#chronological and (attempted) comprehensive? on my blog?

[tangents-within-tangents]

2023 Obsessions Recap

Much Ado About Nothing (the Tennant/Tate version, aka THE best version, don't even @ me)

"Rain Clouds" and "Dopamine" by Arcadian Wild

Dracula (1897) -Mina Harker the love of my life

Infinity Train (RIP TUBA OMG (I actually cried))

"Radio Waves" by Hudson North!!!!!

Community -Abed Nadir, my baby

"some things (i've learned)" and everything by Tiny Habits

Seeing Red by guminelly

Leave Me Alone! by Vera Brosgol

Le Retour Des Vagues by Gobelins

Ke Huy Quan, you absolute precious human bean

Clones Wars/Bad Batch -Echo, Kix, and the clone who punched General Grievous in the face

Bluebeard tale type adaptations

[centrally-unplanned]

I will add my voice to the chorus that chronological feed is at this point one of Tumblr's biggest selling points, because chronological is a default form of ownership. I can edit my feed to match exactly my expectations by following & unfollowing who I want, because chronology as a concept is completely scrutable to me. Algorithms are fine as everything is an algorithm; its the lack of comprehensibility and agency most platforms inflict on you that makes them so hostile to users who actively curate what they engage with.

I in fact think Tumblr would benefit from more feed options! I would absolutely enable deviations from the chronology based on the people I follow and the moods I am in - but they again would need to be under my control.

The discoverability problem is real, and I do in fact think that there should be better ways. I don't object to the "you may also like" in the corner for example. In reality Tumblr's search functions are the place to do this; they aren't as bad as many claim but they aren't great, they are exactly the choice-focused place to surface new blogs. Make that tool better and I will find others like me and give them a shot.

But. Another thing that makes tumblr great is the fact that it is 'community' based over 'content' based. I follow the people I follow, and they follow me, because we interacted with each other over time. It is a facsimile of actual socializing; you make a few comments on a post, you build up the courage for a reblog or two, you are discoursing, you tag them on a meme, now you are mutuals. Content creators are not community members - that is a hierarchical relationship, the 'lead' and the 'fan', and is defined by parasocial and weak connections. Tumblr can be more than one thing ofc, I follow some art blogs who never talk to their followers, that is a content-follow. But in the main I don't think most people want their community-based feed structure to be disrupted by attempts to content-itize it.

This is again one of Tumblr's strengths - every other site (besides partially Facebook) has pivoted to content-style models over community-style models due to inherent winner-take-all dynamics and greater monetization applications. But Tumblr cannot chase YouTube, it is going to lose, YouTube already exists. I don't see much of anything in that post that recognizes that, and that is imo a huge mistake.

[thewadapan]

It's always a nice surprise to see people benefitting from the work @jalaguy and I did for the TFWiki community blog! While Sonic comics are mostly outside my wheelhouse, I did read and enjoy TKP/Bobby's recent review of The Lara-Su Chronicles.

Figured I'd take this opportunity to publicly pull back the curtain a little more on my original reading guide, because the curation of it took place entirely on Discord. I'd gotten frustrated by a lot of extant reading guides online, which were all heavily influenced by the absolute dogshit editorial choices made by Andy Schmidt for The IDW Collection: mainly, a painfully chronological approach which frontloads a bunch of boring and bad prequel material that readers have zero context for, simply because it's set earliest in the timeline. That's an insane way to read comics.

Most lists would just kind of throw out a list of individual issues with little (if any) colour commentary, implicitly asserting... "trust me, I've done the research!" But as someone who's read all the material, you can see when they clearly haven't.

And the thing is, IDW's Transformers comics really just are that complicated. They were the product of many hands. Not everything fits together. It's not a single grand unifying vision with a consistent narrative thread. What few official attempts at curation were made by IDW (mostly in the form of trade paperbacks) are actively misleading. The wiki itself gives a determined reader some help in working out how it all fits together, but also... not really.

So my sleight of hand with the TFWiki's reading guide—and the use of the phrase "reading guide" instead of "reading order" was deliberate—was basically to not actually give you the reading order at all. Instead, it's a comprehensive overview of the salient, relevant information about how all these books relate to one another. The intention was that an engaged reader would follow along, and at each turn, make that active choice of... "am I skipping this one?"

But since its release, I've had a lot of feedback—often indirectly, like this, with people taking that next step of actually applying this information to bash out a reading list—that most readers really would just rather a list of the good comics to read. Nobody wants to read fucking M.A.S.K. So increasingly I have been giving thought to maintaining the comprehensive overview, while also having a suite of curated reading lists. Like, compare that article, to this recent image I threw together for someone on twitter who just wanted to read More than Meets the Eye. One of these is obviously much more helpful than the other.

Anyway, now it's time for me to play spot-the-difference with Bobby's list.

Obviously all the Hasbro Universe stuff is missing. Good choice, it's almost all irrelevant and bad.

New Avengers/The Transformers is omitted without mention. Extremely based choice. Spotlight: Ramjet is thus moved into publication order, which is fair.

Egregious extra stuff like "Hail and Farewell" or Continuum or UNIT:E or Aw Yeah Revolution! or the deleted scenes are dropped, which makes total sense. I mostly included them for historical context, not because I think anyone should actually read them. I definitely think James Roberts' prose stories are far, far more worth your time than basically anything Shane McCarthy or Mike Costa wrote, and I say this as someone who doesn't even like those prose stories that much.

Spotlight: Blaster and Spotlight: Arcee are delayed until after Devastation; I can't really tell why, but neither can I particularly justify their existing placement in the order, aside from that I just wanted a bigger chunk of Spotlights.

Spotlight: Wheelie is moved a bit earlier. I don't get this at all; it was the last to be published, and it's completely unrelated to everything else. With Klaus Scherwinski being partially responsible for the story, it feels more of a pair with Spotlight: Mirage to me.

Megatron Origin and Hearts of Steel are swapped. This is neither here nor there—I guess maybe the intent is to have Megatron Origin lead directly into All Hail Megatron? The Infestation 2 issues are skipped, which is justifiable.

Spotlight: Prowl is bumped up a little. Genuinely wonder why, it's not for publication order reasons. Sidenote—what's the vibe, do people really think Spotlight: Prowl was actually ever planned for the ongoing before people started complaining about Costa's Prowl? Signs point to no.

"Police Action" and "Chaos" are interleaved together for simplicity. This is one case where I actually agree with Andy Schmidt; the two storylines are entirely unrelated, and while that kind of interleaving makes sense on a serialised monthly comic timescale, it's narratively confusing for an archival reader. Like, "Chaos" is already one of the most incomprehensible and overcomplicated comics IDW put out, without weaving in a completely separate plot. I find it funny that the interleaving is now viewed as the simple "default"; for me, reading from my old Humble Bundle CBZs of the series, it's actually easier to just read one trade paperback after the other. For a long time, everyone was reading this stuff by trades. But now, everyone has to use the Perfectly Legal Websites, and it's a completely different story!

The More Than Meets the Eye Annual has been moved after issue #8. This is honestly one of my biggest IDW reading order pet peeves. The trades put it there, but as written it's set between the two Scavengers issues, and that's when it was intended to be published, too. Personally I just don't think that clumping the Scavengers two-parter together is important enough to justify getting non-chronological with it.

The Transformers #43-44 come a little bit later. I don't know why this is, and if I'm being honest I don't remember any of that shit well enough to meaningfully justify why we had it the way we did in the first place. I think it's because of chronology with Combiner Hunters...?

Presumably so as not to have The Transformers issue #45 on its own, it's been clumped up with the following arc. Which means there isn't an obvious place for Redemption to go, so it's been repurposed as a break between two consecutive arcs of The Transformers, as the entire season finale has also been moved up to be clumped with issue #50. I think that's the logic here? Like, I get it, I don't like having issue #45 on its own either.

Action Man is skipped from the list proper, although it does get a mention later. This is a crime.

I also really wish the M.A.S.K. Annual had been kept in there, because it's not by Brandon Easton, but rather by the cowriter of First Strike, and it has some Transformers content in it, and I think it's really funny to pretend a M.A.S.K. book is required reading.

First Strike #0 has been missed, which I thiiink is just an oversight?

But yeah, it was in many places a really pleasant surprise to see stuff exactly as we had it, as if to say, "yep, that works!" In retrospect, we made some fucking choices. Putting Spotlight: Grimlock where we did is the kind of subjective bullshit people would be totally justified in ignoring. Siloing the Autocracy trilogy off as its own little skippable pile of garbage, or putting the Dark Prelude set of Spotlights in such a seemingly bizarre spot, definitely seemed like they'd be the first things someone would undo. Really glad to see it!

I'm definitely due some kind of IDW Phase 2 reread, but I always flipflop about how to go about it. Before Revolution, More than Meets the Eye and Robots in Disguise are practically joined at the hip, and you do genuinely miss out on stuff by reading just one or the other. But then after the relaunch, they're two almost completely independent story threads. It's wild how much that stuff falls off.

And speaking personally, I've always found that interleaving them just kind of makes me hate Barber's stuff? Which sucks, because Barber is a great comics writer—in many ways a better comics writer than Roberts! But fuck me, early on, More than Meets the Eye is just in a league of its own. It is so much funnier and more meaningful and narratively intricate. Every break to read another chunk of the Bumblebee/Starscream/Metalhawk political drama is a chore. It's eating your broccoli so you can have dessert. Of course, by the time of Optimus Prime and Lost Light, it's a different story.

(I think what I really want to do next is the Barber/Scott auteur run. I've not done it before. I wanna see how that one works. Some of that material, I've only ever read the once!)

Ultimately, I'm just like... there's no good way to read this stuff. It is all inherently imperfect. That's comics, really. Hopefully Bobby's list helps an entirely new bunch of people to discover the good stuff!

Okay! Without further ado, here's my IDW Transformers (main continuity) reading order that I said I was putting together, complete with a lot of commentary to try and help new readers understand what's what and where to start.

(I'll probably have to make some minor corrections here and there, but this should be good enough for now.)

[respectawoman]

Index

This post is an attempt to organize all of the comics/art created for Ladyverse, which is a universe based around four OCs which started out as genderbends of boy-only zombies from the Left 4 Dead universe, but quickly branched out to become their own characters.

Warning: Posts may contain graphic depictions of violence, jokes or discussion about sex, people getting drunk, or other adult topics not listed. Things I feel need warning will have notes next to them.

Their Website The most comprehensive place to find information on them is their website. It has all of the art Zarla has drawn of them as well as several fics about them written. Everything that can be found in this post can (probably) be found there. Warnings are on the website.

The Ukagaka(s) An Ukagaka/Ghost is an interactive desktop buddy you can talk to and play games with sometimes (more info in a video she made). Zarla’s first ghost was one of Hunter and Smoker, with an unlockable Charger included! I also made a Jockey ghost years later to go with it, and they can talk to each other!

Animations The girls have had several animations made of them! Over the years, Zarla has made quite a few and they’re ALL GREAT. All of them also contain blood and gore. Little My Star - By Zarla in 2011 for their one year anniversary! Buri Hamachi - By Zarla, zombie edition I’ve Learnt Too Much; I have Gone Mad - By Zarla, pretty intense one. Stamp On the Ground - By Zarla, the girls appear in here briefly! Not in the original though, they were added later (along with Gaster and Alphys) Cradles - By me!! Heavy inspiration from ILTM :D Interview with a Cured Zombie - By Zarla, created for twelfth anniversary.

“Chronological” Order Here I PLAN to take all of the comics (colored and uncolored) and put them into a few different categories and a sort of “order” that might be easier for some people to follow. This is a larger project so this section may not be done for a while but it will be eventually!

Tag List For this blog I attempt to tag things based off of where they stand. The tags are:

Ladyverse (Everything on this blog is pry tagged that) Lady Hunter, Lady Smoker, Lady Charger, Lady Jockey (These are each character tags if you’re looking for art of a specific one) Preinfection (Everything before the apocalypse, usually Hunter and Smoker comics) Survivors (During the apocalypse with the gang as survivors) Infected (Gang as zombies) Curedtown (Gang as cured zombies, or stuff taking place in that setting in general sense it’s not always about them)

Other AUs will get specific tags and as I find them I will list them here.

[donnnoir]

Dallas, TX                                                                          June 30, 2019

Well Friend’s, although currently I suspect there are no readers of my crude blog.  Other than those that may have an interest from the Shadow Government’s perspective.  They always keep tabs and monitor my actions and interactions at large or singular.  An annoying fact of Life as me.  So hopefully at some point and time in the future an interested party will have numerous pages to sort through.  I am trying to get all my material under one or two roofs / forums which can and are accessible to everyone.  At least that is my hope and the intention of all this.  Granted it also allows me an outlet to vent some of my frustrations and the various events, occurrences and histories with this and more that I have Lived and experienced throughout my Life.  Now in such a spirit I am posting a electronic log entries after I arrived back in Austin TX, following the events I experienced in Southern California.  Which events culminated in my being shot twice in my left leg and subsequently ran over by an F-350 dually pick-up, running me over from toes to my head being dragged under the dual tires on the driver’s side of the vehicle.  Needless to say it was an interesting evening.  I was run over on East Anaheim St. about one hundred feet from the intersection with North Henry Ford Ave., on the south bound side of East Anaheim heading back toward Long Beach, I believe the location is still in Wilmington. With the location of my being shot some distance from there and that being approximately 325 North Lecouvreur Ave., Wilmington.  These events happened on or around the 5th of March 2018.  I was transported to St Mary’s Hospital at 1050 Linden Ave. Long Beach, CA..

The following are a series of electronic entries to an ad hoc journal at the time.  I Post this ad hoc journal in its raw form, the only editing being for the most part that of correcting some of the major spelling mistakes.  Hopefully I  have retained the jagged nature of my mind set at the time.  I freely admit that upon my return from California for the first time in my life I was showing signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.   I still have on occasions bouts associated to this PTSD.  I trust as coming events unfold and I have New Obstacles and Challenges to focus my attention and thereby forestall the elements of the Disorder.  Thus I Post this warts and all.  Without regard to its chronological or content of order. Because of this I will no doubt be covering much of the data, information and stories at a later Posting.  I will also be Posting the images of my hand written journal, as the loose leaf entries that I have adopted as my handwritten format.  Since every log or journal I have started has been stolen repeatedly.  So I now write on whatever loose leaf papers I have before me in the moment.  I hope to Post those as packaged folders Postings in their chronological order.  There is a degree of overlapping entries between this Posting and those of my handwritten entries.  Bear that in mind should you actually elect to read all of these.  Most of the entries some date and location headers.   I hope that in doing this that no seeming contradictions arise, especially since I am the source.  I welcome any inquires from any reader of my material.  Thus I submit the following:

Welcome, seems it has come to this. I am going to attempt to compose my thoughts and histories via electronic medium. My reservations must give way to practical realities. Not to mention the fact that each and every one of my previous logs / journals has been stolen from me. A immensely annoying recurring theme.

Thus I am going to try and make a virtual journal. Presumably I will augment this with the additional paper journal. Which will then be uploaded into a file of images. The hope being the combination will effectively accomplish the task. Towit that of providing a record of my life including events in the extreme. Additionally I wish to leave behind in some convoluted fashion my diverse understanding of things. By far I would consider the latter to be a far greater contribution to the brain wealth of humanity. I would like to think that should any of this writing come to light. It does so some time in the future . When the more fantastic elements can be seen in historical context. Such that what would otherwise be seen as speculative ventures into science fiction writing, will be known as simply fact. Because believe me when I say I truly wish and hope to be / will be wrong, regarding that which is to come. For a change!

Sigh… I must take a break, now. Necessity requires I consider many issues, not the least of which is where to start, and how best to proceed. Besides the fact I have not developed the requisite manual dexterity to type with my thumbs.

