New York City 03.19.2002

Voice 1	Voice 2	Voice 3	Voice 4	Voice 5	Voice 6	Voice 7	Voice 8
The Thinker (narrator)	The Bus Operator (guide 2)	The Poet	The Picnoleptic (detective)	The Miscreant	The Reporter	The Film Buffs (for 2 Voices)	The Guide (guide 1)
A1 Ok, everything begins here. We are at the beginning of the narration.  And the beginning implies something just ended.  The waiting has ended.  A new moment as opposed to the older moment that was, before the end.	B1 Welcome to Picnolepsy: Bus tour number 1.  No smoking or drinking please. 1						Pre-16th century New York and the surrounding lands populated by Native Americans.
A2 (Slow) Ok, it starts here. We are at the beginning.  And the beginning implies the end of something.  The waiting
(begin to fade) has ended.  A new moment as opposed to the older moment that was, before the end.	B2 A warm welcome to the Empire State, and to New York City. Here we are, in the one and only, Big Apple.  How many of you on hand tonight, 20, 30?  Is this your first time visiting?  Have you been on one of these before? And to your left and right, ladies and gentlemen, the streets of Manhattan. (fanfare) B2 (cont.) In front of you is a window.  About chest level.   Do not open it.	C1 Its night out.	D1 And suddenly the action began, without warning, with some unheard footsteps.	E1 I bit through the core and it was nothing like what I expected.	s
		C2 In the window, in the glass, is your reflection.  There's a small table to your right.  About the height of your knees.   On the table is a blue cup.  The same cup you just drank from.  On the wall are pictures from your past.  One is a photograph.  You as a boy.  You standing in front of a radio.  You're wearing a red plaid shirt.
					F1 They had earlier mined its cavernous interior, but its vast, underground storage space and changing-rooms remained intact. It was a familiar landmark to all of us who lived there.
			D2 They say something took place.  An event took place here, it was a surprise.
A3 Can we think event without the surprise?  What makes the event the event is not only that it happens, but that it surprises-and maybe even that it surprises itself.							1524 Giovanni Verrazano makes the first sighting of what is to be New York.
			D3 But did it really take place? The given-ness of this event cannot be taken for granted.  We need to be convinced of it. Who did it? How did it unfold?  Who was forgotten?  Was someone forgotten?  Was the city involved?
					F2 And now, after this brief announcement from our sponsors, perhaps the truth ...
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							1609 Henry Hudson sails up the Hudson seeking the North West Passage
					F3 She speaks carefully, loudly but slowly, as she recalls the chaotic, dangerous, desperately tragic events that overwhelmed her.
			D4 What took place there? What was the cause? We heard some of the stories, but …
A4 The cause, the cause, oh not the cause again.							1614 Adriaen Block names the area "New Netherland"
					F4 She stops to search her memory.  She stops to search her memory when she confronts the most frightening moments of her life.
	B3 And to your left! (Combined with a sound, this break will occur at different times on the tour).
		C3 There was this moment.  This moment taking place.  I tried to stop this moment.  This can't happen now.  I thought.  This can't be going to happen.  I thought.  I thought.  It's not that this won't pass.  I thought.  Not that I won't still be here tomorrow.  I thought.  I will still be here tomorrow.  I thought.  It's inconceivable that I won't be.  I thought.	D5 (beginning with the other "I") I wanted to try to give you a more precise description of the way in which she expresses herself when I ask her a question.
					F5 The women and children had climbed past.  They were truly shocked by what they saw. There was a roar.
			D6 Her words never form a continuous discourse, they are like fragments which nothing any longer links together, despite the emphatic tone suggesting a coherent whole which might exist somewhere, elsewhere than in her head probably
					F7 They went round saying 'Sit, sit.' It was 11am.
