“Hi. Mind if I take your place?”
So mild.
Category Archives: Kowloon^^
looking eagle-eyed into the future
Happy New Year! It’s been another good year for me personally. I got a lot of writing and art done. Work work is chugging along (only a little over 2 years until retirement! (projected)), and health is fine overall, for both me and the wife. So much to be done but a lot is being accomplished for my situation. Second Life still plays a big, big part in creativity.
Goals for 2020:
Well, I think the Collagesity photo-novels will keep popping out every 2 months or so with the generative system I’m using. 5 1/2 done this year alone (!). My plan is to keep doing these until I retire, then reassess the situation. I *did* have a rich creative life before they came along the winter of 2015-2016, a little over 4 years back, so I’m sure something interesting and rewarding will replace it. I don’t see hatching, you know, 70-75 of these things by the time I’m, say, 70-75, ha. Second Life appears to be dying, true. It seems to be withering. But, really, it still stands as a unique world in terms of player creativity and leverage. I can’t leave that behind yet. I have no plans for another virtual reality to replace it (unless it’s Google Earth!). As stated, I’m pretty happy with where I am and what’s happening creatively right now. I just have to keep working on establishing a proper balance between the several balls I’m juggling. And realizing the present situation won’t last forever.
Behind the scenes I’m writing as many or perhaps more notes on my photo-novels as I’m creating words for the photo-novels themselves. A good chunk of this is focused on what I call The Oracle, which involves maps — primarily of the US but extending a bit to foreign lands now. These are *not* to be seen by the general public, and contain a lot of typos, etc. That said, I would like some day soon to collect my vast notes on The Oracle, dating back over 30 years now, and create a type of book out of them — solidify, somehow, my flow within it. I don’t see my involvement with The Oracle ever ending in this life. It is my bedrock in many ways. Just so you, the loyal or casual reader, know. I’m hoping that will happen in the next 5 years. I don’t see it as a fixed endpoint, though. Further versions could and probably should emerge, granted that I live long enough.
I’d also like to return to audio-visual synching from a somewhat different angle — technologically and philosophically — soon enough. The structure of “modern” a/v synchs is not dissimilar to that of the photo-novels. Just another fyi.
And also, I assume, *collages* will continue. Series of collages. That might pick up again when the photo-novels are over.
I accomplished a lot of outdoor (real life) stuff this year as well, mainly: local hiking. For instance, these past 2 weeks in the mountains where we live I’ve been trekking various places, trails and off-trails, almost every clear day, which have been abundant. I always seem to be finding something new. We’ve had a good number of days off from work over the holidays. I *love* this balance of writing notes and doing research in the morning, hiking in the afternoon, relaxing in the evening (tv, reading, etc.) and then working on the photo-novels in the middle of the night. And fitting sleep in there somewhere!
I find the relationship and interaction between Second Life photos and generated fiction to be fascinating — one informs the other. I’m not sure I can ever return to pure prose in the sense of it being unattached from art (photos in this case). It’s a bit like theater for me as well. I, however, do not see the photo-novel photos as art in and of themselves. That is the province of others.
But, again with that said, I want to, sometime in the future, shift the focus back from virtual photography to real photography, as I have done in the past. I’d say my involvement with real life photos and attached *toy happenings* peaked around 2012-2013, as recorded in my blogs. I have firm plans to return to these linked activities.
What else? I lost my father-in-law this year. He was a good egg, and I have no doubt that he is succeeding on and adjusting well to the next plane. Our remaining living parent between the two of us, my mom, is almost *99* and is now living in a facility. She’s toughing it out; she’s a trooper!
We now have 3 cats with the addition of baby Philip in May, a strange guy indeed, so cute and so sweet and intelligent but also with a definite wild streak involved, much more so that the other two cats. But they both love him now. And of course we adore them all. I still have yet to meet a cat I didn’t get along with.
That’s it! Hope your new year brings you much happiness and joy.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0402, 100 Story Building, Kowloon^^
… back to zero
After work, Fish Head removed his fish (tattoo) and became just the Head.
From his perch in the sky, he saw *everything*. All 100 of it.
But now…
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0317, 100 Story Building, Kowloon^^
Cat pole star
He was in a totally different dream place this time where everyone seemed to speak Chinese. He understood enough (somehow) to know that his mission was to retrieve something from that eye filled alley back there behind the soup restaurant here.
“Patriotic Soup Store closing in 5 mister. You’ll have to finish your food and go.” Herbert Gold looked at the squat cook standing on a high platform to stir his vat of soup. From the tone of his voice and then the aftermath stare, Herbert gathered he’d have to leave.
He then studied the big bowl of P-soup in front of him, realizing he’d never be able to polish it off — hadn’t even actually touched it, in fact. “You can have this back,” he then offered, pushing the bowl across the counter. The cook shook his head, seemingly in non-understanding but then uttering, in perfect English: “No refunds,” surprising him.
Herbert was about to protest that he didn’t want any money for the soup and that he just hated to waste such a goodly amount of food — a byproduct of growing up in tough Bennington Square — when a noise of something falling occurred behind him, drawing his attention to the end game of his current dream. When turning around after *seeing* nothing, he noticed the VHS tape beside him on the counter. The part of the title that he could read on its edge was, “(with) Other Other”. He realized *this* was what he was suppose to eye-ball here. Not something back in the alley.
