|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- OSOAWEEK--ISSUE 045--6/1/95 <-------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Issues  ||  Book 4  ||  -------> (Cup OWis045, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN045OW]] [[01045CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 0 4 5 * * * June 1, 1995 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora INSIDE THIS ISSUE! Prime infostimulation--for your mind, for your life! Check it out... 01 045 CV--Cover    !!!!!!!! This cover style will only last 7 more issues! Whew! 02 045 IW--Into E-mber Forge of Wander    !!!!!!!! Maybe I should call it "Forge of Infostimulation"? 03 045 HR--Hemisinister Review    !!!!!!!! Jacko Interview, Batman Forever, Quick Change 04 045 HT--Halfevil Times    !!!!!!!! THE BARLEY MARAUDER  vs. JELLY HANS 05 045 TS--Trick Sojourn    !!!!!!!! Another great E-mail from Panucci! 06 045 LA--Lord of Obliviana    !!!!!!!! Luxor dreams, a curious trinity, schedule antics, etc. 07 045 NH--Nihilistica    !!!!!!!! Cloud of Variation 08 045 SU--Superior    !!!!!!!! "And all the gods, fascinated with us, the little gods." 09 045 IS--Into E-mber Severe Repair    !!!!!!!! Cooler than Dr. Who, Star Trek, Star Wars--all that! 10 045 SR--Severe Repair    !!!!!!!! "The Mildred Cork" HOLD ON--OBLIVIANA IS ACCELERATING LIKE MAD!!! INFORMATION: OsoaWeek045, June 1, 1995. Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement, obliviana@aol.com, 1-800-OBLIVIANA. All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora. This release is Predatorware--you are free to make digital copies, so long as they're not altered or sold. All other forms of reproduction require permission. You're Prey unless you get a Predator Deed for this release. Contact us for more on this concept. Character count: 45632 / Line count: 1156 *OW* [[02045IF]] Into E-mber Forge of Wander [:[FOW006]:] FORGE OF WANDER E-mber 006, June 1, 1995 I'm lost. Here I am, a major infostimulation baron/mogul, and what am I doing? Sitting bewildered on Amtrak, totally out of it. You think this is easy? Every week I gotta sit here and make something out of nothing. But the planning, the initiatives, whatever--lemme tellya--content is the hardest thing. In a choice between content or planning, take the content. Planning is easy by comparison. Enjoy the E-mber! INFORMATION: Forge of Wander E-mber 006, June 1, 1995. Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement, obliviana@aol.com, 1-800-OBLIVIANA. All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora. This release is Predatorware--you are free to make digital copies, so long as they're not altered or sold. All other forms of reproduction require permission. You're Prey unless you get a Predator Deed for this release. Contact us for more on this concept. You can cancel or subscribe to this E-mber anytime, via E-mail. *OW* [[03045HR]] Hemisinister Review ***TV*** PRIMETIME LIVE "MICHAEL JACKSON" 6/14/95 I still think he did it. No matter what space cadet Elvisspawn Lisa Marie says. She looked hot, until she opened her mouth. The "Scream" video was good--I'd scream too if I was cooped up on a spaceship with Jacko. Diane Sawyer is a real pill. Presley's comment that Michael "sculpts" himself kinda contradicts his previous statements. The truest thing they said was why shouldn't they be perfect for each other--why not--they're a couple of confused, ultra rich, warped-in-childhood, hyperfamous psychos! They're almost so f*cked-up as to be cool, but not quite. ***MOVIES*** BATMAN FOREVER Worse than the other two, if that's possible. A thoroughly horrible movie. Jim Carrey is far too restricted by the ill-defined Riddler role to cut loose. The plot is a unabashed mishmash of elements, hardly sewn together at all. To call the characters one-dimensional is charitable. Cinematic dead air. Reminded me of "Toys", the worst movie ever made. Maybe this is the second worst. QUICK CHANGE This bank-robbery-gone-wrong comedy from a few years ago didn't make a big impression, but I really like it. Great cast--Bill Murray, Randy Quaid, Jason Robards and Geena Davis. Cinematically brisk and confident, this film deserves more than it got. What a light, entertaining comedy-thriller is supposed to be like. (A not-too-distant relative is the superb "Midnight Run") *OW* [[04540HT]] Halfevil Times ***HALFEVIL TIMES CLASSIC FIGHTS*** With Iggy Szalzo and Gil Mannings (filling in for Franco Wolfini) THE BARLEY MARAUDER vs. JELLY HANS Iggy--The Barley dude with make quick work of jelly-wielder Hans, whose bag-o-jelly is no match for the Marauder's shoulder-mounted barley cannon. It's a recipe for disaster as far as Hans goes! Gil--Marauder is overrated--without his cannon, he's nothing--and nothing gums up a cannon like a hearty dose of sticky jelly! Then Hans can use some of his famed sleep jelly to knock BM out--from then on in, the Barleymeister can expect getting the living tar beaten out of him! *OW* [[05045TS]] Trick Sojourn ***YOUR E-MAIL IS GONNA COME*** 5/10/95 12:45 PM Lunchbreak from Goddam day-job Frank! Just got yer pack-o-disks. Comments to follow. First: Why the illegible font on your printed-out cover letter? It impedes communication. The red-ink-on-acetate overlay second letter stapled to the first one kinda clears things up but not quite. (((Coolness supersedes communication.))) 