Untitled

What is this?

If my face opens, I radiate

All I can see

enters me.

An exit.

What is this

It's my face.

Let's get on the river

Face river.

No. Language river

This face wipes itself with language

This face cuts itself on language

(Doc in presentation or interview)

You have to talk

Ok. The face talks.

(I was late in speaking. I wanted to remain in bliss. I wanted to grunt. Now I fall into speech. I am expelled from paradise.

Good and evil. Speech makes the break. Expelled from paradise, carrying the memory, the seed, which should better be planted in hell.

Non language, planted in language. Make language slide. Over the landscape at tremendous velocity.)

Ok. The face talks. It slows down by talking

What does the face do besides talk

Nothing. Talking is everything

Is the face attached to anything?

Talking

Is this a demonstration

I don't think so. It's unavoidable

What's up for grabs

Did I say I was talking or demonstrating

I thought you were getting at something, but--

But?

Was that your chosen word?

You threw it into the arena, I grabbed at it, but--

But?

Did you ever have the sensation of a slice, right in the middle of your, well-- language? Oh, I shopuldn't have comitted myself

I don't find you very comitted. Or me, for that matter

But

But what?

(Pause) Why don't we stay with the but, and leave out the what of the but what.

What are we left with

But

Yes, but.

But!What did I forget.

How do you know you forgot something

It should be obvious (Pause) There's a gap (Pause. Holds head)

Holding the plavce where the gap is.

I don't think so

Then why?

Let's move on.

(Pause) Are we sliding over something?

There's a gap

I don't see it

Are we sliding over something?

Let's move on.Why do you have a door in the door

It's how I get into the next room

But it isn't necessary

Of course it's necessary

No. The fact that the door is reiterated inside itself

Is that true?

You tell me

What's the meaning

Ah, the meaning isn't where you think it is

(Pause) Well, which door do you use

I don't follow you

There are two doors. Which do you use.I was late in speaking

I wanted to remain in bliss

I wanted to grunt

Now I fall into speech. I am expelled from paradise

Good and evil, speech makes the break

Expelled from paradise, carrying the memory, the seed, which should be planted here in hell

Non language, planted in language, Make language slide

Child "eh eh! (I want! gratification,)

No, that one (bring wrong toy, ie, no longer bring total self)

All desire is for total self of other (other as whole world (is that why love 'overvalues?))

Language is response to part-presentation

Desire is for delivery into oblivion

Focused desire never produces oblivion, but need to move on.

(plot)

Could I trouble you for a drink?

Serve coke, liquor, etc etc

No, this isn't it

Open vein?

Cop, who is psychatrist

He stops talking

then explain, "I was late in speaking' etc

Night two

I was trying something out. I'm normal now

It didn't work

Bar tender resistant Ypu're too up tight, man

enter cop-psy "how are we doing?

I should pay you (to psy) here

Shoot him

Went for gun, didn't he?

Yes

In fact, it was a release, this shooting.

Let's call police

Awakes, no need to

Trick on bartender. Learn something?

No.

Refusal to learn?

Two cure: him exit

Night three. Hello

What's wrong.

I'll have to quit

You can't do that

Oh no?

Well? Night of fun

I hate the stuff

Its a test

You're right

They drink. Both drunk

Bartender returns "I felt wrong about going

You are both craszy

Maybe

Takes to drink

Others pop awake. How are you doing?

Fine I'm on top of things

Others laugh

He puts on music

What's that

Music

Oh, dance for us

He does, they clapPlot:

You mean. . .x is unfaithful?

Yes

Who's she been seeing?

Photo: you

Must be my double

Wife: I thought it was you- being mysterious

I don't believe you

I'll go on next rendevous

Go: He's not here

Tricking us> Refuse to make love

Double appears. I am you

No. I am me

I don't see through your eyes, I don't know what you say next

So? You have depths. I don't know yours either.

Can we both confront Monica

Yes

But she relates to two as one-- 'But you turn your head

Go to resturant. Order each

Waiter "You make up your mind please? If you play for two meals, I'll bring two-- one after other? No both at once

Kill other. I'm still alive

Police come, don't see dead self

Tell him Monica is dead

Ploiuce go, she enters

Let's go on as beforfe. let's say you're crazy, but now its ok

He in resturant with two friends

Tells story. OK

end of evening, "I'm not going home with you, telling story turned me off

He is alone

Brother comes, you're ok?

Yes, I'm lifted into extraordinary. I shop. Mundane things have magic, Its perfect

Wife returns 'worried about you

Why? I'm perfect

Get's hit by taxi The wood didn't inform the room, though the wood was behind and under the room, structuring it. Articulating it.

And Samuel turned toward a blank wall, and experienced the light, white but transparent, hitting the wall and returning like a flush that over his face, wiped itself in a circle without center.

Nobody spoke. Marie was there, stirring under her conversation. And everything that arose, did arise with a drift that changed, slight (which meant massive) everyone in participating proximity.

Samuel himself re-named himself.

Outside in the streets, soft trees swayed and changed color.

Nobody was capable of speaking, but was not bland.

What sped forward was a kind of halt to the right and halt to the left.

The dark color of interious phantasy was also subsumed in that drift which, in its usual drift oceanward, developed itself like a film out of sync with reality and therefore careful in its own internal coherence, and Samuel smiled at his own memory of who he himself was.

Marie broke the silence just as she broke other objects (chairs, tables, dishes laid out on the table for a meal that imitated a funeral because after all, even Samuel when he ate destroyed something that had considered itself whole, coherent, and with an official and benificent identity called 'dinner').

All this hidden wood, all these self-evident presences of light, did the speak of the same realm of being or were they separated by some stickiness in Samuel's mind.

"Ask Samuel" I was about to say-- then realized my mistake. The doubt machine worked at certain hours, but did clocks lie?

Samuel twisted under the impact of certain hours more than others-- but was the classical '3 A.M.' only a way of getting off the repressive trolly?

Tracks were invisible, but like a magnetic field, when a clock face forced the light that wasn't (we're refering to what went on behind the scenes) Samuel sort of masked himself and spun into a whole series of disappearances, (certain arms, certain legs, certain parts of the brain) and reappearances.

So Marie, who was already alone in the corridor, checked out her own meal ticket, (and after all, breathing and eating were the only necessities so who cared if sometimes questions surfaced in different areas-- let's try this--) and she passed into the same room where Samuel sat in a quandry.

Only-- how was she to know for sure?

He didn't wrinkle up his brow (that would have been doing somebody a favor-- "Mirrors please?")

But Samuel greeted her with the usual "Hello" and the clock struck three P.M.-- that was a coincidence, and Marie said "I didn't know it was so late" vis a vis an appointment she had later. But Samuel, not knowing all the details of her busy life chimed in "I didn't know it was so early."

Had he heard her clearly and was he being contradictory? Or had she talked in a self muffling way because she was talking to herself.

True, her left hand was sort of hovering around the face-- which could have been irrelevent because it didn't turn into something like 'scratching at the cheek', but instead it looked for a place on her hip (much lower) and landed.

Samuel watched this. He didn't know what she wanted. They had no pre-scheduled appointment-- though her appearance was in no way 'out of line' and he asked her to sit.

They had nothing much to say to each other, made small talk (you can imagine) and somehow-- it was another one of those slightly un-satisfactory get-togethers that of course, couldn't be expected to change the world-- so how come they were always happening? An entire afternoon was spent waiting. Time would pass, but Samuel couldn't count on the time passing. He could only be. . .

tree-ward. . .?

Somebody who held out for a real idea.

Oh oh-- a tray of good things was placed over the two or three books he was reading (always more than one at a time) because Samuel himself owed nothing to forgotten moments and everything to what was here on the table.

Marie liked to strip it clean, obcessively. She had also a camera, for proof.

