Songs To Maze By - Room 27

In the hayday of my quest for new music, I acquired a white label CD with the sticker 52 Card Pick Up. It wasn't specified whether that was the artist or the EP name, but I promptly lost it years later. Not before backing it up though, so here are two of the elusive tracks from 52 Card Pick Up. Since Room 27 has a card themed riddle, it's only appropriate to add it to the curated collection we call SONGS TO MAZE BY.





BONUS TRACK
BIG SUGAR - DIGGIN A HOLE

Any Generation X or Generation Y (what they were called before 'millennial' kicked in) will remember the saturation of Canadian content (CanCon) on the likes of MuchMusic and CoolTV, with this little diddy from 1996 by Big Sugar, a bluesy rock band from Toronto. The heavily saturated CanCon over Canadian TV and radio probably contributed to Big Sugar's huge success in becoming one of the top 25 best-selling bands in the country, because I know they were never that popular, even in their home town. As far as singles are concerned, If I Had My Way is better song by a long stretch. Well, no matter, next time you're at the Horseshoe Tavern, play this on the jukebox or request it from whatever band is playing, and think of digging a hole in the Maze.

Maze and The Piano Story Book

A while ago, Vincent and I contributed to a Kickstarter campaign called the Piano Storybook, started by a guy who goes by Shnabubula, a name I seem unable to type without whispering it quietly to myself. (Try it: Shnabubula. Shnabubula. You won’t be able to stop.) The idea was that 100 people would each send an image or series of images to him, and he would improvise 100 piano songs inspired by the images.

Vincent sent Shnabubula a copy of MAZE and asked him to “improvise a song based on the images from the series of rooms you choose to move through. While it’s hypothetically possible to wander around the Maze indefinitely, unless you’re deliberately going in circles it won’t take long before your journey comes to an end.”

Supporters of the Piano Storybook had the option to request what kind of song they wanted (in terms of tempo, melodic style, etc) and Vincent made this request, after giving Shnabubula time to experience the book: “Ok, so by now I trust you’ve made your way to Room 24, to spend eternity in the infinite blackness with the Looney Tunes eyeballs. My specific request relates only to the end of the song, which reflects your experience ending up in this room. I’m a big fan of long songs with endings that just repeat over and over and over, much longer than intuition tells you they should. Hey Jude-type endings. The thing is, those are almost always jubilant songs with joyous music that slowly fades away. Here, I would like it if your improvisation ended with a more grim and menacing line, one that repeats an absurd number of times, and that grows in intensity and volume as it progresses instead of diminishing. How you actually end the song I don’t really know, but I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

Meanwhile, I sent in a hastily-thrown-together composite image of faces of MazeCasters and screenshots from the Abyss, together with a sappy but heartfelt letter with a description of the community and how it has evolved, and also how important it has been to me over the past few years.

Here’s what we got from Shnabubula:

“Vincent, I tried to follow the instructions in your text-file as closely as possible, it was quite a fascinating suggestion and one that I fully embraced.

“For your song, Sara, I decided to take a slightly meta-approach to the interpretation of your story in finding the Maze community, and turn it into a larger narrative arc relating to the Maze itself. I imagined a single person, lost in the Abyss for eternity, that is the end point of Vincent’s song, and then yours is a kind of sequel with that same person, first in a position of isolation, eventually within that darkness finds this community. There are still the undertones of darkness on the fringes and there is even a specific moment meant to represent when people had become disillusioned with some of the solutions. At 15:19 of the video I’m sending you two, the motif from Vincent’s Abyss ‘Hey Jude’ finale is briefly recalled to represent that, but then it leads to the final portion which is still, this beautiful community forming around this strange mysterious thing.”

The full Piano Storybook will be released soon, but meanwhile Shnabubula gave me permission to share this video he made with the two MAZE songs. Hope you enjoy!

Teaser: There’s more to this story. Inspired by his experience with MAZE, Shnabubula created a musical puzzle! Details to come with the public release.

Songs to Maze By - Room 24 (GAME OVER)

This is the end, beautiful friends.* The final puzzle point has been awarded; no further Cluemasters will be crowned. In light of White Raven's recent announcement that the gamification of MAZE on Into the Abyss is now at an end, it seemed fitting to do a playlist for MAZE's Game Over room-the Abyss itself, Room 24.



