Tag Archives: CROOKED

00390412

And so he’s come full circle, staring at a wall screen that shouldn’t be here. Constantynople should be integrated into the rest of the island by now. Yet: segregated still; central importance not realized, not understood. Myrtle’s urgings to her neighbors remained in the future, hidden in a probable reality, perhaps never to see the light of day and, if so, perhaps just falling on deaf ears, as she was once deaf to the situation. Yet she saw CROOKED (in the future), she saw the light, thanks to the Abyss and Axis. She turned.

—–

“Hooray, he’s back!” cried the standing yellow porch ickle upon seeing him enter the square. But Mr. Z was not nearly as enthusiastic as when this first happened over 2 months ago, shortly after Constantynople itself was formed. Now it just seemed old… and tired. He says goodbye to the excited ickle, arms still raised in joy, and lumbers up to his 2nd floor apt. pondering next steps. Zimmy, if only I’d found you in Southside, he thinks, head in hands, about ready for a good cry. Now I am still alone. The tears begin…

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0412, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File

barn raised

Backpack loaded even more down than usual, Mr. Z sets off for the opposite coast, Southside some call it, more private than public as “Northside” here is more public than private.

He drops down beside the yellow ickle who bids him farewell and says he wishes he could go as well. Mr. Z points out that he’s a figurine and not really an avatar able to move about or he’d gladly take him along with him, if only to help carry his heavy pack. “Thank you,” the ickle said to this, happy to be even thought of.

Below Constantynople, he quickly encounters elephants where once was an empty Abyss, and not too long ago. Despite a tiger also being in their mix, he safely makes his way to the ridge in the distance that marks the boundary of Myrtle’s property, the highest point on the island despite being only about 15 meters above sea level.

Finding the Passable Property Corner (PPC), he successfully bypasses the ridge to entering Myrtle’s public part.

Damn. Forgot to close the outhouse door, she thought while staring at it from the single room she lived in, which Mr. Z. subsequently has to walk by to get to the house.

Cow, eh? How appropriate. He ignores the lingering smell while skirting, sights set on his goal.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0407, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File

extreme resonance

“Well I have to admit I’m *jealous* Mr. Z. You’ve done such a fabulous job here…”

“Aw *shucks*. T’wernt nothing.” His true face on the many masked backpack he always carries around identifies itself by turning slightly red here.

“And I’ve, well, I’ve barely touched the Temple of TILE. So jealous…”

Mr. Z reached over, patted his hand. “We’ll work on it… *together*.”

“Sweet of you.”

“But first I have to make a journey. Across the island, south side instead of north. I have to go see where my cousin is, the other Mr. Z, the one they specifically named and called Zimmy. Last I heard: with a Beech.

Al’s cell phone rang. “I have to take this,” he said to the historian living on the second floor of Crooked in the village of Constantynople who had just recreated, to the best of his ability, the famous TILE channeling room where a 3rd cousin to himself and Zimmy, Olive Oylstick (who we’ve already met in this here photo-novel at the end of section 01), gave the virtual and real worlds her uber-important manifesto. All the answers to the universe, some say are in there. Trouble was, no one really knew how to properly decode the almost indecipherable document yet. Mr. Z was hoping that this re-creation was a step in that direction, along with coordination with Al and his high connections, TOM we’re talking about here. Who is on the other side of the line with Al now. Let’s listen in as best we can.

“Yeah it’s a nice day here in Constantynople, thanks for asking. What’s on your mind, TOM?”

Reply. I thought I heard the word Jasper, which was confirmed just ahead.

“Oh. Sorry to hear about that, TOM. So, hmm, I guess you’ll be staying in the Waste now. Is that where I find you?”

Longer reply. Perhaps a minute or even two.

“For now, huh?” Al responds. “Seeing what develops in Jasper — not giving up on it. Okay, as long as I know where you are.” Then, glancing over his shoulder at the setup within, Al gives him some news that he thinks will cheer his superior boss up.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0402, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File, Temple of TILE

FILE and TILE apparently have a close close relationship

In the TILE Church of Neptune, she read from the good book of Matthew, by memory of course, since she was married to the lout.

