suburbia, pa
june 29, 2020
I am my current age (32) in a middle school English class. In the portable trailer classroom. The teacher has introduced the class to a sort of augmented reality game from David Lynch, which is called 'Suburbia, PA' followed by a long subtitle which I sadly don't remember.
The game consists of a crate full of ephemera, even a jewelry box with more ephemera in each of its little drawers. A giant spiral bound notebook with collages of ephemera. They suggest that a fictional character put this all together.
A series of recordings plays (on the teacher's PC speakers) which are cryptically relevant to the collection of ephemera. They often resemble number station recordings, but also audio journals of characters.
The students very quickly make connections between the audio and individual sheets of relevant ephemera, handed out from the copy machine. I lag far behind as I'm captivated by a collection of small maps that I found in the jewelry box as the recordings play in the background. I have to stay after class to attempt catching up, and even then my teacher needs to leave. I ask if the game is available for purchase so that I don't fall behind.
/dreams/