Issue 24 Preview: Domino, by David LeGault
Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
The following essay appears in Barrelhouse Issue 24, which you can buy right here.
In a typical game of Dominos, tiles are drawn and placed into a pattern where matching numbers are connected. Depending on the version, this is sometimes referred to as a river or a train.
Dominos have no known inventor, no known origin. The best guess to their history comes from China, over 1500 years ago: clay tablets designed to represent possible combinations of a pair of six-sided dice.
Even this origin isn’t without its question marks: bones carved into small tiles from the city of Ur pre-date these tiles by millennia. The problem is not one of origin, but evolution: Who is to say where one game ends and another begins, when a tile becomes something we can recognize?
Dominoes is a game without narrative, without larger context. There is no king to be defeated on the field of battle, no Atlantic City real estate empire to accumulate. It is only the numbers, the matching, a victory not in the accumulation of pieces, but in their absence.
The city of Ur was situated near the Euphrates River. Like all ancient city- states, it relied on the river for clean drinking water, for food and trans- portation, for sanitation and waste removal before such things were fully understood. The rivers gave so much to the people, they were believed to be gods themselves.
Games have been part of civilization since before recorded history. They have existed for entertainment, but also for predicting the future, as a way of speaking to God through the throwing of knuckle bones, the casting of lots, the reading of smoke. In other words, they are an entry point into what comes next.
The Royal Game of Ur, the earliest recorded board game, dates back over 4000 years; the rules of the game were unknown until a Babylonian clay tab- let was translated in the 1980s. Players roll dice and race around a winding path, trying to get a series of pieces to flow off the board, avoiding collisions with the opposing player’s pieces.
The Royal Game of Ur was played for thousands of years throughout Mesopotamia and the Middle East, and is believed to be the ancestor of backgammon, which itself took on a global surge of popularity, appearing everywhere from James Bond films to Pink Floyd’s tourbus.
It’s clear that everything, even games, flow like rivers: winding their way toward something else entirely. Like rivers, we can make the case they are gods themselves.
A traditional set of dominos includes 28 tiles, representing every combi- nation of numbers between zero and six. Dominos are not a game, but a medium of play: as tiles can be used to play countless variations. It’s better to think of them as a deck of cards, a checkered board, a blank page.
I’m fascinated by rules that are actually systems: I read Dungeon Master guides for games I do not play; I create alternative rule sets for the boards of my children’s games; I collect dice of unique numerations.
I like that a game is not a matter of rules, but of possibility: each board or card or piece gives possibility to beautifully imagined worlds and challenges. I like the ways that games encourage us to work in collaborative metaphors, to create beautiful conflicts to overcome.
Ivory is not unique to any one animal, but has the same chemical makeup as teeth. Its use was documented across every known civilization that had access to elephants, or walruses, or hippos, or whales. As global trade increased, the use became further refined: it was learned that African elephant tusks were easiest to carve.
It would take centuries before plastic was invented, but when it did, it quickly replaced ivory because it was easier to form and, perhaps more importantly, it could be acquired more easily. This didn’t stop the African elephant popu- lation from being halved, then quartered.
Many species are at risk of extinction, if they aren’t gone already.
Dominos made their way to Europe along the Silk Road. The game had taken on mainstream popularity as early as the 18th century, especially in Italy and France. It arrived in England later, carried by French prisoners.
Dominos were named for their resemblance to the masquerade masks used in Venetian carnivals: the striking contrast of the black dots against a white tile, the way they seemingly stare back at you, a ghostly set of eyes.
The ancient Sumerians referred to opium as hul gil, roughly translating to “the joy plant.” It quickly spread through the ancient world: it was widely cultivated during Tutankhamen’s reign; its healing powers are described in Homer’s Odyssey.
Opium was used for everything from pain relief to putting children to sleep. It is believed that its use was restricted to spiritual healers, who used its effects as proof of their own divinity.
This might all be my way of saying that I haven’t been sleeping. I am unex- pectedly alone for the next two weeks and am missing my wife and children. The silence, I fear, is overwhelming.
