Though all the material on The Encouraging Voice is new and prepared specifically for you, I have been prevailed upon by my brothers in Freemasonry and other apotastic freethinkers to celebrate our recent satanic triumph over the Word by republishing here a popular seasonal work I orginally wrote last year for another godless Crookedletter Cabaret benefit show in Gainesville, Florida.
Whether you celebrate the best of this season by defying God by attending lesbian weddings or reading Stephen Jay Gould, by the pagan doctrine of heliocentrism or idolatrous General Relativity, we here at the proscribed Encouraging Voice of the Labyrinth urge you still further on, to the realization of your most profane holiday dreams and unquiet science.
A HUMANLIGHT CAROL
dramatis personae
“Eben”, Ebeneezer Scrooge, manager in a progressive, nameless non-profit
Bob Cratchit, Scrooge’s employee
Alfred Jules Ayer, deceased logical positivist
René Descartes, founder of modern philosophy
Galileo Galilei, astronomer
Socrates, Greek
Donald Rumsfeld, ambitious politician
Mar-tha, Cratchit’s partner
Differently-Abled Tim, their child
President Arnold Schwartzenegger, robot from the future
Tim-Bank, future child of Differently-Abled Tim
SCENE 1: A PROGRESSIVE, NAMELESS NON-PROFIT
EBEN
Well, as you all work in the non-profit sector there’s something wrong with all of you and I don’t really have to treat any of you well, provided I represent a good and hopeless cause. There will be no holiday bonus or time off for Hannukah or Christmas, because there is no time off or bonuses when you’re fighting to blah, blah, blah (makes scare quotes) “Bah Humbug” okay get out of here into your tiny pot-smelling fuel efficient cars or “car pools” and be back here early -and somebody move the sign in...CRACHIT
But Mr. Scrooge...EBEN
You can call me Eben-what is it? Cratchit?CRATCHIT
Eben, what about Humanlight?EBEN
Humanlight? What’s Humanlight?CRATCHIT
It’s a seasonal celebration of the values of rational inquiry and secular humanism. It allows free-thinking humans to enjoy the holiday season without bowing to the primitive idols of illogical supernatural occult religious beliefs. Instead, we honor the humanist vision of a happy, just and more logical entirely materialist world with positive intellectual contact in a conducive environment. It’s sorta like Kwanzaa for progressive liberals of non-color.EBEN
When is it?CRATCHIT
It’s tommorow, sir December 23rd.EBEN
Why the 23rd?CRATCHIT
Because, it’s near the shortest day of the year, but it’s not.EBEN
What?CRATCHIT
Well, the solstice is just as irrational a day to celebrate and all the other days are taken by other irrational holidays. So it’s on the 23rd.EBEN
Where is this stuff coming from?CRACHIT
Um, it started in New Jersey about three years ago...EBEN
Well Cratchit, I respect your diversity and your views as a secular humaninst. But I don’t really respect you. Get out of here before I smack you with this Utne reader.CRATCHIT
But, it’s Humanlight, sir. And what about differently-abled Tim?EBEN
I am opposed to violence. But this issue of Counterpoise isn’t.CRATCHIT
Ow! Ow! Ow!SCENE 2: Later that night at Eben’s collective farm
EBEN
Well, here I am, sound asleep in my fair trade organic hemp sleeping cap I bought at Bonaroo at my thrifty multi-purpose cooperative farm and empowerment centerA.J. AYER
Ebeneezer, Ebeneezer...EBEN
Who’s there?A.J. AYER
It is I, the ghost of Alfred Jules Ayer. As a logical positivist, I denied the existence of an afterlife. Now, after my death, am condemned to walk the earth.EBEN
If you’re walking the earth, in what sense are you dead?A.J. AYER
I am a ghostEBEN
There’s no such thing as ghosts. Either I am hallucinating, having a dream or you are just a person who has broken into my house and “talksss likeee thisssss”A.J. AYER
Well, that’s an excellent point. Well taken. I commend your clear rational critique of misleading and confused superstition. Let’s say I am the specter of Humanlight past.EBEN
Specter, ghost -listen, is Frege there with you?A.J. AYER
No, no, a specter in the the sense of “there is a specter haunting Europe. The specter of communism”, a historical specter in the sense of the collective effects of the unintended consequences of human action over time.EBEN
So you’re supposed to be some sort of trans-historical phenomenon that is some how also historically bound and materially constituted...A.J. AYER
You’re having a dream, a crazy, crazy dreamEBEN
Alright, alright, what is it you want to show me?A.J. AYER
Well, what makes you think I’m here to show you anything? This is a crazy dream. Anything could happen. We could just start kissing and stuff.EBEN
I don’t think soA.J. AYER
I mean, it could be what you really want, I mean, it’s your dream, right?EBEN
That’s not going to happen.A.J. AYER
It could be a really sexy dreamEBEN
