More light

And there is that time, that time, you are in your body but not entirely, this still hurts too much and that is still a little sore from yesterday and the eyes are still looking too closely to see how things are glowing from far away, and you are thinking no, I passed through this, this fire, I passed through it and now I have that magic amulet and I have this everything at once, all the things I ever wanted, and this thing, this heart that is magic and bursting from the chambers that is glowing from close up even and far away still even it glows even, I have this and now I can be this thing that has been waiting to be born, except.  You are not quite through the fire, and you are angry with yourself for not being through the fire, except you are forgetting that you don't make the road you just travel it, and it's not up to you when the fire is over.  And you are wrong, you are so wrong, yes, because you are angry with yourself, when all you are supposed to do is become, become this, this thing you are, this thing that is getting born in fire, that's what that time is, that's what time it is, that's the time, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, you don't tell time, time tells you, let yourself be told. 

chiming

this is a repetition, i think, but i just want to mention: i really like this, i like this very much, i really really like this very very much.  

Planes

You are on a plane. 

I am on a plane. 

There are many planes where we find each other. 

None of these are too far away from each other, and like those stars that were once in contact, they still influence each other. 

This is either the simplest physics or the most complex. I can't tell which is which.  

And it doesn't matter what I think about it, because thinking is not the same as knowing, and you know what I know and I know what you know. 

It is easier to be able to get away and out of your head when your head is happier.  

And Orion is rising in front of my head. 

And right above my head is a full moon, in an eclipse that we can't see here.  You might see it from where you are. 

And I can't think of anything that I'd like more than to be getting off a plane with you and a cold fall New York wind is hitting us both at the same time. 

Distance does not matter even though my skin will disagree. 

The dog ate the trash but did not eat the hammock.

That hammock where we lay under the moon and looked at where we are. 

And the night before you put my hands on your head and said you can feel the moon, it's in my head.

All of this is in our heads.

And in our hearts, even though they try not to explode from containing all of this.  

It's better to just let them spill, and let this get messy.  

It's not really that messy.

It's Daphnus and Chloe playing in the garden. 

My father would have liked that play.

He would have liked to see it, or liked to hear me tell him about it.

I would like that.

He's on another plane and it feels very far away.  

His body is here in ash, some hair, and in scientific experiments that he would like to look up on YouTube. 

And I think he misses being in his body even more than we do, which is more than I ever thought possible. 

All of this tells me, it's good to be inside your skin, loving the one you love, and that part is very short.  

Touching and being touched, inside the skin.  

It's very short. 

And even a lifetime isn't long enough.

All of this tells me, we're very lucky. 

We always talk about that. 

How lucky we are.

And knowing that is a very good place to be.

A good place to being and end a day. 

I am in love, and I miss my dad, and I miss you being here. 

And everything you say about stars, that we come from stars, is right.

We're so much more than we think we are. 

And when I touch eternity through your skin, matter starts to matter, it matters very much.

That death, this love, broke me.

And I've never been more complete.  

Three months

3 months ago I was looking at two small bags on my floor, this is what I would have with me when I was in Berlin, there wasn't anything I needed, nothing more than this.  I like to have large and momentous things happening all the time, and it's never enough, but this was enough. 

The next day I had four things. There was lunch with Steve and then there was a short trip with my parents to the hospital and there was this coffee with someone I always kind of admired a lot and then there was a dinner with my roommate and that was all.  Nothing would overshadow what was about to happen with me and these two bags, this adventure ahead, I was clean and I was clear and nothing would interrupt this, a spiritual journey across the seas and it would all be art and French cigarettes. 

Two days later I am in an airport in Paris and I'm shaking like a leaf because nothing was going to work out how I planned, I was stuck in a city that has a language I couldn't even pretend to speak, but I was shaking because I was about to turn on my phone and I thought hm this might be a very important moment.  I was going to read your letter back, and it already had so much weight, it caught me unawares.

I had an inkling there was weight because, a day before, when the plane lifted off from Phoenix, I was thinking about my father, and my daughter, and this Heather.  And when the wheels lifted, my lip started trembling and I was surprised that I was crying so hard.  The father and the daughter are easy to understand because they are the pull on my body to stay in one place, and the other was impossible to understand because I didn't know why because I think it was because I thought I was in love already and that didn't take any time at all, but of course time doesn't exist.

The day before was the day that felt so heavy and light all at once.  I told Steve about Heather and it sounded charming and sweet but my father was already so heavy and I needed to see my daughter one time before I left, and my father walked into my house, he hasn't seen my house in a long long time and he told me to keep traveling like his uncle Leonard and to have fun.  Oh and the night before, Sue told me to write where the fear is.  Lots of advice from elders.  

And then there was that coffee with that Heather, a moment which has been covered extensively already, but worth going back to because time does not exist and that's when I learned that for the third time in my life maybe.  And all I want to say about that is that she had these blue eyes and she had this black dress, and she still has the eyes but the dress changes, sometimes three times in an afternoon. You have to change clothes a lot when you are covering so much ground.  And becoming so many people at once.

And in an afternoon when I hadn't scheduled any time for anything momentous, I accidentally fell into: a place that smells like home; a whirlpool that doesn't hold me back but pushes me forward; a burning ring of fire; nothing less than a perfect love story, one that I had recently decided was not for me any more, one that I more recently decided was the one that was chasing me as hard as I had been chasing after it.

And we can move forward from there, six weeks later maybe, and the three I had in my head on the plane were together in my parents' living room, and I wouldn't believe it if you'd told me that an hour later this Heather would be touching my father's feet. And a week after that we would all be together when my father was shaking in that chair, an hour before he was taken to the place where he would die.  And two days later we would be there right after he had died.

In between a coffee and a death there are a thousand adventures I can't tell because they belong only to us.  And between a death and a moment like this, there are a thousand more.  I won't tell the details of the hundred times you can fall in love with someone over and over, sometimes there are rivers and priests making blessings and sometimes there are conversations that are full of shooting stars and mad faeries and sometimes there are cold trembles and sometimes there are those soft embraces after just two days apart and sometimes it's so much like the best love stories in movies and books and plays that it seems impossible to be living inside of it and not watching it from somewhere else.

