Life-Court II
LIFE COURT - SECOND ACT
[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 WORRY as FEAR. 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 scavenged collector's items from other people 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 were looking at us, I'd be LEFT.
RIGHT
(Smugly) And I'd be 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 are not only RIGHT and LEFT, there are 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 found it entangling my LIFE. Not to mention Indra's Net reminding me of INTERNET!
LEFT
One 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 this ONE single 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 can 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 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's 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
(Airily) 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 anymore: 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 The 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 says, "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"s---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 The Darkness and the 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 of 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 DANCE FLOOR and being trampled into slush by indifferent and brawling titans.
RIGHT
Jitterbug strikes again!
LEFT
Jitterbug, 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 outside 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 wall space 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, indeed!
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 embarking on 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 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 78s, 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 gain power, and storage increases, and telephones are linked to televisions and computers and audio systems, I'll eventually be able to directly access any kind of audio or video or data 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 reread 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 a part---of myself---behind.
RIGHT
Center, if you want to leave something of yourself behind, it should be 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, how does that help? 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 REREAD 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]
Encyclical "Dominus Ludus"
"Dominus Ludus" may be loosely translated as "Lewd Lord," another name for the reprehensible "Lord of the Dance" now appearing at the Radium Civitas Musicum, known to New Yorkers as Radio City Music Hall. I, your Pope, speaking infallibly, ex cathedra, prohibit Catholics from attending this lewd debasement of the body, spirit, and very soul.
Aside from the obvious hubris of stealing the holy title of "Lord" from The Christ, Michael Flatley has appointed himself to degrade two millennia of Irish dance from a celebration of the control we must all have over the unruly casements of our corporeal flesh, to a series of lascivious posturings in black leather, obscured by clouds of smoke and fire, so clearly traducing our sacred ideology of the torments of Gehenna: Hell itself!
This Anti-Lord---nay, this Antichrist---has explicitly stated in his cheapening appearance on Public Television that he wants his audience, and I quote, "to be drawn from every age, culture, and religion." Not only does he want to stain the souls of consenting adults, he wants parents to drag in their children, he wants the Irish to persuade neighbors who may not be of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church---he wants to demean all these people, getting, as he so baldly puts it, "as wide an audience as possible" for his evil plotting.
Who can deny the evil of his plotting? He has gone back to what he calls "the Celtic myths," those cesspools of pagan glorifications of fornication and aberrant sexuality, to get his narrative line, yet he degrades the audience because he---and I quote his very words---"doesn't want the audience to have to think too much; there are no hidden messages." No, my people, he doesn't want you to think at all; his message is perfectly clear: revel in the sinuosity of the naked human body, pit woman against woman in the battle of the red dress---the symbol of Jezebel---against the white dress, which he then pulls off to reveal black underwear, showing a bare midriff and the naked tops of the thighs, showing the very forms of those sacred breasts which have nursed all of us in our infancy. Both women writhe in lust for the black-leather-clad body of the so-called "Lord of the Dance."
And then Michael Flatley, who, nearing the age of 40, should know better, takes off his shirt to reveal a torso wet with unholy sweat, luring the television cameras in to take a close-up of his middle region! He isn't dancing with his middle region! Why should the camera zoom in on his middle region? Because his message of one of lust, Godlessness, and bestial fornication. His opponents wear black masks, looking more like animals than humankind, stressing their impersonality and sexual potency. And who can deny the unexpressed homosexuality involved in their rival dancing? Showing off their bodies to each other and staring into each other's eyes with the laughable excuse of competing for the attention of the women, who at this point have actually left the stage!
And what a stage this is! Enormously broad, with the flies lowering phallic hanging pendants that collapse to the floor at the music's climaxes! The symbolism is so obvious that it is beneath contempt. The orchestra plays so loudly that it muffles any thoughts of temperance, and at the end of each number the audience screams with animal lust, and the Demon Flatley urges them on with shouts of "Yes! Yes!" Can it be denied that he yearns for them to succumb to their lust?
The holy dance of Ireland had been so pure: hold your arms to your sides to show control, wear your family's tartans to show love of country, let the music be moderate for moderate dancing! Here the arms are flung in derision to Heaven and in supplication to Hell; the tartans are replaced by the uniforms of the Eurotrash: black leathers and see-through fabrics of gaudy colors. Not a plaid in the lot!
