Category Archives: Canada

00500512 (The Sage Page)

“So there I am again. You can tell me by my bent up nature, just like an Ozian Wheeler traveling around on all 4s, and also bent to the rule of the Witch Mombi and perhaps the Nome King through her. Old Wheeler,” she summarized about the figure in the center of the collage before us, called “Crash on Mars.” Not because it depicts something crashing into Mars but because of another figure to the left of “Old Wheeler” called Crash who holds in his hand a giant fishing rod from our perspective, horses let out of a barn I suppose. She first brings him up in the next paragraph.

“(the 19th Century U.S. religious figure) David Brainard is seated in the foreground,” she continues, “who seems to be the same as (brainy) David Bowie, the Spaceman, the Man who lived on Mars. The Starman, as in Dark. Black. Look at the top. At the end of Crash’s fishing rod which passes through (the word) RUST.”

I saw the black star at the top of the work where Wheeler (*New* Wheeler) indicated, fronted by a blue-green hummingbird. I ask about it next, prefacing this by saying that it seems to me it should be a fish here instead. “What gives?” I end my query.

“Let’s turn to the next Bogota collage,” she replies and starts walking to our left, pulling up in front of it. I go stand beside her, basically shoulder to shoulder again so we can keep trying to see as one.

“More Life on Mars,” she says. “Remember when I told you to bring me Book 03 from the town library and place it on my table? Well there it is. It’s a summary of all knowledge, all books.” The collage changes.

“And there is the second part of the animation which is actually the first, showing my point. Lisa the Vegetarian is the Tungaske artist who absorbs it all — inputs it; eats it — and then provides an output for us to peruse and perhaps dig into deeper if we wish. Beyond surface reading, you see. Surface of Mars. Crash again in back, facing toward you this time — sans rod, I’ll add, with no horses around this go around. As if waiting for you to act. Can you act? How deep can you go? TBC

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0050, 0512, animation, Canada/Tungaska, Cement Village, collages 2d, Cricket, Google Street View, Jeogeot, MARS, Nawt Vaya+, NVFS

00500511 (through the trees)

“Sorry I’m late.”

Just in the nick of time.

“You don’t know it (*grunt*), but I’m helping you, artist of mine, from the Great Beyond (*grunt grunt grunt*). Hang in there (PANT PANT) Old Wheeler!”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0050, 0511, Boos, Canada, Canada/Tungaska, Google Street View, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya+, NVFS, Pennsylvania

00500510 (Pansy update)

Another Bigfoot spotted in not the US but Canada now, on Saskatchewan Street in Tugaske in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewatch, then! (Sasquatch + Saskatchewan) Or, better, Saskwatch, thinking of the abbreviation of the province’s name. I’ll recheck this area more later…

But first: the same town pictured in Boos again, as in gallery, as in Nawt Vaya Free State bordering the Nawt Vaya Sea in the western part of the Jeogeot continent of Our Second Lyfe. 3rd floor. Attempted vandalism of the art within, just like at the gallery formerly known as Concrete down by the sea in Cement Village. I suppose Boos is a part of Cement Village too since the front door opens in that direction (I’ll work on it). Is this the same vandal dressed in a hazmat suit now like he’s preparing for a journey inside the vast bounds of a Back Rooms situation? And what of the anime looking girl beside him. Accomplice? Turns out she’s merely working through him, as in a prop. Controller, then. That way the blame can theoretically be taken off her if needed. She’s only walking up to the vandal, wondering what he’s doing. Is this the artist of the work himself, here to make some late game changes or spiff ups? That kind of defense.

“Uh oh, keystone cops coming, Mortimer. We better switch over to our act. A-HEM. I SAID. What are you doing to this piece of ART here? Are you the ARTIST?”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0050, 0510, Back Rooms, Boos, Canada, Canada/Tungaska, Cement Village, Google Street View, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya+, NVFS

00500509 (… from Mars)

—–

“Well… there they are. Martian boos in equal parts black and white, amassing above poor little Tungaske from the east, buildings seemingly numbered for conquest purposes. City limits threatened to become cemetery limits; no one left to live here.

“Only the west can save them, switching dawn to dusk. Bigfoot.”

