Caged Vexation
Wednesday, 19-Jul-00216.88.24.130 writes:
“How can beginning and end be the same?” I asked.
John Cage was on repetition nine now, according to the large digital counter placed on top of his grand piano. The Cowardly Lion and Hungry Tiger of Oz, lying just in front of him and joined at the hip, still looked as attentive as when the tribute piece first began. And the members of the audience wouldn’t be getting bored either, what with them being cut-out cardboard images, like the crowd behind the grave in the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Despite their two-dimensional nature, I realized some time ago that they were the exact same audience that appeared at Darwin’s funeral. But it was Darwin now who was alive and well-rounded, sitting beside me and looking better and spongier than ever…and talkative!
“….This helps substantiate that Rupert is my own creation,” he was presently saying. “It overlaps my Prince Rainelle stories from Wellston days, as well as the Leo Petroglyphs…5 in all. Same as Rupert’s 5 silver-black cubes of course. The story written on them is the story of BIKER’s portal experience. You fell into the 5th and largest cube, the Rainbow Sphere. This is its story, the one that brings me back to life to explain everything. Yes, you are Rupert, but you are everyone here since you are the dreamer. You are, in fact, me.”
I turned to Darwin, his round, bulging cartoon eyes staring at me with great clarity.
“Let’s take a walk,” the 16 year old then said. I looked back at the stage; the counter changed to ten as the music shifted seamlessly from end to beginning again. The Hungry Tiger yawned silently.
“Okay,” I said.
Soon we were on top of what was then called Assembly Hill, looking down over the green valley stretching out as far as the eye could see. A swiveling binocular viewing machine, like those found at popular tourist attractions, was set up on a circular cement platform at a particularly auspicious vantage point.
“This platform represents the very beginning of the valley before us,” Darwin explained. “I call it Point Dougherty…perhaps Dougherty Point is a better name though. In any case, in your time, a basketball player named Dougherty would help win a national championship for our fine state university in Chapel Hill, then later coach this same program to exactly 840 wins before retiring. The entire “Vexation” cycle, you see. This point actually represents a combination of this man and another, also named Dougherty, who, as a player, helped win the same championship. Two Doughertys on the same team…but only one came from this particular place. They were, however, actually as close as brothers, joined at the hip as it were.”
“And you’re saying the 1st Dougherty man’s appointment as coach opened up the West Virginia portal and allowing BIKER to enter this valley?” I said, paraphrasing some of Darwin’s earlier talk. In response to my question, Darwin pointed to a grove of trees about a football field away down the steep hill.
“There,” he said, “there’s where BIKER emerged…at the cave spring that begins what we can call the Vexation River. This is in one time strand only; in others–the one you are from, for example–he never found the portal. Only a small cul-de-sac cave on a cliff in the New River Gorge. Reality has shifted now, you see. This is not exclusively Booker’s realm any more.”“Picture, if you will the temporal line of a baseball thrown from pitcher to catcher,” he continued. “Point Dougherty represents the sweet spot of the catcher’s mit, the guiding factor, where the ball is destined to land. Our figurative pitcher lies far down the valley, where Point has become Cube through Line–becoming, in the process, another Point. In the exact center between these two points, the baseball is allowed the choice to emerge from the game, as if from a womb. This is the Rainbow Sphere you seek, which, in one way, is also the Brainard Head. This Point, the portal, is where it all begins…and all ends. The Uroborous. Do you see now? Do you?”
Darwin was staring at me again, but my expression betrayed confusion…vexation.“How can beginning and end be the same?” I asked.
Unknown
Willie-Sophie-Beetie (???)
