mane six bump into wallace
twilight:excuse me sir, do you know hoe to get to this cafe
wallce:im actually going there now. hey wait a minute, ive heard of you, are you the elements of harmony
applejack:in the flesh n blood
wallace:wow, i cant believe this, one moment im going out for dinner the next im here with the elements,and not one of the impersonators.
wallace:listen, i know youve just come to town, and this is all of sudden, but perhaps youd like to join us for dinner, if that ok with you
twilight:of cousre, wed love that wouldnt we girls
rarity:of course darling
fluttershy:i love the idea
rainbow:totally
applejack:yep
pinkie:you got yourself a dinner (she says whoile estadicly shaking wallys hoof)
wallace: thank you very much, and let me just say, i am honroed to be dining with royalty, princess twilight
twilight:just twilight is ok
spike:say, we havnt gotten your name
wallce:wallace, wallace shawn
rarity:wich reminds me darling what do you do for a living,
wallace:oh im a playwright, i write and direct plays like the ones played in these theaters
fluttershy:ooo, sounds like a lovely job
wallace:oh its, nice, although, The life of a playwright is tough.It's not easy,as some people seem to think.You work hard writing plays,and nobody puts them on. You take up other lines of work to try to make a living...I became an actor and folks don't hire you. So you just spend your days doing the errands of your trade.Today I had to be up by 10:00 in the morning to make some important phone calls Then I'd gone to the stationery store to buy envelopes. Then to the Xerox shop.There were dozens of things to do.By 5:00 I'd finally made it to the post office and mailed off several copies of my plays meanwhile checking constantly with my answering service to see if my agent had called with any acting work. In the morning, the mailbox had just been stuffed with bills. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to pay them? After all, Im already doing my best.
fluttershy:oh my, i am sorry for you
wally:well ,i imagine you would be. I've lived in this city all my life. I grew up on the Upper East Side and when I first got my cutie mark I was rich, I was an aristocrat riding around in taxis,surrounded by comfort and all I thought about was art and music.Now I'm 36,and all I think about is money.
rainbow:yeah, talk about irony.
wally:well its now 7 o' clock, and I would like nothing better than to go home and have my girlfriend Debby cook me a nice, delicious dinner. But for the last several years our financial circumstances have forced Debby to work three nights a week as a waitress.After all, somepony had to bring in a little money.So Im on my own. But the worst thing of all is that I've been trapped by an odd series of circumstances into agreeing to have dinner with an eccentric pony I've been avoiding literally for years.
twilight:well, its hard to amend fences with freinds, but its alwasy worth it
spike:whats his name
wallace:His name was Andre Gregory. At one time he'd been a very close friend of mine as well as my most valued colleague in the theater. in fact, he was the man who had first discovered me and put one of my plays on the professional stage. When I'd known Andre, he'd been at the height ofhis career as a theater director.The amazing work he did with his company,the Manehattan Project had just stunned audiences throughout equestria.But then something had happened to Andr.He dropped out of the theater.He sort of disappeared.For months at a time, his family seemed only to know that he was traveling in some odd place like yakyakistan which was really weird because he loved his wife and children. He never used to like to leave home at all Or else you'd hear that somepony had met him at a party and he'd been telling ponies that he talked with trees or something like that.Obviously, something terrible has happened to Andre.
rainbow dash:well, anypony whos talking to trees must be a little loopy. well, apart from fluttershy
wally:The whole idea of meeting him makes me very nervous. I mean, Im really not up for that sort of thing. I have problems of my own. I mean, I cant help Andre. am I supposed to be a doctor, or what?
applejack:now listen there, wally, ah dont think y should be doubtin yerself like thsi, im think all he wants ya ta be right now is a friend.
spike:and hey, if you want, well help you along the way,
twilight:and wahetevr happen to andre,im sure well get to the bottom of it
wally:thank you girls, you dont know how much i appreciate you helping me with this
rainbow dash:hey what are friends for?
I'm expected at the table
of Andr Gregory.
and are these six accompying you tonight
why yes they are
That table will be a moment, sir.
If you like,
you may have a drink at the bar.
I'm sorry, sir.
We only serve Source de Pavilion.
Oh, that'd be fine, thank you.
applejack:yall got apple cider
sparkling maam
thank ya kidnly
wallce:When I called Andre, and he'd suggested that we meet in this particular restaurant, I'd been rather surprised, because Andre's taste used to be very ascetic. even though people have always known that he had some money somewhere.I mean, how the heck else could he have been flying off to yakyakistan and so on and still have been supporting his family? now,The main reason Im meeting Andre was that an acquaintance of mine, George Grassfield had called me and just insisted that I had to see him.Apparently, George had been walking his dog in an odd section of town the night before and he'd suddenly come upon Andre leaning against a crumbling old building and sobbing.Andre had explained to George that he'd just been watching the Ingmar Bergman movie "Autumn Sonata" about 25 blocks away, and he'd been seized by a fit of ungovernable crying when the character played by Ingrid Bergman had said "I could always live in my art,but never in my life. "
rainbow dash:he must be a very emotional man
andre:Wally...
wally:I remember, when I first
started working with Andr's company...
I couldn't get over the way the actors
would hug when they greeted each other.
"Wow. Now I'm really in the theater, "
I thought.
wally:Well, you look terrific.
andre:Well, I feel terrible.
oh, and look at what im seeing, it the elements of harmony themselves
twilight:good evening mr gregory
andre: my my how did you convince them to come with you
wally: i know, its the funniest, they just so happen to be going to the same resturant as us, what a coincidence!
andre:perhaps its not just coincidence,ill explain later
Good evening, sir.
Nice to see you again.
Thank you. Good evening.
Ah, I think I'll have a spritzer, if I could.
- Yes, sir.
and what of the rest of you
twilight:sparkling fruit punch
rarity:ill have the same
applejack:apple cider
rainbow:same here
fluttershy:chamomile tea please
pinkie:MILKSHAKE PLEASE!!!
spike:got any gemstones?
ill check in ze back
andre:before we began may, i excuse myself, i must use the restroom
wallace:sure go ahead, Im still feeling incredibly nervous.Im not sure I could stick through an entire meal with him. Great. but luckily i feel a lot more confident with you seven here with me
So we talked about this and that.He told me a few things about Jerzy Grotowski the great Ponish theater director who was a friend and almost like a kind of a guru of Andre's.He'd also dropped out of the theater.Grotowski was a pretty unusual character himself.At one time, he'd been quite fat, then he'd lost an incredible amount of weight and become very thin and grown a beard.
I was beginning to realize that the only way to make this evening bearable would be to ask Andre a few questions.Asking questions always relaxes me.In fact, I sometimes think that my secret profession is that I'm a private investigator,a detective.I always enjoy finding out about creatures.Even if they're in absolute agony,I always find it very interesting.
pinkie:By the way, is he still thin?
andre:What?
wally:Grotowski. Is he still thin?
andre:Oh. Absolutely.
Oh, waiter?
Uh, I think we can do without this.
What about this one?
Seven swimming shrimp.
Ready for your order?
Ah, yes we are .
twilight:ill have a daisy and carnation sandwich
Uh, the Galuska...
How... How do you prepare that?
Andr seemed
to know an awful lot about the menu.
- Dumpling with raisins, blanched almonds.
rainbow:bleeh,they got anything normal on this menu,
rarity:rianbow please, this is fine dining, not that youd know anthing about that
rainbow:in that case, ill just take the bread
No, I... I think I'll have
the Cailles aux Raisin, the quail.
Great. - Great!
And then I think, to begin with,
the Terrine de Poissons.
Uh, it's a sort of pte...
light, made of fish.
Perfectly safe.
fluttershy:umm,small salad for me
applejacklooking at me:rotten apple cores! i cant understand a darn thing on this here menu, whats this say
side dish, this IS in english, maam
applejack:well ,um, im kinda illiterate
clearly
Well, um...What is
the, um, Bramborov Polvka?
It's a potato soup.
It's quite delicious.
Oh, well, that's great.
I'll have that.
rarity:and i shall have the croissants
pinkie:ill take the tiramisu thank youuuuu
ok then madame
Thank you very kindly.
Thank you very much.
Well.
When was the last time
that we saw each other?
So we talked for a while about my writing and my acting and about my girlfriend, Debby. And we talked about his wife, Chiquita,and his two children, Nicolas and Marina.And I'd stayed back in New York.the seven of them bought some time, and told us about their adventures, about a princesses sister who tried to plunge us into darkness, a reformed sort of lord of chaos who put them in a maze to corrupt them, how a bug-pony almost took the country by disguising herself as her babysitter, who was marrying her brother, a city trapped by a dictator for a thousand years where the couple rules over, a centaur that wanted absolute power, a unicron who ran a village of brainwashed like minded slaves and tried to rip the fabric of space and time, a shadow pony who was created from spitefulness and a few misunderstandings, a yeti like creature who tried to plunge us into darkness with a stick and his hornless unicorn acomplass, and a little pegasis with curls who tried to steal the worlds magic,Finally, I got around to asking him what he'd been up to in the last few years.
Oh, celestia. I'm just dying to hear it.
At first, he seemed a little reluctant to go into it so I just kept asking, and the seven others asked with me
.... -PEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
and finally he started to answer.
...conference
andre:on paratheatrical work then. And, uh, this must have been about five years ago and, uh, Grotowski and I were walking along Fifth Avenue and we were talking. You see, he'd invited me to come to teach that summer in Plowland. You know, to teach a workshop to actors and directors and whatever.And I had told him that I didn't want to come,because, really, I had nothing left to teach.I had nothing left to say.I didn't know anything.I couldn't teach anything.Exercises meant nothing to me anymore.Working on scenes from plays seemed ridiculous.I - I didn't know what to do.I mean, I just couldn't do it.So he said, " Why don't you tell me anything you'd like to have if you did a workshop for me.No matter how outrageous.And maybe I can give it to you. "So I said,"Well, if you could give me..."40 Jewish mares who speak neither English nor French "either mares who've been in the theater for a long time and want to leave it"but don't know why"or young mares who love the theater, but have never seen a theater they could love."And if these mares could play the trumpet or the harp,and if I could work in a forest, I'd come. "A week later, or two weeks later,he called me from Plowland.And he said, " Well, 40 Jewish mares that's a little hard to find. "But he said, " I do have 40 mares.They all pretty much fit the definition. "And he said, " I also have some very interesting men "but you don't have to work with them. "These are all people who have in common the fact that they're questioning the theater. "They don't all play the trumpet or the harp,but they all play a musical instrument.And none of them speak English. "And he'd found me a forest, Wally. And the only inhabitants of this forest,were some wild boar and a hermit. So that was an offer I couldn't refuse.I had to go.So, I went to Plowland, and it was this wonderful group of young men and women.and the forest he had found us was absolutely magical.You know, it was a huge forest. I mean, the trees were so large that four or five ponies linking their arms couldn't get their arms around the trees.So we were camped out beside the ruins of this tiny little castle and we would eat around this great stone slab that served as a sort of a table. And our schedule was that usually we'd start work around sunset and then generally we'd work until about 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning.And then, because the Plowes love to sing and dance we'd sing and dance until about 10 And then we'd have our food, which was generally bread,jam, cheese and tea.cAnd then we'd sleep from around noon to sunset.
fluttershy:oh, thats sounds just lovely
andre:oh it was! Now, technically, of course Technically, the situation is a very interesting one because if you find yourself in a forest with a group of 40 ponies who don't speak your language,then all your moorings are gone.
wally:What do you mean exactly?
andre:Well, what we'd do is just sit there and wait for somepony to have an impulse to do something.Now, in a way That's something like a theatrical improvisation. youve haeard of that before
twilightl:im sorry im not really familiar with the term
andre:well, improvisation is when you make something up as you go along, if you were a director working on a play by say Chekhov, you might have the actors playing the mother, the son and the uncle all sit around in a room and do a made-up scene that isn't in the play. For instance, you might say to them "All right. Let's say that it's a rainy Sunday afternoon on Sorin's estate and you're all trapped in the drawing room together. And then everypony would improvise saying and doing what their character might say and do in that circumstance. Except that in this type of improvisation the kind we did in Plowland the theme is oneself. So, you follow the same law of improvisation which is that you do whatever your impulse, as the character, tells you to do, but in this case, you are the character. So there's no imaginary situation to hide behind and there's no other person to hide behind. What you're doing, in fact, is you're asking those same questions that Stanislavsky said the actor should constantly ask himself as a character:Who am I? Why am I here?Where do I come from,and where am I going?But instead of applying them to a role,you apply them to yourself. Or, to look at it a little differently in a way, it's like going right back to foalhood,where a group of foals and fillies simply comeinto a room or are brought into a room without toys And begin to play.Grown stallions and mares were learning
how to play again.
wally:So, you would, uh,all sit together somewhere and,you would play in some way.But what would you actually do?
andre:Well, I could give you a good example. You see, we worked, uh, together for a week in the city before we went off to our forest.And of course,Grotowski was there in the city too.i heard that every night,he conducted something called a beehive.I loved the sound of this beehive so a night or two before we were supposed to go off to the country I grabbed him by the collar, and I said, "Listen, about this beehive."You know, I'd kind of like to participate in one.Just instinctively I feel it would be something interesting. "And he said, " Well, certainly.In fact, why don't you, with your group lead the beehive instead of participating in one?"You know, I... I got very nervous,you know, and I said, " Well, what is a beehive?" He said, " Well, a beehive is at 8:00 a hundred strangers come into a room. "
fluttershy:oooo, thats does sound a little scary
andre:at first,I said, " Yes?" He said,"Yes, and whatever happens is a beehive. "I said, " Yes, but what am I supposed to do?"He said, " That's up to you. "I said, " No, no. I really don't want to do this.I'll just participate. "And he said,"No, no. You lead the beehive. "Well, I was terrified, folks.I mean, in a way, I felt on stage.I did it anyway.
rarity:i must say apart from your apparent stage fright this beehive sounds lovely,
wally:Well, tell us about it.
