https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_comics
“Geez I miss the old country. But I must get back to Instabar for the neighborhood watch meeting. Might be the last of its kind!”
“What about *us*?”
“You’ll just have to wait.”
Category Archives: Estate
penultimate?
When I stared over at White Elvis, I realized I had his hair and got rid of it. The older doo, not the younger one (pictured) here. But still — a reminder.
I am now more The Man(n) than ever.
I turned to red, white and blue Cpt. Americus downing yet another piece of yellow chicken from his magical, chicken piece producing bucket and ask him where it went all wrong.
He mentioned something about Wheeler f-ing things up. I didn’t know who Wheeler was. He said she was the ideal woman, the Venus Da Milo. I said, “*de* Milo.” He said, “whatever,” and chose a breast to eat next with his free hand.
I thought back to the story of lusty Jack the Mallard on Fruity Islands for some reason. Probably because I was looking for the same there. I must go back sometime. Eden…
As he kept vociferously munching and crunching, I considered I was dealing with a Southerner here. Hence the chicken. Hence the White Elvis; black nowhere to be found in this recording studio. No Lena Horned, for instance. No “Ballad of Stormy Daniels.” I then realized this could be the studio of Your Mama. This was *the* room. I decided to ask.
“Who’re you recording today, Cpt.?” I didn’t say the full name on purpose. I was testing how far I could go without falling back.
Cpt. Americus glanced into the studio, as if someone was there. “Oh, the usual. Local gal.”
“White, I assume,” The Man(n) wanted to say, but instead said, “good that you’re developing the local talent.” And then more information spouted from the Cpt.’s masticating mouth full of chicken. Disgusting. But – must – keep — digging. Further tonight.
“Yup,” he spoke. Then the girl returned from her break, beautiful in a black gown.
—–
I decided to go back tonight. The place (with the beach chairs) Da Womann and I sat and chatted and some other stuff was gone. Maybe it was all a dream? But the statues were still there. Adam and his Eve.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0316, Corsica, Fruity Islands, Instabar
university towns?
Audrey was, as usual, dancing an Irish Jig. Jeffrie Phillips was enjoying the scene, but they must get down to business soon. One more dance, though.
“Try 13 now,” he requested.
—–
“Whatever happened to Marsha, by the by?” Jeffrie asked after Audrey had given him the latest update. He didn’t need the information but he wanted it. Sounds familiar.
“Oh, the usual. Marriage to some slob and now they’re pinned down with the standard 2.5 kids. Thank you for not wanting any. Teepot has enough. The *world* has enough.”
“The world is not long for us anyway. No use in bringing someone new in to experience all that misery.”
“Agreed,” Audrey quickly followed.
“Well… we’ve tracked Casey One Hole down to Danshire before his disappearance, along with the Small Kowloon House. This is right outside Phyllis and Ben’s home — no accident there. And now Ben might be recalled to the old country, thanks to Host Charming. No accident there either. One chance out between two worlds.”
“Don’t say that,” red pendant wearing Audrey requested. “It reminds me of the girl we had to kill.”
“Kill off,” red tie sporting Jeffrie elaborated. But the Kidd remains within. They didn’t know of Tronesisia’s big picture plan.
—–
“Who are you??”
“Don’t be afraid,” Billy Jean spoke to Katy from the other side of the walkway. “It’s only another Kidd.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0213, Benangatron+, Corsica, Teepot+
woulds and wouldn’ts
If and when she came into town, she liked to sip coffee at The Green Lady next to the park and stare out at the bay. At night, Ben’s place was too full of vampires, and during the day there was still the threat of one or two of his old werewolf friends stopping by and reminiscing about the old days. She didn’t want to hear such talk. *Both* eras are equally bad in her mind, she’d always want to pitch to them, both Bennington and, now, Bena. This town is *cursed*! she sometimes wanted to scream from the top of Bena Hill toward the buildings and roads spanning north to east before her, Mothers Place behind be damned. Here at the Green Lady, drinking her cinnamon spiced coffee, she could feel away from it all for a moment. It was like the place was made for her, Green Lady matching green (clad) lady. It was here she could think about her *own* past, and figured out what went right but also, yes, what went wrong according to her master plan formulated at age 17, her first year in college taking astromystics classes at Teepot Tech. She would acquire a husband in due time but not be chained to his lifestyle. Well, she missed the boat there(!). Although she loves Ben dearly, no one can deny his faults, primarily the threat of turning into a wolf during any full moon despite the continued treatments down through the years. “I can change,” he declares every now and then. “I *will* change”. “I have found The Lord now,” he also might tack on to any such proclamation. But wanderlust sometimes gets a hold of him and he’s gone for days, part of his wolf heritage surfacing. “Where were you now?” she’d ask, and he’d just go on talking about how The Lord told him to do this, and go there and do that. Always the same excuse. Sometimes she’d like to just yank this Lord dude out of the clouds and give him an earful back.
