Loss - Or The Little Town That Couldn’t

And now, for my next trick, I will pull my head from the box and reveal myself as a key drain on this country’s economy; I will admit that it was me all along. I have been PURPOSEFULLY REDIRECTING money that could otherwise have been used to thoughtfully inject into an bullied oil company, or spend on things that Jo Whiley likes, to fund a Masters degree in Creative Writing. It is, of course, an entirely purposeless thing. No one will look at me and think that such a thing makes me more employable, or likeable. In fact, it might make me less likeable. But I am allowed, nay, encouraged, to spend my time creating things like the above.

Most of my recent time has been spent creating this; it is the final piece for my degree, and after this it is an utter wasteland; no more approval, no more marks.

However, my next main task is to set up my own website, bonfiredog.com, or .net, or .ru or really whatever is cheapest. I am fairly sick of having to update around 9 websites every time I have a dramatic sneeze, and one centralised location will make much more sense. So no more Tumblr.

This project will have its own section on the website, though it really is more something that needs to be seen; like a rare toy, it needs to be taken out of its box and handled.

I have a tendency for thinking that I have created entire literary movements out of thin air, and then swiftly realising I am, in fact, just ignorant. The last example was around a year ago, when I ‘coined’ the term “psychogeography”, not realising that a few people, namely Guy Debord, Alan Moore and many others, had been quietly chugging along with the term for 50 years.

However, this time, I think I am alone. The only real way that I can explain the project is as “installation fiction”, or “vignette fiction”, and I can find no record of such terms. The piece is contained within the suitcase above; as you can see, the fiction of it extends into the material, and must be read as a material thing; hence, an installation, or a series of material vignettes that must be experienced as well as read.

The premise is this. My tutor, Sam North, recieves this suitcase at his office. It is covered in travel stickers to strange, fantastical locations, as well as signatures that mark it as property of ‘The Widsith Institute’, whatever such a thing is. Well, it is quite a bit more than a whatever; it plays quite an important part in the whole piece. Inside the suitcase is a scrapbook, a letter, and various random objects, including photographs, a musical instrument, a music CD and a heavy, wand-like object wreathed in strange paper symbols. The letter, headed in red and urgent, is opened to reveal an introduction by T.W.A.I.N, the curiously monikered mouthpiece of the aforementioned Institute. He states that the suitcase is the last possession of the Miasma Eremite, a “liar, prophet and anthropologist” who was last seen searching for the mysterious (and some say entirely fictional) Town of Loss. According to the objects in the suitcase, and the scrapbook, it seems that he found it. Warning Sam to be careful when identifying what is truth and what is fiction, T.W.A.I.N states that he has been selected, “because of his love of lies and misdirection”, to study the material and report his opinion to the Institute. T.W.A.I.N leaves a final warning that he has made some small edits and comments within the material, and hopes that it will not be off-putting.

What follows is more than the story of Loss, a town by turns strange and pathetic; it is a story about normalcy and strangeness, authorship and censorship, lies and truth, and the nature of a story. I have attempted to use diverse mediums and new techniques (new, at least, to me) to really bring out the richness of the story, and create a form that is specific to the reader and his interpretation.

I was told by Sam that my problem was not invention, or mystery; it was resolving the mysteries and providing them with a conclusion. I cannot give any more away, but I feel I have done so. Once it is completed and marked and I can transfer some of it to the website I will write on it a little more eloquently. It is late and I am tired.

If you want to read it after it has been marked, you will have to come to me. I can’t send it out, the thing is bloody fragile. But you are more than welcome to give it a go.

Though I have strived to write well, the thing is really an exercise in style; the writing is important, as always, but I wanted to see if it could be done. Time constraints and constraints on materials and my own practical ability have been tough, but I think it is coming along.

So, yes. New website, dissertation and then who knows? I have new plays, I am waiting to hear back from the Wellcome Collection about a commission. Hopefully something will come up and stop me inevitably causing another global recession.