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
FROM WITHIN
This grouping was selected at random from a communally generated master list of four hundred. It is my hope that these ten items can be used as a forecast or guide to your week ahead. You can also use a ten sided dice to turn each weeks items into a miniature oracle. Whether you choose to take these items literally or metaphorically, it’s up to you to find how these things may help. For a more thorough overview go to Introducing Bottomless Bag and Bottomless Bag 01.
Item 151
#349: ARMADILLO FRIEND
An armored ally
Item 152
#178: KNEES
To bend, to run
Item 153
#230: HANDHELD VIDEO GAME
Playful nostalgia
Item 154
#208: A CHAWEN FULL OF ROCK SALT
A beneficial seasoning
Item 155
#200: JAR FULL OF MARBLES
Captured childhood
Item 156
#309: A SMALL SILVER BOWL
A decorative receptacle
Item 157
#382: STIFF NECK
Did you sleep wrong?
Item 158
#321: NOVELTY CLOWN POCKET KNIFE
A sharp knickknack
Item 159
#173: WIND
Listen to it whisper
Item 160
#396: AN EASEL
A new angle for creation
DIGGING DEEPER
For DIGGING DEEPER a 10 sided die is rolled and I explore whichever item it lands on. Sometimes this section will explain different dimensions of the item and other times it will be a rambling story about what an item means to me personally. The thing I’m trying to do here is show that even the simplest item is multifaceted and has far more definitions than I can ever explain. Every item is it’s own world, it’s own entity.
The item we’ll be doing a deep dive with this week is:
#321: NOVELTY CLOWN POCKET KNIFE
I’ve never cared much for clowns, good or bad. I don’t think most of them are creepy and I don’t think ANY of them are funny. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with them. I am emotionally neutral toward the entire concept of clowns.
What I do have a problem with are MIMES.
They don’t talk. They get made up and dress in monotone.
It just feels wrong and I can track this unease back to the exact moment it came to be.
When I was in middle school they invited a mime to teach us their craft. We spent two weeks, an hour a day, learning the ins and outs of miming and how to express an invisible world around us without words.
The whole thing was pretty tough for me. I was pretty unpopular at the time and got bullied mercilessly. The idea of performing in front of people in any way was anxiety inducing. I would try my best to stay at the back of the class and go completely unnoticed. What should have probably been a fun experience became nothing more than another thing that caused me grief.
At the end of the two weeks the teacher gathered the best mimes in the class and tried to create a troupe. They called themselves The Not Ready For Mime Time Players. These kids had spent every night that last week formulating and practicing a 20 minute routine to perform in front of the class. You could see the pride in their faces as they gathered at the front of the class and got started.
Those kids might as well have been facing the firing squad.
There were whispers and stifled laughs at the back of the class. It didn’t take long for things to escalate. The mimes got pelted with spit balls and other projectiles. One kid got the ink from a ballpoint pen stuck in his hair. The ink bled out, spreading slowly, dying his hair from blond to black.
It didn’t surprise me that the teacher let this go on. This was in rural Minnesota and part of the stoic nature of the people there included a “boys will be boys” philosophy when it came to bullies and their ilk.
The twenty minute routine was reduced to ten. It ended with the kids slinking back to their desk. I saw one of them try their best to hide their tears.
The torment didn’t end there, either. The Not Ready For Mime Time Players became the easiest and most favored targets for months after that ill fated show. Even after the rest of us had moved on from the mime classes, the bullies would never forget. NEVER.
What does any of this have to do with a NOVELTY CLOWN POCKET KNIFE?
Nothing.
I honestly couldn’t think of a thing to do with this item or clowns or pocket knives.
All I could think of was mimes.
That’s all for now. Come back next week for another dig into the BOTTOMLESS BAG.
As always:
SEE WHAT’S INSIDE
DIG DEEP
AND
HAUNT ON
ABOUT ERIC J. MILLAR
Eric is the artist and writer behind Outlet Press. He has published over 20 books over the last four year with VACA: Outlet Illustrated, Volume 5 being his most recent publication. He is also the creator of The Disruption Generator, the randomly generated bibliomantic oracle, and The Impossible Game, a cleromantic oracle, both published in partnership with We The Hallowed.
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