Category Archives: MAPS

April 19, 2025 · 8:46 pm

00460405

I took another day off to explore the town more. I’d taken a lot of days off lately. Perhaps I was already pretty bored with the mayor’s job, I don’t know. I found myself wandering… and wondering. Here I sit in Downtown’s subway station watching a train that never stops. Where is it going? Where’s it been? Never here apparently, or never gathered people here or dropped them off. I move on…

… to an abandoned petrol station, wandering and then wondering about the name Clyde on the window over there behind the tires. I knew the town was formerly called Blue Ball or Blue Balls so that didn’t seem to fit, despite the name Clyde being applied to a lot of towns across our fair country of America back in the day. Like one in Ohio where famed American author Sherwood Anderson grew up, along with U.S. independently affiliated senator and so-called father of the TVA George Norris and a couple of other famous people, including a Civil War Union general I can’t recall the name of.

I know, I’ll go ask Charlene. But maybe Emily would be a better target, having been here in The Burg longer. What’s her story, why did she move off the Makah Indian Reservation after being raised there? Something about Wolvie? — probably something about Wolvie. So that ropes in Charlene who’s the sister of what clearly is a shapeshifter in this here town, probably a werewolf by the sound of it. And he recognized me (!). In that service station with the black and white wolf poster over in Juho. I wonder how Newt is doing over there (her thoughts deflect). I wonder if he’s done anything with Newtonia since I’ve been… away.

That graffiti artist over yonder (she triangulates between useless subway and abandoned petrol station, a right one it appears). Maybe they will know something about Clyde. Worth a try.

She approaches, notices the cigarette in both his mouth and spraying hand at once. James Smoker he quickly becomes in her mind. Until she learns the truth.

(to be continued)

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April 19, 2025 · 7:43 am

00460404

She was already absorbed in preparing for another case with an appropriate upgrade of clothes for a richer client. “Goodbye Ms. Brown. Do you need Wanda to help you back to the teleporter?”

“No, I’m good. Thanks!”

—–

“And so that’s how the whole thing started, the whole investigation thing,” Charlene began wrapping up her story told at the Uptown Bakery after the town meeting, Downtown having no such establishment and thus no option for them to support fellow Downtown businesses in that way. But, then again, Uptown has nothing like Emily New Moon’s adult oriented video store or Charlene’s records store specializing in vintage vinyl. “Sending Wolvie potentially up the Big Creek,” she continued, “but, lucky for us, wink wink, only resulting in probationary work. With me, ha. Working on my film along with Roberts. With her encouragement, I’m upping the bigfoot debunking angle. She’s got some major players involved now, bringing in some big money. We could be looking at Hollywood box office hit, Emily. I’m talking major leagues, Cincinnati Reds stuff. No more Louisville Cardinals.”

“That’s sounds fabulous,” said Emily to her friend, her lover on odd nights of the calendar with Wolvie taken even and them taking turns with the first day of the month, those always being odd and so stacking the *odds* in Charlene’s favor. They worked it out in a way. And then there was the problem of the full moon for Wolvie. Speaking of which, there’s one tonight…

“You know Wolvie’s right,” Emily New Moon said to Charlene after a couple more bites of her donut, trying to frame the words correct in her head. “Bigfoot’s real. It’s (munch), common knowledge on the Makah Indian Reservation where I was raised. My Aunt Whistling Bark saw them, or at least heard them. She was just unloading her trash at the Sooes Creek Dump. Recorded the sounds on her phone even.” She pulls out her cell phone from a back pocket. “Here, I think I have them saved—”

“No need, Emily. I know they’re real.”

“You *do*? Then why act this way? Why accept, I mean, you’re being *persuaded* to debunk the… I mean, um.”

“I know what you mean. You just have to trust I have a plan. Like *you* have a plan for your Blue Moon Kentucky video tape. Paired pet projects we can call them. You have withheld secrets and so do I, wink wink.”

—–

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of town in its Park District, Wolvie locks himself in and prepares for the long night ahead.

