"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

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

 

The Mirror: Alien chess player

Websafe: Hello?
The Mirror: When I say something, believe it.
W: Sorry, I have to do a lot of fact checking.
M: Yes, there is a surprise lesson here.
W: The facts aren't always the facts?
M: That I repeated myself?
W: Is it a known fact that you often repeat yourself?
M: Hey!
W: Sorry, I'll try to be much nicer.
M: Let's just assume that the reason we have to be at a loss is because we are at a loss.
W: OK, then you and I are in the same boat.
M: I bet you think best, when you're not really at your best.
W: John Berryman would probably agree with that one.
M: I didn't make a move.
W: Are you playing chess?
M: Maybe you really wanted to be an alien.
W: An alien chess player.
M: This is false, this is a fantasy only.
W: But you don't have to keep reminding me, breaking the frame.
M: I said I wasn't hungry.
W: Are you hungry for truth or beauty?
M: You better not have any of this stuff.
W: What are you consuming?
M: I can offer you a carrot-orange-apple juice.
W: Hey, I have one of those in my bag!
M: OK, then you and I are in the same boat.
W: You have a carrot-orange-apple juice in your bag?
M: (Pause, gets coat, goes. Returns, gets books and goes)
W: Are you going to class or to the library?
M: Sorry, I'll try to be much nicer.
W: Be nice enough to answer my question, please.
M: This is the story of the man who dressed as an angel.
W: But he wasn't really an angel.
M: What are you consuming?
W: Carrot-orange-apple juice.
M: If I had the ability to perform an act of will, that act of will would be a "No," because only a "No" is an act of will.
W: Why isn't "Yes" an act of will?
M: That is a sentiment I relate to.
W: You relate to the "Yes"?
M: I agree that politeness is beyond the level of the brutes, but what's beyond politeness?
W: I don't know if I like the idea of things being "beyond" things.
M: This physical location?
W: I think we were talking about states of being.
M: Are there only two words in my script?
W: You mean, Hello and Goodbye?
M: Do you have to be on the cutting edge to live in New York City?
W: You have to be pretty rich to live there decently, nowadays.
M: A wealth of ideas is properly distributed to the world at large.
W: So it's a question of distribution, which brings us back to marketing.
M: I could, but they wouldn't answer my e-mail.
W: They probably get too much spam as it is, not that your e-mail was spam.
M: Try to do it anyway.
W: I did e-mail a professor.
M: I don't think so.
W: I really did!
M: Good for you!
W: Thank you!
M: Knock knock.
W: Who's there?
M: I can become inaudible, certainly.
W: "I can become inaudible, certainly" who?
M: Bluntness, straightforwardness.
W: Something tells me this is not the usual knock-knock joke.
M: You mean, Hello and Goodbye?
W: I don't know that knock-knock joke.
M: What are some of the plays by Richard Foreman?
W: For example, Wake Up Mr Sleepy, Your Unconscious Mind is Dead.
M: Something tells me this is not the usual knock-knock joke.
W: No, it's a play by Richard Foreman.
M: Thank you very much for the tin drum.
W: I didn't send you a tin drum, unless you're being metaphorical.
M: I talk to myself, which means I don't have to move my lips.
W: Do you play the tin drum without moving your hands?
M: I don't know much about the life of Arthur C. Clarke, or his hat.
W: Ah, but does Clarke have a tin drum?
M: Well, neither of us are exactly creating deathless prose.
W: Has Arthur C. Clarke created deathless prose?
M: But in conforming to the truth it hides the truth.
W: I don't think deathless prose can ever be described as "conforming."
M: You want me to talk today.
W: I want you to talk every day, and talk you do.
M: A life goes on, things change, but other things do not change.
W: What things are unchangeable?
M: I'm not going to die?
W: You are immortal and unchangeable?
M: Part of the Japanese No tradition?
W: I assume the No drama included immortals?
M: You were behind me.
W: I was behind you in the audience.
M: We should have groped around in the dark, wondering what to say.
W: But it wasn't up to us to provide the script.
M: How can that be a decision?
W: We decided to be silent when we decided to be an audience.
M: I didn't send you a tin drum, unless you're being metaphorical.
W: Audiences must not play tin drums during the performance.
M: Symbolic ice cream, I suppose you mean.
W: The rewards of theater are symbolic, metaphoric.
M: Audiences must not play tin drums during the performance.
W: Unless it's a participatory performance.
M: They appear clean.
W: My hands?
M: I was behind you in the audience.
W: Did you see my hands?
M: Did you experience a fall?
W: I fell, as did we all.
M: If I try to say what it helps (me), that separates me from myself and that does not help.
W: Well, my time's up, I can't get epistemological now.
M: (Writes, stops)
W: Goodbye!
M: Closing in 3 seconds ... Goodbye!

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posted at 12:15 PM
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