Monday July 2, 2018 … Killeen Texas

Sigh… damnit all to hell! I am having one of those rare days when I feel anxious, overwhelmed to the point of feeling trapped. I do not know if it is possibly PTSD related. I suppose I have to accept that as a issue with in me from now till the day I die. Regrettable not to mention humiliating for me. Granted, I suspect that the the cannabis Jade bought had a little something extra in it. So she could anesthesias more effectively giving her a reprieve from the increased infra-sound, ultrasound, microwave along with the entirety of the electromagnetic emissions I am at present enduring. I am concerned for her and her son Joey's well being. Despite her being one of the girls / operatives / victims of our government’s illegal covert initiatives know as MK Ultra. She is a bundle of contradictory issues and personalities. Your typical Golem. Her biological father is Warren Causey. He was George Bush Sr. right hand even prior to Sr becoming head of the Central Intelligence Agency. Causey was Sr's go to man for wet works and deep black bag operations. Especially if the back side had a tail which could be exploited for control of any or all parties involved. Causey is a true satanist and worse. He recently developed a rapid onset of Alzheimer’s. Not quite as sever as my own father and name sake Donald Paul Williams. But the timing of both though separate is suggestively coincidentally to events associated to me and those involved in FOXing me. I suspect brother Magnus of being petty. Grinding and hammering on old grudges. Along with becomingly increasingly punitive in operational objectives concerning breaking me to the point of my “losing” it. At which point and time my only anticipated options would be to appeal to their overview and / or full capitulation to their agendas. Thus far I have successfully thwarted their attempts. Yet it has come at an immense cost to me, across the board. Okay in anticipation that I may never acquire the journal I started last year upon my departure from Long Beach, California. A long walk beginning by The Queen Mary and which ultimately landed me in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is becoming increasingly incumbent that I reiterate elements I previously wrote down back then. You would think it would be a simple straightforward process. Naturally such is not the case, for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which are context and my desire to avoid sounding narcissistic, or worse disillusion. Yet failing to do so will ultimately end in me portraying myself as such, even more so. Besides I really hate repeating myself, sorta a pet peeve of mine.

To the uninitiated this is going to sound ludicrous and insane. However, any comprehensive primer would require volumes of esoteric information, along with accompanying commentary and should include appropriate citations. All from tomes that are closely guarded. That I am denied access to permanently and utterly. Thus it is best to proceed directly into the matter wading through the initial convolution, realizing by degrees it will work out becoming about as clear as mudd. The luciferains according to their Canon refer to me as “The Dark One”. It is an appellation pulled directly from their actual scripture as initially iterated  to Cain from lucifer, himself.

Obviously atheist may take exception to these concepts, especially the language used. There is not much I can say in response to their misgivings. Because their beliefs lack the framework from which to attach this model. Hell most individuals beliefs also in like fashion lack similar mental framework. Yet most have allowances or the tools where with the modular architecture of their minds are able to “build out” an additional wing to the mansion in their minds which houses their understanding of “reality”. At the very least they can entertain the blueprints to an “add-on” to their mansions. Similar to the operations of our minds “cognitive consistency”. Dr Richard Alan Miller is fond of noting “I would never have seen it if I hadn’t believed it”. Or by extended reference the belief that if you have enough information to postulate a coherent question, you already have enough to know the answer. You just have to convince yourself of it. The implications are profound. Stretching into metaphysics and the issues of faith preceding the miracle(s), and even magick! All topics I have and will continue to touch upon in my ramblings. But I go too far afield of my primary focus. Simply, I am The Dark One. This is both metaphoric and literal. For the few people whose sight allows them to to clearly see into the underlying spiritual realm of our world. Because all things that “are” where first created in spirit. Elsewise they would not exist or remain lifeless sterile elemental at best. There are also at worst case possibilities, but we will forego any such dialogue for the moment. Everything we see and interact with has a corresponding spiritual aspect providing impetus to the whole. Usually the spiritual aspect even resembles the physical expression, although at times the proportions differ. A fact that I know I will touch upon in other areas as topically necessitated. Nonetheless if one was to see our spirits they much resemble the physical form of our bodies, though a bit taller (note this is a foreshadowing hint, to a vastly different topic I Will Be Addressing. At times I may interject future foreshadowing hints, though sans the extensive explanations). Depending on the scope of vision applied a person may / can see many other things. For my current model I am going to stick to issues of direct correlation to what we perceive as the physical world.

Okay, yes I do know I tend to take a long round about, seemingly loquacious manner, almost tediously so in my explanations. This is due to the fact that words are nebulous, our ability to effectively communicate was fractured becoming compromised long ago. As a consequence, for clarity's sake I find this too wordy manner necessary to minimize confusion later in the discussion. By degrees we lose our way, or perpetuate our lost condition. Therefore it is by incremental degrees I am trying to more properly realign the various skewed beliefs we all hold. It is simple geometry, trigonometry or if you prefer vector math. If your initial bearing line is off by a few degrees, as you proceed further down its vector, or direction of travel where you end up will be considerably different than you meant to be. I wish to be aptly clear as to this fact early in my shared discourses.

Back to the proximate relationship of the spirit to our physical nature / condition. Also know that our spirits are gender specific. The entirety of humanity in this expressed Creation, the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Have migrated to this plane and place from Our Heavenly Home. That being a higher plane of existence, a organized realm of Love and Light. We, being all of us from Adam, Lilithe, and Eve till the last child of Eve is born, we are they that kept our first estate. Thereby earning both our right and place to be born here in this that by our common assent / consent / agreement we agreed would be real, thus we call it reality, simple. Wherefore, this being real by our mutual assent, means by extension that our actions here shall have real consequence to our station thereby effecting our progression. Those within Our Divine Family that rebelled and failing to reconcile back into the Family are denied participation in the progression of this estate and the subsequent assignments as to which paths we are to be assigned to in our individual journeys to progress back home.  Meaning, i.e. lucifer and the one third that fell (more properly “that were cast down”) with him. At times I will refer to lucifer as lucy or louie a small affectation I have over the years grown fond of as pet names for he who would seek dominion through his lies. Know that for my part I have always viewed our existence as an ongoing extension of the war in Heaven. Even as a toddler this was simply the nature of the world, in both a literal and metaphoric sense. Lucy is playing an end game gambit. As to our day to day offenses he for the most part cares little, seldom choosing to involve himself.  As I try to tell people; we can do bad all on our own, we don’t need the devil or louie's help. Matter of fact regrettably this particular Creation is an aberration. Most Creation’s do not have a Lucifer, who refuses to repent and reconcile, and worse yet becomes Satanish.  In so doing thereby becomes completely nonredeemable. Fit only to be cast out beyond the dark realms / dimensions. So far that not even a god could ever hope to make it back to Our Heavenly Home. Heady fanciful stuff, with a touch of discordance due to conflicting superlatives, I already know. From the presumed position of our understanding as a whole it is the best I can do with our shared mythos. The presumed contradictions fade as our understanding increases. Please accept I know little, next to nothing. What little I may grasp, has been fought hard to obtain over a tumultuous lifetime.

One of the hopeful eventualities concerning our collective situation in this Creation which I try to communicate to those that appear to show potential for understanding the following idea. Is that, Once we “eventually” progress through this Creation. As our then on going progression continues through multiple future Creations we will in all probability never encounter another such circumstance / Creation wherein any of those will again be with the added burden of a Satan / Lucifer persona to add complications to our individual, group, and familial progress. Who would threaten to usurp Creation from G-d and all of us. We can do bad all on our own. We really don’t require an objective excuse or archetype on which to pin our failings. If you are acquainted with the Book of Revelations, in its pages are the clues to understanding Lucy’s actual focus / agenda for our Creation. For we are eternal beings, Children of Divine Parentage. We live through infinite eternities, progressing and striving to Perfect Ourselves unto the Image of Our Heavenly Mother and Father. Now I sound like a some traveling revivalist preacher. Might as roll out the tent and tambourines, hahaha.

Wednesday July 4, 2018 – Killeen, Texas

Well happy 4th of July, U S of fucking A. Not to be cynical, but here we are celebrating another Independence Day in the Land of the Free. The irony is inescapable. Sadly too many individuals become distracted and lost in the perpetually shifting landscape of dysinformation. Yes the horrors these people revile against are very real and indefensible. Except in the losing of perspective, failing to see that these innumerable struggles are purposely being generated to engage the population to distraction. Usually these horrid distractions are set cross ways of social and cultural lines. This formulaic tactic is meant to ferment hostilities, hate and conflicts across the associated strata. This has been repeated throughout history to create wars, fracture our social structure, warp our values, and indoctrinate the population en mass with beliefs such as to reshape our view of reality shackling all of us to a diminished image and sense of self along with the entire human race. Once we accept this warped view as the archetypal potentiality of us all. We are guaranteed to sell ourselves and our brethren into slavery. In due course I will be discussing at length the geopolitical history within the framework of our limited knowledge of what we recorded since the flood. Rather what we have been permitted to know of said records. The fact that much as been redacted from the common brain trust passed on to us via academia. Those alabaster halls occupied by self appointed guardians of the approved versions of knowledge and information released to us vulgar unfortunate masses. So burdened, I shall pass this Holiday celebrating the antithesis of its traditions.

Continuing in the same vain as previously began prior to the day’s celebrations, in much the similarly convoluted fashion as before… I, The Dark One of Occultic Lore. I have been told; that I have done things no one in the history of the world has ever done previously. Personally I can only cite one quality as being demonstrative of such high praise. Though in all honesty I am more often than not being chastised for lacking focus, being lazy, acting the fool in the face of my enemies, or being cavalier in my affections, or placing myself at undue risk of life and limb, and the list goes on and on ad nauseaium.  This from the select few who know and understand who and what I am.  Those who may actually care about me, and would see me fulfill that which I have been foreordained to do whilst sojourning here. The totality of our circumstance here, now at this moment, we soon shall enter perhaps the most critical and precarious point of our history and that of this Creation.  I am all too well aware of this along with that which shall soon come to pass shortly.  This awareness, I experience across multiple vectors while being cognizant of a sea of permeations which ultimately stream toward a specific Crux in Our Familial Aggregation (I am trying to develop appropriate nomenclature – wherein I avoid certain more readily common labels or descriptors and/or appellations. Whose usage has been subverted into the double speak practiced by the various satanic and blood occultic families which run the world. Who have ritually (via trauma) conditioned and indoctrinated their acolytes, golems / victims to hear and respond to accordingly, never in a positive manner. Wherefore it is incumbent upon me whenever possible to avoid affirming these, even to the point of reinventing the ascribed nomenclature.) within this Creation. As a consequence I must stumble through idiomatic constructs, ungainly though they be. Believe me if you knew and understood the actualities ascribed to words and the double or multiple meanings applied to them within the Families. The evils, the pain, the denigration of the individuals / victims usually by those nearest them; ultimately by extension it eventually infects and corrupts societies unto the world at large.  You would weep an endless river of tears unto filling the seas, if you could see this in your minds eye properly.  As long as this perniciously malicious spiritual / familial / multi-generational / social / cultural pathogenic practice continues, our struggles will end in naught. Hence into this morass I must seek to keep my appointed task. How best to explain this? I have spent the majority of my life in the haze of denial.  Avoiding my differences.  Putting off my preparations for that which is to come.

Since approximately twenty four plus months prior to Operation Jade Helm our covert Intelligence apparati, including elements of the ruling shadow government began a concerted effort at Foxing me. The on set of Operation Jade Helm and its scope marked an exponential increase in expanded efforts against me.  Now, let me make clear Operation Jade Helm’s purpose was not solely to target me, there where many targets across the greater portion of the United States of America.  Death dealers and various squads of assassins executed / murdered an increasing number of American Citizens, most had been identified for some time to be exterminated.  Impunity seems to have become the operational by word.  The extremes demonstrated continuously since that time defy all reason. Defining the architects of this action as being criminals is almost quaint.  This level of criminal insanity goes beyond the point of being treasonous. With the majority of resource allocation comes from “military Intelligence” which then utilizes other military resources and supplies.  Thus it is that we have been duped into financing our own demise.

For purposes pursuant to their agendas, they have labeled me a domestic terrorist.  Thereby presumably justifying illegal exercises and persecution of my person.  Rationalizing by extension similar acts against my family and anyone I may care about and or Love. Death for them would be preferable to the horrors their personages have been and are being subjected. I know I sound ludicrously paranoid with delusions of grandeur in the extreme. Hahaha….  gosh how I wish, hope and pray such were the case. I make this record in defense of myself and my actions. Naturally I fear all my good intentions with their accompanying actions are for naught. I realize that upon my death as allotted to the sons of man, as to the first part, my character will be maligned in the worst manner possible.  A issue I will address at length later in this on going exposition of myself and my misadventures as they may be.

Thursday July 5, 2018.  Killeen Texas

Despite my misgivings it seems I survived all the pops and bangs of our nosiest of American Holidays. A joyous circumstance to be certain. From now till my last day of my allotted life as unto the children of men, my life hangs in the balance. The ante to live my life as it were.

My current accommodation over the past almost six weeks has been with an old flame and friend Jade Causey – Chamlee, and her 18 year old son Joey, whose given name was Freddie. Bless their souls for extending to my worn out arse a place to stay and recover. Regrettably my physical recovery is taking much longer than I anticipated. I am fully aware my expectations regarding the time necessary for a complete recovery was / were unreasonable. But I need to set the bar high to keep from being complacent. Now had my situation been inclusive of adequate financial resources I would be at least relatively close to my timetable. I would have had access to better medical, dietary, living and therapies. Hell my injuries would have been properly tended to at the hospital in my initial admittance. Instead I continued to be the object of curiosity and experimentation. With little consideration to trying to give me appropriate medical care. I have come to know what to expect, due largely to my younger brother's general attitude. Wherein he rationalizing what him and others do to me, as simply a matter of effect associated to the who and what I am. It is rationalized that if  I, Donn am this special chosen person than he/I should be able to survive everything, whatever it may be.  Because if he/I don’t than obviously he/I am not that special and thus not protected from on High.  Horrific logic used to rationalizing a growing list of atrocities committed against my person. A ugly fact of my reality, one I anticipated. What issues make this whole fucked up process unacceptable, malicious, acutely painful and unforgivingly egress is the manner by which they have targeted and used others. Especially my younger brother, father, son, Tiffany, Revaka, Heather, Angie and numerous others. They have been tortured, abused and treated as disposable commodities. All are scared and precious, some are very unique with abilities reaching into arenas not generally accepted or understood in today’s world view. Yet these individuals are denigrated, abused in some of the most deviantly sordid manners. Most are ultimately destroyed, first robbing them of their minds, bodies and in some final insult of their very souls. As it appears that they are being harvested for physical vehicles to have demons placed in their bodies. Yeah, I suppose I could say it in some sort of more politically correct parlance as “aliens” from a lower resonating dimensional reality / realm. Somehow I find that by doing so it fails to communicate the malicious evil inherent in the process. I find the old nomenclature to communicate the Truer meaning. Though some eras of our past carry their own obvious failings magnified exponentially by ignorance while fueled by misguided zealotry. They were not called the Dark Ages for nothing. Similarly different cultures, societies, periods, places and times have fallen to various abysses of Darkness. We have this false mental image of life on Our Earth proceeding in some linar fashion from primitive man (including Adam, for those of a theological inclination) struggling out of caves. Fighting against their own primitive brain / mind which was trapped in a diminished brain pan capacity from questing for fire against ignorance and superstitions. With us being the cumulative beneficiaries of this on going process. Peoples of those ancient times could not have been as intelligent as those today. Therefore they could not have grasped the concepts we do. Some of the most ridiculous fallacies of logic ever presumed to rationalizing and justify conduct or beliefs. Matter of fact the inverse is actually True. But what the fuck could I possibly know!

