Infinite Lives

I live in the Metro Detroit area. It isn’t particularly well known as being a mecca of gaming, but we do have one of the finest, and weirdest, homages to gaming’s past within our lands.

San Franciscans have the Musee Mechanique.

We have Marvin’s.

The following is an interview I did with the business’s proprietor back in 2007. I wrote an article about it, but wasn’t writing for anything covering the beat. Having just found the article, however, I’ve touched it up a bit and provide to you the story of this odd little place tucked away in the suburbs of Farmington Hills.

Marvin Yagoda is a busy man.

Dressed in an off-white shirt and suspenders, Yagoda is moving all over the place as children and adults both crowd his workplace, Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum.

“I’ve got three birthday parties today,” he tells me. He is working on a small television displaying the tale of the world’s tallest man.

Last February, Julien’s Auctions announced the sale of Michael Jackson’s sizable arcade game collection, to be auctioned piecemeal. Though the auction was eventually canceled, Jackson agreed to a continued exhibit of his game collection at Julien’s Beverly Hills location.

Now you can virtually stroll through Julien’s arcade exhibit, as photographed in April. Take your time with it, too—it’s absolutely heavenly. I don’t know what this says about me, but it’s very much the place I dreamt of as a kid. I wish there were photos of the arcade as it stood at Neverland, before the ranch was all but vacated.

• Pinorama – Michael Jackson Arcade, Entryway via Simon Parkin

I was not in LA or at my laptop very much (or at all) today. As such, I know nearly nothing about E3 Day One.

I was able, however, to skim the headlines:

Um, ‘OH NO!!’ is a gossip blog that just accidentally slipped into my RSS feeds somehow

I’m in a rush—why am I up! Why am I on my laptop, even?—so I’ll let Chris Person, who has been tearing up NYC to find the perfect T-shirt, do the talking. He writes,

Aside from hitting up UNIQLO Friday for Phoenix Wright shirt goodness, I actually went to check out the newly opened storefront for the fitted-hat and stylish streetwear aficionados at Mishka. Lo and behold, what did they have there? Oh nothing, just some cool clothes and the most awesome-ist custom-painted Street Fighter II cabinet ever, set to free play.

• Mishka Bloglin – Here Comes a New Challenger! via Bohemian Gamer

Beacon, New York’s Retro Arcade Museum opened its doors late last month. There, and for just $10 an hour, visitors can play curator Fred Bobrow’s collection of vintage pinball and arcade cabinets from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

I suspect the handheld collection isn’t playable—as it’s behind glass—but, uh, it never hurts to ask?

• Flickr – RETRO ARCADE MUSEUM via Retro Thing

So Adam of Attractmo.de, curator of Game Over: Continue, was in town to work on the upcoming gallery show.

“Did you go to the first one?” Adam asked me.

“N-no…” I admitted. “But! That’s why I’m definitely coming to this one. Guilt!”

Game Over: Continue opens at GRSF on March 27. Check out the list—there’s art from trailblazers like CUPCO, Jeremyville, and Bigfoot. Plus, four special game/art installations will be playable in-store.

• Attract Mode – Game Over II Is Now Game Over/Continue?

LAN party at the cinematheque!

Taking residence in a movie theater (this theater, actually), Madrid’s Cinegames combines the flair of Captain EO with the special effects of Alien Encounter. Lights flash and adjust to match the action on screen. “Then we have the smoke,” explains developer Enrique Martínez. “If there are accidents or a car burns rubber, smoke appears.”

The result: a distinctly theatrical, shared experience among gamers who might ordinarily stay home. Yes, please.

• Current – Spain’s Ultimate Gaming Theater via Asylum

For fans of retro games, the Classic Gaming Expo holds a certain allure. Ever since its founding in 1997 as the World of Atari expo, CGE has attracted guests from varying eras of the video game industry, including Steve Wozniak, Al Alcorn, Ralph Baer, and Rob Fulop. Collectors, exhibitors (who have ranged from Konami to Retro Zone), and video game enthusiasts the world over annually congregate for the event. Unfortunately, the 2008 show was canceled due to the inability of its organizers—Joe Santulli, Sean Kelly, and John Hardie—to find a venue, and it looks as if the 2009 show, too, has been canceled for as-yet-undisclosed reasons.

Therefore anyone curious about the expo might also be interested in the CGE 2007 DVD box set, which is finally available for preorder after spending roughly a year in editing. As someone who was there in 2007 (and in 2004), I can honestly say it was one of the most entertaining conventions I’ve ever been to. Standing around chatting with Keith Robinson from Intellivision about a Burgertime movie a few of my friends made, to playing actual Pong and Computer Space arcade machines, to visiting the museum: it was just an excellent time. This DVD box set may well be the closest anyone gets to recreating that feeling, at least for a while!

• theLogBook.com – Classic Gaming Expo 2007 4-DVD Set

...if you live here in the Bay Area, I mean. And I totally understand if you’re busy. But if you are anywhere near the Haight on Saturday night, you could pop on by Giant Robot—the one here in San Francisco, not the hip LA one—and check out art by heavy-hitting art bigwigs (David Horvath) and unsung heroes (Martin Cendreda). I mean, only if you’re up for it.

• GRSF

I’m kind of loving Philadelphia lately. I love Geekadelphia, from whom I have borrowed liberally (shout-out to Eric!). I love the lads at Gamervision. I love the Liberty Bell and all it represents, which is liberty. And then there’s the VGXPO, which is something that is also in Philadelphia.

And now I am completely in love with The Hacktory.

While I was questing through current.com in search of the Gaymers video, I came across “Geeks and Toys Go Wild,” a viewer-created video of a Hacktory-sponsored event. The tiny DIY fest is so rough-around-the-edges and charming, just magical LEDs and chip music and, probably, alcohol. The Hactory video at Current may never make it all the way to TV, so—for now at least—you’ll have to check it out online, either here or embedded here:

I feel like there is this incredible nerd culture in Philadelphia that the rest of humanity doesn’t know about. Specifically, the goings-on at The Hacktory—classes on how to design circuit boards, or events with chiptune musicians dimly lit by demoscene graphics—remind me, bittersweetly, of the art collective gatherings and events that so captured my imagination when I was some college kid having her first brush with adulthood in her first real city. These community events were sincere, earnest, and wholly unmarketable. They were, to quote the Philadelphia Weekly, “Authentic Geek.”

Incidentally, The Hacktory turns one year old this month, hence the illustration of a layer-cake with LEDs that I am ‘borrowing’ from their blog.

• Current.com – Geeks and Toys Go Wild