Bulletin
#7 of Experiments
"Come take a look at this, son. It's an old newspaper article from just days before the Primal Reset, from our tribe. I still remember it like it was yesterday..."
"Yeah, I think I saw it before. I still can't wrap my head around how suddenly it occured. I couldn't even understand that the Wishing Stone wasn't real back then when it happened, right?"
"Hah! Yep, back then, it was all tall tales and whatnot, but look at us now! Somehow my wildest dreams came true, all thanks to you."
"Aw, Dad... and I couldn't have gone on that adventure without your help."
"You're too kind to your old man, kid... heh. Let's look through this newspaper now, shall we?"
Conductor's Notes: This is a fair bit different from my Composer's usual affairs. The first part of the story he wants to tell is not different from a children's tale: daring heroes go in search of a legendary artifact and restore order to the world. But who says it must stop there? What happens after when everything is right again? Does the evil actually banish from whence it came? And what about the artifact, if it's that important? When fiction becomes reality, and the story comes to a close, the world still keeps going... with time, who truly wins?
Hey, all! Natalie here with the May special report on the News Bulletin! Oh, no, not the one here, we're talking about the PHYSICAL one in Villa Aguila's central square!
As you're probably aware, our sizable tribe congregates in the main square near the tourist entrance. Most of the crew maintaining this very newspaper reside in this area, and a few years ago we decided to set up physical versions of our iconic News Bulletin segment so that both residents and tourists alike can catch a glance at what makes the headlines here. Since then, we've set up three other similar bulletins deep in our forests that also receive frequent updates, and we can't thank you all enough for your support!
However, our focus on these bulletins today isn't what's printed on the front, but rather, another side to them, hidden in plain sight -- the BACK of the board! The bulletins themselves are just corkboards framed in stone, but this newspaper only utilizes the front. This has led to an interesting phenomenon where some residents use the backside of the board for themselves, be it for advertising, friendly banter or art showcasing.
Now, this is unintentional, and we should state that any and all opinions expressed on the backside of any of our on-location News Bulletins is not indicative of Villa Aguila's views of the world, and neither is it the opinion of El Halcon News. However, making this backside inaccessible would probably go over badly for the people that genuinely use this. We've been keeping an eye on it for a while, and you've all had such nice things to say and promote on there, so there's probably no harm in keeping it available!
To showcase just how much this board fluctuates and updates, we've been taking an image of it every week when we pass by to update the board with our latest news, as well as noting any significant change made in between. We think you'll like the messages posted! Here, let's take a look:
Week 1 (April 6, 2009)
URGENT
TAILOR REQUIRED
Ask for Mina in Marina Way 98
HELP WANTED
Personnel for gas station on Liberators St.
w/ or w/o experience
Contact us: XXX-OOOO
**Healer Maurice
For all your romantic needs**
Villa Aguila Zone B7 West
As you can see, we've got the usuals who use this space for advertising. Not surprising, our tribe is always looking for ways to innovate in this quickly modernizing world! But let's draw your attention to near the bottom of the board here: It's a cute drawing of a dragon breathing fire! And the note attached:
_My Son Was Very Proud Of This
Picture He Made And Wanted To
Share It With Everyone :)_
So cute! We think he'll become a great man someday! But it seems he's not the only artist on this board today, as we can see that the left side of the board has been dominated by poets:
Literates Anonymous
Today's theme is: fate
_today i lay
hopelessly bound
to fate's chains
but one day i may
thrash and pound
these lowly reins_
-Jackal
_If I Dare Look Back
And Regret The Life I Lived
Tell Fate She's A..._
-Bull
_A man went to fish with his bait
But his trusty boat quivered with hate
The rod bobbed a sign
The man pulled his line
But, too hard! ...the rest was just fate_
-Kangaroo
_O inescapable flow of time! Cruel sands
that scar the soul forevermore,
when Fate dictates that my time has come,
cradle me in your arms and soothe me
off to a quiet slumber, that I may be
at peace with all._
-Parrot
_(Want to be featured here? Join us at Zone C1 North
every Tuesday at 3PM and meet other likeminded
people! -Organization Leader)_
An incredible display of poetry this week! Let's fast forward into the following week to see what else the village has to say.