And if I was younger, I might have thought that I couldn't live with two things at once, my biggest grief and the kind of love story that most people don't get every lifetime. But I'm not younger, and I'm not torn in a thousand pieces, and I know It can happen, because it's happening to me.  And my soul is wide open, even though there are moments I want to hide somewhere else, but I haven't wanted to be in another body in a very long time.  If three months is a long time.

It's just long enough to be turned all kinds of inside out, and put back together so I can see myself as the perfect half of a perfect constellation, completely in love and completely and utterly loved from the inside out.  It's just long enough to learn that grief comes from love for another human being, and love comes with a sweet grief for an identity that doesn't fit any more, and these things, these mysteries, have to be worked out inside skin, skin filled with stars and goddesses and ghosts, bodies of water that contain more than even heaven would allow.  

This is a love story. And that's how my favorite love story starts.  

My dad

My dad died at 745 this morning (Wednesday, 5 of September). Since Monday, we've been sitting with him and waiting.  It finally happened when it was just my mom and my uncle Jerry and my mom's best friend, Ginny. I wasn't there. I wasn't supposed to be there when it happened.  I think he wanted it to be just between him and my mom at the end.

When I walked into the room, I threw myself on him and kissed him everywhere and cried a lot.  

We all express things differently, and I don't know if it matters too much what we do, as long as we're there. When we're there, the energy goes where it is supposed to go, and our small actions don't add or subtract from that energy at all.

I have been thinking about this more and more lately, that these things, or maybe even most things, are guided by an energy that we think is large, but it's larger than we could ever imagine.  And it guides us to do what we are supposed to do.  And plugging in, knowing secrets, and being connected, those things only make it easier to find our own flow within the cycle. But the cycle will go on with or without us, and we're not particularly special, just lucky. 

There was this moment, where my mom was lying over the bed, with her arms around my dad, holding him.  And Heather, the woman I fell in love with in an hour before I went to Berlin, was holding me.  She looked at my mom and my mom looked at her.  She says my mom looked straight into her eyes.

A recognition.  

This thing that happened to me when I met this man, more than fifty years ago, I see it happening to you too.

I can't imagine life being as beautiful as it is. 

I just can't imagine.  

something shiny and new

i haven't written here in so long, i've been writing, but not to you, i've been writing to someone who has been reading what i've been writing and it's just for them.  it's nothing personal against you, it's just how these things happen.  but i want to mark this, this is the last night in this house, the place i lived for a year, and getting ready to move to a new house (one i used to live in a long time ago), and it all feels a little strange.
there are things going on that are making my heart hurt, things i've talked about a lot before, but now they are much more terrible, and all of it will be well and is well and has always been well, but it's going to be a rough time ahead.
there are things going on that are making my heart swell, it's too big for my chest to hold, and if you ask her she would tell you the same story.
and i think i might get a dog, but that doesn't have anything to do with her, except that she'll be around the dog a lot, i think and hope, because she'll be around a lot, and this is why i'm so happy lately, and also why i'm walking with this unbearable grief lately in a way that makes it bearable.
things are being re-arranged, all the male roles have to be reconstructed, i have to learn how to be this thing that i am, but differently than the generations that did it before (and also, exactly the same as they did it before, because repetitions are sometimes part of something larger, and i am born into this world to be a part of that, too).
we get to be the thing that represents our pattern in the fabric, and we are also the thing that makes rips in the fabric for the next generation to jump through.
and love makes us fearless enough to be all of these things at once.
i'm not telling you anything secret, and not telling you anything new.  i miss writing you, but i don't miss that feeling of being lost without a map.  even though i don't know where we are going, and don't have any idea about the destination, the map is on the body, and the marks on my body are made right here, and right now, and this is where i get to live, and it's so nice to see you here, too.  

love/ephemera

installation performance love ephemera
dont forget this

Tremble

The plane rumbles and my lip is trembling and I wonder why and the wheels leave the ground and my eyes are wet and I can't keep my lip from trembling, there are three people I can see in my head, a father, a daughter, and someone I just started to think about yesterday.

not yet

out the door, these things...3 advices...
sue--put magic in the normal (about my writing), go where the fear is, go where you haven't got a clue, your metaphors are easy habits for you...
steve--the only thing that matters at all, that makes any difference at all, is what we think about ourselves...
dad--the bottom line, make sure you have fun...
x

everything else

if i were going to try to tell you everything at once, it would still be just like that, just like how we are talking, except it would be faster, and except you would hear slips of the tongue that lead places where nothing is supposed to fit, but everything would fit there.  if i were to let everything spill, it would fall in so many directions that there wouldn't be enough flowers to cover over the stains that it would leave on the counter.  but i would try.  i would gather flowers and place them on the counter, in the shape of your body, because i want to cover your body in flowers.  if i ran out of metaphors, the world would open up (like a clam) and there would be that nervous moment in between things, in between flowers falling from our mouths (because in this scene you are saying everything at once as well, of course) and that moment that marks the beginning of solid, shivering, naked things, things that fall out of my mouth onto my chin.  and i would tell you a list of all the "i want to's" and it would begin with "turn you inside out" but that would be wrong.  and it would end with something very close to "i want to put my mouth here, and i want to just wait and see what is going to happen after that."  as if i didn't know.  because i don't know.  because this isn't written anywhere just yet.  and there would be some moments where i would stop doing anything and start to say something, something like, "there were these two worlds and one was leaving and one was coming, and you slipped in between the cracks," but before i could get two words out you would interrupt me and tell me to stop.  and i wouldn't understand why.  i wouldn't understand why i was supposed to stop.  because i would think that i was about to say something important.  something that was more important than what you wanted to interrupt me with.  i wouldn't understand.  because i'm really that stupid.  but then you would convince me.  i think you would convince me.  i think you could convince me to stop.  because there's something in you that hasn't happened before, something that tells me that if i could start by telling you everything at once, everything that happens after that will be things that have never happened before, where no one's been before, and there wouldn't be any stencils to show us where to draw, and there wouldn't be any guides to tell us the way, and there wouldn't be anything on earth that could stop it from happening to us.  

here's a whole play

this is the whole thing.  you can't see the ritual bits because they are in the dark.  the moments when you see dark were when we were all getting possessed by spirits of the dead, moving furniture with our minds, and teaching audience members how to naturally release the opiates in your brain so that you hallucinate, and how to attract sexual partners within 13 minutes.  secrets!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ0UcegRs2M&feature=c4-overview&list=UUrWDq4gTEeHq7XK13kni3BA

In between lines

Not here nor there, in this land of mothers of an old ghost of an ocean, in that place where my fathers were born, already missing this father, and saying goodbye to the father I am, every piece of cloth on the floor of my crowded room is something that a father used to wear, and nothing that any of us need any more. We all get older, but even ghosts change their minds about the right way to be in the world. These clothes are complicated texts.  

