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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 114--9/28/96 <------- || OsoaWeek || Issues || Book 9 || -------> (Cup OWis114, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN114OW]] [[01141CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 1 1 4 * * * September 28, 1996 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora CONTENTS 01 114 CV--Cover 02 114 LA--Lord of Obliviana 03 114 LM--Life Mysteries 04 114 ZP--Zope 05 114 SU--Superior 06 114 SR--Severe Repair OsoaWeek114, September 28, 1996 Tenth 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* [[02114LA]] Lord of Obliviana *** WEEKLY RESULTS*** WEEK TEN, Sat 9/28/96 thru Fri 10/4/96 For the past four weeks, I've been to Hell (and Disney World) and back. This is the first weekly update since Week Six. I just generated the results for Weeks Seven, Eight, Nine, and this week. And it was remarkable, what happened. See, I have a system where I choose a single card from a Storm Codex, and that determines the number of Storm Pelters I choose for that week. Any red card means a single SP. Four of spades through ten of spades, and the Ace of Clubs means two SPs. A two or three of spades means four SPs, and the ace of spades means eight SPs. Well, for Weeks Seven, Eight, and Nine I drew the two of spades, the three of spades, and the three of spades again! Wow. Very 209. I was smoking pipes and listening to The Beatles Anthology One, Disk Two while drawing all those SPs. I shuffled the cards and drew them on a hardcover American Heritage Third Edition dictionary. The way I get the SPs is to draw two cards. If they're the same color, I draw two more. Once it took six draws to get an SP, and once it took SEVEN! Wow. Very 209, again. Anyway, what happened was that during Week Six, while I was on vacation, my girlfriend broke up with me. This was Tuesday, and we were planning on going to Disney World together that Friday. I thought about it, and decided to go anyway. So I rented a Ford Aspire (which only cost me $3 a day, since my insurance covered $15 a day while my Jeep was in the shop), drove to the travel agent, got my girlfriend a refund, and got the tickets for myself. I was in Florida till Tuesday, since I missed my plane coming back, and had to stay over an extra night. It was a dreamlike/nightmarish experience being depressed in Disney World. I'll tell the whole story in OsoaWeek one of these days. Anyway, that Tuesday when I got back, my girlfriend called and apologized and we started going out again. And in the two-and-a-half weeks since, I've been struggling to get Obliviana going again. In that time I made many important advancements in Obliviana. And now, Obliviana Primal is going again, at least on some level. I haven't gotten any more Fonostas--because virtually no one knows about Obliviana or where to find it online. But now, I feel confident that I can start to make things work for real. I did 16 loads of laundry today and some dishes too. The laundry doesn't do itself and neither does Obliviana. But is this only a crisis spurt? Or is it the beginning of a real change? Sign on next week and see! --Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana Week Ten 9/28/96 to 10/4/96 Diggers: 1 FC Drivers: 1 FC StormLustLuck!: 1 SP: 107/MisterTaco Fonostas Registered: Register yours now!!! Week Nine 9/21/96 to 9/27/96 Diggers: 0 FC Drivers: 1 FC StormLustLuck!: 4 SP: 148/RepoMan, 207/Wrench, 066/GreatSeal, 092/LastFloralHero Fonostas Registered: None! Week Eight 9/14/96 to 9/20/96 Diggers: 3 FC Drivers: 1 FC StormLustLuck!: 4 SP: 174/Spade, 195/UltimateOctober, 115/Occult, 202/Who Fonostas Registered: None! Week Seven 9/7/96 to 9/13/96 Diggers: 1 FC Drivers: 1 FC StormLustLuck!: 4 SP: 188/TheReflex, 019/BlueStar, 005/Alice, 123/Owl Fonostas Registered: None! Week Six 8/31/96 to 9/6/96 Diggers: 2 FC Drivers: 1 FC StormLustLuck!: 1 SP: 068/GreenArchery Fonostas Registered: None! Week Five 8/24/96 to 8/30/96 Diggers: 0 FC Drivers: 1 FC StormLustLuck!: 1 SP: 125/Panda Fonostas Registered: None! Week Four 8/17/96 to 8/23/96 Diggers: 1 FC Drivers: 1 FC StormLustLuck!: 1 SP: 067/GreenApple Fonostas Registered: None! Week Three 8/10/96 to 8/16/96 Diggers: 0 FC Drivers: 1 FC StormLustLuck!: 1 SP: 055/Foam Fonostas Registered: 0006 Samsara Week Two 8/3/96 to 8/9/96 Diggers: 1 FC Drivers: 1 FC StormLustLuck!: 2 SP: 156/Route22Day, 109/Morristown Fonostas Registered: 0005 Mandrake Week One 7/27/96 to 8/2/96 Diggers: 0 FC Drivers: 1 FC StormLustLuck!: 1 SP: 157/SaskatchewanRun Fonostas Registered: 0001 Lord, 0002 Phantasmagoria, 0003 Zoanthropy, 0004 