darker than the nightmares of a blind man A Short Story by Cthulu --- It came to pass in the age of Polaroid that late one night as is wont to happen after holidays and natural disasters a clerk was busy at work developing rolls of photographs pictures of the Grand Canyon and Aunt Martha and the 400 foot ash cone that had been left in the back yard after the eruption As the witching hours drew longer and the reek of chemicals began to cloud his mind as legend dictates he began to deviate a bit from standard photo developing technique Now some will say that it happened because of a spilled can of cola and others say that he was a spy technology smuggler from Japan Some fancy an errant bolt of lightning during that dry and tense night s atmosphere but these are all just rumours drawing away from the soul of the story it turned out that he discovered a new technique for developing film one which produced prints so vivid and realistic that they were generally held to be an improvement on the original subject matter No one knows who this legendary technician was or if he ever existed at all but that s not important to the account What is important is that he forgot to patent the process and thanks to his negligence the whole world was given the gift of this awesome reaction Film stores everywhere adapted to the new standard or went out of business thus was the public s hunger for these improvements on reality for an escape albeit how slight from the world in front of them A Short Intro by XypherMC --- I awoke early on the first of April to the sound of knocking at my front door Snarling disheveled and breath like a post-game jockstrap I went to see who d decided to join the hoops anchored at the bottom of my pool Hi! We re the members of Mistigris! We re here to tour with your group Dark Illustrated May we come in chirped one of the overly cheery little hobbits wavering in front of my eyes I turned and slammed the door and headed back for my welcoming bed !@#*&$ canvassers This was going to be a bad day No sooner had I breached the threshold of my room did I hear an odd sort of gnawing sound at the door By the time I d made my way to the hall half the door had been consumed by one of the grinning zealots among them Neophyte cut that out! said what appeared to be their leader Sorry about that It s been a long trip We ll replace it when our work is done They immediately stormed the place and made themselves at home Over the next month and a half they d use every imaginable surface of my home to draw write or produce nearly symphonic barrages of noise And boy they sure do talk a lot In the end it turned out for the best They got along beautifully with the members of my DARK clan and very few of my neighbours left the area They didn t replace my door though Now there was just one side effect of this process which could be considered bad whatever occured to animate the prints so as an aside also irrepairable damaged the negatives This was a stark concern for two months as multiple prints required tremendously greater quantities of film and even so the results couldn t always be duplicated This was all solved however when some anonymous mind (again one philanthropic in his laxity under copyright laws) came up with the ingenius idea of taking pictures OF the pictures and this is where the problem first made itself apparent You see as the first set of pictures were improvements upon the mundane reality of the original subjects the second iteration improved the image that much more - a print at this stage would seem four times as appealing as it originally was Advertizers went nuts They reasoned and quite correctly that this process was exponential - hence you could take pictures of pictures indefinitely until you had arrived at a vision of an infinitieth away from perfection Chaos broke out in the streets of the developed world Husbands and wives would whisper most passionately in each others ears when diverting their eyes from the base and real and instead addressing a tenderly held framed print of sur-reality as it was described as an improvement on reality DARK News --- From out of the MIRE the FIST shoves DIRT in your MASK Or to be a little clearer after a successful tour with FIRE MIST s World Tour 97 continues on it s next leg with yours truly DARK Illustrated If you aren t aware of it Mistigris is a sort of West Coast counterpart to DARK They re incredibly talented in nearly all fields of the art scene and they ve brought back what was thought to be a dead art in DARK s pack literature It s been years since we ve seen anything like desalvo s Bradburies This month has without a doubt been one of the most hectic in recent memory and the pack is definitely the largest We have here a complete representation of multimedia And I don t doubt you ll enjoy it all! I ll give you a rundown of the happenings in DARK and a little later into this document Cthulu will share his mind with you on Mistigris Seraphim returns from his OWN tour of the underground world and we ve all rejoiced with his decision His ANSI skills are one of the most unique and entertaining out there Expect him to blow your mind (again) soon The Lethal Aspect Online is gone www interlog com xmtrx still has a few links to things like the DARK Home Page and Blender Compo Stats but the major content will come with TURF More on that later (The reason TLA Online was killed had a lot to do with the nightmare job of updating each individual group s memberlist links and information With DARK alone there was too much duplication in terms of memberlists in each pack on the main page on TLA the BBS and on the web page to make it worthwhile ) While we re on the subject