Tag Archives: LIBRARY

a punk is born (zooming in on yellow (1st thing in the morning))

Many famous musicians have walked the roads of Gaston, and many famous musicians have left from such roads. Not George, though: he remained glued to the town through his car as it were, white in the daylight here but silver at night, as silver as Maxwell’s Hammer.

And now his soul has returned as the strumming punk known as Ketchup Tom because of his red mohawk if not visa versa, Marsha “Pink” Krakow his new drummer in tow, owner of her own VW Bug and one she perhaps is glued to as well, and even perhaps the *same* bug. Paired silver and gold as we’ve mentioned before — or white and yellow in the daytime. The Portal. Mimosa. Probably dusk and dawn as I’m writing and thinking this out.

George also existed here as Duncan Avocado, a character very important to the blog and attached photo-novels up until and including 31. 3-1 (March 1). His birthday which was also kind of his death day, at least in my eyes. He lay in a blue-yellow tent on the floor of the Collagesity library after that, a virtual structure last seen in Constantynople which has recently been destroyed/derezzed, with a final friend in the library *still* a friend — but simply too busy with a young kid to have much time for anything else, including our promised hikes. Important thing: I don’t hold it against him. And I should probably get over my disappointment with Duncan too. Put it in the rear view window. Thing is, we’re *doppelgangers*.

Red blue yellow houses in a row to begin. Again.

“Ugh, my head. W-where am I? And *who* am I?”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0413, Gaston+

great and powerful

When she got back from her trip to the Pleiades which wasn’t the Pleiades, Mrs. Ordinary found everything around her to be mundane, just *blah*. Sand sand sand from north to south in this here Big Sandy she called home, yellow, long and boring. She needed to spice up her life with a bit of extra, like she had while aboard the USS Galaxy, certainly not boring atall, although they had to get through that one giant meteor in the way by boring through it via a lasered out hole. Definitely excitement there!

She put down her boring book about Atlantis, Easter Island and such and rang up neighbor Marsha “Pink” Krakow, seeing if she wanted to get together for some tea, something different for her day. She’d heard of a tiny cafe opening up in Pugwash just across the Big Channel. She checked before she called — open at 7, the website stated. 7:05am now. Just in time for an early breakfast too since she saw they had flapjacks available, her favorite.

Marsha beside her Eddie in bed yawned before answering her cell phone. First thought: Mom has the shingles again and I have to come down and take care of her. But she checked the number before swiping. Unknown, the indicator indicated. Relief. She swiped.

“Hello, Marsha? It’s Bethany, er, Ginger. Listen, just wondering if you wanted to catch an early breakfast at that new place just across the Big Channel. I checked: open at 7. Seats are limited so figured I’d call now to see if you’re up for it.”

Marsha yawned again, glanced over at her Sleeping Beauty comfortably snoozing away, and said, “Sure. Just give me 15 minutes to change and I’ll meet you there.” She needed a friend to talk to as well. Life, Second or not, was getting more and more complicated, what with Ketchup Tom and now Serenity Lane entering the picture in this here section.

—–

“Oh the light’s just beautiful here. Isn’t it beautiful?” Different* from where I live, she ponders, looking up into the sky to see if she can spot the Pleiades before the harsh sun washes all the night time away. No luck.

“Sure thing, er, Ginger.” Was it Ginger? Marsha “Pink” Krakow still wasn’t sure. They had finished their flapjacks, 1 apiece since both were on some kind of diets. Look at her, Marsha was thinking prior to ordering; so trim! But Mrs. Ordinary was thinking the same thing about Marsha. And so the one flapjack apiece, easy on the syrup. Then afterwards, not tea but rum, Mrs. Ordinary decided, which Marsha went along with. Why not? She could sober up on whatever little drunkenness occurred before Eddie even stirs out of his slumber, 12 o’clock being the earliest he rises since his early retirement in March of last year. Lots of money in records management outside the public sector. And he worked for the rock industry, Ozmo Daredevils, Ozzie Osbourne and the like. For the former, he chronicled how “Jackie Pink” turned into “Jackie Blue” in the company blog, which brought him to the attention of curious Marsha wondering about her own “Pink” name and how it came to be. Through it she learned that boys and girls use to be dressed in pink and blue respectively back in the 50s 30s instead of visa versa. And so it began.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0040, 0315, Bellisaria, Sandfly

he bats right he bats left doesn’t matter

“That was some pitch… Pitch. Explosive, even!”

“Thank you. I tried hard on that. Bit of spit, admittedly, to cut down on the Lively. Return to dead ball era, where I was *king*.”

‘Of course you were, Pitch. And Buster was a marvelous shortstop back in those days too.”

“Damm right!” Both laugh then quickly compose themselves. Serious stuff now. Library. Saving Constantynople.

—–

There he was, in Special Collections again. Looking for himself. I’ll have what I’m having and all. Self service. He already had his eye on something.

