Category Archives: 06

00420612

It took a supreme effort for him to break away from the Big E or, alternately Big Schwa always sitting in the middle of his Aisle of Palms’ Kidd Tower dining table, ready for further examination and scrutiny. But he did it; returned to his hometown and his Bach/Reger/Kajiura played on a silver cello purchased in the Isle of Love. He played to his loving doll Mob (pronounced: Mobe), who listened with rapt attention as usual.

Good ol’ Mob. He misses her when he’s away… plus the cats big and small of course. And he just f-ing needed to get away from the band for a while. No Lag was pushing them in a classical direction, Shelley was pushing them in a rock direction, Don just wanted everyone to call hogs like him, like the kid he is. Be like me! he indicated all the time with his actions and speech. But bar manager Martha Lamb wanted him there as a kind of front man and bar owner Bull Dragon (or Dragon Bull; *not* Ball Dragon or Dragon Ball, though) went along with it, seeing the appreciative crowds. Maybe they’re getting *too* big, too popular, thought Okama not once but a considerable number of times in the last week as they did nightly gigs to growing audiences. Poor opening act Marsha “Pink” Krakow who wanted to be a Ball herself wasn’t hacking it, though. He felt sorry for her, was *envious* of her even. Furniture comedy, he speculated at the time, watching her perform only for the ogling Thompson Twins if anyone at all. Like Satie had his furniture music. “Pay no attention to us musicians,” the eclectic Frenchman spoke to audiences of his day, over 100 years ago, so far ahead of his time. He said to just enjoy the pieces of the art gallery they were playing at, and so on. And so it is with Marsha but in a kind of reverse way. “Just enjoy the musicians on the stage over there; pay no attention to me,” she seems to broadcast lately. A conceptual art comedy piece in the style of Kaufman or maybe Hicks. But certainly not like iconic 50s star Lucille Ball as she originally desired, one of the greatest of all female performers period. This was undesired art but maybe she’s seeing the irony of it. He’ll have another word with her about the whole, er, *concept* when he gets back. But he needs to stay here for at least a week to calm his nerves. He needs to stay away from the Kidd (Tower) and he needs to stay away from the kid (Don).

Knocks downstairs. Wendy has arrived at her destination. Confrontation time; brace yourself Okama!

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0612, Big Woods, Jeogeot, Kangerootown+, Kidd Tower, Omega, Xilted

00420611 (“dozen”)

I’d just reached the chapter about Flying when the call came in (again). Brrng brngg, went the imaginary phone on the pretend desk downstairs, distracting me.

7 times. 8. “Will someone get that gall blasted phone!” I shouted through the floor at apparently no one. Who’s here with me? Shakespeare?

11; 12. “Will someone *please* WAKE UP down there and get that phone!!”

—–

Someone woke up downstairs, sauntered over, bedroom slippers lazily sliding over the marble checkerboard floor. The receiver of the phone is picked up, the ringing stops. Someone says “hallo?” into it at the same time Baker Bloch upstairs yells “Thaank — yoou!!”.

Mention of Antarctica from the other end. Both Antarctica and the Arctic actually, both poles. It was as if the voice slid down one and then up the other, back to his cozy fire to finish his book. At least that’s what Baker Bloch was imagining upstairs as he started chapter 13 for real.

—–

Evening comes to the hotel in Shamon and Baker has finished his book. No calls downstairs since the pole one, leaving him in peace instead of pieces. Poor Baker Bloch. But he remembers how to fly now. Spaced Ghost.

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00420610 (fire and nut (2 crackers))

He began doing some independent research on the subject, starting with Orgamast which led him here. “My you’re a tall one,” he said to his companion also staring out at the Korean Channel sim. “Why I barely come up to your Tropic of Cancer, hmm. Are you that tall so you can see the sim of Orgamast to our west better? Do you know of Big Schwa/Big E? Are you big because of *it*?” He halted this fantasy line of inquiry, knew he was, of course, talking to a dummy, a manikin all the time. Not real; not even an NPC really.

But boy was he happy about his view. Reminded him of his ex, the only woman who could have it multiple times that he knew about or was involved with. Eve was her name I believe. Unless it was Wilma — no, not Wilma. Jenny? Argent? Tina? Argent Tina, yes, silver like the moon and just as slippery. Barely remembered her name.

“Argent?” Okama Majo pronounced clearly below him to make sure he heard correctly. “Tina?”

“That’s right,” spoke the dummy who actually couldn’t do so.

“Hmm.” With his more limited range, Okama stared at the round, green hills before him and then beyond toward the sea, the channel itself. He decided to get a better view from that watchtower just outside the window, leave the stiff behind.

There. That’s better. But What The?

An invisible typewriter?