Sadly my frustrations are rearing their collective heads as it were in my writing. I wish I had been more diligent in securing my journal I started last year upon my departure from Long Beach towards Utah. I was more focused recording relavent issues in a contemporaneous fashion. Not to mention a considerable investment in explanations dealing with a variety of associated topics. Grrrrr… all I did then was walk and write. I may soon be in a recurrence of such, shortly. I can no longer abide where I am. All the more so under these conditions. Deep in my mind I am aware of happenings which require my attention. Not to mention my friend’s household is not psychologically conducive to my state of being. At least not in a healthy way, good intentions not with standing. My largest obstacle to my leaving believe it or not, is my need for acceptable footwear. Flip-flops aren’t going to cut it. Hell they are wholly inadequate to even walk just up the street a block or two. I must admit the sidewalks and streets of California were well suited for walking.

Monday July 9, 2018.  – Killeen, Texas

As Pooh would be apt to say, “Oh bother”. I feel for the most part Tigger. Bouncing all about spinning, twisting, flipping… as well on my head as my tail. I am most acutely wanting to find my focus once again. My communication skills seem heavily compromised. Not that I was ever able to write as effectively as the great Nobel Laureates. Generally speaking I could at least maintain some linear cohesion in my writing.  Physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally I am shaken.  Much as if my being was trapped in the tremors of advance Parkinson’s. In similar fashion my expressed thoughts and experiences lack focus, my abilities at lucidly articulating my larger life occurrences is choppy at best. Failure is NOT an option! No matter how I feel or how events are or may effect me, I must regain my composure and find my center. While reacquiring my skills of teaching and sharing what I have learned.  Please excuse me if I don’t edit the foregoing entries. As convoluted and murky as they may be, their relevance contemporaneously can not be diminished. Hopefully they will in due course provide a benchmark to juxtaposition future writings and notes thereby effecting a glimpse into my state of being at the time of writing.  Grrrrr…….

They have done a very good job of isolating me. All the more so, as I try to come to terms with the potential cost to those I would seek commerce with across all levels of our socioeconomic strata.  If what I endured while being the object of a Foxing protocol by our shadow government’s covert intelligence community are any indication. Anyone who associates with me, either at mine or their initiation is subject to become targeted for retribution as punishment to me. Too high a cost to blindly impart with out consideration to finding possible means of mitigation. Or at the very least terms whereby I am ultra selective with whom I interact. Along with the rationale for said interactions. Soon enough our social dependency will require I abandon all such pretext or attempts at shielding anyone from consequence. I fear that time shall be upon us/me far too soon. Perhaps I am again being exceedingly naive. My efforts are most probably for naught. An on the at large canvas of the bigger picture my presumption at damage control will only result in a larger area and impact of effect upon our society as a whole. Not that I am some savior or prophet, far from it actually. In the grander scale of things, I might best be referred to as a “wild card”.  Meaning that in any analysis of the interaction of variables, one may with a degree of certainty predict the outcome of any issue, contest, conflict even war. However should certain individuals or a very small dynamic group of individuals enter the forum. Suddenly the landscape of the matter shifts radically to the point that the original outcome no longer applies or is meaningful. We have numerous examples of such occurrences throughout our histories. Of salient import to us here in America is The Battle of Thermopylae, and the 300 Spartans. We all learned about continents in school. Did you ever notice that Europe and Asia were counted as separate despite being one land mass. The reason is that Western Culture and Asian (Oriental) Cultures being vastly different it was traditionally ascribed to them being two separate continents. We may naively presume to ridicule such a blatant indulgence as arrogance. Yet there are fundamental reasons for this error being valid. We as the heirs of Western Culture, need to understand the mythical / legendary impact of these distinctions upon our mameic memory, especially those of us of the West. From Greece to Rome, then following our Angelo – Dutch (Iberian) roots it is transmitted to us. The importance and permanent impact of the actions and sacrifice of Leonidas and 300 Free Spartans against over a 1,000,000 servile basically slaves to a potentate deemed quasi divine, carved out a legacy of Freedom which stands even today. An Epic “wild card”. There are many others, most are lost to us today. With the occasional exception that survives in our Epics, our Mythologies, our Legends. Most such stories are the blending of factual events with older religious or semi religious traditions. Which aliteration was a common and accepted means of teaching the lessons of both convanents in a factual and metaphoric means. Much the way Jesus Christ taught using parables, allegories composed to have layers of meaning dependent upon the degree of understanding had by the student. So a natural continuation of this is to be inclusive of many historical events, along with the trans literal substitution of the individuals to those of prophecy or the the Divine or Angelic intercession of some ancient history. These depending on circumstance would be iterated and reiterated in verbal traditions to be celebrated in the retelling, usually in association to particular annual festivals. Such as the case with the Saga of the Norse Kings. A subject I hope to have the opportunity to entertain at length later in my writings, scribblings. The vast majority of my ideas, concepts, models and histories can generally be attributed to greater minds than mine. As has been said before, the reason I / we can see so far is that we stand on the shoulders of giants, those that have come before us. Yes I paraphrase taking a degree of liberty. More particularly to hopefully retain its original meaning.

Funny I have been much as I am, the entirety of my life. Before I commence an in-depth sharing of many of the somewhat unique occurrences and events that have brought me to this proposition in time. I wish to clarify and reiterate some postulates. Elsewise a portion of my own records and logs may well be used against me. Principally by interests who would wish to call my lucidity and grasp of reality into question, in the hopes of indicting or coloring my character via my words. No doubt they shall do so nonetheless. I only wish that my original is sufficiently vetted in the sane understanding of reality has to be a defense to my honor and mental facilities. Thus, again – I am No prophet! Nor am I an Alien. Hahaha… Nor am I some savior! As far as religion – I will say as was told to me by what would be termed alien contactees, or more specifically those that I felt and believed we’re genuine. Of the many I personally met back in the 1970s. According to these individuals as to the subject of religion and the Bible when broached to the various aliens these contactees interacted. All the aliens responded that yes the Bible was more or less correct and that it was wholly applicable to us, our Creation, and Our G-d. I know not at all what they say on the popular shows in the media today. Hmmm,…. As to my personal religious beliefs and inclinations, I am Mormon by conversation and have been excommunicated for many more years than I care to mention. By the way my excommunication was due wholly to personal moral matters not issues of doctrine or beliefs of Faith. So if somewhere in my upfront acknowledgements, you find me wanting of naïve. Fine, do or do Not as is in you, or as is your want. I make no apologies, nor seek to compromise in some misguided attempt to achieve an accord or consensus. Rather quite to the contrary, I share, present, seeking dialogue broader than an account of the happenings surrounding my life. Simply because I am appalled by the amount of lies and disinformation being used to indoctrinate the populace. Add to this the lack of corrected and broader views from the dreadfully homogenous perspective droning from damn near every sector. The present modalities disgust me, breaking my heart such that I would to weep day and night for Our collective Family. Yet better spent are my efforts in defense of the Truth and an improved accounting of our histories and circumstances. In pursuit of same I find I must submit my private life and experiences to general scrutiny. The majority of which I have never shared with anyone prior to the last six to eight years. I have desired to live a rather conventional life, for the most part. Realizing that soon enough I will forever be denied the Joy of such.

To this end and the accompanying process I submit some of the earliest memories and events of my life and childhood. One of my earliest, if not the earliest is being in my crib prior to the age of two. My father was working for numerous government and governmental contractors at the time. Naturally I don’t recall those details. Our family had just moved to Southern California. We were living with my mother’s sister somewhere in East Los Angeles. Their home was the typical Spanish Colonial. Anyone familiar with the style and form of such. Know that hallways usually converge into a common room, you cross to the hallway leading to the room you have as your destination. In this pass through common room is where my crib was stationed. Probably the best location for it and me. So the various women could occupy my attention should I become fussy. An many times this common room was an area where the women would congregate as my recollection is. Well across this room was a pantry closet, with selves and full of the sundry items found in such for the time. In the coming and goings of my family and relatives there were numerous occasions that would find me unattended, alone in my crib. It was during one such interlude that the commencement of a reoccurring vision / dream began. I having been left alone to my own devices (parenting back in the day). When the door to the aforementioned pantry slowly opened wide. A beautiful female Golem, her physique had the appearance of red bricks. Yet the contours of her form were singularly female. Rather she had distinct curves with aquiline sculptured features. Most hauntingly she had these striking blue eyes. She never spoke a word, her eyes spoke volumes to my initially shocked mind. As the sounds of returning relatives approached, she gracefully returned from whence she came. On the first couple of occasions I witnessed this I raised a bit of a commotion. I was not yet verbal, and in all honesty I was a late talker. Well the relatives thought I might have seen a rat. So they dutifully opened the pantry to inspection. The pantry was then as it always was, with neither a rat or exquisite Lady Golem. This parade continued off and on for the majority of the our short time residing at my aunt’s house. Usually the Lady Golem had those blue blue eyes, though green and grey versions are among the visits. Each and every time she would come to the side of my crib, moving her head, or tilting (cocking) it just so. Always her eyes full of questions and disbelief. Her eyes seemed to express; You? You are the one sent? Hmmm… You don’t look like much! Look more like a little wet rodent, but who knows?. This was more or less the sentiment expressed in her eyes. Following my first encounters I became accustomed to her visits and would actually miss her on the rare occasions of absence. Needless to say from early childhood I saw the “world” differently than others around me. I also learned to accept this altered perception without fear, understanding its validity within the accepted context of what is “actual” or the “concrete” reality of our existence.

If you may recall back in the haze of school days. During various lectures the teacher's would sometimes use what is commonly referred to as an over head projector. Depending on what was being taught, it was also common practice to layer over lays. These would either complete the image or at times super impose other images as needed. Sometimes even as multiple layers of over laid transparencies. Some of you more contemporaneously educated individuals may never have seen such primitive presentations, having known only power point. For those so blessed what I describe next may be Greek to you. For the dinosaur amongst us most should have some recollection. This model is the closest I can use to illustrate how the world appeared to me growing up as a child. Usually I would see what could best be described as up to two transparencies overlapping the “real world” in general. I could even lift these overlays to get a clearer view of what was being presented before me. At times these would both be at in the foreground of “reality”, other times both would be in the background, while at other times it would be split one in front and one in back. Yet there were numerous other configurations, sometimes completely unrelated to the happenings around me (foreshadowing alert). Gradually this ocular affect of the world began to diminish till it no longer was within my field of vision. By the time I was around sixteen to seventeen years of age this effect was effectively gone. Since then I have experienced this only a handful of times. I usually take a different approach, I will address momentarily. One of the proximate results almost immediately of perceiving my world in this manner is that I usually know the scope and degree that anyone is lying. As an adult it is not quite as prominent as in my childhood. Though there have been exceptions. As a direct consequence my earliest life lesson was in due course the hypocrisy of the adults around me. Everyone would profess such devotion to “the necessity” or importance of always “speaking the Truth”. Yet I would be punished to no end for pointing out the hypocrisy of the fact the adults more often than not lied as suited them. I learned to keep such to myself. Something I still do to this day. I tend to filter or make allowances far too much now as an adult. Invariably leading to greater complications. Besides transparencies certain images or objects would “float” across my field of vision in similar transparency manner. Some of which I could not decipher any context or meaning at the time or since. To begin to place elements of this visual experience I need to explain tangent events of recent.

The advent of the Internet and the information highway is as with most such paradigms, both a blessing and a curse. Dependent largely upon the nature and supposed inclination of man. We are all no doubt familiar with the media platforms of Facebook and YouTube. Like everyone else to some degree I have had occasion to surf around doing research or simply for mindless pleasure. Back prior to Jade Helm, when my Old Lady (though she was substantially younger) Tiffany and I were keeping house in Austin, Texas. I noticed a YouTube video regarding the Apollo 20 mission. Oh by the way according to my histories the Apollo lunar missions went up to 20. I wanted to see what was been discussed along with what twists and turns the disinformation specialist spin their distractions. Which if you can determine it sometimes conclude what they are trying to hide or if their direction of spin is a “z” vector you can sight 180 degrees opposite to determine the landscape they don’t wish you to see. You may consider all this a large investment of mental energies, it is just how my mind works at times automatically. Back to the Apollo 20 video. In the video there was some general discussion of aliens, their nature and origins. During this open dialogue, there was a series of various old clips. I presume were some how removed from the archives of NASA. Many of the older non-defined clips I was quite familiar with the images. Not because I have ever seen them as photos, images, clips or video. At the time I was floored, since previous to that moment I was unacquainted with their context or related meaning. These objects I use to see in the exact same configuration and involved in the exact motions approximately forty years earlier as I was growing up. Matter of fact judging from the age of the imagery I would have to conclude I was witnessing them contemporaneously as a child. Without the context of outer space or NASA I had presumed I was watching some complex interactions of some sort of strange protozoal life from. I even remotely as concerned they had some how become infected to my cornea, so prevalent we’re the objects across my vision. So striking was their imposition upon my sight that more than four decades later their association was immediate and most assuredly certain. One less mystery to worry about. Yet the implications are troubling profoundly. Both of myself and the world at large, considering how maliciously the world's population has been lied to and manipulated. The ends of which are too shocking and horrible to ever discuss. Although in previous conversations at moments of weakness I have divulged a greater portion than may have been prudent.

Wednesday July 11, 2018.  – Killeen, Texas

You may right so wish to ascribe or diagnosis me as having a form of delusions inclusive of all types of hysteria, grandeur, psychosis with severe religious obsessions. For what passes for psychiatry today within the public ledger domain, you may be correct. I would offer in defense a extensive lifetime containing a ongoing accounts of a similar or even greater note. Although I am not a Moses, peoples of another time would recognize me as being touched by The All Mighty, as it were. I will at least own any such appellation. Am I some righteous man deserving of beautification unto sainthood, I would argue Not. At best I have tried to be a descent man, who speaks the Truth as much as possible. I am burdened by an additional commitment.

Back in my youth, being around nine years old. I had a singularly profound series of visions / dreams. I repeatedly dreamt my death, accompanied by the various permeations associated to reaching same. The process took several days (nights) between three to five. Being so young I didn’t think to take particular note of the days my dreams were thus occupied. They obviously had a unique feel with a equally sensational intensity, they still abide with me today. I distinctly recall a voice of sorts coming to me following the last night of witnessing this panorama of my life's end (as are the days accorded to the sons of man). Now this voice which came unto me, I presume it was within the precincts of my mind. Not that it would have mattered greatly since I was alone when it came unto me. Nor did I think to ask from whence or whom spoke. I knew and could feel the light of our Divine Home as I heard the intent along with the presumed words. It was a simple dialogue, stating; “this is how it ends, this is what you have come to do. You need not do it. You have the right to choose. However if you are to complete this task. You must choose to do so now.”. Being a precocious and arrogant child, I immediately presumed that if I had been sent to do such, than the obvious was that I was the best candidate to accomplish the prescribed task. Armed with such infallible logic, I whole heartedly accepted my calling understanding it would come at great cost. Now granted, an understanding of the true scope or magnitude or the enormity of the cost or suffering I fully lacked. I have spent my life preparing. I have come to know that even at the prescribed time I will lack of my own what is necessary. I shall present to the task my all, trusting in Our G-d to shore me up to complete that which I would do. Subsequent to acceptance of this appointment I am to keep in the near future, my sight / vision increased. The frequency and quantity began increasing dreams, visions, revelations, transparencies along with my general perceptions increased. I now openly own the fact that I see the world through the eyes of the mystic. Only recently was my sight dampened. A heart breaking topic the occasion of which surrounds losing my Love Tiffany. The subject of which shall also be laid upon the alter for examination by the modern day augers. Find what fault if you will, I care little. Only know that matter and its accompanying are for later. I must at present attempt to continue in this established vain of thought recounting events long past in my short life. Besides the notations contemporaneous to me and my circumstances or any of the other tripe I have need to spew forth. Believe this, if I could accomplish my foreordained task without sharing, discussing or placing ultimately for public review any of this – such would be my desire. Painfully I have had to come to terms with the ugly reality I must prostrate myself to assure I am able to do what needs be done. Onward thru the fog, as it were.

