Category Archives: **VIRTUAL OT

December 26, 2023 · 5:04 pm

00410406

I teleport to what I understood to be a skybox, high above my Cass City apartment somehow. Heaven of sorts, or at least Reality. I almost walk in front of a car which, at the same time, is shooting at me.

“Watch it cork for brains!” the driver barked through the right side window as he passed, face screwed up like a walnut. “Can’t you see I’m trying to work here?!” Street View camera person, I realized later, probably stressed out from navigating all these narrow Santa Cruz streets and alleyways. Also noticed later that the job certainly seemed incomplete, and that the largest and most important Flores island town here was only minimally covered. I wondered how he slept at night in his various hotels across the world. Probably pretty soundly.

His incompetency would make my *own* work that much more difficult. To find a reason for the Cass City Town Council to spare this real and actual Santa Cruz and not replace it with their own alternate history version. For I was married to the Cass City Mayor. And, in an obvious, surface conflict of interest, I was the head of the council too. So I had to convince myself first before Tom, Dick and Harry would go along with the proposal. Two separate worlds. Two separate realities, virtual down there and real up here. Separate but equal. Didn’t work in post-WWII Jim Crow America, but here in 1939 Cass City it might have a chance.


gaining a higher perspective on Flores’ Santa Cruz with neighboring island Corvo in the background

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December 12, 2023 · 9:57 am

00410307 (the 1st Haze County entry (!))

Station attendant Ginger directed Marsha to a large square map hanging on the back wall. “So it is Lucky,” she said to herself, looking at the name of the nearby motel on the map. Just down the tracks as it turned out.

But in the unaltered reality, it wasn’t.

Mouse was right all along.

—–

“NC,” she said, staring up again. Could be either one still.

And then she walked inside the property to see what up. A considerably younger Octavia Tart awaited her appearance.

(to be continued)

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November 22, 2023 · 3:44 pm

00410116

“I have come from the mound I have come from the corn. Your turn now.”

“From the mound?” still sitting Pamela returned to the person claiming to be Jane as in Plain, even though everyone knew her as June. “From the corn?”

“Yes. From the mound from the corn. Your turn now.”

Pamela pondered what to say next.

In the gap: “Follow me.”

—–

“From the mound…” she said, standing before it with Pamela now.

—–

—–

“… from the corn.”

“*Five* people is all,” exclaimed Donna, leader of the husking team and owner of most of the stuff in town: cows, vineyards, etc. Using the other hand, she counted them off with each finger starting with the thumb. “There’s *Tom* — and he’s all thumbs ironically; probably won’t go through a half a dozen himself; there’s *Stan*,” she continued this with the index, and then freed it so that she could point in the distance. “He lives in *Braggtown*. Do you know how far away *Braggtown* is over those hills? In other words: will take him half a day to get here, half a day to get back. And, let’s see, half + half equals whole, as in, a whole day away from *husking*. If he even makes the effort.”

“I believe that’s where Christina claims she’s from,” offered upbeat Ben beside her, leader of the sweets and drinks team and solid with his own personnel. Scowls all around. “*Christina*, then,” said Donna, holding the middle finger now, “can’t mow grass much less husk corn. And that leaves…”

“Jane,” spoke the person everyone knew as June just back of the white corn mound. Pamela had disappeared beside her. Pamela was never real as it turns out.

“Jane,” said Donna back to her, taking in her plainess from about 10 feet away. “Is that what you go by now.” She didn’t add the “whore” part but everyone knew she wanted to. They had some bad blood between them, namely a man named Bazooka, formerly the police chief of this here little village. Former owner of Biff’s farmhouse before he allegedly came over from Braggtown himself, but perhaps that’s just more Christina talk, Christina’s World.

“And me, Marsha ‘Pink’ Krakow,” she spoke while walking in stage left. Donna let go of her ring finger and took firm grasp of her pinkie. She joined the inner circle; tried to smile cheerfully. Dick to her right (music team leader, replacing stressed out Sitton seen in an earlier blog post here) tipped his hat, a built in gesture. Silently amused Harry (weights and balances) studied Donna’s reaction to this newcomer, this Johnny-come-lately.

“Marsha, huh?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Staying up at Biff’s I understand. Found the secret bedroom. Found the *truth* behind it.”

“Um. Yes, er, ma’am. I suppose I did.” She looked over at olive green Jane beside the unhusked corn, recognizing an old friend from Storybrook. Jane will get her through all this. There *must* be a loophole.

(to be continued)

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November 22, 2023 · 2:36 am

00410115

So what of White Rock population places in the Oracle? one may ask (31). Jane pops up.

And then the same for Gotham (2).

White House (10) or Whitehouse (15) only produces itself. There is only 1 White Mound and that’s in Grayson County, Texas. Curiously, the county also contains a Whiterock (or White Rock), which is actually very nearby. And then both in turn lie near a (larger) Whitewright, making a kind of White trilogy in that location.

