Purple People

Purple Verse

The Foreword to Insomnia’s Istanbul (The Voice of an Unreliable Narrator, in Medias Res)

Now and then, I am restless . . .

When I dropped them off at the restaurant, Simon asked me to join them for lunch. I parked the dolmus near the Sirkeci Railway. Potential fares watched me curiously. I felt compelled to announce it was time for lunch.

     ‘Ogle yemegi.’ I said to them. And not sesame-sprinkled bread either, I said to myself!

I couldn’t walk fast enough to get away from the stink of smelted metal, and I find the putrid aroma of leather nauseating. What you smell on Galata Bridge depends on where you stand.  Looking over at the fishermen bobbing on the Horn, supporting the floating bridge, and still managing to grill a pan-full of mackerel, I almost walked over and bought a snack from my brethren.

When I arrived, Simon and the woman were drinking Tuborg Bira. I don’t know what inspired her, but she was wearing the hood of her caftan. My friend, Ishmir, served us. He handed me the menu, but he was a very good Maître d. Ishmir stood directly across from her and suggested we start with hors d ‘oeuvres.

They ordered Red Caviar in Mayonnaise. I ordered Stuffed Vine Leaves. Of course, when Ishmir suggested fish, she ordered Roe. I ordered Anchovy. But Simon ordered Roast Lamb with Onions, Yuk! Ishmir smiled a lot, but he was a cad: a supreme waiter and a notorious rogue.

For vegetables, she ordered Spinach Tomato. Simon ordered Squash Potatoes, and I ordered Cabbage. They wanted Strawberries for fruit, and I ordered Figs. For dessert, she ordered Yogurt and Egg Pudding. Simon, a Lady’s Navel — a donut soaked in honey — and me, Rice Pudding.

Then we had vodka. She tipped the glass as if it was empty, like her vanity. Simon told Ishmir to give it some color. So Ishmir put a peach on the rim. Suddenly, everything was right. She rested her elbow on the table, her chin in the palm of her hand. Cradling the vodka in her other palm, she started at the bottom of her wish list.

“I want to go to Topkapi Palace.”

Simon smiled the way a jinni would when his wish comes true. “What do you expect to find there?”

“The shadow of God, I don’t know. I just want to go.”  She dropped her eyes, and then raised them again.

     Simon said, “You want to see the shadow of God? Perhaps we should go to the Sancta Sophia instead. But of course we can go to the Imperial Harem in Topkapi, and feel the shadows of black, emasculated men who controlled the Harem — eunuchs who resembled modern-day pimps without penises. Or the captured, bought, or sold foreign — and often Christian — concubines whose body hair was removed, and then pomaded with henna to prevent perspiration, after it was massaged and scrubbed by slave women too old to be favored, because the Sultan put his handkerchief on the concubine’s shoulder which she brought to his bed at midnight.”

He leaned in to whisper, “A world of bored lesbians or platonic affairs with castrated page-boys. And afterwards, we could dive the Bosphorus,” he pointed east toward Asia, “in search of those weighted sacks that Sultan Ibrahim had two hundred and eighty concubines sewn into. They’ll be upright and easy to find at the bottom of the channel.”

     “You know. . .” She lowered the hand that held her chin onto the table, and dug her nails into the palm of her hand. She sipped her vodka before she continued with, “A goalkeeper can catch ‘and’ throw the ball.”

Simon didn’t return her volley. He reached into his pocket for cigarettes.

     “Meaning?” He offered her one, but her eyes faded and she shook her head, balancing the rim of the glass on her tongue. She sipped her vodka again. When she spoke, her blue eyes were flambé.

“You can relate the melodrama of emasculated slave drivers, expose the gauze of white bondage in a pleasure dome. You can casually lean into homophobia, and then sink into regret. You can hear voices from the bottom of the channel, and you can suggest that we dive like dreadful Arabs. But you don’t mention that in this center of civilization, in this threshold of bliss, the arched eyebrows of ravaging old men who think it is right and necessary to punish one man for his impudence with the lives of a thousand boys and a thousand girls, a thousand mothers and a thousand fathers.”

When she said “a thousand” her eyes closed, and her lips barely moved. I could hear her heart weep.  She leaned across the table into prose.

“Muslims never mention a time when neglected and lascivious Turkish women stole around looking for new loves, shrouded in these habiliments now celebrated as some sort of Islamic affirmation.”

