Bilbo Baggins is the protagonist of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit

Following a long with the previous lines, there have been a large amount of video games released that were either directly or indirectly based on Tolkien’s legendary tales, including Lord of The Rings, Volume 1 release for Super Nintendo in the mid 1990’s.

Aesop is supporting his previous statement by giving us the image of a caricature of the classic Bilbo Baggins character. The idea of a the short-statured Bilbo on stilts, tilting a petri-dish despite the fact hobbits have no knowledge of the sciences, is a ridiculous image.

One of the most attractive elements of video games are their dream-like characteristics: control of the main character, no consequences to actions taken in the game, etc.

Many of the popular video games produced were aimed at exploiting ancient or classical legends & myths. Consider classic 90s games like Dynasty Warriors, Tomb Raider and even Spyro..all influenced by ancient myths and legends.

Despite this intention to honor the great legends and such, video games often end up as ugly caricatures of these stories or people. The games are also relatively shallow; for instance, Dynasty Warriors was hardly more than a different take on Mortal Kombat-style beat-em-up games and did very little to honor ancient Oriental culture. And let’s be real, did we play Tomb Raider to learn about archaeology and ancient artifacts, or to see the closest thing we had to porn as kids in 1996? Good ole Laura Croft…

Pan is another word for criticize or belittle while the word nozzle in this sense refers to the control of a flow of ideas or stimulation.

Rather than criticize Aesop or the person playing video games, he suggests you take a look the producers of these games instead. Another example of Aesop side-stepping any personal responsibilty which at this point has become another theme of this song.

Kabuki is the traditional Japanese theatre widely known for its visual styling and the female actresses/hostesses, also known as geisha.

In the first line of this phrase, Aesop is probably referring to his video game system which is likely Japanese-made (remember, only Playstation & Nintendo were big at this time). Playing these video games for such long periods has distorted his perception of who the villains are in his real life.

The second line in this phrase shows, maybe, a bit of remorse for the way he has been spending his time. The hobble he refers to is the way in which he is going through life at the time. Rather than walking confidently with a healthy gait, he is limping; just barely getting through life. Not only is he hobbling through life, but he is using his hands for empty endeavors. While he would rather create art or go out and succeed in fighting against the world’s negativity, he is instead stuck at home working away at something relatively meaningless in the grand scheme of things: playing video games.

This album came at a difficult time for Aesop which he admits was full of long days accompanied by coffee, cigarettes, and video games while afraid to leave the house. This line refers to these times, when he would go on a video game binge–most of which probably contained violence–to escape from reality and the outside world.

Aesop has pointed to the Zelda Series as being some of his all-time favorite video games.

Hell’s orchard is Earth in this line and is in direct opposition to Heaven’s orchard, also known as the Garden of Eden. In the Bible, the Lord forbids Adam & Eve from eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. However, the Devil tricks Adam & Eve into eating the fruit which eventually leads to the banning of humans from God’s garden.

Aesop is saying that he sees the evil and hurt all around him in life and even though he wants to challenge himself and face the problems directly, he does not act on this urge. He would rather hide behind his constructed defenses rather than experience both the good and bad things in hell’s orchard.

Aesop is acknowledging the imperfections of the human race here. We are arguably the greatest creation on earth but at the same time, extremely flawed like the fallen angels in Christianity.

Some people choose to focus and dwell on these negative aspects of the human race; sometimes even fighting these evils. Aesop, on the other hand attempts to reconcile as best he can–stitch his wing–and moves on with his life without addressing the problems. With the image of using a shoestring to do this, Aesop shows that this is sometimes done hastily and is not a long-term fix.