Theory and practice

So a few days ago the folks in MICA's HR office organized a lunchtime game room. An e-mail went out, announcing that there would be consoles, available to anyone who wanted to stop by, with Guitar Hero, Wi Tennis, and a few other games. With luck, at least one could be played on the big screen in the school's new black box.

Damn right! That's the kind of news that can get new parents out of the house. So we readied a few air guitar chops, packed up the stroller, and headed out.

Sure enough, there were several games up and running: one staff member was dominating the virtual court, and several students were engaged in mortal combat on a television screen that had been wheeled in for the afternoon. And in a conference room to the side, a pristine projected image of Guitar Hero, with three supplementary discs at the ready.

Now, I'll admit that I'm far from a basement-made guitar hero. That said, I did have a homemade axe for years, and played it long enough to feel I oughta have some kind of edge heading into a video rendition of Poison's Talk Dirty to Me. But I stand corrected. Turns out that Guitar Hero doesn't resemble actual guitar playing very closely at all. Instead of strings, there's a rather weird plastic toggle. And instead of fretting strings arranged vertically on a fretboard, one simply presses the five childishly colored buttons. It's more like a limited version of Whack-a-mole than playing the guitar.

Which is probably just another way of saying that our assistant registrar beat me by something like 8,300 points. But at least I didn't leave Games Day without a larger lesson, as well. In thinking about Guitar Hero over the next day or two, I realized that it's something like the various books on parenting that we've been reading. Like Guitar Hero, such books offer a version of an experience - and, in that sense, they can be really involving. But it's only when you've actually had the experience that their limitations come into clear focus. Sure, "a baby may be distressed by the exposed feeling of nakedness" (Penelope Leach, Your Baby & Child, 135). Or you may have a Cleo, in which case you can throw that concern out the window.