More Lichtenbergian Distractions: the outline game

Posted on by Marc Honea

The struggling, infighting, name calling, and outright legerdemain which is taking place right now on the official Lichtenbergian web site has me tired and somewhat frightened. As a break from a nasty fracas, I thought I’d offer here, in among peaceful–very quiet–lacunagroup hills, another distraction away from all the bickering.

I was going to introduce The Outline Game by making reference to Herman Hesse’s novel Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game, but after stumbling over this, I don’t want to say too much and be accused of trying to make some sad little addition to an already imposing wealth of mumbo-jumbo. I’ll merely say I was inspired in my adolescence, after reading Hesse’s novel, to conceive of this game. Not able to recruit players, I soon forgot about it, but I was recently reminded of it while reading a description of the ancient Eastern strategy game Go (another perfectly acceptable Lichtenbergian distraction, by the way). The passage touched on the “cosmic” implications of the game, and I wondered if Hesse was inspired in part by Go when he wrote The Glass Bead Game. I then remembered the game Hesse’s novel inspired me to envision back in the Seventies, and that led to something of an epiphany. Back in the Seventies, the game would have been very difficult to chart, elaborate and preserve with nothing but pencil and paper; but now, computer layout software should make it relatively easy to play. And I also realized that it could be the Lichtenbergian pastime, par excellence. It’s a creative undertaking, a form of poetic composition, masquerading as a kind of encyclopaedic gathering-in of knowledge in true Enlightenment fashion. No single participating player has to bear the burden of The Whole, however, so its vaulting ambition is quite easy to bear.

The game is for any number of players and the object is to create an outline for some imaginary topic. The outline itself becomes the work of imagination inspired by the fanciful topic. The topic could announce it’s fanciful nature: A Tour in Autumnal Twilight or The Thoughts of Five Silent Stones or The Cheese Ambulance, etc. Or the topic might not betray a whiff of fancy: Shrubs of West Central Georgia or The Facts About Adoption or Bass Fishing. The players are to elaborate an imaginative outline for the topic, mingling knowledge and whimsy, until the result reads like a kind of poem. As we speak, Dale is finding the best computer software to use to develop an outline in the manner the game requires. Stay tuned. I’ll update this post with a possible link to our playing area, etc.
To give you some idea how the game unfolds, here’s the nuts and bolts description I sent to Dale:


A Topic or Subject or Title is chosen, pertaining to materials natural or fanciful or a little of both. Players set about creating an “outline” for this theme, subject, topic, or title by offering various headings, sub-headings, and other embedded delineations. The group as a whole decides when the outline is complete. The outline is to be read as a creative expression, so choice of headings and sub-headings and so on is the meat of it.

Start by proposing some headings numbered with roman numerals. If there is a I there must be at least a II. (This rule applies at all levels of headings.) If someone proposes a IV first thing (why not?), there must also ultimately be a I, II, and III. (This, too, applies at all levels.) Further numbering is a choice; though, again, if someone skips forward and introduces an X, then V, VI, VII, VIII, and IX must also be produced. (Applies at all levels.) Roman numeral headings can then be added at any time, as can any sub-heading, etc.

Once you have a roman numeral heading, you can choose to embed capital letter sub-headings. If someone proposes an A, however, there must be also at least a B. From there it’s up to the group, above restrictions and rules applying, as to how many sub-headings to include for a heading. You might also, as a whimsical challenge to the group, start a sub-heading by choosing an E and expect A through D to be supplied subsequently. Once you have a sub-heading you can choose to move to ordinal numbers embedded within: with a 1 and 2, at least, by the time of completion, but ultimately as many as the group wishes. Then of course lower case letters: a, b, then c, d, etc. After that you could go to lower case roman numerals, I suppose, and we could formulate further conventions. As with the Hindu conception of the cosmos, at a certain point it’s elephants all the way down. No heading need have further sub-delineations, of course

The game would be most rewarding if players could view the whole outline as it’s developing and then easily insert either titles or further embedded headings as they see fit.

I am now jotting down a date in February and a time. Players should send topic suggestions by way of comments to this post. The topic which is timed and dated closest to the time and date I’ve just jotted down will be the first one we go with.