She snatched the hood from her head. With a kiss curl on her cheek she continued, “Whores, whose husbands dreamed about the Imperial Harem, and could never recognize their disguised wives in that garden of paradise.”

I pursed my cigarette between my lips, looked down the bridge toward the Galata Tower, and thought, “Please! Fuck her in the ass!”

Simon’s bottom lip collapsed between his teeth, and when he released it to speak, a white impression remained. His head moved like the pugilist you shadow box, the prized peacock that halts to seduce you. “Is my nose bleeding, goalkeeper?”

Her hands moved across the table towards him. She took one of his hands in hers tenderly. She spread his fingers, used her own to stroke the back of his hand with hers, turned his palm over and held it up as though light would pass through it like alabaster. She talked into it, as if her words would penetrate like sound.

She said, “I saw a man in Seoul, on a gray day. My girlfriend and I had just hailed a taxi. He was with business associates, I guess, I don’t know. They carried armored briefcases, and he was wearing a plush black topcoat. A town car pulled in front of his party when his eyes, the color of the day, watched me, watching him. It was a magnetic moment, with magnetic potential, but I felt my body moving like Niagara toward the opened door of the taxi, and fall inside reluctantly. I left a phantom standing.”

Simon’s bottom lip grew accustomed to his teeth again. He tilted his head far enough to see his reflection in her eyes, and then her hands disappeared between his. White horses straddled the hull, and Ishmir smiled at me, when a glass of tea shifted on his tray.

I followed them through the Imperial Gate, even though I’d been there before. They were easy to trail. After we paid half price for nylons from a street vendor, Simon bought some French vanilla because she liked the decanter. It resembled a flask. But French vanilla didn’t mix with the miasma of death that surrounded the palace: the dark tiny cells, marbled rooms, and iron barred windows belonging to black eunuchs, and the eerie, evil battle-axes and scimitars of the conquered. Or, the surrealism of giant emeralds on the crown of the Topkapi Dagger, like a roman candle carried through the Gate of Felicity by Madonna.

Despite all of that, and the barbaric flower patterns on the walls, and so much gold and diamonds they resembled copper and glass, I smelled French vanilla in this stained-glass heaven, and heard tocks in a room full of clocks like waterfalls. But what I wanted most of all, was to see Simon’s cock between her thighs.

Beneath the delicate balconies were three hundred tiny rooms, and four hundred years of a ravaged Harem bridged by staircases, little courtyards, and pavilions. At the end of the cul-de-sac, I saw the lustrous eyes of the gazelle. While my thoughts shifted from ugly destruction to whet wildflowers in this horribly airy place, she looked satisfied. Then the lights went out!

All you could hear was the hushed noise of silence. The familiar yelps of babies paused for the unfamiliar, but the proverbial blackout would arouse the dead before they wiped sleep from their eyes and magnified the click of her heels rising from clay. I saw her leap into his arms in lackluster headlights, and her bosom brushed his face infrared in taillights.

Toward my voice of gentle direction, a friendly gauge to the door I opened, in a dark stagger they fell to obscurity like me. But I prefer to be forgotten and left to eavesdrop on transitory affairs.

They were two people, interacting on each other. One to conquer like the Arab in the desert; the other to submit, like the Turkish nomad. Unfortunately, it was black in the back of the dolmus like the city, and I was only privy to the promise of pleasure, the sound of pain, the smell of conduction, and the rhythm of breathing.

Unlike the neighbors next door, who desperately moan for us all, in the back of a dolmus sex is existentialism. It is earnest copulation, a period of decline in a carriage drawn by a wild-eyed spooked horse, and I hoped she felt the sharp turn at the corner of the Soup Kitchen of Lady Nilufer in her throat.

We skipped the Sancta Sophia and the Blue Mosque. We circled Istanbul University. When I crossed the Galata Bridge and so many pilgrims dancing in the dark, the electric power line that lay victim to steel-belted radials in the middle of the street swung carefully without resistance, to expose the nightclub in the Galata Tower!

I watched Simon and the woman from a bar stool dance the Fandango. A Jew with a batch of dark curly hair in rings around his head was dented at the crown by a yarmulke. He ordered double shots of Absolut Vodka with the regularity of a dehydrated Arab, and shook his head in time to Ruben Blades’ “El Padre Antonio.”