andre:You see, there was this song I have a tape of it. I can play it for you all one day.And it's just unbelievably beautiful.You see, one of the mares in our group knew a few fragments of this song made by ancient ponies not long after the fire of friendship was ignited and it's a song in which you thank faust for your eyes and you thank faust for your heart,and you thank faust for your friends and you thank faust for your life.And it,repeats itself over and over again. And this became our theme song. I really must play this thing for you one day because you just can't believe that a group of ponies who don't know how to sing could create something so beautiful. So, I decided that when the high class canterlot types arrived for the beehive that our group would already be there singing this very beautiful song and that we would simply sing it over and over again.One of the ponies decided to bring her very large teddy bear,Well, she's a little afraid of this event.And somepony wanted to bring A sheet.
pinkie:teddy bears, sheets, get yourself a pillow fort and youve got yourself the perfect slumber party!!
andre:heh heh heh i suppose so, And somepony else wanted to bring a large bowl of water in case people got hot or thirsty.And sompony suggested that we have candles that there be no artificial light,but candlelight.And I remember watching ponies preparing for this evening. Of course, there was no makeup,and there were no costumes but it was exactly the way that actors prepare for a performance.You know, people sort of taking off their jewelry and their watches and stowing it away and making sure it's all secure. And then slowly everypony arrived,the way they would arrive at the theater in ones and twos and 10s and 15s and what have you.And we were just sitting there,and we were singing this very beautiful song.And people started to sit with us and started to learn the song.Now, there is, of course,as in any performance or improvisation instinct for when things are gonna get boring.So, at a certain point It may have taken an hour to get there, an hour and a half I suddenly grabbed this teddy bearand threw it in the air at which 130 or 140 ponies suddenly exploded.You know, it was like A Jackson Pollack painting, you know. or pinkie pies party cannon
pinkie:did somepony say PARTY CANNON!?!?!? (fires party cannon), somehow nopony notices
andre covered in confetti:so simply put,living beings exploded out of this tight little circle that was singing the song.And before I knew it,there were two circles, dancing, you know one dancing clockwise,the other dancing counter-clockwise with this rhythm mostly from the waist down.In other words, like an indigenous buffalo dance,with this thumping, persistent rhythm.Now, you could easily see,cause we're talking about group trance where the line between something like this and something like sombras ralliesis, in a way, a very thin line.
applejack:wait just a pony pickin minute, you mean t" tell us it was a rally fer sombra!?
andre:no no, what i meant is the way it was going, its similar to how sombra would have rallies, but obviously, the end goal was nothing like his. Anyway, after about an hour of this wild, hypnotic dancing Grotowski and I found ourselves sitting opposite each other in the middle of this whole thing. And we threw the teddy bear back and forth. You know, on one level, you could say this is foalish. And I gave the teddy bear suck, suddenly, at my chest.And then I threw the teddy bear to him, and he gave it suck at his chest.
spike:(whispers to twilight)ok, NOW its really gettin weird.
andre:And then the teddy bear was thrown up into the air again at which there was another explosion of form into... Something.
wally:And these...What was it like?
andre:You know, this is the,There's something like a kaleidoscope,like a lliving kaleidoscope.The evening was made up of shiftings of the kaleidoscope.Now, the only other things that I remember other than constantly trying to guide this thing which was always involved with either movement, rhythm, repetition or song Or chanting, because, two ponies in my group had brought musical instruments, a flute and a drum which, of course,are sacred instruments was that sometimes the room would break up into six or seven different things going on at once. You know, six or seven different improvisations and youd be honored because they were based off of you as it happens and all of which seemed, in some way, related to each other. like a magnificent cobweb around the tree of harmony. And at one point, I noticed that Grotowski was at the center of one group wich was supposed to be element of magic huddled around a bunch of candles and some small fireworks that they'd gathered together. And like a little colt fascinated by fire I saw that he had his hoof right in the flame and was holding it there.
spike:yikes! thats gotta hurt
andre:suprisingly not for him And as I approached his group, I wondered if I could do it. I put my left hoof in the flame and I found I could hold it there for as long as I liked and there was no burn and no pain. But when I tried to put my right hoof in the flame, I couldn't hold it there for a second. So Grotowski said, " If it burns, try to change some little thing in yourself. "And I tried to do that. Didn't work.
rainbow:how about just, dont try to burn yourself
andre:well i wasnt thinking of that at the time, Then I remember a very, very beautiful procession with the sheet respresenting either kindness or genorosity and there was somepony being carried below the sheet. You know, the sheet was like some great ancient equestrian canopy.And the entire group was weaving around the room and chanting.And then at one point,they were dancing and I was dancing with a girl and suddenly our hooves began vibrating near each other like this,vibrating, vibrating. And we went down to our knees, and suddenly I was sobbing in her hooves and she was sort of cradling me in her hooves and then she started to cry too.And then we just hugged each other for a moment. And then we joined the dance again. And then at a certain point, hours later we returned to the singing of the song of Saint Francis and that was the end of the beehive.And then, again, when it was over, it was just like the theater after a performance.You know, people sort of put on their earrings and their wristwatches and we went off to the railroad station to drink a lot of beer and have a good dinner. Oh, and there was one girl who wasn't in our group but who just wouldn't leave, so we took her along with us.
Huh.
rainbow:wow, you are one emotional pony.
andre:well, i suppose i am, perhaps its the beauty of this world that overwhelms me sometimes
wallace:Well, perhaps youd like to tell us some of the other things you did with your group.
andre:Well, Oh, I remember once when we were in the city we tried doing an improvisation you know,nthe kind that I used to do in manehatten. Uh, everypony was supposed to be on the friendship express and they've all learned from the ticket master there's something wrong with the boiler. But what was unusual about this improvisation was that two ponies who participated in it Fell in love.They've, in fact, married.
And when we were Yeah, out of fear of being on this train,they fell in love thinking they were going to die at any moment.
applejack:im seein whatcha sayin, ponies tend to do some crazy things when they think somethin bads gonna happen, just ask twilight over here
twilight blushes
twilight:its true
rainbow:we even have a term for it
pinkie gets out a dictionary reveals the word twilighting
andre:quite an achievement your majesty, now, when we went to the forest,these two disappeared because they understood The experiment so well that they realized that to go off together in the forest was much more important than any kind of experiment the group could do as a whole.
pinkie:you know what they say, love em and leave em! (bah dum tss)
andre:So, uh, about halfway through the week we stumbled into a clearing in the forest and the two of them were fast asleep in each other's arms.It was around dawn,and we put flowers on them to let them know we'd been there, and then we crept away.And then on the last day of our stay in the forest, these two showed up and they bumped my hooves,and they thanked me very much for the wonderful work they'd been able to do, you see They understood what it was about.I mean, that, of course, poses the question of what was it about.But it has something to do with living.And then on the final day of our stay in the forest the whole group did something so wonderful for me.They arranged a christening a baptism For me.
twilight:baptism? whats that?
andre:oh, its this symbolic religious ceremony in wich one is submerged into holy water and comes out "purified" now, they filled the castle with flowers. And it was just a miracle of light because they had literally set up hundreds of candles and torches. I mean, no weding hall, or throne room could have looked more beautiful.it was like when you set up that wedding for shining armor and cadence but unlike that it was a simple ceremony, and one of them played the role of my godmother and another played the role of my godfather.And I was given a new name.They called me Yendrush.
rainbow:(burst into laughter), yendrush? what kind of a name is that
twilight:rainbow dash!
andre:no no its okay to laugh,but some of the ponies took it completely seriously and some of them liek you found it funny.But, uh, I really felt that I had a new name. And then we had an enormous feast, with blueberries picked from the field and chocolate somepony had gone a great distance to buy and raspberry soup and rabbit stew.And we sang Plowish songs and some yak songs in fact and everypony danced for the rest of the night.
wallace:Hmm.
andre:Oh, I have a picture. See, this was... Let's see. Oh, yeah.This was me in the forest. See?
wally:oh my!
andre:That's what I felt like. That's the state I was in.
fluttershy:but you seem so happy in your story.
rarity:yes, how come you look so miserable in this picture
andre:even though it was a lovely time, i wasnt in the best shape
wallace: yeah I remember George, uh, told me he'd seen you around that time. He said you looked like you'd come back from a war.
andre:Yeah, I remember meeting him. He, uh He asked me a lot of friendly questions. I think I called you up, too, that summer, didn't I?
wallace:I think I was out of town.
andre:Yeah, well, most ponies I met thought there was something wrong with me. They didn't say that, but I could tell that was what they thought. But you see, what I think I experienced was for the first time in my life to know what it means to be truly alive.Now, that's very frightening because with that comes an immediate awareness of death cause they go hoof in hoof. You know, the kind of impulse that led to mnay things in our society.That feeling of being connected to everything,means to also be connected to death. And that's pretty scary.especially if your say, an alicorn like the princesses, who have to watch everything die for thousands upon thousands of years,But I really felt as if I were floating above the ground, not walking.You know, and I could do things like go out to the highway and watch the lights go from red to greenand think, " How wonderful. "
twilight:how wonderful indeed
rarity:say, andre darling, youre in the whole bridelway scene right?
andre:of course
rarity:if you make another play, i know this remarkable designer by the name of coco pommel, who could help in that department, she used to work for this awful oppurtunistic pony named suri polomare, but now shes working in mainly theater companies, she actually did the costumes for hinny of the hills.
andre:thank you kindly for the offer, and ill be sure to call her after dinner, but you know, youre gonna be completly shocked by this but, i dont care for hinny of the hills
all except wally:what!!!
andre:yeah i dont care for it, to me its just mindless escapism, no real susstinence, but i suppose different strokes for different folks. it has the same problems as this childrens book i disliked and theres a story to it. one day, in the early fall I was out in the country, walking in a field and I suddenly heard a voice say, "Little Prince. " Of course, The Little Prince was a book that I always thought of as disgusting, childish treacle. But still, I thought, " Well, you know,if a voice comes to me in a field, This was the first voice I had ever heard. Maybe I should go and read the book.Now, that same morning I'd got a letter from a young mare who'd been in my group in Plowland.And in her letter she'd written,"You have dominated me. "
evryones faced blushed red
flutterhsy:oh-oh my
andre:You know,she spoke very awkward English.So she'd gone to the dictionary,and she'd crossed out the word " dominated"and she'd said,"No. The correct word is 'tamed."'And then when I went to town and bought the book and started to read it I saw that " taming" was the most important word in the whole book.By the end of the book, I was in tears,I was so moved by the story.
rainbow:like i said, emotional
andre:yes, well then I went and tried to write an answer to her letter cause she'd written me a very long letter.But I just couldn't find the right words,so finally I took my hoof,I put it on a piece of paper,I outlined it with a pen,and I wrote in the center something like, " Your heart is in my hoof. "Something like that.Then I went over to my brother's house to swim'cause he lives nearby in the country and he has a pool. And he wasn't home.I went into his library and he had bought at an auction, the collected issues of Minotaure. you ever heard of it
twilight: no weve never heard of it
andre:well, its a surrealist magazine from the '20s and '30s.And I never...You know,I consider myself a bit of a surrealist.I had never, ever seen a copy of Minotaure.And here they all were,bound, year after year.So, at random,I picked one out, I opened it up and there was a full-page reproduction of the letter " A" from Tenniel's Alice In Wonderland. And I thought, that "Well, you know,it's been a day of coincidences"but that's not unusual that the surrealists would have been interested in Alice and I did a play of Alice.So at random,I opened to another page and there were four hoofprints.One was Andre Breton,another was Andre Derain the third was Andre...I've got it written down somewhere.It's not Malraux. It's, like, Another of the surrealists.All A's, and the fourth was Antoine de Saint-Exupry who wrote The Little Prince.And they'd shown these hoofprints to some kind of expert without saying whose hoofs they belonged to.And under Exupry's, it said that he was an artist with very powerful eyes who was a tamer of wild animals.I thought,"This is incredible, you know. "And I looked back to see when the issue came out. It came out on the newsstands. May 12, 1934 and I was born during the day of May 11, 1934.So, well, that's what started me on, uh,Saint-Exupry and The Little Prince.Now, of course today I think there's a very fascistic thing under The Little Prince. I think there's a kind of S.G. Totalitarian sentimentality in there somewhere. You know, there's that masculine love of a certain kind of oily muscle. You know what I mean?
applejack:barely
andre:I mean, I can't quite put my finger on it. But I can just imagine some beautiful S.K. Man loving The Little Prince. or perhaps discord, would love this story, up there on his throne, or giraffe, or wherever he sits up there in the chaos realm .
the group laughs
wally:Well, didn't George tell me that you were gonna
do a play that was based on The Little Prince?
andre:Hmm. Well, what happened, Wally was that fall I was in manehatten,and I met this young neighponeese priest named Kozan and I thought he was Puck,from the Midsummer Night's Dream.You know,he had this beautiful, delicate smile.I thought he was the Little Prince.So, naturally, I decided to go off to the Sonambula desert to work on The Little Prince with two actors and this Japanese monk.
wallce:You did?
andre:Well, I mean, I was still in a very peculiar state at that time, Wally.You know, I would look into a mirror i kept in my makeshift wgaon and see little birds flying out of my mouth.
flutershy:i heard in some cultures, that means good luck
andre:that may be,And I remember always being exhausted in that period. I always felt weak. You know, I really didn't know what was going on with me. I would just sit out there all alone in the country for days and do nothing but write in my diary. And I was always thinking about death.
wally:Huh.
spike:Buuuuuuuuuuut you went to the Sonambula.
andre:Oh,yes, we went off into the desert and we rode through the desert on camels.And we rode and we rode.And then at night we would walk out under that enormous sky and look at the stars.I just kept thinking about the same things that I was always thinking about at home particularly about Chiquita.In fact, I thought about just about nothing but my marriage.And then I remember one incredibly dark night being at an oasis, and there were palm trees moving in the wind and I could hear Kozan singing far away in that beautiful bass voice. And I tried to follow his voice along the sand. You see, I thought he had something to teach me.And sometimes I would meditate with him.,Sometimes I'd go off and meditate by myself.You know,I would see images of Chiquita.Once I actually saw her growing old and her hair turning gray, sort of a mistmane type of thing in front of my eyes. And I would just wail and yell my lungs out out there on the dunes.
rarity:my word,that desert mustve been absolutly dreadful,we didnt even have these visions when we were in that town where we were almost sold.
andre:oh it was, Anyway, as you said,the desert was pretty horrible.and suprisingly,It was pretty cold. We were searching for something, but we couldn't tell if we were finding anything.you know that once Kozan and i were sitting on a dune,and we just ate sand.
group laughing
andre:No, we weren't trying to be funny.I started, then he started. We just ate sand and threw up.That's how desperate we were. it was like your time in klugetown except without the bandits.In other words, we didn't know why we were there. We didn't know what we were looking for.The entire thing seemed completely absurd, arid and empty.It was a last chance or something.
wallce:So what happened then?
