Category Archives: Screenplay
Purple Verse
The Foreword to Insomnia’s Istanbul (The Voice of an Unreliable Narrator, in Medias Res)
Now and then, I am restless . . .
When I dropped them off at the restaurant, Simon asked me to join them for lunch. I parked the dolmus near the Sirkeci Railway. Potential fares watched me curiously. I felt compelled to announce it was time for lunch.
‘Ogle yemegi.’ I said to them. And not sesame-sprinkled bread either, I said to myself!
I couldn’t walk fast enough to get away from the stink of smelted metal, and I find the putrid aroma of leather nauseating. What you smell on Galata Bridge depends on where you stand. Looking over at the fishermen bobbing on the Horn, supporting the floating bridge, and still managing to grill a pan-full of mackerel, I almost walked over and bought a snack from my brethren.
When I arrived, Simon and the woman were drinking Tuborg Bira. I don’t know what inspired her, but she was wearing the hood of her caftan. My friend, Ishmir, served us. He handed me the menu, but he was a very good Maître d. Ishmir stood directly across from her and suggested we start with hors d ‘oeuvres.
They ordered Red Caviar in Mayonnaise. I ordered Stuffed Vine Leaves. Of course, when Ishmir suggested fish, she ordered Roe. I ordered Anchovy. But Simon ordered Roast Lamb with Onions, Yuk! Ishmir smiled a lot, but he was a cad: a supreme waiter and a notorious rogue.
For vegetables, she ordered Spinach Tomato. Simon ordered Squash Potatoes, and I ordered Cabbage. They wanted Strawberries for fruit, and I ordered Figs. For dessert, she ordered Yogurt and Egg Pudding. Simon, a Lady’s Navel — a donut soaked in honey — and me, Rice Pudding.
Then we had vodka. She tipped the glass as if it was empty, like her vanity. Simon told Ishmir to give it some color. So Ishmir put a peach on the rim. Suddenly, everything was right. She rested her elbow on the table, her chin in the palm of her hand. Cradling the vodka in her other palm, she started at the bottom of her wish list.
“I want to go to Topkapi Palace.”
Simon smiled the way a jinni would when his wish comes true. “What do you expect to find there?”
“The shadow of God, I don’t know. I just want to go.” She dropped her eyes, and then raised them again.
Simon said, “You want to see the shadow of God? Perhaps we should go to the Sancta Sophia instead. But of course we can go to the Imperial Harem in Topkapi, and feel the shadows of black, emasculated men who controlled the Harem — eunuchs who resembled modern-day pimps without penises. Or the captured, bought, or sold foreign — and often Christian — concubines whose body hair was removed, and then pomaded with henna to prevent perspiration, after it was massaged and scrubbed by slave women too old to be favored, because the Sultan put his handkerchief on the concubine’s shoulder which she brought to his bed at midnight.”
He leaned in to whisper, “A world of bored lesbians or platonic affairs with castrated page-boys. And afterwards, we could dive the Bosphorus,” he pointed east toward Asia, “in search of those weighted sacks that Sultan Ibrahim had two hundred and eighty concubines sewn into. They’ll be upright and easy to find at the bottom of the channel.”
“You know. . .” She lowered the hand that held her chin onto the table, and dug her nails into the palm of her hand. She sipped her vodka before she continued with, “A goalkeeper can catch ‘and’ throw the ball.”
Simon didn’t return her volley. He reached into his pocket for cigarettes.
“Meaning?” He offered her one, but her eyes faded and she shook her head, balancing the rim of the glass on her tongue. She sipped her vodka again. When she spoke, her blue eyes were flambé.
“You can relate the melodrama of emasculated slave drivers, expose the gauze of white bondage in a pleasure dome. You can casually lean into homophobia, and then sink into regret. You can hear voices from the bottom of the channel, and you can suggest that we dive like dreadful Arabs. But you don’t mention that in this center of civilization, in this threshold of bliss, the arched eyebrows of ravaging old men who think it is right and necessary to punish one man for his impudence with the lives of a thousand boys and a thousand girls, a thousand mothers and a thousand fathers.”
When she said “a thousand” her eyes closed, and her lips barely moved. I could hear her heart weep. She leaned across the table into prose.
“Muslims never mention a time when neglected and lascivious Turkish women stole around looking for new loves, shrouded in these habiliments now celebrated as some sort of Islamic affirmation.”
She snatched the hood from her head. With a kiss curl on her cheek she continued, “Whores, whose husbands dreamed about the Imperial Harem, and could never recognize their disguised wives in that garden of paradise.”
I pursed my cigarette between my lips, looked down the bridge toward the Galata Tower, and thought, “Please! Fuck her in the ass!”
Simon’s bottom lip collapsed between his teeth, and when he released it to speak, a white impression remained. His head moved like the pugilist you shadow box, the prized peacock that halts to seduce you. “Is my nose bleeding, goalkeeper?”
Her hands moved across the table towards him. She took one of his hands in hers tenderly. She spread his fingers, used her own to stroke the back of his hand with hers, turned his palm over and held it up as though light would pass through it like alabaster. She talked into it, as if her words would penetrate like sound.
