3 2's; or AFAR

Mac Wellman Copyright 2010, 2011

14th Draft

That we know a thing means simply that the self coincides with the thing. In seeing a flower, the self becomes that flower. To study a flower and illumine its nature means letting go of subjective conjecture to coincide with the nature of that flower. Nishida

3 2's; or AFAR; FOR: two PEOPLE: (ONE man and ONE woman; two masks [FACES], (Both greenish and goldy): these are the SOMETHING/NOTHINGS; and TWO others: ONE boot and ONE shoe (these are moved about with sticks by untrained PEOPLE under the illusion they know what they are doing). ~ 3 2's ; or AFAR takes place in the Dixon Place Theater on Chrystie Street, or someplace else very much like it.... ~ 3 2's; or AFAR is, in part, a Meditation on Martin Heideggers Dialogue on Language between a Japanese and an Inquirer. Lyrics by Mac Wellman and Cesar Alvarez.

A MAN enters and pauses and addresses us directly as in a Noh play.

Wood is an old name for forest. We hear something smash and break. We see a FACE; the face registers concern for the accident. It is unclear, however, whether the face considers itself responsible for the accident (if accident it was), or is merely using a mask of concern to cover a palpable guilt. ~ I am called ___ ; skip it, a puppet philosopher by trade. I awoke from a fitful dream to discover, clenched in my fist, a wee devil thing, bright red in hue, like a hot coal (like a boot, or a shoe, but neither of these).... She told me a

story, a story like the story of the broken inkwell, but not the story of the broken inkwell).... Every morning I come to the same Greek diner at the corner of 4th Street and 7th Avenue in Park Slope, where I reside. Often a pretty young woman would come in order A take-out coffee and Then depart. After several months of this, I gathered from her idle chit-chat with the proprietor, that she was the operator of a small puppet theater for children down the street a block or two. ___ She appears behind him. She makes a small, low noise. ~ So one day I said, Pardon me.... Oh, she said, you must be Count Cookie ... Darkness ~ We hear two PEOPLE running about the theater. Dark and spooky. Pause. Silence. She covers, then uncovers, his hand with hers. A third ones hand (a SOMETHING/NOTHINGS) comes along with a device that magnifies this strangely:

: Tease ... : Who are you calling Tease, Tease ... Light, silvery laughter. : Well, what would you call it then? : What? : What youve been doing all this time ... :What? :What what? Tease She does something to something else. :You uncover one thing, only to cover another. Youre the one. ___ :That is not where it should be. : Even worse that is not even there. : No, no, youre not listening. It is exactly, my dear, where It ought. Ought to be. : Well now ... : Well now what? : Isnt that exactly what I was saying? : Now you are really quite the tease. : So how do you count cookies? : You mean you or do you mean me? Who?

: Very clear what I said; very clear also what you did. : Famously fathomless, you ... : So Ill try again how do you count cookies? ___ : Hmm. : How do you, is what Im asking. : One at a time or ... : And/or ... : And/or all at once. : Youre a dunce. : Dunce is good. : Numinous. : Numerous. : What why dont you listen more carefully? : Because you are unable to, I guess. : ... Whistles a little. : Is Count Cookie a character in your little puppet drama? : Is that hat the one I gave you? : Is it fair to count cookies in the first place?

: Why would I want to? Why would I? Why? : Shssh :? : See that? : What? Scary: A form rising from the darkness like the shadow of a. [Shoes shadow] ___ : Big one. : A shoe. : A shoe? : Whats it called. A : Shoe! ___ : This yours? [We cant see it : I wouldnt be caught dead in that. : Would I or would you? Why wouldnt I? : What? : Whose I are you talking about? : You?

: What? : ... are you talking about? Gasps: : Youre not suggesting that? Are you? ___ : That? : Why not? Pause. : Why not? : Why not what? : Are you? : Would I do that? : Mind wandering? : Was I? (was you?) Odd sound. : Hear that? : Is that Count Cookie? : Do you suppose? : Do I? : Do you what?

