September 11, 2009 - Breakfast
In a week I will stand up and read excerpts from this website to an unsuspecting audience; a week later I will do it again. My body and my art are about to combine in a new way. It will be much like when Beyoncé performs "Single Ladies."
In vaudeville the freak act was one where the person--or their scandal--was more important than the act, more important than skill. It didn't always refer to physical freakishness, but it could. Carrie Nation would demolish a bar while lecturing on temperance. Hellen Keller would lecture to the audience; the Hilton Sisters, Siamese twins, would play various instruments. Both Keller and the Sisters were interesting enough to become standard acts; they had successful vaudeville careers.
In 1932 they appeared in the movie Freaks, which dared to pose the question of whether or not conjoined twins can have a love life. Over the coming decade, it would become quite clear that the answer was yes. Violet, the more outgoing of the pair, had a string of celebrity boyfriends, including the musician Blue Steel....
Jack Benny performed with them before he went on to radio. Later they showed up at his dressing room. "We're the Hilton Sisters," they said. "We wonder if you remember us."
He did.
P0: In public I've always just jumped up, done my bit, and sat down. I've always felt weird talking about sex and so forth because I've been a giant and I wondered it it freaked people out. I've never addressed the elephant in the room.
P1: You've been the elephant in the room.
Pause for laughter.
LIGHT: Blue spot.
ORCH:
P0 begins a striptease. When entirely naked he does twenty jumping jacks. Pause for gasps. As song ends he turns his bare back to the audience; the words "MORE BRISKET PLEASE" are written across it.
Too high-concept? Being as I am still gigantic I will need to preface the reading with a note to the effect that I've kicked about 50 pounds, 30 since July, that this is something serious and ongoing. And uncertain. I could gain it all back. What do I want out of those ten minutes? To strike a blow for fatties? To align myself with the slends? Neither, really. I think the story is: "this is what it's like to throw yourself down a well."
| Food | Qty | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| Cereal, Nature's Path Organic Heritage, 3/4 c. | 1.3 | 160 |
| Cereal, fibrous, 2/3 cup | 1.5 | 120 |
| Coffee, black, 1 oz. | 8 | 0 |
| Milk, no fat, 1 c. | 90 | |
| Total | 370 |
Weight: 322.5 lbs