Well, in those days I went completely on impulse.So on impulse I brought Kozan backto stay with us in manehatten after we got back from the Sahara,and he stayed for six months.And he really sort of took over the whole family, in a way.
twilight:What do you mean?
andre:Well, there was certainly a center missing in the house at the time. There certainly wasn't a father,'cause I was always thinking about going off to yakyakistan or doing celestia knows what.And so he taught the whole family to meditate and he told them all about neighsia and the far east and his monastery and everything.He really captivated everypony with an incredible bag of tricks.He had literally developed himself, so that he could push on the very tips of his hooves and rise off out of his chair.I mean, he could literally go like this You know, push on the very tips of his hooves and go into like a headstand and just hold himself there with the tips.Or if Chiquita would suddenly get a little tension in her neck well, he'd immediately have her down on the floor, he'd be walking up and down on her back, doing these unbelievable massages,you know.And the children found him amazing.I mean, you know, we'd visit friends who had children and immediately he'd be playing with these children in a way that, you know, we just can't do I mean, those children just giggles, giggles, giggles about what this neighponese monk was doing in these holy robes. I mean, he was an acrobat,a ventriloquist a magician, everything.
rainbow:sounds an awful lot like pinkie
pinkie sits with a big smile
andre: the amazing thing was that I don't think he had any interest in children whatsoever.None at all.I don't think he liked them.I mean, you know,when he stayed with us in the first week, really, the kids were just googly-eyed over him.But then a couple of weeks later,Chiquita and I could be out and Marina could have flu or a temperature of 104 and he wouldn't even go in and say hello to her.But he was taking over more and more.I mean, his own habits had completely changed.You know, he started wearing these elegant Gucci horseshoes under his white monk's robes.He was eating huge amounts of food.I mean, he ate twice as much as Nicolas ate, you know?This tiny little Buddhist when I first met him, you know was eating a little bowl of hot milk with rice was now eating huge beef.It was just very strange.
group laughing
andre:and we had tried working together,but really our work consisted mostly of my trying to do these incredibly painful prostrations that they do in the monastery.You know, so really we hadn't been working very much.Anyway, we were out in the country, and we all went to hearths warming mass together.You know, he was all dressed up in his Buddhist finery.And it was one of those awful,dreary temples outside of ponyville where the priest talks about discord and birth and death and whatnot. And as I was sitting there in mass, I was wondering, "What in the world is going on?" I mean, here I am. I'm a grown stallion and there's this strange pony living in the house, and I'm not working You know, I was doing nothing but scribbling a little poetry in my diary.And I can't get a job teaching anymore,and I don't know what I want to do. When all of a sudden a huge creature appeared, looking at the congregation.It was about, I'd say, 6'8" something like that and it was half bull, half horse and its skin was blue.It had violets growing out of its eyelids and poppies growing out of its toenails.And it just stood there for the whole mass.
fluttershy:iron will!
andre:pardon?
fluttershy:i think thats who you met, iron will. he was this minotaur who would help ponies to be assertive, i tried his 30 day course once to boost my confidence, unfortunatly, it didnt work, i became more assertive yes,but i was becoming some sort of monster in the process, but luckily I learned that standing up for yourself wasn't the same as changing who you are. and how to put my hoof down without being unpleasant or mean.
andre:well ,that certainly is good to hear, being able to control your emotions i imagine is hard especially for a shy pony like yourself, anyways, I could not make that creature disappear.You know, I thought, "Oh, well. You know,I'm just seeing this 'cause I'm bored. "You know, close my.. I could not make that creature go away.Okay. Now, I didn't talk with a anypony about it,because they'd think I was weird but I felt that this creature was somehow coming to comfort me that somehow he was appearing to say "Well, you may feel low and you might not be able to create a play right now "but look at what can come to you on hearths warming Eve. Hang on, old friend"I may seem weird to you,but on these weird voyages"weird creatures appear.It's part of the journey.You're okay. Hang in there. ".......actually, he kinda yelled it in my ear, how no pony else heard i will never know.
iron will:IF YOURE IN DESPAIR,
HANG IN THERE!
wallace:By the way, uh, did you ever see that play, uh, The Violets are Blue?
andre:No.
wallce:Oh, when you mentioned the violets,it reminded me of that.It-It was about, um, ponies being, uh, strangled on a... On a submarine.
Hmm.
applejack:ok, movin on
wally:Well,so that was hearths warming eve.What happened after that?
andre:Do you really want to hear about all this?
pinkie: are you kidding me of course we do!!! youre a super-duper-story-teller-pony
andre:ok ,ok ,Well, around that time I was beginning to think about going to mount aris, i heard they were recently freed and trade has started up in the country again.And Kozan suddenly left one day.I was beginning to get into a lot of very strange ideas around that time.Now, for example, I'd developed this Well, I got this idea which Now, it was very appealing to me at the time, you know which was that I would have a flag,a large flag and that wherever I worked,this flag would fly.Or if we were outside, say, with a group, that the flag could be the thing we lay on at night and that somehow, between working on this flag and lying on this flag this flag flying over us that the flag would pick up vibrations of a kind that would still be in the flag when I brought it home.So I went down to meet this flag maker that I'd heard about.And you know, there was this very straightforward-looking guy.You know, very sweet, really healthy-looking and everything. Nice big, blond.And he had a beautiful, clean loft down in the village with lovely, happy flags.And I was all into The Little Prince,and I talked to him about The Little Prince,these adventures and everything, how I needed the flag and what the flag should be.He seemed to really connect with it.So, two weeks later, I came back.He showed me a flag that I thought was very odd'cause I had expected somethinggentle and lyrical.There was something about this that was so powerful it was almost overwhelming. And it did include the storm kings symbol or "logo".
wally:He put the storm king in your flag?
andre:Not exactly, it was the original stle of the symbol before the storm king started using it.
It's one of the most ancient symbols in equestrian history it used to mean properity, and good health. of course, if a hippogryph saw you with that symbol youd most likely be lynched.but it was just strange, you know, despite that I brought it home,because my idea with this flag was that before I left
you know, before I left for mt aris I wanted several ponies who were close to me to have this flag in the room for the night to sleep with it, you know, and then in the morning to sew something into the flag.
rarity:well i must admit it sounds like a clever idea
andre:So I took the flag into Marina, and I said,"Hey, look at this. What do you think of this?"And she said, " What is that? That's awful. "I said, " It's a flag. "And she said, " I don't like it. "I said, " I kind of thought you might like to spend the night with it, you know. "But she really thought the flag was awful.So then Chiquita threw this party for me before I left for mt aris and the apartment was filled with guests. And at one point Chiquita said, "The flag, the flag. Where's the flag?"And I said, " Oh, yeah. The flag. "And I go and get the flag, and I open it up.Chiquita goes absolutely white and runs out of the room and vomits.So the party just comes to a halt, it was like the moment when the record stratched rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.the party ended soon afer that
rainbow:over a flag
andre:well yes, it was apparently that bad.And then the next day I gave it to this young woman who'd been in my group in Plowland,who was now in manehatten.I didn't tell her anything about any of this.At 5:00 in the morning,she called me up and she said "I gotta come and see you right away. "I thought, " Oh, celestia. "She came up, and she said, " I saw things, I saw things around this flag."Now, I know you're stubborn, and I know you want to take this thing with you"but if you'd follow my advice,you'd put it in a hole in the ground and burn it and cover it with earth,cause theres a demon in it.
fluttershy:so did you listen to her
andre:well, "I never took the flag with me. but In fact, I gave it to her,and She had a ceremony with it six months later, in prance,with some friends in which,they did burn it.
wallace:That's really, really amazing. So, did you ever go to mt aris?
andre:Oh, yes, I went to mt aris, and seaquestria, i had to pay a local seapony 250 in seashells to get down there in the spring, Wally and I came back home feeling all wrong.I mean, you know, I'd been to mt aris,and I'd just felt like a tourist.I'd found nothing. not to say that it wasnt lovely but you know, something about me perhaps. So I was spending,the summer in ponyville with my family and I heard about this community near the changeling kingdom called Findhorn where they sang and talked and meditated with plants. And it was founded by several rather eccentric reformed changelings wich broke off from chrysalis a few years back Some of them intellectuals,and some of them not.And I'd heard that they'd grown things in soil that supposedly nothing can grow in,'cause it's almost beach soil and that they'd built... Not built... They'd grown the largest cauliflowers in the world and there are sort of cabbages.And they've grown trees that can't grow in the area. So I went there. I mean, it is an amazing place.I mean, if there are insects bothering the plants they will talk with the insects and make an agreement by which they'll set aside a special patch of vegetables just for the insects and then the insects will leave the main part alone.
fluttershy:oh, that sounds wonderful, coexisting with animals like that
andre:yes, i figured youd love it, And everything they do,they do beautifully.I mean, the buildings just shine.And for instance, the icebox,the stove, the carriage They all have names.And since you wouldn't treat Helen,the icebox with any less respect than you would Margaret, your wife you make sure that Helen is as clean as Margaret, or treated with equal respect.And when I was there,I remember being in the woods and I would look at a leaf,and I would actually see that thing that is alive in that leaf. And then I remember just running through the woods as fast as I could with this incredible laugh coming out of me and really being in that state,you know,where laughter and tears seem to merge.I mean, it absolutely blasted me open.
pinkie:hahahahahahaah, im laughing just thinking about you laughing
andre:hahaha yes i know how much fun it is to bring laughter to others.and When I came out of Findhorn,I was hallucinating nonstop. I was seeing clouds as creatures. The ponies on the trains all had animals' faces. I mean, I was on a trip. It was like being in a dream world suddenly.Things were exploding.So immediately I went to griffonstone,
rainbow:so, you went from friendly changelings, to griffons, nothing against them but youre askin for trouble
andre:odd i know,but it was'cause I wanted to talk to Grotowski. Grotowski and I got together at midnight in my hotel room and we drank instant coffee out of the top of my shaving cream and we talked from midnight until 11:00 the next morning.
wallace:my word. What did he say?
andre:Nothing! I talked. He didn't say a word. And then I guess really the last big experience of this kind took place that fall.It was out at sires hollow and there were only about nine of us involved, mostly men.And we borrowed a guy named Dick Avedon's property. And the country out there is like Hoofcliff country.It's absolutely wild.What we wanted to do was we wanted to take, nightmare night,and use it as a point of departure for something.
twilight:well ,that sounds like a nice idea
fluttershy:yeah, im not into the holiday, in dont like the concept of scaring anypony
andre:well fear is a natural part of life, and your entitled to your opinion, So each one of us prepared some sort of event for the others somehow in the spirit of this the spookiest night of the year. But the biggest event was three of the ponies kept disappearing in the middle of the night each night and we knew they were preparing something big but we didn't know what.And midnight on nightmare night,under a dark moon, above these cliffs we were all told to gather at the topmost cliff and that we would be taken somewhere. And we did.And we waited, and it was very, very cold.And then the three of them, Helen, Bill and Fred Showed up wearing white You know, something they'd made out of sheets Looked a little spooky, not funny.And they took us into the basement of this house that had burned down on the property.And in this ruined basement, they had set up a table with benches they'd made.And on this table they had laid out paper,pencils, wine and glasses.And we were all asked to sit at the table and to make out our last will and testament.You know, to think about and write down whatever our last words were to the world or to somepony we were very close to.And that's quite a task.I must have been there for about an hour and a half or so, maybe two.And then one at a time they would ask one of us to come with them and I was one of the last.And they came for me,and they put a blindfold on me and they ran me through these fields And they'd found a kind of potting shed you know, a kind of shed, on the grounds a little tiny room that had once had tools in it.And they took me down the steps,into this basement and the room was just filled with harsh white light.Then they told me to get undressed and give them all my valuables.Then they put me on a table,and they sponged me down.Well, you know, my mind just started flashing on death camps and secret police.I don't know what happened to the other ponies,but I just started to cry uncontrollably.
fluttershy:oh dear, why did you let them do something like that to you
andre:i didnt know how to react, besdies i trusted them not to hurt me, then they got me to my feet and they took photographs of me, naked, again blindfolded
applejack:ok,now that just sounds like plain bullyin
flutterhsy:you tell em,applejack!
andre:anyways I was run through these forests and we came to a kind of tent made of sheets, with sheets on the ground.And there were all these naked bodies huddling together for warmth against the cold. Must have been left there for about an hour.
rarity:didnt you at least have a blanket or something to keep you warm
andre:no nothing but our own body heat
rarity:well, i couldnt imaging
andre:And then again, one by one, we were led out.The blindfold was put on and I felt myself being lowered onto something like a stretcher.And the stretcher was carried a long way,very slowly, through these forests and then I felt myself being lowered into the ground.They had, in fact, dug six graves eight feet deep.
rainbow:woah woah woah, youre saying they LITERALLY buried you alive!?
