|
|| -------- -- ----- 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 052--7/20/95 <------- || OsoaWeek || Issues || Book 4 || -------> (Cup OWis052, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN052OW]] [[01052CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 0 5 2 * * * July 20, 1995 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora ATTENTION!!! This is the last weekly issue to be uploaded individually to this online service! From now on, you can find Obliviana on the WWW, at: http://www.obliviana.com/~osoa If you don't have the WWW, or are having any other trouble getting Obliviana stuff, please E-mail me at obliviana@aol.com. INSIDE THIS ISSUE! The magnificent, triumphant end of Obliviana Year One!!! Check it out... 01 052 CV--Cover !!!!!!!! Great!! 02 052 IW--Into E-mber Forge of Wander !!!!!!!! Yes indeedy!! 03 052 HT--Halfevil Times !!!!!!!! Horoscope: "Lick a supermodel to save the whales." 04 052 CZ--Classic Zope !!!!!!!! "Original Zope in The Mystery of the Big Clock" 05 052 TS--Trick Sojourn !!!!!!!! All 36 Songs of the Week! OW on AOL! Osoa WWW! 06 052 NJ--New Jersey !!!!!!!! Atlantic City 07 052 LA--Lord of Obliviana !!!!!!!! Some of the weirdest jive you'll ever read! 08 052 NH--Nihilistica !!!!!!!! The "On Noyage" Tape Transcriptions--AN EPIC!!! 09 052 SU--Superior !!!!!!!! "Hit with the sweet winter blast. " 10 052 SR--Severe Repair !!!!!!!! "Agatha Petunia Wack" FOLLOW THE OBLIVIANA TRAIN INTO THE FAR BEYOND!!! INFORMATION: OsoaWeek052, July 20, 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: 141986 / Line count: 3369 *OW* [[02052IF]] Into E-mber Forge of Wander [:[FOW013]:] FORGE OF WANDER E-mber 013, July 20, 1995 Hi! I'm Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana--and I'd like to welcome you to the last Forge of Wander E-Mail Based Entertainment Release (E-mber, get it?). It's chock fulla fun stuff for you to enjoy every week--like reviews, funniness, and of course the greatest comic strip ever--Zope. So hang on and get ready for some awesome infostimulation! You know, I don't know. The Severe Repair E-mber is already gone, and this is the end of E-mber Forge of Wander. BUT--and this is a big but--it is not the end of Forge of Wander! So stay tuned--for the reincarnation of FOW--yet again! INFORMATION: Forge of Wander E-mber 013, July 20, 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. Find Obliviana on the WWW at http://www.obliviana.com/~osoa. *OW* [[03052HT]] Halfevil Times ***HALFEVIL TIMES HOROSCOPE*** Aquarius (Jan 20-Feb 18) Get Grum the F*ckhead Majesty action figures. Tune a harp to shatter contact lenses. It's your choice--either lead and brine or tacos and pine needles. Rejuvenate shrew. Pisces (Feb 19-Mar 20) Land the LEM in Sandra Bullock's pool. Pour Danny fluid all over Jamaica. The cop has no concept. Don't worry--the drumbeat of life will pull out before it comes. Willie (February 29) Have the wild cheese spring water. Don't publish your Martha Quinn/Martha Stewart sex dream on the Internet. Make a corporate headquarters out of leotards and pinball machines. Name your penis "R2-D2". Aries (Mar 21-Apr 19) Know this--no fool named Barnaby ever wronged you. Tiny prisms in the licorice ice mash energize your spirit. Lick a supermodel to save the whales. Befriend an ultrapowerful loser. Taurus (Apr 20-May 20) The Pill is The Bomb and The Bomb is The Pill. Welcome to the Gar's domain. Gross a billion, then blow a trillion on video poker. Mud wrestle Strawberry Shortcake, then hot oil wrestle Holly Hobby. Gemini (May 21-Jun 21) The location of Aruba astounds you--you never knew it was smack dab in the middle of Manitoba! It's crab wiener Wednesday at the mental school. Deflate Winona. The germ is a polock. Cancer (Jun 22-Jul 22) Join the facial hair brigade. Send a melon to a felon. Chug-a-lug an ice cold bottle of tiger ectoplasm. Crummy day jobs are your cup of tea. Leo (Jul 23-Aug 22) It's time for the luxury citrus. Your aura has become a topiary moose. Idolize people who died in 1903. Drugs, man. Virgo (Aug 23-Sep 22) Order some durable goods to make the economist in your life happy. Contact your local cable company for oral sex. Attend the mindwave follies. I sing the probably electric. Libra (Sep 23-Oct 23) Wear jerky glasses. Grovel before the Mystery Prune. A lactating art museum will invade your treehouse and refuse to leave. Marsha will zing your uvula. Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 21) Learn about how lightning bolts and badminton mate. Befriend a continent. Scooter surf over to the Tick Tock Diner. A jingle-blink good-times fairy-girl is your square dance partner in life. Sagittarius (Nov 22-Dec 21) You're like that "Land of the Lost" ape dude, Chaka. Spy on a lanky genius. Truth and cowboy hats are not mutually exclusive. Your wine tasting crapola is starting to bother the slow loris in your life. Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 19) Must you corroborate Jason's baloney? Mean Tinas plague you this month. Use dimension travel to live in a 1980's Brat Pack movie for a few years. Be muggy. *OW* [[04052CZ]] Classic Zope "Original Zope in The Mystery of the Big Clock" 11/18/86 Zope visits Eurotowne to buy Brillo, gasoline, and Spam. Here, everybody runs their life according to the Big Clock. This clock is so big that you can see it anywhere in town, so nobody wears a watch. ZOPE (thinking to himself) Assh*les! As Zope walks along, he sees a horribly deformed little midget... HORRIBLY DEFORMED LITTLE MIDGET Meesta, get outta town, meesta. Some bed sh*t's comin' down! ZOPE Shut yer trap, ya little... Suddenly a *KRASH!!!* is heard. ZOPE Huh? What the... Uh oh! The big clock has started running backwards real fast and everyone's goin' nuts! Zope is caught in the middle of a rioting crowd! ZOPE Oh, dear... ZOPE starts to shoot his gun. ZOPE Help me, Mr. Uzi! Yow! *RATATA-TATATATA-TATATATA-ATATA-ATTATAAT* Zope is slaughtering a whole lot of people, but he realizes the cause of it all... ZOPE That goddamned clock! Soon... ZOPE Huh! This 5-kiloton nuclear device should do the trick! *KA-NUKO!* ZOPE nukes the Big Clock. ZOPE Whoops! *OW* [[05052TS]] Trick Sojourn ***THE FINAL CHARACTER COUNT FOR OBLIVIANA YEAR ONE*** Right now I'm nearly finished with Obliviana Year One. One thing I'm wondering is whether or not I got to the 3 million ASCII character mark. So what I'm gonna do is record the number below, once this issue is 100% done. And because any additional writing I would do would screw the number up, I'm just gonna put dummy characters in place of the true number. Here is it... 3,283,773 ASCII characters total Well? How did I do? Is it above 3 million or below? From here, I can't tell. I figure I may have made it--but still--a lot of issues in Book Four were relatively short... Oh well. Have fun knowing something this past version of Frank Edward Nora didn't. ***SONG OF THE WEEK*** "Evenflow" by Pearl Jam (from the album "Ten") ***ALL THE SONGS OF THE WEEK!*** Here it is--the list you've been waiting for, even if you didn't know you were! It's a compilation of ALL the OsoaWeek Songs of the Week!!! Okay, one big question you must have is whether I've made a tape (or a Minidisc) of all these songs. Well, unfortunately, I haven't. I think I'll go for it though--even though there are probably a few songs on the list I can't stand anymore (especially "Cotton-Eye Joe")... He ya go! Stone Temple Pilots--"Piece of Piece" (from the album "Core") Rush--"The Camera Eye" (from the album "Moving Pictures") Pixies--"Manta Ray" (from the "Monkey Gone To Heaven" CD single) Led Zeppelin--"Trampled Under Foot" (from the album "Physical Graffiti" (digitally remastered in the "Led Zeppelin Box Set")) Duran Duran--"Last Chance on a Stairway" (from the album "Rio") The Mighty Mighty Bosstones--"Kinder Words" (from the album "Question the Answers") Blue Oyster Cult--"Black Blade" (from the album "Cultosaurus Erectus") Duran Duran--"White Lines" (from the upcoming album "Thank You") Nirvana * "The Man Who Sold the World" (from the album "MTV Unplugged in New York") Beck * Truckdriving Neighbors Downstairs (Yellow Sweat) (from the album "Mellow Gold") "Get Ready for This (Orchestral Mix)"--2 Unlimited (from the album "Get Ready") "Go Insane"--Lindsey Buckingham (from the album "Go Insane") Yes--"Starship Troopers" (from the album "The Yes Album") Rednex--"Cotton-Eye Joe" (from the upcoming album "Sex and Violins") "Popcorn"--Hot Butter (from the album "Popcorn") "Mr. Moustache"--Nirvana (from the album "Bleach") Led Zeppelin--"Achilles Last Stand" (from the album "Presence" (digitally remastered in the "Led Zeppelin Box Set")) Rush--"Marathon (live version)" (from the live album "A Show of Hands") Human League--"John Cleese: Is He Funny?" (from the new album "Octopus") The Beatles * "Savoy Truffle" (from the album "The Beatles", AKA "The White Album") Lush * "Blackout" (from their latest album, "Split") The Bangles * "Walk Like an Egyptian" (on various best-of-the-'80s compilations, I'm sure) "It's a Sunshine Day" by The Brady Bunch (on a "Best of the Brady Bunch" CD) "Jollity Farm" by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (from the "Gorilla" album) "Ghost Town" by The Specials (from one of their greatest hits album) "Tomorrow" by Silverchair (off the Aussie teens' debut "Frogstomp") "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) "This is a Call" by Foo Fighters (Dave Grohl's new band, from their self-titled eponymous album of the same name, if I may be redundant) "The Disregard of Timekeeping/Wait For You" by Bonham (from the album "The Disregard of Timekeeping") Mike Watt * "Against the 70's" (from the album "Ball-Hog or Tugboat?") "Sycamore Trees" from the "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" soundtrack. "Mr. Roboto" by Styx (from a best of album, also, I think there's an album called "Mr. Roboto") "Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson (from the album "Day and Night") "Pleasant Valley Sunday" by The Monkees "Evenflow" by Pearl Jam (from the album "Ten") Yup! 36 great songs! Well... 35 discounting that god damn "Cotton-Eye Joe"... ***THIS IS YOUR OSOAWEEK ON AMERICA ON LINE*** Guess what? As of 8/24/95, OsoaWeek now has over ONE THOUSAND downloads on America Online! Check it out. The first date is the upload date, the number in parentheses is number of downloads, and the second date is the date of the latest download. 08/02 EZ OsoaWeek049 Ezine (14) 08/23 07/25 EZ OsoaWeek048 Ezine (12) 08/06 07/13 ET OsoaWeek047 Ezine (14) 07/29 06/29 EZ OsoaWeek 46 (9) 08/04 06/22 EZ OsoaWeek045 Ezine (20) 07/24 06/16 EZ OsoaWeek044 Ezine (19) 08/14 06/13 EZ OsoaWeek043 Ezine (8) 08/16 06/05 EZ OsoaWeek042 Ezine (11) 08/10 06/01 EZ OsoaWeek041 Ezine (11) 06/22 05/23 ET OsoaWeek040 Ezine (35) 07/30 05/08 EZ OsoaWeek039 Ezine (41) 08/11 05/06 EZ OsoaWeek038 Ezine (8) 07/22 04/29 EZ OsoaWeek37 Ezine (15) 08/05 04/20 EZ OsoaWeek036 Ezine. (30) 08/20 04/15 EZ OsoaWeek035 Ezine (24) 08/14 04/08 EZ OsoaWeek034 Ezine (8) 06/07 04/08 EZ OsoaWeek033 Ezine (10) 07/22 03/26 EZ OsoaWeek032 Ezine (23) 08/23 03/12 EZ OsoaWeek031 Ezine (50) 08/16 03/12 EZ OsoaWeek030 Ezine (22) 07/28 02/22 EZ OsoaWeek029 Ezine (34) 07/28 02/12 EZ OsoaWeek028 Ezine (36) 07/28 02/07 EZ OsoaWeek027 Ezine (20) 07/28 01/29 EZ OsoaWeek026 Ezine (17) 07/28 01/19 EZ OsoaWeek025 Ezine (25) 08/11 01/10 EZ OsoaWeek024 Ezine (35) 08/05 01/02 EZ OsoaWeek023 Ezine (29) 08/20 12/31 EZ OsoaWeek022 Ezine (10) 05/27 12/20 EZ OsoaWeek021 Ezine (44) 08/08 12/20 EZ OsoaWeek020 Ezine (9) 05/27 12/05 EZ OsoaWeek019 Ezine (41) 07/15 11/25 EZ OsoaWeek018 Ezine (17) 07/08 11/19 EZ OsoaWeek017 Ezine (24) 08/16 11/18 EZ OsoaWeek016 (13) 08/06 11/06 EZ OsoaWeek015 (26) 07/22 10/31 EZ OsoaWeek014 (26) 08/21 10/19 EZ Osoaweek013 (37) 08/14 10/14 EZ OsoaWeek012 (36) 08/22 10/05 EZ OsoaWeek011 (18) 08/06 09/29 EZ OsoaWeek010 (24) 08/08 09/21 EZ OsoaWeek009 (16) 07/28 09/21 EZ OsoaWeek008 (15) 08/14 09/13 EZ OsoaWeek007 (19) 08/01 09/06 EZ OsoaWeek006 Ezine (16) 07/28 09/05 EZ OsoaWeek005 Ezine (8) 08/01 08/22 EZ OsoaWeek004 Ezine (22) 08/19 08/22 EZ OsoaWeek003 Ezine (38) 07/30 08/21 EZ OsoaWeek002 Ezine (30) 07/22 08/21 EZ OsoaWeek001 Ezine (32) 08/14 1101 downloads! Average of 22.45 per issue. Awesome! A grand, baby! ***THE FUTURE OF OSOAWEEK*** OsoaWeek, the weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement, began being digitally published on July 28, 1994--the 209th day of the year--Obliviana Day. OsoaWeek is organized into 13-week Books. Thus, four Books per year. This issue, 52, is the last issue of both Book Four and Year One. OsoaWeek will continue, but there will be some changes--especially in terms of distribution. For all 51 weekly issues of OsoaWeek so far, each one was uploaded to America Online and a BBS called The Familiar Spirit right when they were completed. For Book Five--issues 53 thru 65--July 28, 1995 thru October 20, 1995--individual issues will not be uploaded anywhere. The reason for this is that Book Five will have minimal content, in order to allow me to catch up (I'm a month behind) and also get my bearings as far as where I am, especially. After the Fifth Book, OsoaWeek will burst back to full flower with a new feature line-up. Whether or not these issue will be posted on AOL and TFS, or just on my home page, I haven't decided yet. But I'm leaning toward 100% WWW, with FTP as well, hopefully. ***OBLIVIANA WWW EDITION 1.0*** To give you some idea what Obliviana WWW Edition 1.0 is like, here are three HTML files--the home page, the intro to OsoaWeek Book 1 page, and a random page from Book 1... (Brackets have been replaced by parentheses, to avoid structural conflicts.) * * * <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Welcome to Obliviana!</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <HR> <IMG SRC="buttons/obtitle.gif" ALT="Obliviana Logo"><BR> <B>All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana</B><BR> Please note that some information contained herein, such as mailing address and catalog information, is outdated. Please send E-mail only at this point, to <B>obliviana@aol.com</B>.<P> <B>Welcome to Obliviana!</B><P> You can jump right in by choosing on of the following links...<P> <A HREF="features/ow.html">Start from the beginning</A><P> <A HREF="book1/007/05007NH.html">A Brief History of Obliviana</A><P> <A HREF="book1/002/13002ZP.html">Zope's Very Large Lawnmower</A><P> <A HREF="book1/001/18001FE.html">Mallball</A><P> <A HREF="book1/002/15002SU.html">Through grass-lined corridors of caramel steel...</A><P> <A HREF="book1/012/04012LO.html">Lord of Obliviana</A><P> <A HREF="book1/010/07010SO.html">Pilferids!</A><P> <A HREF="book1/008/11008SR.html">Severe Repair!</A><P> <A HREF="book1/001/13001HR.html">Movie and crayon reviews</A><P> <A HREF="book1/003/12003NJ.html">The Devil Tree of New Jersey</A><P> <A HREF="book1/002/11002HT.html">Halfevil Times Classifieds</A><P> <B>Remember, this is just a random sampling, only skimming the surface of the vast wonders of Obliviana! Explore at your leisure...</B><P> Edition 1.0<BR> July 28, 1995<BR> Many features are still in development, so bear with me...<P> <IMG SRC="buttons/nora.gif" ALT="Lord of Obliviana"> </BODY> </HTML> * * * <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Welcome to OsoaWeek!</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <HR> <A HREF="../osoa.html"><IMG SRC="../buttons/home.gif" ALT="Obliviana"></A> <A HREF="../osoa.html"><IMG SRC="../buttons/ow.gif" ALT="OsoaWeek"></A> <A HREF="../book1/013/12013AX.html"><IMG SRC="../buttons/up.gif" ALT="up"></A> <A HREF="../wild/wild.html"><IMG SRC="../buttons/wild.gif" ALT="wild"></A><BR> <A HREF="../osoa.html"><IMG SRC="../buttons/osoaweek.gif" ALT="OsoaWeek"></A> <A HREF="../book1/013/12013AX.html"><IMG SRC="../buttons/left.gif" ALT="left"></A> <A HREF="MH.html"><IMG SRC="../buttons/down.gif" ALT="down"></A> <A HREF="../book1/001/001.html"><IMG SRC="../buttons/right.gif" ALT="right"></A><P> All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana<P> <H1>Welcome to OsoaWeek!</H1> OsoaWeek is the weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement. It began publication a year ago, on Obliviana Day 1994, July 28. For now, I'm presenting the First Book of OsoaWeek (issues 1 thru 13) in convenient WWW format!<P> The up and down buttons take you through a single issue, and the left and right buttons skip to the previous/next instance of the same feature you're currently in.<P> Issues 14 thru 52 should be online soon! But until then, there's more than enough in the first 13 issues to keep you occupied!