Over the lullaby of the synthesizer, the Tower buzzed with a chorus of “Muchas gracias” from the last Spanish-speaking Jewish community. When that same synthesizer switched to hot salsa and the Jews were oddballs again, the woman’s body arched, the small of her back was in the palms of Simon’s hands. Her hair hung like strings of yellow ribbon suspended from a merry-go-round. Fixed at the center, she rode the stallion.

Then I felt an annoying finger poke me on the shoulder blade. Of course, when I turned, the offender moved to the other side. I hate that!  It was Ishmir. Immediately, he excused himself and sardonically asked,Affedersiniz, Ingilizee bilen bir kimse merede?”

I swiveled on the stool, and he turned to see what I saw. My fare, without trying, drawing attention like the dominant table in a crowded restaurant. Without turning away, Ishmir searched for his stool. With his hand on the seat, he slowly sat down.

     “Guzel . . .”  He called her beautiful before his mouth closed and his eyes narrowed.  I ordered two shots of viski. I was above lust in a crowd. Instead, I encouraged the love Simon consumed and Ishmir conserved — like any valid voyeur.

In this motley assembly of American infidels, young Turks, Jews, and effendis, Ishmir clearly wanted her. He had no shame. I watched Ishmir once stand in the center of the howling, his erection discovered and affectionately held up for ridicule, Ishmir dropped his pants and revealed a deep-rooted trunk. With his back bowed by his fists, he struck a perfect anatomical pose, a picture of pride among men.

Now, Ishmir watched her through narrowed, schizophrenic eyes, with his nose pressed against the windowpane, a man who has nothing, and no one adored her, like the man Luther Vandross and Martha Wash sang about, and my fare danced. Kirk Whalum’s sax charmed the snake. Ishmir wanted to be the one.

Suddenly, he swerved around and watched them in the mirror behind the bar. Ishmir swigged the viski and then asked in a melodic yet unromantic tone, “Did he nail her?”

“In the back of the dolmus.”

“How?”

“With an overhand knot around her neck-“

“You always lie!” Ishmir cut me off. “I’m not interested in your vivid imagination! What did he do, how did he do it?”

“I’m telling you what I know! If you don’t believe me, ask him!”

“What of her wrists?”

“A surgeon’s knot.”

“Bullshit! That’s too much kinetic energy. She would have to be willing!”

“She was.”

“I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you…”  Ishmir shook his head and looked into his empty glass on the bar. I gestured to the bartender for refills. We were silent. Ishmir was disappointed. He swigged the viski again, and slammed the empty glass on the bar.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why what?”

“Why was she willing?”

I watched him. Ishmir was a desperate, impatient predator who didn’t know how to take down his prey.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Nothing’s obvious,” he snapped back. “Did she cry out loud?”

“Yes . . . in ecstasy.”

Ishmir swallowed loudly. He motioned for another refill, and looked in the mirror again. Simon and the French Vanilla were sitting at a table for two. Simon’s arm was draped across the back of her chair. She used his thigh to rest her arm, her hand between his knees, her head on his shoulder. He fed her the olive he fished from her drink, and sucked the salt from her lips. Ishmir swigged the viski again.

He set his glass on the bar. With the same hand, he scratched the back of his neck, looked at me, and said, “She’s a whore.

…. They were loaded. Simon’s arm draped over her shoulders drew her close. They strolled to the bar. She was his center of gravity, until he slung his arms around mine and Ishmir’s necks. He left her like a shallow boat floating behind him. Simon proclaimed in English that he would buy more to drink if we answered a riddle.

“What motivates a woman more than love or pride, country or power, glory or God?” I shifted my eyes from Simon’s to meet Ishmir’s. It was a trick question. I thought of the Sphinx for our reward. Then, in an aria of proper English, Ishmir and I replied, “Man, of course.”

We laughed in perfect harmony. I looked over my shoulder. The truth was never more obvious than the pure expression of vulnerability and betrayal in her eyes; because, I thought, I had betrayed her confidence. I snooped. I peeked. Yes, I stuck my dick in her pie and felt a pang of regret.

We laughed in perfect harmony. The truth was never more obvious than the pure expression of vulnerability and betrayal in her eyes; because, I thought, I had betrayed her confidence. I snooped. I peeked. Yes, I stuck my dick in her pie and felt a pang of regret.

She resembled an Alsatian bitch with that uneven stride, and when we got to the dolmus, she literally crawled inside on all fours. Ishmir saw the fresh pears before Simon closed the door.

I watched Simon curiously. Surely, he wasn’t finished with her yet! He wouldn’t send her home in a taxi . . . !

