the original idea for tonight’s
presentation splintered at the last minute under the combined weight of not
knowing whether the relevant newsprint, faceprint, blueprint or fingerprint
would be synthesized properly and rocketed out into the appropriate echelons of
the hungry ghost bardo as set forth in Tungman’s first lecture series after
barricading himself inside an abandoned grade school lunchroom with 25 species
of poisonous vipers
or
re-directed in pill or liquid form via the already
well-worn grooves of the local unconscious collective toward immersion with the
wax and oil crayon pantheon of discarded but still highly revered native Illinois Sangamon River
We are first introduced to Poe’s narrator
sitting alone by a window in a posh London coffeshop around evening rush-hour
smoking a cigar, reading newspapers, and gazing about at the people, objects,
and events going on all around him. He
refers to these different entities as, quote, “proud and delightful standard
bearers of nothingness” and the subtle implication is, I think, that he has recently
and only by the slimmest of pretences been granted release from the local
psychiatric facility. (A very temporary
release, we later come to find out.) The
narrator frankly admits to being caffeine-blitzed out of his mind, yet he sits for
hours, virtually motionless, utterly amazed at the fact of his newly won freedom
and the diverse and teeming life-forms in constant movement around him,
particularly as represented by the pedestrian traffic, which is just beginning
to pick up again as people head home or head out into the evening.
(musical interlude)
He proceeds to describe in graphic
detail the various categories he can still somehow identify: bankers, managers,
technocrats, waiters, doctors, sign painters, prostitutes, pharmacists, shopkeepers,
chimney sweeps, parlimentarians, street preachers, fruit vendors, carpenters, tailors,
buskers, cobblers, landlords, brewers, mechanics, teachers, gardeners, beggars,
pickpockets, etc. This list goes on for
several pages and qualifies, I think, as legitimate sociological research. He begins mumbling something to himself about the
tattoo and dance parlor down the street where as a lad of 12 he first engaged
in quote “sexual congress” and as a result the people sitting around him slowly
and nervously begin moving to other locations when all of a sudden he is convulsed
out of his revelry by a tattered and unassuming older gentleman whom he guesses
to be around eighty or eighty five years of age strolling by. He gasps several times, clutches his skull
for a moment, gnashes his teeth, and presses in on his eyeballs until the
phosphenes have wrapped his self-image inside a tight purple cocoon. He makes a loud inarticulate noise, springs
up from his easy chair but requires several moments to regain a semblance of
composure and balance. He then grabs his
coat, hat, and cane and heads out to secretly follow and spy on the elderly
gentleman.
(musical interlude)
The night air, the fog, the rain, and
the mysterious man of the crowd begin
to unsettle further our narrator’s already unsettled nervous condition, and
disjointed splinters of an underlying and unrelated confession begin to appear
in the cracks of his primary narrative as he staggers thru the cold London
streets. I’ve tentatively pieced
together the first installment as follows:
(the quotes themselves are in quotes and most likely refer back to his
time in the hospital. others have
interpreted this section as a case of mistaken identity.)
“Well, apparently I was married for
several years in my twenties and then, surprise surprise surprise, that marriage
came to unappetizing conclusion.
Magnolia accused me of not being the person that I presented to her in
the beginning. She accused me of putting
on a false front, of dissembling, and even worse: of perhaps not even being
aware of it myself. As she put it
several years later- quote -“it’s bad
enough that you were lying to me- but how will you ever recover from the
infinitely deeper and more elaborate lies told to yourself?”
It was clear from our initial meeting
at a butterfly exhibition at Earl’s Court, which also occurred during a time
when neither of us were at liberty to formally pursue one another, that there
was a highly charged reciprocal magnetism and the distinct sense that should we
ever find the opportunity for a private encounter the potential for
clarification as to what we were each actually hiding from could be
overwhelming to the extent that joint-insanity, shared insanity, mutual
reinforcing insanity, was a very real and terrifyingly possible outcome.
