Palaver-011 -- Minotaur (c) 2011 lostnbronx CC BY-SA 3.0 lostnbronxATgmailDOTcom http://info-underground.net/lnb ========== MUSIC (Episode Theme) Dollheads http://dig.ccmixter.org/dig?dig-query=DOLLHEADS Ivan Chew (ramblinglibrarian) http://dig.ccmixter.org/dig?user=ramblinglibrarian Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ ========== (MUSIC-01-EPISODE-THEME up, holds, then dips) ANNOUNCER For Wednesday, December 28th, 2011, it's the "Palaver Audiocast", with lostnbronx. (Pause) "Episode Eleven: Minotaur" (MUSIC-01-EPISODE-THEME out) LNB Hello, this is lostnbronx. This past October, my family and I took a run through a local corn maze, created annually by a small family-run farm in a nearby town. This is a sort of harvest-slash-Halloween event, and one that we look forward to. For those of you not in the United States, the whole idea of Halloween may seem quite foreign, or even bizarre. This episode is _not_ an exploration of this tradition -- however, if you are so inclined, Wikipedia currently has a very nice article on the subject, and I encourage you to check it out before it gets damaged in some Wiki editors' bush war. Anyway, while you're there, also look up the corn maze article if you want; it's short, and really not impressive, but it will get the idea across, if you're not sure of whence I speak. Eh, don't bother. Here's an even shorter explanation, for your convenience: in North America, and other places, it has become fairly popular for corn farmers, after harvesting their crops for the year, to drive through the corn field with their tractors and carve twisting paths all through the stalks. These are, in fact, large mazes, different each year, and they charge people a fee to enter and run through them. It can be a lot of fun. The farm that Little Bronx, Mrs. Bronx, and I went through is one such place. Now, it occurred to me then, that some trite, simplistic -- if personally-profound -- allegory for life was forthcoming from the experience; an insight, a forced parallel revealed to me, of the twists and turns of life: you know, how our day-to-day existence is some sort of maze, and the minotaur of time is hunting us down, even as we step trepidaciously through it all. Had I jumped on this content immediately after the experience, doubtlessly, that would have been the gist you'd be enduring right now. But I've had time to think it through, and those insights, if they can be called that, would be obvious to you in a moment's time, and the rest of the show would be a trial of endurance. Hell, it might be anyway. I'm as desperate for listeners as the next audiocaster, but _not_ so much as to beat on them like that. So, what sort of parallel _can_ I find? Well, only one, as it turns out, lucky for you: time isn't the minotaur, and neither is misfortune. Oh, to be sure, a creature _is_ stalking us -- all of us. But when it finally tracks us down, through the twists and turns of the maze, through the dank tunnels and dungeons of the greatest hopes and mistakes we have experienced, through the web-shrouded unknown that each and every turn of the corridors of life lead us to -- when that monster finally catches up, the real surprise is how much it looks like us. We are the minotaur. We run through the maze of our years, and we devour the helpless and the lost that we happen upon. We don't like to think of ourselves in that way, but we do it. We do it boldly, or with shame, or simply by proxy, but each of us is a taker -- a consumer of life and wonder and innocence. We stalk and we hunt those virtues down in others and within ourselves, so that we may use those things, so that we may worship and destroy them. But...if we're lucky -- very lucky indeed -- some of us will exceed this curse -- some of us may well be the shining stars of our own legends. Heroes as well as monsters. Beings of myth, who can, against all odds, and in the very face of expectation, slay the beast, and find their way out of the maze at last. (MUSIC-01-EPISODE-THEME up, holds, then crossfade with RECORDED-MAZE-TRIP) (RECORDED-MAZE-TRIP crossfades with MUSIC-01-EPISODE-THEME, which holds, then out) POINTS TO HIT 1.) We had a lot of fun in the maze. 2.) Working on Eddie K episode #05. The Christmas Quickie just came out. 3.) Little Bronx helped write the Christmas Quickie. Christmas highlights. 4.) "This Thing Of Ours" #5 came out at Christmas time. Shoutout to Pokey. 5.) Been a hard winter so far. Lots of pipes freezing and breaking. Lots of shoveling. We're all fighting colds. Broken teeth. Money is tight. 6.) Wondering if I ought to work on other audio projects in the coming year. 7.) I owe HPR an ep or three. 8.) LnB's Audio Diary updates. (MUSIC-01-EPISODE-THEME up, holds, then dips) LNB So, that's it. I hope you enjoyed it, because it might be the only episode of this thing for a while. I've gotten bad that way. But if I can, I certainly _will_ do another soon. I like them, and even though I don't really have anything to say, it's nice to have my own show in which to say it anyway. I hope each and every one of you have a wonderful New Year. This has been lostnbronx. Take care. (MUSIC-01-EPISODE-THEME up, holds, then dips again) ANNOUNCER The music for this episode is a piece called "Dollheads", by Ivan Chew -- also known as ramblinglibrarian -- and can be found on dig.ccmixter.org. If you'd like to contact me, you can. Drop me a line at lostnbronxATgmailDOTcom, that's (SPELL IT). If you'd like to check out my site, please do -- you'll find it at info-underground.net/lnb. "Palaver" is copyright 2011, by the author, and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike Unported 3.0 License. Feel free to use it for any purpose, even commercial.