"was there confusion?"
it was one of the first things that people usually asked. was there music? carefully selected? carefully awaited and listened to? or was it just a radio playing somewhere in the background?
heavy matters, heavy matters, as the shepherd in the winter's tale puts it. he would have appreciated iricoila and cuspin immediately.
so the mythos continues, thru countless other cities and seasons. they lose and find each other many times. sometimes they get lost in the crowd. they are caught in storms, often shipwrecked, have to spend
time in the hospital, visit relatives, secure low-income housing and food for the winter, etc.
they do so.
the night remains undefined, though. an unspoken awareness threads the next needle:
epi/aft 5
Obsessed, bewildered
By the shipwreck
Of the singular
We have chosen the meaning
Of being numerous
--George Oppen, Of Being Numerous (1968)
pier into the vastness (a late night exchange between almost perfect strangers, continued)
the setting: undetermined spacetime. iricoila and cuspin are still at the far end of a splintered boardwalk unraveling out into the atlantic. they are now close enough to touch each other but don't.
iri<<< (staring at the ocean) speaking of nailing it, "There are things/We live among and to see them/is to know ourselves.'"
the setting: undetermined spacetime. iricoila and cuspin are still at the far end of a splintered boardwalk unraveling out into the atlantic. they are now close enough to touch each other but don't.
iri<<< (staring at the ocean) speaking of nailing it, "There are things/We live among and to see them/is to know ourselves.'"
(pause)
iri<<< (glancing at cusp, then back at the ocean) "So spoke of the existence of things, an unmanageable pantheon..."
(pause)
iri<<< or so they say...
cusp<<< (looking behind iri back toward the shore line)
"To dream of that beach/For the sake of an instant in the eyes"...
cusp<<< (glancing at iri) "The absolute singular/The unearthly bonds/Of the singular"...
(pause)
(cusp takes one of iri's hands, lightly grasping a few fingers)
iri<<< (gesturing directly behind her at the pier) perhaps the audience knows...
iri<<< (looking at cusp) "what is communication?...is what's clear to me clear to you?...what is important?"...
iri<<< (staring at the ground) why do I feel so...
(pause)
cusp<<< every play has inexhaustible layers, most of them unspeakably private, intimate, secret, unfathomable, shipwrecked, etc....
cusp<<< (looking behind iri back toward the shore line again) "Which is the bright light of shipwreck"...
(pause)
cusp<<< (glancing at iri again) or so they say...
(pause)
(cusp and iri look extensively into each other's eyes for the first time)
iri<<< or so they say...
cusp<<< (looking out onto the ocean then back at iri) "Obsessed, bewildered//By the shipwreck/Of the singular//We have chosen the meaning/Of Being numerous"...
iri<<< (looking into cusp's eyes) what does it mean, liam?
cusp<<< (looking into iri's eyes) what does it mean, azzie?
(pause)
(as if by cue both turn around to face the length of the pier with the ocean behind them)
cusp<<< (staring straight ahead at the pier) perhaps this play is the play within the play...
iri<<< (laughing) how lucky we would be!
cusp<<< (laughing) indeed...
(pause)
iri<<< (turning to cusp) if this play is the play within the play, which of the audiences shall we ask about the meaning of being numerous?
cusp<<< oh...golly...all of them, I would think...we could ask the audience for the play within the play as well as the audience for the play...as well as the audience for the play that we are now writing...
iri<<< which is us...
(pause)
iri<<< we are the audience for the play we are now writing together from very great distances...
cusp<<< yes... that seems to be the case...
(pause)
cusp<<< distance gives us time and space and clarity...
(pause)
cusp<<< "Clarity"...
cusp<<< "In the sense of transparence / I don't mean that much can be explained"...
cusp<<< "Clarity in the sense of silence"...
iri<<< sure...clarity...time and space...Silence...
(4'33 goes by)
iri<<< (staring at the ground) why do I feel so...
