In Reply

A fine Archimedian postulation. I would point out that, after settling, the lake’s water level would not actually rise from addition of submerged buildings, as rivers outflowing from the lake act as an ‘overflow valve’ – a bath constantly gaining water from the rain tap will reach the natural level of its overflow and then, no matter how many objects are placed in the bath, after further settling, the same level will be maintained. However, looking at the whole system, the floor will be that much deeper in water as a result of objects in the bath. ie. Sea levels would rise.

You are right that the 'wich' equals 'wick'. It also equals 'witch' as in wicker man (or wicca man). I have visited the wicca stronghold of Summerisle in the past, and feel that the activities of groups being investigated in this case are not in any way reminiscent of the strange activities there. As such I favour the wick hypothesis you identify. The same wick technique is used for draining the reservoirs of the human ear (wax removal). My map of the ear in my caseroom demonstrates this potentiality. I have never experienced the method, but I understand that a short hollow wick is inserted into the ear canal and is then lit at the other end. The wick and flame act as a parafin lamp, with the wax of the ear being the fuel reservoir, which is sucked along the wick.

I believe the technique is usually used as a means of emptying the ear of wax, rather than as a means of utilising a fuel source in order to achieve lighting, but in dark conditions, it could be used to read in the dark. It would presumably require a sufficiently long wick to hang down below eye level, for this purpose. I have heard various urban myth stories of reverse osmosis principles being used to extract water from a substance, for example as a means of distilling spirit or as a means of concentrating birch sap to achieve birch syrup (or in america, maple). I think that is a different principle from the wick.

So, where, if your supposition is correct, is the water stored once syphoned to Detroit by wick? Perhaps, if Droitwich itself can be taken as an example semiologically at least, it is stored in a vast salt reserve under Detroit? The salt could absorb the water, trapping it below ground. Perhaps the collapse of the US motor industry has been caused by the resultant brine from this project flooding up and rusting the steel lying in motor city storerooms ready for cutting into car shapes. Perhaps wool has been planned to replace steel in a wave of new industrial development. All just thoughts.

I returned to the warehouse last night and developed further use of energy arcs, achieved through a number of kung-fu style poses and stances. I also developed a shrinking technique, scaling up or down ones surroundings by will power imposed upon ones field of vision.

The Detroit Wick

Droitwich could be some kind of conflation of Detroit and something else. I suspect this purely because the location of Detroit is within the geogrphical boundaries of the heart of the investigation.

The Detroit witch? The Detroit Wick ('wick' being how i believe 'wich' is pronounced) could be some sort of device for draining a great lake by wicking away its water content to somewhere else (in Detroit?), thus allowing the water level to remain at the same height even as large scale habituations are sunk beneath the surface, combatting the physically obvious sign of water displacement which would otherwise surely give the game away.

But then, Lone Wolf, our UK-based agent, has mentioned esoteric drawings and scans of some nature, which may perhaps explain the role of Droitwich better than we could imagine.

Why Droitwich?

Why Droitwitch, I have been wondering? Is it at all related to the UK location? Is it an allusion to an equivalent location in the US? Why the Droit Witch? Could it be related to salt, or transmitters?

The town is situated on massive deposits of salt, and salt has been extracted there since ancient times. The natural Droitwich brine contains 2 1/2 lb of salt per gallon - ten times stronger than sea water and only rivalled by the Dead Sea[1].

Near Droitwich there is the central longwave broadcasting facility of the UK (Wychbold BBC transmitter), which is also used for transmissions in the medium wave range, Droitwich transmitting station. It was sited near Droitwich because the huge block of underground salt provided a good ground earth and increased signal strength (as related by Mr. Humphreys, Chief Engineer for many years).

In which case, it is reasonable to assume that the US homologue of Droitwich is in Utah – Salt Lake City. But what does this tell us?

Basement/Lake

In reference to recent basement work regarding the monk and the band:

The basement has long been a stronghold of the underculture… As one investigator suggests, one place the ‘underground’ will naturally hide is in the actual underground. The underground stream, a below-ground flow of water, has long been a symbol of secret cultures, knowledge or traditions. The esoteric strands of crypto-religious and crypto-anthropologic study such as the nasorean / templar / celtic Christian traditions are one example. This example also, as with our case, supposedly utilised the literal underground, taking cover in catacombs under the temple of herod, for example, and leaving fish symbols on the walls. Our crossed knitting needles and 4 lakes found by ‘Epps’ in catacombs in South America, are comparable to this.

The basement, however, is no river, it is a lake. It is no tunnel, it is a cave. An enclave - a slab of crumbling concrete rather than a tarmac road. It leads nowhere geographically, but it persists. (On a four dimensional drawing of course, it would be a tunnel, a road, a river – spanning along the time axis as long as it persists to exist.)

If the basement is the cave / lake / cracking carpark, then the tunnel / river / road must be highway 61.

