Mayday (corrupt text—need hard copy) XXX

MAYDAY

When I was a child I remember the way light bent time like a stick in water. My grandmother always talking about the returning of the sun. Soon I was following every season, watching the sun through the trees, the way it crept back annd forth on the ridge.

One time I even took out a ruler and measured the speed of a shadow. I was lying in the front door. Our house opened to the east. No accident, that. It was an old house, people tgought like that then.

You know, seasons? I remember as a kid celebrating May Day. It was so exciting with our May flower baskets and the Maypole with it’s crepe paper ribbons, Once I got to be one of the maidens, but everyone got all off track and we bungled the weaving. 

But then we stopped doing it. someone must’ve complained. Some overzealous Christian type made nervous by all the little pagans running wild. You know the type who move to the country from urban ares and then immediately want to change everything? Destined to recreate what they were escaping? 

I mean what harm was it in gathering flowetrs and dressing a maypole? Who was it thrreatening? We were too innocent to have orgies.If that’s what they were afraid of. I don't get it.

Maybe they were afraid it would turn us into communista or something. Why did May Day become the day for the workers of the world anyway? Must’ve been the idea of red and fire. 

My grandmother said it was called Beltaine. The fire of Bel. The Bible named another god Baal, but I think he was after blood. But not our god, Bel was the beginning of summer’s fires. 

She said she remembers her grandfather rolling tar-filled barrels down the hill of this farm...but by May the summer grasses here are waiting for an excuse to burst into flame.

(missing text xxxx) grandmother was about the returning of the sun through the trees, and I never thought that the years would race by as fast as the sun did across the floor. The acrid smell of burnt dust in our nostrils, like the odor of nostalgia.

(missing text xxxx) XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 they had the power. It wasn’t about freedom or fear of the dark side. The rights of the many were sacrificed to quell the nervousness of the few. And nobody though to yell mayday, Mayday customs are being destroyed,

 this time of year measuring light with a ruler.  

See? complained kind are charmed by the quaintness of a place then some area up are being destroyed

 We even named a city after Bel. How many people know what the name Baltimore means? The great fires of Bel? Should we rename it? 

Power corrupts. It wasn’t about sacrificing freedom or fear of the dark side. 

old are being destroyed in the name of progress 

Such was the warp and weft of our lives.

kids the 

 my ars 

would race by as fast as that little crepe paper ribbons. But then we stopped doing it. 

Sheathens

The great fires of Bel. Not like Ireland.

Ma Day absolutely

neuroses. 

Pointing it out its zenith. 

 from the big rock to the trees. 

or lit wagon wheels from the top of the 

his blonde in unfounded 

a glass of sliding back into heathendom

their The way a stick bent in a glass of water. 

As if magic was afoot. 

As if magic was afoot waaiting to trick us into something dangerous.

 But the danger was right in front of us all along.

CW 855 MFA Playwriting
Brighde Mullins, 4/17/ 02

Character Sketch

CHARACTER SKETCH/SETTING FOR MY MONOLOGUE:


An old people’s home, an old woman alone in a rocking chair, in the not so distant future, perhaps ca. 2025, perhaps a post-apocalyptic future—9/11’s really gotten out of hand, yet we’re clinging onto old American values, disembodied from the present landscape.

Perhaps we’re tourists going through a Disneyland set where characters animate and talk only when we, the audience, enters the room. In which case, there would have to be multiples of the old lady. The audience would walk from set to set, a sort of walking theater. Too bad Playland at the beach is gone, staging it in the Funhouse would be wild. Dadaesque, living theater.

Perhaps we’re interviewing a home for our parents who are our future selves

The character switches voices as she rambles through the past, a child, a teenager, a lover, a mother, an old person frustrated with the unalterable fact.

Is there an audience for her ramblings? not necessary...she’d talk to an empty room.

Audience can’t tell who has Alzheimer’s disease, who is crazy and who is sane.

Piece has a mirror-like quality, perhaps ourselves in the future.

There’s apocalyptic energy, impulse theater—a public arena for our private fears, obsessions, the feeling as if as if someone was inside our heads.

There are random lights flashing in the dark, suggestion of concentration camp at night.

There is a sort of Godot-like setting with disembodied voices and incessant whispering from various locales, upsetting the monologist and distracting the audience...even ghostlike in nature.

Perhaps the use of a scrim, like in Menagerie would be effective, as well as music...I haven’t thought of what...but a periodic return to fragments of Chopin’s funeral dirge might make a nicely macabre touch. Other disembodied music.

Character loves mashed carrots, and bananas, is allergic to many foods, scents.

Adores chocolate and tart sweets, but not sweet sweets.

Loves tea with milk & sugar, loves to slurp it. Loves shortbreads.

Loves the color blue, and purple. Dresses in those colors—the same thing for days on end.

Loves talking but not listening. Whether or not she has an audience is irrelevant.

Loves her rocking chair. Rocks on the verandah to make the garden run.

Dreams of her youth, how she wasn’t aware, with a focus on hindsight, loss.

She’s truly alone. Audience could be one embodied visitor she addresses.

MFA Playwriting 

Brighde Mullins

4/17-24/ 02

Aristotle's Six Points

MY LIST OF ARISTOTLE’S 6 POINTS:


character—I fall in love with characters, and want to know what happens to them: gossipy

plot—I adore story, and am drawn in, usually forgetting to be critical of plot 'til afterwards

thought—character has to be believable; anachronisms loom large in my mind

diction—form follows function; if dialogue/language isn’t accurate, I get bored & bugged

music—by this I also think movement/choreography must support character’s actions

spectacle—alright in its place, but the rest had better be tight or I get annoyed

for Brighde Mullins,  MFA Playwriting 

4/17/ 02

Three Fictional Characters I'd Like to Meet

THREE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS I’D LIKE TO MEET


Hercule Poirot as portrayed by David Suchet—with his prissiness and formidible little grey cells attracts me. I find his quirks and mannerisms to be unique. I’m not sure how much of Poirot’s character is personified by Suchet, but he’s compelling with his reserved judgement, politeleness—while seething underneath. His compassion for the underdogs and servants, his phobias and neuroses completely misunderstood by the English temprament, thus, his friendship with colleague Chief Inspector Japp is endearing.  

It’s a toss-up between Captain Jean Luc Picard and Captain Janeway as they’re both Star Trek captains. When Picard says “Make it so,” it thrills me...he becomes godlike, in some sense, a captain is the god of his ship...Janeway interests me because she is a woman in a man’s role. She sticks to her guns, is forthright, will not be bullied, et her compassion is compelling. A good balance of male and female characteristics. The danger with choosing serialized TV characters is that the sometimes disparate personality map is built up over time, and one can’t help but associate the actor with the role.


Kate in Taming of the Shrew has admirable traits that have gotten her into trouble, she’s spoiled, self-indulgent and I’m not sure if I would want to tame her per se....though the play would be non-existent w/o her taming. I was not thinking of Taylor’s portrayal when I chose Kate...she’s a little too over the top. I do identify with Kate’s outspokenness and forthright character...she reminds me of myself, somewhat out of control, wanting but resisting and adamantly refusing taming or civilizing.

for Brighde Mullins' MFA class

4/17. 02

Mating Games (I first met Pearlie Mae...

I first met Pearlie Mae Timberlake in high school right before the Summer of Love. She moved in across from the Schivos right next door to the Scotts who had a real swimming pool with a diving board at the deep end. Not like the Inkwell on Papermill Creek—they said it was bottomless. Every time I tried to swim across it, I was so scared, I nearly drowned for lack of breath.

I was a regular waterdog, I spent summers submerged in the Scott’s pool. My hair turned blonde, then green. I don’t think I ever had a bath the whole summer which was useful as our spring went dry in August so we were on a water rationing vigil most the summer. Besides I hated being last in line for the bath. It was as gray as the ringer washer water after the last load.

Mrs. Scott taught all us kids to swim after Old Man Barbano shot himself at the summer camp—Mrs. Barbano had the market share corner on swim classes because she salted her pool instead of using chlorine which meant us lead-bottom swimmers could float and maybe even learn to swim. I learned to swim late—I was ten—so I needed all the help I could get.

I’ll never forget seeing them wheel away Mr. Barbano all in white on the gurney—the bullet wound left a red chrysanthemum blossom at his temple. I could see it when they brought him out on the gurney. We were walking down Arroyo Road one summer afternoon. We came around the bend and witnessed that. We weren't supposed to see it. We were like startled sheep. Time stretched on forever. Stood still. He must've still been alive because I looked into his face. They didn't cover him up. If he was dead, they would've.