They managed, but it wasn’t what you’d call a perfect relationship. On the sly, sometimes Phyllis Phox would inquire to her lawyer friend in town — Rebl of course — about how divorcing a werewolf might fare. “Poorly,” she would emphasize. The pack always takes care of itself. Ben, of course, wouldn’t lift a finger — *probably* — but the others…
If only ditzy classmate Marsha wouldn’t have introduced me to him at that Benjamin Harrison Ball held at Grover Cleveland Hall down Former Presidents Lane. If only one or the other would have chosen a different college.
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0210, Benangatron+, Corsica, Teepot+
end 04
Before heading over to Kowloon, Jer Left Horn makes a stop in VHC City to pause and reflect on the recent death of the user behind longtime Virtual Hotel Chelsea manager Enola Vaher. Although I didn’t know the avatar (or user), VHC City, centered around the huge hotel, figures prominently in my mythology through, primarily, The Diagonal, which is now one (Head) of 2 (also: Heart) I’ve found spanning the Heterocera continent. I hope the hotel can carry on beyond this blow, and certainly the rental situation there continues to be healthy and, most likely, self sustaining for a while. Many musical events go on all the time there as well.
Jer Left Horn at Enola Vaher’s “Finely Torn Id” gallery in what I call VHC City.
—–
Moving on to Kowloon, Jer Left Horn decides to first stop by Fish Head’s bar to catch up with all the latest news. The first thing he notices are the bent stools in the back.
“Fight in here, Head?” he questioned while sitting down at the nearest, upright stool, becoming suspicious off the top. He had his knife at ready in the belt under his jacket just in case.
“Oh, you know. Typical Tuesday night. Some of the Queen’s gang letting off steam.”
*You’re* one of the Queen’s gang, Jer Left Horn thinks to himself. Why the separation between you and them? The hand slides down to grip the handle of the knife.
“Like who?” he tried to ask as calmly as possible. “Norton Wise Turtle?” He forced a smile here. Everyone knew the big man-turtle was a first rate troublemaker.
“Yeah, him. And, let’s see — Space Ghost!”
“*Space Ghost*?” Jer Left Horn turns left. Then: nothing for a long while.
——
He wakes up in some kind of pod swimming with shrimp, it appeared. He keeps his eyes frozen, military training snapping into action in a moment of crisis.
“You’re getting old again, Space Ghost. Better head back to the time machine,” requested likewise observing TronAxis. “The shrimp have almost extracted all the information they need.” TronAxis returns his attention to Jer Left Horn’s floating form in the cylinder: the still frozen eyes, the glazed over look. Shouldn’t be long though, now, he thinks. Is there life already in that face?
The cylinder shatters. Jer Right Horn steps out, dry as a whistle, knife ready. The shrimp flip and flop helplessly around the floor amidst the spilled yellow liquid and broken glass, task unfinished. Now old Space Ghost knows he’s no match for the young prince and hobbles away from the scene as fast as possible. TronAxis stands steady, light disk at ready. He knew of Jer Left Horn’s military background — should have taken more steps to ensure his secureness. Hindsight is golden I suppose. But this is the way it was suppose to be, he adjusted to the situation. Me versus him.
A narrow boat materializes before the fleeing Space Ghost in the middle of the pool of water just beyond the pod room: Tessa, sans her driving challenged grandpa this time but still a dreamer. And this is the aforementioned Kow Pond, also known as Loon Lake. Indeed the center of it all. Thanks to Tessa.
