The Graab, Annotated: First Steps

This is a series of posts where I, Jordan Dooling, explore the empty words of Christoph Magreat's Viceking's Graab. The maze is a formidable one, complex and massive, so it's easy to wander too far and have no idea where you're going. While I do not claim to know what's at the centre of this maze, or even where the centre is, I at least want to help readers grasp the inner workings of this.. thing. So I give you The Graab, Annotated.

Last time, we went over a preliminary overview of what Magreat probably wanted us to go into the maze keeping aware of (this is a grave for a multifaceted power, the grave itself being heavily obfuscated)-- and that's just from the title! Today, we'll set foot in the maze and make a decision.

vicekingsgraab.blogspot
Viceking's Graab (Intro)

Already, there's a lot to analyze. This set-up should remind readers of the more.. controversial(?) Fear series, specifically of The Archangel that started it all, with its "Batman punches God" and low-res picture of the Green Lantern. Those blogs have their own meanings-- though I have a sneaking suspicion that Viceking's Graab might very well be a long-winded epic attempt to build us up to the "punchline" of explaining The Archangel.
Either way.
The text "This is not the blog" brings to mind the url for every Fear blog-- a translation of "This is not a blog," a reference to Rene Magritte's The Treachery of Images (an abstract reminder of the function behind art's form). It can also be taken literally in at least three different ways: 1) This is not the blog we were promised, 2) This is not the blog we are looking for, 3) This is not the blog the author wishes to show us. The differences between each are subtle, but they will become relevant soon enough.
The text, as described here, is also incomplete. Its response can be found beneath the image: "[url] This is." The implication is obvious: "This [that you are reading] is not the blog. This [url] is." A simple signpost pointing us in the right direction, but one that raises an innocent question: Why show us this initial blog at all, then?
I can offer no answer.
The last thing to point out is that the image is the same Green Lantern picture of The Archangel but shoddily recoloured in MSPaint to depict the Slender Man. This might imply that, here, it is the Slender Man who punches God (punches the sky). It certainly establishes two things: 1) The Slender Man holds some relevance to the Graab, and 2) Regarding tone, we should not expect the seriousness of Fears to be sacred here. At least not in conventional means.
Now we can click on the url provided by the image caption itself and enter the maze proper.

imnomanbut.blogspot
Viceking's Graab (Catacomb)

This heavily customized Blogger website, with its darkened title and lack of Gadgets, could be said to be Viceking's Graab proper. We will end up in this blog the most out of any blog in this labyrinth, so we'd best get acquainted with its design.

Let's begin with the url. Every url in the Graab is significant, and this is no exception. "I'm no man but." We will soon find that a majority of the urls in this maze are directly taken from Finnegans Wake, but this one, for one of the most important blogs, seemingly has no relevance; it can't be found in the text! Well. This is why you folk need a total nerd like me, as I have no life and have been around the Joycean critical spheres a few times. I can confirm that this actually alludes to a hypothesized excerpt from the Wake. See Chapter II.3, page 309:

It may not or maybe a no concern of the Guinnesses but.

The thorough dissertation The Agency of the Letter in the Conscious posits that this line, which bafflingly opens one of the most crucial chapters in the tome (and even more bafflingly is one of the few sentences that seems to lack proper syntax), contains an acrostic. It may not or maybe a no concern of the Guinnesses but. I'm no man. The "but" that ends the line, the dissertation goes on to posit, is the name of the narrator's usurper ("Butt" is the name of a character later in the chapter, the name of a usurper, the usurper of the narrator).
In alluding to this, the Graab establishes from an early stage its focus on usurpation, on hiding secret messages in plain sight, and on self-deprecation.

The next thing to look at in the blog's design is the title-- and what's under it. It would be easy to overlook that this blog has a title at all, considering the dark shade of its font (this could be further recurrence of the "hiding in plain sight" motif, or it might simply be atmosphere.), but there it is, followed by a line we should already recognize:

Now are all tombed to the mound, isges to isges, erde from erde. Pride, O pride, thy prize!

Everyone dies, everyone returns to dust. This is all that pride will give us.

Further design choices: Post titles are in Impact, suggesting a "totally rebloggable meme-worthy" statement. Page text is in Puritan, giving the text an uneven and unruled, almost "typewriter"-like effect.

