Tag Archives: April Mae Flowers^^++++

June 1, 2024 · 3:12 am

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“Well I’m glad you threw on *some* clothes. A bit of bosom still hanging out there I see. Can’t resist.”

“No,” she said nonchalantly, and purses her lips even more in disdain for the discourse. “Whadda ya want? Tobacco? Because that’s all I have to offer.”

“I *want*… to know why Clarence the Spy was here in the first place. And what the assignment is. You’ve already been a model in Aisle of Palms. To the painter Greg Ogden, remember? Why did Clarence approach you about going back?”

“Because he recognized me, I suppose. Recognized talent, like the first guy.”

“Well tell me about the 1st guy for criminy’s sake.”

“Bald. Old. Reformed stealer of art he told me. Gold I think is the name. Remembered me and the girls called him Old Gold after that, yeah. ‘Is Old Gold gonna pick you up in his Oldsmobile this evening?’ Stuff like that… silly girl banter. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh I *understand*,” replied Fern, feeling slighted about her superior brain power. “First you put on a bathing suit, then some revealing red lingerie, and now this, about as fully dressed as you can get, I suppose. I know your type. You didn’t like being *abstracted*.”

Redd said nothing to this except, “you done?”

“Yeah, I suppose I am.” She knew who “Old Gold” was, of course. She couldn’t talk to the wife about this for discretionary reasons. But maybe Greg would know something.

“One more thing. Do you know where Greg Ogden is now? We haven’t seen him since he finished your so-called portrait. I’m speaking for all the members of the Baker Bloch family, extended and otherwise.”

Redd looked around then leaned forward, reducing her voice. “Buy me out of my daily requirement of smoke sales and we’ll talk. I’ll be free to leave my post, then. Boss just wants X amount of money per day. You’ll give him that, then I’ll tell you the information you need.”

*Knew* there was something here, thought Fern while she reached into her gray capri pants to retrieve her wallet. Wait… how’d that *pistol* get in there??

She finally wakes up.

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January 5, 2024 · 3:38 am

Humanvillians no more

“So tell me more about this young girl you met. Corvo, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, well you *know* her name. Supergal Ruby. And you know she’s engaged… or reengaged to be more exact,” he tried to reassure his wife. “Her and Greg Ogden had been married before. But…” Herbert Glenn Gold wasn’t sure he wanted to bring up the death of Greg’s interim lover Mr. Babyface in that Korean Channel water funnel. Simply because he wasn’t sure he was really dead.

“But what, dear?” April Mae said in the gap. “Is… is there a problem in paradise?” This was what she sometimes said when she sensed trouble in a relationship. And this one, she felt, threatened hers. She had been quite insecure — and understandably so — since the Merry Goldbusk debacle over in NWES City. And now they’ve returned to the same continent of the indiscretion — probably adds to the paranoia a bit.

“I don’t think so. Anyway, that’s why I invited them both here,” he followed up on earlier conversation. “Greg is happy painting so I provided him with models.”

“Models, hmph. Is that what you call them?” She was usually more tolerant of Herbert’s eye wanderings but her biorhythms were on the downswing today. Perhaps too much tea lately. But Albert makes such a fine pot!

“Now now, April Mae. They’re only cheap mesh statues really. Like all those ones standing outside Baker has lined up for potential use later on.” They were on the wrong side of the house to look at all that mess so April Mae didn’t try. Flesh and mesh, she thought here. Unreal but still tempting, she felt.

“Soo… she was just here to pick up the 2 coins and then leave. And you said she knows what to do with them.”

“She knows. But she just has to remember. There’s 2 directions here,” he says as he cuts another piece of pizza and gobbles it down. “She can pawn off the golden coins for quite a small fortune actually.”

Unwise, April Mae thinks here about his earlier actions. Risky and unwise.

“*Or*,” he continues, “she can use them as *evidence*.”

“Atlantis, right.” She cut her own piece, she accomplished her own gobble. “And what about Bermuda?; you mentioned a Bermuda. From the way you described it it sounded more like a person than a place.”

Thinking of her newest dress with all the parrots, Herbert Glenn Gold decided to deflect here again. “No, it’s a place. A triangle, actually.”

Another funnel, he then realized.

