Annals of Duplo

Duplo and the Third Dimension - Part One

2011-11-27T13:22:00.000-08:00

Returning to the Annals of Duplo narrative… Here I will begin descanting on the multimedia phase of Duplo. This period is of especial interest, as it demonstrates the prescience of Duplo's futurological contemplations.

Nowadays, nearly all computer games employ a 3D graphics engine to some extent. It was quite a different story in the early to mid-1990s when 2D was the dimension du jour. Of course, some notable games bucked the trend, but hardware capability was an issue (particularly on the Commodore Amiga) and there was also the sense that 3D negated the artistry and characterfulness achievable with 2D. There persisted a doomed faith in 2D graphic engines - spurred on by the prospect of full motion video incorporation - exampled by the production of short-lived platforms such as the Philips CD-i, the Amiga CD32 and the misnamed 3DO, all of which were geared toward 2D.

Around 1993, I had programmed a game utilising the Freescape 3D engine (via 3D Construction Kit and Amos) called Mount Viewpoint. Mount Viewpoint was a clumsy game set in a commune where each inhabitant had mislaid a possession, and the protagonist would brave various tightropes, planks over acid-filled swimming pools and murderous hovering cuboids to reunite people with their objects. On completion of the game, the player could climb the stairway to Mount Viewpoint itself, overlooking the entire commune, where the community could literally be 'looked down upon' by the player from a great height in an open-ended sense of lordship.

Mount Viewpoint was unrelated to Duplo - being more of a side-project. It was difficult to inject character into 3D games at this time (making Duplo's character-craft very resistant to a 3D makeover - Freescape did not have textured 3D objects), however, the superior sense of spacial realism and 'infinite control' within interactive 3D environments was very much in evidence, especially when one was virtually stood atop Mount Viewpoint! The superiority of 3D was sensed, along with its seemingly endless possibilities. Sadly, this original Mount Viewpoint is now lost (but possibly still owned on floppy by somebody). Although, there was a larger 'sequel' of a very different nature (now archived)...

Around 1994, there was a widely-felt desire to replicate the school environment in the form of a computer simulation. An ultra-realistic simulation of 'life' was suggested, indistinguishable from real life, where outrageous gestures, surreal actions and sundry vengeances could be enacted freely. With the help of my peers, I set about trying to recreate known locations using this same Freescape engine. The large sprawling secondary school and its teacherhood was still quite unfamiliar and complex, so instead I created a representation of the old primary school. Due to laziness with titling, this new game retained the Mount Viewpoint tag despite this being a completely different and somewhat controversial new project.

This new Mount Viewpoint sequel was offered to an Amiga public domain distributor by post, but the disk was returned with a letter explaining that the game was too slow (pushing the Amiga to its limits!) and "very sick" in theme. In the text-heavy game, all characters were based on real life characters (except the nameless balaclava-clad assassin).

The plot sees a fascist headmistress targeted by a hitman, hired by the teachers' union, after it is disclosed that the headmistress had shot an infant dead in an appallingly misjudged act of corporal punishment (which the player witnesses whilst hiding under the headmistress' office desk). Lacking any true moral framework, the player autistically ambles around with the vague intention of killing both the headmistress, and (nihilistically) random teachers too… With a laser gun.

Familiar locations were painstakingly virtualised. Many banal flourishes were featured, such as the player's reluctance to "step on the nice floral arrangements", and an incident where the player is compelled to stalk a dog walker whose dog fouls a footpath - carrying the turd and sneakily posting it back into the owner's letterbox for bonus points. The protagonist would also suffer tiredness and would fall asleep in sheds and dustbins after exertions. Touches such as these added some realism. Despite this reality-borrowed tedium, it was noted by Duploista Peter R- that all Mount Viewpoint's characters resemble "jelly babies" (lack of character was a real bugbear with the Amiga's 3D capabilities).

Copies of this game were circulated amongst a limited circle, and it was dreamt that we could somehow use a telephone line to all "meet up" virtually inside the 3D world (this dream prefigured the rise of multi-player internet gaming).

Following this game, 'Duplo disks' were developed distributed. These contained a gallery of several Duplo images and scans, prior to a menu offering a selection of choice playable commercial game demos ripped from magazine coverdisks. The images on these disks featured stills from Mount Viewpoint, with scanned 2D drawings overlaid onto the scenes.

In 1995, the use of the PC allowed for further graphical editing and subsequent conversion to the Amiga IFF image format using CrossDOS. Because there were more Amiga owners than PC owners, the Amiga 'Duplo disks' were still distributed as late as 1997, by this time featuring Duplo music as well as enhanced galleries and animations. At school, Duploistas would submit drawings to be scanned, and placed in virtual worlds before inauguration into Duplo disk galleries. On the walk to school every morning, new multimedia disk ideas were discussed.

As a footnote, it is unfortunate that when 'Mount Viewpoint - The Richard Whittington J.M.I. School Hullabaloo' was finally completed in 1999, its release was understated in the extreme, hence everybody had moved on technologically, mentally and physically. I was rather ashamed to have programmed it in the first place, deeply weird and disconcerting as it was (to illustrate further: in 1999 the Columbine killers in the U.S. were [mistakenly] reported to have designed Doom levels based on their Columbine school). To be continued...

'Sexual Offences' of the Nod Gods

2011-10-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

A couple of tuppenny ha'penny printing shops have flatly refused to print a run of pamphlets detailing doodlecraft. Both have insinuated that they find the content to be libellous, defamatory and of worrying taste. Yes, it is true that local hindrances to doodlecraft mechanics are identified, and several case studies in 'muse-deflation attempts' are plainly expounded in no uncertain terms. But surely the job of the printing shop is to print what is presented - 27 pages of hard-won wisdom - not to critique its content?! Denying custom, they thus stand in the way of information dissemination.

In the manuscript, one particularly misconstruable diatribe highlights the usage of the law to smear the efforts of any effusionist. A controversial argument: flypostering or depositing codices in public places for persons to discover may fall under the criminal act of "sending a menacing communication". Inversely, the act of simply glancing in (or out) windows, or into any other portals of realtime information, carries with it a sham-magnetic draw toward a 'sex offence' aesthetic. Non-institutional research, that is, to naturally insearch and exsearch, becomes an illicit process - a situation thoroughly explored in the manuscript. It appears that in the anechoic surroundings of a small-town bovine marshland, any enlightening emission be it aural, kinetic, glyphic, chemical or digital is assumed to gravitate ultimately onto the ViSOR (Violent and Sex Offender Register) annals. To treacly sensoria, anything difficult-to-understood is assumed to be malign. This is explained in the manuscript, but it all remains unprinted.

Sympathetic souls have advised that many printing shops elsewhere would print it. However, my intention is to have it printed locally as a matter of principle, as it concerns local matters. One nearby printing shop said: "it's just 'not on' to run down local businesses like the way you do in your text". Au contraire, small local businesses behave atrociously, and if a business was a person, that person would be almost criminally psychopathic (a concept earnestly explored in Joel Bakan's book 'The Corporation'). These morally askew actions should be advertised to all. Evidently this printing shop comprises part of the fabric of small-town business and this hive mind smothers all criticism to defend itself. From my extensive night research, local businesses routinely dispose of incredibly useful objects and papers on an industrial scale. They are not only defiling all matter itself, but also nullifying inventive possibilities. Very little recycling takes place - and recycling should only involve substance-retrieval decompositions once all actual use-value has been extinguished. The ignorance of these companies is beyond belief: economic snobbery and American Psycho-style hubris: thick-as-pigshit employees indoctrinated to view third-party reclamation attempts as acts of war or something equatable to sexual molestation, paedophilia, etc.

