Monthly Archives: June 2021

June 20, 2021 · 8:26 am

a farmer and his dog

They’re building a roadway to heaven, these Harmony Heighters, but it seems a long way from finished. Maybe the oldies and young’n’s can’t agree on a direction, wouldn’t it be typical.

The road begins here, just behind the Commons House.

“I’m not talking to you this morning, *kid*,” grumpily spoke just risen Jack Pants without turning around, digging into his first stack of sausage pancakes.

“No, I’m not talking to *you*, gramps,” responded up-at-crack-of-dawn sixteen year old Nick Barkley also without pivoting, having finished his blueberry yogurt and granola breakfast 3 hours ago and just staring into space and killing time before the typically delayed group meeting.

Nick got little sleep on account of Jack DJ’ing at the ranger house until 2:30 in the morning, starting with the traditional “B-I-N-G-O”, which the oldies sang with gusto at the top of their lungs after a completed game of same.

(to be continued)

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June 19, 2021 · 8:13 am

heavenly hooves

Concert tonight in Harmony Heights. The Rolling Joints, coming all the way over from Minnesota or Michigan, a long long ways indeed. They’ll obviously play their recently released hit single from the 70’s called “Money” to get to the root of the problem. This is a band with a strong political statement, and with their 3rd eyes squeegeed wide open, they know what it’s *all* about. Everything. They have a direct talk with God on at least a weekly basis, and I mean *direct*. Strangely he doesn’t appear to them as a flamey bush or a fiery, golden sphere or anything you would imagine, but a horned deer, a stag, claiming to actually be named Jon but without the usual “h”. He’ll yell something like, “get it the hell out of here!” when you insert such between the “o” and the “n” of his true, tripart title (they claim). “The 4th is not to be found anywhere upon my being or my soul!” Jon-God doesn’t like the number 4, and, in turn, usually leaves it out when he’s calling the citizens and denizens of Earth. Tip for the trippers, then: that’s how you know who’s dialing.

They hired these tree sized deer in order to appease their master. Twirling, early bird groupie Confusion Animesh obviously approves (stumble/*fall*).

The rest of the concertgoers will shortly be crowding the stage. The band will go on as soon as they finish talking to Jon.

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June 19, 2021 · 6:08 am

center star

“Kolya *does* rule this land. It’s as if it all takes place in his rain damaged head.”

“Upper part,” elaborates [delete name]. “The lower still belongs to bottles.”

“Okay,” I responded, happy for the half.

—–

“I need to get out of here, sir. I’ve tried air, I’ve tried water. I’ve even tried land.”

The old man chuckled. “You’re a funny one, Kolya. Drinking from a bottle. Talking about *leaving* here, heh. Why would anyone want to exit such peace and harmony? You’ve seen the waterfall that rules us all. We’re all under the umbrellas under the rainbow, safe and sound. Mama’s home. Good cook’n.” Marvin Baggy licks his lips and pats his belly satisfactorily here, then kicks his feet out, props them against the white porch railing of the ranger tower that has become a popular hangout for the old and feeble. Someone further north — or perhaps east — told Kolya he could get answers here. Maybe they were pulling a prank on him, especially since they told him to make sure to drink out of a bottle down there (or over there) and not a can. “That’ll give you away,” the man said to him, or perhaps it was a woman. A tomboy, yes, that was it, a grown up tomboy, Asian in race if not complexion, which was instead red.

“Ahh, I feel sorry for ya, stranger,” admitted the geezer on the porch of the tower, waiting for the others to show up. Bingo night tonight, and afterwards some kind of rave I’m sure. Always is. Sometimes the young’n’s (as they call them; some: whippersnappers) down at the bar have to complain about the noise and the lateness of it. Ahh, yes. Salty Bobs’ a sleepy place in comparison, full of stoners taking naps and druggies shooting craps. Dice are not that noisy if covered with fuzz, which they always are soas not to wake the stoners. Originally designed to dangle from the rear view mirror of your car, the ornaments have moved inside and reacquired their original purpose, shrunk down a bit in the process.