She said, “I saw a man in Seoul, on a gray day. My girlfriend and I had just hailed a taxi. He was with business associates, I guess, I don’t know. They carried armored briefcases, and he was wearing a plush black topcoat. A town car pulled in front of his party when his eyes, the color of the day, watched me, watching him. It was a magnetic moment, with magnetic potential, but I felt my body moving like Niagara toward the opened door of the taxi, and fall inside reluctantly. I left a phantom standing.”
Simon’s bottom lip grew accustomed to his teeth again. He tilted his head far enough to see his reflection in her eyes, and then her hands disappeared between his. White horses straddled the hull, and Ishmir smiled at me, when a glass of tea shifted on his tray.
I followed them through the Imperial Gate, even though I’d been there before. They were easy to trail. After we paid half price for nylons from a street vendor, Simon bought some French vanilla because she liked the decanter. It resembled a flask. But French vanilla didn’t mix with the miasma of death that surrounded the palace: the dark tiny cells, marbled rooms, and iron barred windows belonging to black eunuchs, and the eerie, evil battle-axes and scimitars of the conquered. Or, the surrealism of giant emeralds on the crown of the Topkapi Dagger, like a roman candle carried through the Gate of Felicity by Madonna.
Despite all of that, and the barbaric flower patterns on the walls, and so much gold and diamonds they resembled copper and glass, I smelled French vanilla in this stained-glass heaven, and heard tocks in a room full of clocks like waterfalls. But what I wanted most of all, was to see Simon’s cock between her thighs.
Beneath the delicate balconies were three hundred tiny rooms, and four hundred years of a ravaged Harem bridged by staircases, little courtyards, and pavilions. At the end of the cul-de-sac, I saw the lustrous eyes of the gazelle. While my thoughts shifted from ugly destruction to whet wildflowers in this horribly airy place, she looked satisfied. Then the lights went out!
All you could hear was the hushed noise of silence. The familiar yelps of babies paused for the unfamiliar, but the proverbial blackout would arouse the dead before they wiped sleep from their eyes and magnified the click of her heels rising from clay. I saw her leap into his arms in lackluster headlights, and her bosom brushed his face infrared in taillights.
Toward my voice of gentle direction, a friendly gauge to the door I opened, in a dark stagger they fell to obscurity like me. But I prefer to be forgotten and left to eavesdrop on transitory affairs.
They were two people, interacting on each other. One to conquer like the Arab in the desert; the other to submit, like the Turkish nomad. Unfortunately, it was black in the back of the dolmus like the city, and I was only privy to the promise of pleasure, the sound of pain, the smell of conduction, and the rhythm of breathing.
Unlike the neighbors next door, who desperately moan for us all, in the back of a dolmus sex is existentialism. It is earnest copulation, a period of decline in a carriage drawn by a wild-eyed spooked horse, and I hoped she felt the sharp turn at the corner of the Soup Kitchen of Lady Nilufer in her throat.
We skipped the Sancta Sophia and the Blue Mosque. We circled Istanbul University. When I crossed the Galata Bridge and so many pilgrims dancing in the dark, the electric power line that lay victim to steel-belted radials in the middle of the street swung carefully without resistance, to expose the nightclub in the Galata Tower!
I watched Simon and the woman from a bar stool dance the Fandango. A Jew with a batch of dark curly hair in rings around his head was dented at the crown by a yarmulke. He ordered double shots of Absolut Vodka with the regularity of a dehydrated Arab, and shook his head in time to Ruben Blades’ “El Padre Antonio.”
Over the lullaby of the synthesizer, the Tower buzzed with a chorus of “Muchas gracias” from the last Spanish-speaking Jewish community. When that same synthesizer switched to hot salsa and the Jews were oddballs again, the woman’s body arched, the small of her back was in the palms of Simon’s hands. Her hair hung like strings of yellow ribbon suspended from a merry-go-round. Fixed at the center, she rode the stallion.
Then I felt an annoying finger poke me on the shoulder blade. Of course, when I turned, the offender moved to the other side. I hate that! It was Ishmir. Immediately, he excused himself and sardonically asked, “Affedersiniz, Ingilizee bilen bir kimse merede?”
I swiveled on the stool, and he turned to see what I saw. My fare, without trying, drawing attention like the dominant table in a crowded restaurant. Without turning away, Ishmir searched for his stool. With his hand on the seat, he slowly sat down.
“Guzel . . .” He called her beautiful before his mouth closed and his eyes narrowed. I ordered two shots of viski. I was above lust in a crowd. Instead, I encouraged the love Simon consumed and Ishmir conserved — like any valid voyeur.
In this motley assembly of American infidels, young Turks, Jews, and effendis, Ishmir clearly wanted her. He had no shame. I watched Ishmir once stand in the center of the howling, his erection discovered and affectionately held up for ridicule, Ishmir dropped his pants and revealed a deep-rooted trunk. With his back bowed by his fists, he struck a perfect anatomical pose, a picture of pride among men.
Now, Ishmir watched her through narrowed, schizophrenic eyes, with his nose pressed against the windowpane, a man who has nothing, and no one adored her, like the man Luther Vandross and Martha Wash sang about, and my fare danced. Kirk Whalum’s sax charmed the snake. Ishmir wanted to be the one.
