The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans (26 page)

Leaving Free Zing, Kiz’s purse now bulging with greenshoots, I tell her that our little gambling junket was great fun but that I probably won’t be repeating it anytime soon. Kiz only laughs and tells me that once upon a time she took it all very seriously but now she only plays for fun. “It’s no fun losing,” I say. “Not in PL or VL.” She pats her Gucci bag and says, “That’s why I
never
challenge the count!”

As we exit the casino and walk out onto the VL Strip, I am blinded by all the lights, and I can’t help wondering if that’s how it is with money in general, whether it is made on Wall Street, or on Profit Promenade, or in virtual Las Vegas. Sharky Overbite is tossing it away as if it were beads in the New Orleans Mardi gras parade. Daedalus Dunworthy envisions it as the pivotal instrument to execute some multi-national, Orwellian plot. Kiz Aurora treats it as if it were inconsequential. To my mind, money is only important when it is employed as a tool to achieve something beneficial and of lasting consequence for everyone. Otherwise, whether in PL or in VL, it’s only paper.

“Fizzy, do you think you can IM Crystal and have her meet us at Open Books?” Kiz asks me. “I have a little surprise for you both.”

“My-o-my! You’re just full of surprises today, aren’t you?” I tease.

:) types Kiz.

“Let me see,” I tell her. “It’s already tomorrow morning in Copenhagen, so Sonja is probably up and already at her computer. Let me see if she’s online.”

I quickly IM Crystal Marbella to see if she can meet us at the shop. She sends back a message that she is already there, and I tell her that Kizmet Aurora and I have been up all night partying, and that we will join her at the shop as fast as we can transfer to Lit-A-Rama.

Whoosh!

Seeing both Kizmet and I dressed up to the tens, Crystal asks, “What in (the world) have you two been up to?”

“Just a little money orgy,” I laugh.

Crystal’s look is quizzical.

“First, we went to BloomEx to hear a very abbreviated lecture by the emulation of the former Federal Reserve Chairman Harlan Geltspinner,” I explain. “Then we had a delightful conversation with the radio personality, Daedalus Dunworthy. After that, we went to VL Las Vegas for a bit of gambling. That was Kiz’s idea.”

“Hope you didn’t get fleeced,” says Crystal.

“Oh, that happened quite some time ago,” says Kiz. “At least according to Dunworthy.”

“A wise man, no doubt,” says Crystal.

“We played high stakes Blackjack at Free Zing,” I tell Crystal with a blush.

“A couple of high rollers,” Crystal observes with no small amount of sarcasm.

“Not me,” I tell her. “But you should see Kiz in action.”

“Really?” says Crystal feigning genuine interest.

“No, really! She’s a real pro. She knows how to count cards, and she won all this money. Thirty-two thousand greenshoots!”

“That’s a lot of grass,” Crystal allows.

“Which is why I asked Fizzy to make sure you could meet us here,” Kiz says to Crystal.

Crystal sits down on one of the easy chairs she made in a VL ‘garden’. “I don’t follow you, Kiz,” she says.

“It’s the money!” Kiz proclaims. “I’m giving it to you and to Fizzy.”

“For what?” Crystal asks. “What are we supposed to do with thirty-two thousand greenshoots?”

“I want you to use it for the Open Books Project. Or whatever else you think might be a good cause.”

“It’s your money, Kiz. You won it fair and square,” I remind her. “Well, sort of,” I qualify.

“But I don’t need it. I have other plans here in VL.”

“What plans?” I ask.

“Never mind that now. When it’s time, I’ll tell you both. The point is that you two will make much better use of this money than I might. Open Books is a terrific concept. And you, Fizzy—I know you’d like to build a Van Gogh REP.”

“I don’t know, Kizmet?” I tell her. But she pushes her hefty purse into my hands and folds her arms over her inflated chest. On her face is a luminous smile.

“There! That settles that!” she concludes.

“Are you sure about this?” I ask.