Darkness *WR* 2/11/97 * 8:55 PM My IBM monitor here on my Macintosh Quadra 605--it's been turning off and I recently realized that it'd go back on if I hit it. It's fading out, and a new monitor is inevitable. Just like the old Obliviana is slowly fading, to be replaced by the new Obliviana. For example, this issue is about 136 days late. Obliviana as it was has faltered, but a new Obliviana is dawning. What about OsoaWeek? I will continue it, I will catch up. But it will change. Book Nine (this) and Ten (next, already over chronologically) will be of the same format as usual, and I think therefore that Books Eleven and Twelve should also follow the traditional format. But with the start of OsoaWeek Book Thirteen--on Monday, July 28, 1997--OsoaWeek and all of Obliviana will be reborn. Whew. Just thinking of the increasingly large history and drama that is Obliviana. Of earlier proclamations I have made. Of successes and failures. So these first 12 Books of OsoaWeek shall be a part of Obliviana forevermore. But the transition to Yargo (the grayscale raster format) will mean that much of OsoaWeek Books 1 thru 12 will not be available directly in the Primitive Interface, since a lot of it will be updated and presented elsewhere, like Severe Repair, Zope, Superior, etc. It would make no sense to rasterize old version of SR chapters, full of long-corrected typos... Perhaps the raw and wild text of Lord of Obliviana could be made into a single work... if so, these words would be a part of it... This file, OsoaWeek Book Nine, was just 255602 bytes when I saved it before this paragraph. Not a lot compared to the early books where I had a 50K minimum per issue! Just read some notes from last July (OW097, I believe) about Cups, and my ideas were a little different back then. I saw Cups as digital artifacts, and indeed, this is an idea I have had for a long time, a strong idea. But of late I have not really focused on the idea of digital artifacts. 10:08 PM What is the relationship between Fonosta and 209? What is the relationship between Cups and digital artifacts? And where does the Little World of Racetracks figure into all this? One things I have done is interpret my list of the eight aspect of Obliviana thus: The first four are the foundation: Fonosta 209 Primitive Little World of Racetracks And the second four are entertainment: Severe Repair Zope Obliviana Radio OsoaWeek In fact, the first four and the second four are in stark contrast to each other. This is very interesting. Last night while trying to sleep I had a very strong but very vague vision. It was very hard to remember any of it, but I know it had to do with people and the way they live their lives. I think it was a vision of Fonosta in widescale implementation. And I felt an urgency, a hunger, for this thing. The goal of Obliviana is to give to people what they were originally meant to have. Fonosta and 209. These are the core ideas. Fonosta is a way to give your life and your efforts much more meaning, and 209 is a way to find new ways and new situations to live your life in. Okay. They're getting closer. Fonosta is a tool by which acts are recorded in a quantitative way. 209 is a way to open up vast new vistas of situation. So 209 makes it possible to have more kinds of Cups and more variety of these kinds of Cups. So Fonosta and 209 are distinct, but they fit together like male and female. They make each other stronger. This is what Obliviana is all about. Primitive and Little World of Racetracks, these two, they are a means of implementation. But Fonosta/209 is the real core of Obliviana. But now *I* figure into all this somehow, because Severe Repair and Zope, these two represent my creative voice. My acts of creation, my Cups. Aha, these are the building blocks of the implementation. Obliviana Radio and OsoaWeek are the outreach, the voice telling the world that Fonosta/209, that which they never had, but once they get it will wonder how they ever lived without it, this is the voice telling the world of this. This is all getting rather lofty, and somewhat religious, with me positioned as some kind of Messiah. I don't want this, and neither do I think this is a valid idea. I somehow REMEMBER this Fonosta/209 thing from the early days, from the First Days. Somehow. It has taken me a long time to remember; it has been a long and difficult journey to come to remember these ideas, and still they are quite vague to me. I think a Messiah would know all this stuff with full brightness and clarity. I am no Messiah, not like I have to convince you of that fact. Maybe I'm just trying to convince you that *I* don't believe