Edited 2/27/13.

Anyone who knew anything about the lives and deaths of Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan could readily see the parallels between them and the unfinished novel, The Last Statue.  Looking at it on just a superficial level, one sees numerous references to the lyrics of Steely Dan songs, one of which, “Rose Darling” seemed to have had a special meaning for her.*  Also, the story examines a Hollywood steeped in occult beliefs that guide its business decisions.  And at the core of this is an entrenched 4-Pi presence throughout the industry.  Compare that to Duncan’s suspicion that her work ran up against the power of the Church of Scientology, of which 4-Pi is an offshoot of an offshoot, and you can infer why a script such as Alice Underground might not have ever seen the greenlight of day, despite the hopes that studio execs had for it.

The Last Statue’s introduction to various forums caused a stir when many posters saw it as an intrusive alternative reality game, as demonstrated by the brouhaha within the “UR Doin It Wrong” thread.  Many of the posters reacting on that forum made clear their opinions that alternative reality gaming (ARGs) had an insidious purpose: namely to confuse the facts of conspiracy research with fictional memes introduced by various sock-puppets, controlled by an puppet-master. 

In this case, the puppet-master had a name.  He also had a reputation. 

When discussing the ARG-like qualities of the Blake and Duncan story, there were a number of insinuations, and sometimes outright accusations, that those promoting The Last Statute were either the various secret identities of one Joseph Matheny, or someone acting on his behalf (wittingly or not).  The association of an individual netizen to that particular name often invoked said netizen to set the record straight as quick as possible.  In a 26 July 2007 Rigorous Intuition thread titled “Theresa Duncan,” for example, Woombaticus Rex replied to dreamsend’s initial post with a single word, “Matheny?” 

In his next post, dreamsend answered, “No...Matheny is not working with me...is that what you mean?” 

That’s not what Wombaticus meant.  As he explained in his next post, “No, I was asking if Matheny was one of the people you were referring to,.”

Speaking of Wombaticus, in the “UR Doin It Wrong” thread, the poster known as compared2what? hinted that he might have been dreamsend and, and thus Matheny’s dupe because he commented on both of their blogs:

There's an ‘Uncle Humpasaur’ on...I think Joseph Matheny's blog comments from about a century ago, who might be [dreamsend] and might be our I-ain't-admittin'-nothin Wombat friend, assuming that they're two different people. And seriously, I don't have the tools to prove whether they are or aren't. Nor do I care. I see their actions. Which are stupid, dull, and destructive.**

A Unifiction poster going by the handle teri lee shunned any association with Matheny.  In a forum titled “[Trailhead?] The Last Statue,” she wrote:***

They concerned the fact that you [SteganosaurusRex] seem convinced that The Last Statue is yet another Matheny project, which is something that would be of great value to know, a relevant and important thing to know in the context of the ongoing discussion, that would be a reasonable and entirely appropriate item of discussion between two parties who have had a sustained information- sharing dialogue for some time prior to this current thread,

The authors wish me to convey as plainly as possible, that this is NOT a Matheny project, and in some ways could be regarded as the antithesis of such.

Added our friend Birdmadgirl:

My point is–[The Last Statue] is in direct opposition to Matheny's effort to deflate/deflect any serious inquiry into the Process Church and its offshoots [e.g., 4-Pi] by ridiculing/misleading those who do take the occult seriously (not necessarily the woo-woo of occult belief, but the influence the occult may have had on less savory aspects of American culture and history). When one takes a long, hard (and yes, skeptical) look at the Process and other like movement/organizations, there may be more to it than a bunch of woebegone cultists who wore crazy black robes and owned a lot of dogs.

Of course, one of the charms of AR gaming is the tendency to deny that a game is even taking place.  That prompted Mark R to post, “‘I am not Matheny’ sounds almost as sincere as ‘This is not a game’ and the new hit single ‘This is not an ARG.’”