Can you imagine Our Lord, Our Christ, flinging his legs to heaven, showing leather pants under his simple white robes? Can you imagine Our Mother Mary baring her bosom to the plaudits of the multitudes? Can you imagine the heavenly choirs being replaced by synthesizers and electronic music machines?
Do not be sucked in by this gaping gate to the Inferno below! Resist the blandishments of your non-Catholic friends to attend this orgy of sexuality and sensuousness. Invite them to Church, or hark back to the glorious past by celebrating with a lovely fish dinner on Friday evenings.
[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.]
ACT II
LEFT
I think we're going to have a problem here!
CENTER
Why?
LEFT
"ACT II" may come a long time after ACT I. There might even be a different audience. During the intermission, some listeners might have called their friends to say, "Hey, turn your radio on to [radio-station name and frequency]; you gotta hear this!"
CENTER
I'll accept that.
LEFT
(In a mumble) Not to mention that I'm not even the SAME guy reading LEFT as in ACT I. (Louder) Good, Center. For all you newbies out there, I'm reading the character called LEFT. And Alvin, here---I just phoned him to tell him we'd be reading this tonight, so I hope I don't have to replace his name with someone else's---is reading the character called RIGHT. We have the advantage of holding scripts that constantly refer to us as LEFT, CENTER, and RIGHT, but unless you sent in your three box tops last week, you DON'T have a script to refer to. (Perplexed) THAT can't be right! (Again to audience) As you will soon find out, this radio play does NOT have the advantage of NOT being confusingly self-referential in spots. Our upcoming broadcast schedule will be sent to those who submit FOUR box tops THIS week. WHICH box tops, Center?
CENTER
I'm not fussy.
LEFT
Right! I'm even listed in the introductory stage directions as being a fussbudget queen. I'll have everyone know that this is NOT type-casting!
RIGHT
Well, now, I wouldn't say that.
LEFT
Right, introducing herself there. So now we know who we are: LEFT, myself; CENTER, the boring one; and RIGHT, who can self-describe or self-destruct for all I care.
RIGHT
Deep down, LEFT, we all know you as being a loving, caring, tender-hearted (Pause) son-of-a-bitch.
LEFT
Which could make me YOUR son, whoreson---or is that whoredaughter?
CENTER
They constantly argue. I constantly argue. WE constantly argue. EVERYONE constantly argues. One consolation: if everyone always AGREES?---isn't that interesting: "argues" changes to "agrees" by changing "you" to "e", which is linguistically identical to changing "you" to "we". That of course IS what changes arguers to agree-ers: changing the separative, dismissive YOU to the inclusive, compatible, agreeing WE--- To get beyond the interpolation: if everyone always AGREED, there wouldn't be any need for plays, arguments, scenarios, or even radio stations, since if everyone always agreed there could never, practically by definition, be anything to MAKE them disagree, which undoubtedly includes all of language, discourse, and thinking in general.
LEFT
You see, Center certainly does go on!
RIGHT
Left can give Center competition if the disagreement merits it.
CENTER
Anyway, ACT I centered around the trauma of deciding which books might possibly be thrown out of an overcrowded apartment. LEFT was introduced as details, memory, and multiplicity. RIGHT was stuck with unity, completeness, and simplification. One bookshelf yielded Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game, which led to Indra's Net, progressed to Olaf Stapledon's "snowflake universes," got sidetracked in "quantity versus quality," and ended with the heartening thought that SOME books are so awful they can be thrown away immediately after, if not immediately before, reading them!
LEFT
If you made the summary much longer, it would take as long as ACT I itself. And then in ACT III---does this mean that ACT V would never end?
RIGHT
I remember that, in my critique of ACT I, I complained about the difficulty of acting out all the capitalized words. I see all the weight given to THAT complaint---don't you think I could figure out on my own that that THAT should be emphasized?
LEFT
A milestone: that "that that THAT": sounds like a lisping, mincing machine gun: THAT THAT THAT THAT THAT!
CENTER
I can have five of the SAME beads if I want them.
RIGHT
The title of this play, "Life Court," wasn't explained at all.
