Breakfast @ Epiphanies Exploring experiential oddities Re-Imagined Radio Season 14, Episode 10 Final Draft Premier broadcast: October 19, 2026 John F. Barber, writer, producer, host Marc Rose, sound design, original music, and post- production. Holly Slocum, creative management. Claire Leyden, motion graphics designer. Caitlyn Kruger-L'Esperance, programs management. Rylan Eisenhauer, YouTube channel production and management, and announcing. Synopsis This collection, titled "Twisted Epiphanies," presents a series of spoken word pieces exploring themes of longing, technology's impact, artificial realities, historical memory, and existential questions. The works delve 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. Credits Written by Jerrel McQuen (Mac-Qwin) Music composition, sound design, post-production by Marc Rose Produced by John Barber for Re-Imagined Radio Color Code Yellow highlighted text = sound effect(s), either pre- recorded or live. text example = text that could be deleted as needed. Magenta highlighted text with strike through = text deleted for episode timing MUSIC = pre-recorded MUSIC = bespoke, created for this episode COLD OPEN SFX: FOR INTRODUCTION FROM INTRODUCTION 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. FROM ALIEN BRAILLE No one 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. CHRIS PORTER Out there in the EM night, microwave frequencies trip a reptilian brain alarm. Wavelength Esperanto bleeds into my ear, feeding on the lack of light, telling us to never, never fear no one means you any harm. But deep down, I know what I hear: hypnotically Gaussian as old-time TV snow, static tin-pan signal bands, cold, pop-shot spatterings of nanobyte nucleotide info packets smaller than the head of a pin. They stain unprotected brain, rapid- fire as cuttlefish skin, beating, talking, thinking, randomly colluding. I hear it in the hollow tires sibilance of highway flow. I feel it out there in crop-circled suburban neighborhoods: flat-screen megapixels simulcasting jittery mantis shadows, an anemic, pale, cobalt subliminal ghost raying out from every bedroom window, coast to coast. PROGRAM HOST 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. CYNTHIA MCGEAN (MC-GE-AN) Out on the long road up ahead, wink of an eye this skin is shed. All down that highway burns a billion souls, so I've read. Nothing new to be said. Do or die, say goodbye. Out on the wind to the beat of the fire, burning bright, we cower and roar in the pitiless face of eternal night. Give me the strength and the heart to put one thing right, then let me go home. There, where the golden shadows fall, all of the old is beyond recall. Until we forget our pride, our lust for life is in vain. Ask the sky and the rain why they cry. THEME AND ANNOUNCER MUSIC: RIR THEME ANNOUNCER Welcome to Re-Imagined Radio, a program about sound-based storytelling. With each episode we explore how dialogue, sound effects, and music can engage your listening imagination and promote storytelling. Here to tell you about THIS episode is John Barber, producer and host. HOST OPEN 1 RIR HOST Hello everyone. Welcome to Re-Imagined Radio. As Rylan just described, Re- Imagined Radio explores the three basic components of radio storytelling: dialogue, sound effects, and music, and how various combinations of the three can promote storytelling by sparking your imagination. This episode compresses one of these elements, dialogue, and amplifies the other two, sound effects and music, to explore new storytelling opportunities. Instead of "Dialogue," or spoken exchanges between two people, this episode uses "Spoken Word," a single, performative voice communicating emotion, social commentary, or personal truth through the aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of poetry. Called "Breakfast @ Epiphanies," it's a collection of thirteen spoken word works written by Jerrel McQuen (Mac- Qwin), each wrapped in amazing, and often otherworldly sound effects and music by Marc Rose. Each is spoken by some of the best voice actors in the Portland Metroplex. It's an interesting episode and I hope you will stick around and listen in. For more information, and the episode script, visit our website, reimaginedradio dot fm. Thank you for listening as Re-Imagined Radio presents "Breakfast @ Epiphanies" by Jerrel McQuen and Marc Rose. MUSIC/SFX: FOR TRANSITION HOST OPEN 2 RIR HOST "Breakfast @ Epiphanies" continues a tradition of Portland-based storytellers Jerrel McQuen (Mac-Qwin, 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 to Re- Imagined Radio—"Frequency 43" in 2025; "Night of the Eclipsoid Man," Parts 1 and 2, in 2024; "Asezhia" in 2023; and their inspiration of "Twisted Epiphanies" in 2022—"Breakfast @ Epiphanies" brings to closure work begun forty-plus years earlier. However, it is unique in its telling, using lyrics and poetry. Jerrel McQuen (Mac-Qwin) provides more details in his introduction. MUSIC/SFX: FOR INTRODUCTION, DUCK AND CONTINUE UNDER JERREL MCQUEN 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. 