The Locket

Sorry this took a couple of hours; I had to search through several boxes of pictures and letters that I hadn’t opened for a while.

When we left Belfast, my dad gave me this locket. I’ve had it with me ever since, always away in a box … I was so angry when he gave me to me—angry at both my parents, really—that I never bothered to wear it or even look at it really. But every time I’ve packed to move somewhere, I’ve taken it with me. I can’t say why, except that when Dad gave it to me he told me to always keep it nearby, that it was good luck.

It occurred to me when I was reading over your tweets today that it might be the significant object I have been carrying with me. I did look at the dolphin, even poked a little hole at the seam to make sure nothing was hidden inside (remember the diamond in the teddybear from The Rescuers?), but nothing is. Anyway, I opened the locket … and I think I was right.

For the first time since all of this started, I feel quite shaken by this experience. Who would know that I had this locket, other than my dad? As for the question of whether to trust @visiblebelfast ... Right now, I don't.

Make what you will of this.

The Star Factory

Anyone who’s following this—and now there seem to be quite a few of you—I guess you’re part of the game. And I seem to be involved in it as well, through no choice of my own.

I was just quietly living my life, and suddenly all this stuff is happened, stuff that shows that someone has been watching me, knows private things about me … I’m being contacted by strangers, online and in person. I’m still not entirely sure what to think of it. Something about it feels slightly sinister.

But, possibly against my better judgment, I did go look to see if the numbers on the book were a library code, and indeed they are, sort of. I’ll post some photos here of what I found; I’m not sure what I found, to be honest, except that it was once a book. It seems to me like it’s now something else as well.

It was The Star Factory, by Ciaran Carson. I found it in the stacks, in between astronomy and physics. It's not either of those things.

The Star Factory is a novel, but someone’s totally changed the book from what it once was ... It’s been written in, not just written in, but drawn all over, with strange diagrams and words blacked out and whole sections changed. Have a look.

The book has been planted. The decimal code is just written onto the spine of the book, not typed onto a sticker like every other library book, and there’s nothing on the inside to indicate it’s a library book.

And I know someone left it for me to find. This was written on the last page.

Appropriately, today is Friday the 13th.

I need to have a think. More later.

And so it begins.

I realized that @visiblebelfast is following me on Twitter and has created a list, following just me, called "The Protagonist," and has been making comments about the ‘start of the journey’ and ‘the mazes of the network’ and a lot of other weird stuff in the past few days.

And now today, an email was sent out, and it seems like this might be the beginning.

The email I received contains a scanned piece of text from inside a book, and some cryptic sentences, including this one:

"the way the city grows: from a single point of human contact, relationships emerge and unravel, and labyrinthine paths spread over hills and valleys, through space and time."

For some reason this got me thinking about a book I read by Mackenzie Wark last year, and something he was saying about a news broadcast on Berlin. Let me go see if I can find it.

Here we go, on page 50:

"The caption ‘Berlin,’ placed underneath by NBC, was not actually referring to the physical space of Berlin itself. It referred to an electronic space constructed in the studio, which mixed images made on the East and West sides of the wall into a single vital center."

This just links in my head to the whole “over hills and valleys, through space and time” thing. Is a city made up of physical space, or of some other kind of space?

The email also said something about the number marking the beginning of Belfast, or the start of the tale … Don’t know what it means.

Already some people are helping me to solve what's happening here--people with more of a sense of mystery than I will admit to having myself. At the moment, all I can say for sure is that someone is definitely setting up an interesting course of events, and these seem to have something to do with me.

More soon.

Must Have Sense of Humor

An update is in order, I think. This is the fastest way:

http://www.youtube.com/user/AnaDanika49

Look at today's video. I wasn't paying attention to what I was listening to when I caught that broadcast; I think it was Radio 4, maybe Radio Ulster. Unfortunately, the truly crap radio signal from my house caused me to lose the rest of whatever it was. But I listened to the video a couple of times and yeah, that was me, and the woman from this morning. That explains the microphone. Sort of. And also, not at all.