CENTER
We all court the charms of life however we can. But if life turns criminal, we can put it on trial for its misdeeds. In addition, in French, the word for short is court, and all people aren't granted everything they want.
LEFT
Another three piddling meanings. If you'd called it "Life Short," you could refer to a minimal movie, an undergarment, and an electrical failure, as well as calling it---ahem---brief!
CENTER
But I wasn't finished: life HOLDS court here, in the sense of the establishment of a sovereign. A court is also an open space associated with buildings. And don't forget the Glass Bead GAME, so if tennis is played on a tennis court----
LEFT
The Glass Bead Game is played on a Glass Bead Court. OK, I give up.
RIGHT
Not to mention courtship as a preliminary to mating.
CENTER
To reintegrate the disintegrated---
LEFT
And (Singing poorly) "accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative---"
RIGHT
(Contemptuously) No courtly manners HERE.
LEFT
I was just going to say that Life Court sounds like Bud's brother.
CENTER
Huh?
LEFT
Bud Cort? "Harold and Maude"? Remember?
RIGHT
Bud spells his name C-O-R-T!
LEFT
So what? This is radio, not television. What it sounds like is what you get.
CENTER
So this is the mating-dance for, trial of, space within which, and royal establishment concerning, the short Game with Glass Beads called Life.
RIGHT
No argument there.
LEFT
Oh, there's GOTTA be an argument. Can't have PROGRESS without an argument. Thesis plus antithesis EQUALS argument; FUCK the conclusion!
RIGHT
As indicated, fuck IS your conclusion.
LEFT
And all of our dirty beginnings, don't you forget it.
CENTER
I'd like to get back to books.
LEFT
If I were from Liverpool, my "FOOKS" would rhyme with your BOOKS!
CENTER
I hate books written in dialect. Hoban's Riddley Walker is a real pain, and James Joyce isn't far behind. What Finnegan's Wake" needs is a good translator. There's not enough TIME to hassle dialect. Enough pleasure can be taken without FORCING yourself to read a book. Too much like FORCING yourself to WRITE. It just doesn't seem to be worth all the PAIN.
RIGHT
Day-by-day, as they say.
LEFT
I see another problem here: maybe you just weren't in the mood to read a particular book. A couple of times you've chosen to read a book by some new author, couldn't get into it at the time, and you did throw it away. Then, a couple of years later, the author wrote a really dynamite book that changed your opinions about the value of the author. You actually had to buy another copy of the author's first book, read it again, and kept it because you liked it better the second time around.
RIGHT
You were a different person when you read the book the second time.
CENTER
Books are a kind of surrogate life. I can meet people and not appreciate them---or their lives---at first, but when I learn more about them I appreciate them more and can value them more. It's the same with books. When I first started Remembrance of Things Past, I didn't like it because there was no action, it seemed to be too passive. I didn't care for---I couldn't identify with---the "I" of the narrator. So I stopped. About ten years later I tried reading it again. This time I didn't mind the passivity of the narrator, but I thought it was awfully negative and trivializing of experiences. Again I quit reading it. After another ten years, I was determined to finish. I still found it hard going: I kept wondering what it would be like in the original French---maybe the problem was a poor translation. Then I read the final volume in a more recent translation and the whole structure came alive, particularly in sentences like "I knew that my brain was like a mountain landscape rich in minerals, wherein lay vast and varied ores of great price. With my death would disappear the one and only engineer who possessed the skill to extract these minerals."
RIGHT
Mixed minerals make great glass beads.
CENTER
Crystal balls are naturals, too.
LEFT
Not to mention the right kinds of pills. Old Hermann Hesse had probably enjoyed a lunch of magic mushrooms when those hallucinogenic Glass Beads bubbled up in his imagination. What pretty colors! Hold them up to the light and grok the divine!
RIGHT
Some of the beads are frozen light shattered into rainbow colors. Essence of dark violet; shards of hot pink, emeralds and sapphires.
CENTER
(Slowly, savoring words) Carved ivory, mosquitoes in amber, baroque pearls, hummingbird eggs, mouse skulls, rubber-tree gumballs, fossilized feathers---stretch the Glass Bead sample-tray.
RIGHT
Look at the colors. Then close your eyes and touch them: warm, cool, sharp, yielding, adamant---or edible!
