Tag Archives: HAT REMOVAL

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“Status report, Newt. How’s the state of Concrete? Solid still? Holding firm, etc.?”

“Cement Village is good, although the attached Concrete name has gone the way of sand, ha. With Boos — inserted behind it about a month ago as you might recall — it now forms 1/2 of Boos-gota, a portmanteau of the 2 inclusive series.”

“Like lukfast,” Hucka Doobie deadpanned from behind, still staring at Concrete on the screen and wondering if they’re ever going to move to slide 02. Been over 3 months now.

“Fine, fine,” answers Baker Bloch, leading the table meeting per usual. “As long as it’s still there. And what about Frank’s Moving Castle? Any news on that? Pardon me for being behind but I don’t get inworld much any more. Not like the old days when I was King and Blinks (female Baker) was Queen and Wheeler was just a secondary avatar not as much used.” He turns right. “Right Wheeler?”

“I am the new Queen,” she stated matter of factly. “‘Blinks? Who’s Blinks?’ the reader might ask here, not even knowing the name. Even dedicated ones, say, caught up with the last 10 — no, make that the last 40, ho. She’s just that far back in the past. Like Carrcassonnee. Remember Carrcassonnee, Baker? Baker Bloch was it? Because you’re getting that way too. Newt here, my sometimes boyfriend, oft times hubby, has assumed your old role. Will this change? Newt is the Whitehead in da Woods, the retired version of yourself as you configured it. No going back in my opinion. You will continue to get more obsolete and eventually fade back to the black you came from. Right Hucka Doobie?” she calls over the top of his black hatted head, almost blowing it off we might imagine, or at least displacing it a bit around his crown.

“That’s not fair, Wheeler,” she says, directly confronting the affront. “I’m human and not bee now. I’ve changed too. Baker *Bloch* over there lost his mask in, what was it, photo-novel 02? That’s about it for change for him.” Might as well have added a “Right Baker?” to complete the triangle of hate not love.

“But not like me,” Wheeler volleys back about the change. “Admit it.”

Hucka Doobie wasn’t going to admit nothing. And now she’s insulted Baker Bloch too, who glances back at her with a rather icy look with his two still dead eyes, no change there either.

“I’d like to hear about Frank’s Moving Castle,” says round, green Grassy Noll in his toy avatar voice across the table. Everyone had forgotten he was there, more fading. “If you’ve finished your ROW, that is!” His voice raised, he quickly turns a bright beet red from the top down to the surprise of all. Let’s end there.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0050, 0615, Bogota, Boos, Cement Village, Frank's Moving Castle, Goikyland

Vowells

And so they were wedded that June. Something about substance over style in the vows. Something about quantity over quality. Substance and quantity over style and quality? Something was wrong here, really wrong. What does this wedding have to do with Constantynople, our newly minted darling of the blog? And why do we have the returned, purple gowned Wheeler in Alpha with Baker Bloch? Marriage of convenience? Let’s back up, have them eat those words for now…

We are at the end of 32, sliding into 33. Wheeler wasn’t joking. She’d won the Tic-tac-toe game fair and square. “We will be married to each other and also the town,” he now recalled about what she said at the grated white table in Ontario above the completed board, food shunted aside for the moment. Town, he contemplated. Wrong one. *Really* wrong one. He was falling into a pit, deep and dark and dank and dingy. 4D. No returning to kaput Ontario to the scene of the crime. We’d have to resolve this situation elsewhere. He lost his hat.

Someone stirred in the blue and yellow glowing teepee.

Fall over, Pitch Darkly stepped out of his dark (etc.) house and into the blinding white light. “Hey you blippity bleep bleep kids stop playing around with that statue!” he cried from the porch.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0506, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wendy-Ontario-, Wild West

Heads and Foote

“Baker Bloch said there was some kind of bookstore here with the 2 page letter. No bookstore. No letter. Just some kind of clothing boutique without any clothes, right 88’s? Oh,” she continues speaking, just to herself she realizes as she looks around. “Not in this scene.”

Oh well,  she thinks silently now.  Might as well primp while I’m here. Shocking pink should do.


