20120318

Visions of Urbana 2.0: “do you prefer AOL cassettes or CD’s?”





"We sit here stranded though we all do our best to deny it"



 









"The Ghost of electricity"



open the        e        y        e                                   p        o        d           door HAL




"In this room the heat pipes just cough…"














"And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes every thing's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes"
--Bob Dylan


20120315

Visions of Urbana: It Is Accomplishing Itself As We Tweet





The whole world of #'s works like chicken wire supporting our massive papier maché reality.  This matrix is just under the surface of the physical reality that surrounds us, and tends to reveal itself when our physical reality breaks down, either due to trauma or extreme stress typical of initiation.

For example, from 2002-2004, I began to notice that every time I casually looked at the time display in my alarm clock or microwave, I never seemed to miss a 9:11.  It never seemed to be 9:10, or 9:12, always 9:11.  The connection started slowly, but it soon became impossible to ignore.  I dismissed this as merely coincidence for awhile, but it continued with such regularity that it became something that I eventually felt I had to ask some close friends about.  "Hey, didja ever notice how often you catch 9:11 on the clock?"  Most said no, politely.  But surprisingly, after a few weeks, a couple of friends told me that even though they tried to dismiss it after a few times, the 9:11 Enigma started happening to them as well.  And it wasn't stopping.

Personally, I was already conditioned for this, as I had learned of the 23 Enigma from reading Robert Anton Wilson in college, and became astute at spotting them in just about any environment.  There is a certain madness associated with the 23 Enigma, as the playing filed is much greater than a clock.  The playing field for the 23 Enigma is the field of all reality, and when it starts to work its magick, it can really make you question your sanity.  It was only many years later for me to correctly question where my sanity was to begin with.

It's a very strange obsession to keep, and something that is difficult to explain to someone.  As I have said, I think these number enigmas are something that are usually revealed only to those in pain or under considerable stress.  I must have felt this on some deeper level because I never explicitly tried to turn anyone on to the 23 enigma because I was hesitant to confront the pain that I was in.

But the 9:11 enigma was in the public domain.  It wasn't related strictly to a personal pain or stress, it was a national pain and stress.  And with the war that followed, it became a global pain and stress.  The 9:11 Enigma didn't possess the abstract randomness of the number 23.  Everyone understood where it came from and why it was important.

Obviously, the 9:11 enigma evolved directly out of the tragedy of September 11, 2001, a day where trauma and stress bonded the majority of Americans to a singular moment and a singular reality, or as close to a singularity since the nation tuned in to find out "WHO SHOT J.R." (did it really just take me this long to connect the name of that show, "Dallas", with the implications of that question?)  Over the years, this # and this enigma has grown beyond the confines of just my alarm clock, and can now be found expressing itself in many varied forms.  My 9:11 Enigma wasn't "mine".  9's, 11's and associated imagery began popping up in countless  films, TV shows, and albums that predate the actual day of the tragedy, and taken as a whole seemed to offer themselves to a narrative of conspiracy and prophecy.

I have read many of the intelligent theories and many of the crazed conspiracies that suggest that some of these 9/11's from the past were indeed veiled expressions of awareness, privileged knowledge, or even psychic perception.  A sort of # as Defense Early Warning Radar System.  The best of these theories and speculations are mesmerizing, and at times make me feel as though they are indeed lifting a veil of ignorance from my eyes and increasing my general perception of the world around me.  But, is it a new Poetry or a new Pollution?


There is a new # that is making friends with the Nao (the Now), and it seems to be popping up everywhere.  There are speculations as to what this number might be foreshadowing, and how we might interpret its nature once we are beyond the singularity of the suggested event horizon.

This number is 42, and seems to find its most famous expression in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and the films of Stanley Kubrick.  But look closely and you'll see that it's starting to pop up everywhere, and is embedded in countless mediums and expressions.

