Christopher WunderLee - Moore's Mythopoeia

* * *

That was when Joseph began his career in street theatre. Of course, there was no such thing and Joseph believed he’d coined the term, in fact, invented the entire theatrical genre, for who would believe a Director of the Continued Development of Isotopic Inhibitors would be capable of such a feat. He could sign his name, he did have a little higher education (three years of it), but he didn’t know any other languages, save a little Latin & Greek that he’d picked up as he read, he had never traveled, not on his salary, he wasn’t considered especially intelligent or creative, he made his living as an administrator for a pharmaceutical company and everything he owned was due to that occupation, his life was a mystery to most citizens, he did not leave any original manuscripts (these were quite obviously produced, but shredded later), he did not attempt to copyright any of his work, he knew nothing of law, and he’d neither published a quarto or a folio. However, with all this mounting against the ambitious castaway, Joseph was still inclined to try his hand at the game.

It has always been a prejudice of the intelligentsia that only through education can a truly great genius be produced and this bigotry was Joseph’s first obstacle. He had, due to his unwavering nature and caregiver’s strident leanings towards idle occupations, read and studied and understood. He had gleaned a rather substantial understanding of long dead romance languages, Homeric epics, and Norse lore, of which, he often found himself reciting in his own head from time to time, and even though he was no artist by trade (this was a social oxymoron in Joseph’s time), he did have the habit of inventing elaborate scenarios that he would insert into established story lines. Furthermore, Joseph engorged himself with imperialistic tales, he could often be found reading quite diligently about the geology of the Atlas Mountains, or the geomorphology of the Dead Sea, or the anthropological significance of the Benai Tribe of Patagonia (or what was Patagonia), and with a very Stokeresq and vivid imagination, Joseph was able to construct a setting from places he’d never visited.

At first, Joseph was given to producing monologues and soliloquies, without the assistance of a cast; he did not immediately grasp the possibilities of a one-man show, and would stand within a predetermined alleyway, two red velvet blankets he’d found in a dumpster nailed to the walls like a curtain, and give the lucky few persons happening to pass by an electric performance of speeches he himself had written. He also dabbled in, if memory served him, slightly altered (perhaps a little more) renditions of the great monologues of the theatre. Joseph’s version:

“Verbalize the verbal, I implore you, as I marked it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you oral cavity it, as many of our characters do, I would rather have the cities mourned as my cast. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus (he feigns an enormous chainsaw cutting down the curtain of the air), but use all gently; for in the very hail, the tempest, and, as I may say, world-pool of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it an eye of the hurricane appeal. It offends me to the psyche to hear a vigorous transvestite in high-heels and a powdered bustle tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable sock puppet shows and music. I would have such a fellow beaten for exaggerating terminology. It out-Herods poor Herod, out-Sophocles’ sad Sophocles, out Ben Johnson’s foxy Johnson. Pray you, avoid it like a virulent disease.”

Sadly, at the time, no one thought much of Joseph’s performances, and the manuscripts he’d transcribed by hand to pass out prior to the recital, found their way into the gutter, no one thinking that he would amount to much (rightly so, in some aspects) and so, no extant copies of his work would ever be passed down to posterity. However, it was then that Joseph began to fully fathom the possibilities of his theatrical renditions, it was then that he began to produce full-length, multi-character plays (of which he would play every part) and this break-through, this abominable notion, would fuel his ambitions for the next few weeks, as he sat on his crate, penning a great, enormously elaborate, fully evolved drama. It would debut on the day of the festival, with lights, costumes, a revolving set, pirates, knights, a prince, a pauper, a king, a queen, a princess, a jester, Death, a swordfight, an mammoth battle scene with a large cast of extras (the poor, unknowing audience), and lastly, a score of such irreverent beauty that it would permeate the subconscious’s of all who heard it. It would be called: “Rudolpho & Priscilla Fancy a Picnic”.

Alone, practically naked, shoeless, without a sole, Joseph penned a slanderous, libelous epic on newspaper scraps (writing in the margins and even using lines from the articles [what he called ‘found prose’]). He reasoned, as it was apparent to him, that perhaps he had been a bit of a recluse, that could explain it quite nicely, a bit of a Beau of Stratford upon Avon, a man who deplores public attention and yet, still feels the need to express his wordy soul. It was not impossible, there had been those Salingeresq writers, those that had quite purposefully altered their biographies, purposefully confused their own past in order to throw a great shroud over their personal existence. If little was known of him, perhaps that is exactly how he preferred it; perhaps he’d even fabricated himself another occupation, laundered money from his theatrics into a sinful banking system. Perhaps he’d even required that his full body of work not be published until after his death. True, he was an actor, but the same can be said of them, there are those that provide enormous performances and refuse the public their due, slink back behind the curtain and hide within the applause (that echo of bodily platitude). It is not what a man sees but that which he can seize.

A sort of socially designed Emily D. like career — that was true artistry, the absolute offering any creator may offer their audience, to be absent (the Flaubertian aspects of such a scheme were not lost on dear Joseph). He had not usurped anything from his words, he had allowed his ego to disappear amidst the plots — it was liberating. The entirety of all creation, all history, all literature, were his inspiration, the ghost cannot plagiarize, all is available… Of course, the omnipotence of his voice was overwhelming and he found himself queerly toying with his supposed chorus, if he would be like providence, he would embrace it fully, as he had read, he would reach beyond human comprehension, he would offer no clear explanations, confuse, contort, construct imperfectly and not express his motives. If he was to be divine, he would enter the pantheon as a jester, his absurdity would be possible, even reasonable, but still preposterous. The voice was selfish, his own comedy (despite anyone else’s understanding) would rest solely on his own humor, he would entertain firstly himself, and secondly, his audience, indirectly, almost accidentally, and if it was possible, he would stretch this fortunate vision into the ultrafidian religion of logodulia.

* * *

It was a Leonardesq (transitions from one bright exegesis to another) morning, the light refracting in shards, the environs contorted slightly, the fields of wheat and barley and long grass (all for looks) met the sky politely, blending unnoticeably. The road starts off an old highway, Greene Parkway, veining its way around a peninsula and ending at an isthmus, where between two large lakes, sits the estate.

Vincent was very pleased. She was sitting beside him, fidgeting with a cuticle, her thighs bare, no stockings, just skin, his hand was lying on her knee, and he would sometimes give it a suspicious rub, feeling the smoothness of its texture, perfect in its flawless patina. He was very pleased and was wearing his finest suit, a navy sports coat he could not afford, gray slacks, a white shirt and a modest tie. She was annoyed, more so at his pleasure, than at the appointment, and said nothing as they drove out of the city. She picked lint off her caramel colored dress, a faux suede off-the-shoulder peasant style gown with a ruffled neck and long sleeves. She wore it because it didn’t cover her knees and had a low-cut collar, showing off her collar bone, her sternum, her shoulders, and a little bit more. Her stepmother would not approve: when she sat, it barely covered her and she couldn’t lean over without providing anyone within sight a nice view of her breasts, or on the posterior side, a sliver of underwear between the arches of her backside. Vincent had talked her out of her fringe suede skirt and embroidered vest under the pretense that it didn’t match the chocker necklace he’d recently given her and begged her to wear (wanting her family to see it). She was not pleased… he’d found the invitation first, she never checked her mail, and offered to escort her. He had never met her family (the wedding didn’t count). She never spoke of them (barely thought about them either) and so, when the invitation arrived, he pleaded with her to go. It was a celebration for Graham after all, her brother, he was being appointed to the Board of Directors — they really must go.