5/13/95 5:50 PM This seems like a good time to dive into these OSOAWeeks since it's the weekend and I am drunk. I will cover the non-Severe Repair sections of OsOaWeEk first so as not to fracture the Severe Repair experience. Word on the street has is that experience fracturin' is bad manners. ISSUE #31: The adventure continues... All right, I'm sick of all this whining about Lego blocks. When I was a kid I lusted after Lego blocks and my parents said they were overpriced You're a-Peein' exotica and they wouldn't get me hardly any. So now I'm all growed up, see, and I could get thousands of dollars worth of the little plastic motherf*ckers if I wanted to, but I DON'T WANT TO, DAMMIT! So, like, what good is adulthood anyway? We ought to kill all the children before they find out about the world! It would be a kindness! (((Don't criticize my Lego blocks man--I kill you!))) SOOPER NOOZ: Har! I really like the Jesus thing about the mammals and stuff. Dead-on satirical comment about whales. NAKED GIRL ZOPE: I appreciate the sentiment. VAN ZOPE: One of the lesser Zopes of antiquity. Um...EMBARGO? I don't know. It's so crazy, IT...JUST...MIGHT...WORK! Read that last sentence out loud in the voice of an old fart character actor of your choice. (((Yeah well, just as DENTA became VIAT, EMBARGO became E-mber. Got it?))) OSOAWEEK #32: To save time, I'm gonna forego comment on the old Zopes and Beublins I commented on years ago. (((What about all the eager readers of OsoaWeek? They never read your old comments! God damn, did I even read them? What the f*ck are you even talking about, pal?))) SEMIHAMSTER REVIEW: I saw the first episode of Alberto VR5 and I thought it sucked and I didn't watch any more. I was really put off by the acoustic-coupler modem. (((You're so wrong about VR5. I admit, the first few episodes seemed like crap, but if you watch more, its coolness starts to really dawn on you. It's one of the best shows on television! Of course, I'm not sure if it'll be back for a second season, but...))) ZOPE'S BAGHEERA WOMBAT: They ought to teach this sh*t in high schools and toss out Shakespeare and J.D.R. Salinger and Stephen King books and all that other useless boring junk. (((Um, I agree.))) LORD FOR OBLIVIANA: I just dropped a f*cking piece of pizza and there's pizza sauce all over my goddam pants, god dammit. NIHILISTICA: Now there's pizza sauce on the f*cking keyboard. Sh*t! Hey, here's a pretty cool story and it just happened last night. I was at the apartment of a couple of friends of mine, and one of their little bastard cats, Basil, climbed on top of a door about seven and a half feet up, and jumped off and landed on my head and bounced onto my balls. I was in agony for about 20 minutes! (((You think you got it bad--I'm on the train now and it SMELLS LIKE SH*T in here! No lie!))) You buy a lot of crappy magazines. (((Can't argue with ya there.))) OBLIVIANA PRIMAL: Yes. New Jersey: Too bad. (((Oh--you want I should refer back to issue 32 to see what the hell I was talking about back then? Well F*CK YOU! I'm not falling into your little trap!))) ¯þ¯ÊÉeek #33: That's supposed to say OSOAWeek but I hit the control key or some damn thing. HALFEVIL TIMES TV LISTINGS: THIS IS PRIMO HILARIOUS STUFF. FILBERT LANE AND CHRONTASTIC OH sh*t i had the caps lock key down f*ck it. I think I maybe should stop typing now for a while. 5/14/95 Sunday afternoon OSOAWeek #33 reactions continued... ZOPE, BARBED WIRE EXPERT GUY: Appealing on many different levels, this particular episode exemplifies the unique combination of a comprehensive grasp of sociological phenomena with a concise satirical viewpoint couched in the violent and mutated world of ZOPE that has brought you fame and great riches. Heh. Was that a cool hand-job comment or what? (((What.))) LORD OF OBLIVIANA: This one got me kind of alarmed. All this raw panic, hysteria and despair in one place is...well...I don't know. It conveys wonderfully the essence of DERANGED LONER at WORK on WEIGHTY MATTERS! (((Okay dammit--I'll look back and see what the hell you're referring to! Okay, I just checked it. Yeah, you're right.))) NIHILISTICA, THE FAMED LIBRARY AT TOILET: I've been urging you for months to rent space on a Web server to trumpet OBLIVIANA to the world, and here you've been spending more than enough money on useless publications to practically set up your own server and get a dedicated phone line for it. (((I know that! It's so strange that you think I didn't know that! (SNL character impersonation: obscure: "Nathan Thurm": Martin Short, esp. used in "60 Min." skit).))) OSOAWeek #34: You already have my comments on this reprinted stuff. OSOAWeek #35: LORDY OBLIVIANA: Powerbook, eh? Geez, PC notebooks are way cheaper. I mean, they're sh*tty and stuff, but what the hell. (((That's where you're wrong pal. The PowerBook 150 goes for $999 now! No PC notebooks of anywhere near the name quality go for that much! (Of course, I paid a little more than that for mine... How was I to know the price'd go down...?))) OSOAWeek #36: HEMPMINISTER REVIEWS: (((Evaluations of NORML clergy?))) It's really cool dry humor the way you actually claim to be a fan of DURAN DURAN. It cracks me up. If, in your answer to this, you insist you're serious and actually do like them, I'll understand. Gotta play it straight, Andy Kaufman-style. (((I used to totally love Duran Duran back in the mid-'80s, when I was a kid. Their first three albums are still classic. The new one, "Thank You" pretty much sucks, but the one before that, the eponymously titled one (is that the right phrase?) was quite