(pause)
iri<<< like I've lost something... yes... there is much to be gained by being in any good play, of course... and this is a sublime one, no question... I'm always looking forward... i love it... the visualization, the dialogue, memorizing my lines, blocking it out on the stage... distilling the essence of moments... of gestures... of scenes... of entire bodies of work... a whole lifetime in the theater... and all the other plays that will be revealed by the play I am presently in... but something happened, cuspin... is happening... that redefined my dreams and instinct for drama. an unfathomable play within the present play inexplicably came to the foreground... it felt so charged to be in a play where almost anything was literally possible. the borders between plays became blurred. but now it seems to be over, or we're in a part 2 that is being written as we speak, and like all the plays within the plays, that first play is in the background again, as plays within the plays are by definition. i miss the play within the play being in the ostensible foreground and being forced now to reorganize everything around it in reverb. also, there seems to be no urgency or desire to live at the foreground. i think i have the urgency and desire but am scared of it, somehow, and i don't feel it coming from...um, the other actors, so...i'm getting... numb... nervous... anxious. what kind of blurring could happen if the secret play within the play was always unfolding? i'm scared to even ask that question! i guess i overstated the facts in that other play; i/we are not "all in."
(pause)
cusp<<< azzie?
iri<<< yes, liam?
(pause)
cusp<<< it's hard to say. there is always another play at play, of course...
iri<<< the script says that if we decide to walk along the pier we'll begin "to dream of that beach" (gesturing to the shore line). we'll also see the "bright lights of shipwreck" along the pier's edge that are only discernible well after dark. i hear they look a lot like the local pleiades...
iri<<< for which play are we now unraveling all of this, do you think?
cusp<<< it's hard to say. there is always another play at play, of course...
(iri and cusp smile. they both look ahead at the long pier ahead of them.)
cusp<<< let's do it, iricoila...I mean, azzie...I mean...uh...
iri<<< oh cuspin! I mean, liam! I mean...uh...
(cusp and iri walk along the pier away from the ocean, hands touching with fingers lightly clasped)
it should come as no surprise that a number of loyal readers expressed some confusion. iricoila and cuspin knew that they would probably have to draw on something along the lines of infinite patience. compassion helps, too. and brilliance. calmness. approachability. laughter. there were plenty of these things. there was never really any need for confusion. they alternated between highly strange and highly traditional foods.
epi/aft 6
epi/aft 6
the deep end trails off; the deep beginning commences (an interlude)
"obsessed, bewildered, paltry, emaciated, bereft...
the shipwreck of the singular
meaning has chosen its inverse
instantaneous, shattering..."
-Georgie Porgie [from Puddin' and Pie; Kissing the Black Holes and Re-mapping the eSky (1974, City Lights)]
"lay me down in undetermined space-time, my shipwreck...
we have not chosen our meanings.
the numbers are either too vast or too intimate.
the intro-versions lie scattered here and there on the beach,
some of them bone-dry and splintered,
others slick and sure with the inky spew g-forms
of the Kracken's secret message to
unnamed and uncertain starry-eyed lovebirds..."
iri<<< uh... ok... go on...
cusp<<< unravel your separate selves out into the Atlantic...
come on... gracefully lower your singular selves down into the Interior... this black hole of mythology... these famished jaws dripping with orgies...
(relatively long pause)
iri<<< (looking into cusp's eyes) what in god's name does it mean, cusp?
(cusp takes one of iri's hands, lightly grasping a few fingers)
cusp<<< (looking into iri's eyes) why do you want to know, kitten?
(pause)
iri<<< (gesturing directly behind her at the pier) perhaps the audience knows...
(as if by cue both turn around to face the length of the pier with the ocean behind them)
cusp<<< (staring straight ahead at the pier) perhaps this moment is the lightning flash that instigates the tsunami...
iri<<< (laughing) how lucky we would be!
cusp<<< (laughing) indeed...
(pause)
iri<<< (turning to cusp) if this little tsunami is the impetus behind the possible aftershocks of our encounter this evening, which of the storm chasers shall we ask about the meaning of certain anonymous shipwrecks? or certain ships that just disappeared into thin air? or certain ships that never launched, despite being fully rigged out, fully staffed, fully fueled and booked...
cusp<<< oh...golly...all of them, I would think...we could also ask the monster chasers in pursuit of the mythological Kracken...
iri<<< uh... that might be a little too scary... kinda like your earlier question...
cusp<<< which one?
iri<<< the one about us getting dropped via helicopter into the exact center of the Atlantic, late at night, with only a single life vest between us....
cusp<<< HOLY MOLEY!!! did I really ask that???
iri<<< you did, cuspy cusp.
cusp<<< oh man... was i stoned?
iri<<< no, honey... you were perfectly... i might even say appallingly lucid....
