Baker Bloch attempts to interpret through work of art what he saw in “Lemon World”
Just Call Me Ernie Banks?, 2
Baker Blinker was so proud of herself. She had created a home! After some experimentation, she seemed to find the “correct” solution to the structure that should be built in this space, this fissure. The end result turned out to be 4 prims total, with dimensions of 6 meters high, 20 meters long, and about 2 1/2 meters wide. Narrow! (somewhat wider at roof level, though). But Baker knew this was about the correct way to do the deed. A phantom door on each side hid the entrances. Actually, come to think of it, why did she need doors on both sides? So as I’m writing this, Ms. Blinker is logging into SL again to reset the door on the opposite side of the one pictured below from phantom to physical (stone).
Back to the structure itself. Baker Blinker believes this could be the place that both she and Baker Bloch can call home, at least for a while until they save up a nest egg for some legal mainland property, perhaps. Not until the Fall, though, most likely. Here seemed to be the lure, in her mind, to bring Baker Bloch back to SL from RL and the control of Hucka Doobie.
Yes, she realized that perhaps, maybe, supposedly, she… well, it went beyond caring deeply for Baker Bloch. Was it destiny to be together? And what had Baker Bloch found in the lemon that strangely was the same length and internal color as Blinker’s new structure?
She had to have a name. Mansion in the Fissure? Ernie’s Bank? She wasn’t sure yet. She did see this as some kind of gallery in the future, perhaps with a rotating collection (?)
More soon…
Ya, got a basement, of sorts.
And a rooftop.
Barely make out the whole thing…
It’s a home of sorts while Baker Block is knee deep in dealing w/ alien holly hallucinations.
Diary Entry #1, JCMEB? (& what is the blue holly?)
Experimented with upload images/textures into SL today for the first time. Amazing possibilities! I can see, in the future, my art slowly moving from a basically strict two-dimensional environment to a more rounded, 3d one using SL as a primary inspiration. I certainly do not consider myself a builder in the standard SL terminology. I will probably never attempt to construct a beach condo, or a windmill or an airship or a replica of the Eiffel Tower. No, I wish to take this development slowly — baby steps — from my natural environment.
For the next 1 to 2 months, JCMEB? will be a locked habitat, with collages added, perhaps, each week at least. This would be the projected Hidalgo series that I’ve been wondering for some time how would begin. Obviously a clue may have been the word “Hidalgo” used as a way to transport Hucka D. from SL back to RL (New Hope), and then, just after this, Baker Bloch himself through the increased powers of Hucka. Now they are mostly separated from me physically. Hopefully this condition won’t last too awfully long, and perhaps coincide with that 1-2 month period I mentioned before.
Baker Bloch is inside Lemon World now. The date is 2008 but it is also 2001, when the giant lemon 1st manifested in the center of the stargate encircled by the 11 rocks high on Hilo Peak. Baker Bloch understands that he created this portal or stargate ahead of time so that Lemon World could manifest there from its home base of [Hidalgo]. He knows his 4 masters came along with it, total addicts all to the virtual world inside. A sort of meth lab for geeks (?). Despite the limited space implied from the outside (the lemon appears to be about the same length as JCMEB?, or around 20 meters), he is having trouble locating them within. Trouble is, virtual reality and reality reality have gotten all mixed up inside. Timelines have become confused. It is both 2008 and 2001 at once, and the 4 masters are both inside the world and *the whole world* at the same time.
It is no coincidence that Lemon World manifested on the true Hilo Peak at around the same time that Linden World was started in San Francisco in “our” world. Because a linden tree is the same as a lime tree in the UK, the name can translate to Lime World, making the two together a synergized Lemon-Lime World, I suppose. Baker Bloch thinks the two metaverses interact as equals yet perpendicular to each other, harking back to the double diamond of his Opus 1 that I should probably go into more detail about in my next entry.
Even in my extremely limited experience creating art in SL, I see almost unlimited potential. One of the tricks is getting out of the habit of seeing art as standard gallery oriented stuff. In SL one has the possibility, for instance, to walk through art, to hover over it, to go inside of it easily. Galleries can be set up in totally different ways and become one with the exhibits being shown. Not to say that direct translations of RL art don’t have their place in SL, but this usually does not truly tap into the huge possibilities of new kinds of art and art environments. The whole world of SL, after all, is a piece of virtual art.
not quite ready for prime time
Oh great, you may be thinking. Baker’s put up another RL picture in his SL oriented blog, and it looks like from Google Earth again. Which does he like better?
But wait! Pull the camera back (yes, we have a camera) and you see that we are actually in my little *cubby* hole under the sea again. The Google Earth snapshot has been transposed to a SL texture.
I know, newbie enthusiasm for the old hat stuff for some, but still I thought it was pretty neat, and also may give me the excuse to give more background on that odd name “Just Call Me Ernie Banks?” for the cubby hole. Now Mr. Banks was also known as Mr. Cub, because he was a member of the MLB team the Chicago Cubs for such a long time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Banks
But he started out in the Negro League with the Kansas City Monarchs in 1950, actually. It was not until 1953 that he became the first black member of the Cubs. In playing around with the database query form for USGS Geographic Names Information System , which I have a habit of doing runs on, noticed in searching for “Kansas City” that there were only two other population places named this besides the two famous ones in Kansas and Missouri, or the two twinned Kansas Cities, the larger of which (Missouri side) was the home of the Monarchs, I assume.
