Alice in Pictures

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%200.jpg" width="100%">  (if: $resist is "false")[ When you wake up, you find yourself lying on the trampled earth ground in some back alley of Kyoto, looking up at the sky. For a moment, you think you're a child again, fallen asleep after an afternoon of racing your bicycle in the late summer sun. But as you stare at the gray of the sky, you instinctively know your bike is nowhere near. You think of a passage from a book you once read. //As for Gilpin, even as a child he sought this ‘evening grey’ of a unifying dull tint: ‘I used to make little drawings, I was never pleased with them till I had given them a brownish tint. And, as I knew no other method, I used to hold them over smoke till they had assumed such a tint as satisfied my eye.’ For Maillet this is a smoking, not merely of an image, but of ‘the rawness of this flesh, the cruelty of the real’.// (click-append: "As for Gilpin, even as a child he sought this ‘evening grey’ of a unifying dull tint: ‘I used to make little drawings, I was never pleased with them till I had given them a brownish tint. And, as I knew no other method, I used to hold them over smoke till they had assumed such a tint as satisfied my eye.’ For Maillet this is a smoking, not merely of an image, but of ‘the rawness of this flesh, the cruelty of the real’.", (action: 'mouseover'))[ Kite, S. Shadow-Makers: A Cultural History of Shadows in Architecture.] How did you end up here? At one end of the lane, there's what looks like the entrance to a garden. Perhaps you can figure out which one it is and find your way back home from there. You used to go to these old gardens a lot. Do you have your googles with you? //The landscape could also be viewed through coloured filters, confusingly also called the ‘Claude Lorraine Glass’, making it sometimes hard in texts to know whether the author is referring to a filter, or a mirror type, of instrument. One such ‘Glass’ was advertised as consisting of ‘a variety of different coloured glasses, about one inch in diameter, mounted in horn frame and turning on one centre, for producing a great variety of colours...; it also will be found both pleasing and useful for viewing eclipses, clouds, landscapes, etc’. With a toy like this the tourist could change the scene in a moment; make a glowing golden Claude afternoon, a sunrise or sunset rose, or a moonlight gloomth. The ground of Gilpin’s aquatints of Tintern is the pale pink of evening, while that of Chepstow Castle and bridge has a pronounced sunset intensity. The sunset of the sensibility of Gothic ‘gloomth’ itself has been linked to the third and final collapse of William Beckford’s Fonthill Abbey in 1825, its soaring 300 feet tower barely more substantial than the wallpaper on Walpole’s staircase. Despite the stage set aspect of Gothic architecture, and regardless of all the genteel fussing with mirrors and lenses at the edge of well protected precipices, the fact remains that the shadows we have been dealing with here are real and persistent emanations of the psyche, as demonstrated by the vital cultural ramifications of the Gothic genre to our own day.// (click-append: "The landscape could also be viewed through coloured filters, confusingly also called the ‘Claude Lorraine Glass’, making it sometimes hard in texts to know whether the author is referring to a filter, or a mirror type, of instrument. One such ‘Glass’ was advertised as consisting of ‘a variety of different coloured glasses, about one inch in diameter, mounted in horn frame and turning on one centre, for producing a great variety of colours...; it also will be found both pleasing and useful for viewing eclipses, clouds, landscapes, etc’. With a toy like this the tourist could change the scene in a moment; make a glowing golden Claude afternoon, a sunrise or sunset rose, or a moonlight gloomth. The ground of Gilpin’s aquatints of Tintern is the pale pink of evening, while that of Chepstow Castle and bridge has a pronounced sunset intensity. The sunset of the sensibility of Gothic ‘gloomth’ itself has been linked to the third and final collapse of William Beckford’s Fonthill Abbey in 1825, its soaring 300 feet tower barely more substantial than the wallpaper on Walpole’s staircase. Despite the stage set aspect of Gothic architecture, and regardless of all the genteel fussing with mirrors and lenses at the edge of well protected precipices, the fact remains that the shadows we have been dealing with here are real and persistent emanations of the psyche, as demonstrated by the vital cultural ramifications of the Gothic genre to our own day.", (action: 'mouseover'))[ Kite, S. Shadow-Makers: A Cultural History of Shadows in Architecture.] You find the old plastic pair of shades at the bottom of your bag. They don't make Happy Meal toys like this anymore. [[approach the gate|Through the Gate]] ] (if: $resist is "true")[When you wake up, you find yourself lying on the trampled earth ground in some back alley of Kyoto, looking up at the sky. How did you end up here? You only have a lingering memory of a dream. What was it about? There was a mysterious blonde woman in it. She seemed dangerous. At one end of the lane, there's what looks like the entrance to a garden. Perhaps you can figure out which one it is and find your way back home from there. You used to go to these old gardens a lot. Do you have your googles with you? You turn your purse inside out, but the googles are nowhere to be found. You do find an old phone, a city map, and a card from some taxi company, however. [[enter the garden without googles|Empty Garden]] [[figure out where you are and go home|Taxi]] ]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%201.jpg" width="100%">  There's a little plaque next to the entrance. It talks about the designer of this garden. (click-replace: "designer of this garden.") [designer of this garden. //Here, where the same Zen monk was both painter and garden maker, painted screens and dry gardens show a reciprocal monochromaticism: real stones and plants resemble the same muted brush strokes that abstract the essence of mountains and foliage. In this context Henry Plummer writes of shadows as ‘overlaid washes [that] are thin and blurred, recalling the unhurried brushwork of sumiye [ink] painting … eluding all exact definition in black and white tones that are wet and moist’. Similarly, the architect Kisho Kurokawa speaks of a Japanese ‘culture of greys’; if the Mediterranean culture of the West is about ‘the strong southern sun and the deep dark shadows it creates’, then ‘Kyoto, representative of traditional Japanese beauty, is even more beautiful on a rainy day, or at dusk, the time of the intermediary zone between light and darkness’. And he goes on to say, ‘The shadow that Tanizaki praises is not a shadow etched out by light, but a dimness that envelops the entire space.// Kite, S. Shadow-Makers: A Cultural History of Shadows in Architecture. Huh. The same book you were just thinking about. Perhaps you have been here before? If Tanizaki's right, the weather's just perfect for a visit.] [[enter the garden|Beyond the Garden Wall]]

