Vernacular Subjects

We had agreed to build scenery for "Wind..." and I knew that neither D or I really wanted to do it on a day off but also knew that if I showed up at his shop we'd probably get started. Three pieces, the boat for Ratty and Mole, the gypsy wagon, and Toad's motor car. It's children's theater and the standards aren't high here, but we actually want to raise the bar a little, get one step removed from painted cardboard. We design a funny little boat based of a couple of struts that we build and it's not a bad Idea, you could build one of these that would actually float if you spent more than a couple of hours. This one doesn't have a bottom, so they can propel themselves with their feet, the frame on casters. Cute. One thing we see, is that you could build a boat in a day, if you really had to. I'll get back to the scenery, but a strange thing happened, I'd picked up that book on extinct languages, noticed the Easter Island script, filed it away, had misplaced another book, on early mining (tin, copper), and was just putting some books away, mindless, and there was a book I didn't recognize, stamped Wincester Public Library and it was Thor Heyderdahl, not Aku-Aku, which would have been good enough, but was "The Archaeology Of Easter Island" and it is true that the written language is almost exactly like an Indus Valley script. No one can read it anymore. I'm shocked we draw the same conclusions, there was world-wide trade in the Bronze Age, then a dark age, that was iron, because it was everywhere and hard, anyone with a hot fire could make a superior sword. Iron isn't that much better than good bronze, but it was the abundance that brought down entire cultures. I see this stretched-out over a long period of time, animal brain, eons. I knew McNamara, didn't know him really, only knew his oyster beds. Reality is so interesting, when it catches you. I mean I never met the man, just completely altered my life to avoid his war. We decided to build Toad's car next and it was very like the boat, but with a hood and wheels and maybe we'd add a windshield later; he'd carry it, like a sandwich-board, on straps, over his shoulders, so he could run around and make noises. Because D has a nice shop, though horribly messy, we accomplish this very quickly. A car and a boat, a quick lunch of small meat-loaves, so there is no question that everyone gets an end, and we build a 'caravan' as if we knew what we were doing. It's scenery, you know, illusion. On stage, everything is fake, not unlike life. Consider the backdrop, the scrim that mimics sky, gauze and lights. I'm missing a lug-nut, afraid my wheel will fly off, drive home carefully, and the crows await me at the spillway. I'd stopped for gas and bought Twinkies for something to feed the geese, ended up drinking a beer, talking with crows. Sup on a can of tuna and a sauce so hot it brings tears to my eyes, a double-cheddar, and olives, crackers. The bugs and frogs are so loud when I get home I put on the Allman Brothers, "Sweet Melissa", make a cup of sumac tea, pretty sure I've gone crazy. Too much time alone. The Cello Suites, and a whip-poor-will, far away. Make what you will. A noodling double-bass. It almost makes sense. A fiddle.