The above image is the glyph for Jupiter, a popularized representation of the number 42.  When most people speak of the 42 Enigma today, they are speaking with an understanding of this glyph and its associations, especially as a sigil-ized arrangement of a 1, a 2, and a 4.

I connect 42 with another Celebrity number lurking about:  2012.  This of course refers to December 21, 2012, which represents both the end of the Mayan calendar and the culmination of Terrence McKenna's Time-Wave Zero.  It has been interpreted as start of a possible Apocalypse or the date of a history defining paradigm shift.  Or maybe it will be just another day.  No one really knows for sure.

December 21, 2012 can also be written as 12-21-12.  All 1's and 2's.  What is apparent about both 42 and 12-21-12 is that we have 1's, 2's, and 4's, but no 3's.  Why is 3 seemingly being left out of the fun?



For thousands of years 3 has been the quintessential magick #.  We live in 3 dimensions,  history is comprised of the past, present, and the future.  We eat 3 meals a day, once in the morning, afternoon, and the evening.  There are 3 Jewels of Buddhism and 3 turnings of the Wheel.  Christian theology has The Holy Trinity, and Jesus was resurrected in 3 days.  The world seems to be comprised of Three major religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  The Three's go on and on and on...

The above image is that of pi, maybe the most important and practical mathematical constant ever discovered.  It is known as an irrational #, and has been calculated to an absurd detail.  The first number in pi is 3, and for convenience, let's say that the value is 3.141592….

Note that if we round up to the thousandth place, pi is equal to 3.142.  Hello 1, 2, and 4.

We see here that 3 stands alone, separated from 1, 2, and 4.  I think that if we can make a small leap of faith, and we entertain the  # as Defense Early Warning Radar System, maybe we can speculate a bit as to where this is all going.



42 and Beyond The Infinite

When pi is calculated, it extends further and further into the smallest of the smallest details.  The Deep End of the mental swimming pool.  As fascinating as this minute detail becomes, it is unnecessary from a practical perspective, and ultimately isn't getting us closer to any practical truth.  In fact, it is only just taking us further and further away from the lonely old 3, and we risk losing ourselves completely in a matrix of chicken wire, out of touch with the surface of reality.

So what does it mean to go "Beyond The Infinite"?  Must we continue to plunge deeper and deeper into the abyss of #?  Or has Pi taught us that returns on infinite calculations have little to no practical value.  Maybe the extent of Pi's practicality, and the best representation of Matrix and Matter is 3.142, and not

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka70193852110 55596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831 65271201909145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273724 5870066063155881748815209209allworkandnoplaymakejackadullboy62829 25409171536436789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575959195309218611738193261179310511854807446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912983367336244065664308602139494639wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka-5224737190702179860943702770539217176 29317675238467481846766940513200056812714526356082778577 134275778960917363717872146844090122495343014654958  5371050792279689258923542019956allworkandnoplaymakesjackadullboy112129021960864034418159813629774771309960518707211349999998372978049951059731732816096318595024459455346908302642.  


Icarus taught us we shouldn't fly too high, maybe pi and Jupiter are teaching us we shouldn't dive so deep.
(Don't ever take for granted just how deep 3.142 already is.)


Eschatonics

Terrence McKenna speaks very eloquently of massive events that not only shape the texture of the future, but they also shape the texture of the past.  September 11th, 2001 was just such an event, so massive, and so ubiquitous that the moment our future changed, many elements embedded in our past also changed, and were redefined instantly.  All of the related numbers and related imagery that once projected an unrelated truth absorbed the shockwave of the event and became entangled with both the moment and the emotional fallout.

42 seems to be establishing a solid foundation and positioning itself as this kind of numeric catcher in the rye.  It is ready to imprint and translate meaning.  42 is a kind of dark star waiting to happen.

"Shall we go, ewe and eye while we can?"



Not Nao Neo, Not Nao.  


20120308

Overlooking The Perilous Chapel 4: Are you there God, it's me Pac-Man

wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka.