Thursday, 10-Aug-00152.10.52.1 writes:
I certainly didn’t want to move again, particularly so soon, but it was baker’s imagination and I had to essentially go where he sent me–despite the claims that it was *my* choice as well, that characters have a true voice in his world. Carter County, KY, which baker promised would be my *final* home, didn’t seem that great of a place to settle down initially, but I was admittedly intrigued about this whole Willard-Beetle-Sophie conjunction he had going. He argued my move would provide an important stabilizing point for his evolving “Jordan’s Rule” opus, and that my job in the county would involve designing a new computer oracle program based on “Sophie’s No. 9” (the Beetle-Sophie part of the aforementioned triangle, with myself as the bridging agent). He even arranged private office space for me in the county seat of Grayson. However, in the bargaining process I insisted on retaining Willie as my name, that it not revert back to Willard. I successfully argued that Willie is naturally associated with the whole brown & purple ensemble, a part of the whole package. And I dismissed outright another name change for August/Carol, to Sophie this time. In all deference to the Alice books, I didn’t much like her last name change to Carol either, and proposed it revert to the original August. Thus baker had his June, I had my August. We remain equals in this way.
On the inverted part: I’m just now beginning to feel comfortable with baker dividing Lion and Tiger at the hip by running Jordan’s River between them. He insisted this idea originated with another town conjunction (what else is new!), this time in St. John The Baptist County, LA. In this way, Lion (Lions) and Tiger (Tigerville) are basically facing each other across a river. But in his mythology this river lies one down from the source, and not one up from the mouth, as it does in Louisiana (in hip terms, as baker explains it, this is substituting the penultimate Bears with Tigers and Lions). And he said it ties in so nicely with the Mississippi-Red Line material in the Circle of Oz posts that it simply was too tempting, the whole triple corruption dealie that still eludes me in many ways but nevertheless appeals to my love of geometry and programming. So I’m okay with it now, and I’m sure the reasoning will play out better as I become more involved with the program (my Elliott Carter cds should be arriving this week!). And it’s important to note that even though, as Lion/Lions and Tiger/Tigerville, baker and I are across the river from each other, inverted, we aren’t directly facing each other in this inversion. In other words, we don’t have to totally opposition one another on all of this information. Santa, the southern St. John, moves southward with the Tiger after emerging from the river. The other St. John, the one from the Bible [early form of Brainard], goes north with the Lion. I will not compromise on the inversion, but now I at least see the overall picture, where baker is coming from. I’m not going to even comment, though, on the Tim-man material yet. That’s just too far out for me! Crazy dream hermits playing pianos at bottoms of lakes indeed. I have to draw the line somewhere.
I must admit that, despite my apprehension about the upcoming move, I’m pretty pumped about working on the oracle. It’s exciting to be in on the ground level with this whole S.M.S project, knowing where it’s going and all. I’ve seen “Sophie’s No. 9” quite a few times now, and new things emerge with each fresh viewing. It’s odd how baker says the synch found *him* instead of visa versa. Perhaps a way for Sophie to reveal herself, to tap us on the shoulder and ask, “what’s up?”
I’ll miss the coastal humidity…and the beach. Perhaps the latter most of all. Baker insists that I’ll love the Kentucky caves just as much, and jokingly says that, according to Indian lore, one of the local Carter Caves supposedly acts as a portal to the Atlantic Ocean. With my luck, it’ll be filled with crazy dream hermits instead!
That’s it for me. Baker says he’s allowed to look through Darwin’s viewing machine now that my proper place in his tale has been established.
Unknown
The Truth Twins
Tuesday, 22-Aug-00152.10.52.1 writes:
David was examining items on a bookshelf after finishing his tea ahead of the others.
What’s this Mr. Fool?” he asked, picking up a yellow colored stone in the shape of an octahedron. Hitchcock was in the middle of a swallow of tea, and couldn’t answer promptly. “Is it topaz?” David continued in the pause. “It looks like topaz…I think that’s our birth stone, isn’t it Permele?” He glanced over at his sister, but knew she wouldn’t know the answer.
“Alexandrite is the birth stone of the Twins,” corrected Hitchcock after finishing another gulp of tea. “Because it is two things in one, both red and green–depending on the light. And that’s not topaz anyway; it’s a particularly yellow strain of chrysolite. Found it on a Sirius planet called Uris. And, by the way, I *hate* topaz. Personal reasons. Something to do with Lions. Or is it Leons…I can’t remember.”
“You talk funny Mr. Fool!” David said, placing the yellow octahedron back on the shelf. “And, *by the way,*” he added as an aside, still facing away from Hitchcock, “red and green, in terms of light, combine into yellow…so this gem *could* be our birth stone in a sideways kind of way, if you see what I mean.”