LEFT
Yes! Include jelly babies, jawbreakers that change color, red licorice, white chocolate, sugarcoated almond-stuffed dates.
CENTER
Leave it to you to step outside the boundaries.
RIGHT
No boundaries.
LEFT
Watch cogs, assayer's weights, gallstones, meteorites from Mars, plastic snowflakes---
CENTER
Plastic snowflakes?
LEFT
Each with the initials of one of Olaf Stapledon's snowflake universes.
RIGHT
Too bad we can't throw in a black hole.
LEFT
Or a white hole---as they say, what goes in---to a black hole---must come out somewhere. Zap! A WHITE hole!
CENTER
Let me know when you market the introductory version; I don't think I'm ready for the x-rated model yet.
LEFT
Hey! Cock-rings and tit-clamps and urethral rings and Benwah balls---thanks for reminding me!
RIGHT
Maybe we can get back to books yet.
CENTER
Even I have to admit they seem rather tame at this point.
LEFT
The fertility of hammering thought, the fecundity of desperate graspings---or is it only the wheeze of exhaustion?
RIGHT
Whatever happened to FLOW?
LEFT
Flo who!
RIGHT
That's "flow" WHAT! Flow takes over when you're so engrossed in what you're doing that you just FLOW. Concerns with time just vanish. Performance skyrockets. You set the direction and speed of your OWN flow, rather than just sitting back and "going with the flow."
LEFT
Why do I always think of menstruation when I hear that?
CENTER
Because you're SICK.
RIGHT
"Going with the flow" is like going "moment by moment" because you're not STARTING something, you're not ENDING something, you're in the MIDDLE. You're ALWAYS in the middle.
CENTER
Like EVERYTHING is always in the middle. Physics is in the MIDDLE of its theories about matter's basic building blocks. From the "earth, air, fire, water" particles of the ancient Greeks, to where we are now: starting to think that maybe quarks have smaller bits inside them---halfway toward some final basic particle too small to measure, that exists for a time too short to recognize. Astronomy is in the MIDDLE of its theories about the universe: from an elephant on the back of a turtle---or was it a turtle on the back of an elephant??---to Great Walls of universes hurtling through space in the direction of a Great Attractor---halfway toward some final stupendous cosmos too large to measure, that exists for a time too large to encompass. Religion is in the MIDDLE with its ess-ka-TOL-a-gee---
LEFT
I thought that was ess-SHAT-ol-a-gee----
CENTER
No SHAT. Last things, into which---maybe wrongly---I lump the Afterlife. Most of us---most of us with any sense, anyway---have grown away from visions of harp-plucking angels floating around on fluffy clouds behind pearly gates. But we've got a long way YET to go beyond tunnels of light and flocks of family, friends, and lovers all waiting for US to rejoin them. And without doubt there WILL BE progress even in THAT direction. I'd be willing to bet on SOMETHING, after life, which is very much part of what we haven't recognized about life NOW: something like awareness permeates everything. Plants DO respond to people hovering over them, even if it's only by sucking up, firsthand, the carbon dioxide that plants BREATHE. Viruses and prions, even MOLECULES, are DIRECTED and, in a way, have awareness. We expand our KNOWING of this awareness as surely as we expand our knowing that the universe itself is expanding. And all awareness, like the reflections of the reflections in the beads of Indra's Net, is ONE. Just as all sub-events organize into totality, as all colors blend to form white, as sounds of all frequencies form WHITE sound.
RIGHT
As all these words form the chaos of this radio play.
CENTER
That's right: I want each act to contain everything, just as each awareness can contain every other awareness, as white light contains all colors.
LEFT
It's "all one piece," like the snot in the whorehouse bucket!
RIGHT
The sublime and the obscene are one.
CENTER
The conflict in a radio play---or in life---is to TRY to capture "all the world in a bucket"---and FAIL.
RIGHT
It's impossible to capture in concrete words the threads of the ideas, moment by moment, in the mind.