Without going into specifics too much, early on I displayed another aptitude. Sometime around first to second grade. My Dear sweet mother recognized I somehow had a hand in the going ons of the other children that back then composed the group of children who had commenced to being around. Now my mother was blessed with a keen intellect. Which included the wisdom to not over think somethings. Instead wherever possible if there was a direct and simple solution to apply one's efforts to the solution. Thereby allowing life to continue on as meant. Almost elegant in its simplicity, usually quite effective in solving any problem, a quaint provincial version of Occum's Razor. Consequently the solution was simple, as she noted; “son, I don’t know what you are doing. But it is wrong. Apparently you need my help understanding that.”. There after I regularly got my hide tanned. Until sometime around the age of seven plus the realization that just because you could do something; does not mean you should. And that everyone is entitled to make their own choices. Afterwards the occasion necessitating my tanning ceased as a consequence to those particular actions. By no means did I fail to earn other occasions of corporal punishment as befits a young boy trying to find his wings, so to speak.

Growing up making my way through our education system of public schooling. I never cracked a book. Now one should not presume schools and childhood were smooth sailing. Quite to the contrary, in second grade my school in southern California labeled me “retarded”. Lacking a separate facilities or classes you were simply shoved to the back of the class with similarly challenged children. Nor did they have to test the child or give notice to the parents. Following a few weeks at the back of the class I began to demonstrate “odd” behavior. Which my always observant mother was quick to question. She went to the school and raised holy hell. In actuality it was more of a racially motivated issue. My parents being divorced, the school only saw my Hispanic mother. Being profoundly dyslexic, their initial assessment was that I was a Mexican, and you know you can not teach their kind. I was going to a all white school at time. Not to mention kindergarten in Watts. During the riots in 1965. I had to have police escorts to school. While I still have very distinct memories of the entire family sleeping in the living room with all the doors and windows blocked and barricaded against the rioting blacks. A sort of difficult time growing up. Believe me I know what racism is like. I am not going to hold my tin cup up on that lame ass subject. The fact that there are those in this country that hold onto this issues as the reasons for all their troubles. Or that there are groups and individuals who exploit this history for their enrichment. All this does is allows an ever expanding rifts in our society. The age old axiom of divide and conquer. Yet we all seem oblivious to this, instead we rush to our own deaths.

Thursday July 12, 2018,. – Killeen, Texas

Aaagh, fuck, damnit…. I fucking swear. Why do I even try to help anyone. Generally they hold to their own practices of appeasing the least common denominators by which they live. What can I say. As gracious as my hostess and her son may be. I doubt if I can tolerate much more of their dysfunctionality sans any self realization or objectivity. And they wonder about Joey meeting someone (female). I can’t imagine the woman who would find any of this manner or lack of is appealing. I try to maintain perspective because I do recognize the roots of most of the antisocial behavior. Even if it expresses its self differently than one may anticipate. I just don’t have the tolerance I usually do. In my current condition of convalescing from my injuries, makes me subject to the vagaries that define the lives of normal people. Due to the obvious singular quality of my life I have had to come to terms with the fact that I do not process anything in like manner as my peers. An before everyone thinks I am trying to sound all superior or some such, please note that I am continually making stupid mistakes principally due to my own naivety. We all have this aspect wherein we judge our circumstance and that of others from the pigeonhole perspective. Everyone else's view though differing from each other falls within a given area, or a few degrees of each other. Mine falls a extreme distance outside of what could be considered the norm. Nonetheless being very human I continue in the belief I perceive “reality” much as the other person from a similar understanding and values system. Invariably this attitude finds opportunity to smack me in my face by its differences. Each and every time I am recalled that, oh I knew better because I am fully aware of the differences and should have factored accordingly. Even now at this more venerable point in my life I find one of my biggest failings is naive belief in the character of my fellow man. Yet if my assertions as to my last day as are allotted to the sons of man be True. For the greater part I will be doing so for the entirety of Our Familial Aggregation. Even for those who seek only to cause me and those I Love and care about, harm or maliciousness. Because that is the way of things in our Creation. Soon enough the vile evil shall reveal itself, the kid gloves shall come off and life will never be this peaceful again. If it be the will of he who sent me I will seek to balance many scales of injustice. Till then I must endure and prepare as best I can.

Well enough complaining about friends who do their best given the circumstances. I appreciate all they have done on my behalf. Especially since to a large degree they grasp what potentially may be the cost. Even if in some small ways they may have been influenced by the same malicious or “Bees”, that seek to be the cause of my failure. For such is the nature of things in the abyss. Especially considering the length of time I have elected to spend wrapped in the confines of twisting throughout what we commonly refer to as “reality”. I generally feel more comfortable surrounded by its miasma and ickor than anywhere else. As much as it may appear to be a contradiction it ultimately is fact. Sigh!!!

For the time being I guess I will change the temporal focus of my entries. I can seldom stay focused on any particular time frame for an extended period. Doing so usually causes me to shift to the associated memories which become very visceral in nature. Soon it begins to become a tad overwhelming. All the more so once framed in relation to the present context. I sincerely hope that suffices and is remotely coherent. I am usually deconstructing my conceptual models and ideas into a form more acceptable to being understood. Sometimes I become lost in the process to the point I know what I mean despite the fact that the words and or syntax are nonsense. In conversation I sometimes have to stop and ask if what I have postulated or presented in the dialogue makes sense. I know it all made sense and sounded good in my head. Aaah but I can’t always presume to have effectively communicated the same.

Saturday July 14, 2018.  – Killeen, Texas

Well here it is the weekend, somewhere in Who-ville are working stiffs cheering at the arrival of the ritual with its time off. It has been interminably long since I have have lived a life so constrained as to include the simple Joy of a defined weekend of days off. Hell I am usually engrossed in my vocation daily. With my ever prevalent purpose always driving me. For the most part I have become unfit to be amongst civil company. Yes I am conversant. I am genial enough when in mixed groups. I tend to empathic of those around me. I genuinely give a damn as to the well being of others. Even so, the inescapable Truth is that the darkness is too imbued into my being. Because of the darkness of my spirit, I have become rolled into the ubiquitous abyss of our “reality”. Though it does not effect me quite the same as others its taint has woven into my fibers. Not being much of a liar I lack the necessary tools to hide it from general view.

Wednesday July 18, 2018  - Killeen, Texas

Well damn, I sometimes really get fucking frustrated.  At one level I am perpetually detached from the day to day focus and obsessions of everyone around me. I can’t bring my mind to focus on the general ideological concepts propagated by the geopolitical theater. Which resembles an episode of the moppet show as far as I what it appears. Are the offenses and injuries less or non-existent to my sympathies or moral indignation; not in the least. They still represent injustices and crimes which need to be effectively dealt with and hopefully the scales will balance. Even so, I just can not seem to get all worked up over these slight daily travesties. All the more so since I tend to view all these for what they are within the larger perspectives and plans of globalist / occultic families. Typical divide and conquer, or simple distractions from their primary objectives. I can appreciate everyone’s sentiments and attitudes that the scenarios of what is to come are not perceived as real or likely. Hell even I given enough distance and time begin to feel as though none of it is possibly factual. Except for the fact that I have lived a life associated to these eventualities. Even when I was in the thick of things all those involved would tell me bold faced lies as to what was occurring. As if to make me question the obvious, because the obvious Truth of the matter was outside any social norms. I guess there are those for a convenient lie is preferred to Truth too extreme to accept. I have been at this life, spending the majority of my existence living in the abyss. Which is everywhere, it co-exists with whatever social or cultural conventions occupying our realities of the moment.  It is ubiquitous yet invisible to all but those who have had the misfortune to have grown up in its mists, or the uninitiated. Due to my unique occular abilities I am sort of self initiated. It took me a little while to come to understand the meaning of this subset of our world. I have always seemed to rub against this sub culture, even as a child. A odd fact which has taken me many years to come to terms with it. Even then it was a process of educating myself to be able to grasp the entirety of the concepts. Though outrageous beyond belief, it is nonetheless part of a larger pool of knowledge I have fought long and hard to achieve. We are a phenomenal expression of life, even across the multiverse. For all our uniqueness, we are seemingly determined to trivialize who and what we are. More importantly the processes and manner whereby we are to accomplish our purpose “here”.  Truly phenomenal!!!

Yet I digress. I am simply getting on my soapbox, whipping the horse, so to speak. Grrrrr…

How best to convey some of the basics back into the discussions and open forums in our sea of opinions. A perplexing problem one that has vexed my soul for almost three decades. I suppose the real source of my reservations has principally revolved around my own reluctance to be centrist to any reintroduction in a general dialogue. Much to my consternation it is plain that to accomplish this and thereby facilitate me being able to keep my appointment in the future, I must find the where with all and means to personally become directly a part of our social dialogues. I can freely admit to my own megalomania. I try not to buy into it myself. I shan’t feed such feelings or Mali-adpted inclinations. What ever a person's tendencies, we fail our own interests in doing so. To the point of it becoming a all consuming psychosis. Our histories are replete with the villains who are consumed by base desires at the cost of all else. Not that such is my fear. Rather I prefer to do what I can from a position far from the limelight. We don’t always get to choose how best to accomplish our goals. My non-object oriented way of thinking I suppose. Aaagh, this is an area I would deeply desire some assistance. Not to mention the realities of presently being impoverished. I had best get used to my condition, I fear I shan’t know any other for some time to come. I guess I need to find the way and means to broadcast my ugly mug on to the internet. I guess I will start some YouTube type of series. I need to really get my act together!

Amazingly as we and our solar-system has traversed the apogee of its elliptical orbit with its sister star. This having occurred back in December 2012. We are now accelerating towards our sister star on the side closest to our Galactic Center. We will soon be re-entering the flows of Magick. They are part of the natural order of things. Think of it as a higher order of physics. We conveniently suppose a posture of superiority over some earlier more organic beliefs or systems of interactions within our realities. Although witchcraft, paganism, shamanism, and various other practices have been collectively maligned for associated practices related to satanistic practices (which Are very evil). In many such cases we have throughen the baby out with the bathwater. I am not trying to condemn nor make excuses, only to ask for a broader open review of these strangely different beliefs and practices.  Many times they are simply corrupted versions of our Judaeo-christian thought, beliefs and practices. Sometimes I even find missing pages of our religious histories amongst these. An to borrow a quote;  “We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for fools for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us) involved in their creed of witchcraft.” - C. Lamb.

Friday July 19, 2018.  – Killeen, Texas

Now as to my disjointed quaint manner of writing, I am recalled of yet another quote from Webster’s,  “Prolix, Diffuse. A prolix writer delights in circumlocution, extended detail, and trifling particulars. A diffuse writer is fond of amplifying, and abounds in epithets, figures, illustrations. Diffuseness often arises from an exuberance of imagination; prolixity is generally connected with a want of it.” [1913 Webster].  As to which, my confused manner may be likened, I leave such determination to those who due to some pathological compulsions decide to continue on through the disjointed tediousness of my log.  Excuse my quoting, it but appears the best and most eloquent descriptive means external to my own critiques. Wherein Webster provides what I believe is a more accurate description of my loquacious manner and style of communication. Bleck, ugh…

On to more relevant matters. As I continue to play my game of catching up to the current state of affairs in my existence. Jumping back to around August last year, at the time I elected to take my leave of the Long Beach / Wilmington area of the LA Basin. The majority of occurrences I previously wrote down in a contemporaneous log as I walked out of LA ultimately reaching Salt Lake City, Utah. With a brief momentary stay in Las Vegas, Nevada. My mind aches at the memories from that time. Regardless, there may in the retelling be wisdom or beneficial information for myself or others. Sorry if some of this has a choppy feel to it. There are mountains of unresolved emotional context and histories, which continue to elicit extremes within me. I hate sounding apologetic from the get go. Not that any of the vacillating diminishes the importance of the material or what I endured.

In July of last year, my younger brother was arrested and placed in presumably Twin Towers downtown Los Angeles. It was involving drugs and a handgun. I saw him and the P.O.S. , earlier that night. I already knew there were going to be problems. Additionally I had been indirectly informed my situation was about to become difficult. No more niceness regarding my treatment, operational dictums were changed. Initially I was was acutely aware my younger brother was not in police custody. I figured he was being held some where on or around the federal facilities of Terminal Island in the Port of Long Beach. Later parts of my sight of his circumstances were confirmed to me, though the exact location never has been (foreshadowing). Sometime during the second week of his presumed incarceration. He digitally appeared in the system with the appropriate arrest date, and information. To this day I am not convinced of the terms and conditions accompanying this purely “staged” event. No doubt there were days he was in the Twin Towers facility. Anything else is highly suspect at best if not solely manipulated data for the purposes of the Op. Nonetheless, I was sorely put upon. Due to the determinate fact that whatever had previously as well as on going to date are the proximate results of his being “my brother”. I was aware my brother was not my brother. I later would describe the fact as, “my brother was murdered on the mesas of New Mexico 4 (5) years prior”. I freely declared the fact, even with my younger brother present. At the time of his arrest I had invested two years trying to awaken and heal his soul. During this ordeal, he was on goingly conditioned (subject to various satanic trauma assisted by ultra high technologies deployed by our Shadow Government for the purposes of mind control). I can not escape a degree of culpability. Many may seek succor in the belief that I was not responsible, nor the individual inflicting these horrors to my younger brother. I acknowledge the physical reality as being so. However the moral reality is that, We are our Brother's keeper. An for myself it has a immense literal quality. We are all part of Our Larger Familial Aggregation, what we do, say or do not effects all. While in my particular case, he is my younger brother – same Mother and Father. I have known what to expect from the future all my life. I have even attempted to convey this knowledge in abstract to my brothers. Granted I did Not know that in recent times the evil practitioners of these vile satanistic rites had made a huge technical breakthrough. It use to be, if an individual attained adulthood free of these practices or influences, then they would die free of its chains. Obviously a person could freely elect to cultivate any base desires or perverse inclinations. By “choice” being the operative mandate, those chained to the MPD / DID minds of victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) are forever robbed of any choice in the matter. Not even I can “set” them free or the chains forged in their infancy and childhoods. I can only unlock the gates and offer them the means to heal. The process is long and painful, requiring more years than anyone can live to hopefully heal. Sadly as each victim is considered chattel to the perspective heads of each “family”, who is in turn property of another. Hence there are functionally twelve Satanic Patriarchs seated at the heads of their “family”. Under Satanic Dogma they consider themselves “gods” of their worlds. According to their beliefs you exist as titled property, if not than you are of no consequence thereby you do Not exist. The worth of you and yours is less than the trash sent to the dump.

