(Doing The) Boston Mass

It came back to me. The barmaid I met the night before last was a singer-songwriter. I met up with her and her boyfriend briefly last night. They are living in an airstream on the edge of town. Parked up in a layby under some deciduous foliage cover. He is some years younger than her, I feel (unless she just has an ‘older soul’ as people sometimes say). She played and sang part of one of her songs. It contained the refrain ‘doing the Boston Mass’. Her picking work was very harp-like – lots of open strings and semitone intervals. Not unlike early Joni on Songs to a Seagull.

The couple very much had a feel of being ‘on the run’, but without the weary faces of having been on the road for long. I think they are recent fugitives. I don’t know how long they plan to stay in town – presumably a while if she’s got bar work. Maybe for the season, before the urge for going kicks in. I’ll try to run into them again. If I do I’ll ask her to play the Boston Mass song again, so I can memorise some of the words.

Boston Mass

Last night, between double rums in a bar I cannot remember the name or location of, I was chatting to a barmaid at last orders. My compadres were already moving on back towards the pad. I lingered. I have no idea what this has to do with the case other than a sneaking feeling that something of importance did happen next, possibly something was said, or something alluded to, which I now forget. If it comes back to me I will pass on. So much is lost in a haze of sleep and double rums that remains forever forgotten. One cannot remember half of ones genuine lived experiences - understair liaisons; window hangings; skies the colour of fire… just as one is oblivious from one body of all ones other experiences in the multitude of other seats and armchairs and deckchairs of consciousness throughout the universe.

Mr Palindrome speaks wisely as ever. I believe I met him once. The only thing I recall him saying to me was ‘Yunno in Atlantis they bred some good swimmers…’

The age of the parable is not dead. Recently I have had a number of books and failed new age journals and zines scattered over my desk, amassing as much parable as I can lay my hands on. I see parable as one of the richest sources of information – a veritable soil – a loam. Parable speaks through its silences as well as its words. Parable is the finger pointing into the middle distance. Parable is the slightly surprised and joyfully bemused expression which says ‘behold!’.

At a parable count of several hundred, from Aesop’s fables to Kafka’s amorphisms, taking in all the saints and charlatans and bums and philosophers and conmen, I’m approaching a better familiarity with the language and fear I may soon find I cannot speak outwith parable. I wonder if the Boston Rat is acquainted with the ceremony known as the ‘Boston Mass’. I have heard numerous references to this ceremony, and assume it to be a local celebration, possibly semi-secretive. It may be of relevance to the Dog Squad religious right, but I suspect not as they have no known association with the North-East.

He's Not Here

Keep working the dream angles, or curves; who knows where they will lead us. As Palindrome used to say to me, 'I do some of my best work in my sleep'. I anticipate reviewing your linear fingerprint-based evidence and hope to discern something of use from it.

I have spent my last few hours vainly searching for further leads in Boston but turned up nothing so am heading back to my hometown office to assess the timeline of the case. I get the feeling Boston was once a hotbed of activity, but is no longer such; though it is definitely somewhere along the path to/from current activity hotspots. There are people in this town who know things, but nobody is prepared to tell me anything explicitly.

Back at my hotel this afternoon, I went for one last swim before heading to the airport (from where I am writing this missive). Returning to the changing area after a few lengths of the pool I discovered a handwritten note in my locker which simply reads "He's Not Here. Time to Move On" signed by 'The Boston Rat'. I can only assume that the 'he' referred to is Searly and that the Boston Rat is one of the tech guys who knows more than he let on initially.

I am taking this as friendly advice rather than some kind of threat or warning. Most likely he wasn't prepared to admit his knowledge in front of his co-workers. There is no point in pursuing information from a man who does not want to be known - I feel if I tried to work him out and talk to him alone, he still would not be forthcoming, so for now I am heading home to reassess the case, review my notes and produce a timeline of the case in hope of gaining further understanding of this whole circus.

Dream Arcs

2 recent developments/thoughts...

1: last night, after travelling through the inner ring-road routes of Edinburgh, I became embroiled in a close-up battle in a small warehouse building. I along with 2 others took on the shapeshifting morphing government agent type beings. The fight went our way eventually, after some moans of fear audible to the none-dreaming. The episode involved particular use within the battle of angling projectiles/energies along curved arcing boomerang-like flow lines. These same lines I had earlier constructed atop of a map of the US, as an alternative transport network for road trips and as representations of curvy ley-line-like energy routes. The image will be copied to you shortly. Its whorling fingerprint shapes are convincing. The use of similar line-forms in the battle struck me as meaningful.

2: You had asked about the source of ‘needle and the tailoring done’. I do not recall much about how I got it. Your estimated timescale etc I feel is accurate. From the vocals I feel it to be by a UK-based singer. I do remember, however, the third verse of ‘needle and damage done’ contains a reference to a girl in a red dress [baby wears red and I think of home, baby wears blue and I know she’s gone, baby where’s the keys I need to get me some]. I wonder if this is a reference to the dual nature of Costa/Cortez the songwriter – the wolf in sheepswool, the yin and the yang combined, the red and the blue on the same person. However would she write these lines about herself, or someone else write them about her?