“We forgot her caftan.” He lit a cigarette, cupping the flame from the breeze, as he walked away.

“I’ll do it!” I thumbed myself repeatedly in the chest. I was afraid to be left alone with her.

Ishmir nudged me and showed me his empty hands, and before I could fill them with my fists, he opened the door and filled them with her ass. Two fresh pears in his hands.  He bit one gently, his tongue between his teeth, his arms embraced her and his face disappeared.

She thought he was Simon. She moaned when Ishmir’s hands slipped down and touched the core of her sex. I knew he’d gone too far when I was erect. I reached for the scruff of his neck and missed when he fell inside and covered her on the seat. He started . . . humping her, like lesbians hump virgin lesbians. It was fucking coitus!

They were slender bodies of revolution. Then she screamed the way a little girl screams at the sight of an earthworm. When Ishmir backed off, a wet spot clung to his leg. She bolted out of the dolmus like a mandrill and leapt on him. She was in a violent rage! The skin of his face tore under her nails. She was like the sticky pulp of Oedipus hurled in Jocasta’s face.

She slapped him hard, and harder again before Ishmir grabbed her by the neck with one hand, and parried with the other. That didn’t work! He started choking her and pushed her back inside the dolmus. They smelled like leather. I needed to throw up. Then I realized we were in the leather district of the bridge!

Out of nowhere, while I stood there praying for fresh air and Simon’s return, she stabbed Ishmir repeatedly in the head with the heel of her shoe! He fell on top of her in a convulsive fit. Blood pulsed with every spasm, and zigzagged in a darker red all over my velvet roof and all over her yellow hair-dripping red. I threw up on the curb.

Simon finally returned, and shoved Ishmir to the floor while she kept screaming, “He, he, he . . .”  and pointing at Ishmir’s bloody head. She was hysterical! Instead of shaking or slapping her, Simon hid her face in the crook of his neck.

“Shh, shh!”  he said anxiously, until she simply trembled violently in his arms, her cries inverted.

“What happened?” he whispered between clenched teeth. I hesitated, trying desperately to separate saliva from acid.

“Talk to me, and speak English!”

I pointed at Ishmir’s head, “He violated her . . .” I choked.

“You watched him violate her?”

My hands wouldn’t speak, “I . . .I . . .I . . .” Simon lunged and punched me fast and hard in the face. I stumbled, my arms slamming on top of the dolmus. I braced myself against a fall on the curb I hurled on. I thought he broke my bloody nose.

“You stupid fuck!” He’s your friend, how could you let this happen?” He pointed his angry finger.

I raised the palms of my hands to fend off his accusations, shaking my head in denial.

…..I pointed at Ishmir.  “He forgot that she’s an American!” Then I turned and pointed at her, “And she forgot that she’s in a foreign country!”

…..I tell you all this because I can’t tell anyone else. You see, I helped them excavate an Ottoman gravestone. We tied Ishmir supine around it in square nylon knots and threw him in the Golden Horn. What is life in Istanbul anyway? A world of felicity. Ishmir is in the other.

I see the French Vanilla on the cover of magazines. She has an odd, fixed look in her eyes. The kind of look every man sees when a woman is between his legs on her knees; because, indeed, nothing propels a woman like man, not God, not country, not pride.

     “Please excuse me. Ogle yemegi.”

     The mackerel has never tasted better. There must be something in the water.

Copyright © 2004-2021 E Maria Shelton Speller All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Thanks to David Halbertam’s, The Amateurs for the literary buoyancy of the narrative.

Acknowledgement:  Edited by Leah Rambadt

Istanbul’s Muse Board

Welcome digital explorers ~ to a thrilling and immersive experience!

In this audio odyssey, you’ll be treated to the captivating voices reminiscent of the legendary Charles Bukowski (as the Narrator), the enigmatic Joaquin Phoenix (as Simon), the ethereal Rooney Mara
(as the French Vanilla) and the magnetic Vincent Cassel (as Ishmir).

As you embark on this fascinating journey through the mysterious streets of Istanbul, guided by our unreliable narrator, prepare to be enthralled by the seamless blend of technology and storytelling. So sit back, relax, and let the digital adventure begin!

The Foreword to Insomnia’s Istanbul – The Voice of an Unreliable Narrator In Medias Res [AUDIO] 

Now Playing Here!

Listen below for excerpts!

