Twin Lakes findings

Indeed you're right re: sea levels vs. absorbtion. As I said earlier, I am no scientist. My lack of understanding of this simple matter illustrates this fairly well i think. So, perhaps absorbing water and keeping the sea at sub-Boston levels may well be the motivation behind soft cell activity. Northerly US contacts have brought to my attention the village of Twin Lakes, Wisconsin [baby]. Reminds me of twin peaks, only more aquatic, though equally as woody. Their main ballroom is known as 'The Wonderbar. In 1912 Local post office was in the basement of LeRoy Winter's home. This could be important - we already know mail order techniques and basements are being used by the soft cells. Here we see basement being used for the purpose of mail order storage and collection. Seems highly suspect.

The Twin lakes board of trustees contains the following members (info taken from here)...

President - Howard Skinner Trustees - Sharon Bower, Thomas Connolly , Kevin Fitzgerald, Aaron Karow, Jeremy 'Wooly' Knoll, Mike Moran.

Note the nickname of the 2nd to last member. This reminds me of Lone Wolf's Wold's based observations in early summer. Is there a connection between the 2 wooly knolls? This area is also known as 'the lake district', providing another parallel with northern UK.

Other things of note - 'property auctions' - The Village no longer holds an annual auction. Surplus property is sold via the online auction house eBay. They currently have no items listed for sale. Sounds suspicious to me. If only I had contact with Ethan/Evan; I am sure his local knowledge would help our case.

Underwater solutions: a theory / missing ocean

[this message following a neotic studies link received from this esteemed agent:]

Perhaps this system of mass could be what the term 'Boston Mass' refers to? Interestingly, I read earlier today that one of the most likely early outcomes of continued global warming is that Boston would end up submerged. This takes me back to an earlier postulation; that the suspected woollen structures were/are being made to absorb rising sea levels. This idea was explained by an insightful investigator to be based on a false premise and that sea levels would still rise regardless of the woollens. It now occurs to me that perhaps the whole Searly operation is based around finding/testing solutions for underwater living in the event of rising sea levels and submerged habitations. The great lakes would certainly be a convenient testing ground for such potential solutions; solutions suspended in a a solution, if you will.

One more thing; in a muppets newsflash from the '70s I watched recently, there was a story that the Atlantic Ocean had disappeared. Investigations found that it had been stashed in a Boston apartment. The idea struck me as possibly relevant to the case, but I have been unable to work out how.

How could the entire ocean be hidden in an apartment, I wonder? Through the use of extra dimensions? Maybe.

The God-Box

Interesting. I have recently, by coincidence, if you will, been researching transportation of lightweight boxes. International transportation of boxes uses a system called 'volumetric weight' to calculate transport cost. there is a complex calculation, whereby the dimensions of the box are multiplied by some constant, and if the resultant 'volumetric weight' is higher than the actual 'mass' weight, then cost would be based on volumetric weight. If mass weight is higher, that is used.

I wonder if the mass of particles is actually volumetric in reality, at the small scale.
There is a tract by a known shamanic preacher from Manchester entitled 'godbox'. I wonder if the 'godbox' is the lightweight 'volumetric' particle, it's contents being the missing 6 dimensions. Its contents also being soft and light.

Boston Social Scene

I checked out review of BSS lake tahoe gig in NME – on same page was a feature on a file sharing trial in BOSTON. Also, as reinforcement, while sleepy on the sofa looked up to see a neighbour’s kid standing looking at me in a sweater with BOSTON written on it in big letters.
I can only suppose that BSS originally stood for / secretly stands for Boston Social Scene.
Or even Boston Stiching Society?
As for the file trial – the kids are getting stitched up for millions by the Man. I must present the case for defence. Care of a piece from the mysterious legal journal, ‘Common Law’ which follows the following basic thrust – Sell someone beans, they can sell them on, or they can grow hundreds more beans from them and sell them on. Without a signed or handshook agreement not to do so – a joint contract – then beans, books, music, words, pictures, should all follow the same path. Anything else is absurd. I still haven’t printed off my ‘home taping is killing music T-shirt with the tape and crossbones logo. I must. The bean companies know that they could never stop farmers regrowing, selling, regenerating etc. beans, through LEGAL channels – that’s why they engineer species to give off sterile fruit, along with being resistant only to brand X pesticide, etc. But they are trying to copyright genomes now. Not sure where things stand on that. Must research. Who holds my DNA copyright? Who’s gonna want a copy? Where’s the Xerox machine, Spock?