This thread is a line to connect me to the place I was, and I have a means of drawing myself back to the images of all the people I used to be.  My favorite company has always been in the company of exiles, even though I have a home I can point to, and even a house where I grew up discovering that the sight of a woman in tattered clothes could drive me mad as a dog on a night with fireworks.  I have traces of first dates somewhere in a drawer that I'm afraid to mark, just in case I die unexpectedly and my loved ones might find it, and scratch their heads and wonder why I kept such strange souvenirs.

A blue earring, a tag from a pair of underwear, a vial of perfume, and a concert ticket that's curved with sweat. Ones I met when I was in between one thing and another.

If I didn't keep these objects close, I would write about them obsessively, trying to capture them as if my pen could be a decent camera.  What I lack in discretion however I make up in metaphor.  This one thing can stand for a whole I can't put into words.  And the most touching things are the ones I don't even try to capture, they move to extreme close up as soon as I think of the perfect first word, and by then I've forgotten the word.

This is no time for new objects to puzzle over, and after sleeping alone for the better part of a year, I can tell this was the right decision.  Between here and there, you're better off traveling light, with very little that can be lost, and nothing that can't be replaced.  Except.  Except.  Except.  

Nearly as I can reckon

Time is short and all of the work that lies in front of me, papers and videos and planning flats, things I like.  And there are obligations to follow through and I like those too because I love the people involved. And I love the heat of this place when it explodes and I don't know why this is not a volcano. It should be a volcano. And on a night like this when my bones are crackling with marrow that flows but will not crack, there are a hundred unfinished stories of desire spread out on my bed, and nothing has to happen to someone who is so in between. 

In the hostel of liminal travelers, we hardly make eye contact, because we don't want anything impossible to start, because those are the very things that brought us here in the first place.  But when we do connect through the eye, and that silver thread (or gold, it might be gilt, I don't remember), we tell ourselves, we tell each other, no, we're doing things different this time, we decided for ourselves this time we would be different.  And there would be no exceptions. 

So I ask myself why, when it's not even midnight, or it's that time of the morning when the cups and papers are piling themselves on us and getting us heavy enough to leave, before it gets any heavier, I ask myself why I am lighting a yellow candle and asking Her to pay special attention to This One, to bring her closer, because I want to find out things before I have to leave.  

And I tell myself it's just because she reminded me of someone I lost, and I'm just visiting another ghost again, and this is nothing different or new, when I really suspect that this is not the same thing at all.  Despite so much glitter turning out to be nothing more than glitter, there's a suspicion this might not be that, just because it's something I don't want right now.  

The night is not too long, and the heat of the day does not make me shiver later in the dark, because I don't sleep, because I am humbled before these tasks at hand, and there is just enough time, but nothing extra.  So I ask myself why I am asking the manager for an extra pillow, an extra towel, and sleep lightly just in case she comes in with the sea monsters when they enter in between the cracks of one day and the next. 

And I keep thinking about these openings in liminal spaces, the pupil that opens wider when you see someone you think you might want to love, and that space between the muscles on the chest, when the sweat of the day is something you wished did not belong to only you.  And I keep saying things to myself, you, you, you, and wonder if you might be listening, listening to this small and futile prayer, the one that says, I'm not ready for something like this, but tonight there is room for you in between all these spaces.

Under the river

I don't think it was my intention (I don't do things without intention) to close the circle (you can't close a circle all the way something always slips in or out) between that thing (it was a series, or a cycle) and this next thing, this next unknowable thing (you always know some things), but when I walked back in to my empty room, I saw that I was clean and all of that was done and I would miss some of it and I wouldn't remember some of it and that was that.  There was this new thing (there's always a new thing) and I knew it was something that I wanted very much.  That it was something that would happen, something that I wanted to happen very much, but it might not happen in any expected order.  And that it would happen in a way that was like a blip on a radar, with nothing about it getting in the way of these next things, or it would happen in a way that would interrupt everything and turn everything upside down, and either one would be all right, but that wasn't important.  Because what was going to be important already started, that I was at the end of the tunnel and almost out, but I turned my head, and I don't know if its backwards or forwards or if that matters.  These things matter if we are turned sideways and I was sideways, and thinking already about how I would be awake and spending time looking at your pictures and just wondering about all of this (even though it has a very short history). And that was just the distraction I needed to avoid looking at the things that had been laid on the ground in my empty room, and I did not notice that there were spirits flying through the air wondering why I was not praying to the moon, but they don't know it yet, and you don't know it yet, but I am always praying to the moon, only now it's close enough that I can hear her answering back, and she is already saying your name, before I can even open my mouth. 

