J. Kelly's Ribbon Reef Navjournal: Selected Entry IV

Navigation, Day 32: Inverted World (1/29/2009)

Itself, time is neither foil nor foe to the navigator. No, the navigator battles with keeping his sense of time. Or, more accurately, battles against losing it.

Yes, the empiricists have amply analyzed the strange behavior of time in the labyrinth. And, of course, the idealists have vehemently countered their claims. But these are words. Tired, emptied, displaced words. Detached from the corridors they codify in vain. Authentic navigation should neither pursue nature to her hiding-places nor should pursue divinity to its holy grail.

The navigator's task is to know where he is, which is to say his task is to remember his own lostness, to strain to stay ahead of his own lostness. And it is his sense of time, not his location, that aids him most in this project.

This fundamental paradox looms over me like a cloud of urgency when I wake up. But this is precisely the will of the labyrinth. I have to restore my equanimity. Dawn-light crisscrosses in fine bands through the brittle starboard walls. I enter the vestibule. The cerulean seawater laps the rust-brown keel. The portal stares at me like a great, glaucous, cataracted eye. Brooding, foreboding.

* * *

I dive in, feet-first, the passageway just wide enough to permit me. The corridor drops several yards straight down before it bends and opens into a coral grotto: the first chamber.

Anemones in bloom, bursting in bright orange and yellow fingers that feel and grope the waters, lying in wait to snatch motes of prey with their poison digits. Sponges, some like neural clumps, others like swollen funnels, breathe the water. The floor bristles with seagrass and urchins who register the changing directions of the water-wind. Iridescent fish, scrambling the light from the small ring of surface water above, flash in and out of invisible crevices. Eels, rays, sharks drift, menacing shadows made for ambush.

And the coral, the great living, feeding, breathing, multiplying city of coral. Multifarious, multitudinous. Form and function. Part and whole. Strange biologies.

A prodigious colony of star coral forms the main structure of the chamber. Colors, shapes, names. A million white and golden polyps clustered on the dull grey exoskeleton, each a stellate mouth clambering up and out from the convolute frame that surrounds me on all sides. At the base clump boulder-sized brain corals, their surfaces unfolding in impossible labyrinths. At the top blood-red fan corals branch out like an exposed network of nerves. And in brilliant rings burn the flaming tendrils of the sun corals throughout.

The coral immures me. Psychoanalysts have called navigation a masochistic pursuit, the self-willed imposition of incarceration for the thrill of escape. Egotistical at heart, fundamentally narcissistic. At this juncture, it seems more like exile. Theory is useful after all, upon reflection. Not a crutch, not a compass, but rationalization. A means to slow the breath, really, to ward off panic and the waste of oxygen.

I notice the spiny leg of a crustacean jut from a ring of sun coral. I inspect it. It offers passage. Blind, narrow, no sight of the other end. I swim into the darkness, into the dark throat of the labyrinth.

The first decision is as much a choice as a rejection. A new set of pathways, a lost set of pathways. Either way, the multiplication of the unknown.

* * *

The tunnel leads me into new chambers with new tunnels, which lead me into new chambers with new tunnels. Swaths of color, objects and occlusions. Movement has become pure sensation, primal need, sedimented and historical. Choice exposed as illusion, an elaborate grid-work of cortical synapses useful but constructed for an identity intact, for the place known, the time embodied, for the mind aware of itself as other.

But even the electric impulse must jump through the spaceless space. Mind elusive, fragmented, nascent, recursive, groping for the organizing principle, running from

bees in the honeysuckle bush

throwing stones into the creek

father's aftershave, news on the radio through a closed door

mother's hairdryer, light through the crack of a closed door

hand bleeding, breaking the neighbor's glassware

dogs barking, banging up against the chain-link

tripping into the medicine cabinet

cleaning the evidence, hiding the evidence

there is blood in the water

blood in the light

descending into light

cloaked, shrouded, surrounded

by shadows of predators faceless

* * *

Breath is distant. Ears are ringing. Hand clutching my thigh. The cold salt smarts the wound, exposed, unprotected. A dark cloud of blood. There is no separation from the labyrinth, no membrane between the labyrinth and--I, I am lost. I have lost.

J. Kelly's Ribbon Reef Navjournal: Selected Entry III

Navigation, Day 31: The Vestibule (1/28/2009)

I am surprised that Groverson and Afaaq are still sleeping when I wake in the dark. In the relative darkness, that is. Here, the moon and stars wash the coastline in a silver film. Their luminous spindles stick to the sand, the sand clings to the spindles.