He finds the correct fingering through the highlighting red after inserting an imaginary piece of paper and begins to type a story about Argent Tina and how they did it, extending his draw distance between paragraphs so he could look at the intermittently erupting Ichelus Volcano visible to the northwest. Inspiration!

But he wasn’t the only one doing so, it appears. Argent Tina herself, perhaps? Is that why the dummy is smiling? “She’s right *there*, in the fire, like the firecracker she is,” he might say to a tippy-toed Okama if the researching psychedelic artist hadn’t left his side so quickly. “Just ask. You don’t have to make up *anything*, he he.”

Ah yes. He remembers how they did it. Ray Davies style. If only the current Mrs. Dummy would see eye to eye with him on this as well. Oh well. There’s always memories.

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00420609

He caught up with some reading while she was gone, the cafe having a nice selection of books in back of the bar — 3 tall bookcases full. He was interested in travel books, since he was stuck in Castle Town for a while, unable to leave because of several physical conditions plaguing him at once. Mr. Goldilocks, Wendy liked to call him, because up top he was susceptible to cold while down below: the heat. The waist, she pointed out, represents the equator, the only place things are right. Too bad you can’t live there perpetually, she says. Between the Tropic of Cancer (points to chest) and the Tropic of Capricorn (points to private parts) where it’s not too hot not too cold. Great Belt she also called it for reasons unknown presently.

So because of this Barry stayed behind; didn’t venture with Wendy to Kangarootown to confront Okama Majo once more about his seemingly dirty tricks at the time. Cats’ litter boxes unclean, he knew. Ran out of “burny sticks” as she said he called them, so the place was cold when she and mayor Golden Jim arrived — stank like urine too. But this was her beef, her karma, he said to make another excuse besides the bodily conditions. “You’re the one who has to make two wrongs a right,” he said to her before she left, tickets in hand. “Last chance,” she said back. “The sky ferry is only half full last time I checked. You can sit by my side. I’ll help you with your issues, pass you an ice pack when you need it, a hot water bottle when you need that instead or in addition.” “In addition, yeah,” he said, knowing he’d often need both at once. But he’d already made up his mind: he wasn’t going. He had books to catch up on, videos to watch as well back in his topside apt. graciously provided by the town council. For he was something of a cult hero in these here parts, having famously saved the city of NWES City over on the Jeogeot continent from, let’s call it, abstraction. Drew it back into the real by drawing the real. One work of genius popped out after another. Soon everyone remembered why their town — nay, their *city* — was so great in the first place. The buildings, the people, the food, the arts, the crafts, the beaches, the sand, the sun, the *fun*. He must go back there too.

If only he could get rid of these bodily issues once and for all, pheh.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0609, Castle Town+, Great Belt, Kangerootown+, Omega

00420608 (kenbaiki (ticket to ride))

She’d seen enough of Castle Town for now. She was buying a sky ferry ticket back to Kangerootown from whence she came. She’d heard through the grapevine that keyboardist/DJ Okama Majo had returned to his cat house there, taking his own break from Aisle of Palms and the Dream Emulator band he’s part of with classically trained guitarist No Lag V, hog calling kid Don without a last name, and animated singer Shelley Johnston Struthers who has 3 to make up for it and who specializes in Lennon songs like “Strawberry Fields” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and the like. But despite that, Okama named the band, not her. All because of his artistic hero Osamu Sato, so close to his own. Too close. Shelley’s found that out too. “You’re *him*,” she said recently during an acid drop sponsored by LSD, tripping the light fantastic and drawing truth from every corner of the universe, only to forget the vast vast majority of it later, of course. Gray Man works in all dimensions when you’re on that stuff; perpetual darkness. Must – stay – away, she thought to herself afterwards. No more sheets.


on her way!

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00420607 (05 and 06)

Perhaps the last major building has been manifested in Aisle of Palms: the original version of the Edwardston Station Gallery, holding the entire “Art 10×10” of 100 collages I created in 6 series from 2004 to 2009. Not the prettiest of structures with its plain cubic form, admittedly, but effective in its role. 6 floors, 6 series, with all but 2 and 5, or Rose Hill and Hidalgo respectively, holding 20 collages apiece. Those 2 floors/series contain 10 in contrast. I’ll get to what occupies the other 1/2 of the 2nd and 5th floors in a bit.

The immediate prompt for me rezzing this structure is that I wanted to show Newt (or whoever) that the fox-to-dog conversion of Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate in St. Dennis recently was seemingly preordained. The Yale-*Newt*on series of the “Art 10×10,”  its 3rd, dates from 2006, going on 20 years ago at this point. Gosh, where have the years gone (!). Anyway, when we reach the 4th collage of that series we come to this dualism again: fox vs. dog or, more precisely, fox against dingo, for the orange dog of the work, titled “Outfoxed?”, is suppose to represent such, as the orange-ish dog in St. Dennis is in kind.

