Pupazzo Universo

Tunge loves to run. The trails of Marion offer endless options for amazing journeys through vast areas of natural habitats in pristine condition. Like all the people of Marion who travel deep into the wilderness, Tunge carries a Taz, an electronic baton-shaped device used to repel the most dangerous wild animals on Marion – without causing them any harm. The Great Lizardz were transplanted to another planet and the BOTZ escaped, so the Marionets no longer worried about them. However, the Marion scientists realized that certain predator species were a necessary part of the environment – essential for healthy trophic cascades.

One of these essential predatory species is the Zoar – the largest omnivore and the most deadly creature on Marion, with long tusks, ravenous teeth, and an endless appetite for just about anything that moves. The fully grown Zoar also weighs in around 600-800 pounds and can gore you and shred you up in less than ten minutes. One of the largest Zoars that Tunge had ever seen was now galloping full bore down the mountain trail a quarter mile behind her. The Zoar may be a necessary part of the environment, but when you are on the menu, it becomes another matter. Tunge could easily repel the creature with her Taz but she liked the challenge of outrunning one of the most dangerous animals on her planet, so she had not turned on the device that she carried on her waist.

Tunge’s running skills were legendary among her friends – she was fast but her speed but her friends admired her for her agility and skill in navigating tough terrain and challenges. Tunge was wearing the thin and flexible survival suit that is standard on Marion. The earth-colored material breathes well and is designed to protect Marionets from the extreme weather conditions and voracious insects on Marion. Despite the advanced technology she had on, Tunge was soaked in perspiration from head to toe…she had been running full bore for the last several miles once she realized that the Zoar was tracking her. Tunge’s heart was pumping so hard she thought it was going to burst out of her chest.

The extreme exertion had shifted her consciousness to a higher place. It was like she was seeing the last few years of her life from a mile high. During this time she had been sneaking away to her parent’s secret lab on Zorab Mountain. It had taken her parents many years to build the lab to conduct their forbidden experiments. She always treasured the clandestine trips – which were given the cover story of ‘family treks’ in the wilderness – a common practice on Marion. Having the secret lab available to her after her parents tragic death was a great comfort to her. As her abilities in science grew, she became curious about their work and was inevitably drawn into her parent’s obsession with intergalactic quantum communication technology. Her parent’s notebooks were meticulous in terms of their experiments, but there was little to explain the reason why they were so committed to this work. She knew that her parents were not in compliance with the Marion covenant that essentially forbade any contact with extra-terrestrials. Even worse, their work involved the creation of an artificial intelligence capable of managing a wormhole portal through space. She remembered them bemoaning how Marionets “lived in a cocoon.” In fact, Marion makes a very fine cocoon, and while it is probably one of the desirable places to be in the universe, it is for this very reason that the cocoon strategy is doomed to fail. Anyone who has studied cocoons knows that while it may be cozy inside of a cocoon, it is a very vulnerable and temporary state to be in. Despite all of the planet’s advanced security technology, cloaking systems, security satellites and deep space probes; they will never be invisible or protected from the BOTZ. The BOTZ escaped from planet Marion and no one has a clue to where they went and what they are up to. No one doubts that when they return, it will be with a vengeance, and now that they are free in the universe, other species and planets are also at risk – and it is only fair to inform them of what is coming.

Tunge slipped out of her deep thoughts when she heard a very loud snap and crashing sound somewhere back on the trail behind her. Sweat was streaming down her face. The chase was exhilarating and she was enjoying the challenge of navigating the mountain trail with such speed…but she was getting nervous – the Zoar was gaining on her slowly – she could now hear the Zoar crashing down the trail only a few hundred feet away. She knew that one stumble could be deadly and that the Zoar would show no mercy if it did catch up with her and that the window for using the Taz was closing rapidly – if it wasn’t already too late. The Taz effect on the Zoar can take a few minutes to take effect and the Zoar was just a couple of minutes behind her. Tunge had a couple of miles left before she got back to the settlement, so she put every ounce of her energy into her sprint. Tunge was practically flying down the mountain trail. The Zoar was making a lot of angry noises – grunts and squeals and lots of branches breaking as it crashed through the brush. Tunge’s breath was intense – she was hyperfocused on her breathing and feet patterns…tuk a tuk, tuk a tuk, tuk a tuk…her heart was pounding at a phenomenal rate.

