draining the swamp (reverso world)
“He’s one of us now.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0213, Bogota, collages 2d, Oz, Picturetown, Red Umbrella, Springfeld
hired
New NWES City resident Stumpy was eager to get some local color and received a couple bucketfuls at Moe’s, a centrally placed watering hole. We cut to the most relevant story the bartender told this night. “Homer?” he said after Stumpy inquired more about the famed bar brawl where Mr. Smipson lost his head which had to be kept in a jar of formaldehyde to be preserved like a pickle for possible future restoration. “Right over there.” Moe points beyond Stumpy to the pool table where it happened. “He broke a pool stick for a weapon, Homie did too. Out of the ball park for the both of ’em. But, turns out, Lemmy’s — as they called him — Lemmy’s head was real and Homer’s wasn’t. *He* was just a mascot, although it seemed to be the other way around what with the ice skating gig and all. That’s when reality began to break down. Who *else* is just a mascot and not real in this here town? Probably a lot of us. Probably more than we care to know. So we stopped talking about it, stopped yapping about it. The bar fell silent when the topic of lost heads was ever brought up. So that’s why *you* caused such a stir with your appearance tonight. You don’t have a head, yet you live!” Moe decided he better shut up for the night and started cleaning beer glasses again. Besides he didn’t have any lines left. See! he thought to himself while staring at the void between the shoulders of the man perched on a bar stool in front of him. This is what happens when this is brought up. Irreality!
The spotted figure in the picture near the pool table then stepped out of it and into this world, one who calls himself Gotham. The one who took Homer’s head away from the jar through this same portal several weeks ago for possible repair, leaving Moe with a nice (if shady seeming) nest egg at the bottom of it. But yet he was back now: unretired. Gotham had also returned to remind him of this. Moe didn’t run the bar any longer. A man named MAT had bought it and made him redundant, or, yes, forced him into an early retirement as a better option. The bar had closed 2 hours ago. In his mild, spacey way, MAT had simply forgotten to lock the front door (4th wall) when he left, distracted by a brewing storm and thunderous lightning and wind and such, let’s say. We were operating on alty time, as Gotham later termed it, sitting at the bar with Stumpy and Moe and trying to get the latter to go home to his lovely wife Dinah and put an end to coming back to work and all. “You won’t get paid,” he reminded Moe, but that wasn’t the point.
As Jaspery night yielded to Newtony day, Moe’s presence began to fade and another took his place: 1/2 and 1/2 here. Gotham turns to Stumpy. “Now about that head…”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0212, Apple's Orchard, Montana, NWES Island
pointless (what’s the use)
Tree being Lemmy pretends to nab Bartholomew Smipson with his net…
… only to toss the transformed weapon into the air in a gesture of forgiveness for an old feud with the boy’s father involving a knife wound to the head. Homer thought he was just a mascot. He wasn’t. Bygones be bygones, though. Anyway, he tires of being mobile.
We will have to look elsewhere for explanations about the young skateboarder’s disappearance. Lemmy retreats inside the town’s famous lemon tree, feet back in the ground once more.
What an imagination!
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0211, Bogota, collages 2d, Picturetown, Springfeld
00230210
Toothpick’s best friend Mr. Z’s other cousin from another mother, Stumpy, decides he must keep a TILE presence in largely resistant Black Ice. This more hidden building was perfect. Shame about Zimmy’s place on the strip, he laments. Zimmy is the middle cousin of the “3 Amigos”, as they have called themselves since childhood. 1st Mr. Z popped out of Zelda Taylor in ’26, then Zimmy from Daphne Cunningham in ’28, then, lastly, Stumpy here from Barbara Gourdneck of Arkansaw, Kansas in ’32 or thereabouts. 3 mothers, 3 cousins, 3 amigos for life. Back to our continuing story and dialog and such…
Stumpy decides it’s time. No more f-ing around with the heads. He must make a choice. He must *face* the world full on.
It’s really surprising that he can see at all. Or taste or smell or hear. But he’s not touchy about the heckles from the lucky ones who were born with full blown heads. Not since Alcatraz. Or was it Gettysburg. Maybe Phil would know.
