BETH SKILLICORN OUT LOUD TO MYSELF
TABLEAU.SETTING I. A red-checkered cloth serves as a grid for plotting a narrative. A white napkin imprinted with the Matris de Napkin is placed, her open palms give welcome.
TABLEAU.SETTING II. Within the red-checkered squares appear Venus totems. A circular mandala, a porcelain dish, is placed.
TABLEAU.SETTING III. A luminous reflection appears within the center ring of the mandala (plate) (RHYTHM, the character, is introduced) and shines forth. An empty glass begs.
TABLEAU.SETTING IV. GISELLE, presented as water, is poured into the empty glass, to satiate. Two central characters are introduced within the ice cubes of the glass, SOCKPUPPETHEAD and BRAVADO, each posing a tension. This is the first inference to duality.
TABLEAU.SETTING V. Within the folds of the napkin emerges SADHE, an annunciatory character that overshadows the Matris de Napkin, expressing an authority. A ghostly white spiral stirs and prefigures an act of transmission. Creeping red spirals presuppose possibility. The empty glass is now filled.
TABLEAU.SETTING VI. The glass is removed, inferring an act of partaking, a stain on the cloth remains from the act of removal. The character forming this first ring, this first stain, is introduced, its name, VENOM. Red crawling spirals transfigure into the character YY. This character acts as executor, through which the mandala is filled, a purpose justified. The plate can be understood as 'hard knowledge', knowledge that is explicitly understood, it's filled with 'soft knowledge', knowledge that is more implicit, more abstract, harder to externalize. The two types of knowledge imply a duality of knowledge, two complementary aspects of its attainment.
TABLEAU.SETTING VII. The white napkin develops wings. The bowl is filled with substance. The glass reappears, and is half emptied, indicating imbibing.
TABLEAU.SETTING VIII. The character JIVE appears, in conjugation with SADHE of the Napkin. The cubes become SOCKPUPPETHEAD and BRAVADO. YY changes its nature into the steam emanating from the purpose of the bowl.
TABLEAU.SETTING IX. SADHE now materializes into a utensil, is made a ware. The stains to the cloth remain evidential to acts. The character, BRAVADO, postures in the soup. Green hash symbols, appearing to be added garnish, circulate, the tags representing the analytical processing of ideas, the compartmentalization of thought, a needed process, for understanding. The character, JIVE, is introduced as a utensil, a ware.
TABLEAU.SETTING X. BRAVADO is subsumed by a spiral stir. The glass is empty. BRAVADO takes on the nature of a ware.
TABLEAU.SETTING XI. A VENOM ring, with garnish-green idea grids, appears within the filled-spoon aspect of JIVE. GISELLE is being poured as an orange effervescent quencher. The heart pulse symbol is introduced and runs along GISELLE's outer edge, as a pulsing indication of spiraling fluidity.
TABLEAU.SETTING XII. BRAVADO wears a jacket of mind of the matter. The napkin has lipstick-soup smears (introducing the VOGUE character with a VENOM ring), indicating proof of gratification. Steam transfigures into two figures (YY and an inverted MARAT), the character MARAT is Rorschach-ed to be likened to Michelangelo's depiction of God touching the hand of new Adam as seen in the fresco of the Sistine Chapel, inferring a transference of consciousness, of being. The heart pulse of GISELLE remains evidential. As the bowl's contents diminish, the spoon-full aspect of JIVE vanishes as well.
TABLEAU.SETTING XIII. The Altar Bread is introduced as a platform. SADHE is revealed and cloaked in butter raiment on this platform. The Soup residue is RHYTHM within the central ring of the mandala. RHYTHM is also realized within the orange fizz of the filled glass. The outer orange rings of the dish, much like planetary rings, reveal the heart pulse. BRAVADO, still jacketed, and JIVE with VENOM ring, are set at place.
TABLEAU.SETTING XIV. The bread is bitten. Lipstick evidence of this feminine bite is realized by the character, VOGUE. The full golden beveraged glass introduces the character, SWAN, within the ice cube reflections. A watery GISELLE is reintroduced, and 'winds' the spiral of the filling water. GISELLE is also seen as two faint reflections appearing onto the cloth under the golden beveraged glass.
TABLEAU.SETTING XV. The bowl is replaced with the wine glass mandala, and SOCKPUPPETHEAD is seen reflected in the surface of the blood red wine. JIVE makes a trinity of BRAVADO and SOCKPUPPETHEAD within the water of its glass. GISELLE appears a residuum on the winged napkin, residual evidence of an act of consummation. The surface of the napkin maintains the soft imprint of SADHE, still married to the folds of the underlying Matris of the napkin's surface. The lipstick stain of VOGUE wears a waist apron of soup residue, soup rings of VENOM its sashes.
