LIFE-COURT

(a one-act by Bob Zolnerzak)

[A radio play in fits and starts]

[CENTER's voice is identified by being that of "a normal male." LEFT has the voice of a fussbudget male queen. RIGHT has the voice of a down-to-earth woman.]

CENTER
I just HAVE to get rid of a lot of this STUFF in my APARTMENT.

LEFT
But you've kept it this long, you still have the room; just KEEP it.

RIGHT
None of it means ANYTHING; get rid of ALL of it. It'll be an ENORMOUS relief. Think of it: lovely SPACE that you can put NEW things into, rather than just reshuffling all the OLD stuff from shelf to shelf.

CENTER
The books are the worst.

LEFT
They have all your notes in them. You'll need them for reference. Remember, anytime you got rid of an old book, you wanted it BACK again within a month.

RIGHT
Ah, but remember that feeling of LIBERATION when you decided to get RID of all your old records and notes? What a relief it was to just THROW THEM OUT!

LEFT
Look at how much SPACE you saved when you borrowed books from the library: then you just xeroxed the few pages that captured the flavor of the book---then you didn't have to keep the whole book, just the few pages. You can xerox the pages of your notes in your books, or type notes FROM the books, and THEN throw them out.

CENTER
That sounds like an AWFUL lot of work!

LEFT
Or you could keep the COVERS of the paperbacks and the JACKETS of the books, like you keep the covers of the Playbills through all the years.

RIGHT
You threw out many of the old Playbills and you never missed them!

CENTER
Oh, yes, I did. I kept the covers, but then I wanted to know which actors and actresses I'd seen in the plays. And I couldn't find their names.

LEFT
That's why, when your friend was throwing out even OLDER Playbills, you couldn't pass up the chance of sorting through what HE was throwing out and saving what YOU would have wanted to see had YOU been in New York at the time!

RIGHT
Only giving you MORE stuff to throw away in the FUTURE. You simply cannot move from a four-room apartment into a two-room apartment and keep all the stuff you have. Remember your friend's experience that started you worrying about all this in the FIRST place.

LEFT
Not so much WORRIES as FEARS. You don't want to have his trauma of having cartons of unpacked STUFF stacked to the ceiling in the middle of his living room a full YEAR after he moved. You FEAR having to leave your apartment, like your Mother had to leave HER apartment, and having someone ELSE try to figure out what should be saved and what should be left behind for good. But then you took a full suitcase of things that YOU wanted from HER apartment.

RIGHT
All stuff to be thrown away eventually.

CENTER
Of course, if I NEVER do it, someone ELSE will have to do it FOR me when I die.

LEFT
Just make a list---

CENTER
I already HAVE: I made a list of ten areas to weed out before I move to another apartment in about five years. That's only two areas per year: porno films to video, travel slides, reel-to-reel tapes to cassettes, books, videotapes, clothes, records, magazines, file cabinets, travel souvenirs.

LEFT
You didn't even mention Playbills, ticket stubs, your scrapbooks---

CENTER
Those are all in file cabinets.

LEFT
That'll take a year right THERE.

RIGHT
But clothes will go quickly: a week should be enough for that.

LEFT
You can't get rid of your phonograph records. You even gathered collector's items from others who WERE getting rid of their records. They're still good; you should keep ALL of those.

RIGHT
Certainly you can cull them by at LEAST ten percent. Even twenty percent.

CENTER
But it always brings up the question: WHY am I saving these things!

LEFT
You LIKE them; you WANT them---it's as simple as THAT!

RIGHT
But they're just DISTRACTIONS---they FRAGMENT you!

CENTER
E pluribus unum.

LEFT
Many, many, many.

RIGHT
One, one, one.

CENTER
Left is....

LEFT
Details, memory, multiplicity.

CENTER
Right is....

RIGHT
Unity, completeness, simplification.

CENTER
But so many decisions have to be made.

LEFT
Center, some decisions have ALREADY been made. Just putting me on the LEFT has already been DECIDED. That is, I'm sitting to YOUR right, but if anyone was looking at us, I'm LEFT.

