Five pieces, recited within the Crazy Weird edition of The Finn-Brit Players' Poetry & Jazz.
Tuesday waltz
You’re born with just one head and, perhaps rightly so, perhaps not, you’re not allowed a spare. For the most of human history that would not be too much of a problem (unless you’re keen on certain risks, like marrying Henry VIII, for example). The complex and frantic modern life, however, puts more and more demands on the headspace within.
One mind is not enough.
One mood is not enough.
As the minds and moods come and go and congest the limited habitat of your head, they tend to spend more time with each other and to interact in unexpected ways. In a moment of conflict, they may mosh and slam like the most hardcore fans of thrash metal. Or after the sixth beer they may form a conga line and conga off into the unconscious.
As you mature in the ways of culture and as you begin to accept all those vagabonds under your own hood as one and the same person, the style of dancing matures as well. The screech of the electric guitar is replaced by the grace of the violin, and the silly party tunes transmute into “The Blue Danube”.
It is not less tiring, or schizoid, to be honest, but at least is a bit more refined.
P. T. Barnum's Museum of the New Millennium
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Sylvester II (946-1003) was a quite unique pope. The first in his position accused of being a Necromancer. On top of that, people claimed that Sylvester could summon demons, that he constructed a robotic head which could answer his questions with “yes” or “no”, and that he won the papacy playing dice with the Devil.
While the last bit definitely sounds accurate, the rest was made up long after his death. What gave rise to such slander was that Sylvester was an extraordinary erudite, possessing vast knowledge in arithmetic, mathematics, astronomy, and many other poorly developed at the time fields. This is not the first and only example from the past centuries when knowledge and skills were considered supernatural. On many an occasion, knowing math led to being accused of witchcraft. Similarly, being able to do calculations in your head without pen and paper, or simply to read without moving your lips were dubbed as superpowers, and we all know what happened to people with superpowers back in the Dark Ages.
Today, on the other hand, if you can read without moving your lips no one will bat an eyelid, while if you can’t that surely will subject you to most rigorous witch-hunts, particularly in elementary school. So, it’s curious how preconceptions flip in time and yesterday’s madness and freakdom become today’s norm.
Then, given what the “new normal” is, I wonder what would the “new crazy” look like…?
Extravagance deficiency
If you don’t have your homework and the teacher is drilling through your head with this special teachers’ look of supreme punishment, that’s a real bother. You can always try one of the classics. My dog ate it. My brother smoked it. The family tortoise ran away with it. True, it’s a slim chance, skeletal in fact, but at least it’s worth a shot.
Speaking of shots, if they caught you with the smoking gun in hand, dancing over the still twitching body of your long-time rival, shouting at the top of your lungs “I guess you weren’t lucky, PUNK?!”, well… that’s a real tough one. Not much left to do in this case, but to try your last bit of luck with a good old plea of insanity.
What would you do, however, if the crime you’re being charged with is insanity itself. And not just any kind of madness. A Caligula x Evel Knievel x Rasputin level of insanity. Then the familiar courtroom tricks are not going to help anymore. Then you’ll really have to get creative and resort to a much more… extravagant defence strategy.
Good luck!
PhD (Poetically Hopeless Duck)
“PhD (Poetically Hopeless Duck)” is a grand epic poem with a surprising length, word structure, and… well… timbre.
This piece is an exploration of my own connection to the doctoral state of mind, which lately for me is drifting more and more from being a researcher to simply being… well… a quack!
Additional credits:
The first image is originally from The Finn-Brit Players' webpage for the production, and the following four images are from Oleg Moroz via Unsplash, from "Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum" by Martinus Oppaviensis, from Racool Studio via freepik.com, and Sesinando via Pexels.com, respectively.