(pause)
iri<<< are we perhaps the lovers to which the deep-sea myth refers?
(long pause)
cusp<<< i would not be totally shocked, iri darling.
iri<<< a little bit shocked, then?
cusp<<< yeah... ok... maybe a little bit shocked.
(pause)
iri<<< you're accustomed, then, to seeing your life thru a mythological lens?
(pause)
cusp<<< uh....
(pause)
cusp<<< let me see here...
(pause)
cusp<<< ok... it's precisely the lack of any identifiable lens that automatically puts life into the mythological realm...
(pause)
cusp<<< so it's not so much something i'm doing or using so much as... er... something i'm not doing or using...
(pause)
iri<<< i get that. kinda.
cusp<<< sometimes it offers a certain measure of calmness... of clarity...
(pause)
iri<<< "clarity"...
cusp<<< "in the sense of transparence / i don't mean that much can be explained"...
cusp<<< "clarity in the sense of a near perfect silence"... per john cage.
iri<<< sure... clarity... time and space... emptiness... stillness... the darkness communing with an even more absolute darkness...
cusp<<< uh...
iri<<< (looking sternly at cusp) what is communication, anyways, dude?... is what's clear to me clear to you?... what in holy hell is important to keep an eye out for in a storm system like this one?
(4'33 goes by)
iri<<< (staring at the ground) why do I feel so...
(pause)
iri<<< like I've lost something... lost... something. (long pause) who knows? maybe everything! yes, there is much to be gained by being caught in a storm, of course, and I'm always multi-tasking so as to avoid a major catastrophe... the other drivers, the highway, the weather, the controls, the music, etc... cryptic texts and images streaming thru my skull, night and day... the chance meetings, the play-acting, memorizing my lines, opening and closing night, the little rendezvous in the dressing room, the bump and grind back at the hotel, and all the other gigs that will stem from just being here, alive, at this moment, on this pier, with a near perfect stranger... obsessed... bewildered... multiversal... climbing into bed with black holes and waking up with god-damn pleiades!... but look... no, look at me... something happened that redefined my instinct for drama... an unfathomable play within the play came to the ostensible foreground... I felt so happy to be in a play where for once anything seemed to be possible... the borders between lines... between the cast... became fluid and blurred. by the end of the run, there was nothing but wide open ocean and ether... maybe a moon now and then... maybe some low-flying helicopters... maybe some circling orcas... but now that play seems to be over, or we're in a new variation that is being written/lived/analyzed/edited/
cusp<<< yeah, i iove that one... (pause) look, iricoila, i also miss the play within the play being in the ostensible foreground and reorganizing all of this electricity around it in reverb and gerhard richter techniques and thematics... the sense of urgency and desire sometimes can become convoluted when the x factors of space-time and dual-identity eclipse the immediate life-threat of an actual storm... the urgency and desire are always there but sometimes i'm scared of the over-all context, ya know? and i don't sense that same fear coming from...um, the other actors, so... yeah... maybe I'm getting a little bit nervous. a lot of reckless mother-fuckers out there in the theater world, as you know!
(pause)
cusp<<< azzie?
iri<<< yes, liam?
cusp<<< every play has inexhaustible layers, most of them undefined, unacknowledged, untapped, unexpressed...
cusp<<< every play has inexhaustible layers, most of them undefined, unacknowledged, untapped, unexpressed...
(pause)
iri<<< which audience are we now playing for, do you think?
(long pause)
cusp<<< that's hard to say, kitten... let's let the academy answer that one!