...And The Tailoring Done

Examinations of the dreamworld are always of value, even if not of intended value. Insights abound in the dark as well as under the anglepoise. Another way of considering the significance of your dreams signs, as well as the discovery of lost mixtapes, is to look at the definites within the dream, such as the Joni songtitle 'Urge For Going'. I suspect this to be of at least as great a significance as the dreaming of lost recordings themselves. An 'urge for going' could represent the cargo corps practice of crossing borders and making inter-campus recruitment drives, it could represent your thoughts on the principles behind the disappearances (an urge for going off the radar/disappearing), or it could be a manifestation of your desire to spread your wings.

Further examination of musical evidence, specifically listening to 'the needle and the tailoring done' I can conclude that this is not the same recording which is present on All American Smile, but there are definite similarities; for one, the song itself having a common basis - both being adapted from Canadian folk-rock artist Neil Young; the similar lo-fi recording style (I don't believe they were recorded at the same time or place, but both utilized near-identical recording equipment), suggesting a similar approach by both artists, which further suggests the one was aware of the other.

A time-based analysis indicates that the recording on the tape found in Happy's posession, being recorded some 15+ years ago (placing the recording date at 1994 at the latest) is the earlier of the two, with the version supplied by one of our associates prior to the case most likely being recorded in the last 8 years or so.

I would be interested to know how the second recording came into your posession before drawing any further conclusions. Of course, as discussed earlier, it is entirely possible for two individuals to both have the same thought independently of one another, non-locally, at the same time. Two people having and acting on the same idea at different times is therefore plausible and cannot be ruled out.

Urge For Going

I failed to locate Sad Sack last night while traipsing Whitby charity shops in the rain, however, in the shelves and boxes of a cramped sidestreet bric-a-brac shop, I did find a secondhand CD box set sampler of material from Joni Mitchell’s 4 ‘missing’ early albums, including the album ‘bisonine and …[?]’ containing the song ‘Urge for Going’. This was a really important find. I had heard ‘urge for going’ once, several years ago on radio Scotland. The song does exist outside of dreamland. I have often tried to locate it, but now know why I have failed – it is from one of 4 missing early albums, dating from the days of live performances in Greenwich Village coffee shops in the early sixties. I believe the song was one of the first to make Joni her name on the NY coffeeshop scene. The radio Scotland playing of it indicates that a genuine recorded version does exist in the mainstream. The presence of 4 whole albums of such early material is as the Grail itself to this early-Joni-ite. Albeit if they exist only in dreamland. I must channel the material somehow.

I feel that in reference to our current quest the finding of the teaser box set from Joni’s lost albums in the dream represents missing soft core road trip mixtapes being discovered. At The Haberdasher’s Request may be about to resurface.

Nb. In the dream I didn’t purchase the CD set (priced I think at £39.99). The knowledge that somewhere the 4 albums exist is for now enough. I will hold out for the vinyl of the full 4 albums, and will expect Lake Tahoe needlework references on them.

Age of Searly

I think a fresh time map is essential for this case. I shall prepare one as soon as I have the time. A quick calculation of Searly’s age, based on teenage poetry from 1982, is as follows: Octopiithagoas – analysis: leanings towards science/metaphysics suggesting the construction of a personal ontology, peaking around age 15 in most cases (cf. Freud: ‘Sex and Science – the making of man, lecture, 1903’), however the poem’s more fantastical wordplay suggests a later stage of poetic development, re-entering the imaginery period, constructing the unreal following the initial construction of the supposed real.

From this I put his age at 16-17 at the writing of Octopiithagoas, and assume date of writing same as date of publication/competition entering - the stage of self-doubt over ones juvenilia not having been reached; ie. publication very soon after writing.

This puts Searly’s age in 2005 at 39/40, I believe. Older than average if a member of the soft Michigan core. Many older males can be associated with hip younger circles, so this is not impossible.

Who disappeared?

What is concerning me as much as the geographics of the case is its timeline. Who disappeared in the late '90s, and why; who disappeared in 2005 and why? If Melody Nelson disappeared in 2005 and now seems to now be getting active again, is this a sign that the cargo cult is back in operation, and will the other 'disappeared' of 2005 now resurface?

Saint Kilda

My feeling is that ‘Melody Nelson’ and at least some others from the soft core are still out there, in hiding from some, but active and at large. It is a coincidence (or rather, perhaps it is no coincidence) that one of the other parties we have traced as being at large since 2005 is Melinda Packett / Melissa Parrish. I don’t know what to make of the Melody / Melanie / Melinda Doll – perhaps many members of the group are at large using these common aliases. Perhaps not. I would agree with your supposition that the cargo cult is once again active. I have a feeling that Sad Sack, the European stranger I guessed to be Belgian, is a dream spirit named Serge Brel, or possibly Jaques Gainsbourg, who has got in touch with me to aid his own longstanding search for Melody. I had previously suspected Sad Sack of being female, but either I was wrong, am wrong, or else Sad Sack is multi-gender or gender-changing. Or perhaps the spirit of Serge/Jacques takes the form of his image of Melody.

