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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 155--7/12/97 <------- || OsoaWeek || Issues || Book 12 || -------> (Cup OWis155, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = OsoaWeek Book Twelve 12 "OsoaWeek155" by Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana, Tarb 6487 (7/12/97), copyright 1997 OBLIVIANA REGISTRY NEW REVOLVERS None NEW CUPLINES None NEW CUPS SEVERE REPAIR Office Complex 11-20 The Carbonize Neighbor 1-10 Winter Stadium Them 11 Yellowhaus 1-9 *OW* LORD OF OBLIVIANA Tue 7/8/97 * 12:30 AM Severe Repair. I will launch it in less than three weeks. Sat 7/12/97 * 7:04 PM I've been making a great deal of progress with Severe Repair. I currently have 88 Cups done, on my way to 209 by the 28th, 16 days from now. Having 209 Cups done, which will represent somewhere around half of the existing SR material I've written, is only part of the picture. I also have to develop a support system which will guide and encourage people to read SR. This is a vital aspect of SR, and all of Obliviana. I have to imagine what it would be like if I were encountering SR for the first time. From the moment the first images and words hit my eye, the fuse on my attention span is ticking. And if I don't get proper stimulus, the fuse will expire, I will lose interest, and go elsewhere. The problem is, to retain attention, one needs to receive sufficient stimulation, but not too much stimulation. Therefore, there is a stimulation range which will retain a person's attention. In addition, to retain an individual over the long haul, you need to provide rewards, or the potential for rewards, each time a person come to your site. The one website that I go to consistently is "Emulation on the Macintosh" at "www.emulation.net", which is a central place to get info on and download all emulators available for the Mac. The lure, and the reward, is being able to play all manner of computer and video games, absolutely free. One emulator, MacMame, supports over a hundred arcade games, with new version and new games being added every week or two these days. This is the lure for me. An example of a website which could have held my attention, but didn't, is "Riddler" at "www.riddler.com". This system has you log on with a name and password, and allows you to play several games to get "Caps", which are like poker chips that you can use to "buy" prizes. The whole thing is free of charge, and the games are decent. The problem is the technical difficulties and the lag times and the games that never come up. If this system was fast and consistent and free from technical difficulties, I might go there often. But the problems are like "punishment" to the "reward" of playing the the games. So what kind of rewards to I have in SR, and in the big picture, all of Obliviana? Well, as you may know, I have been developing a "reward" system for a long time. Currently known as "Octagon", this system has the potential to tie all of Obliviana together in the right stimulus range. That is, this system can take the various elements of Obliviana and bring them together into one big system which will hold a person's attention. 10:07 PM I went to the Garden State Plaza mall, and on the way home I came up with a great idea: Themed Interpretations. This mall-going-to is similar to the one I did on Monday, when I went to the Bridgewater Commons Mall. In both these mall sojourns, I sought to go back to places which have a resonance in my memories. Garden State Plaza is a place I used to go to quite often back in 1989, when I was publishing Anything But Monday Magazine from the office of Jim Lord, a photographer who was, for a time, a partner in Anything But Monday. I was living with my parents in Martinsville, but sometimes i slept over at Jim's office in Fair Lawn. It was a weird time for me. And often, when I needed a break from writing and other work on the magazine, I would go and wander around Garden State Plaza. Well, I must not have been there in many years, cuz the place is totally changed. You get out of your car in the parking lot to hear a booming voice telling about the mall in a loop of about one minute. It's a very strange experience, hearing this voice. One thing the voice says is the GSP is, with its recent expansion, one of the ten largest malls in the country. I guess it's number ten, since if it was number nine, it could be called "one of the nine largest malls in the country". With 300 stores, it has 75% of the number of stores Mall of America (in Bloomington, Minnesota) has, at 400. The place is totally different. It's kind of a scary place. It lacks "coziness". I got some sort of picture of the future from it. Very theme park-like in some ways. So, on the way back, I got this idea. It may indeed have been inspired by the gestalt of the mall, at least at some level. The idea, "Themed Interpretation", is: I invent several "magazines", all of which are devoted to the subjects of Severe Repair and Superior. Each views SR/SU in its own unique "theme". For example, one "magazine" would view SR/SU from a comic book/superhero point of view, focusing on the various superhero-like teams in SR, such as Cup's Club, Yellowhaus, Pseudoairport, Winter Stadium Them, etc. Another "magazine" could view SR/SU from an intellectual standpoint, interpreting various levels of meaning from the works. Another could take a love/soap opera/erotic perspective, focusing on relationships between various characters, such as the many loves of Prince Ferrajalt (Treyess Arcomany, Hilltop Jone Rallity, Lunatether, Martha (so far)). I decided to add Superior to the mix here because it is truly a "sister" work to SR. There are several instances of stuff from SU winding up in SR, (such as "Emma"). The advantages of such a system are many. First of all, this system is an intermediary between reader and work. I realized that faced with the raw material of SR/SU, many people would be overwhelmed and under-interested. With this Themed Interpretation system, folks are "prepped" for entry into the vast universe of SR/SU. As well, this new system allows for a much greater depth in SR/SU than would otherwise be possible. To wit, a single part of SR/SU can be viewed from numerous angles, and with each new perspective, a person can take new interest. Additionally, this system presents SR/SU to a variety of different "demographics". So a person who might be reluctant to delve into anything labeled "science fiction" could be encouraged to sample the work if it is labeled "romance". Clearly, there is a limit to this particular aspect of the system, but it will definitely expand the range of potential readers. Regarding implementation, I realize that this new system will probably involve almost as much labor as SR/SU itself. That is, it will take a lot of time to create these various "magazines"--but it will be worth it. Recently, I have been aware of an idea somewhere in the back of my mind, an idea that