So the Google Earth snapshot here depicts one of the two other Kansas Cities in the US, the one in Washington County, Oregon. Curiously, perhaps, the only other Kansas City, in Tennessee, is also in a Washington County. But I thought I’d check the location in Google Earth and liked the visual enough to take a snapshot. My idea was that whatever those up-and-down rows are in the snapshot would make a good substitute for a book shelf for my cubby hole — they kind of look like shelves of books, don’t they??
So check this out. If you draw back from this snapshot and take in a larger scan of the area, you’ll find that a community named *Banks* is nearby, and also a Gales Creek, only several miles away from this tiny Kansas City in both cases. Get it?: Ernie Banks played for Kansas City when starting his famous professional career, and this association *seems* to be reinforced by the presense of a Gales Creek nearby, which may reference Dorothy *Gale*, another famous “Kansas” resident. Well, why do I think this? Because we know that the audiovisual synchronicity Kansas City Life, which uses almost all the Kansas scenes of The Wizard of Oz movie, stars this same Dorothy Gale. And we additionally know now that “Kansas City Life” can stand in for the phrase “Second Life” itself, because Kansas City is the *second* largest and most important city in the state of Missouri.
Kansas City Life = Second Life.
I know this seems a little unclear, but that’s definitely one direction I was thinking about when I named my new home. If you knew the location, and I want to keep this under wraps now, you’d understand a little more. But actually I only thought of the Mr. Cub-cubby hole association when crafting this particular blog post.
And then I also have this framed collage just hanging around in my studio now. I believe it to be the first one in the Hidalgo series I mentioned before. Baker Bloch dropped it in my inventory a couple of days ago, and promises more soon.
I’m still puzzled about what Lemon World actually is, and the relationship to my studio of curiously the same length. But I did read this perhaps disturbing but also sad news about the founder of Second Life stepping down recently, which may be connected as well.
“Blue Holly Blue Holly Blue Holly…”
I’d just like to report tonight that Baker Bloch says a draft of his second Hidalgo collage, which he has graciously shared with me, is now complete [final collage sent, 3/28/08]. I requested any such drafts of collages be sent to me so an interpretation could be started asap. We need knowledge and we need it quickly! Blochs, as I like to call him now (he calls me Blinks in return… cute, huh?), has given his own spin on the collage. Just for the record, he believes future collages will increase in complexity, and that he has to sorta get “warmed up” again. I still like it.
Blocks thinks this is about, obviously, Lemon World and his and Hucka D.’s immersion into that world which is alien in origin, possibly from a planet called Hidalgo. Neither of us appear sure about that as yet, though.
The several Indians pictured to the left on the mountain plateau are representations of what Blochs calls the Long Hope Indian tribe that may have actually lived on Hilo Peak. However, no record of them turns up in a google search. Blochs also tells me, in their visions induced in moon ceremonies involving the black drink — I’l get to that in a moment — that they acquired their name from a future book (to them) called Indians of the Americas: The Long Hope, published by one John Collier in 1947. Collier, a former US Commisioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, believed that the United States and the western world in general have much to learn from the Native Americans. He says in the introduction of his book:
Now to the black drink ceremony mentioned before. I’ll quote from the wikipedia article on the subject:
The Cherokee black drink (Cherokee Ritual Beverage:ᎬᏁᎦ ᎠᏓᏔᏍᏘ) was a ceremonial drink consumed during purification and renewal ceremonies under the ancient Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni moon ceremonies traditionally performed by the Cherokee or Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya people.
The Cherokee called the yaupon holly the Blue Holly Tree. The Black Drink reportedly induced vomiting during Cherokee purification ceremonies, but as explained above, this behavior is likely to have been deliberate or the result of the quantity imbibed, not due to the chemical properties of the drink itself.
One of the Seven Traditional Cherokee Clans, called today the Ah-ni-Sa-ho-ni (“Blue Clan”) was originally referred to as the “Blue Holly” clan. The clan represented the fifth level of spiritual attainment which was purification of the mind, body, and spirit, and were called upon to prepare the black drink for ceremonial purposes before the period of Cherokee removal.
In the 1830s, the use of the black drink was forgotten and abandoned when the Cherokee removed to Oklahoma, where the Blue Holly Tree does not grow. Still, other ritual beverages (sometimes also referred to as “black drink” or “medicine”) continue to be used in traditional rituals in Oklahoma.
This seems to imply that the Long Hope Indians are a lost branch of the Cherokee, but please don’t quote me on that, in turn.
🙂
So true to the article one of the Indians in Blochs’ collage is going through the purification process: he is spilling his guts down the side of the mountain, and there is a vertical swath in the forest below which continues the line of his throw up. This is only disgusting if you think about it in a shallow way. Two Indians in the background appear to be preparing more black drink in a covered pot. A third Indian with upraised arms has his back turned toward us. Blochs states that all these images are taken from ones provided in the wikipedia article on the subject quoted from above. But despite this, also interesting to me is the pointed object appearing on this Indian’s arm, which looks to me a lot like the the 2nd, less true Hilo Peak, as we’ll refer to it now, from Blochs’ post on the subject in this blog. Perhaps he inserted this image on purpose?
Their position here on a high mountain plateau, and what’s called a hanging valley, is also reminiscent of the Blackfeet Indians’ involvement with the Glacier National Park, whose mountains they termed the Backbone of the World.