That is, whatever the state of Samuel's table. relatively chock full of objects or relatively naked, she imagined chosing and unexpected moment to photograph the table, the room, sometimes even Samuel's face itself in repose.

For Samuel tried to keep his face de-animated; it served his purposes.

If a face could be read, what need was there to plunge deeper; and it was only by that stressful plunge that the stress itself threw up shadowy patterns that suggest a whole other way of being that Samuel first, liked, and others like Marie-- this came in a close second--found at the very least, food for thought. Why enter?

He opened his eyes.

On the edge of experience, he found more of the same.

It was the edge, always the edge.

Leaping finally, he did not find himself falling into experience, but into the void where no experience was.

When the edge of experience was being passed, it could be seen that the experience was something to live inside of, and the living inside it had as many options as seemed available before, when he was just chosing when and where to leap, before the experience was entered into be lived in.

So nothing of the experience was left in the experience, only an envelop for living, which from the outside had seemed to hold experience, and now once one was inside it, was a space in which to live, to imagine one was making choices, to watch as one did perform this or that action which had only the effect of so widening the envelope that the space was a space in which compartment was added to compartment.

That proliferation; which was not experience, but the multiplication of the edges between one compartment and another; but each compartment once entered, proved equally empty and only the edges seemed to offer the possibility of what heretofore could be called experience but was now seen as empty.

So without experience to reflexevely as it were give him something in the name of self definition, who was he?

He was nothing: or rather-- he forgot who he was.

That meant every moment was a new beginning.

That meant his development could be tracked from outside himself, but not from inside himself.

It didn't matter.

He was doing things and they were fine, only he couldn't track them himself.

It was frightening at first, but, trust me, it was ultimately OK. More than OK.

Take that on faith. (It's all you have, anyway.)I have no time

Do you agree? (Pause) I have no time to waste.

You finished your experiment.

Don't be so sure

Ah, being sure is my experiment

Wrong. I have no time to waste

Is this your door.

(Looks about) That one? The one in the wall?

Careful. I don't say follow its lead

Somehow-- when I start picking up on your originality, I get goosebumps

See? That's no experimental situation. That's being led by habit. (Pause) Seeing a door-- going through the door.

(Pause) I have my own guidelines down pat

I'm glad you say that. It gives me a clear picture of certain internal mechanisms

Don't be so sure

--I'm talking about my own experience, not yours.

(Pause) Let's trade something

Did I hear you right?

I don't have much time. (Pause) A story is being told. A window is being opened. A door is being closed.

A man in the street hears about adventures inside a house he strands facing.

Roses are thrown from a window

The man in the street starts to move toward the rose, to catch it as it falls through space. Then he thinks better of his maneuver, and turns away quickly.

He goes into a resturant.

A glass sits on the table in front of him. And as he waits for his meal, he allows one finger to enter, slightly, into the water that fills the glass.

He wipes his finger dry before the waiter arrives with his meal. He doesn't enjoy his meal, but he says nothing to the waiter, nor to the other patrons of the resturant. He pays his bill and leaves.

(Pause) Very discreet

Me? Or the man in the story.

Oh? I didn't make that distinction. (Pause) He seemed like somebody with a lot of time on his hands.

(Looks at watch) Look at that

Did I miss something?

(add "Fear?)

A story is being told.

A curtain shifts in the window, and light is alternately there and not there.

Someone leaves the room, just in time. And a second person answers questions.

But a mirror is suddenly in the light and a face reflected in the mirror is the face that is answering the questions but there is no sign of the other, the one who asks them.

That would seem to predict the cessation of the series of questions and answers, but it doesn't, if answers are taken as evidence, because answers continue.

A series of dates is given. And they situate the passage of time.

A calendar flashes into the mind, but its pages burn and are termed by someone "invisible'.

Oh? Shouldn't it be possible to read by the very light that consumes them, in the form of fire? Is the fire also a light?

Someone runs from the room, carrying the mirror, which no longer reflects a face.

The answers are still pouring forth from the invisible mouth, but interpreted differently now, they wander as parts of a language that twists, slightly, into another one of innumerable stories.Could we meet if I went into the next room?

I don't think I could get there in time

True, we'd have to synchronize

Well, we are at the moment. We'd have to keep it linked in a similar fashion through either a change in locale, or a change in time.

Could I see your watch? (shown) Mine is missing (his hand behind back)

Is that true?

Of course, I'm just hiding my wrist out of embarassmentThe minute I saw you I said to myself. . .

Do go on

You know, I'm confused about something

What?

I'm not sure. But I'd like to see you go out of the room and then come back in

Who am I?

(Pause) You're the person who enters, having not been here

(Pause) I don't have time for this

That's self-evidently untrue. (She exits) Come in! (pause) Well, now I know.

(She opens) I don't know why I'm doing this

Hello.

Don't I know you?

If you do, you're making a big mistake. Though it was half visible, the rest of the room was OK.

Samuel put that into his mind-wringer and wrung out something he called 'my idea'.

What happened to the rest of the room? It was behind his head, so a solution was turning the head, but when that happened it meant another part of the room vanished.

'You're playing games with yourself', said Helen. And Samuel smiles and thought she said "Samuel, you're playing games with me", and that was OK too.

He blinked, and the whole room vanished for a brief moment-- even Helen.

But then (it was an accident almost) the eye trajectory hit the window and Samuel saw that outside the window the atmospheric conditions were, well, foggy. And he realized that even though he hadn't seen it before, the fog that was outside over the city streets was the same fog that inside, made parts of the room invisible, even though the window was closed and there was no question of the fog being inside the room like an interior phenomenon.

But there you are.

Helen switched on a floor lamp and Samuel said "Put that out please!" and Helen, without thinking just shrugged and did it.

But it spoiled things.

Now it was as if what Samuel experienced was just a subjective phenomenon. Nobody had much to say; he blinked his eyes. And Helen disappeared into the next room and Samuel thought "Wow, it wasn't subjective after all">

These reasons (he was wringing them out all the time) had their own bright light in the middle of things.

Guess what. If you have a bright light, you have a shadow. If yiou have ten, twenty bright lights scattered in a certain area, shadows start disappearing-- but another way of saying that is you have more shadows, since every one of the separate lights casts-- you know what.

So what was Samuel really seeing?

He called into the next room saying "Helen, I hope you didn't take offense when I asked you to turn off the light">

"No" she called back, and her voice was neutral.

Samuel sat, that was all. He got comfortable. He closed his eyes, then opened them. That-- a few times in a row.

Everything seemed so. . .elusive.

"What am I going to do with myself" he queryed?

(What am I going to do with myself?)

Within an hour, life took care of that, answered his question, as he might have known: but of course he did know that all along, and he didn't even have to think about it.

His body, his mind, all went into action without a moment's hesitation as telephones rang, doors opened, new people came and went (including Samuel) and the weather changed.

The fog lifted.

But that just meant it went someplace else.You want help?

(Pause)

Indicate whether or not you want help

Ah, you win. No matter what happens. Whether I respond or don't respond, and if I respond, no matter how-- you'll always be able to maintain "ah, that response or that lack of response, indicate to me, powerfully perceptive as I am, that help is being requested".

(Pause)

I have no way to effectively proclaim "No. I don't want help"

(Pause)

Even if I lefdt. Same thing. I could be running away because I don't want to face the fact of my being here because I want help-- so I doubly need it.

Look what's in the drawer.

(Gets gun, comes and shoots other, who isn't dead))

I have somebody behind that wall, carrying a second revolver. He, or she, watched through a one way mirror, and at the moment you squeezed the triggor. he or she triggered the noise of a gun shot. How did you feel?

I didn't feel much of anything

This isn't the first time we've been through this

True(Pause) But each time is supposed to be the first time

We must have rehearsed fifty times

Why?

To get it right

To get the feelings right?

No. Just to get the external moves down pat

I don't know--every night it seems a little different.