My Man has a hong kong acquaintance who represents big business and sues the ass of the little people. The devil’s advocate?

I though Happy was younger? Or was he so much older then, and younger than that now?

Enjoy lushness. I watched half of magical mystery tour yestereve. Charabanc ride in England green – I recall big charabanc trip in cider with rosie – Gloucester to Weston super-mare I think. Rolling meadow unfolds.

Casebook Retrieval

I recently retrieved my main casebook which had been idly left at Kingsbury PI's place a few days earlier. It contains observations and suppositions relevant to the case hitherto untouched on.

note 1: The redhead girl in the CCTV footage identified by one of the Boston tech crew as Melody Nelson could she be one of the duo known as 'Melinda Packett'? I recall receipts for auburn hair colour being found at their bay area residence? Sounds like one of those coincidences I don't believe in.

Assuming this is the case, it would seem that there is frequent movement of personnel connected to this whole saga from north to south and east to west. The group seem to have connection in all corners of the continent and also south of the border. Vandeloo and De Leon seem to have moved around more than most people we are aware of in the case - Florida, Baton Rouge, Mexico, Wisconsin, probably Maine. I definitely think these guys are researchers/couriers with major connections moving across the landscape on a constant basis, probably running along differenty routes to the cargo cult already identified. I'm still not sure if they were truly soft core group or if they were government plants.

This moving around would facilitate posting correspondance from all over the US, allowing the group to never use the same address twice, appearing ubiquitous and without an operational centre. This is an organisation structured according to donut law. perhaps they themselves extend around the circumference of the planet and Searly could be anywhere. This is a classic obfuscationist technique, favoured by RC Christian as we have already seen.

One more thing: Dan Stairs. His name sounds so similar to 'downstairs'; it makes me think of basements. I think he could be a good lead. I shall investigate his presence in the Ohio region; preliminary enquiries show he has been spotted in the East Cleveland area.

The Nebraska Connection

So many elements have recently been attached to the case that this investigator is wondering where exactly he should be focussing his energies. Should I concentrate on closed-loop systems or be looking underground? Should I be looking for leads relating to Stairs' activities in Ohio or be trying identify large areas in the Detroit region with the potential for large-scale liquid storage/absorption? Should I be looking south of the border or walking the statelines? there are so many angles to this case that a 3D rendering of it would be one of the most ambitious engineering projects ever undertaken by man; up there with the Georgia Guidestones or a planet-sized particle acceleration donut. Perhaps Searly already knows how the case will end and is building such a 3D case model in his bungalow on the outskirts of Boston?

With regard to your planet-sized nut theory, I do not know how feasible this is, or what the capabilities could be, but it strikes me now that perhaps donut law applies to Black Cat. Remember, this was an experiment with an unidentified central location - perhaps this central point is as invisible and non-physical as the centre of a donut and as such may never be found. Perhaps it is, as one investigator suggested, actually in space, and therefore 'empty' by common standards.

Last night, while listening to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska LP, I picked up on the following points in the song Highway Patrolman, which I feel echo elements of our case...

The song tells the story of two brothers from Ohio and involves a scene where the patrolman of the title chases a suspect in a Buick through Michigan, deliberately allowing it to escape over the Canadian border as it is being driven by his brother.
Hearing this sequence of events unfold in the song immediately made me think of the case: The chased Buick and activity in Michigan and Ohio having particular resonance, along with an escape over the Canadian borderline.

This brings to my mind the idea that perhaps Searly was 'allowed' to 'disappear' intentionally by at least one individual or some small splinter group within the larger operational group. This would imply different members of the group had/have different agendas. The most likely explanation for this is, as suspected, that both an independent group and the military were working in the same area of operation; either working to the same aim but with a different agenda, or working in a similar field with different aims.

I am leaning toward the idea that either the military started the operation, recruiting help from academia circles who, somewhere along the way, began to use the operation for different ends to the military's intention, or the Michigan craft club started proceedings which the military subsequently became aware of and infiltrated for their own purposes. Of course, the two groups could have had the same idea independently at the same time. Perhaps this is the case and Project31 is related to the Black Cat experiment[s] in this way.

