a diversion

for a number of years, i have been laying out a particular form of solitaire called "calculation," at least three or four and sometimes ten or more times a day, pretty much every day. i completely wore out one deck of cards with this game, and i am working on another.

as with any solitaire, what you are doing is sorting a randomized deck, subject to rules that limit your decisions in sorting in ways the cards can defeat. in this case the limiting card is the king.

you are building sequences in four stacks, by ones, by twos, by threes, and by fours. you are counting in mod 13, with turning points at the queen, jack, and ten. so for example, after ten the twos would be queen, ace, three, etc. and after jack the king, an end. the threes after nine would be queen, two, five, etc., and the fours after eight would be queen, three, seven, etc. each sequence ending in a king. suits are disregarded.

and over here, while you are waiting for the next card in one or another of these sequences, you are storing cards in one of only four piles, as you select. burying cards you think you can afford to bury, leaving paths to get to them when you need them.

in effect, you need to get at least one king to the bottom of one of these storage stacks, or you lose.

you put a seven and then a four onto a ten, you have an ending sequence for the threes. you are offered an ace. do you put it on the ten seven four, or just start the ones and maybe offload the four to start the fours, or do you start a new storage stack. and then you are offered a jack.

and so on, through fifty-two cards. the kings are trying to lock you into commitments you cannot sustain. you are down to the last card, and the king of clubs has caught the ten of hearts and the seven of spades. and you think, why did i tell that lie, and should i try to sustain it. or, what did she intend by saying that, and should i pretend to accept it.

or hey, something else involving something you care about and some ambiguous narrative surrounding it. you tell me.

the cards are speaking to you. listen.

and then the next hand is completely random, you get a bunch of trash and then the kings come pouring out. noise. but maybe the noise itself is a message. back off, i will come to you.

five clubs. bring it on. six spades, set it aside. five diamonds on the six. let's get serious.

nine diamonds, a root or a cover the five. take cover. two hearts, park it on the five six. ten diamonds a root. ten swords, damnit.

and the game goes downhill from there or you are somehow able to rescue it through very careful play and a couple of lucky breaks on key cards. you draw a second six early, forcing the choice on the threes, and so on, through fifty-two cards. or until it miseraby ends.

it takes seven shuffles to randomize a deck of cards, the math papers are published online. i usually do eight or nine, because it feels that way to me. and eight has significance for me from tarot. strength, or is it justice. and when justice is gone, there's always force. laurie anderson.

sometimes it is just static for even as many as two or three hands straight, but not often. more frequently than i used to, as i learn more and more nuance, i will get a beautiful game i had to fight hard, but the last card allows me to take twenty or more out of storage before hitting the last king.

you learn to minimize your commitment to any particular course, but try to leave several open. you seize some but by no means all opportunities to unload your storage. but you might leave a seven or a jack behind because you need to be able to duck an untimely two down the road.

and who was it released the last king but the ten and seven again. but which king was it, and were they the same ones, the hearts ten and the spade seven. oh, i didn't notice. the seven, yes, but i am not sure about the ten. the king was i think a heart.

and you start looking for these two cards in the next hand.