"One of Us" by Technical Itch
Alex posted this one in the public chat the other day and said it was perfect for Room 24-and it is! It won't take you long to figure out why...



"The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel
"Hello darkness my old friend..."



"These Eyes" by The Guess Who
Here's your government-mandated CanCon.



"The End" by The Doors
The Doors - Get it? Get it!? (Yes, it is nearly 12 minutes long, but you're stuck in the Abyss forever so QUIT COMPLAINING!!!)



"The End of the World as We Know It" by REM

As a generally cheerful person, I find I cannot end even the Room 24 playlist on a depressing note. So here for you is the most cheerful** of apocalypse songs. For me this song has particular meaning and since we're stuck here together in the dark, I'll tell you why. At university I belonged to a group that did sketch comedy interspersed with songs. We had a live band and performed in one of the campus pubs. I'm old, so this was near the dawn of the Internet, and the miracle of being able to find lyrics to any song at the click of a mouse had not yet occurred. Therefore, if the lyrics weren't on the liner notes, somebody had to listen to and write out the words to any song we wanted to do-or just make up new words, which is what often happened. But not in the case of this song, which was to be the big finale, since nobody wanted the job of writing new words for all those lyrics. So it transpired that five of us, including the musical director, were crammed in somebody's car on the way back to school from Toronto, listening to this song over and over and desperately trying to figure out what the fuck they were saying. Much of what we wrote down was total gibberish, but everyone dutifully learned and sang it. (Fortunately the audience-along with the performers-were usually pretty drunk by the end of the show, so nobody cared that it made no sense.) These days, of course, you are spared this kind of trouble thanks to the aforementioned miracle, although the published lyrics don't make much sense either. Some sample comparisons:

Internet: "Don't misserve your own needs" vs. What we thought: "Dummy, serve your own needs"
Internet: "Feed it up a knock, feed, grunt, no strength" vs. What we thought: "Speed it up a notch, Pete: front row seat"
Internet: "You vitriolic patriotic slam fight bright light" vs. What we thought: "You vitriolic patriotic slam butt fight, like"

To this day I can sing that whole song with the lyrics we wrote down, even a few beers into the evening.

Anyway, thanks for listening-so nice to have a captive audience. And now, "It's time I had some time alone..." BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA



*Some would have you believe that it's not really the end but only the beginning of a BRAVE NEW ERA OF MAZE. Hope springs eternal! **For an even more cheerful (and even faster!) rendition, check out this CanCon cover by Great Big Sea.

Songs to Maze By - Room 23

How about this heat, eh? Baseball, sunshine, thunderstorms-if there's a summer room in MAZE, then Room 23 is it. Here's your playlist!



"I'll Follow the Sun" by the Beatles
Let's start with the blindingly obvious. The correct door to take in here is the Room 8 door, which is bathed in sunlight and has a picture of the glowing sun over the door. If you're on the Path, you've just come from 45, and day follows night, so on you go, and who better to accompany you than these fellows.



"Follow the Sun" by Xavier Rudd
As an alternative, here's a rather lovely little sun-following song I found when looking for the Beatles tune. To be honest, it's a bit earnest-Australian-surfer-dude for me, but the lyrics have birds, so it's Mazey enough to warrant inclusion.



"Look Over Your Shoulder" by Kwabs
The second half of the 16-step path spells out "shoulders." (Not without controversy!) Room 23 has the "O" from the scroll but also has the word in the text: the Guide says, "... looking over my shoulder, which is not easy to do." Meaning the Guide is tall, I guess? I have an overly complicated theory about the Pleiades being on the shoulder of the constellation Taurus, but never mind that. The point is, we need a shoulder song. The first one that sprang to mind was Canadian Paul Anka's "Put Your Head on My Shoulder," and there is something appealing and kind of creepy about imagining that scratchy record being played on repeat in here, but in the end I went with this tune. I love this guy's voice and the ominous feel that comes from that buzzing bass line. "Better stay out of the shadows when you wander far from home" is a pretty good line for Room 23, dontcha think? And this line is highly appropriate for MAZE in general: "It will creep into your head and it will never let you go." (You can also listen to an alternative, stripped-down version here.)



"Centerfield" by John Fogerty
Although Room 45 is identified as the centre of the Maze, Room 23 marks the midpoint of your journey on the 16-step path, making Fogerty's baseball classic doubly suitable for Room 23.



