Thoughts of the Deeply Fun Kind
All Games Are Cooperative (cont’d)
the victory that you attain across the set of all games isn’t winning all the games: it’s being invited to play.
Can we Make America FUN Again?
We don’t really need much imagination, nor do we need much more legislation to make America Fun Again. What we need is to take a closer look at the schools and playgrounds that allow our kids to feel free, safe, secure, healthy, engaged, listened to, appreciated – and follow their lead.
Why Science Needs Imagination and Beauty
We’re trying to think of better ways to solve the equations, which takes a lot of imagination because they describe an unfamiliar world – it’s a very small world and things behave differently in it.
Fun is where you find it
When people are angry, or in pain, or have clearly reached that point of being ready to give up on everything and everyone ever – is there anything you can do for them to help them restore their playfulness, their sense of humor, their ability to see the funshine again?
Aunt Mariah Died
Aunt Mariah Died is a silly, physical, party-like game, similar in spirit to Bernie Played a Game (a.k.a. “Bernie Found Nirvana” and “Johnny Went to Sleep”).
All Play Means Something – a Conceptual Visit with Johann Huizinga
A play-community generally tends to become permanent even after the game is over. Of course, not every game of marbles or every bridge-party leads to the founding of a club. But the of being together” is an exceptional situation, of sharing something important, of mutually withdrawing from the rest of the world and rejecting the usual norms,
retains its magic beyond the duration of the individual game.
Bernard Louis De Koven
...author of The Well-Played Game and A Playful Path, illustrates the power of adult playfulness, demonstrating how joyfully adults welcome the opportunity to celebrate their playful selves.
Bernard Louis De Koven (Bernie) is a founding father of play studies who has shown over the course of his 45 year career how fun and playfulness can positively affect every aspect of personal and interpersonal, community and institutional health. Many of the most important trends in games today, from large scale community games to casual game apps have roots in Bernie’s influential ideas. He is the author of The Well-Played Game (originally published by Doubleday in 1978 and reissued in 2013 by MIT Press) as well as Junkyard Sports, A Playful Path (over 140,000 downloads), and a CD Recess for the Soul, demonstrating how to rediscover the mind through playfulness. He continues to make his work publicly available through his seminars and websites: this one, A Playful Path, and Junkyard Sports.