“Someone’s coming down from the old house, Nick,” spoke Gotham on the couch, probably already stoned out of his mind and thus the lack of a joint or bong. “I can *feel* it.” He lifts his arms in the air while still reclining, much like a clairvoyant does just before channeling a spirit hovering somewhere nearby, ready to enter the body. Gotham’s own body starts convulsing. It worked! He quietens down; he stares glazy eyed at the roof of the establishment, ignoring the sea barnacles and peering directly into the great beyond.

Nick Barton looks over, notices the grey in his beard. “Isn’t it about time you moved up the hill to the old folk’s place and livened up a bit? You’ll turn into a corpse just laying there like that!” Nick flushes and turns toward the crappers on the other side, emitting a small “sorry” for shouting.

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June 18, 2021 · 3:38 pm

d & b

“We have something, Hucka, er, W. Something not from the Oracle but directly from the land. BAT overlaps a southern wall of BATfield (sim) just beyond.”

(no answer)

“Here’s a link to this Bat d’ Af which I knew nothing about before. Probably, most likely, just an accidental overlap or conjunction, highlighted here through my photo.”

(no answer)

“Anyway:”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battalions_of_Light_Infantry_of_Africa

I wondered about Marilyn being involved too. Breezy.

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June 17, 2021 · 5:45 am

star laden

“This *arm* of the lake,” he spoke to me, well aware that his own arm represented the other at the moment, “is private, say, from the elbow down. But the shoulder to the elbow, where it’s glued to the rest of the body?: well, that’s something else. That’s where *I* fit in. And a good deal of others like me.” He looks to the water with this, and others of his kind dotted here and there. Like these fishermen, good men all, except for the one they call Blackbart staring in a different direction from the rest.

“Any of you boys got any… coke?”

“L-leave us alone, Blackbart,” spoke the stockier fisherman on the pier. Trying to ignore the just arrived renegade seaman, an ex special op naval medic discharged for mechanical reasons some say wrongly, didn’t work for the pair and now they would have to interact. “We’re just simple fisherpeople. We don’t deal with *cans*.”

“Or bottles,” spoke the other fisherman in a thinner voice to his counterpart. “It comes in bottles in this part of the country still. Bottles too,” he doubled down.

“Okay, okay,” exasperated Gemini Roadhouse McCutcheon Sullivan O’Reily. Most just call him Al, as will we. He was eager to keep the story moving, going past the whole bottle vs. can war of the 50’s and perhaps the 70’s as well, hard to tell because time was slipperier back then and had more variant arms to it. Like this particular arm of Starfish Lake, which some call the Starfish Sea because it is a pretty big lake, and could logically be bumped up on the scale of water body names. Up here, say, it’s the 70’s still, and cans are all the rage. Go past the elbow and suddenly you’re in the 50’s and the only Elvis singing on the radio is the white one. Bottles everywhere; they just threw them on the ground when done with their sodey pop back then. Littering was okay back in the day. Heck, they even made posters touting the benefits of such. Don’t have to hire garbagemen, a whole arm of the city workforce deemed unnecessary. An arm for an arm they said back in the day, which is still today past the elbow again mind you. Luther, the other fisherman was from up near the head hand of the arm (Hand o’ Arm), what they call Fingerboro, another fantasyland, then, I suppose. His mother father’s house was actually made from bottles, discarded waste put to use. The farsighted fisherman had glasses made out of bottle bottoms; his first hat was bottle caps stitched together to make a whole. Basketball? Try bottleball: it was a heck of a sport to try to keep up with with all the cracking and cutting. You’re lucky if your star kid came back from such a war with both his arms intact. But of course they could just grow another one if so.

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June 17, 2021 · 4:34 am

opposite sides of arms can be different

“Thanks for serving me bottles, guys. I don’t care much for cans, because of the name and all. Pepi “Can” Kolya at your service. I say that so you can see me for who I am, like friends.” It was here they noticed the holes in the head, and why this dude probably just missed his flight out of here to a fantasyland of his choosing. The Lake will do that to you; lull you to sleep. This Starfish.

“‘Nother one, bud?” asked one or the other, take your pick.

“Nah, better amscray. Gotta catch a 5:15 outta here.”

“6:15, now,” said the one that didn’t talk before, the other bartender. They may have been twin brothers but they may not be as well: picks again.