This opening post, "ENTRANCE," establishes all that we need to know. Physically, we are in a tomb. Our goal is to uncover who is buried here, who killed them, and why. Also established is the presence of "writing on the walls." There is much to analyze about the writing on the walls, and at many times it will be our comfort as well as our primary source of frustration. But I am contractually obligated not to analyze it, only to remind the reader: "If you get too confused, remember that you are alone, reading text on a blog." This mantra is one of the keys to making it through this maze alive.
(I am similarly instructed not to touch the "signpost marked META.")

If we click "The passage extends," we are taken to our first branching path. The physical description here is almost telling in its detail: Bricks without seam, vibrating softly. Another contract forbids me from analyzing further. Understand, reader, that I am only hear to help you explore the inner workings of the maze; I am not here to explain the mysteries. Consider me yet another conspicuous signpost marked META.
As for the branching path itself, note that it is both a physical fork as well as a mental one. Physically, the path splits into three. Mentally, the writing on the wall asks us to remind ourselves why we stepped into the tomb to begin with. Notably, it is the mental fork that receives hypertextual focus; this is where the clickable links are.

Was it for personal gain? Was it for curiosity? Was it for the hell of it?

Before I end this post, let me remind you of something I said in describing the previous blog.

The text "This is not the blog" [...] can also be taken literally in at least three different ways: 1) This is not the blog we were promised, 2) This is not the blog we are looking for, 3) This is not the blog the author wishes to show us

Clicking on blogs for 1) Personal gain. 2) Curiosity. 3) The hell of it.

Join me next time for a look into the bulk of the maze: The many, many pastiche blogs.

The Graab, Annotated: Before Even Entering the Tomb

This is a series of posts where I, Jordan Dooling, explore the empty words of Christoph Magreat's Viceking's Graab. The maze is a formidable one, complex and massive, so it's easy to wander too far and have no idea where you're going. While I do not claim to know what's at the centre of this maze, or even where the centre is, I at least want to help readers grasp the inner workings of this.. thing. So I give you The Graab, Annotated.

Viceking's Graab is a big deal. Magreat went to great lengths to establish this in the reader's mind long before we even start reading. If you check any source, be it the forum thread, the Wiki page, or its TVTropes article, you will find conflicting information. Publicly, the Graab was hyped up with two posters and two works of Flash.

Note the eyes inside the doorway, note the vaguely 9-shaped nothingness (The Quiet?) in the sea of stars.

Note the names: Butt and Taff, and the Russian General. These are the first instances of names that will manifest again and again throughout the maze. Note the faces: From left to right, it's Aidan, alliterator, and myself. Note the suit and tie under Aidan. Note the blank masks (Pink Floyd The Wall), note the grotesque corpse (Wake in Progress) that we'll soon grow increasingly familiar with. Note the instant association with usurpation that the text provides.

The first Flash, titled "Graab_demo.swf," consists of an imperfect loop: The Jack of All, formed in collage, asks what the reader would give for a bit of safety (reference to The Fear Mythos: The RPG), and text informs us that the Graab will come "SOON," all while static builds and builds indefinitely until our computer's speakers are sure to break.

The second Flash, "graab_preview.swf," shows off Hexillith's drowning slender man picture set to the Vitamin String Orchestra's cover of "Everything in its Right Place" (a song whose significance in early Rapture does not go unrecognized) as text assures the reader that the Graab will come. (And if you wait around long enough, there's a particularly significant easter egg.)

This promotional campaign focuses on preliminary feelings of mystery, meaninglessness, and death. Above all else, what it established was the knowledge that something was coming to the blogosphere, something Magreat wanted us to know was titled Viceking's Graab. The name, in particular, features prominently both in the promotional works and in the maze itself, so it begs some analysis:

"Viceking's Graab," upon first glance, looks like pure gibberish. But it comes from James Joyce's post-holy necronomicon Finnegans Wake (in fact, one could argue that "Viceking's Graab" basically means "Finnegan's Wake," but that doesn't give us any elucidation beyond a confirmed reference), and as such, the full context of the quote-- which appears in some form on Butt and Taff's Blogger profile, as we shall see-- should offer more assistance.

