“Where did Karoz come from?” forms an important question early in the story of our Jeogeot days. “Who are his parents?” Obviously Sapphire is his surrogate mother during Karoz’s stay in Noru(m), but with no father figure around, seemingly. There was the mysterious, perhaps ultra-mysterious Peter SoSo who came along later. Chilbo’s direct Lemony double in Crabwoo becomes relevant.
But I’m going to skip to Karoz in Collagesity Winter 2015-2016 for now. We see him first there as shopkeeper for the Bodega Market. He has a gun, and practices target shooting down at Poppie Pond almost directly underneath the store. He lives above the market in a one room apartment — still does. But he was also at least a borderline alcoholic when Baker Bloch first finds out his old 2009 Jeogeot hiking buddy and sidekick has been resurrected. Their friendship continues in Collagesity Noru from back in 2014, but we do not have any photographs of them together there — oh, I believe we have one. Let me dig it up, because I was in that one as well. LINK But it is here in Rubi, as documented in the Collagesity Winter 2015-2016 material, that Baker Bloch’s and Karoz’s joined fate is fully revealed. Karoz was destined to be my partner, my lover. As Blochs is essentially my brother, my twin even, that makes Karoz an eventual brother-in-law. Oops! I seemed to have spilled the beans on my big secret. Yes, Karoz and I are engaged! We’re tentatively looking at a Christmas wedding, since my parents will be in town anyway. Nothing big, mind you, just a celebration wrapped inside another celebration.
So the history of Karoz also becomes part of my history as two streams merge into one. We will figure out things together from now on. I support his evolving theories about TILE and a potential college for the movement. He supports my continued experimenting and tinkering with the wrestling tag team idea, actually a parallel development. Latest on that is the “manufacturing” (or recruitment, if you wish) of a super-wrestler named Wheeler, spawned from Wilson. You see, Dr. Mulholland, as John Lockfry 02 knows now, has essentially left the scene, making The Mulholland Drives project dead in the water. She felt (rightly) threatened by Wheeler, a more powerful athlete. Wheeler stands 5’9″, and weighs about 150 — hope she doesn’t mind me saying that for the blog. Dr. Mulholland is only 5’3″, 5’4″. I myself am a wiry 6’3″, so basically a foot taller than the doctor. Practicing with Wheeler is a better fit for me, and a better matchup physically. The several times we wrestled in ernest, I just beat the pulp out of Mulholland. Wheeler is a greater challenge. And she’s maybe about as smart; turned me on to new physics — quantum computers, strange entanglement, and such. It will be an interesting path.
So back to Karoz and the upcoming wedding. There are plans to get Hucka Doobie intimately involved. I won’t say any more in that department — just drop a hint of what’s to perhaps come. As far as living quarters go, I’m not sure Karoz’s Bodgea market apartment will be suitable for the two of us. My Gloomy Gus is cozy but small. Maybe we’ll have to move away from Collagesity, even. Perhaps the whole extended family will. Nautilus’ BoB remains a strong possibility for a destination. A re-creation of Collagesity, and perhaps the birthplace for our user’s projected Bogota collage series.
David Bowie slash Bogota will come back among us. He already has. We sense his presence. We cannot see him yet as he wanders about the place. He changes things around in the twilight zones. He probably lives in the woods still. He will be found soon.
Tag Archives: Karoz Blogger^*+@
Baker Blinker’s World of Lemon 05
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0002, Jeogeot, Noru
Baker Blinker’s World of Lemon 04
It could have happened anywhere along the way. If our user’s computer power was strong enough. As it turns out, this wasn’t really the case until Collagesity Winter 2015-2016, a period of virtual existence cannonized in the graphic novel of the same name. Suddenly two avatars could easily log onto Our Second Lyfe at the same time. The trick was tried way back in early 2008, when Baker Bloch and I first met inworld and kind of formed a crush on each other, quickly dispelled as stated before. Blochs and I are *friends*! Twins, really. Such wasn’t the case with Karoz Blogger, as it unfolded. In the exact middle of the graphic novel, we became more.
