LISTEN TO THE BIKE ROAR






LISTEN TO THE BIKE ROAR






Projects

  • Built 'ELEPHANT BIKE' from recycled plumbing parts. Used only kitchen tools.
  • Raced 'ELEPHANT BIKE' in international world seven-day cross-country mega cycle; SECOND PLACE 😔
  • Later that day: Beat First Place Winner 12 to 3 in games of consecutive chess.
  • Translated pop songs for Britney Spears and Taylor Swift from my native language.





 

Projects

I am a programmer and occasional digital artist. Here's a sampling of projects I have created or collaborated on.

  •  Levin of Earth. If you haven't already noticed, this very site is a game.
  • Plotopolis  Plotopolis. A literary journal of interactive fiction. We publish to chat platforms. Click through for a deeper explanation.
  • Gumball Poetry  Gumball Poetry (revival!) - A literary journal published into capsule machines. I brought back Gumball Poetry for the Raymond Carver Writing Festival - afterward, a single machine will be curated at the The Stacks Coffeehouse.
  • Universal Deck  Universal Deck - a digital tool to create a 'personal universal deck', a writing exercise / divination tool first created by the poet Michael McClure.
  • CueDeck  CueDeck app - a sweet little flashcards app that will send you your words daily by text message and email.
  • PitchPost PitchPost - Location-based conversations. With PitchPost's map, you can place a pin/photo/video/conversation anywhere, and only those within distance can view and contribute to it. Imagine Yelp, but for your own backyard or street corner.
  • Black Magic Insurance Agency — an Alternate Reality Game / one-night performance piece called 'Operation Peachblow'. Co-conspirators: David Cain, Prashant Gandhi, Thane Stumbaugh, Andy Hockersmith, Laura Moulton )
  • Levin's Bicycle — a strange little bicycle film that showed at Filmed by Bike and won the audience award at Toronto's Bicycle Film Festival - along with my occasional co-conspirator/nemesis Levin Schersvanaskitty. (James Moulton also played a role.)
  • Project Hamad — we set out to create a narrative around a single Guantanamo inmate, in order to shed light on imprisonment without trials and the stupidity of Guantanamo. I am happy to say that Adel Hamad, the prisoner (former medical clerk and ping pong player, captured in Pakistan but with no link to any terrorist organization, is now free). I am unhappy to report that Guantanamo is still open. (no longer actively maintained) (along with David Naimon, Laura Moulton)
  • Gumball Poetry — A literary journal published in capsule machines. At its heyday, we had ~25 capsule machines in bars/cafes/etc across the United States, full of poetry curated into issues (and a single gumball). link to Wayback machine archive (along with Laura Moulton). TThis project is restarted! see gumballpoetry.org
  • The Psychic Book Project — First, a book divination service run by humans. And later a book divination service run by robots. Fun times. (no longer active) (along with Laura Moulton)
  • Message in a bottle — a virtual 'message in a bottle' service. First messages were taken on the internet and then distributed through Gumball Poetry capsules. Later, it was the slowest bulletin board of all time, where you could meet random people or leave messages for others that might not get discovered for years. (no longer active) (along with Noah Magram)
  • Datablob — the world's nonsense exchange. It was an exchange, ala eBay, but with a decidely surrealist bent (no longer maintained) link to Wayback machine archive
  • Walker Tracker — I founded Walker Tracker. Walker Tracker grew up over 15 years and was a pioneer in the corporate wellness space. Walker Tracker was sold in 2022.
  • In case you're curious, there's a Wikipedia page on me at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Parzybok (though not very updated at the moment, it seems)

Along with these projects, I contribute technical know-how for a couple of other projects, namely:

  • Street Books - a bicycle-powered library for people living outside, and winner of the National Book Foundation's 'Innovations in Reading' award.
  • Between The Covers - an incredibly insightful author-interview radio show and podcast by David Naimon



This box is you.

Some adventures can be undertaken name-less. This is not one of them.


Go ahead! it'll be fine...

{{pseudonym}}

Hello {{pseudonym}}!

This is your inventory satchel. Your gathered items, new destinations, and any actions you acquire will all go here. Good luck questing!

(...what is this? Try the help button below)

{{detailTitle}}

Items ({{items.length}} of 18)

  • {{item}}

Destinations ({{destinations.length}} of 5)


Actions ({{actions.length}} of 3)

  

This is a game.

This is a game, built on top of a fairly boring straightforward author's website.

It's part scavenger hunt, part narrative, part fight-scene. The objective, of course, is to fight, and win, against the author.

Items are things you gather. They often look something like this: (←if you've already entered a pseudonym, try clicking on the ambulance...you should see a message 'item added to inventory')

Destinations are places you visit

Actions are things you can do

As you play, new items/destinations/actions will be added to your inventory satchel.

Look for the numbers next to your Items, Destinations,and Actions in order to see how far along you are:
Example
Example number of actions

If you lose the game or wish to become someone else, hit the 'start over' button.

Tip Explore! Many peculiar things are clickable, hidden, or require a certain amount of time to be spent somewhere, or require interaction to work. And as you get deeper into the game, places that were once normal begin to alter.

Fight scene

If you spot any bugs, irregularities, surprises, etc - drop me an email: ben@ideacog.net - thanks for visiting!