“Can I help you?” reading room coordinator Swanie Rivers jumped in, trying not to flap her wings this time despite the head, the gum. Calm and cool, like a waterfall or attached stream. *Not* a volcano or any kind of lava flow. Blue, clear, ready for tubing on a sticky ass hot summer day. She’ll let him select something and then tell him. No f-ing gum in Special Collections! But… calmly, cooly. No wing flapping.

“What’s in that more crooked shelving, those ring binders over there?” Philip believes he’s seen it in a dream. Several times in fact.

“Oh, yes, that’s part of the Merk Coolie Brighton collection. He use to work here!” Swamie told herself not to get excited and shout in the room, even though no one is currently there except Philip and her. But… he use to *work* here!

“Am I in it?” he asked, throwing Swanie for a loop. A closed one. Not-what-she-seems cleaning lady Ross C. slides through the cracks in the front door to observe.

Philip pops his gum one…

last…

time.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0039, 0503, Constantynople, Nautilus, Rank & File

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

a lane to walk down

He never could remember which one was an Allosaurus and which one was a Tyranosaurus so he ended up just calling them both Allanosaurus, a catchy name that he couldn’t get rid of, *achoo*. Darn, lingering cold.

He had just finished wiping his nose when Jane stirred in the tent.

“Ohh, my *head*.” It was here she realized she had lost another baby which was the same as a ball. It was all play and pretend except it wasn’t.

“I had to give you a sedative so you’d sleep through it all,” Dr. Brown explained to his ground 00 patient, still waiting for that ball to turn blue so he could determine a sex. Else: this keeps happening. Waking up in the woods. With the dinos, Real Self far far away.

Jane remembers the 8 corners of space, the near (Moon) and the far (Muff-Bermingham). Trouble was, she couldn’t remember which is which, more memory condensing and overlapping. Like with the Allans, as Brown eventually, inevitably shortened the name to.

“I… *died*!”

“Yes, in a way. Your baby died. You died along with it. Except you didn’t. You are here.”

Jane managed to raise herself from the tent floor, look out the door. Dinos. Allans. Everything was here that was needed to understand. South America. Land of the Dead.

“Library,” she said.

“That too,” he admitted. “I suggest we read while we wait. Cut back the talk. No need to waste oxygen. You have them in your eyes as well. Just think of a book to read… and read.”

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0501, Nautilus, Rank & File, Upper Austra

Junkyd again

“How I got here? It was dark. I couldn’t see the road. No street lights in this place. I ended up in this there tree, one of my tires dangling beneath like an eyeball loosed from a socket. Ghouls below — dancing. Carcass roasting in the middle but it wasn’t an ordinary animal. A *human* animal. They said it was a sparkly pink cowboy, formerly. They talked backwards a lot.”

“Like Doug over there?” John the Mind Reader pointed in the direction of Doug over there.

“No, not like a German (Doug was German: Douglas Hinterbocher the 3rd or 4th, I never can remember). Like a mutant.”

“Fine Young Cannibals?”

“Kind of,” I answered to this. “Anyway, I eventually came to the attention of Thomas, short, at least at one point, for Thomasina I gathered.”

“Yeah, the Big Boss. I know her.”

“Of course you do, John. We all do. Pyramid.”

“Right. Dunes.”

“We all come from there.”

“I recall.” But John the Mind Reader *didn’t* recall that part of their shared herstory, all of ’em. It was a big ol’ blind spot, as he put it, mostly in his mind and not to others and where they couldn’t get to it easily, he figured, being the only Mind Reader in the village, or at least he believed. Not until Brunhilde Sarah Jennifer Lane, another sparkly one in fact. Shared presents. The Answer? Maybe.

“Gorman was one of the ghouls.”

“Oh. *That* explains a lot.”

“Sure does.” He shut up for a while after that, figured he’d revealed enough for now. He could still see the fire, the carcass, the smiles and grins all around, only a few with a full set of teeth, thanks to the rotten dentists around here, mostly old and displaced Tilists. Including Gorman. Knew about the evils of Sprite all along, as it turned out. Grant Hill, PHEH. What was up on that hill anyway? Another mountain?

—–

“When did she first become visible to you. This… *woman*?”

—-

“She said she came from a library.”

“Ahh. More *origin* stories,” said John to this.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0306, The Waste+

Mountain Man

He put her in the corner by the stove while he stood in the opposite one. The sparkles indicated a presents, the here and the now. Aluminum can. She turned and kissed him full on the lips. How could this be? He was 2 dimensional, she was 3. Plus they were about 10 feet apart. Yet here we are, talking about it.

“Is this how you *met*?” Thomas Boyy queried from her desk in her hovel as he illuminated the scene. 2:02 now. He was spilling.

“No. We met a long time ago. August 2016.”

She counted it out. “That’s almost 7 years ago. And she hasn’t gotten old? This *toy*?”

Through him, I thought about slightly earlier. Woods. Platform. “No,” I said, going within. “Not old… besides the 7 year part.”

