Horrors!

Oh impiety! What unholy apparation is this? Upon arriving home late at night from the performance at Planet Bohemia, I perceived a great clanking and grinding that issued from the crypt beneath my feet. I thought the Doctor might be stirring and descended into the ground to see if I might be of some small service. This terrible phantom with dread aspect stood guard at the door, enraged and fearsome, swearing such oaths as can never be repeated, chorused by weeping and groaning and wailing! All the elements are confounded and shuffled into their former chaos. Oh horrors I shall die! I shall be eaten by worms, the same that ate my ancestors! I flew from that place deranged by fright, and sought the Doctor in all his haunts, without success. Pantalone is disappeared into the bargain.
Whose ghost has taken residence in my crypt? What is become of the Doctor? Why doth the apparition wear the Doctor's cloak? What do I do?

Drama and Suspense!

The Show Must Go On performed again this weekend, in the very crowded Planet Bohemia. Our brave troupers faced orbiting griefers, stray hippos, missing costumes, premature baldness and abominable lag, proving once again that with vigorousness of wit and sharpness of expression, and a great surfeit of comely humour, they could draw an applause despite all obstacles. I listened remotely over IM to the backstage chatter for the sim was entirely full, managing to slip in upon the final curtain, so you will find no pictures this time. Nevertheless the drama and suspense proved more exciting than if I had been in the stands, as one new problem arose after another to challenge our indomitable producer and keep her on her toes. New members have made their debut, and I have volunteered as understudy to several acts until Doctor Fluxus is ready for his stage appearance. About time I pulled my own weight (which is about a tenth of Salazar's, so he will remain in charge of drawing the curtains!)

Neo Kowloon

In the furthest Southwest corner of our world is a beautifully crumbling sim called Kowloon. I once spent several months ashore in a small cell-like apartment between Mongkok and Yaumatei (Waterloo), for there was someone I wanted to meet in Kowloon City. A dark, half-twilight seeped into every corner of that terrifying place, and it fascinated me.
I was not surprised to meet a Japanese water imp, or kappa, there today, who happens also to be an author named JunkDNA Watanabe. Strong yin forces pervade. A caped crusader and a man of steel (so they tell me) put in an appearance, and we conversed in English, Chinese and Japanese.

Fabula for a Rationalist Father

Out in the middle of the country there had been, for a long time, a Flute, which nobody played, until one day when a Burro which was passing by, gave it a forceful blow and produced the sweetest sound of its life - that is to say, the life of the Burro and of the Flute.

Incapable of understanding what had happened, since rationality was not their strong point and both believed in rationality, they went their own ways, embarrassed of the best thing that either one had done during their unhappy life.

Translated by Banubula.

New Stage Manager

Faced with the ponderous burden of organizing Doctor Fluxus' act and keeping the magician in good humour, I accepted the stage management services of Pantalone, who immediately laid hand to task and in no time his Zanni had tidied away most of the first act. The bustling and banging awoke Doctor Fluxus who immediately rose and began to find fault. Pantalone defended his actions, the Doctor vociferously proclaimed her displeasure, raised her hand to punish his insolence, but was parried by an arm thrust from her opponent, and suffered a painful nose tweaking! Thankfully the stage swords are still packed or on my word they would have fallen to brawling! Now the two are sulking and fuming like infants, as I run between them smoothing tempers and listening to complaints. I suspect Doctor Fluxus of plotting to avenge herself upon Pantalone, and Pantalone of being too much attached to the fee I have promised him to leave us. I fear no good will come of this in the end. But the Show Must Go On!

Mixing your Drinks

Do NOT mix your drinks. The less said about the vengeance a mixed drink can wreak on a febrile imagination, the better.

Across the Cosmos

My visits with Electron Electricteeth generally result in a cross-dimensional journey thanks to her extraordinary inventions. This time we visited a magnificent castle and an underwater cafe, but I could never find my way back, for I was too busy keeping up to save a placemark.
I was somewhat alarmed to discover she had styled herself as a Merchant of Death, continuously scanning for those who annoy her and attacking if they draw near. That is a list on which I would not wish to see my name appear!

Tale of How

If ye have not yet seen The Tale of How, scamper quickly for a gander. Discovered on Cabinet of Wonders.

Shadow Play

For Osprey from London in 1709 seen through the eyes of Lotte Reiniger. Created entirely without flexiprims.

Automatamachia

This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots. You will not be able to publish your posts, but you will be able to save them as drafts.

I am encircled by mechanickal creatures who bind and gag me! How humiliating to be called spam! Even Casanova under the Leads was never so ill-treated. I call upon mystical powers to confuse and dismay them.

Childhood Memories

A portrait of Young Geoffrion as a child automata. Now you know.

Demon Road

Those I count as friends will know my appearances in This Life are infrequent, erratic and brief, to the extent that I must frequently apologize for missed rehearsals and other appointments. My utter inability to foretell the hour and duration of my visits also demands I stand away from undertakings into which I am properly inclined to throw myself with body, soul and mind. This reticence is unnatural to me, and for that I apologize. My friends have never sought an explanation, but rejoice in my company as I do in theirs: an' I am indebted to them for that reason.
That I have not offered an explanation is only because it is so fantastickal a history I fear no person would credit it, and because its telling would occupy time I prefer to spend in more happier intercourse.
But my social circle has widened, and I am undeservedly blessed with sympathetic companions of high intelligence and knowledge. Therefore dear friends, if you have patience to spare and can suspend your faith in reason long enough to listen to my tale, I have decided to record all that has happened to me in my protracted but intermittent life, and what I know of those who have shared it with me, leaving nothing out except what I can in good faith no longer remember.
The reason behind the occult title of my journal will be explained to those curious enough to read it, but for those whose demands on their attentions do not permit that luxury, it refers to daimons and genii of the most uplifting sort, as well as the more infernal kind, and implies no blasphemy or irreligion, excepting toward certain characters whose hypocritical beliefs disqualify them from the protection of the Church and make them fair targets of ridicule.