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0210, Black Ice, NWES Island
end of Tull? (skating away)
Not here, eh? thinks visiting Wheeler from over at NWES City. He said he’s *always* here, spinning around the place on that oh-so-handy skateboard of his. And I so wanted to thank him for the other day. Oh well… just have to tell the others here that I came by; leave it at that. Maybe next time. I’ll try to message the little fellow.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0209, New Island, Springfeld
Mary York x 2
“See. I *told* you if we waited long enough he would change colors.”
“Very good, Sandy. I need to tell a story now.”
“Go ahead, Wheeler, um, Wendy,” encouraged Sandy. It was her turn after all.
“I was wheeling my way from Picturetown, trying not to be late for the Blue Feather meeting with Baker and, er, the other one. The green toy fellow.”
“You know his name,” Sandy complained.
“Anyway, I see my name on the side of a small square house as it comes into view around another house…”
“Lemme guess. Which has the same name.”
“Yes!”
“Do you want my apples yet?” asks Harrison Ford Jett opposite Sandy now, waiting his turn. He was eager to give them up. He wanted to be a man for Charlene.
“Not yet. We already have the orange and that’s enough for now,” answered Sandy. “Bananas: not needed.”
“So I’ve heard.” Harrison Ford Jett glances sideways at his own partner, his own bestie. They both knew something the other 2 didn’t. That Charlene the Punk was… well it should be obvious by the shirt. We’ll get a pic in a moment. Back to Picturetown and Wendy’s story who is the same as Wheeler.
“In that frozen moment, it was then I noticed a (red) car on the other side of the road from the buildings with my name, also coming into clear view from behind a passing truck. Before the obscuration I knew it was an ordinary car. Now, after the passing, it had a flat. Then *I* had a flat. I became the car.”
“Carrcassonnee?” Harrison Ford Jett guessed, turning his attention to the story and away from his gnawing apples, those chafing, gnawing things in his shirt-blouse. His head pivots to Charlene. “Carrcassonnee is a deity of the Temple…”
“I know who Carrcassonnee is. She’s talking about a car.” Let’s get a picture of that shirt in the pause here.
Oh well, turns out we can’t see it from this angle. Sandy presses the issue on. “Blue again,” he says while staring at the tiny snowman in the midst of it all, formerly All Orange. “We’re losing the reader’s attention.” He wondered if he remembered that line correctly. Must be director Eraserhead Man breaking the 4th wall once more. He glanced at the camera, pretending it was the reader he mentioned. He complimented himself for the improvisation before fully coming back into character.
Wheeler/Wendy as a car.
“I looked over at the square building again. My name was obscured once more (around the corner). I knew I couldn’t make it to the meeting on time. Then, in a flash, everything changed. A boy came by on a skateboard.”
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0208, Canada/Picturetown, Google Street View, Marwood, NWES Island
besties
“It’s over, Sandy,” Baker Bloch said from the bench in front of the canvas. The search for All Orange: done.”
“I know,” he speaks over from the game he and Wendy and perhaps several others are playing. Not Carcassonne, but close, because tiles are involved, jigsaw shaped ones in this case, which they are sitting on as well as playing with. They are playing with themselves.
“Whose move, Wendy?” he asks.
“Yours.” They switch jigsaw pieces with each other while Baker continues to stare.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0207, Marwood, NWES Island
Blue Feather meeting 02
Grassy produces his gifts: 1st, an Iris lantern representing the sim Sunklands Institute just left and Grassy’s home still. “I miss you over there!” he adds while shedding a tear or three from his wonky eyes with black, ping pong ball type pupils darting all over the place.
“Well, we’ll miss you Grassy. But you can come over here to visit any time you wish. You and Roger Pine Ridge both.”