So I thought about the envelope, which of course has my name and address on it. (The fact that some random person has my home address is something I don’t even want to think about just yet. Focus.) Well, there’s nothing much worth looking at on the outside of the envelope, so I thought I’d look inside, just to make sure I hadn’t missed a little note for me or something. It seemed like there was actually something written on the inside of the envelope maybe, so I cut it open, and now I’m sitting here with this mutilated envelope in my hands. And there was definitely something written inside.

It says “Linen Hall.” And then some numbers.

Why would some person record me and put me on the radio? And send me cryptic messages and nonsensical plastic maps? And where did she get my postal address??

I can picture her face perfectly; maybe I’ll do a police report. Except that’s ridiculous, because she didn’t actually do anything to me, of course. She just sent me some mail, and delivered a message. A message from who?

Anyway, maybe I should consider myself lucky ... I never get mail. This could be the start of a whole new thing for me. Being chased by the microphone paparazzi and getting free weird gifts in the mail. Awesome.

Trying to have a sense of humor about this.

CONT.

Per your request...

Intrigue...?

This is a weird city.

I don’t get it. Why would a random person come up to me, out of the blue, ask my name, and give me a personal message? On a Monday afternoon in a bookshop?

That is exactly what happened this morning, and I have to say, it kind of freaked me out. I was popping into NoAlibis for a quick look around, when this woman came up to me and politely asked if I was Ana. When I said I was, she told me she had a message for me, something about ‘look carefully at what you receive.’ The whole time, she had a microphone in my face, and there was a dude shadowing her carrying a bunch of audio equipment. When I asked her who she was, she gave me a very odd look and wouldn’t say.

There were some people in the corner who weren’t looking at books, who were just talking to each other really quietly, and they seemed to be watching me. I don’t know, maybe that part was in my head, but I was so thrown off by that point that I didn’t know what to think, and I just left.

‘Look carefully at what you receive.’ Right.

Well, I can’t help connecting this with the thing I got in the mail last week. I haven’t received anything out of the ordinary besides that, and since this is now two very random, anonymous events happening in the space of about five days. I’m guessing they’re connected.

But right now I’m in a café jamming on the free wi-fi, and I have a meeting with my supervisor in a minute, so unfortunately I have run out of time for reflecting on the bizarre-ness that is my life. This evening I’ll have a good look at that thing again, try Googling some things on there maybe.

But seriously … what’s going on? Seriously.

The Reluctant Tourist

I got something ... weird ... in the mail yesterday. I don't know how to describe it so I'm just going to post a video on my YouTube channel. Link at the bottom. Basically I spent half of the day thinking about it, and decided I have no clue what it's about. Anyone with insight, do speak now.

In other news, I went to the walking tour of the Cathedral Quarter today, and was rather disappointed. Something about guide-led tours leaves me totally uninspired. But then I've never enjoyed the tourist track, so there you go. Dad used to encourage me to find my own way when I travel, and he would know. He did a lot of traveling himself, back in the day. "You don't see the city until you see its underbelly," he said to me once. "And no tour guide is going to show you that."

Tours of Belfast are an odd territory, though; there's always a question about what version of history you'll have access to. Which raises a question about history itself: if it's just what one person or one group decides to report, how valid is History proper? And what sort of history is worth listening to? So, in a roundabout way, I suppose the tour did get me thinking after all.

http://www.youtube.com/user/AnaDanika49

Mail, music and McHughs

Got home late this evening, after a full day in the library and then a show, to find something odd hanging in the mail slot. I'm too tired to think about it properly right now ... I almost feel a tad weirded out. I'll post something about it tomorrow.

I just need a short venting session. I miss David. And I miss my friends at home. My one friend from childhood here goes to university in Scotland (thanks, Meri) and I'm stuck in this odd city without a paddle. Not that I'd leave, I just feel a bit meh.

I know. I complain a lot. This is what they don't tell you about Canadians.

I need a cup of something. I should do a yoga DVD to chill out before bed. Probably just eat some ice cream though.

The Cathedral Quarter Fest is cool, by the way. Tonight I saw Curtis Eller play at McHugh's ... interesting stuff. He's from NYC, which of course made me nostalgic for the one time I visited NYC. I'll try to do this walking tour of the Cathedral Quarter they have going on before the festival is over.

More later.