(S)pecial Delivery

A little while ago Mulholland Books announced that there were making a reading group kit available to help you and your friends discuss S.

We have heard of a few kits arriving, but now we have one of our own.

The first thing to note is a letter from J.W. Dominguez who is the mysterious author of the Eotvoswheel.com website which has a large amount of information on V M Straka and who the potential candidates of Straka's identity may be.

Speaking of the website, part of it is reproduced in a special dossier, the front page of which is a reproduction of the Ship of Theseus cover (first picture).

The letter goes on to say there are instructions for solving a playfair cipher, which slightly disappointingly is the same cipher used for the Mulholland Books competition around the time that S. was launched, but it is a good one for people that haven't seen it yet.

Thee are a couple of erasable coloured pencils so that you can add your own notes to Jen and Eric's

There is also, as is becoming "the tradition" with S., a postcard, of Brazil. The postcard has a custom 'S' stamp which is a very nice touch.

Interestingly other people who have received the kit have reported that they received different postcards, and the original image of the kit published to advertise it shows a different card again.

However all the different cards seem to be images of Rio de Janeiro, which in itself may be significant.

The letter from J.W. Dominguez says "we encourage you to write and mail a postcard to Straka's translator, F. X. Calderia." The letter also says they will collect the cards and post them online.

I don't think this will be restricted to just the cards sent out in the kits, so if you can send a postcard of your own to the address in the picture I think it would be a great idea.

The final part of the kit is a CD with the first Radio Straka transmission on it, we haven't listened yet to see if it is different to the broadcast version on NTS Radio, but if there are any differences we will let you know.

The last paragraph of the letter says "I've never got a straight answer about how Mullholland books got hold of Jen and Eric's annotated copy of Ship of Theseus, but I'm glad they did. It's been a tremendous boon to Straka scholarship. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I have"

Just want to finish up by saying what an excellent way of encouraging people to read S. with friends this is and it is great to see that S. has not been just published and forgotten, but is still actively being thought about.

S. Reading Group Kit

In case you missed the announcement on Twitter, Mulholland Books announced a Group Reading Kit that people can request to help them read S. with friends.

The kit looks rather cool and contains physical versions of some of the things we have seen online, like material from the Eotvos Wheel website, and a CD of the first Radio Straka broadcast.

There are even a couple of coloured pencils to make your own book notes in.

We think there may be the odd extra clue thrown in with the kit, as you can see from the picture there is a cipher to solve and a postcard. Fellow S. blogger Debbie has analysed the postcard and the image is "Rio de Janeiro, Public Park and Monroe Palace, Brazil" possibly related to the world fair in 1939.

The kit is only available for those in the United states and only available while stocks last, so if you want one, I would get requesting quickly.

Click here to visit the Mulholland Books website and request your own copy of the kit.

I am not in the UK myself, but I have friends in the US that have ordered one so we will see the contents once they arrive.

(Apologies for not posting this here sooner, I got rather ill recently and simply forgot !)

Nine or Ten Clues ?

So where are we ? Short answer is not very far forward I'm afraid, assuming there are mysteries left to uncover we haven't got a handle on what they are.

I thought I'd post about a couple of things that haven't been mentioned in a main post, but have been discussed in comments or emails.

First of all are these two pictures from @RadioStraka the first to be sent was the poem written on a wooden door. What is odd / interesting about this is that, as ObFuSc8 told us via Twitter, the first verse and a little of the second appear to be taken from a poem published by Illy Kotz in 2010

Perhaps Radio Straka just likes the poem, or part of it at least, but who added to it and put it on a door ?

The second picture was the birds as you can see, this coupled with the twitter feed for @EricHusch changing to the image you can see here, two of the S. symbols which when arranged like this have a picture of a bird between them may be significant.

These led to a few people speculating about the chapter 9 cipher that we don't currently know how to solve.

The Chapter title is "Birds of Negative Space" and the space where the bird appears in the EH profile picture is most definitely negative space.

So do we use this bird to solve the cipher, or is this a pointer that we need to find out own negative space in this chapter ? Mark Voorneveld commented that perhaps we need to use the cut out parts of the S. symbol to find a hidden message, but as yet I've been unable to find anything.

Finally for now is the suggestion that came from Karen via email, since the clue from J J Abrams last week was Ten, perhaps there are alternative versions or at least small differences in the pages of chapter 10.

I don't want to post the whole chapter here, but I have posted three pages which I think are significant and if you can check your own version of S. maybe we can find some differences.

Pinterested in S. ?

This note on page 14 was pointed out by Jojo in the comments of the S. Discussion

Jojo also points out that there is someone on Pinterest, called Juri Moller with a board that lists places where the S symbol has been seen throughout history.