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 musings 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, incredulous oddity of life on planet Earth. VOICE Twisted Epiphanies. VOICE Alien Braille PROGRAM HOST Alien Braille. No one 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. Alien Braille. VOICE Read by Chris Porter. CHRIS PORTER Out there in the EM night, microwave frequencies trip a reptilian brain alarm. Wavelength Esperanto bleeds into my ear, feeding on the lack of light, telling us to never, never fear no one means you any harm. But deep down, I know what I hear: hypnotically Gaussian as old-time TV snow, static tin-pan signal bands, cold, pop-shot spatterings of nanobyte nucleotide info packets smaller than the head of a pin. They stain unprotected brain, rapid- fire as cuttlefish skin, beating, talking, thinking, randomly colluding. I hear it in the hollow tires sibilance of highway flow. I feel it out there in crop-circled suburban neighborhoods: flat-screen megapixels simulcasting jittery mantis shadows, an anemic, pale, cobalt subliminal ghost raying out from every bedroom window, coast to coast. But asleep, my wife's eyes, surfacing, then yawing back down into primeval deep. The Esperanto and tire whine surrenders me to no when or why. My brain tumbles and torques. I dream microtones, Tesla tuning forks, skittering crabs on a beach of bones. Up over it all, I fly. Cities are reduced to capacitor and resistor circuit board light. Recognition patterns fail, and blinking eyes go white. Brain-pan motherboards fulfill the 2% Grail: reason, order, common sense, co- opted and overwritten by Alien Braille. SFX: FOR TRANSITION VOICE Anime Cafe. PROGRAM HOST Anime Cafe. True love, hard to find in a binary world of synthetic rainbow pixels. Anime Cafe. VOICE Read by Cindy Brown. CINDY BROWN Pink clouds and Cheshire grins, Vespa hover car with retro bins. Me and my guys, Strato icing down Metro Way. Rainbow J-pop color, no gray. Everything's always super J-OK at Anime Cafe. Spiked purple hair, Thailo blue goutee, always and ever so in control. Iceier than ice, my Avatar 8. Juicy lemon-lime skies, soaring high and free. Always a go-go, can't be late. Up over escalator crowds with color wheel eyes. Fly-by sunbeams for you and me. Spotlights of our steel and glass, ricochet sunrise. Yesterday, Avatar 8 wouldn't boot up. They took him away. Flashing van made pretty colors staining the rain, not his blue and gray. Turn him back on. What is a never? Why can't you explain? DOA, my hero? We were always an ever. Now we're one and zero. Avatar 9 says, "I'll be just fine." Try this line: "Here's some wine." So, okay, I'm okay. We're all okay. Everything's so okay. Forever so fine with my Avatar 9. Another super J day at Anime Cafe. MUSIC: TO END VOICE The Graffafone. PROGRAM HOST 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? The Graffafone. VOICE Read by Mark Homayoun. MARK HOMAYOUN All I did was pick up a stone, and now I'm bound to the arc and epic of the Graffafone. They whirl me through time, the horde, showing me the sublime, the absurd, and the horror of all that has passed. Armored phalanxes of spear and sword, ocean glassed. I swim with Aztec warriors, armed in sea-pitted jade green, each one bristling like a Martian mantis, half unseen. Three ages, and this the fourth, on our tiny, war-torn world. On our way to becoming the Mobius, Medusa, I have Arjuna, absolutely naive, all-knowing godhead. Tied to the mast, I am thrust through and forced to witness holocaust and honey-sweet tenderness unfurled before me. I don't know which wounds me more. I learn only one thing, again and again: every shattered pattern becomes the stained-glass window of a new cathedral, hit by a ray of sun in the vast planetary shadows of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn, and the broken one. And no matter where or when, out of every age paws in a teeming throng of life, beating on, homeward-bound, or alien shores. So once somehow was, is, here and