—–

“I’ll take everything you have,” she said shortly after entering the store and the introductory chit chat was over with Hector Big Parrot Bird Guy. “Including these 3. Including *you* if you wish, she thought but didn’t say out loud. There had to be limits to all this silliness.

“Molly, Polly and Folly are *not* for sale,” he returned in a haughty voice more human than bird. “They’re my friends. They keep me company. I can’t be entertained by reading all the time.” He finally looks up from the book about non-parroty things, stares into her eyes. “But the rest are yours. Take them, I don’t care. I’m just an unpaid employee minding the shop while the owner is away. I don’t know when he’ll be back. He’s been gone for days, maybe years even. I don’t care,” Hector reiterates.

“Free?” she said.

“Free.” I can replenish the stock in a blink of an eye. *Those* parrots aren’t real; mere 2d replicas. Only these three here are real. My friends, as I said.”

Molly emitted, “You’re darn tootin,” to this.

Polly squawked loudly as if in agreement.

But, without chatter herself, Folly just looked around from her own perch at everyone involved. She personally had her doubts that *any* of this is real, pet shop and all. And where was Victor Ratt the owner? Rumor has it that he’d been kidnapped by pirates.

Only the unreal parrots in back knew for sure and they weren’t talking either.

(to be continued)

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January 4, 2024 · 11:03 pm

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He paused in his magical spinning to admire the ocean view. Back on Jeogeot, he thought with satisfaction. It seems we just left.

A knock at the door. “Dear,” spoke over interwebs watching April Mae Flowers, the wife of many years, “are you expecting someone?”

Actually, he was. She’d caught up with him, just as he’d planned. He said to his wife: “Yes. It’s an acquaintance from Corvo. She’s cool with the gold. Go ahead and let her in.”

“Albert, if you would,” requested April Mae to their Selenite butler behind her, always at ready by the fireplace with whatever the elderly couple needed, mainly tea but occasionally other tasks. Like now. “Certainly, mum,” he said in that trilling, alien voice of his, laying down the tea tray on the, let’s see, fireplace mantel and proceeding to the door.

“Welcome,” he issued to the stranger outside. “Mssr. Gold said he’s expecting you.”

“Indeed he is,” she said.

“Hi Supergal Ruby!” he called over in the waning light after opening the other door remotely. Time to turn the lights on in this interesting new development.

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August 19, 2023 · 8:43 am

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“Are we going to go ahead and sacrifice Willy Wonka, this *new* clown?” knife welding Preacher Stefan cried in the church immediately bordering the joker’s property, channeling the anger of Constantynople’s townspeople as a whole. Their buildings, their homes, had been called *junk*! Outrage spread through the village. Thus this meeting in the church they all loved. At least he didn’t pick on *this* particular low lying building, the most sacred in all the I’s land: St. Merry’s. “*I* want to speak,” said Pitch from the front, who was, after all, their default leader, the me closer to me than all the rest, being the same as Baker Bloch in essence. “Go ahead, dear,” urged wife Mary by his side. Always. Preacher Stefan acted fast before the townspeople were persuaded otherwise with a stab and accompanying spurt — right on Pitch’s just washed suit, blood splattered again so soon. Pitch looked down.

“Aww *damn*!”

“*Honey*. Not in *church*.” Laughter all around; bloodlust satisfied. Pitch had no pitch here.

“We’ll work on getting it out later,” she added toward the end, wiping up all they could in the moment.

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July 19, 2023 · 8:26 am

00390211

“April May June passed so fast April Mae Flowers. Now it’s July…”

“And we’re resurrected, yes,” replied Herbert Glenn Gold’s wife of 47 (?) years. “Waiting for action. ‘Annnnnd…'” she attempts to joke like a director. “Remember what happened last time.”

“Um hmm,” Herbert murmured while nodding, wondering where his pudding is. How could he eat his pudding without his meat, though? Strange thought.

“So much promise over on the Jeogeot continent. So much disappointment. House *deleted* after, what was it, 1 month?”

“At that,” Herbert Gold replied, even a bit more disappointed than April Mae over the affair. Speaking of which; he should bring this up now, before we get too far into the story. “I saw Merry Hill Gouldbusk the other day. Supermarket,” he continued. “She had 2 apples and one banana and then excused herself to the cashier and got one orange and slotted it between the 2 foods before the whole thing was rung up, all the items in that order. She was trying to tell me something. She didn’t seem to recognize me, though. I was shocked.”