I actually saw the board a few days ago when @MollerJuri replied to a tweet that @Tess315 sent about the book. I looked up Juri's Pinterest page and it looked interesting, but at the time I had no spare moment to look further and I filled it under interesting but not linked.

So when I read Jojo's comment about page 14 I decided to look further.

Juri's bio on Twitter says he is from "Frederiksberg, Danmark" so that fits with the book. The pictures on Pinterest look quite convincing, although some possibly a little too good to be true, the fact that the site mentions a pin from Nazca is the one thing that sells this as a potential to be a direct connection to the book. This pin was pinned on the 22nd of October so well before the book or the Radio Straka transmissions took place.

The accounts have all been set up recently and don't have much unrelated to S, apart from one retweet from the Rolling Stone magazine "50 musicians on Instagram". One tweet simply says "05 JUNE '46" which as we know is when V M Straka disappeared. This tweet was sent on the 28th of October, S. was released on the 29th and I don't believe the Radio Straka broadcasts mentioned this date before the book was released.

Please feel free to discuss this site in the comments, and let me know what you think, can you find any other occurrences of S out in the real world, and do the pictures on the board lead to other potential clues to Straka ?

Eotvos Wheel Website

If you were looking through S. and wondered what an Eotvos Wheel is then you are not alone.

In the general discussion comments Just Thinking mentioned that after performing a search for this term, which appears on page 3, a rather interesting website is listed - http://eotvoswheel.com/

This website is titled - "Dossier of V.M. Straka" so I'm fairly sure it is safe to say it is firmly within the world of S. and is something extra for us to look at.

Radio Straka - Transmission Five

The fifth transmission from Radio Straka has begun.

Today's broadcast is discussing terrorism and political activism.

@RadioStraka has today changed his name to Bullfinch, which as you may recall was a theme on Transmission 3 (Phyrrula Phyrrula)

Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti, Libya 1911

Transcript of show 5 29.10.13 follows -

Radio Straka - Transmission Four

The fourth broadcast from Radio Straka has begun.

The initial subject appears to be Hermes and this picture was tweeted by @RadioStraka shortly after the broadcast begun.

More updates when we can and a transcription of the broadcast as fast as we can type.

These second two pictures are of Theseus and Ariadne and then Theseus slaying the Minotaur.

Now there is talk of the African Anansi spider god, and we have had some spider music which is actually quite creepy.

The overriding theme of todays transmission seems to be mythology across cultures.

There appeared to be a glitch with the live show today, however the fourth broadcast is already up on Mixcloud.com

Radio Straka Show 4 28.10.13

Analysing the Transmissions

I intend to try and take a look at the Radio Straka transmissions and try and pull out the relevant facts.

What is relevant may be a difficult thing to ascertain, but lets hope we can find something together.

First of all I want to list all of the references to The Ship Of Theseus book, and collect all page numbers / mentions, I will also list other books written by V M Straka, then I want to list some of the recurring items / numbers, also I will outline the basic subjects of each transmission, and finally anything else of note that doesn't fit into those categories.

If you think something else is significant or something is incorrect please let us know in the comments.

Radio Straka - Transmission 3

Today's broadcast considers Sao Paulo in Brazil at the time when Straka was writing there.

We have had some contact with Radio Straka and this was their message to us at the start of the transmission.

We hear very early on a variation on a phrase that we have heard before "What begins at the water, ends there."

There is some information about Cacareco a a Rhino that was elected to office, and is now synonymous with a protest vote in an election.

One thing we did notice today is that @Radiostraka's given name on twitter has changed to "Phyrrula Phyrrula" which we think means Bullfinch, and given that "There is much comfort and strength to be found in birds - V.M. Straka (1949)" then it seems appropriate.

Radio Straka Show 3 27.10.13 - Transcript follows

Transmission Information

You can also visit the Mixcloud website to listen again to each transmission.

On that page is some synopsis information of the overall set of transmissions and a synopsis for each individual one -

Overall Description

Broadcast on NTS, shows from www.RadioStraka.com – an Homage to a towering figure of early 20th Century literature and culture.

Remote broadcasts on poignant themes from the 17th Century Atlantic trade between Bermuda and the Azores, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, Labour strikes in the early 20th Century, the life and work of photographer Herbert List, the trickster gods of classical myths, legends, and folk tales from around the world, a random potted history of Sao Paolo in 1959, conspiracy theories about the World Cup, the plight of indigenous peoples, fashion trends in footwear, and the War on Terror.

A unique, informative, and often baffling sojourn filled with rare and peculiar insights into the alternate history of the early 20th century.

Drenched in music curated by Jonny Trunk and Sean McAuliffe, from the earliest wax cylinder recordings to modern times, from all corners of the globe, the sea, space and beyond....


Transmission 1

Dancing about architecture, and radio about a photograph. Today we use the music of Canteloube, Gurdieff and traditional sea shanties to discuss the photographic work of Herbert List and its relevance to the depths of the ocean and the heights of VM Straka’s prose.