now, yet ever to be. Love, hope, hate, despair, everything ever done echoes and resonates in every soul. Saint or sinner, loser or winner, all is fair. Never and forever, all eternity. MUSIC: FADES, SLOWLY, TO CONCLUSION VOICE Hue PROGRAM HOST Hue. Not sure about reincarnation. But ancestral memory? We are the latest manifestation of every lifetime that engendered us. That's an inescapable connection. Hue. VOICE Read by Cindy McGean. MUSIC: UP, THEN DUCK UNDER CINDY MCGEAN One strand. One undeciphered line. Written in sand. Tattooed in bone. Through blood, like wine. No Rosetta Stone. Somewhere, like a pale emboss you are there, in the scent of a lee that brought this sense of loss out of an evaporating sea. MUSIC: CONCLUSION VOICE Antipodes. PROGRAM HOST Antipodes. If someone is lost on this side, will they remain lost on the other? Or will your own unique Rod Serling lead you to the last sliver of azure light before the long night falls? Antipodes. VOICE Read by Chris Porter and Cindy Brown. MUSIC: ETHERAL, DUCKS UNDER THE FOLLOWING CHRIS PORTER She asked for a backseat ticket, greyhound-bound for the home of Cow- Hurtling hurricanes, Zydeco, Creole, and Bay of the Hound bayous, littered with swamp-bottom bones, voodoo woebegones nevermore found. CINDY BROWN Someone, long ago, with a many-ringed hand, sent a unicorn to guide her, but lost their way in the mist of alligatored cemeteries in the limbo land. CHRIS PORTER Glass Antipodes antipathies for New Orleans now leaving at Fate 13. CINDY BROWN Blue-gray and hazy, her eyes read both infinity and zero, to the lost music of elegant lines in a missing scene. MUSIC: CONCLUDES VOICE Sidewalk Art PROGRAM HOST Sidewalk Art. Ambition can be a wonderful thing, but if you play the game too long, the house will win. Sidewalk art. VOICE Read by Devin James. MUSIC: UP, THEN DUCKS UNDER THE FOLLOWING DEVIN JAMES My Forzieri tie's beating the back of my head flapping in the wind. Look at that incredible skyline. Luck of the draw, I think. Not how much you've sinned. I was riding the razor on the Win-Me sign, file by file, vault by vault, scaling skyscrapers with Wall Street and Fabergé refugees, licking the rim for the salt. But bold turned to bare in the blink of an eye, and the ledger marks of other men's money fled from black to red ... in the pale green fields of Microsoft cells. They have me cogitating a Lysol-tainted two-man lifetime of urinal helms. They have me contemplating sidewalk art. I'm perched out on the beak of one Chrysler-building eagle. Look at the tiny, tiny lights synchronized to red, like a bow-wave tidal boring down Sixth. Tail lights like pulsing arteries on the Koyaanisqatsi [Koyane- Skotse] circulatory circuit board below. It's time to paint me a picture. Paint a picture of my winning ways. Acapulcoing past the pollution-patinaed silver-indigo Legos of mirrored sun. Paint a picture with only me and my grade-A suit, my personal Jackson Pollock of said and done. MUSIC: CONCLUDES VOICE B7 PROGRAM HOST B7. Mint jelly as an odd sunset road to salvation. B7. VOICE Read by Chris Porter. CHRIS PORTER Trinity Panzer Gas. The lavender beehive dragon lady in the silk-lining landbarge won't let me pass. So I open up the thunderheads above, and there's her savior, beaming down at her through dayglo-busted glass, calling her name. Better than Elvis on velvet. That there's some style. That there's some class. And like some kind of varicose lighter than helium mumu-clad loofah, she's camel-needling right up out of the sunroof, laughing like a loon, her very own cobalt-hibiscus-dirigible moon rising in rapture. B7. Gone to glory. Though only glory knows what anyone but the devil himself would want anyway with that lamb-and-mint-chili-piranha smile on Sunday. SFX: FOR TRANSITION VOICE School of Velocity PROGRAM HOST 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. School of Velocity. VOICE Read by Cynthia McGean. MUSIC: UP, THEN UNDER THE FOLLOWING CYNTHIA MCGEAN I heard the marching feet in the morning coming for me, forgetting all lessons taught. School of Velocity. I hear them cheer. I hear them cheer. Liar. Liar. In the wake of the juggernaut spitting out bones and blue fire. And all that I will see, Mother of Creation, take it away from me, the burning of all books to be. School of Velocity. A tiny dog waiting for a loved one, caught in the nets, barking, barking at the diesel wind. Atomic silhouettes screaming not today, not today. And a faltering finger traces "Hope" in the ashes of the kiln. MUSIC: FADES OUT VOICE Free As