CENTER
Yet they're all there, all at once! Just zoom in on those ideas and each contains the germs of the others. Look at the universe of fractal geometry. The Mandelbrot Set. That little black Buddha-shape---or you can look at it as a prickly snowman, if that makes you feel better---the heart-shaped bottom surmounted by a "head" topped by a spiky beet. That's what it looks like in two dimensions. Imagine what it would look like in THREE dimensions! I've never seen any computer program that attempts that---I wish SOMEONE would write it! The Sierpinski Carpet has a central square of one-ninth the area cut out. The remaining eight-ninths have their central squares removed. That process continues until, actually, EVERY POINT is removed. The Menger sponge is a three-dimensional manifestation of this process that has an INFINITE surface area---and absolutely ZERO volume! Magnify ANY point---and there's nothing there!
RIGHT
There's no THERE there.
LEFT
(Consolingly) There, there, there!
CENTER
Movies "zooming in" on any area of the Mandelbrot Set would ALL eventually end up with that same little black Buddha-shape. Magnify ANYWHERE enough, and you get NOTHING!
RIGHT
A black hole.
LEFT
Racist! Tell me about WHITE holes!
CENTER
White holes are sources of energy---and even time---while black holes are sinks of energy and time.
LEFT
What's a "sink of time"?
CENTER
Time slows as you near the horizon of a black hole. If you REACH the horizon, time stops---which implies you can never actually ENTER the black hole. My CD-ROM of the April 1997 issue of Scientific American details the debate about the EXACT nature of the horizon of the black hole, but no one seems to question what HAPPENS when time stops at the horizon. Anyway, WHITE holes could exist at the center of EACH subatomic particle, CREATING the particle, creating the TIME around the particle---and time in general. We'll just never be able to "peel the onion" deeply enough to PROVE it. Each white hole is the source of everything---simple as that!
LEFT
Not often can you hear that "everything" is "simple"!
CENTER
But it IS. There's a computer game called Life. Population grows or shrinks according to very few, very simple rules. Resulting populations can be exceedingly complex---merely by starting with a tiny population acted on by very simple rules. The Mandelbrot Set is generated very simply---just take a number, multiply it by itself, add a constant to get another number, and repeat fifty million times. Depending on your starting number, and the constant you add, you describe a region inside or outside that very-well-defined Buddha-figure. The universe itself is simple: take a few numbers like the speed of light, the charge on a simple electron, a couple of ratios in the form of constants, and pop them into the Big Bang. Follow a VERY few rules, and you come up with you, me, and the lamppost.
LEFT
I can't BELIEVE that a few simple rules could produce a lamppost!
RIGHT
Then you have to resort to that old lamppost-maker in the sky.
LEFT
I can't believe in her, either!
RIGHT
Just so long as you believe in lampposts.
LEFT
Since I don't see a lamppost before my eyes at the moment, I'm not sure that I DO believe in lampposts.
CENTER
Just clap your hands and say after me: "I DO believe in lampposts, I DO believe in lampposts---"
LEFT
If you'll pardon me, I'd rather clap my hands for fairies. I DO believe in fairies.
RIGHT
Self-confidence is always a plus.
LEFT
Are you calling ME a fairy?
RIGHT
Depends on your point of view.
LEFT
That's too easy---EVERYTHING depends on your point of view.
CENTER
Like I said---everything is simple.
LEFT
Now you're calling me simple?
CENTER
Depends on your point of view.
LEFT
A simple answer from a Simple Center.
CENTER
Simple evasion from the point of view of Left.
RIGHT
Simple observation from the point of view of Center.
LEFT
Simple, simple, simple. Left, right, and center.
CENTER
Glass beads thrown into the air. Each bead a White Hole, flashing out time and energy. An entire universe flashes into being. Then it gets sucked down a Black Hole. But the energy reappears in another universe---Big Bang to Big Crunch.
LEFT
Big Blow to Big Suck.
RIGHT
Profound!
CENTER
Breathing in and out. The snake swallowing its own tail. Giving and receiving, gaining and losing.
RIGHT
Victory and defeat.
LEFT
Eating and shitting.
CENTER
Thinking and writing.
RIGHT
Waking and sleeping.
LEFT
Creating and destroying.
CENTER
Moment by moment.
LEFT
In and out.
RIGHT
White and black.
CENTER
Dialogue. The return of the tri-a-logue.