Permele giggled at David’s twisted logic.“Please,” Hitchcock responded dourly, “call me Fred. As I said before, Truth/Fool is just a title, not actually my name. “Now David, I need your attention again please. Come return to your seat beside Permele here, if you don’t mind.”
David obediently returned to his chair opposite Hitchcock at the table.
“Okay…children,” Hitchcock said, drawing his face ominously toward theirs, “I can’t reinforce this enough. A visit to this Brainard fellow is a very, *very* serious thing…nothing to go into lightly. It requires a lot of study to understand all the ramifications. This card you drew, ‘The Twins.'” He again picked up the playing card beside him on the table and held it close to their faces. “As I explained before tea, it represents the two of you. You, David and Permele, are the twins surrounding the central hill. Like the numbers 5 and 7 surround 6.”
The children shot sideways glances at each other, amusement touching their faces.
Hitchcock then tapped several times on top of the hill to redraw their attention. Now I know you find these naked people funny and all, but the important thing is their relationship to this hill between them. Without your Santa–or the brightly colored toy from Santa’s passing sleigh in David’s version–filling up the funnel at the top,*sealing* this hill up, Brainard would be able to easily absorb you, like he would anyone else who came in contact with him. Remember, Brainard is everything, and thus can absorb anything by simply stripping the space/time clothing from around it, making it naked, if you will. He does this by propelling things into the future.”
David and Permele tried, rather unsuccessfully, to hide their mutual amusement at the mention of the word “naked.”“Despite how close you are,” Hitchcock continued, unperturbed, “Brainard is potentially much closer, and he could *divide* you against each other in his realm. This small difference between you, this gap of violet and dark blue revealed in your card visions, is easily enough to make your mission fail. This portent of failure is, in fact, totally expected. What is *not* expected, at least from my perspective, is Santa sealing up this central Bower Hill by turning it into a Brown Mountain…”
“Santa’s *toy,*” David butted in.“In your version, not mind,” responded Permele huffily. “*I* saw Santa *himself* drop into the hill.”
“The point is,” Hitchcock said, quieting them again with his serious tone, “it doesn’t matter if your visions are a little different; the symbolism is the same.” He then took another gulp of tea and leaned back, more relaxed.
“Now twins…one way to explain all this confusion is to turn to one of my favorite Earth stories–I recognized the resonations right away, during your card reading that is. It’s about a Welsh preacher named Robert Jones, who prods fellow villagers into adding 15 feet to the top of a local mountain, what was proudly thought to be the first mountain in Wales that overlooks their village. This allows what is, according to English law at that time, actually a hill, to reach the needed thousand foot level to legally become a mountain, also allowing retention of its traditional title.
“Where’s Wales Mr. Foo…er, Fred?” asked Permele.
“It’s in Great Britain,” chided David. “Jeez…don’t you know *anything*?”
Permele edged David’s side sharply with her elbow.
“Hey,” exclaimed David. “That hurt!”
“Now, now children,” Hitchcock reprimanded. “Okay, so the villagers created this mountain by lugging fill dirt in wheel barrels, pails–anything they could find–up its side, depositing the dirt on top. This was to make up the fifteen needed feet you see, to transform the hill into a mountain. However, when the task is almost finished in this way, Preacher Jones dies of a heart attack from overexertion. He’s subsequently buried at the top of the finished mound of dirt, at the top of the renewed mountain. In this way, he symbolically becomes one with the mountain…just like the Santa objects become one with the mountain in your visions, you see, the one from the card.”
David and Permele, obviously not very interested in the story, began nuding [sic] each other again playfully.
“Stop it,” Permele said quietly. “No, you,” returned David.
“All right,” Hitchcock then said, exhaling, sensing a losing battle. “Tell you what. Let’s go outside for now and play some games, and we’ll resume this discussion from a fresh angle later over supper.”
The twins enjoyed playing croquet in the warm afternoon sun, and were much more receptive to Hitchcock’s ideas upon returning indoors.
Unknown
Sunklands 