Potatoes of August

Draft Dec 21 08

Sibyl Kempson917.414.5361misskempson@yahoo.com

Copywright ©Sibyl Kempson 2008

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Potatoes of AugustBy Sibyl Kempson

Now, howeverThe real potatoes are among usAnd a different kind of understanding is possible for anybody who

wants a different Kind of understanding.

Richard Foreman, Rhoda in Potatoland

fugue |fyo g|ō noun

1 Music a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts.

2 Psychiatry a state or period of loss of awareness of one's identity, often coupled with flight from one's usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy.

ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from French, or from Italian fuga, from Latin fuga ‘flight,’ related to fugere ‘flee.’

Actualities seem to float in a wider sea of possibilities from out of which they were chosen; and somewhere, indeterminism says, such possibilities exist, and form part of the truth.

- William James

ACT ONEFern and Buck in their home

FernWhat are you doing

Buck I’m reading and studying this information I need to learn, Fern. I could use some peace and quiet actually, just for a couple more minutes.

FernWell, I need to talk to you

BuckI can’t right now!

FernFine

BuckOkay what is it.

FernNothing, nothing

BuckCome on, Fern.

FernNo, no

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BuckOkay. Be that way.

FernWell, remember that vasectomy you had a few years ago?

Buck(Oh, no.) Yeah?

FernDo you remember or not

BuckYeah! I remember. What about it.

FernWell, we’re going to the doctor and have it reversed

BuckWhy?!

FernI want to have more kids

BuckWhat? Isn’t it a little late? How old are you?

FernI just had my birthday

BuckWell?

FernI’m sixty-two

Buck I don’t know, Fern.

FernI made the appointment, it’s on the 22nd

BuckWhat?

FernMark it in your calendar

BuckOkay. Okay Fern.

Gordon and Bethy in their home

BethyDo you know what kind of food you’re ordering for dinner.

GordonI don’t know. I was thinking about actually starting to do some actual hunting and gathering. Really going out and hunting for meat and gathering whatever else we need. What do you think?

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BethyWhy do you want to do that?

GordonWell, because I have the time now. Retirement seems like I have so much time on my hands. What are you doing?

BethyI’m grading papers.

GordonOh. Yuck.

BethyMm hm.

GordonHey, is that both of those cats on your lap?

BethyYep.

GordonSo what do you think?

BethyAbout what?

GordonAbout the hunting and gathering? Would you be down with that?

BethyDo whatever you want.

GordonGreat. That’s great. You’re great. I love you. I still love you.

BethyI know, Gordon. I still love you too. Even after all these years, everything.

Gordon and Buck in the woods

GordonHey-ho!

BuckWho’s there?

GordonIt’s me: Gordon!

BuckHey! Gordon! What are you doing out here?

GordonI’m just . . . well, it’s a little embarrassing I guess – heh! - I’m ah, I’m caring for the trees. You know how my real name is ‘Grover,’ meaning ‘one who cares for the trees.’ So I come out here almost all the time since I retired.

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BuckOh really!

GordonYeah! You know, trimming, pruning. Mulching. I bring different fertilizers sometimes . . . I touch their bark, I collect their sap, in these little buckets.

BuckYeah, that’s brave of you to admit that. I would be embarrassed.

GordonYeah! Yeah, I guess it is . . . Brave . . .

BuckAnd embarrassing. But as long as no one else is around . . . if you’re alone, you know, who cares.

GordonYeah, no, you’re right. Yeah, and I’m thinking about doing some hunting and gathering. You know? If I can swing it - like the ancestors! Now that I have the extra time on my hands.

BuckYeh. Yeh . . . That’s great, Gordon. You know? That sounds great.

GordonWhat about you?

BuckOh, I just come out here from time to time to gather my thoughts.

GordonOh, I hear that, man.

BuckYeah.

GordonThat’s great.

BuckYeah. I used to sit at the kitchen table and drink four or five pots of coffee every morning and do it. Even when I was working, I’d get up at like five and get started. Sit there, drinking coffee and just thinking, man. It drove Fern nuts. She made me move into the dining room to do it instead.

GordonHa ha!

BuckYeah, she said I was staring at her every time she came in to get something. But I didn’t realize it.

GordonBecause you were thinking about something else.

BuckUh-huh. Right! I didn’t even see her come in – but you know Fern, to her it was staring. She starts running the vacuum cleaner. I HATE the vacuum cleaner. So I started coming out here in stead. It’s okay. They told me at the VA I shouldn’t drink so much coffee anyway, so. And you know I’m sensitive.

Gordon . . . Yeah, I do know.

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BuckWhat? You do?

GordonYeah. And you’re considerate –

BuckHuh. Yeah! That’s right. I like watching all the little animals. Like when I was a kid.

GordonYeah, I think you told me that one time.

BuckI did?

GordonYeah. A long time ago.

BuckHuh. That’s somethin’. I can’t believe I told you that!

GordonYeah I don’t remember when it was. But I remember you saying that one time. We were standing in a driveway?

BuckHuh. Could have been any number of times. We’ve stood in a lot of driveways.

GordonHa ha!

BuckWell, anyway. All the best.

GordonYeah, good seein’ you, Buck.

BuckHappy Holidays.

GordonThanks, you too!

BuckYap . . . hey and let me know if you ever want to go duck hunting. I got a buddy . . .

GordonYeah? GREAT!

BuckYeah. Anytime. Come on up any time.

GordonWell, if you’re serious, I just might take you up on that.

BuckOh yeah? Well, you know where to find me! Ha ha!

GordonYeah, that’d be great.

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BuckSure. Any time. Just call up at the house.

GordonYeah, great! Will do! Hey – thanks Buck!

Buck & Gordon Will do.

A short arrangement by Johannes Kepler in 1619 is heard, that looks like this:

Buck stiffens in his leather recliner.

BuckI don’t understanding! I don’t understanding! - Fern better not of drank all the coffee!

Bethy, 'om in her paper-grading position on the couch. Another Kepler tune that looks like this:

BethyI refuse to trust boredom. Or frustration. Or confusion. Particularly tonal confusion. Ow my neck hurts . . .

Fern tosses herself about in her flowerbeds. Another Kepler ditty that looks like this:

FernEverything is normal! Everything is completely just regular and normal! Couldn’t be more normal and just whatever. Making sense. Easy to understand. HOWEVER. I am often capable of weird, awful thoughts . . . Where do they come from!! I don’t like it! And anyway I could care less! I want all the stuff to be normal and fermiliar! That’s it. Like on those programs I like! Even the ones about murders and cars being found in ravines with the bodies still inside and I imagine those bodies are still alive and living inside those cars, living in a new way, surviving – thriving! - learning! - growing! - until the cops find them! Writing up the reports, finding out who’s responsible. Even those shows where young girls are found stuffed in suitcases and their mothers can’t find them but when they do someone has shoved a dildo into their rectum! What kind of a sicko would do something like that. Those young girls were looking for trouble! They ought to learn to keep their legs closed! And I watch every week because I like the way they wrap it all up in the end, in the courts. In the justice system. I like JUSTICE.

Gordon lies prone among the groves. A Kepler like this:

GordonOh, wow. Strange. But I’m open to it.

Law & Order Rite of Spring Vorspiel of Das Rheingold Gloria Coates something or other

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Fern and Bethy, possibly in a forest. If they are in a forest, it’s a real forest, one quite firmly based in a sylvan kitchen-like Reality. And the atmosphere is somehow medieval, including their mode of dress.

FernThe men ought to be pretty hungry by the time they get back

BethyLet’s get to work.

FernThis isn’t any dream. You know it? This here landscape is no dreamscape.

BethyNo it sure isn’t.

FernJust a perfectly normal, every day situation. Fermiliar, and comfortable. Perfectly understandable. Nothing weird or “far out.” Or “way” out. “Out there.” Nothing else out there. Nothing “other.” You’re here, I’m here, we’re getting everything prepared, that’s it. Except stuff that is happening that is just like this, all over the NATION.

Pause. Preparations.

FernWhat do you think about these turnips

BethyThey look like they’ve got another couple of days, but –

FernWe should probably cook ‘em today

BethyThere won’t be this much time after today.

FernNo

BethyI’m going to peel these potatoes very liberally if that’s all right with you. I don’t have the patience to be cutting all the eyes out today.

FernMe neither

BethyHow should we do these birds – just roast them? How much firewood do we have?

FernPlenty

BethyThen I’ll start it in a little bit. I’m going to peel these potatoes first.

FernFine by me. I’m just slightly worried that someone’s going to get killed today.

BethyI worry about that every day. Anything can happen at any moment.

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FernI try to be grateful every minute, but

BethyEvery time they leave I say good bye for good. I find that helps.

FernIf something happens to one of them it’s over for us

BethyNot really. Oh you mean the structure of balance will be broken? We won’t be stable any more. We’ll be at war.

FernI’m too old for that now

BethyIt might be a good idea to make a death pact.

FernYou might be right I’ll think about it

BethyGordon always says an idea is a plan of action. I wonder what that means since I had that idea?

FernSince when are you worried about meaning

BethyThat’s true. I mostly worry about events only. Events that haven’t happened. You’re the one who sees meaning all the time. You see meaning in everything, in every event. You never allow for coincidences – it always means something. And it’s usually something that has something to do with you. That’s actually paranoia.

FernShut up it is not

BethyWell, that’s what it is! Seeing those kinds of connections everywhere.

FernShut the hell up and cook

BethyYou can lash out at me. But you oversimplify.

FernLeave me alone and cook the meal for the men

Pause.

Fern (significantly)One time I saw a nurse and she told me there was no need to fear death

BethyWhat was she selling?

FernI did say “I’ll believe it when I see it”

BethyI would have called the cops.

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FernBut now I want to believe it

BethyThere is nothing to believe – there are only facts.

FernI want to believe that it’ll all be okay

BethyEither you accept the facts and get to work or you lie around waiting for someone to come and take you to the lunatic bin.

FernI want to believe that it’ll all be okay and I want to try to be gentler to everyone because of it

BethySuit yourself. You want to be a sucker that’s your affair.