A Bird. PROGRAM HOST Free As A Bird. When this bizarre Beatles frankensong was released in 1995, I felt it was somehow intrinsically wrong, completely sidestepping why Lenin wasn't here to do it himself. Somehow, I think he would approve of this more pointed recitation of events. Free As A Bird. VOICE Read by Mark Hamayoun. MARK HAMAYOUN Free as a bird. Inside the cage, following the sun. Key. Silent word. No one saw the gears engage until the deed was done. The brainwash had a gun. Look how the shadows run through smoke and mirrors at encrypted masses. Unseen assassins write red ink that turns to white in juggled ledgers made of glass circles. She saw it all. I feel she always knew who had cut the deals. He, on the wall, did his time and left a clue about the watching wheels. We may never know the seeds the reapers sow in tainted steel and glass through hole-filled hallways. The three they bought and sold. The story never told. Just sign this dotted fall from grace, caught in slow-motion time. May haste. Yet mourn the dead till the debt is paid. So if we climb where greedy leaders led, how will we make the grade? MUSIC: CONCLUDES VOICE Crust PROGRAM HOST 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 ... Crust. VOICE Read by Cynthia McGean and Chris Porter. SFX: BREATHING, UNDER THE FOLLOWING CYNTHIA MCGEAN And I feel there's something breathing under the crust. CHRIS PORTER I smell black wax and something kiteness seething under rail tie rust. CYNTHIA MCGEAN Down abandoned hopper tracks under gritty bits of bottle fly broken glass. CHRIS PORTER City grids wink and unspool. Tidally rearrange atom to nanomolecule. CYNTHIA MCGEAN No one notices the lights will change. Tonal to Nagual [nuh-WAHL] suture to seam buried underneath a silent howl. CHRIS PORTER But I feel I know. Nowhere left to go. CYNTHIA MCGEAN Tiny shattered world that time forgot. Who will hear us if we scream? MUSIC: CONCLUDES VOICE Say Goodbye. PROGRAM HOST 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. Say Goodbye. VOICE Read by Cynthia McGean. MUSIC: UP, THEN DUCK UNDER THE FOLLOWING CYNTHIA MCGEAN Out on the long road up ahead, wink of an eye this skin is shed. All down that highway burns a billion souls, so I've read. Nothing new to be said. Do or die, say goodbye. Out on the wind to the beat of the fire, burning bright, we cower and roar in the pitiless face of eternal night. Give me the strength and the heart to put one thing right, then let me go home. There, where the golden shadows fall, all of the old is beyond recall. Until we forget our pride, our lust for life is in vain. Ask the sky and the rain why they cry. Then say goodbye. SFX: FOR TRANSITION VOICE Wind Up Man PROGRAM HOST Wind Up Man. Just another poly- anonymous white man assassin. Nothing to see here. Nothing at all. Wind Up Man. VOICE Read by Mark Rose. MUSIC: UP, AND CONTINUE UNDER THE FOLLOWING MARC ROSE Duck and Cover. It's the Wind Up Man. And only I have the key. I nick the boggle that tells him what to see. I tick the toggle that sets him free. Wind Up Man, Wind Up Man. Who will it be? Little red dot. Too late. Too small to see. Crosshair on the sweet spot. Let it free. Gray matter on the bank wall, flicking panic, white of the eyes, splatter and scattering rabbits at the bus stop mall. But no one can guess the Superman disguise of my Wendigo Wind Up Man. He's a ghost. And he's gone. Before a single siren does the glass alley bounce and the blank license plate white van cleaners redact the last atom and ounce of the belated X mark into the Petri pan. Collateral damage of my impeccable Mangele Sirhan Ruby Godse Pearl Ray Chapman Wind Up Man. MUSIC: FADES TO CONCLUSION VOICE Lord Dunsany Overhears. PROGRAM HOST 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 jabberwock tree and slide into the fractal infinity eardrum of its spiraling bark divinity. Lord Dunsany Overhears. VOICE Read by Mark Rose. MUSIC: UP, THEN UNDER MARC ROSE Must I reiterate? Irately whined the soliloquy tadpole. I beg thee, dare you not. Snapped the sniffy maple cream dust of the penultimate petulant pupitirol. Contrapuntal crayfish, rolling his obicular eyes, muttered to the azure tenebrity. Oh, butterscotch bitterongs of epiphanal delivery. Both of you, let it go. Let it go. MUSIC: OUT FOR CONCLUSION LISTENING BREAK #1 HOST This is John Barber. Thank you for listening to Re-Imagined Radio. We're listening to "Breakfast @ Epiphanies," a collection of spoken word pieces by long time guest producers Jerrel McQuen and Marc Rose. MUSIC/SFX: FOR