DARK s WHQ The Lethal Aspect will be undergoing a complete overhaul very soon with a change of software to clear the cobwebs from the old Renegade setup Members are urged to keep in touch and to re-apply once the time comes The Telegard setup will feature many things never before seen on the original system or any BBS anywhere Purple Dye has recently vowed to revamp the DARK Home Page This ll make it a site to see A note on next month s Collection don t be too surprised to see a different spin on the way it s done I m turning the duty over to a trio of our Senior members who ll show you what they ve got beyond nice legs and ANSI skills It ll also give me a chance to work and worry on about things other than pack collection I ve been doing it for too long =) -XypherMC (DIRTMASK) People began attaching through clips tape or other solvents idealized photographs of themselves to their foreheads so that they could be addressed directly without dishonouring their co-conversor by forcing them to see gritty filthy reality New mothers in hospitals waited three hours for the prints to be returned before bringing the purple monsters to their swollen breasts adolescent boys would masturbate at sur-realized representations of cars aeroplanes cans of Campbell soup Doctors and employers both were concerned as workers would gaze for hours on pictures of dolphins raw meat or even themselves (as they might be depicted in their greatest and most fantastic dreams ) forgetting to show up to work call in sick or even take the time to eat or defecate Still stylized graphs charts and x-ray diagrams always cast the bad news in the best light possible Indeed medical practices of many kinds managed to prosper from this strange love from the public especially those involving cosmetic surgery Tattoos were no longer removed but instead recieved special layered enhancements underneath the skin whereby grafting the pictures directly onto the patient s surface not only improved the reception of the pigmented image but also ameliorated the general tone of the skin and such reflection of the patient s well-being on a whole A tattoo on its own was worthless but after a few repetitions of this formidable procedure it became obviously more pleasing than the most flawless of natural skins - even the highlights of sores and past scars coming to life and telling their own stories in marvelous reproduction The richest of the rich not content to see their waking share of beauty arranged for such sur-real images to be implanted on the insides of their eyelids out of sharp focus to compensate for the extreme closeness and illuminated by small lightbulbs inserted into the tear ducts A popular imitation in poverty-stricken lands was to merely tear off the eyelids completely leaving the optic sensors open to recieve such visible delights even when one was asleep Mistigris Meanderings and Musings The tour goes ever onwards fading from the bright flames of fame to a calmer sense of shadowy obscurity We can open our eyes again as the reassuring shadows draw longer upon the floorboards and the music of bats on moths begins in earnest Here we are enjoying a place out of the sun with our Canadian compatriots in the superstar anti-art-group Dark It s quite a change from last month with Fire but again many things are the same Odd how that works out We re working with Samurai here in Dark after missing touring with his group Project 301 in March cause it died leaving us in the breach But no hard feelings 8) In case you missed us before that by the way we appeared in the last new release of the art group Fistful of Steel before its retrospective and then reincarnation as a mag and with Blade before that But we re here now producing art which could arguably be called our best ever working with giants in the scene and accomplishing things which we never would have been capable of nine months ago without the peculiar bonding experience this road trip has thrust upon us Are we having fun yet As an administrator I m having a ball Going nuts Ripping hair out smashing heads into things staying up all night on the IRC and almost managing to put an infofile together (This ) But the trip is taking its toll on the members they re starting to look back home rather than forward ahead If they re unhappy there s no good motive to keep going though if we turn back we might never come this way again Look kids! The world s largest artechoke! Mist s co-op relationship with fellow 604-based music group Sonic Equinox has resulted in a release SE_D0597 ARJ and A01 In addition to that their local pursuits are flowering in upcoming releases from New Media productions such as the TrackerFix disk part 2! Catering more to the eyes than the ears Silent Knight s comic book company Dream Factory is in full stride and the first promotional issue should be out any day now He s looking for artists writers inkers letterers exotic dancers and lion tamers among others so if you want to apply those skills towards the production of a non-profit comic book contact him at knight@intergate bc ca! Being in the tour has given Mistigris members time off from focusing on the petty politics and power games of the art scene to explore their other creative avenues and expand their repetoire of styles and forms Normal migration patterns have slowed to a halt and while new members are coming in from month to month the lack of pressure to release a pack competitively has kept them producing at a level which makes them happy catering to their creative impulses but not demanding tedium from them But sometimes a little tedium is a good thing Unexercised muscles atrophy and after spending all of this time developing pumping