And then there are 2 separate Black Rocks in Grayson County, Kentucky, the 2nd of 3 counties sharing that name. Notice Kentucky Town in the midst of the White trilogy pictured above, along with Tom Bean.

The 3rd and last Grayson County (Virginia) contains some interesting place names too. We could go on and on.

Dick Grayson was the actual name of Batman’s crime-fighting superhero sidekick Robin.

There are no Blackhouses, Black Houses, or Black Mounds.

Continuing with our story…

—–

“It’s a beautiful view you have here, Reuben, and I can see why you stand here all the time, looking at it.”

No answer.

“I… know something else about you, Reuben.” She looks up at the boy towering above her from this sitting position, the last member of Batcorn, the one supposedly with an identical twin named Steuben. Dream girl Pamela knew better. Instead: Reuben is the same as Steuben, as in a first name paired with a last.

She knew this from Kansas.

No, let’s make that an ancestor to the twins who were named for him. If so, his grave might be here.

And here.

Center of old White Rock. Or maybe White Mound she hasn’t decided.

All of Amiable came from this.

Someone appeared over the hill from the direction of it, walking toward them.

Jane.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0115, Google Street View, Kentucky, Missouri, Teepot+, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin

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November 20, 2023 · 8:48 pm

00410114

You of course can’t have a perfect 1:1 match between virtual and real here but this difference right at the very end of our journey into the heart of Amiable via Google Street View stuck out to me — last snapshot from their vehicle in fact before it turned around and went out the way it came. In reality reality, as defined by Google Maps in the year 2010 mind you, we have this mound of white rocks piled up next to the start of that weedy lane we saw, in its virtual version, Marsha “Pink” Krakow sitting at a table at the end of earlier in this here photo-novel, the one where she found an accordion just laying there on top of, unattended.

Then switching to the closest angle I can get in virtual we have this. Notice there’s no pile of white rocks now but a series of white rock walls in the same location with concrete mixing equipment in their midst…

… and then just beyond, a whole white rock house with an extensive patio area made up of the same material, none of which appears at all in 2010 Google Street View. In the white mound from the latter, we thus seem to have the seed of an extensive white rock construction complex revealed in present day virtual. Since everything else has been re-create in such loving detail, I think we can pretty safely assume that this white house, and maybe the accompanying walls and patio space, actually exists in Amiable now when it didn’t in 2010 — or the whole project was just getting started back then.

Here’s a curious and perhaps related anomaly from the Oracle. Searching for population places with the exact name of Black Rock across the U.S. reveals a single deviation among 13 examples: a hamlet instead called Whitehouse located in Maryland with a *variant* name of Black Rock — why it shows up in this particular list in the first place. It got me thinking: if we *de*construct the rocks making up the house, say, in a reversal of time itself, would we return to the white rock mound or something different… say, a *black* rock mound? Dark Matter again in other words; no emission of light.

And why is Pamela here staring at all this in the first place? is another question to be asking. Does she understand the concept of the Taoist yin-yang symbol (taijitu) and that white inevitably cycles back around into black via a planted seed? There’s something odd about the girl. She’s only real in…

—–

Marsha wakes up in the hidden bedroom again but with head pointed the right way this time. Thing is, she tried backwards when she laid down to sleep, with head instead at the bed’s foot; it switched once more despite her efforts to rectify the situation. She knows now up is truly down, white is black. In the dream.

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November 16, 2023 · 4:48 pm

Amiable…

… and Amiable.

One I can enter and walk around. One I can’t. You tell me which is more real and immediate.

Maybe accordion girl Rachel Nickles knows but we’re too far away to speak with her right now. Another “later”.

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November 16, 2023 · 11:59 am

00410106

The identification is obvious here at the start and all up and down the line of Google Street View shots of the village. Good work re-creators of Amiable in Our Second Lyfe (I’ve got a name!)!

Panning just right in the virtual world version where Google Street View can’t, we spot Marsha “Pink” Krakow at her table, still studying the accordion.

Eddie, her Edward, has split the scene, saying he prefers the hustle and bustle of Meat City as opposed to the boring, backwards life here. He’s read the attached note procured from the woman standing near the start of the weedy lane leading to their table. He has no desire at all to help the few villagers, mostly older like her, with upcoming Thanksgiving festivities, primarily focusing on corn shucking it appears. Marsha is left alone in the village. Lacking any other meaningful contacts, she decides to go back and visit Andrew “Biff” Carter.

But the tractor was gone at the farmhouse…

… in both real and virtual worlds.

Andrew’s split the scene as well. More on that story coming up.

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November 4, 2023 · 2:22 am

00400605

“The good, God fearing people of Utah will never allow a merger with such a degraded place as the Omega continent, my dear human, Wheeler (ha). You have paid for my services for nothing except sound advice.”