RIGHT
(Smugly) And I'm RIGHT.

LEFT
(Angrily) From the point of view of some invisible audience, you may be right; but from MY point of view, you're ALWAYS left.

RIGHT
(Smugly) Well, from MY point of view you ARE right, because I'm never left OUT. You are NOT right---you're OUT OF SIGHT--and OUT of your MIND!

CENTER
Calm down. In point of fact you are BOTH-----out-----out of MY mind. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

LEFT
Hey, Center, so there's not only RIGHT and LEFT, there's also AHEAD and BEHIND? Where are THEY?

RIGHT
That's OK, LEFT---you're a little BEHIND, yourself. You know: left behind?

LEFT
RIGHT, Right! I DO stand for multiplicity, but if you claim to be so simple, how can you be AHEAD? Go "right ahead" and explain that?

CENTER
RIGHT and LEFT are sufficient: I guess it's a tri-a-logue.

LEFT
Tri-a-logue? Is that any relation to why-a-duck?

RIGHT
Don't stoop so low---

LEFT
I never stoop solo, I only stoop in company with others.

RIGHT
Let's keep this on a higher plane; we're playing a version of the Glass Bead Game.

LEFT
The "Glass Bead Game." (Pause) Hermann Hesse. (Pause) Good book.

RIGHT
Unification.

CENTER
Right, RIGHT. The Game of Life. A Game played with objects that symbolize areas of knowledge and culture---

LEFT
---duplicating in the Game the entire contents of the universe. I just LOVE duplication---even triplication----even MULTI-plication. What a pity the Glass Bead Game is largely forgotten.

RIGHT
Not forgotten, just re-applied. What else are ELECTRONS and PROTONS but glass beads that make up the universe.

LEFT
Reminds me of Indra's Net---the ancient Hindu idea that the universe is a net of SILVER beads, EACH ONE REFLECTING EVERY OTHER ONE. Now THERE is multiplicity: If EACH bead reflects every other bead, each SINGLE bead's REFLECTION will contain every other bead, AGAIN reflected----

RIGHT
Just shows that the Hindus thought about HOLOGRAPHY before western scientists invented it.

CENTER
Like any net, once Indra's Net captured my mind, I find it entangling my LIFE. Not to mention Indra's Net reminding me of INTERNET!

LEFT
A western scientist even paraphrased Indra's Net as ONE SINGLE PARTICLE, like a NEEDLE, weaving through a tapestry of time-space, CREATING the zillions of particles in the universe out of ONE particle.

RIGHT
Constructions rising and falling out of the void.

CENTER
I sometimes think my BOOKS multiply like that: I put four on an empty shelf and before I know it, the shelf is FILLED and I have to find another empty shelf.

RIGHT
You could stop reading----

LEFT
NEVER! I've got it all figured out: even if I went BLIND, there'd still be "Books on Tape." Reading is ALMOST as good as SEX.

RIGHT
Let's postpone the subject of sublimation to some other time, shall we?

CENTER
Without doubt, there will ALWAYS be something I'll want to read.

LEFT
What else can you DO in a stalled subway car!

RIGHT
You could just watch the people.

LEFT
Thank you, but I've BEEN to the zoo.

CENTER
And when I finish riding the subway, it's much more interesting to say to myself, "finished reading Jane Austen's 'Persuasion'" than to say "survived another half-hour in the smelly subway."

RIGHT
Maybe you read books just to be able to say, "Oh, I read that."

LEFT
(Airily) Been there, done that.

CENTER
No, I like saying I read it because I WANTED to read it and I DID!

RIGHT
And then you WANT to keep it, so you KEEP it!

LEFT
As long as you have room for it.

CENTER
If I LIKED it, I want to have it NEAR me. The public library isn't that NEAR me---just knowing that a copy of the book is still OUT there, somewhere---maybe on the World Wide Web----

LEFT
Now THERE'S a manifestation of Indra's Net for you!

CENTER
I want it NEAR rather than FAR from me, just SOMEWHERE in the universe.

