. . . Stifle My Laughter

If a man arrhythmically slapping his own naked torso is art, then I was getting a prime education. Shifting in the metal folding chair beneath me, I exhaled slowly, trying to stifle the laughter building in my chest. I pursed my lips together. The shaggy-haired artist before this little audience sat on a platform with legs crossed, shirtless, eyes closed, face focused on whatever images flicked beneath his eyelids. He hummed an indecipherable tune and drowsily smacked his chest, his stomach, his thighs, his cheeks, his forehead. I waited for him to open his eyes and laugh, “I’m just kidding, ya’ll. I actually play percussion. Give me a second while I pull out my bongos.”

At this point, though, I was worried he would pull out his “bongos” and start pounding on them too.

Oh no, he’s got other stuff to hit himself with now, I thought as he pulled out a rubber mallet and began to tap his shoulder. It was like watching someone in a fugue state or someone goofing off in front of their bathroom mirror. Should I be watching this?

It was my last semester of college before I would graduate with a bachelor’s degree in English and a minor in Creative Writing. Needless to say, I had taken a lot of courses within the English department over the years, and now I was being punished by the university for taking too many and was required to balance it out with more—and unexpected at the beginning of my final semester of college—Gen Ed.

So here I was, fulfilling a mandatory performance attendance requirement. Thankfully I had only had to travel as far as the other end of campus for this one. I wondered how far the naked guy had traveled to slap his own ass in front of our unsuspecting selves. I hope he had someone in his life that he was proving wrong with this exhibition of his artistic—and vulnerable—self-expression. “See, Dad? I can be a successful body percussionist. This will change the world.”

. . . A Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Like the naked man performing percussion on his own body, I found myself performing in front of a university audience, making art out of something strange. On stage, I perched on the edge of a chair so my feet were flat on the ground, a handsaw pinched between my thighs. The audience was washed out by the blaring lights shining down on me, and I waited to hear the first sound of the low-fi electronic music I had composed on Audacity. Sylvia Plath’s deep, dulcet voice boomed, “I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly.” Some truly horrible synth sounds played behind her elegant voice, and I joined in, drawing a violin bow across the flat edge of the saw I held tight. Its eerie, ghostly moan rang through the auditorium. I felt silly, yes, but I masked it with the confidence of knowing some people would actually appreciate this without question. I had already received intrigued comments from members of the audience who had walked by my seat, where I was trying not to hyperventilate, and had seen the saw shining next to me. If only someone who knew how to compose electronic music had made the track, then it might actually be something to be proud of. But my instructor had encouraged me to do this, so I played along, pretending to be an artiste.

Waaaaaahwahwahwahwah, I jiggled the wooden dowel my dad had installed to the end of the blade to create a vibrato. Years ago, I had fixated on obtaining a saw to play musically ever since I had watched a scene from Another Earth, where a man seduces a young woman by playing a haunting melody that echoes in an auditorium. I was also seduced by this fascinating sound and headed straight to Home Depot. And now this “Electronic Music” class provided the perfect, and rare, opportunity to showcase what my friends felt I should be contributing in a jug band.

There was a reason I had chosen English over Music. And if it wasn’t for one of my English courses, I wouldn’t have found the sound clip of Sylvia Plath reading “Tulips.” (Which I didn’t realize you could just find on YouTube, along with Allen Ginsburg reading Howl while completely smashed). So fascinating, these pieces of literary history, the authors’ voices carrying the weight of long ago.)

The music then circled the drain into the slow fade I had put too little effort into. (Why oh why hadn’t I made it end more abruptly so I could get off this stage sooner?). I left the stage to a mix of hearty and confused applause and, trotting back to my seat, checked that performance box off my transcript.