Suddenly, he swerved around and watched them in the mirror behind the bar. Ishmir swigged the viski and then asked in a melodic yet unromantic tone, “Did he nail her?”
“In the back of the dolmus.”
“How?”
“With an overhand knot around her neck-“
“You always lie!” Ishmir cut me off. “I’m not interested in your vivid imagination! What did he do, how did he do it?”
“I’m telling you what I know! If you don’t believe me, ask him!”
“What of her wrists?”
“A surgeon’s knot.”
“Bullshit! That’s too much kinetic energy. She would have to be willing!”
“She was.”
“I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you…” Ishmir shook his head and looked into his empty glass on the bar. I gestured to the bartender for refills. We were silent. Ishmir was disappointed. He swigged the viski again, and slammed the empty glass on the bar.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why what?”
“Why was she willing?”
I watched him. Ishmir was a desperate, impatient predator who didn’t know how to take down his prey.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Nothing’s obvious,” he snapped back. “Did she cry out loud?”
“Yes . . . in ecstasy.”
Ishmir swallowed loudly. He motioned for another refill, and looked in the mirror again. Simon and the French Vanilla were sitting at a table for two. Simon’s arm was draped across the back of her chair. She used his thigh to rest her arm, her hand between his knees, her head on his shoulder. He fed her the olive he fished from her drink, and sucked the salt from her lips. Ishmir swigged the viski again.
He set his glass on the bar. With the same hand, he scratched the back of his neck, looked at me, and said, “She’s a whore.“
…. They were loaded. Simon’s arm draped over her shoulders drew her close. They strolled to the bar. She was his center of gravity, until he slung his arms around mine and Ishmir’s necks. He left her like a shallow boat floating behind him. Simon proclaimed in English that he would buy more to drink if we answered a riddle.
“What motivates a woman more than love or pride, country or power, glory or God?” I shifted my eyes from Simon’s to meet Ishmir’s. It was a trick question. I thought of the Sphinx for our reward. Then, in an aria of proper English, Ishmir and I replied, “Man, of course.”
We laughed in perfect harmony. I looked over my shoulder. The truth was never more obvious than the pure expression of vulnerability and betrayal in her eyes; because, I thought, I had betrayed her confidence. I snooped. I peeked. Yes, I stuck my dick in her pie and felt a pang of regret.
We laughed in perfect harmony. The truth was never more obvious than the pure expression of vulnerability and betrayal in her eyes; because, I thought, I had betrayed her confidence. I snooped. I peeked. Yes, I stuck my dick in her pie and felt a pang of regret.
She resembled an Alsatian bitch with that uneven stride, and when we got to the dolmus, she literally crawled inside on all fours. Ishmir saw the fresh pears before Simon closed the door.
I watched Simon curiously. Surely, he wasn’t finished with her yet! He wouldn’t send her home in a taxi . . . !
“We forgot her caftan.” He lit a cigarette, cupping the flame from the breeze, as he walked away.
“I’ll do it!” I thumbed myself repeatedly in the chest. I was afraid to be left alone with her.
Ishmir nudged me and showed me his empty hands, and before I could fill them with my fists, he opened the door and filled them with her ass. Two fresh pears in his hands. He bit one gently, his tongue between his teeth, his arms embraced her and his face disappeared.
She thought he was Simon. She moaned when Ishmir’s hands slipped down and touched the core of her sex. I knew he’d gone too far when I was erect. I reached for the scruff of his neck and missed when he fell inside and covered her on the seat. He started . . . humping her, like lesbians hump virgin lesbians. It was fucking coitus!
They were slender bodies of revolution. Then she screamed the way a little girl screams at the sight of an earthworm. When Ishmir backed off, a wet spot clung to his leg. She bolted out of the dolmus like a mandrill and leapt on him. She was in a violent rage! The skin of his face tore under her nails. She was like the sticky pulp of Oedipus hurled in Jocasta’s face.
She slapped him hard, and harder again before Ishmir grabbed her by the neck with one hand, and parried with the other. That didn’t work! He started choking her and pushed her back inside the dolmus. They smelled like leather. I needed to throw up. Then I realized we were in the leather district of the bridge!
Out of nowhere, while I stood there praying for fresh air and Simon’s return, she stabbed Ishmir repeatedly in the head with the heel of her shoe! He fell on top of her in a convulsive fit. Blood pulsed with every spasm, and zigzagged in a darker red all over my velvet roof and all over her yellow hair-dripping red. I threw up on the curb.
Simon finally returned, and shoved Ishmir to the floor while she kept screaming, “He, he, he . . .” and pointing at Ishmir’s bloody head. She was hysterical! Instead of shaking or slapping her, Simon hid her face in the crook of his neck.
“Shh, shh!” he said anxiously, until she simply trembled violently in his arms, her cries inverted.
“What happened?” he whispered between clenched teeth. I hesitated, trying desperately to separate saliva from acid.
“Talk to me, and speak English!”
I pointed at Ishmir’s head, “He violated her . . .” I choked.
“You watched him violate her?”
