I’m a man on a mission.  Or I guess multiple missions.  One is my very gently ramping up mission to save the world.  But I have another mission with a slightly tighter focus.

In 1995, The Residents and Voyager release a CD-ROM interactive “game” of sorts called Freak Show.  My friend Joe (who worked for Voyager although I’m not sure if he did at that time — it was through Joe’s Voyager connection that I got my hands on a LaserDisc player which allowed me to play a Japanese pressing of Disney’s “Song Of The South”) owned it and showed it to me one evening.  It was just the sort of creepily interesting presentation that tends to get under my skin.

I only saw it once or twice, but there was one part that I couldn’t forget, and haven’t forgotten for all these years since: A short musical phrase played in a loop of 5/4 time in Wanda the Worm Woman’s trailer.  You clicked on the candles in a candelabra to light them, and once all lit, a portrait on the wall smiled, the texture of the musical loop thickened, and a woman’s voice repeated with the loop “Watch me, watch me”.

I’ve found no reference to this tableau on the internet.  The phrase “Watch me watch me watch me” is part of the lyrics to the song about Wanda in the companion album, but that’s not what’s captured my imagination.  

So on to my mission.  I’ve got a working original Bondi-Blue iMac, the OS 8 install discs, and I’m still close with Joe and family.  Hopefully he still has the disc and it’ll play on that configuration (check out Freak Show’s requirements: “Macintosh – 25 MHz 68030 processor or better; System 7; 5,000K of available RAM; 13″ color monitor; CD-ROM drive (double-speed recommended)”).

Once it’s up and running, I almost hope to discover that I imagined the whole thing.  But I didn’t, I know I didn’t.  I’d like to record the audio I’ve referred to, and possibly find a way to take a few screen shots.  Then I’ll post these artifacts of forgotten technological beauty right here.  I hope you’ll enjoy it.