<P> </BODY> </HTML> * * * <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>((18001FE)) Friction Enhancer</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <HR> <A HREF="../../osoa.html"><IMG SRC="../../buttons/home.gif" ALT="Obliviana"></A> <A HREF="001.html"><IMG SRC="../../buttons/001.gif" ALT="OsoaWeek001"></A> <A HREF="17001ZP.html"><IMG SRC="../../buttons/up.gif" ALT="up"></A> <A HREF="../../wild/wild.html"><IMG SRC="../../buttons/wild.gif" ALT="wild"></A><BR> <A HREF="../../features/FE.html"><IMG SRC="../../buttons/FE.gif" ALT="Friction Enhancer"></A> <A HREF="../../features/FE.html"><IMG SRC="../../buttons/left.gif" ALT="left"></A> <A HREF="19001SU.html"><IMG SRC="../../buttons/down.gif" ALT="down"></A> <A HREF="../002/14002FE.html"><IMG SRC="../../buttons/right.gif" ALT="right"></A><P> All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana<P> ((18001FE)) Friction Enhancer<P> FRICTION ENHANCER 1: Mallball<P> You'll need a car and some money for this (and also a lot of malls). <P> Start by going to a mall and getting string or something similar (like wire, dental floss, ribbon, cassette tape, etc.) Then start rolling the string or whatever into a ball. Now go to another mall, and get a different stringlike product, and add it to the ball. <P> Each addition to your Mallball requires a different mall and a different type of product. Once you've used yarn, for example, no more yarn or anything similar can be used. If you buy a cassette and pull the tape out, you can't then do the same thing to a videotape, since they're too similar. <P> My first Mallball has 7 layers (twine, ribbon, "Tucker" soundtrack, mint dental floss, TV cable, yarn, and fishing line) and cost about $15. Keep the receipts as the Mallball's "papers".<P> Obviously, as the Mallball gets bigger and bigger, it's harder to find more malls and different products. I'm planning on going for 21 layers sometime, but as of yet, 7 is the record. <P> Also, all Mallballs must be entirely created within a single calendar day. <P> *OW*<P> </BODY> </HTML> *OW* [[06052NJ]] New Jersey ATLANTIC CITY I really want to like Atlantic City. Unfortunately, it's not an easy place to like. What you have is a city that's as bad as a really bad NYC slum. To get to the casinos, you hafta drive through some pretty scary areas, man. It's disheartening, depressing, dangerous, and bad for New Jersey's image. Then you have the casinos. I only went to a few this time (8/19/95), but I think I get the picture. Going to Las Vegas was the killing blow in my mind for AC. AC is a joke compared to LV. I guess the thing is that Las Vegas began transforming in 1989 with the opening of The Mirage. AC hasn't even begun on such a renaissance. The Trump Taj Mahal, which I believe is the newest hotel/casino, is architecturally stale. It looks like a hotel from the '60s or '70s. Compared to the likes of MGM Grand, The Mirage, Luxor, etc.--it's not even in the same league. I guess if you like gambling AC is pretty convenient, especially if you live in New Jersey. I'm not too big on it myself--probably cuz I always lose. The coolest thing in AC is Ballys, where the whole building is covered in lights, like a big billboard, with patterns, designs, letters, and all that. Pretty nice. So I don't know. It's definitely cool for New Jersey to have a place like Atlantic City. I just wish it wasn't such a disaster. [:[END]:] *OW* [[07052LA]] Lord of Obliviana Sunday, August 20, 1995, 9:40:45 PM Went to the Laser Park place. It was really weird. It was like walking into some business the back way. There was no order, no structure to the place. It was as if they weren't really set up to deal with the public. A birthday party was going on. I got to see the place in action. The actual play area was pretty cool. But the rest of the place, jeez. But going there knocked me into a real nostalgia funk. Having visions of dark cool places, arcades in malls, experiences not from my past as Frank Edward Nora. But these visions--they do affect me. Trying to discover what they are, what they mean. A creative endeavor. Being part of a creative team of young people. Innocent, like Canadians. Whatever. Anyway, my Jeep died. The transmission is shot. And I get the feeling that for what it'll cost me to repair it I could get a 2 gigabyte hard drive. Or two. What a waste. At least I was able to drive it home. It was stuck in 5th gear. Smelled like it was burning up. Guess I'm screwed. Better finish issue 51 now. Why is it I have this sense of finality about these last two issues of Book Four? I dunno. Guess this year of OsoaWeek has left me with a whole lot of chaos. All around me here in my computer room--a horrible mess. That, combined with my addition to buying new magazines, CD's, videogames and the like, make it a really bad situation. Chaos. All around me. In pure, raw form. Oh well. It's worth it, I guess. Look at what I've accomplished in this year. Pretty amazing. And OsoaWeek IS NOT ending. It's just kinda going on hiatus. Book Five will be, just that the only features will be Lord of Obliviana, Nihilistica, and maybe Superior. Okay, I'm going over to OsoaWeek051 to finish it up. Monday, August 21. Morning train. Today's my 2-year anniversary going out with Kerri. Yup, two years ago exactly, we met and went miniature golfing. She was a friend of Peter Litkey's. Me and Pete were acting like Beavis & Butthead, trying to be cool. I remember saying something like "Huh huh--wouldn't it be cool if a truck like smashed through the gate and killed a bunch of people?", then Pete got carried away and kind of ruined the whole concept, saying things like--"I wish a meteor hit and killed everyone--that'd be cool!--with blood gushing everywhere!" Me & Kerri went to Atlantic City on Saturday. What a joke compared to Las Vegas. And the city itself--one of the worst areas I've ever seen! One block from the boardwalk it's hell. If Monopoly players actually saw some of the streets here--like Atlantic Ave., for instance, they'd never want to buy them! Gambling is scary. Trump's Taj Majal is okay, but architecturally uninspired. The coolest thing we saw was Ballys, which had lights covering the entire building, making all these cool patterns and letters and stuff. Yeah. So here I am, at the end of Year One. The thing is, Year One is definitely a distinct work. The nature of the presentation of Obliviana is definitely in for a change--based on the WWW rather than text files. OsoaWeek will remain, but it will change. So here now is my last chance to talk to you in Year One. What can I say? I believe that the massive content of YO will serve as the foundation of a massive digital entertainment enterprise in Obliviana Super Occult Amusement. YO establishes a clear basis of content--with Zope, Severe Repair, Halfevil Times, Superior, etc. I face a great challenge--distinguishing my work in a realm replete with small-time digital publishers just like me. The big difference, though, is the quality of my work. I used to have megalomaniacal dreams of semi-world-domination with my entertainment empire. Now, my plans are a little less insane and a lot more practical. I want to be able to make a living from Obliviana. And judging from where I am now, that could be a long way off. And I still haven't figured out the "unified field" of Obliviana. This is the overall scheme which ties all the elements of Obliviana together. But I'm working on it. And hopefully, it'll be introduced in Obliviana WWW Edition 2.0. My vision is to create a really cool realm of entertainment for people to spend their leisure time in. The Digital Superworld, as it stands today, has REALLY bad content. I feel that I can create a quality world for people to spend time in. So no matter what anyone else does, if I succeed, there'll be at least one good place for you to go in cyberspace. More and more, I think I'm interested in going 100% digital with my business plan--with no snailmail involved at all. This would preclude any sort of mail order, as well as people sending me checks for Predator Deeds and stuff. Well, maybe the people sending me checks part is okay--but I'm not sure about physical Predator Deeds. I think digital ones would be better. Of course, no one want to use the physical postal service. Sending an order to someone by mail is a real hassle. Envelope, check, address, stamp, getting to a mailbox. I mean, who needs it? Digital transactions are vital. But right now, I don't know that there's a good way to go about it. I know that Bill Gates and other antichrist-like guys are bent on developing simple and universal digital transaction methods, so they can get a cut of each one. But you know what--that's good. It'll cause the whole infrastructure to come into being that much faster. And heck--the profit margins'll be so high no one'll give a rat's ass if Bill Gates gets a few percent of each transaction. Huh. I was just thinking about how Bill Gates will die eventually like everyone else. Then I thought--wait a second--with all that money and power, couldn't he use all the means available to extend his life? I mean, what--he's like 39? He's got like 30 more years before he's in the statistical realm of old-age-type death. Huh. 30 years. 15 billion dollars. Guess it's time for another one of those fascinating calculation! Let's see... So he'd have to spend $950 a minute, every minute, for the rest of his life, to spend 15 billion dollars. And this doesn't even take interest into account. It's $15.84 a second also, by the way. In comparison, the amount of money I have, $532, at the rate of one cent per second, would be gone in 14 hours. At the Bill Gates rate of $15.84 per second, my fortune would be gone in 33 and a half seconds. In fact, I think that since my transmission is shot, my whole fortune (and then some) may just disappear in a matter of days. But, of course, Microsoft sucks and Obliviana is cool. So everything is okay. 8/21/95 train home I have a lot to do during Book Five: 1) Read all of Severe Repair and complete the Almanac 2) Read all of the rest of OsoaWeek Year One and take notes 3) Create Obliviana WWW Edition 2.0 4) Create "The Balbitype 26" 5) Get an overview of my non-digital archives (ie, notebooks filled with writing, drawing, etc.) 6) Write plenty of OsoaWeek material so that Book Six will go smoothly 7) Above all, have fun! Uh-huh. Yeah people, I don't know. Where is Obliviana going? Hmm. If you're reading Year One all the way through, I guess you're just about done. Maybe me in the future is reading this right now. Huh. Do you remember this train ride, Frank? You bought a jalapeno Auntie Anne's pretzel and a large lemonade before you got on the train. At Game Express they has Dragon Ball Z action figures. At EB they had a PlayStation box. Yeah yeah. I was thinking before, how I was in such a deep nostalgia right before my Jeep's transmission fried. Could nostalgia have ruined my transmission? It's something someone's gotta know. I'm feeling tired and restless. But Obliviana is something I, and only I , have gotta make happen. Suck that I can't emphasize the word "I" by making it all caps. Eh? The loss of innocence. I was thinking--folks were so much more naive and unjaded in the '70s. But people were having sex and taking drugs left and right! What is it that has made our society so jaded? What is "jaded"? It means when someone has gotten a cynical attitude toward everything from experience, that nothing fazes him anymore, that nothing really moves him. You know what I think is happening? I think people are EMULATING jadedness. I don't think they really are, just that they see other people who are jaded and want to be cool like them. Also, it seems like creative expression is blocked by the phenomenon of "retro". If you create something that has elements of a past time or style, it's considered "retro". So to be on the cutting edge, you always have to move forward. Ever faster. Man, if you laid all this Internet WWW jive on a D&D, occult, computer college kid of the '70s, he'd go nuts thinking of the possibilities. But here, and now, we can hardly think of anything anymore. It's too noisy. The quiet, whimsical ideas that would be so wonderful are helpless. Am I playing the game--is that my problem? Could be. Maybe I should detach myself from the fray, from the great race, from the losing game. But in order to get other people in this same state of mind, I'll need some sort of "airlock" to get them into the calmer gear I envision. I think I could do it... So maybe this is the conclusion I draw from Year One. Stop playing the infoverload game. Make Obliviana separate. I remember commenting awhile ago that I disliked the false community of the WWW. All these goddamn links, such a tower of babel. Stupidity, like Spam pages, Christina Applegate pages, big red buttons that do nothing... I want to go back. I want to BE that college dude from the '70s, thinking up awesome uses for the WWW. Cuz it's a stupid game I've been playing. Trying to keep up with it all. What can hope to achieve keeping up with it all--the privilege of getting totally lost in the crowd? No. That's not what I want. I want to do something beyond that. 8/22/95 8:58 PM train Stood next to a woman on the subway. I did a psychic scan on her, and what I sensed was very alarming--she was ME! Okay. Let me back up just a bit. Sometimes I'll try and do a psychic scan on someone. I do get an impression, but as to its accuracy, I don't know. This time, I just... I don't know. Almost right away I got this impression. My feeling was that she was me in a former or future life, with some time travel involved in the interceding time, obviously. Kinda scary being me. That kinda stuff happens sometimes. Oh well. My psychic powers are none too reliable, so I don't have to worry about it. If it is true, however, I hope it's in the past--the idea of still riding NYC subways in 1995 hundreds o years from now is none too pleasant. Okay. I've run into a little trouble with Severe Repair in this issue. It's run over the allotted 19K. So what, you ask? Well, I've tried to maintain a degree of formality in OsoaWeek--setting forth formats and sticking to them. It might seem pointless, but I've come to understand that such restrictions are very conducive to accomplishing. For example, I've written a lot of awesome stuff because of the constraints I've set forth--which I otherwise would never have written. Something just came to mind. When you're really hot and sweaty in winter, and then you burst out into a subzero nighttime chill. What a great few seconds there. I love winter. So about SR, what? I don't know. I think I'm just gonna abolish the SR E-mber, right here, right now. Problem solved. No E-mber, no 19K restriction. Okay, here goes... Well now, here ya go--the very last Severe Repair E-mber! The end of this curious experiment gone awry. This whole E-mber thing never got off the ground. Ie, I never started E-mailing the E-mbers to people. Who knows--I might revive the concept someday. But with the WWW, I don't know if it's be worth it to me to futz around with E-mail. I know this view is contradictory with some of my previous positions, but screw it. I know more people have E-mail than have WWW right now--but Obliviana can be presented in so much more of a compelling way on the WWW... And more and more people are getting WWW access every day... Whatever. Screw it. GONE! Wow. It feels pretty good to be free of E-mber. Huh. So here's the intro to it I wrote: Well now, here ya go--the very last Severe Repair E-mber! The end of this curious experiment gone awry. This whole E-mber thing never got off the ground. Ie, I never started E-mailing the E-mbers to people. Who knows--I might revive the concept someday. But with the WWW, I don't know if it's be worth it to me to futz around with E-mail. I know this view is contradictory with some of my previous positions, but screw it. I know more people have E-mail than have WWW right now--but Obliviana can be presented in so much more of a compelling way on the WWW... And more and more people are getting WWW access every day... Whatever. Screw it. That's it. E-mber is no more. 8/23/95 in the AM Got an original cassette form of Men Without Hats' classic debut album, "Rhythm of Youth". Right now, I'm listening to the song "Antarctica". I remember, years ago, I walked through a driving snow storm to go see my friend Eric Rutins. I remember his mother hated me. He was Latvian. I came in, and I told him I was listening to the song "Antarctica" on my Walkman. He repeated this to his mother, but it was lost on her. Eric had an Apple II with a ton of cool games (I remember the original, non-Doom-like Castle Wolfenstein especially). Then he got one of the original 128K Macs. It was awesome. I think I was accused of only going over there to play on his computer. That may have been my main motivation. We used to make fun of Eric. I remember reprogramming an Asteroids game on my TI-99/4A so that the asteroids were Eric's face. We called it "Eric Invaders". I have a Super 8mm movie of Eric dancing around, and us beating him up. Not really, just