As explained here, the Nebraska LP is actually made from the Boss' own 4-track home recordings rather than been done in a studio. Such an approach ties in with Costa's recroding methods, as heard on the mixtapes so far discovered. The song is set in the '60s but was actually written and released in the early '80s, which would have been an influential period for members of the Michigan soft-core, many of them being in the adolesence at this point. More details of the song's content can be found here. As explained here, the song was used as the basis for the film 'The Indian Runner' released in 1991, again a likely period of influence for Project 31 members.

Springsteen hails from New Jersey, which falls within the bounds of our theorised North-eastern donut of activity and is a likely candidate to have had influence on members of the Michigan group at a critical period prior to the project's beginnings. With Neil Young being from Canada and Dylan from Duluth, it would seem that we are looking in the right area, musically speaking. Even Monk hails from North Carolina, which borders on the South-eastern edge of our theorised donut of activity. I'm sure even this great jazz pianist has held a harmonica to his lips on occasion.

In Reply

You forget one vital thing. With a poetry competition, I supposed that release of material was immediately subsequent to penning/recording. However, not so with basement tapes. They were indeed recorded in 68. Release occurred years later.

Grandma death, grandma time, old laughing lady. Yes – many names but I think one person. I managed to avoid running down a sweet highschool girl called Jena though. If such a sweet highschool there had been standing nearby, I would maybe have hit grandma death…

In answer to your earlier question – she didn’t stitch the bag herself. I believe it was purchased in a shop owned by a middle agent who imported goods from a producer, possibly with one or more further middle agent handler/importer between the shop owner and the producer. As with branching drug dealerships, this can make the producer very hard to trace… Perhaps it was made in Boston or, as Lone Wolf has suggested to me, Droitwich itself.

Nb. I assume the monk was toying with the French resistance roots of much dance music. A great comparison there. 68 both.

Ethan/Evan

This massless gravity you describe could well be the phenomenon the term 'Boston Mass' refers to. The concept of an empty centre and the idea of something that exists, but isn't seen are both applicable to the case. Also, A donut could be described as a closed loop. I now presume that Boston may operate as a hollow centre for (at least some of) the operations. This would explain why evidence of Searly has been found in the surroundings of Boston, but the man himself is not there. The ring of habituations arcing from Nova Scotia to Wisconsin should be examined in more detail. This would extend north through Canada and down to the mid-Eastern states.

Incidentally, while working a case at the request of Bob Palindrome in Croatia back in 2006 i met a guy called Evan (or maybe Ethan, details are sketchy) from Wisconsin, a happy-go-lucky type. I was gathering evidence of a music festival which was relatively unknown at the time and attracted maybe less than a thousand young European revellers. Two things struck me about Ethan the evening I met him at an open-air bayside restaurant, one - he was the only American at the festival I had met, two - he appeared to be there completely on his own - quite unusual for a foreign festival-goer. He possibly wasn't even attending the festival, just happened to be in the vicinity.

His behaviour was described by some people in the group I was shadowing as 'friendly', while others referred to it as 'annoying'. Being a tolerant man, these attributes eventually led to him spending quite a lot of time talking to me. He did strike me as an interesting character, slightly out of step with the rest of the crowd. I remember eating grilled tuna steak while he told some elaborate tale of how he came to be there, involving mis-dated work contracts and holiday leave, but I fail to recall the details. In fact, all I remember concretely is him teaching myself and Kingsbury PI the vogue-ish hand sign which accompanied the territorial phrase 'Wisconsin Baby!' favoured by the local youth there. See attached picture for reference.

I have no further memory of anything Ethan told me, as it did not seem pertinent to the case I was working back then. Had I been handed the Searly case earlier, I could have used this opportunity to ask 'Ethan' of the local wool subculture. Such misfortune can only be attributed to poor aim by the arrow of time.

Donut or Pie?

Indeed you are as insightful and correct as ever. The snooker or pool hall is a breeding ground for low level hoodlums and criminal activity. Something to do with providing men too young to drink a place to hang out and smoke, I have always thought. In fact, if such premises were to keep a signing-in book, it would read as a veritable who's who of minor street criminals. Such activity, left unchecked, could easily develop into capers such as bank robberies and grand larceny.