Most common domino variants involve arranging tiles into an intercon- nected chain of matching numbers. Each tile is chosen at random, and so dominos is a game that takes chaos and attempts to give it order. In this regard, it is an essay of sorts.
Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, is the twin brother of Death himself. He is said to live in the underworld, in a cave at the place where it is both night and day at once. He wears a wreath of opium poppies around his neck.
The Domino Theory was first introduced to the public consciousness in the early days of the Cold War, suggesting that if one country in a region fell to the influence of Communism, then more countries would likely follow. As a result, Communist regimes had to be stopped at all costs.
Not only was this theory the justification for U.S involvement in Vietnam, but it was also the first public acknowledgment of domino toppling: that dominoes could be kinetic as well as strategic.
Dominoes are included on a short list of games included in the Toy Hall of Fame. While their induction references different game rules such as Muggins and Mexican Train, the museum’s emphasis is placed on toppling: the act of standing pieces on end and knocking them over with a single push.
Dominos as a political theory have mostly been debunked. Later in life, former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara went on record that he believed the theory was a mistake. He cites the fact that the political influ- ence of neighboring countries is not a guaranteed occurrence, and even if it were, it’s not America’s right to intervene wherever it wants.
In The Iliad, Hera uses Hypnos to put Zeus into a deep, unwakeable sleep. And while Zeus rested, he could no longer influence the battle, effectively allowing the Acheans to win the war. Hypnos wanted no part of this but was persuaded by the promise that he could marry Pasithea if he helped with Hera’s plan. As a result, the tide of the battle shifted, Hypnos married Pasithea, and Zeus never learned of the deception.
Pasithea was the Greek goddess of relaxation, meditation, and altered states of consciousness. Her marriage to Hypnos gives an explanation as to why we dream.
The longer we go without sleep, the more damage we accrue. The mind is obvious: our short-term memories, our ability to focus. Beyond that it gets more surprising: the weight gain, the higher blood pressure, the loss of coor- dination and balance. I write this in the glow of a computer screen against the harsh walls of darkness, the effects piling on.
H.P. Lovecraft once wrote a story of a man and his unnamed friend who experience some unknown cosmic terror in their sleep. In fear of what they might see, the two men use drugs to keep themselves awake, but it doesn’t matter: throughout the story they eventually succumb to sleep, waking up each time in a far worse state of body and mind.
In that case I’ll go underground Get
some
Heavy rest
Never have to worry
About what is worst or what is best
The difference between potential and kinetic energy is the difference between energy stored and energy released. Each tile added to the line adds more potential to the release, but it also adds more possibility for calamity. Domino toppling is a game that takes order and allows it to devolve into chaos. In this regard, it is also an essay of sorts.
While flour is not considered particularly dangerous, it becomes flammable when its dust is suspended in air. The city where I once lived had a museum dedicated to what was once the largest flour mill in the world until it literally exploded: the dust inside reached a deadly saturation and a single spark from the machinery blew the roof off the building, killing 18 people. The con- cussive blast of the explosion cracked windows in a city over 10 miles away.
Bob Speca was sitting in his high school math class when his teacher used an illustration: if you had an infinite row of dominoes and tipped the first one over, then they would continue to fall forever. In Social Studies, he learned about the Domino Theory and the ongoing Vietnam War. That night, something inside him snapped. Bob went to the store to buy a second box of dominoes. And then another. And then another.
There’s no such thing as a harmless addiction. The very definition of the world calls to a dependency on something that should not be necessary.
In Lovecraft’s story, the two men meet when its narrator comes across his unnamed friend at a train station: “And when he opened his immense, sunken, and wildly luminous black eyes I knew he would be thenceforth my only friend—the only friend of one who had never possessed a friend before—for I saw that such eyes must have looked fully upon the grandeur and the terror of realms beyond normal consciousness and reality; realms which I had cherished in fancy, but vainly sought.”
