“Ray Davies visits Collagesity!”
Parallel to this, the Red Door Church has been re-established in Collagesity Heights.
Baker Bloch found Spongeberg within, freshly emerged from a stained glass window. Music was playing. “You Really Got Me.”
“Portal!?” queries an approaching Baker over the loud rock n’ roll.
“Time!” shouts Spongeberg back. “Care to dance with me *now*!?”
What could he do?
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0002, collages 2d, Heterocera, Rubi^
Wheeler was alone when not Page, not Plant, but Dr. Blood approached from the west.
He prepared, she prepared. “Where’s your ne’er-do-well brother, you old SOB?”
And so there were five.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0002, Heterocera, Mars^^, Rubi^
Wheeler watched television in Lockfry’s old trailor at the border of Minoa and Rubi before deciding to head over to Mystenopolis and pay a visit to Spongeberg Resident. *The* Resident. There was something they had to talk about.
—–
“Sure I’ll join your Table. And I don’t have to even audition?”
“You?” replied Wheeler. “Never. You are the Bunny Boy. You *must* be there. You are Nautilus, the 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Even the 7 1/2. Bizarre. I love you man.”
“Well, good to hear. How’s the Blue Feather going? I heard: *expansion*.”
“Collagesity is blowing up. Blowing up real good. You should visit again. We’re trying to vacuum up all those summoned ghosts at the Feather. And, of course, you can see I have the eye. Carrcassonnee is my woman servant. She does my bidding.”
“Is that a good thing?” asks Spongeberg. “She can come back[ if so].”
“She’ll come back sometime anyway. Best to feed her some humble pie in the meantime.”
—–
So that made John Lemon, Salad Bar Jack, and Spongeberg at The Table, along with Wheeler obviously. Dare she ask Page? Or maybe Plant? Plant or Page? Page or Plant, hmmm? Maybe both, maybe neither. She better find out. She better find out soon. Because time is starting to move backwards. The Bill must be solidified, the title secured.
—–
“She keeps saying she is The Bill, but I don’t think she’s The Bill until The Table is finalized.”
“What are we up to?” asks Baker Blinker to Baker Bloch.
“Page, I think,” he says. “Or Plant. But we’ll have to find them on Mars. Hold onto your horses!”
Mars crashed into Collagesity and took firm hold. Wheeler was back in Lockfry’s Trailor studying “Piledriver” when it happened, wondering what day to invite Karoz Blogger over for his weekly beating. Karoz watched the whole thing from his upstairs apartment above the Bodega market.
Crash!
He sprints around Carrcassonnee’s former gazebo and Castle Jack to join with Wheeler now in Rubi.
“Looks like Mars came to us instead,” she says, more calm than she should be. Karoz just stared out, flabbergasted.
Then the rain stopped.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0002, Heterocera, Mars^^, Rubi^
Baker Bloch had just finished applying the “Crash on Mars” collage texture to a prim in Castle Jack when Wheeler showed up.
“Jimmy Page,” she declared to a turning Baker. “My old friend-nemesis. Practiced psychic defense just because of him, you understand. A dark, dark period in my life. Psychic attacks, pheh. Jealousy. Stars on the rise; demons at the bottom of pools. I was always possessed.”
“Until the eye,” Baker Bloch adds.
“Until the eye.”
—–
Furry Karl’s down-on-the-coast cousin Crash is in the new collage, Baker Blinker, giving the name to the title. It’s not something crashing on Mars.”
“Per se,” Baker Blinker adds.
“Per se.”
—–
“What’s he fishing?” asks Crash’s cousin Furry Karl. “Looks like a hummingbird with a star at the back.”
“That’s a central mystery,” Baker replied. “Should be a fish instead of a bird, you know. But we know, you know, the black star has to do with Bowie and dark, dark death. The hummingbird may stand for resurrection.”
—–
“Someone is coming,” says Wheeler.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0002, collages 2d, Heterocera, Mars^^, Rubi^
“You here for the Table interview as well?” Mmmmmm Salad Bar Jack asked, fresh from the new portal Wheeler installed just yesterday in Carrcassonnee’s *former* gazebo. John Lemon utters complete gibberish back to Mmmmm, but he understands and interprets.
“I see. First to interview. Luckey you.”
More incoherent speech from Lemon.
“Well, it will be a pleasure to serve with you sir on The Table. If I’m chosen. I don’t have much hope, actually. I worked with Baker Bloch over in Jonesborough.”
