Memoirs of Mother Ginger

 

Now that Christmas is over, the tale can be told. I am the Mother Ginger. Or was in1975. The top half, at least.

For those unfamiliar with The Nutcracker, Mother Ginger is a ten-foot tall lady who, for reasons unbeknownst to me still, sidles out to reveal eight little girls under her skirts who issue forth and do a dance number. 

Back story: our high school drama club was pretty well known in Shreveport at the time, so when the Houston Ballet came to town, they got in touch. They needed three guys to move some large boxes, they said. So me and my buddies, John Sheridan and Bobby Brady, volunteered. No sweat. Besides, ballerinas! Maybe we could hit on them. (We were an all-boy school, and chances to get near girls were rare.)

But when we got there, we were asked to audition, which seemed strange. We were supposed to cross the room, smiling puckishly, waving a handkerchief. We found out then that we were playing powdered-wig footmen, who wheeled the big boxes holding Clara’s Christmas prezzies on stage—and playing the aforementioned Mother Ginger, top and bottom. Apparently the ballet pulled this razz wherever they went. None of this would require a single dance step, so we were game.

Some other Mother

Since I was the only actor among the group (John and Bobby were techies) I swept the auditions and became the face of M.G.—said face to be covered in clown makeup, bewigged with red pigtails, each arm laden with half a dozen helium balloons, powder puff in one hand, said waving hankie in the other. The makeup girl said that I was the most evil-looking Mother Ginger she had ever seen, and there was nothing she could do to make it better. 

(Maybe it had something to do with the dance belt I had to wear as one of the footmen. If you've never worn a dance belt, suffice it to say they are not designed to bring a smile to your face.)

Bobby, who was a big guy, was supposed to be the bottom half, carrying me on his shoulders. But Bobby came down with the flu at the last minute and had to bow out (that was his story). Which meant that John, twenty pounds lighter than me, stepped into the thankless role. 

His task was simple: sidle half-blind under a tent-size skirt to the center of the stage--surrounded by eight little girls(called polichinelles) who had sworn to trip him and send both of us sprawling—open his skirts to reveal them, park and wait for them to do their little dance, gather them under his skirts again and make it off stage with the little girls, now sorely tempted to carry out their threats. My job? Shake that hanky, look as charming as possible and not evil, and try not to sweat too much.

Well--the little girls were merciful, possibly fearing retribution from St. Nick. Mission accomplished. It was a one-night show. It would only take a couple of hours to get those dance belts off. But I still break into a sweat whenever I hear Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. And no, we did not get to hit on any ballerinas. Apparently they were busy dancing or something. (Alright, I had no game, and John came out as gay a year later.)

So next time you see The Nutcracker, think kindly the Mother Ginger--or at least the bottom half.

In Boston even beans do it

I

Action stacking action

 ... or what I learned from William Goldman.

I'm not much on the trend of casting your narrative in first person present tense. It's too much like theatre in the round. I like the distance availed by the proscenium, which gives the audience a wide-angle view--at the expense of immediacy, some will say. But a film that's all close-ups is claustrophobic as well as tedious. (Sorry about the mixed mediums.)

So when do I use close-ups, that is to say, when do I switch from past to present tense? (Which tense-switching you will always be told by the powers that beis a no-no, and you'll probably get your hands rapped for it by someone who knows the rules and guards them with their life.)

There's a technique in screenwriting called action stacking. It's more a trick of typography than writing, but useful to explore.

It consists of short action sentences literally stacked one on top of another on the page. In practice, it looks something like this:

272. INT. ELEVATOR -- NIGHT                                       
     

           Ariadne DROPS inside the ROCKETING ELEVATOR, and as it SMASHES
           INTO THE TOP OF THE SHAFT Ariadne SMASHES INTO-
     

273.    INT./EXT. VAN INTO RIVER -- DAY                              
     

           -THE WATER, THE VAN CRUNCHING WITH THE IMPACT- WATER CRASHING
           THROUGH THE BROKEN WINDOWS FLOODING THE INTERIOR...
     

