|| -------- -- -----  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 048--6/22/95 <-------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Issues  ||  Book 4  ||  -------> (Cup OWis048, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN048OW]] [[01048CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 0 4 8 * * * June 22, 1995 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora INSIDE THIS ISSUE! The Obliviana engine is shifting gears big time! Check it out... 01 048 CV--Cover    !!!!!!!! Just about covers it! 02 048 IW--Into E-mber Forge of Wander    !!!!!!!! More depressing notes of doom! 03 048 HR--Hemisinister Review    !!!!!!!! Las Vegas: MGM Grand! Excalibur! Hard Rock Hotel! 04 048 TS--Trick Sojourn    !!!!!!!! Halzapular Fuzz! Mary Tyler Moore dream! Yardbirds! 05 048 LA--Lord of Obliviana    !!!!!!!! Obliviana on the WWW! Amtrak Reality Blam! 06 048 SU--Superior    !!!!!!!! "Jang 4 back--the opsleyport winners need friendness." 07 048 IS--Into E-mber Severe Repair    !!!!!!!! Get into it, why dontcha! 08 048 SR--Severe Repair    !!!!!!!! "Humorless & Wasted, but Still Beautiful" TALK ABOUT CONTENT! THIS IS GOOD STUFF! INFORMATION: OsoaWeek048, June 22, 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: 66401 / Line count: 1668 *OW* [[02048IF]] Into E-mber Forge of Wander [:[FOW009]:] FORGE OF WANDER E-mber 009, June 22, 1995 Okay already. I know. This whole E-mber concept is pretty much dead, what with my new WWW site about to go online and all. But I don't know. It still might make some sense--for all the people out there who have E-mail but no WWW access. Still... I don't know if it's worth all the effort to accommodate that segment of the online community... I mean, making my stuff available via FTP would be much simpler. But I will continue to follow this format till the end of Book Four. Why not. INFORMATION: Forge of Wander E-mber 009, June 22, 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* [[03048HR]] Hemisinister Review ***LAS VEGAS*** MGM GRAND The biggest hotel in the world, with 5,005 rooms. After Luxor, definitely the most impressive building in Las Vegas. A towering, green-striped, glowing wonder. Out front is a gigantic stylized MGM lion, and right inside from there is probably the coolest casino in Las Vegas--Oz. Oz is a huge open space, at the center of which is a maybe 40 or 50 foot tall reproduction of the Emerald City, surrounded by all manner of Wizard of Oz theming and animatronics. Above everything is a domed ceiling, upon which lasers and other devices project a constantly changing environment. From a calm night sky full of stars to a daytime thunderstorm (complete with casino-shaking thunder), and a whole lot in-between. The casino continues on through four different themed areas--Oz, Hollywood, and whatever the other ones are. As you wander further, there's a mall-like area complete with food court and other restaurants. Then you get to the entrance to MGM Grand Adventures, a full-fledged little amusement park (which I never got to). On our second day there, me and Kerri woke up at 4 AM and strolled over to the MGM Grand. It was awesome at night. All sorts of insanity going on. We saw a baby in a baby carriage, but no mother in sight. We told security, but they were already busy with a guy in the ladies room refusing to leave. Then we went to the 24-hour cafe and passed a young woman crying uncontrollably, and her friend trying to console her. They were both totally wasted. At the table next to us were a bunch of teens bragging about crimes they've committed and ordering many mixed drinks. Pretty cool. Yeah, so anyway, the MGM is at a pretty cool intersection. Also at the intersection are the Tropicana and Excalibur. At the fourth corner, they're building "New York, New York", a casino hotel based on--yeah, you got it--New York City. Each of the four crossings as this intersection has a bridge, with escalators and an elevator on each side. This makes for 8 elevators and 16 escalators! Wow. EXCALIBUR The only real disappointment in Las Vegas. It looks great from the outside--a massive, stylized medieval castle, but inside... The place is tacky and cheesy. The theming is weak--it looks like they got the various banners, shields, swords, and the like from some discount store. The casino is poorly laid out, and the kiddie midway area is pretty lame. We went to a restaurant called "Lancelotta Pasta" and the service was horrendous. A real budget, low-end place. It's funny, cuz both Excalibur and Luxor are owned by Circus Circus. In fact, there's a monorail track between the two, but it's not yet operational. Luxor is so cool, it's hard to believe it was created by the same folks that cranked out Excalibur. Oh well. CIRCUS CIRCUS I kept thinking of how this casino was in one of the James Bond films. It was, wasn't it? The place is huge, and the casino has an ancient, kind of stifling feel. One slot area is on a revolving floor, with carousel theming. Above the casino is a circus act area along with kiddie midway. Live circus acts and much videogameage. Cool, but too crowded and dense maybe. Me and Kerri left the casino, trying to find Grand Slam Canyon, which is connected to Circus Circus. But we found ourselves walking down this really long back alley. Finally we got to the entrance of Grand Slam Canyon, and there were all these like monorail things, but where they were coming from or going to, I don't know. GRAND SLAM CANYON The world's largest indoor amusement park. I don't know of many others--Camp Snoopy at Mall of America comes to mind. Anyway, it's a huge pink dome, with canyon theming inside. I liked the atmosphere a lot. Like any other indoor amusement park, there's one rollercoaster that roared all around the place, so that no matter where you are, you'll get a good look a the people rushing by. I didn't do it myself though--I'm going through an anti-thrill-ride phase. Altogether, a pretty neat place with a cool atmosphere, though. A gigantic waterfall running down a themed cliff is one of the high points. A lotta that kinda fake rock formation stuff going on in Las Vegas. But it's always really cool to see, so why not? Maybe is the future, all buildings will be covered in the stuff. HARD ROCK HOTEL We actually had to take a taxi to this one--it was off the strip and too far to walk. The massive sign here is a gigantic guitar projecting diagonally out from the main entrance, a pretty killer sign. The main area inside is like a big circle. Around the edge is the various cashier booths, check-in, an entrance to a theater, and corridors leading to sundry shops, arcades, rest rooms, and the like. Also on this outer area are a sports bar and a rock'n'roll church bar--behind the bar is like a big church with all these video screens with fast-edits of rock concerts and stuff. There's rock memorabilia EVERYWHERE. From outfits to guitars to motorcycles and everything in-between! The next concentric area in is the casino, nicely rock themed. There are Sex Pistols and a Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze slot machines. Plus the blackjack and other game tables are rock themed, eh? And at the center of it all is another bar. I really like this place. A great atmosphere and a lotta cool stuff. Seal was playing there when we were there, and there was a neat concert-expectation charge in the air. I might want to stay at the Hard Rock next time I go to Vegas. Oh, also, they play great rock music all the time! MORE LAS VEGAS REVIEWS NEXT TIME! *OW* [[04048TS]] Trick Sojourn ***HALZAPULAR FUZZ*** Very briefly referred to in OsoaWeek013 (05013NH), Halzapular Fuzz is an awesome interactive CD-ROM game currently in development here at Obliviana (given a relatively loose interpretation of the word "development"). Here's the