for the movie. "Folk of the Eighties" was Men Without Hats second album. Me and my friend Chris thought that we were really lost dimension travellers, and somehow the lyrics of many pop songs were messages meant for us and others like us. We called this whole phenomenon "Folk of the Eighties", or FOTE. Dimension travel was represented by "dance" or "dancing". Duran Duran was another band with a lot of these messages in their music. Think I'm nuts? At this point, I'm still trying to figure out what was going on back then, but I think this whole FOTE thing is a dynamite premise for a story. I remember being really freaked out when I tried to buy "Rhythm of Youth" a few years ago on CD. I found out that it was totally out of print. I had this illusion that all albums were perpetually in print and available in record stores. Huh. "Rhythm of Youth" is such an awesome album. But if you wanted to hear it, you'd have to go to a used vinyl shop, or scour used CD bins, or something like that. With the Digital Superworld, all music should be perpetually available. Either from the legal distributor or in pirate form. And c'mon, combine personal CD collections and cheap-ass mass digital storage and you got a massive wave of audio piracy--without any loss of fidelity. The answer to this problem is for the legal distributors to make access to music so cheap and easy that no one would even bother with piracy. Remember, existing material is a loser in the Digital Superworld--it's the ability to create new, up-to-the-second content that'll be the big winner. OsoaWeek Year One. I want it to just be the beginning, the foundation. I don't want it to be my masterwork. It will be, though, if I run out of steam. But I don't think so. I consider 1986 the official beginning of my massive creative effort. YO comes 8.5 years into this campaign of mine. It does bring together much of my work over those years, but a lot of my past work is still untouched. This is something I want to do during the lull of Book Five--get an idea of what I have, in terms of past creative work. There's a whole lot of it. NIGHT Now soon I get to see if I'm gonna get a taxi or am I gonna be screwed. Now that's some sentence there. Yup. It's 9:31 PM. Ten minutes to Princeton Junction. Gotta be taxis there now, right? I can hope. Kerri's out with her friend Heather. Maybe she's back already. Maybe she's not. I had a vision about Obliviana. Of it being like this big, nearly abandoned mall/entertainment complex kinda thing. Y'know? 8/24/95, 5:48 pm Man, it seems like this completing of Year One is going on forever! The past few issues I've just been like gliding along, knowing that it's no longer an uphill battle--knowing that the peak is near, knowing that there'll be a downhill afterwards... I'm still kind of lost. Even after a year of Year One's magnitude. I still don't where where I am. But I think this is due to me having some sort of hidden knowledge about what SHOULD be, and until I get there, I guess I'll just still have this hazy feeling... But I don't know about that. I mean, I HAVE a vision--it's just too nebulous at this point to give me the answer. It CAN tell me if something's wrong, but not if it's right. Man, I tellya, if I didn't have OsoaWeek, I don't know what I'd do. It's my greatest foundation, the thing which most keeps me from just floating away... Okay, so Windows 95 came out today. I was going to J&R Computer World, and there was this big crowd. It was a guy holding a sign saying "Say no to Windows!" or something. He was a Constitutional lawyer from an anti-Microsoft political action committee in Washington. I heard a sound bite from him on Howard Stern this morning. I talked to him a little. Then the police came and he handled 'em pretty good, being a lawyer and all. Pretty funny, all this Windows 95 stuff. Know what? I don't give a sh*t about Windows 95 and The Microsoft Network except it can give a lot more people the potential to access Obliviana. I was thinking, all the different schemes and structures I've had for Obliviana--and Nomadi before that--wouldn't this make an interesting feature? All the different structures I've come up with? Yeah. I'm still working on the final vision. I feel that it is near. In fact, maybe it's here... Okay. I see a place you go to in the Digital Superworld. You get there, and it's under the Obliviana logo. It's a place where you have a Fonosta--your "vehicle" in Obliviana. It holds many things, and the goal is to constantly be modifying your Fonosta. Another thing is the idea of Digital Artifacts. This is where a certain digital data--be it a JPEG file, a text file, a 3-D object, a piece of code, a symbol, or whatever--is considered an artifact, and there are a limited number of true digital copies of it. The idea here is not copy protection--but a method of recording who has what artifact, and managing that in cyberspace. So, you might have a JPEG of a lonely back road at dusk, but unless you have the artifact, you can't hang it on (or in) your Fonosta. The Fonosta is the focus of it all. It contains, among other things, records of your scores, wins, and losses in the multifarious games and diversions in Obliviana. Obliviana is on a mountain, because it rises above the rest of the Digital Superworld. A virtual representation of the place known as Obliviana is inevitable as technology juggernauts onward. It will be a three-dimensional place you can travel through and interact with. Xappens are the currency of Obliviana. They are represented as tokens/coins, and there are a huge variety of them. Getting, having, using, selling, and trading of Xappens will be a central activity in Obliviana. Obliviana itself is an ancient, gigantic shopping mall/entertainment complex/amusement park kind of place. It is at the top (apogee?) of the mountain. On the mountain below Obliviana are an amazing variety of alcoves and stuff, some secret, some not. Streams and waterfalls and fountains wild and wind their way downward 8:25:95:6:46 AM I see a whale tail, don't know why. The idea of going under. Huh. Is OsoaWeek going under? Kinda. Not going under as in going out of business, but going under in terms of submerging or hibernating or anesthesia. I was just looking back at the OsoaWeek040, the start of the Fourth Book. I was saying how I was allowing each issue to be shorter in order to help me stay on schedule. Ha, well, looks like I'm about to do it again, in a very severe way, with Book Five. 8:25:95:6:55 AM Here I am. In the dining car. Sun blaring into my face. Old dorks all around. Okay. OsoaWeek052, Book Four, and Year One are just about completed. This weekend, this issue will definitely be done. I was thinking before, about Obliviana Year One. (I've decided to call the collection of OsoaWeek 1 thru 52 "Obliviana Year One" as opposed to "OsoaWeek Year One" See?) I think I'll make a hard copy of it, maybe several, and put them in safe places. I was thinking earlier, as I was descending the stairway toward the train I'm now on, that Obliviana Year One is such a massive, substantial, dense work, that it may never be fully figured out. I believe that OYO is a great work. And heck, every word I type in now is to be a part of OYO forevermore. Cool. But like I commented earlier, I don't want OYO to be my masterwork. Saturday, August 26, 1995, 8:51:31 AM What was I talking about yesterday--oh yeah--about OYO as my masterwork. Well, Like I said, I sure hope the OYO is NOT my masterwork, for I have plans to create so much more. At least, though, I now have SOMETHING which could qualify as a masterwork. For so much time--the past five years, maybe--I've been drifting with little real direction. Now, with OYO, I think I've completed the first step toward an amazing future. But of course, I still have to finish this issue in order to finish OYO! It's strange. I always wondered how massively talented and prolific people could wind up being so miserable. But now I know that that's what the creative process does to you. It messes you up. That's why I want to allow myself to relish my accomplishment in writing OYO. God damn I need some positive feedback. I mean, on America Online, I have over a thousand total download, but I can count the responses I've gotten on one hand. I know that Obliviana is good. It's just, in the OsoaWeek text form, the complex realm of Obliviana is difficult to access. Soon, however, OYO will be on the WWW in full random access. And I'm still working on the Unified Field of Obliviana (UFOO?). I don't know. All that stuff I wrote above about A mountain with a mall and waterfalls and stuff--this is something which would exist BASED ON the Unified Field; it is not the Unified Field itself. Yeah. So I have to delve deeper. Guess it'd be nice to finally establish this UFOO right here, at the end of OYO. And I'm confident that I have all the clues I need in the work I've already created. I had a vision of 57th Street in Manhattan while writing that last paragraph. Hmm... 57th Street... Lots of prestigious stores and restaurants... Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood... Hmmm... One guideline I have been aware of for some time is that I must look at the name--"Obliviana Super Occult Amusement"--to discover the UFOO. To comment on the nature of what I'm saying--it may seem weird that I am trying to discover something based on clues I myself have created. To be blunt, I believe that deep down, the secret is within me, and that it's from some previous existence. In fact, risking you thinking I'm nuts, I believe that in a past life I lived in the future. Something like that. And this plan--Obliviana Super Occult Amusement--is deep within me, bubbling to the surface at a slow and steady pace, so as not to taint my person with too much extrathislife junk. I think that Obliviana at this point in time is something of an anachronism--maybe Obliviana wouldn't have come into being until hundreds of years after 1995. But here I am, right here right now, creating it in 1995. At the core of Obliviana is the concept of Obliviana itself--a place which exists here on the surface of the Earth, right alongside us. But an alien world, with alien inhabitant, hidden from us through natural trickery. So the idea of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement is... Hmmm. The last word is "amusement". So in the end, Osoa is meant to entertain people. Otherwise, what would it be? A supernatural quest... but can there be a supernatural quest without amusement? I guess the key here is that there's no pressing need to discover Obliviana, but it'd be cool to find it. On a side note, I have to say that discovering Obliviana would shatter the commonly held view of Earth as a planet in space. Actually, I'm not sure if it would be a shattering or just a duality. But really, even a duality, where both models of the universe would coexist, the notion that the scientific view is the only view would surely be shattered. The world has been losing its magic for a long time. Obliviana is now much farther away than it used to be. But using the techniques I have developed, adventurous 209ers can break through into Obliviana. And what will we find there? Fairies and centaurs? Alien Grays and their UFOs? Sasquatches and Loch Ness Monsters? Hmmm. I'm pretty sure that if there are indeed UFOs and miscreant gray aliens who abduct people, that they are from some part of Obliviana. Remember, Obliviana is not just one place, but a set of places. How many? Unknown. There could be an alternate high-tech society co-existing with us here on Earth. UFOs could be 209 vehicles, able to cross over the boundaries. And using 209 forces, such vehicles could effectively hide themselves from most eyes. Huh. Musing here, I wonder if the government knows about Obliviana. If they did, it'd be real useful to perpetuate the myth of outerspace, and the faulty notion that UFOs are coming from distant stars. How would people feel if they knew that aliens existed right alongside them--in some cases perhaps only a few feet away? Again, hmmm... Well I don't like that idea. I kinda don't even wanna think about it. Maybe in this case ignorance is bliss. But remember, inhabitants of other realms of Obliviana are as subject to these forces as we are. At least, I would assume so, otherwise they'd wander among us. Unless they had some reason NOT to wander among us... But just think of it--the next frontier is not outer space, where your chances of exploring it at this point are nil, but rather, the next frontier is Obliviana--a frontier you CAN explore, right in your own backyard! Huh. To me, if there was even a shred of a chance that Obliviana was true, I'd want to vigorously pursue it. Which is, of course, what I'm doing. Huh. It's looking like I may be doing something big here. So now we get to this part--the relevance of whether or not my theories are valid. I BELIEVE that my theories are valid, but I am not 100% sure. I do believe, however, that there is enough evidence to warrant an exploration. And I believe that this exploration, in and of itself, will contain so much enjoyment, enlightenment, and discovery as to the nature of existence, that it doesn't matter whether or not my theories are correct; exploring Obliviana is a wonderful sort of amusement. And hey--if you're amused, you're amused. End of story. Saturday, August 26, 1995, 12:43:56 PM Saturday, August 26, 1995, 1:11:34 PM Listening to Steely Dan's first album. Midnight Cruiser... Okay. So where was I with all this? Uh-huh. The whole Obliviana thing. Huh. You know, I don't like all this UFO stuff--makes me feel like a loony talking about it. But it does relate to my theories. That is, it would make sense that if travelling TO Obliviana is possible, then beings from other realms of Obliviana are visiting us FROM there. Hence UFOs, gray aliens, bigfoots, fairies, apparitions, all that. Huh--just thought that maybe when people die they just go to another part of Obliviana. There IS mythical evidence that the Land of the Dead is a physical place, just like here. Oh well. Anyway, where does all this put me in terms of developing my Unified Field? Okay. Amusement is the bottom line. The exploration of Obliviana is the goal. This exploration includes endeavors such as understanding the forces of 209, researching possible trans-Obliviana encounters, experimenting with low-level 209 energies--and eventually--to cross over into another realm of Obliviana. Saturday, August 26, 1995, 7:24:58 PM I gotta go out to some club or something tonight cuz my girlfriend really wants me to. Oh well, guess I'll drink three beers and get totally wasted. Okay. So where was I? Oh yeah--that this whole Obliviana as a place thing is at the heart of Obliviana. You know, I seem to remember having these Declarations of Obliviana somewhere in OsoaWeek. Let me check... Okay. There in OsoaWeek027. Not much help, though. And some of the concepts in them are no longer my view. Well, kinda. I mean, in Declaration II, I talk about artifacts being important. Physical artifacts. Well, I still hold that artifacts are of the utmost importance, but DIGITAL artifacts--not physical ones. Also, I've dumped the term "Dashic" in favor of 209. Okay. But as far as a Unified Field... The Fonosta is one major aspect. But I want a system where there are short and sweet blasts of infostimulation, Xappens, which are organized in a unified system. For some reason, this is the nature of the vision I have. Sunday, August 27, 1995, 9:20:25 AM Okay. I think today is the day. Gonna get OYO done. But I still wanna get this Unified Field thing figured out. Got that Sunday wanderlust again. I've been thinking of putting together a cool "survival pack" kinda thing, including: a maxed-out Swiss Army knife, a Zippo lighter, a deck of tarot cards, etc... In fact, the idea for survivals packs or "box'o'stuph" is one I've had for a long time. It's just--it kind of conflicts with my new leaning toward doing everything digital... My feet are super itchy. Seems like I keep getting new mosquito bites, but I don't know how. Underneath my desk, a sheet of Richard Nixon stamps... Okay. Gotta Move. Saw part of the movie "Real Genius" on TV yesterday. There's something about that movie that relates to my vision. College genius hackers having fun... I'm drifting here. After a year, after ten years, I'm still drifting. I don't know what it is. It does seem like there's a plan deep in my mind, like I said earlier, that somehow won't let me go in the wrong direction. It's been a weird ten years. Y'know, exactly ten years ago, I was only a few days from starting college at Drew University. Only a few days from the initial discovery of the number 209. Ten years. Shall I go over them? Briefly, perhaps. 1985. Finished up high school. Made a Dr. Who video movie in the summer. Went to Drew, discovered 209. 