Alchemists have long sought to transmute base substances to gold. Gold merely represents a purchasing potential facilitating the acquisition of crafted objects, and any crafted object owes its existence to the faculties of inspiration. And so it is these faculties which are truly sought, isn't it?

In all the libraries of the world including the entire Internet, I estimate that less than 1% of everything that has ever happened is actually recorded. This is unfortunate for posterity.

Here is just one unrecorded episode serving the dual-purpose of highlighting monumental wastage... From mid-1995 to early 1996, a recording studio operated quasi-legitimately behind The United Reform Church in Roydon, Essex. The site was once a mushroom farm (requiring darkness), but at this time, the single-storey complex served as a means for recording artists to perpetuate their work. Whether the adjacent church took umbrage at the concept of liveliness happening near its graveyard, I don't know, but the studio was mysteriously demolished with all the expensive electronic equipment still inside. Mixing desks, microphones, giant speakers, specialised computers, effects modules and all manner of apparatus lay amidst the wreckage. Despite the "Keep Out" signs, some days after the bulldozing I climbed over the rubble to salvage various devices. Oddly, the electricity remained live, with the quondam mains sockets sparking and buzzing, signposted with "danger" signs. Some gypsies were also engaged in salvaging the countless electronic gadgets from under the rubble. Whether they were involved with the studio, or were just taking the opportunity to rescue items of value remains unknown. The site was bulldozed by Blaze Construction Ltd. (groundwork specialists) on behalf of CALA Homes, who later built a housing development over the site, now called Little Brook Road (originally intended to be called Roydon Park Grange). There was a distinct sense of sadness that this recording facility was felled mid-stride, with the richnesses of its innards still humming with potential. Post-scrounge, I was walking toward the cemetery's gravel car park with a battered tape device (inscribed as an 'Echo Unit') and a handful of loose sockets, when a fat lady told me to "f*ck off". ("F*ck" is an onomatopoeically consciousness-penetrating word meaning "sex" - again, a sex offence is implied). Not the sort of language you'd expect in Roydon village, especially in such close proximity to a church. To this day, objects loaded with potential are smugly junked in the abstract name of "business" and "capitalism". Why must there be Deflationistas? CALA Homes' bulldozers. These muse-rubbishing 'anti-inspirationers'? These forces obstructing all creativity push any non-conforming crafted matter into an abyss of unrecorded, undocumented, unpublished non-remembrance.

If the laws of physics permitted the extraction of all mental and physical energies expended in creating any given manmade object, how many joules could be saved? How much inspiration could be wrung out? Free energy would be possible. Of course, thoughts like this are heretical given my science background, yet long-term unemployment does prod one into metaphysics.

Damn those vampire universities for conning prospective students into keeping over-fed tutors in pay!! Universities are fraudulent institutions, providing no employment prospects. Knowledge is to be found everywhere for free, yet even in junked knowledge's final journeys inside the Biffa trucks to eternal landfill, their passages are jealously guarded by outrageous bastards! When binned by businesses, objects are deliberately soiled to make them unpleasant to reclaim. Coffee shops may pour their muck over neighbouring businesses' discards (a pact, maybe?). Metalworks smear grease on discarded metals. Papers are ripped up. Texts made unreadable. Bleach sodden wood. Toilet waste on dream plastics. A litany of criminally not-officially-criminal acts could be relayed. As I write this on October 31st - 'trick-or-treat' night - it seems unjust that organised begging (trick-or-treating) is permissible, yet regularly looking in industrial waste containers is greeted with abuse and consternation.

These woes stemming from the printing shop negativities are a deviation from the Annals of Duplo narrative, but this all sets the context for the as-yet-unexamined multimedia phase of Duplo, beginning in the mid-1990s...

Muse Defence Artefacts

2010-12-21T15:33:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, in New York, a business student named Trina Thompson filed a lawsuit against her college three months after graduating (with a Batchelor's degree), due to her being unable to find work. The outcome is currently pending, but it should be interesting. In comparison, I have been persistently shunned by employers for five years, and I have a Distinguished Master's! It seems outrageous that these qualifications should lead to such breathtaking unemployability. I'm not American, therefore I'm not interested in suing anybody, rather, I'm keen to identify the demobilising agencies at large in this corrupt society. Absurdly, it even appears increasingly rational to question whether occult machinations might be at work. Companies are essentially cults run by exploitative thugs indoctrinating recruits with a bovine aversion to difference of thought. There are certainly many stupefying viral forces disseminating themselves within superficially harmless new figures of speech, but such forces resist pinning down as they are antithetical to study.

Royalties from my published works have dried up this year. The last lecture of October 2009, given at a now-defunct research centre, seems like an aeon ago. Interest in thoughtform seems to have waned this year. (These areas of study are not even remotely related to my qualifications). This straitening suction has necessitated daily explorations to harvest the dream-weaponry of the muse. Apparatus is also sought - research must be continued. Parallel to this, food is of near-secondary importance.

Supermarket trucks transport discarded, past-the-sell-by-date food directly to disposal facilities. It's becoming difficult to intercept this loading of perfectly edible food. The scandalous wasted food mountains that Freeganism's popularity exposed has seen supermarkets conceal their discards from starving eyes. Nevertheless, food seems to be of such essentiality to the constitution that one finds oneself automaton-like obtaining it by hook or by crook, in a state of near-somnabulism. Sometimes I find myself holding, say, a sweetcorn or a bag of potatoes, not knowing whether this was shoplifted or placed in my hand by some unseen entity.

Elsewhere, in the search for dream-weaponry and vital apparatuses, various hurdles make their procurement appear daunting. These objects are always to be found in waste containers at industrial estates, commercial centres, etc. In contrast to the aforementioned somnambulistic state, finding and implementing these articles beneficially requires intense concentration, increased awareness and inventive spontaneity. Low-level hurdles such as any ingrained inhibitions are instantly obliterated when it is borne in mind that the contents of these containers are only hours from becoming permanent dark archaeology: daring resurrections of usage are the heroics of some future culture (probably). Next are the physical hurdles: a collection of keys must be patiently accumulated to unlock the many varieties of lockable waste container. Prodding implements are necessary to avoid traps, unsanitary miscellany and sharpnesses. Aside from these, all objects contain inspirations hidden interiorly beneath the fashioning of their outward aspect. Certain types of people express violent disgust at this statement of fact, presumably because of its insignificance to economic matters. They may even "psychically" provide additional hurdles with poison thought-seeds in the form of callous put-downs.