TRANSITION? RIR HOST We've just listened to "Breakfast @ Epiphanies," a series of spoken word pieces written by Jerrel McQuen and sound-designed by Marc Rose. Most radio storytelling is built on dialogue. Spoken conversations between two or more characters. But "Breakfast @ Epiphanies" is an unusual work, consisting of single performative voices communicating emotions, social commentaries, or personal truths through the aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of poetry. Both Jerrel and Marc are with me today and we have an opportunity for dialogue about their work, although I expect that will quickly morph to spoken word as both have a great deal of thought and experience invested in each of the works we have just heard. So let me ask you both, why, or how, did you make the decision to frame this bit of storytelling as spoken word? JERREL MCQUEN Spoken word pieces actually started off as lyrics. We would be bouncing things back and forth. Mark used to take the lyrics and turn them into music. But after a while, it got to the point where it was just easier for him to do his own lyrics. And he's kind of, I'm going to say he's a John Lennon in that regard, because he knows exactly what he wants to say and has a real way of saying it. So I ended up continuing with the writing, though, because I found it was just a good way to get things out of my system. If there was something that pinged me, I'd just go ahead and write it out as verse and then go back and work it later. And first, they were kind of expansive. Then I started chopping them down. And eventually, I got to the point where I could say what I wanted to say in a relatively small space. So that's how that started. RIR HOST Several overarching themes might be drawn from your work. One is that modern life is characterized by a pervasive and potentially overwhelming technological presence that can alter perception and consciousness. What additional thoughts can you add to build out this idea in the imaginations of our listeners? JERREL MCQUEN Well, for me, it kind of started in the '80s. And the first trigger was Paul Simon's "The Boy in the Bubble" off the, I think it was the Graceland album. I think it was the first track. He had one part of that that just kind of sank in and started to gestate. And that was, "I believe, these are the days of lasers in the jungle, lasers in the jungle somewhere, staccato signals of constant information and a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires." And here we are, 40 years later, and if anything, that just resonates even more than it did then, because I don't think the vast majority of people were aware of how much their lives were being influenced. So it's totally surrounding us now. There's no escaping it. And sometimes it's pretty scary. Another song that definitely was an influence, and that was, let's see, I think early 2000s, just as 9/11 occurred, oddly enough. David Bowie's "Sunday" is a phenomenally spiritual piece of music. But the juxtaposition was really interesting in that he's singing about kids that have fallen off the grid. He's singing about teenagers that have become feral and are literally living under bracken by the side of the highways. But underneath what he's singing is this constant digital code, almost. It's a repeating signal that indicates that this technology that surrounds us 24/7 is white noise behind our lives. And my takeaway on that was, is this what's driving people to escape entirely like this? Are they so bombarded by the technological from the time they're born that some of them just opt out? And he went further and was encouraging people not only to resist what was around them, but to have faith that one day we're going to take wing and become something greater than we are. I love that song. I recommend it to anybody who hasn't heard it. It's off the Heathen album, if I'm not mistaken. So those were two works that just started me thinking about how surrounded we are now and how inescapable it is. MARC ROSE You know, I can add as a production influence for me was one really notable spoken word program called Word Jazz. And it was launched in the late 1950s and continued throughout the '60s that was voiced by a very well-known announcer at the time, Ken Nordine. The program was called Word Jazz because it featured Nordine reading spoken word pieces that he had written for the most part and was accompanied by a jazz trio, which was quite evocative, really. It was right around the end of the beat generation of the 1950s, so it had a