1986. Big year. In February, created Zope and started Anything But Monday radio show. Got kicked off the air, started ABM Magazine. Summer, I started Halfevil Graphics, with a new mini-comic every week. Fall, more radio, the "Weird University" videos. Big racial controversy with ABM Magazine 3. Newspaper, radio, and TV coverage. First girlfriend, Ilana. 1987. January--Little Frankie Nora music, Evil Farm video. Winter at Drew--going out with Erin, I run for Vice President of Drew, Mike Massotto for President. We come in second. My parents force me to transfer to NYU. Fall at NYU--dawn of Nomadi, Super Objects, etc. 1988. ABM Magazine gets better. Film School crapola. Going out with Shannon. Using 209, I manage to screw around with two girls at once. Fall, internship at MTV News. Preparation for national release of ABM Magazine. ABM #1 comes out. 1989. ABM #2, #3 come out. Almost get fired as unpaid intern at MTV. I graduate college. Jim Lord enters ABM as partner. Rift with Massotto. ABM changes direction for the worse. Summer trip to D.C. to see Erin one last time. Fall, I throw all existing material together and release the "final" ABM Magazine. ABM falls apart. Living with my parents, unemployed, messed-up. 1990. My first real job, Macintosh prepress at Imaging International at 150 Varick St. in Manhattan. Get killer crush on girl at work. Publish first of several experimental publications, "rED aLLEY eARTH". Trip to Montreal and Quebec City with Yasutoshi. First phase of "Beublin A. Richardson" video project. Fall, I quit Imaging and go to Toronto for a few days, hanging around with Asian Church of Christ cult members. First of three whole years with no girlfriend at all. 1991. Unemployed again. Back to Imaging for freelance work. Three issues of experimental publication ZOPE. First Storm Codex deck. Train Crap & Blood experimental radio show. "Beublin A. Richardson" project completed. 1992. "Forge of Wander" experimental publication. Back to work, this time at "DOTS"--a total psycho company. 9/22--my one and only "poetry reading" at Cafe Skep. Quit DOTS, move to Bengal, up the street from Imaging. 1993. Fourth and last issue of FOW. New experiment format--"Packets"--Superior and ABM (with Massotto!). And yet another experimental pub--Fovy (Foolish Obliviana Vending Yamp), the dawn of Codingseeds. Moved into my own apartment in Iselin. Winter, went to a bachellorette auction with Peter Litkey, and bought a date with a woman, Sheridan, who I wound up going out with for a month or two, ending the 3+ year dry spell. August 21, I meet Kerri and we start going out. November, went to Utah for my cousin Katie's wedding to a Mormon. Drove around Utah by myself for a few days in a rented Taurus, listening to Nirvana's "Nevermind" for the first time in earnest. Got fired from Bengal. 1994. Experimental pub--Get All Obliviana Packets--with rubber binder using wingnuts and bolts! Worked for a few months at Panorama Press in Clifton, NJ--then got fired. Made a serious effort with Massotto to start a new ABM radio show. We made one pilot episode, then it fell apart. June--Kerri moves in with me. Went to my cousin Paul's wedding in Virginia. July 28--I begin OsoaWeek. August 8--"Read This or Die!"--experimental pub, collection of Zope comics. November--I start working at D&A where I still am today. September--two-day trip to Walt Disney World by myself. November--one-day trip to Mall of America. 1995. OsoaWeek continues weekly publication. Me and Kerri move to new apartment in Plainsboro around beginning of June. We go to Las Vegas around beginning of July. In contact with Massotto again. Right now, 8/27/95, working on finishing up OsoaWeek052, which will complete Obliviana Year One. Whew! Ten years of my life. Man, I tellya, it doesn't seem like ten years thinking back on it. So many different directions, so many branching abandoned, hopefully some will be taken up again. It's weird--I had to research some of the event a little just to figure out what YEAR they occurred in. Huh. Starting to feel age. There are teenagers now who were born years after Star Wars came out. Huh. Time is flying. But now, with OsoaWeek, as time flies, my body of work grows. It's a good thing. In the end, it's a text that will endure. I mean, sure--Obliviana will be far more than text, with massive amounts of digitized audio, video, and interactivity. But I see OsoaWeek as the backbone--a thing which can be easily preserved over the ages, in any of numerous forms (digital, paper, microfilm, etc.), withstanding technological breakdown, totalitarian censorship, natural disaster, all that. Huh. I'm feeling pretty dark and dreary, eh? Oh well. There's the past. Now let's take a look forward. One thing I'm considering is making this issue BIGGER than OsoaWeek001, which is 99382 characters (including the DOS line feeds, 95503 before). Guess I can sieve through the archives of Obliviana and come up with a 20K or so tidbit to get me there. Sunday, August 27, 1995, 2:31:31 PM Um, this issue is gonna be bigger than 100K. Haha! I know I set forth 100K as the maximum length of any issue, but f*ck it! Sunday, August 27, 1995, 4:25:46 PM Yeah, so what I did was find this thing I wrote in 1990--The "On Noyage" Transcriptions. Check it out in Nihilistica below. This work shows how I've been dealing with these ideas for a very long time. Rereading it, I found some inspiration, but a lot more of something else--a sense of relief that I never manifested that particular version of my vision as a true endeavor. In other words, I'm glad I failed in 1990. Huh. I wonder if a Frank Edward Nora in the year 2000 is saying the same thing about my plans of 1995? Well, I don't think so. One thing I managed to do in the past five years is grow up. And that's not something too many people get to do these days. Yeah. Emerging from my cocoon has been a disorienting, messy experience. I remember working at Imaging in 1990 as being an especially awkward time. Away from college and Anything But Monday, I kinda hadta learn to crawl. Years. Years and years and years. But it's all pointing towards, moving towards, exploding towards a successful business venture. Cuz, like, in order to reach a whole lotta people, and also like not have to work for someone else, Obliviana has to be a successful business. On another issue, I observe that I hold my own past in an almost religious reverence. Things I thought, believed, wrote down, created, experienced, etc. in my past--I feel it's all of major value. Yeah. I'd like to be back there. 1986. That was the year. The big year. Huh. To think of high school, how 1986 was years in the future then. Yeah. And according to me back in 1986, the me of 1995 should be an ultra-billionaire world leader by now. Yeah. If I consider this dynamic of cherishing the past, shouldn't I be happy to be in the past of my future? That is, won't I wish to be back HERE, someday? I don't know. The romance of sitting in a messy room in my apartment, typing away, creating the masterpiece OYO. At this point, I don't even care how I'm coming across. I know I'm totally self-absorbed. And I know that self-absorption is viewed by others usually with distaste. But right now, I just gotta figure this out for myself. And telling this stuff to YOU gives it a lot more weight than just putting it in a personal journal. I know there are people out there in the future READING THIS. I know that I am TALKING TO YOU. So how far away am I from the "right" plan? Sitting here in my underwear, I gotta wonder. Why is it so difficult? Whatever. I just wanna get OYO DONE!!! I think I'll swerve myself toward that goal RIGHT NOW!!! Sunday, August 27, 1995, 5:45:13 PM Gotta finish up here. Still haven't got the Unified Field. Some thing I have here that I was meaning to talk about were the Obliviana Roads, another structure of Obliviana Primal. Also, I wanted to discuss "fictional fandom", where I'd create a storyline featuring people who are fans of Obliviana is a world where Obliviana is big. But I'll have to continue these discussions in Obliviana Year Two. So what do I have to say here, at the conclusion of Obliviana Year One? Hmmm... I guess I just hafta say that this is only the beginning--much greater things are coming! I tellya. If for some reason all you have is Obliviana Year One and nothing else, all I can say is that there's enough stuff in OYO to keep you busy for a long time. But let's hope you have access to entire vast realm of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement, eh? Anyway, you know what to do... GET ALL OBLIVIANA!!!!!!!!!!! *OW* [[08052NH]] Nihilistica ***THE "ON NOYAGE" TAPE TRANSCRIPTIONS*** On a drive to visit my brother in Rhode Island in February of 1990, I spoke into a tape recorder to try and work out all of my ideas. Then, later on, I transcribed the tapes onto my computer. What follows is that transcription. To comment, this material is extremely dense and confusing --even to me. It's very important, though, in that it shows where I was with my ideas back then--ideas which, at their core, have remained almost identical. But the implementation I was planning on back then--unbelievably contrived and complicated. So be aware that the following probably won't make much sense unless you're an Obliviana scholar. To make things a little clearer though, Nomadi used to be the name of my core endeavor. I have since changed it to Obliviana. And remember, this whole thing was recorded only a few months after ABM Magazine fell apart. Good luck! Transcription of the 5 "On Noyage" Tapes 3/1/90 * Frank Edward Nora Tape #1 This transcription will not be verbatim, but rather, record all the important points made Tape #1 / Side 1 / 2-14-90 / Wednesday 12:55 AM. 6 years ago today--'Book of Madness' began. The area is abandonded. Marcy as nomadi-type contact? Camper and cop car blocking diesel pump for ten minutes. Best way to deal with policemen is to avoid them. 1:19 AM. Nomadi has been many things--now is one new thing. 2 basic parts of nomadi--the basis, 'nomadi' and the presentation, 'Noyage'. "The Hollow Fantasia" as the 'bible' of Noyage. Perhaps incorporate story or narrative along with the information in THF. The idea of book within a book within a book. 2:00 AM. After 7-11 and Dunkin Donuts. Old nomadi was a multi-media entertainment company-type thing. In reality was small press, releasing a wide variety of things in different formats. Runs were at times extremely low, but the capacity was always there to fabrricate a copy on demand (ie, in terms of videotapes, the master was there, labels and box cover were printed up, copying facilities available, etc. The new nomadi is basically one thing. Basically four grids, representing 4 basic relationships between 11 and 19. Subtract grid with -8 quads, in each one basic practive of nomadi. A divide grid, which is the symbol-from-dream, (where 57.9% if the outlined curcle is black, in terms of the symbol), and contains the idea of nomadi. The Add Grid contains 30 designations, divided with 11 ele and 19 nen. The Multiply Grid contain 209 quadrant, with 2 symbols in each--one from a nenset and one from an eleset. Term 'nomadi' replaces term 'zonal'. Idea of nomadi (iOn). In nomadi, we are dealing with reality. Reality is a medium in which we exist. << these comments are not on tape but thought of during the transcription. the idea of nomads visiting each other, or rather, knowing that you have someplace to stay, and indeed a destination, while travelling around. so you'll act as both host and guest, and will get to meet a lot of new people this way...>> Reality is not so much a solid 3-D structure as it is personal sets of sensory, thought, emotional, etc. information. Therefore, reality can be described as the experience of reality... Reality is not one thing--it's one thing after another. We all share certain aspects of our environments, while also having wholly personal levels of experiece... Reality as a flow, a sequence. Essential to the nature of reality is the 'angle' or the 'gist' of this flow of reality--ie, the way reality progresses is a large component of reality. "What happens next." or "What is the range of option of what can happen next?" Include in reality the totality of experience--not just physical sensations, but thoughts, fantasies, emotions, dreams, etc. "What is the relationship between a sequence of events, and a zone let's say, and other things also?" Somewhat headache-inducing traffic conditions in the dead of night... "Reality, natures of reality///" What is reality composed of? What is the structure of reality, the subsets? Ah the freedom--I can just get into my car late at night and go to New England--that is providing I have the desire, the mental maps, and the plans of what I'll do when I get there.... a safe destination... As the authot of nomadi, it is not my place to try to explain the nature of reality, rather, to make obsevations about reality, without having to explain the 'why' of it. Now, 4 aspects of reality I've previously defined--location, situation, perception, and atmosphere. In reality there is a sequence; reality progresses. And although we do have daily routines which repeat over and over again, each new moment forges ahead into a new version of reality; every moment is a new moment full of potentials for new things. Reality is basically erased and redrawn every moment, so change is basic to the system, and routines and ruts basically illusions of staticity. Reality is a sequence which we're always at the vanguard of. 'Groove' is the normal sequence of reality we operate under--which tends to be boring and safe. Nomadi is a term used to describe a state of altered reality. A state of altered groove. Or, a state of reality resulting from addressing the groove and moving beyond it. Nomadi is both a process and the state resulting from that process. It is a recognizable state of reality. Nomadi, being based upon specific numbers an practices, is then a specific kind of reality-progression. <<now on the tape I am referring to nomadi being a type of thing like groove, but a different one. Now, this would depend upon where the basic laws of reality are 'kept', such as the basic physical laws of the universe —if they are in groove, then nomadi is a way altering groove, while keeping groove at the center. If the basic rules are kept beyond groove, then nomadi can be a separate thing from groove, except for the fact that nomadi does revolve around and depend upon groove as its basis--so its really a moot point; either way nomadi is based upon groove. (call groove 'rut'?)) Kinds of reality-progressions. A method of altering reality thru altering the way reality progresses. A good word to use here is coefficent--that is, nomadi is a coefficent to the nature of the 'next' 'frame' of reality. Tape #1 / Side 2 / 2-14-90 / Wednesday Coefficents. Nomadi is a reality-coefficent. Like a rudder--if a rudder on a boat is set all the way to the left or right, the boat will go in circles (groove)--but if straightened out, the boat will move forward (nomadi). The idea of a reality-coefficent is rather intangible a concept. 3:19 AM. Now, groove is your ordinary coefficent--and will always be there, since it's part of the 'package' of humanity, but--nomadi is a coefficent which can be used as a temporary overdrive to your built-in groove-coefficent. Temporary augmentation. But is the change in extent, kind, or both? << idea that in nomadi to make the observations themselves facts, i.e., it is a fact that this is the way I perceive reality and also the accepted norm of how we all perceive reality-- be straightforward in nomadi--make no claims which can't be substantiated.>> Groove tends to make things simple, safe, mundane, secure. Groove makes reality into the invisible medium (just as in writing, the ideal state is to not notice the printed words, but rather the thoughts behind them), so people can seek their entertainment and pastimes using reality as the stable, neutral medium. Nomadi, on the other hand, directly addresses reality, and uses reality itself as the medium of the entertainment (since nomadi is basically an entertainment or pastime or hobby oriented thing). Groove is not bad--but can be restrictive at times. Groove is also the stable point of reference for nomadi. No, your house is not bas, but sometimes you need to get away, etc. But nomadi is not, at any level, an alternative or counterculture; rather, it is an encancement to your current life. For nomadi to work you need to do something, be it a thought, an action, an imagination, etc. You directly provide the momentum and direction of the change. It's analagous to walking. But nomadi is a method of walking not in space but in variations on the progression coefficent. This is in contrast to witchcraft and other related supernatural practices which tend to use other beings' powers. In nomadi, you don't wind up owing anybody anything, which is not the case in many field of the occult. Nomadi tends to make things in the environment more orderly, in the sense of coincidences and making reality seem to have a 'plot' and seem like a movie, let's say. At very high levels of nomadic motion, actually entering a whole nother world is theortically possible. The older ideas of zonal theory (from the first Hollow Fantasia), <<also, blackout area theory>> Goalwise, The Hollow Fantasia has to be written, and Noyage begun, with a number of members. Length of The Hollow Fantasia? 