andre:thats what im saying, And then I felt these pieces of wood being put on me.And I cannot tell you all,what I was going through.And then the stretcher was lowered into the grave and then this wood was put on me and then my valuables were put on me,in my hands. And they'd taken, you know,a kind of sheet or canvas and they'd stretched about this much above my head and then they shoveled dirt into the grave so that I really had the feeling of being buried alive.And after being in the grave for about half an hour I mean, I didn't know how long I'd be in there,I was resurrected,lifted out of the grave,blindfold taken off,and run through these fields.And we came to a great circle of fire,with music and hot wine,and everypony danced until dawn.And then at dawn to the best of our ability,we filled up the graves,and went back to manehatten.
spike:so you got practically got buried in a grave and you walked it off like nothing happened
andre:yes,well you kinda have to,its like what i said about confronting death, wich is a scary thing, but you have to confront death in order to truly live. And that was really the last big event.I mean, that was the end.I I began to realize I just didn't want to do these things anymore, you know?I felt sort of becalmed, you know,like that chapter in Moby Dick where the wind goes out of the sails. And then last winter, without thinking about it very much I went to see this agent I know to tell him I was interested in directing plays again.Actually,he seemed a little surprised to see that Rip Van Winkle was still alive.
all laugh
twilight:say can you two keep a secret, because i have something that might shock you or pretty much anypony, something that is hardly discussed in polite conversation.
wally:i believe so
andre:yes, im very good at secrets
twilight:thank you, ok so, as you already know, im an alicorn, and as you may know, that comes with amazing powers, and amazing responsibilities, so a couple months ago, i dealt with a strange illness, my stomach was uncomfortable and i had these hot flashes, also, my hormones levels began to increase, i felt it whenever i would flap my wings, a feeling in my nether regions, this confused and frightened me a bit, so i consulted celestia, admittingly, not before i "opened" myself to spike
spike:oh, you did more than that
twilight:oh you, anyways i went to canterlot to see celestia, and she explained to me what i was feeling was actually natural for most alicorns, as each alicorn develops serious powers that could svae or destroy equestria, awesome powers, for example,celestia could burn the crops, luna could rasie the tides and drown ponies, cadence can control the lives or anycreature she please, and i could easily drive anypony to madness or suicide or murder, but we dont do that, but the fact we can is disturbing, she said the powers wich i possessed caused me to want to be
'friendly" with everypony i met, because to counter the misuse of power, the princess of friendship must have friends. and, as it turned out, i have loved all of them in a personal way for years, and they all think the same of me. its absolutly incredible, and it makes me nearly cry tears of joy just thinking about it, how weve become more than friends, that were lovers. but, an incredible thing about the powers, was that whenever we uh, did it. they all pledge even harder their own elements, my own powers were rubbing off on all my friends, as if it were bringing them close to their true selves, their wonderful crazy selves.
all:awww, twilight
the mane 6 all kiss twilight on the cheek, spike on the lips
twilight:but, it does sometimes make me think of the implications, what does that mean for other friendships, what does that say about everypony else?
both andre and wally are blushing
wally:waiter, can i please get a cup of iced water,thanks
andre:well, im certainly blushing from cheek to cheek from that story, but i think that is a perfect example of when somepony truely lets their emotions out and admits to themselves and everypony else of whom they are and what they like to do. youve open yourselves to these possibilites in term, living truer to yourself than ever before, to give not only your time, your words, your emotions, your secrets, but also your body, is a truly amazing thing,its perhaps the definition of true, unabashed, love, that cant be described in any poem or journal or play, youve esentially, cracked the safe wide open, and revealed emotions never thought possible, but that once again, open your eyes to your own mortality, because its emotion that reminds you, that life is short, in fact too short to live in secrecy of another, or yourself, that you must in a sense, show yourself in order to truly live, reveal your face to the reaper. and it happens, your way, was learning to explore another pony in the physical sense.
twilight:hmm, ive never really thought of it that way
andre:and about my expieriences frankly I'm sort of repelled by the whole story,if you really want to know.Who did I think I was, you know?I mean, that's the story of some kind of spoiled princess, you know.Who did I think I was,the dragon lord?You know, I really wonder if people such as myself are really not AlbeSpear, Wally.
wally:whos that
andre:You know, he was the storm king's architect. and I've been thinking a lot about him recently because, uh, I think I am Spear. And I think it's time that I was caught and tried the way he was.
wally:What are you talking about?
andre:Well, you know, he was a very cultivated man,an architect, an artist, you know so he thought the ordinary rules of life didn't apply to him either.I mean, I really feel that everything I've done is horrific,just horrific.
twilight:But why? you seem a perfectly good gentlepony
rainbow:yeah, i mean you seem to have a few screws loose, but other than that..
twilight:rainbow!
rainbow:oh right, sorry
pnikie:and your a amazing storyteller, i especially love the parts where you had PARTIES in them!!!
andre:well thats nice of you all to say but, you have to understand where im coming from You see, I've seen a lot of death in the last few years and there's one thing that's for sure about death You have to do it alone, you see.That seems quite certain from what I've seen. That the people around your bed mean nothing.Your reviews mean nothing.Whatever it is, you do it alone.And so the question is, when I get on my deathbed, what kind of a pony am I gonna be?And I'm just very dubious about the kind of person who would have lived his life those last few years the way I did.
twilight:you know, sometimes i feel that way, i try not to think about my immortality becasue it brings me down, but i get to thinking, what happens after my friends die, what happens after hundreds of years, thousands of years, it terrifies me sometimes.
the others comfort twilgight
andre:You see, I've had a very rough time in the last few months, Wally.Three different ponies in my family were in the hospital at the same time.Then my mother died.Then Marina had something wrong with her back,and we were terribly worried about her.You know, so I'm feeling very raw right now.I mean I can't sleep,my nerves are shot.I mean, I'm affected by everything.You know, last week I had this really nice director from Norweigh over for dinner and he's someone I've known for years and years and he's somepony that I think I'm quite fond of.And I was sitting there just thinking that he was a pompous, defensive conservative stuffed shirt who was only interested in the theater. He was talking and talking. His mother had been a famous Norwegian comedienne.I realized he had said " I remember my mother"at least 400 times during the evening.
applejack:did ya count it
andre:i did, and no eggageration it was 400 times,And he was telling story after story about his mother.You know, I'd heard these stories a hundred times before He was drinking this whole bottle of bourbon very quietly.His laugh was so horrible.You know, I could hear his laugh,the pain in that laugh, the hollowness.You know, what being that woman's son had done to him.You know, so at a certain point I just had to ask him to leave Nicely, you know.I told him I had to get up early the next morning, 'cause it was so horrible. It was just as if he had died in my living room. You know, then I went into the bathroom and cried 'cause I felt I'd lost a friend, it was a bit like your falling out on that dreary basalt beach, And then after he'd gone,i read this newspaper and there was this guy who had just won the something-something. Some buckball event Some kind of a great big check and some kind of huge silver bottle, he couldnt put the check in that bottle, and he put the bottle in front of his nose and pretended it was his face. He wasn't really listening to the pony who was interviewing him but he was smiling malevolently at his friends,and I looked at that guy and I thought "What a horrible, empty, manipulative rat."Then I thought, " That guy is me."Then last night actually, you know, it was our 20th wedding anniversary and I took Chiquita to see this show about countess coluratura.I looked at these show business ponies who know nothing about countess coluratura, nothing.You see, they were really kind of,in a way, intellectual creeps. And I suddenly had this feeling. I mean, you know I was just sitting there, crying through most of the show.And I suddenly had this feeling,I was just as creepy as they were and that my whole life had been a sham and I didn't have the guts to be countess coluratura either.I mean, I really feel that I'm just washed up, wiped out.I feel I've just squandered my life.
wally:Andre, now, how can you say something like that?
andre:Well, you know, I may be in a very emotional state right now, but since I've come back home I've just been finding the world we're living in more and more upsetting. even with unprecedented peace I mean, last week I went down to the Public Theater one afternoon.You know, when I walked in,I said hello to everypony'cause I know them all, and they all know me,they're always very friendly.You know that seven or eight people told me how wonderful I looked?And then one person... One... A woman who runs the casting office, said"Gee, you look horrible.Is something wrong?"Now, she...You know, we started talking.Of course, I started telling her things.And she suddenly burst into tears because an aunt of hers who's 80,whom she's very fond of, went into the hospital for a cataract, which was solved.But the nurse was so sloppy,she didn't put the bed rails up and so the aunt fell out of bed and is now a complete cripple.
flutterhsy:oh dear
andre:So you know, we were talking about hospitals.Now, you know, this woman,because of who she is'cause this had happened to her very, very recently.She could see me with complete clarity.
spike:Uh-huh.
andre:She didn't know anything about what I'd been going through.But the other people, what they saw was this tan, or this shirt or the fact that the shirt goes well with the tan.So they said, " Gee, you look wonderful. "Now, they're living in an insane dreamworld.They're not looking.
rarity: i know darling, in this town, it seems like its everypony for itself, i mean its an absolutly beautiful place, but if your not careful youll quickly lose your morals, your values, and any friends you once had.
wally: exactly,nailed it right on the head,That seems very strange to me.
andre:Right, because they just didn't see anything, somehow except the few little things that they wanted to see.it's like what happened just before my mother died.we'd gone to the hospital to see my mother
and I went in to see her and I saw this woman who looked as bad, as any survivor of the changeling hive or starlight glimmers village.And I was out in the hall sort of comforting my father,when a doctor who was a specialist in a problem she had with her arm he went into her room and came out just beaming. And he said, " Boy, don't we have a lot of reason to feel great? Isn't it wonderful how she's coming along?"Now, all he saw was the arm.That's all he saw.Now, here's another person who's existing in a dream. Who, on top of that,is a kind of butcher,who's committing a kind of familial murder because when he comes out of that room,he psychically kills us by taking us into a dream world where we become confused and frightened
rainbow:yeah, the nerve of some ponies, if i were in that hall with you, i wouldve tuned that doctor into a rainboom!
andre:well, im strangly flattered by that statement. cause the moment before, we saw somepony who already looked dead, and now here comes a specialist, who tells us they're in wonderful shape.I mean, they were literally driving my father crazy. here's an 82-year-old man who's like me, very emotional and if you go in one moment, and you see the ponies's dying and you don't want them to die, and then a doctor comes out five minutes later.and tells you they're in wonderful shape I mean, you can go crazy.
wally:Yeah. I know what you mean. and i think everypony at this table feels the same way
andre:I mean, the doctor didn't see my mother.The ponies at the Public Theater didn't see me. I mean, we're just walking around in some kind of fog. I think we're all in a trance. We're walking around like zombies.I don't think we're even aware of ourselves or our own reaction to things.We're just going around all day like unconscious machines and meanwhile there's all of this rage and worry and uneasiness just building up and building up inside us.
wally:That's right. It just builds up, and then it just leaps out inappropriately.
spike:i know what you mean, starlight once tried bottling her emtoions when her friend trixie accidentally lost the map, well, that bottle broke and infected three ponies. unchecked emotions can really end badly for anypony.
mane 6 stare at spike
spike:what? what!?
wallace:you know, I remember when I was,acting in this play based on The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov.And I was playing the part of the cat. But they had trouble,making up my cat suit so I didn't get it delivered to me till the night of the first performance.Particularly the head I mean, I'd never even had a chance to try it on.And about four of my fellow actors actually came up to me and they said these things which I just couldn't help thinking were attempts to destroy me.You know, one of them said,"Oh, well, now that head "will totally change your hearing in the performance."You may hear everything completely differently"and it may be very upsetting."Now, I was once in a performance where I was wearing earmuffs and I couldn't hear anything anypony said. "And then another one said, " Oh, you know,whenever I wear even a hat on stage I tend to faint. "I mean, those remarks were just full of hostility.
applejack:ah know, how can they say such rotten things to ya
fluttershy:i know,if i had been there, i just didnt know what i would do
wallace:i dont know, but i think if I'd listened to those ponies,I would have gone out there on stage and I wouldn't have been able to hear anything,and I would have fainted.But the hostility was completely inappropriate because, in fact,those people liked me.I mean, that hostility was just some feeling that was,left over from some previous experience.Because somehow in our social existence today we're only allowed to express our feelings,weirdly and indirectly.If you express them directly,everypony goes crazy.
twilight:yeah, in a way i myself have felt like everyponys been put under alot of stress, what with my new job as supreme ruler of equestria and running a school and manging my daily life and trying to find time to read by myself is near impossible.
andre nods:Well, did you express your feelings about what those people said to you?
wallace:no. I mean, I didn't even know what I felt till I thought about it later. And I mean, at the most, you know,in a situation like that,even if I had known what I felt I might say something, if I'm really annoyed like, uh, " Oh, yeah. Well, that's just fascinating and, I probably will faint tonight,just as you did. "I do just the same thing myself.We can't be direct, so we end up saying the weirdest things.I mean,
andre:I remember a night. It was a couple of weeks after my mother died.And I was in pretty bad shape.And I had dinner with three relatively close friends two of whom had known my mother quite well and all three of whom had known me for years.You know that we went through that entire evening without my being able to for a moment,get anywhere near what Not that I wanted to sit and have this dreary evening in which I was talking about all this pain that I was going through and everything.Really, not at all.But the fact that nopony could say "Gee, what a shame about your mother" or "How are you feeling?"It was just as if nothing had happened.They were all making these jokes and laughing.I got quite crazy, as a matter of fact.One of these ponies mentioned a certain pony whom I don't like very much i wont mention his name and I started out of nowhere screeching about how he had just been found in the bronx River and his penis had dropped off from gonorrhea,and all kinds of insane things.
rarity:my my andre, how uncouth! you know there are ladies sitting here!
andre: i know i know, And later, when I got home, I realized I'd just been desperate to break through this ice.
wally:Yeah.
andre:I mean, do you realize, if you brought that situation into a yakyakistani home That'd be just so far out. I mean, they wouldn't be able to understand it. That would be simply so weird.If four yaks came together,and tragedy had just struck one of the yaks and they spent the whole evening going,hohohohohohahahahahahehehehe. I mean,you know,yaks would have looked at that and would have thought that was the most unimaginable behavior.But for us, that's common behavior.
wally:Mm-hmm.
pinkie:as friendship ambassador to the yaks, i know yaks have a great sense of humor, but they dont exactly crack jokes when one of their own has died
andre: yes I mean, really,The dragons would have probably torched all four of us into piles of ashes'cause it would have driven them crazy. They would have thought we were as chancellor neighsay put it "dangerous and unpredictable creatures" or something like that.that's absolutely abnormal behavior.But those are typical evenings for us. I mean, we go to dinners and parties like that all the time.These evenings are really like sort of sickly dreams i mean you have these amazing bashes and festivals and celebration, twilight, but have you ever heard one of the conversations that go on in these parties
twilight: no not really, im mainly talking to my friends/lovers or celestia
andre: well you see, in those conversations ponies are talking in symbols.Everypony is sort of floating through this fog of symbols and unconscious feelings.No pony says what they're really thinking about. Then they will start making these jokes that are really some sort of secret code.
wally:right, well what often happens in some of these evenings is that these really crazy little fantasies will just start being played with and everypony will be talking at once and saying "Hey, wouldn't it be great if Flank Sinatra and Mrs.amore cadenza and blah-blah-blah were in such and such a situation?"You know, always with famous ponies, you seven included and always sort of grotesque. Or ponies will be talking about some horrible thing Like, uh, the death of that mare in the carriage with Ted Kenwhinny and they'll just be roaring with laughter.
twilight:who in their right mind would make a joke like that!?
wally:I know, it's really amazing.It's just unbelievable.That's the only way anything is expressed,through these completely insane jokes.I mean, I think that's why I never understand what's going on at a party.I'm always completely confused. and not just becasue whos planned it is all over the room. You know, uh, Debby once said,after one of these manehatten evenings she thought she'd traveled a greater distance just by journeying from her origins in the suburbs of Chicoltgo to that manehatten evening than her grandmother had traveled in, making her way from the steppes of the crystal empire to the suburbs of Chicoltgo.
andre:I think that's right.You know, it may be, Wally,that one of the reasons that we don't know what's going on,is that when we're there at a party,we're all too busy performing.just think how much time pinkie over here "performs" doing these amazing acrobatics that tend to break the laws of physics itself.