A good example of this occurred earlier today during my circuitous evening dustbin investigation. Routinely, I begin with an arduous excursion to Thorley where a satellite commercial complex offers a meagre constellation of sustenances, not always fruitful, but largely untrodden by fellow scavengers. One reliable source of materials adjoins the rear of a troublesome hairdressers. The hairdressers at Thorley - in its current 'Jo Spencer' incarnation - seems to be staffed by cruel goons, neanderthal chimneys and conflicted bruisers raging on their own homosexual-repression (perhaps). They appear to behave dreadfully unprofessionally, often swearing in front of young children from the nursery opposite, and they spit everywhere too. Territorial like brutes. Too ignorant to cut hair, surely?! Nowadays I often purposefully block my ears with bungs. Once, as I examined some forsaken mementoes from the charity shop's bin nextdoor, one of the hairdressers marched out and decided to throw a bag of hair onto my hands. He arrogantly declared, "this is all mine - I own all these shops". His assertion was comical in both its obvious untruthfulness and its deeply insecure pettiness. I later uncovered the depth of this bullying behaviour and grotesque tyranny surrounding the Jo Spencer hairdressers after finding District Council papers detailing their illegal installation of exterior shutters over their shop-front. The proprietor(s) had brazenly ignored planning regulations and failed to respond to letters from the council. Obviously they consider themselves all-powerful! Returning to the narrative, earlier today one uncouth amateur beautician emerged from the Jo Spencer backdoor to shout "skank", before he hurried back inside. Such cowardly broadcasts of hostility conduce to irritate the nerves, but thankfully there are ways to prevent the ingress of demotivating sentiments.

In the image above can be seen a hair-zither, constructed with hair from the Jo Spencer bins. I employ it to encourage their would-be-voluptuous male employees to "come out the closet"; refining those unconvincing brutes through occult channels. Short mantras are plucked out on the strands of hair, once touched as it was by those hairdressers of prickly disposition, with this objective strongly in mind. The end result discourages any ill-met interventions by transforming these 'bingo hall Hitlers' into humane, cultivated thinkers. A salvaged mechanical counter, bolted atop, is clicked with each 'session' to imbue each performance with manifest significance and potency (it stands at 460 as of today). Interestingly, one of the female employees was heard on a few occasions directly referring to me as "Potter", presumably a reference to 'Harry Potter' the wizard (which was odd) - could she have become aware of the hair-zither transmissions and sensed wizardry afoot? The fictitious wizard would seem an apt point of reference given that Francis Barrett, Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare et al are so little-known today. Tangentially, the resonator part of the hair-zither is a metallic pot, which forms the bulk of the instrument. Maybe the effect of this device is one of self-deception, but either way, it can be recommended principally on its "value-for-money": the surprisingly reassuring effects it can produce without any pecuniary expenditure whatsoever. Bovine doubters may deign to even consider the use of such apparatus, but surely its use can't be more futile than cutting hair?

Doodles Under the Mattress

2010-06-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

Please excuse the digressive nature of the previous few postings here, gentle reader. The purpose of this endeavour is being evaded, I know. The progressions of Duplo are troublesome to recollect chronologically, not least because 'progress' was in a fact a continual shifting of boundaries, frequently obliterated by sudden interventions from furious teachers and confrontational arseholes. This task is made more formidable without input from my contemporaries of old, with whom Duplo was experimentalised. Following some email exchanges, those one-time Duplo doodle-dilettantes are now keen to give the impression that they have 'moved on' and progressed from boyhood phantasmagoria into virile manhood, a pretence that surely smacks of a self-delusion taller than any honest doodle-hallucination ('doodlucination')? Whilst it is true that some of the lucky ones boast of having escaped this confessedly nightmarish parochial locale where we once communed, it is worth contemplating the retention of the mind: lived experience can never be truly expunged, especially those of formative years. Attempts to forget the past are futile. Friends of yore claim to have escaped, but whereto? Into routine wage-slavery? Perhaps the repetitious nature of their employment prevents them from accessing the still reservoirs of memory. I, meanwhile, remain in suspension. Nobody has told me what to do - I have been on a gap year since 1999: living with antiquated robots within bazooka-range of both old schools. Without the distraction of daily routine, one is compelled to bathe in the memory reservoir, oftentimes against one's will... Positively dunked! The past seems recent in this suspension. In the stillness of this memory reservoir, past events and bygone concepts can be summoned effortlessly; concepts can be scrutinised and developed. Furthermore, in my dreams I find myself back at secondary school - exploring the classrooms, enjoying the company of bygone characters, drawing in dream-notebooks, making dream-dictaphone recordings, summoning Nods, encountering 'issues' and prodding the detailed fabric of the dream construct with outrageous gestures. Revelations and new perspectives are to be found here. Sleep truly is the Land of Nod!

Every utility we take for granted is the product of idleness and boredom. The experimental philosophers of the Enlightenment era were driven into inventive thoughtfulness thanks to idleness. All scientific, artistic and technological activity therefore owes its debt to what lacklustre dullards call "having too much time on your hands". Even greater enlightenments are made possible through the conjoining of disparate idlers. Bathing in the memory pools is an ideal situation. New ideas can be apprehended clearly as they approach through the stillness. I am close to uncovering the essence of doodlecraft from within a prepossessing stagnation. Yet idleness and its ensuing thoughtfulness is absolutely despised in this day and age, especially the lonesome unconjoined variety. Accusations of "not pulling thy weight" are hurled from all kinds of bellowing shitheads. I protest that nowhere will employ me - five years' worth of rebuttal have firmly established this! Ex-Duploistas from school (at least, those I have been able to contact) are now apparently disgusted at my (imposed) state of suspended animation and accuse me of attaching undue significance to decade-old 'throw-away' doodles. Oh fie! Every doodle is significant! In fact, it is due to doodles supposedly revealing so much about subconscious thought that charges them with the potential to embarrass. Nauseating vanities, strained posturings, murderous urges, Achilles' heels, personal conflicts, sexual peccadilloes, ciphers for fantastical penis-worship, mentalities regrettable in hindsight - encoded within doodles? Personally I am not generally convinced by Freudian analytical shenanigans, despite my sketching of such scenes as this:

Whilst the above may appear perverse, it is in fact merely a fortunate Nod God, clad in a 'Shlop Mobility', helping his less fortunate brethren. It illustrates the Shlop Mobility's carrier extension rod, which Nod Gods can grab with their strong gums, enabling them to be transported or flung, as shown, onto higher surfaces. In this case a pyramid of Nod Gods has been formed by Nods thrown atop each other, allowing them to peer over a tall fence.

Here is a bit of Duplo propaganda with the Duplo Officer. It boasts a rare, unnecessary and cringing appearance of somebody from the computer game Streetfighter II:

Doodles may reveal embarrassing influences: silly nihilism, junglist pomp, techno-fetishism and the 'The Prodigy'/'Nitzer Ebb'-style man+machine+hate aesthetic prevalent in the late 1990s. However, Duplo doodling wasn't mere unconscious doodling, it was an exercise in doodlecraft (admittedly prone to backfiring). A distinction must be drawn between the two. Doodlecraft is a conscious psychological effort to overcome any kind of external influence. It is an expression of the will: towards dictatorial doodling. Styles and trends may be drawn upon, but the doodlecraft-operator must yield foremost to an overarching, uniquely personal and innovative 'style'. Any spillages from the subconscious are distorted or thwarted by these efforts to innovate. Doodling, on the other hand, is akin to the unregulated semi-conscious scribbles of automatic writing - this may indeed warrant interpretative psychology. It is this unguarded doodling that precipitates unexpectedly characterful doodleforms to emerge (as did the Nod and Pom Gods), requiring acts of wilful doodlecraft (Duplo) to prevent these accidental conjurations attaining a state approaching independent intelligence. Continual innovations, consciously and unconsciously developed, are happening on both sides, with Duplo Officer robots and clones being put into action, and angry-eyed Pom Nods firing Sprongiformic Bozo in retaliation. All this may sound weird - and it is.

