Halloween samba band in a highschool
Originally uploaded by blackbeltjones.

Just got back to Finland from a really fantastic few days in Vancouver, where we co-hosted with LudiCorp a small little gathering to examine ‘play’ and all it’s many facets.

Lots of diverse views and lots to digest, but for now I’ll point you to Greg Costikyan’s excellent essay “Games: The Cultural Elaboration of Play” (permalink not working, sorry), which he expounded upon at the event.

This of course coincided with Halloween, and so my favourite type of play, i.e. misrule!

We saw an event run by a Vancouver organisation “Public Dreams” called The Parade of Lost Souls which was a fantastic experience of Sutton-Smith‘s “Play as communal identity” as well as a giant riot of fireworks and fun, followed by an excellent samba / big-band in the local high-school gym, where I’ll hand the reporting over to Justin.