Mark Leyner - The Tetherballs of Bougainville

OVER-THE-SHOULDER SHOT of Warden circling phone number in catalog.

ZOOM in until phone number fills screen:

1-800-POLYMER

WARDEN

Just call 1-800-POLYMER. An Oshimitsu Polymers America customer service representative is waiting to answer any questions you might have about how Oshimitsu’s innovative line of biopolymer products can make your home theater the very best that it can be.

COMPUTER-ANIMATED OSHIMITSU LOGO SEQUENCE (8 seconds):

We hear hyperkinetic BONGO RHYTHM.

Phone number detaches itself and rises from catalog page, which dissolves, leaving numerals on empty cool-blue background (0.75 sec.).

Numerals break into rods and spheres, which then arrange themselves into polymer chain (1.50 sec.).

Polymer chain metamorphoses into fibers, and then fibers into spider’s web (2.25 sec).

Web becomes asteroid net, which snares massive meteor hurtling toward earth and slings it harmlessly into deep space (3.00 sec).

Asteroid net contracts, elongates, and divides into suspension-bridge cables spanning serpentine river (3.75 sec.).

Suspension-bridge cables metamorphose into speaker suspension lines supporting huge loudspeaker over teeming indoor arena (4.50 sec.).

Speaker and suspension line remain foregrounded as indoor arena dissolves into sumptuous penthouse apartment with skyline view and amorous couple on sofa (5.25 sec.).

Penthouse apartment, speaker and couple dissolve back into cool-blue background (5.75 sec.).

Speaker suspension line breaks into rods and spheres (6.25 sec.).

Rods and spheres reconfigure into Oshimitsu Polymers America LOGO. Bongo solo crescendos and abruptly ends — and we hear astringent KOTO ARPEGGIO. Audio track and animation are synchronized so that koto arpeggio sounds at precise instant that logo coalesces (7.00 sec.).

HOLD LOGO for full second and dissolve (8.00 sec.).

WARDEN takes quick hit from blunt and proffers it and tea coaster with pill assortment to MARK.

MARK sticks blunt in mouth and, squinting through smoke, chooses two Demerols, and washes them down with a mouthful of tepid Meursault-Charmes.

WARDEN selects a single Fentanyl, tilts her head back, whacks the 2-mg tablet toward the back of her throat, and gulps it down dry.

WARDEN

What kind of sound system do you have?

MARK

In my room?

WARDEN

(nonchalantly wanton, pupils dilated, absently singeing armpit stubble with lit end of blunt)

Yeah.

MARK

(momentarily lost in pagan reveries)

Huh?

WARDEN

(also having lost her train of thought)

What do you think of Guiliani banning the Calvin Klein fist-fucking billboards?

MARK

(avoiding politics)

Did you ever look at De Kooning’s Alzheimer paintings on glue?

WARDEN

Now I remember what I was asking you … What kind of sound system do you have? In your room.

MARK

I have a Sherwood RV7050R receiver, a Yamaha CDC-655 CD player, and a pair of Bose speakers.

WARDEN

Which Bose?

MARK

The Acoustimass 5 Series.

WARDEN

Excellent speakers.

MARK

They’re OK … I got them as a gift for acing my Introduction to Recursive Function Theory final. They’re nothing compared to those things, though … (marveling at the suspended Meridians) . Those are motherfuckin’ monsters!

CAMERA DOLLIES toward and then CRANES out through window.

VARIOUS ANGLES of honking Canada geese banking in crimson-streaked crepuscular sky over prison.

WARDEN (off-screen)

What are you running from your receiver to your speakers?

MARK (off-screen)

XLO ER-12. Braided construction.

WARDEN (off-screen)

Tinned ends?

MARK (off-screen)

Spade banana pin.

WARDEN (off-screen)

Excellent. What do you clean your CDs with?

MARK (off-screen)

Acoustic Research Fiber-Optic Lapping Slurry. And if they’re really scuzzy, I have a Marantz KR-II CD Gamma Irradiation Deck.

WARDEN (off-screen)

What do you use to dust your components?

MARK (off-screen)

For the CD player, I use Phase Technology Electrostatic Gauze, and for the receiver, a Hitachi BPA-500 Isopropyl-Impregnated Cheesecloth.

WARDEN (off-screen)

How about for your hands?

MARK (off-screen)

Klipsch Chlorhexidine Gluconate Audiophile Scrub.

WARDEN (off-screen)

What do you dry them with?

MARK (off-screen)

I’d always used the Polk Audio NS7 Post-Lavage Moisture Management System, but lately I like the Cambridge Soundworks Egyptian Cotton Pile Matrix X-130 Ablution Residue Stanching Shammy.

WARDEN (off-screen)

The S Series?

MARK (off-screen)

The SE.

WARDEN (off-screen)

That’s a nice towel.

PULL-BACK SHOT — using fiberoptic endoscope — beginning in WARDEN’S STOMACH, moving slowly up esophagus, and emerging from mouth, and then widening into shot of WARDEN and MARK, seated on couch, drinking Meursault-Charmes and smoking blunt.

(If the actress playing the role of the WARDEN finds the experience of having the endoscope passed in through her mouth and down into her stomach too much of an ordeal, an injection of diazepam is recommended to relax her.

(If, despite the diazepam injection, the actress still finds the scope excessively uncomfortable, a stuntwoman may be necessary to accomplish this shot.

(Be very careful when selecting the stuntwoman that the inside of her stomach and esophageal lining resemble the stomach cavity and esophagus of the actress.

(Recently, in the film My Angel’s Bitter Kiss , a stuntwoman was used for a pull-back shot that was to have originated in Michelle Pfeiffer’s duodenum. When the movie was shown to test audiences, it was so obvious that this was not the duodenum of Michelle Pfeiffer that — despite the intended poignancy of the scene — the theater erupted into derisive laughter. The entire sequence had to be hastily reshot at great additional expense.

(If, in the course of the pull-back shot, any polyps are found, they might as well be removed, since you’re in there anyway. Snip or vaporize polyps using the diathermy snare or laser attached to the endoscope head — this is assuming, of course, that the actress or stuntwoman has signed the appropriate SAG release forms.)

WARDEN

So, what’s your room like?

MARK

Pale colors, a good amount of bare floor, and a light and airy treatment at the windows.

When I turned 13, my mom and I decided to completely redo the room because the whole prepubescent Power Ranger/Michael Jordan thing had gotten so stale. And when we sat down and started talking about what we wanted to do, I initially envisioned a cross between the hunting lodge of Prince Augustus of Hanover in Upper Austria and a Level 4 Biohazard Decontamination Chamber. I wanted that mix of virile Bavarian coziness — that kind of very traditional sylvan gemütlichkeit — and a more hyperreal, more cyber-tea-ceremony, more sort of post-plague digital-necropolis feel. But it’s become so much more eclectic than that. I am not a proponent of the monolithic style. I think its just so wrong to try to force one’s naturally mercurial aesthetic temperament into a single procrustean stylistic formula.…

But, gosh, if I had to characterize the room …

I’d say that it’s a living space that, in its restraint, clarity, and openness, is timeless. I’d describe its distinguishing features as superb proportion, wonderful scale, elegant simplicity, and marvelous objects. I’d call it a simple, uncluttered space designed with equal measures of panache and pragmatism for a 13-year-old boy to do the basic things that a 13-year-old boy does — talk on the phone, surf the net, get high, watch TV, listen to music, and masturbate.