“Fizzy, on the very first day we met, as I clumsily dropped into Virtual Life, you told me that people give stuff away all the time in VL. And so it’s true. Take the money. Use it for the good of all. It is my gift to you, and to Virtual Life.”

“Thank you, Kiz,” says Crystal most graciously.

“No kidding. Thanks, Kiz,” I echo.

:) means ‘you’re welcome’.

I must confess that our desert rose now has me wondering about her so-called VL plan. What does that mean? What’s she up to? I think she intends to surprise yet again. 

Crystal Marbella is at my side as I sign the papers to purchase my very own REP with the greenshoots that Kiz won in VL Las Vegas and so generously handed over to us; and while we both know that the creation of a new REP will require vast amounts of my effort and my attention, and as a result I will be spending much less time assisting Crystal with the Open Books Project, she is nevertheless happy for me because she knows that it has been my longtime dream to recreate the life and times of the artist Vincent Van Gogh in Virtual Life.

“Building an entire REP from bare ground up is a huge undertaking, Fizzy? Do you think you’re up to it?” Crystal asks.

“Sly Sideways has agreed to help. At least until I master the basics in scripting. If I need more help, there’s always VL University. I can learn what I need to know there,
bit by bit
.”

“I admire your initiative, Fizzy.”

“Thanks, Crystal. I will build it because it
must
be built. I will build it for Vincent. Because he gave everything he had, including his life, trying to find
the high yellow note
.”

“I’m going to miss you at Open Books,” says Crystal with a bit of sadness in her voice.

“Don’t worry, I’ll still come around,” I assure her.

:) Crystal types.

So, how does one go about recreating a person’s life in dot matrix? Especially one as emotionally deep as Vincent Van Gogh. Like any competent biographer, I can accurately document the progression of the events of his life. I can portray his family and his friends; the historical record is at my disposal. I can detail his trials and tribulations: poverty, illness, loneliness and confusion. I can script digital representations of the paintings, and the places he lived and worked, and of his physical features. But how can I possibly portray the spirit that once bestowed such a unique vision and representation of the world in which he lived? Yes, that is the challenge I face. Yet, I know I must try, because not only Vincent, but all artists who strive to represent the human condition—in all its varying hues and textures—deserve such a legacy. I know that if I am successful—even to a degree—then I, too, will become a viable artist. If I fail, then at least I have touched my own brush to the canvas in a genuine and noble attempt to reunite with the spirit of creation itself. And that, my fellow seedlings, is the true purpose of our existence!

I am standing, along with Crystal and Sly Sideways, on the desolate piece of ‘ground’ on which my Van Gogh REP will (hopefully) soon be situated, a parcel of virtual real estate purchased for greenshoots, terrain lost in time and space (except the matrix on which it is constructed), an island that exists only in the mind surrounded by an ocean whose depths are not plumbed, where the soil is not fertile, nor the water fluid (seedlings can breathe normally even under VL water), yet this ground is my starting point, my basis, my terra firma.

“I know it doesn’t look like much now,” says Sly the builder, “but once we get the vegetation roughed in, and the streets laid out, and a few buildings erected, your vision will begin to emerge, Fizzy.”

“I remember when Lit-A-Rama looked this empty,” says Crystal, who has been in VL as long as anybody.

Maybe I’m feeling a bit of buyer’s remorse. Or maybe I’m just feeling daunted by the challenge I’ve undertaken. “You really think so?” I say.

“Don’t worry, Fizzy,” says Sly. “Together we’ll turn this place into a fitting showcase.”

“I hope I’m up to it,” I tell my friends. “I want to do justice to Vincent’s legacy.”

“I can’t think of a better person for the job,” Crystal reassures me.