			D7 And there is always, suspended above the			I first saw her at the headquarters at 63rd and Broadway.   She was wearing a white dress, she appeared like an angel out of this filthy mass. She is alone,  they …. can not …. Touch her.	1625 "Nieuw Amsterdam" is founded by the Dutch West India Company
			D8 element stuck together one way or another, the imminent, unforeseeable though ineluctable catastrophe which will reduce this precarious order to nothingness.  And finally exhausted by calculating everything, I end up waiting in my turn for the incalculable event which is going to make everything blow up in another moment.
	B4 And to your right!	C4 There was this moment.  This moment where I vanished.  This moment where it all vanished.  The whole of my thoughts.  Vanished.  The whole of
	B5 Full stop, short silence then tempo resumes. Percussion stops, pause, voice finishes without percussion.
		C5 There was this moment.  This moment taking place.
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A5 Sound, the sound of my voice interrupting a narration that began with an end.  Something ended…
			D9 Ok, can we take it from the beginning again.				1626 That colony's leader, Peter Minuit, buys Manhattan Island from the Native Americans for $24-worth of trinkets.
					F8 They had earlier mined its cavernous interior, but its vast, underground storage space and changing-rooms remained intact. It was a familiar landmark to all of us who lived there.
			D10 And what did you hear exactly?
					F9 "We were told to walk up the road towards the embassy, the women and children in front, the men behind. We had been separated. They walking alongside us. I could still see my husband and brother.
			D11 And where did the sound come from?  What was it like?
	B6 Block 1						1886 The Statue of Liberty is Unveiled
	B7 And to your right.
	B8 Block 2
	B9 And to your left
	B10 Block 3
	B11 And to your left.
	B12 Block 1		D12 Can you describe the scenario again?
A6 The narrative of the end of a certain time is told in a new time, which retains that end - an end by which it presents itself as beginning.  Thought itself gets swept away in succession, buildings,	B13 And to your right Block 14	C6 The walls around you are green, the paint is old.  In places the paint is peeled away.  Underneath it's white.  There's a bed in the corner, with a Mexican blanket.  A calendar hangs on the wall by the widow.  A lamp made from an Olive Oil can.  Now there's the light of an airplane outside the window. The night is absolutely black.  The light of the plane keeps passing slowly.  Blinking.  Red and blue.  Yellow and blue.  Now it disappears.  A star is blinking in its place.  You can't see the moon from here.  Now, even the star disappears.  A car goes by.  Moths are plunging into the glass.  Tiny bugs crawl.  Electricity fades then comes back.  Everything else is still.  Absolutely still.  Nothing is moving now except your breath.  You chest.  The shirt on your chest.  Your shirt is blue.  Your glasses are black.  A mosquito races around your ear.  The same mosquito you're hearing	D13 Who is running this investigation, can you answer that? Which city is this again?  What city was it before?		F10 The men sat in silence, obviously in fear. From time to time, I noted, a few were taken away. They were put into army trucks or jeeps.
A7 streets, city blocks, and neighborhoods, falling successively, one after the other.
A8 130th street, 120th street, 119th street, 118th street, 14th street 115th street, 10th street 114th street, 85th street, 112th street, 321st street, 110th street, … First Street
				E2 I bit through the core of it and it was not what I expected.  At times vile,  bitter, other times tasteless.			(Live sound here giving the street names)
	B14 It was at this site to our left that			E3 The other night, there was a shooting here, I turned the corner, the flags, the unopened windows, I could smell the stench of overheated apartments.  And I could smell the city, like an open sewer, the city of shit, New York.		The smell of the flowers only made me sicker.  The headaches got worse I think I got stomach cancer, I shouldn't complain though, you're only as healthy as feel, your only ……..as healthy ….as…… …..you… feel.