50 - 150 pp., say <<now I'm thinking more like 100 - 200 pages, actually>> Nomadi as the idea, Noyage as the group of people acting according to the idea. <<The Hollow Fantasia should contain info on the framework of Noyage, as well>> Style of THF as Carrollian-whimsy? Perhaps more like with many little asides, many little analogies, allegories, etc. Maybe little verses, stories, etc. I want it to be a book which people can use, can refer to , which is entertaining. Symbols can each contain a lot of information << but I don't want explanatory stuff in the symbols, rather, I want explanatory stuff as part od the text of the book itself>> Talking about weird phone call to Marjorie Kaye. The Hollow Fantasia is the straightforward and complete presentation of the whole idea of nomadi and Noyage. Also, the nomadiStructure, in which symbols can contain text, at one point included the idea that The Hollow Fantasia was just the structure, since some symbols contained text. But this is unnecessary and a little too convoluted, I think. <<before, I projected that a new member would have to receive THF, an intro to Noyage, a Zope of Halfevil sampler, and the like. But now, THF should cover all of that.>> Charts, diagrams, pictures, symbols (in THF) which can make the book look 'cool' at a brief flipping-thru (although such graphic elements will be quite necessary.) <<idea--in the way creativity fits into life, it seems as if the mundane aspects rather than the creative aspects are the norm, but I say a good idea would be that raw creating should be the norm, and revision, data management, transcription, etc be the odd-type of activity.) Nomadi practices--rivet, jargon, plash, bauble, spin, flicker, node, thrust. We want to transform that list into 8 types of activity, so in effect consolidate those which are really the same type of thing. Sll practices together form 'engine', 'smorgasboard', control panel' for you to do nomadi. I don't want nomadi to be several different kinds of things, rather, I want it as one thing with different extents and variations. Active and passive zoning. Introspective and extrospective. Causing nomadi to occur, therefore altering reality. You do this to accelerate change. this to manage the type of change, this to do this, support mechanisms, etc. In terms of each practice, does it cause nomadi to occur by itself? Can there be different combinations of practices? <<idea--things done while not zoning, but in terms of nomadi, can then later b used in active zoning? (like in viewing a video say, of people walking around) ... could that then affect a zonal spin later on?>> Can all the practices be used at once? Whatever... Practices describe the general nature of what should be done--symbols suggest a range of possible specific methods. Each practice should be a different kind of thing, relating to a different aspect of nomadi. << the criteria for practices should be that each areas addresses a major aspect of nomadi, and therefore, there are 8 basic aspects of nomadi. These two will go hand in hand--the aspect and the practice. But what are they? From right here, I'd say... look at it in terms where things such as creating something and presenting it to somebody else is as vital an aspect as spin and thrust, etc...>> The fact that nomadi is based upon specific practices and actions is good since it shows that the more energy you put into it, the more you'll get out, and that to do it, 'here is what to do'. Also, the nature of the practices will basically define the nature of Noyage. The idea of 'authentic communication', very important, which is straightforward, unfettered exchange of ideas, without pretense. An example might be group sessions where people from all over can really air their true feelings on matters like sex, love, work, society, etc.--since it is the attitudes of other people and the fact that other people's attitudes are so hidden from us that we often have such difficulties. <<I would say that exchange of creations and exchange of words can be included in the same aspect-practice--now what of communication w/ yourself? Dossier?>> Now, here's a blunt question--do these areas involving creativity and communication really serve to alter reality, or do I just like them and want to include them? The answer is that they are specific manifestations of basic concepts, in this case, your relationship with other people, and also with yourself. (as the creativity part may be more in yourself, and the sharing of it in the relationship with others.) Nomadi as more of a diversion than an occult science, definitely an enhancement to your life while not superceding your normal life, religion or beliefs. Nomadi as more of a spice of life than a way life. Nomadi is recreation, comparable to going to an amusement park, seeing a movie, getting drunk, dancing, etc. But as its idealistic principle, it seeks to make the world a better place by making recreation more productive and creative. Alcohol and nomadi do not mix at all. Coffee does not have that devastating effect, but does seem to deaden the nomadic process. The word 'nomadi'. Transcription of the 5 "On Noyage" Tapes 3/2/90 * Frank Edward Nora Tape #2 This transcription will not be verbatim, but rather, record all the important points made Tape #2 / Side 1 / 2-14-90 / Wednesday We're goin'! We're goin'! 4:27 AM. In Connecticut. The word 'nomadi'--containing the word 'nomad'--which is an important aspect. You become a nomad in terms of the progression of reality--pick up your roots and go where fortune/the wind takes you. Reality responds to your actions with a reaction, but the reaction is not under your control. While doing nomadi, you leave your home "groove" and move about wherever chance takes you "nomadi". So 'nomadi' is a very relevant term. 'Nomadi' is the word 'nomadic' sans the 'c'. A temporary nomadic state. 'Noyage' is an organization--"nomadi voyage'. Members of Noyager are called either nomads or noyagers, and in designing nomadi I must consider the 'what are these people doing?' aspect of nomadi. Or in other words, as a result of the contents of nomadi, what will these people be doing when they are doing nomadi? Well, one thing would be developing their 'nomad indentity' <<or nomadidentity>> wherein they decide the personal content of various designations, creating a personal set of information which can be compared to that of other nomads. Also, the idea of authentic conversation is very important, including talking, sharing work of creativity (webs), etc. <<note: these activities, though valuable in and of themselves, are to be performed in order to cause nomadi; they have utilitarian purposes.>> The idea of saying "okay, now we will have a conversation" instead of just drifting into it. Also creativity, and creating 'webs', is an important activity. Again, creating webs will have the utilitasrian aspect of aiding in 'altering reality'. Now with creating webs, a set of formats will be provided, but there will be no restriction which says that those are the only things you can do, rather, they will provide a guideline. Communication aspect of nomadi is very, very important. The idea of 'clearing the air' between two people when they first meet, esp. in terms of sex and romance, so, as a set of words in jargon, a salutation system should be included which involves a multi-level set of words which when used will establish the relationship between the two people, and not only in terms of sex, but also friendship, 'clique' membership, etc. Also, perhaps if a person has more time to do things, or if they're susally busy. Basically, a way of telling a person you meet things about yourself in a polite and descreet way. And also incorporating other such mechanisms into 'jargon'. In Noyage, address concerns of young people, as that will be main audience. 'Clear the air' thing in jargon as aid in acheiving authentic conversation. 'Presentation' as different from conversation, in terms of webs? Formal process of presenting thing, ideas, etc. Jargon as not a total language, but rather a supplement (as nomadi itself is a reality supplement). In jargon, no phoentics, but rather syllables (or multi-syllables) as basics. <<also, symbols just general glyphs, identified as types of symbols, not exact symbols. Also, elesymbols and nensymbols should be easily combined into elenen glyphs.>> Now, nomadi will basically be "set" after a time, and expansions will exist in Noyage. Symbols can contain as much as desired. Nomadi should not be all-encompassing; it is a specific and limited system. <<can the 'nomad' be the inner person and the 'noyager' the outer person?>> In terms of rivet, a nomad will take a subject, like a deck of cards, say, and focus upon that and use that as a basis (or even coefficent) for various activities (like talking about, creating, collecting, etc.). Nomadi need to have 'texture', or rather, have certain specific motifs, images, ideas, words, etc. associated with it <<like in the idea of creating something like a hippie movement or like an occult subculture--focusing on the trapping rather than the validity). Idea that English language benefits from odd spelling since the words have more texture. <<bauble as a nomadi-object, that is, within nomadi, there are certain types of 'objects' defines, like webs, baubles, etc.>> Each individual ele and nen should have a unique personality and identity. Idea, visions of wheatfields, visions of starscapes, as opposed to just one specific vision? Choose favorite zoneway depending upon specific aspects of the ele and nen. <<in each ele and nen, try to have the specific symbol of whatever designation relate to or contrast with the other symbols in the ele of nen.>> Relate dossier development to role-playing game character generation. "Personal 8-word sentence describing the universe" / your "platform". Using nodes as units, which are containers with various things inside, both useful and useless, with both the value of what the thing can do, and what aesthetically they are, and how they contrast, like webs in progress, flea market crao, baubles, etc. << idea of having histories for baubles amd creating the character of the bauble using different designations>> Biblio-tabula-rasa. Web to bauble? In nomadi, not just what you do, but what you have (like objects, ideas, etc.); the tools of your trade. Objects for objects sake--just to have them around--their prescence and/or existence can cause nomadi to occur. Also, recording, tape recording, tape yourself, then listen, can this be a type of web? Or a form of introspection. Record a trip and then replay the tape and redo the trip. Gorilla video, gorilla audio as webs. <<better webs can become more widely available thru Noyage>> Where does one aspect of nomadi end and another begin? Aspects: jargon (language), web (creating), flicker (authentic conversation / methods of interacting with other people), dossier (your nomadidentity), spin (nomadic trip), thrust (improbable actions), bauble (objects and nodes), focus (subjects, the process of focusing). <<Idea of using smells/scents as baubles or focuses or thrusts>> Tape #2 / Side 2 / 2-14-90 / Wednesday The idea of nomadi, or rather Noyage, does actively involve groups of people as opposed to just the individual. <<noyagers in one sense and nomads in another? like, nomads when travelling, or active, and noyagers when doing other things, or passive>> Nomadi should be intriguing. Focus as area for specific 'textural' things. <<nomadi as reality extension cord?>> "Rivet" as double meaning--both something to rivet your attention upon, and also, a rivet as a thing holding nomadi together. Fine line between instrinsic and contrived. Rivets as guts of nomadi? Dossier also containing list of zonal trips, personal thrust methods, sets of webs, etc. The Hollow Fantasia written by June 14, 1990. 5:34 AM, arrival at John's apartment. 224 miles. Signing off. Transcription of the 5 "On Noyage" Tapes 3/5/90 * Frank Edward Nora Tape #3 This transcription will not be verbatim, but rather, record all the important points made. Tape #3 / Side 1 / 2-21-90 / Wednesday Hello. OK hello. 1:18 AM. Just leaving John's apartment in Providence, Rhode Island, on my way home <<Martinsville>>. Idea of virtual reality--most important new development for the human race in a long time--they're computer-generated universes. Every single aspect of these worlds can be manipulated. Online worlds should be in existence in the area of 1996. I'd like to be administering worlds at that time. Noyage will provide context for the worlds, also, Noyage gives a reason to be for art, creativity, communications, etc. To lend credence to these things. Virtual reality will throw focus upon actual reality (the real world), since unreal world will be so extreme. Noyage exists in the medium of actual reality. An access method to actual reality, to interact with it, utilizing actual reality as its medium. Not interacting with element of the environment, but the environment itself. Actual reality will even out virtual reality, and they can work together, and fit together. Noyage is the study, implementation, research, and organization of nomadi. Nomadi is the idea. So nomadi needs to be defined first off. Grids, symbols, practices, etc. in nomadi. Nomadi must be straightforward (re: talk with "Daniel" in NY)--"Tell it like it is." So express it in the most clear and truthful way. Daniel's message was that if I am straightforward then I have succeeded. So say yes, 209 was my room number, I'm 22, I have no divinely inspired info that I know of. 100%. This is not easy, but it is a vital part of nomadi and Noyage--to be honest with other people--and with myself. (Like the Beatles--they were very straightforward). Don't talk bullsh*t. Lift the barriers between yourself and other people. So now, I must understand and believe all that I express. The idea of nomadi is contained in the divide grid (nomadi symbol) as a passage of text--it introduces, defines, describes it. The core. Then 8 distinct practices of what you should do. Then 30 designations, related to practices, but not connected to practices. 418 symbols. 457 nomadi-objects. In nomadi symbol, 57.9% of circle is black. This symbol must be precisely drawn. <<don't taper ends? rather, 'cut' then vertically off? or vectors from center. >> iOn = idea of nomadi (divide map). The passage of text iOn, is the center of the whole thing. Nomadi is altering reality (but, any action you take modifies or alters reality). Now talking about the progression. Nomadi as reality progression coefficent--alters the way in which reality progresses. So not an alteration directly in reality, but rather, in the nature of the progression of reality. Groove is the normal way reality progresses for a person. Nomadi uses groove as a basis, but changes it a little bit. Nomadi is a modification on groove. So nomadi is not a progression, but a way of changing the progression. Modifies groove, expands it. Not the same thing as groove, unless groove is also a progression style, and progression is something else. But in any event, nomadi is groove-based, since there is zonal gravity. I will not attempt to explain reality; I don't know. What I will do is observe reality. So I have to define what I mean by reality, and what I mean by progression. Say there's a basic unit of time (moment) and matter (pixel). For each moment there is pattern of pixel around you. With each moment the pattern of pixels changes according to a set of rules. (the sensory model of reality may be more accurate here, with basic units of sensation) <<there is a stable set of rules, and an alterable set?>> Let's say, at least a portion of the laws controlling reality are decided upon by us. A human being's interaction with reality is very complex. We are constantly deciding what to do next. So we have a very complicated interface with reality. Now, let's say that the conscious mind cannot handle the sheer quantity of decision which need to be made; it's not equipped to make every choice. So, the subconscious portion of your mind will make most of the decisions for you, based upon a set of criteria. This function makes your life easier, but also acts as a restrictive factor upon you. So that set of criteria in the subconscious is the groove. Now, what you can do is affect that set of criteria. Is the mechanism user-friendly, or is it user-hostile. That is, if approached in the proper manner, will it allow changes to be made, or does it need to be forced? <<and does it make any difference? except that a user-friendly manner might be easier...