Breakfast @ Epiphanies
RiR # 102, Season 14, Episode 10, Oct. 19, 2026
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Exploring experiential oddities
"What's for Breakfast?"
Re-Imagined Radio is offering
Ancestral Memories
Artificial Realities
Experiential Oddities
And maybe ... an Existential Crisis or two.
Welcome to "Breakfast @ Epiphanies." Our October 2026 episode features thirteen spoken-word pieces by longtime collaborators Jerrel McQuen (writer) and Marc Rose (sound design/music composition) who promise "musings and revelations, dead ends and beginnings ... a sonic gallery of fears, inspirations and meditations." Perfect for the Modern Promethean Halloween season.
It's strange, reflective, and a little mind-bending. Spoken word and sound magic delving into the complexities of modern life, the potential disconnects between our inner selves and external environments, and the enduring echoes of past experiences and ancestral connections.
Interesting and thought provoking sound-based storytelling.
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Background
"Breakfast @ Epiphanies" continues what is now a tradition of Portland-based storytellers Jerrel McQuen (writer) and Marc Rose (sound designer): Re-booting their back catalog and shining up unheard sonic jewels from their alternate dimension/world of Farwan for the Halloween season.
Like their previous contributions—Frequency 43 in 2025; Night of the Eclipsoid Man, Part 1 and Part 2 in 2024; Asezhia in 2023; and their inspiration of Twisted Epiphanies in 2022—"Breakfast @ Epiphanies" brings to closure work begun by McQuen and Rose forty-plus years earlier. However, it is unique in its telling, using lyrics and poetry.
Jerrel McQuen provides more details.
"Way back in the antediluvian 1980s, these ruminations started as a collection of intended lyrics, so its original title was Lyrica.
"Eventually I realized that the best lyrics sum things up in a single line. "She's not a girl that misses much." If longer, lyrics need to flow like river rapids. "Science is Slavery—a modern view. Better be careful. You could slip and fall right through."
"And the less forced a phrase, the better. So the later material became poetry and I called it Torque, for reasons detailed in our audio intro.
"Now, in our beleaguered 2020s, this material has become spoken word. So we pivot to "Breakfast @ Epiphanies," and hence the title pun.
"Forty years of 'musings and revelation, dead ends and beginnings'. It's a big, wide weird world out there, and in a shorter than it should be single lifetime, you can only scratch the surface of the existential strangeness. And the chronologically recent advent of runaway technology—not a normal evolution at all, impelled, I'm beginning to think by outside forces—only makes the ad hoc stew that much richer.
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
"So dive in and sample the wares. They span a broad range of stimuli and reaction. I hope you enjoy the journey."
Production
Contents
Thirteen works of spoken word with an introduction by Jerrel McQuen (writer) and a discussion about the work with McQuen and Marc Rose (sound design/music composition).
Introduction
"This collection started as a project called Torque, as in "a twisting force that tends to
cause rotation" which was a weird allegory for the way our planet and our lives corkscrew through
space."
Read by Jerrel McQuen
Positions the project as born from a desire to codify longing and connect with creative energies from the past.
"I'm seriously missing the creative energy of the sixties through eighties, but, I try not to connect with it because those moments, that time I lived is now literally light-years behind us. Your soul has to reach back through all that distance and it pulls and it aches and it displaces you from the now. So the best discipline is to codify that longing into something that others can hopefully relate to.
"So here are a lifetime of longings and revelations, dead ends, and new beginnings. Let's raise a virtual mimosa to this audio poetry slam now dubbed "Twisted Epiphanies," and to the gifted artists who have taken the two-dimensional and made it three, or more, as they explore the dark corners, echoing expanses, and the sheer and incredulous oddity of life on Planet Earth."
"Alien Braille"
"No no wants to admit the potential harm of the bizarre and intimidating technology now surrounding us.
But hiding our heads in the sand won't keep the true movers and shakers of this world from using it
against us."
Read by Chris Porter
Discusses the pervasive and potentially harmful influence of advanced technology, its impact on human perception, and the feeling of being overwhelmed by data. Suggests that advanced technology, if not understood or controlled, can be used against us, leading to a loss of autonomy.
"Anime Cafe"
"True love. Hard to find in a binary world of synthetic rainbow pixels."
Read by Cindy Brown
Portrays a synthetic, hyper-real world where digital avatars and manufactured experiences blur the lines between reality and simulation. Contrasts a vibrant, synthetic world with the loss of an avatar, questioning the nature of existence when reduced to "one and zero."
"The Graffafone"
"What if the true history of our world is far more complex and epic than we can possibly imagine. And we
are the Children of the Spectrum, waiting. Waiting to unlock and recover all its agonies and glories."
Read by Mark Homayoun
Contemplates the vastness of history, ancestral memory, and the idea that past experiences shape present realities, transforming shattered patterns into new structures.
"Hue"
"Not sure about reincarnation, but ancestral memory? We are the latest manifestation of every lifetime
that engendered us. That's an inescapable connection."
Read by Cynthia McGean
Posits that ancestral memory is an inescapable connection, making us manifestations of every lifetime that engendered us.
"Antipodes"
"If someone is lost on this side, will they remain lost on the other? Or will your own unique Ron
Serling lead you to the last sliver of azure light before the long night falls?"
Read by Chris Porter and Cindy Brown
Questions the fate of souls and the possibility of guidance or connection beyond life. Hints at journeys and lost paths.
"Sidewalk Art"
"Ambition can be a wonderful thing. But if you play the game too long, the house WILL win."
Read by Devin James
Reflects on ambition, the consequences of playing high-stakes games, and the stark realities of financial and personal ruin.