My hands wouldn’t speak, “I . . .I . . .I . . .” Simon lunged and punched me fast and hard in the face. I stumbled, my arms slamming on top of the dolmus. I braced myself against a fall on the curb I hurled on. I thought he broke my bloody nose.
“You stupid fuck!” He’s your friend, how could you let this happen?” He pointed his angry finger.
I raised the palms of my hands to fend off his accusations, shaking my head in denial.
…..I pointed at Ishmir. “He forgot that she’s an American!” Then I turned and pointed at her, “And she forgot that she’s in a foreign country!”
…..I tell you all this because I can’t tell anyone else. You see, I helped them excavate an Ottoman gravestone. We tied Ishmir supine around it in square nylon knots and threw him in the Golden Horn. What is life in Istanbul anyway? A world of felicity. Ishmir is in the other.
I see the French Vanilla on the cover of magazines. She has an odd, fixed look in her eyes. The kind of look every man sees when a woman is between his legs on her knees; because, indeed, nothing propels a woman like man, not God, not country, not pride.
“Please excuse me. Ogle yemegi.”
The mackerel has never tasted better. There must be something in the water.
Copyright © 2004-2021 E Maria Shelton Speller All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thanks to David Halbertam’s, The Amateurs for the literary buoyancy of the narrative.
Acknowledgement: Edited by Leah Rambadt
Welcome digital explorers ~ to a thrilling and immersive experience!
In this audio odyssey, you’ll be treated to the captivating voices reminiscent of the legendary Charles Bukowski (as the Narrator), the enigmatic Joaquin Phoenix (as Simon), the ethereal Rooney Mara
(as the French Vanilla) and the magnetic Vincent Cassel (as Ishmir).
As you embark on this fascinating journey through the mysterious streets of Istanbul, guided by our unreliable narrator, prepare to be enthralled by the seamless blend of technology and storytelling. So sit back, relax, and let the digital adventure begin!
The Foreword to Insomnia’s Istanbul – The Voice of an Unreliable Narrator In Medias Res [AUDIO]
Listen below for excerpts!
Dreamscape’s Mixtape
Dreamscape’s Istanbul
A. I. Assignment — A Poem the Gods Would Read [Reimagined]
ITDWTRC Swag IV — Love Divine Horses
VR Experience Coming Soon!
Copyright 2022 All Rights Reserved.
Trailer — Inside the [Dollhouse] with the Red Corvette — VR APP — COMING SOON!
Inside the [Dollhouse] with the Red Corvette
Music, SFX, AAC, ASMR, AI, Gamification and Storytelling on the Explode platform landing — Dreamscape — the one and only Interactive Meta Environment.
The SFX Menu Includes
The quintessential sound of the Pandemic thermometer
An environmental protest and chants of children
A Dune character shouting “Freedom”
Cartoon characters laughing at… Idealism
AI woman announcing traffic delays
Nouveau riche exodus on a Spaceship
AI woman announcing the time
The security breach and sound of an alarm
A Rush Hour in India
A Bazaar in Turkey
An ASMR cough
The paranormal voice of a robot
Tape Talk Fast Forward/Rewind
The motif of the Pandemic thermometer
The steam punk sound of doom
The Ditty bop sound signaling the end of the game.
Copyright © 2021, E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten
or redistributed without permission.
The [Dollhouse] with the Red Corvette is a lateral, vertical, linear, horizontal, and spherical art installation. It is a poesy puzzle for verse and graffiti, with sublime imagery. It functions like a mnemonic, a telltale pastiche for found poesy in a digital world. Some of the pieces fit, and some are misfits -- that lead to other immersions... in this stained-glass heaven -- this society in the machine... Copyright © 2017-2021 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved.
Explode Goes To Dreamscape
THE DREAMSCAPE MEDIA KIT
Our blog ~ EXPLODE – The Writers Environment is a platform for curated and commercial content in an interactive meta-environment… and DREAMSCAPE is the landing. Its an art installation in a digital world…
It’s an immersive ad-free environment that functions like a wikihole — and a literary Pokémon.
DREAMSCAPE is not only a standalone platform but also functions as base camp for the “Inside the [Dollhouse] with the Red Corvette (ITDWTRC) gaming app — that gives users the autonomy to curate their own experiences from their points of view and assign meaning.
When content on DREAMSCAPE tells a story about a beautiful woman swimming in a pool – we want you to see her. We want you to stumble for points on a link you cannot see, fall down a rabbit hole and land in an environment with a beautiful woman swimming in a pool, on the inside of a glass house – in Hollywood Hills…
Like Seth Godin’s Purple Cow — DREAMSCAPE is remarkable because it has to be. Or it’s just another brown cow — an ordinary website — with ordinary content. But Purple Cows need Purple Cows to be Purple Cows. DREAMSCAPE facilitates purple content, purple website design and development, and purple product placement — for purple people.
It is the foundation for curated experiences in an interactive meta-environment that facilitates content and other stories – using digital media and conceptual art that redefines how artists, their audience and visitors experience real and virtual content on several levels. Every paragraph, period, and ellipses is space for discovery.
