He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, The Impossible Reversal: A History of How We Play, and shared the following:
From page 99:Learn more about The Impossible Reversal at the University of Minnesota Press website.If a closet is deep and open, then a child can get lost inside of it, allowing the darkness and fabrics to become a doorway to elsewhere. A well-stocked closet visited as a chore, however, fails to enchant, because “there is nothing indeterminate; everything belongs to someone.” Some locations cannot cultivate secrets because they are so communal that they are fixed in place; in that case the cupboard “refuses to ‘play along.’ We don’t expect anything from this cupboard. It will remain merely itself. Just look at it. How it stands there: heavy, dense, unmovable.” Hidden spaces are labile and overflowing with potential transformations precisely because no one knows what they hold, not even one’s parents. The magic of secret spaces opens onto fantastic voyages and secret gardens, a liminal transition often captured in children’s literature. Secret spaces allow a child to recuperate from the demands of the social world and extricate a sense of individuality from family relations.On page 99 of The Impossible Reversal, we are in the midst of trying to understand an avant-garde version of hide-and-seek invented by the artist Yoko Ono. In the instructions for the game, she tells us to “hide until everybody forgets about you” and “hide until everybody dies.” It is a violent request, and at first glance it doesn’t feel very playful at all. But if we look closely at what it’s like to play ordinary hide-and-seek, with all the desires and fears that children invest in the game, we can start to see how it is also invested in moments where the player is solitary, lost, and secret. The passage above is drawing on children’s experiences of secret spaces, especially attics and cupboards, to reignite those feelings.
So, in one way, page 99 isn’t a very good overview of The Impossible Reversal, which is a book about major historical changes to the theories and practices of playfulness in the United States. We are lost in the weeds, unpicking the specific details of one artist’s work. Yet, this page is also a perfect encapsulation of the spirit of the book, which is all about the experience of playfulness. I want to show that playfulness is many different things, some of which are more dangerous, or boring, or fleeting than we would normally admit. I want people to look closer at the subtleties of play, to slow down and explore its meanings. I can’t think of a better passage to show that exploration in action.
--Marshal Zeringue
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