lot of that vibe, but was also quite experimental at times. And there's also several albums released of this material. And I think YouTube has a lot of it lurking in their libraries. RIR HOST The concept of your spoken word piece "Alien Braille" suggests that advanced technology, if not understood or controlled, can be used against us, leading to a loss of autonomy. I think this is a concern, even fear, shared by many. Can you expand on your poetic thought and give us more to jostle our thinking? JERREL MCQUEN Yeah, there's quite a few things here, I think. And this spans generations. So no finger pointing here. This has been going on for a long time. And one of the most insidious things, I think, are video games, because these have been in the system for a while. And some of them are harmless. Some of them are incredible works of art. And the fantasy realms of this in particular were almost spiritual in nature when the trend first began. But now it's bifurcated off into an awful lot of military violence. And a lot of young people are steeping themselves in that violence and the thought that might makes right and that the only way through your problems is through violence and that you must win at any price, victory at any price. And we've seen the effect on certain individuals where they've literally gone over the edge and committed that violence themselves because they've disconnected and real life doesn't have a reset. And I can't help but wonder on the ones that are particularly violent and war- related, does the CIA have its fingers in all of that? Who knows? Because drilling yourself into that day after day after day has to have an effect. I wonder how much influence this has on modern groups like the Proud Boys. I would love to see a trend back out of that. Even in the world of Star Trek, for example, all the gaming related to Star Trek is all about wars, Klingon wars and Romulan wars and wars over here and wars over there and who has the mightiest weapons. That's not what Star Trek was about when it began, but that's what the video games were about. Some of them are character-based, but a lot of them are just one conflict, war, war, war, war, war, not where we started out. RIR HOST Artificial realities and digital identities, like avatars, raise questions about the nature of self and existence in a simulated world. Are we headed in that direction, toward more simulations, digital identities, thinking of ourselves as avatars? JERREL MCQUEN This too gets into interesting territory. And I can't speak to a lot of it because I've avoided video games and online communities my entire life. I've got other things to do. However, that said, there are a lot of people that have focused all of their creativity into online communities with fantasy worlds where they take on very distinct characters and guide all the people that come into these fantasies with them in very elaborate constructs. And I can't make a judgment one way or the other on that, but it does seem like there's an awful lot of communication focused on a medium where you're not in the room with the person, you're online with the person. And I wonder if that's a healthy trend. It makes me question, is there a real connection there? Is there a healthy connection there? I don't know, because I'm not in that world. I get most of my information about it from a really great online comic called Questionable Content. And that's been my one window into this world. He approaches it from a very humorous and very open frame of mind on it. But it does seem like there's no one-on-one. It's all through a microphone. It's all through the machine. And I'm distrustful of where that trend may take us. RIR HOST More than one spoken word piece in this collection speaks to our connection to the past, both historical and ancestral, and how these connections profoundly shape our present and future, with every experience leaving an indelible mark. Would you elaborate on your thinking here, and tells us how to recognize these [QUOTE]"indelible"[UNQUOTE] marks. JERREL MCQUEN Well, the first thing that comes to mind is one of Mark's own lyrics about "science as slavery, a modern view. Better be careful. You might slip and fall right through." One of my favorites. But beyond that, how much of our history and our science do we really know? And what I'm going to bring up is an obscure thing that I found on the net and verified that existed. This was back in the '90s. And in the mid-'90s, the Hopi tribe was invited to speak before the UN. They gave the