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From Utopia lableak theory… Watch this space people 

wow thank you! if it managed to immerse you the great immerser par excellence, then i am pleased as punch!

(i also don’t recognize the voice, for the record!)

Here we go! Ugh. What a rugpull. Turns out this whole From Utopia schtick was a giant SCAM to convince me that skeletons actually exist. What!? Does anyone believe in that old chestnut, let alone someone I thought was as advanced in science as Shem? I suppose he’ll be offering us a whiff of aether next, an start weighing in on the veracity of the moon? 

I will say though I completely CONDEMN the premise, the execution of the thing is flawless. It’s one of the handsomest processes I’ve seen in ages. And the SWAG! Give me that skeletal baptism CD over your “cloud based apps” anyday. What’s next? CryptoSkeleCurrency? The SkeleVerse? 

Thankfully Shelley gets back with it with a perfectly REASONABLE account of Jim. You know, Jim’s corner? A stillborn according to Shem. A sort of Santa Sangre in a jar type figure. Worth a chapel! Critical thinking. One of the most plausible theories in ages. Just goes to show how inconsistent someone can be! I think the phrase “Canadian boutique bacterium” will stick with me for a while though. What are you insinuating?! (I am also personally offended by how gorgeous this section looks. The repeating computer terminal gives our original Jim post a run for its money!)

Let’s check in with Romonde Contreras. OH. Seems like he’s getting into the spirit of “The Devils” Ken Russel restoration and all the hype surrounding it, providing us with some genuine NUNSPLOITATION. The After Nun? Better than the Overman, I guess. Leaks, creaks and freaks as the COFFINSHIP continues on its perilous pseudo-argonautica. Passing over the Ancient Amphibian Burial ground… Is this a coded message on oil stock prices? Is Romonde giving us financial advice?

Finally Shem brings us the latest in “Entertainment” with this thoroughly Burroughsian ad for the so-called VIRUS FILM. Apparently there’s nothing like it! I can attest to it actually, having tried to outdo several moments of utter immobility in the face of illness by trying and failing to grasp the plot of even the simplest movie. A virus film is not just the effect of the virus on existing films, but the very experience of being infected as FILM itself, the peak of the art. And why not? They project on us the same way the film projects on screen. I just wish doctors would clue in!

Fantastic presentation!

Nice!

the beginning of wisdom?

Astonishing... Blink and you'll miss it

Thenks very much!

Thank you for plunging in! Sense-optional 

Absolutely!!! Exact feeling I was after thank you

Thank you so much for sampling the mindsprawl!

I AM BECOME TORPOR, SLEEPER OF WORLDS

6 scenes of overload everything 

much 0bliged,  oh 0xy-One!

frostyphilia?

The Direopolis business improvement association has some funny ideas about how to improve tourism. Apparently a deconstruction project fantasy character tropes with a sole view to making them the medium of a mouldering personal abrasion is their big idea! Maybe a DJ and a food festival might have been a less alienating first step? I can recommend visitors sample the rare opportunity for unimaginable torment even if it is a highly unorthodox way of experiencing “local colour”.

Romonde C. does Folk Horror for the solstice! I think he seemed quite in his element this time. As a kind of idea-warping cartoon character, a luchador with main character energy a la Santo or Blue Demon, we appreciate RC’s mutability and are not at all surprised he has a genre passport of sorts. What’s especially puzzling is the brief hint of 4th wall breaking or autofiction: “I HAND THEM A NEW ISSUE TO THINK OVER…” Don’t tell me he is developing artistic pretensions!? But then again, the word “issue” could be defined at length and with much bodyhorror.

I have often enjoyed the peanut-vendor gag in old cinema. I think Chico in Duck Soup may be the apotheosis. The peanut vendor is a kind of timebound immortal with a chip on their shoulder. BUT WHAT SHEM DOES WITH THIS SACRED IS AS USUAL QUITE BLASPHEMOUS. Imagine deep frying the already horrific original by the great Len Lye? Shem is Shemless! But now we have a harsh noise xeroxed nightmare remix that is so incredibly blackened it can cook Spanish Peanuts right in front of you.

Thanks very much!!

Although I don’t remember the specifics, I did manage it by using the .beat here! The unlocked deck should be poke-aroundable or if it’s really obscure I can double check later exactly how i swung it…

https://mindape.itch.io/plot-feed

I love the idea of revivifying an obscure poem, and the choice here is really great. In no small part to the name of the author, Lillie Lilberne, which is  somehow deeply affecting for inexplicable reasons!

Enigmatic and wonderfully interwoven

Thank you I just saw your zine piece! I can’t wait to dig into your back catalogue. Greetings from the void zone !

We ALL had fun

This is an incredible piece of work. Really bursting at the seams with precious local lore, brilliant edu-gameplay, gorgeous photography, and local charm. There’s just so much to dig into here. Not to mention some genuinely ridiculous moments that made me burst out laughing. As a big fan of a few “local history” bloggers in my part of the world, I really enjoy digging into this stuff, but have never quite seen it done this way before. There’s something really fun and almost Borgesian about the “fake” guidebook that is basically substantively all actually there embedded within the game. 

