It’s a beautiful day, and I’m working at a coffee shop on Pearl Street. Nice space, doors open to the air outside, a comfy chair and a nearby outlet. I don’t feel like their choice of music, so I’m listening on my headphones to Carter & Grammer—Drum Hat Buddha right now, but it’ll move on soon.
And amongst this, I am thinking about the use of public space, by which I only mean “spaces not hidden in someone’s home”. We four here have taken to working at coffee shops, and occasionally a local pub or two, when we want to get things done. It gets us away from the distractions of home, but more than that, it shifts our context enough to jump-start some work.
One thought leads to another, and soon I am thinking about Cassidy’s, on Westmoreland Street in the middle of Dublin. Some friends took me there once, to find the basement bar full of gamers—some people playing card games, some playing role-playing games, some playing board games, some just talking. This idea has stayed with me since I saw it; rare is the place in this country where that would work, was my first reaction. But maybe not; maybe I just have to talk to a few gamers, and talk to a few pubs. Part of what makes it work, of course, is the size and layout of an actual Irish pub; there’s a whole basement bar that allows people to set themselves aside a bit, and not be disturbed or disturbing.
So, from there, I come to something that Vincent Baker posted about today: Owl and Raven, a community space that’s just opened in Northampton, MA. The idea is to have a space where people can come to work on projects, hang out, and learn from each other and talk with each other. This seems a really compelling idea, and I look forward to following these people to see how it works.
Finally, all of this leads me to remember an idea I had a while ago, that I occasionally revisit: gamerspaces. The idea is to make something like hackerspaces, but for gamers and games. A bit over a year ago, I was frequenting the IRC channel of Hacklab.to, and had the notion to get a group of gamers of all stripes to pitch in some membership fees to get a space and furnish it with what you need for games and gamers: tables, couches, nooks and crannies, and 24-hour access and security. One problem with this idea so far has been that companies will sometimes donate to hackerspaces, but I have a hard time envisioning getting funding for a gamerspace from anything but members’ fees.
All of these ideas are as-yet just vaguely related notions floating around, but I thought I’d put them out there, to remind myself and maybe give other people ideas.