My French is better in dreams than in waking life, so I shall quiz him/her further soon. Last night I became lost in an area of forestry commission pine plantation as darkness fell. I found a network of bumpy tracks used by forestry vehicles and followed. Eventually I came out to a visitor’s centre building where some kind of seminar was in progress. I believe semiologically this was Kielder Forest – or Kilda, by its northern spelling – the visitor’s centre was the mysterious lodge in the enclave of St. Kilda. I may return there tonight.

Melodic Development

Deep insights abound via the investigator's poise. I had never considered that Searly may have had the hands of a government man (either his own hands, or those of a government man placed upon him for 'steering'). I have been working under the assumption that he was involved as an outsider - one of the remnant folk, a pro-softness man. Your shedding of light via anglepoise now means I must question the whole case from a new perspective. Reassess.

Was Searly really a fully signed up government operative? Hard to believe. Maybe he was posing as one and got found out. Was he a soft-core member who got fingered by the law and 'agreed' to 'help' them in order to save his own skin, yet was really relaying his inside knowledge back to his fringe group of fabric-ators? Or was he really a military man posing as someone from a much more flowery subculture in order to infiltrate the soft Michigan core? Could a military man really pass himself off in such a manner? Do the authorities employ 'soft' guys?

If Searly is indeed tied to the Buick wreck as you describe, that would mean he very likely had dealings with 'Pinsk' or could even possibly be him. I could head there from Boston if any leads surface in the next 18 hrs.

Anyway, while you have been shining tungsten light on such matters, I have been bathing in glow of the halogen bulbs in the film dept of Boston Uni. Had to change my cover (no way could I pull off being a documentarian when surrounded by film/media lecturers and technicians. I am once again playing dentist, looking for my fiance, 'Melody', who has ran out on me with the kids - 'I must find her; for the kids' safety' I told the film guys - no-one questions a kid in danger. A couple of the technicians remember how a girl slightly older than typical students used to use the editing facilities occasionally, booking out the edit suite once a term under the name 'Melody Nelson'.

Told the film guys that she was my girl - tell me all you know, has she been here recently? Apparently not - she hasn't been seen on campus since summer 2005. The tie-in with the disappearances of other members of Project 31 is beyond co-incidence. I ask what kind of films she used to edit (to help me figure what she may be involved in and get an idea for 'what danger my children may be in') and am told that they were 'road movies of some description... super-8 footage of the Northeastern landscape receding from the rear windshield of an automobile... car full of young hip-kids... soft fabrics... home knits... Canadian border crossings... picnics... acoustic guitars... quilting'. On a hunch, I show the techies the CCTV still of the 50's girl at the library, telling them it is the most recent picture I have of her, and is the evidence which led me to Boston - was this 'Melody Nelson', I ask. 'Damn straight' comes the reply, 'those old clothes are a dead giveaway - she only ever wore natural fabrics'.

So, we have a positive ID, but no current whereabouts or idea of recent activity, though we can now connect her to Searly via the library card.

Sir Lee

I have spent several nights under the angle poise. The bulb has stayed warm into the small hours. My semiotic investigations have picked up a few leads. Sir Lee Stack, an imperialist in Sudan, was assassinated by Egyptian anti-imperialists while in Cairo (home of the obelisks stolen by the imperial west as ‘papal magnets’ for various energies to be absorbed and/or perhaps transmitted). That’s Lee Stack.

Stack Lee, on the other hand, is a sea stack, home of a large population of gannets, as part of the archipelago of St. Kilda, once home to an indigenous population of large toed gannet-eaters off the north-western seaboard of UK/Europe. Stack (R) Lee was also immortalised in a traditional American song, later becoming ‘Stagger’ Lee, as reimagined by Nick Cave in a murder ballad. (Stack Lee and Lee Stack thus both being involved in murder, the former the murderer, the latter the murdered.)

This all leads me to think that Searly was involved on the side of the military-industrial complex in geo-beacon work, but may have been silenced in some way, if not literally killed, by the anti-establishment soft core group. This may have been the event (in Maine?) which sent the soft core into hiding. It also leads me to believe that the soft model of Michigan was not (or not only) a monument, but a hidden enclave – a hiding place for a fragmentary remnant people. Dressed in floral print.

All just theory in the warm glow of angle poise… Any word on Melody Nelson or from the film and media department?

Questions from Boston

Okay, my last full day in Boston and I feel like a stranger in a strange land. I think I need to ask some questions to get my orientation again, so let's see...

It seems likely, based on Happy's recollections, that Cate and Grant were two of the main protagonists when it came to the expansion and recruitment drive for Project 31. They were running things across the campuses of North America - tapes, for sure, but most likely people and fabrics too. Costa's songs are known to have appeared on the tapes, so there would seem to be some link between Grant/Cate and Costa. As one of our investigators so perceptively asked - is Cate Costa?

Also, are the instructions presented on the tapes Coasta's own, or is she relaying messages from a more central figure? Kosyra, perhaps, or Regan, or Searly, even. Perhaps the instructions are coming from 'Mr. Crafts', whoever that maybe (likely one of the 3 suspects just mentioned). Or is Grant 'Mr. Crafts' - we know so little about him beyond a connection with Cate and witness statements aligning him with the tape distribution?