(Killer shoots self)I'm at the edge of an experience, I think.

Plunge in

Why do I hesitate?

(Pause) I don't know if you're hesitating or you're in a natural position where moving forward is unnatural, so why bother

At the very edge of experience, he leaped.

He could have done that.

At the very edge of experience he withdrew

He could have done that also.

What are you doing here?

Well, I'm drinking in the atmosphere

All I want out of life, is a certain mood. A certain atmosphere. I want to be in a certain state of mind

Big mistake

(M) Big mistake, Samuel.

Oh no. The way I look at it, it's a way to carry me to the essence of things. The ground of things

It's fuzzy

That's the point. It's fuzzy. So things can be there that can't be there when the fuzzy things are scrubbed clean, which means throwing things into the garbage--

Moods are like clouds, Samuel. They pass.

They drift.

You supply the missing word.

I don't supply it.

No . . ."solidity", Samuel.(You're so young to be a professor)

(It's a real achievement)

Professor, I really admire you

FDor my knowledge?

How shall I put this. . .for the way you seem unconnected from your feelings. Please, don't tell me it's just an act.

Let me put it this way--

Please, don't tell me it's just a performance

Let me put it this way--

(All) Please professor, don't tell us it's just an act!

There are in fact, two 'me's". I have the ability to decide which one manifests itself.

That's. . .awesome

Anybody can do it, It's what I teach

(He erases already clean blackboard)

What are you erasing professor?

You think it's erased enough?

Yes

Well, there we differ. I think it needs a little MORE erasing.

What's getting erased?

Stupid

Who said that? (all raise hands) No. Watch (Erases)

I was being called stupid-- for asking the question 'what's getting erased'

Oh, I hope not. I really do hope I was the one being called stupid for doing the erasing. (Pause) Not true? Well, I'm disappointed. (Pause) Let me put it this way. What teaches. Experience? No. Experience teaches nothing. What teaches. Learning rules? No. What teaches? Nothing teaches. (erases)

What hope is there professor?

No hope. But sometimes there are` accidents. So , let's hope for a few accidents, please.

(erases; second runs to help, third rises to come forward, slips and falls)

Oh, oh, my shoulder-- jesus! mu shoulder

Everybody's paying attention to you Jerry-- what's next?

I don't know

I think he had an accident, professor

Yeah. Not much we can do about accidents, is there

Well, we could get medical help

Is that going to be necessary? How's your shoulder, Jerry?

Well, it still hurts, but it's better. I don't think it's broken

O-oh(glancing at watch) Class dismissed. (exit) Lowering the head, Samuel was alone, adrift, remembering past experiences, when a light went on in the next room and Marie said 'Pancakes'.

Why did she speak?

Why did she speak as she did?

She was in a room called the kitchen, but through the window one could look at the sky, however the sky was not where either Samuel or Marie were looking. Their eyes, two sets, were darting amongst objects of the internal environment, and the walls themselves were stuffed with what might be called 'suitables'.

Then Samuel left, this was going backwards in time, and stood at the edge of the lake.

If the surface of the lake rose, say twenty feet into the air, then one could say 'pancake' and it was true. Then and there.

Marie was still cooking up something.

She served.

It hit the plate with a light 'slap' and Samuel collected a few more impressions, but had to close his eyes for a few seconds. (Yes, it was longer than a blink).

And that in itself-- that slice out of what heretofore they agreed to call 'real time'-- that was so 'light' it was rise-able after all. The split in consciousness happened before Samuel could register what was happening.

He rolled into the room. The outside noise stopped-- no it didn't, but the granular form it took made it less like noise. How could it be defined?

Samuel crosses his fingers. That was his version of a definition.

Marie smiled, because when fingers were crossed everything was forgiven. There was nothing to forgive.

An airplane opened its doors and the things that fell to earth were collectable. This made Samuel smile and realize new definitions were available. Scouring the landscape, he had occasion to re-sync what he heard with what he was, well-- collecting.

He didn't expect anyone to like him. It was his birthday-- but that was that same day-- he was leaping to another occasion.

The airplane overhead opened its doors. Good things fell from the sky. Samuel made connections and crossed his fingers-- hoping it would never come to an end.

When things hit the ground, they made little marks where they hit, but then bounced to other places.

Marie said 'That's the rason for my smile" and Samuel said "I was smiling, and now I'm not, but I'm no longer tense">

He crossed his fingers and said "What comes true, was bound to come true, so why keep my fingers crossed".

Marie grabbed for his hand and checked it out. But as she turned it over-- using her own hands of course, it was her own-- her hands-- that started to preoccupy her. There was a ringing in her ears.

She smiled, as she pretended not to notice, but "Careful, I'm good at reading smiles" was what Samuel said.Recent events.

(A smile that never happened)

What happened was that the mind split. I was between those two parts, where there was nothing. That was my 'location'. So I looked at one part, and there was no me in it. Then I looked at the other part, and there was no me in that either, though in both there was a habit of sorts that was continuing and that was a kind of orientation.

But what wasn't oriented at all was the place between (the gap) where I was indeed placed, and that was--nothing of course. I was nothing. I was in nothing. There was nothing I could do. Except watch things going on without thinking about them. And guess what. Not thinking about them meant I was out of control-- but there was nothing to control-- what speed. I covered the whole planet. OK. What's next?

(cut melon, eat)? Samuel could only float. How many times he had said this, hoped this, disappeared into this.

By the time the 'parade passed' he was on another tack, avenging other imagined slights-- and this was the point-- Samuel KNEW they were imagined. Those slights, so slight they amounted to. . .nothing.

Yet how they filled a life, or built a life, and what a beauty it was.

Beyond, with effort (effortless for all that) and Samuel rose, like one of the drops of dew on himself (ha! the flower) up, up and away.

Still. That was a repetitive process, so next day, another try. Rounding the corner that never emptied.

Hello Samuel. Truckers at the truck-stop cafe. Boots ready to boot him out of where he didn't belong.

So long Samuel.

Another day.The jumping off point

That's it?

You mean 'this is it'. That posed as a question

Well, I don't have any reason to go on--

Now you do.

Now I do (Pause) Thanks for giving me--

What.

Thanks for putting words in my mouth

What

What? (moves) Isn't it funny. I went to the table, opened this particular book and put my finger on this particular word on the page I opened to.

Let's see the word

(Shows) Here. This one

I wonder how long you're going to remember that particular word

Are we making it important?

I guess so. But we're not allowed to speak it of course

Of course

Oh? Of course? Did I just put those words into your mouth?

(Turns) Did somebody knock?

I can't answer that

Mind if I find out?

Be my guest

Guess? Did you say guess?

No. I said guest (Pause) You are my guest.

Do we have a guest? (Goes to door) Nobody here

Where are you right now

(closes) On this side of the door (Pause) On this side of the room

Don't play with me

Of course not

Don't you sense something's wrong?

What

Aren't you agreeing with me just for the sake of agreeing with me? Or should I say just for the sake of feeling good

Where am I

Move a little

(Done) Where am I

I don't think you moved, Samuel

I don't think so either. Where am I.

Where am "I"? How much Samuel understood was questionable.

He went to a distandt city, this was in his imagination, and as he opened a door, snow falling, he clapped a hand over an open mouth-- his.

All this memory. All this entry into rough approximation of a life, lived or not.

Samuel opened the book and thought, this is weighty stuff.

On no, Samuel, that isn't a true fact.

It couldn't be self-caught (did he say self-taught?). Roped, he was roped-- worlds spun like an around-a-thon and wait a minute said Phil, the time's come for a round up of ideas, not just of words.

So Phil got out fast, the language was well, laid to the side for one or two pregnant moments.

Then it happened.

They lapsed (who?) After all, dates were decided upon before anything specific happened.

Erased

Another part of the repatory of gestures. The entire file cabinate, available, and a gesture linked it to one of the drawers opening.

