Tag Archives: Curled Paper/Gordie Down^^+~!#

New Leaves

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“It’s time to take off your mask, Librarian,” speaks a freshly arrived Wheeler. “I have learned information concerning you from an old witch named Mid Hazel over at New Island.”

“Alright,” he relented. “I know Mid Hazel and her ways. But when I reveal who I am you must change as well. We must do it in concert. Ready?…”

“Don’t play that one two three game with me,” demands Wheeler. “Just remove the mask.”

He did.

And she did.

“As people like us say,” the transmogrified Wheeler pronounces, “we meet again.”

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Sewed Up? 01

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“Oh Baker Bloch. I was hoping that was you down here.” But Old Mabel then knew it wasn’t Baker Bloch. This was Wilson. “Oh… sorry. Hello Wilson.”

“Please, call me Wheeler Old Mabel,” and then Wilson turned into the appropriate form for this nomenclature. “Have you seen that picture by chance?” Wheeler points to her left at Wheeler 02 displayed on the Big Board, as she’s come to call the screen with the interweb feed at the Table Room.

Old Mabel sits in the suave chair next to the Big Board to get a closer look. “I think I’ve seen it in SoSo Mall, maybe.”

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“Look at the sewing machine. What’s the name?”

“Let’s see. Um, it says Wheeler… Wilson. Hmmm. Like you.”

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“That is all,” says Wheeler abruptly. “You can go.”

(continued in)

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Red Read

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“Father, when will mother be joining us?” asked Snowbob the man-child.

“Corsica,” indicated the father. “Corsica, Corsica, Corsica!”

“She’s not going to be here anytime soon. Is she?” The father doesn’t answer this time. Both stare blankly into space.

Snowbob is beginning to theorized his family won’t be staying in Collagesity long. The house payment hasn’t gone through yet. Their furniture is still in storage. Even though he manged to get the main gate to the property open yesterday, there was still some kind of invisible barrier that he had to jump over to come inside — a sign. And his father’s skin had turned from yellow to green. A mysterious malady, because he seems perfectly normal. But Snowbob keeps recheckeding his father’s outfit list behind him. Always green skin instead of the previous yellow. Yellow is missing. Yellow is missing!

—–

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I’ve got to solve this case so I can get out of here! thought Owens, wearing the mantle of private detective now.

Tired of staring at roshambo images, he sat down at The Table and enjoyed more leftover wine from the diner. By this time he was drinking straight from the bottle. “Reading anything interesting?” he asked Curled Paper across from him, trying to start up a conversation once more. “‘Winesap’? Sounds intriguing.” But Curled Paper still said nothing (his light was off). Paper, he then thought. Curled Paper. Another clue?

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“I wonder where The Librarian went?” he tried again. “He always seems to be here, sitting.”

“Bathroom break, let’s say,” then uttered Tin S. Man in his low voice from the left. “It takes him a while.” Owens had forgotten the metal being was alive. Someone to talk to while he drinks. Nice!

“Well, er… what do I call you?” He squinted up at the giant’s kind face.

“Tin S., please. Like the game. Like the sport. It’s always love something for me. My ego and aggression are always zeroed out.”

“Well that’s fascinating, Tin S.,” Owens spoke while taking another sip of wine from his bottle. “So rude,” he then said of himself, lifting the bottle toward Tin S. Man. “Want any?”

“I cannot drink wine, only oil. Wine makes me tipsy. When I fall down, I cannot get up because of my massive weight. Only oil please. Do you have a bottle of oil?”

“Not on me, no. Maybe later. Listen, Tin. S., how did you get here? I mean, why are you at The Table along with the others? Old Mabel mentioned you were a famous musician inside that outer casing. Dave something. Davis?”

“Davies,” corrected Tin S. Man. “That is a true inner form, yes.” He paused.

“What’s the purpose of all this?”

Tin S. Man moved his joints slightly, then asked a question back: “What do you know of our user?”

“I know that Baker Bloch is the main channel for the user who goes by the same name.”

“Baker B., close enough,” said Tin S. Man.

“And… um, I guess The Table, as far as I understand, represents a gathering of variants, mainly musicians like yourself, who have, er, *donated* their work to a greater whole. This Table.” He then knocks on The Table to reinforce his answer.

“Are you staying in town long enough to attend the next Table meeting?” asked Tin S. Man.

“I *hope* not,” returned Owens. He needed to get back to the roshambo images. Something about that yellow hand. Paper. Switch. He pulled the little, wine stained slip of paper from his coat pocket and read it again. This is the one found in Baker Bloch’s own wine. “Pill” is all it said.

“Reading anything interesting?” The giant smiles.

—–

Meanwhile, over at the Red Umbrella…

That’s him alright. Owens.”