Other thoughts - did Kosyra fund/design the guidestone projects? We know he was 'disgustingly rich' and that he works in construction (or runs a front company marketed as being in the industry); was 'R.C. Christian' his public go-between? Could be Regan? Could be Searly?

I wonder now about the mid-nineties disappearance of Regan and Costa, as proposed by the map found by the candian religious studies student when studying in England - where did they go and what were they doing all this time? Is their disappearance in any way related to the later mass-disappearance of all recognised members of the Soft Michigan core group? Which, in turn, makes me wonder about the couple caught on CCTV using Searly's library card - according to Happy, they would seem to have some historical involvement with the Project 31 (having been spotted on campus with infrequent regularity until the disappearances), yet are not recognised as being Cate and Grant. Who are they?

Other questions - how does Sad Sack tie into all of this, and what is the significance of the missing mixtape 'At The Haberdasher's Request'?I shall try to make a breakthrough before leaving Boston. The heat goes on...

Sad Sack

I have become aware of an individual known to myself only as ‘sad sack’. The individual drives a European licensed white Mercedes, and may be Belgian. My awareness of the individual began whilst I was researching (unsuccessfully) the poet R J Beasley. Later that night, I climbed on the roof of my old secondary school and gazed at the playing fields beyond. This was a short cut out of a cul-de-sac. My later acquaintance had been unable to find a way out of the atrium area, after a visit, accompanied by Sad Sack, to a kebab emporium in Stirlingshire by the name of ‘The Fountain’.

This fountain of knowledge, renowned for its late opening hours especially but not exclusively on Thursdays, provided sustenance at 2am last night, for the three of us (me, my later acquaintance, and Sad Sack. I had arrived earlier by public transport. From the roof of my old school buildings I could see the blurry image of the town beyond, however, probably in part due to watching High School Musical 3 earlier that evening while half asleep, the important features seen from the roof were features of the roof itself – skylights; tarmac; plant pots – a roof garden. It wasn’t quite a Buddhist mountain retreat, but it was in the same vein.

On the rooftop, I unfortunately awoke, but I feel I will return there. This morning I have been in heated debate about fonts, arguing vehemently the importance of frills; serifs; floweriness, against the notion that pure information is always best imparted through a runic purity and simplicity of font such as Century Gothic. My feeling is that warmth of feeling is of intrinsic importance to information content to be preserved and transmitted. I now realise that there is a connection between my visit to the Fountain, last night, and this font discourse. The font is the fount. The warm information has been imparted…

Bugs

A quick warning – I may be in radio silence tomorrow. Bugs are kicking in – my skin is shivering all over. Nausea… I don’t think it’s swine strain, but it’s definitely influ-the out door. Your mention of the aurora – next peak of sunspot cycle around 2012 is according to certain untrustworthy sources going to be the big one, in line with Mayan ‘long count’ end of millennia-long cycle prophesies… Geo-magnetic alignments… The current trough is certainly a ‘spring tide’ type trough, with particularly low sunspot activity in the last few years. I haven’t seen any aurorae for a good 4 years. I recall a brilliant display circa 86 in the north of the UK. Also an average one circa 88(?) in Yorkshire. Also a very good display circa 2000, in Northumberland, made more impressive by a night walk from Kielder area public house into the unlit darkness.

The Needle...

The Needle and the Tailoring Done

I acquired the attached song some time ago. Some glitches on it, seemingly from faulty recording software. Its central theme, which really only comes out in the outro, thru the last 2 to 3 mins, is of handicrafting the surface of the planet. I took it to be metaphor for positive world change, but it could be meant more literally. I’m not sure if it is the same ‘needle and damage done with third verse’ as featured on said mix tape. At the very least I suspect the producer of this one may have heard the original from the mix tape. Depending on your thoughts, I could try to recollect how exactly I acquired it. But perhaps it is a red herring.

All American Smile

I've just driven round an early evening Boston, having listened to the mixtape twice as the sun came down. Great sunset - from an intense orange to an intense purple, it was like a colourshifted aurora borealis. Anyway, I digress; first the tracklisting, then the theories...

"All American Smile"

Side 1
1. Start at the seam
2. Ode to a lost cardigan
3. Cablestitch
4. Poet's Shirt
5. Waving, Not Drowning
6. Soak That Rag
7. Rode Trips
8. Loose as a Moose (Woddy Allen skit)
9. Melissa and me
10. Knit it, don't quit it!
11. Double Back
12. Cottonpickin' blues

Side 2
1. Tape-stry
2. Breakfast Song
3. Scarf-Ace
4. A friend in tweed is a friend indeed
5. Soft on the outside, hard on the inside
6. The needles and the damage done (with added 3rd verse)
7. Come in no. 31, your time is up.
8. Why I Ran
9. Luminous Fibres (extended)

Now the theory: All the songs on the tape are home recording, very much in the vein of the previous tape we acquired knowledge of. Most of the songs feature vocalised lyrics, mainly female voice, but occasionally male (particularly backing vox) which seem to be giving some kind of instructions.