Samuel could but question his own depth in the proceedure. His fingers flew, no-- rather plunged, into the papers that were arranged vertically in the open drawer and as that happened his knee his metal and he registered the possibility of a groan that could easily place Marie in the position of exclaiming (checkmate!) Oh Samuel, did you get hurt?

But the circular thing was but one moment-- OK, the next-- so which got to be most real? Look it up.

He did, he hurled papers right and left (well, he didn't really, nerat person he still was, at least in THIS milisecond of reality).

The files were really not the point so turning into the next room-- ah, that was better and he opened a window-- nope, it already was, because that was WIND gesturing through the curtains and Samuel sat down with a WOOSH! and a whole part of the experience collapsed with him.

Re-settling (straightening up) in the chair, he said "Look at me now".

Remembering a photo taken, on the sly, many years years ago-- a younger version of Samuel upright in a chair on a social occasion, he did, then and now, look neat from the outside (composed, was it?) while he looked so much more disorganized seen from inside.

That's what he trusted-- the inside. But can he put his fingers on it?

No.

Who's this speaking-- right now for Samuel? In Samuel's name? I thought it was Samuel. It wasn't. Look at that. Words keep coming.

(You could have fooled me.)Read what I've just written

"Don't hypnotize me"

How can I do anything else?

I never knew you had hypnotic powers

Did I

This implies it

Ah. That's the trick. (knock)

Who's that

One of my students.

How do you know that before the door opens

The same way you do.

I only said 'who's that?" I didn't say who it was

No. I spoke for you. Did you give me permission?

You must have taken it.

What did you do with that piece of paper I handed you.

It's right here on the table (knock) Come in!

Ah, you must be speaking for me.

It's locked!

(Calls) I think there's a mistake!

You think it isn't locked?

I think. . .in this room, we are trying to think the ground of all things.

That effort, of course, is not representable.

The grid of things, in which everything is an example of something else as a totality.

Explain

This glass is an example of something else. . .some energy that made it; but that energy is a mirror, of everything else made by the same energy.

Oh yes. Oh very possibly yes.

Did that wake me up?

Samuel woke-- no he was still asleep, and the dirigable called 'no more thinking' was hovering in the air.

But over the horizon, a second dirigable-- this one, not so precisely named, and then a fourth, and fifth, and so on.

And a twist on the cord that attached such objects together, and immediately it was Samuel himself spinning in air-- some called it a sky, some called it field of dreams, but Samuel himself. . . woke.Read what I've written

Don't hypnotize me!

How can I do anything else?

I never knew you had hypnotic powers

Did I

This implies it

Ah, that's the trick. (knoc)

Who's that?

One of my associates --Don't look!.

(Samuel covers eyes)

Don't hypnotize me--It certainly is time

I agree

You always agree

It certainly is time

I can count on it

(Pause) Let's try to say something is needed to get things ready. Get things really rolling.

What's that face I see in the mirror?

One of your more memorable

What?

You certainly seem to me--

What

A cloud of agitated particles

Oh no. Let me get you a drink.

I don't want to start before you

Why not?

It's not polite

Let me get myself a drink

(Pause) See? It's not polite

There's a reference to that. (Looks in book)

Fint it yet?

Not yet.When Samuel's eyes hurt, he knew it was time to clean his glasses.

Not that it helped, and the door swung open but nothing much, see-able, but another blank wall.

When the wall, that, after it had been passed beyond-- Oh, he thought to himself (Samuel, are you running head first into another blank wall?)

Look what's written all over it's surface.

I won't look!

Samuel himself, clear eyed (glassy-eyed) managed to look in the opposite direction, not to avoid trouble but take infinite pains.

That was his way of transcending difficulty with people who tried to be polite but were really out of line if you consider that all Samuel needed was encouragement-- which could only come from one of the people he hadn't yet met, because such people still wore their-- well, aura, perched at the right angle bysecting their physical body, and always seemed to be saying (they lived in a blur) "Samuel! Congradulations! This is a test!"

I won't look

Amazing. He just says what comes to mind.

(Stops--)

Excuse me-- did you say something?Here , the ground of being is thought.

Which is non-thinkable

You see it not

You touch it not.His open mouth

Seen

From death

Re-guided.

Non-grid bound

But tapped,

Brain hammers,

Wound-roses

Touch exits, tra-la-la.

Pure wind hole

Alive only.It doesn't exist, this me you put two hands on either side of.Oh, how travel in circles

I thought one wanted to travel in straight lines

Wrong

Wrong again?

How does one travel in circles

I'm not permitted to say

Wrong again

The look that erases

I'd say the smile that erases

Of course, that's easy, and achieves beautiful effects

The smile that erases

Yes. The look that erases can be misinterpreteted. Follow this carefully.Non-focused, the real life proceeded with a semi-serene velocity that nobody bumped.

Oh, am I Mr Straight Jacket?

He climbed out of his own, deep what was called for

Forthcoming the clump of deep ideas--

Nobody counted there for nothing yet

Re attacked

the attachment, aren't we in this tight?Samuel began notating his own life because he realized something was trying to communicate with him.

These messages, call them not messages but they were something like messages without a message.

Don't laught at this.

No one was going to laugh.

Even this. Is this something like a message, without a message.Who would have thought it could be as elaborate as he composed it (in his head, self-composed) which was an answer to what, demonically (that's what Carol proposed) did all the self residing that nobody wanted to face up to.

Agitated, on no sea of tgrouble, but in the clear, dark surface beneath which as always, depth itself implied trouble.

Depth that, mirror like, wasn't something run into-- as one was always running into a blank wall, but the door that was there (oh yes, it was there) un-openable.

That's how things got through. Un-openable.

What things? Oh, you know-- the kind of things that do get through un-openable doors.A boat

The slice of which

Can't rustle

The waves, all crypt

Insigniafied

On the latent beach

Sight-eyed again;

X in hole

Referendum

Blank-backed

To light.

Re-wiped

Slosh

Of error

Missed.How many minds can I today, penetrate?

Could it hurt?

I don't know your definition of hurt

I don't define it, I merely express it

Now?

(Pause) You don't seem to express much hurting this eyening.

Every idea has its opposite

To what is that statement connected.Ah, let's not get off course

Try as I may

--You find it impossible

I find it impossible

Surprise. You're off course

Thank you, professor.He was very influenced by the light that hovered, just over his eyes-- but how can we possibly define that influence?

BARRACADED

After experience, there was the lack of experience. So many layered, developed, open spaces.

A man sat on a chair. His watched opened itself, and time, tasted itself, which had no effect on him that he noticed.

This is about Harold. This is about Harold who agitated toward the window and discovered nothing unusual in his usual flutter.

But when seven of his friends signed a pact, they said in concert-- Harold has a committment to the unavailable-- for that reason we set him on the right path (close the window).

And Harold says, I can't breathe good.

Majorie L. shows him certain exercises that involve placing the hands in position on the chest, and Harold (notice the "L" sitting there in the middle of his name) remembers a trip to the country where even the dogs barked in rhythm to his expectation.

Oh, the library of my adventure, he thought. He, who had so little in the way of adventures.

And his seven friends, not seven friends sought, but seven friends come upon by the happenstance of those adventures he didn't have (what was wrong with that picture? Shut your eyes and find out.)

He was

Good.

It was: done.

Friends or no friends. No-- in which direction did that window disappear? A contradiction in terms-- but he chose to ignore--what? --and breathed deep again, thanks to the open window.The book that gives keys

Keys to what?

Here's a sentence that is a key

Dog's shoes

If a key is de-keyed, it turns nothing except it turns something else. If a key is de-keyed: How?Samuel wanted to live his life in such a way that each moment expressed connection to the sourcxe.

He didn't know how.

He didn't know "express"-- the word came to him, twitching through his hand onto the page as he was writing to try and express himself.