The above may seem incomprehensible, so allow me to elucidate. Doodles are generally treated with varying affection or animosity according to the mood of the doodler. Sometimes doodles appear naked and are 'laboured upon': given appendages, upgrades, vehicles or weaponry. On other occasions doodles exude smugness, requiring 'subduing': being shattered or bludgeoned by superior doodles allied more closely to the intention of the doodler. To understand this conflict, the contentious issues surrounding the nature of 'pen-conjuration' - when doodleforms seem to wield an influence of their own - must be acknowledged.

Naysayers may recollect that curious faculty peculiar to youth whereby any old nonsense fished from the stream of consciousness gets 'snagged' and held in the memory. Secondarily, it is aired/voiced abroad repeatedly, embellished in the process. At this emission stage it is as if a fledgling mystic, or embryonic media producer, is testing for areas of idea-resonance amongst his fellows, either seeking to establish bonds, to build rapport, or merely gauging the infectiousness of various not-yet-memes. As in acoustics, the 'tone' of the repeated idea (that is, its content) and its frequency of repetition are varied until some resonance is achieved. One notable instance of this was the emergence of the nonsensical phrase "Qwengy Tree", always muttered between a select few people whenever paths cross. In fact, it came to the point where any failure to exchange Qwengy Trees upon meeting would have been devastating. I was privy to the Qwengy Tree, and its utterance took on near-mystical import. It was originated by a certain Lee M. as a random 'reminisci-meme' evoking Robert L.'s mispronunciation of the number twenty-three whilst at primary school. I once read somewhere that all religions of the world may have started as random in-jokes that resonated, gradually accruing seriousness as time drew on.

Duplo, as I have explained, is a fictitious organisation, operating within inkmanship, designed to subdue too-virulent ideas and doodleforms. It entails the depiction of the offending doodleform being scolded or destroyed in a dramatic manner. So, there is a constant struggle: control versus non-control.

In consequence of its far-reaching demesne, Duplo occasioned the sense of an alternate reality. This became an interesting place to escape to during great stresses. Stumpy maths teacher Mr. Saunders once threw a manic eppy at me because I was doodling whilst he was talking. It is worth noting that after his ridiculous outburst, I was much less able to concentrate on anything he said. Immediately after that lesson, I embarked on a hardcore doodling spree for the remainder of the day, irrespective of the threat of other teachers throwing similar fits.

In a previous post I alluded to an incident where I found myself teleported out of harm's way either by a Nod God or by an unconscious retreat into the Duplo world. Memory of the incident is vague, but I recall a particularly persistent arsehole and his goons approaching me in the playground with a butterfly knife. His intention, I believe, was to stab me. A blast of air (from a Nod God?) knocked the knife out of his hands as he tried to unfold it. I must have stood there looking gormless, not apprehending the immediate danger. The next thing I knew was that I was standing in the computer lab, surrounded by diminishing orbs. Before I could take stock of my new surroundings, the bell rang, signalling the end of breaktime when it had seemed to have only just started. I don't know what happened.

Riddle of the Nerve-Shattering Lasers / Memories of Psychodromes

2009-12-19T07:21:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-31T15:26:00.000-07:00

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'

2009-08-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

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...

Silence of those touched by Nod Gods

2008-12-06T05:13:00.000-08:00

I fear that, so far, these accounts have limited interest. Even the publisher that formerly expressed interest and encouraged me to expand upon Nod Gods has forsaken me, allegedly due to "financial uncertainty" (although I suspect he may have also tired of my rambling - which hasn't even touched upon the meaning of 'Duplo' yet! And there is still so much background info to 'shit out' so to speak). I have approached former Duplo associates to recount their own experiences of 'thought-form' first-hand but they have been blankly non-forthcoming. I had hoped their contributions might offer some respite or ventilation for the handful of readers reading this. But their silence speaks volumes. They surely know what Nod Gods are capable of. In the meantime, I must try hard to remember the facts...

At Home with the Nod Gods (and Knuck Gods)

2008-10-28T17:13:00.000-07:00

"Don't dwell on the past," people keep saying, "the past is a different country". Yes, yes, but the task here is to explore how an innocuous doodle should become imbued with its own life, sustaining itself and multiplying infinitely: bursting out from a billion twitchy cocoons until an entire new species petitions its progenitor(s) for "upgrades". To understand why this unusual situation should come about, the detritus of the past must be picked over, and its earthworks surveyed. Someone once explained to me that the human body's cellular matter regenerates itself about every seven years, therefore an individual in the year 1995 isn't the same person as that individual in 2008. But this only relates to the physical. Some things never change. It is strange that I should be so infatuated with the Nod God creatures now as I was throughout the 1990s, if not more so.

As I mentioned in the last posting here, giving Nod Gods cameos in schoolwork was a favourite diversion of mine. I always considered the concept of homework to be very discordant: home is a place of leisure, relaxation and creation, not of grindingly depressing written work unsanctioned by my own fancies. Being instructed to take schoolbooks into one's own bedroom is offensive. When I did eventually perchance to bring the spitball-flecked schoolbooks over the threshold, I was careful to place tissues onto the desk surface on which they lay, lest the contaminants of a hate-ridden school-malaise infect my room so pregnant with inspiration and joy. It was therefore natural to bring these vast reserves of life-force into action to dissipate the grinding tedium and its accompanying memories of torment. Nod Gods acted as fine footmen for this cause, and once stationed within a piece of work, never became frozen in trepidation, but continued to radiate forth their character. Even when the Nod Gods were slaughtered for quasi-comedic effect, they lent such a heavy interestingness quotient to the work that the exercise book often felt physically heavier as a result!

In this assignment for 'English' dated 25th January 1994, I managed to give the Nod Gods a very prominent role, and even included a picture of the Nods Gods!

Welcome to my house. This house has been infested with bad Nod Gods, flesh colour, sweaty creatures with drooping eyes.
The door is locked so you venture into the back garden. The garden is scattered with smashed up electronic circuitboards. Luckily the back door is open - you enter the kitchen.
In the kitchen you get a nice view of the garden. It has a warm atmosphere. Then, suddenly you see a gigantic, sweaty, sphere shaped Nod God, you open one of the many drawers and take out the longest, most sharpest knife and rip its intestines out. You scratch its forehead as hard as you can and slice it. You put it in the oven and turn the heat on and you cant bear to watch as intestinal fluid run outs the oven as it bursts with green gunge, anyway, enough of that. There is a short-cut to the living room so you take it.
The living room is a small and cosy place with the T.V. in the middle. You proceed up the stairs. On your left is a locked closed door, just to think there might be a Nod God in there makes your bones shiver. You turn right.
Beside you now is the toilet from which you hear a rapid 'bud' sound at various intervals. You kick the door down, unfortunately it was already open. In the bath is a very sweaty Nod God enjoying himself, singing to himself. You grab a bottle of bubble-bath and pour it in his eyes. You rush out, lock the door and go into a bedroom and relax yourself by playing on the computer. But you noticed the Y-function RS232 resolution cable isn't in place and you get an electric shock and die. A Nod God devours you for its lunchtime snack.
Now you will be able to find your way around my house. Hopefully no Nod Gods should be there.