that I'm a Messiah. Wow. How did I get here? How did I get to the point of having to convince myself that I'm not a Messiah? This is weird. The whole point is, I'm trying my hardest to be a regular human being, with perhaps a little bit of a supernatural edge. Oh well. I've been working on these idea for thirteen years now. Please excuse the crazy-sounding stuff. I am just beginning to celebrate my great achievement in remembering/reasoning the Fonosta/209 idea. So I'm bound to be a little kooky. Fonosta is rock solid. Define a sort of act that is important to you, and then each instance of this act that you do, you record as a Cup. This is a great idea, and there is no denying it. 209 makes claims that are not so easy to understand or accept. But I suspect that anyone who puts the effort forth to try 209 will, from experience, learn that there is truth to it. But there IS a whole nother aspect to all this. Primitive and LWOR are not mere means of implementation. There is a serious danger that interactive online 3-D worlds will cripple the human spirit and lead to a slow descent into Armageddon. Primitive/LWOR establishes a computer interface that will be a tonic to the human spirit, rather than a killer of it. With the powerful ideas of Fonosta/209, this interface will become very influential, and the scourge, the life-destroying threat of 3-D online worlds will be put aside. Yes, there is great purpose to the first four aspects of Obliviana. They are ideas that can, and will, change the world for the better. This is wonderful, that I have finally arrived here. 11:12 PM The foundation of Obliviana is coming into focus. Once this foundation is established, then I can start building on that foundation. The establishment of the foundation is truly the end of one long road and the beginning of another. But right now I am at the junction. Good night. Get all Obliviana. *OW* [[03114LM]] Life Mysteries LIFE MYSTERY 23 "Went to South Street in Philly With Susie Sin" by John Nora Much of my idea of Philly comes from the Philadelphia Eagles' colors: green white and silverish grey. I was on a date with a girl named Susie Sin. She was just about as cool as her name, and she dressed in a way that lent support to, promulgated, this air of double-agent, tantamount coolness. She swung her hips very wide as she walked, I guess more a saunter, ahead of me through hordes of hanging-outers lined three-men deep on either side-walk of the narrow, traffic-at-a-crawl, South Street, Philadelphia strip! Absolutely all of those hanging-out, like very thick coral all over either sidewalk, were brothers, young black men. I had never walked along like that before, like being able to walk on the bottom of the ocean. I would be diving-belled now and then by the once-in-a-while sight of white yuppie types at sidewalk cafes. Now if I were to explain my concept of the Philadelphia 'vibe' I would have to sit before you indian-style in some pale greens and greys and whites of a streetflow filmishness, and say first off that the people of this city, blacks and whites, ersatz yuppies and young girl punks, are toughened and beaten-up looking. There were ten dark-blue-suited cops to every corner as Susie and I walked along throngedly. Soon a brother stepped down from the booming, open car-door of an at-a-standstill-in-heavy-traffic Ford Explorer like he was Charlie Chaplin stepping impishly from a Miles Davis stagecoach and began to dance inbetween two cars like the sleekest plane ever on its most final descent into a white-jacketed limbo. This was a sight that raised hundreds of spirits, and won over even my suburban sour-green-apple eyes, on this Saturday night. I had never visited Philadelphia like this before! City rife with Pennsylvanian and American history! Susie and I took some after-dinner coffee on the second floor of a coffee chain place, and I looked at the eyes of her beautiful and noble Korean face. I then looked down to the street's grueling texture and saw a line-up of brothers on brightly-colored motorcycles, which I of course felt was another uniqueness of the City of Brotherly Love. And further yet again, it was a combination of elements new to my eyes. *OW* [[04114ZP]] Zope ZOPE 041: "Comic Strip Zope" 2/23/97 ZOPE I don't know if I like being insane any more. EMILY If you're AWARE that you're insane, then you're NOT insane. Saying that you don't like being nuts means that you are aware of your insanity, which means that you're not insane. ZOPE Okay, Like what YOU just said wasn't insane. EMILY It wasn't. ZOPE You want insane? You want something REALLY insane? EMILY No. ZOPE Well, let me tell