Once the thrill of finishing the first level of Pac-Man is gone, and capturing the high-score at your local arcade is a distant memory, what does the repetitive challenge of the game offer us?  After three hours of continuous play, that "wokka-wokka-wokka" has to being doing some kind of damage, and for what, a new cut-scene?  Carpal tunnel syndrome?  Or really, REALLY, does anyone think they're gonna get famous?  Get rich and retire on Pac-Man $$$?  This isn't golf or billiards.  It isn't chess, the "Sport of Kings".  The Video Game is the sport of Teen's, Freak's, and Loner's, not Kings, not "the Jet Set", and not "the Best People".

"Pac-Man Machine?  Ha-ha!  Sorry, it's just, well, we don't play that here Mrs. Torrance"


But why does someone climb Mt. Everest, or do any of that shit?  Bro, they just do.

Billy Mitchell is that kind of bro.  The "King of Quarters", the Pac-MAN, proclaimed Video Game Player of the Century in Tokyo in 1999.  And the first to record a perfect game of Pac-Man, meaning, every available ghost, every available fruit, every single point WITHOUT LOSING A SINGLE LIFE.  Over six-hours of wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka.  Say what you want, that's just an incredibly mind blowing achievement.   Yet, Billy Mitchell is not a household name.  He'll never be considered an A-List celebrity.  And as far as I can tell, his main source of income is from hot sauce not Pac-Man.  "Ricky's Hot Sauce".  It doesn't even carry his own name.

Mr. Billy Mitchell

The skill, discipline, and talent of Billy Mitchell is not that far removed from the skill, discipline, and talent of a world class golf, billiards, or chess player, yet the disparity in income, fame, and respect of the Video Game Player of the Century and the Player of the Century recognized in any of these other games is staggering.

I hope you understand just exactly what was involved in executing the "perfect game" and why I feel his achievements are, ahem, overlooked.

Here is a link to a website that breaks down the ins and outs of modern day Pac-Man theory.  Yes, I said THEORY:


There are high-level concepts, rules and laws that drive the dynamics of the game. Without a knowledge and understanding of them, it is just absolutely impossible to succeed at the highest levels, and forget the hope of ever achieving a perfect game.  Let's call this the "occult wisdom" of Pac-Man, the hidden truths to the game that can only be accessed through two ways: extremely disciplined attention, or access to a cheat sheet like the link above.

Now, the creator Toru Iwatani, and his team of developers, they are the originators of just about everything that IS Pac-Man.  They devised the concepts, rules, and laws that drive the game, and they buried them within the code of the game.   Maybe embedded is a better word.  The point is is that they programmed everything into the game play that would be extracted and written into the modern day "cheat sheet".   If it's in the game its because Toru and crew put it in there.  Kinda like a movie director.






"Hey asshole, I got next game."








As the Pac-Man playing universe took shape, it became apparent that some people were better than others, but why?  Reflexes and simple hand-eye coordination?  More time and more quarters?  Probably.

But even then the highest level players with the most highly refined physical skills started to separate from each other.   The elite video game player started to emerge.

What made someone an elite player?   What did the elite see that no one else could see?

Patterns.  Rules,  Laws.  Concepts.  A map buried within a maze, a mathematically precise knowledge embedded in the game.  It turns out that while most of us are running away from and chasing ghosts,  Billy Mitchell and the elite players are CONTROLLING the ghosts.

I don't think that Toru Iwatani and crew knew that this was possible.  I don't think that this was "programmed" into the game as the ultimate game playing goal.  Pac-Man was a game of cat and mouse,  where the power shifted between Pac-Man and his pursuers.  It wasn't designed to be a game where the ghosts had all the control, especially not a game where Pac-Man had all the control.  What fun would that be?


