Tag Archives: LISTS

May 22, 2024 · 3:54 pm

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.

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May 21, 2024 · 2:14 am

00430103

“Those books in back aren’t for the general public,” spoke nudist and co-manager of the Yalta Bar and Grill Drew “Grumpy” Cleveland to Fern and Lichen later on. “I only let friends back there, people I know, people I can trust who won’t sully the pages and so on. And I know all the books as well. I had ‘Around the World in 1000 Pictures’ not ‘2000’. That’s a later, expanded version I didn’t purchase. And I don’t take donations — not directly. I buy books. I *know* books.”

“Pure enough,” said Fern to this, still scanning the list before her on the counter. 26 words for 26 letters in order from A to Z. But Asylum isn’t among them — didn’t start it off. Instead: company letterhead at the top. She’d done a little research before confronting Grumpy with the list they’d found. Asylum Inc. was started by one Wayne Bruce in 1972 in Nightsity, California. Thing is, Nightsity doesn’t exist. Not in *this* reality. In 1988 it supposedly moved to Jasper County GA near Atlanta, apparently another lie.

Here’s a Google Street View of the address from the letterhead. Nothing.

The most confounding thing of all: When Fern and Lichen returned to the bookshelves around back to check for additional evidence, “Around the World in 2000 Pictures” was no longer there. Instead, a copy of “Around the World in 1000 Pictures”, brown colored instead of blue for the former, was present in the exact same spot, just like Grumpy said he bought. Even ultra-sharp Fern couldn’t figure this out in the moment. Not yet. It would take the closing of one eye and the opening of another to accomplish.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0043, 0103, C2077, Castle Town+, Georgia, Google Street View, NIGHTSITY, Omega

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May 16, 2024 · 5:19 am

00430102

“Where *is* he?” expressed not-so-patient Lichen Roosevelt to her dinner partner Fern Stalin, the brains of the group, the Scarecrow to Lichen’s Lion to Wendy’s Tinman and Dorothy in one, as if the UK and US united into a single country, not quite like that but close. They were, then, a trio and thus had to look out for each other. And Wendy was now nowhere to look out for. Missing. Barry was the logical path forward. Talk to the jilted boyfriend, get Wendy’s last thoughts, and then move on from there. One thing they knew: she was *not* in Kangarootown. Not yet anyway.

“He should be rocking,” blonde Lichen continued to complain to brunette Fern. “Right over there.”

She pointed to the chair with the maple leaf throw pillow seen toward the end of the last photo-novel, still as a quill. No yarn to spin here from De Boy. Lichen sucked nervously at the straw in her mouth, seemingly a perpetual oral fixation these days. Fern was just glad it wasn’t chewing tobacco or something even worse. A straw is a straw — harmless outside the constant twirling and whirling and the occasional slurring of the words emitting from her distorted mouth. But, true, it adds to her overall humor, augments the vibe she’s trying to put out there to the world. She likes to play the role of a dumb blonde, kind of like a Daisy Mae from Dogpatch, Arkansaw. A Capp caricature of a woman, a throwback to more primitive days. Daisy days.

Fern’s brains were spinning per usual. “Not rocking, eh? Maybe classical is the direction we should look toward. I sense — lemme look deeper — I sense… Liszt. Don’t ask me how. Just Liszt.”

“List?” Lichen said back, not understanding the word. But her word turned out to be even better in the moment.

“Yes!” exclaimed Fern to this. They had to find a list. If they had to tear this place apart, like pages from a book. Book! she thought to herself. There are books around back. They knew this from their time before in this place, this Castle Town in the Deep South of the Omega continent, an oasis in a desert of shame.

“Travel!” she said when they arrived at the 3 bookcases we also saw Barry sitting before in the last novel. She was basically straight-channeling the future by this point. Oases have peculiar energy, perhaps because of the condensing of energies within. Lends itself to palm trees and desert life. Lends itself to psychic impressions and deeper. Wellsource.

I suppose that’s what attracted them to Castle Town in the first place, that and all the offered games here at Yalta’s Bar and Grill, backgammon, chess, cards, so forth. And, of course, its name.

It was right in the center of the 3, right before their eyes. When she saw it she couldn’t look away.

And right in the center of the book: a list.

(to be continued)

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May 10, 2024 · 7:06 am

00420615 (Endlessly Antipoison)

He’d been having dreams of Pansy Mouse again and going in a classical direction instead of rocking the day away like he had been. Wendy was showing him the way. He was less scared now of the ghostly spectre.