My big fingers

My eyes are too tired to see anything new, and my heart is a story that I tell to anyone, but it's too far into a different kind of chapter to be playing or hearing any gypsy music, but.  If we find ourselves walking past street names we can't pronounce, and the roaring of the canal is closer than we ever imagined, and you told me the story of your grandparents meeting in France, speaking my first language and second language better than me, I would have no choice but to fall in love with you.

after that new moon

that one right back there, that one that closed those doors, opened these doors, and kept a few doors open because those tracks are still running (and a few doors are kept open that I'm not even aware of)  ((i'm not aware of a lot of things))...there is also this: the wise old(er) man in my head, one who is my father (self) is laying things out, this is where things are right now and so on and so forth, but by the end, he says, very clearly, "but despite what you think these days, that this is all stupid and you are done with things like this, and that you are no longer playing in those games, your role is many things, of course, but it will always be, you will always be playing the role of the one who is chasing after that girl.."  and if it is true, i don't know who it's true about, but it feels true, but it can't be that one, that is definitely done (along with that one and that other one), and there's this, that looks very interesting, but it looks to me like a maybe that will soon enough turn into a no, and i'm not convinced the no is from her at all, and then there is this one right here, especially when she's casting that profile, because that profile is holding my attention long enough to start letting the scene play out in my head, but when the scene plays out it does become stupid, and i'm somewhere wondering what that last text means, and how jealousy is not a cape that looks good on me at all (and no one can pull off a cape right now, no one, not here, and not over there), so i must know something that i don't know, i must be referring to someone down there, someone i haven't met yet, but.  there is this suspicion that all the players are really already right here, that we've already met, that our unresolved relationship is going to be resolved sooner than i think, and long before we are ready for it...as if, as if, three lifetimes ago we were all leapfrogging, in between lifetimes, missing each other by twenty years or so (not that this would stop me from anything, even though you might think it should), and before that, we were missing each other by 60 years or so, entire lifetimes or so, and those were the loneliest lifetimes anyone ever lived ever in the history of everything that is in history, so this time, we're leapfrogging, and missing the beat at the most important moments, but, we have a chance, because we are in time, we are here in time, we are going to resolve this in time, all in good time...

7-8 june 2013

on a new moon like this, about to turn 46 like this, i want to say something to myself like this, something that makes sense, something that will set a tone, or mark a tone, for everything that's about to reset and start over.  but in truth, these days have been too hot, and everything that was magic has been replaced with physics.  alchemy is obvious, and love is ridiculous, same as they were last year at about this same time, and everything we want is already written on our clothes.  no one is hiding anything of interest, and all of our secrets are pouring out of our windows at stop lights.  and just when i'm convinced there's nothing left to conjure, and nothing left to surprise me, things that are already familiar and expected start to multiply themselves, announcing themselves a moment before they fall into the world.  a dog out of the corner of my eye becomes the dog entering the room a moment too late, trying to catch up with its shadow.  that one that got lost two years ago is on the edges of the room, looking to see if there's any room, if they can come back in, and if they do come back, will they be welcomed or even remembered?  this is all exactly how it is supposed to be, and i don't want anything that's left unresolved to come back and come true.  and the ragtime music my grandmother plays starts to cycle up again, and this time it's different, and the ghost of fellini is right outside the door, asking if he can direct the next scene.  in the next scene i won't be chasing ghosts in parking lots, and i won't be puzzling over a message from someone who's less than half my age, and i won't be looking for signs that someone back there still thinks about me.  but i will be caught, i will be struck dumb, i will be tied, i will be thinking i must be too old for something like this.  my bed is a perfect size, and my house will become something else, and there will be a dozen magicians who are not what they claim to be.  there will be too many women smoking on the veranda, failing to puzzle out the mysteries of the next identity, and there will be a hundred projects that fall flat, and ten that fly like owls and peacocks and angry blackbirds.  there will be exes and soon to be exes and someone who will stay.  there will be a thousand new variations that disguise themselves as repetitions.  everyone who should be invited will find their way to my door, and i will turn down a dozen invitations with no regret, and one that will bother me through a long hot season.  and if there are bodies, if there are more bodies, brought into the relentless sun so that the bones can be made clean, there will also be new births, and there will be the beginnings of new threads that always make this place vastly more interesting than it just was.  there will be dog claws and cat teeth and a dead one who i will come to know by name.  there will always be more dead who know our names, and there will always be more young ones who haven't chosen their names yet.  and that beloved one, who always comes back, always with new names, will come back with a hundred names and a hundred faces.  and sometime soon we will all be waking up where no one knows our name yet, who will whisper things into our ears in languages we've never heard before.  and everything that is beautiful will be covered with a layer of salt water, because we will learn how to take these things that fly through our hands and make them holy so that we can know that this year is no harder than the last, that in the land of our fathers, the local spirits have a vested interest in seeing these things continue. 

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)

what happens in san diego doesn't stay

i think i had an idea about how this all was supposed to work, but then it went away,
and i couldn't find a trace of it anywhere.
i was left with a list of all the people i thought i was supposed to be.
i could cross of most of them, having been them for a little while before moving on,
and was a little bit anxious about the ones that i hadn't tried yet,
but looked like they might take too much time, and those were the same ones
that weren't very interesting to me any more.
on the other side of the list, written in the dirt,
another list, things that i knew would come true, a list of things that hadn't come true yet.
and i had an inkling that they were on the way, but it would take some time yet.
and i had a little more time than i had thought.
they depended on favors from ghosts i had not yet met.
when i was sixteen, i had a feeling that the things that caused knots in my stomach,
the ones that doubled me over,
would not go away in my lifetime, they were the things that i would be expected to be
and do in the world, and that these things depended on the concerns of people i did not
care about very much, and lived in ways that i did not respect,
and that my only hope was to start paying attention
to the things that wrote on me from the inside,
and to pay attention to those people
who were being written from on the inside,
and that this would be my source,
where i would fall in love,
and where love might give birth to art.

eurydice's jouissance/1

This is incomplete, whatever I say from this point forward, is incomplete, looking backward, I don't look backward, I'm the one who gets looked at backward, that's when everything turns, as if death wasn't enough, everything turned with a look, I don't understand the look until it's over, that's the worst, the looks that register on the skin are the ones that we pass by when they're happening, all I wanted was to look into your eyes, until I looked into your eyes, and then I understood that the thing I wanted was the last thing that would happen before everything turned.  Esto.  Esto es un desierto.  Nosotros vivimos abajo de la tierra, la linea divisora, entre los muertos y todos lo demas.  Mira.  No mires.  Por favor no mires, porque despues, no podemos ver nada.  La nada coditiana, la nada entera, la nada de siempre, la nada contiene el olor de du piel, la memoria de mi piel, y auque yo tengo la memoria de tus dedos sobre mi piel, y tengo la mancha en mi piel, no es suficiente para recordar un breve momento contigo, no es suficiente, todo lo que tengo es la ausencia de ti, y mi lengua no es suficiente, no es suficiente a recordar un momento de nuestro amor.  Tragedia.  Tragedia, botellas, sandalo, fresas con crema, y la cancion mas triste en todo el mundo, el mundo arriba, abajo, todo.  Besos incompletos.  

more monster interviews

I.
i: have you ever decided to get someone back?
u: like in revenge?
i: no, not revenge.  to go get them, to try to make them come back to you.
(long pause.)
u: i never thought about trying to get someone back.