lowdown... Many of us GenXites remember with great fondness the dawn of the Atari 2600. How I pined after the system, and once my brother got it, how I lusted after the latest cartridges. It was a truly magical time. Videogame technology has come a long way since then, but have videogames? The intellectual debate over why those early games were so damn good still rages on. But I think I can solve at least part of the riddle for you. There's a great book called "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud. In it, and I'm paraphrasing, he posits that the popularity of simple cartoon characters stems from the fact that readers "project" themselves into the characters, ie, imagine BEING the characters. The simpler the character, the more people it might be able to represent, and the easier it is to "fit" into. I think the same dynamic occurs in videogames. The simpler characters of yesteryear are far easier to "inhabit". And in a broader sense, with a simple, blocky graphics, a player need to use his imagination to form a full mental picture of what's going on. As well, the simple graphics render images which are more SYMBOLS than representational images. And symbols have a powerful effect on the mind. All this, plus a lack of preconceptions on the part of the developers, is part of what made the Atari 2600 and its ilk so magical. Most participants in the classic game debate focus on game play mechanics as the core value, but I disagree. I think the primitive graphics are as much responsible for the magic of these games as the strong game play. The idea for Halzapular Fuzz started out as "The 2600 Experience". Imagine... a CD-ROM containing EVERY game ever released for the 2600, along with all instruction books, boxes, and cartridge graphics. But beyond this, I envisioned a simulator in which you start out as a kid on the day the 2600 is released. You explore your 3-D neighborhood, make friends, do odd jobs, and above all, try to get the latest cartridges! You'd read magazines and get a first look at the new cartridges coming soon. You'd make friends with the kids who had more games than you. In short, it would BE the 2600 experience! Unfortunately, this idea has a few flaws. Chief among them is the massive tasks of creating a universal 2600 emulator, locating all the games and getting the rights to use them, and stuff like that. In short, totally unrealistic for a company like Obliviana--a company that in reality, is barely a company at all right now. Enter "Halzapular Fuzz"--a fictional classic videogame system! Halzapular is the company, and the "Fuzz" is the name of their premier videogame system! HF, in its core concept, will be similar to my "2600 Experience" idea, but with a few differences. One big advantage is that you won't have foreknowledge of the games that'll be coming out. Now, while HF is certainly INSPIRED by the likes of the Atari 2600, Mattel Intellivision, Magnavox Odyssey, Colecovision, and the like, it's my intention to create a set of unique, original games. Sure, there'll be some of the familiar classic game mechanics--dot pick-up, alien shooting, wall breaking, stuff like that. But I want to RENAISSANCE the art of the classic videogame, not rehash it. The first stage of Halzapular Fuzz will be the design phase, where you'll get to see all sorts of cool stuff, like the HF logo, packaging art from the systems and first games, screenshots, and the like. Actual playable games will take a little longer to develop, however. Stay tuned! ***DIARY OF A DREAMFRANK*** July 16, 1995 Today I was in Las Vegas with my girlfriend, and we went to the Disneyland they built there. We were supposed to go home, but we kept extending our vacation. At the park, we anted to go on this canyon-themed roller coaster thing, but I don't know. The whole place was pretty abandoned. Then I drove to Queens with a friend. We passed a traffic light with like a police light flashing right next to it. My friend told me it was a really bad area and there was always all sorts of crime and stuff going on. We had to be careful not to get shot or something. Then there were all these black kids on bicycles on the road, and we had to swerve and weave around them. Finally we got out of the bad area. Then we passed Mary Tyler Moore's office, and I suggested we drop in to say hi. We pulled into the gravel driveway, and down into the garage on the lower level (it was on a hill). We went in, and I saw Mary going up the stairs, and she acknowledged me. I had to go to the bathroom first, though. Soon there was a shift, and Mary's office was partially my parent's house. The back yard was totally different--there were all these roads running through it, and the woods were all weird. I went into the woods and there was this allosaurus--you know--like a velociraptor from Jurassic Park, but a little bigger. I started attacking me a little, but I defended myself by jamming a big stick into it's jaws, hoping to hurt its soft mouth tissues. But it was sluggish, and I was okay. "They eat on Monday and rest on Tuesday." a friend said. "If it were yesterday, we'd have been lunch. Today, we're okay." Then we went over to where this professor had all these humanoid creatures in plastic bags. Apparently, he said, when the change came, these little creatures came into existence. I looked at one--like a cylinder, an inch or two thick, Caucasian. Its facial features we simple--as if quickly carved in clay. Two dot eyes, maybe two more little dots for the nose and a straight line of a mouth. The professor told us that the creature moved too slow to use the stiff mouth. He said the creatures were so slow that they needed far less energy to live than us humans. He has other samples of these weird little creatures in the woods. One of them--all wrapped up--was long and thin like a worm--and it was wriggling something fierce. So the professor carefully cut open the bag, so as not to harm the creature, but there was another bag underneath. He opened that one, but there was yet ANOTHER bag under there. He opened this one, and then all hell broke loose--thing sprang up, and energy and sparkles started happening around it, as the air around us got darker. It soon whipped around and formed into a humanoid shape. The professor had a computer screen set up to translate its language, and we saw what it said--that the professor was considered a timeless menace by these slow beings--trapping and bagging so many of them over their eons. He and his friends would have to be destroyed, it said. I thought, hey jerk, when humans and non-humans fight, guess who wins? I knew we could just firebomb the woods. But we all ran back to the house to hide from the little humanoids. The professor went downstairs, then came back up, pale, saying that none of the cars would start. I went out front and saw an ice cream truck parked in the front lawn. I got a little mad at the people who's moved into my parents' house--how white trash they were. I thought about how one white trash family can ruin a neighborhood. Anyway, I went back in, and asked the a visiting couple if it was their ice cream truck, and if it could fit all of us if we had to get out of there in a hurry. They weakly agreed. But later, everyone came in eating all these popsicles and stuff, and they acted like there was no problem. But then someone was showing the professor of this weird, blocky little humanoid dancing. It was bad, black-and-white footage, and it looked like a strobe light was on or something. "I'm just telling you--" the person said. "--this is a video of something I saw in the woods." The professor thought about it. I visited the bathroom again, but soon after that, I went awake to piss for real. ***SONGS OF THE WEEK*** "Astral Weeks" by Van Morrison (from the album "Astral