Tag Archives: Swanie Rivers^^++++&

July 7, 2025 · 6:31 am

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Something’s happened over in Crooked, psychic Myrtle Beech intuits from her position at the center of the island while spying the distinct looking Constantynople building through a gap. One person would definitely know and that’s Old Orange (= All Orange). On her way…

“Okay, Old Orange. Start moving your dangly red legs which are the same as your forked tongue and spill the truth for a change!”

Old/All Orange complies.

—–

MEANWHILE… world maker Philip Linden had made it over to Constanynople library’s Special Collections, despite his head blowing up about 57 times now on his journey across the island south to north. “What’s in those crooked bookshelves over there?” he couldn’t help asking room attendant Swanie Rivers, trying not to flap her wings in disgust and irritation despite the gum. And the gun; both poppers, if both dormant for the moment. Tough stretch of land in the middle of the island — The Abyss some call it — and he decided to pack some heat in his pocket beside his pack of Wriggles chews already planted there. Back to the crooked shelves, he believes he’s seen them in a dream.

Flattie cleaning robot-lady Ross C. slides through the secret door connecting SC with the rest of the library and takes a listen while dusting the totally straight shelves — easy work. Is this really Merk Coolie Brighton in disguise? she thinks. She’d only seen him twice since his death almost 3 1/2 years ago, job killed off along with his Records Center, which he had become the functional manager of down through the years. Blue Boy, she thinks. He called me Blue Boy! Do I *look* blue to you, Merk Coolie Brighton? But I can hear him say he was just trying to kill off the library in turn, making everyone he actually cared about within a color of his TILE, red yellow green blue, with me at the end timewise. It was all up to me to find out the truth, she thinks. 42. Bad juju, and so on and so forth.

But she can’t quite make out what they’re saying, what Philip Linden or what appears to be Philip Linden actually came here for. If it’s that book, that one single book, then she can slam the door on the subject, case closed. But if it isn’t… then the door remains open.

It all depends on what happened in Crooked.

(to be continued)

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August 17, 2023 · 6:29 pm

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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October 29, 2022 · 10:32 am

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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August 12, 2022 · 10:39 pm

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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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July 12, 2022 · 11:04 am

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“Black Swan Lake, Ringgold,” spoke Edward D’Aigle to the white hooty bird next to him who is also sometimes a hisser. Revelation! “And just beyond: the red-orange mahogany. We’ll know soon.”

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April 15, 2022 · 9:32 am

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Swanie is finally asleep and dreaming up her own characters to play with. Center of the night: time to crack into that Monster Book for real, but caarefullly so as not to jar loose the remaining marble again. (Got in) so much trouble before!

He opens up the book in the middle which is the same as the beginning. Just then, the “front door” of special collection slides forward. Someone enters.

“Ross C.!” Man About Time exclaims in a rare outburst. So mild usually.

“I’m glad you made it back, sir,” she said in her robot way, continuing to dust around the shelves and making up time for last week’s snowstorm. Ross C., Man About Time ponders. Haven’t seen her since…

“Sir?” MAT still doesn’t respond. “Sir?” She approaches the reading table. “Oh dear, he’s gone a bit *glassy*-eyed, hehe,” and then dusts him off as well while she’s there.

Pretty good joke for an interloper.

“Oh look,” she continues while looking down at what he’s studying. “Abner again.”

The marbles fall out of his eyes and he can see. But Ross C. was gone. Ross C. was never there.

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April 15, 2022 · 7:49 am

Fred…

Cone grew up in Pine Apple, Alabama, with a population around 100. He attended Moore Academy, a one-room school from kindergarten through high school. He did not play football because there were not enough people to field a team.

He emerged from the blue and yellow tent in another dream, a blue and yellow type dream himself. He closely studies the pine cone atop the book tree we found Agent 47 (or 23) reading beside a bit earlier, remembering something about his father. Pine cone… pineapple cone, he free associates. My father lived in one. The cone became the same as one of his eyes. The Other: The Mother.

“I’m worried about my son,” Snowmanster confessed to her bartender at the town’s Hole in the Wall. “He’s built this whole fantasy library around this Kactus figure he made up when he was a kid and still believes in. He *is* Kactus… at times. When he’s playing that role he doesn’t remember who I am, who his parents are. His whole life becomes a blank.”

Now kimono clad Miss Ouri waited patiently for Snowmaster to come around to the obvious, and the prickly green doll she held in her arms. Maybe she needs a coffee mug or t-shirt to spell it out better. Don’t be a prick! The white swan turns into a black swan.

Wheeler wakes up and instantly remembers to jot it down thanks to a strategically placed poster. Good ol’ Arkansaw! Back to reality, phew.

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April 14, 2022 · 6:37 am

radioactive (041422)

Well, Eric is not standing but the sentiment is definitely there. He’s reconstructed his Delta based blue and yellow tent in the Collagesity library, either skybox or ground, take your choice. Even both or neither if you wish, reader’s option. It could be time to get more of his story. “I’m assuming you’re a man, and not an Erica.”

“Correct,” he says in his dreams to us. Because he only exists on Delta and has those memories during sleep. When he wakes up, POOF. Gone.

“What happened?”

“I ran out of money what can I say. Life’s circumstances. But I got too far out, saw too many things.”

“UFOs?” I guessed.

He looked out his tent toward the New, toward the regulated pine forest across the meadow across the river. What he saw was inside that. We have more information.

Erik wakes up. He later sits at his visiting scholar writing desk watching the tent start to glow in his mind. “Strangest dream,” he mutters to himself. “Something is not right.”

“Who’s that?”

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April 8, 2022 · 4:27 pm

special

He’s done as much work on the library in the skies as he needs to tonight. Now to crack the back of the book before him while Swanie’s on lunch break.

Chapter 1: “Marbles Fall, Marble Falls”. So much to learn. Oops. There goes the other marble, rolling away almost through the wall. Swanie will not be pleased; have to try to stick it back on before she returns.

Maybe I can just use one of my own eyes, he thought crazily, but then did just that. He stuck the blue eye marble in the now empty socket and started to see the future, the North beyond the South. Miss Ouri! This must be kept top secret.

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April 7, 2022 · 8:59 am

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One of the first things Miss Ouri does in her new role is to make special collections part of the library, despite protests from some in town that the structure is an eyesore sticking up there on the side of the square, pheh. But no one actually threw up at the sight and the addition was passed 4-3 in a special town council meeting held just below to emphasize the safety of the thing.

So let’s go inside and have a look.

The first visitor to the newly attached collections is none other than Our Second Lyfe creator Philip Linden himself, who was curious to find out what had been written about him. He can’t select one item or the other, drawing suspicion from reading room manager Swanie Rivers, here also seen alarmed at discovering his “Don’t be a Prick” coffee mug he brought in with him.

No drinking in special collections and no foul mouthedness, whether verbal or written. She tells Philip all this in no uncertain terms, threatening to expel him if he doesn’t choose an item to study and get rid of his coffee and mug. He downs the coffee in one long swig and then additionally eats the mug. “How’s *that* for special?” he replied to the exasperated swan being. It’s always about him, it seems. The rare book and manuscript he subsequently selects and brings back to the now empty table was full of it.

(to be continued)

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