The Rime of The Ancyent Maryner

October 24 2018

Baked and Awake 57

Hunter's Moon Halloween Special

 

Intro and Disclaimer:  Baked and Awake is a show about Cannabis that is recorded in a legal region. You will encounter the use of cannabis as a member of the audience. Fortunately there is no second hand smoke. All content is presented by a responsible adult, and listeners should be the same. Take responsibility for your own actions, be safe and more importantly, smart- when listening to this podcast.  

 

Strain of The Week: AC/DC By Gold Line Concentrates, scooped at Have a Heart in Skyway WA, because it was beautiful and inexpensive, and we should all be dabbling (and dabbing on!) some high CBD strains.

 

NOTE: Next episode we will pick up where we left off on the Saga of Jesus, with an exploration of Joseph Atwill’s “Caesar’s Messiah” and a theory that  Jesus of Nazareth was a creation of the Roman State.

 

As scary as that notion is to some folks, and we’re not here to judge- This week, in celebration of the spookiest time of year, I thought we would change things up, and have a bit of good old fashioned storytime. For that true, vintage, horror vibe, we are reaching deep into the stacks of dusty old stories, to an era when a person could pen a 3800 word poem, and amidst its circumlocutions, enounce a tale of woe to last the ages. A story destined to become a legend, woven into the very fabric of reality in the form of memorable lines that live on as permanent memes of the english language, for who among us old enough to grow (wanted or unwanted) whiskers on our bodies does not know and has not wittily quipped once upon a thirsty but rainy hike, boat ride, etc- “Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink!”, probably to the hearty groans and eye rolls of any companions. Or, perhaps just as well known, yet equally obscure to most in its origins, the universal oath of a lamented but inescapable burden, or blame to be borne- “It’s an albatross around their neck”. These classic zingers and more are to be discovered today, as The Baked and Awake Show presents to you, faithful listener, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere”

 

A few points of interest about the author before diving in, that we may better appreciate them.

 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on October 21, 1772, almost 246 years ago to the day of this recording.  Happy Birthday, Mister Coleridge, may you rest in peace. Coleridge was British by birth, and had a fascination with and a desire to create and live in a reformed, communal lifestyle in the “New World”, whereby people would live under “Equal Governance by All” or a Pantisocracy, which took its inspiration from Coleridge’s affinity for Plato’s Republic. Coleridge never realized this dream, as his co-creators of the vision for the Pantisocracy eventually matured, and took their rightful places amongst the elite of British Society. Coleridge was well known to have had financial troubles all his life, living a lifestyle of an affluent Creative mostly at the expense of his family and friends. In other words, he was your typical starving artist in his time, though somewhat respected nonetheless, due to his obvious brilliance and prolific bibliography. Coleridge was close friends with and strongly influenced by the well known author William Wordsworth, under whose’ sphere of influence Coleridge’s writing style evolved from exuberant and light hearted, to the compelling voice that would eventually cement his place amongst the leaders of the European Romantic movement of his era.   Amongst his many works of poetry and fiction, Coleridge also penned a ten issue Progressive Political Journal in 1796 called “The Watchmen”. This of course reminds me of my recent episode where we discussed Conspiracy and Occult Disclosure in Comic Books and Movies,  available in the podcast RSS feed, and with an accompanying video presentation on my YouTube channel, where we mentioned The famous Comic Book from the 80’s of nearly the same name. A bit sadly for me, we come to know that Coleridge struggled with Opium addiction for his entire adult life, and though he sought treatment for it a number of times, he never was able to kick the habit.  One wonders if he had only had access to as much Cannabis hashish as Opium, perhaps he might have been able to free himself of the need for that powerful and somewhat consumptive (of its user) narcotic. It doesn’t take much imagination on the part of worldly readers of The Rime, to see the influence of Coleridge’s struggles with the drug within the lines of the poem, rich with language and symbolism of the classic tropes of sin and the consequences of our actions, judgement from on high of an omnipotent God, but also Karma, and the simple forgiveness of our fellow Man for what evils we have done. Finally, one more interesting work by Coleridge, for those of you for whom this episode sparks some interest in learning more about the man who gave us such a legendary story as The Rime- an unfinished but illuminating (as illuminating about the author itself, as in its inherent wisdom) essay entitled “Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life”, written later in the artist’s life and not published until 1848, a full fourteen years after his death on July 25th 1834. In addition to my reading of the story in full, I am including both a link to, and a downloadable mp3 of, a radio adaptation of The Rime, performed on an older radio show called The Hermit’s Cave and presented by a troupe called The Weird Circle that was a lot of fun to listen to.  I invite you all to listen to that version of the story as well, and decide for yourselves if the original work is superior, or is the interpretation of a modern Playwright perhaps more digestible to our ears today, for as you will soon hear, the language and poetry of Coleridge’s time was quite distinct from the present..