Maybe I am anxious. Maybe I am dreaming. Above, the unbounded sky. The envy and contempt, the hope and reason of bounded earth, of the earth-bound. I am not sure where I am until I begin to hear motion, shapes.

Afaaq and Groverson are busy about a morning fire, behind them a violet swath of sunrise. "We'll be paying for this late start, won't we?" I ask, walking towards them.

"It's only a few kilometers from here," Afaaq responds. 

"And this no place to be alone," Groverson adds. "We go with you until you are suited." I can't tell whether he looks at me with respect, admiration, or whether he betrays admonition, bewilderment. 

We pack and set off with hushed, methodical deliberation. For the first time I admit I am uneasy.

* * *

You can see them a kilometer off. Rusted hulls, rusted rigs, rotted sails. Scuttled shells, desiccated bodies. Giant gravestones stuck into the sand, burial plots staked out of desperation, not design. We approach, haunted, reverent, reminded. Visible from satellite, Groverson tells us. To no one in particular, really, but something one should say in the presence of those decaying colossi. On the rocky sea shelves, a fort stands sentinel. Abandoned, but it casts a long strip of shadow onto the shoreline. We stand in its shade for protection from the sun, from the ships. 

Bret reviews the equipment. I have rehearsed all procedures, but there is something comforting in the routine one last time, something comforting in the final company. "There's no more delaying," I say. I do not remember if I said this out loud or to myself, but I do remember thinking it didn't matter either way. I  take out some bills. Both refuse, hands up and out, shaking my offer away. "Really, that's not necessary," Groverson says. Afaaq smiles graciously, but his gaze is out at sea, studying the position of the ships.

Groverson turns to go, Afaaq some moments after. I look up after securing my gear and zipping my wetsuit. Gone, soundlessly, their tracks already erased.

Solo navigation. The most authentic mode, perhaps. The authentic mode, and thus the most unsettling. This, too, I may have said aloud. Labyrinths are not the mere sites for cogitation, they are thought physically manifest. The boundaries of the known and unknown, of the knowable and unknowable.

* * *

I wade into the water, and I am in the labyrinth. The Ribbon Reef wastes no time, however. 

In many labyrinths, the vestibule is contiguous with the port of ingress. In others, the vestibule adjoins it. Not so here. Some claim it is no coincidence that the vessels ran aground where they did, especially given the notoriously unpredictable (and treacherous) currents there. Whatever the case, theory, too, runs aground as soon as the navigator crosses the threshold.

Suffice it to say the location of the vestibule changes in the Reef. And suffice it to say that many navigators have not advanced beyond this point.

Fact is, I am paying for the late start this morning. Behind me, past the deserted fort, the sun, vermilion, recedes. I have swam through and climbed up the eviscerated bellies of too many ships, finding nothing. Even tracking the ships has become difficult. The first stars are glowing through, the water releasing its heat.

I think of Afaaq. I think of scribes. And I remember the swirling constellations that night. I have nothing to lose, I think, as a spiral of shipwreck emerges before me. Do I see this, or do I create it? Neither matters, I conclude, coursing the whorl to reach the center vessel.

* * *

I discover the vestibule after sundown in the hold of the center vessel. Luck. Or maybe not. There is neither pure accident nor rigid causality in the logic of the labyrinth. A controlling, uncontrollable logic.

Still, the waters block my entrance. I peer into the passageway, seeing no further than its upper coral ring. Dark, cold, breathing, moving. This labyrinth is alive. Its coral corridors alive, themselves harboring life.

I do utter this aloud. I remember the dead surfaces of the reefership stealing my sound, my breath, my motion, as soon as they could reach the corroded walls of the hold. I have arrived at the boundary of a foreign physics.

The perishable cargo in the hold of the reefership had decomposed long ago. Subsumed by the sea that crawled up from the hole that rotted through the keel in one of the refrigeration chambers. The sea, voracious, inexorable. The sea, substantial, thick, viscous. The sea, an entity. All-moving, unmovable. I discard all  I thought I knew about the sea. Expectations, presumptions are dead weight in any labyrinth.

I search for the vessel's name, no longer legible on its half-bleached, half-rusted shell. Something to give the boat a hold over the water, to give me a hold over the boat. But I cannot waste my light. I find a dry refrigeration chamber adjacent to the vestibule and turn off my headlamp. The labyrinth moving, groaning below me. 