At first listen they seem to be based around knitting patterns, but the instructions don't seem to relate purely to knitting as I know it, rather, they seem to allude to something grander, of which knitting is only a part of. It's hard to tell - the home-quality recording makes for a muffled listen, something only compounded by the age and condition of the tape.

Side 2 has untitled interludes between most tracks, which seem to be spoken word poems with unrelated lines in alternate French and English; for example:

vous vous asseyez à la table
i am not going to worry...about a thing.
il y a un restaurant minuscule
but so worth it.

It sounds to me as if a French/Canadian man is saying the English parts and an English/American girl is saying the French parts. My knowledge of French is limited, so it is hard for me to draw conclusions until I have had an interpreter review the tape. My theory of the tape(s) is thus: These mixtapes appear as innocent compilations made for a niche group of people of limited import or interest; but it is my belief that their intended purpose was to provide disguised instructions only decipherable by a select group of people who were familiar with the key to break the code.

This would provide a great way to send sensitive information across the country(ies) without it being detected. Even if discovered in transit, the authorities would most likely assume the tapes to be wholly innocent and of no special interest. Which college kid hasn't spent evenings sat with finger hovering over the pause button of his stereo, curating and creating a private 90-minute megamix of favourites to pass among friends. Nobody, upon finding such an item, would be likely to suspect that it may be of greater importance.

So, I am picturing a core group of people recruiting peopleacross college campuses, nationally, then disseminating instructions to said recruits via a series of mixtapes delivered to campuses at regular intervals. This would explain the box of tapes 'Cate' was inposession of when Zac Happy made his amorous approach. At this time, I have no further thoughts, but realise I have forgotten to mention one thing of note - the innerside of the mixtape's inlay card spine bears the inscription 'compiled by Mr. Crafts'. Surely this is something of great interest to us. Who was Mr. Crafts? Is this a name used for Searly, or is it someone else? Kozyra?

In Reply

Your recent diggings in Boston are rich indeed. I would like to believe the young couple are batting on the left side of the crease, but in the back of my mind is the warning – don’t trust the girl in the red dress. Fifties glamour could hide a black suited interior.

I would never have come up with the theory of a Searly hostage situation. I feel it holds some degree of plausibility, but my gut instinct is against it. A third possibility is simply that Searly’s library card ended up in the possession of the young couple (perhaps via members of the Michigan core). A further thought – is it possible that the couple are actually members of the core, eg. Grant and Cate?

To follow my mind’s windmills on their course, given my instinct to beware the hidden interior of the girl in the dress, and earlier thoughts on Costa as a music-scene wolf in sheep’s-wool clothing, perhaps Cate is Costa???

Library Activity

Received a call from Boston Library late yesterday afternoon; Searly's account had been used again. I call in to see Ms. Gainsbourg and we go over the footage. It seems Ron Searly has changed his appearance - now a lean blonde kid with a sideparting in a v-neck sweater. Younger than the the guy on previous footage, he also appears to have a girl in tow - red/brown curls tied back with a hairscarf, patent shoes, summer dress and dark glasses. looks for all the world like a '50s pin-up.

This leads me to two theories - (a) Searly is active again, with a group, but is lying low and getting lesser-known members of the group to do his bidding in the public sphere; and (b) Searly is being held hostage by a group who are trying to pose as him in hope to gain access to whatever it is he has access to which would be of interest to them. I currently am not elevating one possibility above the other. Searly effectively disappeared 8 months back, suddenly and mysteriously. Was this of his own volition or was he forced underground against his will? I don't know. I thank Sally for her co-operation and print off a still of the couple from the CCTV footage to show Zac Happy when I head over to collect the mixtape from him.

I show Happy the still and ask him if he recognises either of the couple in question. Tells me they look vaguely familiar but he couldn't place where he has seen them. Says he's never had any actual contact with them but think they may have occasionally been on campus, perhaps one or two days a semester in the early noughties, but stopped visiting sometime circa summer 2005. I don't tell Happy, but this immediately strikes a chord with me, knowing that one of our other investigators found evidence of the mass disappearance of the soft michigan core group. I thank Happy for his help and take the audio cassette which he has no qualms about giving away to me, saying it reminds him of his foolish youth - something he seems glad to put behind him. The tape is titled 'All American Smile', not 'At The Haberdasher's Request' as Happy falsely remembered - I'll send you the titles shortly (some of them are most interesting), but want to take an evening drive around this city while i listen to the tape for clues.

Dispatches

Latest dispatches from secret source below (just received)Items 4, 5 and 12 seem particularly of interest:

- i recommend rounding your troops for a similar conversation, and a brainstorm session for how to prepare for what lies ahead.
- just sayin.i love the color palette and obvious softness.
- i am blocking my two latest projects today and will show them tomorrow.

The reference to two projects – one presumably is project 31 / soft Michigan. Is the other project Black Cat?Also the reference to throwing dirty laundry in the laundry room and closing the door – I take this to refer to the fabric of soft Michigan being concealed. I wonder if the soft Michigan project actually involves some mechanism of contracting space in order to fit an area the size of a state in a small room? This would mean the soft core may have achieved what the military failed to contemplate – while they proposed hiding a city or a state either on or under a great lake, the soft core may have thought further out of the box, and squeezed a state into a cupboard.

