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|| -------- -- ----- 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 091--4/19/96 <------- || OsoaWeek || Issues || Book 7 || -------> (Cup OWis091, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN091OW]] [[01091CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 0 9 1 * * * April 19, 1996 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora CONTENTS 01 091 CV--Cover 02 091 LA--Lord of Obliviana 03 091 SU--Superior OsoaWeek091, April 19, 1996 13th issue of OsoaWeek Book Seven Written by Frank Edward Nora Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement (E-mail address in transition) 1-800-OBLIVIANA http://www.obliviana.com/~osoa All contents copyright 1996 Frank Edward Nora Regarding this file, you are free to make digital copies, so long as they're not altered or sold. All other forms of reproduction require permission. An Obliviana Cup containing this file will be available. Stay tuned for more details. ASCII Characters: 11520 / Words: 2151 / Lines: 291 Days late: 1 *OW* [[02091LA]] Lord of Obliviana Wed 4/17/96 * 6:49 AM * Amtrak * Tarb 3776 It's been almost a week since I worked on OsoaWeek. On Friday I started going out with Kerri again, but on Sunday we broke up again, for good this time. I just couldn't go back. I did a lot of work on my mess on Sunday. I hauled two Jeeploads of junk to my father's dumpster, and brought half the boxes of Anything But Monday Magazines to my storage in Iselin. From the storage, I took about six boxes of books and magazines, and out of them I threw out or gave away a significant amount. My father found an abandoned kitten in the yard of his office, and he's trying to nurse it back to health. I played with it on Sunday, at my grandmother's, since she was taking care of it for the night. It's awfully young, maybe a week or two old. I sure hope it lives. But with a kitten that young, separated from its mother, survival is a great challenge... Obliviana. My ideas have been getting better, but it's only nine days to the start of the test run--it doesn't look good. Doesn't look like I'll get the test run started. Or... I could build up to it, all through Book Eight, till finally, when Year Two is completed, Obliviana the game will be ready to go. This is the end of Book Seven. Looking back, just in my own memory, I think that the most striking feature of Book Seven is the sprawling Lord of Obliviana features. No Severe Repair, though. Severe Repair continues next issue, with chapter 66. I just read chapter 65, "A Million Miles Out on Twicvion Lane". It was written in the first person, from the perspective of Bellicose Billion. Looking at the totality of Severe Repair thus far, I am happy with the results, but reluctant to continue in exactly the same vein. I mean, Severe Repair is so chaotic and so multifarious--I want to start tying all the disparate elements together. Wed 4/17/96 * 5:53 PM * NJT car 1495 * Tarb 3778 If I move, the era of the PowerBook on the train will be over. Using a portable computer makes sense when you have a train ride of over an hour each way. If I take a bus that's gonna be in NY in under a half-hour... I mean, I can't compute on a bus anyway, cuz I'll get carsick, and all that... Carmine at worked picked me up a pair of sneakers and a pair of boots on sale at a store his friend works at, for $20 a pair. I put on the boots and threw out the fruity sneakers I've been putting up with for months, those "BK Rods". So, another example of being through with something and leaving it behind. Another thing, I made tapes of Beatles Anthology 2 from my brother, and this guy at work lent my Beatles Anthology 1 to listen to, then he asked if I wanted to trade my tapes for his CDs, cuz he liked 2 but hated 1, and I accepted the offer, so I left those tapes behind. And now, this is the last issue of OsoaWeek Book Seven. When this issue is done, I'll be onto Book Eight. Movin' on... After my experience with Kerri this past weekend, I've changed. Maybe something inside me just snapped. I don't know. Maybe the last piece of a puzzle clicked into place. Whatever. Thinking of the arcade at the old Menlo Park Mall, before the demolition. I had an idea a while ago... to write down everything I remember from the old Menlo Park Mall... I don't know... My life has changed a lot in the past week. And it makes sense. In order for Obliviana to work, my life DOES have to change. And so it is. A Little World of Racetracks. That's the idea I've dug so far and so hard to get to. Strange, isn't it? That five inconspicuous little words could take so long to arrive at... and seem so simple, maybe so obvious... Make no mistake. It took me YEARS to get to "A Little World of Racetracks". I WORKED for it. I made it happen. But of course, the work I did in order to finally arrive at "A Little World of Racetracks" provides the grist for the execution of the idea. That is, if I had come up with "A Little World of Racetracks" back in 1987, say, I wouldn't have had all that much to put INTO the little world. So don't take it like, so much work with so little to show for it. It's more like, a massive amount of work, and finally, at the end, a device appears to allow me to USE all the work in a constructive way. Anyway, Book Eight is coming--and I want to have some specific, attainable goals for it. Okay. First, I WILL go over all of Severe Repair as it stands today, take notes, and get an overview of the whole thing. Then my task will be to justify every single chaotic word in chapters 1 thru 65... that is, I want everything that I've written to make sense in terms of the overall story... I don't want there to be any parts of Severe Repair devoid of reason and connection. I know SR SEEMS random and disparate, but I know, deep down, that it is not. But this is my goal--to justify everything I have written thus far. Now, how about Obliviana itself (the game)? Well, I have the foundation, "A Little World of Racetracks"--and now it's a time for construction. I don't think I can make a trial run begin in nine days... though perhaps I could, in a very limited manner, and then build it up every week. I DO want Obliviana to be as simple as possible, so maybe it won't be impossible to get things going in the near future, with a few players. 