My grandfather's obscure board game

Have you ever been forever changed by an object? For me, it was a prototype for a board game called Chateau that my grandfather made. Is it completely hand-drawn, hand-painted, hand-cut, typewriter-typed, and one-of-a-kind? You betchya!

My mom is the keeper of this special board game and I remember being swept away when she showed it to me as a kid. It scratches several of my aesthetic itches: French words, cozy spy vibes, small objects in boxes, hand drawn cursive, and aged off-white paper. These elements alone make the object a priceless treasure.

I’ve always thought that I was attracted to little things like this that people make because of the whimsical aesthetics. But I think that the whimsical aesthetics are a result of authentic imagination. I’m a big Wes Anderson fan. My grandfather created this prototype before Wes Anderson was born, so while it looks Wes Anderson-y, he wasn’t going for the Wes Anderson look. This whimsical look just the result of him attempting to share his imagination through an object.

And Wes Anderson wasn’t going for the Wes Anderson look when he started out, he was just creating authentically. But I have a feeling that he’s been trying to emulate his own look in the past few films, rather than starting from a place of authentic imagination. So the films have been falling a bit flat. The magic is missing. Just something I’ve noticed!

What doesn’t fall flat is when a human makes something really special with their brain and their hands and it comes from a place of authentic imagination and in the process captures and communicates the soul. My grandfather did that well.