Incidentally, the charge of larceny contains some interestingly subtle clauses, for example (this is a classic example taken from an old law book which resides in my library)

'...the thief must not only gain dominion over the property he must move it from its original position. The slightest movement, a hair's breadth, is sufficient. However, the entirety of the property must be moved. As one commentator noted critically this requirement is the difference between rotating a doughnut (larceny) and rotating a pie (not larceny), as all of the donut is moved through rotation while the pie's exact center remains in the same place when rotated.'

This leads me to ask the following metaphorical question - is Searly rotating a donut or a pie? I have been digging into his past for clues and have theorised the following: Searly grew up in the NE corner of America, most likely Milwaukee of Pennsylvania (going by teenage poetry submissions). Both of these locations border on the Great Lakes; either side, in fact. Searly probably gained knowledge of the lakeshores and surrounding areas through family picnics and camping trips during his childhood.

My guess is that his father was a military man who favoured the outdoors and tried to pass this prediliction on to his son. Military fathers are known for their strictness and desire to see their offspring suceed along pre-determined paths. My guess is that Searly went to University in line with his parents wishes, but once away from their immediate presence, he began to drift into fringe circles and most likely dropped out to pursue his own aims, but kept in contact with academic social circles. Became involved in some kind of political network and oversaw operations involving fabric experiments in some capacity, either for the government or an independent subversive group. His knowledge of the local area and the Great Lakes soon made him a great asset to, and central figure in, the group.

His role would seem to be more strategic than operational, possibly becoming so after the incident with the Buick in Maine causing a scare that he may have gone too 'overground' and was in danger of being discovered. Since then, he appears to be more or less invisible, yet is present in everything. He is like the air pockets between the fibres of a chunky home-knit.This of course, is all just my own speculation based on a re-examination of my early case notes in light of post-Boston revelations. It should also be noted here that I failed to locate the Bungalow registered to Searly on the SE edge of Boston, so am no closer to revealing what he is building in there.

Fabrics of the Future

Back From Boston. Arriveded home to discover a package from Kingsbury PI amongst my mail. It contains a document entitled Fabrics Of The Future, which is explained in her accompanying letter as relating to a current Phd proposal by a student called Dan Stairs.

Whilst I was away, Kingsbury PI attended a public viewing of a design competition featuring a selection of Phd research proposal posters. It was here, her letter explains, that she found the document I mention, given as a handout to accompany one of the posters on display. Allow me now to relay a few excerpts for your consideration...

Fabrics of the Future
Dan Stairs (Ohio University)

This practice-led project explores ways of using sustainable textile fibres. Through creative experiments with newly developed natural fibres and closed-loop synthetics, to produce solutions to sustainable textile 'products'.

Aims
To examine eco-design theory, exploring emerging ideas about the life-cycle of textile 'products'.
To design and develop innovative textile 'products', using ecologically and environmentally sustainable fibres.
To research closed-loop production methods.
To disseminate findings in academic and manufacturing environments.

Methodology
...Practical experiment to explore the results of findings and test theories in the area of study, which will lead to realising new paradigms in the field of textile design.

Now, let's examine this; note the opening gambit - 'a practice-led project'. This means actually carrying out what is being examined, not just reseraching it. Stairs is planning on acting out whatever it is he is 'studying'. Next sentence speaks of 'creative experiments'. More action for 'research' purposes of dubious nature. Look at the aims and other ambiguous terms jump out; 'eco-design' 'closed-loop production methods' - what are these? eco-design sounds like designing ecological systems to me and 'closed loop production' is a perfect descriptor for the private network of individuals, who seem to exist outside of normal social circles and communication channels, that we are dealing with.

Note the final aim - 'to disseminate findings in academic and manufacturing environments'. Is this not exactly what Project 31 could be described as doing? the talk of a 'new paradigm' sounds ominous. Why would one want ecologically sustainable fibres for any other reason than creating an environment which would be sustainable with the current natural one? One other thing of note is the use of inverted commas with every mention of 'products'. That is sheer ambiguity - a classic Obfuscationist trait.

