The Price of Admittance

The door slams behind you, and when you turn sharply at the noise, you see that there is no door and never was.  

You find yourself in a tiny room with a few other nondescript people, all looking as quizzically as you are at two monitors on the walls.  On one monitor you see your former friends and allies, those who did not dare venture through with you into the Magic Theater.*  On the other is a play you've never seen before but have heard great things about.  An older balding man in a great suit pontificates alongside an elfin Condi Rice type.  There is no sound coming from the monitors, and you can't hear what anyone is saying, but you're pretty sure you can read the words "Trick or Treat" on the lips of those you left behind.  

A man in a not-as-good suit sorts tarot cards on a table in front of you, a table that barely fits in the diminutive back room.  Surrounding him are exactly enough chairs for the lot of you.  He beckons you to sit.  You do.  He plays.  He sorts.  Eventually, he speaks.

"You're wondering what you're doing here.  Good.  That was the intention."

He flips a card.  Judgement.

"Your friends have been led astray . . ."

Friends?  You don't remember ever having referred to any of them as "friends."

He flips a card.  The Fool.  

". . . by candy."

Candy.  Is that what this was all about?  You can't seem to remember what goes on outside this room, or how you got in here.^

The man eyes you skeptically as if reading your mind, then turns his attention to the monitor, observing your friends as they move about, ignorant of their role in this heightening drama.  From somewhere in the room, a potentially-Jeff-Award-winning sound slithers into the atmosphere.  

The dealer flips another card.  Death.  

"It's all right," he coos in response to your poorly-muffled expression of terror.  "They don't die.  They'll just never know what it is to be . . ."

He trails off, but the final word of the sentence is clear.  Here.  They will never know THIS.  They will never experience this . . . 

He flips a card, completing your thought.  The World. 

'Is this game rigged?' you wonder.

"Listen to me," says the card player with sudden seriousness.  "All of you."

You lean in.  He flips a card.  Temperance.  

"Tonight . . ."

The word hangs in the air as he flips The Hanged Man.

" . . . you have an opportunity.  You can waste it . . ."

He flips The Fool.  Again.

" . . . or you can seize it."

He flips Strength.  

'What does he mean?' you wonder.  Again, he reads your mind.

"What is the price of admittance?" he asks, selecting you from among the group, scrying the reflection in your retina.

There is a long pause.  Finally, you answer.  "I don't know."

The dealer waits.  You look side to side, but realize that your companions are gone.  You look to the monitors.  On one, the scene between the older man and the powerful woman is playing in slow motion.  On the other, the masses have multiplied.  There must be thousands of them, millions maybe, clammering about in a cacophonous silence.

"I don't know," you repeat.

The man flips another card, the last in his deck.  The Hermit.

"Then you will never know," he sighs.  "You will miss it.  For candy."

For candy?

He flips another card, the last in his deck.  The Moon.

"You have a rare opportunity," the dealer says, no longer paying you heed, but rather staring at a face-down card, the last in his deck.  "One that will happen but twice more, for there is no show on November 7."

November 7?  What does that have to do with it?

"And then there's Thanksgiving, and it will be all done."

He flips another card, the last in his deck.  The Turkey.

The Turkey?  You don't remember there being a Turkey in a --

"Don't be . . ." he says.

You look back at the card.  The Turkey is gone.  The card is The Fool.  

"For if you are . . . then we won't . . ."

The price of admittance.  You still can't figure it out.  The phrase means something, something extraordinary.  You can't shake the feeling that you are being presented with an incredible opportunity.  

Was it written on the sign above the door?  You close your eyes and picture it. 

"Tonight at the Magic Theater*: For Madmen Only!"

No.  The memory doesn't say anything about the price of admittance.  

You open your eyes.  The room is gone.  You're somewhere else.  But where?  You know this place, but you just can't . . .

Overwhelmed with existential horror, you open your mouth to scream; nothing comes out.  You cough.  You choke.  You reach your fist into your mouth, clawing with your pinkie at the back of your throat.  It catches something, something fragile and artificial.

You remove your fist.  Wrapped around your pinkie is a soggy slip of paper.  You look down to read it and can barely make out the text.  

Something bumps you.  You look up to meet the eyes of dozens of your former friends.  They're flowing into the room--the room!  You are in a room!  You know this room.  

. . .

You know this room.  