“Gentlemen!” she called back into the shadows behind old Space Ghost. “Set down your arms!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0704, Heterocera, Kowloon+, VHC City
end 03
Spies were all over town. The Queen’s gang: Frosty, Satan Santa, Norton Wise Turtle, Space Ghost (Space Ghost!), Fish Head of course. Others she has no time to remember the names of right now. Because she must hurry — she knows she will soon be followed. In the dreamscape things sometimes move very fast(!). She must keep pace. Blank VHS tape in hand, Devil Girl runs through a conveniently placed green door beside the Patriotic Soup Restaurant and down one of the town’s many “secret” passages. Too convenient, some might speculate. And they would be right.
She exits the passage through another green door and enters a larger alleyway. “Wagon wheels,” Devil Girl ponders. “I’m too close to home.” She knew the symbol spelt the end.
She turns. Most of the remainder of the Queen’s gang were running down the sloped stairs from the other direction toward her. Too late. She will not find the red door. She will be dispersed with the others, and the VHS tape stored in a safe place until information begins to appear on it. But this would be much later.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0703, Kowloon+
end 02
Devil Girl, the unofficial 4th member of the Redeye band — so unofficial she was forgotten in the dispersal of the others — looked on from a safe distance at the Patriotic Soup Restaurant as dreamer Herbert G. Gold returned the “With ‘Other Other'” VHS tape.
“This does me no good,” Herbert complained to the cook, back to stirring his famous concoction derived from ancient Bing Song recipes such as “White Christmas” and “Jingle Bells.” “It’s blank — nothing on it. I ran it from beginning to end to make sure.” He lays the tape closer to the cook on the counter but no reaction from the stirrer. “It does me no good,” Herbert repeated. “I am no closer to knowing who this cat with the red eye is than at the beginning.”
A weighted pause. Herbert could tell the cook had information he wasn’t revealing. Then a bit here: “The tape (stir – stir – stir) is not blank.”
“Well, yeah, like I said, I watched it from beginning to end. It *is* blank. There’s nothing on it.”
The title label on the tape suddenly faded out, then snapped back into reality. Devil Girl noticed the anomaly from her observing seat if Herbert Gold didn’t. She realized at that moment that the tape was blank because the story of Redeye hadn’t been told yet. It lay in the future from this point. She decided, then and there, to steal the tape and put something on it. Something to remember the band by. Because this was all about her fellow bandmates Slash Girl, Angus Girl, Buckethead Girl. They had been dispersed, true, but something else could be made of it.
Herbert Gold was gone. The tape title remained blank for good. Devil Girl moved in and took his spot.
“There was nothing ever there, young lady,” the stirrer explained. “*Yet.*”
It’s yours to do something with now.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0702, Kowloon+
end 01
Parasol was so close to the man with the answers (Patriotic Soup Restaurant cook) but yet so far. The bearded lady’s answer to the location of Kuckoo’s or Palace Hotel was: “Ask the fish butcher at the flea market. He knows everything and everybody.” Another dead end, then, for, as we know, the underwater butcher knows nothing. She decided just to wander a bit more before totally giving up, and stumbles (and bumbles) upon a passageway she didn’t think she’d explored before in her many travels through the city now. She touches something and then finds herself here…
…. confronting a white rabbit on the sky object’s edge. Dr. Rabbid Baumbeer, murdered in “Collagesity Photo-Novel 16.”
Parasol didn’t know this fact, but quickly gathered she was talking to a ghost. “Your plan would not have worked,” he called over in earnest after introducing himself. “The whiteyes would not implant correctly over your own eyes and you would have been found out immediately and killed. Just like myself.” He faded from view with this, but the brief encounter provided Parasol with more valuable information than she had hitherto received from anyone in Kowloon. My plot would not have work! she said, spinning the possibility, nay *actuality* around in her mind. Because she knew it was true as soon as it spilled out of the dead doctor’s mouth. White rabbits are true guides. They do not seek to mislead in and of themselves.
