Letter From Crouton #1

soundtrack: Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano in E-Flat, K. 498 "Kegelstatt": III. Rondeau (Allegretto), Mozart.

Dear Full Grown Baby Lemon, Blueberry Flavored Pieces and Paper Cut,

Well, I had to leave before we got to begin. This says nothing about our friendship! I hope that all of the problems  I have caused haven't caused you any real problem, and that while I have presented you with conflict here and there, that eventually you will forget we ever conflicted and continue to regard me with marginal trust and wavering affection.

That thing that you entrusted to my care...I have to be honest here and say that I lost it. Well, first I broke it (beyond repair) and then I lost all of the pieces. Sorry about that. But hey, just stuff, am I right? What's important is that you still have your health, and your wits about you, because we all know that's what brings true wealth and well being.

Again, please accept my apologies for telling you this now. I meant to get to it earlier, but I forgot, and once you forget once, it keeps getting harder and harder to remember until a whole year has whizzed by!

Well, I hope all the hard work is paying off. Let's get lunch!
From your friend,
Crouton

It starts in a box

Full Grown Baby Lemon, or FGBL for short, lives in a box. Part time box dweller. Your whole body fits in there snugly, and you're completely covered by soft, light-weight padding. Did i mention: this is a giant box. Really square, four top panels separated and hanging open, classical "box style."

When we first see FGBL all we see is a small section of the lower arm, the thin bony wrist, and the hand, all stacked in a neat line, protruding from padding-stuffed box. The arm is amazingly awake. Tied to one finger (the pointer, go figure) is a length of rope. The rope is pulled taught and stretches from FGBL's pointer finger horizontally across the stages in a straight line about three and a half feet off the ground. the other end of the rope is tied tightly around the stem of a large spoon/potted plant/unidentifiable shapely object. Blueberry Flavored Pieces (BFP for short) is holding the spoon/potted plant/unidentifiable shapely object that is tied to the rope, and has her back against the wall. The rope restricts the spoon/potted plant/unidentifiable shapely object from reaching its destination somewhere closer to BFP's private sphere. THE ENTIRE SCENE IS ONE OF INCREDIBLE TENSION. Then they begin.

We are buffoons

1. A pantomime dance
2. A man whose profession is to make sport by low jests and antic postures, a comic actor, clown, a jester, fool
3. A low jester, a man who practices indecent raillery. A wag, a joker (implying contempt and disapprobation)
4. Belonging to or characteristic of a buffoon, vulgarly jocular

buffoonesque, buffoonical, buffoonism, buffoonery

Scene not sure Act Whatever

Lights
Full Grown Baby Lemon (FGBL) enters, peels itself
      EDIT
FGBL enters, considers peeling itself.
.
      
Like the Sendor pieces, X is trying to formally catch your attention, but what is actually catching your attention is the thing that's behind the subject, the thing that you're not supposed to watch- in short, set up a structure in which misbehaving is essential and mischief is rewarded
       EDIT
FGBL enters a pool of light to stage right. removes her large plastic science goggles. unzips yellow hoodie and folds, places on table. lies down, back on table, arms folded over chest, as if going to sleep. her lower legs stick off the table a bit, feet fully flexed. starts to slide off table onto floor, as if table is covered in crisco. very slowly.  MEANWHILE, on the other side of the stage, BFP and Crouton are in frantic action (duetwork beginning with grape stem heads, turns into arm puzzle), by the time FGBL is juuuuust about to crumple to the floor, BFP and Crouton make a soft landing pad where she would fall- instead of crumpling, she finds herself sitting very upright on a pile made of their bodies. this is surprising because they've never really come through for her in the past. she'd never really considered them friends, but now things might be different, maybe they want somehow to help......

the goggles are important. they shield FGBL from her own sour juices, and they protect her eyes from sugar and serrated knives.

.....

DISCORDANCE.

.....

an invisible line is always drawn between each subject on stage. these lines comprise a map that is impossible to read and leads nowhere, but is the essential lifeforce behind everything.

Images I Look At (trying to find out where they are and what they're doing there)

I didn't make these! Works by 1) Andrew Sendor, 2) Andrew Sendor, 3) Brendan Monroe and 4) Brendan Monroe

This is what I know so far

Full Grown Baby Lemon (FGBL):
-loves to roll
-searches for meaning
-completely unable to reach a societal standard of fullness
-wants acceptance
-is oily
-is not oily enough
-interested in regularity, will never be regular

Crouton:
-hard crusty edges
-square, and also "square"
-thinks it knows, doesn't know
-first in line always
-faster than everyone
-resilient to weather, despite everything

Blueberry Flavored Pieces (BFP):
-is sticky
-is proud
-not a part of the "group"
-hard to pick out among other things
-searches for color, highlight, separation
-the nicest of the bunch (has experienced hardship)
-there for a friend
-keeps it cool
-not blue

Paper Cut:
-outlier
-sharp,quick
-quick to cut out
-quick to rejoin the crown
-not into martial arts
-cannot melt
-interrupts


there are four performers, this is what i know so far.

Love,
Lisa, or Paper Cut

New Idea

Inspired by my amazing friend Riley, this is an experiment to chronicle the creation process of a new work entitled Full Grown Baby Lemon. It will be performed at the end of February.

Reading Riley's entries i realized the awesome potential in this format. Such a specific voice gives the whole thing a performance quality, the feeling of a well-done voice over, the PRESENTATION of ANYTHING as fully formed despite its newness; in so many words, I want to use this space to present ideas, notations, and scores as finished product, and in this way, these ideas themselves take on a kind of personhood. They grow feet, feet grow shoes. I will use this as a tool.

I don't want to say what the work is about or what i'm dealing with. The purpose of the experiment is to put on display chunks that each individually stand as complete. Again, to endow pieces of the picture with livelyhood instead of stripping them of life by confining them to "process!" Let the vitality of performance infuse everything. This is my attempt to try and HEAR things more clearly.  

Hey,  This is Riley's blog, you should check it out!

Love,
Lisa or, Paper Cut