Loose Thoughts/ Another Phone Convo April 11, 2008

Hidalgo series is coming to a close. I believe the collage in the post below will represent the 9th of the series. I believe the series will only contain 10 collages total, or 1 tier of the 10 tiered 10×10 I’ve been working on for several years now — off and on again, mind you. This is the 8th tier. I already have a tentative name for the last 2 that will complete the 10×10. It will be called the Wheeler-Jasper series, or Wheeler series and Jasper series if/when disconnected from each other. I will probably not begin these until the end of this year at the earliest.

I probably should share more details about this art/collage 10×10 soon but the focus must remain on the Hidalgo series for now, the meaning, etc.

To me, this blog so far is rather cleanly divided into 2 parts. The first deals almost exclusively with SL art and photography and stories. I started the blog after being in SL for about a month. I was born in that world January 22nd as Baker Blinker. Toward the end of this part, Baker Bloch, the counterpart to Baker Blinker born into SL about a month later, begins to feel the maze-like constrictions of SL and exploration within, which have been mainly of an underwater variety. This tension or frustration leads him to enter RL, with Hucka D. (the 3rd avatar, created shortly after Baker Bloch) acting as a type of mid-wife between dimensions. Part 2 comes after Baker Bloch enters a giant lemon that had materialized on a specific mtn. called (true) Hilo Peak, not too far at all from where I actually live in RL. This is not its name, though. Baker Blinker, the feminine half, the *anima*, remains in SL.

Problem is, both have fallen for each other during their all-too-brief encounter in the Uli sim of SL.

Part 2 begins with the 1st collage of the Hidalgo series, or “Lemon World”. This is described as an attempt by Baker Bloch to relate what he finds or sees inside Lemon World, inside, in turn, Hilo Peak. At the same time, Baker Blinker builds what appears, at least for now, to be a gallery in which to house the projected Hidalgo collages, which both know ahead of time, through me, baker b., I suppose, will be a 10 work series. Baker Blinker also thinks it could possibly be a SL home for Baker Bloch and herself in the future, at least until they could save up a little nest egg to buy above-water property. But for now they seem to remain divided.

Part 2 ends with the 10th collage, which may come quite soon, perhaps within a day or two. As you can tell, Part 2 is also filled with RL photography, at first the work of others and then my own, starting with the Hilo!!! 2 (Into the Fire) post. Before my experience with SL, I had done very little photographing in RL. Now I can’t seem to stop, which is, I think, a good thing. Part 3 will probably further this spillover of the need to chronicle journeys in SL through photographs to doing the same in RL. I already have another cache of photos from today to enter into the blog. Portals between SL and RL are the focus in these, which I do think exist. I do believe that textures and colors are more vivid around these portals, also a spillover from SL visuals. One can probably say that weakened version of the SL grid pokes out from these opened portals, and with limited range. I’ll have more to say about that when I’m able to study the matter further.

I also realize I need to talk more about the information in this post from early on in the blog. There was actually another pre-blog document I created about SL, based around a treehouse I found very early on in Baker Blinker’s explorations of that world. There was some confusion about the events that transpired that evening in the treehouse with baker b., his companion Booker T., and a new friend called Hucka D. For the record, this seemed to be a future version of the Hucka D. that was formed a little later, who started out as a classic Linden avatar (City Chic, male), and then became, in short order, a giant eyeball, a pregnant crossdressing alien, and then a bee (current form). None of these quite describe what he was in this pre-blog work, which I named “Sandbox Experiments”. In that work, Hucka D. showed a particular film in this treehouse to baker b. and Booker T. This would be the audiovisual synchronicity called Kansas City Life, which baker b. later found out is a metaphor for Second Life itself.

So before leaving this part 2, as I’ve put it, I suppose I need to discuss that “opened eyeball” there and the relationship to Hucka D. and the stargate portal in the northeast corner of the Rodeo sim. Interestingly, this portal has also come up in a back-and-forth between SL mythology experts Salazar Jack and Headburro Antfarm. To me dialog like they were/are engaged in is a giant lure of SL. The recent Where’s Magellan Linden? campaign that both of these gentlemen are involved in is further evidence for meaning and depth within SL, beyond just the surface commercial aspects. It is truly another world, separate from ours. As Baker Bloch has found out, it is limited in scope still, but still growing, week by week (check out the Edge of the World posts if you don’t believe me!). It is about creativity and exploration to me.