“Whattt??” exclaimed Koyla. He’d been following the wrong time zone, which was the right time zone before crossing the Centalia Line. He liked to be conveniently late but 1+ hours won’t hack it. He’d have to reschedule.

—–

“Another one bites the dust,” says Marion “Star” Harding to his Project Humboldt v1.4 CM plane, use to it. “Fantasy people, pheh.”

“I hear ya,” he imagined the plane saying back to him through his or her propeller.

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June 15, 2021 · 9:05 am

00270103

“Picturetown, huh?” He glanced back at his prospective new customer, unable to see the holes in his head from this angle. Well, he *does* take the flights that no one else will cover, including flying to imaginary countries, counties, and cities if needed. Last week it was Oz. Week before: Wonderland. One of the Alices wanted to go home to visit a sick aunt who might or might not be on her deathbed, hard to tell. But she had to find out. Then before that: he couldn’t recall. Maybe Texarkana. “Sure, I’ll do it,” he said, not wanting to delay his reply any longer, wanting to exude confidence that he could get the job done. He’s checked all the maps in the meantime. No Picturetown in Canada or anywhere else in the world. But he’ll get him there. All he needs is the coordinates, and he can get them from Chuck and his special computer tapped into the Lemon World, the one no one is suppose to know about. Chuck connects him to the fantasy lands, and for that he gets a hefty wage in *real* money, not that fake green crap they peddle at, say, Oz. Rubles, someone tried to hand him the other day after a flight to Borneo. “No rubles,” he said in return. “*Real* money,” and he kept his hand out until actual, metal coins were laid in it, signifying a completed sales transaction. Paper money doesn’t hack it for our Marion “Star” Harding, former ace pilot in the World Wide Web War, version 2.0. Since then they’d come out with 3.0 and he was back at his desk, back to being a private pilot specializing in the weird and even profane, like sneaking the elf hookers out of Santaland and back to Easter Isle where they belong. Bunnies, he thought here. Nothing but bunnies. “5:15 tomorrow okay for you?” he asked the prospective customer, working with numbers on his computer at the same time he thought all this other stuff.

“Sure.”

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June 15, 2021 · 7:31 am

two to know

He was waiting on his brother, who was coming up from the south.

Yeah, yeah, he thinks, I could *talk* to that white lady over there about my brother and also who she’s waiting on, if anyone. I’m a social guy, you know. But — look at that look — I can tell she doesn’t like black people, or is at least scared of them. Why if I moved over one chair closer to her she’d probably call the cops on me, even though I may have a perfectly good reason to do so. What if I just found out that cokey cola was spilled under my chair, and my shoes were getting all sticky as a result. Yeah, yeah, that could be a *legitimate* reason for moving one chair down. And, let me see (he glances over out of the side of his eye), that would still leave one chair between us. But, no, that darn white woman would probably call the cops on me, or at least airport security.

He simmers down, but then starts again when he catches her eye once more, just trying to look at the plane outside. Southern Cross, he thinks. I mean, the name was *right* behind her. What was I suppose to do? Get out of my seat, go to the window — *not* getting too close to her or walking too close to her in the process — and *then* check out the (plane and the) name? No, no, all this what they call *systemic* racism isn’t for me. As soon as my brother arrives we’re going to go back to my island resort and *stay* there. No more wandering around in public. I’m *through* with white people. Had it.

—–

Oh: an announcement.

Southern Cross representative: “We’re sorry to inform you that Flight 215 that was suppose to arrive at 3:15 with 415 passengers aboard…” He stops, putting his hand to his head, rubbing his eyes as if crying (he wasn’t).

Lance A. Lott gasps in the gap. Crashed? he thinks. All aboard — dead? Representative Johnson Protocol rustled his papers nervously here, starting to sweat. The droplets then make their way over his eyebrows down onto his cheeks, eventually dribbling down to the floor. To an outside observer, and knowing this was his first day on the job (thanks Uncle Stan!), it would be understood that he just lost his place and is searching for the right page that continues the announcement. But to L.A. (as his friends call him), the pause and apparent crying seemed to be a harbinger of bad bad news. Smokey dead! And that’s about all the family I have left.

“… is 515.” the representative finally continued, restarting at the top of page 2 which contained only these 2 words. Anxiously stacking his papers against the podium, he takes his leave with this.

