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The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck
The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck is a documentary-style audio descent into a place that shouldn't exist—but very much insists that it does.
Once a forgotten military outpost in the depths of Northern Ontario, Bootstuck has taken on a life of its own. Discovered only through a pile of mislabeled cassette tapes at a Sudbury garage sale, the story of Bootstuck slowly unravels through scattered interviews, cryptic clues, and increasingly bizarre residents. The deeper you listen, the more you realize — this isn't just a town. It's a puzzle. And somewhere in that puzzle?
A plane crash that changed everything.
Somewhere between folklore, found audio, and fever dream, Bootstuck blurs the line between documentary and delusion—offering listeners a place to get lost in, over and over again.
The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck
TAPE 31 - "The Bubble Games"
A surprise reconnection by telephone leads to the discovery of The Bubble Games — a loosely defined series of recreational events that seem to involve hand shoes, bubble ingestion, and poorly supervised air drops.
The episode’s main event is the Hand-Shoe Race, a high-risk game where participants place shoes on their hands, raise them skyward, and attempt to run around without colliding with heat sources. From there, the rules grow increasingly vague. Another featured event involves drinking homemade bubble solution (described as “mostly soap and vodka”), burping or farting, and hoping for a prize-winning bubble.
A magic trick is performed — badly — over the phone, involving the Seven of Diamonds and absolutely no follow-through. A baking metaphor derails into a debate about putting jam in a pan, followed by a recipe that seems to include all-dressed chips. Meanwhile, someone reports receiving 44 framed photos of the same man via Dropbox, which is not digital in this context.
Finally, when pressed about their surveillance capabilities, a source claims to use hawk eyes — real ones — preserved in a hawk skeleton mounted above the mantle.
Key Moments:
- The Hand-Shoe Race: “Don’t tie your laces. Takes a week.”
- Homemade bubble tonic (vodka + soap = organic?)
- Magic trick featuring one card and no results
- Air drops include snack food and unidentified men in frames
- Binoculars replaced with literal hawk eyes
The town of Bootstuck continues to ignore its own reality, favoring games that defy physics and deliveries that defy explanation.
www.bootstuck.com
Hello?
Speaker 01:Hey, how you doing?
Speaker 00:It's been a while since we've spoken.
Speaker 01:Long time ago comes to now, and now comes to yesterday. Yesterday's today's tomorrow. Where am I? I know. What day is it, though? So, you called me for a reason to tell me about something I wanted to talk to you about. It's the bubble games. Do you know them?
Speaker 00:The bubble games?
Speaker 01:Woo! You ain't going to get a medal or an invitation to somebody's birthday party. Nope. You won't be going to the White House, Green House, or Yellow House. Nope. Well, maybe the Yellow House. It's just for fun and pine cones.
Speaker 00:Okay, there's a lot to unpack here. So first of all, what are some of the games that you play?
Speaker 01:Well, the best game to play is Andrew Race, where you put your shoes. Do you got shoes on?
Speaker 00:Most of the time, yes.
Speaker 01:Yeah, when you have them on, you untie them. If you didn't have them on, you don't have to take them off first. easier. Then put them on your hands. Good luck tying them back up. Don't tie them up. Takes too long. Took a day of a week. Put your hands up high in the air like you was walking on the sky. Look up top and run around. Try not to run into anything too hot.
Speaker 00:Woo! Remarkably, you may have lost me at walking across the sky. Give me some more examples here. I'm curious to know.
Speaker 01:What do you want to know? A whole bunch of them. You put your hand in the bag and pull out a rock. And on the rock, it'll have a note which tells you what's getting to play. Anyway, bubble game's good. What you do is you get a big bottle of bubbles. You got a big bottle of bubbles? I'm drinking mine now. Now we wait for the bubbles to come. So talk a lot. Maybe you'll burp or fart and then you'll blow a bubble. Biggest bubble wins prize.
Speaker 00:You drink bubble solution?
Speaker 01:It's mostly soap and vodka, I think. Tastes good. Don't know.
Speaker 00:This explains a lot of things.
Speaker 01:It's organic. Think about that for a minute. You like magic? I don't know any magic. The hardest thing to do is show somebody a magic card trick over the telephone or the walkie-talkie. Do you like the seven of diamonds?
Speaker 00:Sure.
Speaker 01:You like it? Okay, that's your card. Good luck.
Speaker 00:And what am I supposed to do now?
Speaker 01:So we'll see how long you can remember that. I'll ask you later on.
Speaker 00:So that's the magic part, whether or not I remember the magic? You've got
Speaker 01:to wait for it. It's like pie. You can't just put jam inside of a pan. You got to wait in the oven for a little bit. Think about it.
Speaker 00:You can't put jam in the pan.
Speaker 01:No, you got to put other things too. Like, what do you like? I don't got all kinds of things, but I got all dressed chips. You like them? They're Canadian. They're going in.
Speaker 00:You're making a pie with potato chips.
Speaker 01:I'm making a pie with jam. You're the one adding all the such and such. Oh, yeah. Let's add some stuff in this. Where
Speaker 00:do you get all the different food from?
Speaker 01:Oh, we get a Dropbox. I ever tell you about Dropbox? You got Dropbox?
Speaker 00:Well, I have a Dropbox, but I don't think it's the same thing. Sometimes
Speaker 01:you get photos in Dropbox, right?
Speaker 00:Yes.
Speaker 01:Yeah, us too. We got that. Anyways, one time we got 44 photographs of the same guy inside of a black frame. It was nice. He must be important.
Speaker 00:you did touch upon the fact that you get, um,
Speaker 01:I didn't touch anything. I'm sorry. We can start a conversation any other way than that.
Speaker 00:Oh God. So you do get supplies dropped to you from somebody
Speaker 01:that
Speaker 00:knows where you are.
Speaker 01:Nope. Nope. Nope. An airplane. I told you about it, right? Whoopie whoopie whoop. It's got words on the side and lettering and scribbles. It's real high. You can't read that. What kind of powerful hawk eyes do you think I have? I have a pair. They're on the mantis. They're nice.
Speaker 00:You have binoculars and you've never used them?
Speaker 01:Binoculars? No, no. I've got a hawk skeleton with eyes inside.
Speaker 00:Of
Speaker 01:course you do.
