Meta Obliviana #1 -- 1/7/02

Meta Obliviana #1
1/7/02
by Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana

INTRODUCTION TO META OBLIVIANA

Hey, I'm Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana. I'd like to welcome you to Meta Obliviana, a new series of articles about Obliviana, presented on Obliviana.com.

Now, normally, I'd present a feature such as this in the pages of OsoaWeek, the weekly ezine of Obliviana. And indeed, this writing will likely wind up in OsoaWeek, but OsoaWeek is on hold... as is most of the rest of Obliviana.

Yes, Obliviana is all screwed up. And I have made new plans for 2002. And Meta Obliviana is the only thing that is absolutely going to be added to the Obliviana website in 2002.

Obliviana is a very complex thing, and now that it has reached this point in its development, I feel that I need a place to talk about Obliviana... where it's been, where it's at, and where it's gonna be.

So join me, won't you, on this incredible journey into the mysteries of Obliviana!

THE STATE OF OBLIVIANA

Well, I have so say that the state of Obliviana is actually not too bad, all things considered. Things have stalled, but I have great hope for the future.

Today, I made the tentative decision to not release anything in Obliviana in 2002, except for Meta Obliviana. I still plan on working on Obliviana, just that I might not "release" any of the work before 2003.

Now, my audience, my fans, can pretty much be counted on one, maybe two hands. There are a few people, maybe like 4-8, who seem to be into Obliviana. But at that level, the level of interest in Obliviana is effectively zero. Therefore, putting off releasing new things for a year is not gonna be a big deal in the scheme of things. And I want to come up with a plan where "releasing" creative stuff actually gets me somewhere: attention, fans, success, money, etc.

Obliviana is just a hobby of mine at this point, but I have always aspired for it to be much more. But the way I've been doing things in Obliviana has not gotten it past being a hobby.

Here in Meta Obliviana, I plan on examining everything about Obliviana.

Now, I know this first bit of writing is disorganized and rambling... but it will make sense. And, if you have no idea what Obliviana is, you'll find out by reading Meta Obliviana here in 2002 and onward into the future.

So... the state of Obliviana... here it is, in a nutshell:

As I said, I'm thinking of releasing nothing in 2002 beyond Meta Obliviana. But I do plan on working on many things in Obliviana, looking toward a new kind of Obliviana in 2003.

Right now, I am planning on keeping all the Internet stuff online. This consists of Obliviana.com, and several other domain names with all link to the Obliviana.com site. As well, I have Bluffcosm audio material hosted on MP3#.com and Live365.com, and I plan on leaving the stuff there for now, though god knows if either of these companies is gonna last thru 2002.

Many, many projects in Obliviana are on hold. There are three projects which are active:

[1] Meta Obliviana.

[2] 209. I am now focusing on 209, continuing the work I started in earnest on July 28, 2001, in a part of the site called "Obliviana - The New Supernatural Entertainment". I feel that 209 is the heart of Obliviana, and I am going to work on it pretty much to exclusion of all else until further notice.

[3] Severe Repair. The last few weeks of 2001, I put together a Severe Repair novel from the existing work, as well as a good deal of new stuff. My goal is to get a real book company to publish the Severe Repair novel. I've always avoided going in this direction, but now I am willing to try. I have a lot of work ahead in this process, and my ego will have to take a lot of punishment. But that happens when the audience for a work expands beyond one person... in this case, me.

Everything else is on hold.

There are two projects in Obliviana which are on hold that I want to talk about.

[1] OsoaWeek. This is the weekly ezing of Obliviana, and I have produced an issue for every week from July 28, 1994 to August 25, 2001 -- 369 issues. There are long spans, however, which have limited content due to them being "catchup" issues. And indeed, I will have to do a new catchup series to get OsoaWeek back on track. It may come back in 2002, but I do plan for it definitely to be back in 2003. In the meantime, Meta Obliviana will serve many of the functions of OsoaWeek, and like I said earlier, I will most likely put these Meta Obliviana features into OsoaWeek. If not, they will be in Aerie Obliviana along with OsoaWeek, like the Get All Obliviana series.