"Moses Supposes (his Toeses are Roses)" with Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor
To finish this room off, let's check off the stone tablets and that random foot picture with this jaunty number from Singin' in the Rain. Be sure to watch for the doors at 1:50. And try to imagine that instead of that final long "A" sound the boys are helpfully singing "EEEEEEIIIIIIGHHHHHHTT!"



Bonus CanCon Track: "Hard Sun" by Indio
This is actually the song that got me thinking about sun songs. I was in the car with a friend of mine who knows a lot about music, and the Eddie Vedder cover of "Hard Sun" came on the radio. I had never heard that version and was surprised when my friend said he didn't realize that the song was not Vedder's own. The original is by Indio, the stage name of a Canadian called Gordon Peterson, who recorded it as part of his one and only album, Big Harvest, in 1989, which was critically acclaimed but didn't do much commercially. Peterson disappeared from the scene shortly after releasing the album. Twenty years later, Vedder did his cover for the film Into the Wild, reviving the song and introducing it to new audiences, which led to the reissue of Big Harvest. Unfortunately, the cover also got Vedder in hot water with Gordon Peterson - although the label gave permission for Vedder to cover the song they never talked to Peterson about it. Peterson was upset about this and about some lyric changes, so he sued Vedder. (He lost.) It's all kind of depressing but the song itself remains a glorious thing.



"Walking on Broken Glass" by Annie Lennox
Update 2016-11-16: I heard this song on the radio yesterday and could not believe I had omitted it from this playlist. It's perfect for obvious reasons and the video is an over-the-top treat complete with pre-House Hugh Laurie and John Malkovich hamming it up Dangerous Liaisons–style.

The sun's still shining in the big blue sky
But it don't mean nothing to me
Oh let the rain come down
Let the wind blow through me
I'm living in an empty room
With all the windows smashed
And I've got so little left to lose
That it feels just like I'm walking on broken glass

Songs to Maze By - Room 21

We just finished solving a White Raven hint for Room 21 and the answer was "turn around." I'm still not sure what I think about the solution, but the room playlist now practically writes itself! Here are my picks to accompany your musings on Room 21, in no particular order:



"Turn the Beak Beat Around", Gloria Estefan cover Sorry, sorry, sorry. It was impossible for me to resist. I chose the Gloria Estefan cover, mostly for the awesome skyscraper-top jazz flute action, not to mention the appearance of SLY, but the original, performed by Vicky Sue Robinson, is here for the purists.



"Anywhere Is" by Enya
I'm just going to say it: I like Enya. Okay? Happy? I do. I listened to my Watermark CD on infinite repeat in university during all-nighters and it kept me alert yet calm without distracting me from what I was doing. Usually I can't work to music that has words but the great thing about Enya is that most of the time you cannot tell what the fuck she is saying. Her voice is like some new-agey woodwind that makes lovely sounds that occasionally resemble words. It's so soothing. You can pick out the odd word, however, and as I was getting through some work recently with "Anywhere Is" on in the background the word "turn" popped out at me a few times. I checked out the lyrics, and wouldn't you know it, they are very Mazey! Just take the first few lines: "I walk the maze of moments/ But everywhere I turn to/ Begins a new beginning/ But never finds a finish..." Take a look at the final verse-it fits Room 21 like it was written for it.

It's worth mentioning that Enya lives in a castle named Manderley, heavily fortified to protect her from crazy stalkers such as the superfan who stabbed himself outside a pub owned by her parents while wearing a picture of her around his neck. Her castle is possibly very Mazey inside but we will never know. She is obsessive about her privacy and prefers to let her work speak (sing, I guess) for itself - sound familiar?



"Over Under Sideways Down" by the Yardbirds
It's a YARD, see, and there's this BIRD...
Yes, there's more to my recommendation than that-I do also feel that the title and chorus are appropriate for a visitor stuck in the Loop: "Over under sideways down,/ Backwards forwards square and round./ When will it end, when will it end./ When will it end, when will it end." This thing is weird, groovy, psychedelic-enjoy!



"Turn! Turn! Turn!" by the Byrds (written by Pete Seeger and King Solomon) Again, my apologies for my inability to resist these bad jokes. Great song, though.



"Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler

TURN AROUND, BRIIIIIIIIGHT EYES! Any time I hear the phrase "turn around" this song belts its way into my head and stays there for days, but I don't mind-it brings back very fond memories. If you haven't howled this classic into a karaoke mic at 2 am then you haven't lived, in my opinion. Although I am intimately familiar with the song, I had never seen the video before watching it for this post, and by Manson if it isn't Mazey in the extreme. A big house with mysterious doors! White birds! Shirtless men with swim goggles! Possessed choirboys with glowing eyes...?Dancing ninjas?!? Okay, it's basically a surreal mess, but it's a fun ride.

Songs to Maze By - The Guide

In a departure from my usual practice of providing you with a soundtrack for a room or area in the Maze, this month's playlist is dedicated to the Guide.



"Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones

"Pleased to meet you/ Hope you guess my name/ But what's puzzling you/ Is the nature of my game." I could pretty much stop here, right? Trying to work out the identity of the Guide is one of the more absorbing puzzles that MAZE has to offer. Right from the get-go the Guide himself sets up the mystery: "Preoccupied with their own thoughts, impatient, like so many children, they didn't see who I really was." From there the question is implied again and again throughout the book as the Guide drops hints about his past and makes oblique comments about his own appearance, and a torn sign in the Trap has a hole where his name should be: who is the Guide?



"Who Are You?" by The Who

If only we had a microscopic hair sample, or a smear of spittle, or a blurry still from a security video that we could blow up with impossibly good resolution...!



"Strange Animal," by Gowan

Well, we now know for certain, of course, that the Guide is the Minotaur, as most MAZE fanatics have long suspected. It was fun to toss around other candidates like Minos or Theseus or the Devil, but nobody else fit all the clues so well. (More on that in future posts.) The Guide is winking very broadly when he says, "... in a very real way we are all of us animals, at least in part." I mean, who else is this clue going to be referencing? Mr Tumnus?



"Liar, Liar," by the Castaways

One of the more interesting bits of information that we got from an Ask Manson was that the Guide's statements are never completely truthful. It was difficult to pick a song about lies because there are so many good ones out there - Fleetwood Mac's "Little Lies," or the Knickerbockers' "Lies," for example - but in the end, I had to go with this one. The schoolyard chant of "liar, liar, pants on fire" seems a suitable response to the Guide's condescending attitude towards his visitors, whom he often refers to as children although they seem not to be - and even though he more often seems like the childish one, with his little tantrums and snits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gjx-ZQuQ_Y

"Follow Me," by Uncle Kracker

Sometimes in making these playlists I learn something new about a familiar song. For example, I had no idea that this song, which seems to be a sweet and simple love song if you're not paying attention, is actually about an arrogant jerk who likes to sleep with married women. Huh. Also, "Uncle Kracker"?! On the subject of sex, that's something that is largely absent from MAZE. The Minotaur has been used as a metaphor for animalistic or violent male lust (see, e.g., Picasso's Minotaur prints), but aside from a bit of mild flirtation with the Thoughtful One in Room 19, this Minotaur is really more interested in insulting and confusing his guests, with the goal of trapping them forever in Room 24, than in having sex with them. Or in eating them, for that matter! Which has always bothered me a little. Eternal entrapment seems a strangely bloodless end for a famously voracious monster to arrange for his victims...



"Lead Me On" by Teena Marie

Gotta be honest, including this track is pure self-indulgence. Ah, those pre-teen memories of listening to the Top Gun soundtrack over and over while fantasizing about Iceman. (Yes, pillow-kissing may have been involved.) On a related tangent: didja ever hear about that time when someone was plastering Val Kilmer's face and name all over Toronto?



"Your Daddy Don't Know" by Toronto
"... What your mama's gonna do tonight!" Speaking of Toronto, here's some CanCon and a shout-out to the Guide's family. Neither of the Minotaur's two daddies, Minos and the white bull, knew what his mama, Queen Pasiphaë, was going to do that night when she got up to her ill-fated shenanigans. I blame you, Daedalus! When a cursed woman asks you to build her a cow costume so she can fuck a bull, YOU SAY NO.