           Fischer's EYES OPEN, PANICKING- he UNBUCKLES HIMSELF, pushes
           out of the broken window- STOPS, goes back to UNBUCKLE
           Browning and DRAG him out-
     

274.    EXT. RIVER -- CONTINUOUS                                     
     

           Fischer breaks the surface with Browning, who COUGHS and
           GASPS.  He starts PULLING for the near bank, struggling
           through the rain-impacted water-
     

275.    INT. VAN, UNDERWATER -- CONTINUOUS                           
     

           Ariadne, Arthur and Yusuf wait calmly underwater.  They are
           sharing TWO REGULATORS pulled from beneath the front seat.
           Arthur he turns to Saito.  There is blood in the water around
           Saito's belly- his eyes are LIFELESS-  Arthur feels for a
           pulse... turns to Cobb, whose eyes are lifeless... Ariadne
           GRABS Arthur's elbow, pulling him away...
     

276.    EXT. RIVERBANK -- MOMENTS LATER                              
           Fischer turns Browning/Eames over.  They lie there, exhausted.
     

277. --from Inception, screenplay by Christopher Nolan

(Producers are wild about this technique because it creates a lot of white space on the page and fewer words. Producers hate to read.)

But William Goldman does something interesting with this technique, interesting even to novelists.

Who's William Goldman? A god to screenwriters, and he's earned his godhood. Writer of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man, Princess Bride (both novel and movie), Misery, Absolute Power, and many others, Goldman's name is golden in Hollywood.

What sets Goldman's action stacking apart is his use of what I'll call foreshortened present continuous.

If you need a refresher, The present continuous tense is used to describe an ongoing action in the present. It usually take the form of a "to be" verb plus a present participle as in:

You are working on my last nerve.

I am only yanking your chain.

It's used to describe an action that is happening at that exact moment. In other words, it's as immediate as it can get.

What do I mean by "foreshortened? Goldman dispenses with both the subject and the "to be" verb, stripping the sentence down to its action, like this:

Working on my last nerve.

Yanking your chain.

Or, put more elegantly and more immediately, like this:

    INT. BROWNSTONE - McCARTY - DAY                         

       raising his rifle.

    INT. UNMARKED VAN - DAY                                 

       Collin, raising his.

    EXT. CAFE ALONZO BUILDING - DAY                         

       The three workmen, raising the glass panel.

    EXT. CAFE ALONZO - DAY                                  

       Kate.  Watching her father come closer.

       Luther.  It’s hard to suppress a smile as he walks
       towards his daughter.

       Kate, still watching.

       Luther, almost there.  Speaks softly.

                               LUTHER
                 I did not kill that woman, Kate.

    INT. BROWNSTONE - DAY                                   

       McCarty, flipping off the safety.

    INT. UNMARKED VAN - DAY                                 

       Collin, doing the same.

    EXT. CAFE ALONZO - DAY                                  

       Luther and Kate, and he starts to sit --

    INT. LOBBY - DAY                                        

       Seth, right hand raised -- he’s about to start it all in
       motion.

    INT. BROWNSTONE - DAY                                   

       McCarty, his finger floating to the trigger.

    INT. UNMARKED VAN - DAY                                 

       Collin, doing the same.

    EXT. CAFE ALONZO - DAY                                  

       Luther, seated now and as at last, he reaches out for his
       daughter’s hand --

    EXT. CAFE ALONZO BUILDING - DAY                         

       -- The three workmen, and for a moment the glass panel
       slips and tilts and as it catches the afternoon sun --

    INT. BROWNSTONE - DAY                                   

       -- McCarty, blinded as the red reflection hits his eyes
       but he FIRES.

from Absolute Power, screenplay by William Goldman

Notice how he creates tension by rapidly switching between continuous and simple present tense.

So what does all this have to do with writing novels? You, too, can get in on the action stacking craze!--modified, of course, to fit your narrator's voice. (The screenplay has no narrator but the camera.) To prove it, here's an example of how I used the technique in my second Sherlock Holmes novel The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter (which except for a few action scenes is written in past tense):

“I’m calling to Vernet, who stands like a statue, his eyes two marble ovals; I can’t even hear myself over the violence of hooves. Here is the cab, one wheel sparking a stone and shooting away on its own journey, the cab toppling upon us, the driver thrown into the air, still lashed to the reins. The horse, in a fury of terror, blacking out the night sky, and I too am flying, hurling myself across the alley, slamming Vernet’s body to the ground, hooves spraying stones against my scalp, the carriage plowing through bins, smashing against the wall of the building, the driver’s battered body juddering across the cobblestones, Vernet unconscious in my arms as I listen to the hoofbeats recede in the distance."