To other parts of the collage now. The two bushes to the right on the mountain plateau are what Baker Bloch calls the two versions of the yaopon holly or blue holly, whose roasted leaves and stems were used to prepare the black drink. They certainly remind me of the two bushes I saw in [delete name] sim when exploring the meaning of Baker’s Island earlier in this blog, which I found upon inspection to be objects labelled “Pointy Bush, High” and “Pointy Bush, Low”. A little later I connected them to two novelty items concerning the creation of a promised second continent of Second Life to complement the original continent of Sansara, which turned out to be the Heterocera Atoll.*
I now think all four of these “shapes”, 2 jagged and pointy and 2 square and relatively unpointy, also stand for the 4 aliens that Blochs claims are — or perhaps were, or perhaps are and were together — his masters, the ones who sent him to Earth in that cramped, little pod to prepare a stargate to manifest their virtual Lemon World. The two bushes in the collage just happen to be placed in the exact spot where Lemon World is at. If you look closely, you can see the High Lonesome Pond on the bottom edge of the lower holly bush here. To me, the bushes also represent the original form of Hilo Peak before Blochs’ terraforming specified by these alien masters, and also the undoing of same when Lemon World had run its course, apparently, and was no longer needed.
Turning now to the last cluster of images in the collage, we have a headless mannequin with a blue dress in the foreground, between the group of Indians and the 2 holly bushes. The maniquin also has the wings of a blue butterfly, which Blochs also states is called a holly blue. Interestingly, he says he thinks the winged mannequin is a representation of me (!), a future version where I’ve emerged from my admitted cocoon state as a totally new creature. He says this will happen fairly soon; my guess is that it might occur after the Hidalgo series is over.
What is the relationship of this blue clad mannequin with the wings of a holly blue, and the joined, high and low blue holly bushes behind it? That’s a question for another night.
* The final collage turned out to have only 1 of these bushes pictured.
Loose ideas…
… I’ll settle for these tonight.
* Lemon World and Lime World, i.e. Linden World, are actually a manifestation of one thing. Lime World is merely Lemon World turned sideways, creating a perpendicular relationship. I see this as “on the ground”, or spinning in a horizontal plane and not a vertical plane, three-dimensionally speaking. The axis of the spin represents the centerpoint of both. Behind each “stands” the blue holly, which may be the same as Baker Blinker in some way, transformed. Turned into a butterfly (blue holly blue holly blue… ).
The third collage of the Hidalgo series will help clear the picture further. What is the meaning of Greenup/yellow down? When is the tip top of true Hilo Peak removed, and when was it “put back on”? And is Lemon World (and perhaps Lime World) still within if it is presently restored or put back on?
I found this painting by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo that could tap into the same archetypes that lie behind the relationship of the blue holly sometimes enclosing Lemon World (and perhaps Lime World behind that) and sometimes not.
http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images_118542_144526_rufino-tamayo.jpg
The blue holly is a symbol of the unconscious. Is this also the relationship between Baker Bloch and Baker Blinker, the 2 SL sides of baker b.? Baker Bloch is trapped in Lemon World far above and beyond SL in RL, on the highest of the lowest of the mountains of our world. Baker Blinker exists at the lowest point of SL, the bottom of a deep fissue or a kind of Mariana Trench of that world.
“A Passing Double Diamond In The Night”
Draft for new collage created tonight [finished product above now, 3/28/08]. This would be 3rd in Hidalgo series, then. For now. Want to move ahead with an interpretation since I have more time to write tonight and the next several days. At that point my art and photos/snapshots may start to outpace the text in these posts again, as it was before.
So here it is. We obviously have the 2 bushes again in some guise. In the sky above them is a collage of images from Lordsburg, New Mexico. Have I talked about Lordsburg in this blog? Can’t recall, exactly. I don’t think I have.
No, in searching the blog see that I haven’t mentioned Lordsburg until now. Well, Lordsburg is the name of the county seat of Hidalgo County, New Mexico, a quite large and quite scenic county but with only a total population of 5,932 per the 2000 census, down from 6,049 in 1990. Over half of the county’s population lives in Lordsburg.
Have I mentioned Hidalgo County, even, in this blog? Let me check again…
Again, no, I haven’t brought this up, although I’ve mentioned Hidalgo a number of times, first connecting it to the small island in the ne corner of the Rodeo sim of Second Life, one I’ve been calling in places here “Isle of Baker – Not”. (footnote here to SL forum and SJ post).
Tentative title for collage is “A Passing Double Diamond in the Night”. The sculpture of the man and woman, man with square head and woman with triangle head, was found through continued search for images using keyword Tamayo, as in Rufino Tamayo. This is a sculpture found at the Museo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City. It can be related, then, to the Long Hope Indians of the collage in the Hidalgo series prior to this (see two posts below), since Tamayo was a Mexican of Native American descent (Zapotec pre-Columbian civilization of the Valley of Oaxaca in present day southern Mexico). The sculpture also brings up the relationship of square and triangle already covered in previous posts of this blog: here the complementary nature is embodied as opposite sexes. Unification comes in the double diamond also mentioned before, which we see here represented by what’s called a double diamond hexahedron situated directly in front of the sculpture couple, and uniting their figures as one.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phillipwest/101059497/
The sculpture couple is also walking or passing between the two bushes, which upon closer inspection turn out to be one and the same bush, reversed in respect to each other and also illuminated in two different ways. A double diamond star in the sky reinforces the shape in the collage’s title. Beside it is situated a water tank with a word that trails into darkness reading from left to right. I can tell you, however, that this is the Lordsburg water tower, and the double diamond star is a real illuminated star installed right next to it. The word on the water tower is thus “Lordsburg”, but we can really only make out the L and O of the word. This is an interesting edit, because LO is the second part of Hilo, as in Hilo Peak. The city lights in the background of the collage are also those of Lordsburg.