DREAMSCAPE is a vibe for visionaries — Poets, Writers, Developers, Programmers, Filmmakers, Thespians, Graphic Designers, Artists, Musicians, Directors, Cinematographers, Designers, Educators, Historians, Actors, Conceptual and Performance artists, Photographers, SMIs, VR, WebVR, XR and AI.
It’s what William Gibson described in Neuromancer, “A graphic representation of data plugging your consciousness into a digital world, while watching the physical realm evaporate.”
DREAMSCAPE is where Gibson’s Neuromancer meets Homer’s Odyssey, Basquiat meets Hip Hop, and Hitchcock meets Quentin Tarantino ~ in the one and only interactive meta environment where presentation is myth and “space” is an intrinsic, discrete, and symmetrical experience — for purple people!
WORLDWIDE AUDIENCE REACH >11M
FOLLOWERS ACROSS SOCIAL PLATFORMS >354K
GENDER F: 47% M: 51% Unspecified: 2%
DEMOGRAPHICS 18-24: 41% 25-34: 26% 35-44: 13% 45-54: 9% 55-64: 6% 65+ 5%
LOVE DIVINE VIDEO IMPRESSIONS >1M
AVERAGE TIME SPENT ON DREAMSCAPE 44.48 sec
Acknowledgement:
DREAMSCAPE and the gaming app ITDWTRC benefits humanity as an alternative to social malfeasances e.g., sexism, racism, classism, genderism, ageism, colonialism, colorism, persecution, oppression, violence and subjugation… It is space to dream unencumbered by social impediments – immersed in dopamine and replete with points for discovery. What we experience in RL, we can experience untethered in XR and AI.
© 2020 E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved.
Music, SFX, ASMR, AI, AAC, Gamification and Storytelling on trenchpeople.com.
© 2021, E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The SFX Menu Includes
The quintessential sound of the Pandemic thermometer
An environmental protest and chants of children
A Dune character shouting “Freedom”
Cartoon characters laughing at… Idealism
AI woman announcing traffic delays
The nouveau riche exodus on a Spaceship
AI woman announcing the time
The security breach and sound of an alarm
A Rush Hour in India
A Bazaar in Turkey
An ASMR cough
The paranormal voice of a robot
Tape Talk Fast Forward/Rewind
The motif of the Pandemic thermometer
The steam punk sound of doom
The Ditty bop sound signaling the end of the game.
Copyright © 2021, E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten
or redistributed without permission.
DREAMSCAPE — Promotional Special During the Holiday Season
Airport Announcement in Manila
Love Divine — Opens
Love Divine — Official Release Date
[LD] Love Divine — Premier Date Soon
[LD] Love Divine
Directing the Master Scene in the Mirror
We’re standing behind you
The window is your mirror
We‘re filming your reflections
In the window
You can see
The teardrop on her cheek
The other tear — is in your hair
Reach up and wipe the tear
With your thumb
Roll the tear on your fingers
As if water — is on the wings
of a butterfly_
Now, your face is dry
You point and say something
Insignificant like
“See that gas station down there.”
Vignette for Love Divine.
Copyright © 2018 E Maria Shelton Speller
Escapades and Props (WIP)
Its Manhattan...
No.
Istanbul.
Istanbul’s Muse Board
June 2, 2017
Explode — The Writers Environment Experiential Network Project — has a girl band of STEMs! Stand by for updates.
May 19, 2017
You never appreciate home
As much as when you come home
Where God lives… with you
May 11, 2017
Haiku #13
Name baby something
Something easy to retrieve
Then share Me with friends
About a Prisoner of Love (Props to Christopher Logue’s War Music)
Look at the smile on my face. I knew you were selfish. Abandoned, you left me on the side of the road. Gone. Put yourself in my place. Left, on the side of the road. Naked. I knew you would own me — broken and falling to pieces — in halcyon swirls, dark storms, and faints. I would let you stand me on my head, spin me like a top, a dreidel — and catch me, before I fell. Then, you said you would sleep with her because, “Why not? It’s not a competition — though you might win. Its not about… us.” That’s balls. CUT!
April 9, 2017
Notes on Manhattan: This is not a Warhol ~ Basquiat Installation. I curated the Opening and a still – not the fucking gorgeous film. While it is lovely — I did not curate Manhattan. Not my composition — not my triptych. This space is for art — for the sake of art — unaltered. It’s Explode: The Writer’s Environment!
To curate content in this space, please contact me.
April 25, 2017
Thanks Halo Music!
Last night, a friend and I
took the Kimye Tour
in Cuba
I was a voyeur
A friend took him there and there and there
Unbeknown to him
I asked him if he knew where Kimye went
in Cuba
We roared and stumbled on together
Please please paint a picture…
Funny, you asked!
Copyright 2017 by E Maria Shelton Speller. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Trench People — Once Upon a Time There Were… Master Scene 2
The intent of this installment is to juxtapose art, content, audio, imagery, prose and poetry in an original screenplay, Trench People (TP). Explode is a product of the antagonist’s art in TP. TP is the framework for a virtual walk-through art installation like Christo and Jean Claude’s Wrapped Walk Ways or The Umbrellas — a mind-scape if you will.
