INTRODUCTION
Geoffrey V. Carter
The RHIZ-cade Collection is set in motion by numerous bumpers, caroms, and trajectories found in contemporary rhetorical theory. It is a collection that is difficult to characterize as whole. After all, there is no single pinball machine that is most representative of all pinball machines. To explain the initial kinetic impetus for this collection, allow me to talk about the work involved in convincing scholars to believe that pinball was worth their time. For despite pinball’s rich cultural history, there was, at the time this collection was initiated in 2012, surprisingly little scholarly reference to an industry that, between 1955 and 1970, made more money than all of Hollywood (Fenzi, NPR).
For this collection, a single article in Enculturation by Ron Brooke (Montclair State U.) entitled “The Mechanical Bride of Pinbot: Redressing the Early McLuhan," proved inspirational. In addition to just how smart the scholarship was in Brooke’s blending of McLuhan’s Mechanical Bride (1951) with the Bride of Pinbot pinball machine (1991), the article came to my attention soon after I purchased my first pinball machine—The Comet (1986). It was the first pinball machine designed by the Mechanical Bride’s artist, Python Anghelo (more on him below). My purchase of the Comet pinball was intended to serve precisely as a distraction from academia, but I am pleased to say that Ron’s essay helped me re-focus and find some scholarly potential for what would become the present RHIZ-cade.
Ron was the first to answer my call for a collection of multimodal presentations on the relevance of pinball machines for the teaching of writing and rhetorical invention. Not only was he enthusiastic about the prospect, but in a private email exchange with me he wrote, “In my ideal world, I would actually create a pinball version of the paper I'm presenting there and let people play it.” As you will see in his presentation, he did precisely that, and it was his early belief in the project that got the (silver)ball rolling. In an email dated just a few days after Ron signed on, Anthony Collamati (Alma College) wrote and asked, “I like the idea of working with flippers. What do you have it mind?” To be honest, I really had no idea what might result other than I was impressed how Ron used the artwork and mechanical design of the Bride of Pinbot to reexamine the scholarship of Marshal McLuhan. Jason Helms (Texas Christian U.) seemed to intuit at least one version of what was possible when he answered with an idea about using pinball to examine the work of French philosopher Bernard Steigler. So, too, Sarah Arroyo and her graduate students from California State University at Long Beach (Bahareh Alaei and Amy Loy) imagined a set of Deleuzian possibilities by linking playing pinball to desiring production.
RHIZ-cade Attendee with Ron Brooks's
DIY Pinball
The remaining RHIZ-cade participants were perhaps a little less certain (at first) about how make a contribution. Scot Barnett (Indiana University) was looking forward to the prospect of exploring pinball in relation to recent discussions concerning Object Oriented Ontology, but unlike some of the members of group was a little less certain about his filmmaking prowess. The result is his first attempt at making a short video, and it’s an effort that not only kicks off this collection, not just because of its deft construction, but also because he puts the relevance of pinball squarely into conversation with recent rhetorical turn toward the “rhetoric of things.” On the other end of the spectrum, Alexandra Hidalgo (Michigan State University), whose research centers on documentary filmmaking, was thrilled to have an opportunity for shooting footage, but she was decidedly less sure of the pinball theme. In an email, she admitted that she couldn’t even remember ever playing pinball much less having something to “say” about it. Undaunted, she seized upon the opportunity to film a new pinball club that was emerging in Lafayette, Indiana due to the opening of Main Street Amusements. Alexandra’s work takes a critical look at the “masculine underside” of this hobby.