Sunday July 22, 2018 – Killeen, Texas

Continuing with similar point of fact as discussed, it may all sound or would be considered linear, a straightforward affair. Appearing almost orderly, locked in some strange perverse dance. When it is anything but. Take into consideration the matter of succession. You might be inclined to infer that being Patriarchal, it is a matter of patrialinacal father to son. The reality is far from such Familial Sensibilities. Simply put, upon the death of the head of any household. He, who inherits is the male gains control of his clan by right of arms, or force. Basically if you are not yet feared enough to demand your seat as the heir to the estate. The one who rules does so because he has murdered and killed all the opposition by blood rite according to Antediluvian Law. Meaning you not only kill your opposition, the action is inclusive of all males of immediate consanguinal association. The wholesale murder also removes any potential blood retribution by those who possess an immediate claim to do so. Secondly it demonstrates to clan members at large the vicious response dissent will meet. Terror then substitutes conditioned context within their trauma-based mindset vicariously confirming that male's natural right to head that Family’s Branch of the Larger Familial Group. If you can remotely rationale order from such chaotic slaughter. You more than likely were raised under such paradigms, or your values are perversely twisted and I recommend you seek professional help from any school of thought practicing a highly structured value system, preferably based on some well established benevolent religion. Notice I qualify said using the word benevolent. Cause if you use the most liberal definition to the concepts of religion you could quietly slip satanism or luciferinism in as established religions. The distinctions are sufficient as to invite debate. One I feel is much a waste of time for all parties. Generally I ascribe it principally to a matter of semantics shackled to vastly differing modalities of operations defining values. Our time can be better spent educating ourselves up and out of overly cerebral arguments designed to trap us in artificial concepts posing as reality. A overwrought process favored by Academia in defense of entrenched theories dressed in the ideology we refer to as the “Scientific Model”.  Yes, I have great disdain for what passes for education and schools of higher learning. They have long since been co-oped into the problems they were meant to free us from being slaves. I will tuck that soapbox away now, thank you for your indulgence.

What is even more incredible is the fact that this insanity is governed by their own set laws and rules. They even have a court system with defined jurisprudence. Not any sort you or I could consider properly legal. Rather it is more a system to maintain the “status quo” based on traditions, precedence, along with a strange quasi religious tones from Antediluvian Laws. Even known lies are acceptable if left uncontested but those who have standing and recognized Familial context. Elsewise the stated lie will stand as fact, enforceable to the fullest extent to which the system can accommodate.

Now if you followed that loose explanation, allow me to attempt to give an overview of some of the semi-societal interactive relationship between myself and these psychopaths. Especially above the standing rank and file victims constituting the entirety of the Families. I have a singularly unique interactive connection to them, their Families, their politics, traditions, religious dogma, technologies of the Shadow Government, including possible contingencies for what is to come. It is a chaotic and confusing dynamic paradox. Perpetually in a state of change, in recent times there has been much difference of opinion concerning how to acknowledge or interact with me. Technically I am a nonentity, because I exist outside the direct consanguineous relationship, nor am I amenable to joining their point of view. I remain in opposition to them, their practices, beliefs to the extent of being fundamentally adversarial to “them”. It is worth noting I have been at this so long that everyone I know or deal with daily belongs to this subset of our society. Almost all my friends, associates, girlfriends or anyone else comes from some blood occultic families. Some even to what capacity they are able seek to support me in my efforts. I am alive today because some evil bastards simply decided not to do as they were instructed. Knowing full well the consequences for siding with me. Try to understand these individuals have lived corrupt malignant lives, they hate themselves but are forbidden to take their own lives. There is virtual nothing they can do to truly cause those over them to flip out or take offense. Yet they do recognize that my stumbling about is upsetting. Having run around everywhere doing what I do. I have always done so without a net, so to speak. It is a source of boarder line amazement, more particularly they think I am “bat-shit” crazy! Nonetheless I am still here. You may know people who collect body art, fashionably tattoos these days. I sometimes joke of my own collection of scars and injuries to my body. Thankfully I heal exceptionally well. Most of my scars heal to the point of being almost unnoticeable, if you did not know my histories. It is an exhausting hobby, painful too! A frequent refrain I hear while being admitted to the ER or ICU has been, “Mr Williams, you are very lucky to be alive”.  “Yeah Doc I hear that allot. Do the best you can.”.  It has become somewhat of a ongoing joke, amongst friends and family. These days those groups have become ultra thin. Another reason I make this record of events in my life including improved contemporaneous writings. We can all hope for such. Believe me if it was up to me, no one would know much if anything about me, or my life. I have been, or more correctly I have allowed myself to be forced into a dreadfully unpleasant set of circumstances, as I have whined concerning previously.

Okay Sherman set the way-back machine to the 80’s and 90’ of the last century. Seeing patterns across the country in the minds of crazy ass bitches, now I do Not mean that in a bad way. I have a immense affinity for beautiful crazy ladies. Now as I was saying, the imagery within their minds was too consistent to be coincidence. The language of our sub- conscience is imagery, archetypal, motifs, iconography, mythical, dreams, visions, will of the wisps and whimsy. I believe we all “see” much more of one another than we choose to accept. The largest hurdle to understanding is this compulsion to read or understand what we “see” before the picture is finished assembling in our minds. This tendency has been increasingly pushed into smaller and smaller bits. Which as a negative exponential inverse function has become more and more confusing as to be nigh meaningless with each subsequent reduction. Hence at a time when we should be more connected to everyone. We find increased feelings of isolation and alienation. No matter how much we communicate with our neighbors next door or abroad we have less consensus or feelings of commonality. We sequester these feeling with their accompanying anxieties, less we inadvertently offend anyone. Like what the Fuck! It is part and parcel of the Adult World. Being offended or offending others is how things get done. Usually for the best interests of everyone. Granted we should strive to be engaging to achieve our goals, short of violence or intimidation. Yet as any honest government would gladly concede. Once negotiations by normal means come to an impasse then comes negotiations by “other means”. The debased conduct of sordid persons is best met with our best foot forward, right up their ass! Like most animals, immediacy tends to be the most effective in correcting Mali-adpted conduct. Back to the horse I rode up on, hahaha.

At any rate, over the years I began to solve the underlying issues. I actually came to my own work arounds prior to fully grasping the centralized source or the impact of its implications. Years later I did begin to hear limited bits of information over the internet. Although it did take me a while before I started to correlate the “conspiracy theory” data with what I was “seeing” in women throughout the country.  Largely because few had any real coherent information. Eventually, information concerning Project MK Ultra and our government's Psy-Ops programs sufficiently surfaced to flesh out the details. As a child, young teenager I was familiar with the government’s LSD experiments for a variety of reasons, mind control being one aspect. Frankly I can not believe there are people today who do not know or refuse to believe that our government conducted such experimentation on the populace. It was just common knowledge in the circles I travel. If you read the Program Outline for MK Ultra it has an extensive list of lines of “study” information was to be explored, accumulated with a focus of deriving paradigms of control on individuals, groups, countries, cultures, and from that to the world at Large. The Globalist, New World Order, G-7, Trilateral Commission, Illuminati the individuals and their constantly shifting panorama of institutions and foundations are continually sifting beliefs and cultures in an multi-generational game of Three Card Molly. Degree by degree all the world’s various societies and Cultures have been manipulated via global misdirection with large quantities of restructuring of values and beliefs. Till everyone on Earth thinks good is bad; and bad is good. I should think we have all heard these arguments before, usually framed as the delusions of conspiracy theorist. All rather convenient as a means explaining away any descent or even an open fair discussion. Our social structure has drifted far from where we should be. Starting in 2020, everything is going to change and never be this pleasant or nice again. Well at least not till after the Second Coming. Hahaha, despite sounding …...

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[almostarchaeology]

A Lesson Plan for Videogame Archaeology in the Museum

By Adrián Maldonado

I didn’t wake up that morning thinking I’d be playing an original Street Fighter II Championship Edition arcade console in just a few hours. It turned out to be a very good day.

So I was on Long Island recently for our annual, far-too-short family visit to America. It was also my daughter’s second birthday but it was raining and we needed an indoor activity. She loves planes, trucks and trains, and we were assured that the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City has all that plus good hands-on activities and a toddler room. We were not disappointed on any of those fronts.

But unbeknownst to us, the Cradle of Aviation Museum also has a major videogame history exhibition on at the moment. And this was no ordinary rinky-dink travelling exhibit.  I’m talking all the consoles, or at least 60 different ones, all playable, alongside some 30 original arcade cabinets. Whose birthday was it again?

It’s been a minute since my last post, so get ready for a nerd onslaught. This post will attempt three things: a straightforward review of a videogame history exhibit; some sense of the wider context within videogame museums I’ve been to recently; and finally, something a bit different: a lesson plan for teaching kids about videogames in the museum. I should probably change the blog title to Things No One Asked For, Ever, but in the meantime, do enjoy the blatant work avoidance.

Capsule review

This exhibit is actually a sequel. It began life as a temporary event called The Arcade Age in December 2015, which focused on recreating the experience of arcade gaming using some 50 playable cabinets. The recreated arcade was only accessible in three daily 90-minute sessions. The layout showed the influence of superhero arcadologist Raiford Guins, who was consulted for this exhibit, in its attention toward recreating the dark, cramped, noisy ambiance of an arcade. Judging by photos of the original exhibit, it also had a cool sideline on related material culture like Street Fighter II action figures and Pac-Man lunchboxes. It originally ran through April 2016, and was then extended to September 2016.

After its success, it was redesigned as a more comprehensive exhibition, From the Arcade to the Living Room: A Video Game Retrospective 1972-1999 in November 2016, now including a full history of home gaming consoles alongside a reduced but still impressive list of arcade cabinets. The website doesn’t say whether this will become a permanent exhibit, but they are selling season tickets for hardcore gamers until December 2017. It was this exhibition I stumbled upon one fateful day in June.

Wall of ancestors

The games are laid out in roughly chronological order, beginning with the carcass of a Computer Space cabinet from 1971 at the start. Curator Seamus Keane has been damn near exhaustive, going beyond the usual focus on ‘Golden Age’ arcade games and providing real working examples of lesser-performing systems like the Neo-Geo and the Atari Jaguar. Fulfilling the dream of a 90s indoor kid, it was perhaps the first and last time I’ll ever play a CD-I and a 3DO (note to me 25 years ago: neither was worth the wait).

Besides the snippets of information provided next to each console, historical context was a bit light and there was no clear aim or agenda for the exhibition. Media surrounding the opening fleshed it out a little more, but not much: for curator Keane, it was “a concept I had in my head of telling what I felt was somewhat of a lost history about the social culture and the popular culture, as well as the technological history of the arcade game itself and of the arcade as a social setting.” Hope you caught all that between rounds of Marvel Vs Capcom.

There were only a few thematic displays but they worked well – a wall of ephemera included a Nintendo Power Pad, several strategy guides and a Game Genie (!). A wall display on the Great Video Game Crash of 1983 included a screen playing the documentary Atari: Game Over (2014) next to an Atari 2600 with an ET cartridge you could load yourself, a crucial part of the home gaming experience you rarely get to experience in a museum setting. A cabinet of dead peripherals was also eye-opening in an unexpected way; the juxtaposition of Sega 3D Glasses and a Sega Dreamcast mouse from a decade apart made me think of how Sega was so often ahead of its time, and yet somehow lost the console wars. In the tech world, it doesn’t always pay to be first.

Videogames in the Museum

Touch the artefacts

I’ve been to several videogame museum exhibitions now (and even some videogame museums!) and can confidently say that this was one of the most fun. There was a wall of NES games and a wall of Atari games, but the core of the arcade was in a long, low-ceilinged dark hall. There, the half-assed display cards dwindled to a minimum and the game was the thing. Original cabinets, many of them with fucked-up decals from years of play, were ready to rock, no MAME here. Aside from the usual Golden Age of Arcade stuff, there were plenty of classic 90s cabinets from my era, and even some left-field entrants like Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, which I thought was a masterpiece when I first played it in 1990 and has accrued tremendous baggage since then.

Best of all was the chronological row of home gaming consoles buried deep in the bunker-like arcade hall. Here in glowing cubicles of glass but not out of reach were the venerated SNES and Genesis games of my formative years, alongside the also-rans like the Sega Saturn. I showed my 2 year-old daughter her first game of Super Smash Bros for the N64. She picked up the control and held it up to her ear like a phone. I have never loved her more.

The ragtag army of 90s CRT veterans

Each console was hooked up to a full-on CRT TV, no messing about with flatscreens, as I’ve groaned about previously. As the exhibition website puts it, they are “all on old school TV tubes!” Each TV was different from the next one, as they had clearly been scavenged piecemeal from various Long Island attics. Some had flatter screens, some bulged out lewdly, but all were hard-bitten survivors from the 90s. They are the real heroes here.

How does this rate? While the Computerspielemuseum in Berlin clearly wins out in almost every way in terms of playability, historical context and design, there was something about the scale of the recreated arcade and lack of interpretation here that charmed me. As Guins has pointed out, the material presence of the cabinets and the consoles are part of the gameplay; they are designed to draw you in and beg you to grab them, and whatever their flaws, their physical interfaces shape how the game is played.

Beyond Retro-Nostalgia: A Lesson Plan

Ready player one

At one point I was able to play technician: I was able to revive a blank TV screen by switching it to channel 3. I felt like a wise elder. I also may have felt very old because I was surrounded by schoolkids. It was a weekday, and we shared the exhibit with a group of fifth-graders (Year 6 for UK readers). For once, it was genuinely interesting to share a museum with a school trip. There have always been children in the videogame exhibitions I’ve visited previously, but they’re always there with their aging nerd parents (of which I am now very much a number). It is certainly worth recording the stories told to a new generation about their cultural heritage. But it was enlightening in a different way to hear what kids said to one another when playing these games.

What I heard blew my mind. I was playing the Double Dragon (1987) arcade cabinet (I’d only ever played the NES version, so this was very exciting indeed), when two boys walked behind me – one of them said to the other, “Double Dragon! I love that game!” How did he know? What else did he know? Has the Internet already made everyone like Wade from Ready Player One? Other kids swapped stories about the games they’d tried, and I felt almost compelled to start writing these candid observations down. They were like little archaeologists unearthing the artefacts of my past and puzzling over what they might mean – but also making more interesting connections with recent games than I could with my nostalgia specs on.

On my way out I ran into one of the schoolteachers and thanked her for taking the kids here, and congratulated her on how well-behaved they all seemed to be even though they were surrounded by a hundred flashing screens. I asked whether this was part of a specific class, and she said no, they usually take the kids to the Cradle of Aviation Museum because science and whatnot, but they dropped into the arcade exhibition because it was there. I asked if they would follow it up in class at all, and she said no.

The Atari Jaguar: and alternate future of 64-bit gaming

That struck me as a bit of a missed opportunity. Here were a few dozen kids having a great time in a museum, handling the technological ancestors of their favourite devices and games. The kids I heard were knowledgeable about videogames, native to them. For all the action in teaching history through videogames, there are no easily accessible resources out there to teach videogames as rare artefacts of a meaningful past. In what other museum exhibition are you allowed to handle, let alone grab and generally get all up in, the archaeology? What better way to learn than by playing?

Don’t get me wrong – museums with videogame exhibitions often provide their own series of educational resources and programmes for school visits, but a quick and very unscientific search shows little coherent agenda for dealing with the historicity of videogame and the material cultures of gaming. As more videogames end up in museums, we do the next generations a real disservice if the whole message is just about how videogames used to be pixellated and now they’re not. The game is not just the visual but the physical, and every console and medium enabled and constrained ways of playing, creating cultures of gaming. To get beyond nostalgia, we need to draw out the untold stories which will engage kids who are playing these objects for the first time.  

There’s at least a PhD thesis in here

Digital archaeology guru Jeremy Huggett recently reminded us about the need to deal with the historicity of technology: as the workings of our gadgets inexorably disappear into smaller and more efficient packages, we know less about how our devices work, and think little about why they are built the way they are. So break open a few controllers and cartridges to teach the history of computing. We assume a linear progression from worse to better technology on the basis that the invisible hand of the market chose the best products over time. So tell the story of the Sega Dreamcast, recognised for its merits only long after its demise. The market of ideas is always in conflict with the actual market, and real innovation is always pitted against the chance for real profit. Teach the Great Video Game Crash and its mountain of destroyed cartridges; debate the value of excavating the recent past, and what else of theirs will remain to be excavated.

It’s not all about the tech, either. You don’t have to wait for Assassin’s Creed: Cuban Missile Crisis to teach kids about the Cold War and why we’re (still) not playing nice with Russia. You can start with games like Contra and Missile Command and talk about ways in which war found its way even into children’s bedrooms in the 1980s. Maybe have a frank discussion about all those Battlefield games they’re playing now. Play the first ten seconds of Double Dragon to introduce the term ‘toxic masculinity’.