This piece of work was even given special merit points by the teacher, Mrs. D----, giving me hope for the possibility of introducing them into other subjects. At the same time, the Nod Gods seemed to be approaching me as an 'agent' to get them roles in various works. I found that in certain subjects it was very very difficult to get them parts. 'History' was difficult for the Nods. One would expect it troublesome to introduce a Nod God into any work for 'Religious Education' lessons, but bizarrely, it proved surprisingly accommodating at times, mainly when title pages were needed, but the Nods took centre stage on a depiction of 'limbo': an afterlife for ambiguous souls.

Getting the Nod Gods into school homework was clearly easier than I had anticipated. The next logical step was to introduce the Nod Gods into schoolwork during school hours. If this was possible, the whole drab atmosphere of intolerance and scorn that dogged me could be transformed. My friend Matt C. (who shared my affection for the Nod Gods and the inventiveness they demanded) developed a genius solution that enabled the spirit of the Nods to be omnipresent during hours of life-sapping tedium - a mind-blowingly simple transformation of the hand. A Nod God face was drawn on the hand, resulting in what became known as a 'Knuck God', or 'Knuck' for short. It was instantly animated, and possessed such warmth of character that many people, even those oftentimes hostile, experimented with these transformations of the hand, referring to them as "knuck knucks". Now I would only have to glance at the Knuck God on my befisted hand to restore excitement during tedious lessons and unpleasant moments.
Despite the power of the Knucks, there was still one subject that couldn't accommodate interestingness. One subject that simply would never ever tolerate the Nod Gods was 'Physical Education' or 'Games' for the obvious reason that these lessons dwelt firmly on hard, cold physical reality and no artefacts were to be created. The dreamworlds of the beyond populated with the wraith-like muses awaiting communion were strictly out of bounds in 'P.E.'. The competitiveness, breathless wheezing, the energy depletion, the humiliation, the naked showers, the underarm deodorant machismo, the thunderous instruction of teachers more animal than human - all these factors systematically drop-kicked the muses into oblivion. Wherever the mob mentality festers, I am ostracised. To be ostracised without even being allowed to vent gubbins of the muse is simply torture. Furthermore, why should the affairs of the body be so bloody public? 'P.E.' may claim to "strengthen", but I considered it to be profoundly weakening. In my eyes 'P.E.' was (and is) a destructive subject - firstly it imparts inferiority complexes whereby the bully-types are unfailingly glorified, secondly it exhausts the body and mind leaving it uncreative for some time thereafter, thirdly it celebrates and revels in unnecessarily induced panic, and lastly, its exertions destroy fat cells, speeding up the regeneration of cellular matter in the body, as I mentioned earlier - thereby conspiring with the destructive aspect of time: imposing a different and more mature, thus life-weary, person upon oneself. The fact that 'P.E.' offered no creative leeway at all for the artifactual inclusion of Nod Gods was truly nightmarish. Knucks couldn't save me - I yearned for pen and paper. During the 'cross country' excursions we ran through the nearby suburbs and parklands, where I frequently found myself almost delirious with exhaustion, subsequently becoming the butt of ridicule for my peers and teachers alike, but the thoughts and echoes of the Nod Gods sustained me during these painful episodes. But the showers we were forced to take afterwards were traumatic enough to render me inert for the rest of the day.

I don't remember too much about these times, memory seems to fail under times of strain, but I recall an urgent need for something to be done about 'P.E.' and its all too real evils. For all I knew, 'P.E.' lessons were responsible for the tides cruelty in our year. An eternal sicknote was required for me to avoid 'P.E.' and 'Games' lessons. Try as I might to demonstrate ailments to my parents, sicknotes were never forthcoming, and nor was I confident of my ability to forge my parents' handwriting. Well, the only other option - and one that may also help other people discover their muse - was to utterly destroy the offices and changing rooms of this hope-forsaken faculty. 'P.E.' should be made to feel the destructiveness that it preached. The Nod Gods came to the rescue on Sunday 9th April 1995 when the Pavilion changing rooms were blown-up, as can be seen in this article from the local paper I cut out:
The Nods must've heard my thoughts, or perhaps even taken control of my body like a council of puppeteers and made me enact this misdeed without my knowledge or consent. Perhaps somebody else did it, and it merely coincided with my intense anti-P.E. thoughts. Whatever, when I saw what had happened, I felt very worried about many things. How did it happen? This was before the use of CCTV cameras became widespread, so no footage could be obtained (I felt that physical manifestations of Nod Gods and Nod Buds - spherical sweaty beings and their humanesque compatriots - were to blame here). Nods are known to temporarily hover by forcing vast reserves methane (thanks to a diet of grassy vegetation) out tiny orifices from their undersides, perhaps this is the 'flammable vapour' referred to in the newspaper report. How would the school react?

For awhile after this building was destroyed, P.E. and Games lessons were relocated to the warm indoors which was a little more comforting. Two years later a new, two-storey cricket pavilion was built on the same spot as the old one, with huge changing rooms and even more horrific communal showers in a gloomy central narrow corridor. Nothing had truly changed... Except the sense that Nod Gods were stepping further toward reality!

Getting to Know the Nod Gods

2008-10-17T05:09:00.000-07:00

These creatures known as Nod Gods began occupancy of my vision with my wholehearted consent. During the difficult time acclimatising to a harsh new school environment, I actively sought their presence and attempted - with much tentativeness at first - to inaugurate them into any schoolwork in which it would be practicable to carry off. Bringing Nod Gods into academic work was exhilarating; suddenly a depressingly dull assignment could be transformed into something amazing. The most exciting part was the devising of ways to legitimately introduce the Nod Gods into assignments without any overt incongruousness thus evading any reprobation from the teachers marking the work. Some subjects could be more potentially accommodating of Nod Gods than others. Work in 'Geography' and 'History' for example, would prove extremely averse to Nod God inclusion. The first subject where I chanced an appearance of the Nod Gods was in 'English'; the subject itself fosters creativity and the teacher, Mrs. D----, happened to be suitably enlightened. We were studying the famous Twelve Labours of Hercules, and our homework was to imagine oneself as Hercules writing a letter to Eurystheus describing in first person the enactment of one of the twelve labours. Labour number six involved "getting rid of the Symphalian birds" (and these birds bore metal feathers), so slipping two Nod Gods amongst the birds wouldn't be too discordant, would it? It is near impossible to read a Nod God's emotions to thereby ascertain whether it means well or ill well. Their hard-to-read mysteriousness (coupled with their minimalist features) can work in their favour when it comes to their 'cameos' in academic work, since they are not too strident to trigger any strong reaction. In this assignment, I considered these ambiguous, expendable Nods to be a sinister evil. I wrote:

"(...) Flying much lower than the birds were two heavy looking fleshy things about the size of big pigs. Nod Gods, they were. They were round like a sphere and shiny with sweat. They floated and wobbled through thin air, no support whatsoever. I slashed them with my sword and their guts were dark green. I then approached the birds with my sword drawn."

This tiny digression may not appear much, but it made me really nervous. Would the teacher notice anything unsound? Nod Gods, you may recall, were the result of 'slacking', i.e. doodling and extra-curricular activity. To bring them into a piece of actual academic work seemed very audacious, therefore to do it with earnestness, gravity and believability was of the utmost importance. Thankfully, the work was marked "v. good" by Mrs. D---- and this was an encouraging sign: it indicated that Nod Gods could be introduced literarily without any sense of wrongdoing. They appeared to be viable in an academic context! Also, there were no illustrations in this assignment, so the creative energies were wholly concentrated into the act of description - obviously demanding more dimensionality.

