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LIBRETTO
CHARACTERS
Jean-Paul d’Or: an author, originally from Winnipeg, Canada
Val: Bishop of the Order of St. Cauliflower
Members of the Order of St. Cauliflower
Val is seated at her Hammond organ, in her basement chapel. Facing her is Jean-Paul, seated on a plastic patio chair. On pews against the wall, obscured by shadow, are a dozen members of the Order. Val takes on a sinister appearance by the flickering light given off by liturgical candles (purchased at Dollar Tree) in stands to each side of the organ.
Organ Prelude
Val:
Satanus vobiscum!
Members of the Order of St. Cauliflower:
Et cum spiritu tuo!
Val:
The Order of St. Cauliflower is gathered to discern whether Jean-Paul d’Or is fit to enter our ranks.
A year ago, he approached me at the pond, as I was chanting my morning liturgy.
I could tell he was drawn to the mystical.
I invited him to observe our evening mass.
He met all of you.
He learned of our ways.
Now he seeks to formally join us.
We will give him as much time as needed to detail the journey that led him here.
Then, I will ask a series of questions related to his commitment.
I will also give members an opportunity for further questioning.
Finally, I will make a binding decision, in the name of Satan.
Jean-Paul, the floor is yours.
Jean-Paul d’Or:
Hello everyone.
I get a little nervous, so I made a few notes.
Uncrumples paper
I grew up in Winnipeg, Canada.
From a young age I was oblivious to the outside world,
absorbed in books of all kinds,
Eventually writing my own!
My teachers were the books themselves,
Strunk and White for grammar and style,
Shelves of Stephen King,
Hannibal by Thomas Harris,
Oh, and Batman comics.
My first completed novel is titled “Heavenly Host”.
At the time I lived in an historic, 4-storey with a dozen people.
The parties were fun.
It used to be a hospice house.
A certain spirit would whisper in my ear at night.
In a way, that spirit wrote the novel.
It was difficult to finish.
People were always knocking on my door,
concerned I was dead—said they could smell a rotting corpse.
(I think it was a joke, but I’m not sure, I mean, it’s something like that could happen. People die all the time and aren’t found for weeks, month, years! People died in that very room!)
When the spirit was silent, I’d slip out for walks at night, in a creative daze,
Possessed by characters desperate to be born.
Then I’d scuttle home and update my notes.
THE MOVE
A great aunt from France died and left me a small fortune,
enough to buy a house!
It was time to seek out the solitude that could truly nourish a writer’s soul.
But where to go?
King has his mansion in Maine.
Harris, his summer home in Sag Harbor.
I asked the spirits of the night to guide me!
The next day I got an unexpected call from an old friend,
Wanted to catch up.
He’d moved to Cauliflower Garden!
Always appreciated my stories and was curious if I had anything new.
I said I’d hand him a hardcopy of “Heavenly Host” in person!
I would leave the inner-city for the suburban wilderness!
I got a green card and moved to the US!
For the first time in my life, I lived alone!
The white-walled silence of a new McMansion!
What peace! What quiet! What tranquility!
I had 10,000 copies of “Heavenly Host” printed, thanks to my aunt (God rest her soul!)
I completed other books too, and self-published everything.
I set up a website and waited for the orders to come pouring in!
I gave my next-door neighbor a complimentary copy of “Heavenly Host”,
Asked her a number of times what she thought of it,
Soon she started avoiding me.
I had to find other ways to draw people into my creative sphere.
Thought back to my days at the hospice.
People seemed to like parties.
I threw myself a big birthday bash,
asked neighbors to bring one character profile each,
which would become the basis for “The Birthday Party Short Stories.”
Most of them did!
(They called it a party game—I’m not sure why. It wasn’t a game.)
One guest was a realtor and suggested I buy a cottage as a writer’s retreat—gave me a discount on her commission.
After the party, a couple down the street invited me to dinner,
There were tequila shots as an apéritif, and a bottle of wine with the meal.
We had cosmos in their hot-tub afterwards.
(It was excruciatingly boring. The evening kept going on and on!)
Lastly we cracked open some Bud Lights and they showed me pictures of their second home, with a wine cellar, in Niagara-on-the-Lake;
They bubbled on about boats and catered parties on the dock.
(How could they be so oblivious to how uninterested I was?)
Upon further reflection I realized these were the experiences I needed.
These people were the new characters!
Possess me spirits!
These were to be my new friends, and I would be one of them, a rich person with all the things rich people have!!!