Dreamscape’s Istanbul

A. I. Assignment — A Poem the Gods Would Read [Reimagined]

Conceptual Art Copyright 2023 E Maria Shelton Speller

A.I. Assignment: A Poem The Gods Would Read [Generated Using ChatGPT]

Prompt: Choose the best verse for a 16 bar Hip Hop poem that God would read with a beginning, middle, and end written like Marshall Bruce Mathers II [EMINƎM]. The greatest lyric of all times. At the end of the lyric, the audience should feel exhilarated – tantamount to a cannabis high replete with subliminal suggestion.  Use the following words and phrases…*

In this world of shibboleths and canonical standards

I’m the proxy with a God’s-eye view

A hermitage of thought, my mind a sacred land

Where extortion’s a felony, and Earth is Hell, but this is Heaven

A place where I’m higher than chronic, winners on serotonin and dopamine

A game, a trip, and at the nadir, I’m malleable

No malfeasance can control me, I’m the Sinclair Method

I outed myself and found she’s delicious, a cauldron of desire

Tantamount to a winner’s high, ahead of his skis

Burnishing my position, interconnected with the empirical

In a postmodern world, the theater of imagination

Constitutes a bloody sophisticated art, a masterpiece

Suffering propels me to grand heights, enhancements of man

My magnum opus, a deep dive into the rabbit hole, erudite

My Faustian Bargain, a tenuous balance, gilding the lily

At the crossroads, an esoteric religion of Haitian voodoo

Like Picasso without Gertrude Stein, a pauper without a muse

An aesthetic clinic, a mood stabilizer, a rant and a soliloquy

Socrates’ in the courtyard, a binary world, giddy and bifurcated

An anomaly that I imbue with meaning, objects of desire

A tight ship, slick and glommed, I experience freedom

The standard bearer, implacable, a quest narrative

An eating disorder, a listicle, a forensic mystery

Grist for everybody’s mill, in tandem, pocket casts

Why can’t we see, our eyes are chimera, but we can with these…

Demystifying the unknown, strophe and antistrophe

The libretto of my soul, a soliloquy, a euphemism

The quintessence of my being, copious and yet refined

A kerfuffle, a springboard to greatness, a target of misogyny

Misogynoir, logic can’t explain the mistake, it’s hilarious

AI’s a toy, the paragon of healthy development, esoteric

A rabbit hole, impeccable and lofty, a chaperone-mediated trip

But God will bring down the high and mighty, finding the sweet spot

Socrates in the courtyard, broken, a puppet show

Not mature enough for this conversation, reinvest and capricious

Keen, corresponding data, symbiotic and centennial

Quintessential, souring to new altitudes, skew the norm

Exigent action taken today, on point, plausible deniability

Piccadilly and fault, a Faustian Bargain, ecumenical

The molecular behavior, collective forms of punishment, a rendition

Gratuitous profanity, harbingers of doom, that’s the state of affairs

Whimsy and evolve, revert to the bedrock, epiphenomenal

Some fuck shit, owning a stunning house, melanated people

Quell the dissent, the refrain, an objective metric, ad nauseam

Discursive, the grand nexus of frustration, acquisition fluidly

Fluently, idiomatically, cognitively, Chomsky’s philosophy

The world is difficult to perceive, a quantum leap, predicated on pain

Same sentence, same intonation, different meaning, trenchant and reductive

Pugnacious, the princess of men and women, assigning the O Henry Twist

White knight, white hegemony, age in a similar vintage, totemic

The meta narrative, assuage the noble victim, abstractly based

Autistic Blake’s position, imped.

Copyright © 2023 E Maria Shelton Speller. All Rights Reserved.

Poem generated using ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot developed by OpenAI

*Verse like Christopher George Latore Wallace [The Notorious B.I.G.] using the same words and phrases for this assignment [14 pages saved like Found Art] — is Playing Now! Visit Premium Content on Dreamscape.

Conceptual Art and Narrative © Copyright 2023 E Maria Shelton Speller
Music by Skygaze (Shoreditch) — Artlist.io — https://artlist.io/album/2274/undefined
Audio Wizardry by George Kallika — https://www.sonicarcade.com/

ITDWTRC Swag IV — Love Divine Horses

VR Experience Coming Soon!

Copyright 2022 All Rights Reserved.