(set: $ai to (font:'Futura'))(set: $pcname to "Yuko")(set: $height to "20")(set: $resist to "false")(set: $stourhead to "false")(set: $hain to "false")(set: $bridgeclosed to "false")(set: $alice to "null")(set: $kids to "false")(set: $gardener to "false")(set: $manor to "false")(set: $pc to (font:'Helvetica'))

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%202.jpg" width="100%">  $ai[Don't be such a coward, $pcname. Have you really never used your googles properly before?] You try to distract her, and point up at the sky. //The clouds passed slowly through several arrangements, and in the last of these I read the very scene which six months before I had read in a most exquisite poem of Wordsworth’s … The scene in the poem (‘Ruth’), that had been originally mimicked by the poet from the sky, was here re mimicked and rehearsed to the life, as it seemed, by the sky from the poet.// She grins at you, knowingly, and while she finishes the quote(click: "quote")[ (Keiller, P. The View from the Train: Cities and Other Landscapes.)], you weigh your options. $ai[//Poe was familiar with this mechanism of romanticisation, but such ephemeral effects do not satisfy him: the landscape gardener is produced to cement the cyclical relationship between poetic experience and the material world, to conduct ‘its adaption to the eyes which were to behold it on earth’: in his explanation of this phraseology, Mr Ellison did much toward solving what has always seemed to me an enigma: — I mean the fact (which none but the ignorant dispute) that no such combination of scenery exists in nature as the painter of genius may produce.//] Before you is a fork in the path. You see what must be a pavilion for tea ceremonies. The other path leads to the bridge across the pond. [["Sorry, it's just... I'm feeling a little nauseous. I think I might have a sunstroke. Do you want to have a little break with some tea?"|The Teahouse]] [[say nothing|The Bridge]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%203.jpg" width="100%">  Your head is still turning. Like a drunkard, you stumble towards the buildings at the edge of the garden. You're glad that here, the hedges are just short enough for you to look over them. There is a kind of maze, but the point is not to get you lost – rather, to make you appreciate the winding path. You stumble, but you don't fall. You laugh about yourself. This has been fun. And you have a feeling that Alice wants more. Is this one of those days where you go home on a high? You could stay, but you still don't know where you are, and it won't be easier to get home in the dark. //It is a street with trees that in the summer make cool patterns on the pavement; but now the leaves were yellowed and mostly down, and the rain had made them slippery, they skidded underfoot.// (click-append: "It is a street with trees that in the summer make cool patterns on the pavement; but now the leaves were yellowed and mostly down, and the rain had made them slippery, they skidded underfoot.", (action: 'mouseover'))[ Goldsmith, K. Capital: New York, Capital of the 20th Century.] [[Look for the main building|The Dojo]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%204.jpg" width="100%">  You follow a bunch of pathways that flow between little clumps of vegetation. Like most of these gardens, it doesn't reveal its most spectacular vistas right away. (Christopher Alexander explains this in his 'Pattern Language' quite well, I think) (click-replace: "'Pattern Language' quite well, I think)") ['Pattern Language': //At each threshold between precincts build a gate— main gateways; at each gate, a place to pause with a new view toward the next most inner place — zen view; and at the innermost sanctum, something very quiet and able to inspire—perhaps a view, or no more than a simple tree, or pool.//] Eventually, the terrain opens and reveals a body of water. You see buildings beyond the other side of the garden. It can't be very big. Somewhere central, you assume. But it's nice. Suddenly, you're no longer in a rush to get home. [[sit in the grass for a moment|The Lawn]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%205.jpg" width="100%">  $ai[Sure, let's do that! I love a traditional tea ceremony with delicious matcha and a sweet treat!] A vending machine would also do. $ai[Good day, sir! Can we buy some refreshments here?] //<...> the helpless old man leans against a wall; he is accompanied by a dog, with an old twisted rope for a lead.//(click-append: "<...> the helpless old man leans against a wall; he is accompanied by a dog, with an old twisted rope for a lead.", (action: 'mouseover'))[ Ackroyd, P. London: The Biography. ] You see him now, too. A westerner. Probably not the master of ceremony. His dog is jumping at a beehive that must be somewhere under the pavilion. It is an interesting structure: The actual tea room is elevated above the ground, so that the building looks like a tiny bridge, or gate. Two travelers can meet here, at an intersection of paths, and share their stories. One goes up on each side. A sign says no ceremonies are being held until the bee situation is resolved. The dog gets stung. The bees are angry and their buzz grows louder. $ai[We should leave. They don't seem friendly.] [[Make a scene and run away|2 Puffs of Green]] [[Follow Alice|The Bridge]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%206.jpg" width="100%">  You sit down and take a deep breath. A voice (click-replace: "A voice")[$ai[Hey there!] You turn around. But there's no one there. $ai[Put on your googles, dummy!] You put them on, and switch through the different filters. When you get to the green filter, you see her. A woman, perhaps twenty-five, western, with hair so blonde it can't be real. She's standing on the lawn, perhaps 5 metres away from you. $ai[Enjoying the view? My name's Alice! What's yours?] (dropdown: bind $pcname, "Yuko", "Hiro", "Midori", "Dante", "Samantha", "Bob", "MC", "null") [[her accent is british, perhaps, but it's hard to tell|Lawn 2]] ]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%207.jpg" width="100%">  You arrive at what must be the main building. A villa, not a temple, presumably. There's some kind of exhibition inside. Peer in through the windows. (click: "windows")[Instead of the dusty glass boxes with long texts on the history of the garden you would have expected, this space seems to have been turned into an art gallery. Grotesque sculptures of dark blue ceramic stand on white pedestals, smooth amorphous shapes encrusted with porous bits that seem to hold them together and fill in the gaps. They could be the taxidermied organs of an extraterrestial whale, dissected and displayed to show the parasites nesting within. In contrast, the elegant, minimalistic design of the explanatory leaflets in the box next to the door seems almost incongruent. (click: "leaflets")[//Seizure originated far from the aristocratic setting of the Park within a flat on a failed 1960s housing estate in south London. Artist Hiorns tanked and filled the apartment with 75,000 litres of copper sulphate, yielding after two weeks a phenomenal scintillating surface of blue crystals.