To which teri lee facetiously replied, ““everything's a meme.  everybody's Matheny”

In this I’m-Matheny-you’re-Matheny-she’s-Matheny-we’re-Matheny-wouldn’t-you-like-to-be-Matheny-too environment, the presence of Joseph Matheny loomed large in discussion of the Theremy phenomenon, even (or especially) when his actual participation was not clearly evident.  To this end, many were accused of representing Matheny in discussion of the topic.  Consequently, this led to a situation where many were on the hunt, trying to find out who, among their fellow posters was Matheny.

And that’s a real question Who’s Matheny?

To some extent, Joseph Matheny (left) leads a fairly public life.  Looking him up on Wikipedia, one can learn that he is both a writer (screenplays, technology, sci-fi) and an originator of such things as behavioral analysis algorithms and software.  Yet, Matheny’s primarily known around cyberspace for his pioneering contributions to alternative reality games, which were actually more like interactive fiction–kinda like Chop Suey The Next Generation.  In this case, the story unfolds across numerous media–from pre-Web bulletin boards to xeroxed hard copies, CD-ROMs, radio and TV, and eventually to the Internet as we know it–with players uncovering myriad layers or facets of the story the more they delve into the subject matter.  Meticulously researched, the projects often blur the comfortable distinctions between fact and fiction. 

Ong’s Hat, drew inspiration from conspiracy research, most notably from Project Montauk  In this story, Ivy League scientists descend upon the ghost town of Ong’s Hat, NJ in order to conduct secret research on chaos and quantum theory.  Their work eventually leads to a theory of time travel utilizing a device called the EGG. 

In a September 2007 interview with P. Emerson Williams (Milford Connolly), Matheny expounded on his use of conspiracy ideas in his fictional work:

I like to play with the name [Illuminati] with a lot of other things, because I consider that to be a very crucial element to modern American mythology–is conspiracy theory.  All things–basically all the stuff you would hear on Art Bell–are kind of the things in the past that I like to play with as themes for fiction because I do consider that and comic books to be, like, probably the only two real American mythology that’s floating around these days.

Part of the problem that conspiracy researchers had with Ong’s Hat was its tendency to use venues ordinarily used for conspiracy research in order to propel the story line (e.g., a noted piece penned by Chica Bruce for Disinfo).  Many saw this as an intrusive dissemination of memes that compromised earnest conspiracy research because it confused understanding between what was known, what could be speculated or inferred, and what was now purely fictional.  Those relying on Disinfo and similar sites for information about such topics as Montauk subsequently suspected an active misinformation campaign in new revelations about any subject. 

If those within conspiracy research circles grew to have severe animosity toward Matheny, then the feeling seemed mutual.  In the previously cited interview with Williams, he made clear his disdain for some online conspiracy communities, accusing them of neglecting real-life problems and issues in order to go off the deep end:

[Matheny]:  My opinion on the MONARCH and MARIONETTE mythos is that the reality–having right after or right around the time I was kind of pushing Ong’s Hat very heavily, and, you know, a lot of people, for some reason, a lot of people attached themselves to that mythos, that seemed to think that I was, that there was something in this story that was talking about mind control.  And in fact, what the story of Ong’s Hat, one element of the story in Ong’s Hat was talking about in training yourself to get into a meditative state so you could do dimensional travel.  But not this victimization/mind control crap that I hear these days.

[Williams] See, it, I–

[Matheny]: But, but, now just listen.  So, I came into contact with some people, who I’m not gonna name.  But if I did name the names you would know the names. They’re very prominent names from the mind control conspiracy community.  And I observed these people basically convincing people who had obviously had psychological problems of one sort or another convincing them that their problems were caused by MONARCH and MARIONETTE mind control.  Implantation and, you know, all this [unintelligble] stuff And that inevitably, what followed that was that they were the deprogrammers that could help them.  Right?  This, to me, looked and smelled, and eventually I figured out, it was cult behavior.  Cult induction behavior.  Nothing less than that is what it was.  Right?  And these people were basically what they were doing is they were doing the same thing a cult does, which is to convince you that you’re helpless, that you have problems, and that your problems can only be solved by the cult or the cult leader.  Right?  I don’t see any difference in what’s going on between the MONARCH programming thing that goes on right now and those–and that kind of behavior.  That, I would call it a cult.  I would call those people cults.  