Unless I am being paranoid and overcompensating for failing to sight Searly in Boston, this would seem to a good insight into the closed loop soft core network. It would seem that Dan Stairs is an Obfuscationist and a part of the Cargo Corps who has secured funding for the operation under the guise of academic research. The alternative view is that he is a government plant and is monitoring academic reserch in the textile field on behalf of the military. As of writing I am unsure but my gut is leaning toward to former. I was hoping for at least a days rest now I am home, but can't shake the imperative to research Stairs.

Walk The Line

Funambulist? Obfuscationist? I don’t see much difference. Your outside-the-box theory of Boston Mass being a gravitational concept is too good not to be true. It may be other things too, but I certainly thing it is an attractive, and possibly also repulsive, force associated with Boston – a focal point already in our investigations. I will examine my flow map of the states later and ponder the significant centre of activity in the Boston area in light of this new insight. My quark work back at MIT in the seventies may be of use here. I might contact some of the old faces in the kipper tie brigade. Time for more coffee machine coffee, I feel.

One further idea I forgot to pass on earlier. I have the theory that a road trip route may have followed as closely as possible the boundaries of states. By travelling along boundaries, one remains ‘nowhere’, constantly able to evade all state troopers and state laws. This would appeal to a group wishing to remain hidden, and fits with the needlework notion of sewing along hems and borders. Perhaps even a static community may have been established on state borders. Don’t just cross the stateline to evade pursuit – stay on the stateline to evade pursuit from all sides… Walk the line like Johnny Cash.

Mister state trooper please don’t stop me… I recall that the crypto-geographers who I spoke to about the nazca lines were researching linear settlement patterns. This would be a prime example… a linear network settlement in no location.

Boston (Gravitational) Mass

Interesting. Perhaps the leads I failed to find in Boston will come to you from your local Joni. It seems fitting that as soon as I leave the town, a possibly significant reference to it shows up elsewhere. It bears hallmarks of the Obfuscationist modus operandi; You look right, there's nothing there; you look left and they tell you to look right again.

I was unaware of the Boston Mass and now wonder if this is some kind of religious (or quasi-religious) festival or a celebration of something large in physical scale or scale of production. Or rather, even, Boston Mass is some kind of condition providing gravity through mass to attract all things. Perhaps due to Boston Mass, all things must gravitate toward [or from] Boston.

Your mention of the album title Songs To A Seagull causes me to recall the French artist and funambulist Philippe Petit who, while crossing an illegally rigged highwire between NYC's World Trade Centre towers in the '70s, paused to lie back on his 3/4" cable hundreds of metres above the Earth's surface and carry out a dialogue with a seagull circling a few tens of feet above him. It strikes me now that perhaps Searly is in a metaphorically similar position and is, as such, untouchable by the man of average means. Perhaps we will have to wait for him to cross the threshold at the time of his choosing and once again become accessible in a more general capacity.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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'.

In Reply

Randy as in Loboda? I do not believe Randy and Ryan to be the same person. Randy had a brief period of infamy and as such is a publicly recognised figure, though not particularly high profile in the collective conscious. Ryan doesn't fit the bill - too short, too old, too staid. This leads me to question why someone would use a pseudonym so similar to their real name. Is it due to ease of signature forging - the handwriting appearing more natural as it is closer to the familiar form of one's own real signature, or does it stem from something deeper, perhaps?

The idea that a name close to your original moniker allows for more natural reaction in a person-to-person setting. See low-grade tv actors/actresses who play characters which share their forenames, allowing for more natural reactions due to the multitude of historical instances where the person has been called by this name. This investigator suggests that it would be better for a person wishing to hide their identity to pick a name very different from their own and put in the time and effort required to develop a natural handstyle for signatures and a natural response style to the new name in social settings.

I appreciate your concern that law enforcement may frown upon my vehicular sleeping situation, but I shall keep no grog in the car and shall sleep under a pile of old coats in order to make the car appear unoccupied. I am a seasoned pro at such an arrangement, which leads me to recall the time I slept in my car on the high street of the Holy Island after spending the evening drinking with priests in one of the charming local taverns. After meandering back to my car, located by the post office/bakery, I consumed two brandy and cokes before sleeping in the passenger seat, waking only to empty my bladder into my thermos, before falling once again into the dreamy realm and only surfacing back to waking life once the morning birdsong had reached its peak.