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“And over in Boos as well,” added Old Mabel.

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Yellow Down?

“We are both sitting demons at The Table now,” stated Wheeler. “You can speak freely here fiend, er friend.”

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“M-my father’s perfectly yellow skin turned to green in an instant!” gasped Snowbob.

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“But… he’s still yellow,” Wheeler said, looking over.

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“I *know*.”

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S. is for Soldier

Old Mabel had pulled in a suave chair from the patio of the Perch restaurant next door to become friendlier with Tin S. Man, who turned out to be a fount of knowledge once you got him to open up (heart exposed).

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“All those Lower Minoans were celebrating the chopping of what they thought was the forest’s last tree,” he continued, “a brown cypress which now stands proudly again right beside Unch. They were gathered in the center of Lucky at sunset, hooting and hollering and carrying on, when the suddenly descended 200th whopped down terror from the skies with his thick, deadly cluster of limbs and leaves. Everyone dead, like ants under heel. Whop, whop, whop!” he emphasized, holding his axe high, blade outward.

“Fascinating,” said Old Mabel, carefully watching the axe. “When did you yourself arrive in the forest?”

Tin S. Man lowered his weapon again. “After the East-West Agreement. This opened up Our Second Lyfe to the world where I am from.”

“Oz,” spoke Old Mabel.

“Yes,” agreed Tin S. Man. “I was an experienced tree chopper there — my original name is even Nick Chopper.” He sighed. “But it was all because of the love of a Munchkin maid that I met my sad fate. An arm there, a leg here, then finally my head, my heart. All gone. Nicked away by my formerly trusted axe, enchanted by the jealous, evil witch who was her ward. I was fully tin when the Intense Shower came upon me unexpectantly that one summer afternoon while I was chopping away in the deep woods, freezing me up for perhaps all time. Then finally, after a long long wait, another maiden arrived: Dorothy of Kansas, along with her friend Scarecrow and, later, the Cowardly Lion. They became my friends. My Intense Friends. They oiled me back to life. My heart pumped blood again. I became Dr. Blood.”

“But how did you get *here*?” Old Mabel repeated.

“When the Reverse World came, I chopped in reverse. Kcaw, kcaw, kcaw,” he attempted. “Reverse chopping sound there,” he said, and smiled. “I used this new found talent to restore the Rubi Woods. It was a very satisfying chore. I liked it much better than the opposite, or removing parts of the woods. I believe a word for this satisfaction is karma. But it was strange nonetheless. Have you ever walked in reverse, talked in reverse? You may know what I’m talking about, then.”

“I *think* I understand,” said Old Mabel. She thought back to Little and herself writing backwards to hide their actual intent to Winfield, like when they sneaked out of the Dawg Pound to explored the forbidden Sandusty camp one weekend. Boy did they get in trouble.

“I learned of the 200th — Unch — the day I reverse chopped the 199th back to life,” Tin S. Man went on. “That brown cypress,” he clarified. “I knew there were 200 trees instead of 199 then because Collagesity had returned, as emphasized by my new and good friend Homer S. Simpson. S. — like me. His S. doesn’t stand for Soldier, though.”

Old Mabel tried to keep the metal giant focused. “Did Dorothy send you to the Rubi Woods?”

“Ozma,” he corrected. “The queen ruler. But Dorothy, of course, agreed to the task. They are in agreement about almost everything. Except one time…” He cut himself off there, reversing direction. “No, I better not. I respect both of them so much. We all have our differences.” But his heart had suddenly lost some warmth.”

“Another pointed question, then, Tin S. Man — Dr. Blood now. Are you Ray Davies?”

“Yes,” he answered quickly. No hesitation like in former times. “I am also the 11th beyond the 10. ‘Dark Side of the Rainbow’ is ten, like me (tin). Dorothy then finds me in the woods; brings me back to life, along with her friends, now my friends. I am Dr. Blood.”

“Thanks for telling me this.”

“You’re welcome, young maiden. I salute you.” He stands and salutes.

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Table Meeting 01

The next day gave us the first official or at least semi-official meeting of The Table. Present were Wheeler, Baker Bloch, Tin S. Man or Dr. Blood, The Librarian, Curled Paper, Hucka Doobie, and then Old Mabel subbing in for a sick Salad Bar Jack. More was wrong with the famous Mmmmmm than he let on, however. Baker Bloch also seemed to stand in for Karoz Blogger, although no mention was made of that during the gathering.

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Wheeler called the meeting to order at 7pm sharp. Following clockwise introductions ’round The Table, eyes turned to Baker Bloch, who attempted to give a brief and to-the-point review of their joint user baker b.’s audiovisual synchronicity “3 Friends of Belleville.”

