Country Doctor Artistry

By Joe Wenderoth

The following is excerpted from Agony: a proposal, a work in progress. The book is a proposal. What is proposed is a game, Agony, wherein three teams (each made up of five persons, known as Pioneers) compete. The victorious team is rewarded with a life in luxurious exile, and the losing teams are executed. The book proposes, beyond the game itself, a certain relationship between the game and the society that watches it on television (it is only ever seen on television, as no one is allowed to attend the game). The following section concerns the five caretakers of Agony, known as Country Doctors. One might think of the Country Doctors as the high priests of Agony. Their appointment removes them from society completely. They live alone at the site of the game and have only themselves for company, as they tend to the teams and the rituals that prepare them for play. This section concerns a particular aspect of Country Doctor life — their potential to make art — especially photographs for an annual photo journal known as ^THE WEST^.

3.2 Country Doctor Artistry

Country Doctors Are Encouraged To Think Of Themselves As Artists

Country Doctors are encouraged to think of themselves as artists. Painting, drawing, photography, music, sculpture, writing — whatever art they find suitable.

In the spirit of art, and because of their proximity to Agony, Country Doctors, like the Pioneers they tend to, may decide to live as drug addicts. At any time, they may request and will receive whatever drugs they would like to take. It goes without saying that Nameless Souls may seek to remove a Country Doctor who allows his drug use to impact upon his work. Rough Living, however, makes it unlikely that a Country Doctor should turn to drugs in any sort of complete way. Lacking a Television to sleep in front of, drug addiction loses much of its appeal.

At the time of his appointment, a Country Doctor may request — and shall receive — whatever musical instrument he would like to possess. He may exchange his instrument for a different one, moreover, on the day after any Big Day. Assuming all Country Doctors living at The Frontier request an instrument, there are always four instruments at The Frontier, and these may be shared or traded. They might even start a Country Doctor band.

Each Country Doctor is allowed to release one CD per year, i.e. 1.2 hours. The CD is free to all Nameless Souls at the iTunes store. Many Country Doctors don’t ever release a CD. Most Nameless Souls don’t listen to the Country Doctor musics that are released.

Each Country Doctor, as mentioned, is provided with whatever art materials he desires. The artworks of a Country Doctor are sought after, due to his celebrity status. They are decidedly more sought after — and decidedly harder to get — than the audio tracks he might release, and this is owing to their relative scarcity and their invulnerability to mass production.

Works of art by Country Doctors are status symbols in the realm of Nameless Souls.

A Country Doctor may find art fulfilling, and a great outlet for pent-up anxieties about the flukish course his life has taken.

A Country Doctor may not sell any of the artworks he makes; he may, however, turn them over to Game Officials, with instructions to sell. The money goes not to the Country Doctor who did the work (Country Doctors have no need of money), but goes instead to cover Agony-related expenses. The kinds of Country Doctor artwork that may be sold are myriad; only two kinds are restricted and may not be sold at will: first, a Country Doctor’s music is free, as mentioned above, and may not be sold; and second, some of his photographs — known as Peeps — may be published in ^THE WEST^, which is a large (12″x12″), high-quality hardback book published once each year.

Illustration of a coffee-table book — caption: ^THE WEST^.

Peeps Are Routed Into The Unknown

Every Country Doctor living at The Frontier possesses a high-quality, light and portable digital camera, known as a Mouth, and a tripod, known as a Tripod. With his Mouth, he may take photographs, known as Peeps.

Illustrations of some photographs — caption: Peeps are various.

Every Peep that is made is immediately (wirelessly) sent toward The Unknown, which is Little Fuadie’s iPhoto library in Kingdom Come. Immediately, in this case, means: before a Country Doctor is even afforded a chance to see it. Mouths do not keep the images they capture — they send them immediately out onto the air… toward The Unknown.

This is not to say that Peeps are immediately (upon being made) visible in The Unknown. No. Newly made Peeps do not arrive in The Unknown until their day of origin has ended. Every midnite, all the Peeps that were made during that (now lost) day suddenly appear in The Unknown, mixed in randomly with all the Peeps of previous days.