And later:

If you study psychology, what you discover is that in order to be a paranoid schizophrenic there’s a necessary precursor condition which is called ‘primary narcissism,’ which if you think about it makes sense, which is in order to actually be so paranoid that you believe that they are out to get you, you have to first believe that you are important enough for them to be out to get you.

These statements illustrate a number of things, among them a belief very similar to that of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.   Although Matheny did not say that those who “obviously had psychological problems” actually remembered being inducted into MONARCH or similar programs, he did express the opinion that they had been coerced into a belief system similar to that of cults.  Moreover, like cults these beliefs were quite rigorous and orthodox. 

Of course, many who approach such boards would say that they already had anomalous experiences, and that they found such online communities in order to find out if anyone else had undergone something similar, or were looking for support among sympathetic persons who would not automatically dismiss them as crazy.  And if we assumed that one of the communities in question were, say, the one hovering around Rigorous Intuition, then his statement could naturally seem like an indictment of them personally, and against its host Jeff Wells.

Perhaps  more problematic is the equation of online conspiracy networking to cults–beyond the pejorative connotation of that term.  They really don’t seem to operate in similar ways.  People often disagree with each other in these forums, unlike in a cult where internalizing the catechisms handed down by leadership becomes so mandatory that members are always in constant agreement.  Moreover, I’m not aware of any of the participants of Rigorous Intuition and similar forums “tithing” 10-70% of their income, or being subject to food/water deprivation, drugs, or forced isolation: behaviors many cults engage in.  True, the pursuit of conspiracy information could alienate some family members.  Yet, I don’t recall Wells, Eleanor White or anyone else fitting that description ordering those on the forum to sever family ties and so forth, lest they risk suffering severe consequences--which they actually plan to carry out if not obeyed.
   
As for ‘primary narcissism,’ it’s a concept coined and advanced by Dr. Sigmund Freud in his 1914 paper “On Narcissism: An Introduction.”  Freud characterized it as the normal, libidinous self-awareness that complemented the non-sexual energy of egoism.  As such, he considered it to be a necessary component of any healthy organism, and something that should be present by the end of early childhood (about six years).  Matheny’s therefore technically correct in citing it as a necessary precursor condition to paranoid schizophrenia.  By the same measure, it would also be a necessary precursor for the blues, a case of the sniffles, a broken toe, or a flat tire on the Interstate. 

By conflating the Freudian concept of primary narcissism with contemporary popular and clinical understandings of narcissism, Matheny seems here to not only vilify (at least some) conspiracy research as cultish, but to pathologize it as well.  Perhaps Matheny was speaking ironically (although one would doubt it given the themes of such later works as El Centro).****  Likewise, those participating in the Rigorous Intuition and other forums might have similar animus against Matheny, with suspicions about him ranging from Anti-Christ to, worse yet, intelligence operator.  Thus, when reading the “UR Doin’ It Wrong” thread and others we can see a certain leeriness and fear when it comes to Matheny, his actions, and his motivations even though there isn’t really good reason to suspect that he is participating (or for that matter aware) of the discussion. 

Most important, in terms of Theremy, some in the conspiracy community were well aware that the story of Blake and Duncan had definitely come across Matheny’s radar: As he explained to Williams:*****

Well, you know, there’s the Theresa Duncan thing that’s going around these days, And I find–what I find interesting about that is that there’s been a smokescreen that’s kind of been thrown over that whole incident, which, you know, those two people committed suicide, that Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake.  It was very tragic.  Nobody really knows what the reason is.  But I do know that before they both killed themselves they did claim that they were being harassed by Scientology.  That doesn’t mean it’s true, but it doesn’t mean it’s not.  Because it’s hard for me to scoff at Scientology harassment having experienced it firsthand.  That’s all I’m going to say.  I’m not going to go into–no, no, no–I’m not going to go into it because these guys have a policy called ‘Fair Game.’ 

Despite the fact that he gave mild credence Blake and Duncan’s contention of Scientology harassment, the point, for many, was that he had apparently some interest in them, or in the Theremy phenomenon itself. 