Karoz Blogger certainly has his own interesting history to tell concerning The Family. He was originally formed and molded in May 2009, I believe, right after the “Where Are We On That?” exhibit was created for our Kelly Yap gallery that explained the then current family of avatars we had: Baker Bloch, Hucka Doobie, Esbum Michigan, Wilsonia Foxclaw, and then myself. A chapter was formed for each. Mine is here. But Karoz Blogger is Jeogeotine through and through, and thus beyond the original set. Our user created him to act as a brother figure for Baker Bloch, a counterpart. As Baker Bloch is made with bits and pieces of an old Space Ghost avatar (thus the reason his father is stated as being the *official* Space Ghost, elder version), Karoz was partly assembled from a Zorak avatar. Zorak is Space Ghost’s sidekick on the classic Space Ghost Coast to Coast shows. Fantastic entertainment. Notice if you haven’t before (and you probably haven’t) that Karoz’s name is Zorak spelled backwards.
Karoz became an exploring partner for Baker Bloch after the family’s move to Jeogeot in May 2009, often checking behind him for the purposes of writing and editing blog posts. From our position in Noru, he fairly quickly made his way down to Chilbo several sims away… and discovered or remembered that he was *originally from Chilbo*. A wave of memories swept over him, as he’s explained to me. But it was not the then current Chilbo he remembers. It was a different one, a split off version. A version he remembers being called Chilbol and, originally, Chilbolton or Chilboltown. Traces of this version appeared in the town banners, which read “Chilbo!”. The “l” had been changed to an “!”, but Karoz received the message. He realized the split nature when he was hit by a mortar shell from a tank passing through Chilbo, and was temporarily derezzed from our virtual world. Our user’s screen whited out. Karoz died, then came back to life. The alternate reality had been set into place. He recalls Chilbol. He remembers the Noru that was named Norum instead. *Norum* was the larger entity at the time, not Chilbo. Chilbol was the satellite. And his surrogate mother Sapphire was queen over all of Jeogeot. Sapphire’s shadow casts large.
Like I said, Karoz’s story is a complicated and twisty one. The tail started wagging the dog early on. In part 5 I’ll attempt to elucidate more of his tale, leading up the events in Collagesity Winter 2015-2016. Afterwards I’ll have an important announcement to make. Something will happen at Christmas this year. She/he will arrive.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0002, Heterocera, Jeogeot, Noru, Rubi
Karoz Blogger…
… awakens in the middle of the night to find a number of startling changes. To begin, he notices the “moon of the moon” is no longer revolving below his perch on the edge of fake moon. Turning around and walking inward, he next discovers the Collagesity diner had also been complete removed, along with the encircling railroad and attached vegetable garden. He wonders what happened to the crazily joined John Lockfry/Dr. Mulholland within, and their Selenite butler. Erased as well? Then, lastly and most importantly for Karoz, the Boos gallery had now fully manifested on the western edge of fake moon, with the prickly cactus formerly guarding the door from premature visitations also gone.
Karoz can finally move forward… back to Collagesity. Once he walks through that open door, this travesty of a moon will no longer have the energy to exist; nothing left alive on it. His period of servitude is near its end.
He looks around one last time at the surface: the glowing entrance to the underground he never got to visit; his crashed, embedded spaceship he worked so hard on to design and build; the oh so blue Second Life cube of a world rotating slowly to the right which he now also knew was fake. He was done with all this. He can build another ship, better and stronger. He can find other worlds to explore. But first he has to get back home.
He turns around and passes between framing craters to walk across the threshold.
Looking back through the door, he sees the moon gradually turn darker…
… and then just wink out of existence, leaving only the starry sky behind.
Karoz takes the time to study each of Baker B.’s collages on the first floor of the gallery. He reviews what he remembers of the interpretations Baker (me) wrote about them at the end of this past year: the start in rural Missouri, the introduction of Second Life’s Nautilus City images, and then the portal into the tiny, artistic hamlet of Tungaske, Canada, whose energy would entice and grab firm to the series beginning with collages 9 and 10 that finish off this floor.
By the time he circles the walls back around to collage 10 (“Goodwater Goodland 02”) Collagesity had appeared through the gallery door, replacing the stars.
