Pen-Elayne on the Web

We Must Not Look for Compassion in the Stars, We Are the Stars

That line is from the fourth offering in the silmarillion of Seam Real Theatre, a loosely and somewhat organized group of friends who get together every so often and make magic in the form of spoken-word surrealism. It's the brainchild of Cat Simril Ishikawa, whose birthday is today, and it's called Red Shift. Robin and I recorded a couple lines for it way back when; you can see our names in the credits, along with the names of three out of the four guys who make up The Firesign Theatre. Not a real surprise, many of the players are regulars on the Thursday evening Firesign chats, and if you check out the bottom of the latest chat log page, you'll see some of their pictures. (Mine's not up there yet because my Verizon account doesn't want to send outgoing e-mail today, and Dexter's isn't there because I haven't brought my digital camera to one of our lunches yet.)

The recording itself hangs together pretty well, but it's one of those works that will require repeated listening so I can get more nuances and better follow the stream of consciousness wordplay. Essentially it revolves around the Dalai Lama being reincarnated as an inanimate rock on the surface of Mars, and how this development is seen by Tibetans and NASA and the Martians themselves (who sound like the aliens in Toy Story and have, of course, made life on Earth their pet project), and foreseen by Orson Welles (played by his namesake, David Ossman's son) and his inspiration - and no relation - H.G. Wells (played by Robin 'cause, hey, authentic British accent). It's also about Chairman Mao being resurrected as a computer chip, or was it a poker chip? ("I'll see your Gang of Four and raise you a Five-Year Plan!" says one character.) And Dali. And Dolly the sheep (which is not a baaad thing). And Grover's Mill, of course, which comes as a complete surprise to the Sesame Street character: "I have... a mill?" And an Asian infection that eerily presages SARS. And Ralph Spoilsport, always Ralph Spoilsport.

Not sure when Red Shift will be for sale, but wanted y'all to know about it and Seem Real's other fine works detailed on the website: Neal Amid (my copy of which seems to be misplaced at present), An Infinite Trilogy, and Box of Time. Happy birthday, Cat; ya done good again.