good. Don't be a knee-jerk, conforming, alternative music dweeb--you know yourself you just WANT to hate Duran Duran cuz you think it's cool. Get off it. Besides, don't you know that after awhile, it's cool to like something other "cool" people hate?))) How come you never review cool CD's like APOCOLYPSE ACROSS THE SKY by the Master Musicians of Jajouka, or any P. J. Harvey stuff, or CIVILIZATION PHAZE III by Frank Zappa, or THE CARL STALLING PROJECT, PART 2 (Part 1 was incredible!) or anything like that, huh? (((I have a bootleg Jajouka tape of some sort and it's interesting, but nothing special. None of P.J. Harvey's singles have done anything for me. I think I could get into Zappa, but I just don't feel like it. I have the first Carl Stalling Project CD and it's good, but not something you can just listen to. STONE TEMPLE PILOTS, MAN! GET INTO SOME REAL MUSIC, MAN!))) CRANK GIRL: No desire to see it, especially since I've read your review. LORD HUFF OBLIVIANA: I got nuffim to say about this life-slice. There's that damn requestor box again asking me to send money to Scotland for the full version. I get really sick of that. (((Nuke Scotland (new catchphrase!!!)))) OSOAWeek #37: ANAIVILBO FO DROL: Holy Christ, I can't believe you would pay $40 for that HOT BUTTER record, POPCORN! I think I have a copy somewhere buried in my parents' basement when I moved out in '79--and I have a copy of an absolutely wretched cover version by some other group I'll be glad to send you a tape of if you want it. This one has lyrics! (((Do.))) Hey, another cool letter from that Panucci guy! These are my favorite things in OSOAWeek. Holy sh*t! You actually paid $75 for HOT BUTTER records! How is anyone supposed to react to that? (((Uh, badly?))) OSOAWeek #38: LORD OF OBLIVIANA: Wow. This one is deep and intense and revealing and somewhat feverish and a trifle damp. I see you return again to the praise of New Jersey as a place of wonder. Waking up as a baby would be a cool thing to write about in SEVERE REPAIR. I just saw REPO MAN on A&E a few weeks ago. They cut the living crap out of the language by replacing the offensive "swear words" with hilariously incongruent "distantly approximate swear words". Cool movie in its original form. I taped it from HBO 10 years ago and watched it about 20 times. DREAMFRANK DIARY: Your dream about making the bomb from Atari 2600 cartridges was pretty creepy, considering that the bomb those dumbf*cks in Oklahoma used to blow up the Federal building was made from Atari 2600 cartridges and sh*t mixed with kerosene. That seems to exhaust the editorial content of OSOAWeeks 31-38. Later in the week I'll read and comment on the SEVERE REPAIR episodes. I've been pondering not going online at all. I know that sounds perverted, but friends who are into the net and stuff tell me that keeping up e-mail contacts, newsgroup subscriptions, and other e-maintenance can eat one or two hours a day, which is insane. Whenever I want something downloaded, there are always a bunch of people who are over-eager to get whatever I need, and they seem grateful for the opportunity to actually put any skills at data retrieval they've picked up on display, in return for gratitude and disingenuous flattery and expressions of wonder at the incomprehensible marvels of life online. Plus, it seems like the guys who can find all this stuff quick have much less of a life than I do, so going online does not seem like an enticing prospect. What do you think? (((You're terribly mistaken. That's just like saying, "if you buy a bicycle, you have to ride it for two hours a day to enjoy the scenery". Bullcrap. These people are using the online world in a certain way. I don't have E-mail correspondences with people! I don't religiously follow any newsgroups! And I sure as hell don't spend two hours a day online, doing anything! I say, get a friggin' modem and AOL. That's all you need.))) SEVERE REPAIR commentary when next I find the time... 5/23/95 SEVERE REPAIR #31: FOREMAN VS. ITTENER PEIR The Again Cylinder is another of your seemingly endless supply of cool Severe Repair devices. Okay one. Seemed kinda short. A place-keeper...a water-treader... a wind-miller...a sh*t-kicker...a phlegm-handler...a wait-just-a-minute-somethin's-gonna-happen-in-the-next-chapter kinda thing. Still, not bad. #32: Stormbolthaus Lightether or whatever A real interesting one, with another cool device, the Solve Gum. I really like the vehicles' ability to replicate themselves and stuff. This chapter and the last one seem like they shoulda been together as one chapter-- are you spreading them out to conserve effort? It's gotta be a bitch to write that much stuff every week. (((Kinda.))) 