By Jesusa Rodríguez

Translated by Roselyn Costantino

Inspired by the expulsion of the triumphant beast, Giordano Bruno.

In the beginning the earth was without form; Nothing could be seen in the darkness;There was only chaos. The Spirit of God played squash in the void…

Interlocutors: GOD and MOTHER NATURE

First Dialogue

GOD: Since, if in body, substance, and being nothing existed but men and women, varieties and vicissitudes, nothing would be good, nothing convenient, nothing delightful, nothing delicious.

MOTHER NATURE: Very well, Eternal Father, but why, if you are my Creator, did you make those “rare ones,” the ones they call “queers?” Why, Origin of Origins, did you make beings that go against nature? I can accept that there are bastards, eunuchs, madmen, mindless people, but why queers, my Father?

GOD: We simply see that all pleasure derives from certain difference, course, and movement. Given that it is tedious and sad if the only people to exist are ones with two testicles, and it is unpleasant and tiresome if the only ones to exist have two ovaries, then, that which gives us pleasure is the passing from one state to another with all its intersexual ambiguities. The state of venereal ardour torments us, the state of steaming lust afflicts us, therefore that which calms us is the passing from one to the other; in no absolute condition can pleasure be found. Fatigue is not pleasant, but it becomes so after rest.

MOTHER NATURE: If it is such, if in movement there is participation in that which is pleasurable as well as that which is bothersome, then there is no pleasure without a mixture of sadness.

GOD: And so it is. He who does not know the efficiency of pants and who then puts on a skirt, does not enjoy the breeze between his legs. In the same way, I, GOD, on certain occasions, becoming bored with my condition of being GOD, take a vacation and buy myself some Chanel and put it on. In the same way the cowboys find themselves a whore and distract themselves. To he who has lain down or sat, it is pleasurable to walk; to he who has walked, it is a relief to sit down. He who has spent much time locked in a closet finds pleasure on the balcony; and he who is fed up with stripping naked becomes a nun. Frequently eating a delicacy, as delicious as it may be, ends up causing nausea. And so it is satisfying to experience the mutation of one opposite into the other through activity, and the movement of one opposite to the other through its middle; and finally we see so much familiarity of the opposites amongst themselves that they become more comfortable among themselves than with their own kind. And so, “a straight who goes with another straight” is also homosexual.

MOTHER NATURE: And so it appears to me, since justice is not applied in the act but wherever the error lies, harmony exists only where there is contrariness; that which is spheric does not rest in the spheric but only touches on one point; but the concave, yes, rests on the convex.

Morally, then, why are there gays and lesbians if the arrogant cannot harmonize with the arrogant, the poor with the poor, the miserly with the miserly; but one finds pleasure with the humble, the other with the rich, another with the splendid. However, men find pleasure with men, women with women, and straights with straights. Therefore, all that you have professed is very true, but I would like to know, my GOD, why, for what end have you pronounced it to be so?

GOD: What I want to infer is that the beginning, the middle, and the end, birth, development, and the perfection we see all exist beginning with the diverse (queer), through, in and for the diverse (queer). And where there is difference there is action and reaction, movement, multiplicity, order, levels, succession, and vicissitude. Because no one who reasons soundly would ever knock down or exalt his spirit for being and owning the here and now, even though in comparison with other habits and fortunes it seems to him good or bad, better or worse. In that way, I, with my divine object which is RIGHT ON, so long fugitive, occult, depressed, and submerged, by edict of destiny, I have judged that term as the principle of my return, apparition, exaltation, and magnificence; which will be even greater as the ways of sexing become evermore different.

MOTHER NATURE: And so it happens with he who desires to elevate himself on Earth, leaping nobly, that he must first bend over. He who plans to jump efficiently over a pit, at times measures the impulse, stepping back eight or nine paces.

GOD: We do not see that all pleasure consists of transit, course, and movement. Given that the state of man is bothersome and sad, the state of woman unpleasant and heavy, then that which gives us pleasure is the passage from one state to another. The state of venereal burning torments us, the state of unbridled lust afflicts us, then that which gives us peace is the movement from one to the other.

In no present condition is there pleasure, if the previous one did not come to annoy us. Sexual identity is not pleasurable except when doubt appears; in rest there is no pleasure.

MOTHER NATURE: If it is so, if in the participation of both pleasures movement exists, the participation of both that which brings pleasure and that which disturbs, then no pleasure exists without a mixture of sadness.

GOD:And so it is. Homophobia is closeting.

