game Renaissance and Why It Matters
Although some traditional board games still dominate the market (Chess, Checkers, Backgammon, Scrabble, Monopoly, Clue, Othello, Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, and Risk as the top ten), table top games have seen in recent years a resurgence, a diversification, and a deepening.
A couple of theories. First, I think many Eurogames have finally come into the mainstream. Eurogames, which for a long time were indie games in the United States, only found in hobby stores or on-line, have now made their way into big box stores like Target and Barnes & Noble. Chief among the Eurogames is Settlers of Catan, whose fame was ensured this last year when everyone learned the Packers played Catan. Eurogames are attractive for many reasons, including their abstract playing pieces, shorter play time, simplified rule structures, shift towards economic rather than military strategy, focus on strategy over luck, and no player elimination.
Eurogames
If you're interested in Eurogames, you can't go wrong with Catan. It's a fun and accessible turn-based resource development game, and the design is gorgeous. If you want to swim upstream, consider Agricola (a medieval, agricultural resource management turn-based system), Ticket to Ride, a railway-themed German-style game, or Power Grid, an electric-supply grid game. A couple of other games comparable to these that BoardGameGeek rank high include Puerto Rico, Carcassonne, or the cooperative game Pandemic. I love the first two. Pandemic I could take or leave, but many people I know love it.
The best thing about Eurogames is the enjoyable game-play that is also strategically challenging. And because they reliably last approximately one hour to 90-minutes in duration, players can plan around a game.
Card Games
But Eurogames aren't the only games that have seen a resurgence in the last few years. A variety of card-games, including Living Card Games and cooperative card games, have expanded. The biggest money-maker in card games is still the collectible card game, Magic: The Gathering. But for players who want to build decks and play strategic cards, but don't want the almost limitless expense of Magic, living card-games offer a fixed distribution method.
My favorite LCG discovery this past year is Netrunner: Android, which is based on the world of William Gibson's Neuromancer, which later inspired a great RPG (to be discussed later), Shadowrun. It is a two-player asymmetrical card game, which means each player builds and then plays with their own deck of cards, and each type of deck (a runner or a corporation) builds completely different type of decks. Runners are hackers. Corporations defend themselves against hackers.
Proof that card games and table-top gaming are truly changing the entire gaming scene is illustrated nowhere better than with Hearthstone, a video-game that plays like a table-top card game. Developed by World of Warcraft, it now has more buzz than WoW itself. It's free, and worth checking out if you are snowed in some day this winter.
My absolute favorite deck-building game is Star Realms, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It has very simple game-play and a fast learning curve, comes packaged like a traditional deck of cards, but also develops out into an incredibly complex game, as you develop strategies for your fleet of ships and colonies. Like many games I'm mentioning in this post, there is also a mobile app adaptation.
The other card game we've spent a lot of time collecting and playing this past year, is the co-operative Sentinels of the Multiverse. You team up together with other superheroes to defeat a villain in a setting of the multiverse. The art and game play are both top-notch, and if you defeat the villain, you all win.
All these card games are satisfying on a variety of levels, including the game-play itself, the opportunity to collect cards, and the opportunity to compete against others. For example, Netrunner afficianadoes attend tournaments, share best deck builds, and even podcast strategies for game-play.
To discover tons more games along the lines of these, I highly recommend the Roseville, Minnesota based Fantasy Flight Games.
Role-Playing Games
Of course, the reason so much of the gaming universe changed can be traced back to the rise of role-playing games in the latter part of the 20-century. For this, we have Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and Gary Gygax to blame. The perennially popular Dungeons and Dragons (which recently received an amazing update in its 5th edition) changed the face not only of table-top games, but video games, fantasy novels, and so much more. 2015 saw a number of books arrive analyzing the cultural implications of RPGs. Michael Witwer's Empire of Imagination, though not particularly well-written, describes the business side of Dungeons & Dragons well. For the culture, read Of Dice and Men. And for the absolute best and fascinating account of RPGs in history and philosophy, read Jon Peterson's Playing at the World.
RPGs are what my son and I spent the most time playing this year, but we played the spin-off of Dungeons & Dragons (also now larger than D&D). Pathfinder came out as an open-source gaming platform while D&D was transitioning from version 3.5 to version 4.0. Pathfinder is crunchier than D&D 5th edition (which means the rules are bit more complex and the mechanics specific). But the appeal is the Pathfinder Society, which allows players to register for games all across the country and then play them at local game stores. This is how my son and I most frequently play. We now have three game stores in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and a few more in neighboring towns.