In one dream, Pansy handed him a list procured from behind the counter. On it: 52 single column words, including Asylum. Featuring Asylum, perhaps. Headliner. He must not run away from it. He needs to put it back in the file in Filetown.

—–

She came back in the wrong dress. He knew their time was limited, wanted to spend it in the best manner possible. “Walk with me,” he said. Reaching the balcony outside the bar and grill, he suddenly took her hand and flung them both over the rail…

… but they were okay — only 12 feet down. “Warn me the next time you do that!” complained winded Wendy, even though she landed rather gently as did he. Much harder to hurt yourself in Our Second Lyfe than up in reality. Barry learned that the hard way.

Onward through the construction warning signs. Barry knew this tunnel starting below the balcony would be safe as well; would take them to where it all ended. Heaven of sorts.

Midge looked on, unseen by Barry behind the dumpster. But not Wendy. Just by her look she knew they had found the file.

(to be continued)

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March 14, 2024 · 4:07 am

00420305 (blow the doors off something (also: Rabbit))

Time for Mary Ball and Pitch Usurpius Darkly to move on to the next leg of their extended fishing vacation…

…. Fox Island at Endlessly Antipodal. Note that Antipodal is very close to antipoison, almost as if it was in the same jacket near the same pocket. Juliet-like, balcony standing Sepisexton we’re talking about here again and her hidden vial of the latter. Just in case, as she puts it. The former is included in picks by not one but two Yellowmoon Ridge landowners who seem unconnected to each other, er, otherwise (where we’ve just seen Shelley and Arthur). That’s why I knew I had to send the Darklys or someone else in my family of avatars there to check it out, interact with the landscape and perhaps the residents, if any exist.

Philosophy time now: Everything in Our Second Lyfe is connect to each other as if in a fractal environment. It all drills down to the same thing over and over. Only Outside can save us, something beyond Our Second Lyfe. Haze County where I actually live up in the Real World is an obvious, top level way to escape this void. Similarly virtual but much more intensely verisimilitudinous Red Dead planet too — if I can figure out how to get Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate out of that fox body and into a human one again in St. Dennis, its only full fledged city and what some call the 8th wonder of that world. GoogleEarth and associated Street View is yet another way to latch onto something more real. Thing is, Our Second Lyfe is losing energy as games keep developing way above and beyond it. If it weren’t for the ability to create. Oh, and also the avatar customization and the incredible creativity of Our Second Lyfe residents in designing clothes, buildings, vehicles, all sorts of things. I seem to need to relay this to the reader of my blog to illustrate that I’m in sort of a tug of war between it and the rest of reality, including even other virtual worlds (and specifically, at least at this point, Red Dead Redemption 2, even though I don’t yet own the game itself, ha). I mean, right now in one of my other computer windows I’m looking at something that shouldn’t be possible. Something in Mary Ball’s old Killing Shack now located at the bottom of a lake in Decker on the original Bellissaria continent. How did I get to this point?


Then there’s the problem of OSL laaaggg.

So here we finally return to Pitch Darkly and Mary landing in their small fishing boat on what’s called Fox Island in the River of Bear. Of course it has other names — no surprise there — including Squirrel Island. Because of this little fellow, currently surrounded by sniffing foxes checking him out. But he’s actually a chipmunk; that’s what the foxes have surmised as well, being versed in Endlessly Antipodal geography and the naming of local things. “We’re still okay; still on top,” one speak-thinks to the other, actually being a part of one soul beneath the separate exteriors, a distinct advantage they have over humans.

Maybe we shouldn’t be so hasty in switching Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate back into a human body himself. See what he can still uncover as an urban fox.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0305, Bellisaria, Google Street View, HANA LEI, Haze County, RDR2, Western Hills

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January 30, 2024 · 4:05 pm

00410613

Baker Bloch and bee-person/blog guru Hucka Doobie share a pizza while Philip continued to play his game over there, watching from afar as the virtual trailer park slowly repopulates itself with killable, expendable NPCs.

“You sure bringing Strevor back is a good idea, Baker? He’s kind of a psycho after all, especially if he’s off his pills. Does he have his pills on him, Baker? I hope you made sure of that. Else… we could be in a lot of trouble shortly… after he’s finished with his game and becomes bored again. Boredom leads to violence in this case. Believe me, I’ve seen it up close and personal when I was going out with Marion that brief bit in Gaston.”

