Riddle of the Nerve-Shattering Lasers / Memories of Psychodromes

A few days ago I had the honour of standing at a well-respected Walthamstow bus depot to make a presentation on doodlecraft. The audience comprised of some of London's and the South East's finest homeless gay philosophers who despise society. I had prepared some pamphlets on Duplo: ad-hoc productions photocopied at a nearby public facility using fake 50p pieces I had cut from a steel sheet I found in a bin.



When I handed the pamphlets around some members of the audience quipped that they couldn't read, but I assured them the magic lies in the pictures. The handouts featured drawings of Nod Gods, the Duplo Officer and various supplementary old 1990s doodles by other ex-Duploistas, such as Ed Cooper's 'Psychodrome' vehicle.

No sooner had I started to descant upon the topic of these Psychodromes, several laser dots appeared on my cardigan. The moment I became aware of them they disappeared. I didn't regain my flow, and stepped down from the podium feeling nervous and wheezy. Then, two women - hands-on-hips - started screaming at me, presenting me with the steel 50p pieces I had made. I found that I couldn't talk for some reason. I ran away with my dignity creased to an unknown extent. It made me wonder whether the Psychodromes made this happen somehow... 'Drome' comes from the Greek root 'race' or 'running course'... I hope to get additional info on this soon. Anybody who would aim a laser at another person ought to be raped.

Communality of Doodlecraft

This time of year people concern themselves with scariness, albeit a kind of scariness that is stripped of its upsetting qualities that characterise a typical fright. We see cartoon skeletons printed on chocolate bars, shop staff dressed as jaundiced warty witches, fake cob-webs and glowing spiders in windows, explosions in the air, children painted in death-gore bearing threats of fire and acid attacks. Likewise in cyberspace webpages are retemplated to reflect this seasonal mood. How do the emotionally ill-equipped deal with this strange festivity, rich as it is in conflicting concepts? It is a strange time of year: magical yet trashily superficial - traditional yet commercialised.

The Google logo today features a carved pumpkin! And oh, as this pagan holiday known as "summer's end" is in its flow, how carved pumpkins catch the eye and agitate old fancies! Assigning sombre fizzogs to spherical objects must surely be an essential quirk of humanity (more research needed here). The carved pumpkins, or Jack-O-Lanterns, bear close resemblance to Nod Gods. Historically, Jack-O-Lanterns were used to ward away evil spirits, but were also seen as tributes to the deceased. As I see trick-or-treaters carrying a glowing husk of a Nod God down the street, it reminds me that for Duplo it truly is "summer's end" for the time being. Here, like the Jaco-O-Lantern, I maintain the flame and give tribute to those whom I have known - long-since departed from association - whose contributions to the Duplo doodle skirmishes have been invaluable. I still possess some of their papers amongst my papers, slightly discoloured through age, but the imagery still fresh. Cringe ye not, estranged diligentsia! Nor cringe at the usage of the pronoun "ye".

As doodle-spawn persist in the mind's eye, there is a need to subjugate the pen-conjuration with yet further pen-conjuration. Duplo was formed with this in mind, and many school "general workbooks" were filled with depictions of battles between errant Nod Gods and Duplo forces. Five or six classmates with whom I regularly associated became conversant with Duplo and doodlecraft. However, some other classmates from different orbits began giving me their drawings seemingly inspired by Duplo and Nod Gods. What was particularly odd about this was that the most unexpected people would hand me their work (usually under clandestine conditions), and it was a privilege to behold. The seasonally relevant drawing below is by Adibones. It is worthwhile to note the theme of 'scaring' subordinate doodles into acquiescence.

I am loath to reveal the full names of these artists, as they may well be ashamed of their work (and no doubt bemused of my present undertakings) - but a selection are presented here as testament to the sympathetic (and antipathic) reactions to the concept of conflict 'within' inkmanship circa 1996.

This image of an anti-Duplo form was working under the 'Association of Dagenham Dave Against Duplo'. It looks very much like a Nod God, but crucially it is unique to its creator. Its creator was quite a scallywag who had only a glancing interest in doodling. I believe he was never tormented by uncontrollable or 'escaped' doodles as thoughtforms, as he seemed quietly headstrong, but this doodle reveals a classical misbehaving doodle poised to leap out the page and ravage all peace of mind!