As a by-product of playing Pathfinder, I've been geeking out and reading the core rulebooks for a variety of other RPG systems. The ones that intrigue me the most include Shadowrun (mentioned above, which is a gaming system that includes both near-future technology and magic), Numenera (earth one billion years in the future, when technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic), Thirteenth Age (which my brother has begun playing), and Microscope, an incredibly intriguing meta-game. And finally, the trio of Star Wars RPGs that have come out in the last three years, each of which allows game-play as part of a different aspect of the Star Wars universe. Not only are the rules intriguing, they also serve as great omnibus reads to prepare all of us who are anticipating the new movie coming out next week.
Outliers
Finally, I think a lot of us play more games, and are exploring a wider array of games, because we like the tactile dimensions of playing games with others. Video games aren't going away, and will remain the bigger industry, but there is just something about cards, and play pieces, and sitting down at table with others.
Some other favorite discoveries of the year, games that are even more difficult to describe (although many web sites like Board Game Geek offer spectacular reviews) but absolutely fun to play, include:
Galaxy Truckers--you build a ship out of garbage and then use it to travel the galaxy
Cosmic Encounter--epic battles between competing alien races
X-Wings--use models of Star Wars ships to compete in military skirmishes. This will surely be the game of the year. It's everywhere, and really fun.
Twilight Struggle--a game of the Cold War, and probably the best board game on the planet.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/designing-the-best-board-game-on-the-planet/
Kids
I asked the kids which games were their favorites of 2015. The family winner was Apples to Apples, which has been around a while. The new junior edition was a particular hit. My good friend gave us a copy of Sushi Go, also a hit. And the two our youngest requests to play frequently include Labyrinth (a children's Eurogame), and Tetris and Angry Birds, both card-game adaptations of video games.
So why do these games matter to me? Well, I guess I'm probably riding along on a sub-culture Zeitgeist. Many of my friends have ramped up their game-play in recent years. Perhaps we're attempting to escape for a bit back to some of the leisure we had as children. But I also think in the Internet age, and the era of gamification, there's really something about turning off the devices, gathering around a table, and losing yourself in a game. The collector aspect of the game taps into another part of our hobby and play, and the rise of game parlors as alternative third spaces (beyond the proliferation of book stores and coffee shops) means an intriguing shift in our culture as a whole.
So finally, there's simply lots more cultural analysis of game culture. So I'll end this very long post with a few excellent references for further reading. But before you read too much, check out one of the games. Grab some friends. And consider what you might bring from play back into real life.
On inclusion: http://geekandsundry.com/5-tips-for-better-inclusion-in-tabletop-games/
On crowdfunding: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/crowdfunding-is-driving-a-196-million-board-game-renaissance/
Gen Con: http://geekdad.com/2015/08/favorite-things-gen-con-2015/
Eurogames
 |
| Hand-sculpted 3-D Homemade Version of Catan |
The best thing about Eurogames is the enjoyable game-play that is also strategically challenging. And because they reliably last approximately one hour to 90-minutes in duration, players can plan around a game.
Card Games
But Eurogames aren't the only games that have seen a resurgence in the last few years. A variety of card-games, including Living Card Games and cooperative card games, have expanded. The biggest money-maker in card games is still the collectible card game, Magic: The Gathering. But for players who want to build decks and play strategic cards, but don't want the almost limitless expense of Magic, living card-games offer a fixed distribution method.
 |
| Netrunner tournament match |
My favorite LCG discovery this past year is Netrunner: Android, which is based on the world of William Gibson's Neuromancer, which later inspired a great RPG (to be discussed later), Shadowrun. It is a two-player asymmetrical card game, which means each player builds and then plays with their own deck of cards, and each type of deck (a runner or a corporation) builds completely different type of decks. Runners are hackers. Corporations defend themselves against hackers.
Proof that card games and table-top gaming are truly changing the entire gaming scene is illustrated nowhere better than with Hearthstone, a video-game that plays like a table-top card game. Developed by World of Warcraft, it now has more buzz than WoW itself. It's free, and worth checking out if you are snowed in some day this winter.