“Sure it is,” Baker defended the idea. “He’ll, in fact, lead us right to your true love Marion Star Harding. They’re natural partners in crime — different types of partners.”

“I wondered about that for a while,” she said, scooping the artichokes off her slice. Baker knows I don’t like artichokes! she fumes internally. Yet, in his selfish manner, he ordered them anyway, not thinking about his dinner companion. So similar to Marion in that way, she thinks. But she loves him anyhow — both of ’em, she reckons. In different ways of course. Now.

—–

Okay, I’m beside the sign Philip said he would meet me at, Marion Star Harding thinks; now I just wait. He sniffs again, his face screws up like a walnut again. Philip better hurry, though, or I’m going to catch some kind of respiratory disease just standing here so close to that cursed sea, he thinks, not being able to get the rotted egg and salt stench out of his nostrils despite breathing through his mouth once more. What horrible germs and viruses are going down in his lungs?

Meanwhile on the opposite side of town, still portal hopping Marsha “Pink” Krakow seemingly arrives on the scene in her orange VW Beetle. After a long 2 1/2 month journey we’ve finally come full circle, you and I my loyal reader. We’re ready to end it here. But first we need to get Philip and Marion beside the same sign in the same town. A phone call from the latter should do the trick.

—–

“I’m here,” Philip said to his natural partner but not his lover. “Sorry about the mistake.”

“It’s that game again,” guesses Marion correctly. Distraction, he knew.

“Yup. Sorry again. Wrong reality.”

Having circled around the village in search of the correct Aisle of Palms indicator, the orange VW pulls up in perfect synchronicity. “Get in,” she said, and, without words, they did. They’d been expecting her. Their beloved Billie Jean Kidd in yet another guise, the third and final gang member and a shapeshifter of some power. She can take the appearance of a kid, an old woman, a young lady, a dog (poodle), and last but not least, a Bug. In short, Marsha “Pink” Krakow was never in the car to begin with here.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0613, Big Woods, California, Google Street View, GTA, Jeogeot

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October 20, 2023 · 8:29 pm

another try/revisions

“Senseless war, Speck. Redshirts a plenty.”

“Our past, Cpt.” He arches one of his non-spiraling eyebrows ever higher while checking the tricorder he holds in his hand. “Aand. Our future I’m detecting.”

“How– can… that be, Speck. I… mean…”

“I know what you mean, Cpt.” says Speck, the person playing him thinking that Don is overdoing it again. Shakespearian actors, pheh. He: a Marlowe fan. “Time… doesn’t seem to factor into the equation. Nor space.”

“Space and time, Speck,” gruffly cussed Doc just offcamera here. “Is that all your Vulcan mind can comprehend? There’s such things as *feelings*.”

He turns toward Doc and thus offcamera as well. “I understand feelings too, Doctor. I’m half–”

“Just… stop it– guys.” Cpt. again of course. “This is just– what the Daruvians want us to do. Bicker… amongst ourselves.” He turns halfway toward the camera, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He’s hatching a plot in his mind, a play within a play. “What if… *we* become the actors they *want* us… to be.”

“Or not to be,” Speck chipped in with a rare kind of joke.

Doc — offcamera still — huffed. “You *act*, Cpt. — like the Daruvians are also anything but barbarians. They’re not, dammit. I’ve seen what they did to Jed. Right in the head in bed until he was dead.” He stares intensely at the Cpt. and then Speck. Or so I’ve been told.

“Jed was… an anomaly, Doc.”

“He was a *person*,” counters still fuming Doc. Always angry. Grumpy. “Just because he had 8 arms and a head the size of Nebraska–”

“I’m picking up on something else,” interrupts Speck, always checking for logical developments. “The situation inside the arch has slightly altered to make it a bit more interesting. The primitive weapons known as muskets… are now hoisted over their right shoulders. Not their left.”

All watched as the guns were then lowered and turned. At them.

“RUNNN!!”

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May 24, 2023 · 10:44 am

00380413

“My card, sir.” And then he took his leave. When the matre d asked who to say left it while he was walking away, he just shot back: “Someone very smart; say it was from Albert EINSTEIN.” “Very well, sir,” Edvin replied. The stranger made a turn up the stairs past the site of the future Barry De Boy painting and was out of sight if not out of mind. Even though Edvin thought he might be. Odd, he kept thinking, staring at it. How can odds be evens? And was there an s cut off at the end? But Osse-Motor. That spelt trouble. Christopher’s more visible brother Jimmy lost a mansion because of it. Perhaps several. Forty lost an eye.