Below is a drawing by another unexpected confidant depicting 'Chief Executive Chainsaw', a somewhat menacing figure most likely installed to destroy insolent doodleforms.

Duplo versus 'T'

Duplo, as we have established, is a means of controlling errant thoughtforms crafted by doodle. The battles for 'control' take place on the frontiers of imagination to be later committed to artwork - panoramic battlescenes on A4, tragi-comical diptychs in general workbooks, 3D cyberpunk Nod Gods as bitmap images on floppy disk, Blu-Tac dioramas or theatrical hand-play. Duplo can be seen as an aid to keep the Nod Gods malleable. If left unchecked the Nod Gods can occupy inconvenient places in the mind's eye. Confusingly, at one stage Duplo itself - with the bespectacled cod-authoritarian Duplo officer at its helm - seemed to become too powerful and a counter-force was required to restore equilibrium and provide enhanced drama. This counter-force was called 'T'. The 'T' force took the form of a loosely connected group of bandits with anti-Duplo sentiments. 'T' characters were frequently caricatures of real-life aggressors and muse-stiflers (bullies and teachers) inadequately equipped to fight against the imaginative weaponry of Duplo; the results were gory and semi-amusing. Recently, somebody asked me why I continue my involvement in Duplo (as one solitary supporter, now that my co-doodlers have long since forsaken me), and the answer is hard to explain - and my situation must be odd to them - but essentially the continued threat of aggressors and muse-smotherers makes innovative Duplo counter-offensives vital actions. I tell them that to abandon Duplo would be mind-suicide. Therefore, my thoughts remain with Duplo.

I may be unemployable and on the dole, yet I don't consider myself unemployed: I work every day as a mediator at the membrane between the thought-world and reality. I valiantly argue this point with the Job Centre staff bi-weekly. My micro-codices are stealthily deployed daily in public places: supermarkets, post-offices, bakeries, betting shops, charity shops, gyms, launderettes, promenades... It is a thankless task, but at least I'm making information freely available! Recipients of this handmade guerrilla art-info are swayed, either consciously or subconsciously, to appreciate possibility. Possibility: the fluid in which the muse swims.

Despite having a Masters degree, I find myself literally trawling the gutters for coloured bits of paper I can make collages from. Street confrontations abound. Crime beckons too. Information is like oxygen - without it, brain damage inevitably follows. Without information, our ideas are suffocated at birth and our words become structurally unsound. In the previous post, I hinted at how quality information (being the juiciest of academic journals and research papers) is kept out of reach from the "unemployed" by libraries, universities, private companies, etc. Obviously, information must be sought and fought for to stave off braindeath, so it becomes necessary to turn 'information voyeur' and contort oneself into legally dubious postures.

Some information can be found freely by looking in bins, but being noticed by certain people triggers wrath. Some particularly spiteful young clods assail me as "the wasteman", often throwing things at me and grunting unintelligible put-downs should our paths cross. My one singular mistake was to engage them once in polite conversation after they called me a "tramp" during a bin-dive, whereupon I explained my qualifications and the need for information. This angered them for reasons unbeknownst. These are the kind of malicious gargoyles that would rouse the eugenicist in even the most warm-hearted humanitarian. Their dads are abominable kunts as well. Thought of the Nod Gods strengthens me during this kind of altercation. At the age of 27, it seems utterly unbelievable that I should be regularly tussling with groups of tearaways in alleyways... But anyways... 'Twas ever thus, alas. To me, anybody who stands in the way of research is allied with 'T' forces and will therefore be met with Duplo and the Nod Gods in full force! By drawing a scene with the flailing aggressors represented in ink, a kind of voodoo is enacted. This is evident when those same aggressors are later encountered and are seen to behave sluggishly: fey and defeated. Is it really voodoo or just a coincidence? Thoughtforms are strange things indeed and may even engineer coincidence on my behalf. But more information is required... And that information is out of reach... At least, for now... (!)