RIGHT
Your apartment IS your universe.

LEFT
Too bad your apartment can't EXPAND like the universe is expanding.

CENTER
My books ARE the knowledge in MY universe---if I get rid of my books, I'll be throwing away my KNOWLEDGE.

RIGHT
Your knowledge is in your HEAD, not on your bookshelves!

CENTER
But if I want to LEND my knowledge, it's much easier to lend a book than to lend my brain.

RIGHT
How many people have you lent books to?

CENTER
Five or six friends have borrowed dozens of my books---many of which I haven't gotten back yet.

LEFT
THAT'S one way of getting rid of books!

RIGHT
Friends could as easily borrow books from the library.

LEFT
And never return them there, EITHER.

CENTER
Visitors look at my books, ask about certain titles, express an interest---it's much simpler to just let them borrow MY copy of the book.

RIGHT
Do you replace those that are never returned?

CENTER
Not usually.

RIGHT
Do you miss them?

CENTER
Some, I do; others, I don't.

RIGHT
So you CAN get rid of SOME books without missing them.

CENTER
Maybe if I knew they were getting a good home---

RIGHT
No, you just want to know where they are so that you can borrow them BACK if you want to.

LEFT
At the very least you have to keep a LIST of what books you DID throw away.

CENTER
I did that before: sixteen years ago I threw away about five hundred books---and I regretted tossing LOTS of them: Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's," Crichton's "Andromeda Strain," all of Dostoyevsky, four Shirley Jackson books, Henry James' "Turn of the Screw" and "Daisy Miller," among MANY others I wish I'd kept. Now I can't even remember precisely WHY I didn't like any of Dostoyevsky's novels.

RIGHT
At least you can name-drop the books you HAD read.

CENTER
But that's not the point of reading books, just to be able to say that you HAVE read them! They should ENRICH you!

RIGHT
So if they HAVE enriched you, you ARE richer for having read them. If they HAVEN'T enriched you, keeping them on your
shelves won't enrich you by OSMOSIS.

LEFT
And of course having lots of books always IMPRESSES visitors.

CENTER
I confess that I'm pleased when visitors are impressed. Except for those who aren't convinced and have to ask "Did you actually READ all those books?"

LEFT
(airly) No, I bought them by the yard at used-book sales. Haven't cracked a cover.

RIGHT
So you CAN think of getting rid of some of the books, even if, sometime in the future, you'll find yourself regretting
it.

LEFT
He can THINK of it, he just won't ever get the courage to DO it.

CENTER
If I never had conflicting thoughts, I'd never really get INVOLVED in such decisions: I'd just decide to do it, and DO it.

RIGHT
All those conflicts filtered through typing fingertips----

LEFT
Reams and reams of paper with decisions debated endlessly---

CENTER
Not EXACTLY endlessly---I HAVE been able to reach SOME decisions.

RIGHT
Like deciding to be fascinated by the Glass Bead Game-----

LEFT
And never figuring out exactly how to incorporate it.

CENTER
Maybe I should call my game the Glass Bead Juggle: first THIS, and then THAT, and then the OTHER, but back to THIS, THAT, and the OTHER, over and over again.

LEFT
But if you stopped writing THIS, and actually DID throw books out, THIS would NEVER be finished.

RIGHT
But you only have to have thirty pages worth.

CENTER
Thirty pages looks like a lot when I'm only on page five!

LEFT
But you're editing in the MIDDLE; skip ahead to see how many pages are AFTER this!

CENTER
Well, that's reassuring: there are five pages AFTER this.

RIGHT
So with ten pages done, you're a third of the way there. With three whole days and two parts of days for the other two-thirds.

LEFT
Not any more: now it's MONDAY, and Village Playwrights is TOMORROW!

CENTER
And I actually CUT OUT three or four pages----

LEFT
YOU?? Cut pages OUT???

CENTER
My own contribution to Indra's Net: now I have a FIRST draft and a SECOND draft printed out, working on the THIRD draft, but looking back over the second draft to see if anything TAKEN OUT there would fit better somewhere ELSE.

