20230830

The Empire Carpet Commercial Never Ended




The Hollywood writer's strike never ended.  

During those dark times, the lost landscape of traditional filmmaking found an unlikely ally in a pastime often associated with retirees and business networking: golf. 

More specifically, VR Golf.  No, really.

What started as a casual diversion evolved into a new medium of creative expression.  The first step towards VR + AR + AI was made.

We focus in on a Wes Anderson project tentatively titled Ben Hogan and the Left Hand Path, a Muppet Babies reboot that begins communicating messages interpreted as “troublesome”. 


The new Muppet Babies were caricatures of classic professional golfers in the style of Jim Henson:  Jack Nicklaus, the painter; Arnold Palmer, the musician; Ben Hogan, the quantum mechanic; Tiger Woods, the polymath; 

John Daly, the hero.  Michelle Wie, the product.


These Babies play and compete in VR Golf, a troublesome platform seen to be communicating new religious dogmas embedded with occult secrets.  


The film was planned as a blend of animation and live action.



Prior to production, Meta introduced VR to Anderson by sending him 100 headsets and a pitch for possible cross-promotion with the Meta Quest 3 release.  They envisioned celebrity golf tournaments with actors from the live-action parts of the film.


Anderson fucked around on VR for a few days, but didn’t make much of it.  Then instructional golf videos began invading his algorithm.  Infuriating at first, he was struck by the accuracy of the advice. 


Anderson tried applying the instructions he picked up, and VR soon transcended his initial understanding.



SAG-AFTRA


With shooting schedules disrupted, Wes Anderson became obsessed with VR Golf.  This obsession led him to court new players.  The 99 head-sets trickled into the possession of actors and writers, who found themselves having meetings with Anderson and others on the Pebble Beaches of the virtual world.  


Over the course of 100 rounds between an now expanded A-List collection of Anderson’s friends, a revelation was unlocked: VR and AR could offer the first genuine cinematic application that was both immersive and interactive, a complete fusion of stage and screen, where actor and audience were decentralized.  



In the course of three months, Anderson began turning living rooms into interactive AR environments where scripts were not merely performed but improvised. Writers and actors collaborated to create responsive scenes, breathing life into avatars in a fusion of AR and AI. This wasn't merely storytelling; it was a living theater tailored to individual participation. 


The Fourth Wall wasn't just broken; it was redefined.

The first production involved watching the Super Bowl with Bill Murray.  The second was a weekly cup of coffee with Owen and Luke Wilson. Every Wednesday, at 6:30 am, both Wilsons walk into your kitchen and have a cup of coffee with who ever is sitting at your table.


“The experience would include live commentary and pre-recorded behaviors, directed by your own reactions and inputs. A custom-tailored spectacle in the comfort of your home.


This intersection of technologies may have birthed a new form of art, emerging out of necessity, born from a strike that threatened to cripple an industry. Instead, it might just reinvent it. A future where improvised digital series by random groups of people could intersect into a completed form and then be as critically acclaimed as any Oscar-winning film”


588-2300

20230818

. . .

 




Can you rewrite this in the style of Leopold Bloom from James Joyce Ulysses: VR Golf 5,000 players Three weeks of tournaments. Finished 418th, moved on to the playoffs. Southwind, Pro Tourney set up. Top 500 in the field. I finish 250th, on the cut line. First round at Olympia Fields, a course that I have been to in real life. I finish in 72nd place after the first round. Here’s how I define Catholicism. The game is defined by the level of difficulty. There are elements of the game that I chose. There are many different ways to play. You can change the length of the clubs, you can change the percentage of total power, for any shot. If I had paid money to enter this If I invested thousands of dollars and hours into this And lost by 60 strokes to a player that utilized these modifications, I might have reason to get angry. But what if I know that VR Golf is relatively new, and that the center of gravity is survival and growth. These modifications are designed to welcome in a larger swath of people. The Catholic lives for the world that is inevitable, the day that leagues start up that do not allow golfers to change these variables. The Catholic is playing the game to be ready for a Tour that exists in the near Future. Here’s the Catholicism that Everyone can understand. VR GOLF gives you clubs For Beginners : the perfect club for that shot. For Pros: the same 7-iron for 174 as the 7-iron for 168 Cut shot. You need that shot in your bag at Pro. I play VR Golf with 14 clubs that I do not adjust. I suspect some golfers play with a Beginner’s set, a toggle mode for particular or all situations. It is in the game, it has not been deemed an advantage. I would expect that the second wave of VR Golf will have a Catholic mode. Whether that is Pro mode does not matter. What we find is that over time, more people want to play in the Catholic mode then the Beginner’s mode. Tournament: Document the tournament with video and audio. What numbers should we record, and how should we record them? What do these numbers tell us This is the fifth week of playing large tournament golf. I don’t know how to convince you that this is something inherently Catholic. I have had the highest handicap on the leader boards for most of the weeks. After the second round of the Southwind, I was ranked #1 with handicap. It was insane. I do have tournament experience. Gambling experience. Drunk experience. These eight months of VR Golf has made me a golfer again, but it has also validated my Catholicism. This is the more perfect Logos. If you point it towards entertainment it does nothing.