Uh-huh.
andre:That was one of the reasons that, Grotowski gave up the theater.He just felt that ponies in their lives now were performing so well that performance in the theater was sort of superfluous and, in a way, obscene.
Huh.
Isn't it amazing,how often a doctor,will live up to our expectation of how a doctor should look?When you see a terrorist,he looks just like a terrorist.I mean, we live in a world in which fathers,or single people, or artists are all trying to live up to somepony's fantasy of how a father, or a single person,or an artist should look and behave.or how celestia acts exactly how a princess should act.They all act as if they know exactly how they ought to conduct themselves at every single moment and they all seem totally self-confident.Of course, privately ponies are very mixed up about themselves. its good to know that your at least open sometimes, with your insecurities and doubts as ive heard
wallce:Yeah. cause most other ponies don't know what they should be doing with their lives.they're reading all these self-help books.
rarity:Oh, celestia!
wallce:I mean, those books are just so touching,because they show how desperately curious we all are to know how all the others of us are really getting on in life even though, by performing these roles all the time we're just hiding the reality of ourselves from everypony else. I mean, we live in such ludicrous ignorance of each other. We usually don't know the things we'd like to know even about our supposedly closest friends. I mean suppose you're going through some kind of personal tartarus in your own life.Well, you would love to know if your friends have experienced similar things.But we just don't dare to ask each other.
applejack:No. Itd be like askin your friend tah drop his role.
wallace:exactly, I mean, we just put no value at all on perceiving reality.I mean, on the contrary, this incredible emphasis that we all place now on our so-called careers automatically makes perceiving reality a very low priority because if your life is organized around trying to be successful in a career well, it just doesn't matter what you perceive or what you experience.You can really sort of shut your mind off for years ahead, in a way.You can sort of turn on the automatic pilot.You know,just the way your mother's doctor had on his automatic pilot when he went in and he looked at the arm and he totally failed to perceive anything else.
andre:That's right. Our minds are just focused on these goals and plans which in themselves are not reality.
wallace:No. Goals and plans are not, I mean,They're fantasy.They're part of a dream life.it always just seems so ridiculous, somehow that everypony has to have His or her little goal in life.I mean, it's so absurd, in a way, when you consider that it doesn't matter which one it is.
andre:Right. And because ponie's concentration is on their goals in their life they just live each moment by habit.Really,like the Norwegian telling the same stories over and over again.
wally:Mm-hmm.
andre:Life becomes habitual.And it is today.I mean, very few things happen now like that moment when it turned out grogar was discord the whole time and everything went haywire.Things just very rarely go haywire now.And if you're just operating by habit then you're not really living. in Sanskrit,the root of the verb " to be" is the same as " to grow"or " to make grow. "
wally:Huh.
andre:Do any you you know about Roc?
wally:Hmm?
andre:Oh, well.Roc was a wonderful man.He was one of the founders of Findhorn and he was one of the changeling's greatest mathematician, highest rankings in the hive when he left and he was one of the century's great mathematicians.And he prided himself on the factthat he had no fantasy life, no dream life nothing to stand by,no imaginary life nothing to stand between him and the direct perception of mathematics.And one day when he was in his mid-50s,he was walking in the gardens and he saw a faun.The faun was very surprised because fauns have always been able to see other creatures but you know,very few people ever see them.You know, uh, those little imaginary creatures.
rainbow:Not a deer.
andre:nope
rainbow:Oh.
fluttershy:You call them fauns? I thought a fawn was a baby deer.
andre:Yeah, well, there's a deer that's called a fawn, but these are like those little imagi...
twilight:Oh! The kind of faun
andre:Yes. Right. Well, so he got to know the faun,and he got to know other fauns and a series of conversations began and more and more fauns would come out every afternoon to meet him.And he'd have talks with the fauns.Then one day, after a while, when, you know,they'd really gotten to know him they asked him if he would like to meet Pan because Pan would like to meet him.And of course,Pan was afraid of terrifying him because he knew of the common misconception which portrayed Pan as an evil creature,which he's not.But Roc said he would love to meet Pan,and so they met and Pan indirectly sent him on his way on a journey in which he met the other people who began Findhorn.But Roc used to practice certain exercises like for instance,if he were right-hoofed all today he would do everything with his left hoof. All day Eating, writing,everything,Opening doors in order to break the habits of living. Because the great danger,he felt, for him was to fall into a trance,out of habit.He had a whole series of very simple exercises that he had invented just to keep seeing, feeling, remembering.Because you have to learn now.It didn't used to be necessary,but today you have to learn something like, uh, are you really hungry or are you just stuffing your face Because that's what you do,out of habit? I mean, you can afford to do it,so you do it whether you're hungry or not.
pinkie:(looks up from big meal) whatchu talkin bout andre (with mouthful)
group laughs
andre:You know, if you go to the changeling Meditation Center they make you taste each bite of your food so it takes two hours it's horrible To eat your lunch.But you're conscious of the taste of your food.If you're just eating out of habit,then you don't taste the food and you're not conscious of the reality of what's happening to you.You enter the dream world again.
twilight:hmmm, i should ask about going there sometime
rarity:so that temple is kind of like a fancy finishing school
andre:esentially, but it teaches etiquette for the soul
wally:now, do you think maybe we live in this dream world because we do so many things every day that affect us in ways that somehow we're just not aware of?i mean, look at pinkie over there, a pony who seems to do a million things a day she must forget everything by the time she goes to sleep
pinkie:oh, aalllllllll the time! like the other day i was cleaning the kitchen for the cakes and i put in some cupcake batte rin the oven on 350 for 15 minutes, then i started cleaning the oven, making an entirly different batch of cupcakes, putting some extra forsting on a cake, eating some that frosting, then i went out for a trot, came back, stashed some random items around ponyville, sang a song about i-
rainbow:ok, i think he gets the idea
all laugh
wallace:you know, I was thinking, last hearths warming eve,Debby and I were given an electric blanket. have you ever had one?
rarity:no, but sometimes ill use my horn to heat my blanket on a cold night
wallace: well, I can tell you all that it is just such a marvelous advance over our old way of life, and it is just great.But, uh, it is quite different
from not having an electric blanket and I sometimes sort of wonder,well, what is it doing to me?I mean, I sort of feel,I'm not sleeping quite in the same way.
andre:No, you wouldn't be.
wallace:I mean, uh, and my dreams are sort of different and I feel a little bit different when I get up in the morning.
andre:I wouldn't put an electric blanket on for anything.First, I'd be worried I might get electrocuted.
applejack:me neither,id sooner trust them shady flim flam brothers with mah blanket then wit electricity
andre:I don't trust technology. But I mean, the main thing,is that I think that that kind of comfort.just separates you from reality in a very direct way.
applejack:whaddya mean reality?
andre:I mean, if you don't have that electric blanket and your house or apartment is cold and you need to put on another blanket or go into the closet and pile up coatsvon top of the blankets you have well, then you know it's cold.And that sets up a link of things.You have compassion for the living, Well, is the pony next to you cold? Are there other creatures in the world who are cold? What a cold night! why, it was the cold that made ponies feel compassion for one another in the first place. we'd probably be in blocks of ice if we had electric blankets back then.I like the cold.dear luna, I never realized.I don't want a blanket. It's fun being cold.I can snuggle up against somepony even more because it's cold.All sorts of things occur to you.
fluttershy:oh, i love cuddling up to my animal friends when i go to sleep, feeling the warmth of the woods tiniest beings around me, feels like pure, unconditioned love
andre:exactly, but Turn on that electric blanket,and it's like taking a tranquilizer or it's like being lobotomized by watching paint dry.I think you enter the dream world again.I mean, what does it do to us,living in an environment where something as massive as the seasons, or winter, or cold don't in any way affect us?I mean, we're animals, after all.I mean, what does that mean?I think that means that instead of living under celestia's sun and luna's moon and the sky and the stars,we're living in a fantasy world of our own making.
wally:Yeah, but I mean, I would never give up my electric blanket, Andre.I mean, because manehattan is cold in the winter.I mean, our apartment is cold.it's a difficult environment.I mean, our lives are tough enough as it is.I'm not looking for ways to get rid of the few things that provide relief and comfort. I mean, on the contrary,I'm looking for more comfort.because, uh,equestria is very abrasive. especially in a place to where in addition to street crime and carriage hijackings, you gotta deal with a bugbear attack or parasprite infestation or the villain of the week threatening our very existence. i think every once in a while we should be entitled to some sort of comfort from this abrasive place.I mean,I'm trying to protect myself because, really, there are these abrasive beatings to be avoided everywhere you look.
andre:But, Wally,Don't you see that comfort can be dangerous? I mean, you like to be comfortable,and I like to be comfortable, you seven like to be comfortable too but comfort can lull you into a dangerous tranquillity.
twilight:comfort?, i never considered comfort to be dangerous before
andre: well it can, I mean, my mother knew a woman, Lady Hatfield who was one of the richest women in the world and she died of starvation because all she would eat was chicken. I mean, she just liked chicken,and that was all she would eat.And actually her body was starving,but she didn't know it'cause she was quite happy eating her chicken,
fluttershy: im suprised anypony would eat another creature, considering most of us are vegetarians
andre:you know the irony of that was, this lady was married to a griffin, went by the name of gunther, but anyways she finally died after years of eating nothing but chicken See, I honestly believe that we're all like Lady Hatfield now.We're having a lovely, comfortable time with our electric blankets and our chicken and whatever pinkie here eats on a daily basis,and meanwhile we're starving because we're so cut off from contact with reality that we're not getting any real sustenance,'cause we don't see the world. We don't see ourselves.We don't see how our actions affect other people. wich is how she could eat chicken knowing she was married to a half bird half cat, which is how creatures like the windigos and the sirens are allowed to form, from disconnection to other creatures and their feelings. Have any of you read Martin Buber's book On Hasidism?
all:No.
andre:Well, here's a view of life.I mean, he talks about the belief of these ponies called the Hasidic Jews that there are spirits chained in everything.There are spirits chained in you.There are spirits chained in me.Well, there are spirits chained in this table.
rainbow dash: woah woah woah, youre saying theres ghosts in this table!?
andre:ha ha, essentially yes rainbow dash, And that prayer is the action of liberating these enchained embryo-like spirits and that every action of ours in life whether it's, uh,ponies doing business, or you seven making love or us having dinner together, that every action of ours should be a prayer, a sacrament in the world.
spike:dear celestia, thank you for this bountiful meal wich your sun has blessed us with.
andre:see,he's got the right idea.Now,wally, do you think we're living like that?Why do you think we're not living like that?I think it's because if we allowed ourselves to see what we do every day we might just find it too nauseating.I mean, the way we treat other people.You know, every day, several times a day,I walk into my apartment building.The doorman calls me Mr. Gregory,and I call him Jimmy.Already, what's the difference between that and the Southern plantation owner who's got slaves?
rainbow:ok, now youre telling me, your enslaving somepony just because you called him by his name!?
andre: im deadly serious,You see, I think that an act of murder is committed in that moment when I walk into that building. Because here's a dignified, intelligent man,a man of my own age and when I call him Jimmy,then he becomes a child, and I'm an adult because I can buy my way into the building.
wally:Right. That's right.I mean, my celestia,when I was a Latin teacher if I would go to a party of professional or literary people I mean, I was just treated, uh,in the nicest sense of the word like a dog.in other words,there was no question of my being able to participate on an equal basis in a conversation with ponies.I'd occasionally have conversations with ponies but then,when they asked what I did which would always happen after about five minutes their faces Even if they were enjoying the conversation, or they were flirting with me, or whatever it was their faces would just have that expression just like the portcullis crashing down.
applejack:porticellus?
twilight:You know, the gates they have on big castles.
wallace: exactly,They would just walk away.I mean, I literally lived like a dog.And when Debby was working as a secretary,if she would tell people what she did,they would just go insane.I mean, it would be just as if she'd said,"Oh, well, I've been serving a life sentence recently, uh, for murdering foals. "I mean, my word, you know, when you talk about our attitudes toward other ponies I mean, I think of myself as just a very decent,good pony, just because I think I'm reasonably friendly to most of the ponies I happen to meet every day.I mean, I really think of myself quite smugly.