Weeks") "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" by The Yardbirds (I got it on the album "Greatest Hits, Volume One: 1964-1966", released by Rhino Records) [:[END]:] *OW* [[05048LA]] Lord of Obliviana Wednesday, July 12, 1995, 8:13 AM--OsoaWeek047 is done, 27 days late. A record. Now I'm here, in this issue. I've given up on catching up by issue 52. With the loose Book Five, I'll catch up pretty much no matter what. But it's a dangerous game. (see last issue) So I'm really into this World Wide Web thing now. I'm getting the hang of HTML, and soon, I hope to have an Obliviana Web site going, at least on my own hard drive. I have to see how things go, but I hope to be on the WWW as soon as next week but no longer than a month or two. Doing this ezine has made me appreciate the WWW so much. People have to go through so much crap to locate, download, decompress, and view OsoaWeek--and every obstacle shaves down the total number of potential readers. The WWW is a breeze. Type in the URL, and you're there, experiencing it right away! The World Wide Web is still predominately text-based--and I have almost 3MB of awesome text in OsoaWeek so far! It makes sense, doesn't it? 7/12/95 7:29 pm Man, I just had a pretty good reality blam. Haven't had one of those in awhile. I wonder whether or not it's a good sign. What happened is I got on the wrong train home. No big deal, you say? Well this is an Amtrak, and my little mistake cost me $34 and is landing me in Trenton. Then I gotta get a ticket BACK to Princeton Junction. I argued with the conductor a little, but his "Everyone else has to pay." line was kind of unarguable, being that everyone else, who had paid, were all around me. I didn't have the cash, so he took Amex. Messed up. But definitely reminiscent, at least in its realistic feel, to the mother of all reality blams, when someone cut me off and I gave them the finger and my car hit the curb and both left tires went flat. Then I replaced one tire, and went to a junkyard across the street and bought another tire. It didn't fit exactly, so I had to warp the holes in it with a part of a jack or something. I got the tire on, and headed for a repair shop, but as I came down a hill to a red light, I hit the brakes and they didn't do a thing. But I calmly turned left, into the oncoming traffic, of which luckily there was none. Then I turned left again, into the repair shop parking lot. Then left again, into a parking space. And right when I eased into the space, the car stopped. Come to think of it, this isn't anywhere near as bad. In Trenton now. It funny that it happened mere minutes after I converted an issue of OsoaWeek (018) into HTML for the first time ever. In fact, I was reading it in Mosaic locally on my PowerBook when the compassionless conductor started treating me like a criminal. Who knows. I'd like to think of it as a sign; a sign that OsoaWeek on the WWW will be a big success. And let me tell you--it was hard for me to tear myself away from it, and I WROTE IT! Yeah! It's really weird when I read something I wrote a while ago and don't even remember writing it. Y'know? Yeah, it's funny. So I won't let it bug me, this $34 business. Heck, all tolled, I pay $17 dollars a day for transit (parking, monthly pass, subway). Today I spent extra on the parking (private lot, public was full, I was late), and I bought a ticket from here home, so let's see--today's transit bill was... $58! Christ, I coulda flown somewhere for that much! Okay. So like I mentioned, I used a freeware TEXT to HTML converter on an issue of OsoaWeek, and boy does it look good! Of course, I'm not gonna plop OsoaWeek as is on the Web--I'm gonna segmentalize it--as in, each numbered feature in each issue will be a separate HTML file. It's gonna be a lot--easily over 500 for the first four Books. Hmm... should I pare that down? Dunno. I could have... YEAH! I could have links at the end of each section to go to the next instance of that FEATURE, or on to the next feature in that ISSUE, as if you were reading just an issue of OsoaWeek. And also... links to go BACKWARD at the TOP of each page. This process BEGS for automation. And I've tagged each feature section with a parser-friendly code. I could write a program to automatically to it all for me! Only question is, would it take longer to write the program, or just do it manually? Dunno. 7/13/95 6:58 AM train Yeah, I have a note here to tell you another bad thing that happened yesterday--I ordered three bean burritos, NO CHEESE, and the f*ckers put cheese on 'em! Of course I didn't discover this till I was back at the office. I ate two anyway--I have this thing where I want to start getting back into cheese. But after that second one, boy, I felt really weird. Not exactly sick, just like, my body was telling me "you really shouldn't have done that." But such is life to a junk food vegetarian. Yeah, I gotta tellya--I'm very satisfied being a vegetarian, but I wouldn't force it on anyone else. My girlfriend's not vegetarian (I was gonna say "My girlfriend eats meat." but I know all you sickos out there would connect the phrase in some way with fellatio.), and I never try to convert her. And if we have kids, I won't make them vegetarian. It'd be a dead-on thing to be made fun of for. I ate my last bird and mammal in the Spring of 1987, I believe. I continued eating fish for about two more years until dropping it in 1989. Since then, no meat at all. Then there's dairy. I remember eating some pizza in 1993, I think, and being really grossed-out by it. Since then, I've stopped eating most dairy, but not all. Like, I'll eat it as an ingredient (ie, eggs in Tastykakes), but not on its own. I have nightmares occasionally about eating meat. It's terrible. It's like I broke some sort of sacred vow or something when I'm eating it in dreams. When I wake up, I'm really relieved. I became a vegetarian, I hate to admit, mostly because of my liberal views at the time. I felt that meat should be outlawed, all that. God I'm glad I became a conservative. What a little punk I was back then. But with the vegetarianism, what I found out along the way was that my basic reason was not animal rights or something stupid like that--but rather--the basic revulsion of eating a corpse. When you really think about what meat is... yuck! But I must admit, I am an animal lover, and at some level, I can't see eating an animal that you could become friends with. I mean, to normal people, the thought of eating your dog or cat is horrific and repulsive. Pigs, especially, seem to be on par with dogs in the intelligence thing--so how can people stand to eat them? I wanna make one thing clear--animals "rights" and being an animal lover are two entirely different things. I love animals and would never want to see them mistreated. On the other hand, in order to preserve human right, we cannot abide the poisonous notion of animal rights. Should animals share the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness us humans do? No way. I mean, what--would we have to protect mice from owls, smaller fish from bigger fish, mosquitoes from bats? We humans are ABOVE nature. We are BEYOND the food chain. We don't go to work every day in fear of being eaten by a predator. We are a quantum leap above animals. We are NOT animals. What makes me ME is not my body, but my mind and spirit. And while the human body is structurally similar to the animals, the human mind and spirit are way beyond. Human rights are monumentally important--and they're not something people "have" in an instinctual way. Rather, they are passed on, from generation to generation, from great men to lesser men. We need only look at the breakdown of society in our cities to see that human right can indeed die. We have people in America now who care not one whit for human life, and who can take it as easily as tying their shoes. The point is, by granting animals "rights", we equate humans with animals--and also, the situation of animals with the situation of humans. And this would be a disaster. Mistreatment of animals IS illegal--just like it should be. But fur and meat and leather and putting animals to sleep and hunting and all that--these are all acceptable to me. But I'm afraid there are a lot of little goons who are so bitter toward their own plight that they'd do anything to hurt other people. And animal rights, if adopted to any degree, WILL hurt people. 