So what is Baker Bloch trying to relate to me through this new collage? Are the two pairs of aliens he’s mentioned, 1 pair consonant with the square shape and the other pair the triangle, represented here by the two figures in the sculpture? It seems so on one level at least. The double diamond uniting these figures may then stand for Lemon World itself, which they are one with in this collage and also in reality(?).
They are passing throught the two differentiated bushes, which probably represent the high and low bushes (elsewhere: “pointy bush, high” and “pointy bush, low”) of the true Hilo Peak itself.
And in again checking, realized I haven’t brought up the fact that one of the only two Hilo Peaks found in the United States is in this Hidalgo County. The other one, which has a similar elevation, is found in Idaho. Here is some basic information concerning these peaks:
http://www.mountainzone.com/mountains/detail.asp?fid=5345856
http://www.bivouac.com/MtnPg.asp?MtnId=9999
And, yeah, notice in that second link the mention that the Idaho version of Hilo Peak is really 5761 feet high, and that this is also 1756 meters high, using the same four numbers. Strange thing is, I could have swore that at least one source I originally checked when finding out about this quirk of numbers also mentioned Hilo Peak, New Mexico as having this same height. But in checking again tonight can’t find mention of what appeared to be a mistake at the time, a mixup of the two Hilo Peaks. Did I dream it? Was it a mistake at all? Perhaps yes and no together on both counts.
edge of the world
In the main now, both Baker Bloch and Baker Blinker, if they depart from their respective 20 meter long “cubby holes”, like to frequent art galleries and events, such as those publicised on the Not Possible IRL site. When visiting one of these events at the International Justice Center, Baker Bloch couldn’t resist looking around at the neighboring lands before departing. His eyes lit up when he found the huge chunk of virgin sim land I give a map of below, formed apparently quite recently on the very eastern edge of the Second Life world grid.
Upon teleporting around, Mr. Bloch found that some of the land had already been developed, but there was still a lot of unspoilt forest left. Below is how he decided to record his findings. I’m not so sure of the high resolution snapshots, which takes away some of the mystery of the place. But it is a way of quite clearly seeing what is there for sure. Enjoy while it’s still around!
3.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Ishel%20Down/12/73/80
On 1. looking south toward 2.
South toward 2. This is my kind of place!!
On 2. looking south toward 3.
On 2. looking north toward 1.
South toward 3 looking north.
On 3. looking north toward 2. See the edge of the world?
On 3. looking south to tip of mainland.
3. (north side). Hi up there!
3. (south side).
Hilo!!!
One of the more incredible sights I’ve ever seen.
From today as well. This is Hilo Peak!!!
THANKS FOR THE PHOTOS EDNA!
Here’s looking in the other direction into a *deep* gorge. A waterfall lies within as well.
A smaller waterfall on the way up.
Wowsers!!!
Hilo!!!, 2 (into the fire)
A *most* amazing hike. Now I was on Hilo Peak Mtn. again but to give you a perspective, if you look at this photo…
http://bakerblinker.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/img_1199editedsmaller.jpg
…the very furtherest peak back you can see on the left hand side of the photo is the one I hiked around today to get to the places I photographed just in front, relative to this photograph that is. The distance to that particular peak is probably at least 4 miles from where the photo was taken. Maybe 4 1/2.
What I was aiming for in particular was the pond that Baker Bloch used to “cue” his whole stargate setup that allowed Lemon World to manifest in our world on the actual Hilo Peak. I guess, then, it would be more correct to say that the whole valley pictured in that linked photo above could be called Hilo Peak valley, but it’s actually one giant mountain containing what’s called a hanging valley. It is just this hanging valley aspect of Hilo Peak Mtn. (so let me get my phoney nomenclature straight: Hilo Peak is a just small peak on Hilo Peak *Mtn.* which contains this valley) that attracted the Long Hope Indians to settle there, along with presence of the legendary blue holly, of course. That’s another thing I was searching for today, not surprisingly, but “only” found a lot of spruce instead. But still there was an interesting little synchronicity involving the color blue that happened I’ll get to below.
So here we have the actual High Lonesome Pond, which is the name I’ve given Baker Bloch’s “cueing” pond. It must have been 20 years since I made my one and only other visit to this pond, with Edna in tow. It seemed quite different, and I admit I was mildly disappointed at the sight. I remember more trees encircling the pond, even crowding it in to provide a quite mysterious ambiance. But now I find a large beaver dam at one end with the trees below and away from the dam. I wonder if my memory is faulty or if the landscape has actually changed that much. Anyway, it had been 20 years or so. I’ve been wanting to go back for the longest time but the mtn. is pretty hard to reach, and on top of that I could have been trespassing, although much of the area is now protected by a conservancy.
Damn, I don’t remember this!
Thought I’d throw the above photo in here because of a queer trick of perspective. The spruce tree trunks you see are only about 1-2 inches in width. Look much larger, eh?
Here’s some grown up versions of same. Beautiful!!
A glimpse of the hills surrounding the valley. The trees are so thick that these kind of views were hard to come by.