“25 right,” spoke Wheeler about the cost from atop a nearby game. “I can’t believe you tricked me like that — making me believe there was such a person as Roy Coy.”

“Well the ridiculous name coupled with a ridiculous form should have been a tip off. Along with the golden color. Like me!”

“So what next?… *psychic*. Halloween is over. We’re back in Meat City for round 06.”

Golden Goddess’ Ms. Pac-Man ate a power pellet, making the ghost chasing her turn blue and be chased instead. “There’s always the library. While it’s there. Might as well use it to your advantage. Male dominated literature within, obviously, but some hidden gem could appear. Say, a book about a certain mountain (she foresees)?” The last blue ghost was overtaken and eaten, end of game.

And as well, there was the further *careful* exploration of Meat City itself. Wheeler knew not to change into her daughter or pseudo-daughter for all that.

In a newly constructed theatre across the street from the arcade, she waits alone in a guest-of-honor golden chair for a show that may never start.

Back to the library. “Aah, this must be it (!)”

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October 30, 2023 · 1:52 am

00400512

He had returned but he found himself more and more excluded from Ozma’s inner circle after a lukewarm reentry. “It’s *temporary*, dear,” she kept repeating to him. “I brought you back after all. You’re *here*; back in Oz, back to patrolling the Yellow Brick Road. And boy dear howdy that took some smooth talking to the inner council to get done,” she often reminded him. “So be *grateful*. You’re not out *there*.”

But it’s been months again, maybe years. When would his so called probation end here in the cornfield far away from a central power he was use to? Contemplation like this naturally led him to check the clock that always beats the times in his chest. 7:15 in Quadlingland, 3:15 in Munchkinland. And in the center, the middle, well: heartbreak.

He watched her slip away in the stalks, reminding him of that old Oklahoma song about a quirky little alien who comes to Earth and can’t get enough of corn, all types. He involuntarily begins to sing it in his head.

I like cornflakes, corndogs
I like corn bread and cornstarch
I like the band Korn and popcorn, I like all kinds of corn
ALL KINDS OF CORN!

He can’t recall the rest and, anyway, Ozma had already disappeared down the rows. Their meetings were almost as brief as in the Lost Forest when he was truly exiled. Now it’s still a false exile, an ostracizing by the rest. Scarecrow barely talked to him, feigning being constantly tied up with businesses of the mind. Lion similarly excused himself when encountering the famed metal being, saying he had to face down or have a tangle with this or that adversary who still lived some distance from wherever they were standing at the time. And Dorothy… he doesn’t even like to think of Dorothy.

—–

“I thought we were going to replace Dorothy with *me*,” spoke up the precious precocious child listening in on Marsha “Pink” Krakow’s latest version of her novel with a working title of “Lost Path of Oz,” changed from the earlier “Forgotten Road of Oz.” “After all, L. Frank Baum’s greatest goal was to please a child. And what better way to carry on that tradition than to cast me, a child as child can be, in the leading role of your book. Similarly, Vain and Artery Boyy replaces Lion, and Rock” — she looks over at him, dumbly counting the fingers on both hands over and over to make sure they’re the same on each — “well, we’ll work on him,” she admitted, sharing a smile with Pink about the irony.

“Maybe,” gleaned Pink, “maybe *you* should replace the Scarecrow, Toddles. And Rock can play Dorothy — you know what I mean.”

Toddles as the brains of the operation. She instantly likes! She automatically sees it is the right change to affect.

“No one is going to play ANYTHING until I get some ANSWERS!” Toddle’s grandma Alice Farrowheart had shown up at the reading in the so called Center Hole of Big Sandy. With a loaded shotgun.

Marsha quickly checked to see if this was in the book as well.

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October 29, 2023 · 9:18 am

00400510

He’d killed 2 witches defending the city gates and was ready for a 3rd if needed. His moral chip had malfunctioned, rendering him unable to tell the difference between Good and Bad. He’d have to be reassigned, at least until the city council cooled down about the murder of their beloved Glinda. Ozma, the true and lawful queen overseeing all, wasn’t too keen on the self righteous goody two shoes so no big loss in her eyes. Still: Tinsman had to go. The Lost Path of Oz seemed about right. Out of the way, but not too far so that the queen couldn’t pass through at times and see how he’s doing over there. When he was invited to one of her balls he’d know all was well again and that he could return. The moment would come soon, he felt. He’d served several years in the Lost Forest already.

Then chaos ensued — again. He misplaced his oil can, then just after finding it the queen passed through. He’s invited! But a quick shower came, and since the Tinsman hadn’t been able to oil himself for a while, he froze up — the famous legend based on Ozian facts got that part right at least.

Then, much much later, Toddles walked up with her new friends Rock Ramby and Vain and Artery Boyy. “Look!” the last exclaimed in his husky voice, made for the sea. “A man. A man made out of tin!”

“It’s called a robot,” mildly corrected Toddles, who then started looking around the immediate area for a lubricant container.

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