Then in the next two collages of Yale-Newton, making a type of animation with each other, we see the fox and dingo again, the in-taking of water if you will (“Diamond Dog”)…

… and then the release of same back into the atmosphere (“Coasts is Clear”), as the original Diamonds sign on the roof of the depicted restaurant bearing the same name is multiplied 16-fold and becomes a country unto itself, let’s say — our country, built up from the middle, this Diamonds Restaurant in a central state of Missouri, until it extends ocean to ocean. A seed becomes a tree.

And then in the next collage, the 7th of the series (“Here’s Lucy”), we come to another depiction of the word “diamonds”, now in connection with the initials LSD like in the famous John Lennon song we saw Shelley Struthers singing earlier in her band audition at Bull’s Bar in this here blog and attached photo-novel, 42 in number now of course. So I have a feeling this could reference Osamu Sato’s LSD Dream Emulator game on top of the drug and Lennon song — additional foreshadowing. More on this aspect soon, I’m predicting.

That bubble topped mound in the middle of the 7th collage being threatened by bulldozers is actually where it all starts to kick in, the whole “Art 10×10” and my journey into the world of digital collaging. Looks like fellow collage artist Barry De Boy will be our observer here instead of Newt, perhaps gaining inspiration for a jump start of his own art. Wendy is a muse!

He follows The Beatles’ yellow submarine between Greenup 05 and 06 as it floats downstream, into the tunnel of night lights, illumination in darkness.

What will he find there, a fox or a dingo? I’m guessing both. In fact, make that a certainty.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0607, Art 10x10, Big Woods, collages 2d, ESG, Greenup, Jeogeot, Lake District, LSD, Natural World, RDR2, United Kingdom, Yale-Newton

00420606 (you *rock*)

She fell asleep on the booring booring job and came out to the town’s mall.

“… 28 (touch), 29 (touch), *30*,” and then the Vegetable Man, the guy made entirely out of edible plants, was done with his exercise. He turned his multi-textured green head toward gatekeeper Wendy in front of her station. “Join me next time,” he said, and was gone. Wendy woke up at her desk and realized Okama had contacted her in a different way. Perhaps he’s not bad after all, she pondered. Perhaps he is only trying to *help*. She thought about that the rest of the working day — no visitors to greet today; typical — and came to another conclusion for supper. No red meat; *not* typical.

“I’m proud of you, hun,” spoke Barry from his chair, knowing it was the healthy way to go. Now if they could just get rid of the blood stains, hmm. Karma’s a bitch.

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00420605 (immobile (paying the price))

Day 042:

I manifested on an island in the void I couldn’t move away from — no bridges — so I took a picture before the dream ended. Crystal (at the peninsula’s tip). Have to look that up.


Yes, there it is. I’ll just place a little (red) pin on that island to remember…

—–

“Remember what?” Wheeler tested later, looking at the pin with him.

“I… forget!”

“Gray Man, hmph,” exclaimed Wheeler to this. “Wiped you out again. You’ll have to start over.” She looked at him instead of the map to emphasize her point. “Stick to The Natural World as much as possible, Newt. He doesn’t go there. You won’t be as, um, *abstracted* there.”

“Okay. I’ll try.”

“Now sit back down here and let’s begin Day 043 while I watch and advise.”

“Alright.” He sits back down like a good boy.

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00420604

“Ain’t got time for you, boy.” But the dog had something to say, something to tell. For he was the animal that the fox had become… just after getting run over by that streetcar he was following too closely. Last gasp effort before death: switch to another body. He was surprised he still had the power. But he did.

“I said *git* Red.” The dog bit the bottom of his pants, tugged at them. Arthur was tempted to kick the mutt but hesitated. He looked down. Same red as the fox. “Bastard?” he tried, feeling himself foolish at the same time. The dog heeled, seemed to smile at him while wagging his tail.

“Bastard!” The dream finally ended, longest of the night. Back to day thinking. Newt was forgotten, night was over. He had to find Dutch and try to explain to him what happened. Would Dutch listen? Probably not in this day and age. The Age of Enlightenment, Arthur thought derisively. Fat chance. Where are the powers of the Dark Ages when you need them.

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00420603

The fox is dead, Arthur realized while looking to the left on the same walk. Something had happened. Think Arthur, think!

He was in the tunnel again, light at the end once more. But different. White, not yellow. Different planet, he realized. Newt, he recalled. Something about Newt.

He turns left instead of right, thereby avoiding the dead fox.

Choices, he pondered. It’s all about the choices we make.

—–

Into the clotheslines!

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