II.
i: have you ever tried to make someone come back to you?
u: oh, hell, no.

III.
i: have you ever tried to go back, to find someone you lost?
u: i always try to find people i lose, life is too short not to try.
i: you don't think, you know, when it's over, it's over?
u: it's never over, nothing is ever over, if we remember anything, it's not over.
i: what happened?
u: when?
i: when you went looking.
u: oh.  well, i don't know yet.  i'm looking right now, i'll have to let you know how it turns out.

IV.
i: have you ever tried to bring back someone you lost?
u: of course.
i: what if it was certain that they were lost forever, would you still try?
u: i can't imagine a situation where it's certain that it's forever.
i: you can't?
u: not as long as you're both still alive.
i: aha, but if one of you dies...
u: aha, that's another story.
i: then it's really over.
u: no, it's not, it's not over, it's just another story.  it's one of my favorite stories.
i: so you believe in hopeless, helpless, eternal love.
u: you forgot ridiculous.  and yes, i do.  but you need to include ridiculous, because it's all ridiculous.
i: did it ever work?  did you ever find someone you lost?
u: constantly.  we always meet again and again.
i: what happens when you meet again?
u: sometimes it's more ridiculous than other times.  sometimes you meet again and you both think there might be a spark still there, and you find out there's not.  other times you find out that there is a spark, but it doesn't last very long, that time around, it's very short and kind of sweet and then it's kind of sad.  but the worst is when the spark is there, but you're both with someone new, or something permanent, and that's bad because there's nothing you can do.
i: that sounds hard.
u: it is, but it's my favorite.
i: why is that your favorite?
u: because you're the most helpless, you're utterly upside down, you're hanging upside down, and that's when you're the most vulnerable, and that's when you find out that love isn't about being together, it's about something else.
i: what?
u: what?
i: what something else?
u: i have no idea, really, no one knows, really, but it's why we're here.
i: hm.
u: we really have no idea why we're here, the things we think we know, we don't really know.  the reasons we think we're doing things, chasing after this or that or falling in or out of love, it's really not the reason.  we don't really know the reason, it's always much bigger than we suspect, and we're closest to that thing when we're stuck, hanging upside down, full of longing and love for someone we can't have, when we're doing what we were born to do.
i: and we'll never know why?
u: why do we need to know why?  i don't even think it would matter if we did know why, we're designed to fall in love again and again and get hurt and do it again, and it doesn't matter why.

into the underworld/ps/pps

And this is why, in this version, Eurydice does not adopt a kind of stoic indifference, giving in to her fate, going into the Underworld willingly.  She has to go.  She knows she has to go, but she's not going in with a brave face, she is going down crying and wailing and angry and biting her lips until they bleed and tearing at the branches all along the way.  Because she understands that this part of the story won't get told, it doesn't get seen, and it won't be repeated.  And she also understands that her being taken is the action, the thing that happens, the thing, the inevitable thing that has to happen, and the rest is up to her, and she decides that she will do it honestly.  In protest, and without obeying any decorum, because obeying decorum won't do anything for her, and it will break her spirit, and she has that still, she always has that, and in fact, that is all she does have for sure.  And her spirit says, "No, not this."

into the underworld/ps

it's about learning how to see, and it's about how you live like that, impossibly, the impossible thing you have to live with after losing someone.  we want to know how to do this because even though it's like finding someone (it happens all the time), and it happens to all of us, we don't really talk about it, and we're all kind of wondering if this is how it's supposed to go, if we're doing it right, and we want to hear how other people are doing it.


a note: we might wonder why, why, why, half immortals or whole goddesses etc etc don't see these things ahead of time?? i mean, how the fuck, how does he let her go and not know something is coming, and how does she go and not get any kind of spidey sense that she's gonna step on a snake and die, i mean come on....
if gods dont see death coming then it's not just us.
it happens to us but it doesn't just happen to us.
it's what happens in the natural world all the time.
things are falling forward and that's what happens.
however.  there is a 6th sense we all get, when we're about to jump into a river (a new love) or jump out of a river (a love that's not so new any more), a sense of impending impendingness, like we're supposed to pay attention, because we're about to do something stupid, like step on a snake.
and maybe that's true.
that these inklings and intuitions are available for little things, a breakup, but refer to bigger things, getting dead...
and that the bigger things, there's no warning, they just come, when we are in harmony, they come without warning.  like tragedy is inevitable.  and unavoidable.  and this suffering before you, it's not your fault.  these crying faces before you, not your fault, your own crying face, it's not your fault you are crying, welcome to the river of the world...x

into the underworld

(Note: how to say Eurydice (is it dis-sey, or ditchy?))
(Note to self: this should all be filmed on location in Linz, or San Diego, or another location.)

(In this, all the shots of O&E, we just see E, it's all her looking at the camera and the camera is O.  Because he's seeing, and he sees himself reflected in her when she looks at him.  Like a mirror.  (Note to self: I don't think that's how mirrors work, but kind of, and if it doesn't, it fits what I'm trying to do here, so back off)...

(So the film of them before, in the garden paradise whatevuh, they talk but it's all her face on the camera.  And now she's going out to gather berries and shit.  Whatever it is that they do out there, when they gather, that's what we're going to be seeing in this shot.  She's all gathering, and then she gets bit by the snake.  But it won't be a close up of her face getting scared from being bit, because that could be really cheesy; however, it will be something like ecstasy when she is bit, and this will make her body contort, and will be the source of the ritual snake dance, the tarantella, that will come in the ritual bits.)

(For this, we're in front of her, we're the camera, and she's walking through the woods and gets bit by a snake.)