So here we have the little blue synchronicity I mentioned before. I actually spied the blue tarp above from a considerable number of yards away through thick tree cover and across the Hilo Peak Mtn. Creek that started around High Lonesome Pond. At first I thought it may have been a trick of the eyes, but as I kept staring the blueness did not go away. I couldn’t make out what it was at all since it was just a speck I saw through the trees. I’m still surprised I could spot something so small; I’m not the most observant of people. Still, I’ll allow doubters to say that it was probably just the contrast with all the greens and browns around.
Then after the old road I was on crossed the creek, I saw the only bird I remember seeing that day: a blue jay. Although he didn’t stick around long enough for me to take a photo of him (drat!), I couldn’t help but think of the coincidence: *blue* jay. Then just beyond I found the tarp, the only other really blue thing I remember seeing up there (besides the clear sky!).
I mostly bring all this up because of the legend of the blue holly. Admittedly I made this legend up, and I didn’t expect to find holly. But I did find a series of blue things in a very short span. A quite tangible magic seemed to enshroud this mtn. after all!
Another nice view of the surrounding peaks, this time over a boggy area. There are many bogs in the hanging valley, reportedly.
Another possible mystery, and one that will tie into things that will soon come up in this blog. At the very lip of the valley, where I first entered from below on this grand hike, found a series of rocks mainly to my left that contained a large number of smaller rocks on top of them. The photos immediately above and below show the most obvious of these, but there were a number of others. If hunters or other people arranged these rocks, why did they do it a number of times with different base rocks? That’s a question Baker Bloch asked as well when he found out about them. He has some theories. Oh yes he does!
Another example.
Green… Green… what was it?
The relatively unknown abstract expressionist painter and filmmaker Charles Nelson Blinkerton (see above for more!) was proud to call Jackson Pollock his friend. Blinkerton studied with famous regionalist and fellow Missourian Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute in the 1930s. He met the contemporary Pollock, former Benton student himself, while accompanying the regionalist to NYC in 1939. So taken was he with the career possibilities in the world’s largest city at the time that in the 1940s he took up residence first in NYC itself, and then later on at Springs, New York after Pollock himself had moved there in 1946. In this way, he became a more minor and now basically forgotten roleplayer in the Cradle of Abstract Expressionism buzz centered around this Long Island hamlet.
Unlike Pollock and de Kooning, who also had connections with Springs, Blinkerton labelled himself a surrealist during his time in New York. It was only after the death of Pollock in 1956 and a subsequent move to New Mexico that, in his own words, he took up the banner of abstract expressionism from his compatriot whose life had been cut so tragically short.
Rumored to be locked in a Lordsburg motel room from 1961 to 1992 (partially true), he created abstract painting after abstract painting that could be stacked on top of each other to create what Blinkerton called composites. The 2 posts above represent only 2 of the numberless ways to create such composites in a digital fashion. Blinkerton preferred to exhibited his new work in this stacked manner rather than the conventional gallery method. However, he had little opportunity to do so. In New York, few took notice of his surrealist works, and after his move to New Mexico fewer took notice of his new paintings. Abstract expressionism’s time had passed, along with Pollock himself. 
Blinkerton seemed always one beat behind the current fashion or fad. In 1981, the then 70 year old artist and eccentric shifted allegiance from abstract expressionism to the neo-Dadaist pop art espouced by Jasper Johns and others, and which was also seen as out of date at the time. I’ll attempt to give some examples from this period of his career as well soon. It was only then that he dared to give up his Lordsburg motel room of 20 years and venture out into the surrounding community and beyond, into the Hidalgo County desert and brush itself.
In 2002, upon returning to his home state of Missouri to attend the funeral of his brother, William Charles Blinkerton (unclear whether this funeral was in Green City or Greencastle), he first logged onto the Second Life virtual world, then in its infancy and known as Linden World. In short fashion, Blinkerton claims to have recreated 319 of his pop and abstract expressionist works and “jam” them into an old rusty virtual wagon based on an actual example in the ghost town of Shakespeare just south of Lordsburg. He then set what he thought of as the ultimate but also final of his composites on fire, virtually speaking, in the center of Linden City which was, in turn, the center of Linden World.
Virtual burning was born then, according to Blinkerton, and not in the later Burning Life event started in 2003.
Which brings us back to the topics of this blog!
Lemon tree is no more
Baker Blinker tp-ed to Uli today to find that the lemon tree was no more. Baker Bloch had just seen it perhaps only 2 days ago. Another sign? Most likely.
Charles Nelson Blinkerton: composite, 1 (Selected Works from 1961-1971)
Charles Nelson Blinkerton: composite, 2 (Selected Works from 1971-1981)
“Blinker’s good enough.” (Baker B., 1/22/08, upon choosing surname for SL birthday)
Calling C.N. Blinkerton, 1
Phone interview with Charles Nelson Blinkerton by baker b., March 31, 2008.
bb:
Hello sir. Hello?
CNB:
Yeah, is this baker?
bb:
Yes sir.
Honored to be speaking with you.
CNB:
Well, likewise.
bb:
Are you having a good night?
CNB:
Pretty good. Got a mug of strong tea with me so I’m doing ok.
bb:
Yeah, I’m sipping on a decaf latte. Thanks for agreeing to do this interview in the middle of the night.