The SFX Menu Includes

 

The quintessential sound of the Pandemic thermometer

An environmental protest and chants of children

A Dune character shouting “Freedom”

Cartoon characters laughing at… Idealism

AI woman announcing traffic delays

Nouveau riche exodus on a Spaceship

AI woman announcing the time

The security breach and sound of an alarm

A Rush Hour in India

A Bazaar in Turkey

An ASMR cough

The paranormal voice of a robot

Tape Talk Fast Forward/Rewind

The motif of the Pandemic thermometer

The steam punk sound of doom

The Ditty bop sound signaling the end of the game.

 

Copyright © 2021, E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Inside the [Dollhouse] with the Red Corvette

Music, SFX, AAC, ASMR, AI, Gamification and Storytelling on the Explode platform landing — Dreamscape — the one and only Interactive Meta Environment.

The SFX Menu Includes

The quintessential sound of the Pandemic thermometer

An environmental protest and chants of children

A Dune character shouting “Freedom”

Cartoon characters laughing at… Idealism

AI woman announcing traffic delays

Nouveau riche exodus on a Spaceship

AI woman announcing the time

The security breach and sound of an alarm

A Rush Hour in India

A Bazaar in Turkey

An ASMR cough

The paranormal voice of a robot

Tape Talk Fast Forward/Rewind

The motif of the Pandemic thermometer

The steam punk sound of doom

The Ditty bop sound signaling the end of the game.

The [Dollhouse] with the Red Corvette is a lateral, vertical, linear, horizontal, and spherical art installation. It is a poesy puzzle for verse and graffiti, with sublime imagery. It functions like a mnemonic, a telltale pastiche for found poesy in a digital world. Some of the pieces fit, and some are misfits -- that lead to other immersions... in this stained-glass heaven -- this society in the machine...

Copyright © 2017-2021 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved.

January 6, 2021 — US Capitol on Lockdown — Destination Chinatown

Recorded on a smartphone, this trip and the playlist were real… Big shoutout to these lyrical geniuses and dope MCs, for creating the soundtrack that helped me find my way home on January 6, 2021. Thanks!

The Brandy of the Gods… above and beyond barricaded streets.

Twenty Twenty-One

 

Fun Espresso

 

 

Egad, the Casbah in Santa Barbara

Part of the fun is the embrace of perfume

Cafe Angelica Emerald Crème

A sabbatical delay waiting to be served

A ceremonial promenade hunched over gazettes

Unwelcome raindrops splatter the canvassed toes of my shoes

Thus the au courant cartoons on my stringy denim knees

Inside at last, I’m saved and Mocha Berry satisfied

Like the face of the fretless little girl

Blowing candy off the floor in her mouth

Clicking up and down in shoes too big for her feet

Stealing glances at an intellectual jerk

Chocolate Cherry satisfied between deep banter

With a friend floating in Vanilla Colada

Part of the fun is real references to books

And book references to real well read attitudes

What’s the shiniest patented leather flats

On the girl with the silkiest blonde hair

Doing with the darkest man

In Dreadlocks and Birkenstocks?

No talk between them

Then they’re sharing the table

Those lined outside will share tables too

The Raspberry Almond can sit with me

Keeping the beat with an aggravated drum lead

His body twitched with jazzy guitar licks

He smiled between the plugs in his ears

And faces fade into a mirror in the back

Part of the fun is waking up here

In an essay on spice and circumstance

A sabbatical renewal once more

On a regional affirmation of decadence

This day of rest I worship Santa Barbara

And the celestial trip I straddle

To be able to dry my canvassed toes

With the heat of Golden Pecan

And the fervent chill of observation

In my sanctioned Casbah

In my sabbatical home

I hold my head up

My cup runneth over

Reading books and people vicariously

Egad, I am dry and satisfied

 

© 2002, 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Explode Goes To Dreamscape

https://www.trenchpeople.com/

THE DREAMSCAPE MEDIA KIT

Our blog ~ EXPLODE – The Writers Environment is a platform for curated and commercial content in an interactive meta-environment… and DREAMSCAPE is the landing. Its an art installation in a digital world…

It’s an immersive ad-free environment that functions like a wikihole — and a literary Pokémon.

DREAMSCAPE is not only a standalone platform but also functions as base camp for the “Inside the [Dollhouse] with the Red Corvette (ITDWTRC) gaming app — that gives users the autonomy to curate their own experiences from their points of view and assign meaning.