A Digression Illustrating the Difficulties Faced in Self-Propelled Researches: The Agony

Kind reader, I must apologise for all the rambling. I have tried, where possible, to research to the utmost the mysteries of thoughtform and to present my findings here. Sadly, the books that contain that vital information are almost impossible to obtain - take, for instance, 'Hypnagogia: The Unique State of Consciousness Between Wakefulness and Sleep' by Mavromatis, which is too expensive for me to purchase, and no local library can obtain it for me. It is almost certain that important information about thoughtform is secreted within this particular book, but I have never seen it.

To recap, thoughtform (as I use the term here) is the phenomena whereby an imaginary form takes shape to become apparently visible in the physical world. The thoughtform can subsequently develop a life of its own. Insane as it may sound, it is actually a fairly common phenomena and everybody at some stage has experienced some kind of thoughtform. After all, what are dreams but hallucinations? For an imaginary dream-element to cross the boundary from sleep and wakefulness in a percipient doesn't seem so far fetched does it?

"If you acquire the art, and apply the necessary degree of intensity into your own concentration, you will be able to produce a vision of anybody and anything you have seen; and it is by this same means - although accidentally, and on account of the temporary upset of the nervous system (and therefore without concentration) - that 'ghosts' are 'seen'". (H. G. Woodley, 1947: p.51)

This above quote is valuable evidence for the ease at which thoughtforms may be 'conjured' into being. It's from a book called 'Certified' which I was lucky enough to chance upon at a car boot sale. I haggled with the stallholder until a deal was struck at 20p. He said "skanky bastard" as I walked off, which was hurtful and immediately dispelled any feelings of joy at having found an interesting book. Anyways... Regarding the Woodley quote, it should be added that three-dimensional visions may also be produced of things originally two-dimensional, such as the Nod Gods I have spoken about at length previously.

Now, I find Woodley's words very reassuring, and perhaps you - lovely reader - also find some comfort in them. I was simply incredibly lucky to find that H. G. Woodley book, but there are hundreds more juicy quotes out there in books that remain out of my grasp, and thousands more that I don't even know about. Perhaps you have some evidence? If so, please please share! Quotes nourish rambling. Quotes can transform wonky waffle into credible argument. And what does that make books? Well, books are cushions.

Since leaving university (and being crippled by a debt in all likelihood never to be repaid, alas) I have been finding it extraordinarily difficult to continue this research. Where once I had access to the British Library, JSTOR, Athens and its myriad digital library services, now I have no resources and must surrender myself to chance; that someday a key text will materialise either in a bin, a car boot sale or a charity shop. Society seems to assume that a graduate has no further interest in research beyond academia and all resources subsequently become inaccessible. No! When a non-student (i.e. unemployed person) applies for a library card at the British Library it is demanded that a letter is presented from an important person that proves one's scholarly intentions. How can I get one of these letters? I tried to write one myself but it didn't hold water. Frustrating. Any sympathetic publishers out there?

Today, in a culmination of increasingly desperate efforts to locate and view 'dream quotes', I went back to university and tried to "hack" my old university cyber-journal access portal info back into existence. Suspicions were roused and I was told that the computer terminal behind the staff desk was "out of bounds", so I fled. When this failed, I later tried in angst to liberate two carefully selected books (temporarily [believe me, my intentions are not to deprive others of learning]) from the university library via a lovingly executed defenestration. It was the most outrageous thing I've ever done (all for you!). This failed too of course - it ended in foulness - I was called the "lowest of the low" by one staff member (which was upsetting considering he has a job that I'd crawl naked through a barrel of broken glass for) and punishment will surely follow for me. In America I hear that library staff carry guns - they shoot first and ask questions later - but I attest that a bullet-shattered ribcage would be vastly preferable to the dirty looks I underwent. Daffodils can look scornful too. The reason I bombard you, tolerant reader, with all these seemingly indulgent, rant-infused descriptions of grief is twofold - firstly, you must sympathise that my search for 'fact' is fraught with hard (and unfair) obstacles, and secondly, I wish to encourage readers to advertise any juiciness here, because I am essentially useless at present: stupefied, emasculated, raggedy and twitchy. Now you see, tolerant reader, the predicament. Nod Gods are viable - this must be proven... with evidence...

Prithee say if you have any interestingness, helpfulness, non-helpfulness or 'dream quotes' (or anything for that matter) to dispense. Please bear with me and interestingness will emerge soon, I promise you.