(iri and cusp laugh uncontrollably for approximately 4 minutes and 34 seconds. cusp puts his arm around iri. they turn toward the open sea. they fall asleep standing up.)
epi/aft 7
the night tulip's soliloquy
the soil mass is to atlas as i was once to
homeless in purified drafts the immune
system cradles me hole without patterns
the same lines i am folding, flowering
the same lines i am folding, flowering
out across ancient organs play
the sea with motives re-inversed
by the black keys swallowed under the
garden close is as far as the
seeing eye acid rain codes the nu
ecological standards....
maybe i am the flower and everything else
is the simple flow towards electricity!
reliquify over the spectrum,
the burnished colors reading
the nomad, new found wanders
thru freedoms never acquired officially
memory saturates as fragility
unfolds the intimate and once-only
thru freedoms never acquired officially
memory saturates as fragility
unfolds the intimate and once-only
latchkey turning timeless, anonymous,
copied only in dream states
question, answer the slew in age
as it signs off for the evening
familiar with all of us,
familiar with all of us,
single, plural, skeletal, axial, prurient,
together our diamonds make opal bones
out of recycling. together our stem cells
create lizard stars out of prisms,
and cyclops gazes out into its own
rough infinity! meet the dark gardener
gently spreading the roots of the hybrid,
dear voids as our lines couple like
fated companions in solitude.
epi/aft 8
the dream they dream while asleep together standing up
"meaning is instantaneous, shattering..."
--anonymous
and there on the beach, sure with
secret messages from the stars
iri<<< i guess there's nothing to lose. I fell so fast that I went directly down through the ocean, the deep sea, down into the seabed, then the underwater volcanoes, and then through the hollow and pulsing core of the earth, which led me to more oceans as I ascended, and then land, and now infinite space, since the planet is a sphere...
cusp<<< every dream has inexhaustible layers, most of them undefined, unacknowledged, untapped, unexpressed...
(long pause)
uh...
"go on...
unravel the Atlantic...
come on...
lower into the Interior
Mythology dripping
with black holes..."
(time has no meaning in the dream)
iri<<< (looking into cusp's eyes) what constellation would you call the pattern of lights I see in your dark eyes?
cusp<<< (looking into iri's eyes) upon waking, kitten? or when we are asleep?
(pause)
iri<<< (gesturing directly behind her at the pier) perhaps the audience knows...
(as if by cue both turn around to face the length of the pier with the ocean behind them)
iri<<< (staring straight ahead at the pier) perhaps these patterns of lights that I see...do not comprise a constellation but a star cluster...called pleiades... how lucky we would be!
cusp<<< (laughing) indeed...
(timeless pause)
iri<<< (turning to cusp) cuspy?
cusp<<< yes, kitten?
iri<<< maybe we are the deep sea...
cusp<<< sure, sure...
(timeless pause)
iri<<< you're accustomed, then, to seeing your life thru a mythological lens?
(pause)
cusp<<< uh....
(pause)
cusp<<< let me sea here...
(pause)
cusp<<< ok... it's precisely the lack of any identifiable lens that automatically puts life into the mythological realm...
(pause)
cusp<<< so it's not so much something i'm doing or using so much as... er... something i'm not doing or using...
(pause)
iri<<< oh, i think I sea. the lack of a controlling lens frees you...to sea with any spectacle you happen to choose...pleiades, crab nebula, orion, horse head, etc...
cusp<<< sometimes it offers a certain measure of calmness... of clarity...
(pause)
iri<<< okay. in the sense of a near perfect silence... the darkness communing with an even more absolute darkness...
cusp<<< uh...
iri<<< so, how exactly... um... is it even...possible...for azzie to be a part of liam's... uh... what's the word for it... solitude? would it be like when we were on the bench that night at the beach? is what's clear to me clear to you?
(timeless pause)
(timeless pause)
iri<<< i guess there's nothing to lose. I fell so fast that I went directly down through the ocean, the deep sea, down into the seabed, then the underwater volcanoes, and then through the hollow and pulsing core of the earth, which led me to more oceans as I ascended, and then land, and now infinite space, since the planet is a sphere...
cusp<<< uh..
azzie<<< what do you mean by dual-identity?
(4'33 goes by)
iri<<< (staring at the ground) why do I feel so...