Every midnite, The Unknown is reconfigured, a seemingly (and often, actually) new heap.

The Unknown, in its development, is similar to the development of “poetry” over time, as Eliot defines it in his essay, “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” The future changes the past.

When The Unknown comes into its final shape (all of its Peeps set in stone), Little Fuadie uses it to hew ^THE WEST^ into view of Nameless Souls. ^THE WEST^is an annual Peep-Show Book (every Agony-year has just one).

Little Fuadie hews ^THE WEST^, Peep by Peep, out of The Unknown. His choosing of a Peep for inclusion in ^THE WEST^ literally removes it from The Unknown; as such, ^THE WEST^, like everything else merely in his mind, is difficult for Little Fuadie to see. He is too close to it, he reasons, but that seems like it’s probably not the reason.

Little Fuadie’s construction (hewing) of ^THE WEST^ is always inherently a depletion of The Unknown. However large The Unknown may be, Little Fuadie must hew it down by choosing, one by one, two hundred Peeps for removal to ^THE WEST^.

Some are quick to point out that only two hundred Peeps escape The Unknown each year.

^THE WEST^ is the only Peep-Show Book in the world — the only Book possessing any real relationship to The Unknown (and the intentions of Country Doctors glimpsed therein). Little Fuadie is ^THE WEST^’s sole Editor-in-chief. It is one of the many hats Little Fuadie wears — arguably his most important hat.

There is a time when no one — no one at all — can see a new Peep. A Peep made one second after midnite, for instance, remains concealed for almost a whole 24 hours. In this period, the made Peep remains in The Castle Keep, which is a small impenetrable building in Dumb Worship. In The Castle Keep, a computer receives Peeps (wirelessly) as they are made. Peeps are kept in The Castle Keep until midnite, whereupon they are released into The Unknown.

At midnite, Little Fuadie feels the Peeps penetrate Kingdom Come, and feels, too, the growth of The Unknown (even when it has not occurred).

Illustration of a square concrete building in a clearing in the wilderness — caption: The Castle Keep.

The Unknown does not change slowly — when it changes (every night), it changes all at once. It usually changes in terms of the quantity of Peeps it contains, but not always — some days, none of the Country Doctors living at The Frontier make a Peep. It almost always changes, however, in terms of the order of the Peeps, even when no new Peeps have been made.

It is possible for no new Peeps to have been made and for the old Peeps to appear — randomly — in exactly the same order as the previous day. When this occurs, it is not likely (perhaps not even possible) for Little Fuadie to believe it. He may register, of course, that the shape of The Unknown has undergone very little change, but he will never understand how very little, or how lucky he really was. That degree of stability in The Unknown is something Little Fuadie is only very rarely afforded the opportunity to not believe in.

Illustrations (2) of an iPhoto library, showing the growth and random reordering — caption: the changing shape of The Unknown.

So long as a Peep may still be made, the apparent stability of The Unknown (a very rare occurence) — the apparent stability existing between one midnite and another (a very rare occurence) — is always illusory. In The Unknown, resemblance is nothing more than coincidence. Midnite is wed to midnite by chance, not identity.

The Unknown, once it exists, can only ever become larger.

The Unknown can be small, too. Of course. But think of how many Peeps a Country Doctor might make in one day. Hundreds? Thousands? It isn’t hard to push a button. And there are four Country Doctors living at The Frontier. And there are at least 360 days on which Peeps may be made — 360 days of Peeps from four Country Doctors… before Little Fuadie may even begin to hew. It seems unlikely that The Unknown would be small.

The Difficulty Of Making A Peep

A Country Doctor’s uncertainty about the size of a Peep’s audience should not be underestimated. It is, after all, probably just Little Fuadie. It might be no one at all. And then again, if Little Fuadie hews it into ^THE WEST^, it might be millions of Nameless Souls. Every Country Doctor living at The Frontier must develop his own relationship to this uncertainty about his audience.