Bibliography
Woodley, H. G. 1947 Certified

On the Formation of Duplo

We have reached the point where the meaning of Duplo must finally be explained. It is with some regret that I write this post without any accompanying first-hand accounts from Duplo associates. Distressingly, former Duplo associates have given me the cold cybershoulder. I am utterly unable to wrest a single word from even the most verbose of ex-Duploistas. To present to you, courteous reader, alternate viewpoints on the Nod Gods and the vivification of doodles would be most beneficial in setting the scene and providing aeration to my one-sided ramblings. I have sent a few messages to Duplo associates via the two main modern networking mechanisms that are Myspace and the muse-stifling Facebook, yet not a single answer has come forth. On Myspace, I can see that my friendly greetings and pleas for some scraps of remembrance are eventually marked as read by the recipient by checking the message status in my 'sent' folder. Alas, no responses are forthcoming. This indicates that something is gravely wrong. Maybe they are worried about the dangers of dwelling on the past (particularly on thoughtforms), or perhaps they reckon me so far removed from society that I am beneath contempt. True, I seem to be deeply unemployable, but surely they wouldn't be so judgemental as this? Or would they? Society does stubbornise and alter people after all, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, it is thought that after a period of seven years a human body becomes wholly regenerated into a different human body. Or maybe they have become brainwashed by Myspace's "what you should be listening to" psychological assaults. Maybe the ex-Duploistas have become embittered taxpayers who despise my dependance on the state for benefits to fund my doodling. I do have respectable qualifications, but believe me, no warehouse, factory, studio, gallery, office, stable, salon, workshop, boatyard or apothecary will employ me, nor am I culturally synchronised enough to graze on those exclusive pastures allotted for creative propagandists representing the congress of current cool (illusory). Enforced idleness and lack of ventilation is primarily to blame for the recrudescence of Nod God mischiefs in recent years. Nod Gods appear in my mind's eye and demand that their postures be drawn onto paper. Recently, for want of interestingness, I was exploring a disused sewer when my torchlight shone over some apparently collapsed brickwork, and upon the illuminated mound of debris sat a massive silent Nod God about the size of a domestic bean-bag. It was an hallucination of course; a trick of the light, but it fooled me for a good few minutes and resonated the muse hysterically. It turned out to be a garden waste bag full of decaying bits of pillow. But I digress...

It seems appropriate to begin by explaining what Duplo isn't. It is rather a misnomer to describe former schoolmates who fell under the Duplo umbrella as 'Duploistas'. Duplo was never and will never be a snottily exclusionist secret society or club (a la 'Bullingdon set'). In schools and colleges it is not uncommon for select groups of people to form illicit clubs amongst themselves - illicit in that the club would remain unrecognised by the overruling institution. There were 'illicit' clubs such as the 'Tazoids' (enthusiasts of the fight-inciting 'Tazo' picture discs that were found inside packs of Monster Munch and Doritos), 'Millennium Club' (Millennium Bug anticipators), 'The Porch' (a scholarly collective of 'The Fast Show' fans [neo-Pythonites] who prided themselves on being 'mad' but restricted themselves to parroting popular catchphrases, and who later attended each others' weddings) and 'The Biff' (an elusive group of quasi-situationists hell-bent on farting 'til kingdom come). The purpose of all these sorts of club is to generate fun and increase rapport between like-minded people. Rapport is created by emphasising the separateness of the club's ideals and interests from the wider order.