you. You... you never existed before. You're a fucking comic strip character. And you never existed before now. EMILY You're trying too hard, Zope. ZOPE I am NOT trying too hard. I'm telling you the truth. I'm finally beginning to understand everything. And to understand is to be insane. We are lost in space. And we are comic strip characters. EMILY Baloney. I'M real. I have a whole lifetime of memories. And thanks to you and your power, I have a chance to live some more. Just because our lives are strange does not mean that we're comic strip characters, Zope. ZOPE Maybe you're right... I don't know... it's just so hard to think these days... EMILY Um, Zope? ZOPE What? EMILY I hate having to bring this up, but... I mean, I know that this space voyage means a lot to you... trying to clear your head and everything... but me and Joe are trying to repair our relationship, trying to get back together again, and... and this spaceship is not the best place to do that. ZOPE So you want to go home? EMILY I CAN'T go home. Chaire is long dead, remember? But I can go back to your world of Halfevil... Joe's adopted world... back to his Volcano... ZOPE I can wish you two home if you want. I don't care. I have my evil computer friend, Linden, to keep me company. EMILY I don't want to ask you to waste your wishes. ZOPE Ah fuck! These wishes, these wishes... Everyone acts like they're walking on eggshells around me. All sensitive about everything... how tortured a fellow I must be... to wield so much power but knowing that each wish might be my last... well fuck it... I've gotten over caring about my own death long ago... I mean, I deserve to die, anyway, for everything I've done... EMILY There's always time to change. ZOPE Shit. Don't you get it, Emily? It'll never be the same again. There was a... I don't know... a certain CHARM to my existence. Killing, destruction, violence... EMILY Sex? ZOPE What? EMILY I don't know... violence and sex are often associated... ZOPE Yeah, I know. But it wasn't like that. I didn't get into orgies or raping or anything like that. I had a girlfriend once, Numizmonia, but we broke up. But... but when I act up... when I start to go wild... it's more of a childish kind of violence... unsexual... or maybe sublimated sexual energy... I don't know. MASTER JOE (entering room) What did I miss while I was asleep? ZOPE Emily wants me to wish you two home. MASTER JOE (beaming) Yeah? ZOPE (shaking his head) Joe, Joe... you should have told me how you felt. I know you don't want to abandon me, but I can't ask so much of you. I'll send you back. MASTER JOE Why don't you come back, too? Then you only have to use one wish. ZOPE Goddammit! Don't worry about MY wishes! I am not ready to go home yet. I feel like my mind is clearing for the first time. Okay? Goodbye. I'll see you later. I wish for Master Joe and Emily to be back on Halfevil, at his Volcano. MASTER JOE and EMILY vanish. LINDEN Adjusting life support systems, Zope. ZOPE Yeah, yeah... LINDEN I hope I can provide you with adequate company on the remainder of your voyage, Zope. ZOPE Yeah, why not. You're okay. LINDEN Thank you Zope. *OW* [[05114SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 609 * 10/26/96 I want to be clear. Intense emotions can distract you from the unpleasant thing you have to do. People always bite off more than they can chew, don't worry about it, it's a keystone of being human. But I want to convey a lucid thing. As general manager of your emotions, you might flip out. You can do this. Take comfort in this ability. And I want to make sure you decide to do the right thing. Trying to be concrete, this one is as weird as all the rest. SUPERIOR 610 * 10/26/96 Amazing, a pornographic tongue. Wonderment in wind and country home, thriving on comfort and all that is historical. I am skeptical. We relate to computers like animals. And I exist in hobbyist get-togethers, a punchy goddess, waiting for sensation. SUPERIOR 611 * 10/27/96 Hither. We can may clear the frusturbance. Talk about a conflict with some good in it that's been happening for years. And that is blunt. And that is thought. Another obtuse symbol for what's really going on. What's really going on. SUPERIOR 612 * 10/27/96 Made his reputation in fantasy gaming, think dungeons and elves, berserk fighters and brilliant wizards. Computer screens as portals to a time that never was. Another time. Draw random lines on paper, and the kind of drawing they make. Come together, my suppressed genius, have a shot at the force that is preventing you from doing everything. Behind all that bright kid bluster, the culprit is probably still