: Hush and let the ... what ... what is it? : Here the play stops, I suppose not quite knowing how to proceed. : Tease. : Tease!? ___ Silence. Pause. Silence. : Nisha? : Nisha? You mean Nishida ... : Ni shi da? : Pause. Silence. Pause. : Ive pretty much forgotten the whole story, but then I walked in here, and then I thought you might just know. : What story do you mean? : You know: The one about the cat and the cookie, and the way to count both forward and backward at the same time. ___ : Dunno ... Odd and swiftly moving noise. As of a. : A harrowing. Holds out something.

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: What is this? : What? : What. Is. This? Again the sound. : Who? This? Who? ___ Dont you mean dat? Who is dat? She blabba-dabbas for 16 seconds in an unknown language of an unspeakable kind. : She blabba-dabbas for 11 seconds in an unknown and unknowable language of unspeakable proportions. : She makes as if to do the blabba-dabba, but does not and catches him totally off guard. : Arent we the clever* one? She blabba-dabbas quite loudly for all of seven seconds. He quietens her by [pulling her cap down over her face. Pause. Silence. Pause. : We sense something. Something odd, amiss. : We. What? Whats that? : Something rattles softly.

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: We feel and hear [and see] the sudden shadow of a very large wing. : Something is growing, very softly, but with a persistence, and barely apparent, but tightly coiled, ferocity that is. Terrifying. This is the shadow of a boot. ___

: Lets go upstairs. : What are you? As before: She (or he) covers, then uncovers, his (or her) hand with hers (or his). A third ones hand (a SOMETHING/NOTHINGS) comes along with a device that magnifies this strangely: : I think itll be safer upstairs. : Are you asking or stating that? : Are you alive or merely a dead thing? : Ever been up here before? : Not this way. Not with the theater empty. And never this late at night. : What? : What what? : Why are you making that face? : I AM ON TO YOU. : I yam too. Furthermore: I YAM THAT I* YAM.

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: I AM ON TO YOU. Silence. Silence. Silence. Whispers: : Why are you trembling? : What is that thing called? : What is what called? : This ... this thing? : Bannister.* Bannister, I think. : Yes, I think so. She turns to him, horrible in aspect. : I AM ON TO Y0U. Both suddenly formal: :You and I having been made to argue over alternatives, if it is you not I who wins, it is really you who are on to it, I who am not? Or: If it is I not you that wins, is it I who am on to it, you who are not? Both: : Is one of us on to it and the other of us not?

Silence. Pause. Silence. Looking at the audience. ___ : Why are they so ... so dead looking? ___

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: Shall we do something? Something Just for the hell of it? : Why? : Why dont we kill that boot? The boot look scared. : Why? : Tease. (Is hit) Ouch! That hurt. : What, what, I did not touch you. The BOOT we notice is very cautiously moving sideways as if either to become small and smoke, or to become inconspicuous. The SHOE takes this opportunity to also try to engineer some kind of escape - or to initiate a practically indiscernible preparation for escape. Pause. Pause. Pause. : I dont like it up here. Much. : Much : Feel like Im being watched by something. : Something? : Something with an agenda that is. Is not. Not quite. Human. ___ : I dont know. I dont see anything. Anything dangerous anyway. : Hold my hand.

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: : Please be a good person AND JUST DO WHAT I SAY. : : My pulse is racing. Im going to crack up. I, I, I, I.... Calm suddenly: You know what they found in the basement of this place when they were making it into a theater? Silence. Silence. Pause in which we see both SHOE and BOOT listening attentively but also still trying to be inconspicuous. : No, no I dont. : Well I cant bring myself to describe it, but it was horrible. ___ A Something/Nothing person (a FACE) bestows a tiny vase with a single purple flower in it to one of the two, but because of the difficulty of deciding which of the two, this may take some time. (An Iki scene) Perhaps no flower and vase are bestowed at all, perhaps one only sees it there for the first time as a sort of replacement for the one that was broken. After a moment an acknowledgment must be, is, made, even and especially if no vase has been bestowed, but only unconcealed someplace off in the distance, afar, where we would not expect to find it. One of the two attempts to speak, but is unable. The other makes her own effort, but again nothing. The S/N figure spies an inconspicuous object, shoe or boot, or wee devil thing, a that which that is distinctly unpromising, and speaks for her.

