what is event?

it's when you're sitting somewhere thinking there might be five extra minutes to fall asleep for just five minutes except something happens that gets you up and onto the next thing, and you just can't sit still.  not that you want to, your body has to move because it's a clogged intersection of nerves that are so worn out that they're banding themselves together hoping they might fire together if they stick together, like dogs.  we might be able to get through this night if we just band together like dogs.  and we are dogs, phantom dogs that don't know how vicious the forest can be, but we are starting to get suspicious, and maybe that will help some of us to survive.  it's when you decide that you can do just one more thing, take down that tree branch and then you can wash the dog and then you can finish the floor but the branch comes down on your head because you were too stupid or in too much of a hurry to look at the bigger picture, and see that what you pull down will come down over you.  it's when your head is split open and your tooth has flown out of your mouth and the chain around your ankle is starting to bite, and everyone is using metaphors of war, and you tell yourself this isn't a war, not for you, it doesn't mean you personally, but there's blood certainly and there's pain certainly and it's not enough to stop you from moving on to the next thing, because you have to move on to the next thing.  it's when you think you've accepted the death, and you've been using the word death to let people know you're not going to be sentimental about it, but you realize that you really were longing to hear the sound of the nails on the floor coming to see you, but instead you hear nails on the floor and she's still wandering lost somewhere, not quite home, and not quite spirit enough yet to let you know that things are all right in dreams.  dreams won't cooperate at all, it's too much of the white lightning that's been flashing through these days, white lightning that comes with waves of nausea, and you can't draw the loved ones close enough and you can't keep the noise outside outside enough, so it's dreams of white lightning or ridiculous signs that are too far off to be funny even, they are just strange and point to something that's not meant for you.  and there's always more news, just when you think you might have caught your breath, there's more news, and it keeps pouring in through the cracks, and you just want to curl up on the couch and listen to your dad tell you stories about growing up in milwaukee, or military stations in nome, alaska, or the marches for civil rights that often brought the fbi to your door, you just want that, that voice next to you, and the dog on your feet, and you just want to hold everything in the world and tell the world that the world will be all right, because if you open your arms wide enough, you can hold the world, and the world might tell you the same thing, that it will be all right, but it's not speaking to you except to say that you need to rest, because it's not all right, and you're going to need rest, and you're going to need to eat, and you're going to need to keep your head covered for awhile, and you're going to need to be awake, so you can't drink, even though it might bring the ghost dogs in smiling, you can't drink, because the ghost dogs are coming, and if you are drunk, you won't recognize them, and there's something you need to know that will help you later, but first it might cut you open with white lightning, and this might be just enough to open you so that you can see what is happening, because this is still about seeing, it's all about seeing, and you might think this isn't a love story any more, but you will be wrong, of course, you will be terribly terribly wrong

From inside a joint test.

Then there was that morning when your tooth popped out of your head, the one to match the cat tooth in your pocket plucked fresh from the catskull, and you wonder why you feel so spooky these days. And then your lip ring falls out while you eat and the oggunchain on your ankle falls off in your sock, you who were hooked and later untangled by the iron god and you're still not still enough to say thank you. The only thing anyone sensible could say is that this sea is getting just a little rough.

What's hard to know right now is whether there is a right and a wrong way to do this. I wonder if we talk to the dead because we are afraid of letting go, or. If we are wrong about letting go to begin with, like if we don't have to say a complete goodbye to let each other go on with the next stage, because the next stage is never really a completely next stage, but always carries blood and bone from the one before, and the saliva and the cum from the one after. Except.

The mother of decomposing steps in and she steps in a very precise way. This is the body in the dirt and that's when I start to work. I am Astarte-led to see you here so soon doggam doggone. Maybe you don't need to let go, maybe things getting taken away is letting go enough and maybe this is all it can ever be what it is is all it can ever be.

Interview (excerpt from Birmingtonshire Post 27 Apr 2013) (2)

(This time, we're at a table outside of a punk club where there's a concert going on.  Danowski insisted we go, even though when we got there, he didn't have a ticket, and had conveniently forgotten his wallet.  The paper covered the costs, begrudgingly, and we find ourselves smoking thin French cigars on the veranda.)

I: Would you say this production, "Monsters of the Sea," the first part, is more or less autobiographical than your other works?

CD: Much less, interestingly enough.

I: I'm a little skeptical.

CD: Look, all work is autobiographical, I mean, even a pure visual abstract has everything to do with sight, with vision, really, and the eye is the 'I' and all that. I'm not saying anything new.

I: I understand this one takes on Orpheus and Eurydice.

CD: Yes, so what?

I: It just seems like familiar territory, that's all.

CD: Hm.  I suppose.  We're covering all the underworld myths, and so we thought we'd start with this one, since it's the one that's easiest to get sucked into.  I mean, they're in love, and she's dead, and he goes looking for her, and he loses her again, I mean.  You know?

I: I'm sorry I can't hear, the music is really loud.

CD: Let's walk, this place is a rip-off anyway.

(We start walking.  It's not even five minutes before he runs into someone he knows, and I spend the next half hour waiting for him to finish 'a short conversation' while I play with my phone.

I: How is this Eurydice different?

CD: Aha.  Three things.  First, there's a video, where we retell the story, through his eyes, so we never see him, only her.  And second, there's live performance where we perform scenes from a play that converges with How I Met Your Mother.

I: Why that show?

CD: Because it's like everything else on television.  There's these rich white kids in New York, and at the center of that is this story of impossible longing and loss, like Eurydice and Orpheus.  This isn't new.  What we're seeing on television, it's the same story again.  So we're telling that.  And third, there's the snake, the snake that bites her, we're focusing on that for the ritual, getting bitten and going into states of trance, and that's our way into talking to the dead, communicating with the spirits of the underworld.

I: Ok, but is there an audience for that in Phoenix?

CD: I think there is.  I've seen some really interesting work lately, lots of new and interesting work, and it seems like audiences are hungry for something with spectacle, something that's intimate and immediate, and something where they can go into other metaphysical worlds and find traces of themselves.

I: That all sounds very lofty, but I do detect a bit of your personal history in there.

CD: Where?

I: Have you ever met Eurydice?

CD: More times than I can remember.

I: Aha, so is this based on that?

CD: I suppose, I suppose it has to be.

I: Is she someone specific then?

CD: Yes and no, I suppose, in the same way you and I are specific, because here we are, but we're not the same people we were last year, or even last week.  Eurydice and Orpheus are always around, but they're always changing.

I: Is this Eurydice someone specific?

CD: Probably more like a conglomeration of people and events, probably.

I: She's not that woman you ran into in the parking lot?

CD: Oh, my gosh, you heard about that?

I: It's a story that I can't forget.  Would you please tell it so our readers can know?

CD: No.  It's too personal.

I: Did you ever see her again?

CD: I did, but I'm not sure if it was her, but it could have been, I don't know yet.  I looked at her, and she looked at me, and she arched her back and did this hair thing, and it seemed like, yes, I think it's her, but then I got distracted by someone who wanted to talk about my motorcycle, and then she was gone.

I: That is, without a doubt, the saddest and most beautiful story I've ever heard.

CD: Sometimes I wonder if I'm still just a teenager at heart.

I: I'm sure you are.  Otherwise, you'd be wearing shirts with collars by now.

CD: I suppose that when I start acting my age I'll stop making art.

I: So is this play really about her?

CD: The woman in the parking lot?

I: Yes.

CD: Why not?  It could be about her.  I'm making it with the thought that she might come to see it, and recognize herself...

I: And then she could start liking your posts on facebook, and by the time you're really old, you'll be texting each other.

CD: Hahaha, very funny, fuck off.

I: So it's about someone you don't really know.

CD: No, not at all.  It's about someone I think I know.  I'm making this for someone I think I know.  Don't you have someone secret in mind, all the time, someone you suspect knows all of your dark thoughts and thinks they're beautiful, someone who has been to dark places and can tell you about the dark places, and wants to hear you tell your stories about your own dark places?

I: Yes.

CD: This is for them.

Interview (excerpt from Birmingtonshire Post 27 Apr 2013)

(The following interview is in anticipation of a new work, "Monsters of the Sea (I)," which opens in Phoenix on June 21, 2013.  We caught Danowski in between the gym and the Mexican restaurant, a combination he swears is responsible for his good health.  At age 60, he already looks like a man half his age - plus 15 years - and he insists that it's the combination of exercise and spice that seems to reverse the aging process for him.  It's only 8am, and he's already worked a part time job, exercised, and completed a new Baudelaire translation, even though he doesn't speak French.  'But some day soon,' he optimistically quips.  He's terribly quippy these days, and with a production like this on the way, it's no wonder.)

I: It's unusual for us to start talking about an event this far in advance, especially with all the productions this season, but this requires a little more attention than usual.  This has a lot of talk already, and we wanted to add to that.  We hoped to be the first, but by now, we're lucky to be the third major publication to cover it.

CD: I believe you're actually the 4th.

I: No.

CD: Yes, I'm sorry.

(There is a pause.  It's a bit of a shock.  No one likes to be the 4th in anything.)

I: Well, regardless, we'll try to be the most thorough.

CD: Good luck, it's sometimes hard to get information out of me in a, you know, straight line.

(They laugh and they laugh.)

I: All right, then, Mr. Danowski.  Tell us what you might tell us, then, about this 'Monsters of the Sea.'

CD: All right.

I: It sounds epic.

CD: Oh, it is.

I: Good.

CD: Please don't interrupt.  Now.  In June, people, selected audiences, really, private audiences of about ten or twelve at a time, will be invited into my home to watch the first of this new series of works.

I: Why so small?

CD: I'm sorry?  (CD gets uncomfortable, because he thinks they're talking about something that they're not talking about.)

I: Why are the audiences so small for this?

CD: Oh, they can be any size.  We don't discriminate based on height.

I: Oh, sorry, I was referring to the number.

CD: Ah.  Aha, oh, yes, that.  Well, it's intimate.  Large and epic things will happen in a very small space, but we're creating a certain effect.  You see, the spectators will be witnessing a theatrical event, an art event, with media and dance and films and live scenes, but there is a much more pronounced ritual element to this, one that we haven't really embraced before, and there's a very good chance that the spectators will be pulled into the ritual.

I: Like in the olden days.

CD: If you like, yes, it's a return to the ritual forms of theater.

I: Wait, now I notice that you pronounce theater with the 'er' ending rather than the 're.'

CD: You have an extraordinary ear.

I: You really are something of a flirt.

CD: I'm really not, I'm terribly innocent, it just happens, we get in a room, and things start to spark up, it's not my intention, I'm sorry if this is inappropriate.

I: It's quite lovely, really, I can tell you work out.  Tell us about that.

CD: I've been working with a trainer, and it's really quite something, the Hollywood boys haven't gotten a hold of it yet, but it's all with refrigerators.  First, I run seven miles with a portable refrigerator on my back, as a warm up.  Then I do these jumps, where I walk up to a full size refrigerator, and jump up on it, and then back down, and so on and so forth, about 50 times, and then I lift the refrigerator for the free weights portion, then go back to the jumping, and I do a number of combinations, and then I swim through a moat filled with alligators, and then I hit the shower.  It takes about five hours, but it really gets the heart going.  It's something.

I: I can't even concentrate, please go back to the theater with an 'er.'

CD: Oh, that, that's just the Irish spelling, to show that we're not doing traditional English theatre at all, and really, that's not even...(He can't find his words, and he's thinking hard, remembering lost loves, thinking about wolves, being gloomy, but just for a moment.  He brightens.)  This is really the new form that I've been working toward for the past three years.  Every art form evolves, you know, the first Nadaists of the 1930's brought that home.

I: Where was this?

CD: In Buenos Aires, of course.

I: You should teach.

CD: Oh, I'm sure it wouldn't go well.  There would be lots of students complaining that it was too hard to follow, and that there were too many music videos, and half the work is in Spanish.

(And they laugh and they laugh and they laugh so much that they have to take a break.)

(To be continued.)

hospital for lost souls: barney has a happy place in his pants for you

TED (V.O., this time as Ted Danson): Although she had been reincarnated as Durga, the goddess of death, that still didn't help to bring her back.  Once she crossed over, she became a lot of things, but she wasn't the same mortal woman that I fell in love with all those years ago.  And that woman was the one I missed.  The first days of her death were very very hard for me.

(TED is in the hospital, sleeping in a bed next to ROBIN, who is dead.  All the others, LILY, MARSHALL, BARNEY, are sleeping in the bed, too.  MARSHALL's leg is twitching.)

BARNEY: Stop twitching.

MARSHALL: I can't help it.

LILY: Oh, my god, this is impossible.

TED: I can't stand this any more, I think I will go mad.  

(MARSHALL snores and twitches.)

BARNEY: We need a nurse to distract us.

TED: Nothing can distract me because I am grieving from the marrow of my bones.

LILY: Aw, that's sweet.  You really miss her, even though she's right here.  She never really went away, because she lives in our hearts.

BARNEY: She lives in our hearts, but she smells up our bed.  High five, can I get a high five?  Anyone?

(No one high fives him, except for the doctor, that is.  Enter DOCTOR VODKA, with great fanfare, trailed by an assistant, who might be a mannequin.  There's music that follows him, maybe the Internationale - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCFibtD3H_k.)

DOCTOR VODKA: Good morning, my friends, good morning, it's such a wonderful clear day, and the sky is as bright as the eyes of a baby seal, pure, and courageous, and good.  This was a good war.  Your friend, Rhonda--

TED: -- Robin.

DOCTOR VODKA: Sure.  She fought the fight.  The good fight.  The brave fight.  She fought.  And it was glorious.

LILY: But she died.

DOCTOR VODKA: I'm telling you right now, sweetie, that kind of talk isn't going to help her.  She needs your positive thinking, right now that's the secret to all of this, you all have to stay positive.  

MARSHALL: But she is dead.

DOCTOR VODKA: Why, that's not a word that's in my vocabulary, little man.  I don't know the words Death, or Subversion, or Communism, or Literature.  

BARNEY: What about Nose?

DV: Nose I know.  I can talk about the nose for hours and hours, and I often do.  Now.  What questions do you have for me?

TED: There are no more questions, there is only death.

DV: I don't even know the word, sir.  It's not in my vocabulary.

LILY: I have a question.

DV: Talk to me, honey, spell it out.

LILY: Can you make his leg stop twitching?

BARNEY: Can you cut it off, maybe?

MARSHALL (sleeping): Hee hee, don't cut off my leg, hee hee.   

DV: Why that would cost extra.  You don't have that kind of money.

BARNEY: We do, though, we have a lot of unexplained disposable income, and I could use my hooker money to help pay for the operation.

DV (High fives BARNEY): We'll talk, sir.  But first.  Let's deal with the patient at hand.  Your friend, Rachel--

TED: -- Robin.

DV: Yes, she is, I'm afraid, without the use of her hands.  However.  Everything else looks very good, and it's all going according to my plans, my greatest hopes, it's all like that, and well.  I say Fuck Yes.  Two words in my vocabulary.  Fuck and Yes.  Together they make Fuck Yes.

MARSHALL (Waking up): Oh, listen to him, he's really good.

LILY: I think he's a she.

DV: I think gender is a performance, little lady, and it's contingent on social relations, and unfortunately, that does not enter here, because you cannot know me, no one can know me, because I am elusive, like the jelly worm.

TED: How can you say she looks good?  She's dead.

DV: Sir, don't make me tickle you utterly with my bladey instruments.  

LILY: Oh, like a speculum.

DV: I don't speculate, I am a man, or woman, of hard throbbing rock solid veiny science.

MARSHALL: Goddam I love this wicked son of a bitch.  Smart like a whip.

DV: You make me glow, sir, you understand me.  

TED: So what's the prognosis, doctor?

DV: Why there's nothing to tell, sir.  We'll get through this, and then we'll have plenty of other options after this, and all of the options are positive, because we have options.  

TED: What are the options?

DV: We'll get to those after we get through this.

TED: But she's really dead.

DV: Not on my watch.

TED: There's no pulse and no breath.

DV: You have to think positive.

TED: How?

DV: That's not up to me, that's between you and the philosophy you live by.  I hope it's a strong one, sir, one that's not befuddled up with ambiguities and facts and your little scholar tricks of logic.  You need a big god to get through this, and when you do, you'll remember the name Doctor Vodka.

MARSHALL: You're amazing, you make me want to sell real estate to all my rich friends!

DV: That's the spirit, lad, that's the spirit that makes us great.  Now, I've examined her, and I can tell you this: everything is as it should be, and that.  Is all.  You need to know.

LILY: And don't forget, Doctor!

DV: Yes, pumpkin?

LILY: We have love, and that's all we really need.

BARNEY: I like my love with a pair of rubber high heel shoes, easy to clean.

(Long pause, and the DOCTOR laughs loud and long and spooky and grabs BARNEY by the face.)

DV: Let's sing.

DV & BARNEY:  We need a little more than love,

Because love is really stupid,

And it leads us all into doing things

We wouldn't normally do or say,

And that's just so very awkward.

(Finale): Awwwwwkward!

MARSHALL: Can I have her toast?

(And end scene.)

bar of death and unholy reckoning

(Three days later.)

PSYCH: I'm glad we're meeting here from now on, Mr. No Name.

BARNEY: My life is complex, and you have to see it unfold to really understand it.  You have to witness it as an outsider.

PSYCH: But there's no way I can observe it as a real outsider, Mr. Barney with No Name, there is no such thing.

BARNEY: No, there is.  You just have to be real quiet.

TED (enters, with a t-square): Hi, Barney!

PSYCH: It doesn't matter.  I am already a guilty witness, one with desires, plans, and symptoms.

BARNEY: You are the most endlessly fascinating therapist I have ever known.

PSYCH: You flatter me, and I like that.

BARNEY: We all have our charms.

MARSHALL (enters, with a big plastic monster toy): Hi Barney!

PSYCH:  I've been thinking over your case, and it's compelling, and it's perplexing, but it's also very simple.  Normally, I would never try to put these things into words, because words are errors, but here I'll just say:  I don't think you're supposed to be with women.

(TED AND MARSHALL, they laugh and they laugh.)

BARNEY: But if I'm not looking to spread my seed and replicate myself in every corner, I will disappear.

PSYCH: I think that would be a good idea.

MARSHALL: Clearly she's not getting the big picture.

TED: Without that, he's nothing, he has no meaning in his life, it's over.

PSYCH: I think that there are many people in this world who have lost their compass, their sense of stability, at one time or another, and those are the most interesting people in the world.  And when you become your opposite, you'll see yourself very clearly for the first, and quite possibly, the last time.

BARNEY: And you know, she was right.

MARSHALL: Who are you talking to?

BARNEY: It was an idea so simple, so painfully simple, and so mad, that it dug at me for seven long days and 400 nights, and in the end, I woke up and decided to give it a go.

TED: That's not Lacanian therapy!  This is fixed!

MARSHALL: Who is he talking to?

BARNEY: But first, I would have to make some big changes.

(And now, a dance number.)

bar of death bar of big terrible death

TED (v.o., v.o. being played by the Gorton's fisherman): Well, it wasn't until the following spring that they found our bodies.  Everyone and everything was destroyed utterly when Robin turned into Kali when she came back from the dead.  But as fate would have it, this was not the end, kiddies.  No, no, not at all.  Because although our lives are short and meaningless, there is always something after.  Now, what happens to us after death is very mysterious, sure, but it's not very well known that after death is also very short and meaningless, and at the end of the day, any day, there really is no hope.  And that's the best news I have today.  That girl, the one I chased after, the one who became your mother, well, let's just say that some of us eventually marry ourselves, and some of us marry our opposites, who are also ourselves, and a lot of us settle for something very much in between.
(Now the scene.)
It all started off calmly enough, on one wintry afternoon.

BARNEY: I can't, I just can't, I simply cannot! I don't like them, I really just don't like them at all!

LILY: Uh-oh, now what rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem waiting to be born?

BARNEY: This all, none of it, it's just not working for me.  No matter how much porn, no matter how much excess, no matter how much I give in to the dominant culture, I am still so very, very unfulfilled, and I wish just once I could have the perfect threesome with a loving man, I mean secret object of my desire, and by that, I mean something excessively heteronormative, I mean ski slope, I mean rottweiller, I mean cowboy.

(This signifies a sudden and stunning set change where he is suddenly in the therapist's office, and it happens so fast that we don't even notice, and we are stunned.  How did we get here?  We don't know.)

PSYCH: Why does it have to be a mother?

BARNEY: This isn't about me, it's not about me at all.

PSYCH: That's more true than you know, sir, uh, what's your name?

BARNEY: You can call me Barney.

PSYCH: I'd rather not.  What is your name, really?

(Oh, she's digging deep, this shrink, she's good, she's really really good.)

BARNEY: I have no name.

PSYCH: Oh, good, that's good, that's really good.  Now tell me, nameless one, what is your heart's desire?

BARNEY: I don't know, that's why I'm here.

PSYCH: We are not here to find our heart's desire, we are here to plummet headlong into a terrible mess and to try to talk about it, and fail, and fail, and miss the mark entirely.

BARNEY: Oh.

PSYCH: You want what you think you want, but you never really want what you think you want, you want what you want, and you'll never really know what you want.

BARNEY: Because love is impossible.

PSYCH: No, because you're stupid, but you were close.

BARNEY: How will I ever learn what I want?

PSYCH: Lots and lots of practice.  But you also need a mirror.  And peacock feathers.

BARNEY: It's always so expensive.

PSYCH: Of course it's expensive.  If it's not expensive, then it won't mean anything to you.  I mean, look at yourself.  Money is your god.

BARNEY: My god, I mean, my money, I wish you could hang out with me and the guys.

(And there's another sudden and stunning set change and they are all at the bar.)

LILY: So Marsh, the big Marsh and I have decided that we're going to have five children in the next five years.  It's our secret project to make ourselves into more of ourselves so that we can see ourselves reflected in geometrical progression so that we lose our fear of death.

MARSHALL: OHMYGOD IT WILL BE SO MUCH FUN TRYING!! SLOOP A DOOP A LISHIOUS!

ROBIN: And I've decided that without being able to have kids of my own, I will pursue my career recklessly above all other costs and make so much money that I might one day forget about all the things I really couldn't have.  Because no matter what I do, it will never be enough.

MARSHALL: AND IT'S GOING TO BE SO MUCH FUN TRYING!  MONEY IS SO AWESOME!  AND BIGFOOT!

TED: Guys, I have something to say: I met the one who fits all the points of the Ted Map of Desire.

PSYCH: Show me this map of desire, Mr. Ted.

TED: Who is she?

BARNEY: Don't worry about her, just pretend she's not here.

TED: But she's talking.

BARNEY: Just pretend she's not talking.

PSYCH: Show me this map.

TED (produces a very complicated map): These lines right here represent the lines of flight, places where my own fantasy images come to life because of what she says or does.

PSYCH: Does it have to be a she?

TED: Hahaha, what kind of a question is that, I mean, do we look like a band of others?

(They all laugh, hahaha, but not everyone understands why, and that's ok.)

TED: And these points here represent the order of events, the ones that have to unfold in this exact order or else there is no reason to even give her a fighting chance.  Like here, on the second date, it has to be somewhere that we can photograph ourselves and put the pictures up so everyone can comment.  And this point here is the second time we have sex, and it has to be a little awkward, because it's not as good as the first time, at which point all of the phantoms of our past relationships gather on the veranda to discuss, and oh, boy, is it serious! Hahaha.  And this picture here shows how she gets a little bit of cum on her ear, but that's really optional.

MARSHALL: Optional but required!

LILY: Oh my, the things my ears has seen over the years.

ROBIN: Please don't give us any more visuals than we already have.

MARSHALL: That's not how they do it in Canada, that's for sure.

ROBIN: I don't get your jokes any more.

PSYCH: I love this map, Ted, this map of yours intrigues me.  Tell me about this, it looks like a little boy wetting his bed.

TED: Good eye, doctor.  This right here is the moment I had my very first dream about Jesus giving Mary Magdelene a broach.  The one she admired in the window for months and thought that no one noticed.  But he noticed.  Oh, he noticed.

PSYCH: I think we need to discuss this all a little further somewhere more....comfortable?

TED: Let's discuss right here, I'll put the map on the table and we'll discuss this right on top.  Of the map.

(Oh, they can't stand it any more and they all make out on the map on the table, and although it could be very hot in other circumstances, here it's just terribly awkward and no one will speak to each other for the next three days.  No one.)

(End Scene)