xbsh hangs on the splash screen

[teledyn]

starting xbsh on the command line, the splash graphic appears, and then even an strace simply stops. Here's the strace output:

mmap(NULL, 1052672, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS|MAP_STACK, -1, 0) = 0x7f51a2605000
mprotect(0x7f51a2605000, 4096, PROT_NONE) = 0
clone(child_stack=0x7f51a2704fb0, flags=CLONE_VM|CLONE_FS|CLONE_FILES|CLONE_SIGHAND|CLONE_THREAD|CLONE_SYSVSEM|CLONE_SETTLS|CLONE_PARENT_SETTID|CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID, parent_tidptr=0x7f51a27059d0, tls=0x7f51a2705700, child_tidptr=0x7f51a27059d0) = 30875
futex(0x7f51a27059d0, FUTEX_WAIT, 30875, NULL

notice that the futex call never completes the printout.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: bsh 2.0b4-12ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-13.20-generic 3.11.6
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-13-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu2.1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Nov 14 12:05:15 2013
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-04-27 (565 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20120425)
MarkForUpload: True
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: bsh
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to saucy on 2013-10-22 (22 days ago)