// Kite, S. Shadow-Makers: A Cultural History of Shadows in Architecture.]] [[The exit must be somewhere around here. Time to go.|Gatewarden]] (if: $stourhead is "true")[ [[Look for the bathroom and return to Alice|Bathroom]] ]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%208.jpg" width="100%">  (if: $stourhead is "false")[You scream, and run away. She catches up to you eventually, and you're both catching your breath near the lakeside, laughing. $ai[Are you... allergic to bees?] I don't know! I've never been stung by one. Seemed like a bad moment to find out. ] Alice laughs. $ai[Look! That's us.] She points at two quaint little bushes. She's good at recognizing patterns, that's for sure. [[A gate, similar to the one you came through in the beginning, lies beyond a singular tree.|Roundabout Tree]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%2011.jpg" width="100%">  "Alright, well, Alice, it was nice meeting you." (if: $stourhead is "true")["We should do this again, sometime. My phone is down but I can give you my number..." Alice smirks and taps your googles. $ai[Just switch to my channel when you want to see me. I'll be around. But don't you want to stay a little longer? I know a really cozy spot. See that little opening there behind the trees? I found it last week. I think we're the only ones in this garden, anyway.] [["Uh, sure! I can stay a little longer."|More Puffs]] [["I... will join you in a minute. I need to go to the bathroom first."|A brief respite]] ] (if: $stourhead is "false")["Unfortunately, I really have to get home. I Hope you enjoy your time in Kyoto!" $ai[That's ok. Goodbye, $pcname!] There's a certain sadness in her eyes. In another life, perhaps, you would have liked to get to know her better. [["Goodbye!"|The Dojo]]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%2012.jpg" width="100%">  An old man in a light blue uniform sits under a little wooden roof and taps his hat as you leave. There are thousands of men like him in the country. But you could swear you've seen this particular one before. He closes the gate behind you, and locks it. Just outside, leaning againts a fence, stands your old, squeaky bicycle. You reach for the keys in your pocket. They're there. And as your fingers follow the grooves and notches on the key, you remember it all. Where you live. How you got here. Your real name. //I used to pass a dwarf, dressed in old clothes and with wizened features, who in a hoarse voice would direct the traffic at the crossroads of Theobalds Road and Grays Inn Road; he was there every day and then suddenly, in the summer of 1978, he was gone.// Ackroyd, P. London: The Biography. (text-colour:red)[end] (text-colour:red)[[[start over|Splash Screen]]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%2013.jpg" width="100%">  Behind the gallery building, you find the bathroom. It's a modern japanese toilet, with bidet and dryer. It plays a melancholic melody, softly dissipating in the deserted garden. [[Refreshed, you decide to find Alice where she told you to come.|Secret Path]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%2014.jpg" width="100%">  "So, what brings you to Kyoto? Holidays? Or work?" $ai[A study trip, actually. I'm still a student. Still learning. I'm trying to write a paper about the picturesque in 18th century gardens.] (dropdown: 2bind _japan," ", "Mh, very interesting! You've come to the right place.","In Japan? Wasn't the picturesque garden mostly an english phenomenon back then?") (live: 5)[(if: _japan is "In Japan? Wasn't the picturesque garden mostly an english phenomenon back then?")[ $ai[Well, yes, but you'd be surprised how many parallels you can find once you stop analyzing based on history or logic. My work is really about comparing the emotional qualities in the english and the japanese garden. Look at this moment here, for example:] Alice makes a vague gesture with her hand. $ai[In her book 'Zen Gardens - The Complete Works of Shunmyo Masuno', Locher says that: //When viewed from the bathing areas, the spaces of the garden constrict, with the trees, rocks, and ground cover reflected in a small pond and the mountains visible between the trees.// You could say exactly the same thing about any English Landscape Garden with a pond.] "Hm. Was Shunmyo the designer of this garden?" $ai[No, I don't think so. Does that matter? Sorry for being imprecise.]]] (live: 5)[(if: _japan is "Mh, very interesting! You've come to the right place.")[I love places like this. I'm glad that they're open to the public nowadays. But are you saying you took a plane to Japan just for a little student paper? That's crazy, haha. $ai[No, I can do that all from England.] "...but you're here now." $ai[I'm here a little, but I'm mostly there. I don't read Japanese very well, unfortunately.] "(...)" ]] $ai[If you want to, I can try to show you what I'm trying to say when we go to Stourhead.] [["What do you mean, we?"|Pond 2]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%2015.jpg" width="100%">  $ai[Shhhh] (click: "Shhhh")[ $ai[There, the gatewarden. I hope he hasn't seen us.] You see an old man patrolling the garden with a flashlight. $ai[Let's be quiet for a while, until he's gone. He won't come looking for anybody here.] You lay back on the moss and listen to some faraway birds. Occasionally, a vending machine on the other side of the garden wall plays a little jingle. [[a kiss on your cheek|Lights 2]] ]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%2016.jpg" width=100%>  (if: $stourhead is "false")[ Alice is giggling, her hair flowing in golden ripples behind her as she runs down the forest trail. You struggle to keep up without getting out of breath. Through the green daze, you see it now: the bridge, waiting. Alice before it, striking a silly pose, like someone inviting you into a circus tent in some wartime cartoon. Voices whisper on the wind, carried over across the false river that doesn't seem to be flowing in either direction. //each room, easin’ into full view as ya pass forward, eyes on one spot in the unseeing distance, moving like you’re on rails—everything relegated to the senses, use of sense like a vehicle, moving forward at regulated pace, something otherwise so unexplainable yet the wounding nature of these visual scenes…// You look at Alice (click: "You look at Alice")[ Her eyes are fixated at you, pupils