Imagine shooting yourself in the head and then having to face the agony of living. Time stretching on forever in those last moments. Was he conscious? It seemed as if he recognized me. I thought I saw his hand rase as if to wave at us. You see, he went crazy with grief after his daughter was murdered. We didn't know much about it though t made the headlines. It was even in Time magazine. Mrs. Barbano, she gave up on life and rented out the place to rock musicians who made it into a commune of sorts.

Mrs. Scott later went off the deep end too after they moved to Vashon Island— on account of the fact that it was a regular Peyton place for a while around here in the Valley with everybody wife-swapping, and they thought us kids didn’t know a thing, but Christian had this telescope in his treehouse, see… and people started putting up curtains after that. Christian was a bit strange too, a regular peeping Tom, but that's another story. I went up to Washington to visit her but they said they found Mrs. Scott draped naked and blue as a jaybird on a small rock in the middle of Puget Sound. Loneliness made her crazy, they said. She must’ve been swimming in the frigid water for hours. What was she escaping from or where was she going to, I wonder?

Pearlie Mae’s mother, she was cross-eyed as their Siamese cat, and talked funny ’cause she was from the bayous of Louisiana. She was remarried to this Inca guy from Peru who wore a lot of gold and he even had a gold tooth. He was a waiter along with Pearlie Mae’s mother who worked nights in San Francisco—I believe that’s how they met— and they raised chinchillas on the side. They had big plans to harvest the skins and strike it rich, Pearlie Mae’s stepdad was always scheming on how to get rich, but the rodents—they looked like fluffy lemmings—but they were so timid, some always died of fright whenever Pearlie Mae cleaned their cages, no matter how quietly she moved. Usually it was the mothers who croaked—Pearlie Mae would flush ‘em down the toilet and hope her parents wouldn’t notice, as if they’d come down and count them—then we had to feed the orphan babies with toy baby bottles, which was kinda cute. Them nursin’ away like real babies.

From what I could gather, Pearlie Mae’s mother thought Pearlie Mae was heaven-sent in order to be a personal slave to cook and clean house. She worked that girl so hard, her fingers were always raw or peeling. I never saw a house so clean. If there was one speck of dirt anywhere, Pearlie Mae would get it—with a strap from her stepdad. I think her mother had a past—though they were religious now, Jehovah’s Witnesses—but she wanted to make sure Pearlie Mae grew up right—even if she was from outside her own kind, which was a bit of a mystery. So Pearlie Mae was forever cleaning up and bleaching for germs. But she never got any lighter.

Sometimes we’d get into the liquor cabinet and she’d crank up “Exodus” real loud on the stereo and mix ammonia, cleanser and Clorox together like a mad scientist and this greenish vapor would creep out of the toilet and, if luck would have it—gas the poor cat who liked to perch on the toilet seat (on account of those chinchillas) and while he was there, to do-do his thing. He was a sensitive type, didn’t like the sound of cat litter crunching between his toes. I secretly suspected that Pearlie Mae trained him not to use the litter box on account of the dust. Poor cat, he’d circle the seat and get a good whiff of that concoction of hers, and go tearin’ out of the house like his tail or his asshole was on fire and we were laughing and crying and coughing until our lungs turned inside out, and we’d have to run out of the house too in order to breathe.

There was always some mystery around Pearlie Mae’s real parentage as she was adopted. Like I said, I could never get any farther than the fact that she was from Louisiana—I knew she had a younger brother John Estes, who lived with his dad in LA during the school year; he was the spitting image of his mother—blond-haired and blue-eyed. Pearlie Mae looked somewhat like her mother too, but she had this big wild hair and huge brown eyes and skin the color of old honey— not at all fair at all like her mother. I’m sure people speculated, but Pearlie Mae’s mother was always saying that she was just doing her Christian duty by taking the baby off the hands of that poor, unfortunate unwed mother—barely more than a girl herself. About the only thing she left out of the story was the barefoot part.

Poor Pearlie Mae would roll her hair up every single night in orange juice cans because they were bigger and did a lot better job at straightening her hair than the store-bought pink, jumbo-sized rollers that were supposed to give her hair the straightest possible look—only she didn’t need to rat her hair out into a big flip afterwards. It was that way naturally. I don’t know how she ever slept with her head suspended three inches above the pillow with those cans like that. It made her neck look so skinny, like a bird’s. Most of us never even had orange juice from cans, let alone collect enough cans to set our hair. If there was rain or fog when we had to walk a mile down Arroyo Road to the bus into school, the rain would undo all the hard work those cans had accomplished during the night, and she’s spend every recess hiding out in the girl’s bathroom with a kerchief over her head.

As I said earlier, Pearlie Mae liked ’Tino—that’s short for Valentino—a lot. You know the hard guy in the tight jeans and white shirts I was telling you about who looked like a Latino James Dean? Yes, that really was his real name. And if Pearlie Mae’s hair was looking especially good, she’d abandon me for the hard guys in the parking lot at school. I don’t know how she managed to go out with him, but one fall she did. See, we were bussed into town and most kids didn’t have cars, so it was hard to get home after school and we weren’t supposed to hitchhike, but if you had to stay after school, there was no other way home as it was way too far to walk and too dangerous to go over White’s Hill on foot.

Anyway, she did stay in town after school, and I was left pretty much out of the detail loop, walking that long mile up Arroyo Road all by myself during the fall of ’69, but during one of the rare times when she did come home with me, she let slip about having some little white pills that made her feel so fine. She offered me one. It looked like saccharine and probably was, but Pearlie Mae was wild and getting wilder by the minute, so we sorta drifted apart, as I was a virgin and planned to stay that way in high school—a promise I actually managed to keep, even if I was the last virgin in the county. I mean, it was the Summer of Love and all that. I didn’t want to be up at the altar rail expecting, like everyone else. I bet it was her little baby half-sister who finked on her.

Pearlie Mae was getting so wild, I didn’t know whether to look for razors in her hair, or what. Must’ve been ’cause she was sorta back with her own kind, whatever that was. I think it liberated her from herself. But she must’ve gotten caught sneaking home late ’cause suddenly her freedom was curtailed—I suspect home was more like boot camp, and we drifted back into each other’s lives. This time she’d found religion too. Or her parents found it for her, so she pretended to be devout. After that, about the only freedom we ever had was at prayer meetings. But she had this wicked sense of humor and she would roll her eyes as everyone was singing about salvation and we’d be snorting and shaking, and sobbing into our prayer books. I guess folks mighta thought we were being saved except for the fact that I was lobster-red and practically peeing my pants, trying hard not to laugh. But you know how it is when you’re not supposed to do something, you just gravitate naturally toward it.

By that time, she’d set her eye on Abe Rezonski, who was tall dark and, well, sorta geeky on account of religion. Abe wanted to be a preacher, he was the eldest son of a new family that moved onto Arroyo Road. They were Jehovah’s Witnesses too, so this time her parents didn’t exactly mind the connection. You know, like-kind sticking to like-kind, and all that. But I got stuck with his younger brother, Dork Rezonski who was a grade younger than me and spoiled rotten. A real booger flicker type. The families, they all kept working me over, trying to get me saved, but I wasn’t easily caught on that hook. Pearlie Mae and I kept up the pretense for almost three years before they got wise to the fact that I wasn’t about to be saved under any circumstances.

See, when I was in catechism for First Communion, I gave the nuns apoplexy ’cause I insisted that God wasn’t crying like they said, ‘cause we were talking in church and it was raining, but that he was really peeing on us. I mean, THEY were talking in church too. So they flunked me. I’m sure I was the only kid who ever flunked First Communion. Aside from the humiliation, it made me suspicious of everyone. I’m sure Pearlie Mae’s parents thought I was responsible for her getting into so much trouble because of my worldly ways—when it was really the other way around. But who was going to believe me? They made her shun me after that.

What made it so difficult being shunned was that I was still madly in love with her brother John—who I only got to see during summer and holidays as it was. We were pretty deep into physics during that fall. He was my first kiss and my first big bang too. That’s why I get so melancholy during the fall, all those rites of passage. Thank God it cured me of him for good. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Pearlie Mae, she had set it up down at the chinchilla shed as they all had died off by this time, not wanting to be saved. Or maybe it was all that racket we made. I guess getting rich off of chinchilla skins no longer mattered if the world was going to end, and besides, people were beginning to boycott fur after they saw those cute baby seals being slaughtered on TV. And John, well, he made the chinchilla shed into a clubhouse when he moved up here full time, having gotten himself into some kind of trouble down in LA…but I‘m getting off track… Not much time left.

And after the Jehovah’s Witnesses had “outed” me, everyone had to pretend I was invisible. They all had to turn their backs on me. It was especially hard to act like nothing was wrong at the bus station. And when the other kids saw them shunning me, they figured something was up, and so they all did the same thing. You know, monkey see, monkey do? It was like the time with my first best friend Stephie—in order to keep her friendship with Rebecca Wilson, Stephie, who was a grade younger than me, had to pretend not to like me. I don’t know why I ever went along with it, what was I thinking of? But it backfired at school and there I was all lonely again. And when she was all friendly again after school, it just didn’t matter any more. My heart was broken. It never dawned on me to say anything either, but then, I had a hard time sticking up for myself.

