Douglas Mercer
October 23 2024
She thinks she’s in a play
She is anyway
Write it all down
In Six Characters In Search Of An Author an acting company prepares to rehearse the play The Rules Of The Game; suddenly they are interrupted by an itinerant acting troupe bathed in a faint light of fantastic reality claiming they are characters who are looking for their author who has inexplicably left then unfinished; the director of the play thinks them mad but nevertheless listens to their story and over time becomes intrigued but says also that he thinks their tale is farfetched; one of the wandering troupe objects to this characterization and says that it is not required for something to be plausible to be true; at their request the acting company then begins to act out the drama of the newly arrived acting troupe but as they do the latter are critical; they say that the company is merely going through the motions and have not achieved the kind of verisimilitude required to tell their story; they say the company is merely engaged in stage magic and a common place sense of truth; and they suggest that they themselves act out what they call the demon experiment. In the confusion between the two levels of reality shots ring out but no one in the audience can be sure if the death is real (within the play) or staged for, as it is said, a mirror will only freeze an image and not give it life. And actors, as such, unless they vicariously live out the role, will never attain it.
In the opening scene of The Real Thing Charlotte is distraught and histrionic and upset; next time we see her her character has changed dramatically and she is much more sedate and even keeled though there is a simmering angst beneath the surface; and it is given out that she is an actress married to the playwright and the original scene was from the husband’s play the title of which is A House Of Cards; the drama concerns two couples, the husbands are an actor and a playwright and the women are both actresses; the scenes alternates between the putative original frame of the play, and the play within the play, or play within the play, and the audience learns that there are romantic entanglements among the couples; the characters leave and return the stage and new plays are created so it becomes impossible (or at least difficult) even on a close textual reading of the play to delineate the subtle distinctions between the original frame and the projected frames so as to ascertain which in fact is real (within the play that is). That is when a character is acting or simply being himself becomes a thing which turns of something paper thin.
In Hamlet the lead character sets up a play as a kind of diorama to reveal the true thought of King Claudius; so the viewer is watching a play in which a character calls forth a play which is to be replication of the drama of the play; he tells the player beforehand that the purpose of playing is to hold a mirror up to nature but in the recursive miniatures or cameos (cameo def: a short description that encapsulates a subject) replicate one another until nature dissolves like those fun house mirrors facing one another in mutually ramifying endlessness. Before the play within the play that Hamlet orders up (which from the widest possible perspective can be considered a play within a play within a play) the players perform a dumb show which is a cameo or diorama of the play within the play, miming out the action as a neat encapsulation of the drama that is to come. The play is said to be the thing and the play that Hamlet puts on is called The Mousetrap.
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Play: a staged drama, to engage in game, wanton, caprice, whim, lark
A lay is a medieval lyric poem written in France in octosyllabic couplets. There are a few examples of this specific poetic form in English. English lays, of which there are a few surviving examples, are based around Celtic legends and utilize many of the literary devices in themes found in chivalric romances.
Lieu: in place of
Lie: a falsehood
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By far the most complex sporting event is football; it is so complex that not even quarterbacks can call their own plays anymore. In order to keep track of the intricate and interlacing movements of the players a birds-eye view is needed, and hence it is the man in the control booth high above the playing field who communicates via a headset to tell the quarterback which plays to call.
“The Play” was a last-second, game-winning kickoff return for a touchdown that occurred during a college football game between the Stanford Cardinal and the California Golden Bears on Saturday, November 20, 1982. Given the circumstances and rivalry, the wild game that preceded it, the very unusual way in which “the play” unfolded, and its lingering aftermath on players and fans, it is recognized as one of the most memorable plays in college football history and among the most memorable ever in American sports. Stanford had taken a 20–19 lead on a field goal with four seconds left. The Golden Bears used five lateral or possibly backward passes on the ensuing kickoff return to score the winning touchdown in the game’s final seconds and earn a 25–20 victory. Believing prematurely that the game was over, members of the Stanford Marching Band came onto the field midway through the return, which added to the confusion and enhanced the inevitable folklore which inevitably wove itself around “the play.” There remains disagreement over the legality of at least two of Cal’s backward pass attempts, adding to the passion surrounding the traditional rivalry of the annual Big Game; and naturally the band being on the field as the ball made its way to the end zone is a an especially memorable and chaotic spectacle so much so that few who have seen it are able to forget what they saw.
Despite the reputation of John Lennon for being the artist of the band it was Paul McCartney who took the lead in exploring the various facets of the avant garde, having made contact with the likes of John Cage etc, and learning about sophisticated recording techniques such as back masking and distorted and echo laden percussion. In 1967 McCartney created the 14-minute Carnival Of Light which he described as within the “Stockhausen/Cage” bracket. It is said that during this time Lennon was in the suburbs doing fuck all, fuck all being Liverpool slang for sitting on one’s backside, eating cereal, watching TV and smoking tons of dope. During this heyday of the band McCartney was the pied piper of the London Art and Culture scene, making his way around town as a kerchiefed dandy. So it is ironic that the best-known piece of Avant Garde music the Beatles produced (Revolution 9) was created by Lennon, cementing his image as the “artiste” of the Beatles which reality will not bear out.
Every one of them knew that as time went by
They would get a little bit older and a little bit slower
And weird stuff like that
Taking our sides sometimes
They are standing still
The plan, the telegram
So the wife called, and said we better go to see a surgeon
But we went to see the dentist instead
Financial imbalance
The Watusi
The Twist
El Dorado
Take this, brother, may it serve you well
Hold that line
Hold that line
Hold that line
Hold that line
Hold that line
Block that kick
Block that kick
Block that kick
Block that kick
Block that kick
Block that kick
Block that kick
Block that kick
The phrase “hold the line” has been used in military contexts, referring to soldiers maintaining their positions during combat. In telecommunication, the phrase “hold the line” has been used since 1912, warning that one is away from the receiver. Today, it is used idiomatically to mean firmly maintaining one’s viewpoint, principles, or situation, refusing to change one’s practices or plans. To hold the line is football argot for defending the line of scrimmage during a play as in the sentence the coach told the team to hold the line and defend their lead in the final minutes.
In the song Mr. Bojangles (see Toast, White Biocentrism, June 29 2024) the title character is mentioned twice, the song related to the original Bojangles speaks about a light touchdown.
After a touchdown is scored in football an extra kick for one point is called for (circa 1969).
A blitz is when a defense elects to send multiple players rushing after the snap in order to suddenly but definitively overwhelm the offensive line in order to get to the back field in what could be termed a lightning strike or sneak attack—this is called a blitz.
Blitzkrieg is German for lightning war, a new form of warfare first used when the Germans simply went around the Maginot (imaginary) Line and straight through the Ardennes (Arden) Forrest, a feat which was widely considered to be impossible before it actually happened.
The man in the back said
Everyone attack
It turned into a ballroom blitz
The girl in the corner said
I want to warn you
It will turn into a ballroom blitz
They will be standing still at the spectacle, literally hanging on every word, because the play's the thing when the marching band refuses to yield.
***
Notes:
Our little band has always been and always will until the end.
The Play
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Douglas Mercer
- Posts: 7591
- Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2023 7:29 pm
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Douglas Mercer
- Posts: 7591
- Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2023 7:29 pm