When Eurydice goes, she knows she's going to be gone for a long time, but she doesn't know she will be gone forever.  When Eurydice is bit by a snake, she knows she has been bitten utterly, and she knows she will die, but she doesn't know that dying will be forever.  When Eurydice gives in to the poison and feels the ecstasy of the bite, she knows that she will be outside of herself, but she doesn't know that she will be outside of herself forever.

(The bite, the trance, the dance.)

And while she is being turned into something else, forever and utterly, Orpheus is spending time wondering when she will be back, and he doesn't know that he is being turned into something else, utterly and forever, because it's at this moment of waiting for her to come back, this moment right here, where he will be frozen in time as a mortal.  His immortal soul, the one that lives in the memory of those who remember him, will be known as the one who played sweet music, and then the one who only plays the saddest music in the world.  The before and the after, the sweet and the sad, and it's separated by his mortal soul waiting, this mortal soul in between is where he is stuck in time, and all of the rest of his days are spent in waiting.

But first, he has to go under and look for her, and she is in ecstasy, dancing with death, and he is in a terrible panic, dancing with the ghost of loss and longing.  Most lovers who live in the darkness of a lost love find themselves playing between these two places, dancing with death or with longing, and all dark lovers think they cannot bear it, that they cannot go on like this, that they cannot go on.

But they do, for much longer than they could imagine.

And that's the tragedy, because it's living in the mirror before you can be born, and all the dark lovers go back to never being born.

We don't really want to know what it's like to find someone, because that happens to everyone, we want to know what it's like to lose someone and how to live after that.  Because you can't live without the one you lost, except you do, and no one knows how that's even possible, but it is, and that means that anything else is possible, too.  That means to enter an enchanted world, and the ones who enter it in darkness are the ones who learn how to see.

So this is about learning how to see.

the bar is a parking lot

(But this is a living room.)

(TED, oh my gosh, TED.  TED is a mess.  He's decided to shave his head and he's painting his body white, and he's doing yoga in his living room and spitting out blood.  He has pictures of Kali all over, incense is burning, and he is trying not to think about money.  For the first time in 9 years, they are all worried about money, suddenly, like they might not make rent.  We don't really know they're all worried about money, though, because this is just TED, and we can't even tell if he's worried about money because he is spitting blood.  BARNEY comes in.)

BARNEY: Did I hear someone mention the goddess of sex?
(TED is still in a trance, and BARNEY sees the pictures.)
Ah! Kali!  You fooled me again!  Kali, you destroy me! Did you see what I just did there?

TED: (Coming out of a trance.) Hello, Barney.

BARNEY: Ted.

TED: Why are you here, Barney?

BARNEY: I've got twins in handcuffs, and one of them has your name all over her.  Of course, I can't tell which one, they're identical!

(Canned laughter, but it's Kali's laughter, which is spooky, and it makes BARNEY very nervous and quiet.)

(TED starts to cry and it turns into a wail of grief, and the house starts to shake.  BARNEY is touched.)

BARNEY: You cannot chain what you love, what you chain will eat your bones.  Even love will eat your bones.  There is no escape.  We cannot escape our death.

(Meanwhile, LILY runs in, with camping gear.)

LILY: Guys, I need your help.  Marshall has been carried off by bigfoot, and I don't think he's coming back.

BARNEY: He is either torn to pieces by savage death, or he is in love with bigfoot, and either way, he is torn to pieces, he is cut open with the savage love at the heart of the world.

LILY: Please help me, guys, this is important.

TV: This just in, local news reporter Robin Sparkles has fallen off of the Statue of Liberty, and if you hurry, you might be able to catch her and save her life.

TED: It's all no use.  This world loves too much, and we are all dying.

LILY: Oh, my gosh you guys are under Kali's magic spell!  We've got to do something.

BARNEY: Destruction is everywhere.

MARSHALL (off): Oh my god, bigfoot, I love you, you're so awesome!

LILY: Oh, that's hard to hear.

TV: It's too late to save her, she's already dead.  But this just in, she's been reincarnated as the Goddess of Death, we'll be back in five.

LILY: God, I love tv.

(TED shakes it off, he shakes off all of the hoodoo going on here, he just shakes it off.  He gets them all bottles of beer and they sit at the coffee table.)

TED: I had the best day.  I think I met the one.

LILY: Where'd you meet the lucky girl?

TED: What place on earth is somewhere between heaven and hell?

BARNEY: My underwear.

(Kali laughs and BARNEY is so scared that he starts to cry.)

LILY: I don't get it.

TED: A parking lot.

BARNEY: A parking lot?  Wait, hold on.  (Takes a sip, does a spit take.) A parking lot?

TED: Yes.

LILY: That's wonderful news, although it's hard not to be thinking about Marshall.

MARSHALL (off): I'm fine, honey!  Bigfoot is awesome!

LILY: And the newly reincarnated Robin.

(A Kali picture starts to shake.)

BARNEY: Did you get her number?

TED: No, but I don't have to.

BARNEY: (slaps him upside the head.)  I was going to say something, but that's better. (slaps him again.)

TED: No, we'll meet again.  It's destiny.  And I have a plan on how to stalk her.

LILY: Oh, Ted, stalking is never a sure way to meet someone.  People move, you know.  They move, or get carried off by bigfoot, or they fall through the grates on the sidewalk, and then you're you-know-where.

BARNEY: No, where?

(KALI laughs, BARNEY cries.)

LILY: Stuck trying to find her in the underworld.

BARNEY: Uh-oh, here we go.

(And just like on tv, TED is vanished, and BARNEY and LILY are left alone.)

(And KALI comes off the wall, and sits with them.)

(Long pause.)

KALI: What?

not a glum bookmovie

So it was with furtive glances, then, something like devious stares, or maybe they're the same thing, except not really so furtive, not so furtive, not this morning, it was furtive, sure, before this morning, perhaps, it was furtive before this morning, but this morning was not furtive, but sort of bold even, on the verge of bold even, and it felt like it was happening on either side of the dividing line, but he couldn't be sure, how can anyone be sure.