(pause)
ra<<< something. (long pause) who knows? maybe everything! yes, there is much to be gained by cryptic texts and images streaming thru my mineral skull, the little rendezvous in the dressing room, from just being here, alive, at this moment, on this pier, multiversal... climbing into bed with black holes and waking up with god-damn pleiades!... but look... no, look at me...
cusp<<< how exactly does one look at another in a dream?
(pause)
cusp<<< look, iricoila, i also miss the play within the play being in the ostensible foreground and reorganizing all of this electricity around it in reverb and gerhard richter techniques and thematics...
iri<<< you do?
cusp<<< yes. but...
iri<<< yes, liam?
liam<<< the sense of urgency and desire sometime
liam<<< the sense of urgency and desire sometime
azzie<<< what do you mean?
liam<<< i don't sense that same fear coming from...um, the other actors, so... yeah... maybe I'm getting a little bit nervous. a lot of reckless mother-fuckers out there in the theater world, as you know!
(pause)
iri<<< i don't really understand, but i'm trying. i feel your feelings changing. i hear that you're nervous. am i too reckless? am i ignoring the over-all context? one minute we were talking about sailing together, etc. the next minute, it could be months before we even see each other again! and you were so firm about not being with me while i finished my book. i understand why, but i also felt the tides shift. i don't know what's going on. i think i need more clarity, transparency. if this isn't right for you, please tell me. please, please?
cusp<<< every dream has inexhaustible layers, most of them undefined, unacknowledged, untapped, unexpressed...
(pause)
iri<<< including this one...
(pause)
azzie<<< finding a language for a dream is like finding a language for a poem. i miss sleeping with you. then getting tired and telling each other we need to sleep. waking up and feeling our desires. maybe acting on them or sleeping more. i miss waking up with you. touching your skin. looking at you. being touched. the moment. "undetermined, the two of us here." which audience are we now playing for?
(long pause)
liam<<< that's hard to say. let's let the academy answer that one.
(liam and azzie go to sleep in their dream.)
epi/aft 9
the astronomers' late-night symposium (a sense of ludic joy/wisdom bubbling up around and inside of the interlude)
cusp<<< ok... i think i see what's happening, kitten... a brilliant and subversive move on your part, for sure...
iri<<< go on, then... unravel me...
cusp<<< first of all, and most importantly... there is no so-called "constellation" around here. we're in a corner of the galaxy where all the celestial bodies are radically unmoored, unfixed, unhinged, and unhinging... a low-gravity site, as it were... like you explained to pyramid in your interview... chagall would be happy here... he would probably be painting this...
iri<<< what?
cusp<<< this sense of drift...
iri<<< what about the traditional 5?
cusp<<< ok... let's go thru them, one by one... let's try and understand how they fit into this equation... first off, iricoila, in your plain brown beautiful dress... let me touch your soft arms... your soft neck.... let me slowly lean in and smell your hair... and your cheeks... i can hear you breathing... and i can taste your lips, even in this brief offline exchange... and then the sixth sense... whatever that is... and then this profound sense of drift...
(pause)
iri<<< the stars don't stay fixed?
cusp<<< just have a look in my eyes... feel my eyes with your fingers... taste my eyes on your teeth... listen to my eyes quietly absorbing the vastness that trickles in from your naked ephemera...
(she does so)
iri<<< wow. you're right. holy moley! it's an entirely different nebula now than it was just a minute ago!
cusp<<< it's like the waves... and the clouds... and the moon... and the foam... and the sand... and the bubbles... and the enveloping creatures... a handful of core elements, endlessly drifting... and playing... recombining... absorbing... transmuting... transcending... embodying...
(pause)
iri<<< uh...ok. i get that. kinda.
cusp<<< i know you do. kinda.
iri<<< so what's clear to me's clear to you?
cusp<<< kinda.
iri<<< it's a pretty dynamic system...
cusp<<< way way beyond our control, bunny...
iri<<< yeah... that was pretty clear right away... even though the sense of so-called urgency and the sense of so-called desire can sometimes
cusp<<< wait- what do you mean by dual-identity?
iri<<< nothing other than multiversality.
cusp<<< oh... ok... i think i get it...
iri<<< perfect... and accurate. because, as you probably know, nobody ever actually gets it...
cusp<<< yeah... i sensed that.
iri<<< ok, then... wowsers, cuspin... how many have we mentioned already? there's the seeing... the hearing... the touching... the tasting... the smelling... the drifting... the desiring... the urging... the playing... the recombining... the absorbing... the transmuting... the transcending... the embodying... the alchemy...
cusp<<< that's a pretty good start, babe...
iri<<< indeed.