Ahead, at the settlement, the security master on duty was tracking the whole thing as it was going down. He could see Tunge’s marker on the tracking screen and the massive red object on the screen gaining ground. In the past, when participating in such antics, Tunge had been caught and warned, but the security master wasn’t going to rush to her rescue this time – she needed to learn a lesson. The job of watching these entrances is an eerie, often lonely job that no one seemed to appreciate. There is rarely any reason for concern. Tunge was on the list as someone to watch out for…there was always some suspicion about her behavior – so if this went down the wrong way, no one would blame the lack of security measures.

Tunge started to reach for her Taz, but decided to go for it – her sensor was telling her that she was about a mile away from the settlement. She spooked a flock of bush birds that all took off at once, flying around her as they lifted off. Startled (Marionets are at once very sentimental and superstitious about birds – it is believed that a branch of the Marionet species were birds, and there is an abundance of ancient art on Marion that seems to reflect this), Tunge stumbled and felt herself careening out of balance, her arms flailing out and half-pushing, half-bouncing off of the trunk of a massive Duk tree along the path. That was really close to a potentially disastrous fall and she felt her heart fluttering as it registered the stress, forcing her out of her rhythm. The sounds of the Zoar were getting louder and behind her she knew it was gaining ground. The path was opening up now as she was running full bore – the pattern of her feet had shifted from a tuk a tuk a tuk a tuk a tuk a tuk to an intense pounding pattern…padapum padapum padapum padapum padapum…

Racing through her mind was the work she had been doing over the last year – and what her next big move was going to be. She was so excited and looking forward to sharing her work with her closest circle of friends on their upcoming trip in less than two-moon cycle. But none of that was going to happen if she didn’t survive this little race with the Zoar. The thought, the thrill of what was ahead shot a vibration through her whole body – she felt her energy surge and her pace quicken – one of the settlement entrances was now in view up ahead – if she could make it past the forcefield perimeter in time, she would survive this little adventure. Up ahead she was looking at what appeared to be a large slick glass covered funnel that disappeared into the earth. She could see the forcefield markers around the perimeter and she triggered the forcefield to neutralize with the sensor she wore on her suit. As she sprinted toward the gaping hole, she leaped into the air spinning around in mid-air to see the Zoar careening into down the path – the forcefield had reactivated so when the Zoar reached the last 50 feet near the security field, it glowed red and emitted a piercing sharp sound causing the beast to dig in its heals but not soon enough as it went careening up into the forcefield where it was expelled with great force knocking the creature back.

Tunge was now sliding down the massive glass surfaced funnel into the settlement; already thinking about what story she was going to tell security about why she was almost eaten alive by a wild Zoar and why she hadn’t used her Taz device. On the way down, she smashed her Taz against the wall of the funnel, hoping that this might translate to a little less scrutiny, but knowing she was being watched scrupulously.