So he is texting his friends and his friends are texting him.  And it's not like anyone is in school here any more, not at all like that, except he is in school, but that's something else, he's much older than that, but that shouldn't matter, it never really matters all that much, except when it's obvious, except when it's something new, and it doesn't even cross his mind that this would be something new, that age makes this something new, because it's not, and seems really typical, in every way typical as typical is typical for him, how many years difference between him and her is hard to know for sure, without knowing her age, but he imagines he would find out soon enough or later enough he is trying not to be in a hurry, this is nothing new and nothing even exceptional, except that he thinks this is something extraordinary, only in terms of other things.  only in terms of these other things, everything is contingent, everything worth thinking about is contingent anyway.

And the things that make this contingent are really just one thing, one large thing, something recent that makes all the difference in the world.  The moon went all full just yesterday, and the days before there were lots of deaths, and the night before he had a dream that everything changed and when he woke up there was a peacock at the foot of his bed who told him that he would remember that moon, that last moon, the one full right now moon, he would remember as the one where everything changed.  And he would meet someone.  There were someones already, sure, hovering, somewhere near, blackbirds hovering around nearby, and it was like birds hovering and not sure if they want to eat, and he was even aware that he had already been thinking about it for too long and now it was no longer thinking about that at all but something else, but he did not know what yet, but that did not matter so much because he would meet someone new, and that was a part of all of this, whatever was coming with the full moon, and he was supposed to just go with it, because it would be very important, and very heavy, and when he asked the dead to give him more information, they gave him the card of the hanged man, and said that she was the prince of swords, and he would be hung upside down for awhile, and the prince of swords would be the reason he was hung upside down, but the prince of swords also seemed very rare and well equipped to help cut him down.  The hanged man is never a bad card, he thinks, and it's true when the lovers are there, and the lovers are always there, with the moon, with the devil, this was very interesting but he is not thinking about it too much, but it's a stream that is open and he's in it and that's all.

And there's nothing to talk about, really, and it doesn't even need to be in his head as language, really, except there's that idea of jouissance, and the pleasure is almost more, it's almost more pleasure, it's almost more pleasurable, to talk about it than to do it.  but there are things he would like to do.  there are certainly things he would like to do.  and he thinks about them all the time, literally thinking about them all the time, and he wonders if it's normal, someone his age, is this normal, it's hard to know because every man will say yes but most of them are liars.

And his friend sends him a text even though they are not in school (except he is), and says something about her looking something like Chrissie Hyndes and he is thinking yes that, but sort of like a combination of Kali the Destroyer and Chrissie Hyndes, and that's sort of the most exceptional thing he's been inside for awhile, this idea of a combination like that, living inside that idea of a combination, and then the thing itself, the person itself, herself, conjuring the combination and she might not even know she is conjuring.  And he is under a spell, of a kind, but understands that this full moon charmed him, and he is starting to figure something very important out for the first time: that to be charmed makes you charming, because you know what it is to give in, everyone has to become the passive one, the one who receives, the one who is ravaged by the Goddess of Love, if they are to go on to the next place, the place that opens up in the middle of a full moon.

He is really thinking about jouissance when he is leaving, and he is surrounded by his friends, and she is leaving, and he sees her leave and she looks like she is turning to look at him when she is leaving, and she also looks like she has run into the door when she is leaving, and he thinks this is not the time to even have a first conversation because it's already too fraught.  and he is talking to his friends and some of it is about her and some of it is not about her and when they are in the parking lot she is talking to someone and that someone is a man and that man is very handsome and she is looking very bored, and she is smoking and that is sort of a very good thing to see this early in the morning.  but her black hair is a good thing to see, and the dark in her eyes is so good to see, and it looks as though everything about her is good to see.

And it's also a little confusing to see, because it looks as though she is walking toward him, and that's exactly what seems to be happening, and he is surrounded by friends and it might be getting complicated because how will they talk when there are friends everywhere, friends hovering like vultures and getting into everything, but when she says, "Did anyone ever tell you you look like Hunter S. Thompson?  I just started reading Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail," and as she is talking he is suddenly aware that his friends are not.  There.  At all.  Any more.

Who has friends like that?

He loves his friends.

And while they talk he is wishing he could talk about what is happening, because it would be jouissance but maybe this is something else, maybe there is something else besides those codes and projections and diagrams of desire, but maybe there is a diagram for it, and he wants to talk about it later, but he is talking to his friend, the one he was texting, and his friend says, "Her in the parking lot?  That was just like a movie."

Yes, he is thinking, this is just like a movie.

monsters/film outline/a little more

(In the notebook.)
This is the hard part, not because it's hard to talk about now, now that we're no longer we, at least not we in the same place and time.  It's easy to talk about now because it's like remembering.
And remembering is all that I do.
It's all that I have.
It's been a long season, and my face feels like it wants to crack open, so that my other face can come out.  But I'm afraid of what that looks like, I'm afraid I'll have gotten older.
If I look in a mirror and see myself and see myself older, then this is a tragedy, because if I get older then that means I've also gotten over it, and I never intended to get over this.
No one should have to get over something like this.
This is the hard part, because it's hard to talk about while it's happening, it's hard for me to talk about it while it's happening, it's hard for me to talk about it as if it were still happening.
You want me to tell you about how it was in the meadow with him.  You want me to talk about how easy it was, being in love with him for the first time, being in love for the first time, you want me to talk about that like I thought about it when it was happening.
Except that's hard.
Because it's not what you want, it's not what you expect.

Scene: In the grass.

O: I don't want to be anywhere else.
E: I'm not asking you to be anywhere else.
O: I'm just telling you how I feel, don't be like that.
E: Where else could you be but here?
O: I understand that, I understand the implications of being somewhere, I'm just talking.
E: You're just trying to paint pretty things in the air.
O: With my tongue.
E: With your tongue. You make pretty things in the air.

What most people forget, that moment, that time, when you're in love, it's never as sweet in the moment as it is when you remember it.  Anyone who's in love is filled with doubt and is always second-guessing themselves, because love makes us all stupid, and we're all pretty well aware, even at the time, that we're doing stupid things and forgetting to do all kinds of things that we know we should be doing, and nothing really works very well.  You think about that person all the time, and you think of things you'll say to make that person want you in the same way that you want them, but no one really ever knows anybody anyway, and no one wants in the same way, and if we knew that at the outset then we would leave it for someone else, so they could be disappointed in our place.