Maybe best not to meet at all. Maybe best to maintain a safe distance- but we
were in our twenties, at the time, and had not yet acquired any sense of restraint
or proportion. The amounts of coffee I
was drinking in those years was almost its own form of insanity, and I think Maggie
was afraid of being lured to the “Dark Side”, as she called it, because the
beverage I brewed down in my workshop each evening was of such a dense and
ominous black that she imagined demons and swamp creatures were gestating
inside it.
After that brief initial meeting we
kept finding covert and subtle ways to interact with, influence, seduce, and, I
think, ultimately, manipulate one another.
These were of course the days before Facebook and I think that if-it-had-been-at-our-disposal
many of our later problems would not have developed along the lines that they did. They would have developed along different
lines, most assuredly, but ones that might have at least afforded us a little
more real satisfaction. A ravenous,
maddening hunger for obscure and occasionally frivolous details that only
increased with the few tidbits we were able to glean. What is frivolity,
anyway? What is real substance,
anyway? I can very easily imagine us
prowling around on this mythical Facebook deep into the night, deploying all manner
of strategic codes and pseudo-identities in an attempt to plumb each other’s
real and also secret intentions. What’s
so unreal about secrets, anyway? What’s
so unsecret about reality anyway? Grasping,
craving, clutching, clinging, begging, demanding, requiring- all the typical
joys of a nineteenth century love affair.
In any case, Maggie and I eventually
did free ourselves from those pathetic first marriages, arranged a string of
encounters, found ourselves relatively compatible, deliberately failed to
mention certain key episodes from our pasts, moved in together, got married, and
even went into business together. She
was a private detective at the time, investigating large pharmaceutical
companies allegedly manipulating and hiring people with serious health and/or
financial problems to deliberately expose themselves to certain water-borne toxins
and then to ingest various experimental medicines still under development. To maintain scientific integrity, most of
these test subjects were required to crouch down and drink water directly from
natural sources, and the more dangerous or polluted the source the higher the
compensation if the person actually lived long enough to collect it. There was a class action suit being prepared,
and Maggie, along with several others, was doing intense undercover
surveillance. I was often utilized as a
decoy, dressed up in disguises, given false names and papers, and sent out to
pose as an aimless drifter living alongside the Thames River
Undoubtedly we would have shared this
process of degradation with our friends and family on Facebook but because
there was no such medium at the time we just confided all the sordid details to
our own personal paper based diaries. Should
these documents or anything like them ever be found after our deaths they are
to be shredded or burned unexamined. (as
if this would not happen anyway!)
The marriage ended, surprise surprise,
and was followed by several years of painful destitution and character-building
embarrassments. The aimless wandering
down by the river was now no longer a paid simulation but the daily condition
of my actual life. Life was imitating
art; the truth was imitating disguises. There
must have been something resembling an episode of dissociative fugue because
I’ve looked everywhere, there must be someone, the humiliation must be
attributed to somebody, maybe just a voice, in the background, I have no
objection to that, what it wants I want also, I am it, I’m in it, I’ve explained
this to Maggie literally thousands of times, even if it pulls or withers away around
midnight, if it wants to go silent, and maybe even does for a second, a good
few seconds, then stops, or rather, pauses, or at least pretending to pause, beginnings,
middles, ends, trembling, another word might be wandering, or gazing out into emptiness, gazing for hours at a
blank piece of paper, thick and opaque, like the Dark Side, slowly being
drained of its content, its chemicals, heavy, inert, like a unconscious body being
dragged over pavement, or sitting propped up near a window like on that first
night homeless in London, in a Dunkin Donuts awash in all of the so-called Picadilly
palare. It was the evening rush hour and
there were all the usual cross-currents of pedestrian traffic.
(musical interlude)
We were good friends, Magnolia, I refuse
to tell any more lies about this, and people could tell I was sincere, I think,
by the fact that we were almost constantly wildcrafting. It turns out that a good 85% of the public
doesn’t know what this term actually means.
So, as a former private investigator, someone accustomed to cobwebs and
camouflage, I have taken it upon myself to carefully define and explain it to
any and all interested parties. My
lifestyle down by the river affords me the extra time in my schedule to do
this. My name used to be Karl and I used
to take care of the animals. Did you
know that, Magnolia? With the proper
incentives they can usually be trained to do anything. We took the various medicines. We ingested the various indigenous
chemicals. We crouched down and drank
the water directly from natural sources.