“No time for jokes here, young man. Spill more!” She checked her watch. Fate dictated they wrap up quickly. She was at the top of the mountain, him: the side; only halfway up still. It was an abyss in there. 31 to 32. Retired

So he illuminated some more, knowing that was the only way to get out of here in one pieces.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0038, 0304, Blue Mountain, City Park, County Park, Lands End, Nautilus, The Waste+, Toy Avatars

Ichetucknee

“I really like it here, Eddy. The motel, the view of the Ichelus Volcano over there. Look! It seems to be erupting again.”

This made Edward, her Eddy, think of another eruption earlier. Couldn’t wait. “Hmm,” he said, also looking, also pretty impressed.

“Have you had a chance to crack the book yet, Eddy? I know we’ve been awfully busy,” and she winks here, “but I did go to a lot of trouble to get it for you.”

“Tessa,” he replied, starting to think of his cousin, 1 in a set of 3. The other…

“Yes.”

“I started reading the first chapter,” he said, which was truth, or at least he checked the title of the chapter to make sure it was the right book. ‘Marbles Fall, Marble Falls.’ He could have swore it was the other way around, but probably just a faulty memory. Close enough — it was the same, he determined.

“Newton,” she said, recalling her own reading of the cursed thing. “Physical world, mechanics. *No* dreams. Right there in the first chapter, stating it all plain and simple up front. We *live*… in Newton.”

“But we need Jasper,” he completed her thought. He tried to recall his dreams from last night, after all the frantic activity was over, like a volcano shutting down. Took some time. He remembers the lava turning cool and changing colors from orange to blue. Ichelus in reality, but in the dream it was something different. Itchy? No that wasn’t it.

“Be careful of the marble rolling off. We’ve already lost one.” I was just kidding about the cracking, she wanted to say but didn’t have the chance. Open *gently*.

We? Edward thought on his part. Why did she say that? “Right, I will.”

“Miss Ouri has it.”

“Yes. I recall.”

“We don’t want Miss Ouri to be involved again. Cactus doll.”

“Yes,” he replied. That ravenous, mutant cactus doll. Brought to life by library voodoo. No, we don’t want that (again). Stick with Nauty if you want pincushions. *Under* the library — around it but not inside.

“I would really like to see the volcano today,” Jem requested. “I mean, up close and personal,” she clarified while looking out the window again. “Not like this — from a distance.”

“I understand,” and then another memory locked into place. He was tubing in the lava that wasn’t lava any longer.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0036, 0205, Florida, Jeogeot, Middleton, Xilted

preservation

My Lebettu Castle is still there in all its glory, seen here in a “Phototools — Still Life” environment. The library remains at its center, its core. However since I’ve been retired from same for *8* months now, it may be time to move on. I revisited the co-workers I was probably closest to a couple of weeks back and exchanged pleasantries and caught up with the latest. My old position had shifted into something new which helped the team, but also probably marked the end of a more interactive involvement with the overall campus in the way I fostered, a continuation from past practices. *Writing* is my job now, that and the accompanying art and photography. And also I view daily hiking as an extension of this, a needed opposite and balancing pole to virtual reality. It’s a good life. 🙂 I explore both.

Moving forward, I’m almost 1/2way done with the current Sunklands photo-novel, 35 in a series of “we”ll see”. Characters keep evolving. I am almost as much there as I am here.

I did not maintain contact with others outside my team. I was as much a part of campus as a whole as the library — theoretically. It was a perfect balance for a while, me acting as one man juggler. But it could not go on. I passed into retirement as naturally as about anyone could, thanks in part to the pandemic and the changes it wrought. It certainly contained echoes of actual death. I know better what to expect.

There have been other libraries in other times. Even now, in a virtual setting and obviously on a much smaller scale, I still have one, another echo. A friend died there.

I can still go inside the special part created by new-ish head Miss Ouri and read books, some of which are even my own.

Like this one.

There still exists a dividing point between Ordinary/Mundane and Special. It’s all in the pages.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0035, 0315, Nautilus, NORTH, Rooster's Peninsula

00340304

Humorously designed sign at the beginning of a local trail you probably wouldn’t know about unless you’re a devoted mountain biker, since it’s way up a 750 foot knob (The Knob). Not the easiest location to reach by foot.

And on the other side of this same trail: that damn moving gnome. The other day I dared to touch the possibly cursed object for closer examination. It looks to me upon turning it over that the name of the little f-er is Stinkerfoot — logical extension of “…inkerfoot”.

But when googling Stinkerfoot up popped at the top of my search results this video of a song called “Stink-Foot” by Frank Zappa from his most famous album “Apostrophe”, its closing track. This album also contains the well known “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” I just referenced in a recent post.

Google also offered to search specifically for Stinkerfoot instead of the suggested Stinkfoot, but upon doing so understood why they substituted the latter in the first place. Nothing really significant found using the former. So there you have it. Zappa works his way back into our story from a direction you might least expect.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0034, 0304, Blue Mountain, County Park