oh derrida!
so some of you may or may not know this, but my critical theory teacher was being, in my opinion, really antagonistic and it was really frustrating! because i know she's very smart and she was assigning great texts that i'd never read before and I felt like my antagonism was getting in the way of my learning
THEN we studied derrida in our last class and we were FINALLY on the same page and it was fantastic!
AND
PLATO'S DRUGS AND GROCERY
By W.M. Akers
A young, disaffected GROCERY CLERK in a red
vest leans on a display pyramid of olive oil
cans. He reads a tabloid. The backdrop is
unpleasantly colored and brightly lit. The
set is otherwise bare. BEN ZEPPOS, bearded
and imposing, marches on stage and confronts
the grocery clerk with a shopping list.
BEN
I need milk!
CLERK
Dairy--aisle nine.
BEN
No, no, I've been there. They have cow's milk, it's not
enough.
CLERK
Evaporated milk is with soups. Aisle five.
BEN
I need more! I'm baking a cake, you see, to celebrate my
friend Joe's new cat. It's a cat cake, a gateau a gato.
The clerk is underwhelmed by Ben's jet
setting wit.
BEN
Anyway, I've spent all week trying to parse the ingredients
in the recipe, and I've run into a wall. It calls for 2 cups
milk. Well, all right, I suppose it means cow's milk. Why
cows? Because American society is founded on abuse of the
bovine. You people have milked the animal for centuries, and
so must include its products in every meal you make. Cow's
milk is always superior to any other kind, be it from goat,
rat, or the breast of your own mothers, which you only accept
while you are helpless babes. But the cow is not the
generator or procreator in any real sense prior to or outside
all relation to milk. The writer of the recipe--it was my
great-aunt, a close-minded sow herself--perpetuates this
absurd bovinocentrism without thinking a whit about it, but
I'll take it no further.
CLERK
Buttermilk is in dairy too. We don't sell breast milk, but
there's formula in the maternity section--aisle thirty-seven.
BEN
It's not just other milks I need. There is no one recipe for
a gateau, no clear remedy for this problem. I need not just
milks, but yogurts and cheeses and all the other states of
dairy. I need some ambrosia--ambrosia's the milk of the gods,
you know, or so say the myths I've read--and maybe a little
beef, too. Maybe then I'll be able to get a handle on what
milkiness really is, and maybe then I'll be able to
understand part of my cake.
CLERK
You can't put all that in a cake. That'll be poison.
BEN
What are you kid, on drugs? Poison is drifting through your
kitchen thinking that milk is a medicine for all bakerly
ills. What you need is a little critical thinking.
The clerk thinks critically, realizes that
Ben may leave him alone if he gets all he is
asking for.
CLERK
Cheese, yogurt, milk and buttermilk are all in dairy. Aisle
nine. We've got ambrosia salad in prepared foods, aisle one.
Like I said, baby's formula is aisle thirty-seven, and beef
is in meats, aisle forty-two.
BEN
Your thinking is still too rigid. Haven't you considered to
press beyond your Product/Aisle dual system?
CLERK
No.
BEN
We can deal with that in time. Right now there's still a few
other things I need.
CLERK
There's a lot of things you need, buddy.
BEN
There's eggs, first of all, the erotic implications of which
will take hours for us to sort through, and butter...well I
can use the buttermilk for that...we need flour, definitely
some flowers, too...no sugar, since I don't want to present
something falsely sweet...
As Ben trails off the lights grow dim to
indicate the passage of time.
When they come back up he and the clerk are
surrounded by a mountain of food-goods, from
butter-milk to butter-churns, flour and
miniature windmills as well as live
chickens. Ben's foot is perched on the skull
of a steer.
CLERK
All right. That's $4,138.45.
BEN
How dare you! What right have you to assign value to my cake?
Four thousand dollars, why, it's totally arbitrary. You don't
understand the first thing about this cake, nor what the
ingredients themselves mean. You can't assign value without
thorougly studying the recipe itself. I'll pay zero dollars
and not one cent more!
(beat)
Now help me carry this out to my pick-up.
The clerk sighs and begins herding the
animals off stage. Ben picks up a carton of
2% milk and follows him, whistling a tune of
Dionysian revelry. Blackout.
