|| -------- -- -----  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 131--1/25/97 <-------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Issues  ||  Book 11  ||  -------> (Cup OWis131, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN131OW]] [[01131CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 1 3 1 * * * January 25, 1997 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora CONTENTS 01 131 CV--Cover 02 131 NH--Nihilistica 03 131 SU--Superior OsoaWeek131, January 25, 1997 First issue of OsoaWeek Book Eleven 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 1997 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. The following data refers to OsoaWeek Book Ten as a whole: ASCII Characters: ?3203 / Words: ?721 / Lines: ?392 Date completed: ?/13/97 / Days late: ?69 *OW* [[02131NH]] Nihilistica ***OSOAWEEK IN TRANSFORMATION*** 4/13/97 * 12:32 PM I started OsoaWeek on July 28, 1994. It starte out very ambitiously, and indeed, for the first year I managed to keep to the original plan fairly well. But after that first year, I was burnt out, and I slowed down, because I knew if I kept up that pace of creating, I'd very seriously lose my mind. Below is a list of the Books of OsoaWeek up to now, with the total ASCII character count: 01: 901,690 02: 808,973 03: 801,724 04: 771,386 05: 152,577 06: 559,569 07: 307,320 08: 262,908 09: 365,107 10: 43,203 You can see that Book Five was very short compared to the previous four. As well, OsoaWeek never got back to the sizes of the first year, although Book Six came close. Book Nine, which I completed about a month-and-a-half ago was 218 days late. Before that, the latest issue was 65 days late. Even so, Book Nine came out very well. But you can see that with Book Nine, OsoaWeek was drifting. Now, I am putting together Books Ten and Eleven, and they are very feeble Books, containing only Superiors, and not much more. OsoaWeek began as a truly weekly E-zine which was uploaded to both AOL and a local BBS called The Familiar Spirit. OsoaWeek WAS, in itself, the sole voice of Obliviana online, and pretty much, the sole voice of Obliviana period. I did have a catalog of products for sale in OsoaWeek for awhile, but I don't think I sold ANYTHING. So, a lack of response and the pressures of creating led to the dialing back of OsoaWeek, since it had, essentially, failed to gain even a small audience. Damn! I was just on fire! I was lighting some balsam fir incense, and I saw that the sleeve of my robe had caught fire! Holy shit! I went out in a few seconds, but fuck! When you go on fire, it's the kind of thing that can shake you up! Anyway, back to the essay. At the same time Book Five started (July 28, 1995), I put Obliviana on the WWW. The first implementation was ridiculous cross-linked, giving each FEAURE in OsoaWeek it's own page. Very few people saw this website. Then a year after that (July 27, 1996 (Leap Year, remember)), I totally revamped the site, with Obliviana Primal and the Storm Pelters and all that. I got a very, very limited response from it, mostly from people I know. Since then, I have been in a sort of coccoon, trying to take all that Obliviana has been and turning it into something that can become a success. I have 13 days to totally revamp the website, and I haven't even started yet. That is, I haven't started specific work on the website, but I have DEFINITELY been focusing very keenly on the conceptual side of Obliviana. And just last month I invented the boardgame Obliviana, which is a major step forward in getting Obliviana to people. So has Obliviana been a failure up to now? No. Something fails when it doesn't do what it is set out to do. While I DID want Obliviana to gain a following, that is secondary to the overall development of Obliviana. And in that sense, Obliviana has succeeded. It is now very fully developed, and I believe that my new vision of Obliviana on the website on April 26 will be a massive leap forward, and will lead to a successful Launch of Obliviana three months later, on Obliviana Day 1997, July 28. Yes, I hope that with three months of operation of the new Obliviana Primal, I will finally be able to announce Obliviana to the world and start running it as a company, to some extent. OsoaWeek will change as well. Up to now, OsoaWeek has been the container for all the released written content in Obliviana, save for the website. Now, that content will be released SEPARATELY on the website, and OsoaWeek will then serve the function of listing all the new content each week, and telling people what's going on in Obliviana in general. I have considered renaming OsoaWeek as Obliviana Week. There are some reasons for the change, most of all to avoid confusion. But I think that the importance of tradition should be put in the other column. This will be a tough choice. Once Book Eleven, the Book I'm writing in right now, is done, OsoaWeek in this form will end. Then, there will be a final product, the approximately 4.7 million ASCII character that make up OsoaWeek Books One thru Eleven. I think I will create an index for OsoaWeek, listing each feature, and all the specific instances of that feature. Another question is how to present the raw OsoaWeeks on the WWW. I have decided to put them online, but with each Book as a single file. The question then becomes whether I should "suck out" Severe Repair, Superior, Zope, etc. into their own files, making OsoaWeek as a whole easier to read. But I don't think so. I'll be releasing all the best stuff in OsoaWeek as Cups in the new OP system. So I think that OsoaWeek will exist in OP as eleven text files. Of course, they will be Cups unto themselves! In the last issue of Book Eleven, OW143, I will present the final Stats for all of OsoaWeek up to this Book. I will also present all the Lord of Obliviana writing that I have been amassing. Anyway, here comes Obliviana, y'all, watch out! *OW* [[03131SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 677 * 3/1/97 Gosh I just woke up. Whoah the rain. Yeah see pretzels are excellent. Um that travel game is weak. Tobacco is a political issue. So bring it all together. Little exercise squishy ball. SUPERIOR 678 * 3/1/97 Woke at noontime, haha like. See-see blabe. Pi cigar um. That artificial mountain up there, some of them are based up there, and they do cool stuff. Okay. Like a summer camp, but different themed areas. And as a job. A place. Or as a game. Wow. It's March 1997. Ask myself in the first few days of college, early September 1986, where I would be in March 1997. Rich and famous and powerful. Well, at least I'm powerful. In that I have powerful ideas. SUPERIOR 679 * 3/2/97 Chair pink chair safe hire me it. Gaga, the intellectuals you are trying to reach are sexually hungry and dreadfully confused. Pow, how much tobacco, the film who life. Pow, cool highway, ga, pong so going ha basement college basement. Pool. SUPERIOR 680 * 3/6/97 La Pinto Jokester. Mish-definite. Compulsions and calculators and guitar player you. Plow plow, dunk, Mr. Reagan, zeetar meaning furhoe. Seventies Olympics luge memories, vague, slight. Pow hun the tru nu heather. Like owards like on on. Ping, Pingto. *OW* [[END131OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----