J. Kelly's Ribbon Reef Navjournal: Selected Entry II

Prenavigation, Day 30: Reaching Nouadhibou (1/27/2009)

Groverson rouses me before dawn, thrusting a small tin plate of karra, coffee, and a cigarette. I take them in reverse order, stilling lingering at the boundary of sleep.

"Where's Afaaq?" I ask him.

"He left in the middle of the night," Groverson answers. "He is already en route to Nouadhibou. He prefers to travel solo. Says he stops frequently to inspect the ground, the coastline, whatever is on the trail. A naturalist, he says. I don't ask questions. We'll see him when we get there." He pauses to look at the sky. "Pack up. It's about time to head off."

We decamp to the Mauritanian coast, traveling on camelback in the precious cool before sunup. Groverson is a quiet man. I suppose he reserves his speech for business. Or maybe his work is really in the line of listening. But I have little to say myself. 

He breaks the silence at last. I am grateful. The desert, the sun seem to feed off of silence. "It's been some time since I've seen anyone going into the Reef. Not since that boat shipwrecked a few years back. It killed all aboard." He turns toward me, looking at my tanks strapped to my camel. "It's hell to get those tanks, by the way. And there's not much customs is strict about in these parts. No one gives tanks for any kind of diving in the area. Contraband. Some did before the shipwreck, I should say, but not after the laws changed. Steep consequences. The zone ends at the tip of the Parc National Banc d'Arguin. And even there permits are scarce. But I don't ask questions." He didn't sound irked, though; stiffly matter-of-fact, maybe even a bit surprised. 

I didn't ask any questions either, although I had my share. It's easier to ignore the implications. Prenavigation is the fast before the fast, the gaze over the edge of the building before the jump. Negative capability.

* * *

The sun is almost halfway to its crest when the sand turns to water, where a rigged dhow awaits us. Money exchanges hands (the one universal gesture, I am certain), and in the rusty whir of the motor we sail north into the Gulf of Arguin.

We keep near the coastline. Countless fleet shorebirds fleck the sky. Black terns, grey plovers, white pelicans, scarlet flamingoes. Colors. Names. Innumerable fish mottle the surface of the sea. Grey, white, yellow mullets. Sawfish, guitarfish, hammerheads, leatherbacks, loggerheads. Shapes. Names. Sharp, unambiguous.

Our boat chops across the waters, up the notches of the spine of the world. Sun. Salt. Sleep. No one seems to mind me dozing off. But I remember noting how no one ever seems to sleep over here. Not even Groverson. 

* * *

Before nightfall we land in Nouadhibou. Money exchanges hands. The dhow whirs south. Afaaq has been expecting us. He sits before the fire, inking graceful arcs across canvas.

"Arabic?" I chance.

"The flights of birds," he corrects, not looking up.

Heating up karra over the fire, Groverson says, "We leave before dawn again. We'll guide you to the ship graveyard, where we part."

We eat, smoke, and retire. Not even the coiling constellations can take it off my mind.  

J. Kelly's Ribbon Reef Navjournal: Selected Entry I

Prenavigation, Day 29: Arrival in Nouakchott (1/26/2009)

Boundaries. Nouakchott is a land of boundaries.

The Sahara and Atlantic hem in Mauritania's capital city. Mosques rise above the streets, whose names bear their French colonial past. Neither rise above the dust. Urbanites squint in the haze, nomads slip past. Both unnoticed. Taxis clamor over the calls for prayer, the donkeys, the merchants. None the loudest, none unheard. All heeded, all the same under the sun.

I stand between the tide and the shadow of the dunes, no longer sure where water begins and earth ends, no longer sure there is any difference. 

My guide to the labyrinth is young, his face already wizened from sand and sun. He goes by Afaaq. He tells me it means the place where earth and sky meet. Himself a boundary. A Moor. Mauri. In antiquity, the land of the Moors. Greek for black. Now we cringe at this appellation, but we have forgotten the simplicity of it, the immediate perception. Places, people have colors. Named for colors. Subject tethered to object, object to subject. We have imposed our disjunctions on the past, have severed the tethers. 

His camel is laden with my supplies: jugs of fresh water, dried figs, jerky. In order of amount and importance, though not of weight. He rolls a cigarette. His English is as tight as his roll, even if his accent is heavier than the heat. We pitch our tents near the flooded sebkha north of the capital, where we wait for Groverson. Bret Groverson, British expatriate and self-styled international trader and explorer. He has procured my tanks. 