Is this too hard to believe? Which side would Kozyra be on in this? He is the only supposed magician I know of in the case so far. But then going on recent thoughts from your contacts Kingsbury PI and Palindrome, perhaps the magician is definitely not the guy saying ‘I’m a magician’??But then on the other hand self-publicity / lack of disguise can be the best disguise of all. Shouting ‘I’m a magician’ is in that vein a good way of ensuring nobody believes you.

In Reply

Spooky. So, our wolds-based investigator knew his stuff, it turns out. Kozyra doesn’t even use an alias. Unless someone else is posing as him. If it is really him, moonlighting as an ordinary DIY Joe, then I suppose he may want to be traceable to those who know him, his business contacts and associates of the last few decades. I wonder if he chose Elvington due to a likeness with Elberton, the location of the Georgia Guidestones? If he aimed for contactability, the similarity would perhaps confirm to close associates that this was the same Kosyra. If indeed he was involved (as I now suspect) with the guidestone project.

My supposition is that Kosyra was a mastermind behind the design of the guidestones, intending them to act as a magical beacon-location on the earth, along with the likes of the nazca plains, the pyramids, and the Egyptian needle obelisks (stolen and transported to Washington DC and London).

My supposition is that ‘Christian’, now based in Vancouver, was the ‘runner’ for the guidestone project, organising the deals with the quarrymen etc. My friend suggests to me the theory that Kosyra is the same man as Christian (or ‘Kristian’, as she spells it), and that he is actually now in Vancouver, using the York based alias solely as an online contact route, and that in actual fact no such Elvington-based offices or company really exists. I am not yet won over by this theory, but it is not beyond the realms of possibility.

Mr. Christian

I have found Mister ‘Christian’, the mysterious on-the-ground figure behind the guidestone project. He is now operating a guard-dog hire operation in Vancouver. Presumably this is in line with the piano-wire fence soya-mince hoarding mindset of the endtimers. When the apocalypse comes, the illuminati will need guard dogs…

I feel this to be of great importance and am scratching my stubbled chin right now. The dog squad have infiltrated hippie city, the Canadian source of soft michigan’s floral cotton reserves. They have crossed the border north. I don’t yet have a solid theory as to why.

Also, it turns out that a Paul Kozyra can be found in the wolds area, specifically Elvington, working in 'construction'.

Georgia Guidestones

I recently discussed the case with a trustworthy contact, mentioning many of the key facts and figures, Searly, Kosyra, etc. They said to me it reminded him of events in Elberton, back in the late seventies. I questioned my source more – they just said to look up ‘Georgia Guidestones’. See below. Some similarities – large project, mysterious openly-pseudonymed guy with deep pockets (RC Christian) … Interesting parallels.

"During the hundreds of hours he spent etching the guides, Clamp said, he had been constantly distracted by "strange music and disjointed voices.""

Hmm. This sounds like a forerunner to a project the size of ‘31’. Interesting Yoko being up for dalliance with the new world order depopulation plans.

In Reply

That’s one for the soft Michigan set then. I wonder if Costa et al are involved in this band too. ‘Cock Rock’ I assume means macho posturings on electric guitar, but that doesn’t mean no female hand in the melting pot. I was listening to Patti Smith this weekend – beautiful electric guitar work on there, yes, though one might argue quite gentle and feminine, while Patti’s soaring high-emotion Rambo-Rimbaud ranting could itself be described as butch and masculine, perhaps.

Maybe Ellena Costa/Cortez is less the soft fluffy chick and more the dangerous outlaw female. Maybe the soft has a hard interior. Women can be more kick-ass alpha scary than most men, just as half the guys down at the gym are gay. Malajube may well be a girl band, and Costa could be its ringleader.

Woolly Jumper Crew

More connections between wool and the canadian music scene, as found in the UK music press. see the last sentence for validation that we are digging in the right area...

Album Review: Malajube ‘Labyrinthes’How many Canadian bands have you loved? It’s worth a ponder while wandering Malajube’s aimless ‘Labyrinthes’. In fairness, the Quebec quartet often appear equally dubious of the indie-rock Montreal is known for; the kind that all seems filtered through Broken Social Scene or Spencer Krug and their Pitchfork-goading smugness. Startled by the prospect of a ‘safe’ 7.2, the record veers off along theatrical tangents that recall Muse or ELO as much as Sunset Rubdown but ultimately don’t seem to make sense, highlights ‘Casablanca’ and ‘Cristobald’ botched by over-eager forays into cock-rocking territory. Stranded, the record potters about not knowing what to do with itself. One for the woolly jumper crew.

Political fabric

Yes, of course – Canada was the ‘country’ that the canned heat hippies moved up to, to avoid the Nam-draft games that the USA was playing. The Californians moved up the seaboard over the border and settled in Vancouver. They took their fabrics with them…It makes sense shell suit being a political invention. It still lives, in certain poor inner city regions in my country, hung on neds as a symbol of their own stupidity. The ‘empty shell’. Plastic… In fact, it now lingers in Paisley – the now poor district of Glasgow which gave its name to the very fabric patterns that defined the counterculture. Sad but true.