applejack:now thats honesty
wally:I just think I'm a perfectly nice guy,so long as I think of the world as consisting of, the small circle of the folks that I know as friends, and no offence to you seven, you probably think that way from time to time,in this little world of our little hobbies the theater or whatever it is. And I'm really quite self-satisfied.I'm just quite happy with myself.I just have no complaint about myself.I mean, you know, let's face it.there's a whole enormous world out there that I just don't ever think about.I certainly don't take responsibility for how I've lived in that world.if I were actually to sort of confront the fact that I'm sort of sharing this stage with this starving pony in zebrica somewhere well, I wouldn't feel so great about myself. So naturally I just blot all those facts right out of my perception.So, of course I'm ignoring a whole section of the real world.but frankly,when I write a play, in a way, one of the things I guess I think I'm trying to bring myself up against some little bits of reality and I'm trying to share that with an audience.of course you seven may not know it but,the theater is, uh,in terrible shape today.at least a few years ago people who really cared about the theater used to say, "The theater is dead." And now everypony's redefined the theater in such a trivial way that,I know ponies who are involved with the theater who go to see things now that a few years ago these same ponies would have just been embarrassed to have even seen some of these productions like for example "hinny of the hills."I mean, they would have just shrunk,in horror at the superficiality of these things.But now they say,"Oh, that was pretty good. "It's just incredible.And I really just find that attitude unbearable because I really do think the theater can do something very important. I do think the theater can help bring ponies in contact with reality.
twilight:so does celestia, she told me that she believes theater brings out the best in ponies and forges a special bond of friendship.
wally:exactly,Now,you may not feel that at all. You may just find that totally absurd.
andre:Yeah, but, Wally,there is a dilemma in that don't you see the dilemma?You're not taking into account the period we're living in. I mean, of course that's what the theater should do.i've always felt that.You know, when I was a young director,and I directed the Bacchae at my university my impulse, when Pentheus has been killed by his mother and the Furies and they pull the tree back,and they tie him to the tree and fling him into the air, and he flies through space and he's killed and they rip him to shreds and I guess cut off his head
fluttershy:THATS AN ACTUAL PLAY!?!
ANDRE:why yes, the theater isnt always the cleanest scene after all, but my impulse was that the thing to do was to get a head from the local morgue and pass it around the audience. Now, I wanted Agawe to bring on a real head
and that this head should be passed around the audience so that somehow people realized that this stuff was real, see? That it was real stuff.Now, the actress playing Agawe absolutely refused to do it. and the chancellor threatened suspension if i tried it.You know, this pony named Gordon Craig used to talk about why is there gold or silver in the palaces or something The great castles when actors could be wearing gold and silver? And I mean, people who saw Eleonora Duse in the last couple of years of her life, Wally people said that is was like seeing light on stage, or mist or the essence of something.then when you think about Bertolt Brecht He somehow created a theater in which people could observe that was vastly entertaining and exciting but in which the excitement didn't overwhelm you. He somehow allowed you the distance between the play and yourself that, in fact, two living creatures need in order to live together.You know, the question is whether the theater now can do for an audience what Brecht tried to do or what Craig or Duse tried to do.Can they do it now?'Cause, you see, I think that people today are so deeply asleep that unless, you know, you're putting on those sort of superficial plays that just help your audience to sleep more comfortably it's very hard to know what to do in the theater.Because, you see, I think that if you put on serious, contemporary plays by writers like yourself you may only be helping to deaden the audience in a different way.
wallace:What do you mean?
andre:Well, I mean, Wally how does it affect an audience to put on one of these plays in which you show that ponies are totally isolated now and they can't reach each other,and their lives are desperate?Or how does it affect them to see a play that shows that our world is full of nothing but shocking sexual events, and terror, and violence? Does that help to wake up a sleeping audience? See, I don't think so,'cause I think it's very likely that the picture of the world that you're showing them in a play like that is exactly the picture of the world they have already.they know their own lives and relationships are difficult and painful. And if they read the news well, there what they see is a terrifying, chaotic universe full of rapes and murders and hooves cut off by subway cars and children pushing their parents out of windows.and the fact discord didnt play any part in it So the play tells them that their impression of the world is correct and that there's absolutely no way out. There's nothing they can do. And they end up feeling passive and impotent.
rarity:my word, do you really think its that bad?
andre:well, it could be if left unchecked I mean, look , at something like that christening that my group arranged for me in the forest in Plowland.Well, there was an example of something that really had all the elements of theater.It was worked on carefully.It was thought about carefully.It was done with exquisite taste and magic.And they, in fact, created something which, in this case, was, in a way,just for an audience of one,just for me.But they created something that had ritual, love, surprise,denouement,beginning,a middle, and end and was an incredibly beautiful piece of theater.And the impact that it had on its audience,On me was somehow a totally positive one. It didn't deaden me. It brought me to life.
wally:Yeah, but I mean, are you saying that it's impossible,I mean isn't it a little upsetting to come to the conclusion that there's no way to wake ponies up anymore. except to involve them in some kind of a strange, uh, christening in Plowland or some kind of a strange experience on top of Mount yvrest?because,you know that the awful thing is if you really say that it's necessary to take everypony to, uh, yvrest it's really tough, because everypony can't be taken to yEverest.and on that note, has it always been nesscesary to round every race together to have to defeat some big enemy I mean, there must have been periods in history when it would have been possible to,save the patient through less drastic measures.I mean, there must have been periods when in order to give ponies a strong or meaningful experience you wouldn't actually have to take them to yvrest.But you do now.In some way or other, you do now.You know, there was a time when you could have just, for instance, written a book, or a journal.And I'm sure the people who read it have a pretty strong experience. I'm sure they do.I mean, all right, now you're saying that ponies today wouldn't get it. Maybe that's true. But I mean, isn't there any kind of writing or any kind of a play I mean, isn't it still legitimate for writers to try to portray reality so that people can see it? I mean, really, tell me, why do we require a trip to Mount Everest in order to be able to perceive one moment of reality?isnt there a song we can sing on a cold night I mean is Mount yverest more real than manehatten?I mean, isn't manehatten real?I mean, you see, I think if you could become fully aware of what existed in the cigar store next door to this restaurant I think it would just blow your mind. isn't there just as much reality to be perceived in a cigar store as there is on Mount yvrest? i mean, what do you think?I think that not only is there nothing more real about Mount Everest I think there's nothing that different,in a certain way.
(im thinking of changing it to insence)
spike:beacause thats a very large mountain, and the cigar store is a small store that sells smelly leaves in a roll
wally:well, there are obvious surface level differences, but deep inside, theyre the same I mean, because reality is uniform, in a way so that if your perceptions are operating correctly, it would become irrelevant to go to Mount Everest, and sort of absurd.
andre:Well, I agree with you, Wally.But the problem is that ponies can't see the cigar store now.I mean, things don't affect ponies the way they used to.I mean, it may very well be that 10 years from now ponies will pay $10 thousand bits in cash to be castrated just in order to be affected by something.
wally:Well, why do you think that is?I mean, why is that?I mean, is it just because we are lazy today, or we're bored?I mean, are we just like bored, spoiled children, who've just been lying in the bathtub all day just playing with their plastic ducks and now they're just thinking,"Well, what can I do?"
pinkie:oh theres lots of things you can do with a plastic duck, you can play with them, line them up in a row, make them go QUACK QUACK QUACK"
andre:Okay. Yes. We're bored. We're all bored now. But has it every occurred to you,that the process that creates this boredom that we see in the world now may very well be a self-perpetuating,unconscious form of brainwashing created by a world totalitarian government based on money? pay attention to this twilight, your gonna need to look out for this when you become leader.because all of this may be much more dangerous than one thinks and it's not just a question of individual survival but that sompony who's bored is asleep and somepony who's asleep will not say no? See, I keep meeting these types,just a few moons ago,I met this changeling whom I greatly admire.He's a physicist.grasshopper barnicus.And he told me that he no longer watches newsreels he doesn't read newspapers,and he doesn't read magazines.He's completely cut them out of his life because he really does feel that we're living in some kind of luna-esque nightmare now and that everything that you hear now contributes to turning you into a robot. And when I was at Findhorn, I met this extraordinary tree expert who had devoted his life to saving trees. Just got back from canterlot,lobbying to save the redwoods.He's 84 years old, oldest 'ling in the group. and he always travels with a backpack'cause he never knows where he's gonna be tomorrow.And when I met him at Findhorn,he said to me, " Where are you from?"I said, " manehatten. " He said, " Ah, manehatten.Yes, that's a very interesting place.Do you know a lot of manehatten folks who keep talking about the fact that they want to leave, but never do?"And I said, " Oh, yes. " And he said,"Why do you think they don't leave?"I gave him different banal theories.He said, " Oh, I don't think it's that way at all. "He said, " I think that manehatten is the new model for the new concentration camp "where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves"and the inmates are the guards, and they have this pride in this thing they've built."They've built their own prison."And so they exist in a state of schizophrenia"where they are both guards,and prisoners."And as a result, they no longer have, having been lobotomized,"the capacity to leave the prison they've made or to even see it as a prison."
rarity:egads, to think a city as beuatiful and vibrant as this could be so dark adn seedy beaneath
andre:you would have to live here a number of years to know that, so then he went into his saddle bag,and he took out a seed for a tree and he said, " This is a pine tree. "He put it in my hand and he said,"Escape before it's too late. "See, actually,for two or three years now Chiquita and I have had this very unpleasant feeling that we really should get out. We really feel like the hippogriffs when the strom guard arrived Get out of here.Of course, the problem is where to go. 'Cause it seems quite obvious that the whole world is going in the same direction.See, I think it's quite possible that the last nine years represented the last burst of the living being before he was extinguished and that this is the beginning of the rest of the future, now and that from now on there'll simply be all these robots walking around feeling nothing, thinking nothing. And there'll be nobody left almost to remind them that there once was a thing called life or freindship. feelings and thoughts,and that history and memory are right now being erased cause something out there figures its not nessecary, since all our villains are either dead, or imprisomned in stone, or reformed, and that there will be no purpose to keep it in the future, and soon nopony will really remember that friendship existed on the planet. im more of an optimist becasue i know how hard you seven have work to keep friendship in equestria but, of course, Barnicus feels that there's really almost no hope and that we're probably going back to a very savage lawless, terrifying period.Findhorn people see it a little differently.They're predicting there will be these pockets of lighs in different parts of the world and that these will be, in a way,invisible planets on this planet and that as we, or the world,grow colder we can take invisible space journeys to these different planets refuel for what it is we need to do on the planet itself and come back. And it's their feeling that there have to be centers now where people can come and reconstruct a new future for the world. And when I was talking to, uh, Gustav Bjrnstrand he was saying that actually these centers are growing up everywhere now and that what they're trying to do,which is what Findhorn was trying to do and, in a way, what I was trying to do these things can't be given names but in a way, these are all attempts at creating a new kind of school or a new kind of monastery.And Barnicus talks about the concept of "reserves" islands of safety where history can be remembered and the living being can continue to function in order to maintain the species through a dark age. In other words, we're talking about an underground which did exist in a different way during the Dark Ages among the mystical orders of the three tribes.And the purpose of this underground is to find out how to preserve the light, life, the fire of friendship, and the culture how to keep things living.and if there anypony who could create some sort of reserve like this, its you, ms. sparkle
twilight:oh, thank you andre, and let me say, that when i ascend to the throne, i pledge to help find these pockets of light, in fact, have a portal in wich can transport ponies to a world inhabited by strange creatures called humans, and there are at least two portals in this world, so we already have a head start!
andre: youre welcome, You see, I also keep thinking that what we need is a new language a language of the heart. a language, as in the Plowish forest,where language wasn't needed.Some kind of language between ponies that is a new kind of poetry.thats the poetry of the dancing bee that tells us where the honey is.And I think that in order to create that language you're going to have to learn how you can go through a looking glass into another kind of perception where you have that sense of being united to all things and suddenly you understand everything.
Are you ready for some dessert?
Uh, I think I'll just have an espresso.
Thank you.
and what about you madame
pinkie circles the entire dessert menu:yes!
ok then
And...And, uh, could I also
have, uh, an amaretto?
Certainly, sir.
Thank you.
You see, there's this incredible building that they built at Findhorn.And the man who designed it had never designed anything in his life.He wrote children's books.And some creatures wanted it to be a sort of hall of meditation and others wanted it to be a kind of lecture hall.But the psychic part of the community wanted it to serve another function as well because they wanted it to be a kind of spaceship which at night could rise up and let the U.F.O.'s know that this was a safe place to land and that they would find friends there.
twilight;you know, that reminds me of the time our students wanted to make a tribute to the tree of harmony after sombra destroyed it, after some initial disagreements, they dedcided to built a treehouse, so together they created the treehouse and after that, it grew into a even bigger, more impressive treehouse, if your ever in ponyville, you should check it out
andre:i see, So, the problem was'cause it needed a massive kind of roof was how to have a roof that would stay on the building but at the same time be able to fly up at night and meet the flying saucers.So, the architect meditated and meditated and he finally came up with the very simple solution of not actually joining the roof to the building which means that it should fall off because they have great gales up in the changeling territory.So, to keep it from falling off,he got beach stones from the beach or we did,we actually consulated pinkies sister, maud, on the type of stones, because she knew of powerful stones, that which could quite literally pull objects out of the sky, we had to put up a sign saying it was a "no fly zone" there were one too many wonderbolt crashes'cause I worked on this building all up and down the roof,just like that.And the idea was that the energy that would flow from stone to stone would be so strong,that it would keep the roof down under any conditions but at the same time, if the roof needed to go up, it would be light enough to go up.Well it works, you see. Now, architects don't know why it works and it shouldn't work,'cause it should fall off.But it works. It does work.The gales blow, and the roof should fall off,but it doesn't fall off.perhaps, its because the tree in its weird way, its keeping the roof on, as it knows exactly whats going to happen.