FernSpeaking of affairs

BethyOh here we go. . .

FernYou know I’ve got a big problem with you

BethyCome on Fern. You know better. I only accepted the facts.

Fern You mean you accepted your “destiny”? Ppppppppp! You went against the Lord!

BethyNo. It was just a fact.

Fern(crying)I was so young I didn’t know anything

BethyI was even younger, but I knew a lot. I knew too much. You were better off than you thought not knowing anything. It hurts to always be the one who knows, to always wish it differently, to have to educate everyone around you, all the time. Or choose to keep your mouth shut and put up with always being the bad guy. It’s exhausting. That’s strange. These potatoes . . . These potatoes have something inside them that looks like a brain! Look at this! Every one of them! They all have one! Look at them!

FernWho cares

BethyI don’t know what to think about these potatoes. I’ve never seen anything like this! This is a challenge for me.

FernBleh bleh bleh

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BethyIt’s not blight – blight doesn’t look like this . . . Oh my God . . . It is an organ of some kind, it’s got to be, it’s pulsing . . .

FernI STILL HATE YOU MY HATRED FOR YOU BOILS INSIDE OF ME WHEN I THINK OF YOU

BethyOh, Fern. Oh, Fern. What can I do to help you free yourself.

Fern (this maybe becomes a song)Kill me Kill me and eat me Quick Before the men get backThen tell them I ran off with another manAnother hunterA better hunterBetter than both them put togetherTell them they were never men to meTell them I said that before I leftTell ‘emNowDo itKill me Kill me and eat me Quick Before the men get backThen tell them I ran off with another manAnother hunterA better hunterBetter than both them put togetherTell them they were never men to meTell them I said that before I leftTell ‘emNowDo itKill me Kill me and eat me Quick Before the men get backThen tell them I ran off with another manAnother hunterA better hunterBetter than both them put togetherTell them they were never men to meTell them I said that before I leftTell ‘emNowDo itKill me Kill me and eat me Quick Before the men get backThen tell them I ran off with another manAnother hunterA better hunterBetter than both them put togetherTell them they were never men to meTell them I said that before I leftTell ‘em

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NowDo it

BethyWhat is going on?

PotatoesTo repent is to criticize Providence, who imposes sin upon us as a form of suffering in order to purify us through the disgust engendered in us by a bad deed.

BethyHunh. But who’s to say good or bad?

PotatoesThe Creator, that great artist who Himself develops as He creates, who makes rough drafts only to cast them aside, who takes up abortive ideas afresh, who perfects and multiplies His primitive conceptions. Most certainly, everything is the work of His hand. Often he makes prodigious advances in His invention of new species, and then Science comes along and establishes the existence of gaps, of missing links, and persuades itself that there have been intermediate forms that have now disappeared.

BethyJust answer the question. Answer the question, potatoes.

Gordon & Buck return -om the hunt, either empty-handed or loaded with ki2. Fern is long gone.

GordonHi, babe. Something smells great. Why are you talking to the potatoes?

BethyUhhn . . .

BuckWhere’s Fern?

BethyUh, I killed her and ate her. I mean! No, wait. What was it? Oh. She ran off with another hunter. She said he was better. I’m not sure what I think. I’m sick of the whole thing. I’m sick of everything.

BuckOh, shit. Oh, shit. Fern. Why! Please don’t leave me Fern! I’ll do better! You and I both know I can do better! Give me another chance!

GordonWhat is the truth here?

BethyAsk the potatoes.

BuckFERN!

GordonWhat? I can’t hear you.

BethyI said “Why don’t you ask the potatoes.”

BuckOh. Oh, God, please.

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GordonAsk the potatoes?

BethyYou brought home potatoes with brains from the Pathmark. They seem to know everything. Take a look for yourself.

BuckOh, Fern. FERN!

GordonOh, come on. What?

BethyGood job.

Gordon (taking a look at the potatoes)I don’t know. I think that’s got to be some kind of - fungus or something. Don’t you think?

BuckWe’ve gotta find her! Gordon! Help me. Please. Let’s go! LET’S GO, Gordon! We have to find her! I’ve got to win her back.

GordonNow hang on a minute here. You’re not implying these potatoes are SENTIENT are you?

BuckGORDON! FERN!

BethyI’m not IMPLYING anything. I’m TELLING you the facts, exactly what I observed myself.

GordonJust a minute please, Buck.

BethyI’m giving you the facts.

Buck No, NOW!

BethyYou should just go look for Fern with him. He’s really upset.

GordonBabe, I think we should get to the bottom of this delusion // first.

Bethy“DE//LUSION”?!!

GordonIt’s important to talk about where it’s coming // from.

Bethy“Delusion.” Fine then I’ll go then.

BuckCome on! Hurry up it’s getting dark!

GordonI’ve got to stay with these potatoes and find out what’s going on.

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Bethy Suit yourself.

Bethy exits with Buck. Gordon looks at the potatoes very closely. Some of the pots on the fire begin to boil over leaving Gordon no choice but to rush over and tend to them. As he does he glances nervously back at the potatoes.

Some potatoes reenter an informal state of consciousness in their bin.

PotatoesThey are convinced it is all an illusion, produced by the dullest prosaic influences like: a nervous condition or overwork. And, to be factual, their nervous fluids impregnate their garments, the very sheets and furniture, or soil on which they sleep, an opposite polarity subjugating them to the terrible and contradictory truths placed within the realm of their attention, but out of reach of their faculties of judgement. But they are still too incredulous, too stupefied by an empirical education, and they leave things as they are.

Buck and Bethy at the doctor’s office waiting room. Buck clears his throat rather violently yet seems to be absorbed in an issue of AARP Magazine.

BethyOh I thought I recognized you. I hope you don’t mind but I really prefer to keep to myself.

BuckHuh? Oh. Uh, oh hi. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Great. I don’t even usually come to this doctor. I usually go up to the VA but.

BethyI usually don’t come to the doctor at all. As a rule I generally do not trust doctors.

BuckRight. Right. And so, why are you here?

BethyColonoscopy.

BuckOh. Hey, you know that saved Fern’s life. Couple years back? Saved her life.

BethyUh huh yeah I know

BuckThey caught it really early and she had the surgery and so she was really lucky -

BethyYeah I know all about it.

BuckAll right.

BethyI just hate always talking about cancer. Sorry. Cancer is the new weather. Quite frankly? Since I almost never go outside? I’d rather just talk about the weather! Or details about nasty idiot lawyers at our contract negotiations, or the ridiculous customer service people I have arguments with over the phone, who think I’m not armed with the facts or with my own consumer history when I always am.

Buck Oh, I do a lot of that too. Every morning I’m always on the phone with american express or verizon. Pretty much no matter what. And they really seem to know how to push my buttons. I get pretty hot under the collar,

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and that’s how I usually get what I want. You know? You just don’t want to deal with me when I start getting disagreeable.

BethyI’m sure I can imagine.

BuckI mean, I’m a Vietnam vet. It’s just better not to piss me off. And they know that.

Pause.BuckThey know that.

There is a long pause here. As long as possible. Buck goes back to reading his AARP. Bethy doesn’t do anything. Maybe she gazes down into her purse for some moments. Maybe takes out a calculator and puts it back again.

Bethy (sighs heavily, then)My methods are more about wearing down the opponent, blocking the avenues of their logic, which are usually pretty meager to begin with. I have almost no emotions. Nothing is ever anything more than a math problem for me. And I’m never embarrassed because I’m right too much of the time.

BuckI don’t get embarrassed either. I do, but about other stuff. Situations. Parties. I worry people are going to play jokes on me. I feel guilty later though whenever I show my temper to people or scare them. I was raised catholic.

BethyDo you know that I stand at the checkout at the grocery store with a calculator and I add everything up as they ring it through. They don’t get away with anything. No one is going to rip me off. It’s not even a question of expending energy for me. It’s just natural. And I bring this into my approach in negotiations. They see me walk in and a mauve blouse, you know teal or periwinkle with attractive accents and they think, oh this is going to be too easy. But really? Don’t fuck with me. I’ve got copies of everything. I’ve got your signature. I see right through you. I’m just waiting for the right moment to throw your own words right back in your face. I don’t forget anything and I’ve got all the documentation that exists, right there in my folder. I don’t let anything slip. If you want to tangle with me, I’ll make you look in front of everyone at the table like you’re not even seeing reason. So nothing you’re saying makes any sense. Even to those in your own camp. Go ahead, take a time out, call a huddle in the other room. Get another cup of coffee. I’ll wait. I don’t need a break. I’ll crack open a red bull and wait. I prepped dinner for my family this morning before work, it’s a lasagna in the fridge – so they’re taken care of. I don’t even need to go to the ladies room. My fingers are moisturized, and the fluorescents work to my advantage. (They match the frequency of my brain processes and my jewelry looks really sparkly under them.) So GO ahead and take a minute to regroup. Then come back and try to talk numbers with me. Just try it. NUMBERS are my specialty, motherfucker and now you’re going to know it. You’re not going ANYWHERE. So get comfortable, administrator. I know your budgets like I’m polishing my own nails.

BuckThat sounds really intense. I mean my approach was always about manipulating people. Scaring them a little because they’d get a sense that I might be unpredictable if pushed too far, and then removing their ability to gauge how far might be too far. Even though I’m not really capable of doing or saying anything really threatening. But the tone of my voice can reach certain heights that reveal, in combination with the expression on my face, my willingness to go always one step farther than they would be willing to go. I never had to do anything. I just had to show that I’m willing to go farther than they are in any given direction. Well, and that’s alcoholism too.

BethyAnd moreover that’s a trait of an abusive personality, isn’t it?