"Centuries" Fall Out Boy
In Room 16, an ancient-looking stone chamber, the Guide muses that he is reminded of his old neighbours, whose descendants "are still telling stories about me and my family to their children," a notoriety that he calls "immortality of a sort." In a similar spirit, this anthem blusters, "Some legends are told/ Some turn to dust or to gold/ But you will remember me / Remember me for centuries." It is a very silly song with a very silly video but I enjoy them both quite a lot.



"Minotaur's Song" Incredible String Band

The Incredible String Band is a Scottish psychedelic folk group, and this is their Minotaur song, which includes such magnificent lines as: "I can't dream well because of my horns" and "His habits are predicta-bull / Aggressively relia-bull bull bull..."



"Mini Mini Taur Taur" Tobuscus

If you listen to this, it will become an earworm that will torment you for the rest of your life, especially when you are trying to work or sleep. Don't say I didn't warn you.

http://soundcloud.com/chillygonzales/myth-me

"Myth Me" Chilly Gonzales

"Are you still with me? / You're gonna myth me..." We close on a wistful note with a lisping pun. The Guide puts up a good front, but perhaps all that sneering pride is just to hide the terrible loneliness of an eternity in the Maze with only occasional doomed visitors, an elusive man in formalwear, and a bunch of birds for company.

More Musical Maziness from Hello Gregor

I came up with some MAZE-y song titles and Greg made the songs to go with them. ("Horns and Strings" is actually doing double duty as an anti-mathematics song, requested by another one of Greg's Patrons.) As usual, his wonderful lyrics are surreal but also full of concrete details, creating a response that shifts between recognition and bewilderment and evoking emotions you can't quite place. It's hard to pick a favourite song among these. Do you connect most with the frenetic strangeness of "That's the Trick" or the wistful nostalgia of "Sinking Gratefully Down"? The alterna-folk call-and-response of "Horns and Strings" or the driving fierceness of "Too Many Animals"? Hope you enjoy these as much as I do.



In the end when the doves are done flying and the stream of dinners and dying are done and we're lying here. Will there be time to make a phone call? After the war is done again?

What can we give each other but a break from all this running around?

Or will there still be too many animals for the crowd?

Recall when we heard the jailed men whisper. So we filled our houses with smoke and pulled their teeth out one by one with a shepherd's cane.

Their sour gums suckled still-smacking sounds we hoped would perish. So we forced a thumb straight down the throat and tickled a ride to the closest exit; encouraged them onward through the mook. Then, stood back shaking our heads at the sorry state they're in.

Those wolves, they make great customers; so long as they're occasionally reaching.
A paw for a quarter. A claw for a dollar at some unnecessary door.
A chair to sit in and some kind of answer before the ceiling runs afoul.

Will there still be too many crickets to let this house stay silent?
Will there still be too many animals to end the war?
Will there still be too many animals after the war?



Between human and mouse, whose nose serves them better? Whose ears hear the thunder? Whose tongue savors butter?

Whose eyes rest on that golden pillow melting softly as the sun opens its eye.

The package says it's salted. Surprise! It was rancid the whole time.
Mind your manners. Practice what you preach. Behold! A kid!
They say a goat can chew a tin can cuz it pretends it's iceberg lettuce served as a free side for lunch.
"It is salad," says the menu...
... and there's a sandwich coming. On a bun. In a carriage, maybe. With all the trappings.

While waiting, why not indulge? Look up-see that star? It's a breeze. It doesn't whisper. That shine is speaking soundly. It's probably made of gold. Put it down or risk a sliver.

Now you're married.
Now it was chocolate the whole time.
See that foil fleck off?

Imagine a miniature wonderland of those bugs gazing in wonder at a world of pink glittering snow. We could put them in a globe with all that rust to preserve this moment forever. Just a shake. Just a flick of the wrist.



A horn is a blow-hole, a path tapered and maybe twisting into a start of a kiss, a thought expressed and an end; a sound to get there A singular sound, sonorous or bleating, begging attention to be paid to itself and, in the end, the listener knows what that means.

Around that sound some songs sing to each other, creeping in and out of doors in conversation with textures of trees and furs and silt
Around that sound like mud or swelling air a battle of colors ease together into a corpulent dawn or sunset

The trumpet brings freedom from swampy shackles uncertain-its call is the brightest star to summon home from far away
The tuba holds us up to keep walking toward an illuminated goal
And when we arrive we are known by the cornet's drone

Around that sound these words are a burden no donkey can carry unless it's dead because that would certainly be true unless it's a corpse baking on a rock, an altar to maggots that will certainly live on.
Is this then the house where all within it are living despite these dust-touched unblinking eyes?
Does the journey end when the hooves stop moving or is that corpse one more curtain for the next surprise?