As he was writing, he did notice that the word itself evoked the idea (recognition) of effort in his mind, though the effort itself seemed to be in the hand, rather than his mind, so he thought for a moment his mind was inventing it.

Oh mind, great inventor! He wanted to poster-ize himself, and then kneeled down, perhgaps before the great image he would have then and there invented (silly Samuel, it had been pre-invented)

(all eat, buffet)

It was not necessary to name them.

The food, swallowed, pre-empted names, and the God watching, from his location outside and inside what preoccupied all, offered a hand, and all assembled took from that hand, eyes turned in the direction of the shadow on thew wall because the shadow moved, whereas the hand did not move.

And amongst them, Marie-- who had a name through it was never named, Marie said something unimportant like "I love you" though it was hardly a whisper.

And nobody knew they heard anything at that whispered moment, and in fact it wasn't called 'hearing' , but as they enjoyed the nourishment (the dream of nourishment) they were nourished as only they could be nourished.

And the God of death, waiting not in the shadow, but in the brightest of sunlight that simply happend, for the moment, to be on the other side of the planet, smiled, because that was the only mode available to him, that smile, and that smile was everything.I want a different audience. I don't want to be here in front of this audience.

I want to be in front of a different audience.

I want to be inside a fiction, real enough to function as myth.

Everything different

I want to be controlled by desire. ('. . .silence. . .fear. . .(etc))

I want to be contolled by silence

I want to be controlled by fear

Why fear?

It eats itself

This play is controlled by the lust to manipulate no one but one person, and the one person it wants to manipulate, alas, is never here.It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter?

I'm simply. . .a scientist, reporting on reality

I climb. . .how high?

I hallucinate, but let reality interfere.

Reality feeds my hallucination

That's the function of reality.

After an hour of concentration, the stones shed no secrets, the stones not even more stonelike, finally called him into attention elsewhere.

The dream (never left) came back as dream.

Everything self-evolved

Life, death, everything in between.

Trying to be, again, rebuked

But life had better things to do than to rebuke the rebukee.

Something. Wiped out.

In the final analysis

I checked up on my own. . . .

Instant of careful attention

The hallucination chamber

The dark space in which I hurt.

The bright sun inside the dark space.

The five fingers, flying into the brain.

What's to be seen

What's to be crossed out

As the eyes erase with attentive looks

Swiviled on glass.By passed, all normal channels.

Are you studying something?

I'm quite a scientist

I can see you're quite a scientist. You work on intuition

Here I go in a different direction.

I observe intuition at work. There's a difference

Slightly

I fix my sights on--

Yes?

The opposite side of the room. Let me tell you a story about myself.

What will you call yourself?

Me.

No, I mean a name that separates you out from everybody else.

That's just the point. I can't be separated out from everybody else.

That's your halucination

Call it my hallucination

I'll call you Samuel

Then: Samuel it shall be. That's my hallucination. Are you still waiting to hear the story?

Of courseBecause he had no coherent policy for life, he suffered. But life didn't suffer. Life's purposes were served, exactly.

That should have made him feel better, but it didn't, yet, make him feel better, and life's purposes were served by that also.

Then his language began to deteriorate and it wasn't life that was worried, but language started to be worried.

The next thing that should have been said, wasn't said.

And several independent observers thought to themselves "Who's talking?", but there was no answer, of course, because the persons asking the question were interfering, by their very asking, with the possibility of an answer

So in that silence, things started being noticed, that became noticed, as the silence directed its spotlight of silence

into the space

that no longer had to be filled.In the scraps left over, discarded, shall we find the ground of things?

I'm not satisfied with this. . . construction.

Shall we hallucinate another? An alternative?

No. Let's spin out.

That sounds like an alternative.

I didn't mean it to be an alternative, I meant it to be an exception.

(Pause)

I'm going to concentrate on exceptions. They don't build anything, you see, and anything you build is a trap, finally, after it's built and you're inside it.

But an exception is just that.

Once.

Each time.

(Pause) Whenever I have a good idea (this has happened twice now) I get a whiff of something.

This time. . .it's the faint aroma of a charcoal fire. I can't remember what it was the last time. . .blossems" Maybe.

(Pause)

Let the glass be recognized as the not glass.

I'm not taking a drink from it.

You should. You should take a drink from the not-glass.Outside: the face:

The remarkable grimace

That bisected feeling:

Smothered

So that being moved

Internal;

Was a hard blow.

Belief or non belief:

When feeling happened

It was

Total vent

Total hole-in-the-world

Growing

Til the wall vanished

Which meant

The hole vanished.

Pure wind.

I didn't see you come into the room

Ah, you weren't looking in my direction

Now I am? (Look) Now I am not.

What can I do for you?

Can I do it for myself?

I don't think you understand. Which door did I come through?

(Goes, touches one, thinlks) I don't know. Will my guess be 50% right?

Oh no. It's either 100% or 0%.

I want it to be 0%

Goodness. Why?

Silence controlled the situation.

Samuel sat not.

The relative strength of impulse, went wet.

And the heave of ocean that followed, upended everything he could fathom.

Oh Samuel, plunging into who knows what to say about it. Can you abide by the attentive tradition?

Here was Samuel. Polishing knives and forks, ready to close in for a kill even he couldn't countanance.

Silence controlled it, that's why Samuel was able to piuck up on heretofore unavailable stuff, loading his plate, watchful. Always on the go in a way that nobody else noticed.

At the end of the corridor, Marie waited with her usual smile, and Samuel ticked off the seconds on some internal clock that bent not, waiting for everything to happen in pure equilibrium.

She let her dress align itself with her deepest intention (her own body) and Samuel touched that, and as he did so, she floated carefully over several heretofore measured depths which meant "This is known by me".

They both could have said that, but Samuel controlled things, so they continued the usual drift and the lights flashed on and off and in the on phase they said "Silence" and in the off phase the said "Go deeper">

There was no relationship between Samuel and Marie.

They talked, they touched each other. But nobody's hand disappeared into nobody's hallucinating eyball, and so all gestures were like a quiver in non-existent aether, and the heavenly bodies-- all they could do was whirl. That kind of silence.This play is a book

I was visited. He brought a book

Notice my use of language? It concumes me and is more foregrounded than my personality

This play is a cityJust suppose there is nothing but pure eventfulness.

No further scheme of things.

Purfe eventfulness

And further suppose

that events themselves are predicated

in a system called BRAIN,

so that the event,

the real fact,

vanishes into quite artificial interpretation.

That is to say--

translated into the terms of a value system that are quite, invented;

like fairy tales are invented.

But eventfulness, raw,

operates

inside the blind spot of the mental eye.

So to plunge there,

grasping for no life preserver

Is to be truly fed

and the hunger is

unnoticed often

but insatiable:

(Just suppose there is nothing but pure eventfulness)I hate the actors who appear in this play

I rather like the actos who appear in this play. What I hate is the play

Oh no, I like the play very much , but I hate the actors

Let's reverse roles

(Done)

Do either of us really believe what we're saying?

Of course not.

Of course we do, we believe it totally

We've well memorized our parts

Now. Let's escape.

Impossible

No. We could begin improvising

The audience would have no idea if we were really improvising or if it were all planned in advance.

(Pause) There must be some subtle way we could clue them in

There isn't

(Pause) What's behind this curtain

Another curtain.

(Pause) Ah. Death. Real . . .empty space

Right.

Right

You say 'right' . . .so casually

Very true

And in fact, the real, important and true thing is just pure, meaningless, so-called meaningless, eventfulness.

(Pause)

But he isn't up to it 100%

So true

It's a spiritual trip he hasn't quite made, yet

Too true

Why do you keep saying too true, or so true--

You know perfectly well why I keep saying that

So do I

Too true

(Pause) It's been memorized, but if you're a good actor, you believe it

(Thinks) Too true

What's behind this curtain

Another curtain

Ah, pure space. Death.The vase was empty

He tried to fill the vase with flowers-- but the flowers didn't fill the vase.