We went shopping every weekend.
They told me which bedding and drapes and kitchen appliances to buy.
We travelled to Paris,
They kept reminding me, over and over, that they’d had their wedding on the Eiffel Tower!
(Did they think I was that dense? Who would forget a detail like that?)
They regularly came to my cottage, and convinced me to buy a Sea-Doo!
I went with them to Niagra-on-the-Lake, and played the expert on all things Canada!
They thought I was actually one of them!
THE FIRST DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
We were to go on a trip to Italy,
But one morning I woke up and realized they had become my Joneses,
I could not keep up!
In fact, in only my first year in the house I’d spent what I had budgeted for the next 20!
I expected income from the books—but I guess I’d overestimated the market’s enthusiasm for my work.
I put the cabin up for sale—Sea-Doo included.
I’d never written so much as a paragraph at the sea-side joke of a writer’s retreat.
Was this just the beginning?
Would I have to sell the house too?
I made an excuse to drop out of the Italy trip.
But those bitches kept calling me, invite after invite.
Even if I could afford to spend time with them, they didn’t inspire me anymore!
Then the burden of home maintenance bore down!
Smoke detectors needed new batteries!
Apparently the furnace had a filter!
I couldn’t breathe.
I needed a change of scenery,
A short trip to Winnipeg to visit family,
As I was leaving the airport, a spirit grabbed the steering wheel of my rental car, and brought me to St. Benedict’s Monastery and Retreat Centre, just north of the city.
I prayed and meditated and fasted.
I was possessed by the Warrior Monk!
The same monk that had taken up residence in St. Anthony the Hermit.
I fought demons of the mind, the memory of my CG friends.
I was overcome with a Teresian spiritual ecstasy.
I suspect the Warrior Monk also strengthened Bruce Wayne in his training under Ra’s al Ghul,
And Azrael when he took up the Mantle,
Even Bane, when he escaped that prison in Santa Prisca.
I was there for one week, but it felt like a thousand lifetimes.
Under that strange, dark power I wrote a beautiful and odd and mystical book.
Was this also the spirit of Jung?
On my final night, I heard these words:
“Si tu veux être parfait, va, vends ce que tu possèdes, donne-le aux pauvres, et tu auras un trésor dans le ciel.“
Upon my return to Cauliflower Garden I burned all my books, a room full of unopened boxes.
I closed the door on my life as an author.
I went through my whole house and kept only what was essential to survival.
I was now a simple desert hermit.
I’d been drinking, living the life of ease for too long—and had the body to show for it!
I studied nutrition and fitness, followed a 12-week body transformation!
I learn how to maintain the house.
I divided it up, as if it were a monastery:
la chapelle, le réfectoire, le dortoir,
Saw the surrounding neighborhood as a vast desert,
Learned not to see the people at all.
I adopted a nocturnal lifestyle!
I retired from society, completely disappeared.
And the cabin had sold!
THE SECOND DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
But it was not enough.
Not only was my fortune gone,
I’d maxed out my credit cards.
One terrible night I was kneeling in the middle of the kitchen,
wringing my hands in prayerful desperation.
Perhaps Saint Anthony was just a story. How could anyone live like this?
At the bottom of everything was hell, not the heaven I’d hoped for!
I had seen the face of God, but he did not see me—his expression was dead, vacant.
I did not want to look beyond the veil anymore!
All that waits on the other side is an existential anxiety!
I longed for the Crowd!
Then, my eyes were drawn to the empty chairs at my empty table,
I was given a vision of the rowdy meals we used to have at the hospice.
My eyes welled up with tears.
I recalled a song I’d hear at a local dinner club I’d frequent with those despicable CG friends.
I’d made a recording of each of those evenings for research purposes.
Would you like to hear it now? Just one moment.
Plays recording of “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables”
A two-fold solution presented itself, an olive branch in the beak of a dove.
First, I would get a job serving at the dinner club,
Then, I would fill up this empty table and empty house with tenants!
Shazam!
In the twinkling of an eye,
The house was transfigured,
Its gleaming brightness was such that I had to run outside, shielding my eyes.
It had turned to solid gold!
I was hired on the spot, full-time!
I was a terrible server, but I improved.
There were five bedrooms in the house.
One by one they filled up.
Six of us in total (two of them share a room)
We range in ages from 18 to 90.
I’m not in the black yet—but I will be.
Were we to be a Benedictine community?