Some Country Doctors are crushed by said uncertainty, and so make no Peeps at all — or worse, make cynical Peeps. A cynical Peep is a Peep that fills up The Unknown with images intentionally deprived of their capacity to bear witness to where they are. Cynical Peeps are an attempt to show Nameless Souls what they have no interest in seeing. One would hope that Little Fuadie, in his role as Editor of ^THE WEST^, would not choose Cynical Peeps for publication, but you never know. Little Fuadie can obviously be as cynical as anyone.

Some Country Doctors, on the other hand, use their uncertainty to goad themselves to make mo better Peeps.

The fact that a Country Doctor is never afforded a chance to see the Peeps he has made… makes it more difficult for him, as an artist. He is a ship without an anchor.

A Country Doctor living at The Frontier can sometimes use a trick to see a Peep he has made. The trick is to use his Tripod, and to shoot an inanimate scene or surface. The Peep is seemingly visible on the screen of his Mouth after it is made — and may remain there indefinitely, seemingly visible. The catch is… he has given up the use of his Mouth, and his capacity to make Peeps. His Mouth, that is, must stay in its place to generate the illusory stability he desires. The chance to make new (potentially animate) Peeps is exchanged for the chance to consider a made (inanimate) Peep.

The Country Doctor who uses the inanimate Peep trick allows making to slip into making it. The Country Doctor who uses the inanimate Peep trick may damage The Unknown, ^THE WEST^, and the lives of millions of Nameless Souls.

A Country Doctor may even keep records of where he has placed his Tripod to make a Peep — what angle, direction, height, time of day, time of year, temperature, etc…. It is subsequently possible that Country Doctors living at The Frontier might think of their environs as this immense spectrum of possible Peeps — a spectrum oriented in terms of very gradually altering landmarks, the Earth itself included.

Beyond the inanimate Peep trick, Mouths cannot keep the Peeps they make. That is the essence of a Peep: it escapes. The Country Doctor artist cannot secure as inanimate the animate space he looks upon.

Country Doctors may make as many Peeps as they like. They know, however, that when The Unknown becomes too vast, every Peep is inevitably subject to more neglect in Kingdom Come.

Peeps Are Restricted

Country Doctors living at The Frontier have a great deal of time to create Peeps. The making of Peeps, however, is restricted in three ways: in space, in time, and in content.

In terms of space, Mouths are restricted to Dumb Worship (the natural area immediately exterior to The Frontier), the field of play (the semi-natural area immediately interior to The Frontier), and The Lyric Cell. The Lyric Cell is the only indoor (unnatural) space in which Peeps might be made, and it is empty (save Lyric itself) and almost completely dark. When a Peep is made, the sky is always over the head of the Country Doctor who made it… unless he is in The Lyric Cell.

While The Lyric Cell is conducive to the making of Peeps, there is one rather harsh condition: in order to make a Peep in The Lyric Cell, a Country Doctor must be naked, alone, and empty-handed (save Mouth and Tripod).

The residences of the Country Doctors, then, are not part of ^THE WEST^. It seems quite natural for millions of Nameless Souls to be barred from looking into those rooms, given the obviously elusive nature of Country Doctors. The Berths of the Pioneer Families are not part of ^THE WEST^ either. Said Berths are looked into, of course, on a somewhat regular basis, in The Peep-Hole — but not in ^THE WEST^.

In terms of time, Mouths function every day of the Agony-year except for the four Big Days.

When a Mouth is in a time or space it’s not designed for, it won’t power on. Mouths, when they will power on, are not restricted in terms of content. Whatever Peeps a Country Doctor is able to make are bound to become a part of The Unknown. Every part of The Unknown, however, is not promised (or even eligible for) space in ^THE WEST^.

In terms of content, that is, there is just one way a Country Doctor can make a Peep that is not allowed, by definition, any place in ^THE WEST^, and that is when he makes a Peep of a Pioneer. Pioneers are not afforded a place in ^THE WEST^. Even so, everything seen in ^THE WEST^ radiates invisibly with the energy of Westward Going (i.e. invisible Pioneers).

Why would a Country Doctor make a Peep of a Pioneer if there is no chance it will become a part of ^THE WEST^? Peeps of Pioneers are only explicable as gifts for Little Fuadie. Little Fuadie may appreciate the gesture.