“Thank the Lord God Almighty,” he declared, tears in his eyes. Home at last.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi
Meanwhile…
… back on the *fake* moon, Karoz Blogger has taken to sleeping on its edge and away from the creepy John Lockfry/Dr. Mulholland pairing at the Collagesity Diner. His favorite spot is pictured below, where he has that great vantage point for look at the rapidly spinning *real* moon Jack and Bendy are circumnavigating at the same time. Mind you, Karoz cannot monitor their progress from his viewpoint. The moon is but a blur for him. But still he finds comfort in knowing that, in all likelihood, Bendy is still there, and is visiting a homeland. It gives him hope that he too can find a way home.
On this particular morning, simulataneous with Jack and Bendy completing half of the journey around True Moon as they transition from East Pole to South Pole, Karoz awakens to find new Collagesity elements appearing on Fake Moon. A railroad track now seems to completely surround the diner, cutting it off from the rest of the surface. Karoz later understands it is actually an exact semi-circle, also 50 percent complete but still performing the essential separation. Karoz would never see the John Lockfry/Dr. Mulholland duo again.
To his left he spots a ghost image in the sky hovering directly above an illuminated cactus. He recognizes it as the Boos gallery sign.
Karoz correctly wonders if a gateway is forming back to Collagesity. He might be able to go home soon! Back to Baker Blinker and the others. For now the prickly cactus still bars, though. It’s up to Jack and Bendy to do the rest.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi
Pet
Karoz thought, what the heck, and went outside, inserted the quarter, and dialed Baker Blinker’s cell phone number from the payphone beside the door. But it did nothing except ring itself, as in a perpetual loop. After throwing the receiver down in renewed frustration and starting to head back through the door to complain to Dr. Mulholland, Karoz saw colored shapes in the distance beyond the passageway leading into the moon’s interior.
It turned out to be a vegetable garden that had magically appeared in the span of a couple hours tops. No way he could have missed this before.
“You have your peppers, your beets, your tomatoes… lettuce. All the ingredients necessary for a delicious salad to complement your fish din dins.” It was wheelchair bound John Lockfry again, approaching from behind. “Magically sprung from the suddenly fertile soil of our little moon. A miracle. All because of a simple desire, a simple wish: “I wish I had a nice salad to complement this sushi. Then it would be perfect.” You remember saying that? And now it is so. That, my friend, is the power of this moon. A demonstration. You give and it gives in return, like a positive master.”
Karoz remained unimpressed. “It didn’t let me ring up Baker Blinker. It’s not letting me *off of itself*.”
“That is more difficult, my friend. You and Baker Blinker need to be separate presently. And Dr. Mulholland didn’t know about the phone. She upstairs right now sobbing into the bed sheets because of it. She dislikes true love being dampened. She is such a softie underneath that hard, exterior shell. You should see her at weddings. And we stopped going to funerals long ago. Luckily nothing dies here on the moon. It’s all recycled over and over. That’s another advantage[ of being here].”
Karoz was looking around him, distracted. “Why is it so bright all of a sudden?”
“Solar flare,” explained John Lockfry. “Enjoy the light while it’s here.”
“And where’s your *Bendy*?”
“Darnit!” said John Lockfry, examining his now Bendy-less shoulder. “We got too close. He must have made a jump for it again. Oh well, let’s go look. It’s just beyond that rock over there.” He cussed again.
By the time they reached the vantage point pictured below, the sky was darkening again, giving them a clear view of the bright object formerly hidden behind a wide rock on the edge of the moon.
“What is it?” Karoz asked, truly dazzled by the sight of the rapidly spinning asteriod.
“It’s the moon of the moon, the moon’s pet, as it were. Like Bendy is my pet. This is his original homeland.”
“The moon of the moon,” Karoz echoed as he turned around in his tracks to take another gander at the blue cube of Second Life.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi
Monster
“Stuck here?!” He was incredulous.
“I’m afraid so,” replied Dr. Mulholland, now on her 3rd glass of wine. This didn’t count the stuff her double John Lockfry 02 knocked down earlier. Karoz wondered if the alcoholic effects accumulated between the two of them or if it was wiped clean after a transformation. By the looks of her state, he’d guess the former.