I gave everyone a St. Benedict’s medal as a welcome gift.
I quickly realized they weren’t interested, so I let it go.
Oh, and I’m seeing my neighbors again.
They look forward to coming over for tea and a talk.
I have a whole little ritual.
It’s calming and simple.
I guess that’s it.
Val:
Really?
You don’t seem to have mentioned The Order of St. Cauliflower at all.
Do you remember approaching me at the pond?
No matter.
First question:
Would you commit to attending the daily mass and other feasts outlined in the OSC Liturgical Calendar?
Jean-Paul:
Oh, in all honesty, probably . . . well, maybe not.
What if I’m caught up in something?
Val:
Second question:
Do you forsake the eucharist?
Jean-Paul:
Well, not really.
I mean I don’t take it often, but that is how I first received the Warrior Monk at St.Ben’s.
I guess the priest mixed something up and instead of Jesus I got St. Anthony the Hermit!
Val:
I see.
Third question:
Do you seek a contemplative community in this materialistic world?
Jean-Paul:
I already have one, in a sense: all my housemates!
They’re not as religious as you, and can be a little loud sometimes,
But I love having the chairs and table full at meal times.
And we support each other!
Just yesterday one of them was doing a passport application and I agreed to be a reference!
Oh, and I did join a collective for artists, right here in CG.
They only meet once a month, and you don’t have to go if you’re occupied.
There’s only one requirement: if you go, you must present something.
Val:
Fourth question:
Do you seek a dedicated space for the sacred—something my basement chapel can provide?
Jean-Paul:
I have my own basement chapel—well it’s not a full chapel;
It’s really only a cabinet in my study,
full of figurines that have inspired my stories!
They’ve given me personas, masks to wear, as needed.
I’ve found order in the chaos of my creative mind,
I am beginning to understand the multiplicity within me!
A sacred geometry of spirit!
I don’t have to commit to being fully this and not that.
I am Dionysus, drunk and chatty
I am Apollo, locked away in a prayer box
The greater the chaos, the greater the task to bring order!
The Snowy Owl is nocturnal and diurnal, as food supplies require.
I have learned to survive on less sleep, being awake night or day.
In all things, the Warrior Monk strengthens me.
That is the secret to being content in every situation,
whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or want.
And the Chameleon is absolutely central!
My entire life I have felt like a chameleon,
possessed by every character I read about,
every person I get within an inch of,
Feeling everyone’s emotion so strongly.
I’m a receptor.
Like the chameleon I have learned to disappear, to retire into my surroundings,
To walk to the other side of the street, and to keep my head down.
There’s even a figure for you Val.
A carved wooden nun.
There’s a gold house.
There’s an icon of Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica.
I tried to go back to St. Ben's recently, but there had been a deadly COVID-19 outbreak and they ended up selling the property, sending the remaining members to a nursing home in the city. This was confirmation I had the sacred space I needed, in my cabinet.
Oh, and there’s the porcelain Couple.
They look like they’re strolling through Central Park in the Gilded Age.
I accept those old rich friends for who they are—and that they are even one of my personas.
They don’t have a strong creative urge,
They’ve devoted themselves to generating a high income,
They are not bothered by materialism and physical clutter, chaos and maintenance.
They have much more time without the burden of nursing a chronic creative illness.
How diverse we humans are!
Let me hold fast my tongue, my judgmental mind, and admire the image of God in all!
This is my vow of silence!
Val:
There is no vow of silence in this order.
For my fifth, and final, question:
Would you dutifully chant the liturgy I have developed for daily private devotion?
Jean-Paul:
Oh, I love your liturgy, but I’m not much of a singer,
and the subject matter is a little narrow for me, maybe.
I’ve got files and stories for all my characters,
I suppose that has become my liturgy.
Val:
This has been very enlightening.
I will now turn it over to members for further questioning.
A Member of the Order of St. Cauliflower:
Thank you Bishop.
Jean-Paul, Why are you even here?
Jean-Paul:
Oh, I love Val and all that you guys are doing!
And she wanted me to come!!!
Another Member of the Order of St. Cauiliflower:
Are you wearing a Saint Benedict medal?
Are you aware of the text engraved upon it???
Jean-Paul:
Oh yes, “Vade retro satana!”
Val and Members of the Order of St. Cauliflower:
Golria in Excelsis Satanae!
Golria in Excelsis Satanae!
Golria in Excelsis Satanae!
Golria in Excelsis Satanae!
Chaotic Organ Postlude
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