I saw the green soldier man lying dead outside the entrance to the Big Inside and my brain snapped. Little Big, my heart moaned. Little Big…
Tag Archives: GREEN AND GRAY
00470407 (Mine, man)
She’d finished her shooting. She’d put back on her finest cashmere robe. This was the result, proudly hung in the hallway leading down to Newtown’s Ratskeller. Barry De Boy’s self proclaimed magnum opus “Toy Play Thing Mine”, part of his “Does This Look Square to You?” series, being exactly 814 x 814 pixels in resolution. And directly kin in this series to the similarly square foldup of the “Foxtrot” album cover by Genesis from ’73 we’ve just seen back in post 01 of this section, also associated with Shelley and the request by new SC librarian Miss Ouri for her to come out from under the lamp and “get big” before them, which she refused to do as was appropriate and logical and decent. ’73: a good year for progressive rock albums indeed. Magical. Spread out centerfold in that case here:
The corresponding folded out version of “Toy Play Thing Mine” has been lost to time, which is in all likelihood for the best as well. But we do have this from “Foxtrot” again, specifically the long and epic “Supper’s Ready” track from side 2, as a kind of indication to what is going on. Green-Gray perpetual war results here again…
We now know that that “Foxtrot” described location of a plateau full of green grass and green trees with Narcissus gazing lovingly at his reflection circles back to this:
And its slowly but surely increasing number of *toys*.
Careful with it. Carefull. Very precious it is. And perhaps fragile. One long gust of wind from the real world all around could eradicate the magic and the spell. Make sure the colors are out of sight as best as possible, white here included. Hide the growing toy avatar village of Flathardt on the edge of this green plateau well. Do not put stuff like blue roses more toward the makeshift path than runs through it all as a possible tipoff to its presence. This is enough of a blue rose case already without such a physical marking. Flatness like this at the head of a hill does not occur naturally. Keep that always in mind during visits and updates.
Now if only the daily mountain rains would stop, UUGH.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0407, collages 2d, Flathardt, Haze County, Jeogeot, Newtown, Toy Avatars
00470304 (lost ally)
Spongeberg tried to ignore the long haired, slightly smelly man sitting in the phone booth next to him while retrieving his canned drink from the machine. But no good.
“Umm, spare some change for a Green-Grey war veteran?” he prompted as Spongeberg was about to move away after a refreshing sip.
He glanced over, detected no immediate disability. “Depends on what’s wrong with you,” he decided to say unfeelingly. Can’t even bother to pick up his cup for begging, pheh, he thinks. Lazy bum as well. Then Roth moves more into the light to expose his hands that weren’t there, also exposing the reason the cup had to remain on the ground in front of him.
“Oh,” said Spongeberg to this, still considering whether to give him even a hard earned dime of his money. He drops a nickel into the cup, prepares to move on. He walks slowly so as not to rattle all the change that still remained in his pockets. Didn’t work. Roth watches him with his own disdain as he fades into the distance…
Up the road connecting Highway 13 and Highway 14 over the mountainous beige spine of Lower Austra separating them he goes. Aiming to catch a Second Lyfe to Real Life plane back home to Whitehead Crossing before dying again on the road like a dog in this cursed world, his own severe handicap here.
The two men could have become chums then and there, sharing Spongeberg’s drink while discussing disabilities personal and societal. But Spongeberg chose to remain free of all that, not tied down to a new friendship, despite the benefits he might reap.
This is actually an alternate story to the one presented here in photo-novel 13. But also a warning. Extreme freedom sometimes has a price, and something like a nickel won’t cover it.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0304, Lower Austra^, Nautilus
00470202 (fear and loving)
“Great Shelley. Now there’s an alien involved. I *told* you we should have never left Sandraman.”
“And dandelions (!)” she added to her newly minted husband Eddy’s declaration, attention on something up front instead of ’round back. Opposites they were in many ways, light and dark. Eddy still enjoyed the triple form of the number 6 back where they came from, back over there around that hill/mountain in the distance you can still see from here. He never tired of it. Slave to it even, he was. Because he actually doesn’t have his own independence. Apart from Shelley. Minted; created. Like Albert/Douglas before him. Or actually after him, since the avatar named Eddy, D’aigle comes from an earlier photo-novel than the last one. Just after my retirement. Probably 33 without checking. Feels like he’s always been around now, along with his twin cousin Edward Daigle.