Heat, sun. Cold, moon. Boundaries.

* * *

Before the fire, Afaaq asks me if I am a scribe. My silence is ignorance. He repeats, "Scribe. Katib." I remind him of the Ribbon Reef  Labyrinth. He sighs, not impatiently. Maybe out of memory. "My ancestors were holy men. A sect of holy men. They were scribes, kuttab, a revered Islamic duty, fit only for the purest observers and preservers of Allah's word as recited by Mohammed. But they were condemned as heretics. They believed that Allah's truest name was written in the earth, in the sky, in the waters, in the sands, in the trees, in the stars. Allah's name uncorrupted by man's corruption, unspoken and unspeakable by man's broken tongues. They didn't speak themselves, though. Code, credo. For the clerics, that was only a minor objection, however. The sect wrote, but in no ordinary sense. It was shape, it was motion they were interested in. Motion. Pronouncing motion. The labyrinth, not a built environment, they believed, but Allah's name embedded, emerging from the earth. If one followed the right path in the labyrinth--"

Groverson arrives, late, interrupts Afaaq in Hassaniya Arabic. Afaaq rolls cigarettes for each of us.

The camels grunt, the fire hisses and snaps. Afaaq stares into the fire, as if deciphering. Groverson and I greet, review the morning's plans. But this, too, is of the silence that surrounds us. Our exhaustion reverent, grateful. We retire, the stars forming spiraling corridors above. 

New from the Mauritanian Front

Labyrinthians abroad, 

A freak storm in the otherwise placid late winter Atlantic has forced me to take longer-than-desired refuge in the Ribbon Reef's exquisite Great Room. While Stephon Crete's technomania oft chagrins me, his solar-celled blackberry has saved me in my current condition. Last week, I exhausted my supplies. At last recourse, I had to phone my emergency contact back on the coast; he shipped out some direly needed rations before the storm struck, allowing me another day in the aqua-lab. (This reminds me to discuss the ethics of the telephone in navigation, over which much ink has been spilled.) Unfortunately, my memory is low on the phone, so I cannot post any images just yet. But wait patiently. In my extended navigation I have encountered no other walkers, which, on top of the dangers I have already surmounted, has greatly amplified the challenge of this labyrinth. 

Upon my return, which will be soon (I cross my fingers), I will post my navijournal. Given my solitude, and given my delays, I think you have much to anticipate. Au revoir.

[Message sent via Blackberry.//3:07 am] 

NASCLS 2009 Updates

I thought some of our readers would be interested to hear the latest news pertaining to this year's annual North American Society for Contemporary Labyrinthology conference, which is being held on the weekend of April 17 in Manitoba. Midway through December, John K. posted descriptions of the panels here. Since that update, some interesting developments have occurred. As some of you may have heard, John and I have been invited to serve on keynote labyrinthian Philip Cunha's panel. I spoke with Philip just this past week, and he informed me that his paper, which is nearing completion, investigates the ways in which Mathieu Gramont's notion of cyclico-ambulatory intuition anticipates and, in many ways, invalidates subversive navigation in the wake of Crete - a particularly interesting move on the part of Cunha as Crete is likely to be in attendance.

Cunha told me that he decided against his previously considered address, which focused upon labyrinthological ethics at large in favor of this "more pointed assessment." As an exteriorist Gramontian, I, for one, couldn't be happier with both Philip's choice of subject and the veritable renaissance which the French Recursivists seem to be experiencing within the realm of contemporary labyrinthology. For those of you not subscribed to the NASCLS newsletter (which you can subscribe to by sending an email with the subject "add to list" to Stephen Holdern at manitobalabconf_09@yahoo.com) a tentative schedule has been posted, to wit:

Friday, April 17

1-2 pm
Meet at Hudson Bay Overlook in downtown Churchill for hors d'œuvres.
3pm
Check in to Manitoba Marriott (or adjourn to other arranged places of lodging)
5-7 pm
Dinner and Awards (featuring the presentation of the Mezin Kobrin Award for Innovation in Labyrinthecture, the Phillip Ambrose Walker Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Field of Labyrinthology, and the Percival Crosley Award for Outstanding Ecolabyrinthological Accomplishment).
7:30 pm(in Marriott Conference Hall)
Introduction of Panels and Panelists by Jacques Oligreff
7:45-9 pm
TBA Philip Cunha Keynote Address and Discussion
9 -10 pm
Stanlislav Barta "The Indestructable Ontos" and Discussion

Saturday, April 18

The day is open, so to speak, and those who have never been to Manitoba are encouraged to experience it. That being said, there will be a group navigation of the Lake Winnipegosis Labyrinth (an estimated 3 hour navigation) which begins congression at 2pm sharp. Those who wish to sign up should contact Stephen Holdern before the event or sign up in the lobby of the Marriott.