Buck Yeah. Well, it can be. But ultimately it’s just brandishing my own willingness to self-destruct as a weapon. I never fear self-destruction. I always had to fight my longing for it actually. As it is I should of been dead a hundred times over. But that’s just me. Holding up my own powerlessness as a display of power. Once you learn my tricks it’s easy to get the upper hand. Fern crushes me every day, several times a day now that I’m retired, without even

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thinking about it. It’s only if you don’t know me I can scare you. And customer service people, they’re not cops, they’re not bosses, they don’t have any real authority except that they are never really accountable because there are so many of them and they are just mouthpieces of anti-consumer corporate anonymity policies. I guess there’s a certain power in that, but it’s not a personal power. (I mean don’t get me wrong, I always vote republican. But that’s out of fear of all the intruders.) But if I was in one of those negotiatings meetings with you? I would be a good opponent because you would never be sure. I would use my own emotions as a tactic and find a way to remove your normal gauge of what is appropriate and admissible and what isn’t. I am perceptive and I can take the discussion to a level which is disorienting and unsettling to you. A man who is damned has a lot of freedom because he has nothing to lose and he is intimate with the concept of his own insignificance.

BethyPssh. I never admit concepts into the discussion. I don’t care how manipulative or unpredictable you are. Sounds to me like you rely on people feeling sorry for you. You’ll never get that from me, it’s impossible for me. And furthermore if there’s one thing I know it’s how to keep the concepts off the table and the facts on.

BuckYeah, sure. I’m just talking out loud here. I mean, I could never come out on the side of the administrators anyway. Fern would never allow that, are you kidding me? But I think it’s interesting. Yeah, that’s really interesting. I never thought about that, how it all works. And you know? We’re all just Americans.

The Potatoes enter, disguised as a doctor and carrying a medical chart.

PotatoesBethy?

BethyYes.

She rises and gathers her purse and jacket very precisely, and exits.

INTERLUDE The Potatoes ro2 across the stage -om one corner. There are thousands of them. The thuds and thumps of the individual potatoes ro2ing across the floor becomes a deafening thunder on account of their sheer numbers.

Fern, alone in a personal thoughtscape.

FernWhen I was a little girl everything was so perfect. People did what they were supposed to do, and they did what they said they were going to do. Not like now. Shoving dildoes up inside each others’ rectums. Nobody does what they’re supposed to do. They do something else. Usually some kind of evil. Something with other peoples’ bodies, or you know, with their money. The money of the other people, that doesn’t even belong to them in the first place.

[Bethy is seen either running through the parking lots and streets, clutching a paper examination robe around her, only one strap of her purse to her shoulder so that its contents spi2 out in a wake behind her, or sti2 on the examination table, her forehead perspiring. Or both - - - ? We hear Bach’s Contrapunctus IV -om Art of the Fugue on an a1ressive little harpsichord coming -om somewhere.

Bethy:(shouting over the din of ten thousand potatoes thumping and ro2ing across the stage plus the Bach)What is happening right now? What am I supposed to be feeling something? Is my mind is supposed to be bigger than what I am faced with right now? When everything before right now was going just fine? How the goddamnit am I supposed to understand? What criteria?! What means of judging am I supposed to employ to gain some understanding here? Because whatever I’ve got? It’s not enough! It’s not enough! What have I done in uncovering this . . . this MESS! This horror of a challenge! Making me a refuter!And all other sane humans – punishment for our investment in the power of reason! Of logic! Of! Of experience! Of! Of! Of! Reassurance! ]

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What do the Potatoes do to her here?Music continues.Meanwhile:

Fern(cont’d)When I was a little girl . . . What the – !

GordonSorry. I broke in. I was snooping around the outside and then I broke in.

FernWhy?

GordonI’m not sure. I’m trying to understand everything that’s going on. It’s really important. It’s really important, or at least Bethy thinks it’s important, to understand what is happening. You know. To align it with something we’ve encountered already.

FernLike on SUV! I like that too!

GordonWhat do you say we take it back a few years?

FernOh! Like back to when I was a little girl!

GordonUm, I was thinking maybe a little further than that.

FernThere isn’t any further!

GordonWhat about, like, back to the ancestry?

FernOh, get off it! Gordon you don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about! Hmp. Well . . . I just can’t see it! . . . Everybody always expects too much of me! I’m sick of it! . . . (Sighs, feels bad for ye2ing) Okay, I’ll think about it and let you know.

GordonWell, I kind of need to know pretty soon, like now, whether or not. See there are these, well, it’s a little embarrassing . . . and . . . Fern. Human perception is . . . well it’s – oh -

His ce2 phone is ringing. It’s the Potatoes ca2ing. They trick him.

GordonHello? Yes. What?! I’m on my way.

Exits.

FernHey! Wait a minute!(then, aside)I’m going to get to the bottom of this. And I’m going to show everyone what I’m really made of! Positive Energy!

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INTERLUDEThe Potatoes reassume the stage. Skirl music has been playing since Gordon said the words “Human perception.” The potatoes have formed an army: highly ordered, arranged in platoons and squadrons. And legions. They organize into tight formations that reca2 tacticals and strategies -om conflicts & conquests across the ages: the flying wedge, the anaconda, fire-and-maneuver, tortoise she2, column, line/firing line, square and ho2ow square, dri2-and-ceremony, vo2ey-and-countermarch, charge of the light brigade. Marching in step as deftly as a lot of Potatoes can march in step, even shooting one another out of canons at an enemy just beyond the fourth wa2.

As moments pass, however, their toing and -oing becomes more and more disordered, as with molecules in a state of high entropy, or chaos. The chaos ensues inevitably: potatoes disperse, are flying everywhere unruled by the laws of nature until it seems the very universe teeters on the edge of total co2apse.

And then. They begin. To swarm. It’s unclear how it starts, since a2 is chaos at the outset. Each Potato seems to move in what is a tension between repulsion and attraction, trying to maintain a spherical area of personal space within the chaos, trying to avoid co2ision with the others. Then, they attempt to orient themselves to their closest neighbors, attempting to move in the same direction, together forming a torus with an empty center. After some moments the Potatoes are orienting themselves more strongly with one another, and begin to find a school or flock type cohesion. We see that they are now behaving as a co2ective mind, making decisions together. We are reminded by their movements, once they rea2y get going, of the physics that govern liquids. Then suddenly, the entire vision is gone.

But we hear them. We hear the Potatoes. They are chanting - issuing an invocation.The corresponding Kepler harmonies sound in -om some distant cavern, unsettlingly, with strange light. One potato lags behind.

PotatoesHaving solved the problems concerning Shabtay Star of Dirt, we shall use the same method and order of demonstration in the case of the movement of Tzedek Star of Wood too, and first we shall repeat three positions reported and demonstrated by P’tolemy, and by the foreshown transformation of circles we shall reconstitute them as the same or as very different.

The first of the solar positions was in the 17th year of Hadrian on the 1st day of the month Epiphi by the Egyptian calendar 1 hour before the following midnight [150a] at 23°11’ of Antares-Graffias-Dschubba-Jabbah-Alniyat-Lesath, but after deducting the precession of the equinoxes, at 226°33’.

Recorded the second as occuring on the 21st year of Hadrian on the 13th day of the month of Phaophi by the Egyptian calendar 2 hours before the following midnight, at 7°54’ of Alrisha-Fum-al-Samakah-Torcularis-Septentionalis with M74 Spiral Galaxy; but with respect to the sphere of the fixed stars it was 331°16. The third was during the 1st year of Antonius in the month Athyr by the Egyptian calendarduring the night following of the month 5 hours after midnight,

18

at 7°45’ in the sphere of the fixed stars.

A strange gong is sounded. The Potatoes continue, in different cadence.

Since we demonstrated thatwhereso that, by subtraction,and sincetherefore, in length, And thereforewhereand, as the angle of longitudinal addition-subtraction, angle HAK = 92º3’ to 2 rt. = 46º2’.

All the last numbers, as you see, are counter to harmonic ratios and seem, as it were, irrational.All the last numbers, as you see, are counter to harmonic ratios and seem, as it were, irrational.

For let 687, the number of days of Ma’adim Star of Fire, receive as its measure 120, which is the number of the division of the chord: according to this measure Shabtay Star of Dirt will have 117 for one sixteenth of its period, Tzedek Star of Wood less than 95 for one eighth of its period, the earth less than 64, Nogah Star of Gold more than 78 for twice its period, Kochav Chama Star of Water more than 61 for four times its period.

These numbers do not make any harmonic ratio with 120, but their neighboring numbers – 60, 75, 80, and 96 – do.

And so, whereof has 120 the world of Shabtay Star of Dirt seen coming from far off Tzedek Star of Wood has approximately 97 to be seen a kind of thin shaft of light, such as lightning the Earth more than 65,or a band filled with flashing or moving starsNogah Star of Gold more than 80 the sun of the solar system as something jet-black behind them,the planets not wandering, but occupying fixed positionsand Kochav Chama Star of Water less than 63 once seen to the left in a globe, and then later stretched out lengthwise to form a roll.

First to the left in a globe, and then later stretched out lengthwise to form a roll. Before the ages and on into the ages.Thus adorned the great things: nothing excessive, nothing defective, no room for any censure.All things, in twos, one against one, nothing lacking.Adornment and propriety – of each and every one.Established in them the best reasons. For nothing is more reasonable than that the physical inscription should exactly represent the geometrical, as the work, its pattern.

A creepy, cavernous underground meta-psycho-vegi-'eakscape. Everywhere, black water and strange tuberous plantlife. Bethy and Gordon are tied together on two chairs, back to back. They are surrounded by Potatoes. Buck is among the Potatoes and has clearly a2ied with them.

PotatoesYou have a phone call.

19

BuckThank you. Thanks. Hello? Who is this? Oh. Yeah, well I decided not to show up. Yeah. Well, I’m busy for starters, and to tell you the truth I didn’t much care for the condescending, passive aggressive tone of the reminder postcard you sent me. I think I’ve got it right here . . . yeah. “It’s time for your urological visit! This time is reserved exclusively for you. Thank you for your commitment to our office in keeping your scheduled appointment. We look forward to seeing you!” You know what? Fuck you lady! Nobody talks to me like that. Not anymore! What? Go ahead! Charge my credit card – won’t do you any good! I’m moved underground!

He cuts up his credit card with a flourish, regardless of the fact that the person he’s talking to can’t see him. Then he hangs up the phone and starts strutting around the cavern.The sound of the gong again.

