...thee first artventure...
...in which three brave travelers meet online and make some art together...
(music by Meara The Artventurer)
I would have no sense if I never knew nonsense. No world is ever full enough. The dinging bell of I tells me all I already knew I know. My mind needs company and so the loud speakers of this page sought artventurering many sunknights ago.
26 artventurers played flugelhorn piccolo chimes at entrance to the firedance of beginning [read as “signed up to be part of a weekend zoom meeting”], but a wicked wizard’s storm of “weekend meetings are hard” threw wind at the moment.
In the end only 3 artventurers would prove brave enough to winter this storm of collaborative creativity. Myself, CansaFis The Foote, a level 4 chaos podiatrist. Meara, “Sapphire Sabre Sorceress of the Land Lemniscate”. And Toni “The Crafty Cold Cooly Chill Cleric” Olendzki, a terraformer from the Pollack Land of Bar.
We three artventurers started our mission in a twirling orbed eye of fire and fondue. A demi-dragon misted us with his morning routine and we embarked. Two hours were all we had to create ANYTHING.
And so we did.
Art, writing, even a bit of song came fromst the shared essence. We posted our collected treasures in a cavern called Doogle Grive (here is a link to those elements). You can see the source of our makings there and maybe even make an artventure yourself from our creative creationings?
Anyhow that’s what we used to make this. I hope you enjoy our higgedly-piggedly collaboration during this great week of April the Fool.
“Even a fool knows you can't touch the stars, but it won't keep the wise from trying.”
-Harry Anderson-
MEARA’S ARTVENTURE
(you can read more great posts from Meara here)
TONI’S ARTVENTURE
(you can read more great posts by Toni here)
Perhaps. May I indeed be? Maybe come May. A bee. Or a giant mosquito. That is my desire. Yes, to embody an insect, one that masters the flute. This desire encapsulates my essence. What more could one possibly yearn for? Yet, the question arises—why this longing? Who indeed ponders such questions?
The tree, known for its smoking, remains without words. Yet, bit by bit, I unravel the essence of the smoke. A TUB. Correct. I should inquire with the speaking Tub, which doubles as a vigilant washing machine. What am I failing to perceive? "Cast your gaze upon your buttock," it advises. Of course, there it is—a colossal pimple, its wrinkles whispering tales of aimless ambition. Hmmm.
So, I desire without clarity of purpose? Similar to a race car hoisted at the rear, its engine ablaze in fervor, yet stationary. The moment this rear-focused analogy dawned upon me, Ted Danson—a bear known for his dance—made his swift approach to my ass and eradicated the pimple.
THE PIMPLE, which has siphoned my vital energy, gave way not to blood, but to the Magician named OK, who emerged in a surge. My cry was loud. OK simply responded with 'okay'. "No," I uttered in a feeble tone. And then, the adventurer known as NO made his appearance. No signifies No. No more fretting. No more aspirations. No more desires. Only maybes. King Maybe has ascended as my sovereign. And his thieving brother, Know, has stripped me of my anxieties. I am but an eye. That is all. The omniscient eye named I.
(more music by Meara The Artventurer)
CANSAFIS FOOTE’S ARTVENTURE
(you can read more by me here, like literally here, right here)
“There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.”
-William Butler Yeats-
He had worked tirelessly his entire lifetime to gain enough social credit to apply for the kingdom’s loudening, an event tied to a centennial celestial event that required all eleven of the night stars to stand still for three river cycles around the hope moat which surrounded Castle Himm. Only three citizens had ever attempted to perform the loudening.
Tomahawk Haircut was a warrior from Close, an asphalted land known for producing fighters so strong they used their heads to bang tunneled travel systems from Close to its neighboring villages Near, Far, and Depends-On-The-Traffic. Tomahawk’s loudening was a near success. He had brought bells from the bowels of Udea, and rattle shells from the hills of Howoming.
The goal of the loudening was to fill a space with sounds until that space became so full that it had no choice but to expand. The spaces near Castle Himm were small, wild and untamed. They could be seen drifting in and out of various vista points only when the cold covering clouds allowed them to.