THE END.amazing piece of creative writing was written by one of my classmates (believe it or not, he's at CAS!)
seriously, just read it! hilarious!
ps this brilliant young man's name is William M Akers
THEN we studied derrida in our last class and we were FINALLY on the same page and it was fantastic!
AND
PLATO'S DRUGS AND GROCERY
By W.M. Akers
A young, disaffected GROCERY CLERK in a red
vest leans on a display pyramid of olive oil
cans. He reads a tabloid. The backdrop is
unpleasantly colored and brightly lit. The
set is otherwise bare. BEN ZEPPOS, bearded
and imposing, marches on stage and confronts
the grocery clerk with a shopping list.
BEN
I need milk!
CLERK
Dairy--aisle nine.
BEN
No, no, I've been there. They have cow's milk, it's not
enough.
CLERK
Evaporated milk is with soups. Aisle five.
BEN
I need more! I'm baking a cake, you see, to celebrate my
friend Joe's new cat. It's a cat cake, a gateau a gato.
The clerk is underwhelmed by Ben's jet
setting wit.
BEN
Anyway, I've spent all week trying to parse the ingredients
in the recipe, and I've run into a wall. It calls for 2 cups
milk. Well, all right, I suppose it means cow's milk. Why
cows? Because American society is founded on abuse of the
bovine. You people have milked the animal for centuries, and
so must include its products in every meal you make. Cow's
milk is always superior to any other kind, be it from goat,
rat, or the breast of your own mothers, which you only accept
while you are helpless babes. But the cow is not the
generator or procreator in any real sense prior to or outside
all relation to milk. The writer of the recipe--it was my
great-aunt, a close-minded sow herself--perpetuates this
absurd bovinocentrism without thinking a whit about it, but
I'll take it no further.
CLERK
Buttermilk is in dairy too. We don't sell breast milk, but
there's formula in the maternity section--aisle thirty-seven.
BEN
It's not just other milks I need. There is no one recipe for
a gateau, no clear remedy for this problem. I need not just
milks, but yogurts and cheeses and all the other states of
dairy. I need some ambrosia--ambrosia's the milk of the gods,
you know, or so say the myths I've read--and maybe a little
beef, too. Maybe then I'll be able to get a handle on what
milkiness really is, and maybe then I'll be able to
understand part of my cake.
CLERK
You can't put all that in a cake. That'll be poison.
BEN
What are you kid, on drugs? Poison is drifting through your
kitchen thinking that milk is a medicine for all bakerly
ills. What you need is a little critical thinking.
The clerk thinks critically, realizes that
Ben may leave him alone if he gets all he is
asking for.
CLERK
Cheese, yogurt, milk and buttermilk are all in dairy. Aisle
nine. We've got ambrosia salad in prepared foods, aisle one.
Like I said, baby's formula is aisle thirty-seven, and beef
is in meats, aisle forty-two.
BEN
Your thinking is still too rigid. Haven't you considered to
press beyond your Product/Aisle dual system?
CLERK
No.
BEN
We can deal with that in time. Right now there's still a few
other things I need.
CLERK
There's a lot of things you need, buddy.
BEN
There's eggs, first of all, the erotic implications of which
will take hours for us to sort through, and butter...well I
can use the buttermilk for that...we need flour, definitely
some flowers, too...no sugar, since I don't want to present
something falsely sweet...
As Ben trails off the lights grow dim to
indicate the passage of time.
When they come back up he and the clerk are
surrounded by a mountain of food-goods, from
butter-milk to butter-churns, flour and
miniature windmills as well as live
chickens. Ben's foot is perched on the skull
of a steer.
CLERK
All right. That's $4,138.45.
BEN
How dare you! What right have you to assign value to my cake?
Four thousand dollars, why, it's totally arbitrary. You don't
understand the first thing about this cake, nor what the
ingredients themselves mean. You can't assign value without
thorougly studying the recipe itself. I'll pay zero dollars
and not one cent more!
(beat)
Now help me carry this out to my pick-up.
The clerk sighs and begins herding the
animals off stage. Ben picks up a carton of
2% milk and follows him, whistling a tune of
Dionysian revelry. Blackout.
THE END.amazing piece of creative writing was written by one of my classmates (believe it or not, he's at CAS!)
seriously, just read it! hilarious!
ps this brilliant young man's name is William M Akers