Data for how many thoughts we have per minute and the speed of thought has not been measured and analyzed, so WYSIWYG — Wordpress is space for ideations.
TP follows the established rules of the industry, and in this space a JUMP CUT may signal a deviation, a temporary change of direction, an aside, a self indulgence, that hopefully holds your attention until the next FADE TO, CUT TO, DISSOLVE TO, or SMASH CUT TO — the antagonist’s art and the protagonist’s idealism. When I started reading at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge Massachusetts, I read master scenes as prose and epic poetry. TP was well received and even requested!
What concerns me is decorum. I hope my audience is not averse to poetry in medias res… Once upon a time there were… Trench People!
TRENCH PEOPLE
(Original Screenplay — a Period piece)
by
E. MARIA SHELTON SPELLER
Copyright ©1996, 2015. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
WGA Registration 2005
I. The Erastes and Erominos (White letters on black background)
CLOSE – ON ANGELA AND JUNE
They laugh out loud. Angela throws her head back in FULL-THROATED LAUGHTER and June BANGS the table in approval with her fist.
JUNE
(out loud)
That was brilliant!
ROSALIND
That was careless! Talk
about artistic irresponsibility!
ANGELA
Oh, come on, Ros!
ROSALIND
A warning would have been APPROPRIATE,
instead of SURPRISE — mayhem,
and blaming the white man, again.
ANGELA
It’s not HER fault Preachers,
Politicians, and the gatekeepers
of black consciousness jumped
to conclusions.
ROSALIND
What’s with this about-face?
ANGELA
I never said I thought it was
wrong, Ros… YOU did!
CLOSE – ON ROSALIND
who RAISES both brows at Angela and WAVES the subject away.
CLOSE – ON JUNE AND LISA
June leans closer to the BABY-DYKES, specifically Lisa.
JUNE
(shouts)
One Hundred Nooses was crazy
art! Was it a political pun
against the pathos of black
art, or a brazen political
statement…?
CLOSE – ON LISA
who OVERHEARD Rosalind’s opinion and although she is talking to June, she LOOKS at Angela. She LEANS across the table as far as she can and talks in a curt monotone like Lisa Bonet.
LISA
(shouting)
I will not offer an explanation,
which is to say, an apology
for my art. Not to be understood
or over-stood… Everything IS Political.
Sex is politics. The day we swam to
the egg or were propelled, by stronger
swimmers behind us, was politics!
Art without politics is passion
without pluck. Sterile like
Impressionism! An allusion of
The Great Gatsby. Who… who
dreams in pastels?
(beat)
Maybe one percent of
the population?
(quickly)
The only way to have dreamed
about, A Sunday Afternoon on
was to have been there. Those
were elitist dreams. The
poor and vulnerable don’t dream
about wearing iced-cream pants!
They dream about, Starry Night,
The Scream.
(beat)
One Hundred Nooses is a
commentary on truth and
reconciliation. It’s
an unnecessary postmortem
for a committee that has
not happened.
CLOSE – ON GODDESSES AND BABY-DYKES
The GODDESSES are SILENT. Mardou breaks into a chilly smile.
CLOSE – ON MARDOU
looking at Lisa.
MARDOU
(loud)
It’s not who is going to let me,
it’s who is going to stop me.
I thought we plugged the
Fountainhead!
Let’s channel…
(whispers)
The Subterraneans, tonight.
BACK TO SCENE
Lisa’s eyes WIDEN and she feigns IRRITATION. Soon everyone CHUCKLES. People sitting around them look in their direction, as if acknowledging that theirs is the dominant table in the room. Then Mardou watches Lisa REV up again.
CLOSE – ON LISA
LISA
It’s Bukowski’s Coffeehouse tonight.
Except, you’re beautiful,
(beat)
and you’re beautiful… and you’re
beautiful… and we know Bukowski
only trusted the company of
desperate people, with broken minds,
broken ways, and broken teeth.
CLOSE – ON GODDESSES AND BABY-DYKES
They AHA in unison.
MARDOU
(sarcastically)
Fuck levity, then!
LISA
Mardou, you want
something, superficial!
CLOSE – ON MARDOU
looks long at Lisa.
MARDOU
Why? Why are you so…
(frowning)
dissatisfied?
CLOSE – ON ANGELA
PULLS the edge of her glass to HER tongue. In SLOW MOTION, it lands softly.
CLOSE – ON TONGUE
The tip of her tongue behind the rim of the glass.
CLOSE – ON GODDESSES AND BABY-DYKES
Angela is the only MOVEMENT at the table.
CLOSE – ON LISA
who LOOKS at Mardou.
LISA
What is satisfied?
Is that like wanting to
be the black girl of Jack
Kerouac’s dreams? And
precisely when — when he
woke up and was repulsed by
her puffy sleeping lips the
morning after?
CLOSE – ON ROSALIND
feigning boredom. She looks at the crazy crowd. Then turns back to what she considered baby-talk.
CLOSE – ON TONI
looking at her friends.
TONI
(sighing)
Levity!
CLOSE – ON TONI
moving her hands as if describing a spiral staircase.