5/27/95 10:35 AM Saturday SR #33: Luck This one is great--"That's one of the main uses of time travel--personal gain." Yow. This chapter is back up to the usual Severe Repair speed. What a fantastic animated feature this would make. The casual, off-hand descriptions of time travel consequences are hilarious. The administrator's references to "my contacts in organized crime" are also funny as hell. SR #34: Powers of the Land Uh-oh. Enchanted crystals? Hope this one doesn't get all new age and stuff. Gorblame! Cool character. Name sounds kinda like "Gorblimey", that word people from England say all the time in real life. Weak acid and baby snakes! Yow! Cool death. Did you get the baby snakes idea from the Frank Zappa song, BABY SNAKES? And how come the acid doesn't kill the baby snakes? (((I'm Zappa-illiterate, and they're resistant to acid.))) Drey's dying thought is deep stuff. Makes me feel kinda...I dunno. I'm in the middle of Quile's sex-with-God fantasies. This is killer material! It reads like something written by William Burrough's little crazy baby cousin or something. It's cracking me up big-time. Good episode. SR #35: Speed Limit 85 MPH Nice God-killing-stuff. I like it. Heh. Reality Port! Cool visual potential! Hey! Hey. This Wreckingball Slunder part... I read this a whole bunch of years ago in one of your older publications. Cool then, cool now, but still a surprise to see it here again. SR #36: Thiffor This looks like a really long chapter from the position of the scroll-bar on the edge of the screen. There's something wrong here--an ASCII thing, I think. So far, in this chapter, all the apostrophes are capital U's and there are random capital R's and S's scattered everywhere. A bunch of the other punctuation seems to be messed up. I'm gonna kill this file and open it again. (((Indeed, I checked, and there are "curly quotes" for the first part of the story. How did they get there? I haven't a clue. Guess I'll have to fix that for future OsoaWeek releases...))) Wow. It's still messed up. The rest of this issue of OSOAWeek is normal. It's just Severe Repair that's weird. Damn. This is distracting. Oh, well. Okay, this is the problem. Opening quotation marks are "R"s and closing quotation marks are "S"s. What the hell is this? Fortunately, after a nearly incomprehensible exchange between Quarrel and a tree, the punctuation problem straightened itself out. Somehow I had guessed in advance that Thiffor would appear as a human female. Cool. You worked in the skeleton and phantom and scarecrow from your old magazine FOVY BUT MONDAY. I didn't realize they were part of the Severe Repair continuity. (((They were in a publication called "Three Men in an Armored Assault Vehicle", the 47th Halfevil Graphics publication, released in January, 1988.))) This Stone Beverly/Dimensional building/Yeeber-crash thing is high-grade deadpan humor. Picture the Ferrajualt-Scarecrow exchange delivered in gut-serious tones in a film-noirish, weird, crappy motel room. No score for this scene--just exagerrated, very crisp foley room noises, and maybe some muted distant traffic sounds, incorporating some odd Jetson- vehicle sputtering. Hey! Another classic chapter with a perfect tag line. SR #37: Ladies Wow! You dragged KAT X into the Severe Repair universe. Didn't you do this one as a comic strip a bunch of years ago? Is it possible that all this stuff you've been writing for years is linked to Severe Repair? Or are you just gathering up everything you've written and patching it into Severe Repair? Whatever, it's like some wild jigsaw puzzle that only a very few people would recognize parts of. ((Kat X was first done as an 8-page mini comic, which I drew in the car as my family drove down to Walt Disney World. It was the 10th HG publication, as was released in August 1986. Then in February of 1988, I reprinted the mini-comic and added several pages of text, which established the circumstances of the character that would become Tanner Loblolly, ie, god banished as college student. It was the 53rd HG publication. Then in rED aLLEY eARTH #A (80th HG pub, 36 pp., October 1990) I published the story "Map Shirt Goddess", in which Tanner, who was the god Payjaych (the replacement for the lame "Kat X" name), begins to lose his real past as an alternate past swallows it up. "Map Shirt Goddess" was revised for Severe Repair, and published in OsoaWeek002. So Tanner Loblolly began as Kat X--a piece of information Fluffy Netherf*ck supernaturally culled during their marathon love-making bonanza. She also spied me in the car.))) I may have said this before, but I really like the 315-year memory paging system you got workin' with Fluffy Netherfrock here. I read a book a while back with 13 different theories of the nature of mind, and one of the theories is that time is the mind's storage medium, and it's linear like a tape backup, and some people have a better file retrieval/indexing method, which would explain the difference in memory integrity between people. So, memory is like time travel. Fascinatin' bullsh*t! (((NetherFROCK? Come on--that's not the "nice" version of Fluffy's surname! The real "nice" version is Fluffy NetherFUZZ. That's right, Fluffy Netherfuzz. I still like Netherf*ck the best, though. I mean, it's just her name! How 'bout some Polish guy named Sh*tski? Or sh*take mushrooms? Or the surname Fuchs? You know, I have a phone directory CD-ROM, and there are a few people with the last name "F*ck"? No lie!))) The ink bit is very nice. Hey, is this Hider/Thatterine College thing some kind of an altered version of your experience with that mystical war you keep hinting about being involved with when you were in college? (((It's somewhat inspired by that occult war, but not based on it.))) I was so taken with the image of the ink-smeared character carrying the speed-limit sign, I just popped into DPaint and drew it and composited it over some clip-art background. It's included on the disk. ########smakdat ########pooter. SR #38: Deer Express Here we are at the second paragraph and already it's hilarious. Tiny cars and evil child creatures, heh. Elevator Jones. Another cool device. This whole Deer Express bit is very much in keeping with the texture of Severe Repair--inventive, surprising, occasionally