7/14/95 morning train Supposed to be over 100 degrees today. I heard a news report on the radio this morning that cows and chickens across the midwest are exploding from the heat. Luckily, there's an air conditioner at work, so I don't really have to worry about the heatwave. Still pretty cool out. So I've plunged headlong into the WWW project, and I hope to have the Obliviana site up and running a two weeks from today. That day is, of course, the 209th day of the year--Obliviana Day 1995. It's funny how that wrong-train fiasco a few days ago kinda pushed me onto the WWW fast track... 14th are my lucky days. Hopefully today I'll develop fully the navigation interface for the Obliviana WWW. It should be really cool--surfing through OsoaWeek the way it was meant to be experienced. Why do I feel so uncomfortable using the word "surfing"? I guess cuzza the overuse of the whole "surfing the net" thing. So my next crisis is these damn wisdom teeth. One is rotting away, and since it's best to do them all at once, well... Evening 9:38 pm Made the train thank god. I was hanging out with my friend Michael Knobbe (of Fonosta fame--see OsoaWeek003 (09003FW)). We were supposed to go to some Italian movie or something, but this woman like died this morning and this guy at work wanted us to retouch a picture of her for the funeral. So we just wandered around, going to stores and stuff, in this oh-so-muggy heatwave night. I'm drenched with sweat at this point in time. Did some more WWW development at work--trying to develop the interface "button" area. I started off with a 3x3 grid to represent the four directions and some other stuff. But it takes up too much vertical space. I also looked into image maps--but they seem to be problematic, in that there is no set standard, and they require redundant sets of links for text-based browsers. So I think I've settled on the idea of a row of 32x32 pixel buttons. Right now, the buttons I'm thinking of are UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, HOME, WILD, HELP, FEATURE INDEX, and ISSUE INDEX. UP and DOWN take you through OsoaWeek sequentially. LEFT and RIGHT take you to the prior and next instance of the same feature. HOME takes you to the Obliviana home page, WILD is a "random" link to other OsoaWeek pages, other areas in Obliviana, other Web sites, and also secret stuff. HELP will invoke a help screen (kinda wimpy?). FEATURE INDEX will take you to the page just to the left of the first instance of the feature you're in--a page which has general information about the feature, and links to all its pages. ISSUE INDEX is similar--it's just above the first feature of the issue you're in, and also has general info and links to all the features in the issue. I just wonder if too many buttons can cause info-overload and make people tune out. I dunno. I think all these buttons are called for. Only thing is, 9 is an unlucky number. 8 is far preferable. I dislike HELP at a gut level--there can be a HELP at the home page. But still--the directional buttons need some explanation, and I can't afford to lose people who are just passing through... Well, if you're reading this right now ON the World Wide Web, I guess you can just look up there and see how many buttons there are. Maybe I can just dump the two INDEX buttons? I mean, several hierarchical levels of indexes will be available from the home page. I dunno. Anyway, the four directional buttons are gonna be the hardest to script--I gotta do each page individually! And we're talking like way over 500 pages for Year One (once I get this and 4 more issues done!). But I think, since I only have two weeks, I'll get started with Book One only, hopefully adding Books Two, Three, and Four during the "loose" Book Five. 7/16/95 Sunday Before Noon Been making progress on my WWW site. For the past few days, I've been semi-obsessed with getting all six volumes of the "Living in Oblivion" best of the '80s CD's. This has nothing to do with the fact that there's a movie of the same name out now, or about how my company is call Obliviana. It's just... maybe it's more pining for my life in the '80s. One thing is, at work last week, I started listening to Guns'n'Roses' 1987 "Appetite for Destruction" over and over again--it's an awesome album with a real dead-on heart-of-the-'80s feel. Yeah. And also, Howard Stern was on vacation, and they were playing a lot of classic episodes from the '80s, like the whole feud with Bon Jovi and Sam Kinnison, when they didn't show up for a news conference or something. Yeah. It seemed like the '80s were leading somewhere--and it wasn't he '90s. It comes to mind that while you're in a decade you hate it, then when you're a few years out of it, you wish you were back there. But I don't know. Technology, lack of war, recovery from the sexual revolution, Reagan. all that--it all created an optimism--even the nihilism of the '80s seems strangely optimistic. I kinda hope 2000 starts off where 1989 ended. It's funny--all my coolness in the '80s--my magazine, radio show, controversy, MTV internship, movie making, all of it--ended right as the 80's ended--around November of 1989. That's a few months shy of six years ago. And it'll be 2000 in four years, five months, and maybe 15 days. 1990, 1991, and 1992 were especially bad for me. No girlfriends at all, you know, during all the days of all three of those years. And through those years and 1993 and half of 1994, my creative searching and yearning was yielding little fruit. Then about a year ago, I started OsoaWeek, and my deep freeze began to thaw. Now, if I can get my WWW site up by Obliviana Day 1995 (209th day of the year, July 28) I think I'll finally break free of the turned-to-stone I was in. All along, I've sought success. You know, coolness, recognition, people listening to what you have to say, money. It hasn't happened yet. But now--at the dawn of the digital superworld--I think I'm finally in the right place at the right time. You're reading these words, otherwise they'd just be featureless ones and zeros. I wonder how you're reading them. On the World Wide Web? Printed on paper (yuck)? In a word processor? On that-which-comes-after WWW? I don't know. I just have this feeling that these words--and all my others--will be digitally preserved for a long, long time. I think a lot about time travel, and I wonder. Maybe you're hundreds of years in the future from me, but with time travel, I could be there in an instant. Wouldn't it be cool, to create a system where, maybe something like I'd visit like every billionth reader or something, through time? Yeah. And who knows, it could be YOU! So I got the task of linking all of OsoaWeek Book One together today. Kerri was thinking of going to Atlantic City (it'd make a good New Jersey review) but I don't know--I gotta get the Obliviana WWW up and running by the 28th, 12 days from now! And all but today and next weekend are all workdays! So have I abandoned OsoaWeek? No. But it's definitely changing. With the WWW, things are different. Or are they? I mean, I AM structuring the WWW site totally based on OsoaWeek. It's a good way of codifying the atoms, the Xappens, of my work. So maybe I should stop putting it off and get to the linking. Yes! And I'll be drinking Postum with Carnation Cinnamon creamer! 