17 Comments
User's avatar
Steve Knepper's avatar

"What is pop? Easy. Pop is saying something deep in a stupid way. (To say something stupid in a deep way, of course, is to be an academic.)"

Checks out!

M. I. Devine's avatar

thanks for attending my TED talk :)

Mary's avatar

haha, yes!

Susan Spear's avatar

I admire and enjoy this montage of verse and music! Such an interesting point of view about a video game.

M. I. Devine's avatar

thanks--Susan--it occurs to me that video games remind us how poetry too must embrace/exploit/explore point of view--it's what pop forms like games give: a handle to navigate the world... poetry ought to as well...

Susan Spear's avatar

I also like the juxtaposition of metered and rhymed poetry about the pop art of video games.

M. I. Devine's avatar

children, it turns out, are also in search of forms that will hold….

Beatific Revisions's avatar

Incredible.

M. I. Devine's avatar

Thanks to Mary for building this space

Mary's avatar

Thank you for being a part of it!

Alfred Nicol's avatar

Fabulous. Cheers from here.

M. I. Devine's avatar

Thank you, Alfred! I admire your work. Means a lot.

Ann Gauger's avatar

I am 72. I will be frank. I found this difficult to watch. I get the minecraft allusions, the pop culture references and the clear demonstration of a culture destroying itself. Is it my age? Maybe. But then what has been lost may not be recoverable, if this piece is meant to show the way.

Mary's avatar

Thanks for the comment, Ann, and thanks for reading Talk to Me in Long Lines. Obviously, not every piece of art is to everyone’s taste. I’m not sure I get what you mean by “But then what has been lost may not be recoverable, if this piece is meant to show the way.”

This piece is not claiming to recover what has been lost, but rather it is showing us that even amidst the loss, we can (and some of us do) build things. We can’t really recover what’s been lost b/c once something is gone it is gone (even objects “recovered” in an archeological dig are changed, they are not the same as they once were), but we can keep trying to do the good work.

Carla Galdo's avatar

This is so striking. And for me, different. I am so taken by it. The artistic vision to See This—my kids do Minecraft too— and then Make This— I admire it, and the open doors and open questions this cinepoem leaves us all with!!

M. I. Devine's avatar

Thanks Carla--it turns out, contra the fresh prince, parents do understand :)