Meanwhile, in my spare time I started pondering more about the anatomy of the Nod Gods. Why were their guts dark green? Well, let's employ reasoning... Their weight and size immediately suggests that flying high above the ground is an unrealistic idea due to gravity, so the Nod God forages mostly along the ground and eats grassy vegetation - hence the greenness of their insides. But, as we shall see, not all Nods are herbivores. At home, I wrote a short document for my own personal records to get to grips with the physicality of the Nod Gods. Here is the full document (click the images to see the original):

About the Nod Gods and Poms

Nod God diagram:
(Paranthroptus)
The Nod God is sweaty because they can fly. The gluteus maximus muscles push out a jet of air at high pressure which enables these Nods to fly. However the sweat is caused by glands because the muscles have to work so hard to hover for a limited amount of time.

(Notice that the arms were added at a later date - about a year later (in 1995) when it became necessary to give the Nod Gods more self-sufficiency - no longer would they have to suffer the soreness that results from nodding oneself along the ground.)
Cross section [male and female Nod Gods]:

Nod Bud diagram:
(Cro-Magnonod)
As you can see the Nod Bud is more humanlike in appearance but is much stronger. The most fascinating ability of the Nod Bud is that it can morph into many simple shapes.

Pom God/Bud diagram:
(Rotheoptus-Maectnod Pom)
The Poms are very territorial. Their personality resembles early man yet they are able to adapt to the technological era. They can be very aggressive (look at their eyes). Basically the Pom God has exactly the same features as a Nod God except the eyes. The same goes for the Pom Bud; they appear exactly the same except the eyes. The Poms are a dying race. Usually the Poms are the older ones.

This brief anatomical study contains information on the variant species of Gods: Nod Bud - a humanesque capable of metamorphosis, and the Pom God - with inverted eyes signifying more clearly their general emotional state. The Pom Gods also had humanesque counterparts in the name of Pom Buds. Incidentally, none of these were new creations - all were devised simultaneously along with the original Gods back in 1992.
The existence of the Nod/Pom Bud humanesques explained how the Nod Gods' vehicles were built. They were possessed of stretchy necks. The Buds also waited upon the mobility-challenged spherical Gods.

Smile of a Nod God

2008-10-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

It has been almost a year since the last posting here. The reason for this is not due to any cessation of 'communique' (or 'inspiration') from the Nod Gods (the creatures that I have explained about previously), but rather my baulking at the prospect of unearthing troubling relics and mistakes: for it was unwise to have willed these thought-beings into existence all those years ago. To document the further development of the Nod God requires me now to sift through memories pertaining to a morally aslant secondary school. I am loath to illustrate all this, but I shall, for the benefit of the world. Make no mistake, it is by no means pleasant to exhume these recollections of the previous millennium, especially ones that whiff of 'insanity'. To present such materials so nakedly exposes me to further ridicule and humiliation, not to mention embarrassment. However, somebody told me that I could "make some good money" by writing about all this twattishness, and given my current situation (in which I am privy to debilitating hallucinations - regretfully of my own making) I have decided to subdue these qualms (fingers crossed that coins begin hitting the doormat). More altruistically, my prattling may possibly even aid people who are receiving unsolicited communication from escaped thought-beings. In order to understand how characters borne of one's imagination can sever their obligations to obey their creator, it is necessary to recount my antecedents.

The floating from primary to secondary school is always, it is said, a turbulent voyage. It didn't help that the secondary school was an all-boys' school - aggro upon a hellish vessel of unease. To be plunged into unfamiliar and possibly hostile environments sets the mind aquiver. Defence mechanisms are hastily contrived amidst a thunderstorm of dead-arms and dead-legs: namely, pulsar cannons, mini-time-machines, shuriken throwers, portable spiked ball-maces, electronic visors, foldaway plasma weaponry, sprongiformic bozo, flying mechanisms, anti-gravity automatic nunchakus, self-deploying titanium cubicles, briefcase-convertible shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, collapsible music-stand plus 'trumpet of disintegration' combo, CAC (Compressed Air Canisters) disguised as inhalers, roll-on corrosive/irritant wax in push-up tubes ('replace cap after use'), microscopic flame-throwers, time-inhibiting grenades, laser-guided insults; all the cutting edge technologies. Nod Gods too.

I drew this coloured map at the time to remind myself which areas of the school were particularly dangerous bully-wise. Red signifies extreme danger of torment, pink shows lesser torment, orange equals tension, yellow is mild twitchiness, whilst green is safe (click for a larger image). Note the library and I.T. rooms are safe; a fact that quickly propelled me to become a librarian and an 'I.T. monitor', where all breaktimes and lunchtimes would later be spent.

I was in the form '1R'. 'R' is short for Rhodes - ruthless businessman, bungler, exploiter of Africa, and generic fascist Cecil Rhodes, that is. This fact seems sickening the more I think about it.

The first morning assembly at this school was shocking. In the massive hall, everyone was directed to sing the hymn 'Praise Him', whereupon the booming grand piano shook my composure to pieces! At primary school there was only a modest upright piano, so I hadn't anticipated the overwhelming bombast of a grand piano. And why was the pianist (balding Mr. Humphries) playing it so bloody loud?! Was it due to his frustration at his own baldness? Surely he would've considered the fragility of the newcomers' senses... but no. Immediately afterwards, everyone started murmuring some half-understandable creepiness; "thy kingdom come, thy will be done". Certain fellow first years somehow knew the words to this odd chant, but to me it was truly alien - like stuff you'd expect a sinister cult to indulge in. It was called 'The Lord's Prayer' and was uttered at the close of every assembly, yet it did nothing to quell the hellishness and ceaseless violence among the pupils for the rest of the day. The staff were also highly authoritarian in a Victorian manner that simply wouldn't be allowed nowadays. Another shock to the system involved P.E. and Games lessons where humiliation, shower-naked ultra-vulnerability, claustrophobia and clothing displacement calculated to cause distress were all part and parcel. All these things were conducive to destroying all calm and rankling the nerves.

On my first few weeks at the secondary school I noticed that as one approached the school confines, the pavements would become increasingly flecked with a mysterious jelly-like substance. In the morning some spots would be bubbling and foamy, as if sent up from the earth's core itself, however, the jelly blobs were not hot to touch. I have always been interested in geology, fossils and insects, etc., and this discovery fascinated me. A friend of mine said this substance was definitely organic, possibly secreted by snails or slugs, although none had trails that suggested so. If these globules had fallen from the high heavens, on impact they would surely have spread much further with evidence of streaking. These theories were quickly discounted. It wasn't cuckoo spit because it contained no 'cuckoo'. The mystery was solved a few weeks later when I heard older boys walking ahead of me loudly generating mucus and spitting it on the ground with avant-garde noises. Disappointing. Why on earth were they doing this?! Was it just 'for show'? Territorial? Was the 'universal spirit' literally trying to drown their worthless souls in their own bile? Was it something to do with 'sex' perhaps?