5-7 pm
Dinner and Cocktails
7:30 -8:30 pm
Alan Berkhardt "Kafka's Corridors" and Discussion
8:30 - 9:30 pm
Bernhard Smallencroft "Subverting SN: Reclaiming the Sanctity of Navigation" and Discussion
9:30 - 11 pm
Open Discussion and Wine

This is, of course, subject to change between now and April, but I think it looks great so far. Remember, if you have any questions don't hesitate to get in touch with us here at CLP or with Holdern directly.

Notes from the Ribbon Reef

Dear Labyrinthians,

I'm almost two weeks into my navigation of the Ribbon Reef Labyrinth. I have reached the second center. It is indeed paradisiacal, but this is truly terra incognita. Today marks my third day wandering the second center. A storm threatens, which will delay me for perhaps another week.  

I am trying not to lose hope and sanity. All across the coastline, there appears to be no entrance back into the reef corridors. The labyrinthecture is maniacal; no congression points, no regression points in sight.

My oxygen supply is sufficient, but my second center navigation has to be parsimonious and well-planned, else I risk wasting too much of my precious tanks. The Atlantic sun has singed my skin, which feels indelibly brackish despite my wetsuit. My provisions are perilously low, and I have been forced to forage flora and fauna that appear comestible and innocuous. (A word to the wise: Never navigate without Floyd Brendelmen's Field Guide to Labyrinth Foraging). Sharks, I think blacktip reef sharks, are patrolling what seems to be one of the more promising congression points. The dance of the light on the water is beautiful, mesmerizing, but the refraction titanically complicates the detection of third doors. 

I've taken a photo for your viewing and for the archives. Enjoy, but keep me in your thoughts. This will be one memorable navigation.

[Message sent via Blackberry_//.>Sent 9:26PM_._]

A Scholar of Ill Repute

My dear labyrinthians,

You may have noted a bit of a lull here at the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project. Fear not, however, for the reasons behind our relative inactivity are decidedly positive. John K. is focused on a rather difficult navigation of the Ribbon Reef Labyrinth in Mauritania, and I, along with fellow CLP columnists Walt and Mark, have just attended the famous annual Bern Labyrinthological Circle conference in Switzerland. The conference was excellent, with particularly superb, progressive talks from Bernhard Smallencroft and Anders Heitkamp. Perhaps the most fascinating and exciting bit of labyrinthia that we gleaned concerns the construction of the Amazon Basin Labyrinth, a labyrinth which, as some of our readers may know, was begun by Mezin Kobrin but left incomplete at the time of his death. The project, which drew many skeptics based on its sheer scope (the blueprints posit an area of over 35 miles), has been picked up by CORRIDOR motion DESIGN, a forward thinking labyrinthectural firm out of Portland, OR. More on this exciting news later.

Now, onto the subject of this post, a considerably less pleasant matter. As you, my dear reader, have no doubt noticed, we have, here at CLP, always done our best to avoid participating in the factious and polemical modes of criticism which pervade the landscape of contemporary labyrinthology. It is our contention that what is called for in our present epoch is a labyrinthology which, as my good friend and colleague Philip Cunha says, mends the broken corridor. This being said, recent events have come to pass which I, for one, simply cannot abide nor turn a blind eye. During my sojourn in Bern this past weekend, I had the pleasure of spending a good bit of time with CLP Polish correspondent Czeslaw Gorski, a labyrinthologist well known in European intellectual circles for his writings on "blind ambulation." Gorski has been working on a rather fascinating article for some time now, of which I have read several drafts. The piece takes as its subject a rather problematic, yet widespread, exegesis of Book Seventeen of Gollesten's Framework, an interpretation introduced by Dutch New Interiorist labyrinthologist Rutger Roorback.