One hour later, Eight was with town gossip and bigot Rag Doll instead of counterpart Eighty, wasting time instead of making hay. Deadly time. Edvin moved toward them with the redeeming card. “Someone left this for you,” he said, extending it. Eight took, read. “Albert Einstein?” she questioned, looking top left. “Throw it away,” Rag Doll opposite her suggested after quickly grabbing and reading  it herself, knowing the name. “Worthless. Nonsensical.” She knew what Osse-Motor meant better than anyone in town. Dang, she could lose her *own* house if Eight (or Eighty) took this seriously. An eye!

(to be continued)

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June 27, 2022 · 7:41 am

00330412

“Now I think it’s logical that I keep the seat here next to the refrigerator, because of my little bambinos I have to fuss with all the time — pouring milk over them to turn them into lattes, icing the lattes, so on.”

“Here we go,” muttered Wheeler Wilson across from him, who had already requested to be addressed by a new name: Flip Bean. She flipped her hair lightly when saying this. Baker nodded. It was done. On to round two.

“Welll?” Baker wanted a likewise response from across the table. Wheeler has her name, he will have his fridge.

“Fiiine. And another request while we’re on the subject. Axis here is not Axis any more. He’s Newt. He won’t even answer to Axis any longer.” She turns toward him. “Will you Newt?”

Newt thinks about not replying for a joke but then decides against it. Wheeler, I mean, *Flip* is pretty serious when she sits down to the table here. Down to business as they say. “No,” he says.

“Good. So it’s settled. New names for us, and a refrigerator for coffee boy over there. Anything else? I have some hiking in the Himalayas to get back to.”

“Well… I…”

“Grassy,” Wheeler Flip guessed about Baker’s next topic. “Took his seat away. Not needed right now.”

Baker Bloch could see his seat next to Flip’s clear as day. “Toys must be represented,” he kept firm. “Besides…”

“… there’s a chair already there?” Flip guessed correctly again. “In my reality there isn’t. We agree to disagree about that.”

“Okay,” Baker began again. “How about this. I keep calling you Wheeler in these here meetings, and the toy will be banned from same — toys in general.”

“Explain,” she asked. This was the final decision, she realized. Then it was off to meet Stan in Timbuktu to conquer K-2 again. Good ol’ Stan. And Axis doesn’t mind since he’s Newt now. He’s completely under her control.

“I… just can’t get use to calling you anything but Wheeler. And our one or two other readers would appreciate the continuity as well I’m assuming.”

Flip answers by rattling the ice around in her water, melting fast. “*I* want a refrigerator too, then. I have needs as well: wine, liquor, tea. A fridge back there behind me and I’ll be Wheeler, he’ll be Newt (still), and Grass(y) will be out on his ass. Deal?” She leaned over the table, extending her arm for a shake. Baker thinks about quickly reaching into his fridge and handing her a leftover chocolate chip one but wisely decides against it. He knows, like Newt, that Wheeler is totally serial in these kind of meetings, as the young’n’s might say. She wants the business done so she can leave and get back to what she was doing. Hiking in the Himalayas, surfing in Wakiki, bungee jumping in the New River Gorge — could be anything for the thrill seeker. Just last week it was rhino riding in the Serengeti. Next week, maybe a space walk even — who knows?

She comes as Eyela to the next Table meeting. Space walk it is.

15 minutes in and she looks down at her watch. “Are we *done*? I have a ship to catch.”

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June 26, 2022 · 5:30 pm

00330411

Holding his two hot drinks comfortably in either hand, cozies in place, he pauses before leaving to admire the view toward the ocean, the sea that surrounds his home continent of Nautilus like a circumference to a circle (or square). About at the same place Newt, earlier on it seems, saw those salt and pepper shakers tittering on the floor. Exactly the same spot. Not tittering: *crying*. He readjusts the cozie on either cup and proceeds to take his “little bambinos” — as he likes to call them — back to The Table room for the meeting with Wheeler. Guess I should have asked if she wanted anything, he thinks while walking toward the castle gate. Perhaps one of those unsweetened teas she likes so much.

But too late: inside the castle now, its walls sealing off exterior from interior. He didn’t even look over at the whale tail brushing the side Starbuccaneer Barista mentioned. Another tight but meaningful that Baker missed in the rush toward safety.

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