Bob Speca’s collection of dominos grew to the thousands, then the tens of thousands, then the hundreds of thousands. His designs became increas- ingly elaborate, to the point where his work was becoming noticed on a national scale. On May 20th, 1974, Bob was invited to exhibit his work on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Johnny briefly interviews Bob before the performance begins. Bob explains that he has aligned over 7,000 dominos for this exhibition, that he has a few new inventions that he’s excited to present. A curtain rises behind the two men, and instead of applause, a sound of pleasure (a collective oooooh) comes out of the crowd, before Bob invites Johnny to do the honors. Johnny bends over, and with a single outstretched finger, sets action in motion that has not stopped since.
In this fit of insomnia I turn the television on, the sound of the conversation and audience laughter making me a little less lonely. I sit here in the gray area between awake and asleep, dreaming and not, waiting for something to happen.
The whole thing takes just over two minutes. The crowd is quiet for the first few seconds, but when the train of falling tiles reaches the first set of ramps, the formation splits into two different paths, a collective murmur starts. The chain splits in two; alternating rows seem as if they should crash, but barely miss. A single woman in the crowd cheers and it sets the whole thing off: first the sporadic clapping, then shrieks of laughter, then sustained applause. The constant chattering of plastic hitting plastic. A custom-designed plat- form gives the illusion that tiles are falling even faster, and we have reached the point where the crowd is overwhelmed: rows of red, white, and blue tiles in the shape of an American flag appear to wave as they fall, the Rube Goldberg contraptions that allow dominos to hit switches that trigger new rows of falling dominos, a cloverleaf of four spiraling patterns, a domino tied to a string that swings over a gap, an elevator that carries a tile into the air before it does a high dive into a glass of water. It is close to the end and the applause does not stop. It seems to be over and then comes the surprise: a row of mousetraps taped to the floor. As the tiles fall onto the pressure plates, dominos are launched by the snapping metal of the trap like a trebuchet, launching them out at the crowd, who have succumbed to some sort of collective mania, out of their minds.
When I’m not sleeping, I look for videos online of dominos toppling. There are dozens of YouTube channels devoted exclusively to the subject, and it seems that the categories for setting a domino-related world record have been sufficiently subdivided: longest wall of dominos, tallest wall of dom- inos, largest spiral, longest uninterrupted chain, biggest image made from dominos, longest sustained domino display, most mini-dominos used, and on and on. Some of these videos are over 15 minutes of uninterrupted falling, the clacking goes on so long it becomes a chaotic white noise, a dull sort of ASMR played over the bright plastic tiles falling in beautiful choreography.
The day after the Tonight Show performance, Bob’s life was transformed. There he was setting up 30,000 dominos at the opening of a car dealership. There he was being interviewed about the enemies of dominos (children, ants, the changing air pressure when a door is opened or closed). There he was given an unlimited supply of dominos and a sponsorship from Milton Bradley. There were companies producing domino toppling sets: plastic tiles without numbers, or rules, or structure.
If you have an infinite row of dominos and tipped the first one over, then they would continue to fall forever. Despite McNamara’s declaration of domino theory’s failure, it continues to justify aggression in the name of protection. Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there was discussion of a “reverse domino theory:” if a single country’s turn to Communism would cause a chain reac- tion throughout a region, then installing a democratic regime would have the same effect.
If you have an infinite row of dominos and tipped the first one over, then they would continue to fall forever. A small homeless population takes ref- uge in an abandoned building, and on a night with subzero temperatures, a fire is lit. This small warming fire soon begins to rage, engulfing the entire building, destroying a small section of the city. A century earlier, this same building housed the largest flour mill in the world.
Though Bob started the domino’s popularity, he was quickly overtaken by others who pushed the art even further. Any records he achieved were quickly beaten by enthusiastic teams who built larger, taller, more chaotic patterns. While Bob was later invited onto David Letterman’s Late Show, a satirical version of himself was brought on several months later: a man setting up dominos that fell over prematurely, leaving a sad man in the Letterman studio having an extended tantrum, kicking over complicated patterns before lying down and weeping on the floor. He tried to start again, but so close to the end of the show, the episode closes with the man pitifully toppling a dozen dominos in the center of a gigantic mess. It was the last time dominos were featured on any of the late-night shows.