“It’s much like ‘Dark Side of the Rainbow’,” he started, to which Wheeler quickly injected that they would look at that most famous of audiovisual synchs directly afterwards. “On the audio side, it’s simply the first 3 songs or tracks of Gentle Giant’s 1972 concept album ‘3 Friends’, unaltered in respect to playing time and order but with small breaks between filled in by other music. This would be several of the Erik Satie pieces most of us listened to last night (‘Sports and Divertissements’).”

“Is this 1972 BL or AL?” asked Old Mabel, who had studied all night in preparation for the gathering and was eager to make a strong showing.

“Neither,” answered Baker Bloch. “Remember we’re dealing with the Real World and its Real Time now. So this is 1972 A*D*, which stands for ‘After Death’, that is, after the death of our lord and savior Jesus Christ.”

“Never heard of him,” said Wheeler, trying to move the meeting on. “Old Mabel — and the rest — please refrain from asking questions until Baker finishes his report. Continue Baker… so I know these 3 tracks or songs from this Friendly Giant group are overlaid atop the movie ‘3 Friends.'”

“No,” corrected Baker. “The *Gentle* Giant *album* is named ‘3 Friends.’ The overlapped movie is ‘The Triplets of Belleville,’ an animation released several decades afterwards. A decade being 10 solar years,” he immediately tacked on, seeing more confused faces. Old Mabel wanted to ask about the relationship between these 3 friends on the audio side and the triplets on the visual side but held her tongue.

“The Satie pieces from (‘Sports and Divertissments’) also come in a particular order in the synch, but not 1-2-3, like the Gentle Giant tracks. Instead the pattern is 8-14-2, which, if you’ll notice, forms a *triangle* — another 3 or triplet — of numbers 6 apart.”

“These are the shocks,” injected Wheeler again, breaking her own stated request.

“Yes, I suppose so,” answers Baker.

“Which we’ll also talk about in ‘Dark Side of the Rainbow’. So I think that’s a good segue from one to the other. Anything else Baker Bloch?”

“I suppose not.” He straightened the numerous sheets of his report on The Table and placed them back in his black attache case.

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“666, eh,” then states Wheeler reflectively as she searches for the appropriate Youtube video on the meeting screen. “Again.”

—–

Exactly 4 minutes after the start of “Dark Side of the Rainbow”, a sepia toned Dorothy in the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz” fell off a pigpen fence while talking to farmhand Zeke about courage, timed exactly with the end of the first track off Pink Floyd’s seminal “Dark Side of the Moon” album (“Speak to Me/ Breathe”).

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“This is not just *a* fall but *The Fall*, Baker Bloch explained afterwards, pausing the video here. “This is where true synchronicity kicks in. We are now witnessing something different; not from around here but from elsewhere.”

“Satan?” offers Wheeler.

“Biblically speaking,” answers Baker Bloch. “But this is resolved, it appears, in a later synch called ‘Quadrospirited’ and the beginning of (not TIDE but) TILE. Another song exactly 4 minutes long is involved. A song called ‘Four Minutes’ itself by a member of Pink Floyd again.”

“Oh dear, I need to run,” says Wheeler out of the blue, looking at the clock on the wall. “Nautilus seas and Doreena and Yvonne and such. Baker Bloch, if you would, please wrap up the meeting and then gather everyone downstairs to meet Jiff the Minoan, fresh from the woods. He’ll take over from here. Ta ta once more!”

She vanishes. Baker Bloch looks around The Table at the others, seeing a mixture of confusion and boredom. “Should we continue?” he offers.

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“Nah,” states a yawning Hucka Doobie. “Let’s go meet this Jiff creature and get it over with.”

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Not what they were expecting.

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Listening (But Not Watching)

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—–

1/2 hour later…

“I admit I fell a bit asleep about 1/2way in, Baker Bloch. But it was good. It was interesting. Pieces about nothing. Not sports obviously. A clever man. Insane probably as well. Velvet suits, pheh. It’s a shame we can’t watch “3 Friends of Belleville” in Our Second Lyfe here, Baker Bloch. Darn shame. Lucky users.”

What they couldn’t watch there:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3bkmfjfyjb0hz1f/VTS_01_1.VOB?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tkw35zact4ilrvv/VTS_01_2.VOB?dl=0

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January 8, 2017 · 10:49 am

Octopus

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“I have a minute, Baker Bloch, to speak with you. The Librarian told me about your curiosity. Do you even know who *I* am Baker?”

“First off, I wish you wouldn’t show up as my mother.”

“Not the point,” Wheeler returned.