TABLEAU.SETTING XVI. The Altar Bread is made experiential with the invitee, the invitee becomes a participant in the story by the visual intimation of communion with the bread, another bite ultimately will be taken. The wine glass's position is shifted, its worldly contents reduced, intimating the invitee's partaking of its wine, its story; the wine glass leaves a VENOM ring on the napkin, staining the Matris de Napkin, portending a circle of womb.
TABLEAU.SETTING XVII. The SADHE of the bread exudes angels. The head of AMA appears in the substance of wine within the glass mandala, with the character, MARAT, appearing across the brow of AMA in repose, a prefiguring coming acts. Other characters are introduced as altar cloth stains, ASTAIRE, AVIVA, JACKKNIFE.
TABLEAU.SETTING XVIII. The SADHE glories flutter about the red bison that overshadows the genesis of corporeality, of consciousness, the new Adam, within the placental womb stain of VENOM, the ring stain signifying a birthing aspect of the Matris de Napkin. The Mind-Body dualism, is enacted by BRAVADO and SOCKPUPPETHEAD posturing within the almost empty water glass. Forelegs of the red bison are seen as part shadow of this glass. Stains increase in number and are evidentiary of activity, of movement, of process. A silver bison, its religiosity meat charted, is sectioned for different grades of beliefs, different cuts of choice.
TABLEAU.SETTING XIX. An upper platter appears, overshadowed by enlarged Venus totems and the red bison, the bison being a store-hold of tendencies, of transformation. A trinity of cubes radiate in glass. A residue of the silver bison is seen within the bottom ring of the glass. The placental ring is now gone from the figure of enlightenment, the new Adam. The now twice bitten crust assumes the silver bison into its buttered substance of bitten religiosity. WHIPPET now appears as another lipstick mark, the second bite. The cloth stains become more animated, signifying a Paleolithic energy toward the bison hunt, the meaning hunt.
TABLEAU.SETTING XX. Luminescent Venuses appear within the more sacralized silver bison. The silver bison appears more pronouncedly within the empty water glass, the trinity of cubes is gone. The SADHE bread is gone, but the lipstick stains of WHIPPET and VOGUE remain as stains on the Matris de Napkin; also revealed again is the charted bison. The lipstick stains, WHIPPET and VOGUE, join the existing napkin wine stains, ASTAIRE, JACKKNIFE, AVIVA, forming a tribe of Paleolithic hunters of the silver bison. The wine glass, a mandala, has a contained menagerie, a church of characters, including the two highlights on the glass realized by BRAVADO and SOCKPUPPETHEAD. This glut of characters will appear in future panels as the meat of matter.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXI. Within the high platter appear Venus totems (these a priori totems are the same symbols in evidence on the red checkered altar cloth of TABLEAU.SETTING II) and Virility totems, virility totems fringed with anthers stemming from the triangular body. Inside the Virility totems are hash symbols, grids signifying organized thought, patterns of compartmentalization of knowledge. Inside these thought grids are Venus totems, as will be seen within the meta-bison. The Matris de Napkin exudes a sacralized Genesis Man, which has been meat charted identically to the charting of the sacralized bison. The empty glass serves as a nimbus over the Matris de Napkin's folded caul, the nimbus a halo. A nativity scene is imagined within the napkin cloth. Red religiosity also contains the original man, symbolizing an emerging consciousness, and the original man also appears within the red bison of transformation that overshadows the face of AMA that is appearing on the surface of the red wine. SADHE of the Butter appears beneath the sacralized and yellow glorified but uncharted bison. The three silverware figures, JIVE, BRAVADO and SOCKUPPETHEAD are table set. BRAVADO is the action of SOCKPUPPETHEAD's arm gesture, and one of defiance.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXII. The Altar Bread is removed, the sacred SADHE remains. The upper wine is with AMA, the Creatrix. A single cube, used to signify single promise, radiates within the water glass mandala. Stains proliferate and bear witness to the story playing out. The red bison, the store-hold, is chased by the needy hordes, symbolized by the cloth stains. BRAVADO and JACKKNIFE combine their forms within a ware and incorporate a bladed weaponry, ready to cut. VENOM and ASTAIRE are armed with teeth as well. Two platters, two minds, two paradigms, signify two dinner invitees, holding a promise of dialogue. RHYTHM serves in the lower platter as added reflection. AMA is realized within the lower wine glass and MARAT appears on top of AMA, a portent of what's to come.