TONI
(continuing)
I don’t want to be the
only one laughing tonight.
CLOSE – ON LISA AND MARDOU
They BURST out laughing.
CLOSE – ON THE GODDESSES
They look at each other.
CLOSE – ON JIMMY – SAME TIME
an imposing man, like Ving Rhames’ Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction, owns Pushkin’s Coffeehouse. He spots Lisa, wearing a long black skirt over those long narrow flats with toes that turn up almost like elf shoes that she often wears, and a cropped black motorcycle jacket with white raised lines and letters of cycle iconography. He looks SURPRISED because she seldom wears color. Jimmy gets an ERECTION when he LOOKS at Lisa. He reaches down to ADJUST the SWELLING under his fly. He waits a minute and then makes his way through the crazy crowd in Lisa’s direction. He SIDLES beside Lisa — LEANING on the edge of the table with the palms of his hands.
JIMMY
El (Lisa)… How you
doin’, Baby?
LISA
(smiles)
What’s up, Jimmy?
JIMMY
I know you’re flowing
tonight, right?!
CLOSE – ON LISA
who looks up at Jimmy, and says nothing.
JIMMY
Don’t look at me like
that! You read here,
at Pushkin’s first.
I know you’re gonna
read!
LISA
All the coffeehouse and cafe
owners say the same thing.
Everybody gave me a break,
but nobody wants to pay me…
You want me to read for free!
Then you get an attitude when
I won’t. Pay me! Show your
appreciation. I’m a working
artist. A proletariat!
JIMMY
OK, OK. How much you
chagrin’?
LISA
(frustrated)
Jimmy, you know how much
I charge… I’m sick of
having to give the same
speech every time I want
a cup of coffee.
JIMMY
In Fifteen?
LISA
Let’s do it now!
CLOSE – ON LISA (MOVING)
rising from the table focused on space. Her entourage ceases to exist. SLOWLY PAN the CRAZY CROWD.
JIMMY (O.S.)
Ladies and Gentlemen, Pushkin
is proud to present, our very
own, El Cherry… Snap!
LISA’S P.O.V. – CROWD
Lisa and her P.O.V. is filmed in black and white. People step aside at the last minute, greeting her on her way through, while snapping their fingers.
LONG – ON LISA
On stage, you cannot HEAR her FOOTSTEPS. The toes of her shoes SWISH the air. At the microphone she STANDS straight almost in a NAPOLEONIC pose. The room is QUIET. She launches into “One Single Act of Love.”
LISA
(curt, ferocious monotone)
I sold a rock opus to the best
Black rock band on the planet.
A band that lost its capacity
to dream. Formulaic guarantees
skewed their imagination for plati-
num discs. The male coward covered
their lifework, literally.
My story reminded them of what
‘rushing’ felt like, how complete,
how deep blushing could be obvious.
And they bought it, and produced it.
And it was good — it was better
than good. It was thought provoking
and it was an African-American affir-
mation of our realities and our
fantasies no matter how unrealistic.
Suddenly, they were very significant
and the world truly believed that
rock music is black music and black
music is everything. Power is
aesthetic. Aesthetics is politics
and being black is philosophical
and our philosophy is phenomenology
and being black, is being real…
The uninitiated FIDGET, while obvious followers recite some of the passages like Allen Ginsberg’s audience did when he recited, Howl in the Sixties. Lisa does not raise her voice.
RESUME – ON LISA
shoving her hands deep in shallow pockets.
LISA
(less ferocity)
No Hip Hop could say as much as
this rock opus did, ever–no matter
how many stories they sampled.
So, this black rock band were
crowned kings and were exulted,
and revered, incandescent icons,
the envy of friends, the
consumption of man, the image
of immortality like the stained-
glass heaven you summon before
you close… And they loved me…
I was the wick in their candle-
stick and without me there was
no burning flame. I was the
source of their energy. I was
the unstained virgin encamped…
CLOSE – ON LISA
leaning closer to the microphone.
LISA
(continuing)
When we huddled over a page it was
a psychological bristling, a patho-
logical fear, a sexual entreaty.
I wanted them, and they wanted
me. So when opportunity knocked,
I told them so. Sooner than anyone
imagined, there was nothing more
important, than our collaboration.
The media was our medium. They
stopped referring to me as a writer,
and started calling me a Love Supreme.
Annie Leibovitz wanted to take our
pictures–together. But, there was
something unnatural about the photo
session. Instinct was lacking.
There was a tame and conspicuous
outsider on camp. After taking
off too many shades, we asked
Annie to come back tomorrow and
blamed our ubiquitous danger on
some tribal angst about picture
taking and soul stealing…
When she was gone, I suggested
that they fuck me…
CLOSE – ON ANGELA’S EYES
Her eyelashes flutter.
MATCHCUT TO:
Angela’s lips, opening slowly.
RESUME – ON LISA
who at this moment, personifies the rebirth of COOL.
LISA
(continuing)
Not unlike the man in the movie
and the dancing whore… My
honest response to the love
between us left them exposed.
So exposed, their breath rushed
past their lips in staccato
proportions. Although they all
did, the one that really cared
about me began to pace the room.