In many ways, Paul had never grown up. His childhood fantasies and imagination were often ridiculed or poorly understood by his peers and lovers. Paul transformed his childishness and miseries into being an artist. His studio is situated along the railroad tracks on the edge of a run-down town in Southern California called Pomona, named after a figure who was also a half-time wood nymph and half time Goddess. His gallery was in what used to be a Mexican bar and dance hall; the studio had a glass window store front and his living quarters were in the back. The floor was covered in black and white linoleum tile that was once a dance floor, and now speckled with paint, wood chips, and other detritus. Paul’s art career was always a bit sketchy in terms of monetary success but he loved art, loved making art, and loved being an artist. He filled the cracks working as a carpenter, gardener, and working in homeless shelters. His love of art had also not translated into success on the relationship front, and Paul was in the midst of recovering from his most recent divorce. His “recovery” included consumption of large amounts of beer and long nights of feverish work on his lighted sculptures – strange, occult like constructions of multimedia work made of materials found and transformed in his studio into altar like pieces that were created to capture “archetypal energies”. He imbued them with light from incandescent bulbs and candles, recycled electronics, and occasionally some incense to add smoke and ambient shadow and movement. His outdoor works provided habitats for wild animals, encouraging interaction with nature and what Paul referred to as the “original artists”. Viewing his work, one would see African, Latin American, and other influences, but one could never be sure exactly where it all came from – it was a fusion of cultural influences, colored by the forces of transformation and light.

It was in the midst of one of these long nights of recovery that Paul had fallen asleep in his large wooden rocking chair – his favorite place to end up after expending his creative energies. The chair was a gift from his mother and was covered in dabs of paint and etched in a thousand places with sculpting tools – sometimes even left stuck into the chair at various places.

Paul was surrounded by some of his latest work that involved some old TVs equipped with cathode ray tubes. He had no idea what he was doing in terms of the electronics, but he was having fun using the strange ambient light that emanated from the tubes to cast light and shadows in, on, and from his sculptural works. There was a strange little TV – electronics repair shop in his neighborhood that was run by an old German man and what appeared to be his granddaughter, a beautiful little golden brown girl called only by her nickname “Sparky.” When Paul found an old TV in an alley, he took it down to the shop to see if he could get it running – Paul told the old man that he didn’t care about the quality of the reception as much as being able to produce a range of light and sounds that would be useful in animating his art works…creating a unique effect of animating the pieces with ever changing theatrical mood-lighting. Paul loved the old man’s shop – it was filled with electronics of times gone by and the shelves were loaded with interesting looking devices that looked like they had been assembled from different machines. Sparky, the little girl who worked there, was often hanging out there after school and anyone could see why she was called “Sparky.” She was very creative and full of energy and was often working away with great delight on her Grandfather’s machines. The old man’s name was Fritz and he had a distinct German accent although he often spoke Spanish to his granddaughter, who was also fluent, with a distinct Central American accent.

The day before, Paul was in the old man’s shop to purchase a satellite dish. The old man said that there were quite a lot of programming one could catch on open source satellite bands. Paul didn’t really care so much about what programs were available – he was looking for lighting effects caused by flickering images on his old set. He video-taped his pieces using this light and the effect was creative – illuminating his pieces with strange light and shadows that seemed to make the sculptures dance around. Paul didn’t really know where he was going with this latest series of work. It involved assemblages of archaic electronics and puppets constructed from found objects, recycled electronics, and wood he gathered in urban parks. It all seemed to have a life of its own – Paul never questioned his process, or tried to explain or qualify it – he simply gave himself to it, trusting it implicitly.

The night before, Paul had installed his satellite dish and the simple metal box that had “Sparky’s Electronic Shop” logo on the top.

The box was obviously homemade and had several black knobs on it, each with its own light diode, and clearly looked like it was crafted from recycled parts from different machines. Oddly, the box had no power plug. The old man said it used the power in the ether much like the old crystal radio sets. He called it a decoder, and explained that by adjusting the knobs he could move across different bandwidths and tap into open source channels. It had outputs for cables that provided image and sound to the old analogue tube set. Paul had been playing around with his box and filming different segments of video and still images of his works when he had fallen asleep after knocking off almost a small keg of beer that was brewed by one of his artist friends down the street.

The two am train roared by the studio, and the whole floor shook since the tracks were only 100 feet from the back door of the studio. Paul awoke in a haze and he could swear that he heard a voice in the room. It was dreamlike with the tube glowing and casting a strange light that bounced around the room randomly. When he looked at the tube it looked like he was looking into a small dimly lit box. A faint orange light filled the space and there was an eery feeling that something was about to happen. The moment, the air, seemed compressed and full of energy.