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April 13, 2025 · 5:00 am

00460315

Wheeler first heard the term Blue Balls while on the toilet reading about it in a conveniently placed local history mag. Being an excellent writer because of all those professor papers, Charlene “The Punk” Brown had no problem getting an article published — with permission from her sometimes lover and owner of the actual (tape) object Emily New Moon of course. As it turns out, the name originates from the Blue Balls Hotel, built more than two hundred years ago and which stood on the southwestern corner of town, right where the ice cream vendor Newt and she were eating at just several days back. Make that several weeks back as I’m checking. The builder, John Wallace — by chance the father of Builder Bob often noisily working on those pipes just outside Emily’s video store to her irritation — hung a blue ball out front, calling it “The Sign of the Blue Ball”. Locals soon began calling the town Blue Ball after the inn, which soon turned into Blue Balls as another ball was added to the first when no one was looking or paying attention.

But wait there’s more. The town’s name has a suggestive second meaning according to the 2nd paragraph of that article, identical to the slang term “blue balls,” which refers to, according to Charlene’s text, “the sexual condition of temporary testicular and prostate fluid congestion due to prolonged and unsatisfied sexual excitement.” After an initial leak by Marg “The Town” Gossiper, word spread quickly. A town meeting was speedily organized, a new name demanded. “Well, if not Blue Balls, then what!?” George “The Grill” Foreman called from in back of the rowdy, crowded room on the second floor of what soon became the town hall building, prompting mumblings of “What are we going to call this burg?” all around. No one could come up with a replacement name. And thus they settled on The Burg for lack of creativity or any other option. “Call it what it is,” finished Tom “The Surface” Smith. Oh, and then they all went over and burned down John Wallace’s Blue Balls hotel along with its offensive sign to seal the deal.

Wait! More (3rd paragraph). Left in the ashes of the catastrophe was a fireproof safe holding the most valuable of John’s valuables (he had many). And in that safe amongst diamonds and rubies and gold bars and gold bonds and the like was found the actual reason for the establishment’s appellation, a sex tape to be short, starring a young, novice actress in the field soon to become a much much bigger name in another. “And the name of that young actress,” Charlene finished part 01 of her promised 2 part article, “is none other than, get ready! (to be continued)”

*Fascinating* read, *friend*, Wheeler sarcastically and playfully thought about the cliffhanger while putting down the mag beside the toilet and finishing her business here. Now to get over to town hall and see what she’s facing in her 1st day of managing this here crazy town… *burg*!

But the subject would not go away, hmph. An envelope labeled “Paradise Found?” with a map of a certain Pennsylvania county all marked up inside laid atop the mail heaped up on her desk that morning, big pile courtesy of outgoing and not-giving-a-damn-on-her-last-day Electra. Sent by Charlene of all people. “Come see me,” indicated a handwritten note also within, along with the address of her records store down in Downtown (this was Uptown). Like Wheeler didn’t know that bit of information already, ha. And so on what she planned to be at least a 2 hr. 1st day lunch break that’s exactly what she did.

Blue Ball here on the map and not yet Blue Balls, you’ll notice. That might be a key — we’ll see.

(to be continued)

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March 27, 2025 · 9:45 pm

00460213 (power)

“Sir?” (pause) “Sir?”

“Oh yes, young Fink,” distracted Newt finally acknowledges his presence at the door to his study. “How’s it going? Everything alright with the computer upstairs and all?” He didn’t look at Fink Humann, kept staring at the screen of his own computer.

“Yes, fine sir,” said Fink. “It’s just that it’s 7 o’clock. Time for me to leave. I’m saying goodbye is all. Like, er, like I do every time I come over here… at this time.”

Newt checks his watch not on his arm, gives a little start. “Oh dear, didn’t realize it was so late. Better wrap this up. Well, er, thank you, Fink, for telling me the time and the lateness of it all. And I suppose I’ll see you again… tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is a big day, sir.”

“Please, Fink. You can stop calling me sir. You’ve come over, what is it, almost every day for the past 2 weeks?”

“Except that Sunday when Jack and I went plane flying, yes.”

“We’re friends now,” emphasized Newt from his chair. “Come over here, actually — I know it’s getting late and you need to get back to the treehouse but I — I want your opinion on this. I’m serious. Here.” And Newt waved him over, which he complied with. “What do you see?” he asked as Fink Humann also stared at the monitor with him.

“That’s er, your wife,” said Fink, seeing her image dominating the screen. Fink knew this was Wheeler now and not another form of their precious Princess Pinky Gumm. Wheeler herself told them that during a visit the other day to their treehouse.

“No, *behind* her. What do you see on the wall over there?”

“Um, JEO — GEOT,” he read on the poster. “Jeogeot,” he combined.

“Very good. The continent we’re now on.”