There’s a million ways to sneak learning into a trip to the arcade. Teach the kids how to critically read the artefacts; what could be more archaeological?

More photos here.

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[ciathyzareposts]

Back-Tracking: Colossal Cave Adventure II & Mystery Mansion

Today I’m looking at two text adventures that I played through but didn’t comprehensively beat.  (Not that I really beat either of them, because I relied on a walk-through for both.)  This back-tracking project is probably getting a little self-indulgent at this point. Do I really need to be blogging about my attempts to go back through a game trying to get all the points?  Is that something that people want to read about?  Probably not, but it’s my blog.  And if I’m stupid enough to spend my time going back to a game just to get a winning screenshot that I’m more satisfied with, then you can damn well bet that I’m going to post about it.  If it’s any consolation, this post should be a short one.

COLOSSAL CAVE ADVENTURE II (1978)

I originally played Colossal Cave Adventure II back in 2016.  I recall it as something of a harrowing experience (well, video game harrowing, which is a completely different thing than real life harrowing).  It took me quite a bit of planning to put together a winning run, and even once my plan was in place the game’s random elements would thwart my efforts.  I eventually got through it, but for reasons that I’m still unsure about I only ended up with 436 points out of the full 440.  At the time, I was relaxed enough to let that go and move on to the next game.  I don’t know what happened to that sweet, innocent young man, because ever since I started getting more serious about the blog those 4 points have been gnawing at me.  I had to go back and at least try to get them.

Going back to this game in such close proximity to playing Don Woods’ 430 point version was interesting.  Both games took completely different approaches to expanding on the original.  Woods’ approach was to fill things in at the edges, keeping the map exactly the same but adding some small new areas that were difficult to find, and an extra challenge in the form of a time limit.  Jack Pike and Peter Luckett took a different tack, adding on loads of new areas and just making the game much bigger overall.  New mazes, new puzzles, lots of new treasures.  Both of them are difficult in different ways.

I was expecting this revisit to Colossal Cave Adventure II to seriously vex me, but thankfully my old notes were very thorough.  I hadn’t quite mapped things out step by step (as I tried to do with Adventure 430), but I did have a guide telling me what order to get the treasures in, and reminding me to take regular drinks (because this game added an irritating thirst mechanic).  I was able to follow my instructions, and the random elements were kind to me, so it only took me a couple of tries to get the four points that had eluded me.

Catharsis!

I’m going to ignore that bit about achieving the next higher rating, and call this game done forever.

MYSTERY MANSION

I only played this game last year, so it was still fairly fresh in my memory.  I did finish it, but I was well down on the 999 points required for a total win.  This game doesn’t just require the gathering of treasure, but to get the full amount of points you need to visit pretty much every location, defeat a vampire and a werewolf, solve a murder mystery, and type score whenever you hear a funny noise. Beating this one is a pretty involved process.

I probably didn’t give this game enough credit the first time around for its replayability.  With most adventure games, once you’ve solved all of the puzzles and beaten a game there’s not really much point in going back to it (until years down the track, maybe, when you’ve forgotten everything).  Mystery Mansion includes a bunch of random elements that make replaying the game, and especially playing for points, a challenge.  They’re not the bad kind of random, either, like Colossal Cave Adventure‘s murderous dwarves, but more of a shuffling of elements.  Most notably, the murder to be solved has a different culprit, location, and murder weapon in every game.  (Although, now that I think of it this game does have a bad random element in the form of the Mole Maze, and its ever-shifting pathways. Thankfully you can save just before it and keep trying until you get it right.)

I discovered a few new things that made it easier to solve the murder and collect all of the necessary elements:

The warrior who roams around outside carries a parrot.  If you’re carrying the parrot, he’ll tell you the location of any object in the game.

Similarly, the glass orb in the games room can be used to locate any person, which is handy for finding the murderer and the werewolf.

There’s also the scroll in the library, which crumbles to dust when you try to open it.  The gardener once told me that it could be opened with a magic word, but I never did figure out what to do here.  Reading a walkthrough informed me that I needed to use the passwords from the garden, which are written on the bottom of two bridges.  There are two passwords, but you actually need to say four words: in addition to saying the words forwards you also need to flip them.  This doesn’t just mean saying them in reverse, you also need to turn them upside down: a password like HOMIW becomes MIWOH, as you flip the Ms and Ws.  It’s pretty tricky to get right, but when you do the scroll opens and tells you everything you need to know about solving the murder.

I mentioned the werewolf above, and I never did find and kill it in my initial play-through.  I only ever met it once, when I fell through a hole to the basement and got killed by it in the dark.  This time I discovered that one of the characters who roams the house will turn into a werewolf after the sun sets, and if you encounter the werewolf it rips you to shreds.  There’s a gun that you can find, and a silver bullet, so the solution to killing the wolf is fairly obvious.  The gun has six regular bullets loaded, though, so you need to find something to shoot to empty it before you can use the silver bullet. I found that unloading a bunch of bullets into the elf was pretty satisfying.

Beating this game involved plotting out a path where I visited every location in the game, solved the mystery, killed the vampire, killed the werewolf, called a taxi, and amassed as much treasure as possible at the end of the game.  All the while, I had to pay attention and remember to type SCORE whenever I heard a wolf howl or a woman scream, or I’d lose 2 points each time I forgot.  Thankfully the DOS port has some PC speaker sound effects that made remembering quite a bit easier. I had those turned off when I first played, because they’re very annoying, but they’re also useful.

Putting all of this together took me a long, long time.  I think I played this game for about 12 hours straight trying to get this right, and I kept falling short of my goal.  I would score around 950 to 960 points, and I just couldn’t figure out what I was missing.  As it turned out, there was one location I hadn’t gone to: the bottom of a well in the garden.  The garden has three wells, and two of them are impossible to get out of once you climb down.  Going to the bottom of the other one is worth 20 points though, which was a big help in getting me to my goal.

I also figured out that if I left some treasures at the main gate, I could pick them up right at the end, while I’m waiting for the taxi, to score some extra points.  Normally you have to keep the lantern and the compass in your possession, but at the end you don’t need to move around anymore, so there’s no need.  The only worry with this is that an NPC like the hunter, the woodsman or the warrior will pick them up, but I solved that by murdering all three.

With all of that put together, I was finally able to make a perfect run at this game and score the maximum points.

Goodbye Mystery Mansion. Goodbye forever.

I got the above screen at something like 8 am, after pulling an all-nighter.  That win was a massive relief, let me tell you.

NEXT: I’ve been playing Rogue, and haven’t had any success so far (surprise, surprise).  I figure I’ll be at that one for a while.  As far as games I want to return to, there are still a few.  I just got done with the original TRS-80 version of Temple of Apshai, which I’ll have a post on shortly.  I want to revisit Richard Garriot’s DND1 and play it a bit more in the version that more accurately represents its teletype origins.  There was one monster icon on the start screen of Swords & Sorcery that I never encountered, so I’d like to keep plugging away at that to see if I can get to it.  I’d like to keep playing MUD1 and earn enough points to become a wizard. There’s even a perverse part of me that wants to tackle the nigh-impossible task of mapping the entirety of Oubliette, which is definitely balanced for multiplayer and not something I could realistically achieve.  All of those, should keep me busy for a while, I’d say.  I’ll try not to make it to the detriment of progressing on my regular chronology.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/back-tracking-colossal-cave-adventure-ii-mystery-mansion/

[budgrip40-blog]

Can be your Material Technique Heading in the Appropriate Route? Three-Ways to be certain It Does.

Let?s imagine your Marketing Company Miami class survived an airplane collision plus laundered ashore about the heated high-quality sand associated with a Pacific area. You have purely no road map, compass, or Gps device. You happen to be not certain where to get fresh water, kindling, or even shelter. Because you trudge uphill to the rainforest interior, each of your buddies requests, ?Are you confident we?re going properly? ?

Just how do you know?! What?s the ?right? course when you?re misplaced by using an spectacular isle?

The problem reminds a person out of all the information your group has actually been cranking out just before your fateful journey. The information examine perfectly. This looked razor-sharp. It sometimes racked upwards LinkedIn likes?

Regrettably he the content heading in your path? How does one know?

My team at Widen not too long ago explored our forest tropical island affiliated with content data? securely from Madison, Wisconsin? to get a correct direction. Whenever site visitors enter in a message street address so that you can obtain written content from the web site, that could action kicks off of a multiweek e-send cultivate advertising campaign with a single e-mail a week. But , like a lot of B2B technological entrepreneurs, we support a prolonged revenue spiral, and was aware we?re capable of better with this take care of plan. As a result my teammates Nina Brakel-Schutt furthermore Nate Holmes directed a written content review.

Originally, we wanted to recognize what our records says? almost like 0s and 1s would clearly show what to do. But there?s way too much information and facts to check! And it is explanation is similar to our concerns.

Everyone developed a brand new written content auditing technique using info from CRM, promoting automation, and electronic digital resource supervision (DAM) equipment. Other stacks works way too. That written content review maintained our material and email marketing process from perishing using a wilderness island? and also it may conserve yours, on top of that.

1 . Type your question

Form a question that troubles your most entrenched suppositions. As an example , B2B advertisers are proud of comprehending furthermore assisting their purchasers. No online marketer brags, ?We have no idea who?s acquiring our things and why! in . Steer having a dilemma just like, ?Who are our buyers and what content articles would remedy their queries from the getting knowledge? ?

Begin the inquiry by just mapping your journey on the ultimate 10 buyers you authorized. Which one of our charts checked like:

Let?s take note many things:

very first, the purchasing routine was longer and more unstable than we possessed assumed. We got information queued up for a dozen months, though the process lasted 9 months.

Subsequent, various customers jumped in at thirty days, six months, and 8 weeks, and then we couldn?t have presented the ideal written content within the best time. The picture having developer may have got content material throughout the basic principles of DAM ahead of applying your unique for the arrangement.

3rd, simply because the written content was static additionally aimed to entrepreneurs, the buyers who definitely are IT men and women needed to look up or demand technical information if they wanted it.

Spanning probable shoppers, the particular start premiums for this email marketing campaign dropped by one particular-3 rd among the initial and twelfth full week. That maintained a fact even with we improved general performance with new inventive and emails (demonstrated from the blue colored trendline):

Declining open selling prices certainly weren?t the ideal route. There were to re-examine the things we shipped, who we sent it to, and also why.

2 . Uncover your content

You need to to find precisely what content you choose and the ins and outs. For the provided advertising campaign, mixture whatever they are known as of each and every component of content material (with hyperlinks) in the spreadsheet in chronological get. Then, classify each piece of written content by its level on the shopper path: knowledge, concern, or preference.

Let?s unpack these 3 brands. In the comprehension level, buyers make an attempt to establish their particular problem or option. At the thought phase, shoppers have particular concentrates on and explore the way to reach these. Because of the decision point, the consumer provides chosen a group of alternatives additionally evaluates them for the greatest in shape. All the driving a motor vehicle query generally flows from why in order to tips on how to what .

Immediately after categorizing the information by quest step, include your engagement records. That may contain downloading, perspectives, organic queries, private (y/n), community shares? all depends all by yourself advertising pile. A design might appear like this:

After prepping the spreadsheet, that you simply ready to investigate whether or not your content satisfied buyers? requirements.

3. Analyze strengths and weaknesses

In a more aged B2B martech pile, you typically analyze proposal metrics for instance attractions, public gives, natural and organic lookups, furthermore downloads. The metrics might grab an audience?s response to content material, nonetheless they overlook other features.

Anyone in our e mail advertising campaign got exactly the same material with the same velocity. Thereby, the victors inside the spreadsheet obtained attractiveness over personas (much more on the before long). Having said that , it could possibly particularly hard to pin straight down cause and influence in content information. The very best-undertaking portions appeared to hold self-explanatory value, but possibly that expert practically nothing to do with their good results.

When looking for content material, attempt to record qualitative qualities within just volumes. Using the proposal metrics together with your individual studying of your information, you may get ranking the following at a 1-5 sizing or use message grades. Include things like these to the spreadsheet:

Product. Evaluate the producing design concerning tone of voice, tone, and online messaging. Investigate the vision expression for pictures layout, hues, and typefaces. How adequately would they indicate your trademark?

Clearness. Perform publishing and design and style show the information evidently and concisely?

Accuracy and reliability. Does your site content indicate existing state of your own industry and strong? May be the information accurate and up outdated?

Organization value. How strongly truly does the material connect with your organization objectives?

Utility. Exactly how much value should it provide towards the readers?

Seek out forms. Could be your better content material rates high on application still appears to be out-product. Potentially lucidity isolates your own personal ideal-undertaking items through the most detrimental. These patterns inform this content approach you could possibly generate within the next part.

4. Improve because wanted

The information that excelled should achieve just about every persona. Update this when necessary whilst keeping it throughout perform. Nevertheless , it?s time to exchange this content that executed inadequately.

Personas will allow you to look for a ideal course for your new articles or blog posts you?ll use. Personas are caricatures of your respective ideal consumers or target audiences. They may be like charts simply because they?re not ?reality. ? By applying personas we attempt to predict who also prospective buyers are and ways in which they take part in the shopping process and then we might items articles for their requirements.

My group used to focus on a few personas? Very creative, THIS, and yet they were as well wide. We extrapolated eight gentes from individuals a couple of, but producing tailor-made content material for seven gentes was very burdensome for a corporation our measurement. And then we started out the ?persona-off? with this particular information (harvested through marketing and advertising automation, CRM, and DAM applications):

Offer personas traveling to our web site

Job titles among individuals encountering our shopping process

Our major point of get in touch with each and every customer business (identify as well as name)

Normal client close up time

Posts given by Revenue as opposed to posts purchasers take in themselves

From that facts, we acknowledged the 4 most effective personas. Then we interviewed individuals in the buying process relating to personal positions, goals and objectives, and soreness elements. We got two plans: do a comparison of fact to the personas, and recognize what exactly material each individual persona would want. Most of us questioned concerns regarding the following:

Job aims

Regular activities and requirements

Obstacles at work

Favored information and facts resources

Character traits associated with the products and services

The job interviews presented us all the material to develop empathetic profiles furthermore content material tactics for each and every persona. Just about every persona profile addresses six things and answers every single level alongside two to six bullets:

Who are they?

Can they find most of us?

What do they will realize?

What don?t they desire?

What are their discomfort issues?

Why accomplish they buy from us?

From that information, we made a content material technique for any persona. The design is segregated by step during the shopping for vacation and appearance similar to this:

* * *

Our information evaluation has clarified who the shoppers are and what questions written content ought to remedy throughout the getting expertise.

Is our articles steering in the correct course? We now have now ways to examine before we make investments time and tools in growth.

The evaluation equipped us to (re)build e-mail taking care of strategies for each persona and initiate them regardless of where the consumer holds throughout the journey.

Save your own self

If the written content strategy seems suddenly lost, work with a equivalent content assessment to discover a proper route (there?s certainly not one specific).

?Is our material going throughout the correct route? ? will become much easier to remedy after a while. From the primary round, you might overhaul personas or make sure they are from the beginning. In up coming versions, knowing this tropical isle surfaces, look for new shortcuts and disguised . gemstones. Try to get lost yet again (properly, within your company).