GordonWhat do you think is going on?

BethyI’m not sure. I’m not sure what his role here is supposed to be. I’m looking over here to my left, your right . . . These are awfully fleshy roots and they sort of resemble rhizomes in a way, don’t you think?

GordonSo you think this is a root structure? You’re still thinking they’ve got us underground somehow?

BethyLook how dark it is! And I mean they’re roots but if you look at them they’re also stems. And if you look even closer they’re bearing leaves, each one bears a bud in its axil and is potentially able to produce a new –

BuckHey, quiet over there!

GordonBuck, we’re just trying to figure out what’s going on. Do you have any idea where we are?

BuckYeah. This is a revolution.

Bethy (quieter)You can see there’s a membrane there, and then that rounded, swollen anatomical structure of some kind. I think it might actually be . . . reproductive.

GordonWhat makes you say that?

BethyI don’t know. It’s just a hunch. And there are signs in the variegations of the membrane that it’s been modified. That there’s been some kind of modification.

GordonLike, genetic, or . . . ?

BethyI don’t know. But it would mean something like that the development of these brains of theirs somehow overlaps with the nocturnal processes of their vegetative and,

Potatoes (murmuringly)Thirteenthly, since the Artisan has established nothing

without geometrical beauty, which was not bound by

some other prior law of necessity, we easily infer that

the periodic times have got their due lengths, and

thereby the mobile bodies too have got their bulks,

from something which is prior in the archetype, in

order to express which thing these bulks and periods

have been fashioned to this measure, as they seem

disproportionate. Now it is shown that Saturn at the

time of the last three observations of P’tolemy was by

its movement of parallax at 174°44’, the inhabitants

from that world are to be seen in front at a

considerable distance, lower down on a level with the

knees; and this is where that world too appears. Their

nocturnal illumination comes from the great ring

which surrounds their world at a distance, and from

the moons we know as the satellites of Saturn and the

position of the highest apsis of the eccentric circle was

at 226°23’, from the head of the constellation of Aries.

They do not see it as a ring, but only as a whiteness in

the sky in various directions. Because Saturn tends

from G to b, and slightly further, and Jupiter from b to

d and further, between Jupiter and Saturn can exist the

following consonances, over and above the octave: the

major and minor third and the perfect fourth, either

20

rather crude, reproductive systems. one of the thirds through the tuning which maintains

the amplitude of the remaining one, but the perfect

fourth through the amplitude of a major whole tone.

PotatoesHey! We can hear you. Not the way to stay on our good side.

BethySorry.

GordonWe’re just trying to figure out what’s going on. We don’t really “get” this.

PotatoesLeave that to us.

BuckI could probably get you some water or something if you’re thirsty.

BethyNot if you’re talking about that water over there, no thanks. It looks rank. And like it’s been standing and stagnating for too long.

BuckOkay, forget it. I was just trying to be nice.

GordonShe’s just angry and maybe a little embarrassed, Buck. I think what took place at the doctor’s office wasn’t exactly fair.

BuckWell, nobody ever said life was fair.

BethyNope they sure did not.

GordonBethy doesn’t like being seduced. By anyone or anything, right babe?

BethyWell, who ever heard of being seduced by a sack of Potatoes dressed up as a doctor? It’s like a bad fucking joke.

PotatoesThe subtraction of 70°55’ from 205°49’ leaves 134°54’

for the beginning of the Olympiads at noon on the 1st

day of the month Hekatombaion. Then after 451 years

247 days there are 13°7’ besides the whole revolutions:

the addition of 13°7’ to 134°54’ puts the locus of

Alexander the Great at 148°1’ on noon of the 1st day of

the month Thoth by the Egyptian calendar; and there

are 278 years 118 days to Caesar; the movement is½

247°20’, and it sets up the locus at 35°21’ on midnight

before the Kalends of January. In short, the planets

belonging to the solar system are to be seen in fixed

positions relative to the sun. Mercury is behind, a little

to the right; Venus to the left, a little behind; Mars in

front to the left; Jupiter likewise to the left and in

front, but farther away; Saturn right in front at a very

great distance. The moon is on the left, fairly high up;

and the satellites of each planet are to the left of it -

PotatoesHEY! Watch the language! And that kind of profanity is NOT appreciated!

BethyWell, my God.

21

The Potatoes edge closer.

PotatoesOh. Which serves as a reminder. We’ve been meaning to ask you. About God.

Bethy (tired)I don’t believe in God. It’s just an expression.

GordonWe believe in Darwin instead. And Carl Sagan.

PotatoesNo one was talking to you!

GordonSorry. I’m just trying to help.

Potatoes (to Bethy only)What is the language of God?

Buck (having resumed strutting)English!

BethyMathematics.

PotatoesNot music?

Bethy Whatever might be Godlike in music is the part that is the most mathematical.

PotatoesBut you don’t believe in God.

BethyNo. But if I did.

PotatoesWhy is mathematics the language of God?

BethyBecause it explains everything.

PotatoesEverything?

BethyYes.

PotatoesWhat about the Unexplainable? What about us, for example? The sentient potatoes?

BethyIt can explain everything. I didn’t say we could understand it all. (Pause.) Yet.

Potatoes (mumbling under their breath)How unsatisfying can be the scientific approach that recognizes the exquisite mechanism of the world but denies the existence of a mechanic . . .

22

BethyWhat was that?

PotatoesNothing.

Gordon Aw, come on!

BethyYeah, really.

PotatoesIt’s not unsatisfying to you?

BethyWhat.

Potatoes (speaking in a mockery of the voice of Science)“We have solved all problems, the Universe has no secrets left.”

BethyIt’s comforting, and empowering to me.

PotatoesHm.

BethyWhat about you? What do you think is the language of God?

Potatoes (with strange, humble defiance)Hebrew.

Gordon (dumbstruck)Really.

PotatoesWe have discovered that this is the most perfect of all, a living thing [which] grows out of a seed and in which all other languages can be found. Since God created the world in Hebrew, there are still seeds of Hebrew in the world itself.

Bethy (hamstrung)Huh.

PotatoesThe world is impregnated with Hebrew. Its word roots intimately connect with that of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and the Germanic languages. When one understands Hebrew, which one will not and can not until one has reached old age, one understands the world. The intrinsic power in the letters follows the same paths as chemistry, music, biology. Mathematics.

Pause.

Potatoes (adding, as the icing on the cake)From a little seed there grows a tree, which becomes a forest.

Bethy (in boldly su1estive but co2ected e0ontery)Or a tuber.

A pregnant, stunned pause.

There is a terrible calamity, and Fern bursts heroica2y in on the scene with a flaming torch.

23

She stops and surveys the scene for a moment:

FernWhat is this?! What is this MESS! Whatever it is, something’s gotten out of hand. It might just be some kind of really bad indigestion, but it looks to me more like Nature’s gotten a little too big for its britches! And when Nature goes against the Lord’s plan, then Nature must be destroyed!

She is kicking Potatoes everywhere and tearing through fleshy sacs of membrane and roots for a few terrific moments.

FernCome with me if you want to live!

She saves everyone without even thinking about it, untying Bethy and Gordon and smacking some sense into Buck.

FernThis is probably all going to turn out to have been just some kind of really bad indigestion!Don’t worry. In no time at all, everything will be back to what’s normal. And fermiliar.

She leads them a2 out of the strange cavern into the daylight and ends up the hero of the whole play. Or at least of Act I.

Fern Everybody always accuses me of being out of control or whatever. But now you see what I am really made of.

Fern leads everyone out of the cavern and into intermission.

ACT TWOGORDON, ALONE, IN THE GROVES Dappled sunlight plays upon his head and body. He is seated, wearing his glasses.

GordonA potato – laying in the Earth. Lying in the Earth? Anyway, a humble Potato.As much a part of the Earth as a stone, dull and unresponsive like a stone. Not as hard. Not always as cold. But certainly as dusty, and perhaps as damp, or as dry. And yet it has juices, when. When cut.We used to dig little holes bury them in the sand as kids, everyone had their potato, all the way around the fire pit. Me and my brothers and sisters? Down the shore. We had a whole beach in those days. Ha! Nobody much wanted to live at the beach in those days just the fisherpeople. And we’d built a big huge fire and it would burn all night and them potatoes would cook down in that sand (no kind of mumbo jumbo with reynolds wrap tin foil or any of that kind of mumbo jumbo) and when the fire died down finally it would be real late, and we would all dig those potatoes out of the sand and they’d be just black and charred all around the outside and woo! they were hot . . . just crack em right open and inside would be just the sweetest meatiest heavenliest potato you ever even could have imagined. You didn’t need butter. Butter would

BETHY IN HER CLASSROOMShe teaches third graders, or sixth graders. She is aware of the Potato -om the previous interlude, even though it is doing its thing on a completely different plane of actuality. She chooses to ignore the whole phenomenon.

BethyOk so then there are peptides and they make a chain and they’re growing, growing, growing. And there are ribosomes that are incoming, all the time. Poly. Poly is the prefix we want for this scenario, kids. Let Polly do the printing. No. I’m talking about polypeptide chains and they’re acting upon a single strand of DNA - There’s a, a translation going on. Into proteins, okay?

24

have ruined it.

FERN’s PERSONAL THOUGHTSCAPE, LITTERED INDISCRIMINATELY WITH POTATOES.Fern slowly undresses. She joins the Potatoes, ro2ing with them, among them. She finds a kind of ecstasy. The process takes the time-span of Et Incarnatus Est -om Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor (about 4 minutes).

Fern(sings)Like I said: Are all of nature’s secrets encrypted in our own selves like that?I’m still learning about my body.And there are so many different kinds of fleshes, besides even our own.There is not just human flesh.When a tuber forms in the earth, a flesh becomes. I have a very rich inner life. I happen to have a very rich inner life.

The Potatoes cover her, by their own volition.

This is very complex. Listen up.

BethyWhat do they TASTE like?

BethyThat’s a stupid question. Anyway. Completely baseless. Moving on.