RIGHT
I think your Glass Bead Juggle would be clearer with fewer balls.

CENTER
I worry about taking out the WRONG things: maybe some bit of wordplay that I REMOVE would be exactly what would wake up some dozing listener.

LEFT
If someone misses something, it's THEIR problem.

RIGHT
No, if something crucial is missed, it's the WRITER's problem.

CENTER
If I edit something out, it's gone forever---completely forgotten.

LEFT
Oh, how many great books have been forgotten: Aldous Huxley's "Perennial Philosophy," the clearest philosophy book ever written; Olaf Stapledon's "Darkness and the Light," the farthest-ranging science-fiction novel ever written; John Archibald Wheeler's "Geometrodynamics," the first advanced Grand Unified Theory of Physics....

RIGHT
Words, words, words....

CENTER
Which are poor conveyers of meaning. When LEFT said that Geometrodynamics was the first ADVANCED Grand Unified Theory of Physics, he meant BOTH that it was the first Grand Unified Theory BROUGHT FORTH---that is, advanced---AND it was the first theory beyond others, that is, adVANCED.

LEFT
It still IS advanced: it said "All particles are produced by operations of GEOMETRY on TOTALLY EMPTY SPACE."

RIGHT
Can't get more "Glass Bead Juggle" than THAT.

CENTER
Basically, all mathematical EQUATIONS are "Glass Bead Juggles." Vectors and tensors and functions and "X"es---just beads put together, strung down the textbook page, reflecting reality.

RIGHT
Glass beads are dangerous, though: they can DISTORT reality ---bend it out of shape---magnify here and there---make curves out of straight lines.

LEFT
Newton's laws distorted reality by ignoring very high speeds. Einstein corrected Newton's "beads" for relativity. Wheeler corrected Einstein's Net for multi-dimensional geometry.

RIGHT
And in the future someone will refine Wheeler's equations. No one has written the FINAL equation yet.

LEFT
Just as no one's written the FINAL book, but that doesn't mean you have to throw out all the "good tries" at some unattainable final book.

RIGHT
But maybe this script (rattling pages) would be better if it were thrown out and started over.

LEFT
We've already thrown out a lot---let's send up this rocket and see if it explodes or fizzles.

CENTER
Hey! Glass beads that become FIREWORKS! What an exciting game THEY would make!

RIGHT
At least you would have fewer to KEEP after the fireworks exploded.

LEFT
Like Stapledon's "snowflake universes."

RIGHT
You have to remind me.

LEFT
In his novel "Darkness and Light," Stapledon's narrator enlarged his spatial view and speeded up time SO much that entire UNIVERSES were reduced to snowflakes falling as points of light through a background darkness.

RIGHT
Pretty trivial---or should I say "trivially pretty"?

LEFT
Drawing back ever FARTHER, he saw that these snowflake universes were falling onto a DANCEFLOOR and being trampled into slush by indifferent and brawling titans.

RIGHT
The macarena strikes again!

LEFT
The macarena, as a dance, is too ephemeral----

RIGHT
Like those snowflake universes?

LEFT
Call it the "Cosmic Cha-Cha-Cha."

RIGHT
Chattanooga Choo-Choo-Choo.

CENTER
Let's get back to my problem. Let's try harder to COOPERATE.

LEFT
OK, so long as we keep everything.

RIGHT
OK, as long as we throw everything out.

CENTER
It's already decided: I have decided: we can't keep EVERYTHING, nor can we throw EVERYTHING out! And that's FINAL!

LEFT
(Sulking) Then I won't say anything else!

RIGHT
So, LEFT, are you saying that if you can't have EVERYTHING, you don't want ANYTHING? THAT sounds really stupid, coming from YOU!

LEFT
So, RIGHT, (snottily) are you saying that if you don't get RID of everything, you'll let ME have the final say? That sounds really SELF-DELUDING, coming from YOU!

RIGHT
(huffily) Let YOU have the final say? NEVER! If you think THAT, it's YOU who are deluding YOURself.