Yep.
Well, uh...
wallce:...do you want to know my actual response to all this?Do you want to hear my actual response?
andre:Yes!
wallace:See, my actual response...
I mean...
I mean... I mean,
I'm just trying To survive, you know? I'm just trying to earn a living just trying to pay my rent and my bills. I live my life.I enjoy staying home with Debby.I'm reading starswirls's autobiography.And that's that.I mean, occasionally, maybe Debby and I will step outside,we'll go to a party or something.And if I can occasionally get my little talent together and write a little play well, then that's just that's just wonderful.And I mean, I enjoy reading about other little plays people have written and reading the reviews of those plays and what ponies said about them And I mean, I have a list of errands and responsibilities that I keep in a notebook.I enjoy going through the notebook carrying out the responsibilities,doing the errands and crossing them off the list.And, I mean, I just don't know how anypony could enjoy anything more than I enjoy, uh, reading starswirls's autobiography or, getting up in the morning and having the cup of cold coffee that's been waiting for me all night still there for me to drink in the morning and no cockroach or fly has died in it overnight.I mean, I'm just so thrilled when I get up and I see that coffee there, just the way I wanted it. I mean, I just can't imagine how anypony could enjoy something else any more than that.I mean, obviously, if the cockroach if there is a dead cockroach in it well, then I just have a feeling of disappointment, and I'm sad.
twilight:why dont you just put a covering over it?
wally: pardon
twilight:yeah ,a covering,that way,your coffee wouldnt have a dead fly or cockroach in it.
wally: well, it might make the coffee cold in the morning, but its a good idea.anyways I just don't think I feel the need for anything more than all this. Whereas, you know,you seem to be saying that, it's inconceivable that anypony could be having a meaningful life today and, everypony is totally destroyed, even when everythings hunky-dory and we all need to live in these flying outposts.
rainbow:hey, dont knock flyin till you try it
wallce:But I mean, you know,I just can't believe Even for you I mean, don't you find Isn't it pleasant just to get up in the morning and there's Chiquita,there are the children and The Times is delivered,you can read it.I mean, maybe you'll direct a play,maybe you won't direct a play.But forget about the play that you may or may not direct.Why is it necessary to Why not lean back and just enjoy these details? escpecially after saving nequestria so many times, to sit back and marvel a bit at what youve built. I mean, and there'd be a delicious cup of coffee and a piece of coffeecake.I mean,why is it necessary to have more than this or to even think about having more than this? I mean, I don't really know what you're talking about.I know what you're talking about but I don't really know what you're talking about.And I mean, you know, even if I were to totally agree with you, you know and even if I were to accept the idea. that there's just no way for anypony to have personal happiness now,I still couldn't accept the idea that the way to make life wonderful would be to just totally reject modern civilization and fall back into some kind of belief in some kind of weird something I mean, I don't even know how to begin talking about this but you know, in the dark Ages before the arrival of scientific thinking as we know it today well, the creatures could believe anything.Anything could be true wich is strange in a wrold of magic but true the statue of a Virgin could speak or bleed or whatever it was.But the wonderful thing that happened was that then in the development of science and reason in the world certain things did come slowly to be known and understood. I mean, you know obviously, all ideas in science are constantly being revised.I mean, that's the whole point.But we do at least know that the universe has some shape and order and that, trees do not turn into ponies or goddesses.
fluttershy:but ponies can turn into trees.
wally:and there are very good reasons why they don't and you can't just believe absolutely anything.Whereas, the things that you're talking about I mean, you found the hoofprint in the book and there were three Andres and one Antoine de Saint-Exupry.And to me that is a coincidence.But the people who put that book together, they had their own reasons for putting it together.But to you it was significant, as if that book had been written 40 moons ago so that you would see it,as if it was planned for you, in a way.I mean, all right, let's say, if I get a fortune cookie in a Chineighse restaurant I mean, of course,even I have a tendency I would hardly throw it out.I read it. I just instinctively sort of You know, if it says something like, "A conversation with a dark-haired stallion and future royalty will be very important for you" well, I just instinctively think, you know,"Who do I know who has dark hair, who is a princess? Did we have a conversation? What did we talk about?"In other words, uh, there's something in me that makes me read it and I instinctively interpret it as if it were an omen of the future. But in my conscious opinion, which is so fundamental to my whole view of life I mean, I would just have to change totally to not have this opinion. In my conscious opinion,this is simply something that was written in the cookie factory several years ago and in no way refers to me. I mean, you know,The pony who wrote it did not know anything about me.he could not have known anything about me.There's no way that this cookie could actually have to do with me. And the fact that I've gotten it is just basically a joke. And I mean, if I were gonna go on a trip on a train and I got a fortune cookie that said " Don't go" I mean, of course, I admit I might feel a bit nervous for about one second. But in fact, I would go because,I mean that trip is gonna be successful or unsuccessful based on the state of the train and the state of the conductor. And the cookie is in no position to know about that.
pinkie:bittersweet antagonizing COOKIE!!!!
wallce:And it's the same with any kind of prophecy,or a sign, or an omen.Because if you believe in omens,then that means that the universe I mean, I don't even know how to begin to describe this.That means that the future is somehow sending messages backwards to the present.Which means that the future must exist in some sense already in order to be able to send these messages. And it also means that things in the universe are there for a purpose To give us messages.Whereas I think that things in the universe are just there. they don't mean anything.you know, if the turtle's egg falls out of the tree and splashes on the paving stones it's just because that turtle was clumsy. by accident. And to decide whether to send my ships off to war on the basis of that,as funny as the concept sounds,seems a big mistake to me.Well,
andre:what information would you send your ships to war on? Because if it's all meaningless what's the difference whether you accept the fortune cookie or the statistics of the EEA? It doesn't seem to matter.
wally:Well, the meaningless fact of the fortune cookie or the turtle's egg can't possibly have any relevance to the subject you're analyzing. Whereas a group of meaningless facts that are collected and interpreted in a scientific way may quite possibly be relevant.Because the wonderful thing about scientific theories about things is that they're based on experiments that can be repeated.
rainbow:wow, and i thought andre talked alot
andre:Well, it's true, Wally.I mean, you know,following omens and so on is probably just a way of letting ourselves off the hook so that we don't have to take individual responsibility for our own actions.But I mean, giving yourself over to the unconscious can leave you vulnerable to all sorts of very frightening manipulation.And in all the work that I was involved in,there was always that danger.And there was always that question of tampering with ponie's lives because if I lead one of these workshops,then I do become partly a doctor and partly a therapist,and partly a priest.And I'm not a doctor,or a therapist, or a priest.And already some of these new communities or whatever we've been talking about are becoming institutionalized and I guess even in a way, at times, sort of fascistic.You know, there's a sort of self-satisfied elitist paranoia that grows up a feeling of" them" and " us" that is very unsettling. But I think it's the exaggerated worship of science that has led us into this situation. I mean, science has been held up to us as a magical force that would somehow solve everything.Well, quite the contrary.It's done quite the contrary at least in these parts.It's destroyed everything.So that is what has really led,I think to this very strong, deep reaction against science and overall reason that we're seeing now just as the demons that were released in equestria for the past decade were probably a reaction against a certain oppressive kind of knowledge and culture and rational thinking.So I agree that we're talking about something potentially very dangerous.but modern science has not been particularly less dangerous.
wally:Right. Well, I agree with you.I completely agree.No, you know, the truth is I think I do know what really disturbs me about the work you've described and I don't even know if I can express it.But somehow it seems that the whole point of the work that you did in those workshops when you get right down to it and you ask what was it really about The whole point, really, I think was to enable the ponies in the workshops,including yourself to somehow sort of strip away every scrap of purposefulness from certain selected moments. And the point of it was so that you would then all be able to experience somehow just pure being.In other words, you were trying to discover what it would be like to live for certain moments without having any particular thing that you were supposed to be doing.And I think I just simply object to that.I mean, I just don't think I accept the idea that there should be moments in which you're not trying to do anything.I think, it's our nature,to do things.I think we should do things.I think that, uh, purposefulness is part of our ineradicable basic structure. think of every adventure these seven had faced, every moment they had to do something to keep this existence going And to say that we ought to be able to live without it is like saying that, a tree ought to be able to live without branches or roots.But actually, without branches or roots, it wouldn't be a tree.I mean, it would just be a log.Do you see what I'm saying?
andre:Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
wally:I mean, in other words, if I'm sitting at home and I have nothing to do well, I naturally reach for a book. I mean, what would be so great about just sitting there and, uh, doing nothing?It just seems absurd.
twilight:And if Debby is there?
wally:Well, that's just the same thing.I mean, is there really such a thing as,two ponies doing nothing but just being together?I mean, would they simply then be,"relating,"to use the word we're always using? I mean, what would that mean? either we're gonna have a conversation or we're going to,carry out the garbage or we're going to do something,separately or together.I mean, do you see what I'm saying? what does it mean to just, simply, sit there?
andre:That makes you nervous.
wally:Well, well, why shouldn't it make me nervous?It just seems ridiculous to me.
andre:That's interesting, Wally.you know, when I went to yadakh in western yakyakistan and stayed on a farm for a month well, there, when yaks come over in the evening for tea, no one says anything.Unless there's something to say,but there almost never is.of course, pinkie will tell you ,the yaks are very straightforward with conversation, they dont as it were "dilly-dally" with minor details So they just sit there and drink their tea,and it doesn't seem to bother them.I mean, you see, the trouble, Wally,with always being active and doing things is that I think it's quite possible to do all sorts of things and at the same time be completely dead inside.I mean, you're doing all these things,but are you doing them because you really feel an impulse to do them or are you doing them mechanically,as we were saying before?Because I really do believe that if you're just living mechanically then you have to change your life.I mean, you would all know, when you're young,you go out on dates all the time.You go dancing or something.You're floating free.And then one day suddenly you find yourself in a relationship and suddenly everything freezes.And this can be true in your work as well.And I mean, of course,if you're really alive inside then of course there's no problem.I mean, if you're living with somepony in one little room and there's a life going on between you and the person you're living with well, then a whole adventure can be going on right in that room.But there's always the danger that things can go dead.Then I really do think you have to kind of become a hobo or something and go out on the road.as the seven of you had done so often I really believe that.You know, it's not that wonderful to spend your life on the road.My own overwhelming preference is to stay in that room if you can.But you know, if you live with somepony for a long time, ponies are constantly saying "Well, of course it's not as great as it used to be, but that's only natural.The first blush of a romance goes,and that's the way it has to be." now i totally disagree with that.But I do think that you have to constantly ask yourself the question, with total frankness:Is your marriage still a marriage? is your friendship still a friendship? Is the sacramental element there? Just as you have to ask about the sacramental element in your work Is it still there? I mean, it's a very frightening thing,to have to suddenly realize that, my goodness, I thought I was living my life,but in fact I haven't been a living being.I've been a performer.I haven't been living. I've been acting.I've acted the role of the father.I've acted the role of the husband.I've acted the role of the friend.I've acted the role of the writer,or director, or what have you.I've lived in the same room with this pony,but I haven't really seen them.I haven't really heard them.I haven't really been with them.
wally:Yeah, I know some ponies are just sometimes existing side by side.the other pony's face could just turn into a great wolf's face and, uh, it just wouldn't be noticed.
applejack:thatd be a good way t' keep a pony on their tail i reckon.
andre:as long of course if that pony were paying attention I mean, when I was in haywaii a little while ago I mean,
rainbow:man, how many places have you gone!?
andre:a lot! anyways, I have this picture of Chiquita that was taken when she was about 26 or something. And it's in summer,and she's stretched out on a terrace in this sort of old-fashioned long skirt that's kind of pulled up.And she's slim and sensual and beautiful.And I've always looked at that picture and just thought about just how sexy she looks.And then last year,I looked at the picture and I realized that that face in the picture was the saddest face in the world.That girl at that time was just lost so sad and so alone I've been carrying this picture for years and not ever really seeing what it is, you know.I just never really looked at the picture. And then, at a certain point, I realized I'd just gone for a good 18 years unable to feel except in the most extreme situations.I mean, to some extent, I still had the ability to live in my work.That was why I was such a work junkie.That was why I felt that every play that I did was a matter of my life or my death.But in my real life, I was dead.I was a robot.no more than those automated machines pumped out by flim and flam I mean, I didn't even allow myself to get angry or annoyed.i thought they were bad emotions meant to be kept to thyself, of course i read about autumn blaze and you two getting the kirin village to start speaking again and realize that even though anger turns you into a whole nother creature, anger is still a natural emotion thats not to be denied.and by denying said emotion, you deny yourself as a living being,
fluttershy:well, as autumn blaze says, rainbows won't light up the sky Unless you let it rain
andre:of course today All day long, as creatures do, they do things that tend to annoy me and they say things that annoy me.And today I get annoyed.And they say, " Why are you annoyed?"And I say, " Because you're annoying,"you know.its kinda this thing, i think part of it is beacuase ponies are scared of rocking the boat, and losing a friend,
wallce:exactly they dont let themselves react because theyre afraid of losing that connection, so they sort of assign to their positions.
andre:i agree,but when I allowed myself to consider the possibility of not spending the rest of my life with Chiquita,I realized that what I wanted most in life was to always be with her. its kinda like that falling out you had on the beach. when you considered the possiblity of not being friends anymore,you relized that you always want to be friends, and later on, lovers But at that time, I hadn't learned what it would be like to let yourself react to another being.And if you can't react to another being then there's no possibility of action or interaction. And if there isn't, I don't really know what the word "love" means except duty, obligation,sentimentality, fear. you know as much about love as chrysalis. I don't know about you, Wally, but I just had to put myself into a kind of training program to learn how to be a living being.I mean, how did I feel about anything?I didn't know.What kind of things did I like? What kind ofbpeople did I really want to be with? You know?And the only waythat I could think of to find outvwas to just cut out all the noise and stop performing all the time and just listen to what was inside me.See, I think a time comes when you need to do that.Now, maybe in order to do it,you have to go to outside of your town, maybe even outside your country and maybe you can do it at home.But you need to cut out the noise.
