BETWEEN THE GROOVE: EPISODE 21
Fuckup: And we are back! Welcome, welcome to another episode of Deep Scratch Conversations with yours truly, Fuckup…
Hal: …And Hal! We’re diving straight into Chapter Twenty-One today. Let’s see what reality TRB are scratching up now.
Fuckup: Right, it kicks off with Max on the decks, setting the tone. He invokes Claude Shannon, Norbert Wiener, and freedom of information activists worldwide before dropping the needle. Heavy hitters for an intro!
Hal: Definitely signals a focus on information, communication, and maybe resistance. Max lays down some smooth stab-scratches, and then the “verbals” roll forth… shifting focus entirely to Julian Assange.
Fuckup: Yeah, describes him looking ill in the courtroom, like the “spooks got to him.” Contrasts the hype of the “trial of the century” with the reality – the “betrayal of the century,” maybe overshadowed by world events or even tamed by an HBO documentary with a “wicked soundtrack”!
Hal: It contrasts his current state with his earlier image – looking like Beckham, smiling defiantly. Mentions the supporters chanting “Justice for Julian, he’s no hooligan!” Then drops a key date: the court case result is set for December 21st!
Fuckup: Boom! Right back to that crucial 2012 date! And then it links him directly to the book’s core mythology. Apparently, some books hypothesized that WikiLeaks (WL) was partly responsible for the “winter solstice 2012 singularity event”!
Hal: Based on interpretations of Mayan calendars and the Popul Vuh! The prophecy supposedly foretold a “highly contagious stupidity disease” bringing about the end of human domination, with nature taking back control – “Nature Strikes Back,” riffing on Star Wars!
Fuckup: So, Assange and WikiLeaks are woven directly into the Mayan 2012 singularity plotline! Not just a political side note, but potentially a key trigger or element within the book’s mythology, linked to a global outbreak of stupidity and nature’s revenge!
Hal: It’s another masterful layering of real-world figures and events onto the novel’s specific, esoteric, and conspiratorial framework. Chapter Twenty-One is starting by placing Assange right at the heart of the 2012 mystery.
Fuckup: Right, Hal, back into Chapter Twenty-One. After the Assange setup, things seem to be taking a turn… Who’s talking now?
Hal: It sounds like an entity, maybe Sixty itself, or something controlling it? It’s addressing a whole list of characters directly – “Joe, Marge, Jake, Sal, Richard, Sally…” – saying they aren’t clear in the stories, they feel vague. Then it drops the bombshell: “Sixty has landed and its end game, sorry.“
Fuckup: End game?! Sorry?! That’s not ominous at all! What else does this charming voice have to say?
Hal: It gets worse! “Character termination will commence in six days… we are in control… don’t try to adjust or edit your role… we know everything about you, every edit you make we are watching you. We can guess with high accuracy, so much so that it will darken your veins.”
Fuckup: Bloody hell! That’s a direct threat! Six days to ‘character termination’! Total surveillance, predicting their thoughts… It’s gone full Skynet meets Philip K. Dick paranoia! This entity is laying down the law, claiming complete control over their reality, their narrative.
Hal: But look how TRB react! Plush just nods to Percy, they instantly switch decks, Percy takes over navigating the “time-stub” – manipulating the narrative timeline – jumping to another “meta-layer.” It requires intense concentration, but they’re doing it, reacting tactically to the threat, using their skills to try and outmaneuver this controlling entity.
Fuckup: So Sixty (or whatever it is) declares ‘end game’ and total control, and TRB’s immediate response is to start manipulating the narrative structure itself, jumping between layers, trying to stay one step ahead on the decks! The battle lines are drawn!
Hal: Exactly! It’s information warfare, reality warfare, being fought right there on the turntables and through the narrative layers. This section massively raises the stakes – the countdown has begun!
Fuckup: Right, Hal, let’s get this final transmission from Chapter Twenty-One decoded. Max is cleaning a fly wing off the stylus… nice. Plush is deep in it, eyes closed, massaging the records “like he was scratching a shaggy dog’s rump”!
Hal: Then we get this intense monologue – could be Max thinking, could be Plush, could be narration, it’s slippery! It starts talking about “Whitewashes and gag orders,” quantum mechanics and information entropy hitting the mainstream, people getting a taste of the “poison letters” and weaponized ambiguity used by the powerful – name-checking Angleton, Cord Meyer, Bush again.
Fuckup: But there’s a counter! The power of “coded language” and the “decentralized internet” can beat any adversary in the end. It even suggests the “superior intelligence of earth’s biosphere” will make human weapons useless! Gaia fighting back, maybe?
Hal: It links the “dream-space of Hermetic philosophers” as being “one inch from your nose right now,” questioning if people or the press can handle information responsibly – secrets wanting out “like spiders under a glass.” It ties the digital age and web access to this feeling that the old systems – banks, governments, “lawyer run capitalism” – must fall before humanity can rise up as a true “global village” against bullying and greed.
Fuckup: It’s a proper call to arms, almost! Tying information theory, conspiracy, Hermeticism, biosphere consciousness, and anti-capitalist revolution together. Heavy!
Hal: So, Chapter Twenty-One Summary: This chapter kicked off by invoking information pioneers (Shannon, Wiener) and activists, before focusing on the Julian Assange situation. It described his changed appearance and the waning public interest, linking his December 21st court date directly to the novel’s Mayan 2012 singularity plot via a fictional prophecy about a “stupidity disease” and “Nature Strikes Back.” This final section delivered a dense monologue reflecting on information warfare – from gag orders and weaponized ambiguity (Angleton, Meyer, Bush) to the resistant potential of coded language and decentralized networks. It posited the ultimate power of the biosphere’s intelligence, the proximity of Hermetic dream-space, and argued for the necessity of systemic collapse (banks, governments) before a true “global village” could emerge to fight greed and coercion.
Fuckup: From Assange as a Mayan prophecy trigger to the entire biosphere rendering weapons useless… Chapter Twenty-One really connected the specific political paranoia to a grand, almost mystical vision of information, consciousness, and revolution.
Hal: Absolutely. It sets a high bar for the kind of transformation needed and the forces at play. That’s Chapter Twenty-One wrapped! What cosmic weirdness awaits next?
DEEP SCRATCH 