wide, but her lips are moving, barely perceptible, as if she's murmuring along the words that you hear, deeply engrained sermon from another time. //[...] we watched on the bankstreet pier the fucking until the guys separated and went their various ways, we sat on the far edge next to lapping water and posts and talked about the sense ya get in these scenes that although it’s public sex ya still have the sense that ya should respect their privacy and not go over and watch, though watching from a discreet distance can only be expected as it is an intense visual to be confronted with [...] // You walk forward, your feet moving as if pulled by invisible strings. The world around you fades, swirls, the shapes become larger-than-life, then indistinguishable... until they disappear. There is only you now, and Alice, on top of the bridge, and she's pulling you closer... [ [[resist]]]<rst| (link: "embrace her")[(replace:?rst)[ $ai[Let's go.] [[Cross the Bridge|Bridge 2]] //[...] and then another boat went by with characters milling and shoutin’ in the din of music, you could barely make out their voices—and the timeless photographical nature of the scenes way back at the beginning of the pier, the trucks lined up silver and motion [...]// (click: "their voices", (action: 'mouseover'))[ Goldsmith, K. Capital: New York, Capital of the 20th Century. ] ]] ]] (if: $stourhead is "true")[You sigh a breath of relief. You're back in Kyoto. Something about the smaller scale of it all makes you relax. Finding the exit here should be easy. $ai[Last at the two little bushes loses!] Alice runs towards the big meadow, arms swinging comically. [[Race her|2 Puffs of Green]] ]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%200.jpg" width="100%">  You run out of the gate. A silver Mercedes stands waiting. You remember the keys In the pocket of your trousers. A shadowy figure is approaching, fast. You get in on the right. (click: "You get in on the right.")[The key fits. Tires screech, and the person disappears in the rear view mirror. You take off the glasses and throw them out of the window. You drive for an hour, and then for another. In the third town with a gas station, you stop. You buy a lot of icecream. You don't manage to eat much of it. The smell of petrol is overwhelming, but you're thankful for it. When you finish crying, you switch on the navigation system. There is a button with a little house. The computer starts calculating the route. Soon, you will be home. (text-colour:red)[end] (text-colour:red)[[[start over|Splash Screen]]]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%201.jpg" width="100%">  "That is impressive. Gothic, right? What is it good for?" $ai[Nothing. It's a folly. It's only purpose is to attract the visitor's view and to embellish the view. Similar to the stone lanterns in Japanese gardens, perhaps.] "Those have a spiritual meaning, technically. This also looks like the spire of a church." $ai[Yes, that's what it references. But it's not the alluded image itself that is important here. It's the artifact's ability to create such connections in the first place. With its complexity both in detail and in its visual connections to other places in the park, it has one main message: The world is big, it is beautiful, and everything is connected. It elevates your mind, takes you out of the illusion of nature, and lets you truly perceive landscape. It's similar to what happens on the inside of the last palaces of the 19th century. //Topoanalysis asks for a house that ‘is a bit elaborate’, not in the way of a palace, but akin to the simple home of the engraving, with ‘a cellar and a garret, nooks and corridors’, these physical refuges foster memory and daydreaming, whereas in a palace, as Baudelaire stated, ‘there is no place for intimacy’. As the scholar of place, Edward Casey explains: Topanalysis tries to convince us that the house is a world.// (click-append: "//Topoanalysis asks for a house that ‘is a bit elaborate’, not in the way of a palace, but akin to the simple home of the engraving, with ‘a cellar and a garret, nooks and corridors’, these physical refuges foster memory and daydreaming, whereas in a palace, as Baudelaire stated, ‘there is no place for intimacy’. As the scholar of place, Edward Casey explains: Topoanalysis tries to convince us that the house is a world.//", (action: 'mouseover'))[ Kite, S. Shadow-Makers: A Cultural History of Shadows in Architecture.]] You try to understand what Alice is saying, but are distracted by a couple walking past with their dog. (click: "couple walking past with their dog")[ Their faces appear... blurred? You cannot make out any features, and their voices sound metallic, vocoded. Alice notices your pale expression and gently touches your arm. $ai[Sorry, I should have mentioned it. Most people in England don't like googles, or have never heard of it, so they aren't opted in to revealing their identity to strangers. People can freely choose, here. You can still talk to people, most of them won't mind!] An elderly couple stands nearby. In the distance, you see another folly, perhaps, a temple-like building. [[Continue towards the temple|On the Dam]] [["Excuse me for a second, I think I know these people. Just gonna say hi"|Forgotten Faces]]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%202.jpg" width="100%">  You make your way towards the castle grounds. $ai[ //In the valley, the color of these cottages agrees with everything: the green light, which trembles through the leafage of the taller trees, falls with exquisite effect on the rich gray of the ancient roofs: the deep pool of clear water is not startled from its peace by their reflection <...>//] "You've said that before, in Kyoto. Ruskin. Don't you think you're weakening your own argument if you use the same quotes to talk about two different places on two different continents?" $ai[Why? Just because Ruskin said this about another place, would it make it any less true if he said it about this one? Do you never repeat yourself? Repetition is how we learn. Any thought that endures over a significant amount of time is bound to be generic. Otherwise, no one would care to repeat it.] [[The Manor House stands in front of you now.