In essence, Roorback argues that Gollesten's critique of Aaldi's quantalogical reduction hinges on a fallacious interpretation of Aaldi's notion of cognitive constancy navigation (CCN). Roorback's views, as erroneous as they may seem to us, have become popular in labyrinthological syndicates throughout Europe, proving particularly influential on the Viennese Centralists. My issue with Roorback lies, however, not in my disagreements with his scholarship, but in the way in which he handled the prospect of cogent, well argued dissent entering into the realm of mainstream labyrinthology in the form of my dear friend Gorski's exceptionally well crafted article. The article had been approved months ago for publication in Perímetro, the prestigious Portuguese labyrinthology quarterly. This past weekend in Bern, however, Gorski revealed to me that as a result of Roorback's connections and influence in Portuguese labyrinthological circuits, the article has been pulled from publication.

I can say without hyperbole that this is a travesty. It is deceit of the lowest kind and, forgive me if I seem overly crestfallen, it is precisely the sort of underhandedness that threatens the very sanctity of contemporary labyrinthology. Gorski has agreed to let us publish his article in installments, the first of which I will be posting this weekend. In the meantime, dear reader, please consider jotting a note to Perímetro, as I have, to express your disdain for both their publication and sense of intellectual ethics alike.

Previews of 2009

I have landed in Mauritania, and, as I await my navigational provisions, I thought it fitting to mention what 2009 has in store for labyrinths and labyrinthians. 

The crises of navigational ethics may have dominated the critical brain-space of contemporary labyrinthology in 2008, but despair not: 2009 promises to be an enriching, edifying, and exciting year for labyrinths and labyrinthians.  

The CLP has compiled a list of developments to debut in our new set of months that have already grabbed the imagination and ignited the eager anticipation of the international labyrinth community.  

Here are three developments which I greatly await, and my colleagues will be sharing theirs soon: 

1. In March, Californian labyrinthect Skye Morgan will be unveiling The Cube in an office park outside of Los Angeles. One part art, one part social commentary, and one part functional labyrinth, The Cube is a five-story labyrinth constructed entirely from cubicle partitions. The corridors of nondescript, gray cubicle walls underneath numbing fluorescent lights hanging from drop ceilings are purported to make for an extremely claustrophobic and disorienting navigation. No word has yet been leaked about the nature of the center and great room of The Cube, but I, for one, am up for the challenge.    

2. On June 16, labyrinthologists will finally be able to get their hands on Stephon Crete's equally acclaimed and maligned Procodic Boundaries: On the Ballast of the Perimeter. Though shrouded in much mystery, Dr. Crete is expected to unveil significant new corollaries to his Vector Theory, furnish complete data tables from his measurements of labyrinthons, and, most astoundingly, incorporate his theory of salvific magnetism into his so-called Unified Labyrinth Theory.  Labcritics, get ready to spill some ink! 

3. Brazilian experimental composer, who boldly goes only by the name of Thiago, will be premiering Caminhada, an epic symphony written exclusively for Balinese-styled gamelan, Gamelan gong kebyar. In an interview, Thiago revealed that he scored the symphony after navigating the sublime East Amazon Edge Labyrinth. (I am scheduling my first navigation for the fall of this year. Do I have any willing co-navigators?) While not explicating any details about his notation and transcription, Thiago stated that he developed a system by which he assigned pitches and duration based on the length of corridors, juncture composition, and chamber arrangement. He found the gamelan to be best suited to "perform the navigation." Apparently, each performance of the symphony will be different, representative of the alternative congressional and egressional routes the East Amazon Edge Labyrinth permits.  The first performance will be at the Sydney Opera House in midsummer. Get your tickets while they are still available.  

Oligreff on the State of Navigation in the late 2000's

Not normally known for doomsaying, Jacques Oligreff offerered some pointed criticisms of navigation in our present epoch at the MLC (Midwest Labyrinthology Consortium) meeting which took place this past weekend at DePaul Univeristy in Chicago. I managed to record most of his talk on microcassette (though my recorder died near the end of the almost 140 minute presentation). I'll try to post some audio excerpts later in the week.

"The call for a particularly stringent, codified system of labyrinth ethics - rules of the game, if you will - proves particularly urgent in the wake of Crete's labtech. Gone are the days in which navigators toiled solemnly and without interruption. Gone are the days in which the navigator, looking up at the firmament above him, summoned something deep within himself in order to find the will to press on, against all odds, to find his way to the center or to ambulate reverently, if he so chooses, free from the duress of centrality.

