1996

CORPSE AND MIRROR was ariginally conceived of and performed as a monologue that moves non sequentially through eight childhood memories of my experiences with language and my father’s mental illness. These memories are bracketed at the beginning and the end of the monologue with two a-logical streams of consciousness. The two a-logical streams of non sequiturs resemble a state of mental breakdown.

Performers: Tony Allard, performer, Ezra Darwin Allard, the paper doll.
Camera: Tony Allard, Kristine Diekman, Monique Nobo
Editing: Tony Allard & Kristine Diekman
Sound Design/music: Harvest Works, NYC
Music: Eric George (ABC song variations)

SECTION # 1

THE INK BLOT SAYS:
“slow motion vowels wormed thy PSYCHO TROPIC apple from
thy tree of knowledge blossoming frost bite
in 1957 frozen beneath the cool bed sheets DNA blueprints mingle
the meek on god’s green chalk board
flagellants
chopPED on chipPED shoulder verbalized OH
god’s green chalk board cool
as a clam up calm down and coLD Mbeneath rotting health insurance policy
bite my psyche with chalk dust to drift over snowhite
henny penney apple
acorned VOWELS UPON THY owl’s knowledge dumbed upon they will FORGETMENOTS
head STONED
shot blot black BOARD
spot see clock goose flesh
run amuck NUCKLEHEADE
cloak clauzett feel
infinite wisdom of dumbness
clock tower
spot see the clock goose flesh
run FOR YOUR LIFE”
THE
DNA BLUEPRINT
GOES DOWN, FATHUMED UPON MY FETUS.
I.E.
SEQUENCE OF NONSENSE
CAN BE REPEATED AT WILL, BACKWARDS OR FORWARDS,

SECTION # 2
MEMORY # 1
THE SEGUE COMMENCES
(Through the logic lodge)
I see him
standing at the end of the long, white antiseptic hallway
that leads to THE DAY WARD
of the State Hospital IN 1964
psycho pharmacology
go ING BA na NAS in his brain
PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW
HIS CHEMICALLY – DRENCHED BRAIN
IN A ONE HORSE SLOPE ‘N’ SLEIGH

going to hell at the sound of that bell
He’s starring down the long whte anticeptic hallway of the Dayward of the state hospital,
five o’clock television worms wiggly waggly wagglin’ jingly jaggly jagglin’
on the shiny white tile floors over there
Upside down wormy WALTER
CRONKITE lips slip and slide inside
HIS psychoACTIVEmind
I can see him teetering towards these psycho tropic television worms

I can seehim teetering towards the bottom of his mind.

IN THE FOURTH GRADE,
I got an F in spelling.
Just two block away from where I am getting Fs in Spelling
Ezra Darwin Allard is going going going gone off the deep end never to
return from the State Hospital.
Mrs. Dunford, my fourth grade teacher could make perfectly formed Fs at the
tops of my spelling papers
Gadgi Berri Bimba God is made of timber.
Mrs. Dunford would make perfectly formed Fs
at the tops of my spelling papers and she would ever so casually
maul my fourth grade psyche by drawing smily faces that did not smile
but frowned an upside down wormy Walter Cronkite television smile wiggly wagglin’
on the shiny
white floor of the Day Ward

MRS. DUNFORD’S smily faces did not smile but frowned an upside-down fawning smile,and that is how I got all these wrinkles in my forehead.
Go to hell at the sound of the bell.
R E C E S S

MEMORY #2
He is staring down the LONG antiseptic hall at Walter Concrete worms wiggling in his
WHOOPS-E-DAISY, SLIPPED ON A PSYCHOACTIVE BANANA PEEL, “THERE THERE MR ALLARD, JUST A LITTLE TOO MUCH MEDICATION, DON’T MIND THOSE MENTAL FLASHES….WE’LL JUST CUT BACK A LITTLE ON YOUR DOSAGE, GET IT ADJUSTED JUST RIGHT SO YOU CAN REST, CALM YOUR NERVES, RELAX AND ENJOY YOURSELF. THERE, THERE, MR. ALLARD, YOU HAVE HAD WHAT WE CALL A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, YOU HAVE HAD TOO MUCH OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD COMING INTO YOUR BRAIN, TOO MANY SIGNALS, TOO MUCH STIMULUS, TOO MUCH NOISE FROM ALL THOSE ELEVEN CHILDREN YOU HAD? (CATHOLIC, ARE YA?) NOW, I AM GOING TO GIVE YOU, MR. ALLARD, SOME MEDICATION THAT WILL CONTROL THE FLOW OF INFORMATION INTO YOUR MIND. IT WILL NARROW THE GATE, LET IN JUUUUSST THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD, JUST A PURE, CALM, SIGNAL, JUST A PURE, CALM, SIGNAL.