You can also adapt the technique to past action by using the past continuous tense (for slightly less bang for the buck in immediacy). From the same novel:

“There I was, turning, slow as a sundial, the blood roaring in my ears, the knife leaping from my hand, rotating through space, blossoming in his chest, the surprise in his bright feral eyes as he dropped to the ground, the overwhelming feeling of terrible purpose pounding in my brain, as if every moment since I had arrived in Paris had led me to the Gare du Nord at midnight only to kill this horrid little man, this assassin, and consign him to hell.”

So that's my pitch for Goldmanian action stacking. Needless to say, this technique loses its vitality almost entirely if your novel is set in present tense. But in all cases do what feels right for you. A writer needs to trust him/her self. As Jean-Pierre Jeunet (writer/director of Amelie) put it:

"You work for yourself. If you are a chef, you are the first taster. ”Um, I love that. Do you want to share?’ But, you have to love before. You are the first spectator of your film. If you think about the other people, you’re dead, you know."

Mr. Holmes's Neighborhood

 

Here it is, hot off the presses, my contributor's copy of Mr. Holmes's Neighborhood--34 new Sherlock Holmes stories by members of the Crew of the Barque Lone Star, a scion society of the famed Baker St. Irregulars founded some fifty-five years ago in Dallas, Texas.

I haven't read it yet, but it promises a peep inside the keyholes of the neighborhood surrounding 221B Baker Street, including my own prequel/sequel to Conan Doyle's seminal tale, The Empty Room, which is called--

The Sherlock Holmes Appreciation Society. The first Sherlock Holmes fan club turns out to have been the most dangerous.

I don't have an exact publication date yet, but Mr. Holmes's Neighborhood will soon be available at Barnes and Noble online and elsewhere. Keep a weather eye open, friends!

Italo Calvino on writing

 

"There is nothing for it but for all of us to invent our own ideal libraries of classics. I would say that such a library ought to be composed half of books we have read and that have really counted for us, and half of books we propose to read and presume will come to count—leaving a section of empty shelves for surprises and occasional discoveries. "

— Italo Calvino,  October 15, 1923 –  September 19 1985

Italian writer and journalist.

Favorite Works:

The Baron in the Trees

If on a winter's night a traveler

Six Memos for the Next Millenium

Bonus quote:

“Sections in the bookstore:

- Books You Haven't Read
- Books You Needn't Read
- Books Made for Purposes Other Than Reading
- Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong to the Category of Books Read Before Being Written
- Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered
- Books You Mean to Read But There Are Others You Must Read First
- Books Too Expensive Now and You'll Wait 'Til They're Remaindered
- Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback
- Books You Can Borrow from Somebody
- Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had Read Them, Too
- Books You've Been Planning to Read for Ages
- Books You've Been Hunting for Years Without Success
- Books Dealing with Something You're Working on at the Moment
- Books You Want to Own So They'll Be Handy Just in Case
- Books You Could Put Aside Maybe to Read This Summer
- Books You Need to Go with Other Books on Your Shelves
- Books That Fill You with Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified
- Books Read Long Ago Which It's Now Time to Re-read
- Books You've Always Pretended to Have Read and Now It's Time to Sit Down and Really Read Them”
                                      ―from  If on a winter’s night a traveler

I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere Review of The Strange Case of the Pharoah's Heart

Timothy Miller's The Strange Case of the Pharoah's Heart is a uniquely intriguing piece of Sherlockian writing, integrating real-life historical events and genre themes into a compelling read that deserves your attention.

Miller's premise is intriguing and unique: in 1923, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson had a serious falling-out over their belief systems. Sherlock Holmes has adopted the philosophy of spiritualism over his usual belief in deduction much to Dr. Watson's chagrin. Although they split, Watson is approached by Lady Evelyn Carnarvon whose father sponsored the expedition that discovered the Tomb of Tutenkamen. Soon, Holmes and Watson are joined by a third character, a woman named Estelle Roberts who is a medium who can communicate with the dead.