Recall Eddie Felson, associate of nasa top brass in the early 2000s, illegally imported fashions from the UK, to bypass the politicos and bring loud cotton florals into the US. He got away with it by being ‘fast’, but it isn’t so easy for most people – CCTV will catch the loud colours. Unless the patterns are too loud and too grained to show – kind of stealth cloaking clothing…? So, presumably the soft Michigan planned by the soft core was indeed non-military and in floral cottons… Unless an exercise in counterculture-hijacking? Remember Melissa Parrish’s military education background… I don’t know which to believe…

In Reply:

'Availability' was cited as the official explanation for sourcing fabrics from Canada - Fashion Police having outlawed certain patterns and weaves from the United States as a reaction to hippy culture. It was this law which brought about the invention of the 'shell suit' in the '80's - something to distract the kids from tweed or floral prints and the leftist political leanings associated with such patterning.

However, 'official' explanations are rarely close to the truth. As my old mentor Bob Palindrome used to say 'when they say look left, you better look right'.

Border Crossings

Border crossings… It seems to make sense. Any shipments of fabrics have got to cross a border… Otherwise what’s the point? But where from and where to? If fabrics were brought from Canada, for construction of soft Michigan in Michigan, would it be possible for the constructed Michigan to then be transported back to Canada? I doubt it logistically. Why source fabrics from Canada in the first place??

The Melinda Doll?

Interesting crossover of theories. Perhaps the Melanie/Melissa doll are both slight typos for what could be the Melinda doll - something which maybe acted as a benchmark for identity reversal, which was named after the technique developed by Melissa/Belinda, or perhaps it already existed, and they used the underlying principles of it to fake their own disappearances.

Yes, it would seem that stay-in-your-home-with-multi-tv-channels-and-directly-distributed-media-and-sustenance lifestyle is causing individuals to become more isolated from one another on a real-world level, but more connected in the digital-realm. This closely mirrors the idea of a replica world overtaking the 'real' physical world and becoming the place where people primarily exist. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Second Life, online PRGs etc. - all contribute to this, creating a collective mind in cyberspace and leaving the physical realm as some sort of ghost world; an abandoned, largely uninhabited industrial space on the edge of a retail town. Also ties in with the op-art-town-planning-herding/controlling of human movement manifesto.

I think Happy believed Cate n Grant to be a couple (assuming this girl was Cate), but possibly only because he was infatuated with her, so imagined her and her male companion to have romantic links. It is entirely possible that he was erroneous about this and that their connection comes down to being memers of a common group.

Melanie Doll

The Melanie doll is a Melissa Doll??? I suspect the melanie doll was a codeword for some use of the substance melamine. Which I think is a plastic, but I’m not sure of the applications.

The third mind – indeed, just as the human brain is actually viewable as two brains/minds, in part but only part communication with each other through a fairly limited bridgeway between left and right hemispheres, so, two separate brains in communication can certainly be thought to result in a third mind. The theory exists that ‘God’ is simply the composite mind formed by the sum total of all minds. Whether minds have to be in communication with each other to form this composite consciousness is blurry – perhaps they are all communicating at various non-visible levels anyway – even monks in cells can read each others dreams perhaps. Perhaps more so than the hurrying flustered strangers saying words at each other in office blocks and on streets…

Zac’s astute analysis of modern fatpipe culture is certainly apt here. The group mind, with a wholeness of conscious awareness and perhaps an ability to make its own conscious decisions, hence an ability to control the actions of its parts in unison, may perhaps be rendered powerless by the deadening of connections between the individual ‘neurons’ ordering fast food in their settees. However, working against this is the theory that the internet forms a vast connecting network between us, such that the internet itself results in a vast conscious union between us. So the modern world could result in a sharpening of some kinds of connections, and deadening of others. Perhaps the emotional connections are deadened and the pure ‘data’ connections are sharpened. Perhaps we as individual components of the group mind should be concentrating on fixing any area where connections are lacking. For example, by establishing networks of positive emotional connectivity.

People often question ‘why is it of any real worth to fix ones own patch in the giant quilt of the land, if the whole quilt is going to the shit?’ Ie. Rather than growing potatoes and living as a hermit, one should instead be acting politically to influence others. My feeling is that we should follow the notion that inventions in one area ‘magically’ lead to the same inventions occurring elsewhere separately and simultaneously.Perhaps it is the group mind at play. So, fix your own patch, and other people will be more likely to do the same elsewhere.

Cate and Grant… So, did Zac get the impression that Cate and Grant were not a couple in the conventional sense – perhaps just comrades. ??

Note From Lone Wolf

Invaluable find there. Happy must be kept on file and on the quick dial.

Just re-read earlier message from me... didn't qualify why i re-iterated the Regan thing... Melissa Parrish rang a bell with the Melissa Doll. Some elements are recurrent in the research and have been highlighted by recent findings here. It's hard to step back from it right now, but here's my potted thoughts for the moment...

