Pachinko

gambling

trivia

The pachinko is a collenive and solitary game The ma(hines are set up in long rO\\'5; each player swnding in franc of his panel plays for hirnself, withollC looking at his neighbor, whom he nonerhelcss brllshes with his elbow.

is a game which counters the constipated parsimony of salary-life by, from time to time, filling the player’s hand with a diarrhea of marbles, splattering him with the money he stuffs into the machine (his manager) like stuffing a goose.

The machines are mangers, lined up in raws; the playet, with an abrupt gestute, tenewed so rapidly that it seems un­ interrupted, feeds the machine with his metal matbles; hc sruffs thern in, the way you would stuff a goose; fram time to time the machine, filled to capacity, releases its diatthea of matbles; fOt a few yen, the player is symbolically spattered with rnoney. Hete we llndetstand the seriousness of agame which counters the constipated parsimony of salaries, the consttiction of capitalist wealth, wirh the vOJUptllOUS debacle of silver balls, which, all of a sudden, fill the playet's hand.

is distinguished from pinball in that, in the West, the aim is to correct the balls trajectory, but in pachinko, everything is determined in the initial dispatch, by the hand of the artist for whom the feature is a ‘controlled accident’

As for the an of playing the game, it roo differs from that of our ma­ chines. For the Western player, once the ball is propelIed, the main thing is to eorreet its trajeerory as it falls back down (by giving little nudges ro the maehine) ; for the Japanese player, everything is determined in the initial dispateh, everything depends on the force the thumb imparts ro the flipper; the adroirness is immediate, definitive, it alone aeeounts for the talent of the player, who ean coneet chance only in advanee and in a single movement; or more exaetly: the propulsion of the ball is at best only delieately eonstrained or haIted (but' nOt at all direeted) by the hand of the player, who \vith a single movement moves and observes: this hand is therefore that of an artist (in the Japanese fashion), for whom the (graphie) fearure is a "controlIed accident."

is representative of the principle of painting, all prima, which insists that the line be drawn in a single moment, once and for all, and that it can never be corrected.

Paehinko repro­ duces, in shorr, on the meehanieal level, preeisely the prin­ ciple of painting alla prima, whieh insists that the line be drawn in a single movement, onee and for alJ, and that by reason of the very quality of the paper amI the ink, it can never be correned; in the same \vay the ball, once propelled, eannot be deviated (it would be an outrageous piece of boorishness to shake the machine, as our Western sports do): its path is predetermined by the sole flash of its impetus.

's imperious meaning is, in contrast to Western pinball, that of a deliberate, absorbing labor; never an idle or casual or playful attitude, none of the theatrical unconcern of our Western players.

The imperious meaning of the scene is that of a deliberate, absorbing labor; never an idle or easual or playful attitude, none of that theatrieal unconeern of our \Xfestern players lounging in leisurely groups around a pinball maehine and quite eonseious of produeing for the other patrons of the cafe thc image of an expert and disillusioned god.

pachinko, n.Trivia

Keep exploring pachinko→

pachinko