Being Thanksgiving Day already, Marsha “Pink” Krakow started to husk corn for the festival. Now plain June joined her. Tom showed up and did a little work. Christina showed up and did even less, ranting on and on about her miracle recovery from polio as she does. And Stan never showed atall per team leader Donna’s prediction, over at Dick’s sweets and drink stand all the time drinking and sweeting away her worries. Team leaders never subbed for team members according to the rules — she at least had that going. But the corn was slow to be shucked and the cornbread needed to be served by 7, 7:30 at the latest. Something had to be done. Enter Andrew “Biff” Carter from the woods with a black and white shucking machine made from miracles, June’s beautifying witch power transferred to it instead. Marsha was suddenly free to do something else: either Reuben or Steuben, whichever one was the drummer, was lost in action (remember we’ve already heard from the horse’s mouth that one of the two wasn’t real). Marsha felt 2 drumsticks manifest in her back pocket, also part of the magic. She went over to warming up Batcorn beyond the corn and offered her services. She’ll play her way onto the band, she determined then and there, watching the machine spit out husk after husk, leaving naked white ears of goodness in its wake. All team members and all team leaders were happy. The 2023 Amiable Thanksgiving Day Festival would be a success despite the odds.
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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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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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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00410113
He was typing rapidly while he chatted. He was panicking. “Martha over there! Hey Martha! Have you seen my Batcorn!?”
“Your *what*?”
“Batcorn! The Musicians! 4 of ’em!” He was out of breath, running around the village trying to track down members of the band. He was the musical director of the festivities to come. Just two days away now. Those kids must be prepared!
“Batcorn, hmm,” mulled Martha from the porch of her house. The freshly picked flowers were from an admirer named Claude who lived in Braggtown. Just over the hills. He was a big wig in his place and liked people to know about it. Said it came with the town. Big bouquet for a big admirer. “You mean the *twins*?”
“Well, that’s *2* of ’em,” spoke Sitton back, trying to simmer down. He approached her so he wouldn’t have to talk so loud. “The other 2 are the girls, Jane and Rachel. The one who plays keyboards and the one who plays the accordion.” He was right beneath the porch. He could smell the flowers now. He would ask about them but he didn’t have time. Must – find — Batcorn.
“I think I saw both girls around here earlier,” she said. “One went, let’s see, north and the other west, toward the beach.”
“Okay, that helps that helps.” He took a deep breath before proceeding further. “Thanks Martha!” And it was on to the, let’s see, beach.
As soon as he left the scene the flowers began to dematerialize, the flesh turn cold and blue. Dark matter.
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00410112
She was outside using the little girl’s room that had recently become the little girl’s *and* boy’s room, courtesy of her kidnapping of Biff. He acquired inner workings again so he needed to do such things. And he acquired back the bits that gave him other urges June formerly Jane could manipulate. And he wasn’t tone deaf any longer. In short, he was real when before he was mesh. He found he could even draw his Private Dick pistol when needed, if June hadn’t taken it from him. Where was it where was it? he said to himself while June was indisposed, looking under the bed, the chair, the table, the… wine. Ahh *wine*. Another thing he could enjoy now. He uncorks the recently opened bottle. He takes a sip. He takes another sip. He takes a swig. He takes 2, 3, 4. He turns the bottle over into his mouth like it is a funnel, leaves it there. Glug glug glug glug glug glug — GONE.
Smoothing out the ruffles in her olive green gown, June walks back into the cottage. Biff’s turn now.
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AC/DC
“Do you realize if we get married, Biff, that I’d be June Carter? We’d have to do it in Franklin KY again, then. Just like before. Do you feel like a Man in Black, Biff? You’re almost dressed as one.” She kept strumming her punk song while talking and he kept picking his roots based music one while silent. But somehow, despite the 2 wildly disparate genres involved, the tunes blended perfectly with each other. June Bug Johnston made sure of that with the spell that keeps on giving.
“Awesome,” he finally said, paying attention more to the frets than the fretting. He’d have time for that later. Much time. Much later. After all this wore off, the potion.
We’re at what they call Isolation Cabin, but not far away enough from Amiable Proper that you couldn’t sense the corn. Thanksgiving wasn’t that far away either: shucking time. But who would be participating from the small group of villagers and visitors we’ve already met? Certainly not Eddie, Pink’s Edward, who quickly teleported away upon learning that actual work was involved here. The members of the band Batcorn — Jane, Rachel, Reuben, Steuben — would be providing the music so that lets them out I suppose. Christina’s mind was too far gone to chip in much. And Wally would be seething somewhere out of sight, pissed off that the town didn’t want *him* to perform instead of Batcorn. So that leaves, well, Pink herself. And then maybe these 2. And maybe that Pamela, if she’s not merely a dream figure of Pink’s — probably not. But we’ll meet more soon. Better end this post so we can get at that.
“Songs are over, Andrew ‘Biff’ Carter,” she said, putting away the guitars back inside the bench. “Time for bed again.”
“Where’s — my tractor?” he asked, partially out of the trance since the music was over but quickly put back under inside.
“Doesn’t matter. You’re free of that old clunker now, along with your clunker of a family, Biff. You have me now. *Now*. Inside with you you old shucker,” and she slapped his buttocks to get his big feet started in the right direction.
We’ve answered the part about Biff at least and, by default, June. Formerly Jane as in Plain before she turned herself into a witch.
(to be continued)
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00410110
“Well he obviously crashed it into that lamp post and then stumbled off somewhere, probably drunk on his expensive wine he claims he can’t taste/doesn’t touch. Probably off in the middle of the woods where no one can find him, no one goes for fear of being lost.”
