"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, November 20, 2008

 

The Mirror: Il morto che parla: the dead speaking

Websafe: Hello?
The Mirror: I said respect, not sarcasm!
W: How can a simple "Hello" be considered sarcastic?
M: You doubt my trajectory?
W: I don't know where you're going with this, but I'm sure you are going somewhere.
M: But is he?
W: Who is "he," Richard Foreman?
M: If you burst into song.
W: Will a song attract Foreman?
M: I want you to say things that will be very disturbing.
W: Sorry, can't help you there.
M: The benefits arrive, bringing fear.
W: If you consider fear and disturbance benefits, press on!
M: Do you have a few hundred thousand dollars for me?
W: Not if you're going to frighten and disturb me!
M: What should I call you?
W: I never know what to say to that.
M: Prove that you can escape.
W: I could say goodbye now, but I won't.
M: (Exits)
W: Hey, come back!
M: It shouldn't be hard to establish a cult of personality.
W: Are you saying that line from the doorway, hand on the newel post?
M: What's my life about?
W: I see you've run out of steam during your comeback.
M: If you consider fear and disturbance benefits, press on!
W: The general public seems to love horror.
M: (Opens drawer, looks, closes)
W: Now don't tell me there's a weapon in there!
M: Hey, come back!
W: What do you expect, I must save myself!
M: Get rid of the justices, keep the poets.
W: Can the poets stand trial for their offenses?
M: I see you've run out of steam during your comeback.
W: You have pegged me.
M: I am ready to hear it.
W: But you already know it.
M: I bet you have a name.
W: Sure I do, but someone else gave it to me.
M: I don't blame you, I was faking it.
W: You were faking knowing my name?
M: No, I want to sweep it under the carpet.
W: So you don't want to know my name?
M: That's the word I would use.
W: You would use my name, if you could.
M: I didn't know there was a Fragonard grouping here in our midst!
W: How did they get in here?
M: Do you think I calculate these things?
W: No, I think they just happen.
M: But they are Romantic composers anyway?
W: I wish I could meet some Romantic composers, especially Chopin.
M: I don't understand.
W: Don't you know the work of Chopin?
M: Once upon a time, this cold and hostile atmosphere would have delighted me.
W: I wasn't trying to one-up you, believe me.
M: I'm not trying to put pressure on you.
W: You wanted me to apologize!
M: Even me?
W: Even you tried to wangle an apology.
M: What am I lucky about?
W: You're oh-so-lucky to be talking to me.
M: Don't worry, I won't try to change you.
W: That's good to hear.
M: No, I think they just happen.
W: Good conversations, or good characters?
M: They do, with their green leaves, so they must be experiencing a letdown.
W: After the intensity of Spring?
M: No, I think they just happen.
W: They just burst into flaming flower.
M: I'm asking myself that question.
W: Whether you'll be a late bloomer?
M: Yes, I kept it factual.
W: Wouldn't do to get too emotional about a thing like blooming.
M: No lines, this is pure improv.
W: Sometimes people stop dead during an improv, they freeze up.
M: Open a door once.
W: And find the fog twice.
M: Oh, you know, Goth culture, long black capes and such.
W: Goth pirates, looming in fog.
M: You think I should spend my mental wealth on writing a conventional novel?
W: Oh, that's the question of the hour!
M: I have never eaten eels.
W: Eels would have no place in a conventional American novel.
M: I was at Woodstock (many years after the concert, yet Woodstock it was).
W: Did you eat eels at Woodstock?
M: It lies, now, in a granular "someplace else" that hasn't forced itself into image or object.
W: That would be the past.
M: That doesn't count as trying.
W: You can't expect every one of my lines to be brilliant.
M: But maybe the dead can read our minds.
W: Il morto che parla: the dead speaking.
M: What derives?
W: My line derives from La Smorfia.
M: Sometimes people stop dead during an improv, they freeze up.
W: That's when they might get hooked by the offstage cane.
M: I can't get bored when I'm doing something truly absorbing.
W: Is it absorbing, talking to me?
M: Il morto che parla: the dead speaking.
W: But I am alive.
M: Hungry.
W: Then you'd better start supper. Bye!
M: It's effortless. Closing in 1 second ... Goodbye!

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posted at 5:41 PM
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