Stick in hand she tries to pucker up for the mirror but ends up just emitting a yawn. High up here, she realizes. Mountain air.

A little later:

“Laundry?” A beep sounds. Arthur Kill realizes his clothes are done. Now maybe he can find out who he actually is.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0037, 0106, HANA LEI, Mississippi, New Mexico, Tennessee

checking in with collage artist Barry Deboy (Mountainair)

I’m not sure what the new story will be but I’m pretty certain it will involve The Void, the place before birth, after death. The satchel contains secrets in its pages.

Nearby Baker Bloch stares into the water. Tough to tell if he is asleep or not. In a way he has to be — we all do. To even exist on this plain of reality. He dons the red cap of an artist again.

43 bucks should cover it for this wannabe cowboy of the plains.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0037, 0103, Bogota, collages 2d, Google Street View, Jeogeot, Middleton, Midlands, New Mexico, Willow Hill

B52 (Bingo)

“When do you leave?”

“Day after tomorrow (pause). It was a lot of money.”

“I assumed so. Coming from Back.”

“Just a shadow figure,” Charlie Banana reinforced to his best mate Hatti, currently without one, blue hair which can sometimes be mistaken for black fully exposed. Both mate and girlfriend. But not wife. Perhaps they never will be now. “No face.”

“I know the feeling (another pause). You know Shelley and I go back a long ways. In some ways we’re closer than sisters. I understand her and she understands me. We discussed it on a beach far away from here once. Far away in time now as well. Hard to recall what we spoke of. She already knew about Liz there. And, of course, I had…” She tried to remember but couldn’t. Then she did. The eternal lover now. If he assumed a certain shape. Charlie Banana could be the same.

“Are you going to the Ant Castle first?” she began again. “Or just Mortons Gap in general?”

“All I know is that it has something to do with dogs.” His voice was pleasant, melodic even. Hers: a little more shrill but not unpleasant. They could both pose as ordinaries to others, which they weren’t. You have to be at least 108 years old to join the club they’re in, which includes the Silvers of course, the founders and owners. Brought all the way here from Neptune by the powers that be, some say. But we happen to know it’s Mars.

—–

We could have guessed hot dogs, we could have guessed feet. But it was actually dogs.


“Simmer down out here,” spoke Banana from the balcony, tired of the constant yelping and baying. Moon indeed.

A mysterious stranger arrives from the sea to the west, ready to rock his world.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0310, Corsica, Nautilus, NORTH, Northwest

Darla loves black

“We have a location on the girl. Repeat. We have a location, over.”

“Roger that, Mission. Honing in… now.”

—–

It was the first meeting of the local Umbrella Club chapter, and not all were invited, namely: men.

And *especially* Albert, who could only view the proceedings from afar, say 200 meters. That’s as close as his ankle bracelet would allow, which was probably a good thing. He just wanted to check up on her, he rationalized about the spying, make sure she’s not up to any trouble. Or if she was, he wanted to know. And, he also thinks, I suppose *this* counts. Just like the case with Franklin, pheh.

He never got around to taking off his hat, which could explain why he’s here.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0105, Nautilus, Yd Island

recentering

“We’re both tall for our species,” spoke Albert. Maybe we should bury the hatchet, get together. You’d have to have an operation of course. I’m not taking what you have down there currently.”

“You’re joking, right?” Sometimes it was hard for Franklin to tell.

“Of course.” Albert was somewhat reformed, having almost died over at Sporminore in the last photo-novel, 35 (period). He’s kind of seen the light. He returned his butterfly curtains from his formerly very special room to Curtis’ just the other day. I believe we have a photo of him doing so in the media library, along with some attached dialog…

Yes, here:


“You’ll have to trade them in.” “That’s fine.”

“So I come here looking for the Umbrella girl and instead find you. Under an umbrella.” He looked over, he looked up. “Explain.”

“We’re different people,” said Franklin. “I sit on the blue pillow, which represents positivity.”

“I resent that,” shot back Albert quickly. “*I* represent positivity… in the now.”

