MFT: Grim Fandango - Blue Casket Club Open Mic Poetry Slam

Believe it or not - poetry is not well represented in video games. I'm not talking about those throwaway "nothing special" "nice things" usually called poetry. I'm talking about those damn chunks of text that evoke something completely different - like "waiting" "rooms" and "ticket" "lines", saliva bullet suicides and Messianen' ocean tides and rash rolling cussing rye and those vavoom and vroooms and other forms boredom. There is no such thing in video games. Not even a bit. Sure, you can argue that english translations of japanese games are filled, even littered, with poetry ("All your base are belong to us", etc.) but that doesn't count. "LSD Dream Emulator" also doesn't count. Gimmick art game also don't count. Aside from neat references to the classic works of literature here and there - poetry is almost nowhere to be found in video games.

I guess it is fair to say that near non-existence of poetry in video games is justified. It is weird but you can understand why - you can't really implement it into the gameplay, it does not make much sense in terms of game mechanics in any coherent way. What function poetry will serve inside the game? Tip? Special feature? Easter egg? There is no real need to add poetry to the mix. And it is fine.

But there is one game that not only has some poetry in it - it also manages to incorporate it into narrative. Even more - it allows you to make your own.

I'm talking about one and only "Grim Fandango". (Thunderous applause ensues)


"Grim Fandango" is one of those games you need to worship because there are not so many things that can be considered perfect. The story of Manny - suave, debonaire, dead travel agent paying off debt is something like warped, shaken not stirred "Divine Comedy" mixed with Aztec and Mayan aesthetics, Mexican death culture folklore and American film noir of 30s-40s-50s.

It was developed and published by LucasArts led by g.o.a.t. Tim Schafer. Released in 1998 to universal critical acclaim and cult following. Sadly, it wasn't a commercial success the studio hoped for. Fallout of "Grim Fandango" flop derailed the studio and probably contributed to the subsequent fall of the point-and-click adventure genre in general. "Grim Fandango" is perfect adventure game. Sure, there some flaws - but overall - it's a master class of how to make a video game. The story is well-paced and focused to a beat. Design is impeccable. Game mechanics is intuitive and easy to follow. The world is fleshed-out to the minute detail - smooth and fast immersion ensues. It is one of the pinnacles of video games. But that's general info. What poetry has to do with it? (chuckles). 

You can scare pigeons with a balloon shaped like a famous poet.

Also - The Blue Casket club is the place where poetry happens in "Grim Fandango". It is a venue for beatnik hipsters who hang around being beat because that's what they do. No rock, no roll. Just sitting and satisfying their souls, getting vibes. They don't let anything trouble their minds because everything is going just fine. Sha-ba-da -vavoom, badou. She-bah bae-boo, shah-beh baa-bae buh. (cue Bob McFadden). One of the key characters of the game - Olivia Ofrenda - the femme fatale - is a radical-minded poet. One of her poems goes like this: "Ashes to ashes...to ashes to ashes......to ashes to ashes......to ashes to ashes... to ME... ...to ashes to ashes... ...to ashes to ashes..." - is it Vampira lurking in the dark corner of her soul? Dunno... Anyway. (chuckles).

It's open mic night - lets call it Blue Casket Open Mic Poetry Slam - and you know what it means. One of the options is to recite poetry. Mechanics of the episode is simple - you need to choose out of random generated phrases those you think are best fitting. Then you can get an audience's reaction - it is one of two things: either it is elaborate hiss or cheerful clap (depends on some specific in-game shenenigans, i don't want to spoil the game - you should really try it). Just as in real life - you need to try very hard in order to impress those guys. You know they dig it - you can't fool them. (chuckles).

Blue Casket Open Mic Poetry Slam plays around the thrill of incidental discovery. The whole go-round with choosing which line will go next is an existential experience of its own. You stand there - sorting the words, trying to get it right - there is so much tension that is actually for nothing. This whole feature is optional. But you try it anyway - because it is something to do. It is like nothing else. The theme of the phrases is dank macabre rumination on the nature of existence - all this "bold bald Lark leering low" stuff. Technically it can be linked back to Tristan Tzara's "How to make a dada poem" or Burroughs-Gysin Cut-Up's. The material for the poem is your favorite beat poetry cliches, including but not limiting:

• overly elaborate phrasing, 
• reappropriation of general phrases, 
• pretentious repetition, 
• extensive use of quotes out of context and subsequent riffing on classical forms,
• leftfield analogies, 
• jazzy jive talk,
• that "chattanooga ooga chitty chitty thing",
• bamboozle metaphors, 
• words out of order but "kinda deep", 
• onomatopoeia, 
• intense impressionism, 
• jaywalking,
• loose structuring,
• use of closed captions like "(explosion)",
• use of "The End". 

The resulting poem is gleefully and intensely nonsensical no matter how hard you try. It is "exterminate all rational thought" with extreme prejudice. The more you try to bring it to some sort of coherent - the more gibberish it gets. It goes to the other side of sense - to the land of Eldritch abomination exercising Gainax endings as a supercuts of concluding chords of AC/DC songs. It is a mishmash of "so and so - ...hmm... - so-so la-la; so to say. Huh?" and it is beautiful because of that. While it is styled after beat poetry - it far closely resembles surrealist poetry or at least popular perception of surrealist poetry. It is too abstract and too loose in terms of structure to be perceived straightforward. But if you try hard enough (and long enough) - you can actually make really good poem out of those phrases. (chuckles).

Here are few examples:

Legacy of Blue Casket Open Mic Poetry Slam is best presented by a TwitterBot MannyPoetry. It was made by fans and based on the game's protagonist Manny Cavalera. However, it isn't much of a thing. All it really did was just type all the phrases that were available for use in the game. Now you can copy them and make your own "Grim Fandango"-laced poems outside of a game. But i strongly recommend you to do it in the game.

Blue Casket Open Mic Poetry Slam is fondly remembered and frequently mentioned in reviews of "Grim Fandango" but no one seems to really understand its significance. It is not necessary within a game. But it is not just another fancy throwaway option - it is a statement. Game within a game that gives you relatively free reign. You can go on forever trying to construct a poem - like Sisyphus of sorts. You can do entire reading performance out of this little needless episode. (chuckles).

Blue Casket Open Mic Poetry Slam is one of those piece of video game design that shows you aesthetic possibilities of the medium in a different light. It lets you just "hang around" and "make nothing happen", gives you "space to dream", to wander, enjoy oneself without stint. It is one of the most radical things you can do in a game. It makes you go back again and again just to get the vibe.

Do yourself a favor - try it.