[2] Bluffcosm. Okay. I have a lot to say about Bluffcosm.

Bluffcosm is "The New Computerized Audio Entertainment". I love Bluffcosm, I really do. I love working on Bluffcosm, and I love releasing Bluffcosm stuff. The main problem is that I have only attracted the tiniest of audiences for it. And in general, it is part of a genre that is greatly looked down upon -- the genre that was pioneered by what is now known as "Old-Time Radio".

I feel that this genre, recorded audio works which go beyond music and talk shows, is the most overlooked entertainment genre in the world. And I think that with the quickly-advancing digital audio technology, that this genre has huge potential in the future.

Much of the second half of last year I spent trying to shift all of Obliviana into a pure-audio format, including Severe Repair and 209. I achieved an important milestone in November 2001 with the release of two "Stormtoons", which were meant as a way of introducing 209 to people thru audio.

But then something happened. I realized that I had taken my fairly strong 209 start of the site of 7/28/01, and transformed it into a far less accessible form with Stormtoon. It was then, in late November, early December, that I realized that I would have to focus on 209 for real, without having to jam it into the audio format.

It was in December that I made some progress on 209... but I had a strong mental block against working on it... and I decided to use a long vacation that I took to put the Severe Repair novel together.

So now, here I am, back at work on 209, and Bluffcosm has been put on hold, and I am not happy about it. But at the same time, I realize that it is necessary.

Now, another issue in Bluffcosm is the November 2001 Wave of Blufftoons. Normally with a Blufftoon Wave, I enter the info into a spreadsheet, I announce the Wave in Bluffcosm News, and I add some Blufftoons to the MP3.com page, and pretty much all the new stuff to the Live365.com streams. In the case of the November 2001 Wave, I did not go through these steps. I did the spreadsheet, but I did not add the 2 Stormtoons, which I decided to make a part of that Wave when I realized that Stormtoon was not gonna take off. In fact, let me add those 2 to the spreadsheet now... it'll be one less thing hanging over my head in Obliviana.

Okay, I did it. That didn't take very long. I also read a little of OsoaWeek 369... it was the start of my thinking that led to Stormtoon. Oh well.

So I feel very torn about Bluffcosm. I will work on Bluffcosm this year. I will produce Blufftoons. But I just don't know if I'm gonna release anything in Bluffcosm, and the sad thing is that it pretty much doesn't matter, except for the 1 to 10 people out there who might be mildly disappointed not to see new stuff. Maybe I should update Bluffcosm News... yeah, I think that's a good idea. Let me do that.

Okay! I updated the Bluffcosm News page! It feels great that I finally got it done!

So here's the issue with Bluffcosm: I love it, but by itself, I would need massive resources to get people into it. I need the "Keystone Idea" to get people into Bluffcoam and other parts of Obliviana. And as I discovered last Summer, the Keystone Idea is 209. So I need to get 209 in gear to get the rest of Obliviana in gear.

Now, with 209, I have a lot of work to do. I want to write a book about 209... to really establish everything.

I want to note that when I refer to "209", I really mean "Obliviana", since I am calling the whole 209 thing "Obliviana". But it would be too confusing to just call it Obliviana here, since Obliviana means something else in the history of Obliviana and also currently and... well, you see what I mean.

So I don't want to launch 209 before it is ready. I will wait till the time is right. I could release some more Blufftoons that no one will listen to. Or I could produce more Blufftoons, but not release them, waiting for the right time. And right now, I am aiming at January 1, 2003, as being the right time. It gives me a whole year to get my act together.

Anyway, I'll talk a lot more about all this in future issues of Meta Obliviana.

That's it for today... see you in the next Meta Obliviana!