To the violinist on the 4 train 1:15 am Friday August 29, 2008

Oh my god.
You are so fucking good.
I can still hear your music
Strains of summertime and Mozart
you could play professionally
not that I’d know but
here on the 4 train I wish I could give you more than the
75 cents in my wallet
I wish I could
Take you home
With me
Wrap you in my arms
Make love to you while you cry out your orgasm
in your violin.

You look like the boys I went
To high school with.
The boys I first kissed
First loved
Hippie boys
Hair full of dirt
Brains full of pot
Hearts full poetry
Kerouac and the open road
Box car hopes
And Alaskan dreams
Biking to Oregon
Working on tall ships
The boys who I left
Wrote off
Fools
Dreamers
Christopher McCandles
The boys who do not exist in new york
With curly hair and tattered sneakers
You look poorer than most bums.

Make love to me.
Let me take you home.
I will be your patron
Your muse. I will
Pay you in kisses and sex if you
Will only play for me forever.
Your music makes me want to cry and for some reason
That makes me love you.
Come home with me.
Make my tears into music
Make my pain beautiful
Give it meaning.
But you
You have no time for this
You are going to play all night
Until you have enough change for a big mac
Or the parks become safe to sleep in
You are going to ride the 4
Up and down manhattan.
I could follow you
I do think about it
I do
But I don’t want my heart to break
Not tonight.

So I get off the train
Go home
Write you a poem.
Swear that I would have loved you
Forever and ever if only…
If only…
If only you were as real as my love.
Oh well.
You probably have crabs anyway.

Who's not crazy?

Larke's not crazy! From io9:
Astrobiologists seem to have trouble putting their money where their mouths are. Generally among the most ardent supporters of planetary exploration, around 2/3 of them got cold feet yesterday at the Astrobiology Science Conference 2008. During a talk entitled "A One-way Mission to Mars," famous cosmologist Paul Davies asked the audience who among them would volunteer for the first journey to to the Red Planet? About 1/3 — mostly women interestingly — raised their hands despite the fact that Davies stressed it "wouldn't be a suicide mission."

Talk to Me

One of the things I am really loving about writing my nuns on mars play is how much the premise of it makes people want to talk. I’ve never had this before. With my other plays conversations have gone something like:
Person: What’s your play about?
Me: Bosnia.
Person: Oh. Dark. (Walks away)
Or
Person: What’s your play about?
Me: it’s a political thriller about a presidential candidate who’s accused of rape.
Person: Neat. (Walks away)
But now the conversations go:
Person: What’s your play about?
Me: Nuns on Mars.
Person: Oh my god that’s awesome. Did you know [insert factoid about mars]? Have you read [insert sci fi book]? My [insert relative] was a nun! But then she quit and married a monk!
I don’t mean for the above to appear mean. I really love that people seem to attach to the premise on an intellectual level. I’ve always been pretty upfront about my scifi nerdom so I find it interesting (vindicating) that everyone, even people who seem normal, has a sci fi book that I just must read. I also love that other people like Mars just as much as I do.
And as someone who was raised outside of organized religion I’ve always been fascinated by Catholicism and Catholics relationship to their faith. Its this incredible love, hate, fascination, recognizing the weirdness while still totally embracing it that I think is unique in its intensity. And Catholics totally want to talk about it. Which is wonderful for me. So yeah, despite the fact that this play is kicking my ass in a way that no other play has done to me, I am enjoying talking to people about it.

Mission to Mars

So this is a scene in my new play in which one of the characters talks to God. I have a feeling that in the next draft of the script I'm going to have to cut it which is why I'm posting it here. I really like it and its going to make me sad to kill this baby.
Anyway, all you need to know is that Elena is on Mars and she's been hearing music that no one else can hear.


Elena listens to the music. After a moment a beautiful Indian man appears playing the violin, we’ll call him KRISH. Elena watches him. After a while the song ends.

ELENA
Hey.

KRISH
Hey.

ELENA
It’s you.

KRISH
Yes.

ELENA
Are you really here?

KRISH
I think so.

ELENA
You could just be missfiring electrons in my brain.

KRISH
I could.

ELENA
But you’re not?

KRISH
I don’t know. You could be a brain in a vat.

ELENA
True.

KRISH
How do you know you’re not.

ELENA
I think therefore I am.

KRISH
How do you know?

ELENA
I don’t know. I try not to think too hard about that.

KRISH
Why?

ELENA
It’s too scary.

KRISH
People used to think about things like that more. Why do you think that is?

ELENA
Scientific method.

KRISH
Perhaps.

ELENA
Are you saying it’s not?

KRISH
I’m not saying anything.

ELENA
What are you saying?

KRISH
Nothing. I’m just talking.

ELENA
To me.

KRISH
Yes.

