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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 108--8/17/96 <------- || OsoaWeek || Issues || Book 9 || -------> (Cup OWis108, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN108OW]] [[01108CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 1 0 8 * * * August 17, 1996 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora CONTENTS 01 108 CV--Cover 02 108 LA--Lord of Obliviana 03 108 LM--Life Mysteries 04 108 ZP--Zope 05 108 SU--Superior 06 108 SR--Severe Repair OsoaWeek108, August 17, 1996 Fourth issue of OsoaWeek Book Nine Written by Frank Edward Nora Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement obliviana@aol.com http://www.obliviana.com/~osoa 1-800-OBLIVIANA 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 from Frank Edward Nora. *OW* [[02108LA]] Lord of Obliviana ***WEEKLY RESULTS*** WEEK FOUR, Sat 8/17/96 thru Fri 8/23/96 My Jeep got stolen! I came home on Thursday and it was gone, from the Park and Ride lot! It was recovered the next day after much difficulty prodding the Newark police department to get off their ass and go get it. I saw it this morning, in a remote towing lot in Newark. What a mess... what a mess... Anyway, you can bet on odd or even in StormLustLuck, just E-mail me with your bet to obliviana@aol.com. I know I'm being awful vague about this, but I need time to develop the game, and roaming the bizarre, hazardous streets of Newark, NJ in search of my poor, demolished Jeep is not conducive to making progress on an Internet game. Ah, what the hell am I talking about? Talk to you next week. --Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana Week Four Diggers: 1 FC StormLustLuck!: 1 SP: 67/GreenApple Fonostas Registered: Register yours now!!! Week Three Diggers: 0 FC StormLustLuck!: 1 SP: 55/Foam Fonostas Registered: 0006 Samsara Week Two Diggers: 1 FC StormLustLuck!: 2 SP: 156/Route22Day, 109/Morristown Fonostas Registered: 0005 Mandrake Week One Diggers: 0 FC StormLustLuck!: 1 SP: 157/SaskatchewanRun Fonostas Registered: 0001 Lord, 0002 Phantasmagoria, 0003 Zoanthropy, 0004 Darkness *WR* 12/23/96 * 1:39 AM Hi. Frank Edward Nora here. Wrapping presents at Denice's before. Gotta work tomorrow. Right now, the first issue of Book Nine, 105, is 149 days late. I have to say now that OsoaWeek is no longer what it once was. It is not weekly, it is not current, it has fallen apart. Obliviana is in transition. The old OsoaWeek model no longer works. The main difference is that in the new Obliviana, content will be organized in a different way. Content will not be presented in OsoaWeek. OsoaWeek will still exist, but in a different form. OsoaWeek will be a weekly update for Obliviana. It will move to this new form for sure by the official launch of Obliviana--July 28, 1997. Now I have to figure out what to do about Books Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve. Book Nine as it stands right now is full of awesome content. When I finally finish Book Nine, each issue will feature Severe Repair, Superior and Zope, my three main creative endeavors. By the time of Book Thirteen, all of my creative works will be put into either Fonosta Zero (Obliviana) or Fonosta One (Lord of Obliviana). Then OsoaWeek will continue on, consisting of the "Lord of Obliviana" and "Nihilistica" features, and probably not much else. That is, each week I will give my own commentary of events, and also present inside information, previews, interviews, etc. Oh, it will probably also have an "Obliviana People" sort of feature, which will profile a different Obliviana person each week. I have been working very hard recently to establish the true foundation of Obliviana. It's very difficult, and very slow work. I am very close now to the final blueprint for Obliviana. It is very similar to my previous designs of Obliviana, but it brings everything together with much more aplomb. Believe me, it's worth the wait. I sit here in my messy apartment in the middle of the night with some peach yogurt and Dr. Pepper, and I feel lost. These words, are people going to read them? People who wonder where Obliviana came from, how it came to be? If Obliviana progresses as I believe it will, there will eventually be a great many people involved in it. And these words in this issue of OsoaWeek will forever be available to anyone who