WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.500 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.500 --> 00:00:04.380 align:middle line:84% So we spend our days, as you probably do-- as I do, 00:00:04.380 --> 00:00:08.310 align:middle line:84% at least-- if you spend any time online, click, click, click, 00:00:08.310 --> 00:00:10.680 align:middle line:90% click, click, click. 00:00:10.680 --> 00:00:14.280 align:middle line:84% Click one thing-- and this is a Michael Ayrton image, too, 00:00:14.280 --> 00:00:16.350 align:middle line:90% which maybe I'll come back to. 00:00:16.350 --> 00:00:19.200 align:middle line:84% You can see in the center-- there's 00:00:19.200 --> 00:00:21.780 align:middle line:84% sort of two centers of the-- it's a labyrinth. 00:00:21.780 --> 00:00:23.430 align:middle line:90% Technically, it's a maze. 00:00:23.430 --> 00:00:26.850 align:middle line:84% A labyrinth in the sort of original terminology 00:00:26.850 --> 00:00:29.160 align:middle line:84% meant a unicursal thing, and this is not unicursal. 00:00:29.160 --> 00:00:30.930 align:middle line:84% There's a couple of ways you can take-- 00:00:30.930 --> 00:00:33.210 align:middle line:84% you can actually get off-path in a maze. 00:00:33.210 --> 00:00:37.190 align:middle line:84% But sort of in the way that I think of the labyrinth, 00:00:37.190 --> 00:00:39.520 align:middle line:90% it's essentially about the same. 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:42.300 align:middle line:84% So we spend our days clicking on one thing that 00:00:42.300 --> 00:00:43.560 align:middle line:90% leads us to another thing. 00:00:43.560 --> 00:00:45.810 align:middle line:84% This is the Minotaur which is at the center-- 00:00:45.810 --> 00:00:48.990 align:middle line:84% one of the two centers of this labyrinth. 00:00:48.990 --> 00:00:52.410 align:middle line:84% This is not life-sized, this is a mock-up of a labyrinth. 00:00:52.410 --> 00:00:55.140 align:middle line:84% One thing that he did is when his book The Maze Maker 00:00:55.140 --> 00:01:01.920 align:middle line:84% came out, Armand Erpf who was a millionaire-- 00:01:01.920 --> 00:01:04.050 align:middle line:84% sort of reclusive millionaire, maybe billionaire, 00:01:04.050 --> 00:01:05.550 align:middle line:90% I don't really know-- 00:01:05.550 --> 00:01:06.960 align:middle line:84% he really loved this book, and he 00:01:06.960 --> 00:01:10.080 align:middle line:84% hired Michael Ayrton to actually build him 00:01:10.080 --> 00:01:11.610 align:middle line:90% a real-life labyrinth. 00:01:11.610 --> 00:01:13.860 align:middle line:84% He's like, can you make me one of these? 00:01:13.860 --> 00:01:15.263 align:middle line:84% And Michael says yeah, of course. 00:01:15.263 --> 00:01:15.930 align:middle line:90% Of course I can. 00:01:15.930 --> 00:01:20.550 align:middle line:84% So he makes this 6-foot deep labyrinth of stone. 00:01:20.550 --> 00:01:23.940 align:middle line:84% It's the largest stone labyrinth certainly still alive 00:01:23.940 --> 00:01:24.810 align:middle line:90% at this point-- 00:01:24.810 --> 00:01:25.900 align:middle line:90% or still around. 00:01:25.900 --> 00:01:32.310 align:middle line:84% And it's just on this guy's sort of strange, reclusive-- 00:01:32.310 --> 00:01:36.750 align:middle line:84% he's got this large farm and property in the Catskills. 00:01:36.750 --> 00:01:38.640 align:middle line:84% You can't go in there because someone died. 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:41.280 align:middle line:84% People would get drunk and try to get in the labyrinth 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:42.840 align:middle line:90% and so and so. 00:01:42.840 --> 00:01:44.190 align:middle line:90% And so this is the mock-up. 00:01:44.190 --> 00:01:48.450 align:middle line:84% And this is one of the two Minotaurs. 00:01:48.450 --> 00:01:52.500 align:middle line:84% This one is, I think, in a park somewhere in Detroit. 