7/19/95 morning train Tonight I gotta go to the doctor and tomorrow morning I gotta go to the oral surgeon! The good part is that I get a day off from work. Maybe I'll be able to do a marathon linking session for my WWW site. I better--linking is a time-consuming bitch. Talk about a Freudian slip--up there in the last paragraph, where I wanted to write "time-consuming bitch" I wrote "come-consuming bitch". Wow. Yeah, so with my WWW site, I am at the linking stage. It's not that bad, just tedious. I think if I could devote 3 or 4 hours straight to it, I could get most of the job done. 7/21/95 Yesterday was pretty cool. Got my tooth out, the upper left wisdom tooth (tooth #1 for all you dental experts out there). The anticipation was the worst. Even the Novocain injections--no problem--needles don't really bother me. The doc got the tooth out in under a minute of work. The grossest part was him pushing on it and jarring it loose. I didn't feel any pain, but the pressure and vibrations--I could feel the mouth tissue break and tear. Yeah, pretty gross. They showed me the tooth, and the roots were all wild. Afterward, I thought maybe I should have kept the tooth. But then I asked myself, like, what am I gonna do with a tooth? I already have enough junk. Christ, years ago I saved my beard when I cut it off! Still got that somewhere, in a box, collecting dust. The worst part was I had to bite down on this gauze to stop the bleeding. I frickin' had to do it for like five hours! And I kept gagging on it. Bad news. Instead of going home, like I should have, I first went to visit my grandmother, then I wandered around looking for a Jiffy Lube. See, the idea was that as soon as the anesthesia wore off, I'd be in excruciating pain, and it's not a good idea to take codeine and then drive. Lucky it never got that painful. Guess I can save the codeine for a rainy day. So at Jiffy Lube I decided to just let them do all the procedures their computer recommended. So, rather than the $30 13-point service, I got a $200 mega-service, taking care of all the things I've been putting off. I got 23,000 miles or so, and there was all this stuff I was supposed to do at 15,000 and all that. I figured it was worth spending $200 to stave off a potential Jeep cash hemorrhage in the future. Also filled up with super, and so my Jeep was fully renewed. Now I just gotta clean out the garbage in there... So I went home and did the Murine Ear Wax Removal system. Cuz I went to the doctor awhile ago and he said I had to clean out my ears. I think his exact words were "You could grow vegetables in there." More grossness. Also last night I flipped past baseball and stayed there. I was watching baseball and actually enjoying it! Whoah--could it be that tooth #1 was inhibiting my baseball-enjoyment capacity? Huh. Hope it doesn't continue--I'd hate to like baseball. Cool thunderstormy morning now. Didn't get too much done on the WWW site yesterday. I decided not to do WWW on my PowerBook, at least for today, cuz the intense word processing required goes a helluva lot faster on the Quadra 605. I have tonight, Saturday, and Sunday--then the WWW site version 1.0 will be complete. The reason is, wherever I'm at, THAT'S IT. I gotta get it on the Internet by next Friday. I've been reading the book "Microserfs" by Douglas Coupland. It's pretty good. I only read books when I'm on the toilet. Otherwise, I always seem to have something more important to do. Crap. A guy with major BO just sat one seat up from me. I hate BO. I mean, you gotta not shower for like alotta days to come up with that smell. You just gotta. I go a day without a shower and I feel horrendous. My girlfriend is puzzled at how I can be so diligent at personal hygiene, and yet be a total slob and mess with everything else. I try to explain to her how they're two entirely different things, but who knows. It's just the way I am. I have this theory on how when you do creative writing, you draw order out of your personal sphere of activity and spend it on your writing. What's left over is an overabundance of chaos. I know I've discussed this issue before in OsoaWeek, but the idea is making more and more sense to me. I mean, there are times when I JUST CAN'T WRITE. It's like, I just don't have it in me. I think when you use up all your order, it takes time to regenerate. It's just like a shower. In a shower, you have a mix of hot and cold water comin' down on ya. If someone flushed the toilet, the water gets searing hot--but it's not because of there being more hot water, just less cold water to offset it. But let me tell you--there is definitely a physical aspect of writing. I mean, it can make you feel great, or it can make you feel totally destroyed. It's such an emotional and powerful thing. It's like--like the one thing that most separates us from animals. No animal writes. Not whales, not gorillas, not dolphins--just us. It's interesting. Right now with technology, people are at some level prompted to write more. Think about E-mail, chat rooms, Usenet, all that. Is it just the level of technology promoting this, or is there an intrinsic advantage in writing over audio and video? I think there is. Writing is a much different form of communication from talking, with its own unique advantages. It's kind of scary to hear the frequent news reports and stories about how there's this big group of computer-deprived people in America. And how the government should make it their responsibility to get these people wired. Yeah--but think about it--there's a much higher rate of illiteracy in the underclasses. So, in a few years when computers and networks can handle video and audio as easily as they now do text, will it be considered politically incorrect or even--here comes the R word--racist to write? I mean, how dare you write and exclude all the illiterate people, when you could just as easily communicate by voice? Yeah, I know this sounds stupid, but just wait. Just like how the threat of children seeing something on TV makes TV more childish, so too will the chance of someone illiterate receiving a message make the digital superworld less literate. Unless people stand up to the bullies and tell them that illiterate people need to learn to read--no way are we gonna accommodate them. I wonder. I wonder how far this political correctness is gonna go. Ayn Rand had it all figured out. I know there's some weird stigma associated with Rand, but you gotta admit, Atlas Shrugged is too close for comfort (at least the tiny portion of it I've managed to read so far). When talent and power get separate, untalented people get power and use it against the talented people they so envy. Of course, to ascribe to this Ayn Rand stuff, you kinda gotta believe you're in with the ultratalented, like me. So the videogame market is in a terrible slump. See, up till last year, the Super Nintendo and Genesis were the big things. But the massive hype campaign about the "next generation" video game systems has created such a fervor that fans and companies alike have prematurely abandoned the 16-bit platforms. So what do we have now? The "64-bit" Jaguar, which went its first year promising numerous games that never appeared, and subsequently releasing many, many disappointing titles. Sega Saturn is here--for a prohibitive $400, and only six so-so titles. PlayStation is supposed to come out in a few months--September--at $300. And the Nintendo Ultra-64, originally set to be released around September also, is delayed till April '96. I know for myself, that I'm playing a lot more games on the computer than on videogame systems. No way am I gonna get a Saturn with the sh*t they have out now. Jaguar is