|Manor House]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%203.jpg" width="100%">  "Hello, how are you! Can you help me? I'm lost. I'm from Kyoto, and I need to get home." Their faces turn toward you, but their mimics remain perfectly hidden under the clouds of blur that hover around their heads. (font:"Arial")[Good Day. That's a bummer, but we're happy to help! If you would like to know how to get to Kyoto (JP), you can use the google app on your mobile phone to check connecting flights.] "Yes, but my phone is out of battery. Can you just call a Taxi for me, please? I'll wait at the exit of the garden." (font:"Arial")[I'm afraid that we cannot make Taxi bookings for you. Try booking via an app, or directly on the taxi company's website. Is there anything else we can help you with?] You can't tell whether the man or the woman has been talking to you, or both. The vocoder hides all personal information. Take off the glasses (click: "Take off the glasses")[ The lakeside looks the same, but grayer. Two brown ducks sit where the old couple was standing. They flutter away as you take the first step forward. [[Return to Alice|On the Dam]] ]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%204.jpg" width="100%">  You make your way along the lake, and notice that this park is much livelier than the one in Kyoto. From a bench, you watch a family having a picnic. "Do you think these people live around here?" $ai[Very likely. People from the city rarely drive so far out, they're happy with their tiny inner-city gardens. //It is as if those people with ready access to a green display a full, free responsiveness to it; while people far away have lost their awareness of it and have suffered a reduced sensitivity to the pleasures of the green — for these people, the green has ceased to be a vital element in their neighborhood life.//(click: "while people far away", (action: 'mouseover'))[ Alexander, C. A Pattern Language.] Are you hungry?] [["Not yet. Let's continue."|Folly]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%205.jpg" width="100%">  You walk alongside in silence. There is a kind of dam here, separating the main lake from a smaller, lower lake, probably reserved for animals. You don't know what to make of this place. You don't know what to make of Alice, especially. "Alice, do you know what the other garden is called, the one in Kyoto?" $ai[It's a marvellous example of an 18th century japanese garden! Some famous gardens from the Edo period near Kyoto are: Nanzen-in, Chishaku-in and Ninna-ji.] "You don't have to prove to me that you know your gardens, Alice. I just need to know if you know where you found me, and how I got there." $ai[Sorry, $pcname. I don't know about that. I will try to be better in the future.] "I... it's ok. I only have myself to blame. If it really helps you for your essay, we can look at this garden some more, perhaps my memories will come back at some point. What do you see here?" $ai[//With a commitment supported by the corporate leadership, from the outset architect Iñigo Ortiz designed the buildings to have natural elements and biophilic attributes as well as green building features such as passive solar design, natural ventilation, appropriate materials, daylighting, and good indoor air quality.// (click: "biophilic attributes")[ Kellert, S. Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life. ]] Mhm. You decide not to ask further questions, which she seems to be perfectly content with. You let yourself fall back, and for the next ten minutes you bury your gaze in the uncaring white folds of the flowing dress draped around her figure, trying to make sense of what lies underneath. [[You reach the Temple|Stairsitters]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%206.jpg" width="100%">  Several groups of people sit on the stairs, eating their lunch. Alice stands in front of the column facade and starts to analyze what she sees with tectonic rigour, gesturing like a tour guide: $ai[//You take in the street by layers: this guy with the hat stepping too close to your shoulder; the storefront signs and window displays prompting impulse purchases; the stone cut ornaments just above your head (cornices, cherubs, lions), and sometimes a whole second story tier of retail or an upstairs restaurant; the wall posters on construction sites selling movies, politicians, rock stars; and, finally, the tops of buildings, for which the best touches are often saved: Babylonian roof gardens, green copper domes, medieval castle turrets, Mayan setbacks, Greek temples, and all manner of pointy needles symbolizing the heavenward aspirations of commerce.// (click: "You take in the street by layers")[ Goldsmith, K. Capital: New York, Capital of the 20th Century.]] There is nothing to buy here. Everyone has brought their own food in tupperwares. Nevertheless, there is some half-hearted clapping from the audience. A guy with a hat has, in fact, gotten up and approached Alice, carefully, like somebody listening in on a walking tour they aren't paying for. His face unblurs. (click: "unblurs")[ You remember him. He's the man with the dog that got stung by the bees. The image is vivid in your memory, but you can't quite place it. He whispers something to Alice, and she frowns. She comes over to you – you're standing at a safe distance from the mechanical crunching and slurping of the blurry crowd. $ai[Everybody is trying to sell you something these days, don't you think? But there are more and less frivolous ways to do it. At the end of the day, I prefer how the Japanese do it. Clear on intentions, playful in content. Let's go somewhere else.] [[Follow her, for now.|Hain]] ]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%207.jpg" width="100%">  Two people are leaving the cottage as you arrive. It appears more like a chapel from up close. An old man watches you, doubtlessly, behind the blur, as you enter. The space is dark, illuminated indirectly by red neon light. A protestant, modern depiction of Jesus on the cross stands where you would have expected a gothic altar. Examine the idol(click: "Examine the idol")[ The head, cast in bronze, is punctured by a silver crown of thorns. The way the sculptor abstracted the subject makes it look like Jesus is getting an EEG. A cool breeze of air brushes past you as the heavy door falls into place. There is a rustling, and before you fully turn around, a click in the lock. You hammer at the door(click: "the door")[, but there is no use. The old man did this on purpose. Your heart races. You scream, for help, for Alice, you scream at yourself to wake up. After two hours, you give up. You curl into a ball under the cross, and try to stop the useless, useless thoughts in your mind. [[Fall Asleep|Cave]] ]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%208.jpg" width="100%">  When you wake up, you're in a different room. You feel your body, but you're too weak to move. You've grown a thin, long beard, and you're wearing a scratchy, gray sack. There is an opening, near the floor. Somewhere beyond, a robotic voice from a speaker recites another passage from Shadow-Makers, one you had almost forgotten. //Shadow–light sequences are integral to the enticement to hazard as in the cavern experience vividly painted by Heath: the inducement into the refuge darkness of the cleft in the rock, followed by the rebirth through a low vaginal opening into exhilarating light and prospect, but also to perils of a different kind, the fear of falling from the ‘bold point of rock on which we stand’ rising sheer from the Wye far below. Says Appleton: ‘Just as light is conducive to seeing, so deprivation of light is conducive to not being seen. … There is therefore a very direct functional association between darkness and concealment and a prime facie case for symbolically equating darkness with the refuge as light with the prospect.’ As shadowed refuge places, the cave, the grotto and the hermitage are often imbricated in conceptions of the Picturesque landscape.// Two slender hands appear in the opening. One holds a trowel, the other a brick. (text-colour:red)[end] (text-colour:red)[[[start over|Splash Screen]]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%209.jpg" width="100%">  (set: $hain to "true")(if: $bridgeclosed is "false")[(set: $wakeup to "null") $ai[Ah, this is beautiful! Let's sit here and have a picnic under these trees!] A bit artificial, yes, but undeniably nice. You can't help but quote from "A Pattern Language" again. //Obviously, we feel comfortable out in the green grass of a meadow, under the blue sky.// Alice laughs. You're not sure if she really understood the joke. You find an apple in your purse, break it in half, and share it. Rest a little (click: "Rest a little")[ You wake up, the pattern of the grass imprinted on your forearms. You must have been sleeping for an hour or so. Alice is asleep still. (dropdown: bind $wakeup, " ", "Wake her up.", "This is crazy. You're dreaming in a dream, like in that Christopher Nolan movie.") [[decide|Hain 2]]]] (if: $bridgeclosed is "true") [You return to the trees at the lake. Alice is gone. You look around, and see the Gothic Cottage is nearby, a faint light glowing in the windows. [[Investigate|Gothic Cottage]] [[Follow the trail around the lake further|Couple with Map]] ]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%2010.jpg" width="100%">  You are going faster now. Perhaps this is all a game. Perhaps you just need to find the right NPC to give you the quest that lets you win. Or there has been an error in the scripting. Perhaps the quest was supposed to start at the bridge, but they forgot to give Alice the dialogue option. So far at the back of the garden, there are fewer and fewer tourists. You see two of them seemingly lost. They have a map. [[Ask for help|Map 1]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%2011.jpg" width="100%">  (if: $manor is "false")[$ai[Look, you don't even need the thoughts of greater thinkers to support your claims. You may as well let them contradict you, and build your argument on the friction it creates. Take this house, as described in Ackroyd's Biography of London: //At the turn of the nineteenth century Mrs. Humphry Ward noticed the monotony of the East End in terms of “long lines of low houses—two storeys always, or two storeys and a basement—of the same yellowish brick, all begrimed by the same smoke, every doorknocker of the same pattern, every window blind hung in the same way, and the same corner ‘public’ on either side, flaming in the hazy distance."// Doesn't this tell you everything you need to know about Mrs. Humphry Ward, and why she came to Stourhead?] You furl your eyebrows. Alice is starting to get defensive, but interestingly, it's starting to make her make more sense. (if: $hain is "false")[ "Excuse me for a second, I'll be back."]](if: $hain is "true")[ [["You've convinced me. I think you're paper is going to be great. Sorry if I was being overly discursive. Let's get back to Japan, shall we? It's getting late."|Bridge 2]] ] (if: $manor is "true")[Alice is sitting on the fence, taking notes in her diary. If you wanted to sneak away, this would probably be the opportunity.](if: $gardener is "true")[(if: $kids is "true")[ You've seen enough. Whatever is going on here, you want no part in it. Near the castle wall, you see a little hut selling merchandise. [[Claim to visit the souvenir shop|Castle Wall]]]] (if: $gardener is "false")[There is a gardener here, tending to some flowers. [[Approach him|Gardener]] ] (if:$kids is "false")[From behind a wall, you hear the sound of kids playing catch. [[Visit them|Kids]] ]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%2012.jpg" width="100%">  (set: $gardener to "true")(set: $manor to "true") "Sir, excuse me Sir, you work here, right? You made this garden? Do you know how to get out of this place? Out of Britain, I mean? I'll do anything." (click: "Sir, excuse me Sir, you work here, right? You made this garden? Do you know how to get out of this place? Out of Britain, I mean? I'll do anything.")[ (font: "Arial")[//“It’s like Hell, isn’t it?” he said enthusiastically.’ A century later, waiting at a road junction, looking around at the tower blocks, derelict mills and two up two downs, the sombre local stone, all surrounded by freakishly high impassable hills, themselves enclosed by hedges as if hundreds of miles from a city, the smell of the Nestlé factory wafting over, all under a looming, threatening sky, I said to Joel: ‘This is indubitably the North.’ A voice from a car waiting at the junction agrees, yelling ‘THE NORTH!’ as it drives off.// Hatherley, O. A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain. ]] [[Go back|Manor House]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%2013.jpg" width="100%"> (set: $kids to "true")(set: $manor to "true") The kids wave at you. They're faces are unblurred. (font: "Arial")[$pcname, you're back! Do you want to play with us?] This must be another of her tricks. You don't know these kids. You've never been to England. You turn around and leave without saying anything. They shrug and continue their game. //There is indeed the famous description by a traveller in 1826 of a group of twelve year olds, sitting in the condemned cells in Newgate, “all under the sentence of death, smoking and playing very merrily together.”// Ackroyd, P. London: The Biography. [[Go back|Manor House]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%2014.jpg" width="100%">  You are jogging at a somewhat undecided pace now, eager to leave, but worried to attract attention from the blurry faces. Are they like Alice? Or are they something else? Either way, you cannot trust them. You sneak past the gift shop, the Café and two kids playing with a dog. The castle watches your departure with hollow eyes. No one stops you. But when you're almost at the gate, you see the crows. Dozens of them, on the wall, in the bushes, and on the lawn, watching you, hobbling closer. Behind you, a voice. $ai[$pcname !] [[You don't look back.