After visiting his Greylodge websites, listening to his podcasts, and watching him on YouTube, one begins to see Matheny as an interesting man, full of ideas, creativity, and self-assuredness that some might say crosses the line between confidence and hubris.  Yet, I find one of his influences far more fascinating. He actually alludes to it Ong’s Hat, and in other projects.  While one could argue that he’s taking an artistic/literary tradition to a whole new level, the tradition itself has been part of mainstream culture for decades.

__________________________
*Duncan quoted the lyrics of “Rose Darling,” in the Wit of the Staircase posts “Sur les toits de Detroit [On the Roofs of Detroit],” and “The Spore Is on the Wind Tonight,” Arguably a more poignant example of Duncan’s affinity for the band came during her funeral, when the lyrics of Donald Fagan’s “Walk between the Raindrops” were read at the grave site. 
 
**As mentioned earlier, SteganosaurusRex was a handle used by a Unifiction forum poster who many at RigInt had identified as dreamsend.   Also, in the “UR Doin It Wrong” thread and other places, Wombaticus Rex identified himself as Humpasaur.  c2w’s accusation here probably links the identities of Wombaticus and dreamsend because of their alternative aliases, both of which spoof the names of dinosaurs. 

***(Click here to see an episode of Project Camelot, where Matheny participated in an online discussion about time travel.

Ong's Hat also drew inspiration from the Moorish Orthodox Church, a sister faith of the Nation of Islam.  The MOC evolved into an eclectic sect embracing other religions and technological advancement.  Like the NoI, the MOC traces its roots to Timothy Drew, an American mystic active during the early part of the Twentieth Century.  

****In the same interview, Matheny stated:

[The] El Centro [Project] was really my fuck-off and farewell to the conspiracy community.  That’s how it was intended. And the way the whole thing–to give it away a little bit, I’m not going to give away too much because this thing is a book, you know, and I do want to try to get this out there, and have a little element of surprise to it-- but it, at the end of the day, the chapters that you can’t get to now really did show that the main character, Gil, who I think you read one of the chapters about him, ends up discovering that, you know, he’s not really mind-controlled.  He’s been led to believe that he’s being programmed and mind-controlled by some rather nefarious newage characters (notice I said ‘newage,’ like ‘sewage’) who  really are just, you know, out to do what I was talking about earlier with the whole MONARCH and mind-control and reptillian-alien bullshit that goes on out there.   And really just trying to find people who are in a bad way, who are at a weak point in their life, or who are suffering from some sort of organic or mental distress of the brain, and take advantage of those people.

*****In another online forum, dreamsend quoted Matheny as saying:

If I have anything to add, it's this: Theresa and Blake are two tragic examples of the very thought patterns that I was trying to criticize in El Centro and not unprecedented in their final outcomes because of it. To those that have said, ‘They would appreciated what we're doing [i.e., researching their deaths as possible homicides]’ I counter with a comment written to me by someone who DID know them ‘They would run screaming from these people.’

With the help of Birdmadgirl, I've been able to locate the source. These statements could really only be applied to Rigorous Intuition, which early on raised the question of assassination in a 24 July 2007 post titled “After the Ambulances Go.”

Edited 2/26/13

In podcasts and on his blog, dreamsend mentioned that his suspicions regarding the ARG-like qualities of Wit of the Staircase received affirmation from sources that implied or stated some type of inside connection to Theresa Duncan.  Kate Coe told him, for example, that Duncan named her dog Tuesday.  Moreover, Theresa’s computer password was “tuesday,” she died on a Tuesday, Jeremy Blake died the following Tuesday, and “she was really into Tuesday Weld.”  Given that, one might wonder if the character string “Tuesday” had significant thematic or literary meaning here, especially given the growing awareness of Jeffrey Turner’s parapolitical musings that linked Weld to an underground occult society connected to Intel.  Then too, the rumors of the underage starlet’s wild parties and sexual escapades meshed with the sexual predation of young girls, about which Duncan often wrote.

