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..[[44.        A hunched figure scurries about, fingers grazing the stage. Dressed in a short cape and a shiny black helmet that reflects a fulvous horizon not present, he executes numerous briggantivolts while attempting to snatch a tiny platinum ball that darts by unknown impetus about the stage. Soon he careens after it into the wings, where a loud offstage crash ends the number.

45.          A yellow light pulses slowly in tandem with a loud gong. A woman rises out of a gap in stage center. Her platinum circlet recalls the elusive bauble seen prior. A shiny black ball circles her ankles unnoticed, while sinuous figures (each a single leg, a gilded hoof, and little else) emerge from opposite wings, hopping in step with the noise. They flank the woman and connect with her open palms. As they spring a step back, she laughs as though tickled and bends in reverse, unnaturally, at the chest. Her gauzy slip parts like a curtain, whereupon the flesh splits and does the same, exposing her abdominal cavity. There, in an arena marked out by a length of golden bowel, her luminous viscera cut a sequence of capers: The bladder begins with a clumsy pirouette as the gong changes to a tinny carillon in compound duple time. The kidneys then feign a wrestling bout, followed immediately by a cryptocapitonné from the pancreas, while the liver [kn] [………………]]] [As] the spleen balances atop its exhausted peers, the curtains of flesh and gauze close, followed by those of the stage.

46.          The lights fall on a mass of wooly flesh that churns to and fro inside a domed steel cage. Its bulk expands, coarse bristles scraping metal in time with a drum roll from the pit. Cymbals cue a symmetrical eruption of legs: one thrust from between each pair of bars. Spider-long but ending in hooves, they tap the stage in unison. The trunk bulges further, past the bars, until its hairy folds seem to ingest the cage. The beast’s legs retract in midair. Thus suspended, its boneless ripples suggest an aquatic scene, and as the lights dim, small shapes roll onstage that do recall the stars and jellies of an ocean floor. The largest, fringed with undulating flesh, is surely a nudibranch. Colored like a bruise, it attracts [……………] [..vering], the brute’s ga [………………..] […] until […………]….[[………[……………

[47.]            [..] flabb[y] man in a violet silk waistcoat. He can barely …..[………………………]]……[..] buttons, wh [……..] ..ms, […] tooth, and e[……..] [[-]kerchief] to his forehead and it too oozes betw[…….] [….]s, drawing l[..[…..[………[…]…………………..[………….[[.]………. ..[…..]……………….stai[….]….gg…….[……..[clott]…… ..[…..]……. s ropy strands, drai[[ ..[…]………………wrhh……………….

[48.][              ] [….] [det]ritus, now heaps of dark offal. A trio of maidens burst onstage, spinning and reeling in awkward varlephodobles with sporadic contretemps. Their green satin pantalettes fan out as they turn, collecting the filth around them, amassing small mounds, until each has a garden plot to wallow in. Once positioned, their pleated headdresses dilate into blossoms. The central girl, who is tallest, renews her dance, skimming dirt from her neighbors — this immediately makes her grow even taller and more robust. Accordingly sallow and wilting, the others work to retrieve their soil; doing so renews their size and vigor, until a reprisal from the larger flower shrivels them almost to death, much to the delight of the audience. They continue in this way until the flower to the left somehow monopolizes the dirt, towering over the others until they wilt into nothing. At the moment of her triumph, a bell jar descends and encloses her, ending the act.

49.        This number exemplifies the familiar hydro-foil, also known as the motif of the constipated fountain. Dominating the stage is a monumental façade made entirely of glass, housing a row of seven pillar-like siphons, all containing water, none full. Perpendicular to each is a lever affixed to a circular platform, like an enormous typewriter key. Surmounting the entire display is a grimacing glass mask composed of many curved parts, each in motion but for a spout in its mouth. Initially grinding clockwise, its eye-globes now dart to stage left, where a spindly imp bounds into view, landing on the leftmost key. A silver leotard leaves only his head exposed; a spinning ball fixed to his skullcap shows the moon’s phases in blue and platinum. The key’s depression causes the water in the connected siphon to rise, while falling in the adjoining vessels. Marking this, he raises one foot past his chin and leaps three keys to the right. As the process continues, the observant viewer will recognize in the key sequence a brutally simplified rendition of the traditional Bourréade Avant-Lunaire. The glass eyes roll, watching the mute recital, until the final chord, when the imp lands spread-eagled, a hand on C and a foot on G. This causes the water in E to surge all the way to the top, where it gushes from the mouth-spout, dousing the imp. Curtain.

50.          Spotlight on an ivory-faced adolescent, nude and torpid, strapped to an adjustable operating table. Placed above her like a lamp (but lacking any bul[b]..] […]r flame) is a cuplike glass receptacle. Its angular brass supports have odd fittings and continue impractically into the darkness rather than touch the floor. Whoever looms behind the table is clad in light-absorbent black cloth but for a pair of tight rubber gloves, so that only disembodied yellow hands appear to menace the subject. One holds a long needle over her chest, while the other tilts the table until the needle is directly in line with the receptacle — by now it is clear that this is sketch is a variant of the lazzo of the ghost trap. The needle penetrates [……] [[ki] [ between visible partitions of bone. The steady hand forces it deeper, provoking a shudder. With it, the flesh projects a gaseous but distinct figure — a rosy anthropomorphic mass — that shoots straight into the glass. Crouching there, its features become clearer: it is the girl’s spirit, alert and giggling as though over some prank. The wraith coils and springs back into its host, reviving it with an exaggerated spasm. The hands retreat from the light — then almost immediately return, now brandishing a new and more complicated instrument: trio of circular ]]].]]e[s m[o…] o[] .]n .bon[[….]]nd…]]e […….] -lyster giv[e]n………….]]………..[……………
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