The horn says you have nothing to say unless you're saying something
For the world that's not words, what can you say about that?

Team spirit? No. Multiplication? No. A gentle fog in a German submarine? If you want.



There are flowers in these trees and the birds are singing tweet-tweet and it's raining sometimes to bring out the green. It's here we start our journey dressed for the cold that's coming.

Here's your hat, then. Here's your napkin. There's sure to be meals where we're going. Here's your basket, an empty flask, and a pound of unmelted butter-in case we run into some bread.

The sun is majestic and we're taking on sweat. Bead by bead, step by step. None of us cares because the day is enormous enough for the laughter to fill in. Enough for this pasture we're in. Enough for a lifetime. Enough for these leaves that keep clogging our socks to speechify crunching as we're trying to talk. Children keep interrupting. I hope you heard what I said.

This coat is too heavy, but I'm sick of the cold. This place once had a river behind where they put the mall. Do we remember the past?

We got where we're going or at least we are where we are; staggering bags of extinguished fire. Some smoke escapes our lips that hang limp and you're trying to smile for all of that. Do we remember the past? And though we both know it'll all fall to pieces, we still sink gratefully down.

Songs To Maze By - Room 4

Room 4 is a tricky one to pin down-there is a lot going on here both in the images and in the text. It's unique, because it's the only room on the Path that you have to visit twice-once on the way in, and once on the way out. If you look at one of the maps of the Path here on Mazecast or on the Abyss, you'll see that 4 is the central point in the infinity/figure-eight shaped route. Like most of the Path rooms, Room 4 is rated 5-stars on the Abyss, which means that all of the White Raven–endorsed solutions have been discovered* and are listed on the Room 4 page, so you can go check them out there.

Because this room is so jam-packed, I decided to build the Room 4 playlist based on several categories of solutions and room items:



Unfinished Business

The overall theme of Room 4 is "unfinished business": things that have been started but not completed-or more specifically, things done once that need to be done again (e.g., the half-split log, the two nails half-nailed in). These things hint that Room 4 is a place you need to enter twice, so you're only half-done with the room when you leave for the first time.

One unexpected bonus of doing these playlists is finding new songs that I like just from Googling relevant keywords. "Unfinished Business" by White Lies is one of these. The lyrics are wonderfully spooky-the song is about a ghost singing to his lover and realizing that she has killed him. There are a few generally Mazey references-scissors, an hourglass-but it's the title and feel of the song that sold me on this one. (Mumford & Sons does a cover of the song, and there's quite the debate on youtube about which one is better. You decide!)



Do it Again by Steely Dan. Because I couldn't not.

Note 1: It is surprisingly hard to find the album version of this song online. It took listening to the whole (longish) intro to realize that this one was decidedly not it.

Note 2: Check out the album cover! It's sort of like an X-rated version of the right side of Room 4, no?

Axe and Logs

To me, the axe and logs are the most significant elements of the room, both in their visual impact and their meaning. Despite the cluttered table in the foreground and the glowing sun above the door to 11, the eye always goes first to that chopping block, I find-perhaps because it's a particularly odd setup to have in a grand hall.

There are several puzzle purposes being served here: the axe head and handle indicate the correct doors and their order; the implied action gives you "split" (one of the "it" words); three of the logs may together spell out "it" if you squint and rotate the book just so; and the half-split log gives you one of the instances of unfinished business in this room. Not only that, but the guests hear the sound of chopping from 39, giving you a hint that you have to go back to 4-if you're on the 16-step Path, you've already seen the axe, and you know that's where the sound is coming from.

I'll admit there is also a personal connection here. Have you ever split logs with an axe? We have a wood-burning stove at my parents' cottage and I've performed that chore many times. Although I've never gotten very good at it, I do enjoy it. The axe is such a basic tool, and very old of course, but it's remained pretty much the same through millennia for a reason: it works really, really well. There is something a little bit intoxicating about having the power to split such a strong, solid object as a log, and it's a rush when you hit the log just right and the pieces literally fly apart. You can feel the axe's lethality every time you wield it-this is not a tool to be taken lightly. One wrong move and you're limping like Jack Torrance running after Danny through the hedge maze-or else it's straight to Room 24 for an unlucky onlooker.