In another instance, dreamsend described how he found the anagram “A Lonely Wit - Aloha,” or “A Holy Toenail Law” Et in Arcadia Ego Eve (Eve, for short), the author of the comment originally appearing on Rigorous Intuition, alerted him to it.* dreamsend seemed to think that, she deliberately pointed him to the cryptic remark to make it appear as though Duncan’s death had been in the works for some time before its actual occurrence on 10 July 2007.  Seeing that Duncan died unexpectedly, such foreknowledge would imply a planned murder, the erasure of a fictional character, or a fake death. 

Of course, when looking at many of the comments made by Eve, in that thread and elsewhere, one notices the abundant use of conspiracy-research buzzwords in a cryptic context.  And if you throw enough of them against the wall, a few are bound to stick here and there, thus affording anyone the opportunity to interpret and reinterpret them to indicate foreknowledge of future events. 

At some point, dreamsend looked into Eve’s personal life.  He identified her as a paralegal working in the Southeastern US. In a post titled “Troll and Bulldog Do Lunch,” he further stated that she had contacted him under a number of pseudonyms, one of which had a connection to content found on Wit of the Staircase:

In emails to me, under a variety of fake names, [Et in Arcadia Ego Eve] claimed not only to be Gannon, but also kidnap victim Johnny Gosch, or more precisely, that Gannon and Gosch were the same person, or moe [sic] precisely still, that Gannon was an alter personality of Johnny Gosch.

For reasons unknown to me, [she] contacted me under her real name, from her work email no less.

Not sure why she made it so easy, but in any event, I called her boss at the lawfirm where she was a paralegal...and said, ‘Hey, your paralegal spends a lot of time on the job sending me emails under different names.’  Her boss had their tech guy call me who confirmed that the emails all came from her computer.

I then called her PREVIOUS employer, another law firm, and talked to one of the partners there, who confirmed that they had had similar problems with her and implying that this is why she no longer worked there.  He denied, however, that his law firm had ever represented Jeff Gannon, a claim made by [Eve] to me in a telephone conversation.

In the redacted post titled “The Trouble with Anna Gaskell,” Duncan strongly hinted that media mogul Jim Cownie, the legal guardian of Blake’s ex-girlfriend, had something to do with the kidnapping of Johnny Gosch.  And many conspiracy researchers (including Duncan) suspected the missing child grew up to be ultraconservative reporter/prostitute Jeff Gannon.  If one were to speculate that Theresa's thinly veiled accusation had any merit, then it might possibly follow that Gannon, himself thoroughly entwined in and loyal to right-wing politics, would have some motive for disrupting the story by misdirecting someone looking into it.  But if Gannon did so here, one would have to first assume that he and Eve had some connection.  To that end, dreamsend posted a photograph of two people who look very much like Eve and Gannon sitting together in a friendly setting.  And to add intrigue onto intrigue, a commenter to the “Troll and Bulldog Do Lunch” post found another article linking Eve to US Intel.

The point here isn’t to discredit, poke fun of, demean, or even defend someone’s research methodology.  Rather, it’s to illustrate a claim of research manipulation by parties whose motivations weren’t clear.  Right now, for the purposes of this story, I am not interested in the truth or falsity of Et in Arcadia Ego Eve’s putative spy creds, or for that matter the true identity of Jeff Gannon.  What’s important here is the notion that someone is seeding information to a researcher that would lead him down the garden path to inevitable connections and an inescapable, though farfetched (and worse yet, grossly inaccurate), conclusion.  It’s also important to note that both supporters and detractors stipulate that once upon a time dreamsend impressed them with his ability to ferret out information in other stories.  The sentiment is also just as universal that in his investigation into the deaths of Blake and Duncan he jumped off the deep end of a drained pool, alienating former colleagues to the point where they now saw him, and Eve, as two of the dangerous “bad guys.”  