(From Chapter I.1, pages 17 and 18)

    Jute.       Boildoyle and rawhoney on me when I can beuraly
                  forsstand a weird from sturk to finnic in such a pat-
                  what as your rutterdamrotter. Onheard of and um-
                  scene! Gut aftermeal! See you doomed.
    Mutt.      Quite agreem. Bussave a sec. Walk a dunblink
                  roundward this albutisle and you skull see how olde
                  ye plaine of my Elters, hunfree and ours, where wone
                  to wail whimbrel to peewee o'er the saltings, where
                  wilby citie by law of isthmon, where by a droit of
                  signory, icefloe was from his Inn the Byggning to
                  whose Finishthere Punct. Let erehim ruhmuhrmuhr.
                  Mearmerge two races, swete and brack. Morthering
                  rue. Hither, craching eastuards, they are in surgence:
                  hence, cool at ebb, they requiesce. Countlessness of
                  livestories have netherfallen by this plage, flick as
                  flowflakes, litters from aloft, like a waast wizzard all of 
                  whirlworlds. Now are all tombed to the mound, isges 
                  to isges, erde from erde. Pride, O pride, thy prize!
    Jute.       'Stench!
    Mutt.      Fiatfuit! Hereinunder lyethey. Llarge by the smal an'
                  everynight life olso th'estrange, babylone the great-
                  grandhotelled with tit tit tittlehouse, alp on earwig,
                  drukn on ild, likeas equal to anequal in this sound
                  seemetery which iz leebez luv.
    Jute.       'Zmorde!
    Mutt.      Meldundleize! By the fearse wave behoughted. Des-
                  pond's sung. And thanacestross mound have swollup
                  them all. This ourth of years is not save brickdust
                  and being humus the same roturns. He who runes
                  may rede it on all fours. O'c'stle, n'wc'stle, tr'c'stle,
                  crumbling! Sell me sooth the fare for Humblin! Hum-
                  blady Fair. But speak it allsosiftly, moulder! Be in
                  your whisht!
    Jute.       Whysht?
    Mutt.      The gyant Forficules with Amni the fay.
    Jute.       Howe?
    Mutt.      Here is viceking's graab.
    Jute.       Hwaad!
    Mutt.      Ore you astoneaged, jute you?
    Jute.       Oye am thonthorstrok, thing mud.

(Emphasis mine, these are things you might recognize as the maze proceeds.) This context, itself, stands within the fuller context of Mutt and Jute's discussion of the land on which they tread (this dialogue, itself, falls under even greater context-- but the Wake itself is a far denser and scarier maze than the Graab, so let's stop here). The point is that two opposing characters discuss the sanctity of the burial ground upon which they stand.

Furthermore, from one look at the title, we can deduce a pun or two. "Viceking," that's basically a viceroy upon first glance-- someone who acts as proxy for a bigger ruling power. Phonetically, it's closer to "viking." And then there's the implication of a king of vices. "Graab," however, is a simple phonetic transcription for the German grab, which is "grave."
The grave of the multifaceted power, the power having many interpretations, the grave being heavily obfuscated by language. Some consider the power a king of vices, some consider the power a foreign one, some consider the power a subordinate.
That, upon analysis, is what the title Viceking's Graab promises. And as we begin to explore the 60+ blogs deep within, I think we'll find this analysis rings true.

In the next post, we will begin our descent proper.

"not a name anymore"

I can write no thing genuine

Not a word is true

My thoughts are as noticeable

As, protector of all, are you

And when my words have faded

Unspoken and un-penned

Will I forget them in my sight jaded

Or suffer by them in the end?

"AN INTRODUCTION TO THE GRAAB", by Jordan Dooling

In a way, we were like brothers, he and I. Rascally brothers who spend eternity chasing and fleeing each other. Sometimes he leads. Sometimes I lead. Sometimes he leads. Sometimes I. Sometimes we fight, sometimes we talk, sometimes we waltz as mere phantom abstractions in the blogosphere mist. If I arrested him, I would have no one.
So I adjusted my hat and left for the city outside. The city that is sometimes a lady. When I'm feeling particularly metaphorical. Which sometimes I'm not. But sometimes I am. And that kind of balance can be nice.