BethyNo. Well, sort of. But you’ll never even know what hit you. This is a very complex scheme we are talking about. And you clearly just don’t get it. And you know what? Your brain? Is in the WRONG place. And you’ve got the testing coming up. I could lose my tenure.

BethyWhat’s the diff. So as I was SAYING -

BethyWhat would it MEAN?

BethyOh okay so you want it like that huh? Is that how you want it? You wanna bring it there? (You little fuckers.) Ok, then. Let’s go. Let’s do this. Howzabout a slide show!

Slide show. Horrifying. It goes a little something like this:

accessible vs. inaccessible knowledgeactive vs. passive symbolsants vs. ant coloniesarithmetical vs. typographical rulesBach vs. Cagebeautiful vs. non-beautifulbottom-up vs. top-downclasses vs. instancescontinuous vs. discrete processesdeductive vs. analogical awarenessderivations vs. proofsdissection vs. appreciation of Bachdistinct vs. similar levelsenzymes vs. typoenzymes

Bethy(interjecting)Yeah, it’s in alphabetical order, you little fuckmongers. Alphabetical order AND in order of appearance AND in order of importance! AND in the symbolic order so take that to the bank and smoke it!

explicit vs. implicit knowledgeexplicit vs. implicit meaningfeminism vs. fanaticismformal vs. informal reasoningformal vs. informal systemsformal systems vs. realitygenuine vs. phony koanshigh fidelity vs. low fidelityholism vs. reductionism

25

THE FOREST, YET AGAIN

Buck stands before a bin of potatoes. The bin is made of tree bark. He seems to stru1le over a decision connected to the bin of potatoes. Gordon is also here.

BuckDo I decide to pick a potato out of the sack? Or not to. Do I decide which potato? Is that me? Is it me, deciding? Or is it already decided for me. I pick a potato. I put it back. I reach for a different potato. I hesitate. I decide to short-change the forces that I am told determine what I do and walk away. But what if those forces have decided that for me too?

GordonAnd I’ve always gone with a prevailing theory that that

improvisation vs. introspectioninstructions vs. templateslocal vs. global propertiesmeaningless vs. meaningful interpretations

BethyOh, and did I mention chronological order? CHECK! How bout CHROMOLOGICAL order! CHECK! I want a list of pros and cons of each of these for homework. (to a particular student) Pick your head up!

men vs. womenminds vs. brainsnouns vs. verbs in triggering patterns1-D vs 3-Dpassive vs.active meaningpeople vs. machinesplausible vs. implausible pathwaysPresident vs. Supreme Court

BethySorry that one’s kind of lame. Don’t worry that one won’t be on the test.

procedural vs. declarative knowledgeprograms vs. dataprograms vs. programmerspurposeful vs. purposeless behaviorrational vs. irrationalsanity vs. insanityself-perception vs. self-transcendencestructure vs. functionsubject vs. objectsymbol vs. objectsymbols vs. neuronssymbols vs. signalssyntactic vs. semantic formsyntax vs. semanticsteleological vs. evolutionary viewpoint

BethyUgh! So obvious! Maybe this thing needs some editing? I need AV in here!

theorems vs. nontheoremstheorems vs. rulestheorems vs. Theoremstheorems vs. truthTortoise vs. Crabtruth vs. beautytruth vs. commercialstruth vs. falsity2-D vs. 3-Duse vs. mentionweight vs. masswomanseeing vs. seeingwords vs. lettersZen vs. logicZen vs. words

vibrations

26

decision was implanted in your neurons.

BuckWhich one?!

GordonAll of them . . .

BuckHeah! Uoh . . .What if THEY are the ones who decided to implant that decision within my neutrons? What if it has nothing to do with me?? Or everything to do with me – but in a way I can never understand???

GordonI see what you mean -

Buck and Gordon spoon and hold one another for warmth and comfort.

BuckI’m scared!

GordonMe too!

They huddle closer.

GordonBuck. I realize now what the fact of the matter is. Once and for all. To you, right now. I am the last of my people. The only one remaining of a proud people, now moved on to another place which is someplace not this Earth, and I don’t think I can really tell you too much there.

BuckWhat! This isn’t what we talked about!

GordonSh! Now I’m listening to the wind. I hear it’s trying to tell me something. Signs can be sent on the wind that can only be interpreted if other people are not running their mouth.

BuckGordon, you’ve got to get a hold of yourself. Now this is CRAZY

GordonSHHHHHH!

Buck(Oh, boy.)

A botanistic song/chant (does Gordon sing along?) (do they sing together in competing operatic tenors?):

The branches are usually divided two stalks each of which bears many flowers, some closed and three or four open,

Vice Presidentviolinsviruses

BethyWhew! I’m pooped. Ok, everybody out.

BethyI don’t care! who cares! go out to the playground or something! I want to be alone! No? All right, stay then. But you’ll be sorry.

BethyWait. I am receiving a transmission without language:Building. It’s building something. In my mind. This is what the language looks like. Let me see if I can put what the language looks like, with my mind. How what I see could be put in words:

South-east front.North-east front (with the chimney-stack of the main laboratory)East entrance with small door.Main room with galleries.Spiral staircase.Garden.Drive.Vestibule of the laboratory.Chemical laboratory.Private laboratory with spiral stairs to the study.Small analytical laboratory.Chemical pharmacy.Preparation room.Bedroom for the laboratory assistant.Store room.Crystallisation room (coagulatorium).Wood store.South store room.Fruit store.Bathroom.Aphodeuterium (closet).Vegetable cellar.Wine cellar.Laboratory cellar.Water supply.Doors to the laboratory cellar.Entrance to the wine cellar.Steam-bath.Ash-bath furnace.Water-bath.Distillation apparatus for upward distillation.Sublimation apparatus.Ordinary fireplace.Reverberatory furnace.Distillation apparatus.Distillation apparatus with spiral condenser.Dung bath.Bellows, which can also be brought into the laboratory.Coal store.Philosophers’ furnace in the private laboratory.Assay furnaces.

27

ranging from blue to purplish, spreading out into five points which somewhat greenish-yellow lines traverse and divide; in the center there are usually bunched four reddish stamens.We divide into several classes. One. Varieties whose buds drop off without opening. Two. Varieties in which a few flowers persist several days, and rarely produce a viable pollen.

Perfect flowers, those which produce both stamens and pistils, of sucha simple structure as to render the task of crossing for breeding purposes, comparatively easy.

The shy flower of less concern,for the potato carries on its underground production of tubers whether upper parts flower or not.(End of song)

Analytical balances in cases.Tubs and vats.Distillation “per lacinias” (table with vessels).Equipment and benches for preparations.Water tanks.

INTERLUDEA beautiful, complicated tree. Closer scrutiny reveals Potatoes which are growing on the tree as apples. A sack of Potatoes dressed as Isaac Newton sits at the foot of the tree. One of two Potato twins dangles precariously for a moment, detatches -om its branch and, on a tiny rocket, embarks on a journey through the universe at the speed of light. A2 other Potatoes sprout eyes and wither on the tree or within the Isaac Newton suit, many detatching, fo2owing a natural curve through space and plonking onto the ‘head ’ of Sir Newton. The tree grows thicker and ta2er, and eventua2y dies, its bark fa2ing off, inundated by woodpeckers and termites. The Potato version of Isaac Newton now lies in a grave at the foot of the tree. Just then, the rocket returns, entering onto the scene -om the opposite side as that -om which it exited, su1esting that the universe is in some way globular. The Potato on the little rocket is sti2 -esh and plump as if only a few days have passed. It seeks its withered twin among decay and regrowth.

BUCK AND FERN IN THEIR HOMEBuck holds a potato in his hand. He speaks to it, into it and about it a2 at the same time.

BuckThis! This! This! This!

Fern(bursting in)How bout a new chapter in the story. Like Act Two.Guess what? We did it! We’re going to have another baby!

BuckWhat? But how can that be? I never even went through with the the reversal of the -

FernOh YES you did!

Buck No I didn’t!

FernOh yes you did you must have! Loogathis!

28

She holds an EPT stick under his nose.

FernCan’t argue with that BUCK!

Buck (flailing)Fern, I don’t have my glasses on. But I’m telling you it’s impossible!

FernQuit doubting me! Quit stomping all over my dreams! Goddammit! Children are part of the Lord’s plan! For you and for me! Don’t you try to argue with the Lord you sombitch!

BuckFern but how do you know?

FernIsn’t it obvious?

BuckNo!

FernWell it is to me! And that’s enough! (Just now she notices the potato in his hand) What the hell is this. Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing with this?

Buck(speechless yet whimpering) . . . I’m playing with it . . .

FernAM I GOING TO HAVE TO START HIDING THESE TOO!

BuckFern, there’s just so much to understand, and there’s just so much a man can take. That’s what’s blending together in my mental thoughts right now. And I don’t want to say anything more about it if you don’t mind.

FernOH OF COURSE I DON’T MIND WHY SHOULD I MIND! I CAN’T TELL YOU WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE! THAT’S RIDICULOUS! IT’S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH ME! YOU ACCUSE ME OF CONTROLLING YOU BUT REALLY YOU’RE CONTROLLINGYOURSELF IN MY IMAGE! IN MY IMAGE!

Buck is crying.He reaches for her.

BuckI love you, Fern. I just love you. I wish I didn’t. I wish I could be free. But you’re all that makes me live. You’re all that makes me live! You’re all that keeps me from dying and going to hell. Oh, Fern. Oh, Fern.

She has consented to his reach and perches on his lap, cradling his sobbing head in her arms.

FernI know. I know all this, Buck. And that’s why we’re going to have a fresh and new little baby together. You and me; and the Lord. You and me and the Lord, Buck.

Buck continues to sob into her birdlike bosom. He is inconsolable.

Song We think Buck sings this song.