00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:55.572 align:middle line:84% But this-- he did a lot of work with bronze, 00:01:55.572 --> 00:01:56.530 align:middle line:90% so this is one of them. 00:01:56.530 --> 00:01:58.710 align:middle line:84% And there's one of the center of the labyrinth. 00:01:58.710 --> 00:02:00.810 align:middle line:84% So we're clicking on all these things. 00:02:00.810 --> 00:02:01.950 align:middle line:84% The reason why I'm talking about the labyrinth 00:02:01.950 --> 00:02:04.290 align:middle line:84% is not just because I think the labyrinth is cool, 00:02:04.290 --> 00:02:06.310 align:middle line:84% though I do think the labyrinth is cool. 00:02:06.310 --> 00:02:09.570 align:middle line:84% I think it's pretty much the way that we live now 00:02:09.570 --> 00:02:10.949 align:middle line:90% if we spend any time online. 00:02:10.949 --> 00:02:13.200 align:middle line:84% We click through one thing, we click to another thing, 00:02:13.200 --> 00:02:15.000 align:middle line:84% then we start something on Wikipedia 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:16.958 align:middle line:84% and then click this link a ways down Wikipedia, 00:02:16.958 --> 00:02:18.417 align:middle line:84% and then that brings us some place. 00:02:18.417 --> 00:02:20.400 align:middle line:84% Then oh, here's a poem, OK, that's interesting. 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:22.233 align:middle line:84% And then we kind of click to something else. 00:02:22.233 --> 00:02:25.090 align:middle line:84% We end up very deep in our own browser histories. 00:02:25.090 --> 00:02:26.100 align:middle line:90% This is an image-- 00:02:26.100 --> 00:02:28.043 align:middle line:90% also a labyrinth. 00:02:28.043 --> 00:02:29.460 align:middle line:84% It's called Man in the Maze, which 00:02:29.460 --> 00:02:31.230 align:middle line:90% is from the Tohono O'odham. 00:02:31.230 --> 00:02:33.270 align:middle line:84% And this is an image that's actually 00:02:33.270 --> 00:02:36.252 align:middle line:84% from a statue that's up in Udall Park here in Tucson. 00:02:36.252 --> 00:02:37.960 align:middle line:84% Once you start thinking about labyrinths, 00:02:37.960 --> 00:02:39.642 align:middle line:84% you start seeing them everywhere. 00:02:39.642 --> 00:02:41.100 align:middle line:84% So it leads you to another, and you 00:02:41.100 --> 00:02:43.050 align:middle line:84% click on another thing that leads you to another, 00:02:43.050 --> 00:02:45.690 align:middle line:84% and you click on another thing and it leads you someplace else 00:02:45.690 --> 00:02:48.300 align:middle line:84% until you have to close the browser window or just 00:02:48.300 --> 00:02:49.560 align:middle line:90% reboot the computer. 00:02:49.560 --> 00:02:52.770 align:middle line:84% Or you can try to backtrack if you want to, 00:02:52.770 --> 00:02:55.770 align:middle line:84% or you can just take pleasure in the sort of random path 00:02:55.770 --> 00:02:59.820 align:middle line:84% you seem to have taken-- almost an essayistic, tangential 00:02:59.820 --> 00:03:03.690 align:middle line:84% meander through things as we sort of move toward whatever 00:03:03.690 --> 00:03:06.400 align:middle line:90% endpoint we're getting to. 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:09.300 align:middle line:84% So if we do these things and we spend any time clicking online, 00:03:09.300 --> 00:03:11.834 align:middle line:90% then we believe in a labyrinth. 00:03:11.834 --> 00:03:14.440 align:middle line:90% 00:03:14.440 --> 00:03:18.760 align:middle line:84% This is the real life Michael Ayrton labyrinth. 00:03:18.760 --> 00:03:22.180 align:middle line:84% I think that's his daughter maybe-- 00:03:22.180 --> 00:03:23.860 align:middle line:84% he's got a couple of stepdaughters. 00:03:23.860 --> 00:03:28.200 align:middle line:84% One of them wrote a biography of him which is pretty good. 00:03:28.200 --> 00:03:29.280 align:middle line:90%