Your friends' mouths begin to open and close.  The "Tr" sounds are evident on their lips, but their voices have been stolen.  They hold out bags to you.  They're wearing costumes.  Emperors, Heirophants, Lovers.  

'No,' you want to say to them.  'No, that is not the only way to spend this evening.  This is not the only way to live!'  Your voice is lost in the enduring weight of their collective silence.  

You look back down at the paper in your hand.  The text, it's becoming clearer.  It's written in yellow.  Where have you seen yellow writing before?  

The bodies of your former friends thump intermittently against you as they amble aimlessly, following one another, following the crowd.  

The price of admittance.  What is the price of admittance?  

A sickening thought occurs to you.  What if this moment, this pinprick in time, is your final opportunity to act in accordance with your own true self, to break free from a tide of cultural zombies?  What if, should you fail in solving this riddle, you will never recognize a true individual impulse again, one that comes from your own inner self, one guided by your full being and not the opinions and habits of others?  Furthermore, what if there are others relying on you, poor, talented actors who need you in the audience tonight?

Desperate, you take one final look at the text.  

Yellow writing.  Code.  

Of course.

What is the price of admittance?  

4D#(3C  4B%5B3**

------
* Theatre?
^ If you want to remember how you got in here, scroll up, or click "Back" on your web browser.
** Scroll to the bottom of the article to learn the price of admittance, or crack the code.

E-MOSAIC

I once was in a show called MOSAIC.  It existed in "real life."  For tonight, it's going to exist online.

Pretend you're sitting in a theatre, watching this script come to life.

LET'S PLAY!

LYNN:   Does anyone here work at the Smithsonian?  The Lincoln Memorial?  The Washington Monument?  The Statue of Liberty?  A National Park?  In the lower levels of the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, the EPA, the Justice Department, Homeland Security, FEMA?  (the list can grow)

                 (If no one does, then JOSH MICHEL is brought on stage and 

                   sat in a chair CS.  If anyone does, they are brought on stage

                    instead.)

LYNN: Well, Josh, looks like it's you.  Have a seat.  

                 (LYNN cues the TECH PERSON to start playing ridiculous 

                  game show music composed by MELISSA CARUBIA.

                  MIKE brings a white board on stage and writes this:  )

                                         "__ __ __ - __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __"

                (LYNN hosts a game of high energy, up-tempo hangman.

                She gets letter guesses from audience members -- the more

                reluctant, the better.  Other ensemble members overenjoy

                the game and remind everyone that it's just a game, and that

                it's fun.  Every time a letter is wrong, this happens, in order:)

1. JOSH (or audience member's) right wrist is tied to the chair.

2. JOSH (or A.M's) left wrist is tied to the chair

3. JOSH (or AM's) right leg is tied to the chair.

4. JOSH (or AM's) left leg is tied to the chair.

5. JOSH (or AM) is blindfolded.

6. A weak, thin noose is brought on stage and draped around JOSH (or AM's) neck.  

                (If the game of hangman gets to that point without success,

                 there is a big buzzer and everyone hangs their head.  JOSH

                 stays in the chair the rest of the show and when he has a line in

                 a piece, he's just missing.  The AM must by law be freed.)

                (If the game is won, then the game is won.  The answer 

                 SPOILER ALERT is "Non-Essential.)

                                                  FIN!

PS To learn about more things that only exist online, like micronations, come to this!

For Your Eyes Only

ace
*2@

3A@3C@  %4C  2D3A*5C  %  3A*1D@  #15C*%5B@3  #1A  4D#(3C  2D#3C2B

#5B@  1C3C#3(25C%#5B  4C5C*1A1A  %4C  %5B  5C3A@  2B5B#2D

5C2D#  5B@2D4C  #1A  5B*5C%#5B*3B  *5B5C3A@4B  1A3C#4B  5C3A@  5B@2D  *4C4C#2%*5C@

5C3A3C@@  2#4B1C*3C%3C#5B  5C#  %5B2@1C5C%#5B  *5C  2B#5B*2B4C

1A#(3C 1C#4C4C%13B@  *4C4C*4C4C%5B*5C%#5B  3B%5B@  1(5C  5B#  *4C4C*4C4C%5B*5C%#5B

2D%3B3  2*3C3 *5B3  1B*22B  4B*2B@  1C*%3C  *5B3  1C3B*4D  2B%5B2A

4B(23A  2D%3@  @4D@3  23A*5C5C@3C  %5B  3C@4C5C*(3C*5B5C4C  14D  2D&5B3#2D4C

*2D*%5C%5B2A  #1A1A%2%*3B  2#3C3C@4C1C#5B3@5B2@  1A3C#4B  4D#(3C  2A3B#1D@3  3A@*1D4D  3A*5B3  1C3C%#3C  5C#  3C#4D*3B  1A3B(4C3A  5C(@4C3*4D

wild card
2D%3B3  2*3C3

It's a Test

THEATRICAL CUT

They don't advertise for drummers in the newspaper.  That was my profession.  Ex-drummer.  