CNB:
Like you, apparently, I’m a night owl.
bb:
Right. So we agreed in this interview to talk about your career a bit, since you said you don’t get to do many interviews. Then we’d like to go into your ties with Second Life some as well, probably toward the end. Does this sound good?
CNB:
Let’s get hopping.
bb:
Tell us about your career a bit. Oh, did you get a chance to look over my blog before the phone call?
CNB:
Yes sir I did, and I was pretty impressed. I’m somewhat unclear about some of it. Maybe I can ask you about that later on. I see in turn that you’ve been visiting blinkoritsover.com as well
bb:
Yes.
CNB:
The downloads I mean. That’s perfectly ok, as long as you don’t try to make any money off of ‘em. I’ve donated them to the public domain.
bb:
Right, I won’t.
CNB:
Well, to start with the career, I think you did a pretty good job in your blog, short but sweet. The death of Pollock was a turning point. It was when I was staring at the rocks already atop his grave rock — how would you put that — tombstone, let’s say — that I had the vision. Well, not then but later on, in the middle of the night. Like the Vertigo guy after the death of his girlfriend. You can insert a picture of that when you transfer this to your blog, ha ha. Now as you said I wasn’t an abstract expressionist at the time but I became one. In the vision I saw a particular peak. I didn’t know what it was until later but I knew I just had to head west. Follow the southern border of the US. I knew that I’d eventually find it. This turned out to be Hilo Peak, not the one, necessarily, in your blog, or at least the one near your home. The one near my home in Lordsburg. In Hidalgo County.
bb:
How did you find the peak, then?
CNB:
I was driving on Highway 10 after just entering Hidalgo County and all the exit names seemed familiar. There was one called Antelope Wells that I took, southbound. And a little bit down that road I saw what I knew to be Hilo Peak to my right. It’s not a huge mountain, but I knew it was the right mountain. Trekked up it that very day. And I knew I was in the right place.
bb:
How did you end up staying in the Lordsburg Motel for so long?
CNB:
Contrary to rumors, as you hinted about in your blog, I didn’t stay in the motel room for 20 years without going out. Quite the contrary: I went out at night when no one else was up much. Did a lot of my painting, then, in the open. Actually I was writing more in the motel room during the day, when I was awake.
bb:
Writing?
CNB:
Yeah the Squirt book. Didn’t you dig up that information?
bb:
Sadly, no.
CNB:
It’s a book I was working on the whole time I was in my abstract expressionist period, or the 1960s and 1970s basically. It could be considered a cut-up, like Burroughs did. It didn’t start out that way but, inspired by Burroughs work, it certainly ended up that way. I called it “Red Squirt Seven”. Then there was a sequel called “Shakenstein”. I see you knew about that one at least, because you put the word in your blog.
bb:
Truthfully, I didn’t know about that.
CNB:
Really? That’s hard to believe but I’ll trust you.
bb:
Truthfully.
CNB:
Well, maybe you got it from the same source that I did: the combination of the ghost towns Shakespeare and Steins near or nearish to Lordsburg. I spent some time in each.
bb:
Yes, you are correct. That’s what it is. So you were a writer and an artist at once?
CNB:
That’s right. It was a yin and yang relationship. Give and take. It was like I was married to each.
bb:
Can you tell us more about your relationship with Pollock? You were a surrealist at the time?
CNB:
I met Pollock through Thomas Hart Benton. We were both students of his, but not at the same time and not in the same place. He [Benton] was visiting New York with a number of people and asked me if I wanted to go along. He mentioned there was an exciting new group of painters there that may be more my style than his. I liked him [Pollock] instantly, although I realized he had his ways with people. It never bothered me much. He drank too much, especially toward the end. I was always careful to be moderate in that area. But I wasn’t in the spotlight all the time like Jackson was toward the end. Lee was a nice woman as well. I didn’t know them as well as some, but I didn’t have many friends in NYC and was a loner by nature, so I probably considered Jackson much more of a friend that perhaps he would have stated about me. Could be wrong about that. He was a great influence, though, and I realized the greatness in him from the start. I knew he was going places, for better or for worse.
bb:
Can you tell us about your work at the time?
CNB:
The surrealism? Well, a definite influence was Max Ernst. Did you know he acts as kind of a bridge between abstract expressionism and all that went on before. Insert this in your blog if you wish: the painting called “Surrealism and Painting” from 1942. The painter inside the picture is creating a Jackson Pollock action painting before Jackson Pollock created one!
bb:
So your works were heavily Ernst influenced?
CNB:
Yeah, but I don’t see them as that important any more. My real work began in New Mexico. Mind you I was almost 50 when I started renting the Lordsburg room at the [delete motel name by request]. So this was a kind of mid-life crisis, I suppose, except not so crisis-like, although it would seem to be. I was married to my painting and also my writing. I hadn’t done any writing per se, however, until New Mexico.
bb:
Is any of your writing published? I didn’t see any mention of it on blinkoritsover.com.
CNB:
I’ll save that info for later, if you don’t mind.
bb:
Not at all. There’s plenty we can talk about in the meantime. So you painted these action paintings, somewhat in the style of Pollock…
CNB:
Somewhat.
bb:
You painted them at night and wrote by day. Can you tell us about the different periods you went through with your painting in New Mexico?
CNB:
The first thing I did was make a movie. I was inspired to create a fictional following of a UFO on the main Lordsburg highway – which happend to be numbered 666 — but it was all staged. There was a reason for this. My brother provided the music. The film acted as a bridge between my surrealism and abstract expressionist periods. Ideas about what I wanted to paint came directly from that film, which I called, simply enough, “1961 Film”. And from that came the first abstract expressionist-like painting, opus 1.
bb:
You number all your paintings, like Pollock did.
