OK I'M DISGUSTED. BACK TO WRITING

to express what I feel. The misogyny is making me ill.

Here is a "literary" re/action to what's happening, part of my new piece "PICNIC."

Beginning:

PICNIC
By Carol Novack


Introduction
In the game “picnic,” a designated leader creates a secret rule concerning what other players may bring to a picnic. Players must attempt to guess what rule the leader (Player 1) has created in order to participate in the picnic. PICNIC, a conceptual play by the author (Player 1), is a reworking of her part (interior and exterior monologues, plus the omniscient voice) in the unfinished collaborative play, PICNIC, co-authored by four players who departed from the playing field.


---------------------------------------------------- EXCERPT:


PLAYER 1 INTERJECTS

You are veering off the course, chasing after your own balls, Player 3. Off the course, what course? You might ask naturally, always asking yourself questions you don't understand. You are breaking o lives not bread. You are full of static. I cannot hear your voice amongst the many. I heard you ask Grandma: Is it essential to stick to a course, to go from A to B, B to C, logically? Decide for yourself -- don't bother me. Do you know how to ride a donkey? Do you know how to see? Watch the Valentine roses and beware. Their mouths open, displaying eloquent pink tongues. Flies swoon and drop, head first, into the roses. Promises promises. When will the primaries end?

In these fields of mine, Player 1 loses score of the supplicants. What does Player 3 say? I lost my hearing aide. Who is coming? No one is really here. I am looking for nourishment, as usual, so boring I am. No one has brought anything of use to the Picnic. The Players come and go. Those who drop by cough and stutter, claiming helplessness, inoculation, family crises, weddings and anniversaries. There are CEO's around. We are afraid to speak. What did you say, Player 4? Focus!

I hallucinate Players in a fog, cough from the stench from the oil refineries belching the new fuel: lard from the bodies of prisoners, the cellular energy of the putrefied dying and dead. When will the hurley-burley end?

Don't lose the evidence. Place it in baggies as if it were peanut butter sandwiches for the detainees. Continue to drown them, but keep them alive: they’ll talk sooner or later. Tell me what they say.