flirting with conceptual depth, with a constant adolescently horny subcurrent. Another great batch of OSOAWeek and Severe Repairs, Frank. I'll be looking forward to more. I'm glad you've kept doing this, because I've come to enjoy Severe Repair more than just about any work of entertainment and I get bored with most of this stuff real easy. I spent so much of my early years consuming thousands of fantasy and science fiction books and comic books and hundreds of movies about the same stuff that none of it has seemed interesting for a long time until you came up with Severe Repair. Keep in touch, and keep me updated as often as possible, please. Frank** Panucci 5/27/95 (((Another perfect, pristine, graceful piece of E-mail from Lord Panucci! Thank you so much--you make up a large percentage of the OW readership, so hearing from you, I'm hearing from, like, 25% of all my readers! Ah, maybe I'm being a little hard on myself, I don't know. Ciao.))) ***SONG OF THE WEEK*** "Jollity Farm" by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (from the "Gorilla" album) [:[END]:] *OW* [[06045LA]] Lord of Obliviana Monday, June 19, 1995. Morning. I feel all confused and stressed out. Mostly cuz I'm seriously considering a trip to Las Vegas with my girlfriend, and trying to work it out is tough. I wanna go to all the new resorts and theme parks there--kinda like Disney, y'know? Especially that pyramid Luxor. Didn't work on OsoaWeek at all over the weekend. I'm still absorbing the coolness of CD-ROM--I must have two dozen of the suckers already. I'm also getting back into NetHack, probably the best computer game ever invented. I started out in college with Rogue--we'd play for hours and hours on end. Then Hack, which was even better. Now, NetHack 3.1.3, the latest (I think), though a few years old, is superb. Quite obsessive. Someday I gotta kick Asidonhopo's ass! So do I really have that many problems? Well, the Vegas trip is a temporary concern--all I gotta do is decide not to do it and the whole thing's over with. But it's cheap, man! Like you can go for 2 nights for under $300! Yeah! Of course, that's just the air and hotel and stuff--you gotta expect the whole thing'll be more like $500, especially with a little gambling thrown in there! I'm not into gambling, though. Next day... try like $750 if I'm lucky. Jeez. But it seems that Las Vegas completes a trinity, along with Walt Disney World and Mall of America. Huh. All places which are artificial, primarily indoor little entertainment universes. Kind of like cyberspace in real space. Definitely my cup of tea. From what I read, the Las Vegas of today may be Disneyer than Disney, with the added spice of gambling and other vices. Yeah, I gotta decide by tonight. I think I'll go. Unlike WDW and MOA, I won't be leaving my girlfriend behind--this time I'll go with Kerri. Hopefully there'll be a less hectic pace than those other two places--we'll have just about three full days, as opposed to 1.5 for WDW and less than one for MOA. No way am I gonna bring my PowerBook. What'll this mean for OsoaWeek? Well, if I get this one out today, Tuesday 6/20/95, then 046 by Friday 6/23/95, and 047 by the next Friday, 6/30/95, I'll be good--then I'll have till the next Friday to get 048 done--and my trip if the 1st thru 4th of July. By the way, if I do this, I'll be down to +15--but I'll stay at that level for a few weeks. Better than +26, though! If you wonder why I'm so obsessed with this schedule of mine, I'll tell you. Without it, nothing would get done. It might seem to the layman that I could just skip a few issues and be back on schedule, but from experience, I know this doesn't work. From there, it's a slippery slope down into the pit of no writing. In other words, my schedule is my vehicle, my foothold. Without it, I'm lost. Wow. Issue 45. Looking from an overall perspective, I'm very pleased and amazed. I mean, like I've referred to so many times in the past, most of the publications I've started lasted only 3 or 4 issues before folding. Even my most successful runs lasted only about 13 issues. OsoaWeek blows them all away. 45. Wow. People who search for some tangible value to the Digital Superworld should look at me--this technology has allowed me to create a situation for myself where I'm now writing far more than ever before in my life. And the main reason is, it doesn't have to be printed out and distributed in physical form. I mean, in the past, whenever I wrote something, I knew in the back of my mind that if I wanted people to see it, I'd have to go through an awfully involved series of operations, ie, printout, layout, copying/printing, collation, stapling, numbering, signing, etc. etc. All that energy spent on the production side is energy taken away from the creative side. Have someone else publish my work, you say? No. The energy lost in worrying, negotiations, and dealing with restrictions is far too draining. I want to be able to write whatever I MYSELF feel is appropriate, without anyone there to tell me different. Besides, OsoaWeek is raw content. That means that if some stuff in it doesn't fly, no problem. With digital techniques, the material in OsoaWeek can be organized in any imaginable manner. I know this is music to the ears of a lot of you--I know it can be tough just diving into OsoaWeek, especially the earlier ones, which had a lot of the harder to read stuff at the beginning. (By harder to read" I mean stuff like masthead