“It was those shock treatments gave me new electrical circuitry. I started having these time-space continuum shifts. – like my central nervous system had a patio addition out back… It’s like my brain is channel-surfing through humanity. My umbrella hat works like a satellite dish, or more precisely, a DSL provider of sorts. I pick up video-streaming signals that seem to transmit snatches of people’s lives… My brain is so far beyond broadband, I’m surprised Cisco hasn’t tried to buy me up. How can I describe it? Picture my brain as a set-top box, or, better yet, don’t picture anything and you get a clearer idea of what I can do. And I don’t need cable or fiber optics either. But let’s not get bogged down in molecular tech, shall we? Content-wise, of course, I must take what comes and sometimes it is not to my taste.”
“I’m glad I got delusions of grandeur. It makes me feel alot better about myself.”
“I refuse to be intimidated by reality anymore. After all, what is reality anyway? Nothin’ but a collective hunch. I made some studies: Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.”
“My mind didn’t snap, it was trying to stretch itself into a new shape. The cerebral cortex trying to grow a thumb of sorts.”
“It’s disappointing, but no matter how expanded your mind gets, your span of concentration remains as short as ever.”
“It’s my belief we all secretly ask ourselves at one time or another, “Am I crazy?” In my case, the answer came back a resounding “Yes”.
My space chums think that my unique hook-up with humanity could be evolution’s awkward attempt to jump-start itself up again. Just maybe, going crazy could be the evolutionary process trying to hurry up mind expansion…
I forget more important things, too. Like the meaning of life. It’ll come to me. Let’s just hope when it does, I’ll be in…”
“This is soup and this is art. Art. Soup. Soup. Art. No, this is soup and this is art.”
“Better watch the light, you mammalian-brained lunkhead.”
TRUDY: “Did you know what most distinguishes us humans from lower animals is our desire to take drugs? That was for you, Tina. Cute outfit you barely have on. How’s tricks? Pun intended. You look so beautiful, Tina, you smell good. Ya mind if I sit close? Ya mind look up your nose? Ya mind if I choose to take a snooze? (Makes snoring sounds)
TINA: “Alright now, Trudy, don’t mess with me. I am coastin’ on my own chemistry, and I am volatile, baby. I woke up today I felt like I had had brain surgery done over my entire body. I’m thinkin’ half the damn day, “What chemicals did I take to make me feel so wrecked?” And then I remembered, I hadn’t taken anything. Here I was trying to blame a drug for what it feels like to be straight.”
“I am now creative consultant to these aliens from outer space; they come from another dimension. They’re a kinda cosmic fact-finding committee. Amongst other projects, they’ve been searching all over for signs of intelligent life. It’s a lot trickier than it sounds.”
“See, my space chums are concerned about our evolvement because they say we are all connected. Seems like there’s some kind of cosmic crazy glue connecting everything to everything else. I’m living proof.”
“…did you know in the entire universe, we are the only intelligent life forms thought to have a Miss Universe contest.”
“They think like me: “If evolution was worth its salt, it should’ve evolved something better than ‘survival of the fittest’.” Yeah, I think a better idea would be ‘survival of the wittiest’. At least, that way, creatures that didn’t survive coulda died laughing.”
“When humankind had its first thought, most likely we did not know what to think.” It’s hard to think. Without words, you haven’t got a clue as to what you’re thinking. Communication was at a standstill. Then, we figure, one day, primitive man is walking along barefoot, as he did in those days. He stubbed his toe, he said, “Ouch”. He thought, “Hmm, I wonder what I meant by that?” Pretty soon he felt his toe throbbing and he knew the meaning of ‘ouch’. Hey Howard, when primitive man had his ‘ouch’ experience, he couldn’t have known he was paving the way years later for Helen Keller to have her ‘wa-wa’ experience. What a break-through. Oh, they figure that’s how language began. I personally think we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.”
“We think Peking Man may be even more advanced that we originally thought. Not only did we discover bones and ashes which prove he cooked his meat, but we also found traces of what appears to be barbecue sauce.”
• When a person dies of thirst, their eyes tear up.
• When a man gets hanged, he gets an erection, but when a woman gets hanged, the last thing on her mind is sex.
• As soon as humankind began to discover the truth about itself, we began to find ways to cover up that truth. But maybe that’s for the best: Our ability to delude ourselves may be an important survival tool.”
“They started talking about a little something called ‘interstellar-interspecies -sym-biosis’. To hold up my end of the conversation, I asked them to elaborate.