“And yea, some say he came from the North to fabled Constantynople, like a slut on a horse in the water. Some say from the South, like a pole cat, slithering along inside the night sky like a dove or train. To those who say East or West we abhor you, ignore you, blank you in the streets, hold you contemptible in court. There is only FILE… not rank. I do not even capitalize a single letter of the latter, yet the former is shouted from the streets, the towns, the continents, the whole world. Even if, yea, it is only 31 sims of length in an up and down manner. The 32 was lopped off, like an early retirement. We pray to gods for the time to make up for it and, yea, the gods deliver.”

“She’s in good form tonight,” said Sally Spear to Sarah Shake one row down from the front to make it an even 6, counting the 4 filled on the other side of the aisle. It was bad luck to sit in the 7th, which represented the missing sim. “Keep a gap between you and the gods,” Suzanna Oh 2345 said another time (paraphrasing). Like the good and great and wonderful letters of our TILE have gaps between them to protect the singular entity, some 1 and some 2. To those who say 3 or any other number we abhor you.” (etc.)

Like Laura and Clemenesta behind them, they were staying at the Foxy so-as to be close to church and emergency worship sessions, etc. Because definitely their soul needed to be saved, they felt. Jesus let them down — was cut off — because he and his clan were missing the 4th, the yellow some say, others: green. The 4th is the shadow, the thing not wanted to be dealt with. Yet all 4 embraced it; began having private TILE meetings in the old Video Days Rental building where it all started, over in the Black Diamond part of town. Never mind that the place now sells tattoos. Definitely part of the magic! 100 lindens per week rent well spent, especially split between the lot of ’em. A secret door connected the 2 parts.

Then one day the door went away and Laura and Clemenesta were alone, no robots around. It was just them all along; they had awoken as if from a dream. Newton.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0310, Black Ice, Constantynople, Jeogeot, Lands End, Nautilus, Neptune, NORTH, NWES Island^, Rank & File, Wild West

lazy boys

Things have happened in the sim of Hypolazy lately. Directly south of Constance and my Constantynople. Closest hit in (my map) Oracle, *only* hit really in any category, pop place or not, is Hypoluxo Florida, an incorporated town a little south of West Palm Beach. On a whim googled Hypoluxo + synchronicity and this came up at the top of the search results list: Reddit post mentioning Randonaut, a term I hadn’t heard of before and originating in the popular app called Randonautica. First the Reddit post (note the description of the find = Void)…

https://www.reddit.com/r/randonaut_reports/comments/iafpql/randonaut_trip_report_from_hypoluxo_florida/

… then the wiki I quickly dug up about Randonautica:

https://randonauts.fandom.com/wiki/Randonauts_Wiki

RANDONAUTICA is the world’s first & only quantumly generated Create Your Own Adventure app. Randonauting is a way to turn the world around you into an adventure. Randonautica was created to send a Randonaut outside of their day-to-day routine by using a quantum random number generator to derive a coordinate to journey to.

Owl as their primary symbol, related to this odd synchronicity concerning an original contributor named Jamal who was running the Randonaut chatbot server in its early days…

https://randonauts.fandom.com/wiki/Owl_Synchronicity

Turning to the Oracle again, we have a hamlet called Owls Head NY with an alternate name of Ringville, which quickly and obviously — to me anyway — resonates with the owl ring of Twin Peaks, featured in a number of photo-novel related blog posts up to this point. Like here:

https://bakerbloch.com/2017/09/10/59694/


Twin Peaks derived owl ring as worn by character Nancy in photo-novel 05

AnyHOOT, back to Hypoluxo FL and the generated coordinates from the Reddit post. When visiting the mentioned lake through Google Earth Streetview, found this graffiti on a cinder block wall bordering it to the north. Crooked letters — KRMNL — mixed with straight — HYCTY. Blurring of letters N, Y and T here is caused by camera. Unsure if HYCTY refers to HYpoluxo the CiTY, but KRMNL obviously relates to criminal. A *crooked* criminal of otherwise *straight* Hypoluxo was responsible for this illegal act?

Besides being in Hypoluxo, the town that is, the marshy lake in question is also just south of Hypoluxo Road which starts at the east end of Hypoluxo and proceeds basically straight across Palm Beach County for almost 10 miles before ending near where the vast, central Florida swampland begins.