It has been determined that Sly will be in charge of building out the REP’s landscape and (physical) structures, and with Crystal’s help I will learn more about scripting at the VL university so I can create not only authentic dioramas, but scrupulous replicas of each and every Van Gogh painting and drawing. I will even recreate, as closely as I can, the artist’s correspondence with his brother and benefactor, Theo Vann Gogh, in calligraphy resembling the handwriting of each letter’s author. I will study every detail of the artist’s life. I will come to understand his triumphs and disappointments, his loves and his loathing, his abject poverty and his illness; I will embrace his passion as if it were my own.

Leaving Sly to begin construction on the REP’s visual props, Crystal and I transfer to VL University, where my education in scripting is about to begin. The VL university is not like a traditional school in PL, it is a self-service smorgasbord of information that has been contributed and consolidated by other seedlings and offered free of charge for the benefit of anyone who wishes to access it. (It is a well-documented and well-practiced principle in VL that information is not like other commodities, and therefore not ‘saleable’. Rather it is the common practice of seedlings to share information freely, believing that its application is ultimately in the best interest of, and to the benefit of, the VL society at large. I subscribe wholeheartedly to this attitude, and I am grateful to all who have contributed the technical information that I am about to access.) I am no technical wizard. In fact, I sometimes think my literal mind is downright retarded. I never understood Organic Chemistry, or Physics, and I passed high school Geometry only by my teacher’s charity. But now I am determined to put my so-called technical learning disability behind me and learn scripting. I suppose a passion to do something one considers worthwhile can break down most walls; so uncertain as I am, I will confront my fear and my reticence, and I will learn what I must to actualize my vision.

Rather than stacks of books, VL University offers row after row of menus. One selects the information he wishes to download from the appropriate menu. Once study is underway, the student practices application not in a traditional science lab, but in a VL ‘garden’, which is an environment where VL objects are created (scripted). Once the object has been created (and it can be anything from a virtual table and chairs to a new species like a Quinngen), it is then moved from the garden to the cache of the creator. From the seedling’s cache it can be placed, using a mathematical grid, within the virtual environment of choice. Sounds easy, but it’s not. Scripting is a real challenge for one as technically disadvantaged as me.

Crystal has much more experience at scripting than I do, and she is a patient teacher. Still, I make so many mistakes that sometimes I just want to throw up my hands and quit. Usually Crystal can correct my mistakes with a simple adjustment of the computer code, but sometimes even she does not know how to solve the problems we create. (I often find myself wishing that Kiz, with her facile mathematical skills, were here to help.) Still, no matter how frustrated and distressed we become, someone far more technically inclined always seems to come along to adjust our codes. That’s VL for you!

Slowly (and with no small amount of anguish) a replica of Van Gogh’s ‘Potato Eaters’ emerges from the tangled mass of numbers and symbols I have entered on my keyboard. No brush and palette needed, thank you very much! My computer screen is my VL canvass. My fingers are clean, not stained with pigment. What might Vincent think? Am I approaching his
pure yellow note
?

“I think you’re getting it, Fizzy” Crystal encourages me.

“I think it lacks dimension,” I critique my recreation.

“No, it’s good,” she confirms.

“I think I’ll have another go at it,” I finally decide. Because it must be as perfect as digitally possible.

Transferring back to
my
REP, we find that Sly has made considerably more progress on the environment than I have made on the paintings. Of course he has considerable experience in creating such environments, and after trying my hand at scripting I have all the respect in the (virtual) world for his acumen. According to my original plan, he has divided the REP into quadrants representing Vincent’s life. The first quadrant has been constructed to look like Vincent’s childhood home in Groot-Zundert in the Netherlands. The second one is reminiscent of the coalmining town of Borinage, Belgium where Vincent worked in abject poverty as a minister to the miners and their families. A third quadrant is evocative of the South of France at Arles and the Asylum in Saint Remy where the artist spent the final years of his life and where so many of his most famous paintings were created. And the fourth quadrant is devoted to a virtual museum—much like the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam—where the digital recreations of the paintings that I am producing in the VL ‘garden’ will eventually be displayed.

“What do think, Fizzy?” Sly asks me.