Gibberish from Lemon.
“No, not Heterocera. The Real World. TILE Creek. Ever heard of it?”
Gibberish. Salad Bar interprets that John Lemon doesn’t know where this is. Lemon asks (again only Salad Bar can hear this, if anyone was listening in — like us) if he was in a carrcass either positive or negative.
“No,” came Salad Bar Jack’s reply.
After Lemon’s next round of static, Salad Bar proclaims: “Instant disqualification, eh. Well, maybe it’s best I don’t show up for the interview. This Wheeler lady may have misinterpreted my resume. I play in *my* movies. Action adventure ones in the main, although we’ve branched out a bit lately, Gene and I. Don’t suppose you’ve ever hear of actor/director Gene Fade either, my close associate and colleague?”
We can understand from Salad Bar’s next reply that Lemon hasn’t. He begins listing out his filmography. “‘Salad Bar Jack in the River of TILE’? ‘Salad Bar Jack Be Nimble’? ‘Salad Bar Jack of All Trades’?” Lemon shakes his head. “Nothing?” It’s difficult for SBJ to comprehend this lack of recognition, but Lemon shakes his head again.
Lemon goes on a bit now with his incoherent talk, explaining something important to Salad Bar.
“Child, eh?” he replies after a pause. Lemon shakes his head again and corrects Salad Bar Jack. “Chilbo? Then we *do* know each other!”
Salad Bar Jack and John Lemon embrace.
—–
15 minutes later he also receives a chair at The Table. Wheeler remembers him as well. Curled Paper puts a check mark beside his name. On his way out he talks again to fellow Mmmmmm King Bill. “See you later you complete bastard, hehe.” But Bill is still worried about time and getting back to The Hill.
It seems it is too late. Bill Hill is no more.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0002, Heterocera, Mmmmmm's, Mossmen, Rubi^, Toy Avatars
Wheeler orders Karoz to return to Mars via this Okinu rocketship discovered several years back by the Baker family.
Lemons? This is a Linden build but older powers could be active here. Okinu is one queerly cool sim, after all, with an interesting history dating back even toward the beginning of My Second Lyfe. Sometime, maybe 2011 or 2012 (hafta check), Okinu got a complete makeover from its former 100% water status to become part of the new Sea of Secundus, dotted with islands such as the one the rocketship sits upon. The meaningful glyphs were eradicated in the transformation. Shame. But maybe they live on in a manner through the ship and the faraway world it leads to. To Karoz, this was Mars. He’s been 3 times. The great 3-n-1. However, Wheeler is now saying it *isn’t* Mars, but to check the 2 Saturns in the sky still. One of them — the real one, she says — can be used as a conduit to deeper space. Maybe going all the way to Muff-Bermingham.
Spool table. Makes Karoz think of Wheeler and her circular ways. How’s *his* finger?
As before, he activates a ramp to access the ship’s interior.
Captain’s seat. Usually he just has to sit here and the ship auto-launches, but the thing isn’t working today. Luckily Karoz is a scripting genius, and after several minutes has it ready to go.
Several more minutes brings him to the surface of his Mars once again. Ahh, the cool breeze entering the ship, the smell of napalm. He’s home? At least that’s what he thought the first time he visited. Now circumstances seem to have changed.
The two Saturns. But which one is the conduit?
Linden flag. Maybe that’s all it is: a Linden build. With no lingering effects of the queer Okinu glyphs to be found. At any rate, the eye would tell all.
Careful Karoz! But he and Sumpter are good buds now. “How are you doing Sumpty?” he asks while passing by her lair. Sumpty telepathically relays back that she’s doing quite fine this day, and that the new eggs will be hatching next week. Good ol’ Sumpty. Karoz will come back to visit her even if this turns out not to be Mars. Friendship matters.
Karoz spots the eye. Now he’ll get to the heart of the matter.
They talk — Karoz and the eye — for quite some time, perhaps half an hour. But Karoz goes away with the impression that the deity is not a healthy one of its species, unlike the eye that *use* to be married to Carrcassonnee. For one thing, she didn’t even know of Perch… or his cousin Pincushion Head. Yet Carrcassonnee has stated several times that all eyes know each other, as well as everything else about the universe. Thus the “all seeing” title often applied to them. This particular eye wouldn’t even divulge her true name. “Ask Sumpty sometime,” is all she could manage. Karoz went away feeling a lack, an absence, a void. “No, this is not Mars,” he finally says in higher understanding.