What is it that makes us go through life accepting small injustices and never questioning or challenging them? They pick away at us until we believe we’re no good at all. That’s what happened to most of the dads in the Valley, when they turned to drink. Or the older girls—all knocked up, dutifully following in their mothers’ footsteps. I guess sometimes you just have to get mad enough in order to change things—you know, like Rosa Parks at the back of the bus? But first, you have to see there’s an injustice being done. I just knew I had to escape the Valley, I didn’t know how or why.

Anyway, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they were really getting ready to face the end of the world, which was supposed to happen sometime in July, 1974 which was practically another lifetime away—five whole years— but they wanted to be ready well in advance. They were all being especially holy so as they could all be saved together, like lemmings, in the Promised Land. It was a time of potlucks and feverish prayer meetings. I figured we had plenty of time to still be friends, but Pearlie Mae—she cried, she begged me to join, saying she wanted me to be saved too, as I was her best friend. Who would she hang out with in the Promised Land? And I wanted to be saved too so that I could see John as well. But it didn’t happen like that.

We were moving light years apart: Pearlie Mae towards her goodie-two-shoes Abe, and me towards John who was a real bad boy, the first of a long line of many. I loved her, but for the life of me, I couldn’t have saved myself if I wanted to. I guess she’d long since given up on ’Tino. And of course 1974 just came and went. No end in sight. After that, I heard Pearlie Mae finally got married to Abe and started having babies, and when the world didn’t end as was promised, I hear rumor that they went off preaching to heathens in the jungle like Katrina Nielsen. What were they trying to do, were they embracing their fate or were they just running away from the world? No matter how I put it to myself, it just wouldn’t add up. All that savin’ of the heathens who just didn’t want savin’. Shoulda just stuck to their own kind. Know what I mean?



© 2002 Maureen Hurley
Disclaimer: this is fiction. I drew on stories I had heard as a child. This version of these pieces were written in the voice of our childhood dialect for a MFA monologue class with Roy Conboy. In order to take full artistic license, and to give ourselves more freedom, we were asked to change the names of the people but not the actual events. An interesting assignment. I was surprised at how visceral the characters became when the names were changed. I liked the names I invented. But I changed them all back again because it just felt right. But this is memoir as well. besides, how can you improve upon such a perfect name like Pearlie Mae Timberlake? Pearl, wherever you are, I still love you, girl.

I wrote another version in Brighde Mullins's class 4/3/2002, so I'm posting all variants there.

Nicasio Palm Sunday (MISSING ending?)

Nicasio Palm Sunday

Last Sunday we drove out to the coast after the Palm Sunday Brunch at the Druid’s Hall. Every year, the ranchers have a brunch to raise money for St. Mary’s. 

That’s where we had the memeorial service for my mom, only no one could come to it because there was a forest fire at the turn-off and they weren’t letting any cars through. 

So we sat there all afternoon waiting for the fire to be put out or for folks to figure out that they had to drive back into town (it’s actually three towns, but we always called it “into town” no matter which town we were going to) and then to go around the horn to San Rafael and back up Lucas Valley. But nobody came.  Too far. 

Here the B-52 bombers were buzzing and slime-ing the ridges with red fire retardant and helecopters were scooping up tarploads of water from Nicasio Lake like large dragonflies...and would you believe it? 

There was a movie crew filming some cowboys in a big rig that kept grinding around the town square in low gear. We had ringsides seats right on the front steps of the church. It looked as if Robert Duvall was in the cab. Can’t remember if my mom knew him. 

The camera men were sitting on the hood filming away. Anyway, my mom, she was upstaged by a fire, and the cops closed the road on account of the shooting. 

You should see all the daffodills blooming in the churchyard. Everyone planted a daffodill with a name of someone who died on 9/11 beneath each bulb. At least the ones they knew of. My aunt said there were a lot of unnamed bulbs too.

My cousin’s house is right on the square too—it was in the remake of The Village of the Damned. Did you see it? Silly movie. Tried to watch it two-three times.

I never could get past the plot in order to see the house. it’s sorta famous being on the bend of the road, as it’s the most prominent house in Nicasio. And I do mean prominent. 

Sometimes folks get so mesmerized by it they just drive right up the front porch—especially if they’ve had a few too many. The front steps are shot. My cousin has to pull cars off his front porch every two-three years.

You know, I haven’t been out to Point Reyes since my mom died. Driving through the Valley brought back a whole passel of memories. The kids I went to school with. Wonder where they are now. Especially ’Lupe.

(MISSING ending?)

march 24? probably written April 3

Rabbit Moon Monologue

RABBIT MOON


Here it is, Easter Monday AND April Fool’s Day all rolled into one and I’m being polled by AOL on how I eat my chocolate bunny–ears or feet first? It’s a holiday, a post-Easter recovery period to withdraw from all that sugar. Funny how the politicos turned it into César Chavez Day. So what kind of joke is that? Grape sugar retro-patriotism? Revisionist history. I got an email from a friend and it said it’s a holiday in Ireland too. To commemorate Eamonn de Valera’s election as the first president. The first Dial was created. And Home Rule.

My granny always got sentimental at Easter dinner. All that patriotism better fodder than the cabbage and bones of the slaughterfield. The Lazarus metaphor runs deep. She’d drag out photos of the martyrs out so I associated Easter with uprisings. It seems Ireland took to the idea of resurrection—literally and politically—like a goose to water. Some are still waiting for The Big Fellah to arise.

I got a cousin named after Michael Collins, you know. Our family’s steeped in it. Blood of the IRA, IRB.... and the IRS if I don’t get to my taxes soon. Procrastination runs in the family too. But I hate being late. Except for taxes. I hate the ides of April—because of the IRS. It says here that Brian Boru defeated the Vikings in Clontarf on Good Friday in 1014. Do you think the monks were fixing the dates? But how were they to know the Normans were on their way? The taxation vexation. The Romans never got to Ireland, though they thought about it. Having plundered Britain, all that ripe wheat tithing them on.

Do you think that’s what T.S. Eliot had in mind when he said April was the cruelest month—the IRS? He was an American, you know. Married a British heiress and then he took on airs. He had her committed too. I think she embarrassed him. Made a fool of herself in public because of a bad case of chronic PMS. I can relate to that. April is the month where everything catches up with you. Everything you put off comes home to roost. And then the slaughter of time begins.

It took the Irish 800 years to gain freedom from the Normans because they kept betraying each other. How the Normans got to Ireland in the first place is a real Judas story. They didn’t need a conquering Caesar. They had a traitor right in their midst. One fine Lent, a petty king, Desmond was lusting after other kings’ wives instead of 30 pieces of silver. So he handed Ireland over to the English—only they didn’t leave. Condemned Ireland became a regular Potter’s Field, a Field of Blood. Did Desmond beg forgiveness saying, “I have betrayed a country?” Did he hang himself beneath an etherized sky? T.S. Eliot was thinking about the Great War. I didn’t know what was so great about it. A lack of coffee and decent bread. But in Italy the trains ran on time even if there was nowhere to go.

Passover begins tomorrow. A moveable feast. But the moon is waning. Just as well, people get crazy during the full moon. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, this moon was called the Pink Moon. Does that mean it’s a communist moon, or a girl moon? Do we only get a boy moon once a year when the moon goes male? Is that what causes war? The Blue Moon? Moon, moonth, month. Luna, lunatic.

Funny, Ireland,, India and Israel gained their freedom after the war. What’s with all these eyes? I hate it when countries measure the resurrection of hope from cease fire to cease fire, year after year. One Easter, I was in Taos, the hotel owner gave me this letter to read—it was from Einstein expressing his profound regret. he yearned for a kinder, gentler time—he wanted to set the clocks back. 

No, I never had children, it wasn’t a hard decision made after the birth of the Age of Light. The idea of time being measured by atomic clocks had a lot to do with it. Too bright to see. We split the atom and there was all this extra light left over. We couldn’t put it back in Pandora’s box.

Speaking of package deals, this year we had the equinox, Easter and Passover right on top of each other. And April Fool’s Day punctuated by a comet. I was in lovely shape with the curse going full tilt. Peri-meno-what? Biological clocks aside, it got me to thinking about how we measure time. 

But the measurement of time wasn’t precise 300 years ago, let alone 2000 years ago. It says on the internet that “The discrepancy between the years is inescapable.” At this point, my datebook’s so jammed, I could use another Easter vacation. How to squeeze in the extra days without becoming a petty Caesar is the question. Stop the clocks, I want to get off.

