Walla Walla Orienteering Workshop

Orienteering has long been the subject of a certain series of workshops alluded to here. Of course, with the night-time nature of these ramblings, we steer by starlight. Shades in shades, which is not unlike mixed patterns, just to confuse the issue, which anyone who understands orienteering is familiar with as strategy. It's all orienting oneself in the abstract. Metaphors=anvils+space+time, whatever. Terror, trompe l'oeil. It fools the eye, so fool the eye. This should get slightly more ridiculous, so, video. The dance craze thing is not a metaphor. Once you're labeled an eccentric-- well, there's a certain mental expansiveness.

Everything Turns

Encountering a creature in its habitat, one should still oneself and watch. Learn the creature. The way it sees. Don't project and it won't reflect. It's about the lens as much as the view. Today we trek the Wallula Gap and ponder the landscape that lies beneath the surface. Beneath the surface, watched by the twin sisters. What say they in sparkling tongue where the wind plays such serious games? The stories end up warped because the original content didn't fit well the container. Thinking about myth and what we understand as metaphor is as literal as we can get. Thinking in time is, really, literally, a practice of looking through a whole different, alien perception in many ways. People were like us, but they were also very different because our biases, those that result from the technology we use, are very different. It matters. Both are biases. This is a hiking-related post. Clearly. There's much to be told on the subject of portals as omens.

Luminescence, A Rage

Flow and glow is the new new. If these guys can do it so can you. Thinking on the dream of an op-art wardrobe to confuse viewers to the point of collapse. It's been in the Fantasy Lab for years, but it really seems lately that it could have totally practical applications.

How to See Monkeys

First, swear off seeing them. Determine not to think about them. Check yourself and be vigilant. Some keep an internally-self-contained barrel of monkeys in order to distract any monkeys encountered. This is a ridiculously fun way to go, obviously, meaning that it works because total engagement is both enticing and non-optional once the monkeys escape and they do. So, yes, this is another discussion of strategy. Mixing is non-optional. What this latest musical selection has to do with seeing monkeys is also an open topic. Also, method vs. madness, the final showdown, except it isn't a showdown.

In the Electric Outback

Miners cash out imaginal realms before the looming disappearance of imaginal realms, which is not a real thing, except that it is, in some form. That's how things work in this ecosystem, somebody or other said. There's hardly any point in getting overly explanatory. Of course, that is exactly the point. The bondage of imagination to the ever more toxic material of pointed clarity.

That's an extremely convoluted metaphor, but apt, even in the form of its convolutions. The idea of a web, in itself is chaotic material. There is no thing that does not suggest its own reversal. There is no reversal that does not evoke a transcendence of some degree. This isn't welcome news in some parts, thus the many excursions for practice in orienteering. That's how oracles are located, and so we trek certain expanses of the Blues.

Naturally, this is meant to be funny, proving what I've said about punch lines and time travel. They don't mix particularly well. Since this is clearly part of a fictional universe, it's adaptable, and, I'll admit, overly, self-indulgently, absurd. Baroque, even.

Stripped bare language carries word-level these webs. This is an experimental universe for the construction of thought experiments. That's a literal explanation of the purpose of this thing. I should put that somewhere.

The essence of noir is its ambiguity, which is necessarily heroically personal.

Stupid Things Happening in Nowhere, Again...

We'd be pretty over it if it were not for all of the quantum entanglement and wormholes and stuff between yonder and here. As it is, the susceptibility to absurdity in that locale has a way of making things more interesting in these parts. This is not to the distaste of all, let it be said, but the average citizen of the city of many waters oft finds the vibe of this peculiar and betimes longs for the simpler days of extreme dustiness. So, the tumbling tumbleweeds you see caught up in the fence may have exotic providence, indicating the direction of the winds is more than directional. Don't let it phase you if things happen out of order because that's just the time travel thought experiment from the future, which has the feature of not-yet-realized punch lines. That's the fun. And it remains a possibility that the disco fever shall break, but what then? Looks like a new wave. To quote one person of my acquaintance who once said (upon my arrival on the scene, coincidentally), "Get ready for something stupid." That's always seemed like sage advice if one is having dealings with humans. One can always express optimism, but keep open the option of witty retort, for instance. As things are going, options should be maximized. Let ambiguity be your umbrella when echo-locating in murky topographies. The above version of reality will morph because that's the nature of the experiment.

Workshop: Prepping for the Return of Elvis

Yes, it's true. The King has decided to come out of hiding and take his show on the road, like in the old days, but not. This time it's going to be more fun. More Elvises. More cosmic weirdness, because Elvis now exists as a huge band of extra-dimensional Elvis impersonators who have all been sanctioned by the King to function as iterations of Elvis, in any way they deem appropriate. Clearly that's a pretty deep and wide can of worms, but the project is guided by the self iterating expansional being formerly known as Elvis, who is a good dancer. Is this just another way to justify a Walla Walla dance craze? Probably, but if it is, that is a pretty weird way to go. The activity hardly requires justification. (There are many matters of inter-dimensional physics to be pondered, here, but that's a large topic for later.)

The main point is that if you were thinking of doing some retro-fashion hounding, getting in on the ground floor is usually a good idea. Like when you kept that Member's Only jacket to ironically don decades later. Don't forget you heard it here, first and be prepared like a highly decorated, completely fabulous Eagle Scout. To clarify: this post is the actual workshop.