But back to Hidalgo. So I need to review my association with the abstract expressionist Charles Nelson Blinkerton I suppose, as well. Ok, so he’s kind of a 4th avatar, almost, or at least he has expressed interest in creating a 4th to go along with the Bakers, Blinker and Bloch, and also Hucka D. But of course he’s more than just a potential avatar. He’s a RL counterpart to baker b. — or so it seems. A google search for “Charles Nelson Blinkerton” comes up with nada except references to this blog. So is he real? Yes… and no. That he has been situated in Hidalgo County and its county seat of Lordsburg for the past 50 years is a key connection. What I would call perhaps exhaustive searches for keyword “Lordsburg” have been used to uncover his art work in both abstract expressionist and pop/neo-Dadaist styles during this stay. His more recent association with the first virtual burn of SL, predating Burning Life, is an interesting tie in between RL and SL again. He claims to have created Lemon World just before the transition of alpha version to beta version of this world, only to loose it inside The Man statue. But at the same time he also claims to have burned all virtual versions of his work in an old rusty wagon based on a RL version in the ghost town of Shakespeare located just below Lordsburg.

Come to think of it, let’s just give him a ring tonight again to see what he’s up to…

“Hi baker”.

bb:

How’d you know it would be me?

CNB:

Just knew. So you want to talk about Lemon World some more? Or is something else on your mind?

bb:

Yeah, I was just writing a post on the blog, kind of reviewing what has gone on so far. And I was in the middle of discussing your role in it and just thought I’d ring you up. I don’t know if our conversation will be a part of this blog….

CNB:

I give you some real life resistance to your SL inclinations. I’m going to create that avatar soon. Uriginal Blinker. Too good a name to pass on. We’ll find Lemon World, you’ll see. If not in The Man then maybe inside that island next to it, the one with the rock castle. We’ll go inside the maze together, whether it be me and Baker Blinker or me and Baker Bloch or maybe even me and Hucka D. Where is Hucka D. anyways?

bb:

Not sure. So I have some more guesses about what you’re really on about in these dialogs.

CNB:

First off, I really liked the last collage, even though it was simple. Was this a dream of Baker Blinker, or did she actually go to RL and reunite with Baker Bloch? The dress is great, though.

bb:

The 10th collage I suppose will tell more.

CNB:

And the “Heater Presents” was hilarious. Took me back in time for real.

(note: the collage “Heater Presents :” is more or less directly taken from a series of paintings Blinkerton created in the late 80s of the same name, beginning with “Heater Presents the Mouth of Hell”)

bb:

Would you like to talk about the Heater series more? Great idea!

CNB:

I’d like to talk about your ideas of me.

bb:

Ok, well, first of all I don’t think you traveled from New York to New Mexico by car.

CNB:

Interesting theory. Go ahead.

bb:

Long Island has some kind of direct connection with the Long Hope, perhaps. Your vision connected you with this tradition of the Long Hopes. Perhaps they originally came from Long Island, or at least visited it through portals. One of these portals is in Springs.

CNB:

Don’t forget to mention Montauk, on the very edge of the island.

bb:

Thank you, I won’t. So this vision you mention, it has something to do with the Long Hope. Perhaps you are even the last of the Long Hope Indians. Your strong tea drink you mention sipping on all the time during our conversations. Could it be the Black Drink? Could it be the Blue Holly drink?

CNB (sipping):

More interesting theories. Go ahead.

bb:

My Hilo Peak, in RL where Lemon World manifested, and your Hilo Peak, in New Mexico, are the same, or bleed into each other in some kind of seamless fashion, at least in part. The rocks on top of other rocks are directly related to the same concerning Pollock’s grave. The rocks are the same. They are connected portals — stargates… or “earthgates” I suppose. And these portals can propogate other portals, satellites. Baker Bloch passed through one of these as well, through Hucka D.

CNB:

Triangle. There’s a triangle involved. You’ve got to talk about the opened eyeball. Rodeo.

bb:

Yes, there is a triangle.

CNB:

And also the labyrinth. That seals a portal. There are two different types, one spinning clockwise and one counterclockwise. Letters and numbers, 26 and 10. Outside and inside. 8-5-6-7 and 4-1-2-3. That’s what I saw. They have to work in unision. Worlds based on one and one alone always break down eventually. You have to have both feeding off of each other, counterbalancing each other. Of that I can say safely.

bb:

Are you admitting that you’re the last of the Long Hope Indians, then?