INTERCOM

Next subject: Sheep, Electric.  Performance, live.  File section: Den Theater.

(ELECTRIC SHEEP enters.)          

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Come in.  Sit down.

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Care if I "bah?"  I'm kind of nervous when I take tests.  Zap!

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Reaction time is a factor in this, so please pay attention.  Now, answer as quickly as you can.

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Bah.  Zap!

AUDIENCE MEMBER

One.  Three.  Three.  Three.  North Milwaukee Avenue. 

ELECTRIC SHEEP

That's the theater.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

What?

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Where I'll be performing.  Bah.  Zap!

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Nice place?

ELECTRIC SHEEP

There's a fireplace.  That part of the test?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Just warming you up.  You're in the audience, waiting to watch the show . . .

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Is this the test now?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yes.  You're in the audience, waiting to watch the show --

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Me?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yes.  You're the show.

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Bah.  Zap!  I'm watching myself?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

It's completely hypothetical.  Tell me in single words only the good things that come to mind as you're watching yourself.

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Myself?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yeah.

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Let me tell you about myself.

(Pause.)          

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Bah.  Zap.

(Together, they climb into a car and ride through an idyllic landscape.)        

I don't know why he spared my life.  Maybe he knew that he would only live for one weekend, not even until Labor Day.  And all he wanted was the same answers the rest of us want.  When is it?  Where is it?  How do I get tickets before its termination date?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DIRECTOR'S CUT

INTERCOM

Next subject: Sheep, Electric.  Performance, live.  File section: Den Theater.

(ELECTRIC SHEEP enters.)          

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Come in.  Sit down.

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Care if I "bah?"  I'm kind of nervous when I take tests.  Zap!

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Reaction time is a factor in this, so please pay attention.  Now, answer as quickly as you can.

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Bah.  Zap!

AUDIENCE MEMBER

One.  Three.  Three.  Three.  North Milwaukee Avenue.

ELECTRIC SHEEP

That's the theater.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

What?

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Where I'll be performing.  Bah.  Zap!

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Nice place?

ELECTRIC SHEEP

There's a fireplace.  That part of the test?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Just warming you up.  You're in the audience, waiting to watch the show . . .

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Is this the test now?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yes.  You're in the audience, waiting to watch the show --

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Me?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yes.  You're the show.

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Bah.  Zap!  I'm watching myself?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

It's completely hypothetical.  Tell me in single words only the good things that come to mind as you're watching yourself.

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Myself?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yeah.

ELECTRIC SHEEP

Let me tell you about myself.

(What happens next is uncertain.)          

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FINAL CUT

Available in full here.  

Samizdat

DAY THREE

YEAR YET TO BE NAMED

Allowing your mind to wander while riding a bicycle, despite the obvious dangers of doing so--what with the cars and the pedestrians and the stop signs and there only being two wheels and all hence the name--is a fairly common practice around the 5300 block of the Onion City (1), where pedaling passionately while letting one's mind wander, which let's face it is about as pondersome as anyone bothers to get most days these days, is usually accompanied by helmet-less and headphone-not-less bobbing and weaving such that the pedaling and the pondering, being a function one of the other and not an inverse one at that, coalesce to evoke a milieu of  general distaste and discomfort not only for the biwheeled but for the bipeds who encounter them whether on foot or headphoning, cell phoning, or pondering themselves behind the 14" diameter wheel of a much larger vehicle, one having in almost all civilian instances twice as many ground-touching wheels(2) as the foot powered wheel rotators prove are necessary.  For a head prone to overanalysis--one that tends to find meaning in every single event, no matter how minute or coincidental, and that has on more than one occasion turned e.g. a shared experience into a literary symbol or (more broadly) a passing fancy into fallacious epiphany--thrust moreso toward solicitude by the aggregate events of Y.H.D.A.V.L.L., this head itself helmeted and devoid of phone, head- or hand, but in unfamiliar territory, at least in regard to living situation, for such a head in such a state the expanse of time and attention dedicated to such reflection works out, mathematically speaking, to 99.4 percent on the dime, the fraction of time represented by the remaining percentage points being more or less accounted for by only the most critical and periodic blips of alertness necessary to focus on route- and life-saving maneuvers.  Yet somehow in this thorough dedication to so-called pondering this particularly meaning-seeking cyclist manages never in all of the complex but wildly accessible neuronic cavities to come across the advice he got when he was but first touching the fragile paper skin of this my kind of town: "You've got to discipline yourself to talk out of the part of you that loves the thing, loves what you're working on.  Maybe just plain loves.(3)"