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXIII. There is a frenzied consumption of the bison, the store-hold, the motherhouse, of a captured knowledge. A ware JIVE is consumed. Hordes of stains absorb its corporeality. A Rorschach-ed ASTAIRE transposes to be a laughing Jester, a mask for a masque, and soon to prove of a sinister nature. This Jester overshadows the red bison of transformation. Within the lower platter is the trinity of triangulated Crucifieds, each with a whorled fingerprint representing its individual countenance, stemmed anthers reach like antennae from the triangular bodies, seeds emerge from the lower stamen groins of the Venus totems. The Crucifieds overshadow the sacred SADHE and the twice bitten bread. The bitten bread posits over the platter's ring of spiraling waves, an idea grid at center is within each wave, each wave rolling clockwise with its gnashing teeth, with devouring intent, the waves change to ram spirals in the lower hemisphere of the ring. A lone ice cube floats in a black abyss, with MARAT in repose prefiguring a death. The meat charted yellow bison overshadows AMA, in the upper platter. Two napkins duel: BRAVADO and SOCKPUPPETHEAD can be seen within the napkins holding shields of two Crucifieds. The napkins both contain the Matris beneath the characters. The empty wine glass between the two platters begs to be filled, symbolizing want of dialogue between the upper and lower realms of the table.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXIV. The Jester is gone, for now. In the Upper Battle of the Napkins, MARAT lies in repose on the battleground beneath BRAVADO and SOCKPUPPETHEAD. MARAT lays dead in the lap of the Matris of the Lower Napkin, her outstretched hands giving grace, these archetypal hands ever open (please refer to the archives of my oeuvre to see that these hands have evolved out of the breasts of the a priori Venus totem). The Red Bison is consumed. Yellow gnashing teeth gnaw at the bread; a yellow bison meat chart is revealed. A reposed MARAT appears at the top of the bread, as its upper crust. There are now three bites out of the bread. The three Crucifieds fade. A solitary cube dissolves in a black abyss appearing in the water glass, Its blackness holds dire portent. AMA is revealed in the Upper Platter. Stains proliferate.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXV. The bread jumps plate and is reconfigured as a chased yellow-charted bison, the teeth still gnashing at it, the hordes of hunters still glutting. The three Crucifieds maintain their presence within the Lower Platter. RHYTHM is empowered in the Upper Platter realm with Ram Spirals of Virility. Within the water glass appears the silver bison, a hopeful presence over the single cube. Venus totems appear in the two wine glasses. The three Crucifieds appear as reflections of the glass.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXVI. The Jester appears in the lower napkin, above the MARAT, lying in repose in the lap of the Matris of the Lower Napkin. The Jester is also diminutized within the two wine glasses, overshadowing the AMA evident in both. Folded napkins appear with overlays of the Venus totems. The red bison appears as a shadow to the folded napkin.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXVII. Ram Spirals of Virility are realized on the folds of the two upper napkins. The Jester makes his presence more apparent inside both wine glasses. The yellow bison is consumed to the crust; the remaining crust is MARAT lying in repose. A dancing menagerie of engorged reddened figures speaks the carnage, and this menagerie of figures conglomerates into a body mass, a congregation, in the unified form of a cut of meat, a t-bone steak, on the lower platter. On top of the meat collective, the church of figures, a luminescent RHYTHM appears in raiment with the Ram Spirals of Virility and prefigures a sacred action. Look closely, BRAVADO appears as the fatty edge tissues of the meat. The silver bison of the water glass is more pronounced. The ring of the glass serves as a nimbus. Three butter pats, embellished with grids of thought, adorn the heads of the trio of Crucifieds.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXVIII. The mass of figures that are the meat is now more evident, its t-bone suggests a t-cross and introduces the character RESH, an explicit figure. The fat marbled outer edges are realized by numerous BRAVADOs. The steam figure of YY appears again (first appearance was from liquid nature, soup, this time from a solid nature, meat), and the steam exhibits an emergence of the new Adam, of a Promise, between the legs of the bone of RESH and emanating (as steam) from the mass of meat bound figures, the connectedness of figures, of a humanity. The Crust, MARAT, foretells of death and is exalted on the yellow bison. Stains abound. Within the water glass there appears MARAT, in repose on the single cube, the silver bison hovers.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXIX. The new Adam, the Promise, the Covenant, emerges in the tenderloin area of the church, the bone of this cut is realized by the character, RESH. Thought grids garnish the serving, the steam dissipates but maintains a holy surround of the emergent figure, the Emergent One. The side dish reveals the Emergent One with bloody colored hash symbols, the grids of scourge marks. Bruises of the Jester appear under these scourge markings. Armed implements hover as the scourgers. the yellow bison tries to flee. A trinity of Jesters appear in the Upper Platter, as the gynecologically spread legs of the three Crucifieds.