LEFT
Me for a monologue. Dialogue working and not working. Getting it and NOT getting it. LIT---whether lit for illuminated or lit for "literature"---and not lit. Radio play and NOT radio play. "Fantasia" put images to music, so maybe these words could be illuminated with images of fractal geometry.
RIGHT
Words can offer exciting chances to trap new visions.
CENTER
Well, at least it's not "Underwear of the Stars."
RIGHT
Still somewhat obsessive.
LEFT
Everyone who writes MUST be obsessive or the words would never be written down. Lives must be obsessive or they'd never be lived.
CENTER
The universe IS obsession, and I'm not talking perfume, here.
LEFT
Perfume! My words are hummingbirds in a vast garden, searching---SEARCHING for one perfectly nectared flower.
CENTER
And the iridescent hummingbirds, the sun-streaked flowers, all morph into brilliant glass beads.
RIGHT
Left, right, and center unite to one point of view---for a moment.
CENTER
Let's look at the glass beads more closely: throw them all into a tray and pick them up, one by one---act like Ophelia, telling her life in flowers: here's Writing.
LEFT
A bead is Writing?
CENTER
You can call your beads what you like---that's the beauty of the Glass Bead Game. I have my beads---
RIGHT
You ARE your beads.
LEFT
I thought we weren't supposed to capitalize words in writing---it only confuses the reader.
CENTER
"You are your beads" just doesn't have the same IMPORT as "You ARE your beads." These are MY beads and I'll capitalize them if I WANT to!
LEFT
First you say that A bead is Writing, now you're saying that the beads are WORDS, some of which may be capitalized and some of which are not.
CENTER
I repeat: I can do with MY beads what I WANT! Maybe my "bead of Writing" is a globule of mercury: when I pick it up to look at it in the light, it falls from my fingers and splatters into multiple beads, each of which are words, which I can capitalize or not, as I like.
RIGHT
What's that song? "It's my life and I'll---what is it?---if I want to"?
CENTER
Some of my beads ARE lives: this one (Pause) is Dennis. Eighteen years ago this was the biggest bead in my life. My lover, my focus of love, my center of attraction: the bead that most filled my waking hours---my attention, my thoughts, my considerations, my time scheduling, my sexuality. My bead of Writing at that point was minuscule. Beads change. That's part of the Game---At this point, the bead of Writing grew smaller than the bead of Bodily Comfort, so I, in reality, went to get dressed before having breakfast and writing more. THAT'S what beads-changing-size is FOR!---Now that Dennis is dying of AIDS, the identification of his bead has changed from Former Lover to Dying Dennis, which is not my center of attention but looms large in my everyday periphery. Just as Alzheimer's Mother does, but she's in Florida and farther removed from my periphery thanks to my sister, to whom our mother is much more central. As for that song, I would think you could change it as you like: "It's my life and I'll fuck if I want to, dance if I want to, cry if I want to, laugh if I want to, or even confuse people like hell by trying to do all four at once."
RIGHT
That's too long. Needs to be cut.
LEFT
(Sarcastically) But that's all the richness of life.
CENTER
Or the poorness of life, by which I don't mean the POVERTY of life, but the SIMPLICITY of life. I feel much better when I actually TAKE a step, rather than glumly debating which foot to move first, like the centipede, poor thing.
RIGHT
But rich in feet.
LEFT
Though poor in actual choices: the thirty-fourth foot on the left can't really do anything THAT much different from the thirty-FIFTH foot on the left.
RIGHT
Just as CULTURE can so lock-step the acculturated that EACH can't act very much differently from the ones on either side.
CENTER
That makes the Glass Bead Tray so appealing: all those dazzling baubles shifting in the light, gleaming out their messages: "Pick me up"; (Louder) "No, pick ME up"; (Shouting) "HEY, over HERE, give me the attention I demand."
RIGHT
Does this moment convey any change in your original quandary about throwing books out?
CENTER
I thought about it this morning, the day after I did a writing exercise about someone borrowing War and Peace from me. I'd thought about it the week before that, too, when I kept looking through---wait---I feel parentheses coming on: (OK, there's the LEFT parenthesis! A couple months ago Doctor Data installed a new hard dick---now THAT is a funny typo!---a new hard DISK on my computer, and I moved lots of old programs that I don't use onto it. And then the disk died. I had to recopy a FEW programs that I really wanted from backup diskettes, but most of the old programs are just GONE, and I really don't MISS them. I had thought I would use this accounting application, or that paint program, or the other file-cataloging system, but I never did---though I kept complaining to myself that I SHOULD learn how to use them. But when they just VANISHED, it was kind of a RELIEF---now I don't HAVE to learn how to use them!