CNB:

I’m not quite ready for that yet.

bb:

Another theory I had is that… well, we talked about this in our latest email. Can I bring up my most radical theory, which is connected to the Long Hope Indian idea?

CNB:

That I’m actually dead, and have been for 5 years plus? If so, that’s ok. Spill it out.

bb:

Are you? I mean, did you die in 2002?

CNB:

No.

bb:

So I’m not talking to a spirit. Why do you not come up in google searches?

CNB:

I am a counterpart.

bb:

Are your works…

CNB:

Macrocosm to microcosm. Mirror, reflection. Who is Heater?

bb:

The Man?

CNB:

My thoughts. The Burn.

bb:

Are you drinking the blue holly drink Chuck? Right now?

(to be continued)

Hilo!!!, 2 (into the fire) March 27, 2008

A *most* amazing hike. Now I was on Hilo Peak Mtn. again but to give you a perspective, if you look at this photo…

https://bakerblinker.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/img_1199editedsmaller.jpg

…the very furtherest peak back you can see on the left hand side of the photo is the one I hiked around today to get to the places I photographed just in front, relative to this photograph that is. The distance to that particular peak is probably at least 4 miles from where the photo was taken. Maybe 4 1/2.

What I was aiming for in particular was the pond that Baker Bloch used to “cue” his whole stargate setup that allowed Lemon World to manifest in our world on the actual Hilo Peak. I guess, then, it would be more correct to say that the whole valley pictured in that linked photo above could be called Hilo Peak valley, but it’s actually one giant mountain containing what’s called a hanging valley. It is just this hanging valley aspect of Hilo Peak Mtn. (so let me get my phoney nomenclature straight: Hilo Peak is a just small peak on Hilo Peak *Mtn.* which contains this valley) that attracted the Long Hope Indians to settle there, along with presence of the legendary blue holly, of course. That’s another thing I was searching for today, not surprisingly, but “only” found a lot of spruce instead. But still there was an interesting little synchronicity involving the color blue that happened I’ll get to below.

So here we have the actual High Lonesome Pond, which is the name I’ve given Baker Bloch’s “cueing” pond. It must have been 20 years since I made my one and only other visit to this pond, with Edna in tow. It seemed quite different, and I admit I was mildly disappointed at the sight. I remember more trees encircling the pond, even crowding it in to provide a quite mysterious ambiance. But now I find a large beaver dam at one end with the trees below and away from the dam. I wonder if my memory is faulty or if the landscape has actually changed that much. Anyway, it had been 20 years or so. I’ve been wanting to go back for the longest time but the mtn. is pretty hard to reach, and on top of that I could have been trespassing, although much of the area is now protected by a conservancy.

Damn, I don’t remember this!

Thought I’d throw the above photo in here because of a queer trick of perspective. The spruce tree trunks you see are only about 1-2 inches in width. Look much larger, eh?

Here’s some grown up versions of same. Beautiful!!

A glimpse of the hills surrounding the valley. The trees are so thick that these kind of views were hard to come by.

So here we have the little blue synchronicity I mentioned before. I actually spied the blue tarp above from a considerable number of yards away through thick tree cover and across the Hilo Peak Mtn. Creek that started around High Lonesome Pond. At first I thought it may have been a trick of the eyes, but as I kept staring the blueness did not go away. I couldn’t make out what it was at all since it was just a speck I saw through the trees. I’m still surprised I could spot something so small; I’m not the most observant of people. Still, I’ll allow doubters to say that it was probably just the contrast with all the greens and browns around.

Then after the old road I was on crossed the creek, I saw the only bird I remember seeing that day: a blue jay. Although he didn’t stick around long enough for me to take a photo of him (drat!), I couldn’t help but think of the coincidence: *blue* jay. Then just beyond I found the tarp, the only other really blue thing I remember seeing up there (besides the clear sky!).

I mostly bring all this up because of the legend of the blue holly. Admittedly I made this legend up, and I didn’t expect to find holly. But I did find a series of blue things in a very short span. A quite tangible magic seemed to enshroud this mtn. after all!

Another nice view of the surrounding peaks, this time over a boggy area. There are many bogs in the hanging valley, reportedly.