Maybe the closest was way back when I reviewed the PC-88 game Mirrors for ChoiceBeat, I remember the very strange “European tour” edutainment that made up a bulk of the middle segment of the game, where you toured different cities and learned about local castles in heavy detail.  

I know walking around my city I have a few local favourite blogs and guidebooks I keep handy. But there is always the inevitable transition from breezy blog post to published book that happens with some of these initiatives. The books get “tighter”, more serious, authoritative, sterner. Anecdotes are cropped and only verified details make the cut. As a result a lot of the personality and gabby charm is lost. Whereas this format is genius because if anything it encourages you to exaggerate and have MORE fun with it.

I think it’s incredible that people exploring Archer ave will have this available in a handy HTML format that works gorgeously on mobile. This is something really special that can simultaneously serve as a reference book, a game to play, and the equivalent of taking a walking tour with the local kook! 

I could also see this being incredibly fun to make, traveling up and down, shooting photographs, remembering and digressing. A real delight and an inspiration for future psychographical deep dives within a CYOA frame!

“Have you seen the trailer for GRAND THEFT OF THE AUTOMATONS?”

“It’s going to make GRAND THEFT OF THE MARIONETTES look like a petty larceny.”

“I can’t believe the level of hype personally. I’m not normally one for contingent void attractions but holy hell, the nonrendering on those clear plastic walls!?”

“I am impressed by how utterly bleak the collage is! It is like Max Ernst’s Hundred Headless Woman but with like, 3 more heads missing.”

“I don’t care what anyone says. That cube is so hot.”

*

8 CURSES SECRET MENU

We all love 8 Curses to Bestow Upon Your Enemies (8C2BUYE) but did you know there is a secret menu that is not listed but that the universe HAS to do if you ask? Here’s what to say:

HYGIENER to combine the tastebuds from curse 5 with the toilet seat in curse 1

VANILLA BLESSING to combine the success from curse 4 with the happy life of curse 8

HIT SINGKLE to combine the putrid voice from curse 1 with the “again and again and again” from curse 8

FETISHISTIC INFIDELITY to combine the jealousy from curse 4 with the feet from curse 3

*

And what the hell is RC up to this month?

Tries out a transit system

Discovers a new dog breed

Does some “art in the park”

Attends a personal growth seminar on dreams

And more wholesome-adjacent hallucination

He really is living his best life out there! I am starting to wonder if Romonde is one of those SECERET MILLENNIALS?

*

I think the final page on the “extract” is perhaps a letter of provenance for a Hollywood collectible. A prop from a missing scene of the Science Fiction film “Supersize Me” that was removed in the final cut for fear of censors… It involves the R&D portion of the restaurant chain in question and the biohacking required to achieve certain ends promised on specific 2 Can Dine for 9.99 coupons. It is probably signed somewhere so I’d say it’s a safe bet for any collector of ALTERNATIVE NUTRIENT DEVICES and iconic corporate branding alike.

Sub-Zero vs Scorpion Coded

Purple: the Klub is the ultimate club

Blue: I also klub this tremendous hypnotic club

Green: !!! I love another such Dracula object!

Red: death to nondracula no clubs 

Well said. Maybe we ourselves are also just things and not Things.

I love the experiments and the publication of them as experiments and the eroticization of all of the above 

Thank you!! so glad you found your way in!

Marvelous, open-ended, exploratory, fruitful.

And the design just oozes an uncanny textbook credibility. Sleek!

Thank you for chewing!!! a lot of it is still obscure to me too, but the process of putting it together was satisfying 

Damn… YOU’RE RIGHT

Thank you!! Yes, and why not also keep one in your garage too, for good measure?

Say thanks a buncb wiz! Maybe the real collectibles were the friends we made along the way?

Excellent mechanism, wonderful atmosphere!

This is so awesome!

Cryptic and evocative! Gorgeously designed, clever, quietly threatening. I really enjoy how much blank space is left for the imagination to fill in. The best kind of puzzle, where the result at the end is even more of an enigma. Really a condensed wonder, and in no small part due to its restrained and fragmentary character. So the fact that there is "not much to it" is actually a major aspect that really contributes to the effect!

It reminded somehow of the film The Invention of Morel which also had this strange artefacts and oddball quietude in a beautiful island setting. Something special here!

Your "method" makes a lot of sense. I often think about how the old school cartoonists would work directly in storyboards or in the strip without any preconceived script. It allows you to really work in the medium and allow it to surprise you (and as a consequence, US!)

This thing is a masterpiece. Total inspiration generator. The attitude seeped into the guts like too much neon energy drink turned over in your backpack. It’s such a perfect blend of quiz, interactive fiction, CYOA, and a goddamn timecapsule of densely packed INFOTAINMENT for all the senses. It’s like an interactive multimedia lookbook that captures the fleeting essence of an entire timebound subculture. Infinity in a wipeout reel. Y2Kologists a century from now are going to be eating good spiralling endless theses on this beast.

Also an absolute pitch perfect alignment of medium, form, and content aka DECKER MAXXED OUT.