OUTSET ISLAND SHIRT TV

See if the excerpt below conjures up any recollection of my Zelda concert reality-trip: An episode near the beginning of the first volume, when the narrator takes a bite of a French cookie, is the most famous passage in the 1.2-million-word book. The seven-volume epic novel, In Search of Lost Time, is his most famous work. Marcel Proust is perhaps the most famous novelist in French literary history. English teachers around the world rejoice! The Phenomenology of Cookies and Video Games Link demonstrates how literature holds the answers to lifeвЂ™s most important puzzles.

The scariest thing any of us has seen is the snot-sucking kid who runs around Outset Island without wiping his nose. My sisterвЂ™s laughing on the floor beside me, and LinkвЂ™s sister hasnвЂ™t been kidnapped by any monstrous birds. All that matters is hacking grass for rupees and mastering the jump-attack. IвЂ™m not even worried about prophecies, Triforce shards, or arch-baddie Ganondorf. IвЂ™m not worried about the SAT, term papers, or what IвЂ™m going to do when I grow up. IвЂ™m wearing a paint-splattered t-shirt-never heard of business casual in my life-and Link is wearing his blue scorpion shirt-never heard of the green Hero of Time getup in his life. ItвЂ™s Saturday afternoon, and the sun is shining.

I was back in a white-carpeted living room, eight years old, saving Hyrule with my sister. And suddenly, the auditorium disappeared. A pluck of strings, a shuddering breath, and the lead flute soared into the Wind Waker title theme. A shot of Outset Island from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker rolled onto the projector screen. I managed to hold it together for nearly an hour of reality-blurring gyrotechnics-easily 80% of the show-until the sound of ocean waves crashed through the loudspeakers. The pixels seemed to dance from the screen, float across the orchestra, and-as if by magic-rearrange themselves into the cosplay-donning people to my left and right. My head swung between the screen in front of me to the seats beside me Link and Zelda were everywhere I looked, saving Hyrule with swords and thumbs. My thumbs jerked every time video-Link swung the Master Sword.

OUTSET ISLAND SHIRT TV

What was real, and what was video game? Sitting there in my lame t-shirt, I plunged in and out of observation and memory-concert hall and living room, projector and TV screen-reliving my favorite game sequences in concert with the multimedia phantasmagory. It was mesmerizing.ДЄ snapshot of The Symphony of the Goddesses. Pianos sang, violins wept, and trumpets stormed the Song of Healing from MajoraвЂ™s Mask, the battle score from Twilight Princess, the title theme from Breath of the Wild. The orchestra spun out the live soundtrack to every clip. Scenes from every Legend of Zelda game in the past two-and-a-half decades flashed in front of our faces. A giant projector screen glowed in front of us, and on a stage in front of that, a symphony orchestra sat quietly, almost invisible. Ten minutes to the hour, the living cosplay chaos swirled into the dark auditorium. Marooned in the crowd wearing a low-key Triforce t-shirt, I couldnвЂ™t decide if I was the only sane or completely crazy person there. Toddlers waddled around in Kokiri gear, pre-teens whacked each other with plastic Master Swords, and two Ganondorfs chomped on Tex-Mex in the corner. Middle-aged Heroes of Time perused merchandise tables on the expensive carpet. Cosplay Princess Zeldas snapped selfies in the foyer. I walked into the Long Center for the Performing Arts one boiling summer evening in Austin, Texas, and plunged into an alternate dimension caught somewhere between the American Southwest and the Kingdom of Hyrule. The first time I went to a video game concert, I lost my grip on reality. A Comprehensive Theory of MajoraвЂ™s Mask.

Outset island shirt