These words, taken from the end of The Blog Without a Face (2013-2015), could be said to summarize a significant philosophy in the works of Christoph Magreat, few may they be: Balance of blogging.
Influenced by the works of Writerer and Joyce, Magreat himself entered the Fear Mythos like a 'phantom abstraction in the blogosphere mist.' The rambling mysteries of Slender man were our first foray into his mind, a baffling one taking concepts and tropes from Fearblog of Fear (Everyblogger, 2012-2015) (what others would surely call one of the worst blogs ever written) and following them down whatever dreamlike paths they suggested. Magreat's operandi seemed one of deconstruction, of taking the badly written and basking in their incompleteness-- an operandi perhaps demonstrated best by his exegesis of Slender Won't Back Down (2015, nottobereblogged). No one knew what to think of his work, whether he was serious or laughing behind all our backs. When he and Jesus Archangard released their collaborative and abstract Fear series, critical reception only became more mixed. Was he a troll or a mad genius?
One thing was certain: Magreat was transfixed, like many others, by the first great myth of the internet. The Slender Man has appeared in every one of his blogs (except for the Fear series, which were just as much about Fears as my own OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING is about pottery). This even bled into the works of his contemporary Archangard, whose I am Not Who I Am and Slender Ran stretched boundaries of how blogs should work and, more importantly, what the Slender Man's role in the blogosphere should be. Letters of correspondence between Magreat and Archangard suggest that Christoph had as much a role in the Slender-centricity of those blogs as Jesus had. But at the time, no one minded. The Slender Man was popular for a reason. These two artists fit right in with the trend of the times. That is, until word spread about a new project, one tentatively titled Work in Blogress.
I was asked, back in January or February 2015, to manage the promotional campaign for this new project. To prepare me for it, Magreat invited me to discuss details up at Mevagissey's controversially-named Hitler's Walk. There, he would elucidate for me his interest in The Slender Man, in our Fear Mythos, and in the blogosphere. He told me of an idea he had, an idea for a blog he was struck by and that for which the Fear series was nothing more than an abstract, a proof of concept: A blog that is no more a story than it is architecture. A blog labyrinth (a blogyrinth). With it came another idea, one that at first was completely unrelated: A character study on the mythos, a reverse-chronology of canon-- and thus an exploration of the paradox that is a canon in the Fear Mythos, where canons can only come to die. In time, Magreat would combine all of these ideas into one. He would spend the next several months shut away from the rest of the world, only surfacing from his seaside cottage to visit the local bookstore and walk out carrying armfuls of paperbacks, hardbacks, and everything in between. The few times he would invite me to his house (mostly to keep me updated on how much information I can impart in my promotional campaign), I would see his walls plastered with scraps of paper whose inkstained faces beckoned wordlessly to me, betraying the words they advertised. Mazes of graphite almost led to his bed, where I would find him surrounded with-- enprisoned by-- pillars of books. His few words to me that weren't instructions were non-sequiters of whatever obscure philosophy nugget from linguistic history he was studying at the time. I was a little concerned for him, but at the same time I was marvelled. Whatever tomb he was building, he was its one true Daedalus.
At last he told me the name of his project: Viceking's Graab. The title came from some ancient public domain necronomicon; its meaning, while unknown to me at the time, was irrelevant. He then led me to his computer, an alien monolith on its screen: "Here is Viceking's Graab."
My first "reading" confirmed my suspicions: Magreat's new project was a masterwork. It did not read like any blog I knew (with the one exception of some old alliterator blog time had since forgotten, but even then the resemblance felt more like an expansion of a concept of which alliterator's blog, too, was proof); its posts were symbiotic with their blog designs, its text was only texture, its commentary faint yet.. more visceral than anything else. Yes, that was the word: "Visceral." This was a visceral blog. Its design, primarily, is that of electronic drama and pastiche-- though the flow of the thing turns pastiche into, too, texture. Its content, as much as one can define the content of architecture, is that of the faded-- vandalized-- remains of a massive societal network. "Absurdity" comes to mind, though never said. Many things within are never said yet still come to mind. This was a zeitgeist, a microcosm of the Fear Mythos as presented through a trip down the many layers of a dese-sacred cata-tomb.
The Graab, as Magreat told me, still needed work. For starters, its skeleton wasn't even complete at the time. But I was sold. I knew all I needed to know. And I was more than happy to manage the promotional campaign.
The finished product is almost complete, almost ready for public access. I hope you will accept it, even in its sprawling abstractions and baffling complexity, as one single project well deserving of the title "Fearblog." Some parts intellectual, some parts ridiculous-- this, like many of Magreat's projects before, is balance. In the words of Peter Gabriel, "If you think that it's pretentious, you've been taken for a ride."