Parasol looked up. Another mass of black and white color directly above her head. She flew up…
… to confront *another* white rabbit at the same position on the taijitu symbol’s edge. The symbol was smaller, brighter, and with a more irregularly shaped edge (with a good number of rounded protrusions) than the otherwise duplicate one immediately below. Another 2-n-1.
This white rabbit, taller and appearing feminine in the dim light to Parasol, introduced herself as Charlie in about an octave higher register than the doctor before her. Feminine indeed, although possessing a uni-sex name. “I am the continuation of the doctor,” she spoke, and then Parasol was in a very different location again. Very low instead of very high.
She stared up. The spinning, red fabricy doctor had just finished fixing the first red eye and was about to start on the second. A beam shot up from the “unfixed” eye, destroying the aberrant being in one poof of smoke. She stood up. Was she alive or dead? She couldn’t tell as she walked down the trench toward the surface again…
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0701, Kowloon+
lost 02
“Okay, don’t tell me Bird Brain,” he requested to his apparent friend at the main drag. “Okay, *there’s* the main door, the Yang and the Yin. I, er, have just erupted from the Flea Market which is my home. My *work* home — ahem, I do not *live* underwater, see, heh heh. I am not a fish myself, har.”
“Yeah, tell it to the bartender,” and Bird Brain walked away with this for a moment, avoiding the old man’s ramblings per usual. “Tell it to the bartender,” was local slang meaning, “go talk to someone else about your problems that gives a sh-t.” Or something along those lines.
“So we’re lost.” Parasol was thinking she could do better than this by herself. Perhaps the old man is senile. How would someone with even a slight case of dementia cope in this maze of a town. They couldn’t!
The fish butcher licks his index finger, then holds it in the air, as if testing the wind. The same finger then points toward where they just came from. “*That* way,” he exclaimed confidently, and began to walk. Parasol obviously didn’t follow. And, actually, he didn’t expect her to. The butcher knew the flea market and his included underwater work spot well enough. That was his world. On a regular basis, he would come out and ask Bird Brain (limited to his own world around this particular leaning pole) directions to this or that place. It was a routine they shared. And always the closer: “Go tell it to the bartender.”
The butcher indeed lived in the flea market. He existed underwater. And, by this point, was probably a fish himself. But he likes to forget this every once in a while and come up for air (but not for long).
Parasol was on her own again.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0618, Kowloon+
lost
She was indeed underwater but not in the right place. Damn confusing town! she cussed to herself. “Excuse me sir,” she requested to the fish butcher who was working down here. A larger fish swam between Parasol and him, eclipsing the man for a moment. Then she continued.
“I’m looking for Kuckoo’s place.”
“Loco?” the man tried back between chops. He was very fast, and was almost ready for a second gutting as they spoke.
“No — *Kuck*- koo. Kuckoo Kuail.” Her red and blue eyes burned brightly into the man. She wanted him to understand but saw he probably didn’t. She rechecked the psychological photograph taken earlier and tried again, using a different landmark. “How about the, um, Palace Hotel.” The first name of the hotel was cut off in the photograph. Hopefully this will provide enough information.
The butcher slung another fish in front of him and dropped the just gutted one in a metal bucket at his foot. “That one is for supper later,” he said, pausing for a smile, red chopper still for a moment. “No tell, no tell!”
“Okay, I won’t tell. But the hotel…”
“Ah, yes. So, I, ah, know that place you are talking about. You are looking for someone in particular? But not, ahem, *Loco*.”
“No. Loco doesn’t exist. I was looking for Kuckoo…”
“Oh… KUCK-koo,” the man suddenly beamed, resuming his cutting. “Now I know. She has two kids, yes?”
“I don’t know about that. I’m just looking for her house.” She was actually looking for the whiteyes Axis found earlier but of course didn’t mention this. It was on top of a barrel only a couple yards from Kuckoo’s front door, which she knew from the photo.
“I will take you there,” the butcher said, setting down the tool of his trade. “You will walk with me…”
“That’s not –” but then Parasol stopped her protest, knowing she would never find the place without his help. Another fish swam between them. “Thank you.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0617, Kowloon+
Sunklands 