interesting, but I don't know. It's selection of cartridges is just so DEPRESSING. I guess I might get a PlayStation. It kinda seems that Sony has a winner here. But at $300 or more, no way are there gonna be as may out there as the $99 16-bit systems. But I have a feeling that PlayStation just might establish a video game standard that'll last for a number of years. Then of course, there's "convergence", predicted to happened in a decade or two. This is, of course, when one piece of machinery will do everything for you--TV, stereo, videogame, computer, telephone, online, etc. I think it's gotta happen. See, right now in my apartment, I have a TV screen, a desktop screen, a PowerBook screen, TV speakers, computer speakers, phone speakers, stereo speakers, remote controls of all sorts, keyboards, phone keypads, etc. etc. Doesn't it make sense to combine all these things, so that all input and output devices are going through a central server in your home? Tis home server could send and audio or video signal to any monitor or speaker in your home. It makes total sense. Plus, it can be programmed to filter the information coming in and going out of your home--it'll be important for privacy to have the server in your physical possession, under your control. 7/23/95 Did I tell you that, uh, not last weekend, but the week but the week before, me and Kerri and Peter Litkey drove up to Foul Rift, then spent an idyllic afternoon at Allamuchy State Park, me and Pete smoking good Partagas cigars? I don't think I mentioned it. Well, it was one of those unexpected turn of events where everything is just so perfect... So, uh... I guess this issue just blasted past a month late. Who cares. I've been working feverishly on my WWW site. I think I'm at +31. Well, not OVER a month then. At least, not over a long month... Ah, who am I kidding? OsoaWeek in this form is just about over. With the WWW site and everything, OsoaWeek will have to change. It will continue on however. I mean, why not? It's just... I dunno... I guess as a dump of the week's news and content... but not the same a Year One... It's 1:19 PM, and before I go to sleep tonight, I'll have the WWW site on two floppies in a disk mailer--heck--I may even drive it over to the mail box! Yup. There ya go. That'll be it--the next phase of Obliviana's development will be underway. The WWW site will basically be just OsoaWeek001 to start with. It's pretty awesome how I did it--where you can browse all of Book One by going up, down, left, and right. Far beyond a word processor. I want to mention the new Xappen system I conceived of while in Las Vegas. Maybe I touched on it before, but I don't feel like looking for it. Anyway, Xappens are like little tokens, and there are all different types. They represent just about everything in Obliviana. Some are Digital Artifacts, of which there are only a limited number available. The Xappen system will be developed further in, where else, the future. Alright, gotta go and finish everything up. Get all Obliviana. *OW* [[06048SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 273 The means lots of money. Comma J, some kind of code word. Ture the t'fellid allow. I was riverid and shakraclint the messenger. True never thought texture in aqua the dream. A city is nothing. Jang 4 back--the opsleyport winners need friendness. Curse the real word, metal ice is anti. And we talk of being severe with it. They ask for money. They ask for money. SUPERIOR 274 Sex is like a wild animal, useless if used too little or too much. Torture involves adaptation, but both will find you in Hell. Those musty cellary places, numb and comfy, you are any bright soul and miserable. Home among the museum, like a dream, except you keep getting bills. I want the lady in the coral dress, it would be nice. All readers. SUPERIOR 275 Something you can chip away at for years on end--doing it is pleasant, as is the slow but steady progress. We humans are weird and wonderful. If we only had something to compare ourselves to, then we could see. But our sentimentalities and sensibilities--sleeky quirky little cats they are. And we--with vast hazy childhoods and the job, dealing with porno and songbirds. Problem solving once vital to survival can now be applied to your CD collection. I'm not saying that I'm stupefied by it all, but I am. But I don't know if celebrating all this is all that appropriate. SUPERIOR 276 Ronija said. SUPERIOR 277 Writer. It is a peculiar testament to the glory of night or puzzle of night. He died stupid. Tominal misticuffs and telanscriptional peanut water. You and Holly, as decadent as the clouds. X weaned on carnival rides, delicious thoughter. My eenday is crossed. Dial Kogue. Like when a Las Vegas blister bursts in Soho, NY. Cell fink. SUPERIOR 278 Pifad. Pifad. Pifad. You got an underground restaurant and entertainment facility. You got windows with daylight-like light, and sprayers to make it seem like it's raining all the time. Talking about atmosphere. It's mine. SUPERIOR 279 What is coolness? I can give you massitude. Wasn't I once an intern at MTV? Jesus Christ. The bowling alleys of my life. SUPERIOR 280 Blast 'em. Hijinks on graduation day. They have the new video game. Exhausted, we hiked up the quarry to radio towers and magic. The buzz you generate is the most sincere thing in your life. A vase of flowers, not too shabby, I wanted to get laid. Maybe I should get some too. *OW* [[07048IS]] Into E-mber Severe Repair [:[SVR009]:] SEVERE REPAIR E-MBER 009 by Frank Edward Nora Let's get goin' with this week's chapter, "Humorless & Wasted, but Still Beautiful". It a real beaut! INFORMATION: Severe Repair E-mber 009, June 22, 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* [[08048SR]] Severe Repair SEVERE REPAIR 48: "Humorless & Wasted, but Still Beautiful" This is Walt. I don't know where I am. Last thing I remember, I was chained to a smokestack. But my bonds came loose, and I started to fall. Huh. I remember feeling like as if it were an amusement park ride--just close your eyes and hold on tight and it'll be over in a minute. But the last thing I remember was thinking, "It IS over--my life." And I though about how it sucked that I'd never get to meet my Mildred. Then... what? I had the sense that a lot of time had passed, but I was still kind of incoherent. But I was--I don't know. It was dark and quiet, but I could feel myself breathing. Well, kind of. It was like... oh sh*t... like I was paralyzed or something. I mean, I felt like I was in my body, but... I mean, I was awake, but I couldn't do anything--like I had no leverage between me and my body. I couldn't even open my eyes. But I felt the breathing... so I was alive... good. Or was it? I started to panic, but it felt weird. No adrenaline rush, no chills, no coldflash. But it was still panic. Would I spend my life paralyzed? Or worse--paralyzed, deaf, and blind? Maybe--maybe there were people around me right now? But with no connection to the outside, I'm totally cut off from them. God. I felt so bad, thinking about my parents and my brother and sister. What they must be going through. They could be inches away, but how would I know? I never heard of a case like this. I mean, I've heard of people being braindead, but they gotta be able to detect these thoughts! Unless... god... what if thought are a function of the soul and not the brain? They could be reading me braindead, but I'm not! Crap. I wonder if my parents will decide to pull the plug. I wouldn't put it past them. Jeez! I tried hard to move, to yell, to blink my eyes, to moan, to THINK hard enough to register on their machines. Then I just quit. If this is it, this is it. I thought about summer day camp, for some reason. Pretty cool place. They gave you beads for doing all these different