This led them to the Quantum Insepar-ability Principle, “Every particle effects every other particle everywhere.” We all time share the same atoms.”
“There is only one sky.”
“That which is above is also in that which is below.”
” What is there is also here.”
“My space chums are really quite concerned about the Stress Factor we are so susceptible to. They said to me, “Trudy, beyond any bio-force we have ever encountered, Human Nature is the most thought-stirring, neuro-numbing, heart-boggling of all. Just as the whole chemistry of the ocean can be found in each drop of sea water, all the profound emotional polarities of Human Nature are crammed into each bio-container, or to use our term, ‘human body’. It could be just too much for any one bio-container to grapple with… Frankly, I think my space chums are showing signs of stress, too. Something they said makes me think they’re planning on leaving here. They said they wanted to pick up a few souvenirs and some post cards. So I took ’em to some shops around Broadway and, frankly, I was embarrassed for my species. Everything was in such bad taste. But they understand; they said, “Earth is a planet still in it’s puberty.”
“They are just about perfect, except for one weak spot. Their personal appearance. They look like a gelatinous mass of ribo-nucleic acid… been poured out of a Jello mold, too soon. Plus they got no eyelids. That alone would drive me up the wall. I’m talkin’ advanced. They got such a powerful electromagnetic field…just hangin’ out with them has helped my facial neuralgia. Only drawback, I got a severe case of static cling. They are so advanced, you guys are so advanced, they could be in three different places at once and still be at one with the universe.”
“One thing I personally don’t like about pantyhose; when you roll ’em down to the ankles the way I like ’em, you can’t walk too good.You got to admit, though, it’s a look!”
“Me and my space chums just got back from Stonehenge. I try to plan it so we have at least one peak experience a day. When you got aliens in from out of town, you want to do something special.”
“Me and my space chums have been having an electro-magnetic field day. Pun intended.”
“Frankly, I think my space chums are showing signs of stress, too. Something they said makes me think they’re planning on leaving here. They said they wanted to pick up a few souvenirs and some post cards. So I took ’em to some shops around Broadway and, frankly, I was embarrassed for my species. Everything was in such bad taste. But they understand; they said, “Earth is a planet still in it’s puberty.”
“People look at my shopping cart, call me crazy ’cause I save this junk. What shall we call the ones who buy it?”
“Maybe my mind didn’t snap, maybe, it was just trying to stretch itself into a new shape. The cerebral cortex trying to grow a thumb of sorts.”
“This is soup and this is art. Art. Soup. Soup. Art. No, this is soup and this is art.”
“They asked me, ‘Did it feel like goose bumps?’ I said ‘You folks never felt goose bumps?’ They said, ‘No.’ They asked me to explain goose bumps. Do they come from the heart? Do they come from the mind? Do they come from the soul? Or do they come from geese?”
“We’re thinking maybe the secrets about life we don’t understand are the ‘cosmic carrots’ in front of our noses that keep us going. So maybe we should stop trying to figure out the meaning of life and sit back and enjoy the mystery of life. The operative word here is what? Mystery! Not meaning. This should be comforting, especially to those who think life is meaningless. Looks like it just might be. And, yet, if life is meaningless, this is the greatest mystery of all!!!! And, the more meaningless, then the greater the mystery. But if all of this is meaningless, then why the hell bring up the subject? If life is meaningless, this discussion is even more so. This is so typical of what I do.”
“And then I felt even deeper in awe at this capacity we have to be in awe about something. And I became even more awe-struck at the thought I was in some small way a part of that which I was in awe about. And this feeling went on and on and on and on. My space chums got a word for it, ‘awe infinitum’. ‘Cause at the moment you are most in awe of all you don’t understand, you’re closer to understanding it all then at any other time. And I felt so good inside, my heart felt so full, I decided to set time aside each day to do ‘awe-robics’.
“Yeah, remember that night I took ’em to the theatre. We’re standing there in the dark, I feel one of ’em tug my sleeve, he whispers, Trudy, look.’ I said, ‘Yeah, goose bumps. You really like the play that much?’ They said it wasn’t the play gave ’em goose bumps, it was the audience. I forgot to tell ’em to watch the play, they’d been watching the audience.
Yeah, to see a group of strangers sitting together in the dark, laughing and crying about the same things just knocked ’em out. They said; ‘Trudy, the play was soup – the audience – art.'”
