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.