“Gold face still in place?” April Mae only asked with a little venom. She was use to such sidetracking. After 48 (48!) years you learn to put up with a lot. And fantasizing about a woman half your age is not at the top of the shit list, not any more.

“Yes. Red hair still too.” Herbert stopped here, thinking back, which April Mae spotted. Still worth a hundred dollars? she wanted to ask but held her tongue. Long time ago now. They had bigger worries now, like how to cope with growing old. They had to stick together on this one. She’d seen Mr. Platinum, she’d seen the future. They could not turn back the clock.

“When did you get so tall, dear?” she diverted. She looked right. “And where is our favorite painting on the wall, the Blue Panther? The one we stole from… oh, I can’t recall, hmph, I can’t recall them all.”

Herbert slouched down and then answered the second. “I believe the farmer boy is bringing it over later.”

“What farmer boy?”

Herbert reconsidered. “No, I think it was repossessed. By the Blue Panther and his, erm, agent. Back at the end of novel 36. They came huffing and puffing up the hill to the house. Hill House we wanted to name it. But not after Merry.”

“Of course not,” April Mae waved the idea off. She tried to remember the repossession.

—–

Later in his study he remembered it was a gardener and not a farmer that his wife had had an affair with.

Later on the john, April Mae remembered that the art was destroyed instead of repossessed.

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January 28, 2023 · 1:37 pm

Somoco: Gothic-Deco

“Well it’s just lovely, dear.”

Like you, he thinks. He’s still smitten with her beauty after all these years. To him, she hasn’t aged hardly a bit. In his eyes. “We’ll get you some new art,” he explains about the missing piece on the wall, stolen from a gallery somewhere they both can’t recall the name of at this point. “Turning over a new leaf in this here newest version of Collagesity we are. Crinimals no more.”

“No more,” vowed his wife Lovey, the former Ms. April Mae Flowers, together the Clyde and Bonnie of Second Life art thievery. She reaches across the table to hold his hand. A team still they are, just on the right side of the law this go around. But then her mind starting wandering back to one particular piece specifically, the one that earned them their nickname of Humanvillians at the time of the steal. She was picking up on the psychic vibe of the community in her gifted way (so many residents with “gifts”!). Intuitively, she knew about the cave, the railroad, the train, the castle, the deity within who needed to return home so badly, whether it be Missouri or Kentucky or Oklahoma or some other state, even a state of mind.

“I’m glad that man I killed in Collagesity is still floating in the pool back there. A constant reminder of the errors of my way. We’ll keep him there.”

“The… gardener,” Herbert Gold, in turn, reminded his wife, thinking they really *both* killed him. Since he was his rival for her hand back in ’72. The Zoo Year; all the monkeys let loose; everything *bananas* (flying about). Who knows who did in who at the time, or who cheated on her husband and/or wife during any particular stretch. That Zoo needed to be closed, become a fossil. That Zoo was also Boos, the gallery, the collages. Did I say ’72? I meant 2017. 2016, actually, although 7 is a funnier number than 6. Sepisexton.

At the bottom of the hill below Herbert and Lovey’s new house, Sepisexton pulls in with Paul. They’re here about the art.

“Just up there,” she points. “Let’s go,” Paul says, ready to spew some acidities.

(to be continued)

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January 23, 2023 · 8:13 pm

ecumenical matter

“So tell me about this Church of the Ood. Been a while, you know.”

“Oh things have changed. No more clown sacrifices for these good folk up here. That’s all done and in the past.”

“Explain.” He looks at the pictures up front again, merged at the frames — black and white, yin and yang, he perceives. He’s explaining the situation to himself. “One beneath it all?” he guesses.

“Yes.” Guy sure is psychic, thinks Baker Bloch again, still hanging around Gold since his wife has been delayed. Suspicious but of course he doesn’t delve deeper into a reason. The Golds always seem to sort it out despite the many issues involved now, he thinks, infidelity to name a big one on both their parts. High Infidelity, then.

“I was also thinking,” Gold theorized further, “that the clowns have been exterminated through repeated sacrifices and there’s no more reason to hate them. Because none exist.”