Punch & Judy

Fellow thespian Lucy Tornado has proposed a Punch and Judy puppet show for The Show Must Go On lineup, an idea I applaud! While riffling through some drawings I made in 1984, I found an image inspired by that beaky, cruel swazzl'd-tongued rogue, at his moment of triumph when the hangman has been roundly beaten, singing,

They're out! they're out, I've done the trick,
Jack Ketch is dead - I'm free!
I do not care, now, if Old Nick
Himself should come for me.

Of course Old Nick makes his appearance and has the devil beaten out of him, too. I have seen Signor Bologna's performance in Covent Garden: I am partial to the old Italian marionette polchinello, but a London hand puppet show always drew a merry crowd. Charles Dickens wrote, "one secret source of pleasure very generally derived from this performance is the satisfaction the spectator feels in the circumstances that likenesses of men and women can be so knocked about without any pain or suffering".
Does that not remind you of your charmed existence within this Second Life?

I also found the following, done while I was inspired by Mr. Blake's ghost of a flea walking the boards of a Drury Lane theatre, and by Jean-François Millet's Sower.



As for Mr. Punch's lineage we have this note:

Pulcinella is a Neapolitan mask, he is dressed in white, often singing about love, hunger, money. His name was believed to come from a certain Puccio Aniello, but the actual etymology is ‘Pullicino’ or ‘Pullus Gallinaceus’, in Neapolitan dialect Pollicinella; he pretends to belong to the famous family Cetrulo (cucumber), son of Giancocozza Cetrulo (Watermelon cucumber) and Mrs. Papera (duck) Trentova, all matters of jokes in his songs.

Canaletto

One tires of plywood rapidly, and where yon doric theater stands neglected, Canaletto shall soothe my eyes; Handel my ears.

Third Life

Someone recently asked me if Doctor Fluxus was the Third Life avatar of my Second Life character. I replied that one could think of him as such, but I find it simpler to say he is a role I perform in a theatrical presentation. The Doctor is a fictional being, entirely invented sui generis of my imagination, like Athena bursting from the head of Zeus. He exists, and is a member of my household, for that is as I have written him, but you may not meet him excepting I don his costume and mask to perform. He does not exist in the same order of reality, or awareness of reality in which I exist and know to be true. For I was born, grew up, travelled, loved, and must one day cease to be, whereas he may only proceed upon the narrow rails I have laid down for him. Can a character in a novel have knowledge of the mind of its author? I propose Doctor Fluxus may have as little understanding of my mind as I have of the sublime mind of God. I also suppose he may yet surprise me (for as I have written him, his knowledge far exceeds my own); nevertheless he cannot accomplish anything without my volition and participation, for he is my creature. (He may not even be a he, as I am undecided upon that point and the clothes do not make the man.)
Philosophers may claim you and I and all the Brightness of the World to be no more than a figment in the imagination of God and the Devil. Nevertheless I know Yolande Evelyn Geoffrion is real, and Doctor Theophrastus Fluxus is fiction, and all the rest a miraculous play in which we grasp after what shreds of happiness happen to blow in our way.

Playing with Fire

Hotspur the Hussar, one of our newest members of The Show Must Go On, introduced an explosive act for the variety show. I fear I ungenerously joked about gentlemen playing with their cannon, which I sincerely regret, if I was overheard by the gentleman, for he discharged his duty admirably despite his lack of cannonballs, and my lack of manners. I must admit I have never seen a man projected to such a distance. I trust this picture will not spoil the climax of the brief performance for our patrons, but rather entice them into the theatre in New Babbage Saturday.

Ballet on the Boards

Humbly offered as inspiration and consolation for the beautiful and talented Enjah Mysterio, the ballerina on the beast, an evening with the Shanghai Ballet.

On with the Show!

As it must, the Show went on again yesterday in creative Gallery Tamrannoch, this time attended by such a mob that the performers could barely keep up! The audience in the picture above are only the early arrivals.
Doctor Fluxus is scheduled to perform next week, but he complains of a rheumy head and refuses to rise during the days. We shall see. Playing valet to a decidedly fussy magician is no romp in the woods! His props are scattered all over my land in Orion and I shall have to tidy it all up for him if he is to make his debut. But I continue to learn some useful conjurations while he is abed.

Caledonian Excavations

Napoleon's real victory in Egypt was having commissioned in February of 1802 the publication of the "Description of Egypt", illustrated by 400 copperplate engravers over a period of close to twenty years: "équivalent du plus riche musée du monde."
Such work is going on in Caledon Highlands under the archaelogical supervision of Vlad Bjornson, whose incendiary act and mercurial appearance belie a phlegmatic and gentle character. He suffered my many questions about stage managing Doctor Fluxus' performance and offered much helpful advice. It happens we both suffer from quaternion headaches, though his remedy, cold beet, was one I have not yet tried.

Mysteriorum Libri

Stealing a glimpse inside one of Doctor Fluxus' many books.