He better get back to Collagesity and prepare a report for Wheeler while memories are fresh.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0002, Mars^^, Sansara
“I fear it’s this place, Baker Bloch. Once you block things off and separate private from public, the collage elements start showing up.” She returns her attention to Curled Paper. “So your brother isn’t dead after all.”
“No mum,” came his reply.
“And what we just experienced was more hallucination than reality.”
“Careful with that type of language,” Baker advised again to Wheeler. “We’re *trying* to invoke halluciations. It’s the whole Bogota series we’re attempting to start up. You’re certainly a part of it, Wheeler. What with your David Bowie appearance and regalia. *Are* you David Bowie? Again??”
“I think so,” she replied. “Yes, I know so. I am David and David am I. But what of the darting hummingbird? My Hummie. It’s the work of Carrcasonnee. She’s attempting to dart me?”
“We could go to the Boos gallery and do some studying,” Baker offers.
“Do you think that would help?” Wheeler asks. “Well, okay. I wanted to walk around the town anyway. Review the changes for me as we stroll. Curled, hold down the fort. Do *not* let your brother in here again. And don’t dismember him again like you did before. You two are sickies.”
“Are we?” asked Curled Paper innocently.
“Yes,” she replied firmly. “Baker, are you ready? Is it colder out there? I’ll take my shawl if so.”
“I don’t think so, Wheeler,” Baker Bloch responded.
“I don’t want to freeze my ass off,” she says, getting up. “Apparently no one in town would like that.”
“We want to make you comfortable here for sure,” Baker said to Wheeler.
“Yup. That’s why I’m so powerful. Unblock the door.”
—–
Baker didn’t realize how close Boos was to Perch. Just a hop down and a couple more steps and you’re in.
Will this help? We’ll see.
—–
“So where do we start in all this collage of confusion, Baker Bloch? I know it has some order. I’ve read the interpretation now. I know several relate to Second Life. See? There’s Collagesity, or at least the sky tunnels.” She points to Boos 05 ahead of her, titled “Simpsons Road Bloch”. “There’s not one but two Wheelers in that one, Baker Bloch. Explain. What’s with the Missouri Wheeler?”
“I think it’s you. You were there… in Missouri. Except it was just more collage.”
“Was it?” She studies not the Wheeler on the road but the Wheeler just off the road, more hidden but still obviously a brother to the one on the road.
“This is the two sides of me, public and private. Working theory. The public is on the road and visible to all. The triangle of Simpsons, like a rack of pool balls, act as a block. The private Wheeler stands beside the road. Already veered off the road. There is dialog going on between public and private. They are aware of each other’s presence.”
“See? I told you this would help,” a reaffirming Baker says. “Two sides of you, yes. One on the road, one off. Blocked and unblocked. But are you Lisa (Simpson) as well?”
“Let’s just move around the gallery and see,” she replies.
—–
“Ahh, Davy Jones. *Davy Jones*. The bastard. That should’ve been me.”
“Are you not happy now with the Bowie name? It seems fate. Like your eyes.”
“Yes, my eyes as well. My name, my eyes. But what are he and Frank Zappa up to in this work, Baker Bloch? Spool tables? Army men? Peeping Bobs?”
“I think it spoke more of the Bigfoot art happening at the time,” Baker says. “And Head Trip. That’s one of yours now. The negative carrcass. Negative 7, I believe.”
“Yes, we’ll get to all those negative carrcasses in due time. Decide who of those old wankers we invite to the table. Obviously not Davy Jones. *That* Davy Jones. But maybe Zappa still. But that’s for a little later on. Let’s proceed since you don’t have any firm answers about that one.”
—–
“A Wheeler again. Traveling around a wheel. I think. Is this me going ’round in circles? Front and back and side and side? Revolving around and around? I think it could be.”
“Yes,” Baker responds. “And maybe why Davy Jones seems to spin the spool table in the former collage.
—–
“You need to get your finger looked at. I saw you attempt to shoot that (humming)bird a bird. You can’t hide collage from me. Not in my blue palace.”
“Well, why don’t we just back up one more collage, then,” responds Baker, “because Baker Bloch’s hand is hidden in that one. My father was asking about that one as well recently. Last month, I believe.”
“First of last month, yes,” Wheeler answers with more detail.