CENTER
Why do I think this doesn't sound like cooperation?

LEFT
Because, CENTER, by DEFINITION---if I get ANYTHING, that is, ANY SINGLE THING, then I win, because then RIGHT automatically LOSES!

RIGHT
LEFT, that shows how little you can see beyond your short -sighted NOSE! ANYthing that's thrown away is a win for ME. And since we KNOW that SOMEthing MUST be thrown away, I'm going to be winning ALL the TIME!

CENTER
Oh, RIGHT, somehow I think you're more LEFT than RIGHT: you want to collect POINTS as much as LEFT wants to collect BOOKS.

RIGHT
At least POINTS don't take up any SPACE.

LEFT
But they sure take up TIME!

CENTER
And all we've GOT is time-space. Which is limited. Which is why we have to cooperate. If we had ALL of time, and ALL of space, we wouldn't have ANY problems at ALL.

LEFT
Then all you'd have to do is ORGANIZE it---make a list of priorities.

RIGHT
That's the WORST way to go. If you FOLLOW yesterday's list of priorities, you won't take into account TODAY's priorities. If you DON'T follow yesterday's list of priorities, you'll feel GUILTY and unproductive. If you do that, you can't win at ALL.

LEFT
So you make a NEW list of priorities TODAY.

CENTER
Or you look at your priorities EVERY MINUTE, and then you don't need a list at ALL.

LEFT
You tried that, but you know what happens when you DON'T have a list! You try to look at the stack of stuff arranged on ONE table, showing what you have to LEAVE the apartment to do; and then you try to look at the stack of stuff arranged on that OTHER table, showing what you can do IN the apartment; and then you try to look at the stack of stuff on the SHELF, which contains stuff that you think you can give LESSER priority to; and if you have actual money-paying WORK to do you can look at THAT stack; and then you try not to look at the little stacks of stuff in those OTHER places, all stuff that you want to get to EVENTUALLY----and THEN you go out and rent a videotape to watch, or you read another book, or you phone a friend to arrange to go out to eat or go to a gallery or play or opera or museum or bookshop, or you jerk off, or you surf the Internet, or play a computer game, or go out and BUY more books, or clothes, or toys---or, at the very bottom of the list that you don't have, you write a few more pages of "The Radio Play That Never Ends."

RIGHT
That doesn't sound THAT bad! Only a SLIGHT problem: everything's coming IN and nothing's going OUT!

LEFT
I'm going out!

RIGHT
And getting more books and programs and menus and souvenirs and STUFF that will eventually exceed the cubic volume of your apartment! There will be no room left for YOU to move around in your apartment. Remember, that's what you SAID would happen to your FRIEND that moved---and it was TRUE! He threw things out, gave stuff away---

LEFT
---that I brought home to keep in MY place---

RIGHT
---but refused to hire outside storage space---

LEFT
---which never works, because you can never decide what goes there, and then it's always the wrong stuff and you have to take THIS back out and put THAT back in---

RIGHT
----but, even so, when he DID move, he literally FILLED his apartment from floor to ceiling---living room, bedroom, hallway, kitchen, even the BATHroom---with boxes and bags and lumber and shelving and STUFF---

LEFT
---even a wall of boxes in the hallway until the management of the building complained---

RIGHT
---so that he had to throw out MORE stuff and give away MORE
stuff until at least he got enough cartons off his bed so that he could sleep in it, cleared a narrow pathway between towers of STUFF so he could walk from one end of his living room to the other, got enough supplies put away so that he could cook in his kitchen without setting fire to storage containers----

LEFT
---and worked on it for the next THIRTEEN MONTHS so that he "only" has forty-five packing cases piled in the middle of his living room---

RIGHT
---with absolutely NO more wallspace for more bookcases, no more closet space for more shelving, no more empty corners for more collections, no more shelving for three thousand videotapes----

CENTER
---and NO idea how to handle what's in those forty-five packing cases!

RIGHT
(after long pause) Perfectly dreadful!

CENTER
OK, we've agreed---now, what do we DO?

