Regarding Labyrinths

Commonly held opinion states that the labyrinth with the Minotaur of ancient Greek literature was located in the basement of Midas's palace on the island of Crete.

            While on a visit to Turkey, I visited the ancient site of Catahuyuk located in the central Ankara plain. It's the oldest city ever excavated; architecturally one step from the cave. A Hittite city. The city itself was a walled fortress.

           The walls were enclosures for rooms. Rooms adjoining rooms. No streets. Entry into the town was through a room, and any invaders had to conquer each room separately. There were no open spaces- no streets; no squares. Labyrinthine rooms. In the excavations they discovered that approximately every fourth room was a sacred space dedicated to the worship of a bull. These people, as they migrated, were the people who settled many of the islands in the Mediterranean Sea subsequently shared with the Greeks.

           I realized that the descriptions of the labyrinth were poetic accounts of Catahuyuk. Visitors and people from the countryside, those who would emigrate, would easily have seen the town as a labyrinth. There is also no reason to think that they would not have poetically seen the bull as being more than a spiritual protector.

            Attitudes grow into myth, just as attitudes toward Manhattan grow in the minds of visitors and people who only know about the city. These became legends of the city as labyrinth with the Minotaur. Those legends and stories readily become intertwined with other myths and stories as time progressed.

Bob Dombrowski, the old cuss, wrote the above

The plan of the labyrinth used at the heart of this site lies inside the stone walls underneath the castle in Buda. The fanciful names given to the various underground rooms and passageways - Historical Lab, Stoneage Lab, World Axis, and Beyond Lab - do not reveal what went on there in the past. I have renamed them to suit my purposes. I have yet to find a source that explains the role that fantastic underground maze might have played in Hungary in the past.

Here in any case are a few places to begin reading about labyrinths.

http://labirintus.com.hu

http://www.utveszto.hu/magyar.html

Listening to Julito

http://www.juliocortazar.com.ar

Much assistance subsequent to the original inspiration for Ravers, Gods and Diligents came from Julio Cortazer's marvellous Cronopios and Famas. The text at the start of the site can be considered an extended homage to the great Argentine fabulator.

What counts and what I have tried to recount is the affirmative sign that stands face to face with the rising steps of disdain and fear, and that affirmation must be the most solar and the most vital part of man: his playful and erotic thirst, his freedom from taboos, his demand for a dignity shared by everyone in a land free at last of that daily horizon of fangs and dollars. Julio Cortazar

...Shall I tell you the story of my encounter with Cortazar? Perhaps I will. But you have to ask. jg

They Lift and Carry, and Dance

Good religion, bad religion. "The Holy Contours of Life." (Discuss.)

For more information on the Giglio in America and Nola, Italy

www.giglio-usa.org

http://www.olmcfeast.com

Inspiration

You are angry and hungry and alive. What I value in you is your intensity. I want to make portraits as intense as people. I want your intensity to pass into me, go through the camera and become a recognition to a stranger. Richard Avedon

The difficult art of portraiture is even more arduous when the model is beautiful. Erwin Blumenfeld

Bob Parent