There doesn't seem to be much information online about Pete Seeger's "Wood Chopping Song," but I gather it's a folk tune meant to be sung as you split, in order to keep your rhythm going. I like the way you can hear Seeger's breath coming more and more heavily until by the end of the song he is panting. I also enjoy the steady chopping sounds that are the only accompaniment to the vocal, aside from the occasional thunk of split logs falling to the ground. I can't make out all of the lyrics, despite the fact that it's just a few lines being repeated over and over, but there's definitely something in there about facing the RISING SUN, and also something about "cross the water," which makes me think of the river Styx (more on that below.)

Foolish Face

Speaking of that rising sun. The Guide refers to a foolish face, and tells the visitors they should "pay no attention." It seems pretty clear that he's referring to the sun image over 11, and in this case his advice is sound if you want to avoid the Trap. (I have a far-fetched minotaur-related theory that if you ignore the sun you're left with stars and II, giving you Asterion II.)

"House of the Rising Sun" is an obvious pick here, and although the lyrics are not particularly apt for the room, I like the fact that the whole song is a warning, which does make sense for the door to 11. Really, I just love the feel of this song-that electric guitar! that organ! that raw vocal! It somehow manages to evoke despair, dissolution, and divinity, all at the same time. (Possibly best enjoyed with your eyes closed-this video of the Animals with their tidy, matching suits and stiffly choreographed movements just does not jibe with the wild music you hear. Although when Eric Burdon sings directly at the camera, it's all there in his intense, knowing, probably-under-the-influence-of something gaze.)



Bonus Track: River Styx

I just had to include "River Below" by Canadian rockers Billy Talent, because its title seems to obliquely refer to the river Styx, which is also obliquely referred to in Room 4. (Did the visitors give up their coins to Charon, ferryman of the underworld?) Come to think of it, the collision of "river below" (Styx, Greek mythology) and "running from the inferno" (Dante's vision of Hell) in the lyrics is pretty Mazey, too. Enjoy...

As I mentioned in the Songs to Maze By for Room 13, if you disagree or have ideas to add, feel free to comment!

* Curiously, the appearance of a small black cat mentioned in the text doesn't appear anywhere in the posted solutions on the Abyss. This means either that WR doesn't have a use for it or that it's something to do with the Guide, but the latter seems unlikely. The cat incident takes up the third paragraph of the text, which also happens to be the largest paragraph on the page. So it is strange that we don't have an explanation for it yet in a 5-star room! Some of us were talking about the cat being a link to Room 39, the Poe room, from which you enter Room 4 for the second time. (The door is unmarked.) Poe wrote a story called "The Black Cat," but the cat was large in that story. However, I don't think that's necessarily a deal breaker. And the word "fortunate" is used here in Room 4, which could connect back to Fortunato, walled up in Room 39.

Songs To Maze By - Room 13

(the date is Friday, November 13 when this post was made! -sp)

What better day to reflect on Room 13 than Friday the 13th? In this recurring feature, Songs to Maze By, I'm going to visit each room to propose a brief playlist for your listening pleasure while stuck in various rooms in the Maze. This room seems an appropriate place to start - I have a special fondness for it, the Room 13 Mazecast being the first episode I appeared in.

Here's how this will work. I'll think about the room in terms of its visuals, text, associated solutions, and overall theme. Then I'll pick three or four songs that seem to fit based on the appropriateness of title, feel, lyrics, and/or video. The more connections the better. The choices, of course, will be highly subjective and personal, based on my own musical taste and experience. Many of you will disagree violently with my choices, I am sure - and if you do, feel free to post your alternative picks in the comments.

This room, as of posting, is sitting at "mostly solved" on the Abyss. I won't get into the details, but the solutions have to do with time, addition, light and shadow, and filmmaking. With the clock, sundial, and list of time increments all being prominent features, a dominant theme seems to be the passage of time. As well, the text makes reference to the association of the number 13, and Friday the 13th in particular, with superstition and bad luck.