info, previews, catalog, etc.) Anyways, let me get this issue finished. I can get to +19 if I get it done tonight. It's a tough road to zero, but I'm a tough zero warrior--I'll make it. Get all Obliviana! *OW* [[07045NH]] Nihilistica ***CLOUD OF VARIATION*** Imaging a girl whining about something, or a guy flipping out and going ballistic. These themes can have numerous variations, and that's what Cloud of Variation (CLOVAR?) is about! For the Digital Superworld. *OW* [[08045SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 249 Skall was marfor. Unmagined daynight lane, I was forced arout. Can be I am knogle, can be I am bike-on-bridge-1975. Sotime, I was dear to theye. Canbe, for the feeling woone. I fly, for it amn't floray. I was goone. SUPERIOR 250 The blonde on the subway with two earrings--stark face, wincing in pain, source unknown. She seemed to be a witch to me, tight lace around her collar. And I mused, if I were a god, how I'd like this little mortal goddess to worship me. And all the gods, fascinated with us, the little gods. SUPERIOR 251 Freak to the jatch of a bridge collapse, coolims! Any-not mental-furryfriends was ohld mezmar blue book line of center--looking, badboo, k, I... Friend woods, outway ride, camsleep dream HEY! Warfur, crumfay, alajayce. Itwer not my decjay. Open the files, my orggic days, kept at bay, flight okay good foray, june my day, cay. Evaradce. SUPERIOR 252 Luscious greenery, comfy sunbeam, slurpy yummy redpatch, we are happy. Grails have we, nevery and quite silly, and birds cute and smart, I'd say. Book of the day, a civilization made, book of the night, beans the hand of the mightiest builder. Co whispers of secret transports in the fog. SUPERIOR 253 Gum. I'm an of hoone jiloppey. Could of hang was distard, is I am kool was the undernethid oarmfennet. Maginghow kigh the forestgets, I goto Hilchayway. Masternosity, loshnessless, ipsertinnity, gum. The mirror says gosh. SUPERIOR 254 Um, uh. Strain of the whiplash of borrowing, I am running. The climber. Soup, I was eating, keeping me alive? Am I alive? Go for it. Youth must be stoked. I am wondering. What a beautiful woman's profile does to me. Just look up and you see it. Blond hair, blue-gray eyes. Big diamond ring. SUPERIOR 255 One after another, the fruits. Poor lady is standing, PowerBooks on either side of her. If I was standing I couldn't be writing this, and this Superior would never have been. I remember that poetry reading, so long ago now, where I read some Superiors in front of an audience. Went over pretty well. Glad to have done it, not eager to do it again. Same as the strip club with the lap dances. Glad to have done it, not eager to do it again. I did smoke my first cigar there, though. A cheap one. I've smoked seven good ones since then. Funny that I kept count. It's just--the idea of smoking was always so alien to me. SUPERIOR 256 Eight-bit color and ASCII, some of the babies of two to the eighth power. The poker players are running. I find things under a rock disk you say. The wonderful. Do you know me? All I need, here are the eight things I was thinking of... fantasy, science, hedonism, magic, wit, computers, mythology, and angst. From college days to all of you. *OW* [[09045IS]] Into E-mber Severe Repair [:[SVR006]:] SEVERE REPAIR E-MBER 006 by Frank Edward Nora Here's another good one--"The Mildred Cork". Enjoy it! INFORMATION: Severe Repair E-mber 006, June 1, 1995. Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement, obliviana@aol.com, 1-800-OBLIVIANA. All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora. This release is Predatorware--you are free to make digital copies, so long as they're not altered or sold. All other forms of reproduction require permission. You're Prey unless you get a Predator Deed for this release. Contact us for more on this concept. You can cancel or subscribe to this E-mber anytime, via E-mail. *OW* [[10045SR]] Severe Repair SEVERE REPAIR 45: "The Mildred Cork" Why was there a scroll on my bed? It was just another of those unanswerable questions you get so much in college. But... there was a note attached to it--all smeared with ink--but it was legible. It said... "Walt--Think you might find this interesting--SS" and there was a smiley face at the bottom. Huh. SS--had to be Sally Sust, the girl I had such a crush on. I really loved her--I even admitted it to her. She wasn't too cooperative though. Hell--just cuz you like someone doesn't mean they'll like you back, right? Okay, the scroll. Was this some kind of joke? I untied the string around it and started to unfurl it. Wow. It felt ancient. But incredibly sturdy. Weird. The first thing it said, in big letters at the top was MILDRED. Underneath that, it said, "Regarding the properties of the newest frelmerhaze-standevice out of Gremdoza. Condensed from the Hapstaccia Fober XIV." Okay... "What is in form a common cork contains the delightful attribute. Vexing in its framepoint, the consequence describes the beauteous life. "Mildred is a fine lass, taller than a tall man, solid, as powerful as an ij press. Her true face, golden flow of locks, skin like sunlight, delightful breasts, and shapely form (!) The sting here: she is absolutely loyal to one man--you! "Starting with the cork, but the merest of shavings is needed. This, in contact with your bare skin, gets hot. Here is the ident impress--here, Mildred will get to know you inside and out--even before she comes to be! "Mildred's loyalty and