Rattail
August 30th, 2006 by Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley; no comments
I discovered that, in cutting Adrian’s hair, we had missed a two-foot-long clump near the back.
If Matt were captured by Nazis, he might get drunk and hit on someone
August 28th, 2006 by Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley; no comments
Because we were Jewish, a pretty large group of people and I were being interned. Our captors were explaining how we would be tortured over the next few years. It would be gradual, and mostly involve our inability to leave. Matt, who was apparently drunk, staggered up to one of the captors, shook his hand and introduced himself. “I am going to prom,” he told the authority figure. “Alexa needs me.” He might have been told that this would not be allowed. He sat down next to Emily Lewis and tried to hit on her, only the words he was saying were actually insulting.
“Hey, you’re looking bad today.”
“Don’t say that, Matt.”
“Heh heh.” He glanced at her seductively. “Supersize.”
Ben’s Wedding
August 22nd, 2006 by Elizabeth Dameron; no comments
I am in one of those sort of dirty, cheap motels. Having just taken a shower, I wrap myself in a towel and exit the bathroom. Ben and Matt are sitting on the bed and watching HBO. Ben is dressed normally except for a golden paper crown and Matt is wearing his Mom’s bathrobe. Neither of them look up when I come into the room. When I sit down on the bed next to them Matt looks at me and says,
“Please don’t tell me you’re wearing THAT to the wedding.”
I knew that Ben wanted us to match, being the maid of honor and the best man and all, but I had forgotten my robe. Matt had to wear a towel.
Friedrich
August 18th, 2006 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
I enter Suite Deals to find the fourth member of Eric’s, Harry’s, and my quadruple there. He is a German of apparent Japanese descent. He introduces himself as Friedrich, which I attempt to repeat to him. He corrects my pronunciation. I know that I will probably never get it right. He also has another name. He fits many Japanese stereotypes including obsessive neatness. He blinks very often.
I fantasize about a day when I will have enough German to communicate with Friedrich.
Bubbles
August 18th, 2006 by Kris Skotheim; no comments
I am on a sandy beach, it is dark. I exist not as a human but as an ambiguous, loosly-assosciated field of energy. There are quite a few of us and we sort of sparkle in midair. I am flying around; a few hundred feet above the beach there are stationary clusters of translucent bubbles. When they begin to move, it becomes a game to fly inside of them, but in order to enter your path of movement must be parallel to the radius of the bubble and you need to be moving very fast. Eventually, I get it right and the world becomes a blinding flash of light and pleasure before it returns to normal.
Later, the bubbles become half-filled with ice and they become elongated and bobbly.
Foiled
August 17th, 2006 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
Kevin and Mike (home soon!) show up to my house. Mike is on a scooter; Kevin’s in roller skates and carries an extra pair for me. I don them and we sail down the road. We’re very, very fast. We arrive at night at a small fair where the Bainbridge farmers’ market is usually held. It’s sparsely populated. Two our right when we arrive is a large stage with extensive lighting equipment. I lose track of Kevin and Mike as I proceed up a hill and around a corner.
I realize then that we’ve come to find chumps with whom to play Risk. There are three or four players on top of a small stage, seated around a board decorated with colorful flags. They will be an easy mark. I step backward to find Kevin and tell him this, but he’s standing right behind me. He tells me that we should go watch the magician.
The magician is performing on the stage I saw earlier. There’s a lot of drama, many yellow and pink lights, and loud, distorted music on bad speakers. He seems to be removing a section of his torso. I know that this will be accomplished with flexibility and dummy legs. Kevin, Mike, and I decide to approach him. We will foil and expose him.
I approach with a yellow legal pad and ask him, breathily, for his autograph. He looks at me a moment and obliges. I ask him to write something else, perhaps my little brother’s name. Even more hesitantly, he writes this, too.
“C’mon, man, you got to write where you’re from.”
He letters, carefully and slowly, “Essex”. I realize suddenly that E. L. Doctorow is from Essex also (probably not true). Ol’ Doc! Now it all makes sense and exposing him will be simple. The lighting here onstage becomes even more intense.
We leave the event. I am somewhere between driving a car, walking very quickly, and riding a bike through Seattle streets. Near a hill, the road is obstructed by a crowd looking intently at a stage that’s been set up at the side of the road. Thankfully, two small lanes have been left clear on the opposite side of the road. We must slow down to safely pass, though, so we edge our way through the side of the crowd.
Perhaps the gathering is something moral like an antiwar protest. I look closer to see if I should join the mob but discover it’s for something very nerdy like a science fiction conference. The arm movements done in unison by the crowd clearly indicate this. Some people I’ve been traveling with have been similarly distracted and exit the crowd, disappointed that it was not activism. They’re still moving their arms.
In the street, I see Mr. Gans walking about. As I near him, I see that he has slight pink coloration on his arms and feet and a big, pink fake nose. He looks surprisingly good. I tell him that it’s odd that, even though he was the only one to arrive with no luggage at all, he still somehow brought along makeup and a fake nose. He remarks that he’s very good at using his pockets; they probably contain goods worth at least $100.