Dreams and dreamers. Was put onto some something Freud said about the dreams being the 'royal road to the unconscious mind'. Been in discussion with doctor of art, conceptual artist and thinker - some good stuff coming through, and it all lands right in the middle of what were looking at. Also. Concept of the Third Mind. Specifically in relation to the collaboration between two people. There is the idea that a Third Mind is in play whenever this occurs. Have some research to type up about Bill Burroughs and a contemporary working in cut up and how they stated this third mind idea. Also that 'cut up can predict the future'. Regan and Costa worked independantly but collaboratively. Kozyra as a physical and facilitatory 'third mind'? i have some interesting visual evidence from the Wolds to further add to this.

Further Notes From Boston

Been hanging around the Boston University campus these last 36 hrs looking for leads. Kids of every description hanging out all over the grounds - lone readers on the grass, athletic guys running round the lake in pairs - it's just like it is in the movies, and just like it was back when I was taking Social Theory classes at Ohio. Some things never change, and I guess campus life falls into that bracket. Not knowing whether to focus on the hip kids or the squares, i keep my enquiries vague and loose, so as to not give too much away.

A break comes when I am introduced to a guy called Zac Happy, a PhD student in town planning/transport networks. The guy has lived on campus for seventeen years, so has a better knowledge of the campus' recent history than most people. He's a good natured kid, but pretty serious with it. During our conversation, he recalled a time in the mid-nineties when groups of art students would often take roadtrips north, presumably to Canada or Nova Scotia. Happy mentioned how they would often come back with trunkfulls of fabric samples, citing a lack of availability in the States as the reason for their sourcing from north of the border.

Happy remembers a Canadian couple who used to visit the campus fairly regularly, something like once a fortnight, who would always mingle with the art students. One time, the girl turned up alone and Happy happened to pass by her as she was struggling to lift a box from her car, so he gave her a hand (partly due to philanthropy, partly due to a self-confessed attraction with the girl). He asked girl where her partner was, to which she replied 'Oh, Grant? He couldn't make it down this time'. Happy noticed that the box contained several copies of what appeared to be the same audio casette, boxed with identical handwritten inlay cards.

Sensing an opprtunity to strike up a friendship or possible romance, he tried to pursue a conversation with her, asking what the tapes were of - was she in a band? apparently her reply was 'erm, yeah.... something like that'. Happy asked if he could have a copy of the tape but was told 'Sorry, they are made to order for a certain audience, I can't just give them away'. Hurt, but still intrigued, Happy slyly stuck a copy of one casette into his trouser pocket when the girl was distractedly locking her vehicle. Apparently the tape was full of home recordings which included excerpots from tv adverts, lo-fi acoustic music and spoken word poetry, often with what seemed like knitting or tapestry instructions worked into the lyrics. Happy is convinced that the tape and it's casing still exist somewhere in his dorm room, which he has promised to endeavour to find for me. All he can remember now is that the title of the tape was 'At The Haberdasher's Request'.

Zac Happy would seem to be a useful contact, and unless he is a fantastic actor, I think we can take him to be as innocent and unrelated to the core group as he appears to be on the surface. When i asked him if this sort of thing still went on around campus he claimed it had all died down around the start of the new millenium, presuming the internet to be a decisive factor. As he put it himself; 'Who would bother with a thousand mile round-trip when you can sit at home eating delivered pizzas and order what you need over the fatpipe. No-one has time for that real-world shit any more, being face to face with people is just too big a deal for most folks to handle. People just want to live in their bubbles and work enough to afford what they want, they don't want to experience the world first-hand, just read about it in magazines while they worry about their weight and wait for mail-order goods to arrive from abroad'.

Wet Run

In the back of my mind, partly due to pouring over maps of Canada in my youth (or is that ‘pawing’? – I hear the expression but not seen it written down – just what exactly do they mean?) – anyway, in the back of my mind… has been the possible involvement of the two north Canadian great lakes – great slave and great bear. I have an inkling that they may have served as ‘wet run’ practise grounds for the project. My only Canadian contact is a peacenik based between the Yukon and Quebec. (If not including my recently formed contacts A & B, now both based in the UK.)I’m going to investigate further.

Note From Lone Wolf

Earl Regan created the 'Melissa Doll' as part of his Standardised Model for Creating a False Idol.

hmmm.

lost in the Wolds currently. trying to unravel the web... liking your work overseas...

at some point we need a meeting to go over this. not sure how we'd co-ordinate.

In Reply

Certainly, the historic link dates from the highland clearances – a mass migration caused solely and completely by… yes, you’ve guessed… the wool trade.Huge swathes of Scotland, and in a different manner, England too, were cleared of indigenous resident sustainable populations by an elite with political and military power, in order to occupy the cleared lands with huge sheep farms. The wool trade was partly, I believe, serving to fuel the Napoleonic wars, though I forget what the English army used wool for. Today’s residual contingent of struggling UK sheepfarmers is largely a hangover from this not-too-distant example of ethnic cleansing – the previous sustainable populations kept cattle, pigs, grew oats… were foresters… coppiced… Now the hills are bare and the soil has no nitrogen content – the nitrogen went into the wool. Taken from the land and not put back… Fertility was lost. A culture was shifted, by sea, to New Scotland (nova scotia); to New Zealand (Dunedin, NZ city, named after the original Gaelic name for Edinburgh), to Australia, to Canada. With the exodus went knowledge. There is a theory that the grail is now in Nova Scotia.