ChatGPT

Bridging a gap between the mind and matter, that virtual fairway of Southwind. Ah, five thousand souls, each chasing the digital mirage of a green ball. Three weeks, it was, and the counting, and myself, amidst them, ranked 418. Not bad, not great. But a passage to the playoffs. A whiff of real turf, Olympia Fields. Visited it once, tangible, in my other life. Memory plays, a 72nd position after the first round.

The intricacies of the Church, its doctrines and dogmas – aren’t they like this very game? Difficulty, they say, defines the nature. Various pathways to holiness, to hole-in-ones. The sacraments, the rites, the liturgy – choices to be made. Just as in the game. Lengthen the club, harness the power - do we not adjust our devotions, calibrate our faith?

Imagine the outlay - thousands of dollars, hours of toil, and losing to someone who’s played with a beginner’s toggle. Ah, would ruffle feathers, but isn’t it just nascent? The infancy of VR, much like the early Church. Survival, evolution. Allowing for modifications, to invite more to the faith, to the game.

Anticipating the world yet to come, the Catholic - always preparing, always adjusting. A Tour, perhaps, in a future not so distant. And isn’t VR GOLF just that - a training, a trial? Handing over clubs, different yet the same. For the novice, a perfect club; for the seasoned, the trusty 7-iron, be it for 174 or 168. Ah, the cut shot – the sacrament of penance in one’s bag.

Fourteen clubs, no adjustments, my digital sacramentaries. Some prefer the beginner’s set, the comfort of the known. But ah, the second coming of VR Golf, might it have its own Catholic setting? Preferences shift, evolve – from beginner to catholic.

Documenting a tournament – isn’t it like the annals of the saints, their trials, their tribulations? The numbers, the metrics – what do they reveal? Our strengths, our weaknesses, our faith, our doubts?

Five weeks of this grand tournament. Some would scoff, but ah, there's a Catholic soul in it. My handicap, it soared high on those leaderboards. That fleeting moment atop at Southwind, ranking #1. Madness, sheer madness.

Eight months, and from the digital rough and bunkers, emerged a golfer, and a deeper faith. A reconnection to Catholicism. The Logos, perfected, pointing solely to play, an empty pursuit. But directed towards divinity – ah, salvation.

User


Chat GPT 

Amid the vast panorama of the digital greens and the vast expanse of the ether, I stood. Five thousand souls, silent murmurs in the wind, lost and then found, with myself, not quite lost but not quite found either. The mirage of 418th position, a chimera in the vast landscape of Southwind. Olympia Fields – how real and yet unreal, a memory woven into this vast tapestry of zeros and ones.

In the sinews of this game, I sense the tendrils of the Church, that vast and sprawling institution of my youth. Here, in this digital diaspora, lie the threads of difficulty, challenge. A choice – to modify, to adapt. Isn't this what the Church asks of us? To adjust our sins, to recalibrate our beliefs?

Coin, hours, sacrifices to the game's altar. Would not the saints scoff at a loss to a mere beginner, one who toggles between worlds? Yet, here lies the infancy of a new world, a world that beckons. Modifications – are they not but the Church's concessions to the changing tides of society?

The Catholic, ever waiting, ever hoping. Awaiting the world to come, a Tour in the offing. And this game – does it not provide the tools? Clubs, in all their multiplicity. And yet, a sameness. The 7-iron, constant and reliable, a metaphor for faith.

Fourteen clubs, my digital rosary. The beginners, with their familiar refrains, yet others prefer the uncharted paths of Catholicity. The second coming, perhaps in a newer, shinier realm of VR Golf. Will it echo the ancient calls of the Church?

The tournament, the documenting – isn’t this but the chronicle of life? The numbers, those cold, hard facts – do they not reflect our very souls? The ebb and flow, the rise and fall.