Week 2 (April 13, 2009)
Today the board has a few new additions to the advertisements:
RECRUITING INDIVIDUALS
_We need boys and girls of all ages to participate
in coloring the local school's mural! Anyone
can sign up for this opportunity to leave their
mark on our village for years to come._
Contact Ms. Hannah at
Villa Aguila Elementary
between 8AM - 5PM
Looking for a female companion
Find me at the visitor gate in zone a1
Something else appears to be attached at the bottom of these advertisements, however:
EFFECTIVE NEXT WEEK, all advertisements on this board must
be removed and placed on the new Advert Alley board located
behind the Aguila Farmer's Market. Depending on your
request and income, you may be charged a fee for keeping
your ad weekly. We are doing this to free up space here for
more creative outlets. We apologize for any inconvenience.
-AFM Administration and Villa Aguila Committee
Seems like as a result of this sudden change, throughout the week most people have scrambled to pin their ad before the deadline. By Thursday we can see that there's a bunch of them scattered about and covering the whole board... There's concerts, healers, help wanteds and sellers all over the place! Only a single resident's comment manages to float in this sea of capitalism:
**????????????????????????????????????????????????
???????WHERE DID ALL YOU FREAKS COME FROM???????
????????????????????????????????????????????????**
By Saturday, however, the back of the board was completely wiped out, leaving a single note from the Committee:
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, all advertisements on this board will
be removed. You must now place them on the new Advert Alley
board located behind the Aguila Farmer's Market. Depending
on your request and income, you may be charged a fee for
keeping your ad weekly. PS: Please do not do that again.
-AFM Administration and Villa Aguila Committee
Let's move on to the next week and see the board filled with life again!
Week 3 (April 20, 2009)
As expected, the ads are almost gone by this point, and the previous note left by the committee has now been glued up at the top of the board in the stone, perhaps to warn people to go to the new venue. Despite this, a few stragglers refuse to budge:
urgentlyLooking for a female companion
Find me at the visitor gate in zone a1
**LAST CALL! Reclaim your virility!
Buy our miracle solution and enjoy your
relationship again, with Maxigrow!
Limited stock remains, don't delay!
Call OOO-XXXX**
Selling used freezer, works like new
W/. 100
Pick up only, ask for Jib at C5 South
To combat this, it appears the visual arts got the spotlight this week! Many different drawings adorn each area of the board, some covering up a few ads. There are pictures of buildings, landscapes, a few self-portraits and whatnot... One of them even recreated our newspaper logo! A black eagle flying across the village with a quill in its beak -- normally it's as minimalist as it can get to save on ink but this fan recreation in color truly captures what we envision this publication as!
Moving down below, however, a few poets are taking their own works again:
_life's worth living, right?
'cause sometimes it just doesn't
i need just a push_
^^ Want You to know You're not alone in This,
Sometimes just being Here is Enough
The Creature From the Sky
by Anonymous
i actually don't know how
to start this oops
it sounded cool in my head
_To the person taking pictures of this board:
i know what you are._
Oops, looks like we've been found ahead of time! Let's peek one more week in, though, shall we?
Week 4 (April 27, 2009)
The final week of our observations is here, and not surprisingly, you all managed to surprise us once more: gathered this week was an incredible collage of creativity from all walks of life! Every aspect of our tribe, from their vistas to the cuisine, has been graciously laid out on the back, as an unofficial tourist guide, and we think that's pretty neat!
Photographs of various landmarks of our zones dot the border of the board, like the legendary Panther Totem to the west of Zone B2 which was said to once have guarded our rainforest from colonizers, or the River of the Swift, a lengthy stretch of rapids that we use for our annual canoeing contest. Beyond this, many families have taken pictures of themselves in their homes, to show that we also live here, too. Among them is Alex Armone, an armadillo and the current mayor of Villa Aguila, as well as his wife, a white fox named Valerie Spade, and their 5-year-old son Terry, who was born an armadillo just like his father.