515? he thinks. Wtf??? He looks over at the white woman, who doesn’t seem to be very concerned. Does she know what this means? Does she even care? Is she waiting on someone from this flight? Maybe she’s just happy *she* wasn’t on that plane. Maybe she knew someone was going to die today here and is just relieved it isn’t her. Strange thoughts. Must be from that horror movie he watched the night before. “Losst”, it was called, with an extra “s” to emphasis that all the people in the show, yes, were really, truly lost. “We get it,” he said at 1/2 past 6, stuffing more buttered popcorn between his lips and thinking he should get to sleep early this night so that he can rise at the crack of dawn and go wait for his brother over at the regional airport. My long lost brother, he thinks. Another lost angel. Peter from the show falls down into a camouflaged cannibal trap in the middle of the jungle, giving him a chuckle. But enough: *switch*. TV off.

The white lady looks at him now, even leans toward him. She’d heard the gasp, seen the confused look on his face. “515” she measured out. “It means delayed.”

“Oh.” Lance A. Lott wipes sweat from his own brow with this, trying to act like he at least *thought* that’s what it meant. She returns to her start position, which means systemic racist position. Don’t come any closer, the posture and attitude warned. Or I’ll call the cops or at least airport security. I’ve given you the information you need, you dirty [blank]. Now we are done.

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June 13, 2021 · 10:49 am

Lost Angel

We begin where the last one ended. On a map of Nautilus continent in my Collagesity skybox, the full view this time. Because this go ’round we’re going to tackle the whole thing. We’re not at one of of those nodal photo-novels yet but we’re closing in. Preparations must be made. Alysha jumps off the pin representing NO Tor and proceeds northward, intending to find Ruby the tall, green alien, perhaps Martian but also perhaps not. The qualified doctors would know, but Dr. Mouse the unqualified as it turned out, doesn’t have access to that information, that file. Ruby Alien remains, thus, a…

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June 13, 2021 · 9:24 am

secret schweet

And so we end where we began: on No Tor hill in Leemington seen in the distance in that last photo, following young Alysha around again searching for that ship of hers.

The hill is like an ant to her, in that she is her ant. She crawls forward, scrambling to the top, eager to have a better perspective on which to build further, view farther. Let’s zoom in.

Just gotta get up over this rock, *ugh*, and smooth sailing.

Good. She’s at the peak. Now to ratchet out the draw distance to the max and see what we have. MAX

She’s happy she can peer beyond the Green Between from Lower Austra into Upper Austra, most likely where Ruby Alien will be released day after Wednesday’s yesterday. I believe it will be the 5th. Doctor Paul Mouse will cave into local pressure and bring her to the proper authorities, meaning the actual, qualified doctors who are able to deal with such things. Check her out, let her go. Maybe she’ll make her way into the great, empty city of Perch-Mistletoe, she thinks it is called, a doorway between dimensions where one kisses another and won’t let go. She knows this is the two sides of herself, 13 to 13, evened out now; Nautilus (continent) complete. But it won’t be in this photo-novel.


Perch-Mistletoe

The continent remains a conundrum, a mystery. 32×32 sims, 41 times the size of Collagesity’s localized 5×5 we just exited back there. And that 5×5 is hard enough to understand as it is (!).

Alysha and SEAN Green, Mr. Michigan, look to one of the far corners filled out in the past two novels, with more Nautilus fun to come. NW NE SE and, with this one, SW. Jeffrie Phillips in a Santa outfit floats on Little George Lake — or just Lake — waiting for 2 blue eyed pools to become one blue eyed pool so that he can proceed with the examination of the Arkansas book, which appears to be the same as the Oracle. He’s taken it back to Collagesity still in the middle of it all, or at least Lower Austra. He’s starting to study it intently, with help from sometimes wife, sometimes girlfriend, always lover Charlene the Punk Brown, currently rocking a hot pink babydoll for him. They’ll probably remain childless though; he has too many mistresses on the side, which Charlene allows now, or rather puts up with. *Barely*.

She takes off the babydoll, intent one more time to get Jeffrey to forget about all those others.

END OF “COLLAGESITY PHOTO-NOVEL 26”!

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