Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Season's Greetings from CLP


Happy Holidays from all of us at the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project!


I thought some readers might enjoy this festive, rather poetic excerpt from Douglas Myerston's 1978 Nipigon Labyrinth navigation journal.

25/12/1978

The sun rose early, rousing us from our slumber in the Great Room. It was Christmas Day. As I surveyed the corridor around me, there was no doubt in my mind that this was truly one of Mezin Kobrin's finest labyrinthectural designs. For weeks on end now, the convoluted halls had driven several of our men very nearly to the brink - one man, Howells, bore deep bruising on his palms and knuckles, the product of the previous day's heedless search for third doors. The domed rock above us, a radiant combination of heliodor and blue basalt, was illumined as though afire by the myriad moss agate and malachite deposits which adorned the canopy. On all sides of us, geometrically arranged recesses and slits in the boundary walls allowed light, both natural and tourmaline filtered, to fill the room. Our own frozen breath appeared to us as the stuff of ephemeral, drifting vespers. We rose slowly one by one. Michaelson, the adolescent in my charge, was last to rise, him unaware of our proximity at last to the center. The light shifted around the room in kaleidscopic forms, all floating blocks of color and dazzling pulses of refraction. Looking reverently amongst ourselves, we walked forward towards the center - silent, and filled with that wonderful electricity that comes only in the final throes of ethical navigation.


Beautiful, inspiring stuff indeed. I urge all readers to search out Myerston's late 70's navjournals. They're presently out of print, but may be ascertained via certain rare book dealers for relatively modest sums.


We'll be taking the next few days off to spend time with family and friends. Look for more activity at the end of the week, plenty of exciting labyrinthological happenings to discuss.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful post, Alex. It made my day. I wonder if one of you guys could post a list of all the labyrinths Kobrin designed. I know you mentioned the two in Antarctica, and now this one... what else did he do?

Merry Holidays!

John K. said...

Fellow labyrinthians, I thought I would share with you one of my most beloved holiday traditions:

Birdwatching in labyrinths.

This year, I re-visited the charming Lake Erie Labyrinth northeast of Cleveland.

Among the great number of beautiful birds I counted and espied was the rare Gray Whooping Crane, known to favor the steep, sloping boundaries of this lacustrine labyrinth for nesting.

The Lake Erie Labyrinth is not terribly challenging to navigate, but is a kind of refuge for a number of endangered birds that inhabit the northeast wetlands.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure where to post this, but I could really use some help from you guys. First of all let me say that I think this blog is awesome and you guys rock. Now, here is my situation- as you know I am taking a labyrinthology class this semester so I can get a minor. I really like it and especially with the help of this blog I have really been able to start digging the subject. I have been totally hot for my TA all semsester, she is this like indie rock chick with nose ring who is so hot I cannot believe it. Anyway she gave us this extra credit assignment to do a "textural analysis" of some song lyrics or whatever that we could relate to labyrinthology and I think I found something that would be really good. I think I could use this as a good excuse to go to office hours and potentially get the in that I need to totally score with this chick. I want to stress that I am not just looking for extra credit here, I totally have the opportunity to score with a chick that is unbelievable hot (though my gpa could use the points, lol)

What I need from you guys is some help with the analysis. I have tride but I totally don't get it, and since you guys are basically like experts I though you could give me some stuff to say that would make me sound like I know what I'm talking about. The song is called "Shea Stadium," by Marnie Stern, and these are the lyrics:

Center/ we stop them
Center/we hold it
Center/we carry
Center/ we enter

Bigger than big, that's how you start it.
Bigger than big, that's how you start it.

Right into the night

Center/ we stop them
Center/we hold it
Center/we carry
Center/ we enter

Bigger than big, that's how you start it.
Bigger than big, that's how you start it.

You said to me, I'm empty-hearted
Bigger than big that's how you parted

Right into the night
Right into the night

It is definately about labyrinths, but I don't know how to explain it PLEASE HELP!!!