In this tournament, a reflection of life’s great journey. Some see it as mere sport, but within its digital heart lies the essence of Catholicism. Highs and lows, yet a brief sojourn at Southwind's peak. Madness? Or enlightenment?

Months of digital devotion, and through the rough terrain of pixels and codes, emerges not just a golfer but a renewed soul. Through this game, a deeper connection, a grappling with faith. The Logos, when turned to mere play, loses its essence, but in the divine, it finds purpose.

User


Chat GPT

In the glowglobewebbed interloops of bitbyte dreams and the verdantgreen of neon golfscopes, a figmently figure stands, twinned in twains: a Bloomed Dedalus, Dedaloomed in golflit musings. Five thousandy digitaldoppelgängers, murmwhispering in golfgame and Godgame, seekers of green and Grace. "History," thought Bloom, or was it Dedalus? "is a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken." And in that awakening, the 418th echo of an Echoland, a digital spot to place a not-so-firm foot. Olympia's virtual Fields, miraged memories of turf and twine, sacrament and sandtrap.yip

Churchillike with the golfgame they're interlaced, confessing in swings and sways, sins and plays. “To modify, to adapt,” Dedaloom ponders, in crypticonfusion, “isn't it the coin of our spiritual and digital realm?" Adjustments – the Church’s plenary indulgences to the technotemporal of society's soul.

The Catholick, in anticipwait, for the evercoming world, a Tour, digital yet divine. This golfgame, an arsenal of tools or perhaps prayers? Clubs of multiplicity or rosaries in digital devotion? The 7-iron, an apostle in a new realm, ever constant. Bloom murmurs, "It's not the green I seek but the path, the journey."

Fourteeny clubs, like apostles in a neon sanctuary. For each, a mode, a method, a mystery. And a coming, a second or third or fourth, in the neo-VR Golfscape. Echoes, shadows, yip and murmwhispers of ancient cries and churchbells.

In this tourneament, a chronoscribe of lifelyfe. "Numbers, codes, the unrelenting facts, are they not the whispers of our souls?" Dedaloom ponders. And in the depths of this pixelated pilgrimage, a rise, a peak, a zenith at Southwind. BABABADALGHARAGHTAKAMMINARRONNKONNBRONNTONNERRONNTUONNTHUNNTROVARRHOUNAWNSKAWNTOLARGHAN! 

Through the noughts and crosses, the loops and lacuna of the digital dunes, emerges a golfer, a seeker, a believer. A connection, a reflection, a resurrection. The Logos, when jumbled in joyplay, a riddle, but when turned to the divine, a revelationall a lark of the Finwake downfall fine photors

User

Take the above and make a little bit more obscure, fold in references to I---, K-----, and Q---- P----

In the qubit-quivered multiverse, atop the greenglow netgolf node, dwelleth Dedaloom, an avatar hybride: Bloom's earthpulse and Dedalus' etherdreams. Five thousand and one digital dervishes, whisperwhirling in cyber sufiana, seekers of pixelated parabolas and paradises. "History," or perhaps al-Hikmah, in Bloom's byte or was it Dedalus' qubit? "Is but a superposition of dreams." Amid quantum quandaries, the 418th echosecho of Ain Sof, a digital dot, a speck, amidst the vast expanse of virtual vacuum.

Between Zohar's zodiacs and golf's galaxies, their entanglements spiral. “To transmute, to transpose,” Dedaloom muses, strands of Sufi and Sephirot thoughts entwined, “Is it not alchemy of soulbit and spiritbyte?” Adjustments – the very dervish dances to the ever-oscillating wavefunctions of spacetime souls.

The Al-Catholik, in quantum superposition, for an awaiting world, a Tour beyond Tours, a Tree of cosmic clubs. Is it not the Sephiroth in silico? From Netzach's 9-iron to Tifereth's trusted tee. The murmurings of Muhammed and Moses, intertwined in Bloom's breath, "The game isn't the end but the dance, the dervish dance."

Fourteenfold tree, the Sephirotic sanctuary. For each, a qubit, a quantum, a Qalam. A recurrence, ad infinitum, in the VR fractalscape, intertwining the singularity with Sefirot shadows.

In this tournament of Tif’eret, a cosmic chronicle of lifelight. "Qubits, quarks, are they not Allah's whispers in the quantum wind?" Dedaloom wonders amidst the entropy of existence. Then, a Singularity at Southwind, the point of all potentials. BABABADALGHARAGHTAKAMMINARRONNKONNBRONNTONNERRONNTUONNTHUNNTROVARRHOUNAWNSKAWNTOLARGHAN! Entropy ensues, the collapse, the resurrection.