My absolute favorite deck-building game is Star Realms, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It has very simple game-play and a fast learning curve, comes packaged like a traditional deck of cards, but also develops out into an incredibly complex game, as you develop strategies for your fleet of ships and colonies. Like many games I'm mentioning in this post, there is also a mobile app adaptation.
The other card game we've spent a lot of time collecting and playing this past year, is the co-operative Sentinels of the Multiverse. You team up together with other superheroes to defeat a villain in a setting of the multiverse. The art and game play are both top-notch, and if you defeat the villain, you all win.All these card games are satisfying on a variety of levels, including the game-play itself, the opportunity to collect cards, and the opportunity to compete against others. For example, Netrunner afficianadoes attend tournaments, share best deck builds, and even podcast strategies for game-play.
To discover tons more games along the lines of these, I highly recommend the Roseville, Minnesota based Fantasy Flight Games.
Role-Playing Games
Of course, the reason so much of the gaming universe changed can be traced back to the rise of role-playing games in the latter part of the 20-century. For this, we have Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and Gary Gygax to blame. The perennially popular Dungeons and Dragons (which recently received an amazing update in its 5th edition) changed the face not only of table-top games, but video games, fantasy novels, and so much more. 2015 saw a number of books arrive analyzing the cultural implications of RPGs. Michael Witwer's Empire of Imagination, though not particularly well-written, describes the business side of Dungeons & Dragons well. For the culture, read Of Dice and Men. And for the absolute best and fascinating account of RPGs in history and philosophy, read Jon Peterson's Playing at the World.
RPGs are what my son and I spent the most time playing this year, but we played the spin-off of Dungeons & Dragons (also now larger than D&D). Pathfinder came out as an open-source gaming platform while D&D was transitioning from version 3.5 to version 4.0. Pathfinder is crunchier than D&D 5th edition (which means the rules are bit more complex and the mechanics specific). But the appeal is the Pathfinder Society, which allows players to register for games all across the country and then play them at local game stores. This is how my son and I most frequently play. We now have three game stores in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and a few more in neighboring towns.
As a by-product of playing Pathfinder, I've been geeking out and reading the core rulebooks for a variety of other RPG systems. The ones that intrigue me the most include Shadowrun (mentioned above, which is a gaming system that includes both near-future technology and magic), Numenera (earth one billion years in the future, when technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic), Thirteenth Age (which my brother has begun playing), and Microscope, an incredibly intriguing meta-game. And finally, the trio of Star Wars RPGs that have come out in the last three years, each of which allows game-play as part of a different aspect of the Star Wars universe. Not only are the rules intriguing, they also serve as great omnibus reads to prepare all of us who are anticipating the new movie coming out next week.
Outliers
Finally, I think a lot of us play more games, and are exploring a wider array of games, because we like the tactile dimensions of playing games with others. Video games aren't going away, and will remain the bigger industry, but there is just something about cards, and play pieces, and sitting down at table with others.
Some other favorite discoveries of the year, games that are even more difficult to describe (although many web sites like Board Game Geek offer spectacular reviews) but absolutely fun to play, include:Galaxy Truckers--you build a ship out of garbage and then use it to travel the galaxy
Cosmic Encounter--epic battles between competing alien races
X-Wings--use models of Star Wars ships to compete in military skirmishes. This will surely be the game of the year. It's everywhere, and really fun.
Twilight Struggle--a game of the Cold War, and probably the best board game on the planet.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/designing-the-best-board-game-on-the-planet/
Kids
I asked the kids which games were their favorites of 2015. The family winner was Apples to Apples, which has been around a while. The new junior edition was a particular hit. My good friend gave us a copy of Sushi Go, also a hit. And the two our youngest requests to play frequently include Labyrinth (a children's Eurogame), and Tetris and Angry Birds, both card-game adaptations of video games.
So why do these games matter to me? Well, I guess I'm probably riding along on a sub-culture Zeitgeist. Many of my friends have ramped up their game-play in recent years. Perhaps we're attempting to escape for a bit back to some of the leisure we had as children. But I also think in the Internet age, and the era of gamification, there's really something about turning off the devices, gathering around a table, and losing yourself in a game. The collector aspect of the game taps into another part of our hobby and play, and the rise of game parlors as alternative third spaces (beyond the proliferation of book stores and coffee shops) means an intriguing shift in our culture as a whole.