inability. *OW* [[06114SR]] Severe Repair $~GRD006 "Abigail Trouncer the Cot" ~~SEVERE REPAIR: A Hypertext Novel by Frank Edward Nora Storyline "Get Real Daptin" Packet 006 00016 * 4.349K * New '96 * OW114 Copyright 1996 * All Rights Reserved~~ Anyway, he went on and on about the TV idea, and some of us were wondering if he wasn't going off on this tangent because the cyber-realm part of Hull is taking a long time to get off the ground and facing some really tough hurdles to its full implementation. I mean, Comma's got a lot of money, but a company operating in the red, trying to start a new mass medium, can eat up millions of dollars pretty quick! So we were all concerned over this new direction, even though it DOES sound like a cool idea for a TV channel. Anyway, Comma put the word out to his friends to try and find some potential Hull TV actors--like, right away. It was last Wednesday that we had the meeting and by Friday we had a bunch of people in the offices who were trying out for Hull TV. Brandy was in charge and she gave us all this impromptu booklet she put together on a Mac showing a photo of each person, their name, biography, stuff like that. We were all supposed to pitch in with our opinions and stuff about them. I thought it was really putting the cart before the horse--when we didn't have any of the organization developed for this TV thing. But Comma thought it was important to design the channel with the actors in mind, which I think is bullshit--Comma is just totally impatient and compulsive. Anyway, I was going through the bio sheets, kind of smirking at how unnecessary it all was, when I turned to a picture of a really cute blond girl. I was taken at once with her face--my heart kind of melted and I got that feeling--the same feeling I get when I see a girl like that on the train or on the street--that sort of instant fascination. And I made a mental note that I had to meet this girl and check her out and stuff. And then I saw her name: Abigail Trouncer the Cot. I froze and my expression changed. Abigail Trouncer the Cot. I was stunned and it took me a few moments to get my bearings. This name... it didn't sound like a name someone would have in this world... it sounded like a name someone would have in my previous existence--in Agoopish or Overwhelm or Rillekon's Road or somewhere like that... I mean, I would almost have fully expected a name like Abigail Trouncer the Cot as one of the folks who strayed into my Land, but here? Here in New York City? In a world without interdimensional intrigue? I got a weird feeling--I was getting worried--could this be some kind of agent sent to find me? Sent by Sleap Drassy or Agatha Petunia Wack or Cursive Caxopy? I mean, if this was just another alternate world, then surely someone from my previous place could come here... but I was really under the impression that this whole life would take place in the spantime of a dream, just one night, and I'd wake up after leaving this world, it being the next day in my Warhome. But what if that wasn't the case? What if I disappeared out of my Warhome? I would--yes--it would be just about the time that Agatha, Ferrajalt, and Billion would be getting back to civilization on Rillekon's Road. And Agatha--she might well indeed have the power to find me here... or send an agent. Damn! I still needed a LOT of time to recover from being supernatural! And now... and now this. But I realized I was being too hasty... it could just be a weird college nickname or something... some kind of nasty reference to promiscuity that stuck as an ironic sort of name... a cot is something you sleep with temporarily until you get to a permanent bed... um... I think I was reaching at that point... Anyway, I hung around Comma's office, talking to him and Brandy, asking him questions about Hull TV cuz I knew he wouldn't be able to resist indulging in talking about it. And finally, there she was--she just walked right in. Her hair was shorter than in her photo, and she looked a little disheveled in a jogging suit, but that face and that slim body, like some kind of Irish water fairy or something... "Oh, I see one of the possible recruits is here.." I said, starting to get up to leave, but Comma told me to stay, that the selection process should be a group effort. I knew he was gonna say that. Then Comma's phone rang, and he talked briefly and nodded and told Brandy to come with him and told me to entertain Abigail for a few minutes while he took care of business. "Fucking Internet bullshit", he said. I rose and shook her hand. ~$GRD006 *OW* [[END114OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- ----- |