I like to think of infinity in terms of the Big Bang: a prime mover sending everything forward. It only seems out of control because the trajectory is beyond comprehension, riding on the rails of a cosmic train.
I cheer for the explosions, for I can no longer see the dust that has ignited them.
I like to think of infinity in terms of what happens when I sleep, the possi- bility found in dreams. In this way, the lack of sleep leaves a world that is so much smaller.
The current record for dominos toppled is 4,491,863, set by a team of Dutch builders in 2009. A video on YouTube documenting the event is over 28 minutes long. You can’t watch the whole thing without becoming sort of numb to the majesty of the thing: the endless spectacle—the escalating size and scope of the designs as the video plows forward—become almost hypnotic. At a certain point it stops being fun and you find yourself begging for it to end.
At a certain point you can’t remember a time when dominos aren’t falling, when the chattering of plastic wasn’t echoing in your brain. When it finally ends, the silence is deafening.
H.P. Lovecraft’s story ends when the narrator and his friend run out of money for the drugs that keep them from their sleep. The unnamed friend can no longer stay awake, and succumbs to a sleep in which he experiences a terror beyond human understanding. The man’s friend wakes, and for just a moment the narrator looks into the vibrant eyes he always admired in his friend, and what he sees in those eyes fills him with so much fear that our narrator faints, but not before screaming so wildly that the police are called to his apartment.
When the man reawakens, he realizes that his friend was never real at all. In the place where his friend had lain now stands a sculpture of the narrator’s own unconscious making, engraved with a name underneath: Hypnos.
It still isn’t exactly clear how Dominos in China made their way to Medieval Europe. Speculation suggests it was brought back to Europe by Italian mis- sionaries which mixed with local games and elements to create the versions still played today. That doesn’t explain how European explorers of the 1700s, when they first encountered the Inuit in the North American Arctic, found tribes already playing an almost identical version.
The beauty of the Big Bang is a true belief in cause and effect, that everything happens for a reason, whether we understand it or not.
Bob Speca’s whole life has been dominos, and 30 years after his first world record, he returned to brief popularity by breaking the record of human mattress dominos: Bob and 849 other people strapped to mattresses in a warehouse, falling on top of one another. This record was broken almost immediately.
But what is the value of a world record, particularly one so arbitrary? Is it possible to be the best at something that doesn’t matter? When does a game stop being a game and instead mark some point on a timeline: another record to be toppled?
Everything will end and every record will fall. It’s the only sort of path that makes any sense, the river only flows where the current takes it. We always reach the end, whether we intended to or not.
And if you have an infinite row of dominos and tip the first one over, then they would continue to fall forever. How else do we get from point A to B, from tiles carved from elephant tusks that are also carved into opium pipes, from opium poppies adorning the cave of a Greek god to an HP Lovecraft story on insomnia and impossible terror to a man channeling anxieties over the Vietnam War to get on late night television where he uses the same tiles carved from elephant tusks to create a beautiful expression of his abstract thinking about the infinity of the universe. Somewhere in there a trade route across Mongolian deserts leads directly to 850 employees of the La Quinta Inn getting strapped to mattresses and falling atop one another in an other- wise empty warehouse. And if games are merely metaphors, then I think this one is a metaphor for God.
In a typical game of Dominos, tiles are drawn and placed into a pattern where matching numbers are connected. Depending on the version, this is sometimes referred to as a river or a train. I like that these outline the path of where we’ve been and where we’re going. How we go from one sort of game into another. How we find the necessary transitions in kinetic potential: a stack of tiles waiting to be toppled, a cave where you can be both waking and not.
David LeGault is the author of One Million Maniacs, a book of essays on collecting. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in The Normal School, The North American Review, and Hotel Amerika, among others. He lives in Cincinnati, where he’s work- ing on a book about how board games shape our lives. More information can be found at www.onemillionmaniacs.com