ELENA
Am I crazy?

KRISH
What is crazy?

ELENA
Am I delusional? Am I hallucinating?

KRISH
What is delusional--?

ELENA
Fine. Don’t answer. (pause) Will you play again?

KRISH
In a minute. My hands are sore

ELENA
Oh. Want me to rub them for you?

KRISH
Sure.

She starts massaging his hand.

ELENA
What is the meaning of life?

KRISH
Why do you ask that?

ELENA
I dunno. I thought that’s what you’re supposed to ask in these sorts of situations.

KRISH
What do you think the meaning of life is?

ELENA
Continuation of the species.

KRISH
Is that the meaning of your life?

ELENA
No.

KRISH
What is the meaning of your life?

ELENA
Dunno.

KRISH
Give it a try.

ELENA
I want to know things.

KRISH
So it’s pleasure.

ELENA
No... I just.. Learning things seems noble. Like, the more you know the easier it is to solve the worlds problems.

KRISH
Is that true in your life now? Are you solving the worlds problems?

ELENA
No.

KRISH
So why do you keep learning things?

ELENA
Pleasure I guess. Other hand?

KRISH
Thank you.

She starts massaging his other hand.

KRISH
You’re hands are warm.

ELENA
I know. I radiate heat through my hands. So what is it?

KRISH
What?

ELENA
The meaning of life?

KRISH
Oh. Would you believe me if I told you I made it with out meaning? I was so enraptured by the beauty of it that I never thought to give it a point.

ELENA
So there is no meaning?

KRISH
It’s sweet of you to try.

ELENA
So why...?

KRISH
Why what?

ELENA
Don’t you stop it? Stop whats going on. Bad things are happening.

KRISH
It’s not in my power.

ELENA
What do you mean.

KRISH
I can’t uncreate something. It’s like writing. Once its been written it’s there. You can’t get that ink back up into the pen no matter how much you may want to.

ELENA
I heard this theory... well, you would know if its true or not.

KRISH
Go ahead.

ELENA
Well you know how time and space are connected.

KRISH
Yes.

ELENA
And how the universe is expanding.

KRISH
Yes.

ELENA
Well when the universe stops expanding and starts to collapse in on itself time will run backwards. The dead will be born out of their graves and live their lives again until they die in their mothers womb.

KRISH
Poetic.

ELENA
Well.

KRISH
Well what?

ELENA
Will that happen?

KRISH
Time only runs one way. But then I only know this universe.

ELENA
The universe is expanding though.

KRISH
Sure.

ELENA
“sure?”

KRISH
Sure. Would that make you feel better? If all this came undone?

ELENA
No.

KRISH
You’ll never know it all.

ELENA
All what?

KRISH
All there is to learn.

ELENA
I know.

KRISH
Why’d you come here?

ELENA
I was sent--

KRISH
Why did you come here?

ELENA
To learn. To know things before everyone else.

KRISH
Fame?

ELENA
God no. Just... satisfaction.

KRISH
Oh.

ELENA
What?

KRISH
You’re weird.

ELENA
I’m sure you’ve seen weirder.

KRISH
Why’d you do this to yourself.

ELENA
What?

KRISH
Close yourself off from humanity--

ELENA
I did not close myself off--

KRISH
You’re on Mars. How much farther can you run?

Elena drops his hand and walks away.

KRISH
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout.

ELENA
You don’t have to apologize.

KRISH
Yes I do.

ELENA
Alright. Apology accepted.

KRISH
I’m just curious.

ELENA
About what?

KRISH
Why you left the world behind.

ELENA
Aren’t you ominichant? (he shrugs) I mean I don’t know.

KRISH
People are nice.

ELENA
Ha!

KRISH
What?

ELENA
Do you know people?

KRISH
Why this bitterness?

ELENA
Stop it.

KRISH
What?

ELENA
Stop with the psychoanalyzing question bull shit.

KRISH
Oh. Okay. (pause) I am just curious.

ELENA
Can I ask you a question?

KRISH
Sure.

ELENA
Why don’t you stop it?

KRISH
What?

ELENA
Anything. Pick one. The holocaust, pol pot, Armenians, Rwanda Bosnia, Stalin, Congo ---

KRISH
With what? Locusts? Plague on the first born son.

ELENA
Maybe. It is in your power isn’t it.

KRISH
Yes.

ELENA
Well?

KRISH
I keep hoping you’ll learn. It doesn’t mean anything if I stop it.

ELENA
You know that’s not going to happen.

KRISH
It will someday. Is that why you’re here?

ELENA
No.

KRISH
Ever been to the Congo?

ELENA
..yes.

KRISH
Really where?

ELENA
East. By lake Kivu.

KRISH
How do you still believe in me after that?