He doesn't pedal all that fast.  Still, given his high lost-in-thought to moment ratio and that peculiar familiar-process / disappearing-hours time dynamic that even still doesn't make complete sense to physicists and psychologists alike, time folds ("passes") and Berwyn ends at the elevated Metra tracks that lead both north and south but definitely to less populated areas.  Unlike with the urban elevated trains, the concrete that supports the Metra tracks is solid, a Great Wall marking the Ravenswood corridor and separating, e.g. this cyclist from his temporary home four blocks away if not for said construction.  The tunnel running through them is covered in graffiti he won't later remember but that will nevertheless strike him in the moment as significant.  He wore headphones while cycling for a month or so of Y.V. but stopped after two acquaintances lost their lives in bike accidents.  In a textbook example of hypocrisy, he thinks it would make him happier to bike with headphones on and gets noticeably tense and irritated when he passes another cyclist doing the same.  This epiphany did not occur to him during this particular absent minded cycling bout, nor has it ever.  He isn't unhappy.  The first seven months of this new year (4) seem from his perspective on that saddle--left toe on the asphalt for stationary balance, right on the corresponding pedal as a reminder of momentum, helmet a little too loose, eyes focused on the tunnel--very promising indeed.  He didn't know there was a tunnel here.  It was constructed before he was born.  He takes its presence, especially the fact that it seemed to open (5) just as he was regretting his choice of route and knowing just knowing he would have to pedal an extra mile south then later north again to get around the monstrous suburbanite-shuffling luxury train, as a sign, almost a God and the Bible and Burning Bush, just for him, divine will, someone is listening, knock and the door will be opened kind of thing.  Pass!  For an urban area, the Ravenswood corridor strikes him as remarkably still at night, excepting the rabbits which really do breed, he thinks, as described in the idiom.  There's no one behind him or ahead of him, nor is there anyone in the tunnel, nor does he encounter another human soul in the remaining four blocks between tunnel and temporary home.  After he takes the dog out and closes the door, he rests peacefully, wrapped in warm imaginings on an air-conditioned couch that struck him yesterday as too cold but now just right, likewise on a too hot just right beach a week in the future and without sand in irritating places, likewise on a bike trip to Calumet Fisheries, likewise devouring a hamburger and a book, likewise on a flat stage before 150 seats, likewise in a country where no one speaks English and "they don't even want to," surrounded now by a sense that the young couple and baby he draws into the house next door are as real in every sense as he narrates to himself, believing now in better days and for once having some sense of what the hell people mean when they say that.

---------

(1) A reference not only to the little-known origin of the name "Chicago," but also to the recent relocation of the well-known comical rag.  Also, no one but John refers to "Chicago" as "The Onion City," and even he only in this blog entry. 

(2) Notable exception:  the short-lived and ill-designed Hyundai Uni

(3) http://samizdat.cc/shelf/documents/2005/03.07-dfwinterview/dfwinterview.pdf

(4) During the pre-tunnel trip, his mind doing most of the cycling, the operating reserve of his cerebral wind turbine was able to all-but-casually label his first year in Chicago the Year of Volunteerism, a period stretching from August 1, 2011 (a) to the obvious and marked by a rampant willingness to give away his time with the unspoken expectation of future rewards and followed by a period of an equally obvious duration with equally obvious bookends he would now call, he decided, the Year of Harsh Disappointment and Valuable Life Lessons.  
              
                         a The literal  first month of his time in the Windy City--July--was a period characterized by 
                           back-in-Boston absenteeism, settling in, and a general lack of real focus on starting over
                           and was stricken from his mind's record.  Call it playing God, but where better to play God
                           than in one's own mind, a place where one simply has to have dominion, if  anywhere.

