Boos.
“Well, I said that when I and the people who belong to my organization engage in cure overload, we view it as a sacrament, like taking communion. I mean, obviously, Philip, taking communion and overloading aren’t the same exact thing. I would never say that.”
Boos.
“Well, look. Hold on, now. Just wait a minute. It sounds to me like you’re saying the same exact thing I just said you said.”
“I’m not,” says the man in flowing white robes.
“Well, I beg to differ. So let’s just agree to disagree, shall we, and you know, why don’t you just clarify whatever point it was you thought you were making.”
“All I was saying was that the members of my organization treat overloading as a sacrament. We believe that Curios, wherever they come from—and the Universal Family of Integrated Generosity has no official dogma regarding their origins, by the way—we believe that Curios are here to teach us the beauty of selflessness. Why else, I ask you, would they incite us to overload? to bring about their own permanent deactivation? to do so at the very moment, Philip, that we love them most? They are selfless beings.”
“That’s crazy. That’s nuts. You are off your rocker, sir. Curios are robots. Gizmos. Consumer products. They’re here because some genius over at the Graham&Swords Corporation invented them. Or discovered them. Whatever. They’re—”
“Well we don’t think so, Philip. We don’t believe it’s as simple as that. I mean, take the rabies vaccine, which was discovered, or invented, however you’d like to think of it, by Louis Pasteur, who—”
“I don’t want to take the rabies vaccine. My dogs have had their shots, thank you very much. And I definitely don’t want to hear about Luh-wuh Pasta-ooer or anyone else whose name I have to do that pouty thing with my lips to pronounce.”
Roaring laughter.
“So forget Pasteur, then,” the robed man says. “Let’s talk about the lightbulb, and Thomas Edison—”
“Thomas Alva Edison. A great American.”
“Yes. Absolutely,” says the robed man. “Edison invented the incandescent lightbulb, which changed how we lived. He did not, however, invent light. He did not invent electricity. And he did not invent the human desire to be able to see at night. Nor—”
“And you’re trying to tell me that lightbulbs did those things? Lightbulbs didn’t do those things. Lightbulbs can’t invent. I got news for you: lightbulbs can’t think. Can’t discover. Unless you know something I don’t know. And in that case…” says PDA, pointing the mike at the audience.
“Wait! A! Minute!” shouts the audience.
Flick&Look
A Yachts Joint
July 13, 2013, Wheelatine USA
[3 minutes, 1 second]
A curb at the bottom of a trapezoid of grass on either side of which is a residential driveway. Wind- and cicada-sounds. Shadows of swaying pine boughs on the ground. Five boys wearing turtleneck T-shirts and Dixie-cup sailor caps, their names in felt block letters stitched to the brim, approach the camera from the back of the frame, and sit down side by side on the curb. Their hats, from left to right, read: Chaz Jr., Chaz, 3-J, Lyle, and Bryce. These boys are members of a gang or club or clique called the Yachts, and the one whose hat brim reads “3-J” is Jonny “Triple-J” Pellmore-Jason, Jr., the person who made this documentary collage (i.e. A Fistful of Fists).
Each boy holds a cure, supine, on one palm.
“Burroughs?” Triple-J says.
“Rolling,” comes Burroughs’s voice from offscreen. “Ready when you are.”
Looking down at his cure, Triple-J raises his free hand an inch or two over its torso and, with his thumb and middle finger, forms an O.
The other Yachts do the same as Triple-J.
“Flick,” Burroughs says.
With their middle fingers, the Yachts flick their cures. The cures ball up and launch into painsongs. A couple measures in, they begin to unball, to writhe and squirm. The camera pans across them in close-up. A couple hold their foreheads, the other three their chests, and they all tense their jaws and suck in their lips, apparently trying to stifle themselves, but the songs keep escaping in hums and squeaks.
As the camera zooms out, we can see Chaz Jr.’s hands are trembling, and the free one (the right), just a sliver of a second before the round ends, goes high and claps down, killing his cure with a muffled crunch.
“Look away,” Burroughs says. “Chaz Jr., you’re out.”
Chaz Jr. chucks the corpse atop the grate of a storm drain left of his feet, and the rest of the Yachts look away from their cures.
To Chaz Jr., Chaz says, “Hate not the player, but the game, word up.”
Chaz Jr. shakes his head in bitter disappointment.
“Now there’s no call to razz and harass, Chaz,” says Bryce. “I say Chaz Jr. put forth a mighty effort. He played a good game.”
“I was merely dropping wisdom on his mug,” says Chaz.
“Be that as it may, and it may,” says Bryce, “I do recognize it may, I, for one, would like to go on record as saying that I commend Chaz Jr.’s truly dope performance.”
“Hear hear,” Lyle says. “He played Flick&Look with heart!”
“Burroughs,” Triple-J says.
“Round two,” says Burroughs. “Ready? Flick.”
The four remaining contestants look down at their cures and, as before, middle-finger-flick them. The painsongs rise, rise, go tremulous. Exhaling sharply, Bryce raises his cure, and overloads by mouth.
“Bryce is out,” says Burroughs.
Lyle turns to face Bryce.
“Lyle,” says Burroughs, “is DQ’d for gazebreak.”
“Stupid, stupid,” Lyle says to himself, then, “Oh well,” and, smiling down at his cure, pops its head in his fist.
“Look away,” Burroughs says.
The last two contestants, Triple-J and Chaz, look away from their cures. Chaz is blinking heavily, breathing loudly and deeply.
“Round three in three,” Burroughs says to them. “Ready? Three. Two. One. Flick.”