Franklin realized this was so. More memories kicked in. She was Shelley before, but also, behind that, Wheeler. She was Wheeler. She *is* Wheeler. She took him in, realizing she was sitting beside fellow core Baker Bloch instead of prevert Albert. Only the blackbird linked them together. And the hat(s).

“Take off your hat, Albert, and I’ll know that you speak the truth.” Could he?

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0104, Nautilus, Perch-Mistletoe, Upper Austra

Alien Beach (specifics)

“Well, Wheeler. There it is. Alien Island. The new foothold.”

“And here we are, still not together, still not a couple, Peter and Prissy swum away to some secluded haven in the sea.”

“He stole my hat!” Baker Bloch exclaims again, this time aloud.

“Indeed.” She noted it was back. Did *he* notice?

“What… do you make of it?”

“Do you know what hat stealing means? Hat removal?” she rephrases.

“Umm.”

“You know.”

“Sex?” he guesses, then realizes the obvious. “Ted Bear,” he says, segueing into Wheeler’s new train of thought.

“About this time in the past,” she began, “we showed a film. ‘3 Friends of Belleville.’ Remember?”

Baker thought back to a Table meeting that seemed far far away, almost hidden in time if it weren’t for memory reinforcements; continual; eating through time like sideways ants. “Yes. We could have moved backwards from Belleville into Billville: ‘Billfork’. But we instead moved forward.”

“‘Pumpkintwisters,’ yes,” Wheeler agreed, and then studied the shore again in front of them. Not looking back, not looking *black*.

Baker thought about Mabel, how happy she was. *Wait*. That wasn’t it. “Wilson Wheeler?” he said, testing her name. She didn’t answer. Her task for the night seemed done.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0032, 0203, Alien Island, Carrcass+08, Nautilus, Wild West

whitewashed (no sun (Princess))

Alysha had that dream where she was stuck on the moon. Back to reality, yikes!

Earlier:

“Sure you don’t want a shot at riding the bull, sweety?” asked handsome Field who had ditched his hat. “10 seconds and we’re in.” This was an audition, she understood. A role in an important important film yet to be made, yet to be thought of, even. ‘All hail the Wild White Whale,’ she recalled, and now kind of knew more about what it meant. This was no bull.

Black cat Gar looked on, understanding the same.

—–

“Is this thing even working? Testing, testing…”

Good thing she’s a multi-instrumentalist.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0031, 0408, HANA LEI

00310309

She became his most regular visitor afterwards. “Tell me more about the Merry Go Round people,” she requested in her cool, silky way while remotely animating the pair again and making them spin around a common axis. Axis, she thinks. Her *husband*.

“Crack and Whack, police agents, or so they claimed. More prisoners to this small isle,” he said in his toy bear voice, just made for a loving child who was far far away now, in a different plane of existence actually. “Punished because of a bust. Broken into pieces they said he was. Took them forever to put the guy back together, the chief-inspector said, Petty I believe, unless it was Ketty — can’t recall which, actually. Usually my memory is excellent, like an elephant’s.” Should have *been* an elephant he laments here, daring to glance past Alysha’s tall, sprawled out body beside him at the Ella Phanta ride across the water to their right. Still fully on dry land. Unlike him.

“Hmm,” she replied, and sat up or rolled over, take your pick.  But then she switched everything around and enacted the unexpected, turning toward the bear instead and starting to apply suntan lotion to his smiling head. New!

“So, Mr. Teddy (squirt). Tell me (squirt apply) how Baker Bloch got off that island over there? (apply apply)” She’d taken off her hat as well. Didn’t get her anywhere. He hadn’t requested she turn into a bobblehead, like Baker. After all this time. You think it would happen already if it was going to happen. She was tired of talking about the beach toys. She’d gotten their story now a half dozen times apiece. Always the Ketty-Petty confusion, and he doesn’t even know he’s repeating himself.

“Jen-nny,” he said, completely falling under her spell and revealing stuff he would never do otherwise. “Paii-d.” He meant bail here.

The next time she kept her hat on while still fulfilling his sentence. You can say their relationship changed.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0031, 0309, Lands End, Lower Austra, Nautilus, Toy Avatars, Wild West