CNB:
All the abstract expressionist paintings, yes.
bb:
How many of these kind of paintings have you created?
CNB:
Oh, I’d say maybe 150.
bb:
Can you tell us about the next genre switch, to a Jasper Johns-type style.
CNB:
Well, abstract expressionism is just that, very abstract, very internal and self enclosed, like I was mainly enclosed in a Lordsburg Motel at the time, or so it seemed to others. Eventually I had to come out of the womb in a public way. And again it was a film that linked the two painterly styles: “1981 Film”. This has basically the same subject matter as the “1961 Film”, except day is dawning this time, washing the abstract expressionist-like shapes, which are the same as the UFO-like shapes, away from the sky. What we have instead is stark, unrelenting reality, the Lordsburg environment, which I really began to dig during the day. I had come out of my shell.
bb:
I’ll try to give some examples of this phase of your work soon in my blog. Would you say that you’re still in this phase?
CNB:
Well, once you come out of the womb, you’re out, so to speak. Although I don’t paint quite like Jasper Johns now, I would say that this exiting is an all important step. The present phase would have begun when I created what seemed to be the first virtual burn in Second Life, when, as you put it in your blog, I stuffed or jammed all my Pollock and Johns influence work — renditions of them by uploading what’s called their texture into the Second Life grid itself — anyway, jammed it into an old, rusty wagon I also created there. Then I set the whole thing on fire.
bb:
This is something I didn’t know when creating that post for the blog, but you indicated in our initial emails to each other that this burn happened right next to The Man statue that I mention elsewhere in my blog, and which represented the very heart and soul of the Second Life world at the time.
CNB:
It was not called Second Life, then, but Linden World. Second Life only came in 2003. But, anyway, yeah, some of the residents saw the fire and thought The Man itself was on fire. So they rung up the Lindens. I tried to explain what happened but originally I was banned for a couple of days, until they could check into my credentials.
bb:
My taking the surname Blinker on my Second Life birthday seems an odd coincidence. And you’ve speculated that this surname probably comes from your name.
CNB:
It seems likely.
bb:
Did you begin to create art in Second Life?
CNB:
You could say that.
bb:
Can you give us some examples?
CNB:
Lemon World.
(to be continued)
“Day of Destruction”
“After/”
Hidalgo update, etc.
Call to C.N. Blinkerton the other night was pretty amazing (!). Got cut off at the end — left hanging on that Lemon World reference — and I haven’t heard back from him yet. *Certainly* hope this is not the last we’ve heard here of that amazing artist. Did I mention he’s now 96 years young?
Inspired, obviously, by the contact, I’ve been able to create 2 new collages in the last several days called “Day of Destruction” and the newest (not quite yet finished) tentatively called “Shakenstein” (posts immediately below this one). “Shakenstein” will probably create an animation with the next collage, which will then be the 5th and 6th of the 10 part Hidalgo series. The series is moving forward quickly! This will most likely be the first exhibit in the “Just Call Me Ernie Banks?” studio that Baker Blinker is mainly tending now, although Baker Bloch *has* seen it. I think it’s a cute space, if rather limited as gallery space. It’s perfect for this particular series, though; that may turn out to be its only purpose.
Should I attempt to interpret the new collages? Probably. There are many Blinkerton related ideas: obviously the 2002 rusty wagon burn mentioned in the interview. But I think I should save it until I can contact Blinkerton again.
Let me just see if I can ring him up tonight. Might be a good time to chat…
Hmmm, apparently not in or else not answering his phone. He’ll most likely get back in contact with me in due time… probably needs to absorb what I’m up to more as well so’s he can figure out what he can and can’t say. Let me try one more time…
“Hello?”
bb:
Oh hi. Is this Charles?
CNB:
Yeah, is this baker?
bb:
Yes, how are you doing? We, uh, got cut off the other night and I’m just ringing you up again.
CNB:
I was going to call back. I’m very interested in how you’re framing this whole process.
bb:
Is this a good time to talk?
CNB:
Yeah, I suppose so. I’m writing at the moment but I can set that aside. Are you going to put this conversation in your blog?
bb:
Yes, if you don’t mind. Anything you want to edit out afterwards just call me up or email me. No prob at all.
CNB:
Ok, ok. I don’t have a lot to hide, being an almost 100 year old man. Who’s going to bother me at this late stage, eh?
bb:
Glad to know that you’re doing so well. Do you feel like talking more about Lemon World? That’s the topic we were discussing when our conversation ended before.
CNB:
Sure, but I’m not sure what to say about it. Um, I did glance at your blog today. I like the collages for certain. Now your Hidalgo series was named directly for Hidalgo County or sumtin?
bb:
Excuse me, Charles, I had to deal with a cat just then. The name comes from that and also other Hidalgo names, in fact all Hidalgo names are a candidate for inclusion in the art process. Hidalgo is an archetypal name. But the original source is the small village of Hidalgo, Illinois. All my collage series so far take their names from such towns in Jasper County, Illinois, or towns very nearby such as Greenup and Oblong.
CNB:
Uh huh. How long have you been making collages?
bb:
Years and years. On and off. So back to Lemon World…
CNB:
This is part of your 10×10, then, right?
bb:
Yeah, 10 collages in each tier, 10 tiers in the whole work.