E: What are you thinking?
O: Oh, I'm just thinking about how we haven't had anything to eat all day.
E: Oh.  We should eat?
O: Maybe.
E: I'll go get something.
O: Ok.
E: Unless you want to go.
O: No, that's ok, I trust you.
E: I'll go.
O: Don't get bit by a snake.  I would hate it if you got bit by a snake.
E: Right, I'll die from a snakebite out here in the middle of paradise.
O: Do you think this is paradise?
E: Yes.  Unless it's just a very close approximation.

Dear Diary: Today I got bit by a snake and died.  Some fucking paradise.

monsters/film outline/opening

It's not a story about missing the one who got away.
But living in the story, knowing that the one right here is the one that will go away.
Like you're on tv.
This is like being on tv.
Where you know you're in a scene about the one who got away, but there's nothing you can do to change it, because it's already on tv, and everyone knows the story, and is watching it, and because they're watching it, it has to go in the way they know it will go.

Orpheus and Eurydice are wed, and happy for a short time.
She is bitten by a viper and dies.
Orpheus petitions to the gods to go to the Underworld and bring her back.
They grant his wish, and he vows to bring back Demeter's daughter.
In the Underworld, he finds her, and she follows him, but he is not to look back.
But he looks back.
She says, "Farewell."
And that's the last thing he hears of her ever again (except for after he gets torn limb from limb and body scattered; but until then).
And he writes all the songs about lost love.

Falling in love is a spell.
Dying is a spell.
Entering the Underworld is a spell.
Following and being followed by a lover you can't look in the eyes, is a spell.

(Drawn in a notebook, with images and scenes):
This is like being on tv.
Everything happens on tv first.
Or at the same time that you live it, it's already happened, and it's already happening on tv.
There are two people who are falling in love.
It doesn't matter if they're perfect for each other or not.
Because when they fall in love, they'll be the characters in the story that needs to be told.
They fall in love and they are in the meadow because that's what happens always.

I.
i: Have you ever lost somebody?
u: Hasn't everyone?

II.
i: Have you ever lost somebody?
u: No.  I never lose anybody.  Sometimes I send them away, but I never lose them.  I never get attached like that.

III.
i: Have you ever lost somebody?
u: How did you know?
i: It's just a guess.
u: Did you hear anything?
i: What do you mean?  About you?
u: Yes.
i: I haven't heard anything about you.  Why would I hear anything about you?
u: Because people talk about me all the time.  I'm the one that lost somebody very, very important.
i: You're the one?
u: Yes.
i: I'm pretty sure you're not the only one.
u: If I told you my story, you'd know that I was the real one, the one who lost everything.

IV:
i: Have you ever lost somebody?
u: I have, but I lose somebodies all the time.  That's kind of how it works.
i: How what works?
u: Love.  That's how love works.  You meet somebody, and you jump into the river.  You don't even think.  You shouldn't think.  You just jump into the river and that's how it goes.
i: Then what happens?
u: Then what?  You know what.  You know what happens.  Everyone knows what happens.
i: Tell me.
u: I don't have to tell you, that's what porn is for.
i: Oh, I see. That's what happens.
u: Exactly.  And when you're lucky, it happens for a long time.  Or sometimes it only happens once or twice.  But it doesn't matter, it always stops eventually.
i: I see.
u: It always stops, and then you are on the banks of the river, and you're dry, and you get so very sad and lonely, and then it happens again, and you jump in again.
i: And you don't think about it?
u: What's there to think about?
i: Aren't you afraid you'll get hurt?
u: I'm always afraid I'll get hurt.  But there's nothing to fear, because I know that I'll always get hurt, and I also know that it will always happen again.

I
i: When you lost them, did it hurt?
u: It really didn't.  Not at first.  But a month later it started to hurt.
i: And when did it stop hurting?
i: It never stops hurting.

II
i: Have you always been like that?  Not attached to anyone or anything?
u: Not always, I suppose.
i: When you hear about people losing people, does it ever make you sad?
u: I'm sorry for them, because they're missing out.
i: Missing out on what?
u: On seeing the world as a pet, a pet that does tricks.
i: Are these tricks just for you?
u: I like to think so.

III
i: So you miss her.
u: Always, I always miss her.
i: Do you think she misses you?
u: I hope so, but I don't know for sure, and it probably doesn't matter.
i: Why not?
u: Because it wouldn't change anything.
i: She's not coming back.
u: I know for sure she's not coming back.
i: How do you know for sure?
u: Because she died.

IV
i: Are you sure it'll always happen again?
u: I'm sure.
i: What if you get old?
u: That doesn't matter.  Old people fall in love all the time.  Don't you see movies?
i: I haven't seen a lot of movies, not about that, not about old people falling in love.  But then again, this isn't Europe.  Or Latin America.  Here, everyone who falls in love is around 30.
u: Around 30?  What about Romeo and Juliet?
i: No one really believes in that anymore.
u: Then they're missing out.  People fall in love all the time, and it doesn't matter if you're very young or very old, it still happens.
i: But what if you're really old and things don't work any more?
u: Then we'll just find other things to do together.  There's a lot to do in this world, there's never any chance of running out of things to do.

When Orpheus met Eurydice, he knew that he would lose Eurydice, but he met her anyway, and fell in love with her anyway, and that's why their first kiss was the first sad song he ever wrote.

And the first time they made love, it was in the meadow, because it's always in the meadow, and the grass that they used for a pillow was the same grass that would one day cover her grave, and that's the second sad song he wrote.

Eurydice was not stupid.  She knew full well that when she was born, she was born for the grave.

Eurydice also wrote songs, she keeps them in a notebook, and she writes the story of their love as it unfolds, and she writes it simply, because she knows how it will end, and she knows that she'll have nothing left but the notebook, and the nuances can't be in the words, because she'll want to remember it differently every time she reads it, so all of the flourishes are in the drawings in the margins.  Everything that's important to her takes place in the margins, in a secret code that only she knows how to read.

This symbol is for a kiss: *
And this symbol is for sex: %
And this symbol is for the rhythms of her heartbeat: +o+o+o+o