Several kinds of Peeps can be made.

• There are Peeps of landscape. Peeps made from Dumb Worship or from the field of play may be Peeps of landscape — i.e. of The Frontier, or of Dumb Worship. These Peeps are known as Brochure Shots, and episodes of ^THE WEST^ are spoken of as more or less of a Brochure, depending on how much setting they feature.
• There are Peeps of The-Land-Of-Toys-And-Vague-Gestures-And-What-There-Is-Between-Them. These Peeps are known as Finger Pudding, and an episode of ^THE WEST^ may have, at most, one Finger Pudding. (The special rules pertaining to Finger Pudding are discussed below.
• There are Peeps made in (and of) The Lyric Cell. Peeps made in The Lyric Cell are known as Weeping, and episodes of ^THE WEST^ are thought of as more or less Weepy.
• There are Peeps of Things, i.e. Country Doctors’ implements and possessions, and Things inherited from departed Pioneers. These Peeps are known as Cataloguing, and ^THE WEST^, when it appears, is said to be more or less of a Catalogue.
• Peeps of Country Doctors may be hewn into ^THE WEST^. These Peeps are known as Flesh-Pot when they occur out of doors, and ^THE WEST^, when it appears, is said to be more or less of a Flesh-Pot. (When Peeps of Country Doctors are made in The Lyric Cell, they are considered Weepy Flesh-Pot; when a Country Doctor is featured with Lyric, one may say “Weepy Flesh-Pot” or Table Dance.)
• Peeps of nature may be made, and are known as Testimony. ^THE WEST^, when it appears, is said to be more or less of a Testimonial.
• Abstract Peeps may be made by changing shutter speed (underexposing, overexposing), or by moving the Mouth (blurring). This is known as Eye-Popping, and ^THE WEST^, when it appears, is said to be more or less Oedipal.

Peeps Made Out Of Doors

From Dumb Worship, a Country Doctor can make Brochure Shots, Testimony, Catalogue, and Flesh-Pot (and some mixtures of these, too, as mentioned, are possible).

Quite dramatic Brochure Shots of The Frontier may be made from Dumb Worship. A Country Doctor may walk out half a mile into Dumb Worship at dusk, for instance, and have a beautiful view of The Frontier. The Frontier in a thunderstorm, or a snowstorm, or at dusk. Long-distance Peeps of The Frontier may become iconic.

Brochure Shots that don’t feature The Frontier must be of DumbWorshipUtteranceJargon. It is impossible, that is, to distinguish, in a Brochure Shot, between Dumb Worship, Utterance, and Jargon. This is simply in the nature of landscape. The borders in the distance all bleed together.

Brochure Shots of DumbWorshipUtteranceJargon are thought to be a quite accurate view of the realm of Nameless Souls.

The border between Dumb Worship and Utterance, you need not be reminded, is unmarked. To make Catalogue of Utterance, then, a Country Doctor must follow a suicidal colleague as he ventures out into the furthest reaches of Dumb Worship, one step at a time. At each step, he would either remain alive or die. When finally he fell dead, his colleague would mark the ground before that last step. Thereafter, Country Doctors could make Peeps of Utterance often, and without risking Death. A suicidal Country Doctor such as this is a hero, one might argue.

Without the help of a suicidal colleague, a Country Doctor intent on Cataloguing Utterance would need to develop a way to measure Dumb Worship. This would be tedious and ultimately unsuccessful. Without proof of the border (Death), how does he know that Utterance is really even there? He would be making Peeps that merely should be of Utterance.

A Country Doctor living at The Frontier might want to die in Utterance, especially if life in Laughter is not a possibility (or a desire). Maybe that is where he wants his bones to rest — in the natural vacancy of Utterance.

As for whether a suicidal Country Doctor would allow himself to be used in this way, it is hard to say. Maybe he prefers to be alone. Maybe he would like to have someone present at his Death. Maybe he even feels very strongly that Catalogue of Utterance should be a part of Country Doctors’ consciousness. (Utterance is never Catalogued in ^THE WEST^, of course, as Little Fuadie, like a Nameless Soul looking into ^THE WEST^, has no capacity to distinguish between Catalogue of Dumb Worship and Catalogue of Utterance.)