“Yeah, that too I suppose. 1/2 and 1/2.” Gold glared over. We weren’t suppose to use that expression past novel 25, the one that changed everything. Baker apologizes, but he only 1/2 meant it. He of course kept that fact to himself. Because — it was a little thing but such things add up to make big things — he wanted to make it okay to say that again. He wanted to honor 12 Oz Mouse expressions above all else. Now that Spider has been found inside collages again. Spider equals Skillet, he knows through Missouri. Polk County, Missouri, to be specific. Home of Uncle Joe and Aunt Zoe, humanvillians both. He didn’t return the glare but he looked over all the same. Gold — could turn into platinum at any specific turn of events. Reaction. Visit from grand-niece and now grown-up Tessa could trigger it. Because she thought him dead anyway; surprised he was still a part of the Land of the Living after Baker phoned her up on a whim. He’s curious to see what happens when they meet.

And where is Preacher Zoidboro? he thinks. 7:05 now. Everyone is here that’s here so far, everyone is anticipating results from this lone religion of town now that the clowns are gone. They have to find or at least pretend to find some sort of God or else all is still doomed.

(to be continued)

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January 23, 2023 · 5:10 pm

00360605

“Why the tire beside the front porch?”

“It reminds me of a past time in another location. Full of junk like that. I had to sit on a tire based concoction to do my business, for example.”

“Good good,” I assuaged. Seems like this is going in the right direction for a sale. Now to the price. “50 lindens,” I said.

“A month?” Herbert Gold shot back.

“Well, no. A week. It’s a fabulous view…”

“… that could be blocked by a neighbor’s structure any day now, any hour.”

Gold had a point. “A month, then,” I said. What was money in this town, straight or curvy? Didn’t matter. “Just don’t tell the other renters I gave you such a deal.”

He made a zipping motion over his lips, indicating he understood. Mum’s the word.

“And April Mae Flowers too — whenever she shows up.”

“I’ll tell her,” he said. “But she likes to go by Lovey now. Ever since the theft of our identities back in (photo-novel) 34. To help differentiate *us* Golds from *them* Golds. Gold City Golds,” he clarified. “Like in Gilligham’s Island,” he said about her new name. “And me…”

“Yes, Thurston. Backus,” I refined, taking it to another level and indicating the actor who played the super rich Thurston Howler the Third beyond the character. Descended from monkeys they were, as we all are. Their fictional surnames just indicate a closer connection than most.

“And,” said Gold. “She *is* lovely. That’s not just a name borrowed from some hack 60s sitcom.”

Back in the day maybe, I think here. “Of course,” I said aloud.

“We want to clear our names, make ourselves good, even model citizens in the eyes of others here. Who have we got so far?”

“Five,” I said, indicating a number instead of names. Because it was really only 3, and I was counting the Howlers as chickens before they hatched. Because he hadn’t given a definitive “yes” yet.

“Counting us?” Ahh, prescient a bit, I think here, pondering whether this was a good character trait or bad character trait. How far goes the mind reading? I decided to think of a number; see if he could guess.”

“Are you thinking seven, then?”

He immediately went further back in darkness with this, fear taking over. He could be returning as some sort of saint but he definitely had been a sinner. True to his name, though, he was certainly valuable, gold if not platinum. Because we wanted to stay away from platinum this time. That was the direction of The End.

I extended my hand for a shake. He put a chocolate chip one in it, prepared and hiding in a back pocket for just this moment. I remained confused if this sealed the deal or not until I drank it later back at the Blue Feather and found a fifty dollar bill at the bottom of the cup. 1st month’s rent. The Golds are bona fide Somocons.

(to be continued)

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January 23, 2023 · 9:06 am

00360603

I’ll probably spend the rest of this here photo-novel tracking down a select group of past characters and try to convince them to come join me in Somoco (Soos Mountain Community), my new home on the Jeogeot continent. Like Karoz here, enjoying the view in a revamped Wendy sim. I’m not sure I’ll be successful in prying him away from all this.

“Just try it out,” I urged from the side. “The Julia House is all set up at that nice waterfall slash cascade you and Baker Blinker seem to like.” But I knew the problem was the missing N, which would in all likelihood never be recovered. And the same thing goes in the opposite way for his wife and thought-to-be soulmate Baker Blinker. So I decided to sit down with her instead.

