Episode 52 - Super Mario Bros. 3: Brick by Brick by Bob Chipman *Patron's Choice*
Explicit content warning
03/05/19 • 74 min
1 Listener
Our Patron Lynn chose this book as their once-per-year reward! Check out our Patreon here to get this and other rewards for yourself.
No substantial Content Warnings this week - brief mentions of death and terrorist attacks/shootings, and discussion of an infamous scene from the movie Blue Velvet but otherwise you’ve got nothing but our usual barnyard language to be concerned about.
Armed with our own childhood experiences of playing Nintendo games and Super Mario, we felt plenty prepared to dive into Bob Chipman's Super Mario Bros 3: Brick by Brick. Part text walk-through, part memoir, and part video game history retrospective, this book tried to do too much in its 208 pages. The author should've committed to one of these paths in a shorter form or found a better way to weave all three into a much longer, much more detailed narrative.
Chipman misses the opportunity to connect with his audience by avoiding deeper discussions of his own life and feelings. Strangely, the few times he does get more personal, he directs that emotion towards Mario and Shigeru Miyamoto and the unrefined phrasing of these moments is often uncomfortable. Like many books we've read, this book is in desperate need of an editor who would likely have caught these things and prevented them (along with some other inappropriate comparisons, spelling, and formatting mistakes) from making it to print.
Our Patron Lynn chose this book as their once-per-year reward! Check out our Patreon here to get this and other rewards for yourself.
No substantial Content Warnings this week - brief mentions of death and terrorist attacks/shootings, and discussion of an infamous scene from the movie Blue Velvet but otherwise you’ve got nothing but our usual barnyard language to be concerned about.
Armed with our own childhood experiences of playing Nintendo games and Super Mario, we felt plenty prepared to dive into Bob Chipman's Super Mario Bros 3: Brick by Brick. Part text walk-through, part memoir, and part video game history retrospective, this book tried to do too much in its 208 pages. The author should've committed to one of these paths in a shorter form or found a better way to weave all three into a much longer, much more detailed narrative.
Chipman misses the opportunity to connect with his audience by avoiding deeper discussions of his own life and feelings. Strangely, the few times he does get more personal, he directs that emotion towards Mario and Shigeru Miyamoto and the unrefined phrasing of these moments is often uncomfortable. Like many books we've read, this book is in desperate need of an editor who would likely have caught these things and prevented them (along with some other inappropriate comparisons, spelling, and formatting mistakes) from making it to print.
Previous Episode
Episode 51 - The Crucible by Arthur Miller *Special Guests D & Ken from Antiques Freaks*
This week, we're simultaneously in both the years 1953 and 1692. Luckily our friends D & Ken from the Antiques Freaks podcast have arrived to help us interpret The Crucible.
Ken has more sticky notes than pages inside his copy of the play, D teaches us about the House Un-American Activities Committee, Paris is perfectly sober unlike the last time the Antiques Freaks were guests on the show, and Chris is possessed by the ghost of Arthur Miller and reveals his plans to hunt witches with his arsenal of ... water.
Many thanks to the following podcasts and books that helped us understand the political and cultural climate of Salem Village (Danvers) and Salem Town in 1692 and just how inaccurate Miller's play was:
Podcasts:
Books:
- A Storm of Witchcraft by Emerson W. Baker
- P.S. Listen to the album of the same name by the band Malleus if you're into black metal
- The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England by Carol F. Karlsen
- The Devil in Boston: A Play about the Salem Witchcraft Trials in Three Acts by Lion Feuchtwanger (the actual OG play about the HUAC and the Salem Witchcraft Trials)
- Under Household Government: Sex and Family in Puritan Massachusetts by M. Michelle Jarrett Morris
- The Witches by Stacy Schiff
Next Episode
Episode 53 - Mazeppa the Wolfhound: Part One: The Story of Mother Luhki and Nana by Raymond N. Dombkiewicz
Somehow we're reading another Christian-leaning, dog related book with strange authorship. We really don't know how this happened again. Thanks to longtime friend of the show Elisa for recommending this one!
Content Warning: In addition to our usual barnyard language, we've got: inter-species breastfeeding and menstruation (brief mention). Apparently we were wrong about inter-species breastfeeding and it turns out it's actually fine for mammals to just do that for each other. Uh, neat?
The person listed as the author isn’t actually the author, but a compiler/editor of sorts. Yet, there's also an additional person credited as his editor AND the actual author was also assisted by one of his children, so we’ve got about 4 people responsible for this thing:
1. BG Michael “Runt” Makepeace: Man who wrote memoirs and also took notes and pieced together what he believes was an encounter with an immortal dog breeder who has an immortal dog best friend.
2. Raymond N. Dombkiewicz: Listed as the author, but actually a friend of Michael Makepeace who re-wrote the original stories/notes from Makepeace into a larger "epic."
3. Sheron Mariah Steele, PhD: Copy editor, also possibly a bond villain.
4. Abigail Rebecca Makepeace Chafee: Michael Makepeace’s daughter who added to his notes and interviewed people about the potentially immortal dog breeder and immortal dog.
The authorship question and inter-species breastfeeding is just the beginning. It gets even wackier.
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