One day I was walking across 'The Cage' with a friend (see 'Tennis Court' on map) to get to a lesson, when some older boys - for no reason - collided with us deliberately. I was treated to a kick which I deflected with my briefcase, but my unfortunate friend received a varnish of throat phlegm-jelly to the neck. A most unwelcome baptism (I too would soon be privy to many a sputal wash, fortuitously fortifying my immune system in the process and grounding me for an adulthood to be spent diving in bins for sustenance). Gut-churning. My friend was closer to tears than I was, so I tried to comfort him and distract him from the present hell by singing the catchy theme to the Club Biscuit advert: "if you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our Club". Incidentally, it is interesting to note that when I perambulate near schools nowadays, I never see as much spittle as I did back then - it must've been a 1990s thing - or something in the food in those days perhaps.

Another instance of torment is particularly notable. In the Bastille toilets (see 'Junior Toilets' on the map) I was engaged at a urinal in the act of passing fluid, when a particularly loathsome freckled fatty (who was in the same form as me) walked in and announced his intention to attempt to divide his pissing sequentially into every urinal. I expected that he'd probably wait until I had finished, but sadly he began whilst I was still stationed at the urinal. He passed behind me and said "there's piss on your blazer now," which really upset me. I zipped up and walked over to the mirror to see if there was any dampness visible, but none could be seen. Then, in the corner of my eye, I perchanced to glimpse a Nod God! The Nod God smiled sympathetically and was a sweetly-comic creature. It disappeared immediately, but it buoyed my spirits considerably. All sentient and kind, it was. Bizarrely, this Nod God had teeth - an unusual thing since I had not given any of my Nod God doodlings teeth, in fact, I had settled on their toothless nature - using their hardened gums to mash food. I have never told anyone about this vision in the Bastille toilets, but it was clear that the Nod Gods were trying to help me through this difficult time. Tangentially, it seems extremely discordant that this part of the school should be named after an 18th century Parisian prison. The name 'Bastille' also has unpleasant militaristic dimensions.

This comforting vision of a Nod God in the toilets was just the beginning... Soon they would start giving me pep talks and encouragement. Amazingly enough, they would even teleport me out of harm's way!

Stirring of the Nod Gods

2007-12-17T11:46:00.000-08:00

Hello again, twatty reader. Now... we have seen how Nod Gods (strange disembodied faces) were doodled, developed, nurtured and given mobility in those early days. Attempts were also made to breathe life into these two-dimensional creations, and by 'life' I don't mean mere 'presence', but an actual independent consciousness. Here, mention must be made of the influence of 1990s computer gaming culture, especially that surrounding the popular Amiga home computer, upon the development of the Nod Gods. The Nod Gods were treated as if they were potential characters for a new Amiga game. In 1992 it was unusual but not impossible to meet a fellow ten-year-old semi-fluent in a programming language such as AMOS (Easy AMOS), Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit or 3D Construction Kit (all available on the Amiga), and I was one of them (in fact, a few other people were too, but I digress). A definitive Nod God game was never realised due to shoddy programming, but this didn't stifle the drawing up of ideas, plans and blueprints. In the book 'Trigger Happy', Steven Poole illustrates how computer game characters demand dimensionality (and I will quote him even though I believe quoting other people denotes low self-esteem):

"The star of a videogame (...) is invented: built completely from the ground up. A false idol indeed. Yet in another way a hyperreal one: for whereas a novelist, who also invents characters, will normally only need (or desire) to provide a few salient features of a person's appearance and let the reader's imagination do the rest, a videogame character must be determinedly individuated" (Poole, 2004: p.139)

Therefore the Nod God was looked upon as a potentially real being. It was desired that the Nod God character should be interactive, thus it slowly assumed a life of its own. In order to impart a sense of immersion in computer games, the impression must be given of independent intelligences. As I sought desperately to transcend the pen and paper amateurishness of the early Nod God designs and focussed avidly on the creature as a real being, I was unwittingly bringing the Nod God into the real world - literally. In stark contrast to my old naive enthusiasm, I now find my adult self glimpsing a Nod God sitting on a bus, and once collapsing at the Job Centre under the burden of these visions: two Nod Gods perched on the careers advisor's bookshelf as bookends. These real visions I now try to ignore. Such incidents make me wonder whether the Nod Gods were given too much mobility that allowed them to access higher dimensionality.

In the previous posting an explanation for such visions was alluded to. The explanation lies in a book written by French explorer Alexandra David-Néel called 'With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet' (1931). In this account of her travels, she talks of a species of thought-forms called 'tulpas'. Tulpas are sentient forms borne of the imagination that become endowed with an apparent physicality through intense visualisation and willpower. To create a tulpa, one simply has to concentrate avidly on an imaginary character, and it will eventually cross into reality, but she warns that "the practice is considered as fraught with danger for everyone who has not reached a high mental and spiritual degree of enlightenment". Beyond a certain point a tulpa can "free itself from its maker's control". Alexandra David-Néel tried to create her own tulpa by imagining the figure of a comical short, fat, jolly monk. Harmless. She succeeded in creating this tulpa. "The illusion persisted. I saw the fat tulpa; now and then it was not necessary for me to think of him to make him appear" (p.314). However, the tulpa became too independent and uncontrollable, even becoming visible to other people(!). It had developed a lust for life.

"He became more troublesome and bold. In brief, he escaped my control. Once, a herdsman who brought me a present of butter saw the tulpa in my tent and took it for a living lama. I ought to have let the phenomenon follow its course, but the presence of that unwanted companion began to prove trying to my nerves; it turned into a 'day-nightmare'. Moreover, I was beginning to plan my journey to Lhasa and needed a quiet brain devoid of other preoccupations, so I decided to dissolve the phantom. I succeeded, but only after six months of hard struggle. My mind-creature was tenacious of life" (David-Néel, 1931: p.315)

The 16th Century alchemist and physician Paracelsus is also alleged to have known of the thought-form ability. Franz Hartmann provides this description of what Paracelsus called an Aquastor (elsewhere referred to as the Aquaster):

"Aquastor: A being created by the power of the imagination (...). Such imaginary but nevertheless real forms may obtain life from the person by whose imagination they are created and under certain circumstances they may even become visible and tangible" (Hartmann, 1896: p.32)

Let us now compare these descriptions of thought-forms with a modern description of psychotic symptoms taken from the accompanying leaflet for Zyprexa's olanzapine antipsychotics (which treats thought-forms as symptoms of a "disease" as opposed to a natural result of "racing thoughts"). Click to enlarge the original text.

"Zyprexa is used to treat a disease with symptoms such as hearing, seeing or sensing things which are not there" (Zyprexa Package Leaflet, 2007: p.1)

It is ironic and coincidental that doctors are also sometimes referred to as 'nod Gods' when they blindly prescribe powerful antipsychotic medicine such as Zyprexa to people who are already burdened enough as it is, with an escaped thought (say, a f*cking Nod God)!

When primary school finished in 1993, everyone made a 'beautiful book' that was supposed to document our finest work during primary education. I peppered mine with images of Nod Gods, and wrote the invocation "may the spirit of the Gods live on" on the last page, and more prophetically "the God has escaped" (showing a Nod God smashing out of its framing enclosure), which was a bit unwise with hindsight, as we shall see...

Bibliography
Hartmann, F. 1896 The Life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim
Poole, S. 2004 Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution
David-Néel, A. 1931 With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet (Magic and Mystery in Tibet)
Zyprexa 2007 Zyprexa Package Leaflet

The Humble Beginnings of the Nod Gods

2007-12-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

So, welcome to the Annals of Duplo. As an infant I 'heard' things that others didn't: the jabbering of "Uncles" who hid themselves within stones, twigs and plants. Thankfully, a friend of mine said he also beheld the "Uncles" too, which convinced me everything was fine. Unclespeak gradually disappeared only to be replaced by something more sophisticated.