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXX. SOCKPUPPETHEAD is the crucified Adam-figure on the t-bone cross of RESH. The mock crown atop the crucified SOCKPUPPETHEAD is realized by the smiling Jester. The two Ram Spiraled folded napkins suggest the curling of two limp hands nailed to the crossbeam intimated by the positioning of the two horizontally positioned napkins [a napkin's paper substance maintaining the aspects of the wood of a cross], the two napkins of the Lower Platter make the crux of it: the critical or transitional moment, the transitional point of the matter. The red bison appears again, portending mortality. Jester appears in both of the almost empty wine glasses, smiling, the two circular wine residues intimate two crucifixion holes, each glass rim a wrist of light with a blasphemed wound as point of center. The trinity of butter pats of the Upper Platter signify the event's title being posted in three languages of biblical significance. The stains crowd.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXXI. SOCKPUPPETHEAD is forsaken. The side dish holds story. The yellow bison of the Upper Platter holds reckoning.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXXII. AMA appears and overwhelms the figure of the crucified SOCKPUPPETHEAD. The Upper Platter garnish grids have become figures of the yellow bison. The red bison of transformation, the color of the passions, changes energy, and is divined as yellow. The two Jesters of the wine glasses disappear. The Ram Spirals of the napkins disappear.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXXIII. The golden Meta-Bison appears at the left, containing the Matris within the Divine Circle, which is encircled by a ring of the heart pulse; also this meta-bison compresses and unifies the narrative's symbols within its whole of shape. The larger divine yellow bison solidifies and illustrates the glorification process taking place, the religiosity of the moment. The Matris within the Divine Circle appears in both wine glasses as sacred stigmata. The Butter Pats in the Upper Platter reveal three carved 'ME's in their substance while the garnish-figures fugue.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXXV. The checkered altar cloth transfigures to a multitude of Hosts of Butter Pats, making abundantly clear the miracle of ME. Rorschach-ed BRAVADOs are bison-winged flies on fly quests, but being flies, they're late.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXXIV. The Yellow Sacred Bison lifts off the cloth, above the platters, and gloriously combines with the this-worldly red-checkered altar cloth to be a risen SOCKPUPPETHEAD, risen off the t-cross, enlarged beyond frame. Two worlds transfigure. A blackened bison in the Lower Platter signifies a death of matter, but this black bison of the Lower Platter is but an eclipsed version of the yellow sacralized bison of the butter appearing in the Upper Platter. The blood-splattered loincloth takes on a translucent red check pattern of the altar cloth beneath and is rife with ME's, as in the Miracled ME time. Blood soaked ME's on the saturated napkins below the Lower Platter symbolize the corporeality of the event. Blood splatters soil the scene.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXXVI. SADHE appears in butter raiment in the Upper Platter's butter bison spread, as a reminder that a communion took place, maintaining a semblance of glory, yet, under the platter, Jester has split and appears to parenthesize the Upper Platter, never ceasing his antiheroic presence. The Lower Platter is the Remnant of the Course, The bison a bloody relic, the JIVE and SOCKPUPPETHEAD implements are set at place. Red idea tags of thought are seen in the scraped and smeared Lower Platter. The risen SOCKPUPPETHEAD, cloaked in his risen garb, this garb of a checkered cabaret aspect, returns again in the red wine. The Jester is seen as a faint stain smiling from underneath the wine glass. The flies search. The cloth is heavily stained from the narrative.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXXVII. The stains remain clearly evident of the happening; they are the consequences of its action. An empty glass beckons to be filled. The flies still search.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXXVIII. The Meta-Bison is transfigured to a placemat on the existing cloth, a placemat that has within it most aspects of the story just told. It invites a revisit. Jesters are seen askew on the cloth, with inherent comedy-tragedy qualities.
TABLEAU.SETTING XXXIX. This last Tableau Setting is an invitation. It is a new place setting, for a new invitee, for a new feast of ideas to share. The altar cloth maintains its stained story to assist with a newly invited narrative, much as many philosophers, through the ages, assist all future enlightenment. Beware of the Jester, a false prophet, already splitting into the folds of the given napkin. Shoo the flies away.