(pause)
cusp<<< what was that other thing that you asked about?
iri<<< let me see here... oh yeah... something along the lines of " i don't really understand, but i'm trying".... or "i feel your feelings changing" ... or the classic "am i simply too reckless?"
cusp<<< no. you're perfect. i love you just the way that you are.
iri<<< but am i ignoring the over-all context?
cusp<<< how can you ignore something that has hardly even come into focus? do you realize how new this is? and like a one day old tulip or infant, how fragile? how miraculous? it's not our job to understand, kitten... it's our job to just allow it to happen...
iri<<< "i don't know what's going on. i think i need more clarity, transparency. if this isn't right for you, please tell me. please, please?"
cusp<<< haven't i been basically telling you everything from the first authentic encounter?
iri<<< yeah... i guess.
cusp<<< also perfect. and accurate... because, as you probably know, nobody ever actually guesses it...
(they continue to dream together, standing up. at a certain point the wind picks up and they are blown down to the pier. luckily iri packed some extra blankets and they wrap themselves up in the darkness. meaning is instantaneous, shattering. the stars continue to wander. pleiades, crab nebula, orion, horse head... these are all just as mutable as the words in this ostensible transcript.)
(note from dramaturg: at this point the audience and readers finally stop asking questions. not because they now "understand" what is happening, but because it's late. there has been quite a bit of new information presented. a slew of names and new faces, an ocean of distinct and discreet potentials for nu intersection. bp nichols did his job well. he knew what was necessary without even having been told! iricoila continued her intensive study of particle physics. she was invited to CERN and she asked cuspin to join her. once again, he was very much between so-called "heavy commitments" so he tagged along, and they both ended up learning an enormous amount. upon returning, iricoila conducted a few public poetry workshops, and cuspin commenced a new series of satellite images. it made sense, and it didn't. it leaked out into the ecology. all of this time, money, and energy. what will it be put to next?
epi/aft 10
epi/aft 10
the physics of darkness
iri<<< (next to cusp on her back looking at the sky; both are under blankets) wow, well, thank goodness you can so easily...and gracefully...bring back into focus the Saint Heart of Darkness (Anti)Matters at hand!
(pause)
iri<<< I guess I needed some reassurances...and sensitive reminders of the instincts we have been cultivating...
(pause)
iri<<< (turning toward cusp, her head now resting on his chest) hey, cusp... thanks for the transparency. and the brill creativity and intelligence. and the tenderness...
cusp<<< no prob...
(they rest for a while.)
iri<<< (after a while) liam?
cusp<<< yeah, azzie?
iri<<< in terms of physics, an object is said to be dark when it absorbs photons, causing it to appear dim compared to other objects...
(pause)
iri<<< is darkness more than a matter of perception in relation to the light spectrum? when you use the term metaphorically, what do you mean? also, does dark matter drift?
cusp<<< hm, well,
iri<<< (interrupts) wait, let's talk about that later...
cusp<<< okay, kitten...
iri<<< I just asked that because I was filling in the space with words...to step in for the other words that I want to say...
cusp<<< oh, yeah...?
iri<<< i love you. and thank you for loving me as I am. I'm head over heels for Saint Heart of the Darkness Community!
cusp<<< (laughs) haha...
iri<<< plus, i'm totally in love with liam as well...
cusp<<< wowsers, iri....
(pause)
iri<<< maybe i shouldn't be typing that in a play within a play within a play within a dream within a dream within a dream...
(long pause)
cusp<<< does liam even know?
iri<<< he does now! (laughs) no, seriously, liam has, like, known this for forever...
(cusp and iri kiss. it makes them feel...mutable. their tongues and mouths...lace. meaning is instantaneous. everything...wanders...)
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