And so it went down in the small Canadian hamlet. Artists, thank gods for artists.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0050, 0509, Boos, Canada, Canada/Tungaska, Google Street View, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya+, New Island, NVFS, Omega

00470311 (level 9223372036854775807 = trap?)

I spoke clear and distinct into the Air. “I’m here looking for a BOOK.”

No answer for about 15 seconds, then:

“WE ARE HERE.”

I think that’s *Lauri*, I realized. I pondered what to say next. Simply repeating the request didn’t seem right. They knew.

I had to specify.

“31 pages with a 32nd ripped out,” I tried.

15 more seconds, then:

“CHECKING.”

10 more seconds, then:

“LIMITING QUERY TO PICTURE BOOK, 32 PAGES MAX. PLEASE RESTATE REQUEST.”

Picture book? I thought. I didn’t even know what that really meant. I assumed: children’s book. What children’s book did I know?”

“‘Little Black Sambo,'” I said once more into the Air.

2 seconds later: “THAT REQUEST IS NOT ALLOWED.”

O-kay, I thought. Good the library has some kind of racist filter, I suppose. Although someone old enough with a valid ID should be able to request the material anyway. Just then:

“PERHAPS SPECIAL COLLECTIONS CAN HELP YOU SELECT A PICTURE BOOK. OPENING A CONNECTION…..”

Hmmmm. Dare I? It would mean returning to the beginning of it all. Perhaps losing everything that’s happened since in the process. All those hard earned years of service.

Couldn’t do it. Like Denmark, something rotten went on there. 42. Bad juju.

I’d have to keep working from outside the system. Nibbling away on the periphery.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0311, Back Rooms, Canada/Picturetown

00420601 (Castle Town)

He often came here to rock and think about the battle of rock vs. paper vs. scissors, which for him was won by putting paper (1) before scissors (2) before rock (0). 102 if read left to right, with rock always in the center like the ground zero it is.

He hears a noise outside. It’s 3:25 in the morning — no one else up, he imagined. Except ghosts.

He stops rocking, gets up, leaving the maple leaf throw pillow behind and thoughts of Canadian Picturetown along with it. “Who goes there?”

The right Wendy walks through the door of the establishment…

… with her first words inside being: “This entrance has changed.”

It certainly has, thinks Barry De Boy, very happy at the sight. It certainly has. No demo over her head now; he was seemingly dealing with a real flesh and blood girl again. They can… well, you know. This is what boys think. Boys like De Boy.

“The gatekeeper said I’d find you down here. Said it was his last night to work, the last hour, the last minute. Said he was here for me and then he could go. He put a Help Wanted sign on the door as he locked up behind me. I turned around just in time to see him leave. Go figure. Guess I’ve found my work in town after all.”

“Wendy!” he exclaimed, not knowing how to follow it up. Shock!

“In the flesh.” She twirled around, showing him the different dress. “And blood I suppose, ha.” She approached him. Dare she kiss him this early? It’s been years after all. Instead: “Share a cup of coffee with me?” She tweaked him on the nose, a sign of things to come.

“Of course! Over there,” he pointed to a nearby table. “I’ll find the brew.” He started rummaging around the back of the counter. “As you can see, we’ve also turned the tables to the side.”

“We?”

“Yeah, Me and Grumpy. We run the place now. Or manage it — Stew’s still the owner. Technically I suppose.”

“So no jobs I suppose,” Wendy spouted as she took a seat. She so so didn’t want to be the new gatekeeper of the town. Boor-ing, she knew. She’d heard Devil Dave complain enough about it back in the day.

“No… sorry. Can’t can Grumpy, you see. He has a wife and two children now (!).”

“Who could have imagined.”

“I know.” He’d found the coffee. Now to make the concoctions. “Espresso alright? All I can find.”

“Yeah. Perfect, actually. Make mine a double. No… triple. What the heck, let’s go with 4.” Could be a long night, she knew. Lots of restaurant talk to get through, potentially. Lots of talk about success and then failure. Utter failure. All tests show 5% human DNA, PHEH. I’ll get that Okama Majo, she thought. If it’s the last thing I do.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0601, Canada, Canada/Picturetown, Castle Town+, Omega

00340110

“What did you do to him Jerry?”