6:34 PM So... the basic idea... Fonostas going around racetracks in a little world... gaining power with each lap... Wands...Hammers...Hammers...Shovels... Cups...Cups...Cups...Spots... Swords...Swords...Swords...Guns... Pentacles...Coins...Wheels...Rockets... Ladders...Wings...Tanks...Lassoes... Different "centers" around the track... not limited to four... and you do laps FROM these centers... each lap gaining you something from the Center you're doing the lap from... Sat 4/20/96 * 1:54 AM * home * Tarb 3787 Brought my PowerBook with me today, but then I realized that it wasn't charged, so I had a thousand-dollar dead weight around my neck all day. Reality blam city today. When I got to Penn Station, I had $1.43--and a token is $1.50. For some reason, I thought that a token was $1.25, but it hasn't been that way for months. So I gave the guy $1.25 in change, and he shoved it back to me, and then it hit me, $1.50, of course. But then Kerri helped me. Impossible, you say? No! See, I used to always buy Kerri these Bingo instant lottery tickets, and then bring them back to NY to cash. Well, I had two of them in the pocket of my PowerBook carrying case for what must have been over six months. I went and cashed 'em, and all of a sudden was $6 richer! So this issue is late, cuz I worked late and didn't get home till a few minutes ago. Spent $24 on two cabs this evening. On the long night train home, there were Princeton College students all around me... in front of me sat three girls, and in the reflection in the window I saw one girl's naked legs... and another girl, who I wound up walking behind cuz the train let us off on the wrong side and everything, was as tall as me (6-foot-1) and hot. She dwarfed her two friends. Then there was a guy who stood between trains and kept repeating how nice the night wind was. It made we seek to pine over my college days. But you know--I really didn't pine, like I use to do so much. I WANTED to pine. See, I've grown up, something I've been seeking for a long time. But now that I'm here, I realize I gotta start heading back to my youth as fast as I can. My experience with Kerri last week changed me. I think it might have been the final ingredient I needed to grow up. But being grown up is not good. At least--it wouldn't be good if I kept going in the same direction I've been going. No energy, leering pathetically at pieces of college ass, taking everything in stride, having no motivation, all that. Here's the thing--in the past week, I've noticed this sort of lump in my throat, and of course fearing the worst, considering I smoke cigars, I feared it to be cancer. But then, in my adulthood, I started having thoughts that welcomed the prospect of death. And I realized that THIS was my problem--somewhere along the route of my development, I lost my lust for life. And this throat thing, whether it turns out to be just an infection or the big C (which I doubt), had made me evaluate myself--and the Ramones song "I Wanna Live" keeps on playing in my head. I DO want to live. I was just going down the wrong pathway. When I was in college, I was strongly motivated by an adolescent megalomania. I thought that growing out of that was good, but now I miss it, and I seek to dive back into it. Young, you have the drive but not the competence. And of course, adult, you have the competence, but not the drive. The classic catch-22. But I wanna go back to my youthful exuberance now that I have the competence of an adult. Anyhow, it's way past my bedtime, so I'll finish this issue up, a few hours late, but so what. The Seventh Book of Obliviana is completed. Onto the Eighth Book. Goodnight, and get all Obliviana. *OW* [[03091SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 517 * 4/1/96 Fear, Jolly, Whale, Come, Jagged, Monster, Detergent, Hair, Predator, Clock, More, Feel, President, Ruler, Charge, Devil, Daisy, Mean, Mustard, Growl, Door, Storage, Cassette, The, Junction, Rock, Jungle, Opera, Palindrome, Score, Dial, Poor, Playboy, Luck, Jingle, Eastern, Arizona, Canada, Rent, Play, Dome, Sherbert, Licorice, Tame, Jaw, Beaver, Crawfish, Lobster, Rapids, Waterfall, Bridge, Raven, Dentist, Amble, Coarse, Judge, Butt, Screw. SUPERIOR 518 * 4/1/96 I think I am experiencing real love, and it is as painful as it is pleasurable. Things happening. Falling in love. I haven't felt this way... for a long time... What a wonderful thing to feel... such proof of humanity... just to feel it, just to be the one experiencing it... I wonder, here, if she is feeling it... a nimble new euphoria to tantalize eternity, reality and mystery of stars... SUPERIOR 519 * 4/17/96 Jam on the brakes, you stop inches from the other car. I was in love? I jammed on the brakes, I managed to stop before smashing into her. Nothing gained, nothing lost. When you brake, you have to start moving again sometime. That is the time I was into. SUPERIOR 520 * 4/17/96 We both needed it, and we did it. But it was over a long time ago, and I got no happiness from it. When you live with a contradiction, you pay the price. Finally finished Atlas Shrugged yesterday. Got rid of a lot of junk on Sunday. Getting a new apartment in a month. Forgot my broken umbrella on the train last night, didn't try to retrieve it. Looks like I'm moving forward, dropping ballast, growing up, on the train, but soon I'll probably be on a bus. *OW* [[END091OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- ----- |