April is the cruelest month. But what does that mean? Chaucer said, “When that Aprille with his shoores soothe, and March has pierced to the root...” was the time to go on pilgrimages. And March is Mars: the god of war. Did you know there was an official war season during Caesar’s time? After the crops were planted it was like a pilgrimage to go out and slaughter your enemy during the summer. “Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to war we go...”. But the rules ware: you had to be back in time for the harvest. Ever wonder why September is the seventh month? Or December is the 10th month? You probably never thought of it at all.

Things work on me like that. I’ll be minding my own business and a word will suddenly pop into my head; it ceases to be its ordinary self and reveals its skeleton. Then I have to look it up to see if I’m right. I never get anything done, it becomes a wild goose chase. And now that there’s the internet, it’s even worse. 

Apparently the old Roman calendar, which was based on the Egyptian one, only had 10 months. I guess they weren’t counting moons. Did you know Egyptian hares came out to feed during the full moon? That’s where we get the Easter Bunny from. It was Oestra who changed her pet bird into a rabbit to please the children. And the rabbit laid colored eggs. 

The Romans had these blank days and intercalculary months to keep things even. Sort of like an April Fool’s week every four years... But by 200 BC it was typical for a ruler to tinker with the calendar for the promotion of political ends or to lengthen or shorten an official’s term. Time was in a real mess.

It says here that Julius Caesar hammered out a working calendar 365 days long. Had to. By the time he became Pontifex Maximus, the Roman calendar was so out whack that January was falling into Autumn, if you’ll pardon the pun. It messed with the war season. In 46 B.C. he had to shoehorn in 90 days. I bet there was a lot of squawking when he put 67 days between November and December—I mean winter was already long enough—and he put 23 more days at the end of February which was kinda nice as it caused spring to return to its proper place in March, the official beginning of the year. Extra party time.

Actually Easter was a pre-Christian holiday abducted from the fertility festival of Oestra or Ishtar/Inanna/Isis... or whatever you want to call her—AKA The Great Mother as embodied sex. In Spring, sap rises in more ways than one. Randyness was a religious experience, the sacred prostitutes of the temple saw to that. But Easter got absorbed by the church because nobody was willing to give up a good rut or two for religion.

It says, “that months and years cannot be divided exactly by days and years can’t be easily divided by months has led to intercalculation.” As reward for all his calculated hard work, Caesar took Sextilius, that’s the sixth month, and called it July—from Julius. 

Not to be outdone, his adopted heir nabbed the Quintilius and changed it to Augustus. By 1582 Pope Gregory had to invent yet another calendar as the equinox was off again. A serious matter as Easter falls on the Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox—only we’re still not in agreement as to exactly when the equinox is, let alone, Easter itself. 

Ireland and the Orthodox churches managed to celebrate Easter on a different date than the Romans until quite recently—even the Synod of Whitby didn’t change their calculations or their minds. In the annals I read that sometimes Easter fell as late as May 5. Beltaine, Summer & Cinco de Mayo all rolled into one. Sorry to be so anachronistic. 

Can you imagine the uproar that must’ve caused in Rome? I knew Anthony Quinn was half-Irish, but I don’t think César Chavez was...

Here’s an interesting bit: Ishtar was also the goddess of war...and was capable of unremitting cruelty. I always wondered how sex and war became so miserably intertwined. We have this word, “bloodlust.” She had to go to the underworld to raise up her dead lover Tammuz, who was the god of agriculture. A paradigm shift from the old ways.

Have you seen the comet yet? I haven’t had time. I don’t even know its name. It says, when a comet appeared in the sky on the anniversary after his death, Julius Caesar had ascended into heaven—he was proclaimed a god The priests claimed the comet actually was Julius. A heavenly body. I guess the Christians didn’t invent that either.

A thousand years ago, the monks equated comets with disasters. Portents of what was to come. The end of the world as they knew it. They were right, The sky raining vermin and blood. 

Since September there was a fall from grace, a new age but no new year. Everything is post-September. Sometimes I cry for no apparent reason. There is no comet, you’re imagining it out of the corner of your eye, a tear straining the darkness; it was a plane exploding. Make that two planes, an eye for an eye. 

Yes, I make that pilgrimage daily. No, there is no Easter, plenty of death, yes. No resurrection, ashes, yes. Children, no, yes. No, no phoenix, no time. You know it’s bad when the rats are fleeing, the riddle of the Sphinx, yes, we are crawling, no, nothing. No, the world has not ended and yes, the IRS is still waiting in the wings.

4/3/2002
MFA Playwriting Brighde Mullins

Synopsis: Throwing Your Voice

A SHORT SYNOPSIS OF “THROWING YOUR VOICE” by Craig Lucas

The plot: an after dinner conversation with two 30-something urban yuppie couples explores ramifications of popular news topics circa 1990. They reiterate youthful ideals, but having grown used to living in the lap of privilege, lip service is paid to the past.

Lucy and Doug entertain a pregnant Sara and Richard. The topic, the cold-blooded ruthlessness of a cheerleader mom who hired paid killers to upset the competition sets the stage. Richard imagines how he could hypothetically condone murdering someone in his way in the subway or at the grocery store. The others join in. 

There is a conspiracy of smug superiority as they indulge in a macabre mental exercise of getting revenge without getting caught. They joke about becoming territorial as the cheerleader mom when their children become teenagers. Survival of the fittest, all ethics aside. 

Coffee broadens conversational horizons to include Latin American politics, the justification of killing innocent Iraqis during the Gulf War. Doug notes that: “...people often pay others to do their dirty work so they don’t have to look at the consequences.” Richard muses what it would be like, “...if everyone was actually responsible for their own actions...” Doug’s segue to personal luxuries: fur, diamonds, and coffee brings a protest from Lucy, she doesn’t want Americans to feel guilty and defiled. 

They conjure a story that Sara’s diamond ring is from South Africa where children are killed in diamond mines. Here, the plot takes on an Absurdist twist where the ring becomes a loudspeaker, a tiny voice screaming of the tortures of the past. 

This use of Deux et machina and spectacle drive the point home that by association, no one is innocent of murder or torture. We’re all guilty opportunists, no matter what the guise. Blood is still on our hands whether we gave the order or as consumers, we benefit from the exploitation of the lives of others.

 4/3/2002
MFA Playwriting Brighde Mullins

Prehistoric Irish music notes with Simon O'Dwyer

Galway musician Simon O'Dwyer opened his lecture by drumming on a bodhran. He said that the bodhran is a musical instrument virtually unchanged since the Stone Age. We all coo. Then he throws a wrench in it: asks, or was it introduced in the 19th century?

No matter, Irish drumming is unique. The hand is used as a swing, not as a slap, like with a tambourine, and the circular unique beat is like a metronome with orchestration, or grace notes with thematic variations—which makes it one of the most complex drums in the world.
which in turn, suggests great antiquity. Not a modern invention. The idea is old. He talked about how some of the stones at Stonehenge if struck, sounded like a drum.

He introduced a copy of some Bronze Age silver pipes found in 1927, which are considered to be the oldest instrument made of metal in the world. They look like a tin-penny whistle. Or, rather, two penny-whistles as they’re played simultaneously, like panpipes; one was a drone with four holes and the other has three holes. Its sound was very much like a bagpipe tuned to E flat—similar to Sardinian music.

Then Simon showed us his cast Bronze Age horn replicas, from circa 1150 BC to 600 BC. He speculated that two volcanic eruptions: one in Iceland, and another in Japan, created a 20-year winter, where there was minimal growth during that time, and then he asked, did the twinned catastrophes cause a change in society? Increased warfare?

Simon explained that there was an explosion of weaponry, and huge fortifications burst upon the scene, so it was probably a period of extreme poverty, and starvation in Western Europe. There were also suddenly lots of horns on the cultural horizon—the largest single collection is in Denmark, and northern Germany had rich sites as well, replete with casting techniques so fine, we can't reproduce them today.

Simon mentioned working with colleague Peter Holmes, a former Rolls Royce mechanic, who became an aircraft engineer and geophysicist, took up the trumpet and turned into a music archaeologist. Peter is considered one of the world's leading experts on ancient lip-blown instruments. His Brass for Beginners is a groundbreaking classic. With his background in engineering, Peter was able to recreate ancient musical instruments literally from the ground up.

Simon said the Celtic horns were made in a two-part mold, held together by chaplets, then cast, with walls 2 mm thick, which means they are very thin. It was on the cutting edge of technology that focused on the rituals of war-making versus weaponry. All the support sciences were cutting edge as well. You needed charcoal and tin. Tin mining was documented in northeast Ireland—especially in Antrim. 