“Or,” offered Marsha “Pink” Krakow as a alternative, “he was *taken*.”
“Taken??” responded Pamela, then was gone. Marsha woke up on the wrong side of the bed in what was initially a strange, unknown place. Then she recalled what happened. The finding of the formerly hidden bedroom.
She knew what she had to do. She walked outside. “Alright I’m ready to talk to you, you stinky old man. About the *truth*.”
Did — he just shoot me a bird?? Marsha then noticed his legs weren’t buried in the soil any longer. Would actual fit her new theory well. Things were being changed, things were being altered. Right under her cute-as-a-button nose.
“You’re from North Carolina I see,” he started after a pause, looking over at the VW Bug still parked on the road near his sitting bench. He also knew the town, the street, the house. Just by looking at the plate.
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00410109
“Sure is pretty here, um, June.”
June? Jane thought. But she wasn’t the first to call her that. “Jane,” she corrected mildly.
“Oh right. Sorry. Anyway, I guess the tractor didn’t make it down to this beach. I looked in the surrounding woods and even under the water. Remotely of course.”
“I’ve been standing here for quite a while and I haven’t see anything,” trying-to-be-helpful Jane said to her fellow villager, also a big fan of the band she and her sister Rachel were in. Now where is her accordion playing sibling anyway? Rehearsal is in 2 hours. She better text Reuben and Steuben to remind them as well.
So that’s 2 sisters in the band Batcorn, and also 2 brothers, but the sisters and brothers are unrelated to each other. So this is sorta like 70s pop supergroup ABBA and sorta not. But they wanted to be big still, ABBA big. They had their sights set on so much more than Amiable, despite their wild popularity in the village among young and old alike. Heck, even tone deaf Andrew “Biff” Carter attended their last gig, dragging along Wally with him, saying it would be good for the boy to get away from the farmhouse and listen to what *other* people liked. Poor, punk obsessed Wally, Jane often thought. He’ll never understand the beauty of actual, roots based songs.
She was the one who came up with the name Batcorn, a combo of the village’s obsession with corn and her favorite superhero Batman from Gotham City. Actually, she preferred villains like Joker and Penguin in the mythology but didn’t relay this to anyone except those closest to her. Rachel knew of course. And Reuben and Steuben. And one other yet to be determined. A boyfriend perhaps.
(to be continued)
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00410108
“What are we looking at, Christina? Are you looking for your father?” Pamela huffs. “Never mind, you *always* look in this direction, long long before your father went missing on his tractor just day before yesterday.”
“I am a visitor to this place. Over there… those hills. That’s where I’m from,” Christina said dreamily, like she was a ghost instead of a flesh and blood person. Which she wasn’t anyway — mesh, as I indicated before. In contrast, Pamela is “real” in that she has an actual body, actual skin, actual clothes that she can change out of if desired. Actual hair. And those feet! Get back to that soon.
“Christina,” she chastised, but only mildly, knowing the young girl was “troubled” to say the least, “you’ve lived in Amiable all your life. We went to school together starting when you were a wee lassie, pardon my Scotch. You’ve lived here with your father, your brother, all your life. Well,” she amended, “your younger brother *most* of your life, since you were, I believe, 3 when he was born.” She turned and stared at the girl instead of the landscape, very pretty indeed but not worth contemplating for more than 5-10 minutes at a time from this particular angle, she gauged. Yet Christina was up here all day, minus food breaks and various small chores her father dared burden her with. Which reminds Pamela: “Grass is going to need cutting soon,” she said to the younger girl by 2 years while walking away, determined to talk to the almost as robotic acting brother, up at what they call the farmhouse as usual playing or at least attempting to play — *strumming* — his punk songs. Whole albums he is into, not just songs, he proclaimed to her one day in April’s May.
She knew Wally kind of fancied her, as all young boys do, even those as lost in their own world as him. Said so another time. “You’re pretty,” he opined then. “Looong legs. I’d give them a 10, just like the Ramone’s 3rd album. Have you heard ‘Rockaway Beach’?” and he then proceeded to play the whole album the single was from as a kind of serenade, she supposed. Another time he said he liked the way she tended to walk on her toes, and played an entire Sex Pistols album called “Never Mind the Buttocks” as she recalled, perhaps as a tribute to the feet as opposed to parts higher up that she also reckoned he liked although couldn’t say out loud to her.
I’m going to snap him out of this rock trance he’s in, she decided on the spot. By snapping off my feet. “Wally? Wally. Waallly. Wally!” He didn’t stop playing some punk song she didn’t recognize — not her style of music. But at least he was glancing at her now, knowing she was up to something. Those legs, he thought. Those feet!
But then he did a double take when the snapping off was over and the alpha was removed. The music halted mid-strum. “Those *feet*!” he exclaimed. What happened to the beautiful toes??
“This is who I really am, Wally,” she said back. “*Now*… since I’ve awakened you from your music trance, let’s talk about your father. Where he possibly is? How far could he get with that old tractor that breaks down all the time? Let’s *find* your *father*.”
This kind of strategy wouldn’t work with Christina, since she, in her limited mesh way of course, wasn’t looking for shells on the opposite side of the shore. Wally could be persuaded in that fashion. And could be woke up in that fashion.
“My *father,*” he exclaimed, putting the guitar down for the first time in Pamela’s memory of him, “is *missing*.”
So is introduced the story that Bigfoot took his father away into the woods and made a pet out of him, which wasn’t totally false by the way.
(to be continued)
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Sunklands 