August 2006 – Page 3 – Distractions

Tonight I get home, and as I’m about to get out of my parked car, I hear a crash; I turn around and see a car finish landing on its side, less then 20 meters from where I am. I reach for my camera, then stop and walk over to take a look. All around, people rush over, crowd in to help, shout if anyone called the paramedics or the police, gather to gape at this remarkable spectacle of two cars smashed together, one on its side with 3 people trapped inside, the driver struggling to get out, a woman beside him and another in the back. The other car has a wrecked front and a woman, apparently the driver, is crying hysterically outside it. I would too, if I was in her shoes. But I’m not, so I move back, and gape as people open the booth door, perhaps trying to get the woman in the back seat out, and I go home. Disappointed I didn’t take a picture, ashamed I thought to, before anything.

I promised Ziv I’d run a Lexicon game in Hebrew, which should open when his article on Lexicon games in the next issue of Aspamia shows up.

Now, I’m looking for good ideas for a subject/setting for the Lexicon. One thing very clear to me is that I want something that is uniquely Hebrew and Israeli; a Lexicon that couldn’t be played in English, because it reflects our culture rather than being translated in the participants heads to English/American and back. I’m striving for the level of cultural stickiness we had in the Navi Commission game, which basically outlined an occult secret history for modern Israel. Interestingly, it also avoided politics very consistently – there were entries on the army, and secret government operations, but because of the occult focus, the Arab-Israeli wars and the Palestinians were rarely mentioned, and if so it was in the background.

With the current situation, I think I want something even more escapist.