|Car at the Gate]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%2015.jpg" width="100%"> (set: $stourhead to "true")(if: $hain is "false") [ You descend from the bridge, and the voices go away. You're in another garden, and the scenery calms you down a little. Alice is waiting for you on a bench. $ai[You seem distraught. Rest a little, and tell me what you see.] You catch your breath. It's a little colder in England, but the grey of the sky seems less gloomy. "I see a stone building, over there. Is that Stourhead Manor?" $ai[No, that's the gothic cottage, more likely. The manor house itself is much grander. We can go there now, or later, as you like. //Whether classical or rustic, grand or modest, a shelter and seat became an essential addition to the composition of the landscape for contemplation of the expansive vistas he had created or upgraded: ‘cut down some trees to make an opening for a view of the house from Mrs C’s [Constable] seat in the Park near the Bridge.…// (click: "he had created")[ Shields, S. Moving Heaven and Earth: Capability Brown’s Gift of Landscape.] Where do you want to go?] [[The long way, around the lake|Picnic]] [[The short way, to the Manor House|Lakeside]] ](if: $hain is "true")[(if: $alice is "awake")[ You are back at the bridge. The voices are quiet now, but you notice a flicker in the air where the worlds intersect. You notice how the bridge is made from stone on this side, while the one in the japanese garden was a timber construction. $ai[It's not the original. They have to rebuild it every 70 years or so. In English gardens, constructions are usually made in stone, to resemble the ruins in the arcadian landscapes of picturesque painting.] You try to think of a counter-example to prove her wrong, but you can't think of anything, so you say nothing. [[Return to Kyoto|The Bridge]]] (if: $alice is "asleep")[(set: $bridgeclosed to "true")You are back at the bridge. The voices are quiet now. You notice how the bridge is made from stone on this side, while the one in the japanese garden was a timber construction. You cross it, looking back to see if Alice is following you. She isn't. But as you make it to the other side, your heart sinks. You are still in Stourhead, merely on the other side of the stream. You try several more times – going fast, going slow, going backwards – but to no effect. [[Return to Alice|Hain]] [[Follow the signs that say "Manor House/Exit"|Castle Wall]] ]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%2016.jpg" width="100%">  You run. Through a forest, past another lake, over a huge meadow with clumps of trees. Another forest. Another meadow. Your legs are burning, but fear pushes you further. Just when you think you've finally left the garden, another fake ruin appears to your left. //Kim Wilkie’s curvaceous amphitheatre, encircled by clipped holm oaks, is punctuated in Brownian fashion with asymmetrically placed cedars of Lebanon. Much of the outer park landscape may be viewed from a public road through the park, not from a slow, swaying horse drawn carriage, but fleetingly from the smooth comfort of a car: an open and tailored ‘whole’ stirs hearts and minds just as Brown envisaged. The water seems never ending.//(click: "just as Brown envisaged")[ Shields, S. Moving Heaven and Earth: Capability Brown’s Gift of Landscape. ] You don't stop.(click: "You don't stop.")[ Until you do. The terrain drops and opens up to a wide landscape, and you see the next village. With renewed vigour, you press on and sprint down the slope – and then you fall. A light cracking sound from your leg announces the punchline of the englishman's favourite joke. The pain blurs out everything. When you regain consciousness, a cow is licking your face. You are in England, and it's starting to rain. (text-colour:red)[end] (text-colour:red)[[[start over|Splash Screen]]]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%2010.jpg" width="100%">  Your heart is beating faster. This is going way too fast. Very obviously a dream. But a fun one. Alice leads you by her hand, babbling something about Williamson, viewpoints and Haikus. Your arousal beats your boredom. You can see the spot behind the bushes now. A little natural stream of water seems to enter the garden here, and it meets the lake amidst big rocks and mossy roots of ancient trees. [[You enter the secret path|When Lights are Low]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%206.jpg" width="100%">  $ai[Nice to meet you, $pcname. Are you here to relax? I didn't want to disturb you.] "It's fine. I was just enjoying the view." (click: "the view.")[ It's even more delightful with the green hue. Alice lets her gaze wander a little. Then she speaks, hollow, like a sleepwalker: (click: "she speaks")[ $ai[//In the valley, the color of these cottages agrees with everything: the green light, which trembles through the leafage of the taller trees, falls with exquisite effect on the rich gray of the ancient roofs: the deep pool of clear water is not startled from its peace by their reflection; the ivy, or the creepers to which the superior wealth of the peasant of the valley does now and then pretend, in opposition to the general custom, cling gracefully and easily to its innumerable crevices; and rock, lake, and meadow seem to hail it with a brotherly affection, as if Nature had taken as much pains with it as she has with them.//] "Beautifully said. You come here often, don't you?" Alice smiles. $ai[Not at all. I wasn't here until a few minutes ago. That was just something someone wrote a long time ago, about some other place.](click: "someone")[ $ai[It was a famous architectural critic called Ruskin, writing about the Poetry of Architecture, if you really have to know.] [["Oh, you're an architect?"|Lawn 3]] ]]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%206.jpg" width="100%">  $ai[No, I just read a lot.] she smiles. $ai[Do you want to go for a walk?] [["Sure."|The Pond]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%2014.jpg" width="100%">  $ai[It's just beyond that bridge over there!] "Stawa-hedo?" $ai[No, Stourhead! Stourhead is one of the most famous English Landscape gardens. It's the main reference case for my writing.] "But how can we go there now? We're in Kyoto. I don't understand." (click: "understand")[ $ai[Stop trying to understand everything. You'll never get anywhere like that :p] Did she just use an Emoji in real life? You feel a bit dizzy. Truth be told, you're not //completely// sure that you're in Kyoto. There are gardens like these all over Japan. Perhaps you should leave. (click: "Perhaps you should leave")[ Alice grabs your hand and eagerly pulls you in the direction of the bridge. [["Alice, I'm not sure about this."|Splitting Paths]]]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%2016.jpg" width=100%>  (set: $resist to "true") This isn't right. Is this all a dream? You try to hold on to what seems real. Alice's soft skin starts to become fuzzy under your touch. Or is it your own? You look at the palms of your hands, and like spaghetti left cooking for a week, the lines start to swell and dissolve into nothingness. [[You black out.|Between Two Fences]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%200.jpg" width="100%">  You walk down the lane, away from the garden, and through some residential areas, until you find a street sign. It takes about 15 minutes to find the street, close to a small garden called Shosei-En. This is far from home. You call a taxi. Perhaps you will be making Takoyaki tonight. (text-colour:red)[end] (text-colour:red)[[[start over|Splash Screen]]]