Test group A, Test Group B, Test Group C, Test Group D- after morning prayer, morning congress, the
morning meal and paper, we hurriedly dressed and headed off into the wilderness-
always hurriedly dressing and hurriedly heading off into the wilderness- to drink more of the natural waters and
contract more of the modern diseases. We were constantly wildcrafting. We simply
didn’t know how to stop! Maybe we
were addicted, in denial, and for our own good and the good of our loved ones should
no longer be allowed to spend time alone out in nature. Maybe we need the overseeing presence of
other people to keep us from giving into temptation.
Over the years, the asylum had allowed
too many people to roam free, unsupervised, and the sense of public suspicion
was building. Any language user out
there might be in an advanced stage of critical meltdown and there wouldn’t
necessarily be any visible or obvious signs.
People can be calculating sometimes, did you know that, Magnolia? They can tell you, word for word, exactly
what you wanted and/or expected to hear.
Sometimes there is a very obvious ulterior motive, but usually it’s just
for the mere amusement of seeing you eagerly nod along to a fiction. As test subjects we felt that this was our
cultural and political moment, our opportunity to finally stand up from our
crouched position down by the river and be counted, fairly, transparently,
before disseminating our foraged reading, writing, and arithmetic technologies
thruout the same digital interface that would not originally allow us a voice. The days of us scrawling our field notes in
simple spiral-bound paper notebooks were definitively over. Old home movies. Old photographs. Old voices eaten up inside cassette tape
recorders
By this point Poe’s narrator has
started quietly weeping and can no longer conceal his hovering presence. The old man turns around and waits. After a 25 second pause, they begin speaking
from a distance of 5 or 6 feet.
O<<< Sir- excuse me- don’t mean to pry, but I
have to ask you- have you been drinking the rain?
N<<< uh..yes- ...how did you know? I only
drink the bona fide natural waters.
O<<< be that as it may- sir- why are you
following me?
N<<<
I recognize you from somewhere.
O<<< but
I’m brand new here. I just arrived
several hours ago. I’ve never been in
this city before.
N<<< and
I’ve been here all my life.
O<<< so you might be hallucinating…are you
currently under the influence of any mind-altering drugs?
N<<< well…let’s
see...I did have a little coffee…but that usually…I don’t think so…maybe there
was something wrong with the rain…
O<<< oh-
almost certainly. were you by chance
included in that first wave of drug testing?
N<<< yes.
O<<< well
then, that pretty much answers all the rest of my questions. good day to you sir- enjoy the rest of your
time here in London
N<<< but hold
on, please- wait a second. what should I
do with the money they gave me?
O<<< what money, simple fellow?
N<<< the
money I was given for participating in the drug trials and other experiments.
O<<< save
it for your old age, my good fellow. It
will be upon you much sooner than you probably realize.
N<<< but what if I am hallucinating again, as
you mentioned? I might spend it
foolishly or just give it away to some stranger.
O<<< nothing wrong with that, my dear sir. go ahead and be someone’s benefactor. from the looks of you it appears that you
don’t know the true value of what money buys anyway! just keep a steady intake of your so-called “natural
waters” and it will all work out fine.
the dillemnas you are posing here will simply take care of
themselves. modern science, simple
fellow.
N<<< huh…
you’re probably right…thanks a lot, sir…by the way...I’m really sorry for
stalking you.
O<<< no
big deal, young chap. it happens. spend
more time on the internet.
N<<< huh-
I thought you were going to say spend more time out in nature.
O<<< oh no-
in your case it appears that there’s been entirely too much time in nature already. Forget nature for awhile. Think about getting your own blog up and
running. my guess is that you have
amassed a lot of really interesting ideas that you can’t wait to share with the
world and that the world can’t wait to read.
another symbiotic relationship just waiting for the divine breath of
life.
N<<< but I
don’t even have a computer
O<<< well,
spend your money on that then.
