Troll Matrix

So I was drafting up a two-axis troll matrix the other day with Bridge Material across the top (rope, wood, stone, iron, etc.) and Spanned Item on the side (watercourse, viaduct, chasms/voids, etc.), so as to better catalog the variety of trolls one might encounter on a given journey.  I started to extrapolate the matrix to situations that one would not normally associate with trolls – for example the instance of a nanofiber space elevator cable which bridges between the surface of the planet and low earth orbit.  Big troll, no doubt, but where is “under” for that particular bridge?

Naturally this progressed to an exploration of abstract troll conditions, such as a shared third language bridging the misunderstandings between two foreigners abroad.  (Are botched idiomatic expressions the trolls of such a bridge?)  This quickly got silly, until I was saying “Love is the bridge that spans the gulf of historic enmity, man.”  Which in turn made me think of a yet-to-be-recorded AC/DC song:

When we cross that bridge

We’re gonna burn it

But before you ride

You got to earn it

First you gotta pay that toll

You owe seven dollars to the

LOVE TROLL.

That is all.  

 --Steve Kilian

Hollywood Harvest

A Classic Joke and A Classic Comedy Routine Meet, With Unsatisfactory Results