MOTHER NATURE: And so my Lord, must I admit that those “anti-natures,” the queers, the different ones are my complement?

GOD: You yourself have said it: the Merms (persons with testicles who display other sexual female characteristics), the Herms (in whom appear at the same time a testicle and an ovary), and the Ferms, (persons with ovaries but with masculine sexual characteristics) are the mirror, MOTHER NATURE, where you are reflected into infinity

MOTHER NATURE: If to be nature I must be unnatural, then not believing in You should, once in a while, be my dogma of faith?

GOD: How do I know, Mother Nature! I made you so you would doubt my existence. If God were man, I would be a woman, if God were queer, he would be a topic of feminist debate.

I am what I am, I am God and God is queer in order to keep on enjoying being God.

From Barbie: The Revenge of the Devil2

The Devil, played by Jesusa Rodríguez, nude, with large wings, a white painted face, and two small white horns, sits on a small square box/ pedestal reading The New York Times. The black stage floor is littered with white water cooler cones, a small chemical lab table, and, behind the seated Devil, a tree-like structure covered with large, sweeping cobwebs. The Devil is sobbing, in agony, as she reads.

Aye!!!!! How can human beings be so evil!!!

Homicide, robbery, rape, torture, missing people!!

I can’t believe this!

A touch of evil…a human perversion!

(The Devil first moves into a Rodin’s Thinker pose, and then stands up to proclaim:)

This is too much, I will punish you!

All my anger will fall between your eyes,

on your children. (Pointing to the white cones)

Look at them! They are the world!

There will be a terrible poison!

Ya! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!!

(The Devil’s laughs. Throughout the piece, Jesusa’s laugh recalls those evil laughs of early Hollywood horror films. She jumps off the box/pedestal and goes over to the lab table. Dry ice is boiling over.)

Double, double, toil and trouble, fire and burn, etc., etc.!

(On the table she has a pile of white cones, resembling KKK hoods with black painted eyes.)

These are the souls of those who already belong to me:

Reagan, Thatcher, Khomeini, Oliver North, Pinochet, Viola, Videla…There are thousands! (pointing to the caps on the floor)

Those are the few pure souls that live on the face of the earth...they will the victims of my curse!!

(Into a glass beaker she concocts a mixture that includes large plastic insects, some of which she throws at the audience. The concoction bubbles over. She takes a drink.)

Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!

It should be acid, like rain.

What kind of poison should it be?

Oh God! Enlighten me!!!

(A spot light encases the Devil. Naked except for wings and horns, Jesusa moves toward the audience, picks up a microphone, and begins to move sensuously to a cumbia rhythm and sings in Spanish:)

It must be a fine poison

It must be something very special

that will madden all the little girls of the world

and their mom and dads.

It has to be a subtle poison.

With hair and vinyl.

Something gossipy, meddling, flirtatious

that everyone adores–a fetish!

Like this (imitating penetration with her hands) it will penetrate the world!

Like that, it will penetrate the whole world!!

The poison and its double.

Its rage and ecstasy will reign supreme over Man.

The vortex of buying happiness for the innocent.

Imperious amongst men.

A fetish!!

Like this it will penetrate the whole world!

(The Devil moves back to the table.)

Eureka!! I’ve got it now!

(Mixes up another potion and smells it, then takes a drink.)

Aye! Ohhh!! Ughhh!

It smells like Catsup!

Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug! Glug!

Ughhhhhhh!

(She rubs her stomach as she grimaces. She’s about to vomit. She walks over to the pedestal, and lifts up the top, converting it into a toilet. She sits and strains as she attempts to relieve herself. No luck, so she gets up, pops a cigarette into her mouth and walks to the edge of the stage, asking for a light from an audience member. With her lighted cigarette, she returns to the pedestal-toilet, takes off her wings. Sitting, again she strains and groans, and, eventually, is successful. She stands up, looks into the toilet and screams. She runs to the lab table, picks up some tongs, and tries to fish something out of the obviously smelly toilet. Finally, from the toilet she removes the basin bubbling over with dry ice, takes it to the lab table, and fishes something out. It is a naked Barbie doll. She takes a cone, fills it with the poisonous liquid and ceremoniously baptizes Barbie.)

I pronounce you Barbie as a tribute to Klaus Barbie! Isn’t he memorable!

(Moving toward the caps on the floor)

My sweet little Darlings! The hour has come! This is your end!

All the perfume in the world will not sweeten this little doll!