activities. Man, the counselors seemed so old then. What could they have been--17, 18? I don't know. But it was cool in the woods. Cool in the woods... I decided to stop worrying and just think about pleasant things in my past. If I was to face death, then so be it. I'm not the first, and I won't be the last. So I relaxed (kind of strange, relaxing without any physical feedback) and drifted. Thinking about this one girl at camp... I had no chance with her, I was such a dork, but just to look at her, it was heaven... And later that year, after school had started, they sent us a brochure for the camp, and there was this AWESOME photo of the girl there. You know, just like a sample of kids having fun. But those eyes--so deep, so piercing... I used to look at it and try to psychically contact the girl--even convinced myself that it was working. And I'd carry on these conversations in my head, between me and Erika Stalker. I always thought she had such a cool name... I knew that I was making it all up, so I wasn't totally insane. But it was a pretty deep mind game. Then I'd kind of put it on the line, and ask her if she was near a phone, and she said she was. Then I told her to call my number. She said she was doing it. And I'd look at the phone and get a momentary rush--what if this actually worked? I was in no shape to talk to a girl for REAL! But of course, the phone never rang. I asked her telepathically what happened, and she said she must have dialed the wrong number, cuz some mean old guy answered, and I theorized that it must be hard to communicate numbers via telepathy. Huh. Pleasant thoughts from the past--I don't know if that's so pleasant. Schizo childhood madness. "Are you there?" WHAT? A voice... a real voice, back here, back in the darkness... a beautiful, deep, rich, female voice... "Hello?" I thought as loud as I could. "Is that you, Walter Jay Mota?" "Yes. That's me." I thought, my mind racing wildly. Erika? Could my recollection of the event have actually...? I mean, maybe in this state, my psychic powers were strengthened... "Thank goodness you're alive. Things didn't look too good for a while there." "What?" "I'm sorry. You must be awfully confused. Let me get you up to speed on what's been happening. Firstly, I'm Mildred. You brought me forth two days ago." "Mildred!" I thought. "You... I... What happened?" "You had apparently fallen off the smokestack. I sensed you there, so I came. Your soul and body were bound together by a safety spell." "A what?" "A safety spell. You see, since I can perform advanced healing magicks, I can bring you back from many injuries which would otherwise be instantly fatal. The safety spell, which was cast on you as soon as you imprinted the cork, serves to freeze body and soul after the injury--keeping you alive, though in the barest way." "So... I'm alive?" "Well... technically you are. Unfortunately, your body, at the moment, is nowhere near a state of functioning. I can repair it, but it'll take time." "So I'm trapped here, in my ruined body? For how long--" But then, Mildred opened her eyes. And so did I. "Wait just a second..." I thought. I saw a sunlit room--it seemed to be morning--but the visual signal was kind of indistinct. "I had to put your soul somewhere." Mildred said. "So I put it inside me for the time being. Then she got up and sat on the side of the bed, giving me a rush of sensory data, all felt in very muffled and confused way. But yes... yes... I was INSIDE Mildred's body! I could feel it. Mildred continued. I'm sure you feel disoriented, but don't worry. Your soul just needs to get in synch with this body. Once it does, I'll even let you gain control and take it for a spin." "What?" "You'll be able to operate my body as if it was your own." "Whoah... whoah... now wait. This is sounding kind of permanent. I mean..." "No, not at all! Maybe just for a few months, depending on how far along you want to go back into your body." "MONTHS?" "Yes. You've no idea the extent of your injures. Right now, I'm just working on a spell to stimulate your body's most rudimentary of nervous systems, the automatic. It's a slow process." "But... but... what about my family? My friends? My schoolwork?" "That we must attend to. But understand--if not for me, you would be dead, and think of how your people would feel about that!" "I guess, but... Hey, where are we, anyway?" "I have rented a house." she said. "How'd you manage that?" "True, Walter, I rose out of the ocean waves naked and possessionless. But with a little bit of well-directed magick, it's amazing what you can do." "Huh. So, uh, where's my body?" "In the other room." "Can I see it?" "I don't think that's a good idea." "Why not?" "Because of the state it's in." "What do you mean?" "I mean, Walter, that in its current state, and YOUR current state, it may cause you great distress." "Uh... You know, I'm like DEAD and inside someone else's BODY. Of course I'm, like, distressed!" "You're not dead, dear. At least, not as far as reality is concerned." She got up and walked across the room. I started to assimilate the sensory data from her a little more clearly. I was "riding" her body. It was like I WAS her, only that I had no control. As she looked down at herself, then in a mirror, I got my first look at her. Wow. Even beyond the fantastic description in the scroll. Her look--beautiful, but in a comfortable, engaging sort of way. Well over six feet tall, glorious hair--blond and long. She was wearing a gray nightgown, but then she took it off. WOW. I fell in love with her right then. Man, I tell you. When you love a woman, you're all over her, y'know? You just want to experience ALL of her. But let me tell you--being INSIDE a woman you love--what a rush. "Please let me see my body." I said. "I will, but remember that I warned you." "I'll remember." She had started dressing, but stopped. She opened her bedroom door, walked a little ways down a hallway, and opened a door on the right. "Walter--it looks bad. Remember that. Your head and face... I just want to warn you... you landed very... badly." "Okay, okay. Let's just get this over with." She opened the door. God I wish I took her advice. She was right about the head. Jaw ripped off, head split in two. The rest of the body was in pretty bad shape, too. Dead. Lifeless. "No more." I said, feeling very uncomfortable at not being able to close my eyes and turn away under my own steam. She turned and went back into the hallway. "I told you." she said. "I know, but... but I just didn't know... you know... For god's sake--how are you going to bring that back to life?" Mildred sighed as she strode into er living room, still nude, and sat on a couch. "It's a very involved process. It involves magickal stimulation of various anatomical systems. Basically creating a supercharged healing process. The only problem is getting started. That's the hardest part." I felt extremely weird and disgusted. "Why even bother?" "Because otherwise, Walter, you'll die." "That body's not dead?" "It IS dead. But YOU are alive, and the body has the POTENTIAL to come back." "I can't imagine being in that... thing." "There's no other way." "What--I can't stay inside of you forever?" "No--the spell that's fending off true death cannot last forever. It is a buttress; it distracts reality from the deed of resolution. I am fairly confident that I can repair your body to the point where it will be alive again. We have to hope we'll have the time to fully heal the body before you have to get back in it." "This is just great." I said after a pause. "It is." Mildred said. "You're not dead." "I'm also not alive." "True." "So Mildred, uh, what was it that... that tied me up on that smokestack?" "You were tied? I didn't know. I guess it makes sense. I DID see a strange creature lurking around