>> To force it, one can act strange and "confuse" the mechanism. Nomadi is an action-based system. So, can you take actions directly to alter the groove? Or must you "attack" the groove to change it? Is there a built-in groove override? Groove is the heart of your existence in reality. Can you alter your heart rate? Yes, but indirectly, through physical motion. But some can control their heartbeats consciously, with much practice. Perhaps that is the case here. On the other hand, a thing like breathing is a dual automatic-conscious function. Can groove be of this type? Well, maybe we would know about it instinctively if it were. And it would not be vital for survival to alter the groove, would it? Now, at first glance, one would think that the extent that our groove criteria alters the course of reality is to define how our bodies move, and therefore physically interact with other things. As well, it can affect the way our minds think, But, I have noticed that it also affect things in the environment which one would have no physical control over--it alters reality beyond one's normal scope of effect. One possible explanation for this is that, as in the Schroedinger's Cat model, nothing is manifest until it is directly experienced. Therefore, our subconscious criteria may have an affect on how the thing will manifest. Now, even if the actual determination of what will manifest is basically random, we may be able to control the range of possibilities. Another important idea, perhaps the range depends upon what we will be able to accept as having happened, not at a conscious level, but at a subsonscious level. Therefore, if we expand or change the range of events which we would accept, then we will be altering the way reality progresses by expanding or changing the set of "choices" reality will determine randomly from. For example, if I went to Pittsburgh (where I've never been), there are any number of possible ways the city could be which I would accept as fact and assume it's always been that way. But there is a range of ways Pittsburgh can be that I would accept, a limited range. I would not accept, for example, that all the buildings are huge mushrooms--for if they were, I would surely have heard of it. <<maybe this has to do with the zonal model of the earth--you expect areas to be a certain way and so they are--by altering your basic expectations, you might be able to alter the surface of the earth in terms of your own existence>> Maybe even conscious alterations in expectations, bypassing certain types of logic, can cause the same phenomenon. Now, let's say, walking in a dorm, I turn the corner in a hallway. Now, even though I may have been there hundreds of times before, it might be slightly different each time. But what if I were able to fully accept that if I turned the corner I might wind up in a shopping mall. Might that not then occur? Or at least, would that not at least have a better chance of occuring? <<now, this brings me to another idea I thought of today, manipulating and altering logic in local areas as means of acheiving desired results. So actually dealing with logic instead of physics.>> If one could totally alter their expectations, then they might almost assuredly cause a certain thing to occur. Screwing around with the maps of actual reality you have in your mind. I may not know everything that exists in India, say, but I sure "know" what couldn't exist, based upon the information I have. The "would have heard about it" idea is very important here. <<But that's at a conscious level. Perhaps the vital mechanism is at a subconcious level, not readily accessable to the conscious mind...>> Tape #3 / Side 2 / 2-21-90 / Wednesday Now, in the car, listening to a bit I just recorded, and hearing the background noise of air coming thru the window and the engine both on the tape and in reality (same progression). <<the idea of managing all the ideas and concept I deal with>> Whenever you move, locations are recreated. In fact, just sitting still, reality is constantly recreated also (so the effect need not be restricted to movement). With nomadi you can widen the range of "what happens next". Also, now, the groove-alteration affects the way you react to what happens. And it changes the environment itself by altering the range of possibilities of what "happens next". But these explanations are just ways of describing what happens, but are not to be expressed as gospel--just as possible explanations of an observed phenomenon. This all realites to the iOn text. In the iOn text will be what sorts of things you should be doing in order to cause nomadi. Then, the preactices will describe specific types of actions, and the symbols will define specific actions. Also, nomadi is not a system intrinsic to reality, but rather a specific method of altering reality out of a set of possible ways. 2:14 AM. Book about circadian rhythms at John's apt. and I have beendealing with that recently. Also, given free rein, human beings will go to sleep an hour later every night — on a 25-hour schedule rather than the existing 24-hour day. Now, nomadi does have specific "cultural" aspects, such as motifs, patterns, words, designs, kinds of things it focuses on, a very specific way of dealing with the altering of reality. Hippies had specific cultural traits related to their beliefs, but not intrinsic to their beliefs. Something like that--specific culture--for nomadi. Colors, apparel. Seed for culture traits in iOn. Nomads should have many distinctive traits, such as clothing, objects, hand gestures, words, etc. Nomadi as not subculture but supplementaryculture, able to accent any lifestyle. <<now, as far as traits go, I should have a list of all those traits I will define, realizing that from these, other traits can be developed by Noyage.>> Emphasize that nomadi is just one of many possible methods of altering reality. Phrase "Don't question serendipity." 2:53 AM. 3:00 AM. Just saw a sign in the distance, which seemed to suddenly move to the right, as if to "correct" itself; seems to relate to what I've been saying. 317 miles driven tonite so far. 3:26 AM. Hartford, CT? Fairfield, CT. The nomadi #'s 11 and 19. 209 is the combination is 11 and 19. Numbers are quantities. But what else? 11 and 19 are both prime. 11 = 10 + 1. 19 = 20 - 1. Two aspects here: the use of the numbers, and the origin of the numbers. <<nomadi = a method for humans>> the numbers: 11 is the male, with 10 fingers OR toes, plus the penis. 19 is the female, with 20 fingers AND toes, minus the vagina. The thing with te number is not either number, nor both numbers, but rather the interaction of the two numbers. << since 11 is male and 19 is female is this interaction equivalent to sex?>> The nomadi interaction. A give and take. Numbers as adjectives and as nouns. The interaction is mathematically based. The laws of the universe are also mathematically based. For example, pi is embedded in nature. Refer to yin-yang, etc. 3:53 AM 362 mi. Earlier odometer went to 180000. <<remember, the ides of being straightforward need not figure into the development, only the presentation.>> Fueling and steering as the basic asoects of nomadi. << the numbers as a coefficent within a coefficent?>> Coefficent on the change on the sequence. The change of the sequence itself is a coefficent, so the coefficent on the change is another level. 209 = sex? 43,681 would be a yin-yang symbol composed of yin-yang symbols. << 209 as specifcally human version of positive-negative?>> Eleaspect and nenaspect. End of this tape. Transcription of the 5 "On Noyage" Tapes 3/7/90 * Frank Edward Nora Tape #4 This transcription will not be verbatim, but rather, record all the important points made. Tape #4 / Side 1 / 2-21-90 / Wednesday Hello. Welcome to the second tape. 4:07 AM. Rt. 95 in CT, going 60 mph, behind a truck, lights, trees, road, guardrail, sky, lights, markings on the road. etc. Eleaspect and nenaspect, the numbers. 11 aspects of the male force, 19 aspects of emale force. Male is positive and boolean OR, female is negative and boolean AND. A duality here: the "noun version" of the numbers represent the basic positive and negative forces of nature <<?>> and the "adjective version" or quantitative aspect is then used in the system itself as a number. Now, by choosing one aspect of the "male" and one aspect of the "female" of the interaction, you get a "specific interaction", and there are 209 of these. Choosing all aspects of both is the "general interaction". Now, a scary idea is that if you have interaction with any number of eles combined with any number of nens, then consider the staggering number of "free-specific interactions" there would be! Perhaps this level of interaction would merely act as a form of "refining" direction, or in other words, with the 209 directions as a rough framework, this higher level would serve to more exactly pinpoint "where" you'd be, nomadiwise. <<important word: "nomadiwise">> That big number = ((2^11)-1) * ((2^19)-1). << (2048-1) * (524288-1). 2047 * 524287. 1,073,215,489. Just over one billion interactions! >> The "minus one" shows that no ele or no nen would not be included, since there would be no interaction at that point. Now, basically we are doing two things--creating motion, and then guiding that motion. Now this guidance system is based upon an interaction between a positive and a negative force. One nen and one ele form the direction. In NY now. See ele and nen as symbols, as in yin/yang? Now the interaction is an "object" in terms of nomadi. Another object <<?>> would be the generaltion of "nomadi velocity". To create this relative nomadic motion we can do purposefully do things which go against the flow of reality. The idea of a nomadic velocity creation action, would be one object, the interaction being another. So here is another interaction of 2 things. Motion would be male in the active capacity, but female in the "body" aspect. Guidance is male in the "mind" aspect, but female in the "motionless" aspect. Now 11 and 19 do determine the basic number of practices--8. And one practice will involve the steering. So the whole thing is very interrelated and complex. Nomadi velocity induction and steering, are both under the auspice of the interaction. Nomadi is not the system of altering reality, rather a system. Likeswise, the interaction is not the only possible interaction, but it is the one intrinsic to nomadi. A system could theoretically be based upon anything (a highway, a sphere), but in this case it is the interaction of 11 and 19. These numbers basically represent a human male and human female (being that it involves finger, toes, and genitals). Humanity is basically the center of our realities, and likewise the center of the nomadi idea. Also, the booleans are a factor. So interaction of basic humanty with higher concepts of positive and negative. And the basis of the system itself is to interact with things in reality in order to interact with reality itself. So interaction on many levels. Nomadi would be the essence of interaction at all levels. The idea of nomadi is to interact with reality, to use reality, to alter reality (and maybe let it use you a little?). Since the goal of nomadi is an interaction, the entire system is based upon an interaction. <<the basic interaction of 11 and 19 acting throughout as representative of all the interactions involved at all levels. >> The final goal of the system is to interact directly with reality--not with things in reality, but rather reality itself, reality being the environment in its entirety. The final interaction would then be "you" and "reality" instead of 11 and 19... Why then have variations of the basic interactions. A way of supporting the interactions. 11 and 19 refer to humanity. Humanity's interaction with reality. Inherent to the core interaction is huimanity itself. << 11 and 19 as numbers to help define the range of the interavtion.>> Interacting with yourself, other people, the environment, and the "beyond". These four were the basic of what I was doing before. Might there be 8 basic interactions? You as experiencer and you as the human being are two different "things". Can you interact with aspects of tyourself, aspects of your environment, aspects of different things, Interact with history, for example. The past, the future, possibilty, through creativity. you, other, here, there, environment, beyond. The 8 practices may represent the 8 basic kinds of interactions. Then when each practice is defined, a specific way of "doing" that interaction will be developed. Then in each way a general definition of what to do will be given, followed by specific examples of specifically what to do. So the Pattern of general to specific at several levels. Besides interacting with tangible things, what about more intangible things? The idea of altering reality with a method. The specific things will be the things "of nomadi". <<basically, divide grid and subtract grid are one thing "the idea and how to go about it" and the multiply grid and the add grid are more of "the specific tools for doing it." hence another duality/interaction. >> Now, an idea may be that through nomadi we are defining a "kind of reality altering method" through example--and therefore be a model for the creation of new ways of altering reality... Also, to provide an "industry standard" for reality altering... to allow "reality alterers" to have a common basis. Idea of other method of reality altering would vary from nomadi in the same way as nomadi deviates from groove. Now, what are the 8 practices? Well, we have the basic four "tangible" ones, so what about 4 "intangible" ones? (stop at Vince Lombardi sercive center) Looking at huge tan crescent moon. Crescent as aspect of nomadi, related to human experience of seeing the moon. Just had a "quaint" craving for cheddar cheese... The idea of human experience in terms of what to interact with. 4:58 AM. NJ Turnpike. The basic nomadi interaction has its basis in humanity and also in terms of "higher concepts", so in the interactions I can have "higher ideas", and the others "human terms". The "highers" would be yourself, others, surroundings, and the beyond. Now, as for the "lowers", or aspects of human experience, like travel, in many terms like home to work, bedroom to bathroom, NJ to RI, etc. very basic to human experience. That would be for "spin". Surroundings would be better as "bauble". "thrust" as the human experience of what? But, "spin" would not be travel, but rather interacting with the concept of travel, addressing travel directly. Nomadi is not just existing in reality but noticing and addressing it. Noting travel in "spin". Noting reality. Now, creativity (plash, web), (interaction), (see placemat), jargon is language. So travel and language. Rivet is focussing your attention on something. What aspect of human experiencing is rivet? << right now, 3:47 AM, 3/7/90--what do I see as the 8 practices? "spin" travel, "rivet" hobby/interest, "jargon" language, "plash" creativity, "flicker" others, "dossier" self, "bauble" surroundings, "thrust" beyond/unknown. >> To find "structure" of "human experience" tetrad of practices, compare with aspect of the 4 elements — hot (expand), cold (contract), wet (move) and dry (stand still). spin as move. contract as rivet. others??? Stress not travel but interaction with travel (tho you will travel in noting it.), same with language, crativity, focusing, etc. What is the word meaning specifically acting on an interest, in a hobbylike manner? Grid order--divide to subtract to add to multiply. /, -, +, *, makes some sort of sense. Symboroeam to symbol from dream. "essays" in all grids except multiply. Arrive home. 5:38 AM. Lights off. Engine off. 39 essays. each essay has name, and text. symbols are each written and/or graphic info. 457 objects all together. these form basis of nomadi. nomadi is basis of noyage. I am first member of noyage. No members now except me. then people will join anew. Noyage to independent company. Eventually hopefully have VR inline-worlds as a part of Noyage. So what can I say--DO NOMADI. Goodnight. Synopsis on "On Noyage" tapes 1 thru 4, Specifically on Nomadi 3/8/90 * Frank Edward Nora All actions address interactions. The "unity" is that all actions are based upon the basic 11-19. We have 4 grids. The divide grid, with one quadrant, contains an "essay" describing nomadi. The subtract grid, with eight quadrant, each containing an "essay" describing one basic practice of nomadi. The add grid contains 30 quadrants, in each of which is an ele from 1 to 11 or a nen from 1 to 19, and also in each quadrant is a designation, describing the "theme" of its set of symbols. The multiply grid contains 209 quadrants, and each row represents an ele and each column represents a nen, and in each quadrant, there is one symbol from a nenset and one symbol from an eleset. Reality is a sequence of sets of sensations, with a logical basis connecting them. The self experiences some sensations which are also experienced by other selves, and some sensations not experienced by other selves. The "logical basis" of reality basically determines "what happens next". We as selves can affect the flow of the logical basis through actions. Normally, our actions affect things in a direct way--I push a glass off the table and it falls, for example. But there is a way for our actions to affect reality in an indirect manner, affecting a portion of the logic itself. In this way, one can perform actions which "contradict" the normal flow of reality and therefore cause a temporary alteration in the way reality flows. An important point here is that it is actions which cause the alteration. This way of acting to cause a reaction in the "gist" of the flow of events is what nomadi is all about. Included in sensations are physical sensations, mental sensations, emotional sensations, etc.