Back in college, living at the Community, we used to push each other. We’d challenge every belief we had, trying to break down what was inside to make room for the light. We’d push and push, until we all reached our personal limits. Inevitably one of us would break down over the loss of what we thought we understood. We’d create a sanctioned crisis – we called it the “Christ event,” when all those internal systems collapsed. It was cleansing, a baptism in your own destruction. That was the hopeful part: after the collapse you were still there, still standing, on sacred ground. That sacred ground is what we called “God.”

(beat)

A marriage is a community. Everything that’s beautiful about people grows out of community.

(beat)

When I married Tom…(She trails off, composes herself.) Well. Everyone faces God sooner or later.

(She exits. Blackout. End Act I.)

1. “Your doctor does it…” “Everyone will notice, but no one will know…” – from ad for a “beauty injection”
2. Surf beat into harsh belligerence.
3. A kid at karate camp who wants his nickname to be “Scorpion.”
4. Chippy’s theme song is “Perfect Me” by Deerhoof.
5. ON ARMPIT HAIR
6. Deconstruct “Push It” (A song about a song where we talk about danger)
7. Riff on Holst’s Mars
8. TUFF MUSTACHE

Excellent!

Don’t go to sleep one night.
What you most want will come to you then.
Warmed by a sun inside, you’ll see wonders.

Tonight, don’t put your head down.
Be tough, and strength will come.
That which adoration adores
appears at night. Those asleep
may miss it. One night Moses stayed awake
and asked, and saw a light in a tree.

Then he walked at night for ten years,
until finally he saw the whole tree
illuminated. Muhammed rode his horse
through the nightsky. The day is for work.
The night for love. Don’t let someone
bewitch you. Some people sleep at night.

But not lovers. They sit in the dark
and talk to God, who told David,
Those who sleep all night every night
and claim to be connected to us, they lie.

Lovers can’t sleep when they feel the privacy
of the beloved all around them. Someone
who’s thirsty may sleep for a little while,
but he or she will dream of water, a full jar
beside a creek, or the spiritual water you get
from another person. All night, listen
to the conversation. Stay up.
This moment is all there is.

Death will take it away soon enough.
You’ll be gone, and this earth will be left
without a sweetheart, nothing but weeds
growing inside thorns.

I’m through. Read the rest of this poem
in the dark tonight.
Do I have a head? And feet?

Shams, so loved by Tabrizians, I close my lips.
I wait for you to come and open them.

A holy one does sometimes fall,
but by that tribulation, he or she ascends,
escapes many illusions, escapes
conventional religion, escapes
being so bound to phenomena.

Hey, I know! Why don’t you watch it for yourself? In HD, preferably:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b2UgWLMNVU

I bought him a coffee, and the real story of the day took place after we stopped filming.

We drove around Jackson. He took us to a statue of Medgar Evers, and I stood there and felt a sense of awe that is at the moment difficult to describe. He drove us to Medgar’s house, and we stood in his driveway, and Ed showed us where Medgar died. It was the second time of the day that I felt like crying. I feel like crying now.

He took us through the poor areas of town (which seemed like most areas of town). These are the same areas where the MFDP organized, where SNCC and COFO had their offices. The areas were poor then, but they weren’t dangerous. The rest of town, White Jackson, was dangerous for Civil Rights workers back then, but not these places. Now these places are dead. Ed drives us down a street and then turns around – we’re at a church where the MFDP organized, but driving any further would be dangerous. Not the same kind of danger – not the danger that led to the beatings that permanently messed up his jaw. Just dangerous.

Today was important. I’m glad this is how we started. We’re digitizing the footage right now – I can hear Ed talking in the corner of the room. I need to reflect, unpack it more, before I can extract any kind of greater meaning. My brain is tired, but other parts of me are refreshed.

Here’s a little animation sample I made. Soon there will be much more!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdasaPsOG1E