Would you roll the clip, or whatever.A.J. AYER
[Spooky voice] Sexxxyy hottt dreeaam [Eben gives Cratchit a look]...Ahem ...we’re going back, back, back to the early days of humanism, where brave thinkers struggled to let shine the human light of reason against the darkness of religious dogma, superstition and prejudice to the very first Humanlight....SCENE 3: The First Humanlight
GALILEO
Merry Humanlight, Rene Descartes!RENÉ DESCARTES
Merry Humanlight, Galileo Gallilei!GALILEO
What’s this?RENÉ DESCARTES
It is a little something I made for you. It is a little sweater and on it it says that the possibility exists that events of the natural world might be the product of natural causal laws and not created moment to moment by divine intervention.GALILEO
It’s so beautiful and rational. And bold!RENÉ DESCARTES
Yes, you can wear it inside out. On the outside, it says that this is only a hypothesis and that in reality a benevolent God who is Catholic, male and white is the immediate cause of all things.GALILEO
Why Descartes, you sly old dog! I could kiss you!RENÉ DESCARTES
No, don’t the Inquisition will burn us.GALILEO
Oh damn the church! The sun! The earth revolves around the sun, the sun you bastards!RENÉ DESCARTES
I know it doesGALILEO
(Putting the moves on Descartes) And yet it moves...RENÉ DESCARTES
Don’t. Socrates is coming. And Surak of Vulcan.SOCRATES
Hey you crazy kids! My inner daemon to told me to get ouz-O for you-zO!EBEN
Wait a minute, wasn’t the first Humanlight three years ago in New Jersey? And these historical figures are separated by over a thousand years? And didn’t Socrates believe in some sort of divine god?A.J. AYER
Your dream presents thing in a kind of synoptic view, while not historically accurate, or true at all times to the established views of the people represented, is effective from a dramatic perspectiveEBEN
Yes, but was Descartes really gay?A.J. AYER
It’s your dream. Do you want him to be?RENÉ DESCARTES
I know that I am a thinking thing. But is what I am coextensive with my physical body?GALILEO
I could show youSOCRATES
Maybe we could both show you(They all start touching and kissing, the scene begins to fade)
EBEN
This is not my dreamA.J. AYER
Oh no? Isn’t this like that scene in that gay porno you rented, The Erotic Adventures of Lewis in Clark?EBEN
I’ve never seen that movie.A.J. AYER
Oh? (embarassed pause) Oh hey, you want to look at, uh, the whole Humanlight present thing?EBEN
Isn’t that a different ghost?A.J. AYER
Yeah, whatever, look we’re here anyway...EBEN
Wait isn’t that him? Are you the ghost of Humanlight present?DON RUMSFELD
No, I’m Don Rumsfeld of administrations past. I’m from a different parody. I’m on my way to visit George W. Bush of 2001 in his dreams to tell him about my visit to Saddam Hussein in 1984 and how we knew he tortured and raped people and had weapons of mass destruction then and how we looked the other way.EBEN
Yeah, that’s old news. We invaded Iraq already. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Then we tortured and raped people. He got reelected anyway.DON RUMSFELD
Really? What kind of a fucked-up dream is this? Do I still have a job?A.J. AYER
For a little bit.DON RUMSFELD
Holy crap, is that Rene Descartes taking it from Galilleo and Socrates?A.J. AYER
Could beDON RUMSFELD
That is hot. I am on it.EBEN
That’s got nothing to do with me
DON RUMSFELD
(slicking hair back to go on over) You’re unconscious, it’s all good.EBEN
I don’t want to see thisA.J. AYER
Man, Abu Ghraib was no accident, look at him go. That mother is one bad apple...EBEN
Hey. Hey. HEY!A.J. AYER
Okay, we’re going to see the evil effects your selfishness and tight fiscal policy are having in the present. We are flying through the air, over these crappy houses to visit the Cratchit home, were Bob Crachit lives with his partner and child even though they are not married and sometimes a roommate....SCENE 4: Humanlight Present: The Crachit Squat
DIFFERENTLY-ABLED TIM
Mommy care giver, what’s a bull?MAR-THA
A bull is a word people use to describe cows born with pensises, testes and a y chromosome. Like the words “male” and “female” these are prejudicial, bigoted words of oppression and patriarchy that reify artificial notions of “gender”. Plus, people raise cattle under unholy conditions where they are unable to move and painfully milked all day long, before they are shot and eaten and skinned to make holsters for guns. It’s little better than the holocaust. Do you remember what I told you about the holocaust?DIFFERENTLY-ABLED TIM
That it’s the on-to-log-ical basis of our civilization?CRATCHIT
Differently-abled Tim, Mommy caregiver and I have some serious adult talk to discuss. So we want you to listen in and facilitate.Darling, Scrooge wouldn’t give me a Humanlight bounus. And we don’t believe in consumption or monogamy. So for Humanlight, I cut my hair and gave it to cancer patients.