So finally, there's simply lots more cultural analysis of game culture. So I'll end this very long post with a few excellent references for further reading. But before you read too much, check out one of the games. Grab some friends. And consider what you might bring from play back into real life.
On inclusion: http://geekandsundry.com/5-tips-for-better-inclusion-in-tabletop-games/
On crowdfunding: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/crowdfunding-is-driving-a-196-million-board-game-renaissance/
Gen Con: http://geekdad.com/2015/08/favorite-things-gen-con-2015/
Thursday, December 03, 2015
Best Albums of 2015 (and lots of rabbit hole links)
It's time for "best of" lists. Here's my best albums list for 2015, with a bit of commentary.
1. El Vy--Return to the Moon (The National won't have an album until 2017, this will hold me over)
2. Calexico--Edge of the Sun (important in our refugee and immigration conversation, here's a guide to every song on the album)
3. Kamasi Washington--The Epic (a best-selling three CD jazz album)
4. Kidz Bop--30 (the family favorite)
5. Jamie xx (I can't get enough of the beats)
6. Palehound--Dry Food
7. Courtney Barnett--Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit (Courtney and Palehand are my favorite car albums)
8. Wilco--Star Wars (coolest release ever, releasing for free, similar to Miley Cyrus, whose album was also free and wild)
9. Sufjan Stevens--Carrie and Lowell (I bought it on tape!)
10. Sleater-Kinney--No Cities to Love (these are the queens of rock)
11. Wavves/Cloud Nothings--No Life for Me (Cloud Nothings play an important role in a work of theology this year, Catherine Kellers Cloud of the Impossible).
12. Kathryn Stott and Yo-Yo Ma--Songs from the Arc of Life
13. Mark Ronson--Uptown Special (my favorite novelist, Michael Chabon, wrote the lyrics)
14. Jack Ü (Skrillex and Diplo get together)
15. Mbongwana Stars--From Kinshasa
16. D'Angelo--Black Messiah (December 2014, but amazing)
17. Chris Potter--Imaginary Cities
18. Vijay Iyer--Break Stuff
19. Bad Plus and Joshua Redman
20. Jack DeJohnette--Made in Chicago
21. Wild Card--Organic Riot
22. Alexander von Schlippenbach Trio--Features
23. Fred Hersch--Solo
24. Godspeed You! Black Emperor--Asunder, Sweet, and Other Disasters
25. Shovels and Rope--Busted Jukebox #1
And the album I haven't heard yet but am hoping for for Christmas is Joanna Newsom's Divers.
1. El Vy--Return to the Moon (The National won't have an album until 2017, this will hold me over)
2. Calexico--Edge of the Sun (important in our refugee and immigration conversation, here's a guide to every song on the album)
3. Kamasi Washington--The Epic (a best-selling three CD jazz album)
4. Kidz Bop--30 (the family favorite)
5. Jamie xx (I can't get enough of the beats)
6. Palehound--Dry Food
7. Courtney Barnett--Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit (Courtney and Palehand are my favorite car albums)
8. Wilco--Star Wars (coolest release ever, releasing for free, similar to Miley Cyrus, whose album was also free and wild)
9. Sufjan Stevens--Carrie and Lowell (I bought it on tape!)
10. Sleater-Kinney--No Cities to Love (these are the queens of rock)
11. Wavves/Cloud Nothings--No Life for Me (Cloud Nothings play an important role in a work of theology this year, Catherine Kellers Cloud of the Impossible).
12. Kathryn Stott and Yo-Yo Ma--Songs from the Arc of Life
13. Mark Ronson--Uptown Special (my favorite novelist, Michael Chabon, wrote the lyrics)
14. Jack Ü (Skrillex and Diplo get together)
15. Mbongwana Stars--From Kinshasa
16. D'Angelo--Black Messiah (December 2014, but amazing)
17. Chris Potter--Imaginary Cities
18. Vijay Iyer--Break Stuff
19. Bad Plus and Joshua Redman
20. Jack DeJohnette--Made in Chicago
21. Wild Card--Organic Riot
22. Alexander von Schlippenbach Trio--Features
23. Fred Hersch--Solo
24. Godspeed You! Black Emperor--Asunder, Sweet, and Other Disasters
25. Shovels and Rope--Busted Jukebox #1
And the album I haven't heard yet but am hoping for for Christmas is Joanna Newsom's Divers.
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