“Tea, madam or sir?” It was the Selenite butler Karoz was introduced to earlier, seeming to sense a need to maintain a certain level of sobriety. The last of the true monsters, Dr. Mulholland claimed. Tamed and harmless as a little kitty now, she explained, and then even purred like a cat to reinforce the idea. “No thanks, Alberta,” he said. “Nahh,” slurred Dr. Mulholland in turn. He dutifully retreated back into his hidden corner of the diner.
“Don’t you think it’s cruel just to keep him tucked away over there until you need him?”
“Nahh,” she said again, and made the wine in her glass more turbulent. “So what do you think? What’s the arrangement going to be?”
“Arrangement?” Karoz querried.
“I mean, right now it’s me and the hubbie, Alberta over there, and then Bendy. H-how do you fit it?”
Karoz was firm. “Hey, I’m not staying. I’m going to get off this rock somehow.” He was starting to talk more like the locals.
“How? It’s all unlinked. We had to do it because of the monsters, like Alberta. Hey Alberta?” she shouted toward his hidden corner. He immediately came forth.
“Yes, madam? Tea madam?”
“No, I was just wondering if you could tell our guest Karoz about your kind, the Sele–nites. And how we tamed you and took out all those wild, murderous bits.” She snarled at him this time and clawed the air.
“Yes, madam. My people are Selenite warriors that come from the inside world. We numbered 7. We battled the Selenite isopods, who also numbered 7. We killed each other off many times over, but always came back to life at the Bright Lites. Until you and Mr. John Lockfry deactivated the Bright Lites and set me free. I am the seven who are one.”
“He means the rezzing crystals,” explains Dr. Mulholland, “the ones that are brighter. I’ll show you sometime. Heck, let’s go now. I’m tired of sitting around this place night and day. Well, night. The hubbie never wants to go down there. He’s crippled. Oh, what I mean his mind is crippled as well as his body. Come here, come here.” Dr. Mulholland waved Karoz closer to her. He leans over the table toward her, careful not to spill his wine. “He *is* the moon now. How about that?”
“I don’t understand.”
“The moon became crippled when we unlinked it and extracted all the monster codes. My husband became crippled at the same time. It was an arrangement. One of us had to go back in that chair. It wasn’t going to be me.” She looked at him with fire in her eyes.
“Going back to Collagesity, you said you woke up in the woods and found your way to Baker Blinker’s house.”
“Gloomy Gus, um huh.” She swigged another gulp of wine.
“You had a pocketbook.”
“Unch, right. The key.”
“Baker Blinker said it had money in it. And a note from Old Kent, the shark you know.”
“I know. The shark told us to give it to you. The shark said you were the most important person in Collagesity now, but you can’t change. So we brought you here. You’re *trapped*. We didn’t die in a firey explosion. That was just staged.”
“Staged,” repeated Bendy in a smaller voice from her shoulder.
Karoz Blogger just shook his head at this. He didn’t believe a lot of what she’s saying. He was eager for another transformation to take place so that he could talk to the male side, get another slant on events.
Dr. Mulholland wiggled a finger at Karoz. “We had to keep you away from her. The evil Baker. We can’t even allow you to have a quarter to call her. Oh, what the heck, here’s a quarter. Give her a call; tell her you’re okay. That shark is probably crazy, after all. Tell her you’re on the moon, we’re here, and everything will be okay.” Then she says this in a lower tone, more to herself: “Except it won’t be okay.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi
Eat
After watching a ravenous Karoz eat sushi especially prepared for him by his wife (his favorite food), John Lockfry then prodded the moss being for questions as both sipped wine. “You must have many about our situation here,” he said.
Avoiding the obvious one, the elephant in the room as it were, Karoz asked why the Collagesity diner appears intact here, seemingly unchanged. He kept waiting for John Lockfry to spring out of his chair again, turn into a woman, and then pour himself another glass of wine. That was cool.