A lot of songs spring immediately to mind, based mainly on their titles. One of them is "Add It Up," by the Violent Femmes. Much as I love this potty-mouthed rock song, and I love it VERY much, the link really comes only from the title of the song to a room solution (and not a well-loved solution at that) - it's just too weak a connection. I mean, there IS mention of "luck" in the lyrics, but the word is only there to rhyme with ... er ... another word, rather than having much meaning in the song.

"Superstition" by Stevie Wonder is tempting, and it's an incredible song, of course, but to me it just seems too boppy and upbeat to be right for the Maze. I discovered the song "Thirteen" by Big Star when researching this post, and it's a lovely song, but the lyrics don't connect much to the room other than, I guess, obliquely to time by evoking nostalgia for adolescence.

Now for the songs I do recommend for your Room 13 playlist:



4. "Time after Time," Cyndi Lauper

Of the Maze era - it was released not long before the book came out - this beautiful ballad is full of love and heartache, and of course, references to time, but also features some very Mazey lyrics. How about "caught up in circles, confusion is nothing new"? Perfect for someone stuck in the Loop. And what about: "the second hand unwinds"? Fits perfectly for Room 13, in which the second is notable for its absence from the list of time increments. And with a slight shift of perspective, the heartfelt chorus can become an ominous chant from the Guide: "If you're lost you can look and you will find me / Time after time." I sometimes sing this song to my kids at bedtime; no wonder they get nightmares!



3. "Time," Pink Floyd

This one is a no-brainer. I could quote much of the lyric and find a way to apply it to Maze and Room 13, but here's a particularly apt section: "And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking / Racing around to come up behind you again / The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older / Shorter of breath and one day closer to death." The skeleton clock, sundial, and hourglass in 13 seem to be saying the same thing. Earlier, there's a shout-out to the Guide: "... Waiting for someone or something to show you the way." Pink Floyd is just Mazey through and through, as 515 on the Abyss would probably tell you, and I expect you'll see more of them on future playlists.



2. "Time in a Bottle," written by Jim Croce, performed by Jim Henson

I first encountered this haunting song as a sketch on The Muppet Show and it has stayed with me ever since. Through Henson's emotional vocals and puppetry the plaintive love song becomes a meditation on the alchemical yearning to capture eternal youth and the impossibility of doing so, the ability to save time in a bottle being the opposite of the true nature of time: an inexorable fall of sand through Room 13's hourglass.

Jim Henson is right up there on my list of people, living or dead, with whom I'd want to have lunch, given that particular wish. I feel like if he ever got a chance to look at Maze he probably dug it. Many of us who were fortunate enough to be kids while he was producing his magical movies and TV shows have loving memories of seeing Labyrinth on the big screen - a movie in which the setting itself, a massive and multi-landscaped maze, arguably stole the show from David Bowie in tights - no small feat. (As a side note, according to White Raven, Manson's publishers pushed him to name his book Maze instead of Labyrinth, his preferred title, to avoid confusion with the movie, which came out at around the same time.)

Finally, although no bottles appear in Room 13, they are one of the repeating objects in Maze, appearing in the Prologue, Room 1, Room 29, Room 37, and Room 39.



1. "Bad Luck," Royal City

The title is perfect for Room 13, but there's a lot more to it than that. The lyrics of this song, by Toronto band Royal City (active 1999–2004), seem eminently suitable for the Maze in general, especially "Bad luck you are a terrible laughing god" - a perfect description of the malevolent Guide and his bellowing laughter. One reviewer said Royal City's lyrics possessed a "dark mystifying surrealism," which seems to describe Maze equally well. The sound possesses elements of folk, country, alt-rock, and even punk, producing a slightly jarring, disquieting, yet urgent feel that fits well with the experience of navigating Maze.

The stop-motion animation video is sweet yet creepy, and has a kind of "Frankenstein/Pet Sematary with dolls" vibe, with perhaps a whiff of Persephone. I don't want to brag, but my lovely and talented sister made the teddy bear protagonist. (Echoes of the Room 2 bear?) Her friend Brad Peyton, who made the video, has since gone on to direct increasingly noisy and expensive films in Hollywood, most recently the disaster flick San Andreas. Thus also connecting this song with the movie/director theme in Room 13.

Just one last connection before I go, but it's a goodie: one of Royal City's former band members, Nathan Lawr, went on to form his own band, which is called - wait for it - Minotaurs.