Another possible mystery, and one that will tie into things that will soon come up in this blog. At the very lip of the valley, where I first entered from below on this grand hike, found a series of rocks mainly to my left that contained a large number of smaller rocks on top of them. The photos immediately above and below show the most obvious of these, but there were a number of others. If hunters or other people arranged these rocks, why did they do it a number of times with different base rocks? That’s a question Baker Bloch asked as well when he found out about them. He has some theories. Oh yes he does!

Another example.

Hilo!!! March 25, 2008

One of the more incredible sights I’ve ever seen.

From today as well. This is Hilo Peak!!!

THANKS FOR THE PHOTOS EDNA!

Here’s looking in the other direction into a *deep* gorge. A waterfall lies within as well.

A smaller waterfall on the way up.

Wowsers!!!

“Blue Holly Blue Holly Blue Holly…” March 22, 2008

I’d just like to report tonight that Baker Bloch says a draft of his second Hidalgo collage, which he has graciously shared with me, is now complete [final collage sent, 3/28/08]. I requested any such drafts of collages be sent to me so an interpretation could be started asap. We need knowledge and we need it quickly! Blochs, as I like to call him now (he calls me Blinks in return… cute, huh?), has given his own spin on the collage. Just for the record, he believes future collages will increase in complexity, and that he has to sorta get “warmed up” again. I still like it.

Blocks thinks this is about, obviously, Lemon World and his and Hucka D.’s immersion into that world which is alien in origin, possibly from a planet called Hidalgo. Neither of us appear sure about that as yet, though.

The several Indians pictured to the left on the mountain plateau are representations of what Blochs calls the Long Hope Indian tribe that may have actually lived on Hilo Peak. However, no record of them turns up in a google search. Blochs also tells me, in their visions induced in moon ceremonies involving the black drink — I’l get to that in a moment — that they acquired their name from a future book (to them) called Indians of the Americas: The Long Hope, published by one John Collier in 1947. Collier, a former US Commisioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, believed that the United States and the western world in general have much to learn from the Native Americans. He says in the introduction of his book:

The deep cause of world agony is that we have lost that passion and reverence for human personality and for the web of life and the earth which the American Indian had tended as a central, sacred fire since the Stone Age. Our long hope is to renew the sacred fire in us all. It is our only long hope.

Now to the black drink ceremony mentioned before. I’ll quote from the wikipedia article on the subject:

The Cherokee black drink (Cherokee Ritual Beverage:ᎬᏁᎦ ᎠᏓᏔᏍᏘ) was a ceremonial drink consumed during purification and renewal ceremonies under the ancient Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni moon ceremonies traditionally performed by the Cherokee or Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya people.

The Cherokee called the yaupon holly the Blue Holly Tree. The Black Drink reportedly induced vomiting during Cherokee purification ceremonies, but as explained above, this behavior is likely to have been deliberate or the result of the quantity imbibed, not due to the chemical properties of the drink itself.

One of the Seven Traditional Cherokee Clans, called today the Ah-ni-Sa-ho-ni (“Blue Clan”) was originally referred to as the “Blue Holly” clan. The clan represented the fifth level of spiritual attainment which was purification of the mind, body, and spirit, and were called upon to prepare the black drink for ceremonial purposes before the period of Cherokee removal.

In the 1830s, the use of the black drink was forgotten and abandoned when the Cherokee removed to Oklahoma, where the Blue Holly Tree does not grow. Still, other ritual beverages (sometimes also referred to as “black drink” or “medicine”) continue to be used in traditional rituals in Oklahoma.

This seems to imply that the Long Hope Indians are a lost branch of the Cherokee, but please don’t quote me on that, in turn.
🙂

So true to the article one of the Indians in Blochs’ collage is going through the purification process: he is spilling his guts down the side of the mountain, and there is a vertical swath in the forest below which continues the line of his throw up. This is only disgusting if you think about it in a shallow way. Two Indians in the background appear to be preparing more black drink in a covered pot. A third Indian with upraised arms has his back turned toward us. Blochs states that all these images are taken from ones provided in the wikipedia article on the subject quoted from above. But despite this, also interesting to me is the pointed object appearing on this Indian’s arm, which looks to me a lot like the the 2nd, less true Hilo Peak, as we’ll refer to it now, from Blochs’ post on the subject in this blog. Perhaps he inserted this image on purpose?

Their position here on a high mountain plateau, and what’s called a hanging valley, is also reminiscent of the Blackfeet Indians’ involvement with the Glacier National Park, whose mountains they termed the Backbone of the World.