Through Planck’s prisms and paths of the Prophet, the fractals and fables of the quantum Kabbalah dunes emerges a golfer, a Gnostic, a Ghazi. Entanglement, enlightenment, an end or an eternal echo? The Logos, reshuffled in the revelry of Rumi, a Rubik's cube of realities. Dedaloom whispers, "From Alif to Yaa, from Aleph to Tav, I quantumly quaver, and yes, Be and it is."

User



20230421

Mona’s Heiroglyphica or Joaquin and Boaz Afraid





“A man who really needs to come”











Tragedy:  confrontation with what oneself has written and thus ordained for oneself 


If tragedy is that ineluctable collision with what oneself has writ, what then is 3-74?  


His voice will be heard in your mind, in your own language, but it will seem to come from the TV.  When I was listening to Strawberry Fields Forever, the contact with VALIS, the news about Chrissy’s birth defect ie our media and telepathy combined.  Inner/outer, so there is no way to tell if the info arises within you or enters from outside.  These distinctions are abolished (as I well know from the Tensor experience), and the whole set/ground temporal parallaxis may be intrinsic to me using phosphene patterning firing.  Hence, I am no longer blind.


Philip K. Dick, February 1982





Act I:  Lost His Sheep


Red Velvet Corridor 
I Was a Prisoner in Your Skull
Helpless Child 
Live Through Me 
Yum-Yab Killers 
The Beautiful Days 
Volcano 
Mellothumb 
All Lined Up
Surrogate 2 
How They Suffer 
Animus 



Act II:  Jarboe Is Not Afraid


Red Velvet Wound 
The Sound 
Her Mouth Is Filled With Honey
Blood Section 
Hypogirl 
Minus Something 
Empathy 
I Love You This Much 
YRP
Fan's Lament 
Secret Friends 
The Final Sacrifice 
YRP 2
Surrogate Drone 



Act III:  The Amfortas Transformer


No Words / No Thoughts

Reeling the Liars In

Jim

My Birth

You Fucking People Make Me Sick

Inside Madeline 

Eden Prison

Little Mouth


Press play when you see:

(A24/4/21:  See with Spanish subtitles where available)

2nd Viewing:  



“My brain is so exhausted that fatigue-images appear, by pure physical reflex action; they are not astral things at all. 

And now I have conquered the fatigue by will. And by placing the shew-stone upon my forehead, it sends cool electric thrills through my brain, so as to refresh it, and make it capable of more rapture.”




20230204

Helter Skelter Vol. 10: Thomas, Can You See Me?


There’s only one gnostic experience, you’ll never have it again.  Once you have it, you are having it every day.


You do not come by knowledge of your own volition.  When the student is ready, actually, it’s not when the student is ready, it’s when the pupil is ready, the Master appears.  And that Master is the first physical principle of reality, the birth of the Universe.  You see it in your mind’s eye, and in no way could I claim that I understood it when I first saw it.  It drove me into research, and some would say that I have come to a state of confirmation bias, but I know that it isn’t true, because like a foolish kid who is just joking around with a teacher, I actually sketched it out.  And I didn’t even remember doing that really until decades later.  After I had my gnostic experience, I realized I had already seen this dozens of times before.  I just didn’t recognize it for what it was.


Mark LeClair, 2012





"I shall choose you, one out of a thousand, and two out of ten thousand, and they shall stand as a single one." 
































 
"When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the Vision and the Voice one and the same, so that the Vision not be Vision nor the Voice; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and an ear in place of a an ear, and a meme in place of a meme; then will you enter the kingdom."

20230128

Back to the Garden: Look In The Barrel






Here comes a catholic 

Can you see anything offensive in that?


“This’ll be the end of Aaron’s…”


“C.K. kept talking about morality and punishment throughout the set, but never connected the dots to his own behavior. He belittled the idea that parents should teach their kids the difference between right and wrong. He tells his kids there are no bad words, you just have to think hard about who you’re saying them to. He talked about convicted murderers and how admission of guilt plays into sentencing. He observed how everyone in hell is equally miserable, and Hitler shares real estate with people who committed minor sins. He doesn’t believe in God (according to “Sincerely”), but mentioned his Catholic upbringing and ended the set by literally reading from a Bible. The obscure verse was about Jesus making a fig tree wither and die out of spite because it wouldn’t bear fruit.  

“You want fruit out of season? Go to Whole Foods, you f—king J-w,” he said.  


If you’re like me, that line probably made you laugh, but it didn’t make you smile.”


Dan Gentile