Games are Magic {Printed Zine}

The official manual for Counting to Infinity: Stelle Scopa. From the zine's table of contents:

From the zine’s table of contents:

• Introduction

• (Re)Birth of Counting to Infinity

• Stone and Water: Il Bango e Mia Chiesa

• Games are Magic

• An Age-Old Shape-shifter: The Many Faces of Scopa

• Stelle Scopa: Anatomy of a Stardusted, Feminist Scopa Deck

• How to Play Stelle Scopa (Set the space, Dealing, Turns, Scoring)

• Divine and Close your Game

About Contando All'infinito: Stelle Scopa

Counting to Infinity: Sweeping Stars (Contando All’Infinito: Stelle Scopa) is an original deck of hybrid playing/divination cards inspired by Italian Scopa & Tarot Cards, charmed by celestial and terrestrial iconography. The deck features hand-drawn imagery developed in Boston, MA, Nashville, TN and Venice Italy for the Counting to Infinity series. 

This deck reconstructs Molteni’s favorite Italian card game - Scopa, which translates to “broom”, “to sweep”, or “to fuck” in Italian. The basic goal of the game is to “sweep” the cards off the “floor” or playing surface. The deck’s imagery references sacred stone collections and bead/body-based prayer, incorporating 50 hand-and-stone drawings. Molteni’s original deck departs slightly from tradition to include five elemental/alchemical suits (obelisks/ air, pinecones/ fire, wells/ water, gravestones/ earth, and labyrinths/ spirit or Other and terrestrial planets Mercury, Mars and Venus in place of typical Court card rosters of Page, Knight/ Queen, and King.

While studying comets and asteroids, Molteni learned that ancient Chinese astronomers referred to Comets with a character that translates to “Broom Stars” or “Sweeping Stars” in English, Stelle Scopa was chosen as the Italian translation, naturally echoing the game’s namesake. Finally, a grouping of 11 astrologically meaningful asteroids (interstellar rocks), positioned like “I Trionfi /Triumphs” of the Tarot were added to the deck. Thus, the total number of 61 cards equals the full number of prayer beads on a Rosary.