--everything we experience, whether or not it would be termed "real". Now the idea of a reality coefficent refers to the specific way in which the reality flow will be affected by your nomadic actions. Under the nomadi system, there are 209 specific coefficents which can be used, one for each combination of ele-nen. Since each "zoneway" will create a certain "gist" to reality, perhaps they could be compared with "places". The idea of actual freedom — I can just get into my car and go to New England--that is, if X. Here X = I have some reason to go, I have the resources to go, I feel like going, I know how to get there, I'm not scared to go there, I have some overall plan, I have a destination, etc. Nomadi provides whole new type of X. Nomadi will not attempt to explain the nature of reality--rather--it will make observations about reality. 4 aspects of reality I once defined: location, situation, perception, and atmosphere. (use as second tetrad of practices?!?!?) Though we perceive things in our environment as static, the whole of reality is erased and redrawn and innumerable number of times each second--and the stable elements in our surroundings are the result of the logical basis. The normal state of reality-progression is called "groove", and "groove" is the standard of reality-flow which nomadi deviates from and returns to. Nomadi is both a process and the result of that process. Nomadi is one specific way of altering the reality-flow out of innumerable ways. The term 'reality altering' refers to the changes in reality resultant in a change of the way in which it progresses. Transcription of the 5 "On Noyage" Tapes 3/11/90 * Frank Edward Nora Tape #5 This transcription will not be verbatim, but rather, record all the important points made. Tape #5 / Side 1 / 2-23-90 / Friday Good morning. 10:45 AM. What the is that under the bush over there, some packaging? I'm going to the Phillipsburg Mall, during the day, and I feel a little bit more self-conscious talking to myself in the car. I say saluations to myself sitting there in front of the computer. 60 degrees. Beautiful weather. Noyage is the organization, nomadi is the idea. The structures of these are different--but basically both aspects of the same thing. The whole book within a book within a book thing, while an interesting idea, is not very straightforward, and will not be used. Rather, The Hollow Fantasia will be straightforward, and directly presented. Using allegories to explain nomadi/Noyage ideas is a valid idea, in terms of nesting books, but can just as easily be presented in THF, straightforwardly. Telling it like it is, Noyage is not a game. What is it? It's an organization of people examining a certain idea. The idea exists, and the organization exists; those are facts. No claiming of things which aren't true, no misrepresentation, no deception. The whole idea of Noyage Earth can be erased--no 43,681 page manuscript. The idea of a game where the make-believe and the real are one and the same--but then, that really isn't a game at all. THF can contain more than nomadi itself--by discussing the symbols, defining Noyage, extrapolation, interpretation, practical info, actual locations, phone numbers, etc. Noyage starts with The Hollow Fantasia. Once THF is written, what I would then do is start with a small group of people, as in interweb, there will be structures that will need to be in place, and so on a limited scale, with "testers", I would fine-tune THF as a book and define the "infrastructure" of Noyage. Refine book to make it understandable, concise, accurate, etc. 22 West. "Do nomadi straight." You join Noyage, and then you can tailor your own subscription, the specifics therreof. You'll receive a regular newletter (NomadiNews)--32 miles to Phillipsburg. , then thru a period of testing, with a "mini"version of Noyage, revised revamped and finallized in this period (THF). LAst time I came this way I went to Lafayette College, tho I knew noone there, etc. After the book is finished ( June 14, 1990), then perhaps spend the rest of the year in a testing process, seriously administering a number of people, both people I might know, and those who I don't yet know, placing ads, but doing it right. A core group. Who'll provide comments, etc. Then, at the end of this period, establish a "first official" version of THF, and hopefully then begin Noyage on a general scale, for the general public. Start advertising, have people buy subscriptuions. The way it would be would be very interactive, people sending in webs, ideas, information, then we send things back, and publishing newsletters, reprts, special publciations, copies of THF to everyone (also, doing research...),--basically an organization involved in nomadi (but--how to make it profitable?)--start in 1991? I am not obsesed with getting it out there tomorrow, but have it constantly working towards that point, so it can be the best it can be, and as a serious business venture. Also, during that time developing myself as a writer and freelancer, and gaining the capacity to manifest Noyage on a large scale. It will take a lot of money to do Noyage. I want to be the only investor in Nomadi--it is essential that I am the sole owner of the company--not having anyone else with an interest or say in the company. 120%! I have decided to stop playing games. I will not hide what nomadi really is. Not a pleasant little game--just what it is. Now say I want a core testing and development of 100 people. If I spend the money and time, it can work--but it will be expensive, even to test. But the book and the idea need to come first. If someone asks "What the heck is this all about?" I can say "Just read The Hollow Fantasia and you will know all about it." 22 and 78 merge here. (100?) I want to both create and administer the idea. Subscriber-type thing, but all sorts of subscriptions available <<but too much cjoice can be bad, remember>>. Low-end as just NomadiNews, high-end as Interweb, research, Super Objects, etc. An inside network--like this--will be the wave of the future, as communication is getting so much more complete. Dealing directly with the company. Totally in tune with computers. Network able to convey audio, video, graphic, in a cheap effective format. But starting as postal based. That internal netwrok is of the utmost importance. Externally , comic books, ZOpe books, videos, etc., for external market. (Ideally, having nomadi stroes) but selling books and magazines thru conventional routes would be acceptable — as long as I am the publisher. But again, $$$$$$$$$$. Me on my own, or not at all. Because it just wouldn't be worth it. <<now, I'm sure it will get to a point at some point where it seems I cannot go on without investors or partners--but I say this now--even if it seems that all will be lost, perservere on your own, and it will work out--but stay full sole owner, at all times, at all costs!>> Now then, my capacity tro make money away from nomadi is of the utmost importance, being that I will need a lot of it in order to fo nomadi. More than I would ever make in a job working for someone else. I will need a large amount of money in a relatively short amount of time. 50--100 K to get it going. I will then need a very profitable business going in order to support and introduce Noyage. But--right now I have no money! But, I can become a freelance writer, desktop publisher, creative consultant--personally be that. But the dichotomy between being a freelancer and having my own company? Approaching Mall. About a 45 minute trip. Almost feels like talking into a tape recorder is illegal--by groove standards? Publshing. Authoring. Creative consulting. 11:30ish.AM. 2:02 PM. Back from mall now. Talking to guy at mall (encyclopaedia).. Now, a job will not lead me anywhere, excpet as a temporary pushing off into my own business. Must not get pstchologically trapped in a job. Being able to notice different sorts of things is very good. Remember to be straightforward and 100% honest. Realistically, I will need to have the money to do Noyage. This means I will need to go into business for myself--and run a business to support Noyage. Writing, creative consulting, desktop publishing, printing services. Idea of putting Zope, poems, sci-fi, drawing, etc. into one "book" and have a new sort of literature, where it's one work, but in a variety of styles and storylines. Then having SBBOB something like that. Try to make SBBOB accessable. Balbi's entries in SBBOB? Idea of "mental clip art" or "clip thought". $$ from writing books and getting them published. If using "magic" use it to get books published and develop business, but not lottery, etc. Zope totally on computer. Do shorter strips and try to get Zope published. Artwork--the idea of tracing the computer art with ink or paint, enlarged, etc. The special videos--video F/X for relax, altermind, nomadi, etc. Throatripper (going around w/ people; loose), train rides, NYC rooftop, help in imagining, drining around camous, etc. Also, Super Objects as viable project. Repackage old ABM's and sell. Audio cassette stuff. All of these are good ideas, but the ones to pursue now are the ones which will cost less and make more money; the more financially feasable. The mail order stuff would be aspects of Noyage. Other idea less a part of Noyage would be more of a way to make money and develop my creative prescence. Re: capacity to make money, anything I do will require me to spend money to get it started, as well as spend time and create organization. The mail order would require an infrastructure, as Noyage would also. Good for making $$$. RAE, SBBOB, ZOPE. The mechanics of mail-order is key to Noyage. Band-naming service as part of creative agency. General naming company. Small pressy: have a lot of material, then allowing someone to check off what they would want, then print up book specifically. Old NomadiNews catalog idea. I must publish THF myself. The freelance areas. Most feasable freelance area would be desktop publishing-printing servies. Creative consulting must be looked into further. Working for somebofy else as a salaried employee will not really do me much good. Right now, I am quite free. Plans'n'Passion! don't create new alliances, rather sever old alliances. 3:18 PM. I think I can suuceed in doing what I want to do. *OW* [[09052SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 305 Oil of hijo de puta. August brings feet stigmata. We're not pussing. Hit with the sweet winter blast. Nostalgia ruined your transmission. SUPERIOR 306 Very clear, been here, clue me in, we all live on top of the drive-in movie theater screen. What is "scorn"? I was fall-ass drunk. We all are tied with rope. Sexy people, the next day we play sadly in a drainage area. Who had this vision. If a street is a freakin' stab in the heart, what was my name? Never be apart, across time, from my hightime. SUPERIOR 307 Neither the trowel nor the dame are you, wonderful you. We see the nights of cool life, pinball along, sleek, doing drugs, doing the intercourse, in scene, I wonder am I you. Taken certain hours, of am we gods, I can say, we were terrible gods. It could not last. Maybe we suffered torturous childhoods just to deserve this brief ingition. But I am not you. You are ashes and I am juggernaut. SUPERIOR 308 You think you. Formerest the day one return. Gotta mean something. We are bad? No no. Damn look at it. Formerest--the most former--the original one. The day one, the one of light. Not Christ. Someone else. When I had a beard and was agile, you loved me. Thinking of a lover, Shannon. Damn I am a time traveller! I am! I have to accept that I am a time traveller! SUPERIOR 309 Be puncst. Scream. I'm falling asleep, I like America. Give me the scholars I need. Please interpret the hell out of me. I could use it. Man who was I. Vegetarian. Into the hole in the supermarket hole. Life as a human, 1967 thru 1995 so far. What a cherished treasure. SUPERIOR 310 Into the hole in the supermarket floor. People we like people. Terrible rocks and stones to be smashed on. Friend's father's car, can we steal it. Buy. Bingo! Punctuation thunderhole. I may have been subject to information overload. Quitting coffee was one step away from this. SUPERIOR 311 Nother held a brass-looking rod, made of short segments of pipe connected by piper connectors. We must have "adios". When the chair says something weird to you. Working in a problem. Meet Lamar the Macho Chemist. What isn't the world song? SUPERIOR 312 Seedling. Command-A, delete, command-S. I like tits. Cloth. The tortoise was in a dangerous casino. Bang. Renew your mindwave. This months! As far far as where I am. The insanity of him personal lexicon. College girl thing--The Tape Recorder Babies. Glenn Miller Slaughter for President! *OW* [[10052SR]] Severe Repair SEVERE REPAIR 52: "Agatha Petunia Wack" Snoppy Parser ran back out into the main concourse, down a ways, and then stepped into a row of ticket booths. Underneath one ticket-seller station, there was a steel plate covered with the bumps of bolts, covered with centuries of layers of light blue paint, making the bolts into smooth little mounds. He knelt down and carefully pressed the bumps in sequence. It was an exceedingly complex code, with over fifty steps. He had committed it to memory long ago, but still he had to be careful to execute the whole thing right. When he punched in the last sequence, there was a big click, and the entire panel lurched forward a little. With both hands, he pushed the panel forward. It receded, revealing a spiral staircase leading into darkness below. He stood up, opened a drawer, and took out a flashlight. Then he started descending into the blackness. This was a vault where Winter Stadium Them kept their most valuable and/or hazardous artifacts, collected during their complex and otherworldly missions. He strode past innumerable crazy and wonderful things, until finally he got to a huge vault door. Behind it were the most unbelievable and devastating objects. Neither he nor any the other two in the current Winter Stadium them knew how to unlock the vault. But Snoppy had a crossbow bolt, called the Getbolt, which just might work, he thought. His crossbow was broken up into eight part, four of which he stored in each of his boots, along with a bunch of bolts. He put the crossbow together and loaded it up with the Getbolt. Then he nuzzled it right up against the vault door and fired. Instantly, a thunderous noise was heard from beyond the door. Then all was silent again. He waited a few moments, then all of a sudden the vault door fell forward with a thud--surprisingly only a few inches thick. Carefully, Snoppy stepped into the vault and looked around. There were four cages that he could see by the flashlight light. One held a weird, shiny, giant mushroom. Another help a smiling teddy bear. Another held what looked like a Sunday newspaper with writing of an alien nature on it. The fourth cage held a black pillow. He raised his eyebrows in wonder as he regarded it. Yaut Pillow. He had read about it in the records of Winter Stadium Them. It was considered one of their most valued and potentially cataclysmic possessions. The cosmology of the object put forth perhaps one of the most important pieces of information ever--that night and day were not all of it. Instead, it set a third part of the day, called "yaut", after the end of night and before the beginning of day. It is said that all