up perhaps it s just about time to flex a bit discovering our new space and stretching our improved abilities without distraction or crutches On our own and loving it Whether we go back to releasing in monthly packs like everyone else or not depends muchly on the reception of this pack I will be the first to admit that the art in here is first-rate I would even venture that quality and quantity considered there s more great ansi in this pack than in the past year of ACiD packs (Then again who can t say that ) If the artists can see that their innovation is really paying off we will continue to spiral off into the unknown leaving a trail of imagination behind us Third star from the right and straight onwards till dawn -Cthulu (MistiDark) Now it had been known for quite some time that the augmenting effects remained puissant though to a far lesser degree on pictures where there was contained text stop signs and corporate names typically underwent the process a few times over to ensure that they weren t ignored but the process to render mere words more appealing proved costly and inefficient where 10 iterations of a catchy icon could supplant thousands of repetitions on an exposure of more alphanumeric symbols By and large the written word was phased out for a picture was after all worth at least a thousand words Intelligentia academics philosophers logicians engineers and scientists of all sorts no longer hunched over desks or tables but rather reclining in lounge seats gazing placidly at wall-mounted poster-sized blow-ups of images gotten from the long-disused eyepieces of microscopes precise gradiations of drafting equipment and readouts of gauges and dials were alarmed Words had always been the primary means of expressing precise logic identifiers et cetera Pictures were quite handy but things were getting to the point where one aptly presented graphic could sway the reception of major theses and proofs Obviously academia had to do something to save the human race from falling into inescapable hedonism with its descent briefly broken by bouts of illiteracy endemic ignorance and a renaissance of the Dark Ages oxymoronic though the thought may be They immediately set about tinkering with the various elements and forces in that elusive but widespread mysterious photographic process putting what remained of their brainpower to work fighting for its very survival and within months a solution had been found a refinement of the process by which text could be rendered simply and inexpensively as appealing as photographs which had undergone the process many times over It was deemed a full success and students at institutions around the world celebrated by covering university campuses with graffiti graffiti which was soon covered up with pictures of the same Pages torn from dictionaries enjoyed a resurgence in popularity if only as a novel wallpaper pattern and books and writing became the objects of a brief but intense love affair from the public The regurgitated text allowed people to feel good about investing hours spent poring over sheets of dead tree and long-closed bookstores were restored in the second childhood that only a passing fad can trigger inundated by callers for the most aesthetically pleasing the least offensive and above all else the most satisfying reads possible Complete volumes of Camus and Kafka went untouched but with minor revision the vast majority of literature could be distilled into palatable tales of two optimisms - where it was the best of times in the best of all possible worlds Support Sites (DARK) --- The Lethal Aspect World Headquarters Xypher Matryx The Regency Internet Headquarters Halaster Mad Cows ! DARK Member Board Night Stalker Savage Exile DARK Member Board Acidic Soap Sight & Sound DARK Member Board Drone-Fly Special Sauce DARK Member Board Samurai Abraxas Diabolic DARK US Support Site Megga Hertz ABCD Cafe DARK Support Site Kyo Where to obtain DARK Collections --- Via the Internet DARK packs can be obtained from The Regency s FTP site at tregency res cmu edu or from the ACiD Artpacks Archive at ftp cdrom com ( pub artpacks incoming artpacks ) Most DARK members can be contacted through e-mail (addresses available in the memberlist) and some may be found lurking on the IRC in channel #dark (EFnet) On the World Wide Web you ll find support for DARK Illustrated as well as the latest pack via www darkillustrated org For more detailed information on DARK Illustrated DARK s own F A Q (Frequently Asked Questions) text file is included in this archive Filename DARK-FAQ 186 The greatness of a work soon became apparent by virtue of the speed with which it could arrive at a satisfying conclusion if past works of great literature were lacking such ghost writers joined forces with ghost editors and together gave literary plastic surgery to the greatest works of the twentieth century and beyond so that the masses responded to the Savage s attentions to Lenia in much the same way as they did to the feely theatres and these professional hacks knew that they had outdone themselves when they managed to leave a reader sympathizing with Alex s forlorn need for the stirring tunes of Luddy Von and Winston s ultimate love for Big Brother No one spoke out about the rearrangement and omission of a few ugly words and distasteful phrases - they couldn t remember the book ever having been this beautiful in the first place and they certainly weren t going to act against this wonderful process Eventually this comeback however was given a boost by the still-impressive forces of the graphic which had not been forgotten by the public Indeed when the two medias combined forces once again to provide the