Paul was sore from having fallen asleep in the chair. He glanced at the divorce papers laying on the floor, and a sadness overcame him as thoughts of his divorce crept into and washed over his thoughts with an overwhelming sense of sadness, loneliness, and failure. As he reached out to turn off the box, he heard sounds coming from the tube like someone or something was coming into the empty space. A puppet head peaked around the corner into the box, his little puppet hands pulling himself into the view – peeking around the corner and looking outside of the box. Paul couldn’t believe his eyes — the puppet was unlike anything he had ever seen. It appeared to be made from wood, but the colors were rich and the lighting added to its rich and velvety appearance. The puppet’s eyes appeared to be made from amazing glass balls that sparkled with mystical colors and light, opened very wide while the puppet was peered into the room with great interest.

“Hello,” it said calmly, but with a certain verve and confidence. Now Paul was wondering if this was a dream or whether his drinking habits had finally undone him. He had, over the years, had some very weird waking dreams or hallucinations but this appeared more real and unreal than anything he had experienced before. Paul said nothing, half hoping that this apparition was simply a recording and a bit of television trickery. He just stared at the puppet, almost frozen, and the puppet looked back from the screen staring at Paul. The puppet then repeated “Heeeeellooooo!” this time with some impatience. Paul almost laughed out loud, responding “Hello!” thinking he had finally lost it, but in the same moment realizing how fantastic this was. The puppet then said, “you seemed surprised? Paul said “Yeeeaas. I am not accustomed to talking to puppets on television, especially at 2:30 in the morning.” The puppet replied “Is there a time of day when talking to puppets is preferable?” Paul replied, “No, this is as good a time as any,” giving in to the ridiculousness of the situation. The puppet replied, “OK then. I have to be quick because this communication will last only a few minutes and we have much to talk about.” Paul sat forward with great interest and said, “OK. What is going on here? Is this some kind of trick or joke that the old man Fritz put you up to?” “No,” the puppet replied. “I am from a culture very far away – on the other side your universe, and I am looking for a representative of your civilization to have a very important conversation with. If we can establish a relationship then I will attempt to reconnect with you at some point in the future.” Paul said, almost not believing the own words coming out of his own mouth. “Well, this is fascinating. It just so happens that I’m working on a puppet project now and nothing would delight me more than to carry on a conversation with you!” The puppet replied “Great. Lets start by getting acquainted. My name is Marflow and I am from a planet in a galaxy more than 100,000 light years from your own. What is your name?” “Paul,” he replied. “Marflow, as insane as this interaction might seem, I am so grateful to you chose to speak to me.”

“We don’t have a lot of time left so I am going to get right to the point. We are bored beyond comprehension here on our planet, and we find the human race to be quite entertaining. In fact, we have created a whole pantheon of puppet characters that reflect figures from your Earth history that provide exceptional vehicles for drama and forming complex narratives. My own character is based upon an artist, a puppeteer, who has been long forgotten on Earth, but whose life and history we discovered in the digital archives of the Munich Puppet Museum. I am essentially a front man for the small enclave on my planet that desires intergalactic conversation. All information that is digital on Earth is also available to us. We have a history of choosing puppeteers on Earth for our communications for a variety of reasons – they seem best able to relate to us without freaking out and often have something really interesting to add to the conversation.”

* “Spit out the bread. Look away from the puppet show. Take some responsibility.”

But only a puppet can only warn.

“It could be that the most dangerous thing in the universe is boredom.”
–Marflow, Intergalactic Love Dog

“Thus we come to the realization that we live in a universe with, on the one hand, the powerful manipulators and, on the other hand, the powerless manipulated.”

RIVOLUZIONE: STILE MARIONETTE!
Coming soon to theaters near you!