Last autumn I visited the Canyonlands Cave Labyrinth in Utah, one of my favorite domestic labyrinths, and one of the late Kobrin's most successful and inspired labyrinthectural designs. In the past, Chantal, my dear wife, and I have always enjoyed the rigor involved in successfully navigating the labyrinth. We've navigated to the center some 15 times now, and it never has ceased to be a challenge. This past visit was different. As we reached what I knew to be the notoriously difficult second center (Kobrin employs a system of deceptively angled obelisks to compel the navigator to believe he is congressing when in fact he is egressing at a rapid clip), I noticed, attached to the wall, a schematic for finding the center, replete with fastidiously documented photographs of the twists and turns one would encounter throughout the rest of his navigation.

I ask you my fellow labyrinthians, will we allow this to continue? Who will stand with me against the subversive, techno-labyrinthians who endeavor to do violence to the very essence of the labyrinth as we know and cherish it?"

Spirited words, indeed. While I sympathize with Oligreff on the lamentable abundance of subversive and misanthropic navigation in contemporary labyrinthology, I'm reticent to agree that a "rules of the game" is needed. Such a proposal is, to be sure, nothing if not prescriptive and, in a way, appears to run counter to the very essence of labyrinthology. I'm curious hear what any of you might think.

Rasmus Stowe: Selected Labyrinths 1957-1998

Stowe in Vienna, May 2000

For anyone familiar with the topography of 20th century labyrinthecture, Rasmus Stowe will be a well-known name. Born in Cape Canaveral, FL in 1923 to Danish-Canadian parents, Stowe designed and oversaw the construction of 19 ISCL accredited labyrinths between the years of 1957 and 1998, including some of the most revered and, in many cases, notoriously difficult labyrinthine works of our contemporary epoch.

Stowe's labyrinthecture falls very definitely within the realm of Gollestenian labyrinthology. His is a poetic labyrinth, with an emphasis on ambulation and a reverence for naturalism. Perhaps the most unifying trait in his body of work is his insistence on working with the materials most readily available to him in the region of construction. Tales abound in labyrinthectural circles about his refusal to import any raw materials when constructing his labyrinths. Moreover, whereas many labyrinthects in the wake of Molrey viewed labyrinth construction as a physical and abiding embodiment of the sublime/otherworldly/fantastical, Stowe's works remained resolutely in keeping with the embedded landscapes, both cultural and geographic, of his construction sites. For those unfamiliar with Stowe's body of work, here I present a few particularly inspired examples and a few interesting footnotes:

Laurel Grove Kudzu Labyrinth (1957-1960, USA)
Stowe's first labyrinth, built entirely from kudzu harvested from Savannah, Georgia and surrounding counties. Stowe received a grant from the Laurel Grove Citizens Board for proposing a project which would boost tourism in the region and provide a welcome reprieve from the rampantly growing kudzu that was otherwise being uprooted and burned. He reportedly used 215,000 tons of kudzu in the construction of the labyrinth.

Blue Nile Gorge Labyrinth (1968-1973, Ethiopia)
The Blue Nile Gorge labyrinth is the first aquatic labyrinth which Stowe designed. He received the ISCL Honneur du Labyrinthect award for the labyrinth in 1973, the result of scientific findings which show that the aquatic corridors provided safe haven to the critically endangered Spotted Necked Otter (Lutra maculicollis), a species which has since flourished and avoided what seemed to be certain extinction.

Guajira Penninsula Labyrinth (1982-1991, Columbia/Venezuela)
Perhaps Stowe's best known labyrinth. It is a hybrid aquatic/terrestrial labyrinth and, as a personal aside, it is without question the most difficult navigatory experience I've ever had. The labyrinth begins in the xeric shrubland of Columbia and covers an area of approx. 95.000 km2. The corridors become aquatic around the northeastern coast of Venezuela, near the foothills of the Macuira mountain range. The labyrinth's Great Room is above water and noted for its dense population of Caribbean flamingos which apparently favor its misty climes.

Schwarzwald Labyrinth (1993-1998, Germany)
Stowe's final completed labyrinth, designed largely in tribute to German philosopher Martin Heidegger who lived in the Black Forest where the labyrinth was constructed. Stowe found continued inspiration in Heidegger's writing, particularly his post-Sein und Zeit texts. The Schwarzwald Labyrinth is, without question, Stowe's most ruminative and convoluted labyrinth, mimicking the Heideggerian notion that thinking is akin to traveling along a darkened woodpath in which getting lost is as important as finding one's way.