I am not really existI am some foremost scholar of Hebrew

29

Of Hebrew, sacred languageNot wanting the people to forget about ArmaicAramaicA much older languageOf the trade routesThose ancient trade routes language

Above us, within usMassive empty spaceHebrew takingHebrew gift given in returnCan it help Can it help

My wife making always supperBring to my den Bring over to push aside rock desk carvedWhat is underneathI giveI receive transmission of secret knowledge

Above us, within usMassive empty spaceHebrew takingHebrew gift given in returnCan it help Can it help

(spoken)Think of mistakesBad things we’ve saidTips not given when earned(singing again)Howling alone at terrible errorAgain attacking and again

Above us, within usMassive empty spaceHebrew takingHebrew baby walrus boyYour great father will have diedOnly ten days after your first birthday party

We will drive the blamesInto oneDriving all blames as a herdInto one

INTERLUDE (quite likely overlapping with Buck’s song)

A single Potato drops -om above, onto the stage. It lays motionless. The lights begin to dim as if the whole interlude has happened and is now over, but instead it gains its ‘feet’ and waddles off the stage.

Single Potato(whispering, whimpering)For whose good do four moons encircle Tzedek Star of Wood, two Shabtay Star of Dirt?Is that globe empty and the others full, if everything else is in due correspondence?Who sent birds supported on wings in to the wilderness of the air?For whose use is all this equipment, if the globe is empty?

30

COFFEE, AND COCKTAILS, OFF-BROADWAYThis part is like something you’d see at Manhattan Theater club or something, couples talking over cocktails with that kind of sophisticated ennui indigenous to these types of theater shows.The main event is, however, of a celestial nature, taking place far above their heads in the firmament.A phenomenon occurs in the meantime, wherein a single potato is sucked into a black hole in outer space somewhere. The actors should know ahead of time that theirquandaries and queries are not the main event here. As they present their petty problems and concerns, sprouts of the potato begin to grow out of the black hole, completely defying the laws and forces of physics.

BethyWhat is it about our brains that enables us to envision something happening that is physically impossible? Why do we have that capability? I’m not crazy about it. Why can’t I just see what is possible only? That’s all I want! Why do I ever have to see anything in my mind that isn’t possible?

FernAlso I’m thinking about uselessness. All the useless things. So many useless, useless things. What is it all for? Doesn’t it have to be FOR something? Why is it all so useless? So goddamn useless all the time.

Pause.

Fern (cont’d)Useless chaos clutter that would be perfectly useful in a poorer place. Like in the Great Depression. Can anyone think of any examples? Of anything? Of anyone or anything who is like that?

BuckI can’t think of anything. Not a damn thing.

GordonMe neither. Well, I can, but -

BuckAll I can think about right now is how I want someone to come up behind me and scrub my scalp with lukewarm water and shampoo. And really scrub in there with their fingernails. That’s the only thing I want and the only thing I can think about right now. All behind my ears and all over the scalp on my skull. I can’t think about anything else! I don’t even know who I am beyond that!

BethyIs that a quote from something? From a play?

GordonOk, well see if you can take that desire and remove the idea that it’s a thought and then see what happens to you.

BuckI can’t. I can’t see.

FernHe can’t. He’ll never be able to see that.

GordonBecause I think that that is the real Carl Sagan style, if you can. If you can do it. Remove that value. Not of the desire, or of the object of the desire, but of the thought.

BethyWhat are you talking about?

GordonWell, I’m trying something out -

BuckBut I’m THINKING of the the thing and then I realize how much I DESIRE it!!

FernYou’re not FOCUSED!

31

GordonYeah, that is different.

BuckBut let me try it.

Silence as Buck tries it.

BuckThis time I made up a love poem instead. A Japanese love poem?

FernHow does it go?

Buck“The moon falls along a natural curve made in the shape of space by the Earth.”

Silence.

GordonThat’s really beautiful.

Fern(aside)Are all of nature’s greatest secrets encrypted in our own selves like that?

GordonIt makes me think of something that I thought of the other day. The Potatoes belonging to the Earth. We don’t know what they are. We don’t understand what’s going on with them, what their deal is. But they don’t just belong to the Earth, they belong to the Universe too. And the Universe is not just gravity and forces.

Soon, after another silence, it becomes apparent that there are Potatoes hovering above them and a2 around them in space, like a cosmic Potatomobile, or maybe Potato flowers are blooming a2 around them. Gloria Coates’ Symphony No. 7 or better yet No. 14 accompanies the movements of rough ungainly celestial spheres up above.

GordonI think one of us had better go talk to the professor over at the University.

BuckI’ll go.

FernI’ll go with you.

BuckNo, that’s all right. I have to run an errand over that way anyway -

Fern Gordon and BuckWe’ll all go!

BethyI don’t even know who I am anymore. I mean, like compared to at the beginning of this play? I mean what are we even talking about right now? Is this realism? Is this real? Is this realistic? Is this supposed to be realistic? Is this reality? Is this psychology? What is even going on? I don’t know how I’m supposed to portray this! I have no technique available to me to help me portray what I seem to be, what I am, what I feel myself to be going through right now.

FernBethy what is the matter with you? Seriously.

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GordonAre you alright babe? I’m getting worried about you.

BethyMy MIND! I suddenly see that my mind and my brain are not the same thing! they are not the same thing! I don’t know what to do!

GordonBut babe, that’s not how Carl Sagan has it!? You don’t have to be so worried. It’s just your brain, it’s your anatomy. And your physiology. That’s all. You don’t have to worry.

BethyMind?

GordonBrain . . .

BethyConsciousness?

GordonWe’ve always said Synapse.

BethyPerception.

GordonProteins?

BethyAwareness.

GordonElectrodes?

BethyAction.

GordonBehavior? We’ve always believed in it that way, Bethy. That’s what’s always made sense and comforted us in the night. In the dark, dark night. (He holds her.) It’s been only what we know. Maybe something’s changing now?

BethyI need to go to the doctor. Or. Not. Ha! Oh, to hell with it. I’ll go straight to the Potatoes why lie to myself. All doctors will be able to be potatoes to me now, in the end. In the final analysis. I’m finished.

GordonYou know what, I think you can just be with it.

BethyShut up! What?

GordonWith the feelings you are having. Just be with them. Touch on them. Tap into them. Even if they are hateful to you.

BethyWhat the FUCK.

She glares accusingly and disbelievingly at Gordon.

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A VISIT TO THE PROFESSOR, FOR A CONSULTATION AND FOR ADVICE

Professor*(sings)I’m overqualified.I’m overqualified.A cucumber is bitter.Throw it away.Turn away from it.The theater is for the public.

(speaks)It’s like, how do you know that that is the natu-real or logical course of cause-and-effect events? People are telling a story: this happened and then this happened and I wanted this and SO I got that, or I wanted this BUT INSTEAD I got that, or whatever, the answer to my prayer came in the mail the next week, that kind of thing, as if they have any idea about what is the significant thing that happened. Which of the countless big and little events is the one that means something. The best people are the ones who go on and on and on with a story and you’re standing there about to faint because the walls are closing in and there’s no air and you’re thinking, “How am I supposed to respond to all these details that are being given equal emphasis? Where are the normal signals of what’s the important part? When is this woman going to get to the point of this story and what IS the point of this story, and when she does ever get to the point of the story, will I be able to recognize it? And how? If these details that seem so meaningless to me that I don’t even know how to respond to them, but yet are clearly so full of meaning and signifiance and entertainment-outrage to her – I can almost picture her telling this same story to other people who ‘get’ it, have ‘gotten’ it in the past, and are laughing or expressing disbelief or recognition at this place or that place” – in her mind - and just walls and walls and shelves and shelves of dog food and litter boxes in the meantime, you’re standing there: the dryness, the dust, the dimness in there, the absolute totalitarian suppression of your own thoughts and needs, and you can’t get away. She refuses to tell you how much the thing you are there to buy is going to cost, gives no indication of when she plans to ring it up – you’re hostage to a meandering narrative with an unseen and unknown topology. You’re lost and you’re trapped all at once, and she is a creature freed from the constraints of the time that is passing in YOUR world and making you late to your next thing, I mean you can FORGET it, buddy. Your reality? It’s OVERWITH. She’s also free of any obligation to agreeing to have understanding or clearness, certainly free of plot structure, with no way or desire to sum it all up for you. That’s the best. I mean, she’s still making choices about what to tell and what to exclude, her brain remembers somethings and lets go of others, but beyond that it’s a pure and pristine stream. And it leads nowhere except out to sea. Wonderful. Wonderful. From now on, I’m only telling stories using the insignificant details. I’ll tell the story of the new western by the chickens I’ve seen walking through the frame in the background.

BuckBut then it’s a different story. It’s not a story about the manful soul-searching of the cowboys. Then it’s a story about chickens -

ProfessorHow do you know? How do you know it’s not still about the cowboys? Who are you to claim to know what the real connections are between the soul-searching of those cowboys and the chickens walking around in their background?

BuckI guess I don’t. I guess I’m no more qualified than anyone else.

ProfessorYou know what I’m saying.

BuckYeah, yeah I do.

BethySo what do you think we should do about the

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FernI think we should cook all the potatoes we can get our hands on and just obliterate them off of the face of the earth just to be safe.

BuckAnd what will we do with all of them once we cook them? Eat them?

FernWe will make so many recipes out of them and then just distribute the recipes in all different size tupperwares. They won’t stand a chance. Potato pancakes? Nobody ever turns down a potato pancakes - latkes. Dumplings, potato bread, soups, guh-NOCH-y, potatoes boiled with rice and barley and peanut butter sauce, hash browns, corn beef hash that has potatoes in it,

She sings a song that is also spoken:

eryone’s going to get constipated

potato blintzes, baked potatoes with catsup, French Fries or Freedom Fries what have you, deliciousness, roasted up with rosem’ry and olive oil, mashed with butter

in a kweesch of tater tots

so good

gravy

shredded, baked, fried

cream of potato soup

in a kweesch

Gee whillikers

I think that’s enough for now.

It sounds so delicious

GordonIt is. It’s going to be.

BethyBut then it’s going to come out in our . . . waste. It’ll be the same old potatoes all over again. From our bodily waste. Getting into the landfills, the daffodills, the groundwater. The drinking water, even. All in the sewers. There’s no really getting rid of them is there?

FernI hadn’t thought of that.

GordonActually the body uses all of the potato. Because it’s so nutritious. None of it comes out in our excrement.

