Script: Missa Populi
LADY GAGA: PRIEST
an explosion of light and music and people and Lady GaGa and confetti
doors open and slam objects enter from everywhere in an orgy of sex/violence/things people in love and hate - in embarrassment and humiliation - sudden grief, anxiety - dread - distraction and envy and greed - and lust - an army of pecks - a liturgy of squawks - a broken wing - cobwebs and tongues and elbows, angels and lips and someone has a shopping cart full of plastic toys and kitchen accouterment which they throw one-by-one against the wall while Lady GaGa sings us this song:
by the end of which Lady Gaga has jumped from the acropolis to be carried safely to a soft landing on pillows
AN ARMY OF GOD
The twin notions of microcosm and macrocosm neatly model the dominant orienting lens of Western thought. From the pre-Socratics on, thinkers who contend that they have discovered cosmological truths argue that man is a little world embodying the structure and traits of the greater universe. To know the universe, they say, look carefully at man, and all truth shall be revealed. As man breathes, so does the universe (Pythagoras). As man fights interior battles between good and evil, so they must exist on a grander scale (Sir Thomas Browne). And to affix such a connection: a maker to make cunningly. And so on it goes.
other voices and texts join in they are dictators and groucho marx and the scum manifesto and tweets and status update blog post personal diary literature and everything words:
Concentric circles in the mind. Interior in conversation with the exterior (or the inverse), and again and again we are re-creating what we know most intimately: cyclical motions from the smallest to the largest scale. Cycles of our hours, our days, the circular motion of my hand in the air is a mirror to this cycle of All We Have: aka life (unless we subscribe to the promise of After. Life. And isn’t this promise of Something HereAfter so much of what brings us back, circling back, week after week, to the Pew, the Alter, the Psalm, the Incense and the Water, Genuflection at His feet? The promise that, if we do this right, are appropriately sorrygood, then this is all just the white-walled waiting room, the cloak room to the AfterLife that counts?) . Creatures of habit, we find our pattern, conscious of duplication or un-.
the voices come and go forming patterns and rhythms fighting and joining soloing at times and fighting with and against the music in rhythms and sudden bursts and building to a unison:
Should enemies strike our country, they would be attempting to shift our attention with panic and weaken our morale with fear. In this, they would fail. No act of theirs can alter the course or shake the resolve of this country. We are a peaceful people - yet we’re not a fragile people, and we will not be intimidated by thugs and killers. If our enemies dare to strike us, they and all who have aided them, will face fearful consequences.
We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of our enemies to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over. With these capabilities, the dark one and his terrorist allies could choose the moment of deadly conflict when they are strongest. We choose to meet that threat now, where it arises, before it can appear suddenly in our skies and cities.
The cause of peace requires all free nations to recognize new and undeniable realities. In the 20th century, some chose to appease murderous dictators, whose threats were allowed to grow into genocide and global war. In this century, when evil men plot chemical, biological and nuclear terror, a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth.
Terrorists and terror states do not reveal these threats with fair notice, in formal declarations - and responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide. The security of the world requires disarming The Old Serpent now.
As we enforce the just demands of the world, we will also honor the deepest commitments of our country. Unlike the Author of Evil, we believe the forgotten people are deserving and capable of human liberty. And when the dictator has departed, they can set an example to all humanity of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation.
The United States, with other countries, will work to advance liberty and peace in that region. Our goal will not be achieved overnight, but it can come over time. The power and appeal of human liberty is felt in every life and every land. And the greatest power of freedom is to overcome hatred and violence, and turn the creative gifts of men and women to the pursuits of peace.
That is the future we choose. Free nations have a duty to defend our people by uniting against the violent. And tonight, as we have done before, America and our allies accept that responsibility.
Good night, and may God continue to bless America.
RIPPLES WHEN YOU STOP
silence
more silence
lights up bodies still in mid-motion the motion is wrong the lights go out and up wrong and out up wrong again and out
a note on the piano leads to another note and another
a match is lit and lights a candle and another and several candles are lit
someone in a bath:
someone else attempting and failing
stand up, sit down, kneel repeat
someone making tea or combing hair:
while in the bathtub:
tea/comb:
bathtub:
sex slow everything in rhythm to the sex breathing
washing hands
Lady GaGa prepares for her death
and hangs herself while saying:
Lady Gaga finds a birthday cake and lights the candles and eats some frosting with her finger
everyone lights candles the place becomes holy
someone arranging fruit in neat rows across the entire space:
they begin to squash the fruit beneath their feet
Lady GaGa is about to die
pause
she blows out the candles on her cake
she jumps from the acropolis and hangs herself and is stoned and dies face down in the cake
A CONSPIRACY OF US
dark a sound followed by sounds from all around a cappella as there is light and everyone moves one at a time in single file across the room while jokes are told about suicide and death they each stop briefly at a wash basin, dip their hands in blood and spread it on their clothes before crossing to Lady Gaga and serving each other cake
do they offer the audience birthday cake as well?