Read the whole review at I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere.

Sherlock, son of Sigerson?

      

Firstly I suppose I should say that the following is mere conjecture, though pretty thoroughly researched as far as it goes. But I don't actually believe a large part of it myself, having even more outlandish theories up my sleeve. I just can't resist starting a few hares.

I suppose the first question we should ask is this: why does Sherlock Holmes never mentions his parents, not even if they are alive or dead? It seems strange, doesn’t it? Here are a few more questions which follow:

1.       Why is Sherlock so distant from his brother Mycroft?
2.       Why are the brothers separated in age by seven years?
3.       Why did neither of the brothers inherit their  father's estate?
4.       Why did he choose the name Sigerson as his alias?

Well, then, what do we know about Holmes’s parents? Very little. We know from The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter that: “My ancestors were country squires, who appear to have led much the same life as is natural to their class." 

Let’s assume for the moment that his father was one such squire (although it’s interesting the way he phrases it, skirting actual mention of his father). Let’s call him Squire Holmes. Perhaps he is a Sussex landowner, since Holmes elects to retire in Sussex. We’ll come back to him.

We know a little more of Sherlock’s mother, however, since he goes on to mention “my grandmother, who was the sister of Vernet, the French artist.” Vernet, the French artist was a very real person, or rather very real people, a family of artists who mainly married into other artistic families, all quite successful. Let’s take a look at the generations:

• Jean Vernet, d. 1753
• Claude Vernet, d. 1789
• Carle Vernet, d. 1836
•  Horace Vernet, d. 1863

While two of his forebears had sisters (Jean had five, but they lived early enough that Holmes would have referred to them as great or even great-great grandmothers.  Carle's sister Emilie, was guillotined during the Terror. Her daughter Louise-Josephe, was married twice, but neither of her husbands were named Holmes, according to the genealogies. Claude had only brothers.

So it’s almost certainly Horace Vernet that Holmes was referring to. And while the fame of Vernet has been swept away by Manet, Monet, and the rest of the Impressionists, it’s worth noting that he was in his time the most famous of French painters, fabulously successful.

Only Horace’s sister, Camille (b. 1788 d. 1858) therefore, could be his grandmother. Camille wed Hippolyte LeComte, another successful painter, and had three children: Emil (another painter), Fanny (another painter), and Louise. Genealogical records are silent on whether Louise was also a painter (and silent on everything about her other than her name and birthdate), but there can be little doubt she knew her way around an easel. 

Fanny was born in 1809, Louise in 1815. Since Sherlock was born (according to most chronologists) in 1854, that would mean Louise would have had him at the age of 39—a dangerous age to give birth, especially in the Victorian era. Indeed, her first child, Mycroft, would have been born when she was 32. We can eliminate Fanny from our calculations. At 45, she almost certainly would have been too old for childbirth. Even at Louse’s age, childbirth would have been a dangerous proposition.

Perhaps the reason no other siblings are mentioned is that Mrs. Holmes had a number of miscarriages? This would certainly explain the age gap between the two brothers.

But how would this tame English squire and the bohemian French lady ever have met? And why marry? I’m afraid it was not for love, although Louise Vernet-LeComte was probably a fascinating woman, even though, in the parlance, an “old maid.”

They would almost certainly have met in Paris, possibly in 1845, where Louise would have been living with her brother Emil, six years her junior, where she would have acted as mistress of his household. But by this time, he would probably have become betrothed to twenty-year old Amelie Cournol, whom he would wed in 1846. Two women in a household was bad luck. Louise was superfluous, and Emil would want her off his hands.

But what was Squire Holmes doing in Paris for the extended period necessary for courtship? Maybe it’s time to define “squire,” –a definition which by necessity is quite broad.

The large landowners—squires were all landowners—had hereditary estates, which varied in size which averaged about 10,000 acres, and drew enough income to build great parks and manors, keep servants and livery, and keep them in the style to which we’d all like to be accustomed. The estates in Sussex were mainly of this sort.

A rung below were the gentry, who typically owned less than 1,000 acres of land, who either leased plots to tenant farmers or managed farms themselves.