Curiously in googling Hypoluxo + graffiti, a defiled Dunkin’ Donuts also just off Hypolaxo Rd. came up at the top this time, which is also exactly west of the graffiti from the marsh-lake pictured above. The spray painted message here: “Dukie,” a cruder product in both name and execution, also found on a neighboring storage facility. Wanted by the police, the scoundrel. Crooked not straight indeed.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0604, Constantynople, Florida, Google Street View, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wild West

more walls

My Constantynople is essentially walled off on all sides from the land. People — residents — especially island residents probably, just want their privacy or maintain their autonomy and not really interact with neighbors. It’s a shame, though. But… it’s also something I can work with since I still have access to the big hunk of the involved parcels, including all immediate neighbors. Even building rights on most. A little strange. So I’ll definitely remain situated here for a while, especially given the resonance. New character Myrtle Beech, name taken directly from a parcel on the south side of the island (opposite the northern Constantynople), is also kind of a stand in for another avatar I’ve just learned about, and the person behind the avatar, which I’m still studying. A lot of material to go through (!). Old in Our Second Lyfe like me. Difficult to relay what I’ve been uncovering: consonance and dissonance both. Very deep — more soon on all that hopefully as I sort out the still incoming information. But that’s another reason I’m staying put for a while. Even the name Constantynople has something to do with her. It’s on the surface and then it runs deeper, all the way down to the Abyss (another island location — middle this time).

I will progress forward understanding the resonance and the connection between all island residences, if only unconsciously in the main. I will honor the dead memorialized here. I will respect those who want to remain private. We’ll track it all through the map in CROOKED — as I’m currently calling the odd Moard Ling gazebo sort of at the center of it all now. Yes, we have a map. We can build up from that.

One change from before. What I  labelled “dance island” on this map in the last section actually has a name according to its parcel description, as I’ve subsequently found out: Tiki Beach. This is also where the reader first encounters the island. Here:

https://bakerbloch.com/2023/05/28/00380503/

We have circled back to the beginning. We did not understand the significance of the Bali belly dancer (statue) at the time. We are better aligned now. This seems to be Myrtle again, just returned to her south island home. All is in place for the next act.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0601, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wild West

00380517

And then Ruby finds maybe a final, major landmark of the island: the almost football field long Wall Street also known as Long Lane.

We can continue.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0517, Constantynople, Missouri, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wild West

00380516

“I found something,” im-ed Wheeler, disguised as ice cream dress wearing Ruby again. “A second memorial. You can mark it on your map from my position.”

But Baker, disguised as Newt, had found something too. A working portal. He clicked one of the balls and it took him directly to ML Gazebo 91, a miracle. Just where he was suppose to be.

“Got it!” he im-ed back after the pin placement, not daring to tell his new discovery to the young, impressionable Ruby. Wheeler later, maybe.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0516, Constantynople, Nautilus, New Island^, Omega^^, Rank & File, Wild West

ML Gazebo 91c: What’s Next after Newt?

And so we return to the beginning of sorts, the grave of Constantyne, namesake (of sorts) to Constantynople.

Close. Very close.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0514, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wild West

ML Gazebo 91b

She’d blocked herself off from the hill, her property, never intending to return. Of course she did. Kicked out that All Orange creature (with the red prison legs) from her house, as stated, found only Philip and the big caught fish next door when she returned, pretty Xia and Zimmy gone forever, it seemed. Philip exists on here to tell another tale. I personally know he has to visit the newly set up library over at my Constantynople, see what’s been written about him for the archival record. A lot! Small and big fish alike. Some whoppers once more. He had to stay on the island.

She stood further back, knowing this was about as close as she could get to the center of the island. She stares across what would eventually become the Abyss toward her namesake hill-ridge now in the distance, wondering aloud what it all meant. “Another island? Another pitch dark center? Axis?”

“Yes?”

She twirls. Nobody there — the voice came from nowhere. But she did spot the gazebo in the distance now through a couple of the island privacy walls, portal opened, Constantynople fulfilled. An urban area for the island at last, no matter if the other residents knew it or not. She’d fill each and every one of them in later. “How dare you, so and so!” “How dare *you*, so and so!” And so on until everyone was accounted for, starting with herself.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0513, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wild West