willingness cannot be understated. She willingly satisfies your every carnal whim. Make no doubt. For you or whomever you deem. Many users initially find this Mildred's greatest function. "She will never tire, though she sleeps. Never starve, though she eats. Never lack for air, though she breathes. Never die, so long as you do live. Never fail in her devotion to you, save for your own safety. Never menstruate or get with child, though she is otherwise everything female. "In times of emergency, Mildred will lactate. Thus with Mildred you shall never starve or thirst. She can perpetuate this ad infinitum with no sustenance herself--such is her powernature. "Mildred may marry, but only you. Others will ever take her as a woman, nothing more. Many find it impossible to maintain another relationship with Mildred around. Marrying Mildred is heartily recommended by this humble scholar. "She has heart, spirit, fire, personality, awareness, and things of that nature in abundance. She is the perfect companion. She fits in with society, loves and obeys you, is impervious to all forms of damage, and will melt your heart. "In the event of your death, Mildred will become a mortal and will live out her remaining years in quiet mourning and contemplation, doing acts of charity and kindness whenever possible. "The Mildred Cork was retrieved from the Blongs Vault in 5 by Jorfa Kield, aggist. But the barest shaving is required to generate a Mildred. Once it touches your bare flesh, it gets hot. Once hot, put it in a large body of water. Mildred will rise out of the water one day later, and seek you out without fail. She always knows where you are. "I have had my Mildred for 61 years now. I have found that her milk has remarkable rejuvenating powers, and though a man of 112, I appear a man of 35. "If you are ready to commit your life to finding a shave of The Mildred Cork, rest ye. For this is the caveat--only one Mildred may exist at a time. The cork shaving will not get hot if there is another Mildred somewhere--it just will not work. "But ah! This is Sweptim, and the one-Mildred rule applies to each Earth. So as long as you find an Earth with no Mildred, you got it. "At the time of this writing, I have to information whatever as to the location of The Mildred Cork. I took my shaving from the Cork itself, but soon thereafter it changed hands. I heard rumors decades ago that Slont-Ag 88, wretched tyrant of Huplomic, possessed it for a time. "This won't get you anywhere though. "Now so as you don't eye all corks strangely for the rest of your life, let me just impart a brief description of it. It identifying nature is not its size or shape, but its color. It is pale blue with flecks of copper in it. It is this colorscheme you should keep an eye out for. I continued unrolling the scroll as I neared the end of the text. But when I fully unfurled it, I noticed something scrawled at the bottom, in red magic marker. LOOK IN YOUR TOP DRAWER What? I felt a lump in his throat and my heart raced. I skimmed the rest of the text in a few seconds and then looked up at my chest of drawers. My mind was racing. What was this all about? Could it--could it be true? I heard some weird rumors about Sally, but... I got up and crossed to the closed drawer. If it was true--I knew it probably wasn't, but if it was--was it some way for her to get me off her back? I mean, I told her a few times how I felt about her, but she just acted weird and blew it off. So she was giving me some sort of perfect sex partner as a consolation prize? If it was true, it'd he one helluva consolation prize... I opened the drawer and saw a little clear plastic bag. With something inside. I lifted it, my hand trembling. There was something in it. I looked closer. Something... a little speck... light blue, with copper tinges. My face got hot and I felt as anxious as I ever had. That scroll--it seemed to ancient, so legitimate... With great anticipation, I opened the bag and reached in. The few moments it took seemed like hours. Then I touched it--it felt good somehow. It calmed and reassured me, and I felt a higher level of awareness, albeit unfocused. And after a few seconds, the thing began to heat up. I smiled. At that I point, I knew it was for real. I just had this feeling. You know? So I took the cork shaving out of the bag and rolled it back and forth between my fingers. Yes. It was getting hotter and hotter. And I started feeling high--I don't know if it was from my euphoric expectation or from some magical property it possessed. Whatever, it felt real good. Just imagine. A girl like that. Always there for you. And willing to have sex with you whenever you want it. Yow. I got an erection just thinking about it. I was still a virgin, and very anxious to get past it. If this worked... wow. But where would she live? In my room? What about Roy? Yeah, in the scroll it said she'd have sex with anyone else, too. Well, no way was I gonna let her sleep with Roy. He has enough real girls for himself. No--somehow I'd have to get rid of Roy, get him to live somewhere else--with one of his girlfriends in their dorm room or something. Or--maybe Mildred could find some lost corner of Thatterine for us to live in. Yeah. I don't think girls are allowed to live in my dorm anyway. If they ever found out, that is... Anyway, I needed a large body of water and a day. The day was no problem, but--just how large a body of water was this guy talking about in the scroll? Certainly