formidable and venerable vehicle of the picturebook the flaring heyday of the word was already over Passages of nice things were enhanced then supplanted by pictures of nice things and convoluted plots were slowly but surely broken down into images of fewer twists and turns until the length of a book could be diminished tenfold while the enjoyment of it still be increased and this desperate attempt to preserve society as we know it was pronounced dead when they started replacing book titles and author names with tasteful reproductions of kittens palm trees and carrion birds The focus had returned inveitably to the instant and gratifying fix that a sneek peek could provide over the slow and imperfect thrill derived from wasting time skimming over dialogue literary devices and plot development and then pondering and considering its washed-away message often while looking at nothing more beauteous than the insides of one s eyelids a complete write-off Support Sites (Mistigris) --- The Jade Monkey (604) 730-2467 Happyfish Cthulu WHQ Net C1ty iZ Burning (418) 841-3410 The Extremist CHQ Net The Regency tregency res cmu edu Halaster USHQ Daemon s Gate (604) 948-0363 Mavrik KiTSCHNet WHQ Net Harvest Moon (216) 951-7059 Qur An Twingle HQ Net Savage Exile! Critical Illusion Underground HQ The Fuzzy Doorknob (604) 943-4626 Sylphid Old Warez HQ Net StupidMop (604) ups-000n Geekboy Deep Cove HQ Net The Undiscovered Point (604) PRI-VATE Dr CPU Member Net Dreams of Dark Enchanted Lizards (604) 299-5191 Etana Member Net Entrance to Obscurity (604) 525-2767 Eto Member Net Neosporin (604) 942-9772 Rage Member Net Peaches (604) 943-1482 Xavier Member Paradoxius (604) 931-6984 Pure Voltage Member Crimson Helm (604) 465-4247 Onyx Member Sneakers (604) 501-2395 Crystal Meth Member Biproducts (408) 372-7712 neoNEGRO Site Power Station (353) 041-32568 Madmax Site Out of Order (510) 796-5780 risu Site Kongo! (714) 693-0511 Cheeze Monkey Site Tantalized Dreams (204) 632-0684 Javist Site (204) 632-0685 Caffeine (360) 336-5976 Prong Site Blue Moon +(618) 8332-3403 Pulse Site Juice (604) 522-9797 Infinite Madness Net WWW URL @ http www geocities com Athens 1758 mist html It was decided that man s ultimate calling truly was the organized and ritual viewing of such images and clever and cunning machines and software were crafted to allow every adult to spend only a half of an hour of every day at work mostly in vast film-developing complexes and the rest of the day being dedicated to sitting in long rows in frugal chairs uncomfortable but unnoticed gazing upon a wide vast gallery of enhanced pictures A surreal spectacle that of the silent and awed masses enthralled by the sur-reality of visions of beaches forests the eyes of a mighty stag and those of a killer While it was to have been expected it was surprising that this did not happen sooner a blind man whipped into a frothing rage at his apparent inability to appreciate those finest things in life managed to find his way to a gallery despite an inability to consult large friendly reproductions of maps and street names and white cane flailing erratically like a lizard s broken-off tail ripped a poster in two tearing a terrible crevice down its flawless sheening surface A jury of twelve sighted folk condemned him to death for the crime of blasphemy This started a chain reaction where hordes of God s Chosen those who could see the divine apparitions He had allowed his children to create rose up and in a swift bloody movement executed savage pity upon those whom had been deprived of the ability to worship properly - the blind were rounded up and locked away and those who required glasses or bifocals were regarded when at all as highly suspect As has been noted the subject matter of the picture of the picture of the picture mattered hardly at all in relation to what pleasure was derived from its viewing - masses reacted equally well to displays of rippling puddles miraculous fetuses in-the-womb and man s ultimate expression of power - mushroom clouds billowing menacingly but beautifully Of course everyone was too busy looking into sur-reality to actually spend the time singing in the rain making babies or detonating bombs but archives provided an ample supply of past experiences which could be re-lived and better through this irreplacable process Any image given sufficient dedicated repetition of the process could be rendered equally appealing and they could all attain the penultimate pinnacle of beauty regardless of what their source was - but eventually even that rule was broken IF ART WEENIES RULED THE WORLD --- Seeing as Mistigris and Dark are two of the more prominent canadian art groups We took a little political poll (Yes politics and the art scene shouldn t mix but this is a great training ground for ruthlessness and empty campaign promises ) In any event we phrased the question to participants in #mist and #dark thusly Which party would you vote for out of the below choices regardless of whether or not you actually can vote - because of restraints of age country of citizenship or laziness And here are the results votes % Party (Oaths comments and other editorializings are in brackets ) 8 23 5 Liberals (Jean Cretian r0x0rs ) 4 11 8 Reform 3 8 9 Green (green party because they never get anything good to happen ) (I m voting Green Not because I think they will get in but because then my vote is actually counted and I don t have to feel apathetic ) (Cthulu voted Green!) 3 8 9 Spoil your ballot (soil my ballot ) 2 5 9 Conservatives 2 5 9 an Independant 2 5 9 Natural Law (Natural Law will Legalize Pot ) 2 5 9 Rhino (even if they re not forwarding candidates this election) (I dont know what you re talking about But I like the sound of this guy ) 1 2 9 Bloc Quebequois 1 2 9 MAX HEADROOM FOR PRIME MINISTER! 