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The Ninth Maize
Sep. 10th, 2003 11:04 pmI've done a couple more posts on my blog, one about Worldcon and one mostly about other stuff. Still only up to Thursday night on my Worldcon thing, but hopefully I will scrape together enough gumption to actually get it done sometime this...month.
Tonight we went to a cornfield maze just outside of Edmonton. We went with Sharna and Nick, and Nicole's parents, and brought the kids. We had been worried it might be too wet, since it rained yesterday, but today was fairly sunny and warm(in an autumnal sort of way).
The maze itself was actually quite good. Cornstalks make a good maze wall, since they grow thickly together. The paths were fairly packed earth, a little damp but not muddy. We ended up mostly splitting up into two groups, one with Nick, Sharna and Simon and one with the rest of us.
The maze was divided into two phases, which both led back into the same clearing. There were supposed to be five signposts in each phase, and clue sheets provided to help you choose which way to go at each signpost, but we only managed to find two of the five signposts in Phase 1...and still made it safely, mostly by following the "always turn right" plan. Sharna, Nick & Simon got a little bit lost, I think; we left a note for them when we finished Phase 1.
Phase 2, we got a little lost, looping back around to the beginning. Probably that was because we took turns choosing a direction at random, and when we got back to the beginning we thought we must have missed another path. There was a sort of shortcut, or "overpass", a staircase leading up to a platform and then to another path, which we couldn't use because of Luke's stroller. Once we found the signposts, though, and followed the clues scrupulously, we had no trouble finding our way out.
Nick, Sharna & Simon had only done part of Phase 2, then backtracked out. I took a few minutes to do a writing assignment for this weekend's Cult of Pain meeting, which was a page of description. The cornfield maze seemed a perfect place to describe, and I managed to come up with a page of cramped writing in my journal, which I may have to retype before I try to read it. I think I need to rearrange a few sentences, anyway.
It was more fun than I thought it would be...but it was also an hour of walking. Good exercise, but my feet still haven't forgiven me for what I put them through in Toronto.
Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love" has been one of my favourite albums for a long time, and a while ago I hatched my own explanation for the concept demi-album "The Ninth Wave" on side two. (Back when albums had sides...)
It seemed mostly clear to me that it was about someone who was in a spacesuit, on the moon or in orbit, running out of air. "I Dream of Sheep" contains lines like "My face is all lit up"(from the helmet's internal lights, I guess), and "I tune into friendly voices, talking about stupid things"(listening to radio broadcasts from the planet below). "Under Ice" is hallucinatory, but seeing oneself "under ice" could be a nightmarish take on seeing your reflection in your faceplate. "Waking The Witch" is a nightmare of suffocation. "Watching You Without Me" and "Jig of Life" are a bit harder, but they seem like anoxia-induced out-of-body experiences. "Hello Earth" is a final moment of clarity, looking down on the Earth, and then "The Morning Fog" is a fantasy of return to life, which comes to a sudden end like "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge".
Unfortunately, to my chagrin, Kate has already explicated "The Ninth Wave" in a radio interview series...and it seems that she was just thinking of plain drowning. In fact, I remain unconvinced, because my theory makes more sense in a lot of ways, but then I may be biased. Still, it's a great piece of work.
Tonight we went to a cornfield maze just outside of Edmonton. We went with Sharna and Nick, and Nicole's parents, and brought the kids. We had been worried it might be too wet, since it rained yesterday, but today was fairly sunny and warm(in an autumnal sort of way).
The maze itself was actually quite good. Cornstalks make a good maze wall, since they grow thickly together. The paths were fairly packed earth, a little damp but not muddy. We ended up mostly splitting up into two groups, one with Nick, Sharna and Simon and one with the rest of us.
The maze was divided into two phases, which both led back into the same clearing. There were supposed to be five signposts in each phase, and clue sheets provided to help you choose which way to go at each signpost, but we only managed to find two of the five signposts in Phase 1...and still made it safely, mostly by following the "always turn right" plan. Sharna, Nick & Simon got a little bit lost, I think; we left a note for them when we finished Phase 1.
Phase 2, we got a little lost, looping back around to the beginning. Probably that was because we took turns choosing a direction at random, and when we got back to the beginning we thought we must have missed another path. There was a sort of shortcut, or "overpass", a staircase leading up to a platform and then to another path, which we couldn't use because of Luke's stroller. Once we found the signposts, though, and followed the clues scrupulously, we had no trouble finding our way out.
Nick, Sharna & Simon had only done part of Phase 2, then backtracked out. I took a few minutes to do a writing assignment for this weekend's Cult of Pain meeting, which was a page of description. The cornfield maze seemed a perfect place to describe, and I managed to come up with a page of cramped writing in my journal, which I may have to retype before I try to read it. I think I need to rearrange a few sentences, anyway.
It was more fun than I thought it would be...but it was also an hour of walking. Good exercise, but my feet still haven't forgiven me for what I put them through in Toronto.
Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love" has been one of my favourite albums for a long time, and a while ago I hatched my own explanation for the concept demi-album "The Ninth Wave" on side two. (Back when albums had sides...)
It seemed mostly clear to me that it was about someone who was in a spacesuit, on the moon or in orbit, running out of air. "I Dream of Sheep" contains lines like "My face is all lit up"(from the helmet's internal lights, I guess), and "I tune into friendly voices, talking about stupid things"(listening to radio broadcasts from the planet below). "Under Ice" is hallucinatory, but seeing oneself "under ice" could be a nightmarish take on seeing your reflection in your faceplate. "Waking The Witch" is a nightmare of suffocation. "Watching You Without Me" and "Jig of Life" are a bit harder, but they seem like anoxia-induced out-of-body experiences. "Hello Earth" is a final moment of clarity, looking down on the Earth, and then "The Morning Fog" is a fantasy of return to life, which comes to a sudden end like "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge".
Unfortunately, to my chagrin, Kate has already explicated "The Ninth Wave" in a radio interview series...and it seems that she was just thinking of plain drowning. In fact, I remain unconvinced, because my theory makes more sense in a lot of ways, but then I may be biased. Still, it's a great piece of work.