people spend time in yaut every day. This is what accounts for the sense of the passage of time upon awaking, not dreams. It is said that no memory of experiences in yaut may ever be retained. Dreams and life in yaut are totally separate things. If even a single memory from yaut is recalled in day or night--or even dream--the mind recalling it must surely fall into irreparable madness. This was the idea. Yaut Pillow was said to be the only artifact retained when an ancient Winter Stadium Them team accidentally stumbled into yaut on a cross-dimensional journey. The records of that team after the incident are confusing and contradictory. One thing is sure though--none of them survived the experience with any semblance of sanity. A new Winter Stadium Them team was promptly assembled, and Yaut Pillow was stashed deep in this supposedly impenetrable vault. The reason Snoppy instantly thought of Yaut Pillow in regards to the Soot Mary situation was due to the last entry in the personal log of The Stingy Girl, one of the unfortunate team members in the yaut incident. She wrote: "Yautmatter of its content, upon the contact of topaz, will allow for one (1) self-aware thing to be born in the flesh. Yautgrammer in its tavvyhood, the notions of amazing drash,..." The Stingy Girl's treatise quickly degenerated into gibberish after that. But the idea always stayed with Snoppy. He even commissioned a pure topaz crossbow bolt, which he now loaded into his crossbow. He leveled the weapon and aimed it at the black pillow. He glanced around at the teddy bear, mushroom, and newspaper, as if they would do something to protect their fellow treasure. The teddy bear looked an awful lot like it was looking at him, but... No, everything was okay. He aimed and shot. The topaz bolt hit the pillow with a "thunk"--not a sound he expected of a pillow. Then he saw something move within the pillow. He backed off, putting his hand on the edge where the vault door had been. He considered loading another bolt into the crossbow, but figured he was better off focusing all his attention on the thing inside the pillow. The next instant, the pillow rolled over and was still. But something was sticking out of the black pillow--almost totally obscured by the base of the cage. Cautiously, Snoppy edged closer. Then he saw what it was. It was a paw. And from the paw, he knew from his wilderness experience what animal it belonged to. A red fox. * * * "Prince Ferrajalt to see you." the receptionist said into the intercom. "Tell him to come in." Walker Fantive replied. "You can go in." the receptionist said, staring at Ferrajalt. She wore so much makeup it was hard to tell if she was actually pretty or ugly. "I heard." Ferrajalt said, passing by the woman and opening a huge, thick wooden door with some effort. "Prince..." Walker said, standing up, as if readying himself for any eventuality. "Hi Walker." Ferrajalt said, advancing toward Walker's desk. It was a beautiful office--full of lush furniture and plant life. There was even a fireplace with a roaring fire on one side of the room. "Have... have a seat, won't you." Walker said, wearing a worried and stressed-out expression. He was a tall man with a neatly trimmed black beard and mustache. He wore his hair in a trendy, feathered kind of way. He had on a dark blue suit, with that life-vest-looking thing that was part and parcel of conservative business wear on this Earth. He had an aura of confidence and power, and also wore glasses. "Sure." Walker sat back down as well, and he clasped his hands in front of him, resting them on his desk. He stared right at Ferrajalt with his very blue eyes. "What's going on?" he said, with a sense of urgency, cutting through the bullsh*t. "Um... it's kind of a long, drawn-out, complex story. I don't even know if I can tell you all of it." Walker sighed. "Okay. So let's start at the beginning. First off, what is your personal condition?" "Me? I'm fine. I feel pretty good in fact." "Good. Now... an incident occurred at our Derolbam Base about a month ago. This is classified information by the way--you understand that." Ferrajalt nodded. "Fine." Walker continued. "Now you were stationed at Derolbam at the time of the incident." Ferrajalt nodded again, slowly. "What happened was, we experienced a severe reality distortion systemwide. But it was especially bad on Timber Serious." Ferrajalt raised his eyebrows and made a tense smile. "What do you know about this, Prince?" "Um... from what I understand, reality collapsed." "Yes?" "Yeah. We all wound up in this weird, deserted version of the world. Injure Bodoni knew the most about what was going on. After all this stuff happened, we figured out that we had to destroy this building, so we--this is gonna sound really strange--we dragged an ocean liner down the river and let it fly over the bay. We had to do it to bring reality back." "What do you mean by that?" "Injure tested it--destroying the building--and it showed that it would work. It would bring reality, uh... back." Walker leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. "Let me share something with you. On Timber Serious, right at the moment of the disturbance, an ocean liner disappeared from Derolbam and reappeared immediately miles away in Doscovor, in the ruins of an office building. There was massive damage all over the area, as well. It all happened on the same instant. The locals call it 'God's Blink'." "Huh." "Now hearing what you're telling me... Oh, so what about the others?" "Most of them disappeared--only a few of us were left." "Look at this list." Walker said, handing Ferrajalt a piece of paper. "How many of these operatives survived?" Ferrajalt scanned the list. "Um... this looks like all of us who made it. Yup." "Okay. Now Prince... do you mind telling me what the hell happened last night? Where are Mammock and the one posing as Rallity?" "What do you mean?" "That wasn't Hilltop Jone Rallity with you." "It wasn't?" Walker smiled and took a cigar out of the ornate humidor on his desk. "Ferrajalt--you're a terrible liar." Walker said, examining the cigar and then staring at Ferrajalt. "Yeah?" "Yeah. I'm not so concerned with the impostor. What I'm really concerned with is the other operative I saw you with." "Look Walker--I know it looks bad..." "It does." "Okay--okay, chill out." Ferrajalt said with gesticulation. "First of all, HE found US. Also, he SWORE that he was no longer associated with the Unreal 64." "I find that impossible to believe." "Why?" "Because he was still operating his U-64 Panoply!" "He explained that." "How." "He said that when reality crashed, he became, like, merged with the puppet body or something. He said his original body was just... gone." "Hmm... very interesting." "Why?" "Let's not concern ourselves with that now." "You don't trust me? I'm freely giving you some great information. Don't you think it'd be fair to play the same way?" "No." "Okay, let's put it this way--you tell me what I want to know, and I'll tell you what you want to know." "That's no way for an operative to speak to an administrator." "I could say that THAT is no way for a commoner to speak to royalty!" Walker cut off the tip of the cigar and held the cigar between his index and middle fingers. "Ferrajalt," he said in a distracted way, starting to light the cigar. "Do you still consider yourself an operative of Overwhelm Associates?" "I don't know." he said after a pause. Walker took a puff from the cigar and looked into Ferrajalt's eyes. "You think I know what I'm doing here? I'm not getting much in the way of guidance from Greatwall, in how to deal with the aftermath of this Realistic Blink. Our whole system has suffered tremendously. We're on the brink of not even BEING a system anymore. Can you grasp that?" "I guess." Walker smiled and looked down at a paper on his desk. "What?" Ferrajalt said. Walker chuckled. "You said you wanted information. Huh. Well I think you'll find this very interesting indeed." He spoke slowly, since he was reading from the page as he spoke. "What is it?" "Here." Walker said, handing the sheet over to Ferrajalt. "It's from your file. Surveillance on how your royal family is hiding the fact that you've disappeared. "WHAT?" "Oh yes. Quite a tangled web, I'm sure you'll agree." Ferrajalt read the paper. It said that a popular children's television show, "Mitigating & Pree", had hired Ferrajalt as their "environmental corespondent". The idea was that he would travel to various untamed wildernesses around the world, and send back letters about how mankind was destroying the forests and stuff. He stared at the picture of Mitigating and Pree. Mitigating was a huge hairy beast--an Awawnoc. He stood over eight feet tall, had wild brown fur, and two tusks coming up from his jaw--one full and one broken. Pree towered over him. She was a giantess who stood no less than eleven-foot-four. Ferrajalt's eyes narrowed. Man was she hot. She was perfectly proportioned... if she were human, she might have stood a little over five feet tall. But she was huge... Instantly, Ferrajalt started to get an erection. He'd always had a fantasy of making love to a giantess, and Pree was just about the most beautiful giantess he had ever laid eyes on. In that moment, he wanted more than anything to be having sex with her. The short, prim and bright auburn hair, the olde times ribaldry singing and dancing and drunken splendor clothing, those lips, those breasts... He'd been aware of the "Mitigating & Pree" TV show for some time before he left his Earth, but he never watched it. Now... "What the hell is this?" Ferrajalt said angrily. Walker laughed. "Looks like your queen mommy has been burning the midnight scheming oil, huh? I tellya--what a plan--being in such remote locations that no remote feed or even battery-operated equipment was possible. I think she's writing your letters, if our intelligence is accurate." Ferrajalt frowned in anger. "That's a pretty great thing you got on that Earth of yours." Walker said. "Giant people. We got some on other Earths but their giants are really ugly. Only your Earth has beautiful giants. I guess Pree the gentle giant is a big hit with kids on your world." "You can say that again." "Yeah?" Ferrajalt looked up from tha page and stared into the roaring fire. "What's the matter, Prince?" "I don't know. I knew they were gonna do something to explain my... my disappearance. But this?" He tossed the paper back at Walker. The administrator regarded Ferrajalt, with the hint of a smile. "I'm travelling to Greatwall this afternoon. I know we have a lot more to discuss, and I suggest we do it on the way. It's a long trip." "I really wanted to just get home." "You'll have to go back to Greatwall anyway. It doesn't make any sense to go there from here." Ferrajalt grimaced. "I guess you're right." "Will you be ready to go at about two?" "Yeah." Ferrajalt said. "But... oh, sh*t." The Prince made a gesture of great frustration. "What?" "I have something with me, and I don't think I can leave it here." "What would that be?" "I don't know if I should tell you." "Ferrajalt, when someone says they don't know if they should say something, it means they want to but just need a little reassurance. Deception 101." "Huh?" "Look--I'll use some strategies on you and you'll come around. Now think about it. You've told me so much already, what's a little more gonna matter? I'll find out eventually anyway. You'll feel better when you tell me. You better tell me now, because if you wait, the memory of it might fade. Tell me and I'll help keep the memory alive. If I'm not your enemy then I'm your ally--and you're only helping your enemies by withholding information from your allies. What's information, anyway? Just a bunch of words. How much harm can words do?" He paused, then continued, with a smile. "Tell me and I'll be your best friend." "I get your point." Ferrajalt said. "I learned all that stuff too. Gotta know it if your royalty. I'll tell you what you need to know." "Good." "Um... the other night... you know, when you saw us..." "On that large dog?" "Yeah." "You have that dog with you?" "No! Not that dog. But, uh, another one. Um, of the same species and everything." "Wherever did you find giant time travelling dogs?" "Huh?" "So I'm right!" "What do you mean?" "All the clues pointed toward time travel. The strange readings on the scanner. Your note. The condition of the motel." "Yeah, I guess that's it. Time travel and all." "You know that NO ONE in Aconck has time travel yet, right?" "I guess." "But now WE have it." "Whattaya mean WE?" "Not Overwhelm, if that's what you're thinking. Look Prince--I've been looking for a way to break away from Overwhelm for quite a while now. With these time travelling beasts of yours, just think of what we could accomplish!" Ferrajalt got that sinking feeling. He didn't want Fantive involved in all this. "Look--let's just discuss it on our way to Greatwall." "Fine with me. Now tell you what--we'll take one of the cargo flyers so that your steed may accompany us." "I..." Ferrajalt began, but he waved the thought away. If he brought Whale to Greatwall, then he'd have to get Whale back HERE to go back to Lunatether if the whole Deep Violt C thing was a no go. But still--if he could get Whale back to HIS Earth, he could time travel there, which could be rather intriguing. His family had quite a notorious history--be nice if he could experience some of it. "Prince," Walker said, "I think we have big things in store for us." "Yup." Ferrajalt said, nodding nervously. * * * After the long and aggravating trip to Greatwall, Ferrajalt finally got Whale to a safe place. Getting away from Walker Fantive and his megalomaniacal rantings was a little tougher. But now, Ferrajalt was free. On the trip here, Ferrajalt managed to make up a convoluted lie about the tock hounds, the false, Hilltop Jone Rallity, and the events after the ocean liner hit. He knew Walker didn't believe him, but he didn't care. No way was he gonna let this joker in on the secrets of Daptin's Land and stuff. Now Ferrajalt snuck to one of the middle levels of the wall, where a bunch of Overwhelm apartments were located. There was an array of mail boxes with people's names on them, and the box numbers corresponded to the apartment numbers. And right there, on box 11-S, was the name "Daptin Gone". Nonchalantly, the Prince ambled down the hallway till he got to the door. He looked around and summoned some superstrength. He should be able to pop the lock and get the door open in a single swift motion, and only a single noise. May as well see if it's unlocked first, though... He turned the handle and found that indeed, the door was unlocked. So he opened it. It swung open and he saw Daptin Gone himself sitting there on his bed. Next to him in a chair was a strange woman. In her hands she held the Cup of Coffee. She had fangs, golden metal tubes and feathers for hair, and a right arm covered in fur. Her right hand had claws. Her nose was very small and flat. She had wide, cute eyes. She had an air of being young, rebellious, and irresistible. She wore a dress made of some sort of white chain mail. Her boots had a bird of prey motif. On the dress, centered over her chest, was the image of a naked person with long blue hair--seemingly a woman, but sex unclear--backside facing the viewer, arms outstretched, as if embracing the unknown. Daptin and the woman stared up at Ferrajalt. "Uh..." Ferrajalt said. "You!" Daptin said, standing. Ferrajalt backed up a step. "No, no--take it easy!" Daptin said. Ferrajalt sighed. "I didn't think you be here." "I'm surprised to see you here, too, my friend." Ferrajalt made a puzzled look, then glanced over at the woman. "How'd you get here?" Ferrajalt asked Daptin. "Come on in and I'll tell you the whole story." Daptin said. "By the way, I want you to meet Agatha Petunia Wack--former member of Pseudoairport. She's agreed to help me retake my Land." "Hello." Ferrajalt said hesitantly, entering the room and sitting in a big chair. "Hi." Agatha responded in a husky but attractive voice. "Hafta tellya, Ferrajalt--" Daptin said. "You killing Red Archer Booze was the smartest thing anyone ever did in my Land. My resurrection of her was the stupidest." "What do you mean?' "Sleap Drassy was planning on stealing my Land from me and booting me the hell out. Only thing is, the Sleapster fell under Booze's bottle, and I still got booted out. Now my Land is one big orgy. And when the orgy ends--the orgy which Sleap sees only as a delay--she'll begin to execute her final plan." "What's that?" "She's going to tear a hole in Gnoboslast--the place at the very edge of Creation--and finally see what's really out there." "Is that a bad thing?" Ferrajalt asked. "Yes." Agatha said, with a tone of finality. *OW* [[END052OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- ----- |