A Cody a Day: An Ode to Liars
Tim and I are heading over to Louisiana for a long weekend. We're stopping by to see Cody and Nate Friday night and then to see Joffre in New Orleans during Jazz Fest. I'm sooo excited to get the hell out of Atlanta for a few days.
And I'm soooo excited to see Cody. So in honor of that, I'm doing a Cody-a-Day post until we leave. I've posted some of this before but these warrant reposting. An Ode to Liars (from the days of Crush Trash):
Potemkin
"Potemkin villages were purportedly fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. According to this story, Potemkin, who led the Crimean military campaign, had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress's eyes." - wikipedia entry
Potemkin at a table. It's covered with blueprints. He's rolling them up.
A second or two passes. Icarus enters.
ICARUS
I don't get it.
POTEMKIN
You're not supposed to get it. I didn't build them for you. I built them for her. She gets them. Their purpose is served.
ICARUS
I still don't get it.
POTEMKIN
This, from the boy with feathers.
ICARUS
Snarky. I didn't choose the feathers.
POTEMKIN
And I didn't choose this.
He rolls up more blueprints.
ICARUS
What hapens to them now?
POTEMKIN
I don't care.
ICARUS
So you're just going to leave them there?
POTEMKIN
Yes.
ICARUS
Houses that aren't houses. Shops that aren't shops. Streets leading to nowhere that look like they're leading home.
POTEMKIN
Yes. I shall leave them.
ICARUS
That's kind of a shitty thing to do.
POTEMKIN
I don't care! Don't you have other things to do? Really? You're not even chronologically significant. This is 1787. You're a few thousand years out of joint. Shouldn't you be in the air or something?
ICARUS
I don't fly until noon. Maybe one. Hottest part of the day. Only makes sense. I just think it's kind of shitty. Some person comes wandering by, thinks they've found maybe a home, maybe a meal, hell -- maybe just a glass of water. He knocks on a door, an answer never comes. Curtains always drawn. He'll think everyone in town's an asshole.
POTEMKIN
It's the price to be paid.
Potemkin lands on a blueprint. He pauses, considers it.
POTEMKIN
I love the architecture of illusion.
It takes so much more skill to build something that isn't real
than it does to build something that is.
The physics change.
In the real world, you follow the rules
and the construction stands.
In the illusion, it takes something more.
It requires the belief of the one who's watching.
That belief -- like mortar between bricks.
The construction hangs together
as long as the one who needs to believes.
To build that...
ICARUS
Is a lie.
POTEMKIN
What does it matter?
ICARUS
Someone believes the lie.
POTEMKIN
Yes. There's an elegance in that.
Silence.
ICARUS
There's a moment when I'm flying, and the sweat running down my face starts to run in streams instead of drops, and I know it's coming. The moment when the ascent becomes descent, and everything falls apart. I hate that moment, because it's filled with terror -- this terror that would just shoot through me and stretch every inch of me to the point of breaking. And I look over to my right wing, and the strong line of white feathers that guided me up into the sky starts to bend and curve, and the wax begins to drip away, exposing the sticks and wire that my father used to build the frame, and as everything falls away, there's nothing but the bones -- and it's like watching the life disappear from something.
That's the price of illusion. You build something beautiful, but you don't see past the building. There's a moment for someone else when the wires are exposed. When the flesh is torn away.
POTEMKIN
I care about what's beautiful.
ICARUS
The truth is beautiful.
POTEMKIN
The truth is impossible to construct.
ICARUS
The truth is beautiful.
POTEMKIN
Illusion is the only beauty I know.
Silence. Potemkin sits at his table.
We are suddenly aware of the hollowness behind his eyes.
And I'm soooo excited to see Cody. So in honor of that, I'm doing a Cody-a-Day post until we leave. I've posted some of this before but these warrant reposting. An Ode to Liars (from the days of Crush Trash):
Potemkin
"Potemkin villages were purportedly fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. According to this story, Potemkin, who led the Crimean military campaign, had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress's eyes." - wikipedia entry
Potemkin at a table. It's covered with blueprints. He's rolling them up.
A second or two passes. Icarus enters.
ICARUS
I don't get it.
POTEMKIN
You're not supposed to get it. I didn't build them for you. I built them for her. She gets them. Their purpose is served.
ICARUS
I still don't get it.
POTEMKIN
This, from the boy with feathers.
ICARUS
Snarky. I didn't choose the feathers.
POTEMKIN
And I didn't choose this.
He rolls up more blueprints.
ICARUS
What hapens to them now?
POTEMKIN
I don't care.
ICARUS
So you're just going to leave them there?
POTEMKIN
Yes.
ICARUS
Houses that aren't houses. Shops that aren't shops. Streets leading to nowhere that look like they're leading home.
POTEMKIN
Yes. I shall leave them.
ICARUS
That's kind of a shitty thing to do.
POTEMKIN
I don't care! Don't you have other things to do? Really? You're not even chronologically significant. This is 1787. You're a few thousand years out of joint. Shouldn't you be in the air or something?
ICARUS
I don't fly until noon. Maybe one. Hottest part of the day. Only makes sense. I just think it's kind of shitty. Some person comes wandering by, thinks they've found maybe a home, maybe a meal, hell -- maybe just a glass of water. He knocks on a door, an answer never comes. Curtains always drawn. He'll think everyone in town's an asshole.
POTEMKIN
It's the price to be paid.
Potemkin lands on a blueprint. He pauses, considers it.
POTEMKIN
I love the architecture of illusion.
It takes so much more skill to build something that isn't real
than it does to build something that is.
The physics change.
In the real world, you follow the rules
and the construction stands.
In the illusion, it takes something more.
It requires the belief of the one who's watching.
That belief -- like mortar between bricks.
The construction hangs together
as long as the one who needs to believes.
To build that...
ICARUS
Is a lie.
POTEMKIN
What does it matter?
ICARUS
Someone believes the lie.
POTEMKIN
Yes. There's an elegance in that.
Silence.
ICARUS
There's a moment when I'm flying, and the sweat running down my face starts to run in streams instead of drops, and I know it's coming. The moment when the ascent becomes descent, and everything falls apart. I hate that moment, because it's filled with terror -- this terror that would just shoot through me and stretch every inch of me to the point of breaking. And I look over to my right wing, and the strong line of white feathers that guided me up into the sky starts to bend and curve, and the wax begins to drip away, exposing the sticks and wire that my father used to build the frame, and as everything falls away, there's nothing but the bones -- and it's like watching the life disappear from something.
That's the price of illusion. You build something beautiful, but you don't see past the building. There's a moment for someone else when the wires are exposed. When the flesh is torn away.
POTEMKIN
I care about what's beautiful.
ICARUS
The truth is beautiful.
POTEMKIN
The truth is impossible to construct.
ICARUS
The truth is beautiful.
POTEMKIN
Illusion is the only beauty I know.
Silence. Potemkin sits at his table.
We are suddenly aware of the hollowness behind his eyes.