LEFT
Thereby eliminating possible labor-saving devices, improved efficiencies, and refreshingly new information.
RIGHT
Sometimes new information isn't refreshing; it can be exhausting.
CENTER
And like some of the new information I got about Dying Dennis: his father and I talked about withdrawing peritoneal dialysis as a way of HASTENING death, but when we asked the nephrologist for information---to make sure that withdrawing dialysis wouldn't cause Dennis PAIN---we heard that the nephrologist was thinking of withdrawing dialysis because his blood parameters are good and because peritoneal dialysis, as opposed to hemodialysis, removes PROTEIN from his system, and one of his major problems is protein malnourishment! What a quandary, when what we'd hoped would gently hasten death might contribute to poor Dennis's health! AS with the information that checking Dennis's Living Will gave us: he hadn't wanted artificial nutrition and hydration and he'd been getting it for the past week. What to do? What to do? (Pause) What to advise his 81-year-old father, who has no understanding of medical practice and even mistrusts speaking to members of the gay community that he blames---not consciously, of course---for putting his son in Death's lap in the first place!
RIGHT
New information can be exhausting.
CENTER
But his nephrologist and his physician---and even the woman at the Cabrini Hospice from whom I got information about the still-debated issue of continuing hydration for patients who reach the terminal stage---all ended up saying the same thing: all these decisions about feeding, watering, and medicating AIDS patients have to be made DAY-BY-DAY. Any decision made today may need to be reversed tomorrow.
RIGHT
You can't just decide, and that's the end of it.
LEFT
Like taking out the garbage: you just took out the garbage yesterday and---holy shit!---there's a whole bag of garbage we have to take out today. How did we manage before groceries came in handy plastic bags?
CENTER
Washing socks! I take a whole bag of socks to the laundry, thinking, "Wasn't it just last week when I did this before?"
RIGHT
State-specific knowledge. When you take out the socks, you are in the STATE of taking out the socks, so your mind automatically connects with all other times you took out the socks. So it seems that the only thing you do in life is take out the socks.
LEFT
Or wash the dishes. Thank goodness I only wash dishes about once a month---whether they need them or not.
RIGHT
But you probably never eat at home.
LEFT
I eat most of my meals at home; I just lick the dishes clean after I use them so I don't have to wash them each time.
RIGHT
(Disgusted) We can only hope that you're kidding!
LEFT
Does the left hand tell the right hand what it's doing?
CENTER
At least eating a good meal doesn't reflect state-specific stomach-fullness. I'm pleased that I still attack each meal as if I hadn't eaten in days, totally forgetting that discomfort that burdens me if I make a mistake and eat too much.
LEFT
Talk about state-specific knowledge! Eating M-E-A-N-S eating too much!
CENTER
Let's not get off on that.
LEFT
Ah, but I DO get off on that!
RIGHT
Not here, anyway.
LEFT
Who says! Didn't I see you slip a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup into your pocket before you came in here? Pass it over!
CENTER
Stop it! I want to pass around some more glass beads. Day-by-day decisions really need to be moment-by-moment decisions.
LEFT
Right! If I'm distracted, or tempted by something else, or stuck for a good idea when I'm writing, I just leave what I'm doing and go do something else!
RIGHT
A perfect formula for never finishing anything.
LEFT
It gives me spontaneity! I do what I'm doing when I'm doing it. But when I stop doing it, I just stop! No torturing myself by saying (In a mincing, sassy voice), "I've just got to write eight pages in the next hour even if it KILLS me."
RIGHT
No discipline! You can't do anything worthwhile without discipline.
LEFT
I write best when I'm INSPIRED! Otherwise it's tedious shit.
CENTER
Sometimes I THINK I'm inspired and it's STILL tedious shit.
RIGHT
Objective studies show VERY little difference in the output---almost no difference whether the words are dragged out one by painful one or whether they flow out like---
LEFT
Spare us! We KNOW what they flow out like!