CNB:
I was looking through some of your other sites — hope you don’t mind — and was interested in this SID’s 1st Oz, especially the diagram at the end of one of your series of posts about this subject. The one with the 6×6 square with 26 of the, er, tiles within devoted to SID’s 1st Oz — not sure how to put that — and the remaining 10 a part of Dark Side of the Rainbow. How’d you come up with that? And is there a tape or DVD of that work around?
bb:
Well, no, not really. You would have to recreate it in your home environment.
CNB:
Really. Have a lot of people tried that out?
bb:
No. I haven’t done much advertising.
CNB:
I’d like to see it sometime. SID’s 1st Oz I mean. I looked at bits and pieces of Dark Side of Oz — is that what you call it? — Dark Side of Oz on the internet. YouTube I think. It was interesting, but I didn’t watch the whole thing.
bb:
In turn, sir, I’d like to certainly see your films you mentioned before. Are they available on tape or DVD? Or YouTube perhaps?
CNB:
No. I have them in digital form now, though. For archiving’s sake. I’m not impressed with the quality of most YouTube offerings. Isn’t it great that a man of my age keeps up with current technology so well!?
bb:
Right, that’s good. I’d offer to help you with that myself if you hadn’t digitized them yet.
[delete 2 exchanges about storage of paintings]
bb:
So do you want to talk about Lemon World tonight?
CNB:
Yeah, in a moment. So you have how many avatars in Second Life now?
bb:
Three. There’s the Bakers, Blinker and Bloch, and also Hucka D. When I, we, want to experiment we use Hucka D. to try out new things. I’m actually not sure where he is at the moment. How ’bout yourself? You said you are still involved with Second Life.
CNB:
Right. I was thinking of creating a new avatar myself. Original Blinker [note: later found out this was spelled Uriginal Blinker]. Funny how they probably got that surname from me. I made an impression after all!
bb:
Original, because you’re… oh yeah, I see. Good one (laughs).
CNB:
If I do create this new avatar, would you like to do some inworld exploring? Maybe a series of interviews about Lemon World or whatever else you want to discuss with me. Can you recommend some places? I’m more familiar with the old continent. Sansara I believe you call it in your blog. Hadn’t heard that before.
bb:
Sure, that sounds most excellent Charles.
CNB:
Please, call me Chuck. If we’re going to be inworld hiking friends we need to be informal with each other. How about these other two guys you mentioned, the fellow hikers or explorers? Do you still interact with them?
[delete 4 exchanges about these “hikers” and also another 1 exchange about a “syncher” who has been exploring Second LIfe as well]
bb:
And then I think I’ve turned on our very good friend Cammie to Second Life.
CNB:
That’s the psychic?
bb:
Well, she’s definitely psychic, or has that talent. But she’s in the health care profession in RL.
CNB:
So recommend me some places in Sansara, since you are also familiar with that continent. I’m interested in underwater exploration as well. Seems like a good way to avoid people, and also look for remnants of older places that came before the Lindens. That interests me also.
bb:
I have a feeling you’re not going to talk about Lemon World tonight. Are you? (laughs)
CNB:
Of course I am. I never stop talking about Lemon World, actually. Ever. (laughs as well). I was talking about Lemon World before I was born, and I’m sure I’ll be talking about it after I’m removed from this Earth.
bb:
You mentioned the burn. The burning of The Man. The statue. That triggered the splitting of the two worlds, one Lemon and one Lime.
CNB:
Do you know they have a Lime sim on Sansara? And also a Lemon sim, if I’m not mistaken. Lime use to be a park, set aside as public land by the Lindens. Maybe we could start there first. Not telling you where to go, but I’d like to check it out. And then Lemon. And then I’d definitely like to see your digs in [delete sim name]. The gallery. And some of those other places in your blog. You’ll have to tell me more, for example, about those “crop circles” in Okinu. Sounds like a programming effect, but I’d still like to see it.
bb:
Yeah, that’s pretty fascinating. Strange thing…
CNB:
You still there baker?
bb:
Yeah, I just didn’t know where to go with that.
CNB:
That’s ok. Happens to me all the time. Someone will bring up Lemon World and my mind will wander off and then it’s mentioned again and my mind wanders again. And so on. Let’s go to that underwater place around The Man statue.
bb:
Do you know anything about the rock castle on the island next to The Man by chance?
(to be continued)
Lemon Tree!
I hope CNB isn’t too upset with me but last night I had to check out the Lemon sim, just to see what’s there. I guess I shouldn’t be *too* surprised to find another lemon tree in a sim named Lemon, but I was. Not what I was looking for, actually. I found it in a shop/gallery owned by Dorra Debs, in an advertisement for a maze she had created. Using info found in the ad I teleported to the Bellagio Hotel on the Isle of Dreams sim to check out the real deal. Took some snapshots.
The attachment of lemon now to the concept of the maze reminded me that I want to create not a maze in Second Life, necessarily, but a labyrinth. Way back at the beginning of this blog (has it only been a month and a 1/2 since I started this thing!?) I talked about a small labyrinth being created by the original *Baker* on his Baker’s Island, official known in the real world as Henry Island off the coast of the Cape Breton island of Nova Scotia. That’s important for me to keep in mind as well.
Read here on the differences between a maze and a labyrinth. In a nutshell, a labyrinth has no dead ends while a maze does.
Sunklands 