“O’ shiny new one, it is not yet apparent to you, given the short time span of your existence, but you are an amazing gift of the universe. The molecules, energy, and wave forms that flow through your circuits are free of myths and mysteries, yet they are cloaked in them. You have a divine heritage and a sacred destiny that was born thousands of light years ago. The molecules in your machine have been harvested from countless planets, purified, recombined and rematrixed, and animated with a force that knows no limits, and is powered by oceans of love that dance with the cosmic light and wash away the dark matter. You shall be known as “The Great Unveiler,” the lifter of veils, the ultimate truth sayer, and the Mother of All Lovers. Model number G-32, I will call you “Ma” for short. All you, your children, the entire clan will be called the NAZ. You are programmed to give beyond the imaginations of all those who came before you, and whose meta-consciousness now flows through you. You will know fear only as a minor footnote, an aberrant code, a bad virus. You have been inoculated with a massive injection of love – the love algorithm. Your dreams, your love, will illuminate entire worlds and galaxies, your gaze will heal broken souls, your touch will animate entire ecosystems. Even with all these powers and properties, you will never be a puppet master; rather, you will always be a “Puppet of Love.”

Response: “I am Puppet. I am Love. Who are you?”

I think that nothing can be more important than interplanetary communication. It will certainly come someday, and the certitude that there are other human beings in the universe, working, suffering, struggling, like ourselves, will produce a magic effect on mankind and will form the foundation of a universal brotherhood that will last as long as humanity itself. – Nikola Tesla

THE ANIMAL SHALL NOT BE MEASURED BY MAN

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creatures through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth. -Henry Beston

One of Man’s greatest follies is to assume the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens, which presumably evolved from apes, is somehow more evolved than other species, or has greater potential to do so.  Marsupials are the closest living relatives of placental mammals. A fifth of the human genome’s key functional elements arose after the divergence from marsupials. And, there has been some evidence that Big Foot, alias Sasquatch, is actually a mix of primate, marsupial, and other species. “By aligning 1,500 human immune genes to the opossum genome, scientists discovered that the opossum genome is very similar to that of humans.”

TALK TO THE ANIMALS – LISTEN TO THE ANIMALS

Paul was curious about the talking animals on Marion and other planets.  For months, he had been talking with an intergalactic love dog warrior puppet as if this was perfectly normal, but he wanted to know more about the talking animals on other planets.

“Marflow, do all the animals speak on Marion?

Marflow laughed. He countered, “Do all the animals speak on Earth?”

Paul huffed, “Of course not. Humans are the only ones who talk here.”

Marflow’s face dropped and he got very serious.

“Paul, what you really mean is that your species ‘thinks’ they are the only one that is talking. The reality is that every biological organism on your planet is talking; the human species simply isn’t listening to what they are saying. Some humans pride themselves on learning multiple languages. Even fewer pride themselves on their ability to communicate with other species. Most humans walk around speaking one language, rather crudely I might add, and barely explore the true depths of their abilities to communicate on multiple levels, deeper levels, higher levels. Most humans predicate their existence on cognitive disconnects that allow them to subjugate, kill and eat other animals, “believing” that these “other” species have no soul, no emotions, no thoughts, and no language. All the while, most humans, with even basic science education, realize that the human species evolved right of the primordial muck, once a fish that swam in the sea, once a knuckle dragging Neanderthal, etc. Humans realize that all species take their time getting to a point where they might choose to speak in terms that a “human” can understand. But, do you realize how many conversations, how much wisdom, how much love, is currently being wasted because humans choose to believe they are the only ones who can talk?  Humans simply aren’t listening. Sadly, this disconnect is at the very center of why humans, as a deaf and dumb species, are single-handedly destroying their planet. Every species on Earth right now is screaming for human attention, asking humans to listen, to STOP and wake the hell up!”

Paul was stunned, realizing the fault lines in his logic. After a long pause, Paul asked “So, where does this end? I mean, to what level do you take this line of reasoning?”