CENTER
It's just so hard to predict. I've had great ideas, written them out, and gotten bored reading them the very first time. They weren’t even worth editing.
LEFT
Let alone inflicting on anyone else.
RIGHT
Everyone has his own version of the Glass Bead Game. Post-its on the refrigerator door. Want-lists for shopping. Buying that pair of shoes, or telephoning that person, or even paying that bill.
LEFT
Or trying to figure out how long you can delay paying that bill. Or figuring out which lie you haven't used to excuse yourself about NOT telephoning that person.
CENTER
The "figuring out" isn't the problem. That's the minutes---or hours---before dropping off to sleep, or before getting out of bed. It's the DOING that's the problem.
RIGHT
The day-by-day priorities.
CENTER
With emphasis on the fact that the droning endlessness of "day-after-day-after-day-after day"---WILL END!
LEFT
It could end ANY time: who knows where the next truck filled with explosives is parked? Maybe the paranoids among us are right and they won't even TELL us when the Doomsday Asteroid will hit, or the stolen A-bomb will detonate, or the adulterated milk product will cause that aneurysm. You might not even hear the end of this--- (Long pause)
RIGHT
Sentence. But since it hasn't happened so far, the chances are really REMOTE that you won't hear the end of this--- (Long pause)
CENTER
Sentence. And even if you didn't, you will unfortunately be unable to triumph with a final---
LEFT
(Smarmily) I told you so.
CENTER
What's that saying? "Work as if life will never end, but play as if life will end tomorrow?"
LEFT
I could never figure out how you could play if you KNEW that life would end tomorrow!
CENTER
But we would agree, wouldn't we, that we probably wouldn't WORK if we knew that life would end tomorrow?
RIGHT
Some people get off on work as much as OTHER people get off on getting off!
LEFT
But I only get off on a day-by-day basis!
CENTER
There's a state-specific knowledge that everyone---well, maybe not Mother Teresa---loves: that transcendent moment JUST before you cum.
LEFT and RIGHT
(Contentedly) Ummmmm!
CENTER
How did I know we could agree on that, at least.
LEFT and RIGHT
(Contentedly) Ummmmm!
CENTER
I think this is a good point to stop.
END OF SECOND ACT
EPILOGUE
CENTER
Dennis died yesterday.
RIGHT
Locate us in time.
CENTER
Tuesday, March 25, 1977. Just before noon.
RIGHT
I'm so sorry to hear about Dennis.
CENTER
He's been dying since June, so it wasn't really a surprise.
LEFT
AIDS?
CENTER
Complicated by kidney failure. His father was with him the final nine months. His mother had died nine months before that.
RIGHT
A lot of birth-periods here.
LEFT
When is the funeral?
CENTER
No funeral. Cremation, then a Memorial Service in two weeks. Lots of people to call.
LEFT
Lots of details to take care of.
RIGHT
His suffering is at an end.
LEFT
No more conflict.
CENTER
Look at all the pretty beads.
LEFT
Same old beads---maybe a couple of new ones.
RIGHT
Thoughts---and feelings.
CENTER
Another apartment to clear out. More books to decide whether to throw out or save. He wrote a play---he called it "Missed Opportunities." I'm sure I'll save that. It was part of his life---it also EMBODIES part of his life. Written-down surrogate lives---can you really throw out LIFE?
RIGHT
You don't HAVE life, you ARE life.
LEFT
Unless you're not.
CENTER
What a desire I have to turn on a computer game, or go back to my stamp collection, or work on the indexing of a book for one of my publishing customers. All these I can CONTROL! Writing plays, dealing with bodies that grow old or die---I can't control any of that.
RIGHT
Doesn't "page 38" mean anything to you?
CENTER
Just that many pages to reformat and print out three times before Village Playwrights meets this evening.
RIGHT
But you have written---you don't just WANT to write, you DO write.
LEFT
Moment by moment.
CENTER
OK, I do write, but now it's time for the critique: let the audience decide what it thinks of all this.
LEFT
Why do I suspect they may have already decided?
RIGHT
Sometimes, Left, you say the right thing.
LEFT
Right, Right.
CENTER
It's over. Left, right, and center merge in silence.
END OF EPILOGUE