[tinyirnfist-blog]

A Brief History of Batteries- Part 1

Once I was about 13 years old I recall learning about main batteries in college.    This was about the time when I'd also strike lead-acid batteries and'd understood that the automobile starter battery has been billed occasionally.   I started to wonder why a few batteries couldn't be recharged while others might.   The preceding story is most likely not correct.   Nonetheless, it's etched in my memory likely since it supplies me with a romanticized idea of why I operate on batteries now.   In fact, I was likely considering something more valuable like "what's the purpose of learning mathematics?" .   Nonetheless, the issue posed is an interesting one because if we would like to comprehend how to earn a rechargeable battery which lasts quite a long time over several cycles, then we first must comprehend why several batteries don't recharge.   The maturation of batteries is profoundly rooted in this perception (atleast one expects it is and that it isn't a succession of mishaps!) .   A number of the ideas that folks are suggesting today for greater batteries are in some ways trying to overcome the basic limitations that stop recharging of those key batteries. In case you don't need to create the mistakes of yesteryear, you better comprehend the past.   This post is an effort to do exactly that. The subject I am talking is specialized.   I have tried my very best to ensure it is available.   In doing this, I shed some technical precision; however this is the cost of making it clear.     This blog article is written in the design of a publication.   The narrative of rechargeability could be composed in a really linear manner which measures through time to exemplify the principles one after another.   But this could make it effortless to comprehend.   Thus, I have borrowed a page from Quentin Tarantino's film Pulp Fiction and scrambled the story.   Each narrative differs, and they're all interrelated.   If the tales were organized chronologically since the systems developed we'd go Chapter 3, 4, 2, 1, Prologue, Epilogue.   Personally, I believe the scrambled version reads better.

And there's absolutely no swearing or violence. Prologue:  Can I smell sulfur from the atmosphere?   There's been a great deal of interest during the past couple of years on two methods which have been in existence for ages.   These batteries are offered as moving "beyond lithium ion".    These systems utilize lithium alloy as the negative electrode and atmosphere (instead, the oxygen from the atmosphere) or sulfur as the positive electrode.   Some believe these approaches to the Holy Grail of battery study. The guarantee that these battery chemistries grip is huge.    Think cars that may induce 500+ miles off, mobile phones that really last daily, laptops which may last the comprehensive transatlantic flight...  The volumetric energy isn't so good, but hey, let's concentrate on the advantages, will we. But there's a hitch (there always is). In the instance of lithium-air, it ends up that recharging lithium metal is a issue.   Along with the oxygen from the atmosphere reacts to produce a chemical that's basically pretty sterile. In the event of sulfur, the lithium metal is still an issue.   Along with also the sulfur electrode undergoes a set of reactions providing products which are either highly soluble, or sterile.   If we want to succeed in obtaining these batteries to operate, we first must know why similar theories have failed previously. Chapter 1:  A business plan which can not fail- Require cheese; create milk.

Here is the procedure which happens on release and it works fairly nicely.   If you would like to recharge this battery, you'll have to spend the lithium ion and convert is to thionyl chloride.    This is where the issue happens. As soon as you form it, it pretty much stays around and begins clogging up the entire cell.   Converting lithium ion back into thionyl chloride is similar to looking for a Quentin Tarantino film free of violence- it's not difficult to locate; its not possible to discover! Think about this as carrying a pot filled with hot milk and adding lemon juice into it.   The milk curdles and you also get cheese.   There's pretty much no way to return to milk and lemon juice out of cheese (as much as I understand).   But since lithium ion isn't soluble, there's absolutely not any way to recharge the battery. Moral of this story:  In the event the item of the response contributes to an insoluble solution, in certain batteries, recharging can be an issue. The caveat "in certain batteries", is sort of important, but this isn't for this informative article.     Within this system, similar to the thionly chloride system over, the lithium ion melts and reacts with the carbon monofluoride to make lithium ion and carbon; equally solids.   Attempting to return to the beginning chemicals by responding the lithium ion with all the carbon is pretty much hopeless.   It is the cheese to milk issue.

However, what should the product of this response is extremely soluble (believe sodium in water)?   This has to be the very best thing possible for recharging, so could it not? This could be the narrative of the zinc electrode.   Chapter 2:  In case just the Dead Sea were not too salty. It is just that it's not a really good one.   A number of you may recall that there have been rechargeable alkaline batteries on the marketplace that promised a couple of cycles.  These all seem to be gone out of the industry.   The positive electrode (MnO2) in those batteries can recharge tens of thousands of times if you're careful to steer clear of certain stages.   Personally, I feel that this chemistry is well worth revisiting. It is the zinc electrode that's the issue.    Since the concentration of zincate raises, it precipitates out as nitric oxide.    Think about the adding salt into water.   You may just include as much salt until the solution becomes saturated and some more salt you put in remains as crystals. Here is the easy version. The entire response scheme is really fairly complex.   Figuring out that five additional responses can occur within this battery based on various problems.   Several years back, I was involved with modeling of this zinc-MnO2 battery and it is undoubtedly the most complex battery chemistry there's.   Lithium batteries are really much easier to know with regards to the system. The nitric oxide contains fairly large solubility from the electrolyte (potassium hydroxide).  This signifies is that calcium oxide readily goes into solution to form zincate from the electrolyte.   An individual would presume this is excellent for recharging and it's.   Nonetheless, it turns out that when you attempt to deposit the zinc from the zincate, then it doesn't deposit at precisely the exact same area at which it dissolved. This contributes to the arrangement of the zinc electrode changing continuously because you discharge and charge the battery repeatedly.   This can be known as contour change.   Shape change contributes to the zinc depositing as a solid mass at the 1 portion of this electrode.   And this good mass is difficult to react.   Gradually, as the good bulk gets more conspicuous, the zinc electrode fades. There's some terrific information that demonstrates that.  This is similar to somehow making salt less soluble in water.   Figuring out that in fact this strategy also kills the ability of the battery life and thus this isn't a true solution. The reason why the contour shift occurs is somewhat complex, and likely not pertinent at this point.    What does matter is that, in certain batteries, very large solubility may be a terrible thing and may reduce the capability to recharge. Moral of this story:  High solubility might not always be a fantastic thing for recharging.  

[studiopracticejournal-1-2017]

Final Essay!

This was the final comparative essay for Exhibition and Display that was submitted by my group. Since Ive been talking about both exhibition on this journal/blog.... I figured that this was relevant... and that its important to note that this isn’t just my work... but that it was also relevant to studio and my opinion of the exhibition. 

‘How did these curators achieve what they set out to do with their respective exhibitions?’

In this paper we will compare and contrast two significant recent public exhibitions in Brisbane, both of which have distinctly different curatorial rationales and therefore, objectives.

A conscious decision has been made to select two very different types of exhibitions for analysis, in the hope that they will offer diversity and contrasting elements for consideration. The curatorial intent of these exhibitions served completely different purposes.

The first of the exhibitions selected is 'Denise Green - Beyond and Between - A Painter's Journey, at the University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane. This exhibition, curated by Michele Helmrich, ran from 25 November 2016 – 2 April 2017, inclusive.

The second exhibition is that of ‘Sugar Spin - You, Me, Art and Everything' at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane. ‘Sugar Spin’ is one of three public exhibitions comprising a suite of offerings, designed specifically to celebrate and commemorate the tenth anniversary of the founding of GOMA.

To achieve this we will address the question, ‘how did these curators achieve what they set out to do with their respective exhibitions?’

We have utilised the preferred methodology, as outlined in our learning tool the ‘Exhibition Analysis Worksheet’ (QUT blackboard), as a basic template to gather data for our analysis.

The University of Queensland Art Museum has mounted an exhibition of acquired works by a single artist, representing an integrated body of works spanning four decades. Curator Michele Helmrich set out to “methodically chart the course of an artist's life and practice” (Helmrich,7) focusing on three distinct periods in Green’s career. The exhibition draws on a major gift of works made by the artist’s husband Dr Francis X. Claps, made to UQ in 2013.

On the other hand, Sugar Spin: You, Me, Art and Everything opened at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane on the third of December 2016, and ran until the seventeenth of April, 2017. Sugar Spin was restricted to the utilization of acquired works from GOMA’s collection, including four new acquisitions. Curator Geraldine Barlow, expressed that there were two main criteria influencing her intentions for the exhibition (Hawkins, 2017). As a government funded institution (QAGOMA, 2017), a key influence in Barlow’s rationale was to ensure an enjoyable experience for the diverse patronage of GOMA. While also challenging the viewers conceptual understanding throughout the five stages of the exhibition, which simultaneously created themed aesthetics.

These stages being, Sweetmelt, Blackwater, Soaring, Treasure and Cosmos, the over-arching concept of the exhibition was an ‘exploration of the relationships between human existence and emotion, and the surrounding word.’ (QAGOMA 2017). Barlow hoped that the manipulation of “light, space, architecture and the senses” (QAGOMA 2017) would help too “push” (Hawkins, 2017) the viewer in their consideration of the conceptual themes of the exhibition, including their own personal “challenges… as well as the beauty of the world we live in” (QAGOMA 2017).       The second exhibition to be discussed, was mounted by the University of Queensland Art Museum (UQAM) from the twenty-fourth of November 2016, until the second of April 2017, Denise Green, Beyond and Between: A Painter’s Journey. It presents a collection of one hundred and two works on paper and canvas by abstractionist painter, Denise Green, between the years of 1971 and 2015. The body of work, is said to “methodically chart the course of an artist’s life and practice” (Helmrich, 7). In Helmrich’s view, this is “the most comprehensive overview of Denise Green’s work” (UQAM), and therefore the collection was arranged in a manner which demonstrated the development of Green’s “artistic progress over more than forty years” (Helmrich, 7).

This strongly suggests that Helmrich’s intention was to assume the role of facilitator, without imposing additional curatorial commentary, or attempting to enhance Green’s work. Whereas, Barlow’s curatorial approach in designing Sugar Spin, incorporated visual elements, such as colour and light to highlight the works in the collection, while introducing different conceptual themes in each of the five stages of the exhibition.

As a state funded institution (QAGOMA 2017), GOMA’s diverse patronage was a fundamental consideration in Barlow’s design of Sugar Spin (Hawkins, 2017) and is distinctly evident across the diverse collection of works, in addition to the five distinct stages of the exhibition. The exhibition is comprised of over two hundred and fifty pieces (QAGOMA 2017) that all differ in scale, content and medium (Sugar Spin, 2017). As suggested by The Monthly’s, Sebastian Smee, “the range of style, scale, medium and country of origin is dizzying.” (2017, para. 14).  By ensuring the diversity of the collection, Barlow maximizes potential viewer engagement across a broad spectrum of viewer ethnicities, ages, and visual literacies. Which, when combined with the drastic visual and thematic differences of the five stages of Sugar Spin, further increases the potential for maximum viewer engagement. For example, the hectic visual dissonance of Sweetmelt, created by themes of “speed, colour, dynamism and the unexpected” (Barlow,14) causes a “sugar high” (Smee, 2017, para. 22) that is ended by the oppressing darkness of the second stage, Blackwater (Sugar Spin, 2017). In this sense, Barlow manipulates both the collection of works, and their arrangement, increasing the diversity in aesthetic, content and thematic focus. This in combination with the placement of interactive works such as, Carsten Holler’s Left/Right Slide (2010), and Lee Mingwei’s Writing the Unspoken (1999), allows Barlow to maximise potential audience engagement, effectively fulfilling her stated intention.

On the other hand in looking at Denise Green, Helmrich also considers the UQAM’s mission and target audience. The mission being to “provoke wonder and enquiry and to foster a critical appraisal of how knowledge, histories and values are constructed” (UQAM, 2014). Helmrich further considers the target audience, the “UQ community, professional colleagues, artists, high school teachers and students, staff and other Brisbane universities and Brisbane and Queensland communities.” (UQAM, 2014).

Helmrich demonstrates a taxonomic sequential method (Denise Green, 2017), it might be said, she has approached the task from the perspective of a documentary archivist. This is evident in the taxonomic approach in structuring the viewing environment. For example, in this exhibition we see a combination of mid line hangs, interspersed with the grid, geometric groupings and solo hangs (Denise Green, 2017). Consequently, Helmrich’s strategy appears to be in accordance with the principles and target audiences of the institution, as outlined in the UQ operational plan.  It could be suggested, that this is in accordance with and reflects Greens own “disciplined approach to life” (Helmrich, 7).

As discussed, the second fundamental element of Barlow’s intention was to “push” (Hawkins, 2017) the viewers understanding of the conceptual focus of Sugar Spin as a whole. In contrast, Helmrich assumes the role of facilitator, keeping faith with the essence of Green’s body of work, whereas Barlow imposed distinct conceptual meanings upon each segment of Sugar Spin, effectively transcending the boundaries of the individual works. Meanwhile Helmrich arranged green’s collection chronologically, remaining faithful to the development of Green’s practice, over several decades.

In curating Denise Green, Helmrich has paid particular attention to detail in showcasing the development of the artists career. Using a methodical taxonomic approach Helmrich, unlike Barlow is not coming at her task from a populist experiential angle, and in doing so has not 'value added' to the works. Rather Helmrich allows the works to speak, and stand on merit in their own right. The take away from this exhibition is more of a scholastic, intellectual understanding of the works.

Barlow is responding to a much wider public and is obviously conscious of the organisations responsibility as a State Funded Institution, and therefore needed to deliver an exhibition which reflects the perceived expectations of the general public in 2017. As opposed to Helmrich's response to a nuanced public including students and academics.

Barlow has realized a viewing experience that caters to a wide range of aesthetic tastes, by chunking the exhibition into themed ‘vignettes’ or ‘stages’ she has maximized the possibility of audience satisfaction and therefore engagement. In doing this Barlow has pretty much ensured a takeaway for everyone.

Informed by the curatorial intention of two significantly different but equally laudable exhibitions, designed by curators with contrasting approaches and responses to their task, we have found that both curators actualized their stated objectives.  

Reference List

Barlow, Geraldine. 2016. “”Chapter 1 / Sweetmelt.” Artlines. Art. Insights. Events. 4: 14.  UQ Art Museum, Operational plan 2014-2016. Retrieved April 16 2017 from: https://www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au/…/UQAM-operational-plan-opt…

 Coombs, Courtney. 1017. “Exhibition Analysis Worksheet”. Accessed March 27, 2017. blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_133556_1&content_id=_6591973_1

Denise Green, Beyond and Between: A Painter’s Journey. 2017. Exhibited Brisbane: University of Queensland Art Museum. Exhibition (viewed 17 March, 2017.)

 Hawkins, Ashleigh. 2017. “Geraldine Barlow”. Interviewed by Ashleigh Hawkins (audio recording April 7, 2017) https://youtu.be/7XzeO-VXOKc

 Helmrich, Michele. 2016. “Denise Green Beyond and Between - A Painter's Journey.” Brisbane. University of Queensland Art Museum Publishing.

Helmrich, M. (2016). Denise Green. Beyond and Between, A Painter's Journey. 2016. Brisbane. UQ Art Museum. Exhibition Text.

Holler, Carsten. 2010. Left/Right Slide. Exhibited Brisbane: Gallery of Modern Art. Installation: stainless steel, polycarbonate and rubber mats (viewed 7 March 2017).

Mingwei, Lee. 1999. Writing the Unspoken. Exhibited Brisbane: Gallery of Modern Art. Installation: wood, steel, light fittings, glass, paper, envelopes, cushion (viewed 7 march, 2017)

 QAGOMA (Queensland Gallery of Modern Art). 2017. “Sugar Spin, You, Me, Art and Everything.” Accessed March 28, 2017. www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-…/exhibitions/sugar-spin

 QAGOMA (Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art). 2017. “Foundation” Accessed March 29 2017. www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/support/foundation

 Smee, Sebastian. 2017. “Sweet Celebration.” Accessed April 19, 2017. www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/march/1488286800/sebastian-smee/sweet-celebration

Sugar Spin: You, Me, Art and Everything. 2017. Exhibited Brisbane: Gallery of Modern Art. Exhibition (viewed March 7, 2017).

