Walla Walla Orienteering Workshop

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

Everything Turns

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

Luminescence, A Rage

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

How to See Monkeys

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

In the Electric Outback

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

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

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

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

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

Stupid Things Happening in Nowhere, Again...

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

Workshop: Prepping for the Return of Elvis

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

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

Many Waters Dance Craze Alert

Word to the wise, there, as when these things break out, there's no telling how far it will go. Of course, the story is developing. Update: Anyone could have predicted it would get silly, and it has.




The situation in Walla Walla is completely out of control. It's a Red Alert, with so many songs, so many dances. All this does is lend energy to wildly unstable conditions which might scandalize sensitive types.




It's going to take a bit to sort out the plasmic and electo-magnetic shifts such as this fluttering might engender. Also, we've spoken at length about the performance-enhancing effects of red running shoes, which has nothing to do with the actual physics of light-resistance.

Who even knows what this is about?



Who knows what any of this is about?

Maps, Topography, Orienteering Workshop

This is the time of year to consider oblique strategies for navigating Uncharted Territories. The good thing about these expeditions is the bad thing: ambiguity can give rise to any number of emergent forms; shadows in the dark woods and such, all murky-dim. You know, dramatic seasonal stuff which is weirdly in line with the weather. This has been the very topic of our Facade Evolution and Divergent Strategies of Non-Local Whatevervthisis Committee discussions of late, and even with the coalescing of the all into one, there is significant decipherment difficulty. Thus, the adoption of glowing costumes and otherworldly navigational equipment. We seem to be losing the thread once again, but here is the point: Navigational Workshop to be held at Walla Walla Wickidity Works. The important thing to remember: one must take a step before one is navigating anything, and nothing really stays the same even if you think it is. So, get out your navigational mustachios and your blank maps and get going. Report back. If nobody does, you'll all be given up for dead, or worse. Over and out. Start by looking for anything. Or nothing. It doesn't matter because there is no real destination, only process.

Mercurial Starshine

The art of ambiguous dis-guise the latest in confusatory tech in the Walla Walla Wickidy Works Labs these days which has melded with a dumb aesthetic of late, which is so ridiculously shiny as to render the wearer invisible, but only at certain times. Convenient times, if you adopt proper techniques of locomotion and the appropriate mask. Whatever. It's sure to lend to the underlying brew of interstingness abubble in the many waters that sparkle, babbling to the rivers, to sea.

The Cutting Edge of Frivolity - Updated

According to the fashion report, which is never wrong, is reflective. Surfaces by day. Evening wear will be bio-luminescence this season. Think mixed prints, too, but don't overthink it. The point is glamour, so frivolity is in order. Trompe l'oeil chic which lends a certain camouflage of ambiguity is never out of style. There's an element of the time travel dance experiment that is the entire Walla Walla scene, really, which, luckily will go much like The Puce Paisley Plague and other such thought experimenting. So, yes, this goes by way of saying that caution should be used with adhesives, but everybody knows that. This is, of course, a metaphor for the difference between strategy and tactics. Which is just a metaphor for something else. Headgear that incorporates solar panels was our psychic forecast only weeks hence, so this looks to be in order.

Even the Participants

Wonder what's next at the clown carnival or the hog judging at the Walla Walla County Fair, which is this week. A few reminders: deep fried butter on a stick messes with face paint, the clown always dispatched at the end and sequins reduce drag, thereby increasing velocity.