MAR-THA
Oh but honey, I gave the money I save by not buying tampons or deodorant to cure cancer!CRATCHIT
Oh that is so sweet. And thoughtful, in a socially aware sense.MAR-THA
Let’s renew our commitment by having a threeway with a pregnant womanEBEN
What is it with the sex in this moralizing dream?A.J. AYER
I don’t know, man. When’s the last time you got any?EBEN
When’s the last time you got any, dead white male?SCENE 5: Humanlight Future
A.J. AYER
(dodging) Hey, look where we are, we’re in the future!EBEN
Wow, the future looks great. People are driving hydrogen cars Drugs are legal. Look, those people are naked! Wait, are we in Europe?A.J. AYER
No, no, this is America.EBEN
You can buy Tofurky legs on the street... The sex industry is legal and clean... There all these alternative wind-powered schools.. You don’t need a license to practice medicine...Why this is wonderful! And so progressive! I don’t see anything wrong with this.PRESIDENT ARNOLD SCHWARTZENNEGGER
This is your libertarian President, Arnold Schwartzennegger, as presented by Lowe’s. I am pleased to announce the 3rd annual winners for the Ayn Rand Prize in Extreme Selfishness, Suicide and Gay Marriage.EBEN
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!PRESIDENT ARNOLD SCHWARTZENNEGGER
But first, we look at outstanding work in Child Labor. What do you do, little boy?DIFFERENTLY-ABLED TIM’s CHILD, TIM-BANK
I clean floors because Work Schooling helps my family and it’s wrong to keep my family from making money. Also I’m an organ bank for my big brother!PRESIDENT ARNOLD SCHWARTZENNEGGER
And what do you want to be when you grow up?TIM-BANK
I would like to sell myself to Starbucks! Because my Home Room Barista says that it’s the bestest place to work as a neo-indentured servant.EBEN
No, spirit no! Let it not be! Take me back, back to my own time! Or perhaps further back. Back to 2000 when I voted Nader. Or back in the 70's, you know, before the whole AIDS thing, Or when Oingo Boing was touring. Could we go back to Roman times?A.J. AYER
It is forbidden to interfere with the laws of time.EBEN
You’re making that up.A.J. AYER
I’m A. J. Ayer, not H. G. Welles! We shall return to your time, to your own bed, it’s easier.EBEN
Oh come on!(Lies down)
SCENE 6: Humanlight Day, 2004
EBEN
(Wakes up goes to window (audience)) (“Lt. Kije Suite” plays)
...Boy what day is it? Shut up! It’s Humanlight day, the day we celebrate the light of human reason. Here, go buy yourself some condoms. And go tell your friends: There Are Alternatives to Teen Abstinence!
CRATCHIT
Why Martha, that Tofurky smells wonderful!MAR-THA
I know. That was the best organic dumpster, everCRATCHIT
Oh hey, it’s Mr. Wheezy from work. Hey, uh “Eben” we’re totally smoked out here...EBEN
Shut up, all of you. Merry Humanlight! Celebrate the light of human reason!CRATCHIT
Wow! You switched my long distance to Working Assets!MAR-THA
A membership in the Civic Media Center! Now I can stop stealing those Howard Zinn videos!DIFFERENTLY-ABLED TIM
Tank you for doning the NPREBEN
I was wrong to ignore Humanlight, Bob. Without Secular Humanism all is darkness. Also, I realize I am somewhat attracted to you, you remind me of René Descartes. Merry Humanlight Everyone!DIFFERENTLY-ABLED TIM
May reason guide and critique us, every one!FIN
NUMBER 37 (SPECIAL), WEEK 27: NEXT "AN EL MINOTAUR BLANCO CHRISTMAS"
NUMBER 37 (SPECIAL), WEEK 27: NEXT "AN EL MINOTAUR BLANCO CHRISTMAS"
1 comment:
A Xmas classic, no less than Rudolph or the Grinch (the original, animated version of course) -- Glad to see that you've given this fine piece a permanent web presence
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