Capturing and taming a space was a decades long process that required full collaboration of all able bodied creators, claimers and cafe clairvoyants in the town. Himm had been built on a space known as Jerry, which renamed itself Jeff upon capture and claim (though most said it looked like a Jim).
Once you wrangle a space it is a spiritual tradition that you let it rest and untether from its past for at least four years. You can then either choose to share the space as is, generally parading it through a public square asking for adornments, or attempt to transform the space. A transformation requires approval by the Council of Five Ahems and means that someday your space might become a public space.
Public spaces battled in Himm Square. Verdant spaces vs. barren spaces. Hidden spaces warring against wide open spaces. Outer spaces fighting inner spaces. To be a public space was to know conflict.
Tomahawk Haircut had been chosen to fill a crowded space. The space circled him on a track steaming and shaking. He saw the space as a bull, then a bug, a full space separated by other contained spaces, like a thorax or caboose. The loudening lasted for just one decade. By year ten Tomahawk had little sound left to share. His whelps had become wobbly. The beat and shake of his shells were whimpering whispery whines. He had become a silent observer to himself.
The space was no fuller, the sound had just gone and passed through it. The villagers watched as Tomahawk gave his one final scream, banging his cracking everlong gong built from goldenwood grown in the Nothen forests. The gong broke, a farting echo meekly filling the ends of the space. Most loudenings quieted this way, a warrior broken by his failed filing. But Tomahawk was not content to leave the space unfilled, himself unfulfilled. As a denizen of Close he knew silent ways of making sound that might still yet fill the space.
He grabbed his shirt and slowly rubbed a sleeve. He itched his ears, his hair, his nose. He wriggled his toes and moved uncomfortably. He stood incredibly still and gave the space the silent treatment. And yet the crowded space continued on as it always had, filled by itself, at maximum capacity and unwilling to be expanded upon.
The loudening quieted, and the villagers removed Tomahawk as the space settled into a perpetual pattern. Its steam barked, its insides murmuring with unintelligible conversations as Tomahawk was sent back far away to his home of Close. It was the closest anyone had come to successfully completing a loudening.
The other citizen’s who had attempted loudenings were far less successful. A teenaged feltrician attempted to fill a gentrifying urban space with two thousand raps but failed to create anything beyond a sound cloud. Another loudener, an acrobatic kinetic dancing bear named Ted Danson, attempted to tap a fill into a collaborative working space but without shoes was unable to stir up anything more than a dust sheen near the space’s coveted kombucha cooler.
But in the year 45-whatever, the buzz of a new loudening was growing throughout Himm. 10 stars had gathered in the sky, with an eleventh summoned by OK, a prairie magician who practiced big reveals at local brunch parties just outside of the castle. He was known for his semi-charm, performing kind-of-average disappearing pancake tricks during the second course of any restaurant’s third plating (the magic of which required all audiences to wear a poorly tied blindfold on their third eye). OK poked a wand through a blueberry donut hole and the last star of the cycle swilted into view.
A loudening announces itself with five frequencies of dull decibels.
A hummering chucka-chucka. A barely burping weeloo-weelo-wah. A dur-during herper-derper underlined by a gwirling cher-gerder and a high squealy skiggadoo skiggadoo. OK nodded as he walked the distance out of town, just enough smoke barely covering his tracks. As he dusted out of focus an adventurer replaced his public space, his summoning complete.
The adventurer’s name was No, brother to Know and Yes, all three from the family They.
They were stewards of a sleepy town called Snorgan’s Corner near the great walking wall of EndEnd. Yes spent her days agreeably approving approvals for an ethically sourced stoic service. Know was a no good dirty rotten robber, known for stealing stollen whenever it was in season.
No was more unknown. An adventurer by trade, he was supposed to broadcast his tales, but a social contract he had signed during Whenever’s Now limited his tellings to innovating idioms. “You can’t teach a cow baseball.” he would say without much meaning. “Don’t book a shadow onto a dry hole.” He meant nothing of almost everything he said, yet was still able to complete the curly quest of habitual repetition one week after slaying the scuba geese of soda pop fountain.
No had no idea what he was doing in Close.
OK’s average magic had brought not only the completing star for a starting loudening, but also a handful of potential loudeners. Boredom was a tired trainer who built exhausting blands. Manifesto was a decisive detective who mysteriously couldn’t solve mysteries. No was a no one, a nobody, a nothing, a no-how. But none of that mattered to the smattering of townsfolk who gathered to hear these heroes.