Steve’s Introduction: We join the tale of the Ancient Mariner with a young man, innocent of the accosting he is about to be subjected to- standing outside a wedding celebration, of which he is a close relative of the Groom himself. Our guest, taking in the evening air and dare we speculate, perhaps packing his pipe bowl- He prepares to enjoy a moment of quiet before joining the festivities in earnest.  Alas, the Celebrant’s reverie is soon interrupted by an approaching stranger, the wizened figure of an old, old, Man of the Seas..

PART ONE

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye--
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will...

SC… I hope you’ve enjoyed this reading of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a wonderful work of horror AND poetry that I hope is new to more than a few of you, as I believe it certainly deserves its place in the annals of the greatest stories ever told. One can’t help but notice, when reading these words from two centuries ago, that at the time, the written and especially the printed word represented what 4K HD TV’s do to us today- the absolute zenith of entertainment and educational technology!  Coleridge clearly crafts the words on the page in numerous places not simply to rhyme, but to make the reader smile, almost chuckle in the midst of the dismal events of the doomed mariner’s adventure, because of the at times hilarious visual gag on paper between two words. It’s completely lost in the spoken performance, and for that I sincerely apologize. One last observation that came to me unbidden, but which inspired a quick web search investigation that quickly revealed that indeed, this question has been asked and answered- but nonetheless I pose this to you, dear listener:

 

Was The Ancient Mariner who accosted the Wedding Guest a Zombie?  The answer is in today’s show notes, in the form of an insightful essay discovered at Wordsworth.org by  Rebekah Owens.

 

Alright returning friends and first time listeners, you have my thanks as always for joining me for another show.  You can find links to all the sources cited in the show notes, along with links to references for additional reading, and the radio adaptation of The Rime of The Ancient Mariner by The Weird Circle. As always, music for the podcast is generously provided by Antti Loude and various artists from the freemusicarchive.org. All artists and contributors receive detailed attribution in the show notes.

 

Producing the Baked and Awake podcast is like doing a book report every week or so and presenting them to the class.  If you love book reports but don’t have time to do them yourself, one awesome way to have the report you need worked on by Yours Truly is to support the show as a member of our Patreon community. Find me there and join the small but growing group of wonderful humans who, for as little as $1 per month are helping shape the future of the Baked and Awake Podcast! The address for the Patreon page is https://www.patreon.com/bakedandawakeshow, which as I verify this link and read it aloud into the mic, I realize I have been telling people WRONG pretty much the WHOLE TIME.

Y’all be good now, have a super Spooky but not too scary Halloween, and remember to smoke some indica, and trick or treat anyway..

 

MUSIC USED WITH PERMISSION AND GRATITUDE

Intro Dab Session Music generously provided by Antti Luode, as posted to reddit:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/6y699a/i_have_released_my_1363_songs_free_under_creative/

Selections from WITCHY, BATTY, SPOOKY, HALLOWEEN IN SEPTEMBER !! by Loyalty Freak Music is licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License, and can be found at the freemusicarchive.org

 

Selections from Pondering Waltzes by Dee Yan-Key is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License, and can be found at the freemusicarchive.org

 

String Quintet No. 10 "Solemn" by Dee Yan-Key is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License, and can be found at the freemusicarchive.org.

 

How The Night Came // by how the night came is licensed under a Attribution License, and can be found at the freemusicarchive.org

 

Dvorak - Serenade for Strings Op22 in E Major larghetto by Advent Chamber Orchestra is licensed under a Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

 

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