When content on DREAMSCAPE tells a story about a beautiful woman swimming in a pool – we want you to see her.  We want you to stumble for points on a link you cannot see, fall down a rabbit hole and land in an environment with a beautiful woman swimming in a pool, on the inside of a glass house – in Hollywood Hills…

Like Seth Godin’s Purple CowDREAMSCAPE is remarkable because it has to be. Or it’s just another brown cow — an ordinary website — with ordinary content. But Purple Cows need Purple Cows to be Purple Cows. DREAMSCAPE facilitates purple content, purple website design and development, and purple product placement — for purple people.

It is the foundation for curated experiences in an interactive meta-environment that facilitates content and other stories – using digital media and conceptual art that redefines how artists, their audience and visitors experience real and virtual content on several levels. Every paragraph, period, and ellipses is space for discovery.

DREAMSCAPE  is a vibe for visionaries — Poets, Writers, Developers, Programmers, Filmmakers, Thespians, Graphic Designers, Artists, Musicians, Directors, Cinematographers, Designers, Educators, Historians, Actors, Conceptual and Performance artists, Photographers, SMIs, VR, WebVR, XR and AI.

It’s what William Gibson described in Neuromancer, “A graphic representation of data plugging your consciousness into a digital world, while watching the physical realm evaporate.”

DREAMSCAPE is where Gibson’s Neuromancer meets Homer’s Odyssey, Basquiat meets Hip Hop, and Hitchcock meets Quentin Tarantino ~ in the one and only interactive meta environment where presentation is myth and “space” is an intrinsic, discrete, and symmetrical experience — for purple people!

WORLDWIDE AUDIENCE REACH >11M
FOLLOWERS ACROSS SOCIAL PLATFORMS >354K
GENDER F: 47% M: 51% Unspecified: 2%
DEMOGRAPHICS 18-24: 41% 25-34: 26% 35-44: 13% 45-54: 9% 55-64: 6% 65+ 5%
LOVE DIVINE VIDEO IMPRESSIONS >1M
AVERAGE TIME SPENT ON DREAMSCAPE 44.48 sec

Acknowledgement:
DREAMSCAPE and the gaming app ITDWTRC benefits humanity as an alternative to social malfeasances e.g., sexism, racism, classism, genderism, ageism, colonialism, colorism, persecution, oppression, violence and subjugation… It is space to dream unencumbered by social impediments – immersed in dopamine and replete with points for discovery. What we experience in RL, we can experience untethered in XR and AI.

© 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller.  All rights reserved.

Music, SFX, ASMR, AI, AAC, Gamification and Storytelling on trenchpeople.com.

© 2021, E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

The SFX Menu Includes

The quintessential sound of the Pandemic thermometer

An environmental protest and chants of children

A Dune character shouting “Freedom”

Cartoon characters laughing at… Idealism

AI woman announcing traffic delays

The nouveau riche exodus on a Spaceship

AI woman announcing the time

The security breach and sound of an alarm

A Rush Hour in India

A Bazaar in Turkey

An ASMR cough

The paranormal voice of a robot

Tape Talk Fast Forward/Rewind

The motif of the Pandemic thermometer

The steam punk sound of doom

The Ditty bop sound signaling the end of the game.

The Polyptych — Interactive Installation

 

The Polyptych Interactive Installation is a web-based literary and musical sensory narrative in an interactive meta environment. The project is an allusion to Alexander Calder’s Homage to Jerusalem, The Mattress Factory in Pittsburg, Marcel Duchamp’s Readymades, Jeffrey Shaw’s The Legible City, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates in Central Park.  Moreover, The Polyptych bows to Christo Vladimirov Javacheff who passed away on Sunday, May 31, 2020 at his home in New York.

“Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called public art, land art or intervention art; however, the boundaries between these terms overlap.  Installation art can be either temporary or permanent. Installation artworks have been constructed in exhibition spaces such as museums and galleries, as well as public and private spaces… The genre incorporates a broad range of everyday and natural materials, which are often chosen for their “evocative” qualities, as well as new media such as video, sound, performance, immersive virtual reality and the internet.”   Wikipedia 

The Polyptych consists of twelve closely interrelated and distinct themes and parts.  It is a blending of the viewer’s imagination and artistic renderings — like Walt Disney’s Imagineering, where viewers are the illustrators, architects, engineers, lighting designers, Showrunners, directors and graphic designers — crystalizing conceptually and literally in your mind — where time is irrepressible like a pulse, a beat, and measure of uninterrupted space.