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: It is time to speak and to speak Clearly of that which is about to be Uttered, a that which which is not Much at most it is not much But only a slight motion in the air Meant to suggest much much more. Much much more almost as if It were not possible to render Something by nothing, which is clearly The case; but clearly we want to Do more than that especially as We find ourselves in a ceremonial framework. [So to speak, someone else says. Is that not always the case, someone else says?] ___ [How many of us are there, someone says from afar.] : That question is perhaps not the proper one in this ceremony, as it is a ceremony, obviously, and anything which Breaks the ceremonial proceeding, the strict rules of the ceremony and the strict practice of each of these in his and her proper order is not, is not is nothing more than a dead end and blind alley, and a well just the sort of no place one is trying to forget in the first place. A little dance of Clarity and Attunement to all that we are attempting to

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make clear. In the distance, snatches of dialogue we do not hear. A few more lines, just as before, but even more afar. Some of them scrambled, uncouth, out of place.

~
A S/N FACE appears uncomfortably close: :What if we cannot put a name to what endangers? What if it is too close? What if there is something about the ceremony that makes it impossible for us to sense our peril? And what if it is this something else that is itself the danger and that, so to speak ... [So to speak, someone says, near or far off.] : ... we do not even know the difference between what it is we know and what it is we do not ? Not know.... As if all of it were so washed and faded by repeated use that the hue of one has become the hue of the other; and what are we all to do, forcefully, and with our fists clenched and our thighmuscles rigid and our faces become as the ancient mask of an augury and foretelling, the augury itself escaped from us, and eluding us,

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like a, like a, well, like a word a word [iki, Someone says] in a language [kotoba Someone says] we do not know.

~
what

~
What if all of this

~
What if all of this is true and what if our ceaseless attempts to raise the question only confirms that in so doing we do not know who we are while we are lost in the so doing of of of the done deal of our own undoing? I think that this is what I would like to say about the whole kit and kaboodle because there are links and there are slinks by which one thing is connected to another. What do you think, iron-headed rabbit? We notice for the first time there is an iron-headed rabbit somewhere in the vicinity. ___

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MAN and WOMAN again. :What are you talking* about? : Im bored : What? : Just plain bored. They go upstairs and out, slamming a door. The S/N face looks a bit agitated.

We are introduced to BOOT and SHOE by another S/N face we had not noticed before. They are new to talk.

~
: Well. : Just because. (S/N: What do you think iron-headed wabbit?) : Not the shoe is sorely vexed. : Vexed. : Vexed by all the nots of not appearance. : Close down the show then. : Whose? : Thine ... : Speakest thou in a box of oldy, Not. : Nots a shoes show not quite, Yet. : Too much so.

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: Too much shoe. : To heck with shoes. : Whose? Shoe? : To heck with what with Yets shoe.... [Chorus of S/N FACES. Do we see this? Do we only hear it?] A danger is what walks in the woods, making no sound. A danger is what sounds like what the danger is not. A danger is what is not afraid of anything, except the endangered. A danger is not the apple of anyones eye, except the endangered. An apple endangers no one but some one who is known to be appled. The danger discovered the world before anyone else. The danger does not know what to do with the world because the world is shaped oddly. What endangers me does not necessarily endanger you. What endangers the danger is in and of itself not a danger. Dangers abound and are no laughing matter. We do not like the dangers feet because they are not comely. Dangers do not like pickles because, just because Dangers do not like grapes because they are round, but imperfectly so. ___

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Dangers admire what is round but not what is imperfectly so, nor what is cubical but imperfectly so, nor what is picklish ... Dangers have a way of speaking without using words. Dangers are wordless, but live in the woods. Dangers like to bound and yowl (Howl, someone says off afar). ___ Dangers are certifiable only when they lose their punch. [Now just one FACE. :Dangers figure in the old tales as do the mad ones drunkened on hay, on mist, on crows feathers. Dangers do not go on forever because they get so tired of it all. Dangers fear what causes things to go the way of hay, of mist, of crows feather and blackest feet and it all. Dangers do not occupy the center. They spread out their stuff, both by day And by night and on the edges round the perimeters of what lies hid deep in the woods far away. ___ BOOT and SHOE again. They do the alternatum. : Do you know how to run away from them? Bet you dont.... ___ Certain of them are highly specialized.

