Int. NOTHINGNESS, THE PSYCHE

AMERICAN CRITIC
OK, you really think that would be a good idea? I mean, who would read it? Who gives a crap about fucking sub-par exotic poetry anymore?

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
I think it’s brilliant.

AMERICAN CRITIC
Of course you would think that. But really: it’s shit. Who wants some dirty halfbreed to write senseless prose and whine and whine and whine about his homoerotic feelings?

ÁLVARO COELHO
It isn’t homoerotic.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Indeed it is.

ÁLVARO COELHO
It isn’t. Is it so bad that I want to create art for once? To do something other than cobble on the side of the street?

AMERICAN CRITIC
Yes, when your art is crap. Who do you think you are, your faggot partner? He’s the sullen one in this freakish and blasphemous two-way of yours, you can’t have two. You need to do something else. You’re the naturalistic one. You’re the one that embraces the fine qualities of life, like the smell of grass, or the salt of the sea, or whatever the hell your Portuguese backwaters even have.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
That is crude. And it is not ‘poor art.’ How could it possibly be ‘poor art’? It is undeniably clear he is passionate, I feel it–as is my job–and what is more artistically pure than the declaration of the base pleasures, of the animalistic lust, of the antinomy of hate and love–

ANTIGONE
–O, how chaotic!–

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
–the embracement and utter syzygy of his Self, it is becoming one!–

AMERICAN CRITIC
JUNG IS OUT OF FUCKING STYLE!

ANTIGONE (aside)
He shouldn’t be!

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Well. I don’t think I was going for Jung.

AMERICAN CRITIC
Right. You weren’t going for Jung but you did use his special little word, and I just know you were floating towards his dirty dualism.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
I was simply expressing my innermost thoughts!

AMERICAN CRITIC
Bah! Where’s the originality? The uniqueness? The esotericism of it all? You can’t JUST express your thoughts nowadays; if you want to make it into my journal, Hispanic–

ÁLVARO COELHO
I’m not Hispanic?

AMERICAN CRITIC
Do you think Americans know the difference? No. So you’re Hispanic. If you want to make it into my journal, Hispanic, you can’t just EXPRESS YOURSELF. God no, you need to write so intentionally vague and cough obscurity all over your bitchy words so it’s fashionable. They call it being postmodern. Here’s the debrief: create a setting, a nothingness, and inside it is you. You are your own Inland Empire. You have flesh, and blood, a nervous system, a limbic amalgamation of legs, arms, you have fingers… you are hyperaware of these things; you know you are, but you do not know you are man. Now–look inside, what do you feel, and think? Hmm, I feel… a profound religious sadness.

APOSTOLIC CHOIR
(Roman chant)
Imago Dei! Imago Dei!

AMERICAN CRITIC (CONT’D)
This religious sadness, it is a metaphor! Oh fuck yes, there is the Glory of God, then, the decrepit Humanity. Capital H. And then–you have the sublime intersection of some bullshit–which will be Life–

ÁLVARO COELHO
Is this about Rossi?

AMERICAN CRITIC
Well evidently yes. And everyone else like him. Anyway–this religious sadness, it is actually an allegory for internalized homophobia! And then there is some intense confrontation with God, but it isn’t actually God, it is just yourself!

ÁLVARO COELHO
Like Father Carias?

AMERICAN CRITIC
Yes. I will admit, though, I quite like Father Carias.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
You are very reductionist. BORING! It is all BORING!

AMERICAN CRITIC
OK, but am I wrong?

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
That does not matter to me, O not at all! I just think you are a stuck-up, New York bonafide pessimist reviewer, a failure in authorship, someone with not an ounce of appreciation for art and pleasure in their bones, a snooty, pretentious, pompous, and all-around-hating husk of a man!

ANTIGONE
Oh yes!

APOSTOLIC CHOIR
Oh yes!

MT. ZION
Oh yes!

AMERICAN CRITIC
“Oh” will you SHUT UP!