The conspicuous vacancy (lack of Gambling) of Brochure Shots of the field of play produces a literal (but flawed and ominous) manifestation of peace. Such Peeps as these are always fragmentary/subjective because they must be made from somewhere on the field of play. Such Brochure Shots are thus uniquely blind, and present a uniquely distorted view of the field of play. They are ominous because their lack of Gambling obviously cannot last.

The best place to make a Brochure Shot of the field of play is probably The-Land-Of-Toys-And-Vague-Gestures-And-What-There-Is-Between-Them. Country Doctors are forbidden, alas, to visit that Land.

An Introduction To The Lyric Cell

At The Frontier, a Mouth powers on in just one interior space: The Lyric Cell.

The Lyric Cell is the deepest part of The Frontier, and the furthest from nature. 5oo’ x 500′ x 500′, it is huge, or at least it feels huge to the Country Doctor. It is so quiet, and so dark. It is very much unlike every other space Country Doctors spend time in.

The darkness of The Lyric Cell is complicated, i.e. impure. As a Country Doctor enters, he sees, at the back of the Cell, something like the moment just before a double eclipse — he sees two dim inward-facing moons floating there, twenty feet or so off the ground. Entering in further, in a straight line, he can maintain these two moons, though they become thinner, fainter, with each step.

Entering in and moving to the left or the right, on the other hand, he beholds the destination of the light: flush against the back wall of the Cell, twenty feet or so off the ground, he sees that there is a spotlight shining on Lyric, a large bondage-throne. From far off (the Cell is 500′ across, remember), and to the left or the right, he cannot see Lyric per se — he can see just a small vague spot, and the thin trail of light that comes out of nowhere and moves across the Cell to make it. As he comes closer (on the left or on the right), and as his eyes adjust to the darkness, Lyric becomes increasingly visible as itself.

The spotlight is circular, and this fact is made apparent where it touches Lyric: a circle of light three feet wide where it meets Lyric, illuminating most the torso and head of the average-sized Country Doctor. Some of the light strays from the course along the way (such is light), and even more strays around Lyric, where its force cannot be fully absorbed. Lyric begins to become visible as itself — as what it is — when a Country Doctor is halfway across the Cell.

One small bright spotlight coming out of pure darkness and spreading out to touch Lyric, always — touching Lyric at all time. At all time. Coming out of pure darkness? No. It looks that way to the Country Doctor until his eyes have time to adjust. After awhile, if he is patient, and looking at where the light begins, he begins to see it: the double barrel of a giant replica of a Colt Dragoon revolver (1860 model), referred to as God.

The “spot” God lights is obviously Lyric. When someone is strapped into Lyric, he is touched by God’s light.

God

Illustration of giant replica Colt Dragoon (1860 model) shining a light from its muzzle on to an empty Lyric — everything can be gray so that the revolver and chair are visible, and then the light can be shown in its cone — caption: how light works in The Lyric Cell.

The very tall may have only half a face visible in Lyric. Many in the constant stream of Chuffs may have just half a face visible in Lyric. Dwarves may have just half a face visible in Lyric. It is what it is.

In any case, this light — the only light emerging from God, the only light in The Lyric Cell — has to be considered (and referred to as) a muzzle-light.

God is suspended from the ceiling of The Lyric Cell on very thin black steel rods. These rods are not visible — indeed, God itself is barely visible — only its barrels can be seen behind the light. Even the barrels sometimes seem like they’re not there — like they were hallucinated.

God’s muzzle can’t be seen, except in the shape of what displaces it. God’s muzzle is all full of light is what that means. Just beneath the muzzle-light, the lower barrel appears to be lightless. In that dark barrel, there is a very small (and very high quality) camera. It is aimed at Lyric. This camera is not visible, and is used in special Televised rituals (discussed below).

The muzzle-light of God does not change. God don’t ever change.

Only one Country Doctor in The Lyric Cell at a time!