“The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
said Henny Penny and she is subsequently committed to the
deepest darkest farthest back wards of
the State Hospital for getting her signs
and her signifiers all mixed up.
????????????????????????
??????????????????
??????????
?????
???
??
?
OH

NO
A B C D E (F)
and is not the SIXTH
letter of the alphabet
home of the devil
number 666
?
A B C D E F (G)
and is not the SEVENTH
letter of the alphabet
home of god
number 777
?
MEMORY # 3
IN THE FIFTH GRADE,
Fond Mrs. Blonde what’shername is conducting a spelling bee
on a cold October afternoon. Fond Mrs. Blonde says
“You know the rules, children.” She lines us all up
around the edges of the room next to the cloaky cloak closets
and the clammy cold windy windows, the chalky chalk board
and the doory door wall to the winner’s way out.
Yes, I know the rules: The dumbest clod clucker who clams up cold and clammy
and misspells a word goes out first and has to sit down in the center of the room
in the center of the ample pit of pitiful stupidity.
I am the cat in the hat I said I am
and of course me being the dumbest clod clucker, worst speller in the nation,
clams up cold and clammy and
misspells the first word and I sit down in that pit of pitiful stupidity.
I sit down and study God’s spermy white pearly alphabet
cursively strung up around the room like Halloween tombstones,
grave markers marking the death of reality
murdered by the word of God and his alphabet….while
just
two blocks away on a cold October afternoon
sitting in the center of the State Hospital Ezra Darwin Allard
has failed God’s Spelling Bee for the rational elite.
Ezra Darwin Allard
sits down in the center of the Day ward
FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING
his “DNA code got scrambled”
he “got into a smashup out on the syntactical highway”
“something just snapped”
he’s “gone off the deep end”
he’s “flipped out”
he’s “lost his marbles”
he’s “got a few loose screws”
he’s “gone ’round the bend”
GO TO HELL AT THE SOUND OF THE BELL
(and I’ll have a little green eggs and ham with my valium, DOCTOR)

R E C E S S

MEMORY # 4
ANNA MAY ALLARD, OH SHE COULD TALK,
my mother she could wiggle it,
she would wiggly waggly some
crazy words out on the tip of her tongue.
On a cold October afternoon
I would return to the warmth of her smile with my F’s in spelling and
She would ever so casually, so lovingly tickle my fourth grade mind with her own
made-up language,
strings of assonated, bastardized, beautified
FrenchEnglishSpanishLatinDutchFinnish and some
kind of alleatoric wabber jockey,
long strings of bunny bumpkins,
these beautiful blunders
of her own made-up language gone off the deep end,
her own tongue licking at the shores of nonsense.
I hear her now, singing in that waltzy wily falsetto
“bea-u-teeef-ul dreamer,
ya da da da deeeee da
seesto meesto mystro yikesso
eat your spinach, Anthony
it is brain food, it will make you smarter,
it will make you a better speller, Zeesto
and would you like zum zoup zoup?
oh, your zoking vet, you’re all vet!
and how is your comaseva today?”
Well, I am the cat in the hat I said I yam
And I think my fourth grade mind ‘why is my mother is not
committed to the State Hospital for talking like that?’
Such beautiful nonsense so nicely naped upon my neck?
Why is your tongue not locked up for falling down, failing
to stay home in the logic lodge?
“The sky is falling,” said Henny Penny’
and every time I misspell a word, to this day,
I get this terrible feeling in my gut
I get this trembly blaspheming sensation in my mind.
I get this notion if I misspell a word it will cause real physical harm to the
thing that the word represents, the sign and its referent
get all bent out of shape, all Doctor Seuss Boohoosville buggered
It’s like bad voodoo,
no Popp Eye the sailor man spinach on deck for you, “Bird Brain.”
Misspelling a word is like saying my prayers wrong,
it’s like the word of God whiplashed on the tip of my mother’s tongue.
D A R W I N 666 666 666 666
D A R W I N 666 666 666 666
And I’ll have a little spin ITCH with my
green eggs and ham and some prozac on the side
Doctor Dolittle if you don’t ding dong mind
GO TO HELL AT THE SOUND OF THE BELL

