“And so I started the process of curating the clips, right? of choosing the best ones from among the thousands, and it was while I was doing that that I realized there was another whole level of revolutionary innovation I hadn’t even considered.
“Form.
“Like: Here I am, making this video documenting the video clips that originally inspired me to make my revolutionary innovations, and here are also some video clips of those innovations themselves, and the aim of it all is to inspire viewers to come up with their own revolutionary innovations—is there anything else like that? Not quite. Not really. Not that I know of at least. And so therefore the form of the video should reflect that, is what I figured. The form of the video should be revolutionarily innovative itself. There shouldn’t be any, like, voiceover connecting the clips, trying to turn them into some cause-and-effect-type story. They shouldn’t be arranged to move forward through a timeline. There shouldn’t be any kind of, you know, explanation of what I’m trying to achieve with the video, or why I’m trying to achieve it, right? Because when I first saw the clips, I wasn’t trying to achieve anything other than seeing them—I wasn’t trying to connect them. So it should just be the clips. A collage of them. Watching the clips should feel, to the viewer, the way watching them felt to me when I first saw them. Or at least as much as that’s possible. That way, the sum of the clips—that is, A Fistful of Fists—should have the same inspiring effect on viewers as my spending all those years watching clips had on me, but in just a little more than a couple hours, instead of like years. Like, they’ll be able to think the same thoughts, or the same class of thoughts, as I think. About Curios. Viewers will. Just by watching the collage, I’m saying. And they’ll be empowered to innovate. Revolutionarily. On their own. That’s the idea. Do you not…you’ve been doing that Labrador thing again. Do you see what I mean, or…?”
“I think so,” I said. “I think you’re saying the collage is autobiographical. An intellectual history of Jonny ‘Triple-J’ Pellmore-Jason, Jr., revolutionary innovator of Curio interactions.”
“Well, yeah. Autobiographical. Sure. I even thought of calling it an ‘Auto-documentary Collage’ or like an ‘Auto-bio-documentary Collage,’ but then I figured that was redundant, since, like, what can any artist make that isn’t autobiographical? But, I mean, that’s not all it is, either. It’s not just autobiography. It’s not even mostly…I mean, it’s more than just about me, Belt. It’s…Oh man, you’re still doing the thing with your head. You have no idea what I’m talking about and you’re this nice guy and you don’t know how to tell me I’ve totally fucking failed. I’m embarrassing myself in front of my favorite novelist. You’re this amazing thinker, and even you don’t understand what I’m trying…I must sound so pretentious and horrible, yammering on for—God! How long have I been…I’ve made an ass of myself.”
“You know, you know, you know,” Magnet said, fisting the air. “You know, you know, you know, you know.”
Alarmed and a little bit guilty-feeling at how suddenly downcast Triple-J had become, I looked to Fon for a signal, some guidance. She was slouching on her stool, looking down at the counter, in sympathy with one or the other or maybe the both of us.
“You know, you know, you know,” Magnet said, and fisted the air. “You know, you know, you know, you know.”
“Come on,” Trip said. “Come on, dude. Not now. Stop it. Come on.”
Magnet ceased repeating the words, but continued to fist the air near Trip’s ear.
Trip snatched it off his shoulder and shoved it into his sleeve.
I said, “Trip, I feel really bad about this. I should have said—”
“Please don’t,” Trip said. “Don’t snow me. That’ll only make it worse. I failed. I know it. Every artist fails. Over and over. It’s part of the process. It’s horrible. It’s really horrible, you know? But that’s just how it is. I got too ambitious. I dreamed too big. I wasted some time. A lot of time…”
“I didn’t watch the whole video,” I said.
“Well, you don’t have to rub it in,” he said. “Man, if you hated it that much—”
“No,” I said. “I’m not. I’m not rubbing anything in. I didn’t have any time before brunch to finish it.”
He squinted at me. In confusion? With aggression? Aggressive contempt?
Fon was squinting, too. Not with confusion.
Too late to really dodge the blow by then. Who said that meant I just had to take it on the chin, though? What about blocking? What about the counterpunch? I had a pair of arms.
“I wanted to finish watching it,” I said. “I didn’t have time. I was really disappointed I had to stop it so early, and the thing is, everything you were just telling me about, it really makes the video sound like it could be great—I mean, hearing you talk about it really impressed me, and I was so interested in all of what you were saying, I didn’t want to stop you. I should have, especially because I know you wanted a cold read. I should’ve stopped you, but I didn’t. I’m sorry about that.”
“How far did you get?”
“Not far,” I said. “Maybe minute thirty? Before I stuck it in the player, I thought, ‘This kid who made it—he’s obviously sharp, but he’s a teenager. No way he’d have made something feature-length.’ I figured it would be less than fifteen minutes long—I’d assumed I was giving myself enough time to watch it twice. I underestimated you.”
“Huh,” Trip said. “Wow. Minute thirty? So you didn’t even get to…Man, it’s like you didn’t even watch it.”
“That’s what I’m trying to say,” I said.
“So you liked what you saw? Like, you want to watch the rest?”
Fon had stopped squinting.
“I can’t wait to watch the rest,” I told Triple-J, and Fon winked and smiled. “It’s the first thing I’ll do when I get home. And after that, by the way, I’ll be more than happy to talk to you about it…whenever. Just tell me when you want to meet up again.”
“Forget all that noise,” Triple-J said. “It’s early still. Let’s go back to the production house. We’ll watch it together.”
* * *
Traversing the crowd still gathered for the games would, Triple-J said, “delay us forever,” and so it was determined that we’d go to the production house by way of the ramparts, then enter through the side.
Down the stairwell from the turret to the vestibule we headed, breezing past the elevator, through a steel door, startling a chipmunk, which jumped across the wallwalk, parapet to parapet, mere inches in front of us, and scrambled away.