N<<< wow- you’re really able to put the pieces
together- no wonder I sensed something about you, sir-… I used to write about
creative problem solving in my journal but the people around me at the
coffeehouse started moving away one by one.
A wide margin of solitude interposed /////////////////itself between me
and my fellow caffeine enthusiasts, and it was only thru deep confrontation and
dialog that
O<<< glad to help, simple fellow, but look, I
really do need to be going.
N<<< sure-
I understand.
O<<< again,
do enjoy the rest of your stay here in London
N<<< but
sir- I live here- didn’t I say
that? I’ve never even been out of the
city.
O<<< oh
right- you did say that. Forgive me. In
that case, do enjoy the rest of your life here in London
N<<< thanks…I
will do that, sir. I want to get back
into the practice of wildcrafting.
O<<< wildcrafting? what in heaven’s name are you talking about?
N<<< My name used to be Karl, and despite what you
may have heard on the radio, I used to take care of the animals, and I think I
did a pretty good job. I can’t help it
if the Ingalls ethic is no/////////////////////// longer relevant here- I was
raised to respect people’s feelings and anticipate their innermo
O<<< wait-
forget the animals for a second- didn’t I tell you to give nature a rest? Just tell me what you mean by “wildcrafting”
and then let me be on my way!
N<<< well,
sir, with all due respect, it isn’t something that I’m willing to talk about
with just anyone.
O<<< my
lord, crazy fellow- do I look like just
anyone? Just another “man of the crowd” as you seem so
intent on describing me? Pull yourself
together, sir! you won’t get another
chance like this anytime soon, I dare say. Catch your breath- there there, that’s
right. Don’t be afraid to pause and observe
several seconds of silence. [25 second pause]
OK, lad, gather your thoughts together now in a semi-coherent fashion
and explain to me in a few simple sentences about this thing “wildcrafting” you
speak of.
N<<< well,
sir, it’s one of those compound words that pretty much defines itself.
O<<< OK
then… ‘crafts pertaining to the wild.’
Is that it? ‘crafts and their relationship to the wild or wilderness’?
N<<< yeah,
pretty much…and not necessarily deep and uncharted wilderness, either.
O<<< is
there even any of that still in existence?
N<<< in
the most primordial sense, I don’t think so.
O<<< sir-
speak plainly.
N<<< ok
then- yes- there is still a little bit left in existence.
O<<< but
you’ve never even been out of London
N<<< I
learned about it online.
O<<< Huffpo, presumably?
N<<< no-just
a panel discussion I stumbled across in a google maps chat room.
O<<< streamed
live?
N<<< no-
prerecorded- I think the event happened in 2008.
O<<< well,
a lot’s changed since then, simple fellow.
N<<< yeah,
you’re probably right..hey, there’s a wildcrafting collective that meets
several times a month here in London…you could come and see for yourself.
O<<< But I
can only eat certain foods, at certain times, in certain combinations, and in
certain environments.
N<<< no
problem- it’s the same with all of us- we usually meet on Thursday evenings
around six at the gazebo on the east lagoon in Hyde Park.
O<<< Splendid. Perhaps I’ll join you sometime. But I really do have to be going now.
N<<< of course. lovely meeting you.
O<<< same you you,
sir.
N<<< good-bye
O<<< good-bye
There was no need to keep following
him. I presumed I would never see him
again. He disappeared back into the
crowd. I sat down on a bench and
clutched my skull with both hands, replaying the last several hours, retracing
my attempts to fit back into human society.
So be it, I know that well, there will only ever be partial silence,
full of murmurs, distant cries, the usual fragments of silence, spent
listening, spent waiting, waiting for the voice, the cries cease, I don’t know,
I’ve forgotten, it doesn’t matter, I never knew in the first place, I know that
well, no, not even that, not even a fraction of certainty, why deny it, never
ceased, not even the fiction of certainty, telling old tales, old stories, to myself,
hardly hearing them, somebody else must have heard them, somebody else must
have been watching me, somebody else must have been interested, somebody else
must have known my trajectory before I even set forth…
(first performed in April 2011 with
Kathleen Baird in Chicago, IL at the home of Kerianne Kronke)