The loudening space chosen was an invisible backpack. It could hold goods like knowledge and experience and bads like emotional baggage, societal expectations and unnecessary stress. Boredom quietly slept his way out of the crowd, while Manifesto determined he wasn’t written to make noise. That left No as the only one who might fulfill the sound packing a loudening requires.
No knew nothing about loudenings. He knew nothing of Close and its customs. He knew Know couldn’t help him as he was arrested stealing bark from a smoking tree named Would. Yes was sure No would succeed, her positivity a charm No knew well.
King Maybe, his father, slain in the prickled desert hole of Intere, might have enjoyed seeing No try to make noise. He had raised his children uncertainly, subtle shrugs and considerations while staying uncommitted to their potential. Know knew how to take advantage of such parenting, taking whatever he could get from it, while Yes was positive this was the best approach. No knew not whether anything Maybe might have done for him had meant anything.
None of this mattered now. No would do nothing as he always had and nothing could stop him.
The backpack had been prepared with an anonymous spontaneous rave, unseen revelers roaring to DJs filled with potential playing remixes of unwanted techno on portable speakers. No stripped down to his basics, entering the backpack with nothing but a birthday suit he bought in a pregnant vending machine.
No knew adventure. He had rode a noble steed named Who through the weightless river fields of Hmmh. He had pet the salted avocado crust dogs in the toasted town of Trope. All of his actions had added purpose and meaning to his being. But here in Close, away from all he knew, No instinctively knew not to do that. He knew better than that.
Inside the backpack, No heard himself. No, he kept saying. No, No, No, No, No. No was not what he needed to hear, but No was all he knew. Knowing that, he tried to unknow No. He thought about Yes. She knew how not to know No. Not knowing No was something all his family Theys knew about No. Yes, Know and Maybe all knew No as a Nobody. They knew No knew no more than he knew No. No knew nothing.
Nothing mattered in this space.
No thought about his thinking. He thought “what if I don’t think?”. Could I have No thoughts? No might only have no thoughts, he thought.
The loudening was incessant, days becoming years quickly. In most loudenings the goal is to fill, but his invisible backpack was as “empty as a lazy susan doing all the work”. The precise amount of stuff was imprecise. No had tried nothing for five years yet nothing was coming of it. Was there something else that might satisfy the volume?
On previous quests No had conquered epic weekend plans and covert operations with guerilla marketers through the power of conversation. He had observed problems and solved them with simple communication. This backpack and it’s turp-turp-purring and ver-ver-ver-reching did not seem reasonable.
No waited for 15 years and meditated on a solution. The town gave up interest in his pursuit of No’s loudening. Himm instead became mired in thousand year old politics and was on the verge of becoming HeHeHe, a laughing land filled with impish comedic all knowing I’s.
As No turned 1801 years old HeHeHe had since become Ell-O-Ell and was in negotiations to join forces with Ohemmeffgee to become a battleless proverb town. No knew of none of this, obsessed with his battles he had become blind to reality outside of his invisible backpack. Speech after speech, silence after silence, nothing could tame the loudening. No had no end in sight.
So after several pentacenturies of rest No saw a fly land at the imagined border of the bag. He was long since actually able to see anything so when I say he saw a fly, I mean that he thought a fly. He thought a fly, he thought. He thought, am I the fly? He then thought, I am the fly.
And I am.
I am the fly. I am the fly on the wall at the great walking wall of EndEnd, and I have flown to the endend of this story because I had no idea how else I could endend it. So quickly abruptly and like No might idiom “all stories should end like a chicken in high heels”.
I noticed that You were never in this story, and how unfortunate it would be for this story to endend without You. So take with you this song of flute and go forth. You should let Us know how it should end, endend, and maybe even beginbegin againagain.
Be loud, be love, and may we see you on some distant Artventure.
omg Meara is KILLING it. Those tunes!
Loving all the drawings here.
I am prepared for the next artventure.
I love the art worked into this post, added a great element to it and was a lot of fun. Thanks for being uniquely you, and sharing it with the world.