His eyes watched how his feet
travailed. Another, would have taken me
right then and there had we been
alone–he would have used his
shoestrings and tied my thumbs
behind me if that were all he
had. But he was not the only
one I wanted, so he waited
anxiously. Another, had the
strange and curious stare of an
intellectual trying to figure me
out. And the other, simply smiled
at me from some private place, now
public, and I knew he would hurt me…
deliberately. The intellectual asked
me if I really thought it would make
a difference, and I couldn’t help
watching him as if he were some…
clear liquid. How could it not
make a difference? The pacer turned
and admitted he cared and said he
could not and would not participate;
furthermore, he did not think it
should happen. The anxious one
stood and started barking at him.
If I moved in any direction, it
would be provocation for premature
ejaculation and the anxious one,
while still barking would be the
first to straddle me…
LISA P.O.V. – CRAZY CROWD
A man in the audience barks. Another howls. Women smile to themselves.
CLOSE – ON GODDESSES AND BABY DYKES
SMILING. ENAMORED, Angela FALLS in love.
RESUME – ON LISA
She raises her voice.
LISA
(continuing)
If I raised my hand or my voice,
they would think I might change
my mind. Trapped, I sat there
watching this frenzy I’d started.
The air grew hot but I did manage
to express, “All or no one.” They
turned to look at the one who cared.
He looked at me, and I decided
that he would be the one that
would hurt me… deliberately.
And because he cared, because
he was the one holding back,
he would have to be the first.
He would have to get his reser-
vations out of the way so that
they could proceed. “It’s on you
man.” Said the intellectual and
then I decided the intellectual
would be the last one. Was I
afraid? I was practically trem-
bling on that single futon. My
laptop at the head of the bed
would have to be moved–gingerly.
The point was, I slept with my
work, I ate with my work and now
I’d fuck my work–but we would
never tell Annie the latter.
“What the fuck is the matter with
you?” The one who cared blasted
at me. Oh, I thought, he would
fuck me angrily–he would punish
me this way…
CLOSE – ON ANGELA
closing her eyes.
DISSOLVE TO:
CLOSE – ON LISA
whose nostrils FLARE slightly.
LISA
(continuing)
All I had to say was something
stupid like, ‘What the fuck is
the matter with you?’ Then,
giving him an excuse to fuck
me to death like June Jordan’s
“…unidentified victim of her
own neglect…” gang-raped on
a Brooklyn rooftop and thrown
to her death, screaming but
‘inaudible’.”
LONG – ON LISA
RAISING her voice for what is clearly her favorite passage.
LISA
(continuing)
Conscious decisions are all that
I can respect. Don’t cling to
insanity, or criminal passion,
or peer pressure, or social
expectations. Don’t talk to me
about losing control–momentarily.
Or, the poverty and violence of
pain heaped upon more pain
because you’re black. This is not
a gang-rape. This is not dionysia
all over again, where women
and children are sacrificed, and
blood is beer. If I change my
language, the outcome will still
be the same. And, if I am woman
enough to resist surrender, are
you man enough to know the
difference, between love
and violence–without conditions…
INT. BAR – JIMMY – SAME TIME
He dispatches a NEAT Remy Martin to her table.
LISA (O.S.) (continuing)
“You want her don’t you?” Somebody
said. Then he asked me a private
question, not at all furtively,
“Why?” I dropped my eyes and then
I looked askance at the one who
cared and said, “My fascination
with poetic themes is like–a
serenade already in progress…
isn’t this poetry, in effect?”
LONG – ON LISA
PAN the Crazy Crowd — spellbound.
LISA
(continuing)
He kneeled at the foot of the bed
and that was their cue, but I was
not ready and he knew it–but what
the hell! The love between us
was trapped between power and lust.
His hand covered my neck like a
bridge over a dam I could not escape.
The intellectual secured my wrists
exactly the way I described in my
dreams. I whispered to the one
who cared… that while I waxed
my dream before it faded–
I knew he would halt before he
turned the page. Like the man
in my dreams, he was too big for
me, but he did not hurt me delib-
erately. Under violent power
strokes, I broke under him in a
cadence I could not count in a race
out of water. A rhapsody played in
fusion. The anxious one ejaculated
too soon, and the one that smiled
from some private place took me
to the basement in some tenement
and hurt me deliberately, pushing
in unyielding directions. So, I
screamed finally and the one who
cared pulled him off me and he
came all over my thighs. That is
what he wanted, to be restrained
by somebody, anybody because he
was an animal after-all. The
intellectual rocked me gently
to peace, licked the tears from
my ears and my face. When it
was over, the one who cared untied
my arms that felt like ribbons
draped over my shoulders. He was
the only heat for my cold tremble,
my soul stirring complete. In one
single act of love we were bound
together and in unison they
screamed to the stained virgin…
you’re mine! It was…SURREAL.
LISA’S P.O.V. – AUDIENCE
The crazy CROWD and her entourage give her a MUCH LOVE.
WIDE – ON LISA (MOVING)
PIVOTS like a feline to leave the stage. APPLAUSE lasts until she is well seated. She reaches for the drink Jimmy sent to the table. Mardou and Toni HUDDLE with LISA.