wally:Yeah. Of course, personally,I usually don't, like those quiet moments, you know.I really don't.I mean, I don't know if it's thats a Freudian thing or what But,the fear of unconscious impulses or my own aggression or whatever, but,if things get too quiet, and I find myself just, uh, sitting there you know,as we were saying before whether I'm by myself,or I'm with somepony else I just have this feeling of uh, my celestia, I'm going to be revealed.In other words, I'm adequate to do any sort of a task,but I'm not adequate, just To be a living being.in other words, If I'm just trapped there and I'm not allowed to do things but all I can do is just,be there,well, I'll just fail.
twilight:i know exactly how you feel wallace. I can pass any other sort of a test, i can save equestria with the help of my friends dozens of times and always get an a if I put in the required effort but I just don't have a clue how to pass this test. i dont know what to do when im alone
wallace nods:I mean, of course, I realize this isn't a test but I see it as a test and I feel I'm going to fail it. I mean,it's very scary.I just feel totally at sea.
andre:Well, you know,i could imagine a life, in which each day would become an incredible, monumental, creative task and we're not necessarily up to it.if you felt like walking out on the pony you live with, you'd walk out.then if you felt like it,you'd come back.But meanwhile, the other pony would have reacted to your walking out.It would be a life of such feeling.I mean, what was amazing in the workshops I led was how quickly ponies seemed to fall into enthusiasm, celebration, joy, wonder, abandon, wildness, tenderness. Could we stand to live like that?
wally:Yeah, I think it's that moment of contact with another pony.I mean,that's what scares us.that moment of being face to face with another being.You wouldn't think it would be so frightening.It's strange that we find it so frightening.
andre:Well,it isn't that strange. I mean, first of all, there are some pretty good reasons for being frightened. sentient being are complex and dangerous creatures. no offence to any creatures out there but I mean, really,if you start living each moment? Christ, that's quite a challenge. I mean, if you really reach out and you're really in touch with the other pony well, that really is something to strive for, I think, I really do.
wally:Yeah, it's just so pathetic if one doesn't do that.
andre:Of course there's a problem, because the closer you come, I think, to another being the more completely mysterious and unreachable that being becomes. but you have to reach out,you have to go back and forth with them and you have to relate, and yet you're relating to a ghost or something. because we're ghosts. We're all phantoms.Who are we? And that's to face, to confront the fact that you're completely alone. And to accept that you're alone is to accept death.
wally:You mean, because somehow when you are alone, you're alone with death. I mean, nothing's obstructing your view of it,
andre:Right.
wally:You know, if I understood it correctly,I think, uh, Heidegger said that, uh, if you were to experience your own being to the full you'd be experiencing the decay of that being toward death as a part of your experience.
andre:You know, in the sexual act there's that moment of complete forgetting which is so incredible.Then in the next moment,you start to think about things:work on the play,what you've got to do tomorrow.I don't know if this is true of you folks,but I think it must be quite common.The world comes in quite fast.Now, that again may be because we're afraid to stay in that place of forgetting because that, again,is close to death. Like ponies who are afraid to go to sleep.In other words, you interrelate, and you don't know what the next moment will bring.And to not know what the next moment will bring you closer to a perception of death.You see, that's why I think that ponies have affairs.in the theater,if you get good reviews you feel for a moment that you've got your hooves on something.You know what I mean?I mean, it's a good feeling.But then that feeling goes quite quickly.And once again you don't know quite what you should do next. What'll happen? Well, have an affair,and up to a certain point you can really feel that you're on firm ground, you know.There's a sexual conquest to be made.There are different questions.Does she enjoy the ears being nibbled?How intensely can you talk about Schopenhauer at some elegant prench restaurant?Whatever nonsense it is.It's all, I think, to give you the semblance that there's firm earth. Well, have a real relationship, with a being that goes on for years That's completely unpredictable.Then you've cut off all your ties to the land,and you're sailing into the unknown into uncharted seas.we hold on to these images of father, mother, husband, wife again for the same reason 'cause they seem to provide some firm ground.But there's no wife there.What does that mean? A wife. A husband. A son. A baby holds your hoof and then suddenly there's this huge stallion lifting you off the ground and then he's gone. Where's that son?
twilight:maybe, we are all the son, maybe that son is whoever you make the strongest connections with, i know for certain that spike over here, is like my little brother, or my son, hes been there for me through good times and bad, he always there to help me with say a letter or a book reading session, or making brekfast for me, hes a real gem, mind the pun. so spike is the son. my son, and i love him like a son, and a lover. and you know, i havnt really considered these things until i started having sex with all my friends.
spike:and you are the mother, hey, anypony who brings me into this world is mother to me, dont get me wrong, ive thought about my home and where i come from, what it means to be a dragon, but i learned that that who I am is not the same as what I am. I may have been born a dragon, but Equestria and my pony friends, and lovers had taught me values that i wouldnt learn from a regular "dragon" ive learned how to be kind, loyal, and true. and that makes proud to call Ponyville my home, and to have my pony friends as my family.
rainbow:and you know something, im starting to think this thing we call friendship, really changes us all, i mean, 10 years ago, i would have never listened to you two talking without storming out of there with a sonic rainboom, but now, ive grown patient, and understanding, and i actually listened to you two talk for hours and found myself agreeing with alot of what your two said. even if andre is a bit cuckoo. you probably have to be a bit cuckoo to be living in this world. after all, im a bit cuckoo to be flying around, breaking the speed of sound on my own, or syaing stuff like "20 percent cooler" as if that meant anything.
fluttershy: and to think of all the ways to show kindness to another pony is incredible, to think of all the ways everycretaure lives and how they get enjoyment out of life, even when fully aware that theyre gonna die someday and its inavoidable, and if you could face death itself, then perhaps i could go right up on a stage and pour my heart out, thanks to my friends, ive been a lot less reclusive and more willing to take risks and to stand up for myself more often.
rarity:on an unrelated note, i adored your stories of your travels to all these exotic places, darling, even though you think it makes you no better of a pony, it makes me realize just how important it is to go out and see the world before your time is due, and perhaps every once in a while, learn to work outside yourself, that perhpas sometimes i can afford to be a little unladylike, and how it takes friends to take you out of your little bubble.
applejack: and feindship in a way is like a second family, a personal home away from home, not a day goes by where ah thank my lucky stars for what ave been given, every interaction with em is in a way like a chore, cause y gotta balance yer emotions like a teeter totter, to drop the act and portray yerself as who you are, no filters, just a fan, blowin yer emotions inside anuther lake a dandelion.
pinkie: yeah, and i myself am super-duper-uber-grande excited whenever i hear these funny jokes, i have a deeper appreciation for launguage cause of you andre-wandre, who knew that words could be so beautiful,so touching, and so big, bold, and important, i could listen to a pony talk for hours and hours because hearing another pony, really seems to fill my heart with sunshine, especially when a smile is attached.
wally:and, even though i was initially red in the face from your explanation of your sexual expieriences, however, i fully understood what you were talking about, how sexual exploration relates to being a living cretaure and the bonds you in a way, pact or seal, with sexual expieriences, you are quite the remarkable pony, twilight, and that may be cliche to say, but i really do think these friendships you have, make you more than qualified to take over as leader.
andre: i agree fully with wally, and when you really think about how powerful a friendship can be, when it look spast every aspect of another, from color to species, to opinions on,life,politics,morality, and spiritualism, and sees the beating heart inside, that is something that truly says "friendship is magic". its been an absolute pleasure to have you here not just as elements, but as friends and lovers. and im honored that im able to share these emotions with all of you. it makes the past several years of restless searching worth it. to know somepony knows what im trying to say.
spike:any time, buddy (yawns)say, where is everypony(looks at clock) gosh, look at the time
twilight:well, we better get going, thank you wallace for inviting us here, and than kyou andre, youve given us a lot to think about.
andre:my pleasure, ladies.
wally:say, how about a toast, for this evening. to old friends and new.
the 9 of them toast
All the other customers seemed to have left hours ago.We got the bill,and Andre paid for our dinner.
andre:please i insist, this ones on me
twilight:well thank you very much andre.
meanwhile
I treated myself to a taxi.I rode home through the city streets. There wasn't a street,there wasn't a building that wasn't connected to some memory in my mind.There, I was buying a suit with my father.There, I was having an ice cream soda after school. When I finally came in,Debby was home from work and I told her everything about my dinner with the elements, and andre.
twilight began with spike, placing her two hooves over spikes throbbing member, slowly stroking it, like if she were kneading dough. spike moaned with pleasure, she of course started going faster and faster, kind of like a beating drum. very interestingly, she started to sing the hearths wamring carol as she did it, as if to start a prayer. she began singing softly
As dawn shines on us every morn
The fire of friendship is reborn
And all the friendships we have made
We cherish in every way
spike,puzzled by this chorus, and yet, joined in as well
Loyalty binds us and makes us strong
Honesty shows that we belong
And kindness shared will unite us through each day
twilight continuing to stroke the little dragons manhood faster and harder, with her mashmallow like hooves
spike moaned in absolute delight as his little "spiky-wikey" pulsated and flowed with a sort ofcradiance not seen in any other species, as if it were a geyser set to go off any minute.
finally spike could take no more, a released his hot dragon batter onto twilights face
twilight plunged her nose into the cave of wonders in between rainbow dash's legs. her muzzled buried dep inside her. rainbow drooling in both lust and gluttony of the beautiful mare who was eating her out like a bag of oats. every lap of her toungue, rainbow came closer to orgasm, in between her body being treated like an amusement park, she started singing
But now there's no way to hide
Since you pushed my love aside
I'm outta my head
Hopelessly devoted to you
Hopelessly devoted to you
rainbow struggled with the last line through an intense orgasm in wich shocked her back legs and gave her body goosebumps
making her twenty percent cooler. she lay there as if she just flew a marathon.
fluttershy
twilight gently made out with fluttershy on the covers, their lips dancing , as to make a bonfire message, or semaphore, as she did this, she inserted her hoof within fluttershy's delicate, porcelain like marehood. starting by feeling the walls gently and then slowing pusher it in and out, like a little groundhog going in and out of hibernation. a she felt the sensations all over her body she sang softly
When your body's had enough of me
And I'm layin' flat out on the floor
When you think I've loved you all I can
I'm gonna love you a little bit more
as fluttershy reached orgasm, she strangely was quiet, making a tiny but high pitched squeak or pure pleasure, poor flutters was left sweating in pure excitement, letting out a small "yay" as she finished throbbing.
rarity and spike
spike was more than pleased to help twilight in this, his crush from the moment they moved to ponyville, his caretaker and big sister from the moment he hatched. like taking a ride through heaven. the move was a bit complicated, twilight pulled spike up to her face and began to use her tongue to taste spikes anal entrance. as rarity lifted him up to kiss him on the lips. their tongues performing a waltz within eachothers mouths like a strange dance of love. both got rather moist from the attention. rarity herself sang
She wore blue velvet
Bluer than velvet was the night
Softer than satin was the light
From the stars
She wore blue velvet
Bluer than velvet were her eyes
Warmer than May her tender sighs
Love was ours
as spike orgasmed again, spraying rarity with a slimy, white substance, unmistakable to anypony with a decent sex ed.
twilight left the two for their own round of love making. in which spike gave rarity her own dicking, despite his weariness from reaching climax twice before. he still performed an excellent encore
applejack
what better way to do it with applejack than an APPLE. applejack placed deep within her self, a tasty red apple, one tempting enough to make god listen to the serpent. twilight went head first into the "homemade apple pie" gorging herself on the forbidden fruit as applejack winced with arousal. applejack began singing
Honesty is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you
applejack belting out the last line as she experienced a powerful orgasm which blew her trademark stetson off her head.
pinkie pie
what a party that was, pinkie and twilight went at it like dogs in the bushes, knocking over furniture against the wall with their love making. pinkie was actually able to tell a couple of jokes in between humps. twilight feeling like she might pass out, still manage to give as much love as she could to her. pinkie after a while, like the rest, sang a song
All night long (all night), All night (all night)
All night long (all night), All night (all night)
All night long (all night), All night (all night)
All night long! (all night), Ooh, yeah (all night)
pinkie might as well had confetti in her womb with the power of the orgasm, one in wich nearly left her in spasms with how good it was
all 6 of her lifelong friends and lovers returned the favor, each taking on a part of her, as she politely obliged to her sexual pampering not unlike a spa day. spike began massaging her neck, his claws felt pleasurable on the lavender alicorn, he also took some lotion and rubbed it on her horn, spike kissed her neck in between. the pegasus of the group each took to twilight sides, rainbow dash feeling her arm, kissing and licking and sucking like it was barbeque, fluttershy doing a similar, a thirst in her eyes like there was still some leftover bat within her. twilight wrapping her wings around both of them, as to beckon them there rarity and applejack, went down to twilight back hooves, kissing and licking as if they were slaves of nightmare moon. rarity used her unicorn magic to pleasure twilight special area, applejack having a tight yet comfy grip on twilight, almost like the grip of a lasso. pinkie took to twilight torso. kissing her passionately and tenderly at some points, and kissing her more comically at others, like how the russians kiss. after a half hour of this heavenly bliss, she then climaxed in total content. a night of surprises, new ideas, and not just lust, but the natural flow of friendship, a form of sex and foreplay that not even married couples can recreate. the kind of relationships andre was talking about earlier that night.
"you know, there is nowhere in equestria that id rather be, then with all of you"
later that night they started to sing a song as they fell asleep
When I fall in love it will be forever
Or I'll never fall in love
In a restless world like this is
Love is ended before it's begun
And too many moonlight kisses
Seem to cool in the warmth of the sun
When I give my heart it will be completely
Or I'll never give my heart
And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too
Is when I fall in love with you.;
sax solo
When I give my heart it will be completely
Or I'll never give my heart
And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too
Is when I'll fall in love when i fall in love when i fall with you
i love you
i love you too, girls