Slindon House

Let’s split the difference. We’ll imagine that Squire Holmes was the proprietor
of Slindon. Slindon Estate is 3,500 acres of woodland, downland, farmland, and parkland. With its unspoilt Sussex village, Slindon was originally the summer home of Stephen Langdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose election to the position helped precipitate the crisis which led to the signing of the Magna Carta. Slindon is seven miles from East Dean on the vast Gilbert Estate, where Holmes is supposed to have had his villa. The actual owner at the time in question was the Countess of Newburgh, but I’m sure she won’t mind lending it to us.

So why would Squire Holmes abandon this idyllic estate, with a house built during the reign of Elizabeth I? There are really only two possibilities which make sense. I’m afraid the most likely explanation is that he was in flight from creditors, and seeking a wealthy wife for an influx of new funds. 

Alternatively he could have been fleeing from the legal consequences of a duel. Though dueling was outlawed in England in 1819, he last recorded duel in England took place in 1852—between two French expats. Dueling had become increasingly seen as a dishonorable means of setting disputes between gentlemen and more teeth had been put into the penalties for engaging in them. So I think we can eliminate this possibility.

How did the Squire’s ruin come to pass? In a word, no, two words, bad management. It would indirectly have been a result of the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846,  protectionist tariffs which had restricted the importation of grain.

 Landowners were certain the repeal would make corn prices drop precipitously and reduce them all to penury. Coupled with the rise in wages for farm workers as more laborers moved to the cities, the squirearchy was forced to diversify, developing their land for housing, or mining.  As a matter of fact, Thomas Read Kemp, an even larger Sussex landowner (and Member of Parliament), who was involved in some speculative land deals had to flee to Paris in 1837 and died there in 1844.

If Holmes had gambled on finding coal on his land and failed, he might have found new horizons in foreign countries extremely attractive. France was a favorite refuge for wealthier English debtors seeking to avoid prison.

La fidèle (1866)

Émile Vernet-Lecomte 

 And where to meet an artist but at the Paris Salon,  the worls's grandest art exhibition, where in 1846 Emil won a bronze medal (his third), perhaps for one of his first portraits of an Oriental lady which he was to become famous for. The squire would have been in need of a moneyed wife, and LeComte at this point would have wanted to unburden himself of a sister (a sister who if she was anything like her son, would have been more intelligent and more domineering than his young wife could bear). It would not be long before the squire was introduced to Louise, and to her dowry, which would have been satisfactorily plump.

 It would have been enough, anyway, for the squire to return safely to England with his new bride. And she would soon be pregnant and give birth to Mycroft. 

 The child is father to the man. What are we to make of indolent, overweight Mycroft, one of the founders that temple to silence, the Diogenes Club? This is what I would make of him: he probably had Einstein syndrome, named after the famous physicist, who did not speak in complete sentences till he was five years old. The syndrome is also accompanied by outstanding analytical skills. An indolent, silent child whose father probably thought him an idiot. Not a proper heir for the landed class. He looked forward to better. 

What he got were miscarriages. And disappointment. And a fiery foreign wife who was no asset to him. Whether he sent her back to her people or whether she banged out the door of her own accord, whether Mycroft went with her (likely) or stayed with his father, she returned to Paris.

Sigerson's biography

Where, in 1854, she would have met eighteen-year-old George Sigerson. Now there’s a familiar name. George was an Irish lad, from county Tyrone. He was attending to St. Joseph’s College on the Rue de l’Enfer. George won 1st prize in drawing (perhaps tutored on the sly by Madame Holmes?), religious knowledge, and German, in 1854. He returned home after graduating in1855, winning first in Greek, Latin, and German (but not drawing). It would have been a May-September romance, understood as a brief fling by both of them. He likely never knew he had a child by Louise. As soon as she realized she was pregnant, she would have hied herself back to England and reconciliation with  her husband, to make sure that her youngest son was legitimate.

George Sigerson went on to become a neurrologist, scientist, and one of the most prominent members of the Irish Literary Revival. He also became an important backer of Gaelic football. The Sigerson Cup is named for him. He married and had four (more) children. He probbably never suspected that the famous Sherlock Holmes was his son, although Sherlock must have discovered the truth and thought of himself in private as Sherlock Sigerson. 

Exit George Sigerson.

 So, why the distance between Sherlock and Mycroft? Besides their considerable age difference, they were only half-brothers.  And I posited another reason in my first book, The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle. 