RIGHT
Throw things out.

CENTER
I read a good quote in The New Yorker: "He became an interesting man as he grew older. He cut down everything that was not important. Very few people can do this---if you cut down, what's left?"

RIGHT
If you cut down an apple, you're left with the core.

LEFT
If you cut down a tree, you're left with a stump.

RIGHT
If you throw away enough tri-a-logue, you won't take up ANY time at Village Playwrights.

LEFT
If you cut down a life------------(long pause)

CENTER
Of course, there's NOTHING left. But I've got to cut down BEFORE that final cutting down. I certainly WILL have my memories----

LEFT
---unless Alzheimer's cuts THOSE down FOR you----

RIGHT
But even then you STILL live from moment to moment----

LEFT
----meeting new people all the TIME-----

RIGHT
----more or less reverting to second childhood----

LEFT
----or second infancy, when people have to clean up after you if you poo-poo in the wrong platter-----

CENTER
I'm not thinking of THAT much cutting down, either. When I "dropped out" in the sixties, I thought about moving into a truck-camper and living on the road, just reading and writing----

LEFT
See? You'd already cut out arithmetic.

CENTER
But even THEN I couldn't fit all my phonograph records and books and souvenirs---and friends---into a medium-sized camper, so I had to abandon the idea, reluctantly.

RIGHT
Maybe you'd STILL like to do that?

CENTER
No, I'm content with my yearly trip-splurge---I'm always happy when I can return to New York City.

LEFT
You've made your OWN VERSION of New York City right in your apartment: guides and notes on restaurants, souvenirs gleaned from the city, tickets for upcoming events, clippings about galleries and places to visit---

RIGHT
But the QUANTITY of stuff, when cut down, will improve the QUALITY of the stuff that's left.

LEFT
Quantity IS quality---too much is never enough----less is always and forever LESS, no matter how clever with words anyone tries to be.

RIGHT
But you MUST admit, some people we know are really CONSTIPATED!

LEFT
Then condense. Go through the easy stuff, like clothes. Leave the hard stuff, like books, till the end. As you go, you'll learn more about what you can easily get rid of and what you can't.

RIGHT
No, tackle the books first: they're uppermost in your mind, they'll make the biggest contribution to downsizing. How many are we talking about?

CENTER
About 3800.

LEFT
That doesn't sound like so many: keep them all.

CENTER
That's very roughly a hundred and ten shelves with thirty -five books per shelf. Some of those shelves hold records: you remember RECORDS? I even took someone's collection of 78's, but only three feet worth. Then there are TAPES: reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, camcorder tapes, computer-backup tapes.

LEFT
Scotch tape, duct tape, masking tape---

RIGHT
So many KINDS of tapes. WHY so many kinds of tapes?

CENTER
Two kinds of AUDIO tapes, two kinds of VIDEO tapes, and a set of DATA tapes. In the FUTURE, I won't even NEED these.

RIGHT
Why not?

LEFT
As computers get larger, and storage increases, and telephones are linked to televisions and computers and audio systems, I'll eventually be able to DIAL UP any kind of audio or video or data tape I want. I'll even be able to store my OWN musical creations: my two-hour abridgement of Wagner's "Ring," my three-hour "Best of Stephen Sondheim," my four-minute "Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber."

RIGHT
Until the power goes out.

CENTER
Then I'll have a chance to sit quietly and think, for a change.

LEFT
Not that you haven't done too much of that already----as witness all of this (rustles the pages of the script).

CENTER
Ah, that brings me to my eleven feet of writings.

RIGHT
Eleven FEET?

CENTER
At 250 pages per inch, about 33,000 pages.

LEFT
At roughly 400 words per page, that's over thirteen MILLION words.

RIGHT
Words, words, words!

CENTER
But words are important! Some of those words changed my life!

RIGHT
If they DID change your life, you don't NEED to keep the words THEMSELVES!

CENTER
That would be fine if I had a perfect memory. But I don't. I need reminding. I re-read my trip journals from thirty years ago and so MANY memories need to be refreshed I feel like I'm taking the trip all over again.