To other parts of the collage now. The two bushes to the right on the mountain plateau are what Baker Bloch calls the two versions of the yaopon holly or blue holly, whose roasted leaves and stems were used to prepare the black drink. They certainly remind me of the two bushes I saw in [delete name] sim when exploring the meaning of Baker’s Island earlier in this blog, which I found upon inspection to be objects labelled “Pointy Bush, High” and “Pointy Bush, Low”. A little later I connected them to two novelty items concerning the creation of a promised second continent of Second Life to complement the original continent of Sansara, which turned out to be the Heterocera Atoll.*

I now think all four of these “shapes”, 2 jagged and pointy and 2 square and relatively unpointy, also stand for the 4 aliens that Blochs claims are — or perhaps were, or perhaps are and were together — his masters, the ones who sent him to Earth in that cramped, little pod to prepare a stargate to manifest their virtual Lemon World. The two bushes in the collage just happen to be placed in the exact spot where Lemon World is at. If you look closely, you can see the High Lonesome Pond on the bottom edge of the lower holly bush here. To me, the bushes also represent the original form of Hilo Peak before Blochs’ terraforming specified by these alien masters, and also the undoing of same when Lemon World had run its course, apparently, and was no longer needed.

Turning now to the last cluster of images in the collage, we have a headless mannequin with a blue dress in the foreground, between the group of Indians and the 2 holly bushes. The maniquin also has the wings of a blue butterfly, which Blochs also states is called a holly blue. Interestingly, he says he thinks the winged mannequin is a representation of me (!), a future version where I’ve emerged from my admitted cocoon state as a totally new creature. He says this will happen fairly soon; my guess is that it might occur after the Hidalgo series is over.

What is the relationship of this blue clad mannequin with the wings of a holly blue, and the joined, high and low blue holly bushes behind it? That’s a question for another night.

* The final collage turned out to have only 1 of these bushes pictured.

Diary Entry #1, JCMEB? (& what is the blue holly?) March 19, 2008

Experimented with upload images/textures into SL today for the first time. Amazing possibilities! I can see, in the future, my art slowly moving from a basically strict two-dimensional environment to a more rounded, 3d one using SL as a primary inspiration. I certainly do not consider myself a builder in the standard SL terminology. I will probably never attempt to construct a beach condo, or a windmill or an airship or a replica of the Eiffel Tower. No, I wish to take this development slowly — baby steps — from my natural environment.

For the next 1 to 2 months, JCMEB? will be a locked habitat, with collages added, perhaps, each week at least. This would be the projected Hidalgo series that I’ve been wondering for some time how would begin. Obviously a clue may have been the word “Hidalgo” used as a way to transport Hucka D. from SL back to RL (New Hope), and then, just after this, Baker Bloch himself through the increased powers of Hucka. Now they are mostly separated from me physically. Hopefully this condition won’t last too awfully long, and perhaps coincide with that 1-2 month period I mentioned before.

Baker Bloch is inside Lemon World now. The date is 2008 but it is also 2001, when the giant lemon 1st manifested in the center of the stargate encircled by the 11 rocks high on Hilo Peak. Baker Bloch understands that he created this portal or stargate ahead of time so that Lemon World could manifest there from its home base of [Hidalgo]. He knows his 4 masters came along with it, total addicts all to the virtual world inside. A sort of meth lab for geeks (?). Despite the limited space implied from the outside (the lemon appears to be about the same length as JCMEB?, or around 20 meters), he is having trouble locating them within. Trouble is, virtual reality and reality reality have gotten all mixed up inside. Timelines have become confused. It is both 2008 and 2001 at once, and the 4 masters are both inside the world and *the whole world* at the same time.

It is no coincidence that Lemon World manifested on the true Hilo Peak at around the same time that Linden World was started in San Francisco in “our” world. Because a linden tree is the same as a lime tree in the UK, the name can translate to Lime World, making the two together a synergized Lemon-Lime World, I suppose. Baker Bloch thinks the two metaverses interact as equals yet perpendicular to each other, harking back to the double diamond of his Opus 1 that I should probably go into more detail about in my next entry.