But why did neither inherit the estate? The squire must have had a child (or children) by his first wife, Hope (who died in childbirth),  the elusive elder brother Sherrinford. Would he have got along with his younger siblings? Hard to say, but he certainly kept his distance. He would have inherited the bulk of  the estate. The Squire would have used his influence to secure Mycroft a minor position with Her Majesty's government, from which he rose to great heights. Sherlock, whom the squire always suspected was no son of his, inherited only the clothes on his back. He was a natural mimic and seemed destined for a career in the theatre. There's a book somewhere in that.

And that is truth about Sherlock's parentage--well, no it's not. Although the possibility is raised in my third book, The Strange Case of the Pharaoh's Heart, it's discredited, although the squire's paternity is also soundly rejected. Well, then, who was Sherlock's daddy, according to my lights? I'd rather not say, in case I get around to telling that tale. I have scattered a few clues in The Pharaoh's Heart, however,  for the detectives among you.

*By the by, the name "Sigerson" means "son of victory." So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

      

      

      

Interview with an Angel

Although there is debate whether the credit (or blame) should be given to Oprah Winfrey or Michael Sheen, there is no question that Americans are more concerned than ever with their spiritual sides. And a large part of the phenomenon has been the increasing popularity of angels, spiritual guides who many believe either praise God and play harps, or provide venture capital for Silicon Valley start-ups. We sat down last week with the angel Gabriel, in town for a stone-rolling competition.

Angels seem to be everywhere in the media these days, on the best-seller list, in the movies, on greeting cards. How are you dealing with your new popularity?

Not well. The truth is, we're bitter. A lot of people have made a lot of money on this deal. Do you want to know how big a taste the angels are getting? Not so much as a thin dime. Zilch. But try telling that to the IRS, or the headwaiter at Le Bernardin.

Why haven't you cashed in?

Can't. The company won't allow it. They're very strict. Look, I won't lie, the wages are great, much better than the wages of sin. Health and dental are magnificent. But the non-disclosure agreement makes Diddy's look chatty by comparison. Our union, the International Brotherhood of Winged Messengers, has been fighting this, but the funds are all tied up in escrow, and I'll probably never live to see a cent of it.

So you can't tell us what it's like to be an angel?

No, no, I can't. But I can tell you what it's not like. It's not like a bunch of clouds and harps and choir practice. It's more like Vegas, but without Wayne Newton.

What's a typical day like for you?

We do a lot of praising, a lot of singing. It's not really that different from touring with "Up With People", which I did for a year, by the way. We used to depend very heavily on Bach's Mass in B Minor, but we've really gotten into Amy Grant's back catalogue now, and "Don't Worry, Be Happy" is one of the big guy's favorites. Bobby McFerrin is one of us, in case you didn't know.

But aren't you in constant battle with the forces of evil?

During working hours, yes. But after five, the forces of evil definitely know the best places to party. We don't let our rivalry get down to a personal level.

What's the number one misunderstanding about angels you'd like to clear up?

I'll tell you what bugs me. This whole question about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. You hear ten million, fifty thousand, ninety bajillion. That's not right at all.

So what's the correct figure?

Six.

Six?

Six. The truth is, most angels can't dance any better than Elaine Benes. A lot of us are Italian. We can sing like angels, but we can't take three steps without tripping on our robes. You don't develop a great sense of rhythm singing Gregorian chants. The Clancy Brothers, they got into Irish clog dancing a few centuries back, and they can do "When Irish Eyes Are Smilin'" on the head of a pin. It's not exactly pretty, but it's better than Dancing With the Stars.

So how many angels are there, exactly?

Not nearly as many as before the cutbacks during Covid. Downsizing was hard on middle management in heaven, because your average angel can't handle much more than some heavy hosannaing and writing email jokes about the cherubim. Those aren't really marketable skills in today's economy, unless you're willing to work for Elon Musk.

So tell us. What's God really like?

Jerry Springer. He's just like Jerry Springer. He loves to get a bunch of people together and push their buttons till they're hopping mad, then he sits back and acts like he had nothing to do with the chair throwing. Jesus is more like Richard Simmons, but we won't get into that.

Is it true that every human has a guardian angel?