She was living in a different part of the French themed city called Serenity — up on the plateau instead of down in the valley with Karoz. I did not have access to her location tonight. Oh well. Who’s next?

I’ve tried Mabel but just got circled back to Franklin, a fellow greenie, large-ish instead of small-ish.

Herbert Gold, then. Or his wife Lovey, changed from April Mae Flowers sometime between photo-novel 30 and now.

—–

Even though everything has changed around me, I still come here and wait and hope. Come find me again Baker Bloch!

Free me from these shackles.

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January 22, 2023 · 9:39 am

what we know so far…

It’s called Soos Mountain Community, north central part of the Jeogeot mainland continent, Our Second Lyfe. Somoco for short.

Two ground galleries exist there for my collages: the Boos Gallery (or, now, “Boos in Soos” I suppose, ha) and, next door, the Red Umbrella. Details of each can be found on the collage page of this site.

https://bakerbloch.com/collages/

I’ve decided not to call this village Collagesity again because I don’t have the majority of my collages displayed there, unlike a true, classic version a la a Rubi (Heterocera) or a Fordham (Nautilus) location. Lacking are Falmouth, Gilatona-Lis, and Art 10×10 collage series, over 200 collages in total. Also I’m having challenges fitting in newer, post-Boos collages into a proper virtual gallery, all lumped together for now and labeled Bogota (2016-present). Unlike other series, Bogota works tend to act as supplements to the photo-novels instead of linking with each other inside independent series (or sub-series), although I’ve decided to divide them into such anyway, or make a stab at it. Since photo-novel 01, “Collagesity Winter 2015-2016”, the tone and intensity of the collages have shifted. I’m still exploring what this means long term: the progression of the novels, almost 36 in number now (!), doesn’t seem to be slowing down much at all. *It* is the new center moving forward, not collages, although this situation could change/revert. I’m also eyeing a return to audiovisual synchronicities in the future, another kind of collage revival. We’ll see.

Anyway, back to the name, Soos Mtn. is the dominant natural feature of the community so there’s that as well.

Who lives there? A chance that Karoz Blogger and his lovely wife and blog co-owner Baker Blinker will, although that’s a bit up in the air. I’m eyeing the Julia House strategically placed along the community’s only cascade/waterfall for a residence, something that was set up in Collagesity Fordham for that same purpose but not really fulfilled. Perhaps Karoz can regain the N there he lost somewhere along the way, turning it or transforming it into a Julian House, droop no more. Unlikely but still a probability.

Martian Mabel could return. Her old Scarlet Creative Sylvia House she loved so much has been rerezzed. Her crush on blog co-owner Baker Bloch could be revisited, her *Gravity Falls* origins reexamined, hmm.

https://bakerbloch.com/2017/01/24/47950/

Entrepreneur and noted art thief Herbert Gold and his accomplice-wife Lovey (April Mae Flowers) are quite likely to return. Their very interesting and unique Gothic-Deco House is all set up and ready to move back into, positioned below the Julia House and the falls we mentioned before. To review, they stole the collage “Humanvillians” from the Falmouth Gallery in 2019 and got in a lot of trouble because of it. They want to fully redeem themselves in the eyes of others.

Baker Blinker’s old Gloomy Gus residence is also back (directly above the Scarlet Creative Sylvian House). Wheeler’s place?

The Hole in the Wall bar has returned, present in every version of Collagesity down through the years as I recall.

The Red Door Church sits on the northern slope of the mountain. Seems to be a revival of the Ood religion going on within, what with the return of the clown sacrificial alter. Not sure about its opposite religion Fries with Cheese actually run by clowns; no presence yet in the community. Have they all been eradicated?

Then we have the 2 pillars of the community in the Blue Feather on the western side, in the lowest part of the land, and then the Soos Castle perched on the very top of the mount. We’ll examine those in more detail in a post coming up.


top to bottom: Soos Castle, Red Door Church, Falls Shack, Julia House, Gothic-Deco House


left to right: Gothic-Deco House, Gloomy Gus, Scarlet Creative Sylvia House, ML Gazebo 138, Hole in the Wall, Blue Feather


Boos and Red Umbrella collage galleries

(to be continued)

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