“He asked me why I was holding that meteor. But I’m not holding it. It just appears so from the perspective. Actually its plummeting from the sky, aimed directly for Fitz the Mouse’s head. He looks up in terror. But it doesn’t kill him, despite replacing his head for a time.”
“That silly 12 Oz Mouse of Carrcassonnee’s,” Wheeler says. “Not solid entertainment like those in The Bill. Zappa knows.”
“Okay. Then there’s The Martian to close out this floor. Boos 10. The one that blocked my father from seeing…”
“Me?” Wheeler suggests.
—–
“You know,” says Wheeler, back in the Table Room,” Karoz didn’t really go to Mars. Oh he brought back pictures, true, and he did go somewhere. But not apart from Second Life. One dead giveaway is the two Saturns in the sky. Two Saturns! Did that not arouse his suspicions?? But, anyway, it turns out one of the two is actually real and that’s the direction we need to take. We need to use that real Saturn’s gravity as a sling shot to deeper space and get to Muff-Bermingham. We can do it without the eye. But the trip will be risky. That’s why we’re sending redshirts.”
Baker looks over to Curled Paper, understanding why he’s here now.
“And the brother,” Wheeler adds, seeing what Baker is seeing.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0002, collages 2d, Heterocera, Rubi^
“You and I are the important ones to talk together. Please. Sit opposite me. Tell me what’s happening in Collagesity. Of course I can see some of it from my blue palace here. But tell me more. What’s over those green, green hills? How much power can I grant Carrcassonnee and not expect it to backfire on me? How do I *govern*? Advise please, Baker Bloch.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you know and then I’ll attempt to fill in the gaps. Attempt, I said there. We’re just starting this up.”
“Good advise already. We obviously must separate restricted and unrestricted. Restricted is my blue palace here. Done.” She makes a check gesture on the table in front of her. “Dammit, Curled, where’s my notebook. I requested a notebook.”
“Sorry mum,” says the giant light bulb topped Curled Paper to her side, not putting down his book. “I’ll run up to the Bodega market.”
“No, no, you just keep sitting there and reading, I suppose. I want to see more of the town changes anyway so I’ll go up there after our meeting.” She composes herself; shoulders relaxed. “So… that’s building the wall, as Carrcassonnee recommended before her untimely, um, shrinking.”
“I would agree you must make a private and a public appearance,” Baker responds.
“You’re several lines behind, Baker Bloch. Please keep up.” She stands. “*Now*. Let me just go over to my chart…”
“Curled Paper! No chart either? I asked this room to be prepared for my meeting with Baker Bloch. A very important meeting I might add, because this is the beginning. I gave you a list. Not a long list. We need to shape up…” She didn’t add the “ship out” part to this, attempting to curtail her anger at least a little. No one likes a total despot. Or a total bitch, she then thinks.
“And what’s this trash bag.”
“I was attempting to tidy up the room a bit,” replies Curled. “All the construction mess, you know. I guess I forgot about my list in the confusion. It won’t happen again mum.” But he still didn’t put down his book.
“It smells weird,” Wheeler says. She unties the bag and peers inside, reeling back from the escaping odor. “My God Curled Paper. Is that your… brother??”
—–
15 minutes later, Wheeler was still sitting silent in her chair, pondering what just transpired. Curled Paper then returned to the table after properly disposing of the trash bag and its contents. She didn’t talk to him. She stared at Baker Bloch, finger to mouth. Finally, she was able to let it pass and restarted the conversation with Baker. “So about this… DAMMMIT!” Hummie the hummingbird had flown in from the open door to Perch, droningly introducing itself as it darted from corner to corner. Baker got up and attempted to shoo it back out into Perch.
Success. Baker sits down again. Were they ever going to get to the important stuff this evening? he thinks. He watches as Wheeler rolls her eyes. Curled Paper has picked back up his book and started reading again, but with the title subtly changed. Baker decides to break the ice.
“Winesap,” he says, indicating Curled Paper. “It looms large.” Just like his brother use to, Baker realizes. Another block.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0002, Heterocera, Rubi^
Wheeler speaks to the mounted Perch.
“Sorry I couldn’t take you all the way to Muff-Bermingham, Perch, but this was just too good of a setup to pass on. I hope you’ll be happy here. I’ll *perch* Carrcassonnee on my shoulder and bring her up here sometimes for a visit, hehe. You can catch up then.”
“I am The Bill.”
“This is my town.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0002, Heterocera, Rubi^
Sunklands 