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Two Weeks with Bread & Puppet Theater: Part X 1/2/2004 8:19:38 AM
Manifesto of the Possibilitarians.
We begin the manifesto scene by declaring ourselves the Possibilitarians and denouncing the battlefield that killed us and the history the victors tell. In between our statements we hop up and down and and chant "hup hup hup hup" as we throw down our armor and weapons.
The Battle of Good and Evil was not that of the aliens against the barbarians or the barbarians against the aliens, but that of war against life. Death is a natural part of life, but war is different as it requires organization, propaganda, chains of command, technology, communication. War is a function of the Enemy of Nature system and the nine point manifesto is the Possibilitarian platform against just such a system.
Where the Enemy of Nature System is a technological ordering that strips all phenomena of significance, meaning and context, and abstracts all into a resource well (to use a Heideggerian term,) the Possibilitarian manifesto aims to move life away from mathematical abstractions as currency and digital technology towards a culture in which experience is connected to a world of sky and earth, where food is to be eaten and celebrations practiced.
There are nine points to this manifesto and nine speakers. One at a time each Possibilitarian speaker takes hold of one of the Representative of the Existing Order of Life puppets that had been left propped against the rear curtain of the stage and comes forward, declares their part of the agenda, casts down the representative into the hands of Justin, who is standing in front of the stage where we had also thrown down our weapons and armor. At this point the rest of the Possibilitarians shout "Hey! Boom!" and mime kicking or throwing something unwanted only to start again with "hup! hup! hup! hup!" as another Possibilitarian speaker comes forth.
I am the speaker of point six to the manifesto. Each of us holds our representative puppets differently. I decide for something idiosyncratic, tilting my puppet to the left as I reach the front of the stage and clamping both of my hands down on the right side of the effigy as I declare my line:
"Hands which have been taken away from citizens in favor of digital systems must be restored to their owners in an improved condition."
It's a hard line with so many subordinate clauses, but after a few nights I get the hang of it.
After the ninth point of the manifesto, read by Eddie, we leave the stage and prepare the parts of the sleeper puppet in the Possibilitarian Wake Up Services.
At one point when I am home, my roommate Chris asks me the meaning of my line since both analog watches and digital watches measure time. I note the difference in that digital watches display moments in time as isolated events, numbered and labeled never to be experienced again. Analog watches display moments in relation to others in continuous repeating cycles. One can say "quarter past the hour" in a world of analog time but the statement is anachronistic (so to speak) in a world of digital time. Of course, there is also the double entendre regarding the reeducation of hands at the university of hands and feet since we have forgotten so many of the other skills of hands in a sensual world.