A9 Clinging or adhering, it's a single throat serving the many.  Not a community: a heteroplastic graft of one throat to another, transplant and fusion between vile creatures that feel only when dying.		C7 I am fucking you and you are coming you have a hard time coming you breathe hard you have periods when you strain to come then your cock withers you strain to come again.  I hear you I see you I don't feel.  I am doing anything to help you the rhythm is so steady I come jagged to your steady rhythm, my coming is insignificant compared to your building.  You gasp.  You are three laps away.  Oh I am coming again.		E4 jagged to your steady rhythm, my coming is insignificant compared to your building.  You gasp.  You are three laps away.  Oh I am coming again.  My coming is always so unexpected.  I want you to come.  I want you to come.  I want you.  When you come I never come you are unable to move it is always so unexpected.
A10 Can we think event without the surprise?							1869 Black Friday on Wall Street
A11 The city swerves in front of us, an unending street, surprising us, an abrupt collection of cuts and wipes.
			D15 Were you startled by the sound?
					F11 Well, about 4pm, an officer came out. He was wearing dark glasses and asked: 'What are you all waiting for?'
			D16 But what happened before that?
		C8 I don't know what to tell you exactly.  I don't want to lie to you.  I don't want to just make something up.  I don't really know where you'll be going.  That's the truth.  I don't have any idea.  It's alright to be afraid I guess.  You don't have to be brave.  Who says you have to be brave?  I just wish I knew what to tell you.  I could make something up.  Should I make something up?  All right.  I might as well.
	B 15 It was at this site to our left …
A12 Central to the work of our culture are images and representations.  It has become a cliché of contemporary writing  that the city is constructed as much by images and representations as by the built environment, demographic shifts and patterns of capital investment.  The politics of the city is a matter not only of capitalism's in equitable distribution of satisfactions and misery but also of struggles around such issues as gender, ethnicity, age, and religion, struggles in which images and representations informing our sense of both self and reality are a crucial factors in the reproduction and contestation of existing social practices.			D17 So tell us again, where they were placed?		F12 He said there was nobody left, that everyone had gone. There were trucks moving out with tarpaulin over them.
					F13 We couldn't see inside. And there were jeeps and tanks and a bulldozer making a lot of noise. We stayed there as it got dark and they appeared to be leaving and we were very nervous. But then when they moved away, we went inside. And there was no one there. Nobody.
	B 16 Drumming gains force but remains in the same tempo.
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A13 Strident is said of a shrill sound.  Intense, often brief, it pierces our ears.  High frequency, mighty amplitude, its vibration swoops down on the eardrum like a raptor, shaking it furiously.
				E6	F14 She still hears the sounds sometimes
A14 A front of sound that is so offensive that the frail membrane fails to enter into resonance with it.  It deafens it.  Suddenly it is no longer picking up anything.  It is on the verge of breakdown from the effort it sustains, of bursting from shrillness.			D18 She has finally made up her mind to show me where the disturbing sounds come from.  A tape inside a transparent plastic cassette.  The scene of violence has calmed down now, all that can be heard is an irregular, still-oppressed breathing which gradually fades into the silence of the great stadium.	I took to the streets.  It was another one of those days.
A15 Without something like eyelids, the ear - indefensible - seems exposed to any vibrations.  Demarcating the field of the audible, its deafness protects it.  It simply doesn't hear, that's all. 5			D19 What did it sound like?
				E7 No one cared
			D20 Do you still hear the sounds?			A: When I came in, you couldn't hear a thing. B: That's because you came in during a silence. A: Are there silences on the tape? B: Yes, sometimes very long ones…
					F15 And she adds in a low voice, keeping her face bent over the little machine: "Those are the times I'm really frightened…"
			D21 And suddenly the action resumes, without warning, a man's footsteps climbing up steps, metallic echoes coming closer from landing to landing, faster and faster, nearer and nearer, until they give the impression that someone is right here			B: That's enough for now, it's always the same: the footsteps, the screams, the broken glass, and they keep saying the same thing. A: Where does it come from? B: What - the cassette? A: No the tape. B: From the man who sells them - where do you think it would come from? A: But… who recorded it?? B: The musicians, of course, the performers A: And they sell it in the stores? B: Of course, I bought this one this morning in Times Square subway station…It's the story of a lieutenant fireman who climbs up a skyscraper to save a little girl who's about to throw herself off.