 UQ Art Museum 2016. “Denise Green. Beyond and Between. A Painter's Journey.” Accessed April 16, 2017. www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au/2016-exhibitions

Uranishi, Sonia. 2016. “Exhibition homecoming for Australian artist Denise Green.” Accessed April 16, 2017. www.uq.edu.au/…/exhibition-homecoming-australian-artist-denise-green-0

[thegeekcurmudgeon]

The Steam-Driven Time Machine: My Adventures in Steampunk

As revealed in my previous post, I’m moderating the Steampunk panel at this weekend’s Comicpalooza. Newer folks may wonder why I’m moderating such a panel. (Or not, but I’m going to share this with you anyway).

Way back in 2008, I produced this little essay for Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s bestselling, seminal anthology Steampunk. The magnificent book came out just at the beginnings of the latest Steampunk craze. After nine printings, one could argue it helped fan the flames of the movement.

Without further ado, here’s the unabridged piece.

The Steam-Driven Time Machine:

A Pop Culture Survey

by

Rick Klaw

When I was a child in the seventies, it seemed like the 1961 Ray Harryhausen special effects-laden The Mysterious Island played constantly on the TV. Not that I minded. Michael Craig leads a crew of Confederate P.O.W. escapees as they pilot a hot air balloon toward points unknown. Crash landing on an apparently deserted island, the castaways encounter giant animals: a crab, a flightless bird, bees and an cephalopod, all presented in Harryhausen’s dynamic stop motion animation. The group discovers the presumed dead Captain Nemo, who had mutated the animals as part of an experiment. Throw in the pirates that attack the island and you have the recipe for a near-perfect movie. By nine years old, after many repeated viewings the film entered my personal zeitgeist, informing my later tastes and many of my creative decisions.

Mysterious Island was my first exposure to steampunk, long before K. W. Jeter coined the word in the late 1980s.

Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for [Tim] Powers, [James] Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of the era; like “steampunks,” perhaps… (Locus, #315 April 1987)

Featuring interviews with Jeter and Blaylock plus a cover by Tim Powers, the Winter, 1988 issue of Nova Express introduced me to the term “steampunk.” By that time Powers and Blaylock were both part of my reading repertoire. Jeter joined a few years later.

Among many of the advantages of living in Austin as a young science fiction fan in the late eighties and early nineties was the strong and fairly well organized creative community. The local science fiction literary convention, Armadillocon birthed though probably as a surrogate the Cyberpunk movement, as it was the first North American convention to feature William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Lewis Shiner, and Pat Cadigan as guests of honor. Austinite Lawrence Person’s previously mentioned ‘zine Nova Express further encouraged science fiction critical studies with insightful interviews and reviews by professionals and fans alike.

Some twenty years later, pop culture has embraced steampunk. Publishing, film, and even the Internet embolden the term as a branding tool. Nary a week goes by without Boing Boing (www.boingboing.net), the venerable group blog, posting about some sort of steampunk inspired gadget, cartoon, or essay. A search of their archives generates almost 1500 articles. Subjects vary greatly: laptops, keyboards, watches, Transformers, planes, Car Wars, submarines, and so on. Many articles showcase functioning modern technology using steampunk methods and materials. Others present actual working machines from the 19th century. Images presenting artistic depictions of steampunk, paintings, sculptures, architecture and the like. Reinterpretations of popular shows such as Star Trek and Star Wars litter the listings. Original short films featuring steampunk tropes offer many amusing and sometimes exciting diversions.

The user-generated online encyclopedia Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) contains lengthy, extensive entries for both “Steampunk” and “List of steampunk works”, citing an array of sources. The English language version of the Polish site Retrostacji, Steampunkopedia (steampunk.republika.pl) offers the most comprehensive steampunk works chronological bibliography available on the web along with numerous links to steampunk-inspired videos. Sadly, the site stopped updating in February, 2007.

Using the collaborative wiki-method, ﾆther Emporium (etheremporium.pbwiki.com) claims “to provide a onestop resource and archive for all things Steampunk”. Potentially very interesting, the sparse site supplies some intriguing information and views from the nascent steampunk subculture. Another online cultural source, SteamPunk Magazine (www.steampunkmagazine.com), dedicated to “promoting steampunk as a culture, as more than a sub-category of fiction”, produces a pdf format magazine and for-sale print version under the auspices of the Creative Commons license, an agreement that allows anyone to share and distribute the work as long as it is not for commercial or financial gain. Each of the three currently produced issues contain fiction, features exploring different aspects of the subgenre, and interviews with steampunk luminaries.

Even Wired (www.wired.com), home of the techno elite, lists some 930 archived pages about the subgenre. Often sharing similar coverage with its cyberculture cousin Boing Boing, the subjects run the pop culture gamut. Oddly, the domain name steampunk.com works as the home for The Speculative Fiction Clearing House, a portal for science fiction websites. The site has only a tangential relationship with the subgenre.

Back in the late eighties, I encountered my first steampunk role playing game. Featuring Victorian space travel and steam powered devices, Space 1889 (1988) was the first primarily steampunk rpg. At the time, I immersed myself in the rpg community, envisioning myself more of a gamer and possibly role play games creator than an essay or even a fiction writer. This delusion lasted for about two years, after which I decided to devote my creative energies toward other writing and editing pursuits.

Prior to Space 1889, steampunk elements frequently cropped up in games. Most Dungeons & Dragons campaigns contained various steam-powered devices, usually projectiles or vehicles. Hero Games’ pulp era adventure game Justice, Inc (1984) featured many steampunk-type props, most notably steam-powered robots. Cthulhu By Gaslight, Victorian era rules for the Lovecraft-inspired Call of Cthulhu game, premiered in 1986. While set in the 1890s, the supplement relied less on steampunk– beyond an odd section on time travel– and more on real-world settings.

In the ensuing years, steampunk routinely appeared in rpgs. Within the popular gaming universes such as Warhammer, GURPS, and Dungeons & Dragons, steam-driven devices and Victorian era tropes became commonplace. The cross-pollination of the American Old West and anachronistic devices thrived within several games, chiefly Deadlands and the Japanese title Terra the Gunslinger.

Even LARPers got in the act. Premiering May 21, 2004 near Baltimore, MD with a three-day episode, Brassey’s Game, a steampunk live action role playing game (LARP)1, involved approximately 30 players in Victorian garb, who relied on heavy character interaction. The initial campaign ran for six weekend-long episodes. Six other stand alone Brassey’s Game episodes took place during the first campaign. Since its introduction, several other groups from various parts of the US, using modified versions of the original rules, participated in their own Brassey’s Game events.

Another element of my seventies childhood, The Wild Wild West, the first, best, and longest running steampunk television series, forged my future love of the weird western. The show related the adventures of two Secret Service agents- James West, a charming, womanizing hero, and Artemus Gordon, inventor and master of disguise– as they protected, often in secret, the United States, its interests and citizens. In four seasons from 1965-1969, the duo encountered all sorts of odd villainy including a brilliant but insane dwarf, recurring arch-villain Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless, and bizarre weaponry such as cue stick guns and a triangular steam-powered tank with a barbed tip. Combining the best elements of traditional westerns and James Bond, The Wild Wild West spawned two late seventies TV movies with the original cast, a dreadful 1999 big screen movie, two separate comic book series (1960s Gold Key and 1991 Millennium Publications), and four novels, as well as influencing a generation of writers including Joe R. Lansdale, Norman Partridge, and Howard Waldrop.

The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., the direct thematic descendant of The Wild Wild West, premiered on August 27, 1993, starring the cult actor Bruce Campbell of Evil Dead fame as the title character. Set in the 1890s, Brisco attempts to capture the members of the Bly Gang, the cutthroats responsible for his father’s death. The series sported an intriguing cast of characters: Lord Bowler, bounty hunter and rival, lawyer Socrates Poole, Dixie Cousins, con-woman and Brisco’s great love, and inventor/scientist Professor Wickwire, brilliantly portrayed by John Astin and supplier of Brisco’s steampunk-like gadgetry. Even with clever story lines, the show lasted for only one season.

Perhaps the most unexpected use of weird western steampunk tropes occurred in the second season of the animated Adventures of Batman & Robin. “Showdown” with a Joe R. Lansdale teleplay from a story by Kevin Altieri, Paul Dini, and Bruce W. Timm tells of the immortal Batman villain Ra’s al Ghul’s 1883 confrontation with the DC Comics gunslinger Jonah Hex. The battle centers around a plot to blow up the nearly-completed tracks of a transcontinental railroad using dirigibles loaded with cannons and other explosives.

Because starring in one Wild Wild West­-inspired short lived TV series is never enough, Bruce Campbell portrayed the title character for two seasons in the disappointingly inane Jack of All Trades (2000). Jack Stiles, a secret service agent stationed by President Thomas Jefferson on the fictional French-controlled island of Palau-Palau, defends American interests while serving as the aide to a French aristocratic. Jack employs many steampunk-type weapons and gadgets. Loosely based on the classic 1919 novel, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World amazingly ran for three seasons (1999-2000) with poor special effects, bad acting, poorly crafted storylines, and some minor steampunk elements. The 1982 Q.E.D., set in Edwardian England, last for only six episodes. Voyagers!, a time travel adventure series with periodic steampunk bits, managed 22 episodes over one season (1982-1983). Steampunk materials appeared in several episodes of the various Doctor Who incarnations.

Under the premise that Jules Verne actually lived the adventures that he wrote about, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne (2000) delivered steampunk action with airships, steam powered devices, and even a steampunk cyborg! Playing upon the inherent metafictional possibilities, several episodes featured “real life” authors and personalities such as Samuel Clemens, Queen Victoria, Alexander Dumas, Cardinal Richelieu (a time travel episode), and King Louis XIII. The promising show never jelled and was canceled after one season.

The Japanese have also embraced steampunk television, albeit the animated variety. Based on the long running manga Fullmetal Alchemist, set in an alternate late- 20th century society that practices alchemy and uses primarily early 20th technology, enjoyed a 51 episode run (2003-2004) and an 2005 anime feature film. Steam Detectives (1989-1990) follows the adventures of a young detective in a reality where the only source of energy is steam power. Set on a floating world with stylized Victorian fashions, Last Exile (2003) relates the story of airship pilots Claus and Lavie and their involvement in a plot about a mysterious cargo.

Another steampunk show derived from the works of Jules Verne, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1989-1991) inspired a feature film sequel (1992) and a manga series. Set in 1889, circus performer Nadia, young inventor Jean Ratlique, and the famed Captain Nemo attempt to save the world from the Atlantean known as Gargolye who is bent on restoring the former underseas empire. Translated into eight different languages, the series achieved worldwide popularity.

Based on a series of popular video games, Sakura Wars relates an alternate 1920s reality that uses steam primarily to power all sorts of modern devices. Developed into numerous video games on several platforms, a manga, a tv series, five OVA2 tie-ins, and a feature length movie, Sakura remains a uniquely Japanese cultural phenomenon.

Back in the seventies, Mysterious Island opened my eyes to new worlds as I encountered many more steampunk films. The 1930s Universal monster pictures with lighting-powered monsters, chemically induced madmen, and animal-mutating mad scientists exploited the yet undefined genre. Beneath a Victorian backdrop, Victor Frankenstein empowered his creatures in both Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) using the highly unlikely method of electrocution. In the latter film, Dr. Pretorius joins forces with Frankenstein, attempting to create life through alchemical means. Director James Whale recognized the inherent Victorian melodrama and the treated the films accordingly, thus creating two masterpieces.

Two of H. G. Wells’ science gone-amok novels inspired a pair of 1933 Universal movies. The Invisible Man, directed under the masterful hand of James Whale, relates the story of a man who goes mad after imbibing his own creation: an invisibility potion. Starring Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi, The Island of Lost Souls adapted The Island of Dr. Moreau for the first time. The story of Dr. Moreau and his rebellious mutations, like that of The Invisible Man speak to the Victorian notions of science and sadism. The Island of Lost Souls has been remade poorly twice as The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977, 1996).

Fittingly, the first film recognized as steampunk was the 1902 fourteen-minute French animated short Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon), based on Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon and H.G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon. Wildly popular upon its release, the Georges Méliès film– one of his hundreds of fantasy films– achieved canonical status within science fiction.

Hollywood rediscovered Verne with a vengeance in the 1950s and 1960s, making numerous film adaptations including the steampunk films 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), Mysterious Island (1961), Master of the World (1961), Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962), and tangentially Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969). Wells was not far behind with most notably The Time Machine (1961). One of producer George Pal’s special effect spectaculars, The Time Machine thematically remained close to the source material especially the portrayal of the machine itself. An awful version of Wells’ book was made in 2002.

The seventies witnessed a severe drop in steampunk related films as whiz bang space science fiction became the norm. A notable exception, the entertaining Time After Time (1979) suggested that Wells invented a time machine and traveled to 1979 in pursuit of Jack the Ripper.

In 1986, Hayao Miyazaki released his groundbreaking anime Castle in the Sky (aka Laputa: Castle in the Sky). A magical tour-de-force featuring floating cities, airships, and pirates, the film follows a young girl, Sheeta, and boy, Pazu, on their quest for the mystical, missing city of Laputa. Miyazaki returned to steampunk in 2001 with his masterpiece Spirited Away, the highest grossing movie in the history of Japan. Easily the most awarded steampunk work in any medium, Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Film, the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival Silver Scream Award, the Nebula Award for Best Script, the San Francisco International Film Festival Audience Award Best Narrative Feature, five Mainichi Film Concours Awards, two Awards of the Japanese Academy, four Annie Awards, and many others. Miyazaki’s eagerly anticipated follow up was the steampunk Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), based on Diana Wynne Jones’ popular young adult novel. Successful both financially and critically, Howl’s plays as a traditional European fairy tale but with steampunk elements.

Sadly with a few exceptions, Miyazaki’s works represent the abnormal in modern steampunk. While movies such as Vidocq (2001), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), Hellboy (2004), Van Helsing (2004), Around the World in 80 Days (2004), Steamboy (2004), and The Brothers Grimm (2005) display strong stylings, they all fall short on substantive storytelling.

The third and perhaps weakest of Terry Gillum’s Trilogy of the Imagination, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) recounts the legendary tales of eponymous Baron. Littered throughout with steampunk tropes and devices, Gillum displays a magical world in this delightful, if overlong film.

The French duo Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro created the strange, surrealist masterpiece 1995’s The City of Lost Children (La Cité des enfants perdus). Unable to dream, a mad scientist steals the dreams of children. The kidnapping of a circus strongman’s little brother leads to some bizarre and fascinating confrontations between the strongman, the children, and the scientist. Beautifully imagined within a late 19th century industrial city complex, The City of Lost Children magically envisions a dark steampunk society.

The disappointing film version of The Golden Compass, the first novel of Phillip Pullman’s extraordinary trilogy His Dark Materials, premiered in 2007 amidst a maelstrom of controversy, as various Christian groups–most notably The Catholic League– urged their members to boycott the movie citing the story’s perceived anti-God bias. The protesters had little to worry about since director/screenwriter Chris Weitz stripped the original tale of any complexity and relevant subtext, presenting a dull, lifeless movie. Even with gorgeous visual effects (particularly of the dæmons and the airships), superior acting (especially Dakota Blue Richards’ authentic portrayal of a fierce twelve year-old girl), and a $200 million budget, The Golden Compass offered yet another 21st century steampunk film failure.

Some thirty-five years after my initial discovery, steampunk still fascinates. I eagerly await to read about the new devices listed on Boing Boing. Even given the poor quality of most steampunk movies, films with airships and Victorian stylings still excite me. Clearly I am not alone as evident by the sheer amount of steampunk material continually being produced and the very existence of this anthology. 

Vive la vapeur!

1a form of role-playing game where the players physically act out their characters’ actions.

2Original video adaption, a phrase coined by the Japanese for direct-to-video films.

The Steam-Driven Time Machine: My Adventures in Steampunk was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon