The Next Thing/s (2)

(Now it's getting decidedly stranger, a rainy night after the moon went and changed everything around, this retrograde Mercury is decidedly flirty, and carries lots of old ghosts on her shoulders, and she's dual nature, too, which means that everything that is Mercurial is more slippery than ever, but that could just be from all the rain. This segment was captured while doing yoga during a storm, but not like romantic and looking through foggy windows, but really fucking wet, out in the rain, to see if the balance could hold even here in all this.)

I: Thanks for being so candid.
CD: So far.
(This catches her off guard and she laughs uncontrollably, even though we all know this just wasn't that funny.)
I: But we wanted to ask about the next thing, more on that, but specifically, the next project. Can you talk about that?
CD: Interesting, mm, yes, mm. The new incarnation of whatever this performance thing will turn out to be, Revoltosa #8.5, or whatever whatever, is still unformed enough to keep most of that under wraps, but the projects, those I think are pretty clear.
I: Good, this is what's important for right now.
CD: What do you mean?
I: Well...in a sense, it doesn't matter what the vehicle is called, or what it looks like, but what it's doing.
CD: That's true, but if it has only two wheels instead of the usual four, that's going to be important, because we either need an air freshener, or there's no rear view mirror, and we don't.
I: Why an air freshener?
CD: Every car has one.
(She wants to get the joke, but again, it's not that funny.)
I: The road is more important than the thing you travel on.
CD: Huh, that sounds true. I guess that's really the most important thing, these days, where the good and the bad are kind of jumbled up in each other, best friends are worst enemies, and the ones that got written off suddenly start to show their flare, and right and wrong are under suspicion for impersonating each other. But some things just feel true. You know what I mean? It just feels true, and if it does, that's enough for me, and I trust it.
I: Totally trust it?
CD: Well, as much as possible, I mean, enough to play the role as its given. So, we're looking at Cassandra.
I: Another Greek thing.
CD: I know! Weird, huh? They keep speaking to me, because the stories are so dense, and because it's easy to remember them, because of the history of oral tradition, which is very important to me, of course, and because wikipedia is so succinct in milking the life out of things so that they're easy to consume, all these things play a part.
I: What about Cassandra, specifically?
CD: It has to do with the whole thing about knowing the future and no one believing you, that whole curse. I mean, I've studied it for years, but wikipedia reminded me that Apollo plays a big part, like he gave her the gift of prophecy, but she was supposed to sleep with him. But instead, she spits in his mouth, and then he makes it so that no one believes her. I mean, what an asshole. He's a god, and the big rational one, too, so he could like, well, it can't be hard for him to find somebody else, I mean, and just move on. But instead he curses her. That's interesting to me. But even more, the idea of divination, the Lucumi tradition invokes a lot of divination, and the sacred text there is oral, too, so it has concentric circles, that I also like. But there's this question I have, about how, if you know something is going to happen, and you try to stop it, but the people it's going to hurt the most don't believe you, then what's it for? What's this information for? Because there's a sense that at least some things are predetermined, and if those things are known through divination, then the divination is also predetermined, and maybe the part about no one believing you is also pre-determined.
I: Interesting and it sounds like there should be lots of grants for this, or people who hear about it should decide to donate lots of money to the project.
CD: Ni modo.
I: And it's also telling that this one isn't another project about doomed love or desire or bla bla bla.
CD: Right. We're staying away from that altogether. Except for the thing about Cassandra and Apollo, which is really central to it, and uh, there's stuff with Agememnon who falls in love with her, and uh, well, it's pretty sticky, and I guess it has everything to do with doomed love and desire, too.
I: Well, that does make sense, in a sense.
(Now he laughs uncontrollably, even though it wasn't all that funny, but there's electricity here that we can't possibly see.)
I: Because all stories are songs, and all songs are the same song, and it's always a love song. Tragedies are more interesting, because love stories that turn out well are just--
CD:--Pornography.
I:--Pornography, exactly, jinx, buy me a coke.

(They share a nice laugh but then it gets uncomfortably quiet, and the rain starts to pick up, and it's the beginning of a very wet winter.)