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Certain of them are joyous and full of whooping and rants. Certain of them are dubious and of no real substance. Several of them have doubts about their own true natures. Certain of them are severally not sure. Certain of them have a terrible itch. Several of them have no clue. Several of them are zwart. Several are golden. Several are white (or is it the color of Amanita the Death Angel?) ... ___ Several are certainly GOLD. Several are gold for sure. Several are like sheets of gold that be beaten into a foil so thin so powerfully thin they give off light. Several give off light where is none to be seen, where there is none and only a complete eclipse and absence of the visible and all her splendid works. None knowable at least. None seeable at least most bestest. Several are certain about all this

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Several are not. As they waddle off happily a SOFA appears far off. Two S/N FACES appear. A Something/Nothing person (a FACE) bestows a tiny vase with a single purple flower in it to one of the two, but because of the difficulty of deciding which of the two, this may take some time. (Another Iki scene) Perhaps no flower and vase are bestowed at all, perhaps one only sees it there for the first time as a sort of replacement for the one that was broken. The SOFA is nearer, or does it only appear to be? After a moment an acknowledgment must be, is, made, even and especially if no vase has been bestowed, but only unconcealed someplace off in the distance, afar, where we would not expect to find it. The SOFA attempts to come nearer still, but stopsfearful of detection. One of the two attempts to speak, but is unable. ______ We hear a light, silvery laughter. We are made uneasy by this. Now we see a GIRL; tries to sing, but nothing comes out. She turns around, talks to herself. :I had a bad dream I was in this play, a play a bit like this one, er.... [Turns :O did I ever know thee, er, soap, er ... :O did I, screw.

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:O when the katydid did the doo wop bebop bup, er, oh darn ... [Turns back is surprised by something within. :... bad spell last night hope goes so easily. [Grins. : and the ENVY ... She sings: : Oh, electric wires overhead, tell me Oh, electric wires in my head, make Me say and tell me true What you say within the rule of law. Oh electric wires I hear security; I feel security. I walk on security I sense security All the hours of my day [But is most violently interrupted from Something/Nothing Voices elsewhere: Every is the where I choose to go Up on the tippy top toppa the tree When I'm so soundish slip you see Devils butt hole of him alone Round ze corner round he goes That old devils butt hole it lat In my hopes and in my hops Old devil ze devil you know what In the store and on that shelf Old old devils butt hole oh ah!

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On the tittivsion tweet tweeta Oldy wham of devil butt bam On stage screen and silky filum Old devils butt hole all thee Way! all the way to all the way! in the newspaper Fit to Print Big void ugly devil his WHOLE butt Every is the where I choose to go Divells old butt hole all alone! Up on the tippy top toppa the tree When I'm so soundish slip you see Devils butt hole of him alone Round ze corner round he goes [She tries again: : Oh, electric wires overhead, tell me Oh, electric wires in my head, make Me say and tell me true What you say within the rule of law. Oh electric wires I hear security; I feel security. I walk on security I sense security All the hours of my day [Whispers: (Even in the devils butt hole)

___ GIRL alone

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~
___

She appears to have gone away (the SOFA has eaten her). Silence. Pause. Silence. Another S/N Face appears. Narrates the follows, imperiously. The sofa swells. The [first] S/N mutters. The sofa awakens to a new dream. The S/N mumbles seductively. The Sofa is excited, trembles ever so Slightly. The S/N suggests an unthinkable promise just an iota of something unattainable. The sofa is a new man and looks on all aroundy with contempt. Pause. Silence. Something. Noises off in the. Sofa disgorges [while we are distracted by the noises off] the swallowed girl who is only a bit relieved thereby, but is far too embarrassed to show it. (Disgorged) Girl: Else where ... Elsewhere (with some optical help of the kind previously described) we see the spider.

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The spider sees us. We glare. The spider is afraid. We enjoy our might. In spidery terms, our omniptotense. (Someone whispers, Omnipotense.) Omniptotense, someone else insists.

~
We notice the SOFA has departed, presumably in search of a Better Place.