(The Devil, still naked, puts on red converse sneakers and begins to step on and squash all the little white cones on the floor. She works to the rhythm of a harpsichord, destroying all but two. She approaches what she thinks is the last.)

The only soul that I will save! My own!

(Black out. When the lights come up the floor is still littered with smashed cups.)

Look at this! What are you doing? You bastard!

The poor little girls! It seems like a street in New York, all that trash!

(She pulls on the edges of the tarp covering the floor, and drags it so that all the cones form a small pile in the center. To complete the task, she walks along the front row of the seated audience, still naked.)

Tonight will be the conquest of the universe!

Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Sak’s, McDonald’s, General Motors. Everyone will sell you, starting with me!

(She takes out a small washboard and begins to scrub Barbie’s clothes while singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” She addresses Barbie.)

Oh my sweetie, be quiet my lady.

You will become the center of the family!

(She cuddles the doll, caresses her).

Hello! How are you?

(She rests Barbie on her neck and suddenly screams.)

Ohhhh! It’s alive! It’s alive! Get her off me! Get her off me!

(With karate grunts and moves, she pulls Barbie off. The Devil makes a string of indecipherable guttural sounds. In anger at Barbie’s behavior, she places her in a black cage covered with a black cloth and suspended from above.)

Don’t make that face! You will be better off!!!

(She goes back to the cage to check on Barbie, pulls off the cloth, and screams.)

Oh my God!!! What have I done!!! She’s horrible!!! Mass production!!!

(The cage is filled with identical Barbie dolls.)

This is the end! This is the Plague! This could turn into the Barbie Project!

Anyway, they are my daughters and I have to feed them!

(Singing “One little, two little, three little Barbies, four little…”, she feeds dollar bills into the cage. She screams again.)

Aye! I lost my right finger! Come here, come here you Barbie! Cannibal!

(She pulls one of the dolls from the cage and examines her.)

A-sexual! Slot-machine! Plastic bitch! I will make you feel good! Remember Siberia?!

Let’s take a plunge! (She plunges Barbie’s head into a container with water.) Are you feeling alright?

(She takes a butcher knife and mutilates Barbie–cuts off a leg that she picks up from the floor and places in her mouth like a cigar. Metal scraping sounds create an agonizing sense of death.)

This is not too bad! I’m starting to enjoy the job! Let’s take another one...

(She removes another Barbie from the cage.)

Wow, you are beautiful! And God made you white…how wonderful!

(The Devil removes a black cloth covering a miniature guillotine, places a black hood over her head. She then walks over to a small block of wood and with some small sticks, does a drum roll. She then proceeds to place the Barbie under the guillotine, release the blade, and, while laughing hysterically, decapitates her. Satisfied, the Devil returns to the original task and, still laughing, once again she begins to mix chemicals in the beaker.)

Black out.

From Censorship: the Bald Rat in the Garbage³

“We invite the free spirits to escape from state and ecclesiastical censorship as well as from self-censorship.

In the end one becomes embarrassed to express simple and evident things because one’s expression has become something vulgar and improper.

Against this syphilis of the brain there exists only one remedy: from a position of eccentricity and outside the law, with the freedom of a bird, free of vertigo, to hurl ideas in a totally brutal way.”

—Oskar Panizza

1. To think and not be able to express our thoughts is the worst of all tortures.

2. Don’t laugh at the president, he takes care of that himself.

3. Don’t censor yourself, that’s the job of the self-censorship of the media.

4. The more you say, the more you will be able to say; the more you think, the more you will be able to think.

5. All topics can be treated with humor, especially those that are the most solemn, for example, yourself.

6. Don’t ever rejoice over receiving threats of censorship or of death, even when they serve as publicity.

7. Freedom of expression is also freedom of the idiot. Who is the professional idiot? He who assumes the ridiculous.

8. If you truly want to laugh at the enemy, defend him.

9. When you give in to fear, terror increases; when terror increases, silence kills.

10. In those ultimate situations, like torture, none of us knows what we will say or do.

Notes

1. Originally published as El génesis. In Rara rarezas. debate feminsta 8.16 (1997): 401-403. Translation by Roselyn Costantino.

2. The script was transcribed from a video copy of a 1987 New York performance generously provided by Jesusa Rodríguez. The monologue was in English, the song in Spanish. Transcription and translation by Roselyn Costantino

3. Originally published as Censura: la rata pelón en la basura in debate feminsta :479. Translation by Roselyn Costantino.

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