The exception is during Minding The Tools (Minding The Tools is a Scheduled Apparition, discussed below). At this time, two Country Doctors are necessarily in The Lyric Cell for a period of time, but neither may bring a Mouth.

It is important to remember that someone bound into Lyric understands The Lyric Cell as a light shining in his face, behind and above which is deep empty gloom.

In Unwavering Darkness And Blinding Flashes

The walls of The Lyric Cell are sheer and empty, except above and behind Lyric, where Emily Dickinson’s poem 754 has been carved. The first line is 400′ off the ground, and the final line is 225′ off the ground, which is 15′ above the head of someone in Lyric. It is not possible for an inhabitant of The Lyric Cell to see any part of the poem. The poem exists in unwavering darkness and blinding flashes.

754

My life had stood ~ a Loaded Gun

In Corners ~ till a Day

The Owner passed ~ identified ~

And carried me away ~

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods ~

And now We hunt the Doe ~

And every time I speak for Him ~

The Mountains straight reply ~

And do I smile, such cordial light

Upon the Valley glow ~

It is as a Vesuvian face

Had let its pleasure through ~

And when at Night ~ Our good Day done ~

I guard My Master’s Head ~

‘Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s

Deep Pillow ~ to have shared ~

To foe of His ~ I’m deadly foe ~

None stir the second time ~

On whom I lay a Yellow Eye ~

Or an emphatic Thumb ~

Though I than He ~ may longer live

He longer must ~ than I

For I have but the power to kill,

Without ~ the power to die ~

The first Country Doctors, of course, don’t know that the poem is there. They can see no part of it, and even if they have an intuition about that wall’s hidden face, they have no way to look into it. Alls they can do is keep Weeping and be satisfied with the idea that Little Fuadie might see something.

Even if he did know about the poem’s presence on the wall, Weeping over it would not be easy. The size of the poem presents the first difficulty. The Country Doctor would have to be far enough away, and off to the left or to the right so that the poem is not obscured by God. The angle of the shot, moreover, inevitably makes some of the lines unreadable (such is the nature of carved letters and a flash).

If a Country Doctor knows the poem is there, it is because he saw it in ^THE WEST^ when he dwelt in the realm of Nameless Souls. But the question is: if a Country Doctor does not know that the poem is there, why would it be in ^THE WEST^ to begin with?

The poem will be discovered, i.e. revealed, accidentally, and in pieces — not by the Country Doctor whose Weeping made it visible, but by Little Fuadie… and then, if Little Fuadie desires, by millions in the realm of Nameless Souls.

Weeping: Peeps Made From The Lyric Cell

A Country Doctor intent on making a Peep enters The Lyric Cell naked and empty-handed, with the exception of a Mouth and, if desired, a Tripod.

The rituals occurring, very occasionally, in The Lyric Cell cannot be Wept over. Because, however, these rituals are always Televised, the lack of Weeping over them is hardly missed when ^THE WEST^ appears.

Given the unwavering darkness of The Lyric Cell (the darkness untouched by the light of God), most Weeping requires a flash. Lyric itself is partially lit, and a Country Doctor intent on Weeping without the flash has only this light to work with.

Illustration of Lyric in Lyric Cell, with spotlight’s target area shown — caption: visibility in The Lyric Cell.

Weeping can concern itself with several subject matters: Lyric, the Country Doctor himself, the Country Doctor in or with Lyric, pure darkness, the Country Doctor in pure darkness, or God.

God is the source of light in The Lyric Cell, but is itself not lit. No light ever shines on God. Light shines from God. In order for God to become in any way visible, a Country Doctor needs to be in The Lyric Cell for some time… so that his eyes can adjust. Once his eyes have adjusted, he can begin to see the double barrel extending back and away from the light — back into pure darkness.

Some Country Doctors claim to see more of God than others. It is hard to tell, at a certain point, what is sight and what is imagination. Some Country Doctors claim that God is not a gun at all, but a double barrel, only a double barrel. They don’t say doublebarrel because to do so is to imply the rest of the gun. They prefer to say twin pipes. Some Country Doctors claim that God is something else entirely — a chicken, maybe, with an inverted double barrel anus. In the mind of a Country Doctor, pure darkness is easy to work with.