Guardian angel? No savvy.

An angel who keeps watch over you night and day, keeping you safe from temptation.

Is that what you call them, guardian angels? We call those guys parole officers. Life got a lot easier in the Holy Office when we transferred those guys to the planet.

Well, is there anything humans can do that angels envy?

I have a real weakness for Armani suits. The line is just incredible. But with these shoulders? Forget it.

By the way, we noticed that your own wings are not really all that large.

I'm in moult, OK? Is that alright with you?

Sorry.

The worst part is, I have to take commercial flights this time of year, and I can't always get a business upgrade.

Are you planning any more personal appearances soon?

Oh, sure. This week alone, I'm appearing to six different virgins in Chicago to let them know they're pregnant. Immaculate Conception is still a very important concept for Catholic girls, especially around prom time.

Do you have any advice for people trying to get into heaven?

Do make advance reservations. And don't try name-dropping. The number of people who tell me they know Dolly Parton personally is staggering.

Next: Echoborgs

CYRANO:

Since, by yourself, you fear to chill her heart,
Will you—to kindle all her heart to flame—
Wed into one my phrases and your lips?

CHRISTIAN:
Your eyes flash!

CYRANO:
Will you?

CHRISTIAN:
Will it please you so?
—Give you such pleasure?

CYRANO (madly):
It!. . .
(Then calmly, business-like):
It would amuse me!
It is an enterprise to tempt a poet.
Will you complete me, and let me complete you?
You march victorious,—I go in your shadow;
Let me be wit for you, be you my beauty!

--Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmund Rostand

The deal is sealed. Cyrano will be Christian's voice, Christian will be Cyrano's face. Roxane will, unknowingly, fall in love with both. And tragically, wind up with neither. A tale as old as time.

Let's admit: it would certainly be convenient to have a Cyrano along for those moments when we're tongue-tied or feeling dull, but you can't really drag another human being along, especially one who can provide you with sparkling conversation at a moment's notice.

I may be late to the party. but it appears technology has caught up with Cyrano and Christian. Have humans caught up with technology? We've put our toe in the water. Will we drown? Or drain the pool?

You may have seen the Bruce Willis sci-fi movie Surrogates. In that film, humanoid remote-controlled robots have pretty much taken over the public arena while their human controllers lounge at home in their pajamas vegetating. An alarming prospect, but the reversal is even more spine-chilling: Robots taking over human bodies--with the humans willingly giving up their autonomy, their voice. Writers and artists are rightly indignant about AI muscling in on our territory. That may be just the start.

The first technology used in service of this goal was good old-fasioned radio, used in a number of psychology experiments in the late 1970s. Cyranoids, as they were dubbed (the name an obvious tip of the hat to Cyrano) were the brainchild of Dr. Stanley Milgram, he of the infamous Stanford Experiment and the more benign six degrees of separation. A cyranoid (or "shadower") was a person who did not speak his own words, but rather those transmitted to him via radio from another person, the "source." The underlying idea was simple and elegant: to divorce the originator of the message from its content, setting it adrift, thereby eliminating the biases of the "interactant"--the person receiving the message. 

Any black person having a phone conversayion who has heard the amazingly tone-deaf remark uttered by a white person "But you don't sound black" is familiar with this phenomenon. Racial, gender, and age stereotyping in social interactions would be effectively blunted by this cyranic device. It promised lto peel away the medium from the message, substituting any medium desired. And after all, the medium is the message.

Of course, we encounter cyranoids every day, to a greater or lesser extent. I'm talking about sportscasters, newscasters, all those people with tiny monitors  stuffed in their ears, feeding them their scripts. We can't really measure what part of what we're hearing is coming from the voices in their heads--but that's the point.

"I say it here, it comes out there."

Let's look at a modern Cyrano update. Not Roxanne

--Broadcast News. 

Oh, yes. 

We have a love triangle--a brave, intelligent, witty, yet physically unappealing reporter who's desperately in love with a beautiful, intelligent news director who in turn has fallen for a cloddish but extremely handsome newscaster. At one point, during the "Libyan incident" scene, the shadower (Albert Brooks) actually feeds the lines almost word for word (through an intermediary (Holly Hunter) to the newscaster (William Hurt).