“Alright,” Baker then said with an exhale. “You are David Bowie, also known to this blog as Bogota. Or at least that’s what he — you I suppose — wanted to be called at the time. How’s that for a start?”

“A good start,” she says. “A perfect start. I am David Bowie. I am the leader on all collages to come. And by collages there I mean audiovisual collages. Not these [silly] 2d-ers [polluting] your town.”

“Now that’s not very nice, er, Wheeler,” said Baker Bloch back. “I thought you liked my collages.”

“I like the ideas behind the collages. The collages themselves are not what I call art. You use protected images[ to begin].”

“Well, that’s what I’ve chosen to do. You chose to show up here as my mother, I chose to use illegal images in my art and deem them educational and non-commercial. The ideas *are* the important thing, not the surface quality or even quantity.”

“So we agree,” she says. “Your art is trash.”

“I guess it’s trash in the sense that it is bits and pieces of discarded stuff by others lumped together to make something new and hopefully interesting, idea-wise.”

“Cool enough,” she then said, putting finger to lip. “Curled Paper, you’ve been your usual silent self. What’s your opinion of this town, the art in the town? Do you think it’s trash as well? Or do you think it is worth saving in and of itself? Or do you have an opinion at all? If you’re going to sit at The Table…” But Wheeler then bit her sarcastic tongue just in time to save some grace. Curled Paper still didn’t speak. Perhaps he was already insulted?

The Librarian chipped in some thoughts. “We need to speak of the album “3 Friends”. And the attached synchronicities. They are called synchronicities instead of collages, no?”

“Yes,” Baker Bloch answered.

“Please do,” added Wheeler with some sarcasm.

“Can I say their names on this blog? I know Hucka Doobie listed them out the other day. I was here.”

“Were you?” Baker Bloch truly couldn’t remember.

“Yes,” answers The Librarian. “So… can I?” He turns to Wheeler now and repeats the question. “Can I?”

Wheeler opens her eyes wide and looks toward Baker. “It’s up to us now.”

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Another Blue Feather Octopus.

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Giant for a Day.

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“And now you have complete balance,” The Librarian said to me minutes later. “Collagesity is finished in its limits. But at what price Baker Bloch? 3 Friends?

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“I was aware of the subject matter,” I admitted. “And your mask. I knew I would return here…”

“… to find out more about me,” he finished. “Well. Let’s start.”

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Stumped

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“See Hucka Doobie? There’s definitely a door there that wasn’t before. And watch when Tin S. Man stands up — go ahead and stand up please Mr., um, Man.”

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“He stands directly in front of the door,” Baker Bloch continues. “And the Kubrick lampshade is exactly the size of his cylindrical thigh.”

“Where does the door lead to?” Hucka Doobie asks.

“I’ll show you. Go ahead and sit down again Tin S. Man.” The giant does as requested. “Then I just open the door, see, and walk through.”

But Hucka Doobie notices Baker Bloch disappears slightly before he walks through the open doorway. And if Baker could have bothered to turn around at that point, he would have noticed Hucka Doobie disappearing from view as well.

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“Go ahead and walk through, Hucka Doobie,” Baker calls from the other side.

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“I’m here,” the bee-person says. “I made it.”

“It’s precisely aligned with this outdoor table,” Baker Bloch then says.

“Are the door and the table the same size?” Hucka Doobie asks.

“Not quite. Now let’s go upstairs and look at the other things. Oh, and there’s also Tin S. Man’s axe poking through over there. And a bit of his sitting stump. Keep that in mind.”

“Where?” Hucka Doobie asks.

“Behind the door from you. Here, let me shut it.”

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“Oh, right,” Hucka Doobie says, now seeing the objects. “Looks like [the axe handle] might be made from the same wood as the table.”

“Maybe. And you’ll notice the door has completely disappeared from this side when I shut it. We’ll have to walk around and back in.”

—–

“Go ahead and stand up again Tin S. Man,” Baker Bloch calls through the floor now as he reaches the corner of the room above him in the Blue Feather. In order to get to it, however, Baker had to drop down into the first floor from the second and take the teleporter up. Wheeler insists that these Lemony ways of traveling through the building remain in place. “Traditional — like Castle Jack,” she says, always with an unwavering voice. But no one seems to mind that much. You just have to go from first to third to get to second and The Table, unless you come in from Perch, which is tricky in itself. Most of the town believe and take faith in the Lemon past of Collagesity, before the coming of the Lindens. It’s one of the things that sets it apart from most artsy villages of its kind. The proximity to the Rubi Woods and its ancient growth helps in this respect.

Hucka Doobie caught up with Baker Bloch, but, once again, couldn’t see him in this corner, even though she heard him. But both saw the projecting funnel hat.

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And the impossible second Tinman stump.

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No stopping now.

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