Here's some artwork from my new Tezos NFT collection Artifacts of Mind Control. This one is titled 'A Very Deep Trance State.' To produce this, I fed declassified CIA MKULTRA document images and transcript excerpts into an AI. You can check out the rest of the collection here on Objkt. All of the source documents I used can be found here.
Leaving the shop with thirty pounds of green coffee beans and a complimentary carafe, Archie and his chaperons returned to the archivist campus. The next day, Kammy helped him construct a coffee roasting apparatus, consisting of a small wastegas burner and a large metal pan. The day after that, Archie got visitors. A man and woman came right into his building and opened his door. "I'm Imbi and this is Gorkin," said the woman. "We're with the Physical Entertainment Group. We understand you've recently agreed to work in physical entertainment."
"I guess I have," said Archie, who'd been grazing on the walls. "But I didn't know there was a group for it."
"We have a standards manual but an Earthling can't be expected to read that," said Gorkin. "So we came here to explain the rules."
"Awesome," said Archie. "I'm an oddity in an oddity shop and now there are new rules to follow."
"Don't your excitement distract you from the lesson," said Imbi. "The first rule is no physical contact until you've agreed to the physical contact rules. Should we go over these?"
It took an hour for the pair to go over all of the rules and answer Archie's questions. Benko arrived halfway through and waited quietly for the lesson to be completed. Eventually, after agreeing to follow the rules that had just been explained to him, Archie was granted a provisional entertainment credential.
"I bring news," said Benko once the pair from PEG was gone. "Have you heard? Shopkeeper Arden has renamed his shop. The new name is 'Archie of Earth Visiting.'"
"That actually sounds like a terrible name for an oddities shop," said Archie. "I could maybe see it as a Williamsburg garage band."
"What's that?" asked Benko.
"A music group in Brooklyn with classical training that plays experimental rock in garages at night to crowds of drunk pedestrians," said Archie.
"Ahh," said Benko, making a connection. "You're saying that you are the musicians and Arden operated the garage."
"Basically," said Archie. "The beans I roasted yesterday are rested enough. You up for a trip across town?"
When they arrived to Archie of Earth Visiting, they found a crowd of twenty people lounging in the garden outside and twice as many inside the shop. "Make way!" a man called as they approached. "The Earthling has arrived."
As the crowd parted to let Archie through, he noticed something unexpected. The mass of people didn't feel at all unruly. If anything, it was polite. Finding Arden inside, Archie set about making a pot of coffee with grounds from the beans he'd roasted the previous day. When it was ready, he poured some for Arden and Benko and himself.
"I'll pay a hundred energy units for the remaining cup!" said a man who'd been standing there watching like everybody else.
"Two hundred!" said a woman.
A contest commenced, and the woman eventually won the coffee for twelve hundred energy units.
"How much is an energy unit again?" asked Archie.
"About three of them make one of your kilowatt hours," said Benko.
"This," said Arden, having just tried the coffee. "It's amazing! You must show me your secret."
Archie spent the next forty minutes outside, stirring coffee beans while they roasted over a gas flame. While keeping the beans moving with a wooden paddle, Archie explained to Arden about first and second crack. "Listen closely," he said. "First crack is starting. The beans will crackle."
They listened and the beans crackled. "Perfect," said Archie. "But if they crack again, you're stuck with Italian roast."
Turning off the heat, Archie spread a cloth on the ground and poured the hot coffee beans onto it. "First, they need to cool," he said. "Then they rest for a day. Then they're ready."
"Most marvelous," said Arden. "It never would have occurred to me to use an open flame."
"Electric heat would work just as well," said Archie. "The important thing is slow, even heating through the first crack, followed by rapid cooling and rest."
"I've been doing it all wrong," said Arden, considering this. "Fast, uneven heat. Poor cooling and no rest. I'm greatly looking forward to learning what else I've got wrong about Earth."
After slowly reducing his roasting apparatus to a portable bundle, Archie noticed that the woman who'd paid an exorbitant sum for his coffee was studying him with great intensity. "You, uh, want to say something?" he asked.
"I'm Agla and I want to ask you what it's like coming to another world," said Agla. "I've observed your journey here several times and I'm sure you had no idea that something so significant was about to happen. Can you give me some insight into your state of mind?"
Archie laughed. "Honestly, I still don't believe that it's real," he said. "Now, my disbelief has started giving way to just trying to figure out what's going on."
"What are you planning, now that you're here?" asked Agla. "In your study of our world, what is your first priority?"
"Well, my first priority was coffee," said Archie. "Arden here covered me there, and Benko here is helping with my other top priorities. After that, maybe I'll be more free to explore."
"I'm translating your spy novels into our language," said Agla. "It will be a single volume called 'The Spies of Earth.' Do you plan to study the spies of Mother, as well?"
"You guys have spies?" asked Archie.
"We have Breakaways," said Agla. "People that secretly decide to one day break away from the established order. Like former Senior Archivist Mork, who ignored the rules to bring you here, to Mother."
"Yeah, I'm still not clear on how all of that works," said Archie. "Your observation tech makes spies obsolete. But you think your Breakaways are like my spies? Who do they work for?"
"Not a person," said Agla. "A belief system. They favor increased interaction with the people of Earth."
"Are they very ... popular?" asked Archie.
"Unknown," said Agla. "We don't know who they are until after they've acted."
"Right on," said Archie. "Just so you know, I didn't study spies on Earth. All I did was listen to my uncle's stories and write the best ones down."
"More modest than expected," said Agla.
Benko laughed. "Archie," he said. "If this one is translating your works, it means she probably observed you writing them. And anyone who observed that knows you did far more than transcribe the stories of your uncle."
"Oh," said Archie. "Right. I keep forgetting. Everyone here knows everything about everyone. That takes some getting used to."
"It's not quite that simple," said Benko patiently. "Observation takes time. It would take a whole lifetime to observe even one other complete lifetime. So it is exceedingly unlikely that anyone here knows everything about you, despite your growing popularity."
"I have a question," said a man Archie hadn't noticed before. "You were pulled from your world quite unexpectedly. And yet, once here, you've made no effort to observe your loved ones back on Earth. Why is that?"
"Wait," said Archie, looking at Benko. "I can do that?"
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