If this were a “diabolical” plot of some sort, then its effect would seem to be twofold.  On the one hand, you’ve neutralized an otherwise persuasive voice.  On the other you’ve begun to shape the story of Blake and Duncan by eliminating or discrediting certain lines of inquiry that might develop into more valid insights later on. Any current discussion about ARG-like qualities--not necessarily in the story of Blake and Duncan, but rather in the treatment of that story–would most likely engender some degree of disbelief, even if reasonable.**

Then again, attempts to define Blake and Duncan’s existence had literally begun days after the discovery of Jeremy’s body.  The website Theresa Duncan Central, as noted earlier, aggressively characterized Wit as a stoner, a faux-intellectual, a troll, and a “dearly-departed, demented plagiarist.” The posts often relied on material by journalist Kate Coe, who sometimes commented on the posts.  All in all, it plays up the folie à deux angle, and derides dissenting opinions, among them those of writer Ron Rosenbaum, who initially considered conspiracy explanations of the couple’s demise.

The blogger known as Socrates, also named as one of the “bad guys” on the “UR Doin It Wrong” thread, cited the Theresa Duncan Central blog on his own site, DFQ2, describing it as “...pretty much what it claimed to be:  A One Stop Source For Budding Duncanologists [italics and caps original].”  In a post titled “The Theresa Duncan Story Solved,” he echoed many of the negative sentiments found on Theresa Duncan Central.  As he wrote in the opening paragraph:

Theresa's story had actually been figured out soon after she and her soulmate Jeremy Blake committed suicide. They were not murdered. They did not fake their deaths as part of an elaborate, alternative reality game. They were not harrassed [sic] by Scientologists, at least nowhere near the extent Jeremiah Duggan was. I don't think they were even harrassed [sic] by anyone, no more than any of us are trolled on. Theresa was a drug user. She was also mentally ill. She was on a path to embarassment [sic]. She was a plagiarist and liar. She had a strong dislike for older people. She had just turned forty. She killed herself out of self-pity and shame.

Socrates had a reputation for trolling various sites through a number of sock-puppets for years before Blake and Duncan excited the blogosphere, and for years after.  In a 7 March 2011 post, Kid Kenoma characterized Socrates as a pseudo-leftist who, after being either fired or shunned by such liberal and progressive activists as Velvet Revolution’s Brad Friedman and Daily Kos contributor Maryscott O’Connor, tried to curry favor with far right political players David Horowitz (founder of the Wednesday Morning Club mentioned earlier in this series) and Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey, who blogs under the handle Patterico.  Another Daily Kos contributor, Neal Rauhauser, contended that Socrates and Frey had connections to a disruptive ultraconservative online faction attempting to silence selected liberal and leftist targets through defamation, among them Velvet Revolution founder Brett Kimberlin.***  

Others have linked this cabal to another huge name in right-wing politics.  As The Watchful Avenger wrote in a 16 May 2012 post titled “LA DA John ‘Patterico’ Frey Reveals His Plot To Destroy Non Profit”:

There has been a long term war ongoing between Frey and VR dating back to early 2010 when Frey and Andrew Breitbart organized a group of conspirators using mentally challenged individuals such as the cyberstalker Seth Allen and the Islamophobic Manassas Virginia Attorney at Law, Aaron Justin Walker, who also blogs as Aaron Worthing, to go after VR and Brett Kimberlin by publishing derogatory and or false information about VR and Kimberlin to destroy VR’s ability to raise funds. I have long questioned the reason why Frey and other individuals such as Walker who tweets as @AaronWorthing have gone after VR and its founders Brad Friedman and Brett Kimberlin. Last night Patrick Frey revealed what the operation was truly about, and that is VR’s donors....

Every story that has come out against VR and Brett Kimberlin has been produced by Frey, Mandy Nagy [known online as Liberty Chick], Aaron Worthing and Seth Allen, as noted in this tweet from Frey:

The recently deceased Andrew Breitbart, had a number of conservative bonafides having written political commentary for Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times.  After helping Arianna Huffington set up her now-famous Huffington Post, he set up a similar website, Breitbart.com, which served as a news hub for various stories supporting the conservative cause. In one of the most famous cases that broke on Breitbart.com, a couple of Republican activists, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, posed as a couple (ostensibly a pimp and his prostitute) seeking help from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a non-profit organization dedicated to solving such issues as voter disenfranchisement, and decent housing and medical care for the working poor.  They secretly videotaped the interviews with ACORN personnel, and elicited responses that would seem to indicate that they were advising them on how to evade taxes and avoid detection of sex trafficking crimes. 

