Blogocentric Formulations

Calvinball

Write about an extreme or silly sport. If none inspire you, make up the rules for your own game.

The game that this blog prompt immediately made me think of is Calvinball, the made-up game that Calvin from the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes invented, which only has one rule; that the game can't be played the same way twice. In the comic, the game uses a variety of sports equipment, including: croquet mallets and wickets, volleyballs, badminton birdies, tennis racquets, footballs, soccer balls, cones, masks, buckets, and - of course - water balloons. Throughout the comic strip it's implied that Calvin invented the game when he got bored with traditional, organized sports... and many of his and Hobbes' games eventually evolve (or devolve, depending on how you look at it) into Calvinball.

Calvin & Hobbes is probably one of my Top 10 literary influences from my childhood. I have the entire collection in a two-volume hardcover boxed set, and I go back and re-read it every couple of years. It's such a perfect distillation of the experience of being a kid and, even if some of us aren't as wild as Calvin, I think everyone can relate to his observations of what childhood (and adulthood) is like, and many of us can identify with his rampant imagination getting him into trouble at school, at home with his parents, etc.

One of my favorite Calvinball strips was when Rosalyn, Calvin's babysitter, eventually agrees to play in a bid to get him to go to bed... and then completely capitalizes on the fact that you make up the rules as you go along and uses it to dominate the game. Calvin even exclaims, "She picked up the nuances of this game fast!" which is such a perfect observation for a kid who has a limitless imagination, but is playing with an older teenager who knows how to use logic and strategy to her advantage in an effort to get him to go to bed.