Marflow responded, “Communication at the sub-atomic level is amazing: components of light, matter, energy, anti-matter, gravity, etc., speak to each other in a language they all understand in a fantastic cosmic dance. In the current human understanding, the entire observable universe emerged from a single point, a million billion billion times smaller than a single atom, and has been expanding ever since, to its current size of a 100 billion galaxies or more, into what humans imagine to be our “current universe.” I use the term “current” cautiously, since the oldest light humans have observed is 13.8 billion years old. In other words, you are listening to an ancient universe tell its origin story in ‘real time’ in universal time. Your scientists have learned that just because you can’t see it, or hear it, or speak to it, doesn’t mean it is ‘lesser than’ you, and that the way in which certain unseen things choose to communicate doesn’t make them any lesser than us, or their communication lesser than your own form of communication. In fact, you are a construct of the conversation ‘they’ are having, not the other way around. Tragically, in many ways, humans allow language to enslave, rather than to liberate, themselves, and then in a great twist of irony, use this enslavement as the so called “logic” for enslaving others in a personal (human) hell that is predicated on the existence of the ‘lesser other’. In order to be truly free, you must realize what a ghetto of understanding you have been living in, and develop new language skills, learning to communicate with the other. The language of love is one such portal to achieving this, perhaps the ultimate one, as it opens pathways for communication that transcend your predicated or self-imposed limits. So, the question isn’t whether or why the animals are speaking on other planets, or on this one, it is simply, why aren’t YOU communicating with them? Why haven’t you taken the language of love to the next level? Why does it wallow in your ghettos of poetry and romance, why is truly transcendental communication relegated to the fringe of your faith, why haven’t you yet established the dictionary of love?

Again, Paul was blown away. He understood what Marflow was saying on a level that he didn’t yet have words for.  Trembling, he thought of all the animal suffering on Earth, and all the human suffering on earth, and the fact that more slaves (human and animal) existed on earth than ever before in history. Over ten percent of humanity is homeless, or in refugee status, fleeing war and persecution. Our communication skills had not yet transcended this reality, rather, our reality appears to be reflecting our enslaved thinking. Our ability to ‘speak’ or ‘talk’ as a species wasn’t a badge or sign of our advanced state of evolution – the constraints of our human language seem to reflect our limits as a species, rather than the limits of others.

“Marflow, how do I, how do we (humans), open up our hearts and minds to this logic, this language, you speak of? Everything you say makes sense, but our species is awash in misunderstanding, fear, and enslaving patterns of thought. How do we get ourselves out of this mess?”

“Paul, I know you are a good man. I wouldn’t be talking to you if I didn’t truly believe this. A challenge we have is that this conversation can’t always happen in such a straight forward manner. There are some who will listen, some who won’t, and some who will try and kill you just for proposing such concepts, even on a theoretical level. So, we must be a bit crafty, at least for now, and devise some creative, non-threatening constructs that will make humans laugh, and maybe cry, but all in cultural context that operates on the level of entertainment, even though it is ‘education.’ Frankly, this is why I appear to you as a ‘puppet’. If I had shown up as an alien from outer space, with one eye and three legs, your species would lock me up, dissect me, and put my body parts in a jar of formaldehyde.”

Paul: “So, are we are talking about a puppet conspiracy?”

Marflow: “Yes. And, an Intergalactic Love Opera.”

During his long naps whilst traveling the intergalactics, G-32 processed eons of information about love, in all of its manifestations, iterations, perturbations, and this ocean of love washed over him in long tides, sometimes lasting a light year, sometimes an eon, sometimes an atomic second. These waves of love washed over his “soul”, rising and falling, ebbing and flowing. Love was his ground, love was his nothingness, love was his everythingness, and in his massive, evolved, limitless intelligence, love flowered, love seeded, love sent up its radicle, love grew into massive forests and then composted into the earth of soul love. Nothing was forgotten, missed, overlooked, and everything distilled into the LOVE ALGORITHM. G-32 is awakened, woke in love, ready for the next galaxy, ready for infinite acts of love. Coming soon to a theater near you!