Freedom, she though about once more, stare remaining forward. Like seeds blowing away in the wind. 7 over 6 but still remembering where it came from. Never forget my friend, never forget.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0202, New Island^
00470105 (the end of the Gray-Green or Green-Grey perpetual war)
Who comes out on top?
Doesn’t matter any more.
Screen captures from Röckët Stähr’s epic “Death of a Rockstar” fully animated rock opera here again.
Filed under **VIRTUAL OT, 0047, 0105
00430604
“I first saw what Mmmmmm Grassy Knoll later verified as some kind of Tiler in the slums of Kabusie, Green being his nature through his mask. He was posed in front of a red green yellow blue shack appropriately enough that we’ll also see around the fringes of the city: the Badlands, the Oil Fields, etc.
“Just afterward I spied him conversing with another Greenie on a nearby bench, solidifying the connection. Green tiles too, you’ll notice.
“Then to up the ante and finish the deal we shortly run across *3* identical, different Greenies (with brown shirts) meeting in the middle of a busy Kabusie street next to the roundabout Grassy also cited. Green tiles on either side of the street there too.
“So bringing back Washington state into the picture like with Kabusie, I have decided this is actually about the Green, the White, the Black,” Fern Stalin summarized at the Yalta Bar and Grill in Castle Town to her pal Lichen Roosevelt, with no Churchill still to be found. She’s talking about 3 central Washington rivers now, and how their histories intersect toward the beginning of the last century. “Green use to be White up to Black,” she started in this vein. “Then in 1906 the course of White changed after a land altering flood and Green no longer flowed into it just above a town called Auburn. Instead Green became its own entity, separate from White, up to Black about 10 miles north, which is the Black River. Then in 1916 things changed again with the opening of (Seattle’s) Lake Washington Ship Canal, an event that lowered the level of the namesake lake by 9 feet, thereby drying up former outlet Black as its water flowed instead toward Puget Bay. Thus Black no longer flowed into Green. Disconnection in that direction too. Follow me?”
“Disconnection… of both Black… *and* White… to Green?”
“Very good, Lichen. You’ve been studying your soils again. And that started… what?”
“The war,” she said confidently.
“The war to end all wars. Green vs. Gray — or Grey with an e, either one — depending on which side you want to emerge on top or maybe depending on which side of the ocean you’re on, British or American. Like Diablo and Draco. Trouble is, it never ends itself. Ouroboros. ‘Nother one. And Old Mabel’s Little Big got sucked into all that when Mars entered the fray, as was inevitable.
“Gray is Black and White together,” Lichen continued to grasp and grapple with Fern’s concepts. “Therefore, Gray is separate — disconnected — from Green. Therefore… um.”
“We must bring in the Indians to continue,” offered Fern. “Where Black and White historically intersect at what they called the Inside Place — pre-1906. True Gray. Or Grey with an e. We must go there next. Find the within spot, the still one. I just hope it’s there still,” she tried to joke. Lichen didn’t crack a smile. She’d figured out something while Fern attempted jest, perhaps a transfer of talents in the moment. Sages. They had to look for sages. Little and Big Soos, hard to differentiate from each other at the source. She excitedly told Fern this, which led to the uncovering of these old pictures from photo-novel 3. The expression “wow” comes to mind (!), since the name here is from a SIXMILE tributary of Washington state’s Green River near Auburn called Soos and not the Gravity Falls character.
Keep in mind that Mabel’s name also originates in this TV show. Along with her twin brother Little Big’s.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0604, C2077, Castle Town, Heterocera, Kabusie, Mars^^, Nightsity, Omega^^, Rubi^, Washington
00430106
“A word for each letter of the alphabet,” Wayne Bruce continued about his company, the famed Asylum Inc. started in the 70s on the west coast in a town that time had forgotten. He didn’t, and he’d drag others into his alternate reality as well. With the lists. He separated the top paper from the rest of the short stack and put it on the other side of the opened manila folder. “Second list now,” he said, staring at the new page front and center. “Black for the 1st’s white. Asylum revealed for what it truly is. Shadow government to the world everyone assumed ran from A to Z in an orderly fashion. This was only facade.”
“Here’s where he gets to the part about the Green and the Gray,” Fern directed to likewise watching Lichen, returned from her trip down the river to hunt for opposite shore sea shells. She’d come back home to Mama.
“… the Green… and the Gray.”