Duplo, however outwardly similar it may appear to these illicit clubs, was not 'real' and nor was it necessarily intended to generate fun. Duplo was intended to exist only within the futuristic otherworlds of thought, taking the form of a fictitious authoritarian organisation devised to keep the increasingly erratic Nod Gods in check. In that respect, Duplo was for everybody. It was a means of ideologically grouping certain types of pen-conjurations so that the individual 'motives' of each conjured-up character could be standardised and immediately recognised. Duplo stands for 'Diplomatic Ultimate ParLiamentary Organisation' - a deceptively officious title - and is also a nod [no pun intended] to the Duplo building blocks ("big Lego" as it is known) of the same name, where geometric freeform jazziness is supplanted with regulated 'low resolution' blockiness in which reality becomes more manageable. The head of Duplo was the fictitious 'Duplo officer' - a bespectacled cod-authoritarian bald bloke who often wore a uniform with an armband bearing the Duplo emblem. His presence immediately attracted the mocking attentions of the Nod Gods who often 'bit' his thighs with their toothless mouths. Whenever I, or anybody else, drew the Duplo officer (whose character and features appeared remarkably consistent whoever rendered him) there was immediately an irrepressible urge to include a Nod God performing some mischief upon him. A few other muse-sensitivised people started dabbling in Duplo by designing creatures, characters and weaponry exclusively for Duplo, in turn energising their engines of inspiration, and as these ideas were shared dimensionality was increased. Of course, many people at school, when they caught wind of Duplo took an immediate dislike to it, and these people were determinedly uncreative, therefore I can assume that Duplo has no attraction for those who have never required a means to divert those chaotic waves of thoughtform that dangerously lap upon the shores of reality.

The formation of Duplo and its purposes were things that passed me as rather unimportant at the time. This collectivisation of the Nod Gods under the supervision of the Duplo officer appeared simply as an opportunity to create more interesting themes and situations for drawings - that wonderful act of near-automatic drawing which served to make lessons and breaktimes so much more interesting. In hindsight, it can be seen that the institution of Duplo was an attempt to regain some artistic control over the Nod Gods, who up to that point had begun to inflict their own concepts from without - that is, the Nod Gods had seemingly evolved sentience without me being conscious of having any input. I have already described how the Gods escaped from the paper and began making their presence felt in the real world. Whenever a sheet of paper was placed within reach I would draw a scene involving Nod Gods. During classes surreptitious drawings were made in notebooks - and people I sat beside would often begin drawing the Nod Gods too, after all, the Nods were easy to draw and exuded a genuine curiousness that was contagious. The potency of the Nods to instil bemusement was impressive, and I was especially impressed when I saw this reflected in other peoples' brilliant drawings of Nod Gods and Nod-esques. Then I began thinking about the Nod Gods constantly and fantasised about them appearing in class and assaulting bullies, giving them a taste of their own medicine as it were. After sharing these kind of fantasies with a few close friends, the mental image of the Nod God crystallised and it became possible to summon an apparition of one if I was particularly bored. Knucks (Nods drawn onto the hand) offered theatre that could be presented to other people, a practice that served to extrude the world of inkmanship into reality and thus court hallucinatory states. By mid 1995 it was clear that for the millions of thoughts which flitter across the mind during the day there was a Nod God to represent each of them, and this was quite chaotic. I also started wondering whether this kind of intense visualisation could actually affect the real world, particularly after the destruction of the school's P.E. building (recounted in the previous post). Therefore, Duplo became a necessity.

Duplo isn't strictly about forcefully exterminating virulent doodles - it is rather about rewarding ingenuity, conducting research, analysis, brainstorming for ideas, making classifications, dignifying scant inkmanship with peripherals, providing some kind of meagre government for 'character-rich' doodles (those 'character-rich' doodles being on the cusp of fully fledged thoughtform). Having said that, many drawings have been made of Nod Gods being slaughtered by Duplo forces, but since pen-conjurations are infinite it is obvious that tragedy in the Nod world is unknown. Sometimes when Nods dog thought processes as severely as any irate teacher or bully, an impromptu doodle-slaying is called for: a drawing is made showing conflict between forces recognisable as Duplo (often involving the Duplo officer) against non-Duplo forces. Non-Duplo forces occasionally took the caricatured form of a real-life aggressor. However, to complicate things further, Duplo itself became unintentionally invested with a life-force of its own(!), and it began to outgrow itself and resemble a totalitarian nightmare with the Nod Gods being too oppressed. Here, it was necessary to help the non-Duplo/anti-Duplo forces by temporarily swapping sides and pushing Duplo back. These anti-Duplo forces became known as 'T'. Countless forms of Duplo officer were devised to replace any Duplo officer killed in such skirmishes with 'T' forces. Later, however, when Duplo stabilised, 'T' came to be used as a convenient 'bin' in which to stow all anti-Duplo (and anti-muse) sentiments. To be continued...