~
Again 2 GIRLS or FACES (or both [as if they are chasing each other about in order to prevail]. Will you trade me something for my spider? Not, no, I dont think so. But you dont have one! Dont you want one? I have my own, delightful. Let me see. No. Why not? My own spider is the special one. Yours is not. ___

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Are you cretinizing, er criticizing, er, my spider? I am merely speaking of a truth, Sblood. ___ [Whispers: Devils butt hole ... You, you are not a good person. Devils butt hole doubled and trebled. ___ Oh, lord, hear my prayers and smite the unbeliever. Smite her till all her brains run like sewage along the street of shoes; till all the spiders have had time to tell her a thing or two; till her name and the names of those she loves and has loved and would have loved have come to be as a nothing that has lost the will to believe and the will to to move and the will to remain still; till all that pertains to her has been totally erased ... and and so forth ... ... and so on ...

... I could ... ... I could really ... [We see that her spider is gone.] Where. Oh my. Oh my god.

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[In the nature of an order or a command] A Something/Nothing FACE is moving very very slowly, moving where we would least expect.... From somewhere else to someplace else, so that we feel surrounded and a. And a bit baffled. Stunned. Surprised, like an animal that is about to be. Pause. Pause. Silence. Stunned. Stunned and then slaughtered. But slaughtered for no reason. As if. Yes. As if. Like the appearance of a something holy. Something AWFUL and holy. All shout: Tremendum! ___ BOOT and SHOE again moved by B & S people with stupid sticks. [Man & WOMAN do the speechifying] NOT. But only if we already have in view what our saying would want to reach. YET. The lasting element in thinking is the way. And ways of thinking hold within them that mysterious quality that we can walk them forward and backward, and that indeed only the way back will lead us forward.

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N. Obviously you do not mean forward in the sense of an advance, but. I have difficulty in finding the right word. Y. Fore into that nearness which we constantly rush ahead of, and which strikes us as strange each time anew when we catch sight of it. N. And which we therefore quickly dismiss again from view, to stay instead with what is familiar and profitable. Y. While the narrowness which constantly overtakes would rather bring us back. N. Back yes, but back where? Y. Into what is beginning. N. I find this difficult to understand, if I am to think in terms of what you have said about it in your writing up to now. Y. Even so, you have already pointed to it, when you spoke of the presence that springs from the mutual call of origin and future. N. As you have surmised, I see more clearly as soon as I think in terms of our Japanese experience. But I am not certain whether you have your eye on the same. Y. That could prove itself in our dialogue. N.

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We Japanese do not think it strange if a dialogue leaves undefined what is really intended, or even restores it back to the keeping of the indefinable. Y. That is part, I believe, of every dialogue that has turned out well between thinking beings. As of its own accord, it can take care that that indefinable something not only does not slip away, but displays its gathering force even more luminously in the course of the dialogue. N. Our dialogues with Count Kuki probably failed to turn out well. We younger men challenged him much too directly in order to satisfy our thirst for handy knowledge. Y. Thirst for knowledge and greed for explanations never lead to THINKING INQUIRY. Curiosity is always the concealed arrogance of a selfconsciousness that banks on a self-invented ratio and its rationality. The will to know does not will to abide in hope before what is worthy of thought. N. Thus we wanted to know in fact how European aesthetics might be suitable to give a higher clarity to what endows our art and poetry with their nature. Y. And that would be? N. We have for it the name I mentioned earlier: iki. Y. How often did I hear that word on Kukis lips, yet without experiencing what is said in it, N. What made you aware of that? Y.

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The manner in which Kuki explained the basic world of iki. He spoke of a sensuous radiance through whose lively delight there breaks the radiance of something supersensuous. N. Thats bullshit [Whispered Y. Your suggestions, which I can follow only from afar increase my uneasiness. Even greater than the fear I mentioned is the expectation within me that our conversation, which has grown out of our memory of Count Kuki, could turn out well. N. You mean it brings us closer to what is unsaid. ___ Y. That ak-ne would give us an abundance to think on N. Why do you say would? Y. Because I now see still more clearly the danger that the language of our dialogue might constantly destroy the possibility of saying that of which we are speaking. N. Hardly. [Whispers: You ass] But as I indicated, the temptation is great to rely on European ways of representation and their concepts. At the end of the 18th century, in the French Revolution, was not reason proclaimed a goddess? ___ [Pause in which something awkward happens.

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Y. But are there not also subdued gestures? N. Subdued gestures? Y. I can recall a hand resting on another persons in which there is concentrated a contact that remains infinitely remote from any touch, something that may not be called gesture any longer in the sense in which I understand. For this hand is suffused and borne by a call from afar. [We see this as before.] And calling still further onward, because stillness has brought it. N. At this point do you not heed the danger? Pause. Silence. Silence. :Howl. :What do you mean, Howl?

