Despatches from Gloucester

currently in gloucester. lush and green indeed. i think a lot of rain falls here.

just set up a 'test election' asking voters to pick a candidate based on the question 'who is ronald searly?'

zac happy seems to be leading in the current vote stakes. it had crossed my mind that he was searly on the DL.

on the way down here, drove past droitwich. must only be about 20 miles from there as i type. eyes are peeled for examples of re-use and extreme fixes.

more later. maybe.

hugh laurie lee

Long Floats

The reference material sent on Closed Loop fibres revealed a detail which may be of note regarding the fibrous aspects of the case. See mention of a special fabric as follows...

Cinchilla: A cotton, wool, and even synthetic fabric of sateen or twill construction with extra fillings for long floats.

This is a fabric which can be made from natural and synthesised sources and bears a cutely disguising name. Note the talk of 'long floats'. Combining this with the name of the fibre suggests to me a Flotilla, something highly pertinent to this case. Perhaps the Michigan crew were looking at shipping/manufacturing such a fibre for use in their various operations. Perhaps your novel simultaneous spinning experiments are something akin to this manufacturing process, though may need some kind of modification or change of variables to get the desired results.

Are you aware that certain models of turntable favoured by audiophiles and disc jockeys have a pitch adjustment facility which allows, by means of a slider, many (14) speeds of rotation. It enables music to be played between the notes of conventional key structure, similar to the effect of de-tuning an instrument, but on a song-wide scale. I hypothesize that perhaps an unorthodox rotational speed could create some kind of resonance between the two spin sources, allowing for a qualitative change in results. This could operate as some kind of vibrational/resonant cipher - find the right combination of rotational speeds in the two sources and information may be gleaned from the beat notes of the resulting cross-rhythm like some kind of low frequency morse code.

With regard to working out some kind of timeline of 'disappearances', Perhaps Costa's mid-90's 'disappearance' was her dropping out of the state education system to form a band (possibly an early guise of Broken Social Scene), with the interim years spent touring the low-level festival circuit until the band's profile was raised enough to force her to return to the overground. As previously noted, the festival circuit can be a great way to fall of the radar should one wish to do so. Though, as a known Obfuscationist, she could easily disappear and yet be active at the same time, most likely under a pseudonym. Happy said the mixtape couple stopped visiting circa 2005. He doesn't recall when they first began appearing on campus, but says he became aware of them a couple of years into his studies, around summer 1995. I do not know how this fits with your theories.

Timeline

Timeline has now been produced, ranging from formation of the earth through the pre-cambrian, the cambrian, the pleistocene, the age of atlantis, into the dawning of the age of aquarius, to current modern times, taking in the construction of the water-weathered sphinx and the great pyramids, calanais and stonehenge, the guidestones, and the assumed beginning of construction of soft Michigan. Also taking in Ronald Searly’s poetry competition and the often forgotten ‘bin-fire’ incident, of 1982, at which the probably teenage Searly claimed no involvement in said bin-fire. An incident in which I have great interest.

The main new lead I have from laying out known knowns upon an axis of time, is as follows:
In the mid nineties, a Canadian Religious Studies student went from North America to the UK, and there left a map of the great lakes seemingly questioning the location of ‘Keegan and Rosta’ (Regan and Costa). Previously we had surmised that this implied a disappearance of Regan and Costa at that time (in advance of the main soft core disappearance around 2005).

However, it was not until 2004 that material was released by Broken Social Scene, which we know to have been penned by Costa. Three theories could explain this. Either, Costa disappeared in the 90’s, but her material was in the hands of the Toronto music scene before then, later being released by BSS, or Costa disappeared in the 90’s but nonetheless disseminated material to BSS after her disappearance, OR Costa did not ‘disappear’ in the nineties at all. On this third theory, which I favour, the following scenario is possible:

The Canadian RS student, possibly already acquainted with Costa (and Regan) directly or indirectly, is seeking out Costa and Regan, in the UK. She travels there specifically to find them. Whether she succeeds or not is unclear. Costa, possibly with Regan, possibly also with the Canadian RS student, returns to Michigan, and is involved in ensuing road trip activity as part of the beginnings of the soft Michigan project. Costa is also involved with the Toronto music scene directly or indirectly, in years/months directly leading up to the 2004 release of her material by BSS. It is then not until 2005 that Costa becomes untraceable, either from retreating into Soft Michigan, or else from going ‘underground’ to evade various groups, eg. military Project 31 operatives.

I must however check dates suggested by recent Boston contacts including Zac Happy. Did anybody disappear in the 90’s? Melody? When did Zac say the travelling mix-tape couple stopped coming by? When did he say the road trip activity began?

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?

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.

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. ??

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'.