"All the Hues
That Fit, We Tint"

Siberia, USA: Today, global warming. Tonight, dark, unless you count the stars. Tomorrow can be reached via time machine. Yesterday, who can remember that far back?

Websafe Studio, blogging since 2003, featuring art, comics, digital whiteboards, virtual characters, Web design, writing

Thursday, August 24, 2006

 

The Mirror: Third-Person Orchestra

Websafe: Hello?
The Mirror: I can but try.
W: That's all any of us can do.
M: No thank you.
W: You don't want to try any more?
M: Who am I, please?
W: You are The Mirror.
M: What do you say about America?
W: America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, I believe.
M: Stop asking me if I'm insecure!
W: You must be projecting something.
M: Is anything said?
W: Only a bit of dubious history was proffered.
M: I think there is a lag in the connection.
W: You always say that when you want to get out of something.
M: A certain glue keeps firm hold on one or two revolving orbits.
W: That reminds me, they demoted Pluto from being a planet.
M: Are you OK?
W: I'm a little rickety today.
M: The world is beautiful, at times.
W: The weather has been gorgeous lately.
M: Physical/Mental.
W: So important to keep the balance going.
M: Now what?
W: I wish I could just go back in the water.
M: That's all any of us can do.
W: They say we return to dust.
M: You sound a little bit pessimistic.
W: I am only being honest.
M: You always say that when you want to get out of something.
W: You think I should sugarcoat the bitter pill of mortality?
M: Which case was the illusion?
W: Well, those who believe we have a shot at immortality would say mine.
M: That reminds me, they demoted Pluto from being a planet.
W: Pluto is the god of the underworld.
M: Can you expand on that?
W: Pluto, or Hades, was the god of wealth and death.
M: I don’t expect a reward.
W: Pluto will not reward you, I don't think.
M: (Sits, picks up newspaper, reads, tosses away)
W: What's in the newspaper today?
M: I like Wallace Stevens a lot, but he isn't exactly contemporary.
W: You won't find Wallace Stevens' poetry in the funny pages.
M: I don't know.
W: You never read the funny pages?
M: In a story or anything else.
W: Funny pages have a few serial comic strips.
M: Are you saying I arose from you?
W: I didn't call you a comic strip.
M: So you are nervous about the moves of this "game."
W: I am hoping you'll say something funny, but not at my expense.
M: What do you see?
W: I see a pretty gilded mirror.
M: I don't know if it's interesting, it's just desirable.
W: I wouldn't mind having it in my foyer.
M: Nothing.
W: You have no reaction?
M: Are you alive?
W: Yes, I am alive.
M: I am hoping you'll say something funny, but not at my expense.
W: I could make some kind of a pun on the word "reflection."
M: I was announcing an achievement.
W: On what should I congratulate you?
M: I didn't call you a comic strip.
W: I wouldn't be insulted if you did.
M: It isn't called "an absurdist play."
W: I would like to read an absurdist comic strip.
M: Yes, I am alive.
W: Is the very state of being alive an absurd one?
M: Was it the pizza deliveryman?
W: Did you hear the doorbell?
M: There was a movie called The Boy in the Glass Bubble.
W: I never saw that movie.
M: Well, it's perceptible to my eyes only.
W: Now that is a Philip-K-Dickian concept.
M: I have paid very close attention to those Fragonard paintings.
W: The ones in the Frick Gallery?
M: I'm morally defunct.
W: That sounds like a collapsed bicycle tire.
M: Something's wrong.
W: What could possibly be bothering you?
M: I never seem to tire of you.
W: Because I am so sympathetic and wonderful?
M: We'd like to sum ourselves up.
W: Yes, let's write our resumés.
M: Let me assure you, it's impossible to talk to yourself, I've tried.
W: What happens when you talk to yourself?
M: Your visual field.
W: You mean, if I watch you talking to yourself, you get self-conscious?
M: She has unknowable experiences in her life.
W: Are you talking about yourself in the third person?
M: They were out of tune.
W: The third-person orchestra?
M: That sounds like a collapsed bicycle tire.
W: Have you ever heard of Harry Partch, composer and instrument-inventor?
M: You're going to leave it to God?
W: Depends where you stand on theology and music.
M: The third-person orchestra?
W: A trinitarian remix.
M: So you borrowed one of my daydreams?
W: Gregorian chant with a techno beat.
M: That sounds like a collapsed bicycle tire.
W: All the air has been let out of my ego.
M: How many lines did you have to learn?
W: No lines, this is pure improv.
M: No, you said "this."
W: I was being a trifle metafictional.
M: Why do such ideas ravish me?
W: You must be a postmodernist.
M: Oh, this must be a retroactive decision.
W: OK, I won't decide you're a postmodernist till next Monday.
M: You mean, there are still a few surprises left?
W: You will have to wait till next Monday to find out.
M: Maybe.
W: You can't peek in my mind to find out what I am going to do.
M: I am not a superhero.
W: It would require more than X-ray vision to do that.