The first remanufactured Celtic horn Simon showed us was the first Celtic war horn played in Dingle at a parade, in 3000 years, and it sounded like a didgeridoo. It was similar to horns made 3000 years ago. He decided to make a new one, a replica,. “I made a new one to wake it up again,” and said, it's such a unique sound, Listen! And then he demonstrated it. It made the hairs on my arms stand on end.

Simon said that the Celtic horn design was a unique concept in Europe, yet it's similar to the horns of Africa. The didgeridoo wasn’t even introduced to Africa until 1965. According to Seán Ó Riorda, the two notes were used as a carrier, like a drone, and the mouth was used to change the sound.

The voice of the Celtic horn is very much like a conch sound, it uses vocce and overtones—like the circular breathing techniques of the Tuva people of Mongolia who also use circular breathing. They use voice-generated notes to split frequencies and create overtones—sometimes called a chorus of angels—resonating within your body, as well as within the diaphragm. Your body becomes a pump; in essence, a bagpipe, and you can pulse it too. You use your hands to alternate notes, to create harmonic change, and then there are pedal notes and bwerm notes. He blows raspberries. We laugh.

Horns are always found in pairs: One sideblow, one endblow, like cast cow horns, but more complex with a hyper aperature curve—a so-called invention of the 1800s—like french horns, but with more complex shapes, it creates certain harmonics attractive to the ear.

A question was raised were they battle instruments, or sacred instruments, or were they used for music—a more religious aspect, or meditative aspect. 

Simon answered, In County Offaly, 26 horns were found, bells and cockles, a handbell that looked like a grenade, so it indicates religion or ceremonial aspects.

Not only England, but also Scotland also has sideblow horns, he shows us a drawing of one from Sussex. He said, In Ireland, it's at least a 9500-year-old tradition. Large horns from Kerry were found, but with no mouthpieces that survived. He speculated that perhaps they were destroyed to protect the instrument from being played again—like Irish pipes?

Because no mouth pipes survived into the modern age, Simon O'Dwyer had to invent an actual working mouthpiece, he played with many different types before he came up with one similar to an aboriginal tradition that still living as there is no living tradition within Ireland for the rhythm section or Bronze Age horns.

Simon launches into a story, In Tulsk, there is an ogham inscription about Ailil mac Medb in Rathcroghan, County Roscommon, about the Cruachán and the Cave of the Cats, Uaimh na gCat which is a vaulted cave where the three-headed cat lived. The portal to the Otherworld opens and the Morrígan emerges on Samhain. He said, this is from an older racial memory More than 3000 years old, which was visited by Celtic Ireland at the end of the Bronze Age. He said, we know this because suddenly the designs are different with the introduction of new ideas including Iron Age swords. This was the first use of sheet bronze which arrived with new technology, including the use of riveting, from circa 500 BC to the pre-Christian era.

In 400 BC, the Etruscans used sheet bronze to make horns, there are two surviving Horns in the British Museum. Peter Holmes compared these Etruscan horns to the Irish horns which are more finely made musical instruments. The Etruscan ones by comparison are crude, and made by craftsmen vs. artisans.

The evolvement of the horns in Ireland was not interrupted by invading Romans. The horns were probably introduced to Tuscany from Helvetia, or Celtic Switzerland. The trumpet-like trombone had a thousand rivets within ribs to hide them. The question was was it a circle, a half-circle, or was it like an S shape like the horns of Nepal? We don't know—it can go either way but of course, no record of it survives. It only survived in pieces so we don't know if it's like a carynx with a boar's head.

The Romans wrote of the Celts leading the armies into battle with their horns. Cuchulain in the Táin Bó Cuailgne, used Bronze Age horns derived from cowhorns, these fragments survived within the tale. Cattle wealth culture. The trumpets from this era. Four were found in a loch, and at Evan Mahha circa 60 BC, they were recovered in 1798. Three were lost, buried in Argyle, Scotland (this bit’s garbled, sorry. I couldn’t keep up with Simon).

The head of plate on the trumpet is done in repoussé style, it's called the Lotus design. There’s speculation that it's a design from the Middle East. The plate is a loudspeaker, it vibrates at a certain frequency, the wave links out can be heard, it's omnidirectional. The Ailill horn, like the one depicted on the Gundestrup Cauldron, played so beautifully, that soldiers died of rapture.

The shockwave wave pattern compresses and carries a couple of miles. A loud war parade would have a lot of fanfare and a trumpet craobh, there’s one in Dublin, not on display, about 8 feet long with artificial lips. A copy was made, computerized in Edinburg University.

An trumpa fada, the long trumpet had 1024 rivets. Only one rivet was missing, and it was 2000 years old. It was longer and heavier and was used on the ground, it was orchestral vs an instrument of war.

Another horn was found in Loch Erne, it was made of yew and bronze, and sounded like a full Gregorian chant.

The Mayophone was found in 1795, some 9 feet under in a bog in County Mayo, hence the name. The Mayophone looks like it was a double-reed instrument and it was made of willow which produced a softer sound. Possibly the earliest bassoon-chom family instrument in the world, it was 6 1/2 feet long, and the two halves of yew were carved out and bound together with bronze.

This is the first one it's ever been shown, or and even played. The next one will be up made of bog yew. It’s like a cornet it needs to be long to get those 17 notes. It’s the only example of a double reed instrument in the world. All the instruments were tuned into a common pitch: either G, C, low E, A, it had perfect pitch or tone. Africa has many similar instruments.

We got a chance to examine the instruments he played, and we even tried our hand—or lips 

—to get a feel for them. I had a slight mishap with the longhorn as it was much heavier than it looked. It took me for a little sleigh ride, as I careened around the room beneath its weight, scaring both Simon and the audience. I was so embarrassed but also delighted to have attempted to play such an instrument.

• Carynxes on my mind

Any errors in this transcript are solely mine, I was madly taking notes on something of which I knew nothing about, and I have little knowledge of wind instruments. My notes were nearly illegible and I despaired of ever transcribing this to an electronic format. There’s probably lots of articles that are more comprehensive, and more clearly written, but this was from a private lecture arranged by Dan Melia, and it was cutting edge scholarship for the time. Please visit Simon’s site to get it direct from the horse’s lips.

Someone I Wanted to Kiss But Didn’t (freewrite)

Someone I Wanted to  Kiss But Didn’t  (10-minute freewrite for Brighde Mullins)  3/12/2002

There must‘ve been someone I wanted to kiss but didn’t and I can’t think of anyone. Is it because I’ve always kissed the ones I wanted to kiss, or is it because I didn’t allow myself to dream. I’ve been living with someone for so long who doesn’t seem to like kissing so I guess I could wish to kiss him, but that doesn’t count, does it? Something memorable, like First Kiss is easier. I have imagined kissing a stranger’s lips, where they haunted me and I looked but to look was to get too close. Like getting burned in the fire. They say when the Gods kiss a woman, she dies, pfft! Consumed by flame. I learned that from The Man Who Would Be Kink. Now I would like to kiss Sean Connery’s lips but I assume we’re talking about real people. Not that Sean isn’t real, he isn’t available. I like the idea of a kiss being so hot that it consumes. Feed the flame.

Yes. Arthur. There was a man I wanted to kiss and that desire lasted for years. I never kissed him because he was happily married (ah, the guilt and secret deliciousness of  repressed desire. Arthur Dawson was a co-worker, a poet in the schools like me. He and I often went to conferences together. There was one conference in particular in southern California at Happy Valley where we shared a room and it was one of those magical times where we couldn’t stop talking to each other...I mean we downloaded lives that night. and only twin beds separating us. .

I couldn’t deal with the close proximity of it all, I was climbing the walls. literally. The next night, I had to distract myself by way of sublimation, several of us broke into the resort bar and got very loaded. Poets behind the bar, poets everywhere being bad poets. It was a scream. Hilarious. But that’s our job to be naughty. My sublimation was rowing out on the pond with a girlfriend till dawn, talking of everything under the sun—except it was the moon— we really were drunk out of our minds...that was my escape ’cause all I wanted to do was to jump Arthur’s bones.  He was safely sleeping back in the room while I was freezing my ass off on the pond with Kim but she wasn’t my type either and I certainly didn’t want to kiss her.

I never know if Arthur even sensed it but the attraction was so great that I’m sure he couldn’t help but notice.  But then again, he could have been as preoccupied as me. I knew something was up when he’s had a real Freudian slip saying that we could have a meeting at his house, instead of asking his wile Jill, he said, “I’ll KILL Jill..” There’s a long road between Tell and Kill. Right?  I said that kind of loyalty to the organization wasn’t necessary. But that’s where it all began, where I knew our connection was more than skin deep. But not only was he married, I was the older woman. I couldn’t explain it . Why I couldn’t shake the attraction. Forbidden love and all that was part of it. Yes, I was alone, and no Tryggve, my sometimes lover, didn’t exactly  do it for me. Besides, he had a girlfriend.