Even in my extremely limited experience creating art in SL, I see almost unlimited potential. One of the tricks is getting out of the habit of seeing art as standard gallery oriented stuff. In SL one has the possibility, for instance, to walk through art, to hover over it, to go inside of it easily. Galleries can be set up in totally different ways and become one with the exhibits being shown. Not to say that direct translations of RL art don’t have their place in SL, but this usually does not truly tap into the huge possibilities of new kinds of art and art environments. The whole world of SL, after all, is a piece of virtual art.

lemon world March 17, 2008

Baker Bloch and Hucka D. the bee, as one, turned toward the circle of stones as a rumbling began that signalled an occuring manifestation (the same sound that you hear in SL when manifesting objects/prims). Just over the edge of the circle of stones appeared a pot with a plant, a lemon plant. The largest of the lemons on the plant, and perhaps the only one that was fully ripe, was drooping over the circle’s limit and into the very center of the stones. With a snap the lemon dropped off and rolled upright in this center. The pot, apparently having done its working, disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.

Baker and Hucka, who had been observing all this while hovering far above, descended to the surface to see the manifested lemon up close. A plane-type boarder hoisted by a truck moved into view from unknown dimensions, offering a way to enter the perhaps 20 meter long fruit. With no hesitation, Hucka D. went up the boarder and inside, and Baker Bloch, after a small pause, followed in turn.

Tom’s Petty High.

Hilo! March 14, 2008

In his heighthened state of consciousness, Baker Bloch certainly remembers this circle of rocks. He created it! To their specifications, mind you, but he had to manufacture the rocks, he had to terraform the Hilo Peak (yes, this is the true Hilo Peak!), and then he had to set them in place at very particular points in the reformed and flattened land. He also recalls the numbers 1756 and 5761, in various guises, repeatedly cropping up in the needed calculations.

Ad he also certainly remembers the trip through space in that tiny pod, crammed in there like a sardine or, a pea. Yes, the last. Taking orders from those pod peaple as he derisively reimagined them to help kill time, and, indeed, keep sane, hurling through insanely empty space in their own tiny pods on the way to some remote planet to set up a portal for *his* immense lab. And not to do what they apparently wanted to do, but for meaningful research. He had some solid ideas and leads on this, he believed.

How long in that pod: 3 months? 6? 9? He thought it had to be 9. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, the blue planet finally winked into existence and grew larger and larger, like an infant conceived in the womb of space. The pod’s honing device knew exactly where to land; all the maps premade. He was well prepared, and he wondered how they did it all on their own, because the four of them certainly didn’t seem like the last members of any advanced civilization. They were instead peaple, and needing their own pods for sure.

The pod penetrated the atmosphere, adjusted to the additional heat, and then landed or, better, “smacked” into the lip of the mountain mesa, stuck there like a raisin in a pudding. But he was free! Baby blue planet and Baker Bloch born as one as he squirmed through the pod’s open door. He didn’t even mind the difficult process of terraforming in this denser environment. In his spare time he even created a tree farm on the previously cleared land further north on the mesa, using a locally found species.

Baker Bloch employed a pond already present on the the lip of the mountain to set up his first rock, one of 11 needed. In this way, he figured he would have a quick start on restoring the land once the stargate was no longer needed. This was his cueing point.

Above is Hilo Peak before the terraforming. Notice the pond that would be used to mark the position of the first rock (pictures can be enlarged).

*****

The buzzing that had been internalized within Baker Bloch shortly after its manifestation in [delete name] sim then abruptly ended and externalize to his right. He turned and met the small eyes of what he knew to be the remade shape of Hucka D., a bee now, and the obvious source of the droning all along. Baker Bloch realized that Hucka D. had piggybacked him through the portal.

“The lab is next,” Hucka D. said matter-of-factly and in a notably higher register than before.

Something descends from on hi March 12, 2008

The buzzing is overwhelming.

It descends and covers him with its enormous drone. A surreal shoe horn manifests around him in the clearing he is standing on. He is aware that the humming has possessed his very nature, is coming from within now, internalized. His body is growing larger along with his mind. The buzz is expanding him.

Like Hucka D. before, he feels additional knowledge from the future come flooding in. The droning is information. He knows that when one of his feet grows large enough to completely fill the shoehorn-like thing that he will be not here but… there.

The shoehorn thing suddenly locks in and fits.

“Hey, what the hey?? That foot is actually wet!!” Baker Bloch exclaims.

He knows he is at New Hope, the same place that Hucka D. went before him. And he knows that Hucka D. has brought him to this place through his own considerably enlarged power. He is at a beginning of the New.

After exploring several hours around the beautiful but rugged land below the beginning, mostly following the creek (three hours and 19 minutes to be exact), Baker Bloch happens across this strange but familiar sight.