#formative things

[defeateddetectives]

metric - gold guns girls (live for cbc music)

[howstrangethemusicsoundstome]

It's funny, growing up, my mom always got little presents for my sister and I on Valentine's Day. It was never anything big, just a book or something and some candy. As a result, we always enjoyed it like any holiday. It was a bit of a shock getting older finding out how many people hated it, associating it with being single and alone or some bad experience with an ex.

[howstrangethemusicsoundstome]

Some of you never had a group project partner expelled for edgyposting literally a week before said group project was due and it shows.

[figjelly]

I just realized another Formative Thing for me was Marie/Rogue and Logan/Wolverine‘s relationship in X-Men (2000). Self-Discovery UnlockedTM

[howstrangethemusicsoundstome]

Such a formative scene in my youth

[ladytharen]

On the threshold of the room stood Nat Eaton, slim, straight-shouldered, without a trace of mockery in his level blue eyes. Nat! The wave of joy and relief was so unexpected that she almost lost her balance [...] In the warm rush of pride that welled up in her, Kit forgot her fear. For the first time she dared to look back at Nat Eaton where he stood near the door. Across the room their eyes met, and suddenly it was as though he had thrown a line straight into her reaching hands. She could feel the pull of it, and over its taut span strength flowed into her, warm and sustaining.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

[rustbeltjessie]

*

Nostalgia time. Back in 1995, this CD-ROM game called Chop Suey came out. It was geared towards girls 7-12, and I was 13, slightly older than the target demographic. I got it for two reasons. One being that I was into anything “for girls” as long as it was somewhat outside the mainstream (i.e., more riot grrrl, less Barbie), the other being that I was way into some of the people involved in the project--namely Brendan Canty and Ian Svenonius. (To answer your question: yes, I knew who Brendan Canty and Ian Svenonius were even at age 13, had in fact known of them since age 9 or 10. I was a pretty hip kid, which is interesting considering I was also a huge nerd.) I got the game and I loved it. It wasn’t so much a game as it was an interactive storybook, and even though there wasn’t much to do in the game, I played it over and over. When Smarty Pants and Zero Zero came out a couple years later, I got those as well, and I liked them a lot but didn’t love them as obsessively as I loved Chop Suey.

Chop Suey had everything: Aunt Vera, who drank martinis and told stories about her days in New York City, beatnik fireflies (one who even does a take off on “Howl”), a cute hipster boy in a messy bedroom, a strange moon with a German accent, a carnival complete with a fortune teller and a turtle boy. And the music was amazing and the artwork was strange and folk art-like, and the story was gorgeous and poetic and surreal and reminded me a little bit of Francesca Lia Block’s stuff. And it was narrated by David Sedaris! I didn’t know who he was back then (this was before he got famous), but I loved his voice. Chop Suey was hugely formative for me in the same way my favorite films and books and zines and albums were.

Sadly, I lost or misplaced my copies of all three of the games in some move or other, somewhere along the years. For a while, I scoured the Internet every few years to see if I could find used copies, but no such luck. I also scoured the Internet to see if I could find any mention of the games, to see if anyone else even remembered them, but the only stuff I ever found about Theresa Duncan was a bunch of articles sensationalizing her tragic suicide. I sort of gave up hope after a while, and hadn’t even thought of those games in years. The other day, in a cold medication haze, I thought of Chop Suey. Yesterday, I googled “Chop Suey Smarty Pants Theresa Duncan.” Lo and behold, I found the above link. All three CD-ROMs are now available to play online. They’ve also separated out some of the music and sounds from the games and put them on Soundcloud, if you’d like to hear just how great the music is. I’d also recommend reading the accompanying article. Even if you never played the game(s) back in the day, the story behind them is fascinating. And then go play the games. Particularly Chop Suey. You might just fall in love with it.