Finally, I must mention the efforts of Robert Leston (New York College of Technology) and Jody Shipka (University of Maryland). Robert has been a longtime collaborator of mine, and his initial impulse was simply to pass along a working title: “The Wolf to the Gorgar: From Seaside Heights to the Cry for Freedom.” As with many of Robert’s titles, I had no idea what direction it might take him, but I knew I only had to be patient for something wonderful to emerge. The resulting video (“A Table Without Organs”) is one of his most abstract and poetic efforts to date, and it is made extra special as it represents a collaboration with his beautiful and intelligent daughter, Alex. Serving as this collection’s Coda is Jody’s “Quotidian Pin” is an effort that arrived after the collection’s primary work via video took shape. Shipka’s work is comprised of still portraits (rather than a multimedia presentation), but the miniature pinball tables populated by small scale human figures performing everyday tasks nevertheless speaks to the spirit of this collection as whole. In many ways, Jody’s images capture the spirit of the woodrail pinball machines of the 1940’s as they, too, tend to depict pinball in light of more mundane scenes of city life, local carnivals, ski resorts, and days at the beach. Her fondness for sharing an old-timey aesthetic on Facebook—partly out of her work as a photographer and partly out of her hobby of picking auctions in Maryland—seemed, to me, to be a natural, if late, fit for this project. As she explains in her narrative, the idea of her joining late was partly a result of her posting a student pinball project that recalled, for me, the artwork of Python Anghelo, for whom, as I will explain momentarily, this collection is dedicated.
Before turning turning to the collection itself, I want to say a word about this collection’s dedication to the memory legendary pinball artist, Python Anghelo. As noted above, a large part of the exigency for this work was the uncanny collision of interests in Python’s work between Ron’s article for Enculturation and my own recent acquisition of Python’s first pinball design, the Comet. My own contribution to this collection chronicles some of Python’s history, but in this introduction I want to tell the story of my personal encounter with what many in the pinball industry regarded as a controversial figure. Python’s legendary status is beyond the scope of this introduction, but from his first appearance as a video game designer of Joust through to his Pinball Circus (one of the most expensive pinball games ever designed) onto his fabled, though unreleased, X-rated pinball machine, Zingy Bingy—a machine some contend led to the collapse of pinball at Capcom in 1997—there is a sense of a creative mind (born in 1954) with many eccentricities.
Vivienne Jacobs Carter
I attempted to reach out to directly Python via a phone number I tracked down through one of the many pinball discussion boards that exist. I surprised to discover that he, too, made at least one of his homes in Michigan. Despite leaving a message, my call went unanswered for months after the MLArcade Presentation at the 2013 Modern Language Association Conference in Boston. (This was first iteration of what would become the present RHIZ-cade Collection.) In the early morning hours months after my voice messages, a thick Transylvanian accent greeted me on the phone--without an introduction to who I was speaking to I might add--but after working on a video about him, I did not need it. For the next two hours, Python launched into stories about the pinball world and shared his enthusiasm about the prospect of collaborating on this present collection. It was an exciting talk, made more all the more special because I knew that Python was (at the time) recovering from cancer treatments. I also learned during the call that he had also been in Chicago in recent months caring for his parents. We made plans to meet at the Michigan Pinball Expo at Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan. What happened next was a complete surprise, however.
After meeting him at his art booth and taking some pictures with my daughter, Vivienne, Python told me how appreciative he was in my sharing the elements from the present collection. He wanted to make sure that I would come see him speak at a panel that had been put together by the MPE organizer, John Kosmal. During Python’s introduction (view the full talk here) he was gracious enough to acknowledge our recent friendship and to share an excerpt from Anthony’s exceptional “What Pinball Tells Us About Gadgets, Groins, and the Galaxy.” (Python was delighted by Anthony’s use of Troppo Forte and asked me for a link to the full episode in a later email.) After the presentation, we walked back to the expo hall and he expressed interest in continuing to talk and to his availing his artwork to this edited collection. It’s unfortunate that in the months that would follow, Python’s cancer would aggressively return, and the only trace of what we hoped to do might now remains in the following email: “I'm back from the Tacoma show. It was grrrreat!!!! Wish you were there! When back from Hawaii, give me a shout and let's collaborate and do something exceptional. I did quite a few book projects of various topics for both academic and literary applications. I'll show them to you when we meet. Have a great, safe, volcanic, and oceanic family vacation, and Aloha to everyone. Love Python.”
Python passed away on April 9th, 2014. The RHIZ-cade is dedicated to his memory.