			D22 and at this moment a loud noise of broken glass makes us both give a start and turn our heads
					F16 'We went into the stadium and then never saw them again,' she says 'We asked about them and they said: "There's no one here!"
			D23 And now, no one talks about them?
					F17 No one knows about them.
			D24 No one heard about them?
						B: You a cop? A: No B: You've got a gun. ……. You gotta smoke? A: Keep your hand over it. B: It's alright if we're quiet, no one will hear us.  …. Oooh it’s a real one, did you just get in? A:  What's going on out there B: Crazies, end of the month, they're out of food A: You live here? B: Skulls? You kidding? I'm with the Turks now, Just got caught out after dark, will have to spend the night here. A: My plane crashed seven hours ago, near eighth avenue, did you see it? B: No A: Shit B: You're a cop A: I'm an asshole B: Wait a minute, I know who you are, yeah, but I heard you were dead.
					F18 She pull out her words carefully, as if they were reserved only for special occasions.  "No one heard." "No one heard."
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				E8 It's always the same.		You wanna go to a movie with me? I have to go to work. I mean another time. You know what you remind me of?… that song. (pause, with possible musical interlude)
	B19 Fresh Kills, yeah, it recently closed, actually it opened briefly again, but, oh, what a garbage dump, it was just another one of those, one and only landmarks of New York.		D25 Can you say where they took them?		F19 On that desolate corner, in the fourth month
			D26 How many died?
	B26 I'm sorry we don't usually talk about these things in my line of work.
		C9 Here in  New York, every morning I (more music) (1 minutes pause)
			D27 I'm getting tired.
A16 The horror of this city is firmly tied to the pervasive indeterminacy of meaning.		C10 wake up, I don't want to be awake.  I have to persuade myself to wake up.  I have to use my will to get food in my mouth, because my heart sees no reason for anything.  I don't feel unhappy.		E9 I don't think my life's repulsive even though I have no money for food I have to beg my friends for food.  I don't care about poverty.  I want.
						A: My life has taken another turn again. B: The days move on with regularity,over and over A: one day indistinguishable from the next B: a long continuous chain, and then suddenly, there is a change.
A17 It is the "it happens" - as distinct from all that precedes it and from everything according to which it is codetermined.  It is the pure present of the "it happens" - and the surprise has to do with the present as such, in the presence of the present insofar as it happens.		C11 I leave him because I live in New York City and he lives in ………...  In New York, I feel I'm a jagged part skin walking down the street.  I feel part of me no longer is. I have to leave the man I love because I have no money and he has no money.  I want to bust up the government to destroy every government that's telling me what to do, controlling the me that I most wanted to be me, bust up the society that causes government, the money that denies feeling and irrationality I hate.		E11 I want to bust up the government to destroy……….. every government ……..that's telling me what to do, the idea has been going on in my head for  some time, True force, all the King's men cannot put it back together again.
				E12 Maybe one day a big rain …
		C12 I turned down 87th street, I pulled the car up, couldn't find a spot.  I double parked.  I double parked.  I felt my breath filling up in the car.  I pulled down the window a bit just to let the air come in.  It was a cold night, but warm and wet inside the car.  My body was still, my heart was racing, I could feel it, just  around the corner,				A: You see that light up there, the light, the window up there on the second floor.
						A: (cont.) The light that is closest to the edge of the building, the light on the second story, what are you blind? the light on the second story? you see the woman in the window, do you , do you see the woman in the window, I want you to see that woman because that's my wife, you see that's her, but that's not my apartment. B: But there's no wife there.
	B18 It was at this site to our right  …			E13 Now I see clearly, my whole life is pointed in one direction.
A18 Dark with something more than night, this city becomes a realm in which all that seemed solid melts into the shadows, and where the traumas and disjunctions experienced by individuals hint at a broader crisis.