“It’s not completely the same. One picture is unstable compared to back in your Collagesity. It’s the one behind you on the wall there, the Warhol print.” He indicated it with his free hand. “Another Warhol print keeps forming behind it, and then receding. What do you think?”
Karoz Blogger got up and studied the work, swirling the wine around in his glass while contemplating. “It’s both a picture of a gun and a car,” he said plainly, and waited for more explanation.
“Yes, but the car is a *lemon*, you see. Backwards lemon. Like the word “redrum” in that famous movie whose name always escapes me.”
“Shiny Hare?” offered Karoz.
“Yes, that’s the one. The one with the soundtrack by Story Room. How is Story Room anyway, Karoz? You’re best buds with the lot of ’em aren’t you?”
“Kind of,” came the answer. He sat back down at the table. “I was just thinking about them, actually, on the flight up here.” Karoz started to explain how he plans to go into a particular baker b. collage set in Stonethrow, England to attempt to recruit the 3 members of Story Room again as teachers for his new school, but decided it would be too drawn out.
“And the movie begins with the same vehicle, colored yellow. Like a lemon. It’s traveling through high mountains while a high Tom Petty sings about driving toward a mystery leading him on.”
“You seem to know quite a lot about “Shiny Hare”.” Karoz eyed him suspiciously.
“It’s a famous movie by a famous director, after all. We have a large screen tv upstairs in our bedroom. There’s not a lot else to do.”
“*Their* bedroom?” Karoz thinks, and then speaks aloud. “I must ask about your situation here. Um, with your wife and your… what do you call that, er, object on your shoulder?”
“That’s my pet Bendy, not to be confused with another pet called Benjy. He’s different. Isn’t he Bendy?”
“No,” came the tinny answer.
“How improper of me. I’ve been attending our honored guest and forgot about your needs. Do you want a cracker to gnaw on. Obviously we can’t give you wine. You know what happened the last time.”
“Yeah,” the robot answered. “Sick.”
“But you’ll be polite with the cracker and not spill *too* many crumbs.”
“Okay, whatever.”
“Let me finish talking to Karoz and then we’ll go upstairs and I’ll feed you and let the wife take over.”
“Yup,” the robot responded.
John Lockfry turns his attention back to Karoz. “So… more questions now.”
“We’ll, I was asking about your situation…”
The robot loudly belched. “Pardon *me*,” it said, and covered its mouth with its small metallic hand.
“You’ll have to excuse me, Karoz Blogger,” John Lockfry then said. “It seems that Bendy can’t wait for his din din.”
“Nope,” the robot answered.
“We’ll have to let Dr. Mulholland take over early and then I’ll return.” John Lockfry sprang up from the chair and again transformed into a woman. She sat down at Karoz’s table and poured herself another glass of wine.
“This is what *always* happens,” Bendy complains again from her shoulder. “I haven’t been fed in 2 weeks!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi
Split
Karoz Blogger blinked, and John Lockfry appeared to spring out of the chair and stand in front of it from his angle. The voice that issued from the figure now was obviously female, however.
“You know there’s no monsters down there. There *use* to be. We had to unlink the whole moon to get rid of them; delete the scripts from the objects in question. Now it’s all clear.”
Karoz walked closer to make sure his eyes (and ears) weren’t tricking him. But as soon as he started striding toward the figure, it was back in the wheelchair, seeming to answer… *himself/herself*!
“You keep saying that, although I don’t ever see you go into the interior.” The masculine voice was switched on again.
Karoz was upon them by now. He watched the transformation happen up close this time.
“Why don’t you back up a bit so I don’t have to stand in this cold water to answer you.” It was clearly Dr. Mulholland now, whom he met on Baker Blinker’s porch several days ago in an awkward situation. “Always bickering about this confounded moon, we are. What Karoz Blogger must think of us.” She turned to him…
…and then popped back in the chair. The long hair instantly shrank back into a bald head, the figure filled out more, but otherwise everything else seemed the same except for the sitting in the wheelchair part. They wore the same outfit, had the same toy robot perched upon their left shoulder. Karoz was only mildly surprised on top of everything else when it too spoke in turn.
“He thinks you’re *nuts*,” the robot said in a small, tinny voice.