ELENA
I believe in you. I believe in science. I believe in rocks.

KRISH
But...

ELENA
People just aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

KRISH
You like music.

ELENA
Yes.

KRISH
Music is people.

ELENA
No.

KRISH
Music is the best part of people. Music is on of my favorite surprises about you. Music and art and writing. You people can make someone fall in love with you with sound. Not pheromones or hormones but sound. Listen
(He plays a note on the violin.)
Doesn’t that make you’re chest ache.

ELENA
They say the music is signaling certain parts of the brain that are connected to emotion centers---

KRISH
So?

ELENA
So what?

KRISH
So it still doesn’t make any sense. Listen.
(He plays the note again)
That serves no purpose for food or procreation or survival. It just is. And it’s human.

ELENA
It’s you.

KRISH
I didn’t invent this. I didn’t even create the potential for it. But here it is.
(He starts to play)
What do you feel in the music?

ELENA
It’s just music.

KRISH
What do you feel?

ELENA
Heart break.

KRISH
Why does your heart break? Why not let it fall in love?

ELENA
I don’t know. It’s what I hear.

KRISH
Play with me.

ELENA
I’m just human.

KRISH
So am I.

ELENA
No you’re not.

KRISH
Aren’t these hands human. Isn’t this instrument wood? There is nothing divine here but the sound. Play with me.

She sits down at the piano.

ELENA
My parents used to play together, my mom on the piano and my dad on violin. I would build a fort under the piano with pillows and blankets and all my stuffed animals. The sounds would reverberate through my whole body, warped and deeper than they should be. In their music I could hear love. And as my body vibrated with the deep notes it was as though I was that love, given form and shape. As though I could feel nothing else in the world but love. It was how I imagine heaven feels. But heaven lasts forever and those moments slipped away so fast.

KRISH
What happened to them?

ELENA
What happens to all living things.

She pushes down the keys. They start to play together. Sad sad music, something similar to “Spiegel im speigel” by Arvo Part. Elena is very good.
The lights flicker off. They continue to play. When the lights come back on Elena is alone.

Dragons of the Subway

Rob’s mother leaned out over the tracks and peered down the subway tunnel.
“It should be here any minute.” Rob ignored her. She was too busy naming the rats. There was Leopold and Stanley and Dr. Livingstone. Dr. Livingstone was inspecting a candy wrapper.
“Damn MTA,” Rob’s mother was saying, “they should run more trains on this line. It’s ridiculous that we should wait this long.”
“Blah blah blah,” was all Rob heard. Dr. Livingstone picked up the candy wrapper and ducked under the third rail. The wrapper covered him and it looked as though there was a candy bar running along the floor. Leopold and Stanley, who had been fighting stopped and stood on their hind legs. Then they too scurried away. A breeze began to blow on Rob’s face.
The train was coming.
With the rats gone, Rob joined her mother leaning over the tracks. There was only blackness in the distance. The tracks made a curve right before the station so you couldn’t see the trains coming until the last second.
“Step back from the edge,” Rob’s mom said, but Rob was staring into the blackness. The breeze felt warmer than usual. In the distance something sounded like a growl.
Rob’s ears were listening for the sound of metal against metal, the screeching of an oncoming subway, but there was only another growl.
Then around the corner, Rob and her mother saw the beginning of light.
“Here it comes,” her mom said. The light grew steadily brighter and brighter as what they thought was a train grew closer. The growling grew louder.
But just when the train should have poked its head around the corner, shining two headlights into the station, there was a rumble and the lights in the station went out. Rob fell against her mother and together they stumbled back from the track. Their lungs were filling with soot and their ears filled with a low reverberation.
Rob squinted through the soot and blackness, something darker than the dark was passing by on the tracks. At its front was a cold fire. She thought she saw eyes in the fire but before she could focus had to blink away the tears of the burning soot. When she opened her eyes again she saw only dark.
Slowly, the lights of the station flickered on. Rob expected to find herself covered in a black dust but she was clean as ever. No one else in the subway station seemed to have noticed what happened.
“That was weird,” Rob said.
“Must have been a service train.” Her mother said, as she resumed her post leaning out over the tracks. In the distance Rob could hear the screeching of the in coming train. It sounded weirdly comforting. Rob looked down the tracks away from her mother in the direction the thing had gone. But she saw only black.
“Step back from the tracks dear,” said her mother, as the train pulled into the station.
Rob hurried to a window on the train and peered out. All she saw was graffiti and power cables as the train pulled out of the station. The train gathered speed as it rushed uptown. There, on the express track, was that a form? It looked like a darkened train but was it? Rob pressed her nose to the window.
“That’s not sanitary,” her mother said and pulled her back into the seat.
But before she had been pulled down, Rob could have sworn she saw eyes of fire staring back at her.