FernYou’re just saying that because you’re Irish!

GordonNo -

BuckWe could shoot them out into space.

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GordonThey’ll only come back. Because essentially they belong in the earth. Potatoes. Belong to the Earth.

ProfessorYeah, and gravity. Even if they were orbiting. It would be better, but not good enough.

GordonI have read about some new potato sprout inhibitor treatments they’re working with.

ProfessorWho? Who said that? Who’s going around saying that?

GordonIt was in an article . . .

BuckWhat if we shoot them into a BLACK HOLE in space somewhere?

ProfessorA singularity. A pocket of dark, smashed energy.

BethyOh, please? Please let’s avoid any singularities – or even talk of singularities. They’re too grotesque and horrifying. They’re worse than death. So excessive. So much more final. I can’t cope. Even with the idea.

ProfessorOh. Well excuuuuuse me!

FernWhat is happening right now. What is happening in this room right at this moment. And this moment. And this one. (Long silence) What is here. Who are we. What is happening in here.

BethyYou know what though. I’m going to face it down. I don’t even believe in this shit. This shit going against what I know to be true.(She turns toward the heavens.)STOP IT! (then she turns towards the Professor, her husband, and the others)It’s not helping, none of this is helping. There’s no way in for any understanding. Sometimes nature does this. It refuses to bend toward the logic of what is right and rational, and I must concede that. And I do. And I don’t think we should completely crush nature because of that, because we need nature. // To a degree. Certain things. We need certain things in nature to survive. To a degree.

FernBut this kind of nature’s going against God!

BethyBut – ok - let’s not get carried away. These potatoes have gotten carried away. They’ve forgotten their place. Look how lumpy and ungainly they are! They have no symmetry, no elegance! How can something so ugly and imperfect have any other significance in the universe than as a last ditch food source?! Listen to me. Listen to reason. We can stop all this. Listen! If we take enough measurements and do enough calculus right now we can find out why this has happened and put them back in their proper place. Hell, we can boil these Potatoes and everything else down to analytical mechanics – even as far as general life processes! We could reach it right down to the fundamental question of freedom of the will!! Professor? Are you with me or against me?

“Through Time,” a string quartet by Gloria Coates, begins to play.

Bethy (cont’d)Professor!? Are you even listening? Have you even heard a word I’ve SAID??

ProfessorOh my God there are billions and billions of potatoes out there building a bridge! Look! A bridge – from one

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side to the other! Look out of the WINDOW!

GordonJesus!

FernIt’s a living bridge made entirely of potato bodies!

BuckAnd THEY’RE making it! They’re not climbing ON anything! They’re supporting each other! And what a structure!

ProfessorHow do you even describe something like that!

GordonYou can’t! You can’t! You’ve got to see it to believe it!

FernWhy are they DOING that!

Bethy(deeply disturbed and utterly unimpressed at once, but -antica2y taking measurements and working out the numbers in a crazed and determined way)It’s not even symmetrical. Nothing about them is symmetrical. Not individually, and not in their stupid bridge. No elegance. No geometric perfections. It’s a real slap in the face for all their big talk. It goes against everything that we ever wanted to know about the universe!

BuckThey’re struggling and squirming all over each other – how do they know what they’re doing???

ProfessorThey’re emigrating, I think. This is actually a triumph of vegetative achievement. Intellectual, professional toil and might. Yet it’s daemonic. Because it defies our understanding. A contra-natural occurrence of the vegetable kingdom that sets us astare in astonishment and wonder. We have no explanation, but there is a lot of meaning here. Bethy(grabs the measuring tape and a protractor runs to the window to take measurements)Lemme see this!Dammit!(she grabs the chalk and starts crunching the numbers)What the hell! What the hell! Why is it like this! (calculations)(she turns to the others)It’s all working out to a bunch of irrational and imaginary numbers! (further, more -antic calculations)I don’t like their implications, the way they are half-revealed, half-concealed.This can’t be right! Oh, shit, and zero.

Gordon(sniffing)

Something is wrong with the air.

The wind is turned, it’s coming from the northeast, and its sound is different.

The moon still shines, but it’s a different light - pale, almost . . . sickly.

I can sense something in the air. I only know that it feels wrong.

The gray squirrel has rolled himself into a ball in his nest, his tail acting as a blanket.

The seeds and nuts inside

Potatoes(We hear them -om the window. They speak in Hebrew)

Yom Gimmel chetzi sivan, taf-reish-peih dalet

HaBachoor HaMefo-ar Ansheel

Bein Ha Ne-alah Haanich Kaaphkaa

Veshem Imo YetelTaf Nun (Nuun) Tzadik Beit Hey

FernI can understand them! I can understand what they are saying!

ProfessorYou can?

FernYes, they’re sayingTuesday Sivan 5684 . . . .½ The glorious young man Anchel Ka1a . . . passed on . . .

Oh, why do I understand what they’re saying!

Son of the respected Mr. Hanich Ka1a . . . and mother Yettel Ka1a . . .

Oh, I feel weird!

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(runs to the window, shout at the potatoes) FUCK YOU!(runs back to the chalkboard)A big, fat, stupid zero. I can’t believe it!

his home of tight woven twigs and leaves will make trips to the ground unnecessary for the time being, but if the nest is blown down, it could be a sad event for any squirrel.

I think of my father’s name for this animal. It had been hannick.

All of nature feels the impending menace, and knows it will be bad.

May his soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life!

ProfessorWhat could that mean!

Bethy And that number zero. I’m going to do my best to ignore it. There’s no point in even thinking about it. Really. What’s the point if it isn’t comforting? The void. Of nothingness. Shut up! The things we don’t yet understand. Total waste of my time. Good Christ, we could go MAD with all the calculations trying to get there in this lifetime! My life, is made up of what I know. And that’s it. I will NOT feel a presence of some kind in the number zero.

A storm occurs here, a terrible cyclone. Fern and Bethy rage. Buck tries to cross the bridge in the middle of it.

BuckThere’s still a chance for the revolution! A chance for the revolution after all!

Fern (taking a break -om raging to ho2er at him)Buck you’re too heavy! It’ll never hold you! Buck! Cut the shit now SIDDOWN!

He obeys, and stays. He sits back down in his chair, uselessly. Helplessly.

GordonIt’s taking them! It’s taking them! Oh, God!

They a2 take cover. Buck isn’t paying attention, so Fern has to muscle him.Potato bodies are heard thumping and being thrown against the theater and into the water. Disaster. And then later, it is over. It’s years later.

GordonIt’s over. The storm is over. It was impossible to believe while the storm raged that the sun could ever shine again. But if you were to step outside, it would blind you how bright the sun is.

BuckI can’t believe we survived it. I really thought it was over for all of us. Not just . . . for them. Hoah! everything that was happening then is not happening now. Anymore.

FernA cyclone came and swept the mighty Potato bodies bridge away into the deep, and all its strange builders with it. Maybe we should visit the site with each other.

The go together to the site where the bridge had been.

BuckThis is the edge where that great bridge was built to span from one place to another. We stand where it was broken off. The potatoes are gone. This sea is an open grave. But the waters are calm now.

Professor (aside)And so utter meaninglessness seems to triumph over richest signifiance, blind ‘destiny’ of the forces of Nature seemed to stride on its way over prostrate virtue and merit, in this case unexpectedly found in the strange but

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profound forces of a bridge-building contra-Nature.

GordonThere is hardly a breath of wind now. High above, the sky shows blue green, and with an eerie brightness.

BuckI feel a presence. As sure as I can feel my own hands.

They sink to their knees, except Bethy.

BethyWhy kneel? What are you stupid? What makes you feel like you have to kneel? You don’t kneel down just because something weird and upsetting happens, no matter what it is!

Professor (aside again – he participates only when he is not talking)But one does kneel, doesn’t one, before the wholly uncomprehended Mystery, revealed yet unrevealed, and one’s soul is stilled by feeling its way of working, and therein its justification.

BuckI was a warrior! I was built for battle!

FernBuck, go // make yourself a sandwich.

Bethy And I was never wrong. Never wrong about anything.

FernYeah, and justice! I’ve missed thinking about it, and appreciating it.

BethyI won all the arguments – the logic was so infallible sometimes it wasn’t even fun for me!

BuckBut I’ve been dulled by something. I know I’m so dull now! Something like love, though it’s not for sure.Someone focused on my heart until its flower opened up. And then I loved. (to Gordon) Was it you?

GordonMe? Well. Yes, but no.

BuckWho was it then?

The Professor shrugs.

FernBuck?

Bethy(weakly, on the edge of expiration)I don’t know why these Potatoes started talking to us, doing these things! Maybe if I could have examined those root structures, etc., pinned it down as some kind of aberration, or mutation – butI am starting to wonder if the answers I would have come up with that way wouldn’t really be answers in the end anyway. What they were. Why they were. And for what purpose. (sickly, her knees buckling)Oh. I have to confess. There’s a part of me . . . deep inside, and I hate it . . . but it’s part of my brain function. It’s a very, very primitive part. I will always hate those fucking potatoes, I hate what’s happened to me because of them. Because of the truth? It’s horrifying! . . . It’s horrifying! And I’m ashamed! Ashamed of myself; for the whole, inadequate human race. But that’s the part,that makes me want

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to kneel before whatever the forces are that brought them to be. Can anyone help me? No. Of course not.

BuckI want to worship! It’s an urge! It’s inside of me and beyond me!

FernWell, it’s about time, BUCK!

Fern turns toward the audience. The others -eeze, in a tableaux vivante.

FernThe fact that I have implanted myself with a potato spud and tricked my husband into thinking that it’s a human pregnancy isn’t the main thing here. ALTHOUGH, I should say that I will be making a 9-1-1 emergency phone call in a few days, most likely, because the plant itself is about to flower.

(She sings some part of this and speaks others)

It will only last a few days, the beautiful flowers. (In my former existence I first saw great masses of blooming potato plants in Belgium, spread out in front of us like pink or lilac seas.) They will be coming out of me, and no one will be able to believe that they are potato flowers (because of their delicate color, their perfume, exotic in high contrast to the potato’s commonplace image)! So I’ve got to call 9-1-1 emergency hotline before the flowers have fallen off.

