Sunday, June 30, 2024

Teléfono descompuesto en el bosque

On a sweltering summer eve deep in the Pinares Desolados, the young men gathered around a campfire near the Pavian Pavilion.
  The Vaughn wove a tale about a dilapidated warplane that rested on an abandoned airstrip in the wilderness not far from where the men sat.
“In the quiet of night observers from afar would see the glow of lights from the derelict aircraft. And always, closer inspection would reveal the rusting hulk in the dark, of course, with no power at all...”

  Malinconico’s search for the story’s provenance found conflicting results. He had heard of the hauntings at Batstow Village. And the ghost lights near Atco Stadius were well noted in the area. Those spectral illuminations were known to occasionally appear at the Carretera Molino Quemado. Which apparently was a different Carretera Molino Quemado than Malinconico knew from his days in nearby Crestamadera.
  So very confusing.
  But this is the nature of lore and legends spread by word of mouth — details shift and plot points wander, keeping the narrative alive underneath added shrouds of mystery.
  Tell the stories you hear, if you deem them worthy of recount. The imperfect haze of memory will always accumulate the patina of each storyteller upon the span of man’s grand recollections.

Monday, June 24, 2024

Ultion Obuvunanyizibwa

Where Dementia III saw peaceful benedictions, Dementia VIII atrocities force Incident Response Units to arbitrate with SIJACOPS demand for ultion redress.

Thursday, June 20, 2024

The Miet-Box at the End of the Lane

At the end of Pauskil Lane lies an empty lot. Cracked asphalt and concrete slabs hint at the bunkers that once occupied the parcel.
  Over the years various musical clenches used the bunkers for their hersall prep. Some notables: Mr Garge and his Barmherzigland brethren, Otto’s Ilýsion Pedía, Mook Matar, Vaqueras Llorando — even the ’Nuts honed their tecnik there within the breeze-block chambers.
  Mr Wrymouth, who rented out the bunkers, was a rare sight — unless he saw people there he thought he could Save (assuming no one save himself had ever heard Good News). But he just had the structures torn down one day for no apparent reason. (Well, their proximity to the seedy Vistaparque council flats must’ve been at least one reason.) Even Mr Garge’s adjacent teleball rink was repurposed as a car park for the art school extension.
  It’s all gone now, but if you listen closely you can still hear the strains of “Pink Pudding,” “Donne de la Vigueur à Mon Âme,” and “Me Siento como Freddi”. That, and the sound of a ’60’s TV console being shattered by a makeshift teleball javelin.

Wednesday, June 12, 2024

The Metaspection of Provided Content

Do you like widgets? Many people do. From their history, production, and use, many the world over show great interest in this subject.
  But in an age where there is high demand for immediate topical information at our fingertips, many widget content providers are falling short. Miserably. Some may be plainly lazy or not very bright. Some may be in an arrested noob stage, chasing the Next Big Thing. Others may be simply click-hungry.
  And so, what are the rest of us left looking at?
  Authors of ostensible widget books expounding on the soporific minutia of dealing with publishers and editors. But nothing about widgets.
  Widget filmmakers prattling on about studios and distribution. But nothing about widgets.
  Widget conventioneers name-dropping and logrolling simply to impress others. Nothing about widgets.
  Even comment sections of such content providers stray into insubstantial opinions about the hosts’ hair and clothes. Or about the commenters themselves in an emoji-cluttered gabble on what their cute pet did this morning. (Can this latter example be blamed on bots? If so, maybe these mindless robo-crawlers are taking their cue from their witless hosts.)
  So what do we call this digressive drift away from our content providers’ supposedly passionate causes (whether intentional or not)?
  Metaspection seems like a fitting term as any.
  In this metaspection, we see actual ‘content’ being rendered down to vapid effluvia — a similar meta-effect to means taking precedence over the ends. This is, at best, shallow shortsightedness, and at worst, a grift. And one must admit it ill-serves the widget community.
  What then is the widget enthusiast to do? Give the provider a critique in good faith?
  Defensive content marketers usually blubber about Algorithmic Anxiety as they are usually held in thrall to their own Vanity Metrics. They are wholly unaware of Content Creep, thus letting things devolve into Content Shock.
  Or too commonly, they take any criticism as a personal attack. Which raises the question of whether their interest in widgets is genuine or just a vehicle for their ego. And as we know all too well, chumps don’t want the help.
  And so, we must let the cycle play out — content providers will come and go, subject to the vicissitudes of supply and demand.
  So don’t fret, widget devotees — someone better will come along. There are millions of widget fans around the world ready to take the reins. The next one may be you!

Sunday, June 02, 2024

Avian Orphans throughout the Strata

The fledglings often have the mother nearby, but sometimes displaced nestlings leave us helpless to intervene with Mother Nature.