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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 146--5/10/97 <------- || OsoaWeek || Issues || Book 12 || -------> (Cup OWis146, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = OsoaWeek Book Twelve 3 "OsoaWeek146" by Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana, Tarb 6109 (5/10/97), copyright 1997 OBLIVIANA REGISTRY NEW REVOLVERS Revolver 0006: Severe Repair (SR) NEW CUPLINES SEVERE REPAIR Cupline 0010-SR0001: Goodbye Popcorn (SRGP) Cupline 0011-SR0002: Office Complex (SROC) *OW* LORD OF OBLIVIANA Monday 5/5/97 * 1:07 AM You are always working on your life. Everything you do. We have this idea that somehow our whole lives are recorded, that a life might be played back by a God in Judgement. Or maybe, the brain at the moment right before death. In that one moment, a life is chemically encoded. So one idea I have is that being that you are doing it anyway, constatnyl working on the work that is your life, why not encode that work in a somewhat more official manner than usual? Some ideas. That actions are more important than attitudes. That in analying "the question", which is "why is everyone so miserable, why am I so miserable, what van be done about it?" we have to focus on the nature of the question more than trying to answer the question. Can you fool yourself into being happy? Should happiness be a goal? I say that accomplishment and works are a better goal. People ask "Why should I care about creating anything, since I'll be dead for sure a century from now?" Then on to the deeper question of "Just what the heck are we all doing here, anyway?" And "How can there be such unbelievable misery in a world that is supposedly administered by an omnipotent God?" A lot of questions here. If I had the answers, then I'd be some sort of cult leader. We gottalotta those. I came up with a theory a few years ago called "Backyard" which established a structure by which ALL religions are 100% valid. The idea is that while we all have physical bodies that exist in a common place, our spiritual bodies can exist in different supernatural "planes", in which are encoded the attributes of the supernatural world. Anyway, we consider this an intractible problem. We feel that we can't know which religion is right and which is wrong. We all know that there's something MISSING from our lives, though. A lot of people say that what is missing from our lives is JESUS. My personal belief is that we are in a "fallen" world, away from the original world of Primal Wonder, and it is that very Primal Wonder that is missing from our lives. In any event, I think it's safe to posit that there is, generally, throughout all of humanity, something MISSING. Therefore, I should be able to give a name to that which is missing, whatever it is. Um... I want to give it the name "Primal Wonder", but since I have defined Primal Wonder somewhat, it can't be used as the name for "that which is missing". Building things, and seeing them grow as you continue to work on them. This is the hallmark of my philosophy. With this simple formula, I think you can be pretty happy. It may not be "that which is missing", but it is something that involves ACTION, and something which goes some distance toward relieving the pain of having "something" missing. Whether it's just a pain-killer, a distraction, or something that is in some way related to or actually "that which is missing". Um... where am I going with this? I was reading about Timothy Leary and all his LSD crapola. He thought that LSD was "that which is missing". LSD gives you altered perceptions and different sorts of mental experience, I surmise from what I have heard on the subject. I have nver taken LSD myself, nor do I ever intend to. There's this prevalent notion that mental/spiritual/supernatural "experiences" are part and pacel of "that which is missing". In other words, the problem is in your head. But I don't agree. I think the problem and the solution have to do more with actions than with thoughts and feelings. Reality is consistent. It is solid. It cannot be changed without specific actions. In the mind, things are all fuzzy and malleable. Without reality, if you lived just in mind, you'd be utterly lost. People who "lose touch with reality", such as schizophrenics, don't seem to do very well. Reality is tough to deal with. Retreating from reality is a natural reaction. Engaging reality, as in building something, is difficult, but quite rewarding. I guess that my point with all this is that: Hey, come on. Yes, there's this big question, "what's it all about?", and all that. Fine. You can join one cult or another, convince yourself that you've got the soltion, whatever. Forget about all that. You're building something all the time--your life. By establishing specific and recordable aspects of your life, you are creating