104 thoughts on “More Lichtenbergian Distractions: the outline game”

  19. I’m happy to see the RETURN OF TURFF!

    (clapping)

    I am watching, right now, as I type this “Lost in La Mancha.” Netflix is a great thing. I cannot think of a more Lichtenbergian film.

    TOPIC:

    The Science, History, and Culture of Spanish Windmills: the Negative Impact of Traditional Energy Sources on Eurasian Pre-Marxist Economics

  20. All very nice. Pace yourselves. I’ve set the date and time a few days off to give Dale a chance to clear a space somewhere. Would this be another Writeboard thing? But we want visitors to be able to see our progress. You tell me.

    Since you all are so fertile, maybe I will pick our first one by doing a “drawing.” We’ll see. We’re building a rich stockpile.

  25. All right, I’ve got it. It’s a beautiful online word processor called Buzzword, and it can do exactly what we want here, if that’s the phrase I’m looking for.

    You’ll probably have to set up an account, but once again it’s free and painless.

    So as soon as Marc picks a topic, we’re ready to roll.

  30. I hate gerunds as titles. Adding an “ing” is such a lame ploy for grabbing attention. It’s been the rage in the film industry for years, it seems. “Finding Neverland, Saving Silverman, Guarding Tess,” please spare me. (“Eating Raoul” is different, somehow.) Now “Longing” as a perfectly fine English noun is fine, perfectly fine. But yes, I do appreciate the pun.

    Right now, I’m going to say it’s a choice between “I’m done” and “the Rivers of Luxembourg.” Let’s go with “The Rivers of Luxembourg,” and to invite us toward a more subtle and not quite so arbitrary Surrealism, I offer the following: “Luxembourg’s major rivers are the Moselle, Sure, the Alzette, and the Our” and the wonderful phrase “Grand Duchy.” Any research you may do need not be accountable to anything but your imagination. You need not do any research, of course. Entries should…provoke.

  31. “To long” is a perfectly fine English verb, as well. Actually, any kind of longing is fine; I just wanted an opportunity to rant about titling films with gerunds. My other pet peeve is entitling with a gerund preceded by the article “The.” Something called “The Longing” would have me writhing and squealing in agony. (Kubrick’s “The Killing” is different, somehow; Kate Chopin sits on the fence with The Awakening).

    To me, titling with gerunds is insulting because it somehow seems akin to the way we sometimes phrase things for young children: “This is Tina’s sitting chair. It’s time to go to your sitting chair, Tina. Good girl.” As if the marketers are assuming we’re very primative: “Come see our movie. It is a very nice movie. You will see people ___________–ing in this movie!”

  33. Primative = “behaving like a primate?”

    Being There
    Falling Down
    Children of the Corn IV: The Reaping
    When Harry Goes Sallying (ok, I made that one up)
    Drifting Away
    The Gerunding

    As for the rivers of Luxembourg, I don’t feel like I know enough to participate. Hmmm…

  34. I. Lucilinburhuc: Chaos and Crisis
    2. Siegfried, Count of Ardennes
    3. The Little Castle that Could

  36. Is it possible that I sneaked a sexual pun by Marc, made even better by the fact that I didn’t make it deliberately?

  38. Some sexual puns I miss. Some I politely let go by. I really can’t take on all comers. Or visa versa.

    Topic (Title?–why don’t we wait till it’s done): The Rivers of Luxembourg

    Remember, you need not actually know anything about rivers in Luxembourg to participate. I certainly don’t. I might do a little Googling just to spark my imagination, but I may not. Re-read the guide lines. We start with roman numerals. Buzzword, you say? May we go there now? A link? My e-mail is down, so I can’t get a password via e-mail, if you were going to send out a password. Do we need one? It’s not a private thing.

  39. Here’s the link. I think you have to establish a username and password before you get in.

    Let me know if that link does not work.

  40. Fellow outliners. I am Moses. I have brought you to the Promised Land, but I am forbidden to enter it. I must be content to survey it from afar.