“Jeo-geot,” Fink repeated. “Jeogeot,” he collaged again.

“Yes,” said Newt. “Fine and dandy. But what else is there?”

“Um… people.”

“People, yes. And…”

“Dinos.”

“Dinosaurs, right. Aannd…”

“Um, an elephant?”

*Elephant*? Newt thinks. Does young Fink here not know what a giraffe is?? But then Newt realized Fink had inadvertently given him the answer to the riddle he’d been pondering so deeply about all this afternoon and early into the evening. The phone rang on his table. Wheeler obviously, Newt thought without checking the number.

“Thank you again, Fink. We’ll be talking soon.” He pats him on his shoulder to signal their time was done.

“But not tomorrow,” Fink says while walking out of the study, making Newt realize that tomorrow was the day mechanical contraption Bimbo was suppose to arrive from Fink and Jack’s native Oooo. Fink might not be coming around as much after that, and perhaps not at all. He’d miss the lad if so. Perhaps there was another way, hmm. He finally answers the phone that’s been ringing all this time.

“Where *are* you?” Wheeler emits.

Where are *you*? Newt wanted to say in return but knew it didn’t matter. Could be anywhere in the world… or nowhere. He’d find her whatever. Just up the stairs from down. “Be right there,” he said not into the phone but in the air all around.

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February 18, 2025 · 10:32 pm

00460103 (core issue)

The building where our Peter Bergmann, with two n’s, stayed the last nights of his life was called, generically enough, the Sligo City Hotel, soon changed to The Address but with the same one. Interesting that a sign pointing in its direction on the other side the street from the bus stop — where it just so happened Bergmann wrote his mystery word or sentence or whatever he subsequently ripped up — is positioned directly above that hand-with-pen in this June 2018 Streetview screenshot.

Switching back to the 2024 Streetview photos of that mural, the most recent as I write this, we see the pen pointing directly to a bicycle in the parking lot before it from this perspective, specifically its seat. Personal sync here: the wife and I were just playing around with adjusting a bike seat at a local gym the day I found this pen in a Sligo mural pointing to same. I instantly recognized the connection. I’d started going to the gym, and taking up stationary biking in particular, to attempt to heal a fairly long lingering back issue, longer than usual in my history of such ailments. Set your rear down here to get healed, the mural seemed to indicate in a queer triangle of associations. And as I write this, the back seems to be healing up. I can move on — by staying stationary? Also time to get on the move again, as in moving outdoors from the gym.

But not before strengthening the CENTER.

(to be continued)

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February 18, 2025 · 3:08 pm

00460102

The pen he used to sign in to the hotel registry produced not his actual name, though, but a pseudonym, not quite a pen name since, as far as I understand, he wasn’t an author on the sly, although he did write down something else later on at the town’s bus station and then promptly rip it up, in all likelihood not even classifiable as a tiny poem so brief was the scribbling. Peter Bergmann was not the real name of the person standing before the hotel clerk jotting that name down. Nor was his address “Ainstettersn 15, 4472, Wien (Vienna), Austria”, which he also claimed through the same pen on the same piece of paper. Instead here we have someone who wanted to remain anonymous, bound to perform a task that would complete a life no one in the public eye would perhaps ever find out about, set aside these final 4 days. Beginning here — actually beginning in Derry where local CCTV footage also recorded him entering the bus that would take him to Sligo 135 kilometers away in the west of Ireland.

Peter Bergmann never existed, or, better, never existed as the person who came to Sligo, Ireland from his native land to die. And he made darn well sure no one would ever know his real identity.

What happened next? Among the most interesting events: 13 trips out of the hotel carrying the same purple bag which left full but came back, well, not even empty but even visible.

Purple. Hiding something. Keep that in mind.

(to be continued)

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February 17, 2025 · 5:01 pm

00460101

BEGINNING OF “SUNKLANDS PHOTO-NOVEL 46”!

So eventually I was able, with repeated shoves, to physically push Tobor out of the water and onto the shore until he seemed to kind of settle himself directly on the line between land and sea, my first big indication of what was going on here although I didn’t know it at the time. It could be construed I was saving the figure from drowning, but, if so, that’s certainly not the full story. The guy was dying, that’s a fact. And he seemed to be going out on his own terms. But something happened at the shoreline, something quite unexpected. He didn’t have to *choose* the way he was heading and was so hesitant to accomplish. He could simply wait on the shore for death to come to him. *I*, through character Greg Ogden here, had created that option, that scenario. Soo… who am I?