Futher reading:

Brinkley, Joseph. Stowe's Contributions to Labyrinthecture. New York: Paragone Press, 1989.
Gallimard, Maurice. Couloirs Aquatiques. Paris: Editions Arceneaux, 2003.
Smallencroft, Bernhard. Rasmus Stowe. Chicago: Black Thicket, 2011.

An Alarming Appropriation

Dear Readers,

Please forgive the typography of this post. I am writing to you via Blackberry on my way to the Ribbon Reef Labyrinth in the atoll lagoons off the Western coast of Mauritania. And wish me luck: aquatic labyrinths are among the most challenging and perilous. I will share with you my navijournal when I return.

We labyrinthians at the CLP hold ourselves to the highest journalistic standards, and thus we always strive to eschew any editorialization in our threads. However, we must also uphold the integrity of the labyrinth, and therefore we believe it is our sacred duty to report any disquieting and undignified labyrinthine phenomena.

As many of you know, the best of this nation's college football squads have squared off in the various matches of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS).  Advertisers and corporate sponsors lacked no creativity this year in their commercial promotions of the BCS. Yet, one advertisement employed an outrageous conceit: linemen, in caricatured lust for victory, careering the corridors of labyrinths to tackle their ways to the center.  

Watch the video, if you can stomach this egregious appropriation:

We at the CLP avoid prescriptivism, but this promotion displays two sinister misrepresentations which we cannot condone. First, navigation is not a competitive activity. Certainly, navigation has its athletic demands, but congression is not a gladiatorial sport in which one "wins" or "defeats" an opponent. Second, centers do not present the navigator with any kind of trophy. Arrival is its own reward, and there is no prize or treasure awaiting the navigator.

Labyrinths can indeed serve as rich metaphors, but, fellow labyrinthians, we cannot tolerate such co-option. 

Gramont and "La ligne propre"

As I mentioned in my comment to John's thread below, naturalism and observational navigation are issues which are given sustained consideration in the thought of a wide range of modern and contemporary labyrinthians. In Aaldi's text, nature as such is subjected to the quantalogical reduction. Reede's interiorist skepticism, manifested most notably in the writings and lectures from the Tiranė period, often takes as its subject the sensible and corporeal experience of the natural labyrinth. As John intimated, it is in the labyrinthological project of Gollesten that naturalism is reclaimed from the critique of the Medialists.

I find Mathieu Gramont's naturalism to be particularly interesting due in part to the fact that much of his labyrinthology functions as what is essentially a deconstruction of modern labyrinthological theory at large. As our readers know, the recursivist movement, which Gramont initiated, denies both exteriorism and interiorism as appropriate methodologies for navigating and investigating labyrinths as such, advocating instead a labyrinthology in which navigation and ambulation are paramount. In a lecture from the spring of 1940, entitled "La ligne propre" ("The Clean Line"), Gramont articulates an aesthetics of observational navigation. The piece is contained in the French language collection of Gramont's letters and lectures published by Editions Arceneaux, unavailable in translation at present. This excerpt finds Gramont sympathizing with Gollesten, and calling for a new vocabulary with which to assess the aesthetics of the labyrinth. The translation is my own.

"By decisively avoiding the center and the perimeter alike, we bring about a state of affairs in which the structure of the corridors within the sensible labyrinth effectively becomes our horizon. Our eyes focused solely upon the expanse of the corridor, undeniable as Gollesten has shown, and irreducible to constancy as posited by Aaldi. The aesthetics of the post-Industrial labyrinth force us to approach naturalism within the labyrinth in the same manner posited by the exteriorists, though we dispute their fundamental teleologico-labyrinthology. As Gollesten points out, the structure of the labyrinth may only be assessed in the context of properly authentic navigation. But how may we consider the aesthetics of the corridor?

Labyrinthectural theory, bound and blocked from primordiality by its dependence on quantalogical notation, does not provide us with a suitable vocabulary for assessing the beauty of the labyrinth's form. Moreover, the teleological fallacies of post-Aaldian labyrinthology continue to exercise their insidious influence on the topography of contemporary labyrinthecture. Utility should never be the locus. A corridor should beckon us in manifold ways, entreating us always to ambulate. It is the task of the labyrinthian to assess the corridor, but not to explain it away. This is, as Gollesten points out, the crisis of observational navigation in modernity."