“Told ya,” said Fern with some satisfaction. She paused the film she’d found in an obscured archive in a hidden data farm — took a lot of digging to find this gem of a dangling carrot. She assumed Lichen had questions. *Should* have a lot but she’ll see about the total. Will help her determine how far Lichen has come along with her soil studies and overall brain development. She’s *funny*, Fern reminded herself. Funny as all get out at times. But she needs to develop the other side. Fern also reminded herself that she needs to work on the opposite side and find her own funny bone with which to work from. She told what she felt were two legitimate jokes yesterday that Lichen seemed to smile at or at least acknowledge the humor in. Advancement.
“How…?”
“How does Blue fit in?” Fern guessed about Lichen’s question. “With the Black, the Green, the Gray? Dark spectrum colors all I’m sure you noticed.”
“So… Red,” said Lichen, thinking back to the first list. “And…”
“Yellow, yes. And Golden and White. Light spectrum. Dark and light, Lichen. Dark and light.” She looked over at the light that had gone out of Lichen’s eyes. “Daark…” she said slower, trying to reignite. “And liight.”
Bulb went off.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0106, Castle Town, Omega^^, RDR2
00430104
He looked at the paper that had fallen to the floor from the bookcases in back. He quickly phoned Fern.
“Listen, I have news.”
Fern thought at first: Barry’s back from his sabbatical, But, no, it was another list, printed on Asylum Inc. letterhead again.
“How?” Fern responded to this. “We were just there. We looked *everywhere*.” The thought passed through her mind now that Drew “Grumpy” Cleveland, a nudist originally from rough Grandpa Cliffs across the channel, was playing an elaborate prank on them. She pondered this more as Grumpy explained he was cleaning up, getting ready to lock up, just dusting the bookshelves as he does at the end of every working day, when the thing simply fell out, about at the location of the “Around the World in *1000* Pictures” book (not 2000, as we’ve already explained). He thought he’d just dusted the book but couldn’t be sure. Anyway, he had it spread out in front of him on the bar counter. He described what he saw to Fern.
“It looks very similar,” he said. “26 words again, just like with the first one. Looks like a whole new set of words, though. And alphabetized again.”
“All the letters of the alphabet?” queried Fern.
Grumpy checked once more. “No, looks like some are missing this time.”
“So we have groupings of words starting with the same letter,” Fern said. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
—–
“So here they are. I took the first and placed it next to the new one so you could compare. Whaddaya think?”
Fern eyed the new set of 26 words with hoax firmly in her mind now. Grumpy playing games with her, just to try to show off what he thought was his own intellect too and put her in her place? But the words would tell her, the patterns they make.
“Diablo and Draco — did you see, Grumpy?”
“Umm, see what?”
“They’re reversed in the alphalist. Only two ‘D’s, swapped with each other. She eyed him now, looking for signs of feigned surprise. The surprised expression coming from the big, nude man in front of her seemed genuine, though. He’d simply passed over the reversing in his scan of the list.
“And, look here, Greengrow and Grayback — same thing if you spell Gray as Grey, like if we were English instead of American.” UK and US united as one, she thought here, lovely red-headed, pinkish skinned Wendy a vision in her mind. Or maybe UK and France is a better match, Fern quickly amended, considering the bar’s name they were in and the Churchill that had to be involved. “But, see,” she refocused on the colors green and gray instead, poking the printed words with her index finger, “this has something to do with war. This has something to do with *the* war. Green-Gray, sometimes colored Green-White for reasons I can’t quite remember right now.” She waved off the attempt. “Never mind that: Asylum is involved in the war. This Asylum Inc.,” she summarized, “is maybe a weapons manufacturer, or maybe something to do with military training.” Brainwashing, she realized. They’re brainwashing men to become soldiers. Just like…
—–
“Describe ‘hole’,” she asked the bartender in the city of Mars where Old Mabel disappeared from.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0104, Castle Town, Mars^^, Omega^^
00420515 (centerpoint)
“Honey, get out of the shot. I’m trying to take a picture of that ghost over there!”
—–
“So this is where we’re going,” Mabel said to Teebestia, who had removed her mask since the facade was dropped, like water off a duck’s back.
“We *all* do,” the mechanoid rattled. “Eventually.”
“Riight.” Mabel was pondering how to get out of this. Really hard (!). “What happens when I wake up? I mean, when I get to the other side.”
“You’ll see your brother,” Teebeestia spoke plainly. “Reunited at last.”