See, I was really on the rebound after the disastrous break-up with John Oliver Simon, I went very anorexic and all that, and had a few interesting relationships while on the rebound. Bruce Isaacson was one. See, I kissed him and all hell broke loose. I t was April Fools Day and the moon was full at Fort Mason. We were at a poet’s dance after the festival, and I had tuberoses in my hair and the moon was full and we couldn’t help ourselves. Well, I wrote him a poem and read it over the phone to him and his girlfriend found out and she sent me threatening letters and hostile phone calls...sometimes nothing on the other line. It went on for years. I think she cracked up after Bruce left her. Barbara was her name, the barbarian, and she really banked on it. Riding on Bruce’s leopard skins. I mean we were not in the same standing poetically or anything. Bruce was a suburban bad boy playing at the stud, busy kicking off the Babaarians—great new blood poets after all that Language School crap—new blood was sorely needed in the poetry scene, but  sometimes kissing is like that, it has no logic, no boundaries. It takes you out of your world, makes you risk everything. Whole kingdoms have been lost because of it. Look at Helen of Troy. I was no Helen (even if it was my mom’s middle name—there are some storys there, I tell you!)  but I didn’t fancy destroying a kingdom for a kiss.

Arthur? Well, there was always a buzz there between us. Christmas parties were always the hardest with little angels on the tree. Angel lips. See, he had these pouty Greek or Roman statue lips. Full, curved, like David’s statue. In fact his body was smooth and white as marble. He and Jill finally settled in and had a baby, and then another one after that, and that just about took care of it. After all those babies, I was no longer interested in kissing him. But sometimes I still dream of those Greek statue lips!

Ding-Dong Daddy

DING-DONG DADDY


(Nota bene: Ding-Dong Daddy, Bigamist of the “D” Line was a trolley car operator with three wives, all women whom he’d met on the job. He was a real character, caught and arrested for bigamy circa 1947—it was in all the newsreels. However, other than the moniker, this character portrayed is entirely fictitious.)

The scene opens at a bar circa 1950 where four men have been drinking and playing darts. Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart” is playing on the juke box. There is a roughshod camaraderie between them, but they don’t know each other very well outside the context of the bar at the end of the trolley car line. One man is a trolley car operator, the others are common laborers—in a working class. neighborhood.)

Characters:

DING-DONG DADDY, a trolley car operator

GEORGE, a bricklayer,

JIMMY, a collier

JOHN, a plumber


GEORGE: OK, Jimmy, Ante up. Mug’s away. C’mon. Let’s go.

JIMMY: What’s wit’ youze guys? Who you callin’ a mug? Why I oughta...

JOHN: Just play the game. Hey, You lost the last one, remember?

DING DONG DADDY: Dem’s da rules. Let’s go. Let’s go.

JIMMY: Aww! (He throws a dart at the board.) C’mon, baby. Double to score. (He misses.) Wait. We’re playin’ 301 this time, Right?

DING DONG DADDY: (He calls the shot.) Nope. Doubles outside.

GEORGE: Hey just a minute, we said 501, not 301. You can’t just change the rules mid-game like that.

JOHN: Yeah, An’ we all agreed tonight the game’s 501.

JIMMY: But 501 takes too long. Look, I gotta go see the little woman. She’s been waitin’ for me.

JOHN: Can’t leave the game now, Jimmy. You gotta see it out.

DING DONG DADDY: Double or quits. (He tosses his dart. Scores)

GEORGE: Doubles away. Way to go Daddio! Double 20 tops! No flies on you.

JIMMY (steps up, misses the double ring again by a fraction.) Hey look I got a double 20 too.

GEORGE: Well, it was a 20 tops but it’s in the bed, in the bed. Sorry Jimmy.

JIMMY: Is not! I scored. I scored. Look guys.

JOHN: You did not. Any jackass can see it’s in the bed.

GEORGE: Yep. In the bed, in the bed. (The rest of the guys take their turns, easily scoring points while Jimmy is left high and dry, unable to even enter the game. He’s becoming increasingly agitated. It’s more than just the game.)

GEORGE: Whoa Daddio! Triple 2o at the top. You outa the game?

DING DONG DADDY: Pretty close. I need a double 7 to get out and then I’m done.

JOHN: Aww! You’re always cleanin’ up. We gotta start givin’ you a handicap. You know. Like at the races.

GEORGE: OK Jimmy, so tell us, why are you so off your game?

JIMMY: (almost to himself, the others aren’t really taking it in.) It’s Marlene. She’s been actin’ a bit strange lately. I think she’s seein’ some other guy.

JOHN: Daddio, you seein’ any dolls these days?

DING DONG DADDY: (Aiming a dart). Every day. They just keep throwin’ themselves at me. I score every day. It’s the job, I tell you. I just keep plantin’ my dart in the bed. In the bed. Bullseye! 

Marlene? Say, I know a gal named Marlene....


(I envision dialogue where DDD talks about his conquests, and the other three slowly recognize what sounds like their women, but nothing is above board. I still need to establish solid character types for each person and assign appropriate game language to them to create the arc.)


MFA Playwriting
Brighde Mullins
March, 12, 2002

PORTRAIT: “SEATED WOMAN WITH BENT KNEE”

PORTRAIT: “SEATED WOMAN WITH BENT KNEE”
—Egon Schiele, National Gallery - Prague 1917

Look at how she sits at the edge of the bed,
lost in thought, hands clasped on her knee, in black stockings,
voluminous white bloomers, a green silk camisole too big for her.
She must have been a real flame. Someone’s daughter,
neither dancer nor runner—or a bit of both—
a fine sheen of sweat transforming the lucent candle of her skin.
Hennaed hair carelessly piled on her head.
No. A real redhead. You could tell by her skin.
How many kisses stolen from those rosebud lips—a cliché at best,
but if life deals out a cliché, what can you do?
DNA isn’t a literary agent in search of original language
for porcelain skin, rosebud lips, and sloe eyes.
Dressing and undressing for the mirror of men’s eyes.
Boots laced up. Ready to flee at a moment’s notice.
Was she thinking of a lover? Not a lost one,
for the mask of disappointment hasn’t yet hardened her face,
where she will be recovering from someone or another
like an alcoholic—always on or off the wagon.
Just a small one for the road, thanks.
No. Let her stay a little while longer in that slow-lidded gaze
where time drowzes beneath the sheets like a satisfied lover.
For one day, she’ll wake to discover a portmanteau
of lost hours and years—unable to account for the ashes of a life
in that same white room, of yet another country,
still undressing memories of Prague after the Great War.


© 2002 Maureen Hurley

CW 855 MFA Playwriting
Brighde Mullins
March, 12, 2002

Someone I Wanted to Kiss, But Didn't (monologue)

SOMEONE I WANTED TO KISS BUT DIDN’T (from 10-minute freewrite)

When she asked me if there was someone I ever wanted to kiss but didn’t, I couldn’t think of anyone. I just drew a blank. Is it because I’ve kissed the men I wanted to kiss, or is it because I no longer allow myself to dream?

You know, I’ve been living with someone for so long. now, I hardly remember. He doesn’t like kissing much—a peck here and there—he’s pretty much trained me out of it. He says it’s like permanently being on Novocain. Not exactly romantic. Ever since the accident—did I tell you his whole face got smashed in? His jaw was wired shut for three months. The doctors did a real good job but they used so many titanium stars to patch his face, he can’t get through a metal detector without setting off alarms..

Since the accident, he doesn’t get many calls for work. A commercial shoot here and there. Don’t get me wrong,, he still sets off some alarms. The women all think he’s eye candy. They drool all over his sleeves. It drives me crazy. I guess I did it too. But we’d only just met and then the accident took front seat in our lives. You can hardly see the scars..
The real problem is the invisible ones, the ones you can’t see.

When was the last time I imagined kissing a stranger’s lips? To look, but to imagine was to get too close? Like getting burned in the fire. They say when the gods kiss a woman, pfft! she goes up in smoke, consumed by passion. That was from The Man Who Would Be King. Now I wouldn’t mind kissing Sean Connery, but I assume we’re discussing real people. Not that Sean isn’t real, he isn’t available. I like the idea of a kiss so hot that it consumes. Yeah, I’d like to feel like that again.

Come to think of it, there was a man I wanted to kiss and I swear it lasted for years. But I never did it because he was a happily married man. Ah, guilt. I never let it stop me before, but this was different. Maybe I was afraid if we started it, we couldn’t stop it, and it was one of those rare times I had enough sense to know I was on the rebound. Because he was a co-worker, we often went to events together. There was this conference in southern California, so we carpooled down to Happy Valley, and for ten hours we just couldn’t stop talking to each other. It seemed natural to share a room too... we must’ve downloaded our lives to each other that night. And only the twin beds separating us.

* * * *

The next night, I couldn’t deal with it, I was climbing the effing walls. I had to distract myself, so we broke into the resort bar and got loaded. Poets behind the bar, poets on the bar—poets everywhere being bad poets. It was a scream. Amazingly we never got caught. Anyway, about 3 AM, a girlfriend and I got this crazy urge to row out into the middle of the frog pond like a couple of Vikings yakking about everything under the sun—except it was under the moon— we really were drunk out of our minds...that was my escape ’cause all I wanted to do was to jump Arthur’s bones. He was safely sleeping like a babe back in the room while here I was, I was freezing my ass off on the pond with Kim but she wasn’t my type either as I certainly didn’t want to kiss her.

I never knew if Arthur even sensed it, but the attraction was so strong, I’m sure he noticed it too. He could have been as preoccupied as me. I first knew something was up when he made a wild Freudian slip, saying that we could have a meeting at his house, but instead of saying, “I’ll tell Jill,” —that’s his wife—he said, “I’ll KILL Jill..” There’s a long road between tell and kill. Right? I said, “that kind of loyalty to the organization wasn’t necessary.” But that’s when it all began. Not only was he married, I was the older woman. I couldn’t explain it. Why I couldn’t shake the attraction. Forbidden love and all that was part of it. Yes, I was alone, and no, Tryggve, my sometimes lover, didn’t exactly do it for me. Besides, he had a girlfriend. I’m not into playing second fiddle.

See, I was really on the rebound after a disastrous break-up with John, I went anorexic and all that. He dumped me for this blonde teenager. I was hurting pretty bad and had a few intense relationships. Bruce Isaacson was one. See, I kissed him on April Fool’s Day, and all hell broke loose. We were at a dance at Fort Mason—it was after the poetry festival, and I had tuberoses in my hair and the moon was full and we just couldn’t help ourselves. Poets are so incestuous. Well, I wrote him a poem and I read it to his answering machine. He neglected to tell me about his girlfriend and she found out and went ballistic with threatening phone calls... often there was nothing on the other line. It went on for years. I think she cracked up after Bruce left her. Barbara was her name, the barbarian woman, and she really banked on it. Riding on Bruce’s leopard skins. I mean we were not in the same standing poetically, or anything.

Bruce was a suburban bad boy in black leather and chrome, playing at the stud, busy kicking off the Babaarians—great new blood after all that Language School crap—new blood was sorely needed in the poetry scene. Sometimes kissing is like that, it has no logic, no boundaries. It takes you out of your world, makes you risk everything. Whole kingdoms have been lost because of it. Look at Helen of Troy. I was no Helen (even if it was my mom’s middle name—she had some stories to tell) but I didn’t fancy destroying a kingdom for a kiss.

Arthur? Well, there was always a buzz there between us. Christmas parties were the hardest with all the little angels on the tree. You know, baby cupid lips. See, he had these pouty lips like on Greek or Roman statues. Full, curved, like David’s. In fact, his body was smooth and white as marble. It made me wish I was born a few years later. He and Jill finally settled in and had a baby, and then another one after that, and that just about took care of it. After all those babies, I was no longer interested. But sometimes I still dream of kissing those lips.

2002 
for Brighde Mullins class

Someone I Wanted to  Kiss But Didn’t  

(10-minute freewrite for Brighde Mullins)  3/12/2002

There must‘ve been someone I wanted to kiss but didn’t and I can’t think of anyone. Is it because I’ve always kissed the ones I wanted to kiss, or is it because I didn’t allow myself to dream. I’ve been living with someone for so long who doesn’t seem to like kissing so I guess I could wish to kiss him, but that doesn’t count, does it? Something memorable, like First Kiss is easier. I have imagined kissing a stranger’s lips, where they haunted me and I looked but to look was to get too close. Like getting burned in the fire. They say when the Gods kiss a woman, she dies, pfft! Consumed by flame. I learned that from The Man Who Would Be Kink. Now I would like to kiss Sean Connery’s lips but I assume we’re talking about real people. Not that Sean isn’t real, he isn’t available. I like the idea of a kiss being so hot that it consumes. Feed the flame.

Yes. Arthur. There was a man I wanted to kiss and that desire lasted for years. I never kissed him because he was happily married (ah, the guilt and secret deliciousness of  repressed desire. Arthur Dawson was a co-worker, a poet in the schools like me. He and I often went to conferences together. There was one conference in particular in southern California at Happy Valley where we shared a room and it was one of those magical times where we couldn’t stop talking to each other...I mean we downloaded lives that night. and only twin beds separating us. .

I couldn’t deal with the close proximity of it all, I was climbing the walls. literally. The next night, I had to distract myself by way of sublimation, several of us broke into the resort bar and got very loaded. Poets behind the bar, poets everywhere being bad poets. It was a scream. Hilarious. But that’s our job to be naughty. My sublimation was rowing out on the pond with a girlfriend till dawn, talking of everything under the sun—except it was the moon— we really were drunk out of our minds...that was my escape ’cause all I wanted to do was to jump Arthur’s bones.  He was safely sleeping back in the room while I was freezing my ass off on the pond with Kim but she wasn’t my type either and I certainly didn’t want to kiss her.

I never know if Arthur even sensed it but the attraction was so great that I’m sure he couldn’t help but notice.  But then again, he could have been as preoccupied as me. I knew something was up when he’s had a real Freudian slip saying that we could have a meeting at his house, instead of asking his wile Jill, he said, “I’ll KILL Jill..” There’s a long road between Tell and Kill. Right?  I said that kind of loyalty to the organization wasn’t necessary. But that’s where it all began, where I knew our connection was more than skin deep. But not only was he married, I was the older woman. I couldn’t explain it . Why I couldn’t shake the attraction. Forbidden love and all that was part of it. Yes, I was alone, and no Tryggve, my sometimes lover, didn’t exactly  do it for me. Besides, he had a girlfriend.

See, I was really on the rebound after the disastrous break-up with John Oliver Simon, I went very anorexic and all that, and had a few interesting relationships while on the rebound. Bruce Isaacson was one. See, I kissed him and all hell broke loose. I t was April Fools Day and the moon was full at Fort Mason. We were at a poet’s dance after the festival, and I had tuberoses in my hair and the moon was full and we couldn’t help ourselves. Well, I wrote him a poem and read it over the phone to him and his girlfriend found out and she sent me threatening letters and hostile phone calls...sometimes nothing on the other line. It went on for years. I think she cracked up after Bruce left her. Barbara was her name, the barbarian, and she really banked on it. Riding on Bruce’s leopard skins. I mean we were not in the same standing poetically or anything. Bruce was a suburban bad boy playing at the stud, busy kicking off the Babaarians—great new blood poets after all that Language School crap—new blood was sorely needed in the poetry scene, but  sometimes kissing is like that, it has no logic, no boundaries. It takes you out of your world, makes you risk everything. Whole kingdoms have been lost because of it. Look at Helen of Troy. I was no Helen (even if it was my mom’s middle name—there are some storys there, I tell you!)  but I didn’t fancy destroying a kingdom for a kiss.

Arthur? Well, there was always a buzz there between us. Christmas parties were always the hardest with little angels on the tree. Angel lips. See, he had these pouty Greek or Roman statue lips. Full, curved, like David’s statue. In fact his body was smooth and white as marble. He and Jill finally settled in and had a baby, and then another one after that, and that just about took care of it. After all those babies, I was no longer interested in kissing him. But sometimes I still dream of those Greek statue lips!

Aristotle's Poetics meets Bock's FIve Flights

AN ATTEMPT TO APPLY ARISTOTLE’S POETICS TO ADAM BOCK’S “FIVE FLIGHTS”

Presented by the Encore Theatre Company, at the Thick House, Jan, 17 - April.

To apply Aristotle’s “The Poetics” to San Francisco-based Canadian playwright Adam Bock’s “Five Flights” is somewhat of an anachronistic exercise in that though “Five Flights” touches upon tragic themes, it is not a tragedy, but a dark comedy. Aristotle considered comedy to be less worthy of attention because it did not provide a proper catharsis or purgation of emotions—considered to be a primary goal of good drama circa 2500 years ago.

Though Aristotle deemed that learning should be a pleasurable experience, he did not think that comedy upheld the virtues of higher moral value or purpose. “...Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.” (p. 52, Aristotle’s Poetics, H.S. Butcher, transl.). He further suggested that comedy was not a proper Attic Greek art form, but was invented by the Dorians of the Peloponnese and the Megarians of Sicily. (p. 54, ibid). A curiosity in that he himself was not from Athens, but from a colony near the Black Sea...but I digress from my storyline, much in the same convoluted manner as Bock’s play does.