But besides that, the really important thing is that I am in the process of receiving a transmission of thought of hidden and secret knowledge, and I’m not sure if the two eventsare connected or not. I am going to give birth, or “birth,” to some kind of organism, and it is a living organism living INSIDE. ME. So. And I know I am going to have to put up with a lot of criticism, and a lot of people laughing at me and about me in my face and behind my back, and saying that this birth, is really something wrong with me, not something bigger than me, from outside of me.

And MY QUESTION IS. About that. Birth. Flowering. Transmission.

How are they connected, if they are connected. I feel I know it. I just have this feeling about it.

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But I am going to be up against a lot of criticism and people laughing at me. So I’d like to get it all straight before I make this 9-1-1 phone call. I’m a little nervous about it. And if I have more information about what’s actually happening to me, it’ll be easier for me to be more defiant about it.

In the tableaux vivante, Bethy kneels.

Which is the attitude I would prefer - more like me. I already plan to be screaming at all of them, as I am led into a waiting car or a courthouse senate hearing:

“THIS IS NOT PSYCHOLOGICAL! This is NOT! Psychological!”

The End.

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APPENDIX ASuggested Reading

Copernicus, Nicolaus. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952.

Hofstadter, Douglas R. G ö del, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid . New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

Jones, Gwyn and Thomas, translators. The Mabinogion. London: Everyman, 2002.

Kazimiroff, Theodore. The Last Algonquin. New York: Walker and Company, 1982.

Kepler, Johannes. The Harmonies of the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952.

Otto, Rudolph. The Idea of the Holy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958.

Rokem, Freddie. Strindberg’s Secret Codes. Norwich: Norvik Press, 2004.

Strindberg, August. Inferno. Mary Sandbach, trans. New York: Penguin Books, 1984.

Swedenborg, Emanuel. Life on Other Planets. London: Swedenborg Society, 2006.

APPENDIX BAdditional Potatoes’ text for further canonic presentational explorations.

Now in accordance with our problem, let ABC be the eccentric circle: let D be its centre, and on the diameter BDC let B be the apogee, C the perigee, and E the centre of the orbital circle of the Earth. Let AD and AE be joined, and with A as centre and 1/3DE as radius let the epicycle be drawn.

On the epicycle let F be the position of the planet; and let And through E the centre of the orbital circle of the Earth let HI be drawn, as if in the same plane with circle ABC, so as to have it understood that with respect to the planet the apogee of the orbital circle is at H and the perigee at I.

Now on the orbital circle letin accordance with the computation of the anomaly of parallax;let FL and EL be joined, and let FKEM produced cut both arcs of the circle is at H and the perigee at I.

Accordingly since by hypothesisandandwhence in triangleand therefore in additionSo again in triangle

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and accordingly it is manifestwhich is the total difference or additosubraction between the mean and the true position of the planet.

Now, sincebeing at the epicycle’s centre, And so, on the circle about right angle BHK,arc BK = arc HK = 90°And thereforechord BK = chord HK = 84 ཥ 32’whereAnd so alsowhereand, as mean distance, for at this distance occurs the epicycle’s greatest obliquity.Again, since it is supposed that, as the angle of obliquity, therefore, on the circle about right triangle BLK,and, as its supplement, And thereforewhereAnd so also, whereandthereand, by subtraction,AndAnd so it is concluded thatAnd therefore, wherethereand, as the angle of longitudinal addition-subtraction for that time, And likewise, sincewhereand the squares on then added together give the square on AH, therefore in lengthAndwhereand, as the angle of latitudinal deviation,angle HAM = 3º36’ to 2 rt. = 1º48’.

And we place this in the third column of the table of Nogah Star of Gold in the row containing the number 135º.

For measuring the resulting difference of the longitudinal addition-subtraction, let a similar drawing be laid our having the epicycle not inclined.

APPENDIX CIn case you are wondering what the Students in Bethy’s classroom have to say.

StudentWhat do peptides taste like?

StudentYeah, do they taste like pepsi or like pepto bismal.

Another StudentAre they like candies? Like what is in a dish at my grandmother’s house?

Yet Another StudentYeah what are those dishes made out of? At grandmas’ houses? They’re like glass but then with bumps and getting cloudy in places? And little handles? How do they get them to be those colors.How do they do that. And they’re like. They’re really fancy. But also kind of.

Even Another StudentDumpy.

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Yet Another StudentYeah.

Another StudentHow do they MAKE those?

StudentsIsn’t there a museum somewhere where they have them all together so you can look at them all together? There’s so many different colors at different Grandmas’s houses.

A StudentAre there as many different colors and shapes of those candy dishes as there are Grandmas? Or will there never be enough Grandmas known to any one person to ever find out?

Some Other StudentWhat if a bear came into a rodeo? And if only one woman was who he liked, and everyone else was trying to get out of the rodeo as fast as they could? And even the horses were scared?. What would it mean?

Elsewhere, A StudentWhat if there’s a strange pattern written into the hair on my dad’s back? Could it be a message of some kind?

The StudentsWhat \?What?/ where should we go!

The next students speak with an uneasy mixture of disgust and shame.

My grandmother’s house smells like mothballs.

My grandmother has a big house, but she only lives in the kitchen. What happens in all those other rooms?

My grandmother smells like old pee pee and rotten vagina.

APPENDIX DThe fo)owing are everal short stories inspired by the characters of this play, written by Mr. Greg Zuccolo, who originated the role of The Professor for the Dixon Place production in NYC in 2008-09.

Finicky Fern’s Parson’s Pudding. It’s a recipe numbnuts. Tendrils of a good night. Trend gills of night. How can she push aside these dishes and make space for chopping with you jokers running wild? “I didn’t sign up for this!”, she creams into her own pussy.Hanging over the eaves to put up the Christmas lights, she’s distracted by the troughs full of pine needles and cedar droppings. There’s a green gel underneath the ruffage. It’s a gelatine formed by the decomposition. It reminds her of the boxes of Black Magic chocolates she’s bought for the relatives for Christmas, except for cousin Dot. She’s getting Turtles. She’s half retarded anyways.There’s always one chocolate in every box that tastes of shaving gel.

Buck’s feet hurt. He’s been running down the dream. He wants to take a break from love and he wants you to know right now. His feelings are hurt. It just hurts right now.Buck’s sister is dead. He has no regrets but it’s too late now cause she’s dead. Who better then Elsa to carry Oscar Wilde’s love childe. She was always such a thundering pig.Elsa’s body was exhumed at their mother’s request. She’s sure Elsa was pregnant with Jimi Hendrix’s love child when she passed.Large thighs or rosey cheeksBeaten to death on the edge of craggy peaksTake too much to eat

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Bleat too much for meatDisenfranchised friends always meetLater

Bethy wakes up furious. She’s aware of a pair of scissors. A pair of her scissors that has found it’s way into the hands of one of her students. They’re issued by the board of education. The board is explicit about the use of these sharp scissors. They are for the exclusive use of teachers or with a teacher’s strict supervision. There has been a string of infractions lately; minor cuts or shavings, loss of hair, extreme cutouts. Bethy has no problem with strictures as they stand. No problem with cautions or safety measures. Hell hath no fury like a woman tied to propriety in the way that Bethy is. Bethy is worried about snot.Bethy likes to pick. Pick at things probable or more probable, things shocking and things Oprah. She likes to pick her nose.In the early part of her day, before the students get in from –in her mind- all the extra-mural activities the schools insist are important, she will pick out some decent fuck’n boogs and wipe them on a choice selection of these treasures thus issued. Namely her teacher’s scissors from the board of education.Russion Roulette, Vince Gualardi’s ‘Cast Your Fate to the Wind’, “fuck everybody and their shiftless meanderings into protocol”, it’s a jokers wild, windy window into my inner ‘Windy’. She can’t figure it. Bating rat fuckers with skill and impunity has been her life’s calling. How could one of these dullard figure skaters abscond with an issue of her‘s so blithely laid?

When Gordon parts his hair there’s a problem. His brother always prefers it the other way. The other side. The opposite side. His brother Sandy was found on all fours with his head in a box. He’d died of an heroin overdose.Forever found, forever dead, as his mother used to say.One day Gordon was walking down a street and he found this dog. Well, this dog was following him on his bike and it was really chasing him. It wasn’t barking or anything, it was just chasing him. Trying really hard to catch up to him because it just wanted to be with him. It was a small Scottish terrier. A puppy. Gordon picked it up and dick led to cock balls and soon they were in love. He put it down and peddled away.Several days later, Gordon was at a pool party. He had become drunken and while in the pool began to drown. He managed to break the surface and when he did so he spit a huge amount of water onto a dog. It was Hamish, the Scottish terrier.

Taurus! Make believe and let me breathe. Everything but the kitchen sink it’s not. When you live on the lower east side it’s time for ready. People are pulling amazing things off racks. They’re pulling your pajamas. Bitch slap me hard with your butterscotch cock slab. I’ve got some time before school so please fuck my hole.Your dayplanner is full.

Sandy lays out. He’s tanning for those of a northern proximity He softly turns. He breaches. He gently licks the pages of a scandal rag. He’s out of control.He’s an observantly cultural Jew. Such nomenclature seem unnecessary in this time of hope but there it is.

His real name is Downtown Charliemood. He’s been teaching home economics for what seems an eternity. “Two choice serving pieces Ladies.” It’s all he ever says these days. Doesn’t seem to matter whether the students are Asian or not. The other day this dizzy Japanese wandered into class late, wasted on shrooms and sundry periodicals. “Who died and made you hallway monitor?”, she bellows at him as she takes her seat.“Fuck you and yours Nakamura.”, this from her lab partner labouring over a cheese cozy due at the end of period.“Take pain Ladies.”, he tells them,”Take great pain to ensure your cheese is secure in it’s cozy. Any oozing out of the sides is indelicate. This is one of the reasons we’re using velour.”

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*Mr. Zuccolo has also provided the lyrics for his – The Professor’s – song in Act Two.

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