At first they seemed to fill the vase

But then he saw that the flowers were not filling the vase

The vase was empty

(Flowers put in. Look for a while. Taken them out)

The vase was hurtling through space at hundreds of miles an hour. Nothing filled it

(Enter Estelle) Look what I bought

(unwraps)

A twin.

(Enter. P)

What did you do with your flowers?

At first I put them in the vase. Then I took them into the next room

(Pause) The room seems empty. Did you move things out?

Now we have two vases. What could go in them?

Nothing I can think of

(Pause. Sit)

(She) I can't think of anything to say

I think these are emptiness vases. Nothing can fill them, and in fact, the emptiness in them, flows out to fill the space around.

What made me buy a second? There must have been a reason

No. Maybe there was no reason

Maybe you're right

(Pause) Let's each take one of these vases and hold it againt our head

(Done)

What are you thinking

I don't feel the urge to answer you

(Pause)

Let's just ...dosappear.

(Put down vases and exit)

(Pull in box, open)

Some night's he's in it.

Some not.

(Emerge) Do you mind terribly if I hold my head together?I won't tell you where it was. But I will tell you this.

I sat in a room, the floor and walls of which were covered with small white tiles.

I wanted those tiles to hallucinate, to suddenly rise in waves, to engulf me with their delerious repetition of reitterated shape. But alas-- it didn't happen. The simple grid of white tiles. . .seemed solid and un-moving. What other people refer to as my mental stability, I see as a failure of nerve.

A failure to hallucinate.

Oh, that's easy. We're always hallucinating. This--

(pounds table)

is a hallucination. But the failure of nerve-- we don't experience it as such. The limitation, the holding back from the ecstacy that would immediately EXCPLODE all this into. . .unimaginable wealth. That's the failure of nerve.

Perhaps, it's just the acceptance of responsibility to be a human being

Rather than a God

Perhaps it's the assigned. . .burden

Yes

(Pause)

It's suffering.

There is a certain amount of suffering in life. Doesn't it come with the territory?

Of course. But you're talking about suffering which is just. . .suffering. I'm talking about suffering which is something else.

(Pause)

Failure of nerve

Yes.

(Pause)

Notice? I don't start raving

Neither do I.

Right. Hold on tight.

(Pause)

Would you maintain, the sea is calm tonight?

No tornados

Right. No tornados

.Bye-bye.

Where are you going?

You won't follow

I won't have to follow. I count on your failure of nerve

(Pause. Gets up, goes out)Anybody home?

Nobody home

Anybody home?

Go away

Anybody home?

No answer

I heard somebody speak

It was your own echo

I think I figured something out about you.

You're looking into a mirrorWhat does it mean

Knowing a few basic things

and

finding ever new ways to

hide those things in language.

Not hide them, exactly

But give them a flesh-body.

A flesh body-- seductive, asking for caresses

Over the skeleton of thought.

The thought itself

stern, like iron.

Trying to caress with the force

Of hard collisions.

Melting: with hits of tenderness

The thought itself.

Skeleton:

Direct but,

Inevitably disguised by flesh,

the better to be unseen

and so

by the vehicle of that disguise

deep tasted

by the mind.Have a nice (nice) meal.

That's the invitation offered.

Samuel's major problem

(no zest)

turn everything into art

how?

Look for accidents

Look for 'mess', dirt

Let it speak like an oracle!

BUT don't pretend or let's say-- don't invent for yourself the idea it's saying anything you can understand, saying anything USEFUL!What's it like here

Here on earth?

Yes.

It's hard to touch base

What?

What's it like here on earth.

(Pause) I have to think about how to answer

You'll come up with something

I want to know what it's like, here on earth

Self information doesn't surface

How shall I put it, it's ellusive

I know that

That's why the question is asked

What's it like

Mostly. . .it's like something hidden

What's hidden

I could try to say what's hidden, but it's not like what's hidden, its not like what the HIDDEN THING is. It's more like the hiddenness

Right. Like you canb't see my real face

I can't see your real expression

It's hidden

You can guess at it

But my experience is that it's hiding

That's my experience too.

In this room

Always in this room

On this planet

Always, in this room on this planet

Can I join you?

Of course. Come sit here. Across from me.

(Pause)

You're real face is still, I think--

My real expression?

Hidden from me. That's my experience.Te following

Mental experiment

May help.

Imagine a pill, named o-x, taken every day for a period of a year, with the following effect. Just once each day, in the twenty-four hour period of its effectiveness, it links the perceived data of a specific ordinary moment, with universal truth.

In other words, whoever has taken the pill, lives their life as usual, but for a brief moment each day, something happens in perception that in no way seems unusual or out of the ordinary, but that same , ordinary thing, is in fact a window onto eternal truth, which the one

experiencing it may or may not recognize.

As you can imagine, the one who undergoes this regime, and takes one pill a day for the course of a year, developed a different relationship to his lived reality, since he is effectively persuaded that the pill does produce each day the announced effect,

and yet the effect is announced by no special change in the mode or intensity of perception,

which means that the pill-taker finds himself in a constant state of watchful tension, hopeful of being able to recognize that otherwise unexceptional moment that is in fact,

exceptional,

in it's sudden and brief connection to eterenal reality.

A minute and imperceptable short circut in human life.

Here is a man, stepping onto this stage, imagining, the having taken of such a pill.I'm only speaking to one of you. Others are excluded

Even the one I'm speaking to. . .doubts. Is it to you I am really speaking and will you be able to understand the true thrust of my words.

I hope you haven't eaten.

This wonderful serving is for you.

This food is for you

Shut up.

Al the things I wanted to say are going back into the head, that's why the words are pouring out of me, and when we reach the end of that we reach the end. What flashes? Oh, a cloudless sky of a kind.

Take my fever? I meant to say temperature, of course

Let's return to that rush, and I-- shall I speak self-wise, I, I, I-- hey, I think what I have here is a stuck on a point.

You too should be me so I can afford to shut up. Shut up! Shut up!

(her head is held)

You see what my touch is capable of?

All this is a calcuulated effect, professor.

Don't call me professor

Not one

Prove it

A professor wouldn't deny being a professor

On certain occasions, through I admit I can't define them

I'm into magic

Prove it

It might hurt

Prove it

I don't saw people in half

One half of me believes it, one half doesn't

(into box)

The issue at hand seems relevent to the following consideration. Is it I who pour forth words, and having done so, am I emptied of or am I filling something, so the final objective is a full or emptied vessel.

That's genuine magic, professor

Pouring forth, or vice versa

Professor?

Words pouring forth , or vice versa.

Empting something or filling something, I look upon it as interchangeable, but that's only for the time being, and therefore it could mean a vast number of things. Also I call uponme, myself. 1.2.3.4.5-- whatever my repetitions

Professor

Multiple enough so that in fact, somebody else is speaking through me. Look what I find, a voice that's capable of taking over my own voice, so that when I, my voice, rests-- it's still going on in the resting, and I do like to put two hands here

(on his own throat)

as a kind of soothing gesture, even though it looks like something else

That's the magic, Right

That's the magic. Am I empty or full when I get emptied.

That confuses you, but if I say is IT empty or full, you get the picture.

Picture?

Snap.

Snap!His own lines:

What I mean by that, a series of forces exiting from the self-- wait a minute, there;'s no inside or outside. So what am I looking for if there's no inside or outside? And I'm issuing forth, a force.

So what is this force doing if it's not looking for something?

It seems to be pouring forth, but it could also be sucking in. Something out there. . . sucking in, and that pulling inside. makes lines, imagined.

Excuse me.

Is Dr Laborade in the audience tonight.

Alas no.

Alas no?