“Roger,” Grassy uttered, as if he’d forgotten about his remaining Iris neighbor for a long time. He hadn’t invited him over for months. Must rectify that asap. They had to talk about Sunklands leaving. NWES in general. Should *they* leave? Nahhh, Grassy the green Mmmmmm thinks here. We’ll hold down the fort. Baker and Wheeler will most likely tire of NWES and return to the heart of it all, the closest place where Lindens and non-Lindens, their users, actually coordinated and cooperated with each other. Until it all fell apart with Jeogeot. *Here*. “Um, sure, Baker Bloch. We’ll come visit.” He included Roger because he knew Roger would be there too. Because, deep down, as has already been stated in that last post, they are one and the same. Grassy has no neighbor except himself. But he likes to pretend. Those kind of toy avatars are heavy into fantasy overall, hence the popularity of the 15 minute cinemas dotting their base metropolis of Hermania over in Herman Park — one around every corner, it seems. Fellow toy avatars Mossmen don’t like the cinemas, and prefer to deal with the real world, plus the 15 minute films are ideal for the Mmmmmm’s much shorter attention span. Mossmen and Mmmmmm’s are opposites in that way. And so much more. Back to the meeting…
“And an Iris dance pad,” he says while producing his 2nd and last gift from his inventory while still proudly holding out his 1st. “Got it free on the marketplace. How serendipitous (with the M&M)!” It was a bigger word Grassy liked to throw around a lot in public now, replacing “accidental”. Grassy was starting to believe that all life was meaningful, at least for toys. He wasn’t sure about the humans.
“Thank you Grassy.”
“Indeed, thank you,” added Wheeler.
“Hi!” exclaimed Curled Paper Gordie Down to finish. Meeting adjourned. Time to find them apples and maybe an orange to spare. Banana? Not in this case. Mae West would not be glad to see him.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0206, Apple's Orchard, Black Ice, NWES Island
Blue Feather meeting 01
“Thank ya’ll for coming, and I’m happy to see Wheeler here on time for a change, ha ha.”
“I ran all the way here from Picturetown. Didn’t want to miss this. Important!”
“Indeed it is,” responded Baker Bloch. “And also at the meeting we have Grassy Noll, who represents toys and non-human avatars in general. Hello Grassy!”
“Helllooo!”
“And I am representative of all males of a human variety and Wheeler here the females of same.”
“Hi Grassy!” Wheeler called over. She was indeed happy to be here. And indeed relieved she didn’t have to be in charge of it all any more. Sunklands Institute was fully away from Iris and the Heterocera continent now and fully integrated into NWES City here as the “orange piece”.
“I have some gifts for the temple!”
“Well, uh, that’s great, Grassy,” replied meeting organizer Baker Bloch, knowing this wasn’t truly a temple but letting the error go between his legs, as they say locally. Good ol’ Grassy. Everyone liked Grassy! Except, of course, his Iris neighbor Roger Pine Ridge, who was, after all — deep down — the same. Oh, that reminds Baker Bloch of his announcement.
“Ahem, before you get to the gifts, Grassy. I’d like to also state that Curled Paper is officially a part of the table and not merely a prop, like, er, the Librarian over there. And, to go along with this, he has a new name: Gordie Down.”
“Hi!”
Wheeler turns to light bulb headed, Winesap reading Gordie Down beside her, formerly Curled Paper. “I thought you were a woman,” she states to him. “I thought he was a woman,” she states to Baker Bloch.
“Not any more. Anyway, it was never really determined.”
“I though it was,” Wheeler held steadfast.
“Nah, not that I recall.”
“*I* recall it. I count the women in this blog. I keep tabs on all that. My responsibility, or one of them, is equality through numbers. The blog holds steady at about a 3:2 ration of men over women avatars. We’d like to see it raised. Curled Paper here was one of ours, and now he’s one of *yours*. We ask for compensation.”
Was Wheeler threatening to *boy*cott the meeting if she didn’t get a female replacement for Curled Paper, now Gordie Down? He decides to back *down*. “Alright, okay. Gordie can be a woman still. We’ll pick her out some apples later on.”
“Oranges. We like to call them oranges now.” Baker Bloch knew that Wheeler was joking now. Orange was reserved for something else.
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0023, 0205, Apple's Orchard, Black Ice, NWES Island
Sunklands 