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 171
#394: HANDFUL OF DANDELIONS
A collection of beautiful weeds
Item 172
#387: BLACK
All colors, no light
Item 173
#161: VASE
To contain and display
Item 174
#345: SMALL RUBBER GNOME
A handful of luck
Item 175
#355: SPIDERWEB
A delicate net
Item 176
#88: BOOK
Pages upon pages of potential
Item 177
#78: SOAP
To clean and disinfect
Item 178
#51: GAUZE
To cover the wound
Item 179
#293: MUSCLE
Flex and twist
Item 180
#195: FOUNTAIN PEN
An ink filled implement
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:
#161: VASE
I purposely keep the descriptions of the items in BOTTOMLESS BAG vague and VASE isn’t an exception. Vases have so many different contexts and dimensions that it would be hard to hammer down an exact definition without hindering the imagination that can be put into it.
Are you thinking of a contemporary vase or an antique? Is it decorative or utilitarian? Has it been used to display flowers or is it devoid of anything but fetid water and rotted stems? Each of these things would have vastly different oracular value and makes the item more about individual definition.
Personally, my thoughts on the word VASE brings me to The Three Stooges. Vases are destroyed in almost any Three Stooges film you can think of. They’re broken over someone’s head, dropped on the floor, flung out windows, and a hundred other variations on the joke. It’s performative tragedy in the form of slapstick comedy.
Those performances turn the VASE into the ur-example of fragility and life on the edge of destruction. It exudes anxiety, fear, and sometimes even excitement.
Will it break?
Can it be saved at the last moment, inches away from becoming useless shards?
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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