[Previous entry: "Fixing Federal Currency"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Car Shopping...."]

06/30/2002 Entry: "The Origin of the Epic-Singers"

The music at the Silk Road Festival is pretty amazing. I went down to the Mall yesterday, figuring I'd get bored after about an hour, and ended up staying over four and half hours, just moving back and forth between the music tents. The tents were all packed, and most of the time I was stuck out in the hot sun until enough people would leave that I could worm myself into the shade for a while. At about that time some performer I'd already seen would come on, and I'd have to switch tents again.

In the extended post I've included my version of a story that was told at the nomad tent. I liked it a lot, but couldn't find it on-line anywhere, so I typed up my own version. Enjoy.

Origin of Epic Singers

God created the world, but then he realized there was no one around to enjoy it and to offer Him praise, so he thought he'd make some people live in the world. And the Angel said, "Oh don't go there, don't go there, it'll just be trouble..." And the Devil said, "Yes ! Yes ! What a great idea ! Do it ! Do it ! Do it !"

So God made people, and he put them on the earth. And it was horrible. They were falling off cliffs and falling into water and drowning, and animals were eating them, and God said "Damn what did I do wrong ?". And the Devil said "You forgot to give them brains. If they had brains they wouldn't be so stupid as to try flying off cliffs and walking on water or petting the wooly mammoths."

So God made some brains, and put them in a sack and gave them to the Devil to take down to Earth. But the sack was heavy so the Devil would toss out a brain every now and then to lighten his load.

But when the Devil reached the Earth and started handing out the brains, he saw that he didn't have enough brains so he started chopping the brains in half and giving some people half a brain, and when he saw he still wouldn't have enough he started chopping them in quarters, and so on until eventually he had no more brains left and some people got none at all !

After that the people weren't falling off cliffs or drowning or getting eaten by animals quite so frequently. Instead the full brained people started taking advantage of the people with half brains, and the half brained people started cheating the quarter brained people and so on down to the no brained people who were still falling off cliffs and what not.

And God said. "It's not good that the people are taking advantage of each other. They're not enjoying the world and praising me. What a mess. How am I going to fix this ?" And the Angel said, "Well obviously the people have no hearts. If they had hearts they would respect each other and live in harmony".

So God made hearts, and put them in a sack and gave them to the Angel to take down to the world. But the sack was heavy so the Angle would toss out a brain every now and then to lighten his load.

When the Angel reached the Earth and started handing out the hearts, he saw he didn't have enough for everyone, so he started chopping them in half and giving some people half a heart, and when he saw he still wouldn't have enough he started chopping them in quarters, and so on until eventually he had no more hearts and some people got none at all !

What was even more terribile, a person with a full brain didn't neccessarily get a full heart. It was all mixed up. Some of the full brain people go no hearts, and the the no brain people got full hearts. Now the people who were cheating and lying sometimes felt guilty, and the people lied and cheated felt wronged. It was an even bigger mess than before. God, the Angel and the Devil argued long and hard over how to fix it.

Finally God said, "Enough is enough", and he went down to the world and gave a full heart and a full mind to one person in each village, and these people became the epic-singers, and they told the people how to respect each other and live in harmony, and they developed the songs for passing this information on to future generations.

The End.

(Note: This includes some changes from the original version I heard. In the original, the Angel carries the sack down for both the hearts and brains, and the Devil rips a hole in the sacks that cause the contents to leak out. I think my version is a bit more symmetrical. My version also explains why the Angel didn't notice the sacks were getting lighter as he was carrying them down to Earth)