Donkey Kong Country, Snow Barrel Blast
The 1994 platformer Donkey Kong Country’s Snow Barrel Blast level reminds me of a crisp Hudson River School painting, with tall evergreens and purple mountains ultimately obscured by an incoming blizzard. Its music can be surprisingly foreboding for a game where you throw a gorilla through the air to catch floating bananas, but the absurdity is made both sharper and more serious by its unsmiling environment.
Poem: “As snow fell fast against our hurtling / forwardness—all of it postcard / colored—shaggy trees flying by— / us hoping for pitch black night and imagining the beauty / of a journey with / no return.” – “Dusk in Drought,” Jorie Graham