R E C E S S

MEMORY # 5WELL, MR ALLARD, YOU KNOW THE BEST THING FOR A NERVOUS MIND IS TO DO A LITTLE ART THEROPY, GET YOUR MIND NICE AND CALM, COOL AND COLLECTED. WHY DON’T YOU GO OVER TO THE QUANSETT HUT AND DO A LITTLE WORK WITH SOME CERAMICS, USE YOUR HANDS, RELAX, ENJOY YOURSELF.
SO EZRA DARWIN ALLARD SH SH SH SH SH SHUGGLES UP MOP TIPPED TO THE TIN-TOPPED
QUANSETT HUT TO HAIR PIN TURN SOME
CLAM CLAM CLAMCLAMMY COLD CLAY
ON A PO PO PO TTED POTTER’S WHEEL, MAKE MUDDY MESS, MAKE MUMPiTY MUM MUMTY DUMPiTY PUMPKIN HEAD WITH CANDLE INSIDE
ITS BEAMING BRAIN.
SO DAD DECIDES HE WANTS TO MAKE A CERAMIC PUMPKIN
FOR MY BROTHER AND I, THE TWO BROTHERS
JOE AND TONY, OR JONY AND TOE.
DARWIN DECIDES THE DELICACY OF EVOLUTION
SHOULD BE DELIGHTFULLY DALLIED WITH.
DAD MAKES A MICKY MOUSE MOCKERY OF THE HUMAN DNA BLUEPRINT BY MAKING THE TWO EAR HOLES FOR THE PUMPKIN HEAD
OUT OF THE LETTERS T AND J
J FOR JOE.
T FOR TONY
AND EVERY HALLOWEEN JONY AND TOE WOULD BRING DOWN
DARWIN’S PUMPKIN FROM THE COLDY COLD ATTIC
PUT A CANDLE INSIDE THE BRAIN OF DARWIN’S CREATION AND
WATCH THE T AND THE J FLICKER ON THE FROSTY BITTEN FRONT STEPS ON A COLD OCTOBER NIGHT.
THE DNA CODE GOES DOWN
FATHOMED UPON MY FETUS
(LIP TREMOLO
ONE PLUS TWO GO AWAY
ONE PLUS TWO GO AWAY
ONE PLUS TWO GO AWAY

MEMORY # 6
the dog did not know how to spell either.
“Anthony would you get those
chicken B O N E S for the D O G
in the I C E B O X?”
Anna May would spell OUT words when she did not
want the dog or the younger kids to know
what she was saying.
MEMORY # 7
D D D D DA DA DA DDDDDDDD DDA D DADDDD
Darwinian “ball point hard on”
shoot thy blackened and scrambled DNA blueprint
out tip of pen into progeny’s penmanship, papa-to-son handswriting
mama to
dada
“skin bridge”
fathomed upon thy fetus
STIGMATA OF THE sixth letter the alphabet, clings to your genius, DAD
You must have a very steady hand to
be a watchmaker and a jeweler, an engraver.
We lived on Jewell street J E W E L L
Darwin repaired clocks and watches
in the dark dank basement of our house.
Darwin was an engraver of words on copper plates,
He was an etcher of beautiful cursive swans,
long-necked letters
gliding in perfect nonsense from his steady jeweler’s hand,
practicing the alphabet
practicing in the logic lodge:
abcdefg hijklmnop qrs and tuv wx and y and z
now I know my abc’s
tell me what you ……………………………………..
one plus two go away
one plus two go away
one plus two go away

Memory # 8
In the First Grade,
the black-hooded Halloween N U N S
of HOLY NAME Grade School
attempted
to teach me spelling
PHO NE TIC AL LY
one plus two go away
This was a mistake.
I can hear him now
talking in that psychotic voice
ooohshiiiononsiiisiilllkaoaaowwllwasslllslslsiwwkamceoi;aoia;iakdkl
This was a mistake
Phonix confused my tiny tongue and
little psyche to piecesSECTION # 3
in this section an improvisation occurs
using fractured syntax, word fragments, mumbling, grunts
groans and other vocalization
a aaa eeee oe i owoowo
a
aoooooooooooowwswiifff eee ee dsooo
fdddddddddddddddddd ffiooof so
o
etc.