If things seem a little indulgent, this is just an illusion. Bear with me! Here will be presented the development of an idea germ: a static doodle drawn by myself, aged ten, that demanded mobility - a demand duly granted through the subsequent development of techno-doodles and new innovations: buggies, trolleys, tanks, cars and bodily upgrades. Gradually, the doodle spawned progeny and the progeny were more alive than ever. They gained such mobility that they lapped at the edges of imagination to squeeze out into reality. Dangerously, they imposed themselves onto important documents: textbooks, SATS and GCSE exam papers, job applications, and perhaps the most important 'document' of all: the human brain. The difficult period from adolescence to adulthood requires a certain "short-circuiting to earth" - a submission to populist thinking: buying into certain trends (the pop music of the era - The Prodigy, Placebo, Nirvana, Chemical Bros., Wu Tang Clan or whatever), 'standardisation' of consciousness, smothering the muse, aiming for the common goals of academic and social success, the attainment of a love life, etc. However, the living doodles, with their vast energy requirements, would not allow such draining things! These doodles insisted on the consolidation of all mental faculties onto themselves in order to allow their continued growth.

Let us start at the very beginning: a 'wet break' at primary school, 1992. This is a lock-in where the rain prevents playtime from happening outside in the playing fields. Denial of physical exertion transposed playtime into the self, the mind, and thus doodles were drawn to vent the masses of energy that act upon the muse in such circumstances. I drew this thing.

Yep, it's just a face. It had been done before. A completely unoriginal thing. Nothing special. But, please, peer into its thin drooping eyes. Look at its quantum construct. It is complex. It possesses a noble modesty. It looks both inquisitive and bemused at its own situation. It's blotchy. A shy creature seemingly appealing for bodily upgrades. Lo! It is blushing in its nakedness! Surely if it is capable of embarrassment, it is also capable of joy, happiness, sorrow and anguish? Of course it is.
A friend whose name was Robert Lewis also understood that such a face should be given mobility. The gift of mobility was logical. It was ethical. We saw the plight of its disability at once, and promptly decided to name the creature as a 'God' for unremembered reasons. Perhaps there was a subconscious urge to restore the self-confidence of this poor blushing mite (now sentient). Or perhaps it resembled how we thought a God-like being should actually appear - stripped of glorious classical religious imagery. Whatever. Vehicles were designed.

The 'Gods' were born. They soon became known as Nod Gods. This name is given because in their natural state, the only way for the Gods to move is by rapidly rocking back and forth in a nodding movement. This enables them to move about, albeit sorely, in a frenzy of nodding. It is interesting to note that by envisioning the nodding motion, the Nod God had now broken free from two-dimensional constraints. The nodding Nod God dragging itself along the ground was no longer a circular being, it was a spherical being; nodding backwards and forwards in three-dimensional space. This is indicative of its ability to occupy multiple dimensions at once (we will see it much later spilling into an even higher dimension). Nod was also assigned a clunky acronym: Nobody on Defence. It sounded sort of important but didn't mean anything - the idea was to be interesting.

I tried to rope in other individuals to see what kind of solutions for the Nod Gods they would come up with, and what facial expressions their Nod Gods would have. They supplied some drawings, but seemed a little timid as they sketched. Perhaps I was egging on the classmates to draw things they didn't really want to draw? Perhaps they secretly knew the true power of doodling and its dangers? They seemed restrained.
Some time later, during a 'reading session' I threw a Terry Pratchett book at fellow Nod God initiate Robert for no solid reason. This was a vulgar and arrogant abeyance on my part. I was an E-number affected arsehole, frustrated by the occasional ridicule of other classmates who were unreceptive to the concept of Nod Gods, and with whom Robert consorted to my disappointment. The book throwing incident severed the friendship, and as I was too proud and cowardly to apologise, I tried to funnel apologetic energies psychically into the care of Nod Gods to deliver to Robert. But then primary school ended and secondary school began with a brand new assemblage of people. I was never sure if Robert ever received the psychic message of apology from the Nod Gods, although it seems he did, because quite recently, following a chance sequence of events, I re-established contact with him and he seemed cool. I dared not mention that Nod Gods were still at the forefront of my thoughts for fear of ridicule.

Soon, all this self-indulgent rambling will give way to some good info, bear with me kind reader. Now it must be asked - why didn't the Nod Gods fade from memory? How did they grow to occupy higher dimensions? Why did they end up being scrawled onto job applications and other inappropriate places? A clue lies in a book published 1929 by a lady called Alexandra David-Néel, called 'Magic and Mystery in Tibet', concerning her travels and experiences... All will be explained!

Introduction to the Annals of Duplo

2007-12-14T16:57:00.000-08:00

It has been said that all blogs can be slotted into two possible categories: 'referential' blogs direct the reader toward ideas originated elsewhere (and are essentially populist/exoteric), whilst the 'experiential' ones document the lived experience of the blogger in a personal diary format (non-populist/esoteric). But such distinctions are flawed if we view 'experiential' writing as the result of consuming reference, and excreting it as new reference, albeit reference of a lesser common value than the original input. But why should reference be hierarchised in this way? Ecologically, excreta is the most precious resource: full of nutrients, and which gives birth to fungi, which is eaten by higher organisms, and so on and so forth. Think of this blog in those terms. Shit. Furthermore, the 'referential' and 'experiential' categorisations can be muddied further if, peradventure, a blog were to be edited by a being from another dimension! A being with potential access to a reservoir of all thoughts that had ever been thought. I'm not saying that this blog features such a being (that would be insane), however, a particularly persistent and seemingly ridiculous character seems to be guiding my very hand! This will be explained shortly.

This is a blog about doodles scrawled in school workbooks. This is the result of almost two decades of strenuous activity (still ongoing, in fact) - often humiliating and degrading. This is an apocalypse of thought patterning. The doodles were originally borne of boredom and sensory deprivation (a rainy breaktime - locked in the classroom) one day at primary school circa 1992. The doodles grew more complex and life-forces began to emanate from them. Through secondary school, college, to the gutter (a surprisingly educational place); fifteen years later and I am still drawing them and it has nearly killed me, haha! I intend to show the reader how the smallest ideas can overwhelm one's life, and even depose of one's own inner narrative, as bizarre as this may sound. Proposals will be made for experiments that the reader will be urged to perform. I will also encourage the reader to design or resurrect creatures, imaginary technologies and characters of their own making as a stand against the dark forces of the Job Centre, society, 'populist thought flatlining', etc. I got sacked from a minimum-wage job in 2002 for doodling in a notebook. Surely upon leaving school there is finally true freedom to doodle? Well there isn't. The real world is actually more disciplinarian than school, and doodling is barely tolerated. I seek to amend this. Call me a terrorist if you will, but I am weak, twatty, (undiagnosed) autistic, unemployable and feeble - it is not me who instils fear, but the doodles themselves - their potential: the doodles which gain life and dart around the beholder's subconscious, rewiring thought patterns to allow more characters to spill in from beyond the mantle of one's creative consciousness.

All will be explained as clearly as possible. You do not need to know my name - this is irrelevant. All that matters is the imagery!