people that had been on this continent for 25,000 years 10 minutes to give this address. The speaker used his time well. He postulated that according to their history, we have been on this planet for much, much longer than our current history is giving us credit for, as both culturally and technologically. He claims that there have been four ages on this planet of mankind, separated into four ages that, the same as the Greeks and the Romans delineated, that there was an expansive golden age that was followed by a silver age, that it was followed by the age of bronze, and that we're now currently living in the age of iron, and that each of these ages ended with a man-made catastrophe that knocked mankind on its ass and they had to pick up the pieces afterwards. And I found that fascinating. And I started digging and digging and digging into various accounts that I could find historically to verify any of this and found a lot of information that indicates that this might be so. If there's any veracity to this, I think that's going to be a major wake-up call if we find out that we've already been through several ages where we may have had greater technology than we have now, but the setbacks were serious enough to be buried. The evidence is there. Things like gigantic paving stones in the Caribbean so large that there's no explanation for how anybody could possibly put them there. The pyramids, the Incan temples, all these things are massive constructions that how they did them, slaves, just slaves, they're kind of too intricate for that. We're not even looking at the final layers of the things because those were stripped off over time by looters and pillagers after the civilizations collapsed. So how valid is the ancient history we know? Is it possible that some of the things that we've accepted as myth actually happened and have just been altered and skewed by the passage of time? I think there's a lot of clues out there. And I think within probably not in our lifetime, but certainly soon, things are going to impel all of you to take another look at the past so that we can make more informed decisions about the future. RIR HOST In your "Say Goodbye," you write, [QUOTE]"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."[UNQUOTE] One of the major questions of humanity is [QUOTE]"Where am I from?"[UNQUOTE]. Advancements in genetic technologies have shown many people that their ancestors may not necessarily be those people whose names are written in the front pages of the family Bible. Tell us more about this idea and how it resonates in our hearts, minds, memories. JERREL MCQUEN I'm going to throw another huge concept out there, but we've covered this in some of the things that have actually aired on Re-Imagined Radio. And one of these is that we are living inside a dimensional stack that is like a giant helix, a giant DNA strand, and that all of the connecting points, the spheres that are connected by this double helix, each one is an entire universe. So we've postulated if Earth is in one spot in the spiral, the world of FarWan is literally nine spirals up, and that there's a connection between those two worlds. I don't believe in reincarnation as in we as the individual we are now keeps coming back time and time again to learn new things. I think instead that the soul is lobed, that it's made up of several parts. And I think when we pass, all those pieces separate and go in different directions. And if that is the case, then indeed we are all snowflakes. It means that that particular combination is only here for this lifetime. And when they separate and go their different ways, facets of our personality go out into the ether, join with others, and those are brought down into a new life, a new conception. So none of us ever exist as the person we are now again. And wouldn't that explain why in close families you'll end up with a grandson that's just like his grandfather? Because one part of the grandfather ends up or a more distant relative ends up being carried back through the family line. And it creates a spark of familiarity. But it's not the same person. It's only part of them. And it would explain why we have so much grief. That's why mortality hurts. Because deep down, we actually know we only have this time with these people around us. Because otherwise, I've always wondered why people of faith mourn the people that pass as severely as they do. Because don't they actually believe they're going to see them in heaven again? But they don't act like it. I just wonder if deep