PANIC!
The situation has become dire. Confusion, darkness, and the unknown surround you. You dig deep into your bag, hoping for something useful, knowing that the bag will give you whatever fate decides.
Will you find help?
Will you find confusion?
Will you find glazed nuts?
This is the chance you take with BOTTOMLESS BAG!
Close your eyes
Reach inside
WHAT IS BOTTOMLESS BAG?
Bottomless Bag is a communally generated oracular tool that asks you to find answers in seemingly normal items. There are 400 items, divined by a pair of twenty sided dice, that will force you to come up with creative solutions to your personal crises or questions. For our purposes at the moment I will be distributing the items in groupings of ten on a weekly schedule. My hope is that these groupings will work much like a weekly tarot forecast.
Meanings will not come easy with Bottomless Bag. The items will seem random or meaningless. This is a feature, not a bug. It would be absurd to tell someone to bring a rake to a firefight but perfectly sensible to tell them there will be cleaning to do once the battle is over.
WHAT IS INSIDE?
Unlike The Disruption Generator, where the components were generated at random from an unknown list of words on a random website, Bottomless Bag was generated communally. I put out a call two months ago and asked for lists of five to twenty items from anyone willing to give them to me. Those items could range from the meaningful to meaningless, holy to mundane, personal to completely alien. They could be objects, places, even abstract concepts like emotions or states of mind. Whatever came instinctually. I wanted people to give me whatever bubbled to the surface first. I didn’t even explain exactly why I needed the lists until after I was given one. I wanted people to come into this blind. I wanted the lists to have as little outside influence as possible.
I ended up with a list of well over 500 items. I whittled that list down to 400 and reordered them using a random number generator. There were two main criteria for removal from the list beyond there being multiple instances of the same word or having too many items were:
- Things that are famous or copyrighted. I removed any celebrities, cartoon characters, trademarked names (unless the item is mostly known by that term), or movie references.
- Things that espouse a religious/spiritual belief system. I want anyone to be able to approach this oracular device and the only way to do that would be to make the list as atheistic as possible. I removed references to Thelema, magical texts, and overt religious symbols.
I tried my best to not editorialize beyond that.
31 people provided me with lists. It was humbling and inspiring to have so many people willing to join in on a project they knew nothing about beyond who was creating it. I owe a debt of gratitude to these kind folks:
Niish
Keats Ross
Erik Arneson
Felix Ortega II
Robert Kelsey
Ryan Young
@moeknows_poetry on Twitter
Nick James
Douglas Batchelor
Rexmons
Coleman Stevenson
Ken Sparling
Charlie Adams
Saul Mondriaan
Mike Walls
Ruune
Vanessa Kindell
Leroy Lee
Leon Antaca
Tom Whiston
Orion Millar
Kammy Gaffney
Lotus Kozak
Shannon Wheeler
Taylor Bell
@baconandeggs on Instagram
Devin Person
Steve Aylett
Peg Millar
Mary McKeever
Jill Millar
Most people on that list are online acquaintances and some are people I approached for particular reasons. Shannon Wheeler is a cartoonist whose work has inspired me since I was in high school. Ken Sparling and Steve Aylett have written some of my favorite books. I even solicited lists from my wife, my 3 year old son, and my mother.
THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RITUAL AND ROUTINE IS INTENT
Another difference you may notice between The Disruption Generator and The Bottomless Bag is the way the items are drawn. Unlike the components of the Disruption Generator, which were often drawn abstract and obscure, the items within Bottomless Bag will be drawn as literally as possible. This is not to say that I will be muting personal style. These drawings will have the same feel as any of my other work but will also express a sense of mundane magick in every item. I want people to view the world around them as containing a certain sense of wonder, even the everyday things that seem to melt into the background sometimes. I like to say that the only difference between ritual and routine is intent. The profound doesn’t always require costumes and fanfare.
WHAT’S COMING?
I will be posting sets of 10 items with a brief interpretation of each item starting next Monday and continuing on every following Monday until completed. Feel free to use the oracle as you like. It has no set rules. I just hope you stick around and see what comes.
Close your eyes.
Reach inside
Dig deep
HAUNT ON
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