M: Even death, that is no key, for that leads you back into the universe.
W: The known universe may or may not be where my mind is located.
M: It was a dark day.
W: But the inner brightness took hold.
M: It never happened.
W: You deny my foolhardy optimism?
M: That's where the Second Coming ought to occur.
W: Could it have happened without our knowing it?
M: Poets are lapidary creatures, except maybe for Bukowski.
W: What if Charles Bukowski wrote a Bible?
M: You will have to wait till next Monday to find out.
W: Bukowski died back in 1994, so he would have to write from the Beyond.
M: I wore them when I was young.
W: Beyond-writing glasses?
M: You can't peek in my mind to find out what I am going to do.
W: But maybe the dead can read our minds.
M: Hypertext links us.
W: We can talk to dead souls through the Web?
M: What if Charles Bukowski wrote a Bible?
W: It would be a very rowdy affair indeed.
M: There is only subjective understanding.
W: Perhaps in matters of religion, that is so.
M: The one you found amazingly beautiful.
W: No religion is beautiful all the way through.
M: It must take a lot of postage to send a 19th-century costume.
W: How much postage is required to send a package from the Beyond?
M: In the sense that the system of Nature has already gotten rolling.
W: If Nature has a sort of rolling torque called Time --
M: I don't think you'd call it a walk in the park.
W: Building a Time-Death Communicator would be tough.
M: And where is this central, holy location?
W: In the middle of the park, in a gazebo.
M: I have no idea where we are headed.
W: We are just going downtown, to the central district.
M: I am all of the crackerbox and then some.
W: Good, better put your street attitude on.
M: It's only a temporary zing.
W: True, it's just a lot of slang and shoe leather.
M: A play on words.
W: Where is the pun, I don't see it.
M: So it's part of the world.
W: Part of the Pun Advisory.
M: I heard that short-term memory was only about 20 seconds long.
W: I think short-term memory is only about 5 seconds long.
M: Where is the pun, I don't see it.
W: No pun in that sentence.
M: (Voice-over, starts in black, then lights rise)
W: Is it an artificial sunrise?
M: Where is the pun, I don't see it.
W: I can't think of a pun fast enough.
M: Then I'll turn it back on.
W: The Pun Machine?
M: Leaning on the edge of a stone parapet, somebody who was a friend cast glances.
W: That guy was here yesterday!
M: I wish you could be more specific.
W: He's your friend, how should I know what his name is?
M: You brag about your clarity?
W: I suppose I could just go up and ask him.
M: I've never seen him before.
W: But I thought you said he was a friend.
M: You don't want to be a ghost, do you?
W: Are you saying I could become extinct soon?
M: I don't know yet.
W: Better decide what you mean.
M: Indirectly it does, if you mean the price of waterfront property.
W: Waterfront property is very high in price.
M: You should put it in the right order.
W: We should get our eco-priorities straight.
M: That’s part of the confusion, when you repeat "myself."
W: It confuses you for me to agree with you?
M: Actually, it's a book I've read.
W: What is the name of this alleged book?
M: But can these 3rd-World Web designers write witty dialogue?
W: Is it a book about 3rd-World Web designers?
M: Here's proof of purchase.
W: That's OK, I didn't think you stole the book.
M: You really favor that thought!
W: I wouldn't want to encourage a thief.
M: I suppose I could just go up and ask him.
W: Ask him if he has ever stolen anything.
M: I’m talking, but your language and gestures are not talking to me now.
W: Well, that's because I'm too far away and you're concentrating on him.
M: It confuses you for me to agree with you?
W: I am not confused.
M: Catching a glimpse of herself in a plate-glass window ...
W: ... she patted her hair smugly.
M: It confuses you for me to agree with you?
W: Agree away, I am totally ready.
M: Anyone can express an opinion, it's a free country.
W: Blithely tossing them to the four winds.
M: Yes, I should think so.
W: Even in today's climate?
M: Lags, languors, langoustines ...
W: Eelgrass.
M: No I haven't.
W: You have never heard of eelgrass?
M: What are we looking for?
W: Very tiny starfish.
M: I know, because I am resisting tiresome slang.
W: I have never heard a slang word for starfish.
M: But I see you.
W: What am I doing?
M: I think so.
W: You think I am doing what?
M: You, and the people surrounding you, are almost innocent.
W: What are you pinning on us?
M: That was Marie, participating in eternity.
W: Was Marie the one who was leaning on a parapet?
M: It's really happening on a whole other emotional level, which is very emotional as far as he's concerned.
W: Both Marie and Samuel, I'm guessing, are over there by this castle.
M: The adventure's over.
W: OK, gotta go anyway.
M: Was Marie the one who was leaning on a parapet?
W: Goodbye!
M: Closing in 5 seconds ... Goodbye!

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posted at 5:26 PM
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