Yo-Yo Boing!

— They know what’s in and what’s out. Youths are closer to life because they’re not frustrated by their jobs and their children. They still have hopes of becoming something. Art is hope.

— Art is history. If you don’t remember, you don’t have a past.

— Who wants the past. I want the future.

— And when you grow old, what will you have?

— More past than future. But now I have more future than past.

— Future is an illusion. A bubble.

— Bubbles are nice.

— Youth understands nothing worth understanding. It took me years to understand James Joyce. I understood his youth only when I became younger and lighter with age. The older generation should understand me better if they became younger like me. Were their parents serious.

— They were laughing too.

— I should have picked a profound piece. Am I funny? Am I a clown? Who the hell do they think I am? What are they expecting from me? I can’t please you. Sorry, but it’s not my intention to make you laugh. Sorry, but you laugh, okay, I accept your laughter. Does this mean you are accepting me? Well, let me tell you, you’re going to have problems with me because I’m not going to keep up with your laughter, why, just because you want to laugh, do I have to make you do what you want. You’re imposing your laughter on me. You’re not making me laugh. I’m deadly serious right now. And you think I’m funny. It’s really insulting. I don’t have a sense of humor. Respect my wishes. Don’t laugh just for the sake of laughter. It’s just a nervous tick. And I don’t like it.

— Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

— It was too complicated. The language barrier. Plus I was dressed in gray silk. I should have worn wool solids. And I should have slept before the performance. To be fresh. To get inside the character. The audience distracted me. Who invited Cenci to the reading? Did you see what he was doing?

— Next time I’ll tell him to leave the room.

— Shuffling his feet to distract me.

— No tiene educación. Se lo voy a hacer a él la próxima vez.

— Y Olmo-Olmo, did you see what he did?

— I was minding my own character.

— Arms crossed he flared his nostrils when they clapped. I have never done that to anyone. Envy, pure envy.

— It’s not envy. It’s annoyance. They don’t appreciate your poetry.

— Come here.

— Me.

— I want to congratulate you on your reading. You have a mellifluous voice, curiously deep and melodic. By no means am I suggesting that you could make it as a singer or an actress, but you do read well.

— I think of myself as an actor and a singer. If I had the chance, if someone discovered me.

— Dialogues come easy to you. You should write plays.

— Screenplays, a psychic told me my next work would be made into a film.

— Transformed, maybe but I don’t see you as a screen-writer. Go for the Obies not the Oscars. I suggest you frame the dialogues with stage directions to usher the voices. Who is speaking. I am speaking. Then name the speaker.

— Why? How does a conversation go. Do I say: Suzana: and then Suzana speaks. Is this a classroom?

— For clarity’s sake so that it will hold up on the page.

— This is a musical composition.

— You don’t need an editor. You need a director. I’m going to introduce you to a friend of mine. Sam, Sam Shepard.

— Paris/Texas. I love him and Win Wenders too.

— And me. Do you love me?

— You’re one of my favorites — of course I love you. Why is everything nice and great and shining blue in the sky. Why did I have to tell him I love Sam Shepherd and Win Wenders and why did he ask me if I loved him. And why did I answer — of course, you’re one of my favorites. I want to puke this whole party. I want to vomit 57th Street and all its commerce. I want to retch one thousand coins — worth nothing — because even if I’ve bought all the silks and satins, and disguised myself — I’m still not made of the stuff dreams are made of. My soul, where among the attributes of brandname hot tamales — where is my soul, wounded like a deer — wounded — not dead — although I myself have tried to disclose it and close it — I have tried to become like them — or at least correrles la máquina — sacarles la lengua — drop myself at their feet — feel at ease. For what, for Hecuba, for fiction, for frivolity.

— Una buscona. Look at her. It’s sickening. Machista. Did you see that? Did you hear that? Wasn’t it disgusting how she melts with Scorsese? But did you see how brazen she was to the other poet? Name a living female poet that she likes, forget likes, how about acknowledges. Name one.

— Dickinson and Sor Juana.

— Living, I said, writing today, herself excluded.

— Dale cuerda al mono para que baile.

— Tú crees que hay más de tres grandes poetas en una lengua en una centuria. A ver: Vallejo, Neruda, Darío, Lorca, Jiménez, Machado. Very few.

— It depends what you are looking for.

— I’m looking for the creators. If you want to accept los maestros, then you include: Huidobro, Cernuda, Alberti, Alexandre, Salinas, Guillén. Sí, son maestros, pero no creadores.

— Tú eres demasiado rígida.