As it turned out, the story was a hoax.  The video was heavily and expertly edited.  Among other things, someone had overdubbed questions onto the audio track that didn't correspond to the original ones asked of the ACORN workers.  Consequently O'Keefe and Giles succeeded in making ACORN staff seem complicit in a criminal conspiracy.  The cameras never showed O’Keefe and Giles during the interviews, but in other footage (i.e., in scenes without ACORN staff) they wore stereotypical Mack and callgirl disguises, thus making it appear as though their intentions were obvious.  In truth, however, O’Keefe and Giles wore plain street clothes during these conferences.  A number of subsequent official investigations found that ACORN had neither violated any laws, nor misused any of its government funds.  But ACORN has yet to recover from the scandal.****

While there’s abundant evidence that GOP political tricksters expended considerable effort to define various individuals and groups as evil, immoral or unlawful enemies, it’s still curious that one of its ranks would have that much of an opinion on the fate of Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan.  Moreover, that he would use the same kind of venom that most would for political targets would imply that he saw them as political targets important enough to go after.  Throw in someone like Et in Arcadia Ego Eve who has alleged ties with a famous right-wing ideologue, and Wednesday Morning Club regular Kate Coe, and you have an even more curious group of people playing an active role in shaping the Blake/Duncan story.  What’s interesting isn’t their diversity, but rather their ideological homogeneity.

As Alice herself would say, “Curiouser and curiouser.”
______________
*Again, not to be confused with former Rigorous Intuition Forum moderator Et in Arcadia Ego. 

**Threads of the Blake/Duncan story somehow wound up being incorporated into The Great and the Terrible (also known as the I’m Sorry) ARG designed by Brian Bricker.  The plot deals with a framed private investigator’s attempts to prove his innocence in a murder case.  It has since been brought to my attention that the attachment of Blake and Duncan to the I'm Sorry ARG came, to a substantial degree, from blogger dreamsend.  While on the one hand such would give little example of an ARG designer deliberately injecting Theremy into a game, one could still surmise that the deaths of Blake and Duncan could be injected into an ARG scenario, just as other conspiracy stories have been.

***A lawsuit Kimberlin filed against Frey revealed Socrates to be a New Englander named Seth Allen.  Allen was accused of penning the material, which Frey posted on his blog. 

****The attack against ACORN was in essence an attack on President Barack Obama, who, as a community organizer worked with the group in Chicago during the 1980s.  A number of Republican pundits accused ACORN of rigging the 2008 US presidential election through their voting registration efforts.

Other Breitbart.com stories involved the heavy editing of a videotaped speech made by Georgia State Director of Rural Development Shirley Sherrod which made her appear racist against white farmers, and the entrapment of US Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) in a sexting scandal.

Another year has come and gone.  During that time, I’ve done half one series, and half of another.  The old gray mare just ain’t what it used to be. 

I’d like to say there wasn’t that much action during that time, but I’d be wrong, of course. These last two series have been the most contentious that I have done.  On the bright side, as I have mentioned earlier, I’ve received help from a number of netizens (I think–for reasons that will be clear in a couple of posts, I can’t tell if I’m dealing with twenty or one).  Whatever the case, I thank you all for weighing in.  It has truly been an enlightening experience.

I also appreciate you regular readers who have put up with my frequent blogosphere absences over the past twelve months.  I’m glad to see you still around.  Perhaps one of these days I’ll share the kudos given to you by some of the people lurking around the blog, and by some of my meatspace friends who are as impressed with you as I am.  I was particularly ecstatic to see Devin and Roxanne in particular during the early part of this series.  I hope to see your comments as the series winds down.

Of course, some of you are no longer on the air, and I understand your reasons.  Let’s face it, blogging is a passe social medium these days.  So I’ll just say I miss you. 

One person I particularly miss is Libby.  I haven’t been able to reach her by e-mail or telephone.  If you ever read this, hon, remember that you’ll always be a part of this page, and a part of me.