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
NO! You are an absolute embarrassment to everything we do. You do not know how to appreciate the beauty of the finitude of life, how to appreciate writing for the sake of writing! To you everything must have some external motive of earning fame, or greatness, or money, such is the tendencies of your–ugh–American blood. But you know what? You are naught but a critical voice! Yes, you speak of this senseless, irrational religious sadness, a purposefully obtuse avoidance of true feeling, which is somehow more pretentious than your own sharp tongue, but truly: what is this world, if not the thinly-pulled skin, fragile, over the raw, thrashing, real, and pumping blood of our own flesh? The heart and blood that both pulse and burn, that bequeath to us that existential feeling you mock, the feeling of disconnect, of subject-object distinction being neglected, of a oneness with God and with the earth? The ground beneath us? When we drink the wine of consciousness, our intoxication is our individuation; this is our true Self–the Self revealed to us through or awareness. We feel the numinosum of our creatureliness, and we feel our participation in the world of God, whether it is the god that is God, or the god that is the Natural Law, ’tis irrelevant, what matters is that we feel it so.

ANTIGONE
That we feel it so!

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
And LORD knows we have tasted the wine of the Old World, that honeyed mead, softer than even the most supple of breasts–

ANTIGONE
The most supple of breasts!

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
–and tenser than even the throes of orgasmic lust, Hah! We yearn to suckle that wine of the Old World, the wine of Chaos! Yet because of you, O critic, because of that inferior race of yours, with all your journals and merits, we have lost it! We have lost the Old wine! Now we are intoxicated by the fumes of disillusionment and disenchantment, and this curse of disenchantment bestowed upon us with a sentiment most cruel is from your own hands! You whine that we shatter our glasses and write winding prose about our loss, about our feelings, Heavens forbid, yet what knocked the glass from our hands was your fat self!

ANTIGONE
Drink the wine of Kaos! Drink the wine of Kaos!

AMERICAN CRITIC
What do YOU care? You’re not even Álvaro. I don’t care what you write.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
We are all Álvaro, fool!

MT. ZION
YES, DIONYSUS!

AMERICAN CRITIC
Ah, semantics. Semantics!

APOSTOLIC CHOIR
Exegete!

AMERICAN CRITIC
Shut the–

APOSTOLIC CHOIR
Exegete!

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Capture the American!

COMANCHE CHIEF
Use your strength! Use your spears!

ANTIGONE
Use your tricks!

COMANCHE CHIEF
Fight nobly!

ANTIGONE
Fight horribly!

AMERICAN CRITIC
LORD–

APOSTOLIC CHOIR
O Heavenly Lord, above us all, have mercy on our souls. Have mercy on me, a poor sinner–Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a Sinner, Lord I sit in your pew, I kneel before you, I sit in your pew, and I pray before you! I pray to you: O, O, Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name! I, Coelho, ensure your safe return unto the this earth! I spread your Kingdom (thy Kingdom come), I spread your Word, dearest Logos!–

AMERICAN CRITIC
Someone take them away, God!

APOSTOLIC CHOIR
O GOD! O GOD!

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Now you’ve done it, foolish American!

APOSTOLIC CHOIR
I feel the God in the air there is the Lord and in the Logos there is the hm-hm and essence is the intermittence and also there is in the air the Sabbath the Thrones under my arse and the former of the Q.E.D. cosmologically, I am a dog, dog of clementine, and Gillingham, God God ELOHIM the Jews are in the air sea splits the former the latter is the split of the sea and there is Our Father Who Art In Heaven Hallowed Be Thy sometimes I am cherubim also Gabriel is him angel of the LORD washing and licking feet Anthropomorphic plant Kelp of Moses and there is a mountain made of baubles with God inside of them yes God is in the mountain and the bauble and the bauble is made of Satan and Satan is made of Jesus and Jesus is made of YOU! YOU!

SAUL THE PHARISEE
ENOUGH!

ÁLVARO COELHO
What are we talking about?

AMERICAN CRITIC
This is so postmodern of you all, nonsensical monologues is a fan-favorite of the genre.

ÁLVARO COELHO
Goodnight.

DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Ah, but you cannot merely say goodnight! We are, too, in your dreams!

ANTIGONE
In the Unconscious, united, together!