Karoz was about to refute the robot’s brash statement when the wheelchair bound man turned around and started heading back toward the diner’s front door. “Come along Karoz. I’ll tell you my side, then I’ll allow my doctor wife to tell her side. You can decide which one of us is truly nuts, then.”
“You *both* are,” reinforced the robot on his shoulder. “There ain’t no moon!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi
Moon
Two hours later, a warning message comes over the intercom. “Moon impact eminent, moon impact eminent. Contact in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2…”, and then a violent thud. But Karoz, strapped in tightly, avoids harm. Successful landing on Second Life’s sole satellite!
After stepping out of the embedded spacecraft and dusting himself off a bit, Karoz finds something totally unexpected looming before him: the Collagesity Town Diner. “Why is *this* here??”
But he feels it has to be the one and only moon because there’s the cube shaped world of Second Life hovering near the horizon that Karoz *was* expecting. Beautiful indeed. Now — the diner.
The interior looks exactly the same as the Collagesity version as far as Karoz can tell. It’s a virtual duplicate.
He hears movement upstairs; people talking, one male and one female, although he can’t distinguish what they’re saying. A teleporter is right beside where he’s standing, but he decides not to head to higher stories — doesn’t want to invade privacy. Instead he goes to explore the surface more.
He sticks his hand in the pool of water just outside the structure. Cool to the touch, but he dare not drink it yet, despite his thirst from the long journey.
And then in the very center, Karoz finds a mist filled passageway leading into the moon’s interior.
“I wouldn’t go in that place yet, Karoz Blogger,” warns John Lockfry, appearing around the corner of the diner and in his wheelchair now. “There be monsters.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi
Trip
It took Karoz 3 minutes 3 days to build another spacecraft. He improved the design; made the pressurized module safer.* He felt it fate that a relatively unimportant character like John Lockfry was sacrificed for a greater good. He will be assigned the status of a martyr — Karoz will make sure of that.
For the second attempted flight to the moon, a prim and proper one this time, Karoz recruited Baker Bloch to accompany him.
“The first multi-man journey,” proclaimed Karoz, standing in front of the rocket launcher across Central Stream from him. “But it will be tricky, as I’ve explained. I’ll sit in the rocketship first to launch it, and then when it is in the air you’ll have to quickly sit in the craft as well. Else you’ll miss the trip.”
“Yes, we’ve been over this many times. I’m prepared as much as I’ll ever be.” Baker Bloch hadn’t told Karoz that he had done all this before back in Rubi’s VWX Town. He didn’t want to confuse or distract his friend any more than necessary in these times of heightened emotions. Indeed it will take some concentration to pull this off. And John Lockfry wasn’t any more dead than anyone else in Collagesity, including Karoz and himself. But of course he hadn’t voiced this either.
“Do you have your draw distance set at 200 meters like I suggested to follow me further into the sky if needed.”
“Roger that, Karoz.”
“Okay, are we ready?” Karoz peers up at Baker Bloch.
“Do it,” states Baker Bloch levelly. He has no deep worries, but still is nervous. He wants to locate and sit in the ship as soon as possible after it clears the house.
Karoz stretches his arm toward the launcher, bringing the menu up. “Three, two, one… SIT!” Karoz disappears from Baker’s side. The rocket fires. Baker waits for the clearance of the ship.
The capsule flies upward much quicker than expected. It is already well over 100 meters in the air before Baker Bloch even spots it. Desperate, he tries to touch and sit, but it is too late. The ship is gone. “Darnit!” he says, truly frustrated.
Karoz is on his own. Baker Bloch realizes he’ll have to deal with Baker Blinker now, who won’t take the news well. She was depending on him to make sure Karoz was safe and out of harm’s way. But nothing could happen to his old friend. Could it?
“I *knew* it! Overconfident dickhead.”
—–
* One of the most important changes Karoz made was reducing the 100-percent oxygen environment of the module, originally intended to lower the weight, with a mix containing about 34 percent oxygen, and making the spacecraft’s walls significantly thicker to handle the increased pressure.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0001, Heterocera, Rubi
Sunklands 