(5) a Red Sea kind of thing

I'm Not Here; I Didn't Write This

They have a rule in the blog business: write in the thing at least twice a week.  If you're giving it any less TLC, then you're doing yourself a disservice.  Let's see if I'm doing myself a disservice:

(I'm doing myself a disservice.)

Look at that!  (Or, for updated entry counts, just look to the right of this very entry!)  In the first three-and-a-half months of this blog's existence, I wrote in it an average of 1.6 times per week.  In 2013, that number has dwindled to 1.5 times per month.  Not only that, I've now resorted to writing in my blog about how I don't write in my blog!**

"Like"-rs and non-"like"-rs*, if you are still here, your moment has come.  Let me help you help me be helped by you letting me help you help me be helped by you. Help.

What I mean to say is: something has to change, and you get to change it.  I am selling advertising space in my blog.  If you would like to take advantage, I will charge you a very reasonable fee, and in turn, you will help me churn out a higher number of blog entries per month.  Don't turn your back on this deal!^

I feel like there should be more to say about this offer . . .

. . .

. . .

Help.

------

* non-"like"-rs, why were you here in the first place?

^ Seriously, because if the people let me down, I'm going to have to sacrifice this last little bastion of the internet to the PR powers that be (i.e., let these frustrating little video ads take over here like they have everywhere else.)

** Actually, there are quite a lot of exciting entries to come, so don't give up just yet.  I haven't!

Forsooth!

Well, will you look at this.

In case you didn't notice the little yellow link on the word "this" or the big red headline of the corresponding article, I will rewrite it here:

NOBODY GETS FAMOUS IN CHICAGO

Mad!

Julia Langbein, I bite my thumb at you, madame.  Your admiration of the Back Room Shakespeare Project is perhaps well-deserved, but wherefore the abatement in your article?  Let me shove thy nose in it:

"Average pay for a principal at one of the big theaters like Steppenwolf or the Goodman—and very few people get these roles—is about $800/week.  So if you are always working at the top of your game all year round in Chicago you top out at just over $40,000^, and that's if you are playing the plummest role 52 weeks of the year."

Well, Madame Langbein, let me retort as quickly and simply as I can (for I must shortly surrender this library computer):

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.  Are you familiar with this expression? I can't remember where it came from, but you, my dear, should heed its warning.  You see, there is a powerful play going on, and we (the actors among actors) have made you an unwitting fool!  "Nobody Gets Famous in Chicago."  Please.  Who told you that?  Why, the actors themselves, of course!  And why?

Simple.  It's a necessary piece of our throughline.  In other words, we fabricated it.  We created it through decades of our willingness to work for free, through moon after moon of compromise, through carefully training ourselves to see our work as just a hobby and allowing ourselves to be rankled accordingly.  Now, by not valuing our own art, we have almost managed to reach bottom.  Which is exactly where we want to be. 

Unclear?  Let me elaborate.  

We (the actors among the actors) aren't being held down at all; rather, like one angling his legs before a great leap, we are flexing, preparing for the great heights of the big time!  The grumbling you are hearing is the precursor to a storm, madame, and what a great thunder will sound when we finally explode upward, shattering the glass ceiling of not just Chicago theatre^^^, but theatre everywhere, and raining change upon the masses!  

But in order for that crackle to satisfy completely, we must allow that rondure of adversity to germinate.  We must assure that when we choose to leap, we will make not only a great noise, but the greatest noise ever heard.  We're not after a whimper here, Madame.  We're after a BANG!
So the next time an actor claims to you that he should be paid more, assume he is giving you lip service.  Remind him that he's part of a greater play, and that he isn't the lead this time.  Remind him of the value of humility.  Remind him to genuflect, that his craft is a form of worship*, and that one day the meek will inherit the earth**.  Then, ask him to put his money where his mouth is.  

. . .


By the way, I will be memorizing this entry in its entirety and performing it (for free^^) in Lincoln Park on Monday, July 29.  Please come so I can pay my rent.  (For updates, join my "like"-rs.  Anon!)

-----
^ 1099 income, which means your take home is something more like $32,000
^^ I will accept donations
^^^ which, as somehow reclaiming our status in the world, we are tedious about spelling with a pretetious "-re"
* Average minister's salary in the US: $86,500
** BANG!