Mr. Gans becomes Tim Geaghan as eric approaches and touches his head, asking, “What is the haps?”
Tim is mockingly confused as he often is with Eric. I calmly repeat for him, “What is the _haps_, Tim?”
I see Leslie walking somewhere out of context. We reunite; I apologize for being out of communication so long.
Question Wednesdays
August 11th, 2006 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
I return to school. As a celebration for the beginning of the year, there are wrestling contests every few minutes. I participate in three and come in second in each. I report this to a bald man.
I enter West Courtyard, where I have moved into my intended room in Suite Deals. I greet Eric, who has unkempt facial hair, and Harry, who seems awkward. My place here is secure. I have set up my computer on my desk and have found a spare monitor, which I have mounted near the ceiling. Harry and Tobo’s room, across from us, is much less secure. Much bargaining, manipulation, diplomacy, and drawing is necessary to obtain it for them. Eventually, we are successful but, even then, it’s questionable whether Tobo or Dav will be occupying the second room with Harry. Even in the latter case, we are happy.
Here at August Camp, we have decided to implement a few new activities. The first is “Question Wednesdays”, in which you, as campers, are invited to ask questions any time during the week. Each Wednesday, I guarantee you that the Kroo will answer your questions truthfully. For example,
Q: What is lighter fluid?
A: Candy.
The hallway
August 7th, 2006 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
Kevin, Nick, and I are playing a vastly complex, enigmatic, real-life, full-immersion game. We are entering the last stage of the game. Many people who’ve completed this before have told us that, in this stage, we are almost certain to be burned to death in a hallway.
There are a few rows of chairs in a pale, stone room, but most people just sit on the floor. Kevin, Nick, and I take a seat near the front of the group and start trying to work out our goals. A short speech is given by a crotchety, short, suspicious, old woman. We are each given water bottles. Some hours are spent just sitting around and reasoning, guessing our next step. Soon, a tall, thin, active man becomes frustrated with us and asks us to listen. We hear the distant, constant sound of giant machines. The man asks us what this must mean, and we reply that the door to the hallway where the machines are must be open. The man turns on his heel and exits through one of the doors in the pale, stone room.
If the door to the machine hallway is indeed open, then we have the first piece of the puzzle. I follow the man out of the room and find myself in a small corridor (for lack of a better name; it is not _the hallway_). To my left, I see a pair of glass double-doors from which the sound is emanating. I open one of the doors very slightly; it is unlocked. I know that I shouldn’t enter, though, before I have a plan. I cannot leave anything to chance.
I spend some time wandering around in the corridor listening very closely. I hear indistinct snatches of something continuous, something that I know is very revealing and intense. The crotchety old woman walks by and sees me loitering. She grunts “no” and keeps walking. She’s walking back to where Kevin and Nick and the others are so I join her. I tell her that I believe the real appeal of this game is the open-endedness, the freedom to observe and experiment without restrictions. Because we are given no guidance, we must make up our own courses of action. She eyes me suspiciously. I know that she’s hiding something sinister about the game but I remain polite and say goodbye as she exits through the second door in the pale, stone room. I rejoin Kevin and Nick.
We walk together back to the hallway’s entrance. We know that we should plan our actions before we enter the hallway so we won’t be incinerated, although that wouldn’t actually be _so_ bad. Nick tries to take my water but I fend him off.
Some other players have decided to enter the hallway. After they entered it, however, it transformed into a small classroom with windows against the corridor (the corridor now resembles very closely the basement of Parsons at Harvey Mudd). The contestants are seated at computers with small children attempting to teach them things. On the screens are cartoon drawings of smiling trees. The scene has an ominous feeling about it.
I for Inconvenient
August 5th, 2006 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
A shady character has a score to settle with society. Nobody knows his identity, but everyone knows his actions: he’s disabling cars across the nation and mysteriously shutting down polluting factories and power plants. Although I know what he’s doing is harming society in some way, my allegiance to him and his cause — reducing the use of fossil fuels — overwhelms my uneasiness with his morality.
As a final stunt, he blows up a bridge that has several thousand cars on it. There is a long voice-over, presumably in the shady character’s voice, that narrates the event.
Failure
August 4th, 2006 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
Some friends and I are exploring some of the sets for _Twin Peaks_ (some friends — but not I — just did this). The most interesting site is a tiny, rickety elevator that looks into a disgustingly dirty kitchen. The building is made of metal and is rusting away in places, most worrisomely the walls of the elevator itself.
We decide to return to my apartment for the evening. The lock on the front door of the building has changed from a keypad to a spinning combination lock. Reasoning that the code has probably not changed, I fake it and we are able to pass through. The second door’s lock has also changed, this time to a pair of spinning combination locks with digital readouts and mechanical clicking noises. I’m able to fake it again and continue through to the door at the base of the stairs. This lock has changed, too, but is not like the others: it’s frighteningly complex, using three levers and some motion-activation. I fiddle with it until I hear sirens approaching outside.
I exit the building and meet someone who tells me that my sister is dead. This is especially hard because my brother and I were charged with her protection.