“What did *you* do to him… Gerry?”

Pause. “Well whoever did whatever I’ve got to go on patrol. You can stay here and bare the stares — figure it out.”

“We could just go talk to him.” Both laugh. Jack would have no useful information to give the pair of security guards: what he’s apparently pissed off about with one of them or perhaps both of them, or anything about Ontario in general. He’s a bad ass, in a bad way. He does the bidding of the Big Boss and that’s it, period. Doesn’t share anything with no one except for the highest level, the Mayor, the King, perhaps merged now as the Mayor-King. Hafta check; hafta think about that. New angle. Maybe Mexico-Canada related.

“He’s got that gun shop, you know,” states Gerry before he goes to punch keys on his rounds. “He could be toting one right now, ready to go on a killing spree.”

“Nah,” offers seated Jerry. “Wouldn’t come to that. He’s a company man. Doesn’t want to ruin his standings in the hierarchy.” Jerry leans in closer to Gerry. “There’s a potential slot opening for no. 3, you know. The guy in the middle.”

“Not North not South — I’ve heard,” he says back not far above a whisper as well. Mayor-King it is.

Meanwhile, a duck-man on a neighboring rooftop had more useful information, but no one knew how to reach him, least of all Jem, who could use it the most right now. 3 more days and ticking.

Even John had forgotten and he invented the anthropomorphic fellow — let the SOB loose unto the world at large. Repeated cloning comes with a price, but I can’t remember what it is right now (wonder why).

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0110, Canada, Mexico, Wendy-Ontario-

00340109

The next time I saw Jack he was pushing me against the wall of a clothing shop I was examining in the plaza where the space pod took me upon exiting the station.

Didn’t take long for him — one of his selves that is — to give me a pointed message. Don’t meddle in the affairs of this town. Stick to the rules, the instructions as he called it. Play the game and then leave. Else everyone gets confused, fearfully so. And, most likely, violently so.

But I was determined not to leave without the information I *wanted* (not needed). I was ruthless like that. I didn’t know that, just underneath the surface, was an interplanetary and interdimensional conspiracy ripe for revealing. I had stumbled not into a bottomless pit this time but the unveiling of the face of God at the bottom of it, Mexico and Canada combined unto one.

Later Ruth showed up working the plaza’s coffee stand and I was back to need not want. Trouble is, John was there too, staring at me staring at her. She was aware of eyes on her but decided not to acquiesce — play hard to get, as her character demanded (she had a secret). And then another John passed in the distance but I missed it.

And then Jack shows up walking toward that clothing store again, pheh. Clones. Town’s full of ’em. I fit right in.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0109, Canada, Mexico, Wendy-Ontario-

Boos 27 and 26 (“2 Fer 1”)

“It’s one of the ones that we had to give up when we moved to Rooster’s Peninsula here, Hucka Doobie. But as you can see, there’s (Mr.) Bean, there’s Tom (Kite) — front and center here. Combined: Tom Bean.”

“Fascinating,” Hucka Doobie admitted. “So we go back to Tungaske? Canada?”

“Ontario at least,” replied Baker Bloch.

“Ahh. Picturetown.” Hucka Doobie suddenly felt sorry she/he wasn’t directly a part of those Canadian based collage series, the In and the Out. With his/her analysis, I mean.

Baker turns. “You seem to be changing back into a bee-man,” he observed.

“Admittedly I’m slipping. A bit.”

Poor Hucka Doobie. If you don’t nurture a character and pay attention to them, they tend to atrophy. Hucka Doobie became stuck on Baker Bloch, unable to deal with the stuff happening all around her/him. What does that say about me (though)?


flip side: elimination (obscuration) of Tom and Bean

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0407, Canada, Canada/Picturetown, Canada/Tungaska, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula

disattached from land

“Can’t you pull one of your Tungaske type miracles to save my village?”

“I’m afraid not. Too small.”

She shed a tear, perhaps with more to come. Probably so. These were scientist tears, the tough ones. “Hard to believe it’s gone.”

“No one under 18. Really nothing we can do [Eyela]. (pause) I’m sorry.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0033, 0314, Canada, Canada/Tungaska, Iowa, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Squared Root City-