However, these Cyranic experiments of Milgram were largely ignored. Until recently. It was only a matter of time before some mad scientist connected Cyrano and cyranoids to the Turing test. And created the Echoborg. That scientist was Kevin Corti, whose interests, according to his website, include human-computer interaction, person perception, attribution errors, AI interfaces, user trust, safety, intersubjectivity, philosophy of mind, language analysis, and organizational communication. 

So he keeps busy.

Corti, along with fellow scientist Alex Gillespie created the echoborg to study interactions between humans and AI interfaces--good old-fashioned chatbots.

So, what is an echoborg? As you've probably guessed, it's:

"...a person whose speech (and in some cases, actions) are determined wholly or in part by artificial intelligence."

In other words, its a cyranoid whose source is a chatbot. And there the danger lies. Not yet, mind you. AI still doesn't think like a human thinks. It doesn't truly comprehend what it says, not yet. It's a pattern-extraction mechanism. Experiments have shown the chatbots aren't pulling the wool over most of our eyes yet. (Of course, apparently in these experiments the interactants were asked whether they were talking to a human or a computer. I'd like to see their reaction if the game wasn't given away at first word. ) But does that matter if it can fool the interactant?  And whether that breakthrough occurs in a year or a hundred, it must be reckoned with. AI will get past the barrier of meaning. Time to start running some thought experiments, sci-fi writers. The potential for human level-thought in AI may be distant, but the potential for human deepfakes is attainable now.

But hey, experiments, shexperiments. What's your worry? Well, they've gone a step beyond already. Hey, kids, let's put on a show!

The show is called I Am Echoborg, which played for over seven years at the Arnolfini in Bristol, UK. It was billed as "a funny and thought-provoking performance created each 

night by the audience having a conversation 

with an artificial intelligence." 

Danish entrepreneur and academic Dr, Nemo D'Qrill (there's a name for a sci-fi villain) had this to say about the show: "The other day I witnessed an Echoborg in action. A recruitment AI that spoke through a human actor to interview people for a job. The actor/Echoborg was not allowed to choose her words herself, but rather had to say what the AI told her to say."

The funny thing is, all the writing I've dug up on echoborgs so far seems to put the spotlight on the computer, on the way they affect AI. I'd rather train it on the human. For instance, in the theater piece, the AI takes on the role of a job interviewer  sizing up a potential hire, an audience volunteer. But what if the parts were reversed? What if a prospective hiree was using AI to help him get a leg up on the interviewer?

The temptation should be clear. Maybe the exercise starts out as a fun way to entertain an audience or friends at parties, then is used for a job interview, a first date?  On the spot excuses for why we're late, blossoming into outright lies? Then you get lazy. You let AI field all the tough situations, and they're all tough. It's a magic pill. You develop a reputation as knowledgable, full of jokes, but apt to say the darndest things. Hey, AI isn't perfect; when it's wrong it's wrong. Besides, who's to say your interlocutor isn't another AI in human clothing? Who's to say that you're not at a convention of echoborgs studying echoborgs? You've just created another shell to protect yourself from all the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Your body may not be vegetating in this scenario, but your mind is.

Of course, on social media we spar with AI every day, in the form of bots trying to friend or follow us. Thankfully, at this point bots strive too hard to please, appealing tp our baser desires (big mammaries for men, military uniforms for women). Once they learn to leaven drag with thrust, we'll all be in trouble.

The blood-freezing part of the play snippet below? The audience volunteer asks "Are we supposed to talk to the machine or to the human?" 

The answer? "They're one and the same."

There may be a little bit of the old Luddite alarmist creeping into my blog of late, especially over the sweeping changes effected by AI, I realize. Like any new tech, it will have its benefits as well as its drawbacks. I've always faced the future with relish. But this one is different. This forecasts the ceding of autonomy in the last castle keep, the castle of the mind. Perhaps it will all come right in the end, once we've made our new adjustments and accommodated our guests. But there are no more moats, no more walls once they're inside. should they prove treacherous, we shall fall as surely as Troy.

"Have I missed the mark, or, like true archer, do I strike my quarry? Or am I prophet of lies, a babbler from door to door?" 

I Am Echoborg at the Arnolfi, Bristol

An interactive AI theatre experience