Room 256 was Overlooked



Level 256 wasn't "programmed" into Pac-Man, it was DISCOVERED by elite players with incredible vision, discipline, and patience.  Players with extreme will power and confidence.  Okay, maybe too much time on their hands, but hey, we all have hobbies.  Elite players racking up millions of points soon began stumbling into Level 256 and realizing "Pac-Man is not in Kansas anymore."

In 1999, 19 years after Pac-Man was released, Billy Mitchell did the absolutely unthinkable.  By scoring the 3,333,360th point, he not only navigated all 255 standard levels of Pac-Man perfectly, he even navigated that Joycean clusterfuck of Level 256 perfectly too.  Think of the trial and error that occurred, the dedication to traverse all 255 preliminary levels, perfectly, just to deconstruct and master that 256th.  It's fair to assume that it would be enough to drive a person completely insane.  

But I only assume that because I am not in control of the ghosts.  I run and I chase, I live and I die, I struggle and I fight to just get past the next level, and I always come up short of perfection. 

Jack Torrance isn't in control of the ghosts either.


Level 237 at The Overlook

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka- All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.  All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-wokka-


Hmm…I wonder….what 19 plus 237 is?


Overlooking The Perilous Chapel 3: Doc-Man









Overlooking The Perilous Chapel 2: Jack-Man















                                                 O
                                     O
                       O

                                                                        O
                                        O
                         O


?

?!

!?!?

!!!!!!!!!!








20120306

Overlooking the Perilous Chapel: Pac-Man





Pac-Man needs no explanation.  It's a relatively simple game, one any novice can play with out much instruction.  It almost seems instinctual.  But imagine if instead of playing the game from the traditional perspective, you had to play Pac-Man from a first person perspective?   Even Billy Mitchell would have trouble adjusting to this shift in perspective.  Well, maybe not Billy Mitchell.

For the average player, this new perspective would turn a relatively simple game into an incredibly complicated one.  The position of the ghosts would be unknown, and just trying to keep track of your location, how many dots remain, and where remaining dots are would make clearing level one a minor miracle.  But with time and practice, success doesn't seem impossible.


What does seem impossible is this:  imagine if you had never played Pac-Man before, never knew the goals or rules, and were asked to jump in blindly to the first person perspective version of the game.  How long would it take for you to figure out what the hell was going on?  Would you automatically assume that the red colored dude was trying to kill you?   How would you know that you could kill the flashing blue dudes?  All of these elements could only be discovered after hours of trial and error, and many, many lives.

You might continue to eat the dots and gain higher and higher scores, but would the experience be any fun?  What would compel anyone to continue to play this game?  Maze of Death would seem like a better name than Pac-Man.  It would take a very shrewd student of the game, playing many, many hours to ever notice certain patterns and clues that could lead them to acquiring the same knowledge and same success that a person playing from the traditional perspective has.

Ask yourself, if there was no one there to inform you, how long would it take you to realize:

1.  There are only 4 ghosts, one of each color
2.  There are only 4 flashing blue ghosts, and these are the same 4 different colored ghosts
3.  There are only 4 super powered dots, which are the cause of the 4 ghosts to
 change into flashing blue ghosts
4.  You can kill flashing blue ghosts
5.  The cherries that appear out of nowhere do nothing
6.  Travelling through the open doorways are not an exit, they just transport you to the opposite side of the maze.
7?
8?
9?

This list can go on and on.

For those who grew up with Pac-Man, playing Pac-Man, it might be difficult to remove your own knowledge and truly appreciate just how complex a mystery this game would be for the uninitiated playing in the first person perspective.  But placed into a different context, the differences in perspective are fairly simple to understand.  Examine the differences between a God and his creation, or a Father and a Child.

Examine the differences between Jack Torrance and his son Danny:


Jack's Perspective







Danny's Perspective








ghosts!



Pac-Man was released on May 22, 1980.



The Shining was released on May 23, 1980.






























Above image from the brilliant MK Ultrasound.
Check out more of his excellent work at http://beingthere723.blogspot.com/