Old Reading Man and Little Reading Light were the first to arrive, and, big surprise, each whipped out a book from their deep pockets and began reading.
What LRL was scanning had more to tell. St. Croix’s Diamond Keturah, but the Keturah was missing. A seismic activity earlier in the day had temporarily erased it from the island’s map. But the name would return soon enough. Such things always do.
Later, Biker Jones and Ranger Johns guarded the entrance to the meeting room, keeping out riff raff like the “reading twins” as they jokingly called them. “This is an *action* room,” they said to Old Reading Man and Little Reading Light after arriving themselves, telling the the two to remain sitting in their seats and just keeping on doing what they’re doing and stay out of it.
Meeting room. Action galore. Tronesisia led the charge, but many more straggled in between 7:47 and 8:01, with Carrcassonnee the last to arrive, saying she’ll just, “squeeze her big butt in against the wall over here,” as she put it. So: Carrcassonnee lives!
Others present, going counterclockwise from Tronesisia: (floating) Wyn Galbraithe from Lapara, Cardboard Derek Jones (no relation to doorman Biker Jones that I know of), Redbot, Old Man Baby…
…. and then, continuing to circle around, Carrcassonnee, whom we’ve spoken about, then, er, I guess that’s Doogie Martin (?), then Grey Seal who just wallowed out of the nearby sea to join in, then Furry Karl (another resurrection?!), and then a figure most commonly called Pietmond Boy in the blog, I believe.
Let’s pause here before continuing the character introductions to gander at two art pieces on the wall, the first hung directly behind the seated Pietmond Boy. It might be familiar to regular blog readers, being, at the base, the same as the famous painting “My First Sermon” by John Everett Millais, mentioned in Martin Gardner’s “The Annotated Alice” as probable direct inspiration for Tenniel’s illustration of Alice riding in a train in chapter 3 of “Through the Looking Glass”.
But there’s some twists here. Parts of what appears to be *another* picture bleed through around the edges in mysterious, blobby patches. We see the image of several ducks — or at least their heads — just behind or beyond the seated girl, for instance.
And then on the opposite side of the door from this, a now sideways Bunneh 02 and his egg and candle holding cushion cover up what appears to be another figure, perhaps from a bathing beauty poster, say, like in a mechanic’s garage.
Then continuing our introductions, we have Ben Thar (Mr. Bean cutout, actually) beside the Bunneh 02 art, then Bluebot (counterpart to Redbot across the room), then Second Lyfe founder Philip Linden standing behind Tronesisia in the corner, and lastly Ross C., another robot who may be a servant or some equivalent to the central Tronesisia.
Out in the hallway, yet another robot, named Claude — a golden hued geezer made in ’25 — attempted to do the unspeakable to same just before the meeting (about 7:47). To excuse him *just* a bit, he *does* remember Tronesisia from Bennington when she was a mere pleasurebot and not the important and distinguished Collagesity novel character she’s known as today. But at any rate — and very justly of course — he was then promptly banned from the Meeting Room by Tronesisa who obviously spurned his advances. Get to reading the Collagesity graphic novels, Claude! Tronesisia has come a long long way from where she use to be back in those dark days.
Claude was only there because his perpetually smoking and toking brother Punky was acting as receptionist for the gathering out on the front porch. Claude had to drive his sibling around since he lost his feet in that rabbit tossing accident in ’92.
Punky was also known for his womanizing ways, and, similar to his brother, made little to no attempts at hiding it. Many times they had fought over the same “floozy dame”, as they sometimes labelled them.
In yet another room of the house, Original Eve (still macabrely clutching her dead child Oliver), Pigpen from the Grateful Dead, and couch sitting Norris/Harry waited for their chance to join in. It never came.
Nor did it for the 3d Venuses who just showed up at 8:15 with *way* too many friends and were barred from these kind of meetings for life.
Sunklands 