LEFT
Thirteen million words, maybe a hundred megabytes on a computer disk. No big deal.

CENTER
Except that I have to get them INTO the computer.

LEFT
Scanners! Scanners are getting cheaper and cheaper.

RIGHT
And staying slow. Six, maybe as many as ten pages per hour---not to mention it'll take at least that long to correct the pages as read by the scanners. Thirty-three hundred hours? Working two hours almost every day will only take you five years to do that. (Sarcastically) No big deal.

CENTER
I'll just have to wait until the scanners get faster. I have time.

RIGHT
That's what I call optimism.

LEFT
And if he didn't have time, the problems would all solve themselves!

CENTER
Exactly what IS it about books that make them so hard to throw away.

RIGHT
You'll have to answer that for yourself.

LEFT
They cost a lot.

CENTER
That's no big deal.

LEFT
Well, then---they take a lot of time to read.

RIGHT
This is going to be good.

CENTER
Right, LEFT! Books are big investments of time, so I want to get the full value from my investment.

RIGHT
As if the books THEMSELVES were worthwhile, rather than the CONTENTS of the books.

LEFT
Of course! You save books for their CONTENTS, not for THEMSELVES.

RIGHT
But wouldn't you think that the worthwhile contents would stay with you whether you had the books or not?

CENTER
I've added my OWN thoughts to the books, pencilled comments in the margin, made references to other books.

LEFT
You've made the books your OWN by putting YOURSELF into them.

RIGHT
So now you'll tell me: If I get rid of the books, I'll be getting rid of a piece of MYSELF.

LEFT
And when you die, you'll be leaving behind pieces of yourself on your SHELF!

RIGHT
Keep it up! Keep looking at the words. (Sarcastic) Forget about the IDEAS behind the words, everyone KNOWS that it's the WORDS that are important!

LEFT
Like you say, RIGHT: words, words, words!

RIGHT
CENTER, isn't it great when SOME people can't tell the difference between a STATEMENT and SARCASM?

CENTER
Hang on, BOTH of you. Maybe this DOES have something to do with leaving something----of myself----behind.

RIGHT
Center, if you want to leave something of yourself behind, it should be something better than your unreadable scribbles in BOOKS that you've marked up. Write your OWN ideas, don't spend your time paraphrasing the ideas of OTHERS.

LEFT
That's harder to do. C'mon, I'd rather watch television.

CENTER
Even if I DO leave something behind, what GOOD does that do? Do you think SHAKESPEARE was happier during his life thinking, "Wow, they're really gonna make some great movies based on my plays, about four hundred years after I write them." Yeah, that's gonna make his bones feel just GREAT!

LEFT
Correct! Let's just watch television.

RIGHT
If Shakespeare had spent all his time watching television, he wouldn't have had time to write his plays.

CENTER
If Shakespeare watched television, his neighbors would be standing around puzzled about where he plugged it IN.

LEFT
"Puzzled" is a good state. People PRODUCE when they're puzzled. CONTENTED people usually don't produce much of anything.

CENTER
Too MUCH puzzlement can squelch creativity. Juggle too MANY balls in the Glass Bead Juggle and you end up dropping the lot.

RIGHT
I know someone who went from writing poetry, to writing short stories, to novels, to textbooks, to journals, to stage plays, and now he's resorting to radio plays because he doesn't have to incorporate any action. One ball juggled WELL is better than six balls flying out of control.

LEFT
Maybe he's learning as he goes.

CENTER
Maybe he's just avoiding the idea that most lessons learned are forgotten the next day---the next MINUTE.

RIGHT
That's a problem with reading four books in one day. One GREAT book can be obliterated by three subsequent bombs: it all averages out to "blah."

CENTER
But if I KEEP the books, I can RE-READ the great ones.

RIGHT
Unfortunately, after a week you've FORGOTTEN which of the books were bombs; you could throw them out RIGHT AWAY.

CENTER
A revolutionary thought!

[END OF RADIO PLAY]