would energize and animate SR. This is that idea. Today is a good day for Severe Repair! Sun 7/13/97 * 2:00 AM Thought I'd forgotten the whole Mars thing? Think again! I don't want to go on another rambling tangent about why space travel is fake. I want to talk about myself. Quite novel, eh? As a kid I was a space junkie. I didn't start to doubt the veracity of space travel till maybe five years ago. But now, I have changed my viw on space travel fully. I now fully disbelieve it. See, the Pathfinder mission is the most significant thing to happen in space travel since the Apollo moon landings. Had Pathfinder happened five years ago, I would have been intensely interested and exhilarated by it all. But now, I am viewing Pathfinder from a new perspective, and the sham seems very apparent to me. I think that I am right about this, about Pathfinder being a hoax. But, even if I AM right about this, it's a hollow victory, because this realization has taken all the fun out of something that would otherwise have been very important and uplifting to me. Viewing space travel as a hoax gives you a whole new perspective. You see how just about everyone is taken in by the hoax. And you wonder what else is fake, being that it's so damn easy to fool people. This depressing edge to what I see as the truth is surely something of a factor in terms of the question of why people don't even QUESTION the veracity of space travel. I mean, this is the big question. It is apparent that IF space travel were a hoax, it would be fairly easy to pull off. The evidence that is presented to the public could certainly be faked. At this level, I think that most people would agree with me, that such a thing COULD be done, and no one would be able to discern the truth. And yet, even armed with the realiztion that space travel COULD be a hoax, and that the government has a definite MOTIVES in faking it, almost no one questions the veracity of it all. The motives I refer to could include absolute control over the mission (ie, no unplanned disasters), embezzling the money, since the fake costs less than the real thing, distracting people from other issues, etc. But no questioning. And you know what? You know why people aren't asking the question? Because what the hell is the answer gonna be? It would be admittedly very hard to convince someone like me that space travel IS real. I mean, there are a lot of inconsistencies (such as no stars in the background in pictures from space) that could be cleared up--but really, it would take a lot to make me believe. Getting the government to admit that space travel is hoax is the same as it saying "why yes, you have all been a bunch of fucking morons all these years, and we've been a bunch of goddamn lying bastards." So everyone loses. In the short run. I don't know. I don't know what I'm driving at here. I mean, I guess my psychology is something like "Nah nah, I'm smarter than you all, I know the truth!" But what is it gonna get me? If the truth is revealed, people might look back on my writing and say "You know what Frank? You're pretty smart! You knew the truth before we did. Congratulations on being so smart. If we had believed you back then, we would have known about this sooner." Like, what would that get me? It's very interesting that while I am very interested in bringing Wonder back into people's lives, I have lost some from my own. But wait. Space travel could be "False Wonder"--a Wonder-seeming thing that distracts us while True Wonder recedes. Fully-Implemented Virtual Reality will also be chock full of "False Wonder". False Wonder is a narcotic. And it could lead to the end of humanity. It sounds like I'm laying the roots of a cult. Well, forget that. I'm not gonna start any cult. Even in this little bit of mental meandering, I am indulging in the overinflated whatever in such ideas. I mean, it's fun to huff and puff and predict doom and all that. Makes you feel important and smarter than other people. I don't wanna get into that. If everything I have said is true, then talking about it, or preaching about it, is not going to do any good at all. The only solution to this potential problem is to increase the presence of True Wonder in the world. And this is something I can at least attempt to do. Without starting a cult, and without preaching. End of sermon. 2:47 AM So I'm not gonna start a cult. The idea had been a kind of half-joke with me for a long time. But I think I finally understand what a cult is all about. I mean, I was thinking Friday on the bus about faulty reasoning. And I came up with an extreme example of faulty thinking: "It is a crime to murder hundreds of people, and it is a crime to go 56 MPH on highways in New Jersey. Since they are both crimes, it is absurd to assign different punishments. A crime is a crime. And every crime should therefore have the same punishment." It shocked me to realize that even an utterly ridiculous statement like that carries some weight. That is, you hear this statement, and you have to step back and say "wait a minute, this is not right at all". It is easy to make a statement in a compelling way. It is tricky to get into the intellectual constructs necessary to negate such a statement. For the above example, my response would be, "Laws are set forth to control the behavior of people. Ideally, people would control their own behavior, but this is not generally the case. In addition, there are many actions which are borderline, that is, they could go either way. Laws are intended to be a set of guidelines, as well as a set of restrictions. Human activity encompasses an enormous range. Crimes usually involve one person violating the rights of another person. Such a violation has an effect on the victim. The effect can range from nothing to utter devastation or death. For example, someone driving 56 MPH might decrease the safety of other drivers by an infinitesimal amount. In this case, you wouldn't even KNOW that you're right were being violated. The next level would be mild annoyance, such as someone giving you a dirty look or playing music too loud or saying something you disagree with. No one goes through their life without upsetting other people on occasion. It is part of the human condition that we sometimes annoy each other. Etc. and so on." While writing the above paragraph, I realized that it really ISN'T easy to make a coherent argument for something that is intuitively so apparent. Cults thrive on faulty thinking. Make enough statements, and it becomes increasing difficult to argue against those statements, whatever the actual content and substance involved. And it is especially when dealing with the unobservable that it is easy to befuddle people. 3:14 AM The question of "False Wonder" is starting to concern me. To wit, is the Wonder that children feel at the idea of Santa Claus a form of False Wonder? I'll have to think about that one. Goodnight! 10:50 AM Time to upload... 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