Weeping over God is pretty much the same as Weeping over pure darkness, as far as a Country Doctor is concerned. If there is a difference between God and pure darkness, it is the barrel of a gun, barely visible in the darkness, or it is something else in the imagination of the one who Weeps.

The darkness of The Lyric Cell is impure, contaminated by the light of God. Said contamination is not complete, however. Pure darkness exists where the light of God cannot reach, and it is possible for a Country Doctor to look into (rather than away from) this darkness. To do so, he merely has to look away from the light of God, at any of the three walls not possessed of Lyric.

Weeping over pure darkness is the least common sort of Weeping. The Country Doctor who Weeps over pure darkness knows not what he Weeps for — knows not what he makes. He knows only that he makes. He may thus think of himself as a kind of intermittent God — a fragmentary God — a flash that blinds rather than illuminates.

When Weeping concerns Lyric alone, some Nameless Souls consider it Cataloguing. Most Nameless Souls are hesitant to use the term, however, given the difficulty implicit in reducing Lyric, a dark throne, to a “Thing.”

If not Cataloguing, then what is a Country Doctor doing when he makes a Peep of Lyric? It would be hard to argue that he is making Brochure Shots. The Lyric Cell, if it is devoid of anything, is devoid of landscape. It isn’t Flesh-Pot, Finger Pudding, or Testimony either. What is it, then, that is Wept over? The dark throne, vacant — its vacancy unbound by the light of God — what is it? All that can really be said for sure is that it is Weepy.

When Weeping concerns a Country Doctor, it is known as Weepy Flesh-Pot. There are two kinds of Weepy Flesh-Pot, however: Weepy Flesh-Pot that has Lyric in it, and Weepy Flesh-Pot that does not. When Weepy Flesh-Pot does not have Lyric in it, it is merely Weepy Flesh-Pot. When Weepy Flesh-Pot has Lyric in it, it is known as a Table Dance. The presence of Lyric makes Flesh-Pot more than itself, and this is obvious to anyone who sees it.

Table Dances

The maker of Flesh-Pot cannot be known to Nameless Souls unless said Flesh-Pot is Weepy. Put another way: when Flesh-Pot pictures a Country Doctor on the field of play or in Dumb Worship, it is impossible to tell if it was made alone, with Tripod-and-timer, or with the aid of a colleague. The Lyric Cell is the only place in which the maker of Flesh-Pot may be known for certain. It is this certainty that marks every instance of Weepy Flesh-Pot.

A Table Dance, as mentioned, is Weepy Flesh-Pot with Lyric included. Table Dances are the most common kind of Weepy Flesh-Pot. This is mainly because of a dearth of choices. Aside from God (hovering pretty much unseen in the darkness), The Lyric Cell is barren… possessed of nothing but Lyric. Lyric, moreover, is a lit bondage-throne, the vacancy of which is a billion Sirens calling.

The Country Doctor, in a Table Dance, is never bound. Bondage is not possible for a Country Doctor alone in The Lyric Cell. One cannot bind oneself.

A Table Dance pictures a Country Doctor with a billion Sirens calling. Nameless Souls can see, that is, in a Table Dance, a Country Doctor’s feeling for Lyric. Every Country Doctor feels out Lyric in his own way, making his every Table Dance a testament to his capacity to withstand The Lyric Cell. One Table Dance may feature a Country Doctor standing in front of Lyric, as if to diminish its immense call. Another may feature a Country Doctor kneeling before Lyric, facing it, his face pressed into the seat. And of course every Table Dance featuring a Country Doctor seated in Lyric is its own animal. There are countless ways to sit in a throne that is buried deep in the ground.

An episode of ^THE WEST^ wherein Table Dances are dominant is known as a Whorehouse. Whorehouses are much beloved in the realm of Nameless Souls. In a Whorehouse, a Nameless Soul has his best opportunity for intimacy with a Country Doctor and a billion Sirens calling.

Joe Wenderoth was cut out of porous rock in the rain while electricity surged. The result was incredible—what wonderful eyes! Then things slowly but surely got worse.