But that's not all we have. Within the bulletin itself is poems and art of all kinds, as well as a lengthy recipe on how to make our most prized festival plate: stuffed green rice! A delicious ball of green-coated rice with eggs, olives and chicken dotted inside, served with a healthy portion of fried bananas... simply too much of a delicacy to keep to ourselves! Perhaps this little ode from Literates Anonymous sums up our feelings about this dish well:
Wrapped
in a blanket
of banana leaves, you are
a fine delicacy to behold on the inside...
Peer within your smooth sac to find a gift most
precious; a healthy heap of verdant grains and
sweet olives, tender meat and salty yolk! If
only you could save me a few for later...
Looking further down, we can see brief snippets of our own reports attached, where we point to other famous landmarks in our land! For example, here's one about the Zen Camp, a campsite which houses the Origin Point:
_Zen Camp also includes a mythical location: the Origin Point. Speculated in ancient texts
to be the beginning place of all life, in our day and age this fifteen-meter diameter
circle where the flowers bloom and the grass remains green year round is considered the
epicenter of our tribe. Many say this is where the first families of Villa Aguila formed,
and they say that, if you step inside the circle, you may even feel their warm embrace,
congratulating the people for keeping the promises they left undone._
And here's another that details quite possibly the most famous legend of all from our tribe: The Wishing Stone...
_A supposedly multicolored crystal that has the ability to grant the holder
any wish they desire. Said to have been created by three lonely friends
after wandering the jungle. With their virtues of determination, kindness
and craftiness, they forged the crystal that would shape the world to what
it is today, then hid it away so that no one else could misuse it._
This is a legend that has been passed down for generations across our tribe, and today it may be the most written fairy tale in the world. As for the Origin Point, it remains a hot tourist attraction, and it has allowed this tribe to experience unprecedented growth.
Of course, we wouldn't be here without a few bumps in the road as well. As one resident would like to remind us in a little snippet of their own writing located just below every article:
**THESE LANDS ARE OURS ALONE
YOU CANNOT SELL OUR HISTORY**
To put it lightly, the fact that we even still possess our rainforests is possibly a miracle of the Wishing Stone itself. We've been under direct threat from politicians and innumerable companies trying to take a slice of our land for themselves, yet every time we've fought back valiantly, even if it was a clearly losing battle, our village still prevailed. For that we must extend our thanks to not just our local government body, but to our residents and especially our allies across the world.
We'll close off this somber patch in our publication with an example of fate twisting its threads in our favor: Last year, the mayor of Hannenway, the closest city to us, wanted to expand their city by wiping out our village entirely and using it for "labor opportunities". Once we fought back, the mayor took it to the Supreme Court of Peninsula Baja in a seemingly coordinated attack to finally rid us off the earth. It eventually came down to a vote between lawmakers in the court on whether Hannenway would expand or not, and, well, we'll let this snippet speak for itself:
UNBELIEVABLE: Villa Aguila keeps their jungle in
an incredibly close 82-81 vote in court
If we may, perhaps these are the three virtues of the Wishing Stone at work. Our kindness makes us proud enough of our village to share stories about it with the rest of the world, and we may have been just enough crafty to maintain our position, but above all, we clawed our way to here with determination in the forefront. With all these qualities combined, we can achieve just about anything, from herding cattle inside a corral to saving an entire tribe from desolation.
V** E**RyurgentlyLooking for a female companion
Find me at the visitor gate in zone a1
And yes... even finding love is in this too. Somehow this announcement from weeks ago remains up, no matter how many times it's been taken down under the new policy. We're not one to judge or make any sort of demands, so all we'll say in this situation is: Hope you find the woman of your desires soon!
Anyways, that's all from us at the News Bulletin. This has been Natalie with May's special report, and we hope to meet you again next month!