    My computer has been having some slow-down problems (which I am taking steps to try and remedy, believe me, but to no avail–I am so ready to get a new system and go Apple) and I have been taking them in stride, but Buzzword brought me no end of woe. I even downloaded the updated Flash as it recommended. No help.

    After much waiting, averaging as I was a three minute wait after each keystroke or mouse click, I at least got to view parts of our first effort. Beautiful. Very “Campbellian.” Imagine. And a strong allegiance to the possibilities of earnest scholarly speculation. Why not? I wish I could contribute. I want to make a place for the phrase “You will not know the Our.” But the slow down makes it all impossible. I couldn’t even scroll in a reasonable manner.

    Keep at it. A reminder on conventions: I. then A. then 1. then a. then i. (lower case roman)then…?

  42. Marc, if you are Moses I am one of the worshippers of the Golden Bull. I tried to make an insertion into the Outline, but it was challenging. It does appear to be a great exercise once one gets used to manipulating Buzzword.

  43. This is not the first time Dale has led me to a much touted computer thing which, once I arrive, I find caters exclusively to Apple-biters or just barely makes a place for those of us with inferior genetics. I understand the identity politics of celebrating Apple-dom, but as with most identity politics, there is no room for those who fall between the cracks or who’s situation represents the workings of contingency more than anything else. Much gets filtered out.

  44. Tsk, tsk. I would plead guilty, but this is not one of those times. Buzzword is a web-based app and as such is blind to platform. The issue seems to be a machine’s ability to install and deal with Flash Player 9. And of course, I have no way of knowing whether what I find is going to work with y’all’s computers. It works on mine. If it’s a Mac-only app, you can rely on my smugly pointing that out.

  45. With getting my computer wiped clean and everything re-loaded, plus adding memory I was hoping to add a few more months of life to it. But I had a terrible time getting iTunes to work, and now this. That Mac looks more inviting everyday.

  47. So while we’re on the subject, let’s use this blog to do what blogging was meant to do and discuss in mind-numbing detail the pros and cons of various operating systems and overall performance. I’m definitely in the latter days on my Dell and am quite happy to “return to the fold” (I had an Apple IIe in 1980 and was working at Emory media when we got this new thing from Apple called the MacIntosh, etc). I need a recommendation on a system (can be up to date, not necessarily “discount”) and on sound editing and burning software. Since we do the Recital music every year, we can claim it as a business expense.

  48. Well, I’m useless in this. I started out as a PC DOS-based person, alllllll the way back to the IBM “PC Jr.” Got a couple of towers, primitive Windows (3.0?). Then I made the “Big Switch” to Apple with my Performa in the mid-90s. When it came time to get a new machine, I wasn’t happy with the way my machine melted down (literally), and this was right before Steve Jobs made his big comeback (he wasn’t with the company at that time), and it looked like Apple was spiralling. So I got back into PCs, with laptops. I’ve had Windows-based laptops ever since, and haven’t had any complaints. No data loss, no meltdowns, no compatibility problems. Currently using a Toshiba Satellite. Great machine — does everything I need it to do, and more. Having said all that, I don’t think it matters (Apple vs. PC). We use Apples as the Times-Herald and they’re ok, too. And my wife has two laptops — one’s a Mac and one’s a PC. Heck, why not get both? Computers are much cheaper these days, and while Apple is better at doing some things, sometimes you just gotta have a PC. My two cents.

  49. What do you use for soundediting on your PC? I use Apple’s Logic Express, but I know that almost all editors come in PC/Mac flavors.

    Check the requirements for the heaviest software you’ll be using (sound or video) and then buy the computer that will make that easy. It may be that a simple MacBook (as opposed to a MacBook Pro) will do what you need, if you’re looking for a laptop.

    If a desktop is OK, then the iMac is the way to go.

    Go to Lenox to the Apple Store and play. I’ll go with you; I’m always up for a trip to worship at the Apple Store.

    And when, pray tell, does one need a PC for anything?

  50. As a lifelong PC user and computer science degree-holding nerd, I can without reservation recommend the mac. For usability purposes, its hard to beat. For the propeller heads out there, its got Unix under the covers. Only reason to look the other way if you are a creative type is budget. PCs are quite cheap these days. Of course, then you have to buy all that software…

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