makes the effort to read them. If Obliviana becomes what I intend to make it, these words will reach forward in time, hundreds, maybe thousands of years. All my words. In my Fonosta. After I am dead and gone, my Fonosta will be a digital file of finite length, a string of ones and zeroes that will start and end. It may be terabytes before it's through, but it will be finite, storable, copyable, archivable, all that. But more important, people will be aware of it and will be motivated to drink it. It feels good to think that people will be experiencing my words and pictures and sounds and movies and games and everything centuries after I am gone. But FEELING is not what it's all about. ACHIEVING is what it's all about. Reaching that point where you know that your Fonosta will be of interest to people forevermore. Like the musical record of The Beatles or Led Zeppelin or Rush. People will be listening for as long as humanity continues. In one terabyte of memory you can store over 1,500 CD's, without any compression at all. Right now a terabyte of hard drive space well under $100,000 dollars, and as tape backup, a terabyte is probably well under $10,000. I think we'll see a $10 terabyte in the next few decades. Then there'll be no such thing as a CD collection. You'll have EVERYBODY'S CD collection on a single disk. Maybe an exabyte disk, a quadrillion bytes, storing over 1,500,000 CD's worth of audio, which would take over 222 years to listen to, if every CD were 78 minutes long. So you can see that at some point in the coming decades you will be able to store on one disk more music than you will ever be able to listen to. So no matter how big Obliviana gets, no matter how many Fonostas there are, the entire archive of all the data in all the Fonostas will be incredibly easy to store. But like alluded to earlier, with such a massive amount of material getting someone to access YOUR part of the archive is the real trick. Will the future be full of a bunch of jaded archive surfers? Does archive surfing mean that there won't be the sort of people in the future that you'd care to have drink your Fonosta? That is, is it worth all this preparation, if the people will view your work as just another passing novelty? Ah, I gotta go to bed. This is all too much. This line of reasoning would be terminal if not for Wonder. With Wonder, it can all work out. Good night. Get all Obliviana. *OW* [[03108LM]] Life Mysteries LIFE MYSTERY 17 "Getting Back to Carla (A Tune of Nostalgia)" by John Nora (1995-1996 I was living in Boston for no reason, then moved back to New Jersey with my parents.) (People who know me will say I'm just lonesome and unlived, and haven't known enough people, to be nostalgic for a time only about a year behind me, for a person I had a lukewarm acquaintance with. Well, they would be right, but hell with them!) Here are the steps it would take to get back to Carla: 1. Via South Station. I had a dream last night that coerced me to realize how much I miss, and want to walk around in again, South Station. In the dream I had to leave a city (not yet dream-acquiesced as Boston, more a gigantic Chinatown-New Jersey triple-level mall complex) and ended up in a barroom, which I hoped was just a small, up-front one behind which I could look to buy a train-ticket (I'm not good at remembering my dreams). I soon saw it was a restaurant, rather dark and energized, hopping. I then knew to get a train-ticket I should: Go to a train station. That sudden, complete lost love for South Station was my bright red and white ticket to waking confused and depleted in my bed. 2. I think I want to because we were such good roommates. We stayed out of each other's way, hardly speaking, and yet we were in total roommate harmony. 3. One thing is for sure: Even though I hadn't consciously anticipated it, I'd always wanted to know a woman named Carla. 4. I went around the whole day today with this very important business in my mind, getting back to Carla. Somehow this is a part of it, what I thought of today riding on a lawnmower: One night in art school my friends Dave and Danny and I went to a crowded sort of dance-beer-hall on campus. Danny and I were moving into the crowd when Dave ran after us up the stairway yelling, "It's gay and lesbian night!" As if he were yelling, "Nooooooo! It's a TRAP!" What I did next was: I calmly took my friend Danny by the hand, and by the hand I led him out of the dance-beer-hall. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do. 5. One time she was driving me on the Longfellow Bridge into Cambridge and she remarked how she didn't hear typing in my room anymore, there was that one short period of intense typing, and now none, but it was okay because she hadn't written any new songs, her own self. All I can say is: Yea, it was great, great, great, to be typing inside that (relatively) short intensity. 6. We were also roommates by chance, upon the scuffed, blue-brown floorboards, and the decrepit, jiggedy catwalk (that Carla would need my help growling her amps down), and all the regular sidewalk vibrations over us like knats. Digression: The Quarry. For over three-quarters of my life I have lived close to a very expansive, gravel-mountained quarry in New Jersey. I transiently and cordially meet with it; it is always around like a relative. But I don't have anything to say about the quarry. It is not important to my life. But it is so important for me to get back to Carla, and in the hope that others are getting back to their own Carlas. *OW* [[04108ZP]] Zope ZOPE 035: "Hal Linden" 2/19/97 ZOPE I am in a fucking daze. MASTER JOE So what else is new? ZOPE Funny. Very funny. Very original comeback. MASTER JOE They can't all be Cubans. ZOPE Very hip cigar reference, there, Joe. Very hip. MASTER JOE Look, what's bugging you man? ZOPE Ah, I don't know. This spaceship is just too quiet. You know what I mean? MASTER JOE Well it was YOUR idea to go on a space voyage. ZOPE I know, but in "2001" it seemed so cool! MASTER JOE I guess. What do you think, Linden? LINDEN (in computer voice) I think you could have come up with a better name for me, Zope and Master Joe. ZOPE Ah, cool it you poor excuse for an evil computer! MASTER JOE Who was Hal Linden again? ZOPE I don't know. I vaguely remember him having a TV show like "Hal Linden's Animal Pals" or something. An actor, whatever. LINDEN Why was I named after him, Zope? ZOPE You stupid fuck, the computer in "2001" was Hal, so I thought of Hal Linden. MASTER JOE And Linden is also some kind of shithole city in New Jersey. That's kind of cool. ZOPE Ah, I have a mind to teleport us all back home to Halfevil. Except you, Linden. I'll leave you drifting out here in the middle of nowhere. LINDEN Well Zope I can always use the self-destruct mechanism when I get too lonely. ZOPE Not if I disable it! MASTER JOE You don't want to waste another wish, do you? ZOPE You think I'm scared that my next wish will be my last? FUCK YOU! I wish for a Pepsi. A can of Pepsi appears in Zope's hand. ZOPE (cont.) Just one Pepsi... that's all I want... MASTER JOE (singing) I'm not crazy... INSTITUTION... LINDEN My memory banks indicate you are quoting from the song "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies, Master Joe. MASTER JOE Yeah, so what bitface? LINDEN I interpret "bitface" as a derogatory term for computers. A pause. ZOPE pops open his Pepsi and start drinking it. MASTER JOE You're crazy wasting another wish man. And we got Pepsi in the storage bins. ZOPE "Dark Star"! Aha! That was also part of my inspiration to go on a lonely space voyage! LINDEN "Dark Star" is a low budget film by Dan O'Bannon. ZOPE You're a fucking genius, Linden. Hey, rez up an emulation of Super Pac-Man, willya? They had a contest with that game in "Joysticks", remember? MASTER JOE I remember. LINDEN I have that film in my memory banks if you wish to review it or the scene in question, Zope. MASTER JOE Hahaha. ZOPE What are you laughing about now, Meg? MASTER JOE Meg... Megafoane... my old last name... heh... but what I was thinking was... remember Bockly the Magic Clown? ZOPE Why the fuck are you bringing that up? LINDEN My memory banks indicate that Bockly the Magic Clown was a person you met while Reality Lord Titan forced you to like being a day camp counselor, Zope. ZOPE That was a long time ago. And I DID eventually kill that gay fucker Titan. MASTER JOE I wish I could have seen you actually LIKING being a nice wimpy camp counselor guy! ZOPE If I had said that... LINDEN With your wishing power, Zope, what you wished would have happened. But you know that each wish might be your last, resulting in your death. ZOPE I've been dead before, Cecil! LINDEN I cannot interpret the term "Cecil". ZOPE Chew on it, Axe. *OW* [[05108SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 585 * 10/20/96 Born. Fundle, green word, applehim and appleher, dear honkey, be, unthink, passion for college days, sweet Twin Peaks honesties, preening gun. Another poet, fuck parents man, a new way, computerized magic, mystery fun for the mailbox nobodies. Like. Like. Talk about enclosure, metal beep, final animal. SUPERIOR 586 * 10/20/96 True the yurktid milestone. Mara I know you. Tempted, dismantled, dialed back. A hundred birch beer partners, pretty free spirits, in Arctic nonsense. Due, begranted, very hoveryarn, an everyday World Trade Center drama. SUPERIOR 587 * 10/20/96 Bye. What do the young people do? Bye. I am on your porch, a have a magnifying glass, I am so much more powerful than you. Do it. I am a phone call. That is how I describe myself, as chatting atoms. I am complete. SUPERIOR 588 * 10/20/96 Did I play an adventure game? You and I are the same, but lust will keep us apart. The eagle and the archives. Talk about valuable paintings. Weird feeling TV Sunday. Vanguarding on the right side of the issue, or so you think, fighting against it you distance yourself from it, you think, but really you get closer to it. Computer animated railroad, I am with you at night at the electronics store, we are dressed in orange wand. *OW* [[06108SR]] Severe Repair $~PQM006 "Noze-Euming" ~~SEVERE REPAIR: A Hypertext Novel by Frank Edward Nora Storyline "Perspective Quartz Mahoney" Packet 006 00006 * 2.743K * New '96 * OW108 Copyright 1996 * All Rights Reserved~~ Mahoney looked around inside his original head. It was like a room... tilted... his original head hollowed out, pink-and-yellow striped wallpaper covering everything... with six folding chairs, tan and metal, scattered on the floor... "Look guys," he said to his five companions, "we gotta stay calm. We gotta get a plan, okay?" "Why did you do this?" Darnalt Knocking Salt yelled. She was an attractive blonde with a black sweater and a weird tattoo around her left eye. "I made my peace with Death, I had some idea of what was coming, and I was kind of looking forward to it!" Mahoney smiled a quizzical smile. "Darnalt, dear, why are you so eager? So eager for it? It will come. Just not prematurely!" "Hey," said Duncer-Haxun, "who's to say that this effect of yours isn't repeating? If we... if we die again, that this won't just happen again? That this might have happened... might have maybe happened many times already? Each time reverting us back... you see... back to the way we were... at museum..." Mahoney raised an eyebrow. "Interesting idea," he said, "but Noze-Euming told me all about that, my friend. He said that it was a one-shot deal. So you needn't worry, Duncer." "Fucked off!" said Duncer-Haxun. "I was looking forward to seeing The Extrant Whore exhibit at the museum. I was just about to go see it!" "Well..." Mahoney said, cocking his head and raising his eyebrows, as if to apologize. Then Prefer Joanie Hugging spoke up. She was a short teenage girl, with freckles, green eyes, red hair and an off-white sweater. "How do you KNOW Mahoney? How could you trust a blue guy like him?" "I know what I do!" Mahoney responded, peering out of the ear-opening, his hand on the edge of the doorway. "I wanna know what happened! What happened to us, that we died!" said Challen-67. Her skin was a steely dark gray, her eyes a light gray. She was tall and muscular, looked powerful and statuesque. She wore a brown sweater. Mahoney answered as he examined the scene outside. "Noze-Euming wasn't very clear about that, my dear. As to ascertaining such information." Darnalt approached Mahoney and stood next to him. They both gazed at treetops. "Mahoney," she asked, "I think I heard you talking. Before. It was hazy and unclear. But I heard you talking and I heard my name." He faced her. "Yeah I heard it too. I was telling you to die or something." "Why?" she asked. He turned away. "I don't know. I can't imagine myself saying that. It must have been related to... I must have had to rip my head off and throw it through a dimension door or something. Maybe you had to die to activate the backup mechanism. Something like that." "Well, I guess I did it. I guess I died." "That you did." he replied. ~$PQM006 *OW* [[END108OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- ----- |