1 2 9 New Democratic Party 1 2 9 Robin Williams 1 2 9 I vote for DON KING 1 2 9 i vote for you going the hell away 1 2 9 Self-exile! 1 2 9 Timothy Mcveigh 1 2 9 Royal LePage 0 0 0 Canadian Action party 0 0 0 Christian Heritage 0 0 0 Marxist-Leninists __ ____ 34 100 0 So you can see that although the government and even the opposition would have been the same the distribution of votes and of the remaining seats would have been drastically different Kind of a powerful political statement that Don King got more votes than any of the bottom three legitimate political parties So what have we learned from this little exercise Man I ve gotta get hair like that -Cthulu (Mistidark) Perhaps it was instinct or mere shadows of a mother s whisperered warning long ago but there was one thing which was rarely gazed upon and never captured on film - the celestial orb above Traditional photography made it nearly impossible to take representative pictures of the celestial orb above without running the risk of over-exposed film and damage to equipment both of the camera and of the photographer s eye This unwritten rule followed through in this aesthteic movement but when all else had been captured to film and honed to a perfect print this lonely star alone remained to be immortalized on cellulose With only two or three iterations prints of the sun quickly came to note for their unique and exquisite beauty - singular and unique among the blocks and blocks of static sur-real glaciers lions hummingbirds and paramecia Heads began to turn to the rising star or at least wallet-sized versions of it and soon its shining face was seen peeking from every street corner and in the wrapping of any package This was to be the era of the Sun the dawning of a new age and cults sprung up in veneration of its perfect image considered by many to be the face of God Weather machines were devised to divert clouds to uninhabited regions and early one morning midway between dawn and noon a joint project sponsored by the twelve greatest nations on Earth took place many miles up where a series of shuttles and sattelites came together to construct what had long been thought blasphemous but now was universally regarded as the only remaining course of action Tubes and reinforcements came together in zero gravity and by the time the sun was at its highest measured in the time zone of the most populous region on the planet of course the field was activated The Sun had been framed and new images of itself propagated through hologaph and lenses appeared in the sky showering the entire world with the benign rays of a more perfect star One truly could make out divine features in the radiant face and as one the world turned to see the most glorious sight possible Faces twisted and contorted into grotesque masks of rapturous ecstasy and their minds exploded as their eyes turned dark to savour forever the most perfect sight possible in the universe The legions of the newly blind though it would no longer serve them tried to position themselves so that they would be facing the heavenly object that God might see them as they had seen Him and as it swept over their faces the light reflected in their rotting eyes slowly clouded and faded to a dull sullen glow of decay and eternity Filename Conventions --- Filenames work like this XXXXX-## * XXXXX is a five-letter abbreviation of the artist s alias (Should the alias fall within five characters or less the entire alias will be used ) ## represents the current number of pieces the artist has produced for the year of 1997 * can be any valid extension for images executables data files or musical compositions The most common are DRK for ANSI images JPG GIF BMP etc for high-resolution graphic images and MOD S3M XM etc for music date files *SPECIAL* Filenames with the MASK-## prefix are joint efforts by DARK and Mistigris Members! After the cities and megalopolises of the world were silent for many days the few remaining blind freed themselves from their captivity Coming upon the silent and unmoving shells of their former friends and relatives many still living they moaned and beat their breasts and poked out their own eyes in tragic fury Still theirs was the world to inherit - they had lost nothing and their daring resourcefulness allowed the world to live again You may have noticed than many a grizzled storyteller is blind This hearkens back to tradition of the Norse and the Greeks and beyond for only one posessed by the spirit of the story can repeat it properly objectively without clouded interpretation from personal sights and past images Their visions are the most perfect their relations with God the most personal and they truly are set apart for they smile more and greater volumes with their useless eyes than most of us do with our sardonically turned lips Remember that behind the darkened glasses is inspiration and prophecy beyond the most tantalizing of sights and that the tinted glass is there to protect your naked mind from being destroyed by the great forces which operate beneath them The End --- It s odd Despite being relieved that the packing job for this month is over I m somewhat saddened too This DARK Mistigris collaboration was fun I can t find a word for it Suffice it to say though that it s been an memorable experience To Cthulu and all Mistigris members from myself and the entire DARK clan (and local hanger-ons) Thank-you And good luck with your future endeavors -XypherMC (DARK ) t z m i s t by the artists for the artists We now return you to your regularly sched--TZRTCH! Transmission Terminated