In Chapter VI, considered to be the heart of “The Poetics,” Aristotle scribed that “Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is complete and whole, and of a certain magnitude.... which has a beginning, a middle, and an end.” (p. 65, ibid). He desired a beginning of “causal necessity,” a middle which follows, and an end, either by necessity or rule, has nothing following it. “A well-constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin at haphazard, but conform to these principles.” (p. 65, ibid).

The object of imitation (whether of higher or lower types) is the basis by which the distinction between Tragedy and Comedy is made. Aristotle stated that “Comedy is...not...bad, the Ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the ugly.” (p. 59, ibid). His main concern was that the comedic play promotes a lesser, rather than a higher, or noble character. 

“Five Flights” is episodic, not epic. Convoluted, not complex. Art should imitate life; the manner and mode would meet with Aristotle’s expectations. But “Five Flights” becomes a complicated plot to analyze on a one-off basis without my being familiar with the play or script

By Aristotle’s time, the art of tragedy was already a well-established genre, a fixed form with strict rules and essential features including unity of plot, character, thought, diction, song and spectacle. It also required recognition and/or reversal, or hamarteia, or a tragic flaw where a hero’s consistent behavior leads to his inevitable downfall. 

In “Five Flights” one could argue that there is no one protagonist. “Five Flights” opens in a garden with Tom as narrator, but the story is retold from each character’s point of view, and at different times of their lives. Stasis, rather than the hero’s downfall seems to be the medium and the message.

Aristotle wrote: “Of all plots and actions, the epeiosodic are the worst. I call a plot ‘epeiosodic’ in which the episodes or acts succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence.” (p. 69, ibid). 

Adam Bock’s play begins with a seemingly simple plot, embellished with many episodic themes. A father has died; two of his three children, Adele and Tom are to decide how best to dispose of his property. But Adele’s friend Olivia wants to convert the aviary into a church, while Adele’s offstage brother Bobby is represented by his wife, Jane—who wants to sell the property. The conflict is over Jane’s need for materialism and Olivia’s need for spirituality. Or is it? Other threads unravel a love story or two.

Before the play opens, the audience hears Classical Russian music and bird song...we later find that this is no accident, it is the subtext. We begin with the establishment of a problem (what to do with the aviary), we have the development (more than one suggestion for the aviary which creates conflict), and we have a resolution of sorts, or denouement (stasis—the aviary is left to crumble into the ground). More than one false ending to the story is presented.

The set is simple, long benches in a garden Shadows of trees. Birds twittering. The same set later doubles as a hockey arena and a theater, and there is clever opening scene with Tom explaining the architect’s mock-up of aviary as a prop. A central motif that ties the stories together is that the souls of the dead are housed in birds. Tom, as narrator, begins in medias res, in the middle of things...to explain to the audience that the aviary is to house his mother’s soul... “so she could remember flying.”

The play is presented in five acts, or flights (of fancy). As with Tennessee William’s play, “The Glass Menagerie,” this is a memory play replete with the use of multiple narrators and overhead projections: The self-defined parts of the play are: 1. Narration, 2. Vision, 3. Mad Scene, 4. Conclusion, 5. Frivolous Dance. If we isolate the basic elements of theater listed in “The Poetics” and apply it to “Five Flights” we find that many of Aristotle’s requirements are indeed met:

1. Plot: The central dilemma is whether or not to rebuild or tear down the aviary. Each character negotiates some obstacle. Olivia wants to preach in it. Bobby (offstage) doesn’t care about the aviary. Jane is his proxy with her own agenda. But the father’s will deeds power equally to Bobby, Tom & Adele who are ambivalent, wanting inertia to decide on it and their fate.

The modern plot doesn’t stand up to classical ideals. There is a complete action but no one protagonist, or one through-line. The same story is told with multiple views by different characters. The only thing cohesive is the thread of an idea... that of possibility & of inertia. Fear and pity should be aroused by plot. But one could argue that there is no one hero, no one flaw—the characters are collectively fighting off inertia.

Many of the scenes are episodic. The plot becomes convoluted with the introduction of a gay love scene with Tom and a neighbor, Ed; this subplot is also mirrored by Adele who is rejected by Olivia. A hockey rink tableaux with Ed and Andre, who is a straight guy, offers an interesting twist, and a brilliant dumb show of the characters watching Swan Lake offers the audience comic relief from the tension of the escalating war between Jane and Olivia and from Ed—Tom’s rejected suitor.

2. Character must be good, true to life, consistent. None of the characters are altruistic. In their search of self-recognition, they don’t know who they are. Olivia is out of touch with reality and they are all struggling with self-identification. They don’t find it. Tom proclaims: “Nothing stupider than being in love.” Is Tom’s indecisiveness akin to that of a lesser Hamlet? He’s offered a relationship, wholeness, but his fear and hurt are too great to overcome. Does Ed really want love or sex? He says, “My strongest weapon is not caring.”

Adele is a listener. From her we learn how the aviary got built to house the soul of their mother. She. uses backstory to explain. “At the funeral, a wren landed in my father’s hand and he said ‘this bird is my wife .... I’m gonna build Mom a house...’” She introduces doubt. “Bobby said it’s just a dumb bird....” From her we learn of Bobby but we never meet him. Much of her monologue is done in kid-speak. Dad collected the souls of all the dead —even Mrs. O’Leary. “Sometimes the birds would die which was confusing. When the wren died, it was very confusing. My father went pale, just sat in there and eventually all the birds escaped....”

Jane’s epiphany about religion comes as a surprise to us for we associate Jane with the far right: rigid conventional religion—supported by Jane’s choreographed movements which are militaristic in nature. She states, “I see my God in a hedge that someone has cared for....” Her character stands for reason. Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Jane who wants to clean up on the property, feels obligated to also clean up after Olivia’s preaching sessions. Jane says that it easier for others to follow someone, but doctrine stops people from thinking But Ed says to Jane: “You and Olivia aren’t that different. You both want to leave your mark on the world.”

Olivia, is driven by pure passion, she is irresponsible. We learn Olivia’s spiritual ambitions aren’t pure. Her desire for belief system is an urge for self-empowerment—her raison d'etre. Her faith is based on synchronicity and a need for faith: it’s necessary for people to believe in something.” We are charmed by Olivia’s insight that the bird is the essence of God. “The fifth day of creation is the holiest of holy days... .” Olivia tells us that “the soul is a bird we keep in our hearts.” But then Olivia is deluged by “the pure tedium of a congregation.”

3, Thought: general maxims in the play: materialism vs. spirituality, pursuit of love and truth. There are numerous dyad—themes: of good/evil, power/ powerlessness, roles of men/ women... Use of rhetorical oration is directed at the audience in opening scene...but later becomes casual. There is good use of formal presentation, precise physical language, formal gestures, contrived and stylized movement & gesture to uphold action of Thought.

4, Diction is historically appropriate, and time & action are consistent with character’s fantasy lives. The three unities of a play; time, place, action are met; the play takes place in linear time, a recognizable place, characters are real people who conform to certain predictable standards. The language employed is witty, pithy and riddled with metaphoric juxtaposition; it works on several levels. A bird is to the soul as a soul is God And there are musical puns: Swan Lake is not only a reference to the ballet (high artifice), it also is an oblique reference to the life of the gay composer Tchaikovsky. And the pun embedded within the closing music by “Status Quo” is no accident.

5 & 6. Uses of song and spectacle. (Or 5. Frivolous Dance?) The dumb show representation of Swan Lake with its clever use of sight gags, jokes, and miming provides brilliant comic relief. It serves to take the characters out of the play so that the audience can see them in a different context. Even Andre, who hates ballet, is transformed by it. The choreographed movement of the characters provides interesting use of rhythm as does the occasional use of the characters as a chorus. Aristotle wrote that it is better to have impossible but probable action. But complications must arise out of the plot, not out of Deus ex Machina. He stated that “The Deus et Machina should be employed only for events external to the drama—” (p. 82, ibid). God appears offstage to motivate Olivia’s behavior—she claims to have seen God in the garden—the use of Deus ex Machina gives her character motivation to act.

Though Aristotle deemed comedy to be a less-worthy art form than tragedy as a vehicle for catharsis, and therefore, transformation and pleasure—the primary goal of good drama, some 2400 years later, we tend to lean towards comedy as the preferred vehicle of purgation. Adam Bock’s “Five Flights” brilliantly executed by a superb cast and director, works on multiple levels, not all of which are immediately obvious upon first viewing. Though there are occasional areas in the construction of the play which could be edited or tightened, Bock is forgiven; the play doesn’t just entertain, it transcends—which is still the primary goal of good theater.

for Brighde Mullins MFA Playwriting
March 4, 2002