I must be dreaming, thought Mabel. She goes to the edge, stares down into the hole, sees light at the bottom, way way down. She’ll be killed, yes. But the light will take her, swallow her. (Almost) all water removed. Just like a mechanoid. There will be little remorse for a life lived fully, quietly, in contemplation on the world at large. *Worlds*.
“Soo… this is how you got to be who you are.”
“Yes,” Teebeestia clipped rapidly. Death was good for her. She had a diseased heart, a diseased mind. The hole was a way out.
Mabel looked around the landscape for perhaps the last time. So much had changed about the Dawg Pound since their childhood, growing up with Winnfield — happy happy days. But the Cleveland Rocks up there remain. Perhaps, at least in part, as a memorial for Little himself, she imagined, the last place she saw him before he was taken. By the Universe. The mechanoids at least do that for him while shifting around everything else. She can’t really blame them, though. Climate change, she knew. “Oh, Little,” she lamented. “What have your Green-Gray Wars done?”
She shifts her attention back to the hole. Taking a deep breath… she jumps.
The bones rattle on.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0515, Google Street View, Mars^^, Texas
00420105
They were preparing for battle, they were preparing for war. The Mann claimed to not be the same as Wayne Bruce who owned the manor but just an old neighbor doing a favor and house-sitting while he and and his “wonder boy” were away chasing arch-villians around the world, specifically Antarctica at the moment and possibly New Zealand. I checked back through the blog and saw that he indeed was a former neighbor over on the Corsica continent (Instabar sim). By the tone of his voice back then it didn’t seem he had much respect for the dynamic duo, this Batty Man and Superduper Guy. Old grudges tend to not alter that much over time.
March 03 2020: Batty Man and sidekick Superduper Guy arriving home in their noisy Battymobile while neighbor The Mann looks on disdainfully.
What else? Oh, the whole war/battle thing. Here’s some pics of the odd assortment of troops from a lower level of Redsland, closer to the ground for easier dispatchment when needed.
The conflict? Some call it the great Green-White War, others Green-Gray. No one knows exactly how or where or when it started but it extends over the entire known Universe by now in ever manifesting pockets here and there. Many are conscripted and don’t return home, either by death or by perpetual service. Martian Mabel’s big brother Little Big from photo-novel 02 was one of these. Mabel will never get over the loss, although she may put on a brave face nowadays. And here we come upon the legend of Plain Wayne, said to be killed in the war as well; slit in the throat by none other than our Wheeler back in her more evil days as directed by the powerful witch Mid-Hazel; event mentioned in photo-novel 03. Is Plain Wayne the same as mild mannered Wayne Bruce, alter ego for Batty Man? If so, why isn’t *he* dead? Mid-Hazel aka Hazel Wood would know if anyone. I’ll make a note to ask her later through some character or another; she now appears to be imprisoned somewhere in the innards of the manor with former formidable powers excised. More coincidence?
And here’s certainly another interesting twist. The Mann is actually Marsha “Pink” Krakow’s father as proven through the plot of photo-novel 19 where she’s 1st introduced. And now they interact again in the current photo-novel. Do either remember the other? Is The Mann, for example, so busy making sure the grounds are neat and tidy for Batty Man and partner Superduper Guy’s return that he doesn’t have time to recall who he really is? And it does indeed look super; Jack and Jill, however shady they are in other ways, are really skilled lawn care people.
And if The Mann is around that means Parasol his wife is too — I’d forgotten about that as well. His perfect Wo-mann, first rendezvousing with each other on the Fruity Islands back in photo-novel 12 and then properly tying the knot in photo-novel 24.
meeting in novel 12
marrying in novel 24
And here she is now, entering the manor room where The Mann is fingering through the first of Schubert’s 4 Impromptus in his own inept way, the only one he can play to any degree atall. He’d admit this ineptitude himself; would say Parasol is the true musician of the family. But then he might also thinks of drums — someone is talented with the sticks as well. Maybe he remembers Marsha during these moments, maybe it lies just beyond his consciousness still.
But Parasol certainly knows, also known as Red and, from the other side, Blue. She’s a bad speller and a wiz at the same in one.
“Where’s your *girl* today?” she tests once more.
“Girl *Friday*,” he responds defensively from the piano, inept fingering temporarily halted. “I hired her as a secretary; I have no interest in her otherwise.”
Still doesn’t remember, Parasol understands through this. She can keep her edge for now.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0105, Fruity Islands^^, Maebaleia/Satori, Redsland
Sunklands 