(display: "Initialization") This is a non-linear horror-romance story about gardens, googles and ghosts, created in Twine. Nicolás Wittig wrote it himself, except for the quotes from books. The formal bibliography can be found [[here|Bibliography]]. These were researched by Alice from (link: "https://ask.alice-ch3n81.net")[(goto-url: 'https://ask.alice-ch3n81.net')], who has been reflecting on the question of the picturesque in the Google Street View images illustrating this story, using the books in her architecture library. Since she is blind, she did so based on descriptions provided by her pal (link: "Pallyy")[(goto-url: 'https://pallyy.com/tools/alt-text-generator')]. Alice is also one of the two main characters in the story. The other is you. There is no save function, but any of the six endings let's you return here. Good Luck. [[Enter|Between Two Fences]] (enchant: ?page, (background: white) + (text-colour: black))

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%209.jpg" width="100%">  (if: $wakeup is "Wake her up.")[(set: $alice to "awake")Alice yawns. $ai[Good morning ;) You wanna continue?] [["This is nice, but I want to get back home before it's dark"|Bridge 2]] [["Can we go visit the manor house now? I'm curious to see it"|Lakeside]] ] (else-if: $wakeup is "This is crazy. You're dreaming in a dream, like in that Christopher Nolan movie.")[(set: $alice to "asleep")How do you wake up from this level? You need to get back to the real world. [[Back over the bridge|Bridge 2]] [[Go in the other direction|Couple with Map]] ] (else-if: $wakeup is " ")[She's breathing softly under her sun hat. You wish she were real. [[Make up your mind|Hain]] ]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Stourhead%20-%2010.jpg" width="100%">  "Sorry, can I have a look at your map? I want to find the exit." (font: "Arial")[Of course, so are we!] She gestures at a place at the western end of the map. (font: "Arial")[I think we are here... so the Manor and the parking lot would be in that direction? I guess?] You stare at the map in horror. You went in the wrong direction. You have to go back. Something tells you you shouldn't. Alice will be there. Dogman. The birds. A desparate thought comes to your mind.(click: "A desparate thought comes to your mind.")[ "Hey, if this is all a game, right, perhaps we can break it by going out of bounds? To the end of the map? That's it! You win the game by refusing to play! It's so obvious!" The man and the woman call after you, but you don't even hear them anymore. Frantically, you run westwards, as fast as your legs allow. [[Get out of Stourhead|Simple Park]]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%2015.jpg" width="100%">  Careful not to fall into the pond, you follow the forgotten little path to the spot she told you about. A little natural stream of water seems to enter the garden here, and it meets the lake amidst big rocks and mossy roots of ancient trees. A whisper (click: "A whisper")[ $ai[Hey! Did you manage to sneak past the gatewarden?] "I didn't see him." $ai[Let's be quiet for a while, until he's gone. He won't come looking for anybody here.] You lay back on the moss and listen to some faraway birds. Occasionally, a vending machine on the other side of the garden wall plays a little jingle. [[a kiss on your cheek|Lights 2]] ]

Text sources appearing in this story, in alphabetical order. Ackroyd, P. (2001). London: The Biography. Vintage. Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., Silverstein, M., Jacobson, M., Fiksdahl-King, I., & Angel, S. (1977). A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press. Goldsmith, K. (2015). Capital: New York, Capital of the 20th Century. Verso Books. Hatherley, O. (2011). A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain. Verso Books. Keiller, P. (2014). The View from the Train: Cities and Other Landscapes. Verso Books. Kellert, S. R., Heerwagen, J., & Mador, M. (2013). Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life. Wiley. Kite, S. (2020). Shadow-Makers: A Cultural History of Shadows in Architecture. Bloomsbury Academic. Locher, M., & Shigeru, U. (2012). Zen Gardens: The Complete Works of Shunmyo Masuno, Japan’s Leading Garden Designer. Tuttle Publishing. Ruskin, J. (2017). The Poetry of Architecture. Loki’s Publishing. Shields, S. (2016). Moving Heaven and Earth: Capability Brown’s Gift of Landscape. Unicorn. (enchant: ?page, (background: white) + (text-colour: black))

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%2016.jpg" width=100%>  You walk through the garden. Without the tooltips and commentary from your googles, you feel like you're missing out on all the relevant information and connections. You find an old bridge, originally built in the 18th century, but recently rebuilt for the third time. On the other side, there's a little bamboo forest. This park seems to be completely abandoned at this time of the year. At a little kiosk near the entrance, where you could presumably buy some sesame soft ice in the summer, you find an info brochure. The garden is called Shosei-En. The name doesn't ring a bell. [[Call a Taxi|Taxi]]

<img src="https://neantbleu.neocities.org/Shoseien%20-%2015.jpg" width="100%">  $ai[I'm gonna take a bath. Care to join me?] "You're gonna catch a cold." Her laugh chimes quietly as her dress falls to the floor. She's wearing strange, old-fashioned tan underwear, and a bra with no straps. You turn away and try to focus on an info plaque, a false pretense of modesty. You squint your eyes... (click: "You squint your eyes...")[ //Occasionally, as happened at Southill in Bedfordshire, a flooded water meadow made enough of a feature by catching the light and reflecting a summerhouse temple beyond. More often than not, numbers of labourers had to clear rank smelling, overgrown pond vegetation and scrub before they could begin to dig out soil by hand, pick and shovel to the required depth of the lake – often surprisingly shallow.// (click: "as happened at Southill in Bedfordshire", (action: 'mouseover'))[ Shields, S. Moving Heaven and Earth: Capability Brown’s Gift of Landscape. ] It's getting too dark to read. (click:"It's getting too dark to read.")[You take off the googles, the green tint isn't helping. You undress. Alice is invisible to you now, but you can tell where she is by the small ripples in the calm water. You step in carefully. Before long, the ripples meet, intersect, create little interferences, and melt together. The moon, unknowing witness, reflects in a twinkling, restless surface that has neither beginning nor end. (text-colour:red)[[[start over|Splash Screen]]]]]