He looked at the soup cook again for hints about what it was. Did the cook slip him this tape at some point? *What* was with Other Other? Or perhaps apart from Other Other now; Chinese against English? A yin yang, black and white cat that was also red all over? He logically thought back to Omega town and the newspaper referenced there through black, white, red. DDD. A dream, yes. He must keep remembering this is not Real. None of it.
“2 minutes,” the cook exclaimed, the glare from his face intensifying along with his stirs. Should he ask the cook to translate the Chinese underneath this cat? Was there an *opening* there to do this?
“1 minute.” He showed him the tape.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0316, Kowloon^^, Louisiana
Merry Hell
He loved listening to Bing’s Song on the music box. But “White Christmas” was over in Eot and he was melting. He’d have to go back to Kowloon to keep perpetually frosty. He didn’t understand quite why, except that he was *made* there, much like Guy Benjamin’s Grandmama and Grandpapa. He must get lost inside the maze, only to be found when the Heart Queen good and well wanted him to for her traitorous ways. Because she was back at it (some things never change). He could room with Satan Santa again. Safe bet that he’s not living with anyone still, being there’s a Hell Portal right smack in the middle of the kitchen ceiling.
He likes to use it to warm his tush while he’s cleaning the counter.
—–
“Sure you can stay with me again, Frosty.” He points to the corner furthest away from the kitchen. “Park your half melted carcass right over there behind the bathtub.”
—–
“Oh man,” he thought to himself. Stuck in this spot the rest of the winter. Unless the Heart Queen needs me. Sounds pretty good right now.
—-
“Pass the soap, wouldn’t you Frosty?”
“Sure thing, Satan, er, Santa.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0313, End of Time^^, Kowloon^^
Heart Queen
Some things never change.
—–
“Fish Head! Give us a report.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0312, 100 Story Building, Kowloon^^
another guy
In human form, Guyd often visits his Grandmama and Grandpapa over in the Kowloon Gates Reborn sim. He’s never really grasped what the place was all about but always has fun exploring. Strange things abound…
The plaza where he first met Grandmama and Grandpapa, with the attached parcel called Assoc. for the Elderly appropriately enough.
The newest structure in the odd town is the Building of 100 Stories. More of its *story* at Pearl Grey’s blog.
Guy Benjamin (human form name of Guyd) will explore all 100 stories soon. But now he has to visit Grandmamapapa. Trouble is, as always: finding their apartment in this maze. He feels a bit like Agent Dale Cooper in the Black Lodge navigating Kowloon’s twisty-turny alleys. Where’s the appropriate Venus statue for orientation when you need it!
It would help if he spoke the native language(s).
And there’s also *so* many distractions.
He gives up for the night. He visits them often but sees them seldom.
—–
“Sure wish Guy would come around more, Alice.”
“You know he doesn’t love us, Jack.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0311, 100 Story Building, Kowloon^^
ghosted
Hucka Doobie was chatting to pass the time. “You know you’re colored about the same as a chicken, Baker Bloch. Maybe you should think of becoming a chicken man yourself. By that I mean opening up a restaurant, perhaps a chain. Maybe you should begin to think up a name. Blochbuster Chicken? You could even steal some signs from that old, defunct VHS tape renting outfit, the one that went belly up.”
But Baker Bloch was still thinking about his father instead of chicken, although the 2 will always be connected now in his mind. Banished back to Regaltown. Could this possibly be the end of the Horns of Hatton tale already?
Hucka Doobie studied his worried face. “Aah, still thinking about dear old pops. He’ll be fine. Kevin A. too — Kevin Orchardsity, all three of hisselves. Come on; cheer up. The Queen’s story can continue on without the King and his tomb, without Space Ghost’s trailer.”
“But the parcel was called ‘*Ghost* land.’ Fate.” Baker Bloch sighed. “I just feel — something will always been missing here.”
“And then Cpt. Americus accidentally jumping in the watermelon tub with the *real* Queen (!) Awkard indeed! But I don’t think the Queen was present at the time. By that I mean she was AWOL.”
“AFK,” corrected Baker Bloch.
“Um, like the chicken, then.”
Baker Bloch expressed confusion, then realized: “Oh, you’re thinking about KFC. No, it’s like the former president. AFK. They’re talking about renaming the whole of Bay City after him.”
“JFK, then. The (former) president, I mean,” responded Hucka Doobie. “John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”
“Yes, you’re right — that’s it.”
“Well there you go. Something else to think about. Another Ghost.”
“Everybody in the country laughed about it,” [Carolyn *Kennedy* Crusey] said. “There was no city out there.”
Who voted Mor the mayor? No one, she said.
“That was just purely for something to put in the paper,” she said.
How did it change from Bay City to JFK City?
It was shortly after the assassination, she recalled. Across the country, people were renaming all kinds of things after the late president. Plus there was another guy out there at the time named Kennedy, (no relation to her or JFK) who came up with the idea, she said.
I wondered out loud if they’d hatched the plan while drinking at the bar. It wouldn’t be the first piece of Alaska legislation born that way. Maybe that was how Mor was “elected.” Maybe they dreamed up the dome city, too.
“We never did find out what happened,” she said
Mor eventually moved to Anchorage and started spelling his name with a second “o” and an “e,” she said. She couldn’t remember why.
The last newspaper clipping to mention the city was a 1973 story about Alaska ghost towns. It called Bay City “an alleged village” with a population of 0 in the 1970 census, that might have been renamed to “The City of Kennedy” after the late president.
“But,” the article said, “there’s nobody left to verify it.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0015, 0307, Alaska, Horns of Hatton^, Kowloon^^, Maebaleia/Satori
Sunklands 