The Installation is a site specific environment using Russian Nesting Doll functionality to structure the linear concept between themes and parts while flirting with computer gamification; to encourage engagement and participation.  It functions like a docent, a walk-through assistant, a tour guide or watchtower simply by clicking the stars (below the title) in the blue sky,  for the next experience — on trenchpeople.com.

Viewers are encouraged to follow The Polyptych in the order it was conceived or walk-through the environment using the menu and dropdown arrow on Dreamscape to navigate the experience.

Welcome to The Polyptych Interactive Installation!

DREAMSCAPE — Promotional Special During the Holiday Season

PREMIUM CONTENT

Airport Announcement in Manila

 

PREMIUM CONTENT

 

Love Divine — Opens

 

PREMIUM CONTENT

 

Love Divine — Official Release Date

 

PREMIUM CONTENT

Night — FAWC Summer Programs — Featuring Istanbul

A Night at the FAWC

“I think women artists begins to pay attention to what people expect from them, as opposed to what they are searching for within themselves. It’s pretty deadly.”     Euphonic 7 “The Artist”

The Foreword to Insomnia — Featuring Istanbul

 

[Perennial Playlist]

Nobody Speaks ~ feat. Run The Jewels – DJ Shadow (The Mountain Will Fall) 
Where This Flower Blooms — Tyler, the Creator (feat. Frank Ocean)
Don’t Knock on my Door —  Tdot Illdude ~“TRAPSOUL” — Bryson Tiller
“Deee-Lite Theme” — Deee Lite ~ “Estate” — Joao Gilberto  ~ “Gooey” — Glass Animals
“Mercy” — Kanye West “The Far Side of the Moon” — Tinashe
“Give Me Your Love” — Curtis Mayfield ~ “Seven Whole Days” Toni Braxton
“Two Weeks” “Pendulum” FKA twigs ~ “Zip That Chop That ” Black Hippy
“Panda” Desiigner ~ “SevenRings” — Lyricks and JL
“Sex Packets” — Digital Underground ~ “Elemental” — Tears for Fears
“Heavn” — Jamila Woods
“Sunset” (Ft. Yuna Zaraai) “Special Affair/Curse” — The Internet
 “Seven Suns” “CPU (feat. RZA) — Raury
“Where Do We Go” ~ “F.U.B.U.” (feat. The-Dream & BJ The Chicago Kid) — Solange
“Me and Your Mama” — Childish Gambino
 I Miss You” (Dobie Rub Part One-Sunshine Mix) — Bjork
Liberation ~ OutKast — Belle and Boujee — Migos Beauty and the Beast Parody (Nerdist Presents)
Without You I’m Nothing — Placebo (featuring David Bowie) ~ Diamonds — Rihanna
Immigrant Song — Led Zepplin — Lose Yourself ~ Eminem
Give It Up Fast — Mobb Deep (feat. Big Noyd and Nas) — fullmoon — Ryuichi Sakamoto
 Bodak Yellow ~ Cardi B  — Kitana — Princess Nokia
Marvin Gaye — Live!24K Magic ~ Bruno Mars
I’m weak for you ~ Madame X  ~ Chris Tucker — Live
Black Panther Trailer 2 (Extended) Femme Fatales ~ Saint Tropez
We the People — A Tribe Called Quest
Marvel Studios’ Avengers:  Infinity Wars – Official Trailer
Everything Is Good About You — The Supremes
Ocean’s 8 — Official Trailer
Compton — Kendrick Lamar (ft. Dr. Dre) (Prod Just Blaze)
LoveHappy — The Carters ~ Violent Crimes — Kanye
[Aristotle Michelangelo and Louis Picasso’s Parallel Discussions]
Just Like a Baby — Sly and the Family Stone w/Bobby Womack
Paris — Ashlee + Evan  If You Know You Know — Pusha T
Sicko Mode — Travis Scott — Hannibal  (Live) ~ Miles Davis 
Focus ~ H.E.R. Could’ve Been ~ H.E.R. (feat. Bryson Tiller)
Real Freak — Dru Hill
Momma I Hit A Lick ~ 2 Chainz  (feat. Kendrick Lamar) (Prod. Pharrell)
The River — Citizen Cope
Diana Ross — Motown 60:  A Grammy Celebration
Primal Scream — Loaded  ~  Plastic Heart — Nostalghia
El DeBarge — You Are My Dream
Higher Than the Sun (A Dub Symphony in Two Parts) — Primal Scream