:Let us go into the woods and see what madness lies there. [Something/Nothings: Song: (REFRAIN) Mad and in the woods like a tree stump What is dumped there is bad bad bad As the wooden match lit and the stump sat to sit Stumped out as a bump on a bump pump bucket (that is) Bad as they wump and slumped as they can be

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Hidden in the dump of the old burnt slump Where all the broken things are all clumped up Even if they are lit by no light REFRAIN My heart is a special kind of sump pump And is crackles and bedazzled all the dirt lot chumps With all a compass and a basket of doritos I'm gonna fumble in the street for a sensitive libidos REFRAIN 2X

~
: Youre dressing it all ump, thump. : I am not, crump. It is still all hidden like, like ... Howl. : Like nicknumps in the notch of a tree, stumbump. Quite a madness I would suggest ... : Howl ... ___ : I dont understand why you do that howl thing. : I have a feeling as though there is something out there I cannot put my finger on. And ...

BOOT & SHOE once more:

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: I am getting back at, to the mystery of getting dressed why it is done, and so ... : Dont look at it directly. : I am a shoe. : You are making an assumption.

We are aware of a S/N face again where least expected prickling the nape of our neck.

: Howl.

~
Someplace else. ___ [Someplace Else, wholly other. A NAKED and NAKED woman in shadows. Shadow of a bed, and of a couple of wooden chairs. [Both BOOT & SHOE shudder at this: [Slowly, the two NAKED persons enact the mystery of Getting Dressed. As this happens SHOE and BOOT continue to talk quietly.

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: What are they doing? : Im not sure. But something they ought not be doing. Thats for sure. : Its like a. : What? What are you? : Shs. Shs. : ... must be part of the pornographic hallucination that surrounds us... : Howl. ___ SOMETHING/NOTHINGS do a CHORAL song: REFRAIN (C major) A and B: Quite a what? What's a shoe? Shoe or Show?Show me which -No! (G Major) A: Which is not for a Saving Show, and she Must be a shoe! Oh! B: Snow on it all. REFRAIN B: A: B: A: B: A: It starts with a spinach You mean to say cynic You call the shoe black I am a dream bough a dream branch? Yes The dream bough

REFRAIN

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A + B: in a land without shoes There's a way to go to and fro to go B: Then it must be a show A: surely a show B: A spinachy shoe show A: I don't know REFRAIN 2x __ Elsewhere: A S/N FACE murmurs, Everywhere I go, Devils butt-hole ...

~
Lights up The Man and Woman from the first scene enter, look around. Pause. Pause. Silence. : So this is it. Yep. Pretty basic isnt it? : Looks like a forest in here. : ... only an olden time woods, from the current show, an old East Asian thing two wooden Headed wayfarers, er ... : Show me your puppets. They go to a trunk. Open it. Look in.... : Wow. : Some of them are scary. : They look old. : Some of them are.

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She looks around. Sees BOOT and SHOE. : What the. Goes over to one and picks it up. : What the hell is this? : What? : Someone mustve been in here. [Both look about, become suddenly and carefully formal, as though enacting a drama of an unknown kind. Perhaps a version of the East Asian show mentioned.

:You know Count Shuzo Kuki. He studied with you for a number of years. :Count Kuki has a lasting place in my memory. : He died too early. His teacher Nishida wrote his epitaph for over a year he worked on this supreme tribute to his pupil. :I am happy to have photographs of Kukis grave and of the grove in which it lies. :Yes, I know the temple garden in Kyoto. Many of my friends often join me to visit his tomb there. The garden was established towards the end of the 12th century by the priest Honen, on the eastern hill of what was then the imperial city of Kyoto, as a place for Refection and deep meditation.

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And so, that temple wood remains the fitting place for him who died early. All his reflection was devoted.

~
Wood is an old name for forest. An elaborate machine unfolds, in the many complex actions of its working, and the little vase with the purple flower is smashed. We see a FACE, and the face registers concern for the accident. [Does it really? We dont think so?] It is unclear, however, whether the face considers itself responsible for the accident (if accident it was) or Is merely using a mask of concern to hide a palpable guilt.

End of Play

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