that thing which you can see grow, and you will get a certain amount of satisfaction from it. It's probably not "the answer", but it's pretty good nonetheless, and you're probably not gonna get "the answer" anyway, so this thing I am describing is at least some way to make your life a little better. What I am describing is Obliviana, of course. Thursday 5/8/97 * 11:43 PM Okay. Two things happened this week so far that are quite incredible: I was back on the air at WMNJ and starting drawing Zope again. Let me take Zope first, since that's easier to describe. I created Zope way back on February 25, 1986. In the time between then and now, I tried to constantly work on Zope, but I would go through long periods of inactivity vis-a-vis my premier character. Back on December 8, 1993, I drew "The Histiry of the Hair of Zope". After that, it was about eight months before I started a series of text Zopes in my ezine, OsoaWeek (which you are reading issue 146 of right now, by the way). So when I drew a new Zope comic on Monday, May 5, 1997, it was a big thing for me. It's interesting that "new Zope" #1 is the first Zope comic since "The Histiry of the Hair of Zope", because Zope does indeed have a new hairstyle now. It's long (kind of like my own!), and he wears the mustache that he formerly wore as Blacksmith Zope and Lester Gulpem. He had a mustache and beard as "Red Leech", a character in a story I did in "Franx Comix" called "Vat'O'Tar". I think I'll fit it into the continuity as a movie Zope was in or something... Anyway, eight days before I created Zope, I went on the air with Mike Massotto with the first broadcast of "Anything But Monday". That was February 17, 1986. I'm not gonna get into ABM right now, check out the ABM Revolver, as it'll probably be out by the time you read this, being that most of you will be reading this months or even years from this moment. Anyway, on the evening of May 3, 1997, this past Saturday, me and Mike went to Drew University and just walked right into the studio of WMNJ, Drew's 10-watt radio station, and the girl who was on the air, Katie, was very nice and let us go on the air. We had no way of recording it, which is ashame, because we did some great material. It was a very cathartic experience, maybe all the more cathartic because our words were going from our lips to the approximately three people who were listening, then out into space. If I ever get time travel, I WILL go back and park on a nearby street and record the broadcast. I might even do that before I go to see Communicore and Kitchen Kabaret in EPCOT. (Note: this is a rather obscure reference. The two features mentioned are favorites of mine from EPCOT in Walt Disney World, which were dismantled permanently several years ago.) So... Anyway, 1986 was an awesome year for me. And the fact that this week I sort of relived the two major events from February 1986 is quite amazing. Oh, I gotta tell you about this dream I had last night. It is possibly the dream with the most unexpected, most obscure subject matter that I have ever had. The dream started off with the usual time travel/Beatles theme. This is nothing new for me. I was in a basement with some dreamfriends (note: "dreamfriends" are those people you're hanging around with in dreams who are not based on real people). Outside was an event from the ssixties which was somehow being replayed. The Beatles were entering the building, and there was a horde of fans out there. I thought it might be cool if The Beatles ran into and through the basement to get away from the crowd, and they did this. One-by-one, The Beatles ran through the room I was in. They were black-and-white and of the "A Hard Day's Night" movie era. I commented to a dreamfriend "Well, it's official now. In every job I've ever had, I've met The Beatles in some way." Later I met Rich Hall. Now I have to explain who Rich Hall is, so you can appreciate how obscure he is. Rich Hall is a comedian whose major claim to fame is writing those "Sniglets" books of the mid-eighties. He was on a show on HBO called "Not Necessarily the News". I haven't heard anything about him for many years. So I have no idea why he showed up in my dream. Anyway, in the dream I was convinced his name was "Rich Young".In fact, after I woke up, I checked the Internet for "Rich Young", and failed. Then I looked up "Sniglets", and found out his name is Rich Hall. Wow! I'm in the middle of that phenomenon, you know, when you're telling a dream and you realize it's really boring for other people to hear it. Ah, whatever. Some of the dialogue: "Wow, Rich Young! I remember when you were on David Letterman's daytime show, when you used to do that skit about the little toy town called 'Pitkinville', with the big pigs and stuff. And I remember a skit you did with Mrs. Butterworth and Dr. Pepper and stuff." "Wow. How many years were you on