near the smokestack, but I didn't get a good look at it." "Huh..." Mildred got up, went back into her bedroom, and began dressing. I was really starting to get into being in her. "So Mildred," I said, "what's the deal with you, anyway?" "In what sense, Walter?" "I mean, you seem to be human, but I don't know--somehow different..." She laughed a little. "All I know of myself is from memory, which may or may not be accurate. In any case, whoever created me, gave me a set of memories to explain my origins. I can recount these for you, though as I said, they might not be true." "Shoot." "Very well. As I understand it, I am a magical construct--I was designed and created by an enormously powerful magician, who was named Shownamgappen. She was a pure hermaphrodite--half-man, half-woman--with full genitalia of both sexes. In the magickal bloodlines, such an occurrence is extremely rare, and such individuals possessed rare and deep powers. I use the pronoun 'she' for the sake of ease. "In any event, Shownamgappen experimented with impregnating herself, a wildly forbidden practice. But instead of conceiving, a massive creative force built up within her, and she was able to manipulate the magicks of construct with a mastery that left all other great magicians far, far behind. "She was commissioned by the President of the Confederacy of Comewhere to make companions for his meek, sickly grandsons. They were pathetic young men, without direction or courage. They shied away from women as they shied away from everything. "Shownamgappen interviewed each of the young men--over 50 in all, and spent years creating for each of them a beautiful mate to help them become men. "The President expected that the constructs would last a year or two, and then dissipate. That life expectancy was far beyond the constructs of most magicians, but Shownamgappen was no ordinary magician. "But after a few years, the constructed women were not dissipating, but rather, growing stronger, more full of personality, and more real. And the boys were irretrievably dependent on these wonderful creatures. Instead of turning them into men, the constructs served to freeze the boys in childhood." "But President Yeplojome took it all in stride. He was more interested in his own personal glory than the failed lives of his descendants. "Word of the marvelous constructed women spread far and wide throughout the Confederacy, and demand for Shownamgappen's work became frenzied--far more than she could ever build, even in an extended magician's lifetime. "So, with Yeplojome as her 'exclusive agent' she set about developing a method to mass-produce her beauties, in both male and female models. More than anything, it was the prospect of a tireless, ageless sex slave that drove the demand on that enormous world. She sidestepped the moral issues by creating the constructs so that they would deeply enjoy giving their master pleasure, no matter what. "After years of research, Shownamgappen finally developed a method of creating a cork-like substance, in which the design and means to build a certain construct was built in. All one need do is touch a tiny piece of this material, place it in a large body of water, and a day later they would have their prize. "As it happened, Shownamgappen had to re-impregnate herself every time her creative powers began to wane. At first she could go years without doing it. Then it began to get more and more frequent. "Each time she did this, there was a more and more pronounced effect. Eventually, the energy she was generating attracted all manor of unknowable entities--gods, faeries, hoijials, and the like. "She was losing her mind, or maybe gaining a new one. In this state, she was taken advantage of by President Yeplojome. Up until then, she had tailored her creations along the lines of conventional sexuality. The President pressed her for more exotic varieties, but she refused. Now that she was growing increasingly spaced-out, however, she acquiesced and gave in to the king. "The result was a series of corks that catered to every known perversion. Homosexual, pedophiliac, sado-masochistic, fetishist, and beyond." "Whoah." I said. "Indeed. But as she grew further and further superearthly, she became obsessed with creating the perfect cork. She had made thousands of different models, but all of these found displeasure with her in one way or another. She particularly found it distasteful when an individual would weave multiple copies from the same cork--to bask in the glory of bountiful flesh. "As her transformation rapidly accelerated she sealed herself off from the rest of the world with a powerful magick gate, and set about her final task. First, she pronounced a mighty spell which annihilated all the constructs in existence which she had ever made, as well rendering the corks impotent. Second, she created one final cork--The Mildred Cork--and cast it out into the realm of Massive Dimensions. This accomplished, Shownamgappen prepared for her ascension to a higher level of the universe." "What happened then?" She paused, a little sad. "I don't know. Since I am from The Mildred Cork, all contact with Shownamgappen and that realm was cut off as the Cork was cast out." "Man," I said, "all those people... all so dependent on their constructs, it must have been..." "...devastating. Yes. But Shownamgappen felt that things had gotten too far, that her constructs were surely ruining society and all people." "Huh." "Of course, since I AM a magickal construct myself, whomever made me could as easily implanted those memories than any other." "Yeah but... it SOUNDS kind of... I don't know... it rings true, I guess." "Yes. I..." She seemed about to say something, but was very hesitant. "What is it?" "It's just... another entire part of the story, if you're interested." "Sure I am." "See, I have a life. I mean, I've EXPERIENCED a lot of things. But the whole time, I was in Shownamgappen's mind. She created me, then put me through decades worth of experiences, to season me and give me personality, presence, and aura." "Huh." "But I think..." "What?" "I think... maybe... what if the life I remember WAS real? What if I was a real person, chosen as the template for the Cork? Whoever did it to me might have planted this whole scenario in my mind..." "What do you mean, 'template'?" "I mean, someone could have taken me, used a variety of mental techniques on me, and then taken a 'snapshot' of me, imprinting it onto the Cork." "Hmm..." I said, trying to let this idea of hers sink in, as I wasn't quite getting it. "Let's just say, Walt, that I was made to have these doubts, perhaps to obscure my inevitable search for the truth of my origin." "Huh." In the time she'd been talking to me, she had gotten fully dressed, in an attractive red outfit. And yes--she was talking out loud. At least, I'm pretty sure. I don't know. I we can talk without her saying it out loud, but... I don't know. I'm still too disoriented to figure anything out." "Well, we're off." Mildred said, putting on a pair of sneakers. "Where?" "To see your roommate, Roy O'Damn. We have to explain your disappearance some way--don't want to overly alarm your friends and family now, do we?" "No." I said. I had a bad feeling about this. I mean, I've always wanted supernatural powers and stuff, but I felt uncomfortable with the situation. I couldn't get the vision of my wrecked body out of my mind. It's f*cked. I don't know. I can't see my body ever getting repaired. But I had a spark of hope as I felt a cool tinge of magick within Mildred. She had great powers, and I could tell... I could see something... precognition maybe?... I could see something happening in my dorm, Spoin Hall. Something special. [:[END]:] *OW* [[END048OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----