"B7"
"Mint jelly has an odd sunset road to salvation."
Read by Chris Porter
Cruising at highway speed through big, open country, radio channeling a golden throated tent revival preacher. The road is clear. Engine tight, running strong. Can we drive this way forever?
"School of Velocity"
"THOSE times can come again. Never assume we have progressed past them. The next generation of Panzers
may be juggernauts crunching through skeletons guided by a telepath who is his own machine."
Read by Cynthia McGean
Warns against assuming societal progress, suggesting that past destructive patterns can re-emerge, guided by advanced, potentially merged, intelligences.
"Free As A Bird"
"When this bizzare Beatles-Frankensong was released in 1995, I felt it was somehow intrinsically wrong,
completely side-stepping why Lennon wasn't here to do it himself. Somehow, I think he would approve of
this more pointed resisitation of events."
Read by Mark Hamayoun
Reflects on unseen assassins manipulating events.
"Crust"
"We all know there's something wrong. We dream it every night. We feel its shadow in the electric buzz
of
the modern midnight. We feel the presence of some 'other'."
Read by Cynthia McGean and Chris Porter
Describes a feeling of something "breathing under the crust," a hidden presence sensed in the "electric buzz of the modern midnight," an unease with modern life.
"Say Goodbye"
"If our souls have indeed lived past lives, what if not all of them played out on Earth. Maybe that
feeling of a missing piece in our lives, that longing for something more, is an echo from elsewhere that
mocks our present existence."
Read by Cynthia McGean
Contemplates past lives or origins beyond Earth.
"Windup Man"
"Just another poly-anonymous white man assassin. Nothing to see here. Nothing at all."
Read by Marc Rose
Uses the metaphor of a "poly-anonymous white man assassin" to describe unseen, destructive forces.
"Lord Dunsany Overhears"
"Look up several species of small, furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a pict,
or, Pressed Rat and Warthog eat an atonal apple, or three, under the Jabberwok tree and slide into the
fractual infinity eardrum of its spiraling bark divinity."
Read by Marc Rose
Takeaways
Modern life is characterized by a pervasive and potentially overwhelming technological presence that can alter perception and consciousness.
The concept of "Alien Braille," for example, suggests that advanced technology, if not understood or controlled, can be used against us, leading to a loss of autonomy.
Artificial realities and digital identities, like avatars, raise questions about the nature of self and existence in a simulated world.
Our connection to the past, both historical and ancestral, profoundly shapes our present and future, with every experience leaving an indelible mark.
Cast
Jerrel McQuen. His writing is other worldly. Like a face plant while skying the Spurs of Erebor mountain range on Saturn's largest moon, Titan.
Marc Rose. A music composer and sound designer of dangerously delicions portions. A "double dip" of cinematic sound this time working the interspaces rather than hammering your heart. And, as you'll hear, a pretty incredible voice actor as well.
Chris Porter. A Portland-based voice actor—one of the greatest—voiced the character Vurlip with local sci-fi audio drama Exoplanetary. Appeared in the Willamette Radio Workshop production of The Fall of the City, presented by Re-Imagined Radio, 2022.
Mark Homayoun. Another Portland-based voice actor, and film actor. Appeared in the Willamette Radio Workshop production of The Fall of the City, presented by Re-Imagined Radio, 2022. Starred in Re-Imagined Radio's production of Restitution and Retribution, two crime fictions written by Cindy Brown.
Cindy Brown. A writer of crime fictions. Wrote Re-Imagined Radio's production of Restitution and Retribution. Currently working on a paranormal detective series.
Cynthia McGean. A writer, theater director, and producer, based in Portland, Oregon, and heavily invested in the Pacific Northwest audio drama and radio theater community. She has adapted the scripts and appeared in several iterations of "A Christmas Carol" performed by Willamette Radio Workshop, presented by Re-Imagined Radio since 2013. She directs the Writers-on-the-Air Workshop, an outcome of which was "Hiro & Liling," an original love story by Kristina Jones, a Portland-based writer, and offered by Re-Imagined Radio as Hiro & Liling / The Martian Death March, in 2021.
Devin James. A Portland-based actor, voice actor, and spoken word poet making a name for themself in local audio drama, theater, and voice-over projects.
Credits
Writer: Jerrel McQuen
Music composer/sound designer/post-production: Marc Rose
Significance
Our episode this month is another work by long-time collaborators Jerrel McQuen (writer) and Marc Rose (sound design/music composition). You've heard their work previously. Frequency 43 in 2025; Night of the Eclipsoid Man, Part 1 and Part 2 in 2024; Asezhia in 2023; and their inspiration of Twisted Epiphanies in 2022.
Like the 1961 movie, Breakfast at Tiffany's (whose title it puns) Breakfast @ Epiphanies examines conflict between stability and freedom, the struggle with loneliness and identity, and the fear of emotional vulnerability.
Producer's Notes
Every episode shared by Jerrel McQuen and Marc Rose is a language-guided sonic bomb exploding on the
widescreen of your imagination. Don't have much imagination, you say? Well get ready for remodification.
You won't hear this sort of radio storytelling on The Moth, or any late night,
sleep-deprived rightous rant by Jean Shepherd or Joe Frank. Forty
years of
"musings and revelation, dead ends and beginnings," stewing ad hoc
in the creative minds of McQuen and Rose. Ready now to be uncorked. Consumed straight. No chaser. Dive
in. Sample the broad range of stimuli and reaction. As the
Grateful Dead say, "What a
long strange trip it's been." Indeed. McQuen and Rose respond, "Enjoy the journey."
— John F. Barber
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