not a bathtub or a sink... No. But what the heck--the ocean was just a 20 minute drive, over to Mav Saptax. I needed gas in my car though, and I needed money for the gas, so I had to find my cash card in my room somewhere, so... Maybe I should just call Sally. So that's what I did. Got her answering machine, but I didn't leave a message. Oh well--I got to it and eventually found the cash card, the Cork shaving safely back in its bag. Man I turned my room upside down! It was an unholy mess. Soon, after getting some cash and some gas, I was on the road to Mav Saptax. It was getting dark ad there was a lot of traffic. I had the bag in my shirt pocket, ready to defend it with my life. My head was swimming with Mildred fantasies. I pray to the air around me that it would work. I needed Mildred. She was just what I needed. Just the thought of that milk... I admit. I had to masturbate before just to calm myself down. The sexual promise of it was overwhelming me. Goddam! And now---the ocean came into view! How beautiful it seemed. And what a beautiful thing it would produce... I headed for a little park with a shorefront. Kind of a crummy place--no sand to really speak of, just rocks and overgrowth. But there was this pier kind of thing that went out, like this metal thing, and at the end would be a pretty good place to throw the shaving; it was pretty deep and stuff. It took a while to get there, cuz the traffic was so bad. But I finally made it, just as the sun as completing its set. There were a few people about, but not many. A bunch of dog walkers. Very average conditions. So I went to the end of the pier, my anticipation electric. There was a little bit of a breeze, so I was exceedingly careful opening the bag and grasping the shaving again. Huh. It was still hot--as hot as it had been before I put it back in the bag. Huh. Guess it was primed and rarin' to go. I closed my eyes and reached out with my mind--to see if anything came to me. Not much did--just a hungry feeling. A hunger for the mammoth body of water before me. The breeze shifted seaward, and I let the shaving go. I watched as it arced and then hit the water. When it did, a thin beam of white light shot up from it, and continued rising for a few seconds before it faded. I took this to mean that it was working. Whew. I stood there for a long time, waiting to see if there's be any more such signs. The scroll said it would take a day for Mildred to form. I felt like waiting there for her the whole time. I couldn't imagine the thought of going to sleep that night, no way. Maybe I would just stay here--as long as the police didn't chase me away. Yeah. About forty minutes later there were still no further signs, it was really dark out, and there wasn't a soul in sight. The sounds of the sea and a nearby highway came to my ears. It was a pleasant cool, the kind of weather you just want to luxuriate in. And why not? The cool supernatural stuff I'd always craved was finally starting to happen. Mildred would be a wonderful companion on the roads yet to be travelled... Oh. I was getting tired. I though I saw two glowing blue eyes by the rocks. Huh. Coulda sworn. Could it be... Could it be Mildred--could she have finished early? I didn't know--it just didn't synch. It was so sudden. It could have been--I don't know--reflection of car lights off of blue glass? No way, but I convinced myself it was something like that. Still--it could be some other supernatural force associated with Mildred... I closed my eyes, sat down, and began to fantasize about what I'd do with Mildred as soon as we were alone together. Oh yes. This calmed me down a lot, or at least, made some pretty loud mental white noise to block out the apprehension over what I saw. But yeah--I was gonna be all over her. I imagined just what she'd look like. My tongue would be everywhere on her--I wouldn't miss a single spot. Oh yeah... I licked my lips and wriggled around a little. Then I heard something. Or FELT something. I stopped wriggling and retreated my tongue into the safety of my mouth. I kept my eyes closed with the brief idea of feigning sleep, but a shadow crossed my eyelids and the value of pretending to be asleep was questionable at best. So I opened my eyes. A thing stood above me, only a few feet away. A massive black shape, with two glowing cyan eyes. It looked--I don't know. It looked like a minotaur or a devil or a grim porter or something. I remained motionless and just looked up at it. Could this be Mildred? Was it some sick joke, played by the scroll guy, or even Sally Sust? Maybe she gave me the scroll on one Cork and switched it for another? Why, though? I thought about just jumping in the water. That would mean standing up, turning my back to the thing, climbing over the railing, and jumping off. If it had bad intentions, I didn't think I'd make it through all these steps. I tried though. Didn't get too far. As soon as I made a move, the thing was all over me. It picked me up and then threw me down. Damn it hurt. Then it--I don't know--punched me on the side of my torso. Unbelievable pain. I tried to fight back, but it only amounted to insignificant flailing. Then... my hair! Ow! Pulling my hair... no... LIFTING me by the hair... I looked into those horrific eyes for a moment before the creature delivered a powerful blow to the side of my head. That was it for staying conscious--goodbye. [:[END]:] *OW* [[END045OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----