down we all know that's not going to happen. That's not how it works. But that doesn't mean that we don't go on to bigger and better lives with each successive scattering, that each one of those pieces of a soul recombines with another. And some of these places must be fantastic. For example, say Earth and FarWan both exist. It's possible that the attraction those two worlds have for each other means that people have been bouncing back and forth for generations. I won't tie anything more into that other than just the vagaries of circumstance and attraction. Maybe if you live a particularly strong and active life, you get to go further up. You ascend. If you make serious mistakes, you descend. And unfortunately, the further down the chain you go, the more violent and the more primal those worlds become. Another reason why I hate video games is that draw on violence because I think they're tapping those lower dimensions. And to steep yourself in it is probably setting yourself up to go back to them when you pass. Not a great idea. Probably where the concept of hell comes from. And then you literally would have to struggle to keep finding the light so that you ascend again and keep ascending, hopefully, until you become the best person you can become. Leading me to wonder, do the people that really shine have fewer and fewer sections to their soul? Are they on their way to becoming less complex? And the clearer the individual becomes, the more they are one thing. And maybe when they become one thing, they pass past the physical. Maybe that's when you become a being that is nothing but light and energy, what I like to call overseers. RIR HOST Many listeners might hear a dystopian, even cyberpunk noir in your spoken works. Shades of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Is that intentional, or something else? Perhaps fatigue from waiting for the answers to catch up with your questions? JERREL MCQUEN I think we all want something to last longer than it actually does. And I'm really noticing this now that I'm 70, because I look back at my life through the '60s, '70s, and '80s, and I'm really, really missing the energy of those times. I really feel that in some ways people were seeking knowledge and opening themselves up to any other time in history. For one thing, more people had knowledge of the past and how it's affecting the present. I wonder if we come back up out of this, if this is a temporary daze and we start surfacing again. I'm wondering how many people are going to look back and say, "What the hell did I do with my life? Why did I waste it all on video games and drum patterns?" But we'll see. I'm hoping for another renaissance at the end of this because the giant cycle goes up and down, the sine wave, the turning wheel. If we've hit this downside, we have to come back up again. And when that hits, with all of the spiritual thinking that's been done during this patch or the gestating, as it were, maybe the caterpillars become butterflies. We'll see. MUSIC: RIR THEME, FADE UNDER AND OUT FOR THE FOLLOWING LISTENING BREAK #2 HOST This is Re-Imagined Radio. You've just listened to "Breakfast @ Epiphanies," thirteen spoken word pieces exploring themes of longing, technology's impact, artificial realities, historical memory, and existential questions from Jerrel McQuen (Mac-Qwin) and Marc Rose. "Breakfast @ Epiphanies" continues what is now a tradition of Portland-based storytellers McQuen (writer) and 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. Check out their previous episodes at the Re-Imagined Radio website, reimaginedradio DOT FM slash "Episodes." And while you're there, learn more about listening opportunities, including our podcast and YouTube channel, reimaginedradio DOT fm slash "Listen." HOST CREDITS MUSIC: RIR THEME, DUCK UNDER AND CONTINUE HOST THANKS to Marc Rose, sound design, original music, and post-production. Holly Slocum, creative management. Caitlyn Kruger-L'Esperance, programs management. Claire Leyden, motion graphics designer. Rylan Eisenhauer, YouTube channel production and management, and announcing. I'm John Barber, producer and host. Thanks for listening, and best Holiday wishes. MUSIC: RIR THEME UP, THEN DUCK UNDER THE FOLLOWING ANNOUNCER CLOSE ANNOUNCER This is a production of Re-Imagined Radio. To learn more, visit our website, reimaginedradio (all one word, no punctuation) DOT FM. Please join us for another episode of Re-Imagined Radio as we continue our exploration of sound-based storytelling. MUSIC: RIR THEME UP, AND TO END.