I have long been associated with an individual, a filmmaker of some avant-garde standing, working on a film treatment for a literal translation film version of the song Desolation Row. The film, as yet unfilmed I believe, is to be a veritable nighttime circus of characters. Einstein will have his electric violin; Ophelia will have her sad red light. The blind commissioner will be on the tightrope with a hand in his pants… The main dilemma of the film will be who is in and who is out of Desolation row. Who peeks into the place, and who mails postcards out of it?

As a row, ie. a street of dwelling houses, it is part cave, part tunnel. A basement that can be reached by tunnels - populated with the same characters as fill the covers of Monk’s and the Band’s 68 subterranean works. The circus is in town…

See also, the laughing lady – perhaps she ventured into the basement in Neil Young’s backpack, as he lay there with the full moon in his eyes, dreaming of replacement after the gold rush, and hoping what his friend said had been a lie. His friend could be Dean Stockwell, the spirit guide of Sam Beckett. The thing he said could be: ‘the gold rush is over; the gold is all gone’. Dean lived on the neighbouring ranch in the same canyon as Neil, and wrote the film screenplay of After the Goldrush, for which Neil wrote the soundtrack. The ‘band fair blowing’ in Neil’s head could be the Band, playing in Neil’s basement.

All just thoughts… Perhaps irrelevant to this particular case.

Boston Mass Recital

Using washroom-based channelling techniques I have accessed some of the words of the song (do the) boston mass… There is a mama cass rhyme in there. And long strings of seemingly random rhymery, eg. ‘I’d light a fire if I had a match / I’d dress as a pirate if I had a patch / I’d throw a ball if I could catch / I’d lay an egg if I could hatch / I’d open a window if I had a latch / I’d build a roof if I could thatch…’; and ‘you’re gonna have to stand up when you land on your ass / you’re gonna have to ham it up when the’ve canned all the laughs / you’re gonna need a candle when they’ve turned off the gas / you’re gonna need a pratfall when they’ve banned all the gaffs…’ . Pretty inane stuff and devoid of much relevant meaning, it would seem. Perhaps I am channelling the wrong song…

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.

Down In The Basement

Did you ask the woman where she learnt the stitching technique? If you see her again, I suggest you try to glean if she ever spent any time in the vicinity of Droitwich. I take it that this is a wholly different lady to the old laughing elk you met in the road last week (the image of such a scene in my head makes me think of 'Grandma Death' from the film Donnie Darko). Old ladies are often wise beyond expectation and the insights possible from such sources should never be underestimated. Allow me now to recount what was gleaned from another Old Hand from the labs...

The evening with Dr. Epstein (in which he explained to me the guilt-free method of donut theft) yielded the following unexpected discovery of sorts. As the jazz music filtered through the post-dinner chat, there had been metion of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes and the mistaken belief was held that they were redcorded in 1968. An hour or so later, a copy of Thelonious Monk's Underground was noticed on the table, copyright information showing an original relase date of 1968.

The artwork on Monk's record depicts the artist in an underground bunker, a basement of sorts. In this basement, Monk is at his piano surrounded by assorted objects thus: cheese, grapes, guns, a haybucket, several wine bottles and glasses and a gestapo officer tied to a wooden chair. In the background (the image has a strong sense of depth) is a woman holding a rifle, staring at the viewer from a distance. Monk also sports a gun, strapped to his back out the way of his hands for freedom on the keyboard yet in easy reach should he decide he requires it's use. A detonator connected to a string of explosives lies at his feet in the foreground and Viva La France is grafittied on one of the walls [above the nazi]. The image is rendered in dark earthy hues and has a natural textural quality to it.

Now, i happen to know the Dylan record fairly well and am familiar with its sleeve art. The two are very similar. The artist is also situated in a basement with his instrument of choice (in Dylan's case a mandolin, being played in the manner of a fiddle). Earthy tones, seemingly random objects and characters abound. There is also a man in military dress similar to Monk's Gestapo prisoner. A woman also stares at the viewer from the back of the picture.

Working on the assumption that both records were recorded and released in the same year, it struck me that these two pieces of work were a further example of two people having the same idea, separately, but at the same time. However, upon returning home and checking my copy of the Dylan record, I discovered that it was in fact released in 1975 and so would not seem to be the evidence I initially supposed. One further thing did strike me about the two covers - both artists are wearing wool - Monk a fine suit and Dylan in a striped cardigan reminiscent of South American patterns and colouring.

Now, I am not for a 16th note suggesting that these two seminal musicians were involved in the beginnings of the soft-core group, but I have a hunch that there may be some significance in all this similarity and mistaken belief. If the softcore group have been in hiding for the last 3 years, where have they been? Based on the insights gained from these record sleeves, I have a strong suspicion that when the group went 'underground' they did so literally and have been living subterraneously since 2005. Given their suspected plan of trying to submerge a city, or even a state, it seems likely that they would possess the means to hide themselves underground also, something mentioned as a possiblity with regard to the stateline existence you hypothesized recently.

Of course this theory would have so much more weight to it if the two records in question had been released in the same year.