That puts me in an awkward position. My discourse is directed at making a certain impression on Dr Laborade. It is Doctor Laborade, uniquely, who is in a position to understand the full depth and pognancy of what I say, and without his presence, as receptical, my words dispurse in space; in a sense, lost.

I'm not speaking to everyone. Hello.

No Doctor Laborade, I'm afraid.

Dr Laborade exists...as fire in my imagination. And as that fire. . .burns my very words, something in the world becomes animated, invisible to most, but neverthless real, as nothing else is real.

Hello. I'm speaking to one of you. . .yet you doubt your own identity, except that you know my words are reverberating in you as they are self-evidently not reverberating in the minds that surround you, encased as they are in heads of stone.

(Gilloytine-- thrust head) (statue? Head ropes?)So, long ago when young.

I located myself at the mouth of this verbal flow.

I tried to flood the world

I recognized that the source was inexhaustable

But then it was exhausted, only I hadn't at that point, the courage to feel better in my emptiness.

Pr was it slightly different, that I wasn't self-locatable in the emptiness which was elsewhere, and myself being separating from that by a kind of mental space--

Ah, well

Who would understand me?

The flow from inside me, was a flow from that other space, emptying itself through me but it wasn't me emptying.

Hello-- I dreamed a magic object

(opens several small doors)

Or better to say-- I made discoveries, without realizing that each discovery lead in the same, call it-- direction.

Because I knew it wasn't a question of direction, but of the source of that very multifacuted thing that seemed to be a direction when really it was an "Oh, here I am".

Somebody in the back of my head rises and says "I understand you, I understand where you're headed"

And I reach out my hand. But then I think to myself, Oh, that had better be your VERBAL hand, or could we say your internal hand?

No, we could not say verbal hand and mental hand in the same breath-idea.

That would be a total misconception.

And in fact, somebody in the back of my head says "Hello. I understand perfectly. Aim carefully-- this is what the companion or potential companion in the back of my head says to me-- aim carefully, and I turn that perfect aim into a vague trajectory that wobbles so fast it vibrates with light and look-- I've found my way for both os us"

I didn't make the mistake of reaching out my hand to somebody in the real last row.

Rather, if I reach out my hand. . .I send it on a trajectory that speeds forwayd in that linar direction which, if extended far enough, we all know must-- of proveable certainty-- circle back though never circling, always straight, into the heart cavity from which the hand first thrust. Mine. And there it meets, inside me, somebody else.

I've never seen you before

Me?

It's a different aspect of you.

I don't feel diffgerent

You don't look different

But you said--

--Don't hold me to what I said because I wasn't talking. I was letting the words pour from my heart but I couldn't give them a name and that meant, you're not named anything, and that's what I saw shining like a smile of recognition on your face--

I'd like to see that

Don't ask me to do an imitation. It has to come from my heart, and of course it does.

(They embrace)All in a box

Here, this box

But you quite misunderstand, because this box, entered into and extended from in at least a few, tiny holes,

which means those holes that seem to be a connection between inside and outside are really the thing itself,

and if the thing itself is nothing whicvh is what holes are, I think you can see how the thing itself is everywhere because nothing IS everywhere under and between and inside those occasional things that do arise on the perminant sea of nothing that's simply another name for something that extends itself immediately through all places, namly, holes, holes in things

If you can't understand me, you don't have to, because you pick up instead on the electrricity of my presentation

* * *

Maestro, are you emptying the world or are you emptying your own self

.Each word, tripple in my imagination, overheard, you again multiply that trippleness, and you who overhear are the last in a long line of overhearers, and each one tripples the heard.

And so, each word trippled to the millionth and millionth at least, power.

So the use of words, so that's how it is with the use of words and the overlapping trippleness and complexity that is inherited by you and me and everybody else. Nothing to be done about it. Multiplication of reference as a fact, so ride that trippleness because either you are used by it, or --you use it, though the choice is yours and it doesn't much matter which the choice is because the choice is similar owing to the fact that your words are just the tiny pinprick on the gian globule of words that rolls over you the minute you open your mouth or even think about doing so.The "I"

I-- I-- I-- I

Where is it hiding

Let me tell you a story about myself.

We're going to examine a man , today, who's illness is difficult to define exactly. Let me say this. . . No, let me say something-- let's start from the base of a productive ignorance

(Enters) Sit down my friend. (Pause) Don't be nervous.

Oh no (Pause) I'm not used to this

Have you forgotten?

What a strange question to ask me

Tell me aboutg yourself. (Pause) What drives you.

Yes. I am driven

By what?

("My world, unfinished: just like the real world)

I don't know

(Pause) How do you think of your relation to the world?

Ah, that's the issue, isn't it.

Is it?

I want to have a profound effect upon that world. That's the basis of much misunderstanding

Go on?

Yes, go on. Go on.

Explain how it's the basis of much misunderstanding.

People misunderstand me, doctor.

Yes, but how?

(Pause) I don't know how. I don't know about the inner working of other people. That's your business. I'm a simple man.

Are you really simple?

You know better than myself, doctor

Why do you say that?

The questions you ask, I can see you;'re pulling things from my inside out.

That's not the answer of a simple man

Yes it is

What drives ytou, sir?

I want the world to keep going

Come again?

(Pause) Why did you say that?

It means, explain

It confused me

Then erase it

I can't (Laughs) I don't have an effective erraser

Why did you laugh?

At the idea

What idea

Oh-- you know

Now, we don't know anything about you

Really? But you've been watching me and listening to me for several weeks

We don't know what goes on INSIDE you

What comes out

Yes

That we know. And we understand, of course, that what comes out comes from an inside. But we think, inside, there is even more, some of which HASN'T come out. So we'd like to see it all come out

(Pause) I can't keep anything for myself

Why would you want to?

Because some of it is for myself (Pause) I don't want to be emptied out completely, doctor

What drives you. That's what you want to keep secret?

Not really

What drives you

I want the world to go on

Go on where. Go on how. You see, that's what we'd like to hear.

Oh well (sighs) I want to please you, of course. (Pause) It's like this. I let things come forward, things I say. . .in order to add. . . the unexpected, the unpredictable. . .because otherwise the world locks into place. Everybody seems to know how to behave and what to say. It's very. . .regulated, isn't it doctor. But the world needs something else. A little greese in the mechanism. A little. . .slipperiness-- so it can keep going.

So the world can keep going?

Yes

And that's your contribution

Yes

Slipperines

Yes

How, exactly

By what I say

(Pause) It's in what you say

Yes

It's in your language

Yes

Slipperiness

Yes. To keep things going, you see. Otherwise, the geers lock. Zip--I open things up. Zip--I keep things going. (Pause)_ That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? You think I sasy things that don't make sense, but now you understand my motives, so it makes perfect sense. (Pause) My true self is revealed. Our relationship is changed. That's why I wanted to keep something to myself-- because now I've explained everything. And our relationship is changed, and I liked it the way it was, your problematic object of examination; but now that I've explained, I suddenly take on the aspects of the wise man who holds the balance of things on the tip of his tongue, and you sit deholden, waiting for me to perform my therapy, and I liked it better when I had you more off balance, trying to figure things out.

But now that's done.--Off with the false faces, but they weren't false, doctor. And now, when I go rattling throiugh my language, -- your language also-- now it's not going to work so well, because you think you know what's happening and that will be broadcast, I dare say, to your associates-- and then what? It grinds to a halt.

Because whatever I say, now you have a pidgeon hole available, a catagorical box in which to zip whatever comes out like quicksilver-- zip! Into the box-- my goodness, look at all the boxes lined up--help! Help! I can't move-- excuse me, what I meant to say was help! Help! None of us are moving!

(Pause) Fine. Now take off the false face

Ah, what a relief. (rips off face) Look who's come to visit. (Pause) I think I'm going to hurt my facial muscles. Do I have permission to re-instal my false face? (Back on) Ah, thank you doctor.

No. Thank you

That's all?