Saturday Night Live? Four? Let me guess what years. Let me see. Was it 1985 thru 1988?" "Let me ask you a question. What do you think of your former SNL co-star, Eddie Murphy, now that he was found with a transvestite hooker?" I mean, what the hell? Why have such a detailed dream about a meeting with such a random has-been celebrity? Another werid thing was that while I mentioned all this super obscure work of his, Sniglets didn't come up at all! Wow. In reality, I think the last time I heard anything about Rich Hall was several years ago, probably over five years ago, when Howard Stern called Rich Hall something like "The most depressing person on the planet". Now, after I woke up, I checked the Internet to see if anything amazing happened with Rich Hall recently, and I didn't get much, except that he MAY have been on a national talk show (probably Letterman) back in September 1996. So I took a shower and I had this vision, and it was of this weird thing, and I got deja vu. It was like I had this vision two or three times in the past, but it slipped away totally the other times, but this time I grasped it. This is really weird stuff, but I'm gonna describe it anyway, cuz this is what the Lord of Obliviana feature is all about, right? I was idly thinking about Rich Hall's style of having props and telling stories about them, and it triggered this vision of a 5-by-5 grid of lengths of stringlike segments, each a few inches long, and each hanging vertically. Note that such products are at the core of the Firction Enhancer "Mallball", which will probably be in the "209" Revolver pretty soon, in the "Friction Enhancer" Cupline... Anyway, I imagined Rich Hall with such a setup, wiggling these string things and making them talk. I imagined specifically one of the things being a little chain, and it having a tough-guy Russian accent. And then I realized that this vision, which was also related to a WWW banner ad for AltaVista or something, that is, I saw this banner ad also, was a vision that had been trying to break through for some time. So maybe the dream happened to make me think about Rich Hall and his "Pitkinville" act, which would help me grasp onto this vision with the string things, which is something that might become a part of Obliviana, and all that. Wow. Pretty weird, huh? 5/10/97 * 4:30 AM I just watched this movie from 1967 (the year of my birth) called "I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name". It kind of struck a chord with me. One thing, it puts a very bad face on the society of London in the sixties. I mean, you look at pictures and stuff, hear music from that time, whatever, and you get this bright image of the time. But I think this movie presents a somewhat more accurate picture of the time. See, we in this time are looking for something. And that is the theme of the film, this guy looking for something. And he never finds it. I wrote recently about how we are all looking for something, looking wildly all over the place for that which is missing in our lives. So I'll come right out and say that I think that Obliviana is in some way that which we are all looking for. That's a bold statement. But all the self-analytical bullshit aside, I'm a rational person, very intelligent, and able to be self-critical. Okay? And I say that I do have this thing which can help in your search for that which is missing in your life. Simply, a FOW on a piece of paper, rolled up and put inside a Jukewand, which can be made of brass pipe segments. (Note that brass is made from copper and zinc, elements 29 and 30). Also on this piece of paper is a thing you seek to achieve, a Friction Enhancer. While the paper is in the Jukewand, Obliviana is ON for you. Once you're done, you record information on the paper and take it out of the Jukewand and put it with all your other papers. I know that this idea sounds 100% bonkers. I don't think anyone else would come up with it in a million billion years. But it's something I've been working on for a very long time. This last sentence means nothing, and it implies that it's a worthwhile idea because it means a lot to me. So this is bullshit. I was walking up Broadway earlier, remembering my state of being back in college in 1988 and 1989. And I just shook my head at how lost I was. But look at me now, and look at the idea I just wrote down. Yeah. Here I am, having gotten to this point, and I have this inkling that I may still be lost. More self-analysis. Okay. As an argument, I might say that a solution to the aforementioned problem should indeed come from someone like me. But this will do little to convince anyone. Yeah, it's just a lot of hard work ahead. Fuck it. Hard work with no guarantee of success. In fact, with a big stupid question mark. I gotta go to bed, flea market tomorrow. *OW* -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- ----- |