What are the tides that pull on the soul of man? How do they sound?

Soon you will know.

Transmission 2

"An introduction to Propaganda of the Deed, followed by a history of the Labour Movement and stories of the 1912 strikes in Britain, America, Australia, and France.

Music related to and influenced by Industry, Labour Movement, Miner's strikes and struggle: featuring 1930s and 1940s field recordings, Worker's Song by Dick Gaughan, and a 1942 Gracie Fields recording of The Thing-ummy-bob (That’s Gonna Win The War), Vintage European Electronica, 80s Avant-Garde Pop Jazz, Traditional Aboriginal Music, Gonwanaland, and French Library Synthersizer compositions. "

Transmission 3

A journey into Brazil in the late 1950s. Including stories about Cacareco the rhinoceros, the Sao Paolo Bienale, and various theories on the Brazilian associations of V.M. Straka, including UFO abductions, the World Cup, plight of Indigenous Amerindian peoples, and trends in contemporary fashion.

Music related to and influenced by Brazil, Africa, Birds, Football, UFO's and Fashion: Bossa, Samba, Brazilian Soul, Tribal Drumming, Jazz, Funk, Country and Blues.

Transmission 4

Our presenter weaves a quixotic narrative from myths, legends, and folk tales of tricksters from around the world: Hermes, Theseus, Anansi, Brae Rabbit, Aesop’s Fables, Sun Wukong, and Hanuman.

A musical score including movements of classical Greek, Chinese, and Indian music, interspersed with African Electronic Jazz, Afro-Blues, German experimental, and Hawaiian Classics.

Transmission 5

A considered historical view of terrorism throughout the last century with questions about State Terrorism, life on board ships in the 17th Century, and a passionate closing homage to V.M. Straka.

Music related to and influenced by War, the struggle against the capital, the IRA, British military conflict and the Sea: 50 years of music, ranging from early wax cylinder recordings, sea shanties, classical compositions, Traditional Irish/Afgahan folk, contemporary British Folk, 40's Jazz, 60's Soundtracks, and Anti-oppression African and American Soul.




We will update this post when the other transmissions are completed, but listening live to Radio Straka is definitely an experience not to be missed !

Radio Straka - Second Transmission

The second transmission of Radio Straka started at 9am in the UK and is as before an eclectic mix of information and music.

This time the underlying theme is of workers rights and unions, but as before the theme weaves it's way through other related subjects.

@RadioStraka is on hand of course to add some extra detail, and I think any listen to the transmission should also include a read of the tweets that were happening at the same time. The first picture shown here was tweeted at around 25 minutes in and is entitled "An Idyll"

One thing that cropped up early on was alluded to after the first broadcast which said the second broadcast would be in 9 hours 19 minutes. One of the first things said in the second transmission was "This broadcast should be occurring 19 days and 19 hours after the last one" so 19 seems to be a significant number.

We also asked @RadioStraka about the eclectic music tastes and this is the reply we got back.

I am not sure if this means the answer to the songs will be on this page or whether this is another wider mystery, but I can't wait to find out.

We will get a transcript up as soon as we can, if you can help with this please get in touch, but in the meantime have a listen to the broadcast on RadioStraka.com or on NTSLive.com/radio-straka

If you need something else to convince you to listen to the broadcast then how about this picture.

The next transmission is scheduled for the 27th of October (Tomorrow) at 2pm and we are assuming that is GMT as the other broadcasts have been UK time.

Now follows a Transcript of Transmission 2 - 26/10/2013

While this is a useful resource the original transmission should be listened to for the intonation and cadence of the spoken word, plus some of the music is quite funky !

Radio Straka - Transmission 1

It started with a tweet from @Bad_Robot

Radio Straka is on the air !

The broadcasts have begun, Click here to listen to them

I am going to try and get a synopsis here of what is said in the broadcast and any additional reading so bear with me while I do that.

The small amount of text on the NTSLive site says - "A series of five remote broadcasts in homage to a towering figure of 20th century literature and culture. Featuring music from the earliest wax cylinder recordings to modern times, from all corners of the globe, the sea, space and beyond. "

In the meantime why not follow a new twitter account that has been set up - @RadioStraka They may have some more answers for us and they certainly have a new website for us - http://www.radiostraka.com/

On this site you can listen to the first broadcast, and if the markings on the compass are anything to go by there will be 4 more, the final one being on the 29th of October the date of the book launch.

If you scroll to the bottom of this new site you will see this helpful (?) hint

This has a HTML link associated with it and this takes you to the Soon You Will Know website.

(Update)

The transcript appears below and now includes a few photographs referenced in the transmission, and while it is a good resource to use the original transmission should be listened to for the intonation and cadence of what is being said.