That's all

(P) I can go back to my comfortable vestabule?

Of course

Remind me which direction

(Pointed out)

Of course. (Goes, hits) I'll be back in a jiffy (gets through) (Other blows nose)Poor, dear, Samuel.

If you dislike people as much as you claim, why is the theater chosen to be the arena of your activity, an arena oriented to people.

Perhaps I chose to proceed by a stratagy of frustration

Yours? Or your audiences.

Oh, this is really too painful (exits)

I bet soon he'll come back. (Pause) Instead, I'll assume his role, or position, or persona. I'll have a conversation with myself. (Starts-- stops) Oh, this is really too painful (exits)

(Music)All his sentences got used up.

So: start again from the beginning.

Locate yourself in the available mirror

But remember

Looking into a mirror is really, like opening a window.

Imagine a room hung with red curtains, where a certain kind of light pours in when a window is opened.

But the quality of the light implies a quality of light in the city beyond the room. Full of mirrors. A faceted city. So activity multiplies, and light multiplies.

And facial expressions, smiles and gestures, all multiple.

And a child sits at a desk in front of a blackboard. And something is written rapidly on the blackboard and the child copies, mirrors, what is written: but copies slowly.

The streets curl under the multiple reflections, and somehow the blackboard in front of the child speaks of these streets.

And the child copies something, but not that-- not that of which the blackboard itself speaks as it is written upon-- that is not something the child is taught to copy.

And so, when the child matures, there is something lost to the child. And a window is opened, and the light pours through, but the child-- adult now-- is shaken in memory, without being able to know what it is that produces that profound yet elusive impression.

And the child's life, the adult's life, is a longing that is never answerable. And the beauty of life seems, accidental and unstable.

And the life to be lived, is lived, like a task. And the task is done, and a window is closed, a mirror, turned to the wall, and the room itself wobbles, and forever, is lost.

Probably my story is entwined in a relationship that cannot be explicate.

You get mixed up in language, of course.

Of course. Don't you think it's complicated?

Surprise. My first metaphore expanded and captured a whole legon of particulars.

Oh-- this is too complex for me to follow. I'm a simple man.

Then how come your life is so complicated>

That's life's fault. That's not my fault!

________________

The creative explosion started in my own room, here.

I didn't control it of course. It simply happened, that my life, twisted.

Nothing on the surface shanged.

But as a matter of fact, nothing in the interior changed either-- that is, I had no profound illumination.

Therefore-- what changed? I'm not sure. Just that. . .it was everything; slightly

Is this of major or minor interest.

Well-- that depends upon the scale on which you choose to graph such things.

Nothing has to change

I was told , I had only approximately twenty years to live

I was fifty, at the time.

So when I looked back to where I was at thirty-- then experienced the change between thirty and fifty-- it didn't seem like much time at all.

Hello. I'm death. And I'll be hanging around for the next twenty years or so.

Will I get to like you?

I'm likeable. If you dig deep.

If we become friends-- what can you do for me.

Oh! Nothing! Hands off! (Exits)

(Pause) I have to do something significant for the rest of my life.

(Pause) I have it. How about telling the truth?

Ha. This is going to be harder than I thought.

(Goes into coffin)Let me take your coat.

Slip to one side.

What?

Miss (coat, falls) Always miss.

You dropped your coat

My coat-a-bility?

Should I have not tried?

That's better

What's better

Your reference is a little more fluid, a little more imprecise.

What do we do with the coat on the floor.

It re-lies there.

(Pause) I get it.

Slip to one side

I'm two sided

Now you're falling onto a grove. That's a trap.

I like traps-- they're so get-out-able.

Show me

You missed it

Too comfortable

Isn't that allowed?

--What are we going to do about the coat?

I'll have to recover it, put it in the closet, and miss

What do you mean by miss?

(Pause) Probably, coat in my hands, I'll walk to the closet and run into the side of the door, perhaps re-dropping the coat.

It's a valuable coat.

I'll take good care of it, though my intention may be only partly fulfilled.

Then I'd better take care of my own coat.

Or--leave it for Samuel's arrival.

When Samuel will hang it up carefully?

We don't know if Samuel misses the door, or if Samuel gets as far as the hangers and it slides off onto the floor belatedly. Or even if he simply hangs it up. Neat.

Slippery

We just don't know

Slip on that. Slide off the mark

I just don't know

Wrong

(Goes, takes other coat from closet) Maybe this can replace yours. Pick it up please

Mine?

The one on the floor

(Picks it up, waits) I don't exactly feel like dropping it, but I don't exactly feel like holding it.

May I try it on?

(Done)Well, hello

May I take your coat?

How did I get here--?

I suppose a taxi, or did you walk--

No-- I'm in this room, but I don't remember entering. Not that I want to remember entering. Not that I have powerful needs.

Let me have your coat

Why?

I want to hang it in the closet for you

(Off coat, falls between)

Wasn't I helping?

You don't havbe to help.

I wanted to play my part

We did a bad job

Help.

Nobody can hear that

You did

Well, I mean somebody but me

Help! (Pause) Help!

Let me go into the next room to check out how loud it seems from in there

(Exit)

Help!

(Head in) I hear it very well

It was a kind of test, that's all

Kick it

What

Kick it toward the closet

Just-- bending down and picking it up, that wouldn't be any good? (Starts) Now don't kick me

I'm too far away. Plus.

Plus?

It would be very, very, impolite

(Kneels, gets coat, goes and hangs it up but it falls)

I didn't do a good job getting it to stick on the hangere

Let it lie there, Jerry

Why not

At least it's in coat territory.

That's good enough for me. (Hangs it up)

Can I help you with your coat?

(Sutting closet door) I already took care of it.

Mind if I check?

Go ahead

(Looks in, closes door) Semi, Jerry

What a multiple choice of interpretations you offer me.

Take your pick

That's a polite offer.

Can I offer you a drink?

Semi.

Ah, that means you're thirsty (Starts to cross to bar) Oh, by the way. This eatra coat is still on the floor. I know you won't mind if I hang it up next to yours in the closet.

No. I'm sure there's room.

Where

In this room

In this room. Always in this room

The split in consciousness happened before Samuel could register what was happening.

He rolled into the room. The outside noise stopped-- no it didn't, but the granular form it took made it less like noise. How could it be defined?

Samuel crosses his fingers. That was his version of a definition.

Marie smiled, because when fingers were crossed everything was forgiven. There was nothing to forgive.

High above, in the sky itself, an airplane opened its doors. Good things fell from the sky. Samuel made connections and crossed his fingers-- hoping it would never come to an end.

When things hit the ground, they made little marks where they hit, but then bounced to other places.

Marie said 'That's the rason for my smile" and Samuel said "I was smiling, and now I'm not, but I'm no longer tense">

He crossed his fingers and said "What comes true, was bound to come true, so why keep my fingers crossed".

Marie grabbed for his hand and checked it out. But as she turned it over-- using her own hands of course, it was her own-- her hands-- that started to preoccupy her. There was a ringing in her ears.

She smiled, as she pretended not to notice, but "Careful, I'm good at reading smiles" was what Samuel said.

"This smile is for you, Samuel"

The smile that erases

I'd say, the smile that erases

Of course, that's easy and achieves beautiful effects

The smile that erases

Yes. The smile that erases can be misinterpreted. Follow this carefully.

Samuel looked in a mirror and smiled.

The vase broke in space, scattering flowers.

Piano music spoke, saying 'I offer my private agenda'

The dove-swan animal, on wheels, roared from the back roads of the skull.

The meat lessons, dropped rocks into a clock that part-timed into the lost-lost.

And knives, de-sharpened, cut heretofore impenetrable nice-knots.

So freed, so in space,

Samuel rose into invitation and hence, repeating gestures

Floundered like self-enclosed secrets.

He smiled.

It was unnoticed, hence its power.