November 2001

The small concert hall was moderately attended. People sat at wide, sparse tables in quiet conversation as the jazz performers assembled on the stage before them. I turned to my mother, who was seated next to me, and said something about the unlikeliness of my inclusion here. I felt uncomfortable - as though my very attendance, as a non-verbal acknowledgment of my intent to help, would be misleading. I was confused. She interrupted me, "That's him!" I didn't know who she was referring to. "Up there," she said, pointing to the emcee now standing behind the mic. The middle aged black man - who did not look familiar to me - was now relating some particular moment in the history of jazz, as the band behind him accompanied him with an unobtrusive percussive riff. Our table was toward the back of the room, but I could still see, over the heads of the people before us, the sheen on the man's face as he stood under the hot spotlight. And my confusion was renewed. What was I doing here? How could I possibly help this man? The man whose introduction had now segued seamlessly into a traditional jazzy scat. Left of stage, another man took up the scat counterpoint, and together the two men wove a monosyllabic conversation. Just about then I noticed what appeared to be a dwarf in a shiny yellow suit standing on stage just to the emcee's right. Especially under the stage lights, the suit had the reflective quality of glazed porcelain, and I wondered what sort of gimmick I was looking at. Was this actually a man of normal height whose legs descended through the stage, with shoes affixed to his knees? Was the dwarf mechanical? It was possible, though the man's feet were marching to the rhythm quite realistically at least. And the part of the stage he marched on now began to rotate slowly - a large turntable, painted sky blue, contrasting the varnished wood of the rest of the stage. So the shiny yellow dwarf marched in place as the music swirled around him, and as his profile was presented it was clear that his suit was more unusual than it had first appeared. The dwarf was impossibly wide from front to back, as though he were wearing suitcases under his suit. And though he'd looked of proportional girth from the front, now there was no mistaking that what we were seeing was a prop of some sort - a toilet in fact. The dwarf was dressed in a toilet suit, with the bowl as his grotesquely-protruding stomach, and his shoulders as the tank. His arms, his head, and his relentlessly-marching feet made the scene almost inconceivable to me. The emcee artfully answered my questions then, as if on cue. Never breaking his lyrical cadence, he told the tale of the working man who, at the turn of the century, bore his daily travails by incorporating the music of the day into his work. The dwarf - a turn-of-the-century plumber, I presumed - dutifully slapped at the sides of his bowl and bobbed his head as the turntable rotated.

I was sitting at a long and crowded picnic table, with friends and family gathered around. This was something they did fairly often, but I was a new participant, and somewhat skeptical of the whole convention. I was served by a prim-looking waiter in a tuxedo. My plate seemed to be some curious fondue pot hybrid, with the assorted victuals arranged around the central. The tortellini section held only about 10 specimens, and I felt a righteous justification for my disappointment. Then I remembered that the plate had cost $10... or was that 10 tortellinis? I was confused. My father sat next to me, and I took his chiding manner with a resigned humor. I somehow spilled my food all over the floor, and backed my chair up to clean it up. My father donated a napkin to the effort. Under the table I noticed a network of parallel pipes and spouts glistening with oil. Was this oil being siphoned from the food? There was a terrific amount of the oil, and several of the spouts were pouring the dark golden stuff into either deep jugs or open basins. I shoved one of the pipes with my shoe - out of mischievous curiosity - and the spout rotated around and began to pour the oil on the ground. I quickly corrected this situation again. The oil was coming faster now, and as I watched, the basin level rose alarmingly, until the oil poured from the sides to the grass. A woman and her son kneeled by the basin with empty cups ready, and it occurred to me that they were thirsty.

I was in a large dimly-lit theatre packed with people. I was sitting with my friend on the floor on an open section of the auditorium, and from my vantage point I could see the people seated before me socializing happily. To my right were several tiers of chairs aligned perpendicular to the screen, and the people seated there were chatting away happily. In fact, the crowd seemed rather oblivious to the movie that was playing, which I took was one of a series of shorts played throughout the day. It was very much a community gathering place then, and movies were only regarded when something of interest came up. Such as the native dance now being projected. I didn't see the face of the performer, but watched as their body moved rhythmically to a simple but compelling aboriginal percussive phrase. To my left, a woman in brightly-colored dress was particularly taken with this piece and rose from her chair to dance in place. Periodically she would be emotionally overcome, and would shout as she jumped and writhed to the music. Other people began to take notice, and I glanced at the front rows to see that some had managed to turn their chairs around to watch her dance instead of the projected dancer.