—–

So we’ve started “Sunklands Photo-Novel 46” with this figure directly trodding the line in his odd gait between sand and tide. Time to reveal who he is.

No, not *that* Peter Bergman. Or Bergmann if you use the Austrian spelling of the surname, where he claimed to be from. Although that’s what first caught my eye about the name when a related video popped up in my algorithmically generated Youtube feed, being a big big Firesign Theatre fan since back in college days. More on that soon. No, instead it’s *this* Peter Bergmann, seen here checking into a Sligo, Ireland hotel via CCTV footage on the evening of June 12, 2009, 4 days before his death in the same area. Cause of death? Heart attack. *Not* drowning. Keep that in mind.

(to be continued)

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February 8, 2025 · 9:11 am

00450615

He finds himself going backwards, back into Vijlin and reversing from the plane that couldn’t be there, fire still on shoulder…

… but not for too much longer, as he deposits it back on the ground in Echt. Shoulder cool, shoulder cool! Thank the Gods.

Distraction absent, he realized he’d missed something. Not silver (car)…

… not copper.

At Wessem, he hops back into the canal looking for the missing thing, heading for that Ell Bridge separating 8 and 9, he knew. Rail accident; something amiss.  Soon enough he was there, and leapt back up on the bridge with a reverse splooshing sound and out of the canal, back to the rail where he observed it from above, heading southeast to the corner of The Netherlands. A place he’d never reach now. No burn, no burn!

He quickly turns to find the gold car. Waiting.

Backwards talk from the car but he knew what was going on now, and that he had about 10 seconds before it reversed itself off the bridge, back back back to Amsterdam or thereabouts where it came from. Gold found, gold found! he cried within. And jumped in. Time suddenly started to move forward again, Mikie greeting him with the words: “Excellent choice, Philip. Now we can go home.”

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February 8, 2025 · 9:10 am

00450613

Inside the fence now, wire cutters successfully employed to fulfill the dream duty needed. Let’s find out what’s in that building.

Definitely the Data Hall, good — the right place. Now to go deeper; more inside.

Internal passageway revealed by pulling this lever? Why not? Must see this through to the end since I’ve gotten this far. Alarm clock not set to go off until 9. 8:45 now. I have a bit of time left. But what’s time in a world like this that time’s forgotten? Not much.

Ahhh! A human! Sliding out from within those banks of computers; almost woke me up 7 minutes too early with his appearance but not quite. He speaks (!):

“Jack Shepherde’s not mad at me is he?” he begins cryptically enough. “I was just looking at the computers to see where all my favorite people went to. It’s been a long time since I read computer works, though, so I can’t figure out how to get their location out of the machine. I think it’s time for me to go home. Thank you for opening the door.”

And with that he glides past me in his slidey way with no steps required and down the passageway I came in through and out the front door as I followed him as best I could. I then went back to the room with the computers but the door was closed again, and immediately when I pulled down the lever like I did before, the alarm went off, RIIIIIING. I awoke in something of a sweat, knowing I didn’t have the information I needed. 9:01. Better get dressed for breakfast. Linda coming over at 9:30. Should take a shower too but it’ll be close. And at any rate, hair will be wet when she arrives because of no time to dry. Wet’s not good. Shower can wait. Slap on some deodorant, brush my teeth, drag a comb across my head and I’m good.

(to be continued)

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February 7, 2025 · 7:32 am

00450612

So we come to the point in our story where we have to ask: Are any of these various lines of seemingly disparate plots and sub-plots connected to some kind of central power source? Or do they all just dead end before reaching any said source? Well, I think Our Second Lyfe or My Second Lyfe still provides the juice to all this in a strong way. It may not be where I’m heading but it’s where I’m from, the photo-novels as a whole originate. So let’s put that in the middle, like a house a toddler or child might crawl or walk out of one day to find a brave new world outside full of fresh mystery and intrigue. After that, he’s kind of finished with the house or at least he thinks he is. Out There becomes the most important, like stepping through a door and leaving an old way of life behind. Crawling to walking to running… and then back to walking and then, finally, crawling (to the grave). So what is *outside*? And what are the levels of outside? When we reach a circle around this center where real cannot be distinguished from virtual, do we stop and take in the view?

Or do we just continue down the summit to the other side? Both I think. Let’s move forward. With wire cutters.

(to be continued)

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