UP IS UP AND SO IS DOWN, was the first name that came to my mind for this performance made in collaboration with Irena Radmanovic. It could also be called WHY STAND WHEN YOU CAN FALL or FICUS LYRATA.

William S. Burroughs AH POOK IS HERE and Thomas Pynchons VINELAND are two bases for a foray into the concepts of SECURITY and sharing of the sounds of burning leaves of FICUS LYRATA

Itzamna, Spirit of Early Mists and Showers, Ix Tab, Goddess of Ropes and Snares, Ix Chel, the Spider-Web-that-Catches-the-Dew-of-Morning, Zuhuy Kak, Virgin Fire, patroness of infants, Ah Dziz, the Master of Cold, Kak U Pacat, who works in fire, Ix tab Doone, she who spits out precious stones, Hex Chun Chan, the Dangerous One, Ah Pook, the Destroyer  ( WSB 1 )

Hiroshima 1945, august 6, 16 minutes past 8 a.m. Who really gave that order? Answer: Control. The ugly american, the instrument of control. Question: If controls control is absolute, why does control need to control? Answer: Control needs time. Question: Is control controlled by its need for control? Answer: Yes.   ( WSB 2 )

Why does control need humans, as you call them? Answer: Wait… wait! Time, a landing field. Death needs time like a junkie needs junk.And what does Death need time for? Answer: The answer is sooo simple.Death needs time for what it kills to grow in, for Ah Pook’s sake. Death needs time for what it kills to grow in, for Ah Pook’s sweet sake, you stupid vulgar greedy ugly American death-sucker.( WSB 3 )

you don't have everything, but you don't need anything a porcelain vase in the form of three frogs holding each others arms in a circle, their mouths are open and if they could sing they would sing together, the sound of their songs meeting above their heads in the middle of the circle

you like frogs and toads, you like their songs, you like the softness and temperature of there skins, you like to feel their small hearts beating in your hand, you want these frogs, you imagine them spitting fire, the base of a cloud you don't need anything, you want these frogs and you want them to spit fire

you'll burn leaves whose sound while burning is as astonishing as their leaf-structure - they produce a miniature of the sounds of a burning mediterranean forest, you wonder how a leaf this small can produce such a multitude of different layers of sounds

and then you try to reproduce these sounds with what you find in your friends kitchen - dry skin of onions and garlic, kitchen paper, facial tissues, plastic containers for fruit or vegetables, paper and plastic wrappings, paper-bags, envelopes, pills, scotch, bags of grains, lentils, pasta

freshly broken tempered glass continues to release tension for a couple of minutes after it has been broken and produces high pitched cracking sounds very similar to the high-pitch-parts of the sounds of the burning leaves

Later than usual one summer morning in 1984, Zoyd Wheeler drifted awake in sunlight through a creeping fig that hung in the window, with a squadron of blue jays stomping around on the roof. In his dream these had been carrier pigeons from someplace far across the ocean, landing and taking off again one by one, each bearing a message for him, but none of whom, light pulsing in their wings, he could ever quite get to in time. He understood it to be another deep nudge from forces unseen, almost surely connected with the letter that had come along with his latest mental-disability check, reminding him that unless he did something publicly crazy before a date now less than a week away, he would no longer qualify for benefits. He groaned out of bed. - After taking as much time as he could in the bathroom, he finally got around to locating the phone and calling the local TV station to recite to them this year's press release. But - „You'd better check again Mr. Wheeler. Word we have is that you've been rescheduled.“ „Check with who, I'm the one's doin'it, aint I?" „We're all supposed to be at the Cucumber Lounge." „Well I won't, I'll be up at the Log Jam in Del Norte. “ What was the matter with these people? Zoyd had been planning this for weeks.

- Zoyd headed down to Vineland Mall and rolled around the lot there for awhile, smoking up half a joint he'd found in his pocket, before parking the rig and going into More is Less, a discount store for larger-size women, where he bought a party dress in a number of colors that would look good on television, paying with a check both he and the saleslady shared a premonition would end up taped to this very cash register after failing to clear, and proceeded to the men's room of the Breez-Thru gas station, where he shifted into the dress and with a small hairbrush tried to rat what was on his head and face into a snarl he hoped would register as insane-looking enough for the mental-health folks. Back at the pump he put in five dollars' worth of gas, went in the backseat, got a quart of oil out of the case he kept there, found his spout, punched it in the can, put most of the oil in his engine,except for a little he saved to mix in the can with some gas, and poured this into the tank of an elegant little imported-looking chainsaw, about the size of a mini-mac, which he then stashed in a canvas beach bag. Prairie's friend Slide came wandering out of the office to have a look.

„Uh-oh, is it that time again already?“ „This year it snuck up on me, hate to think I'm gettin' too old for this.“ „Know the feeling, „ Slide nodded. „ You're fifteen, Slide.“ „And seen it all. Whose front window you doin' it to this year?“ „Nobody's. I'm giving that all up, window jumping's in my past, this year I'm gonna just take this little chain saw into the Log Jam and see what develops from there.“ „Um, maybe not, Mr. Wheeler, you been up there lately?“ „Oh I know there's some heavy-duty hombres, badasses, spend all day narrowly escaping death by tree, not too much patience with anything out of the ordinary, but I've got the element of surprise. Don't I?“ „ You'll see,“ weary Slide advised. - It was well into lunchtime when he got to the Log Jam, and he was disappointed to find nobody at all from the media, just a collection of upscale machinery parked in the lot, itself newly blacktopped. These were to be the first of several rude updates. Trying to think cheerful thoughts – like assuming the television crews were only late.

- Zoyd collected the bag with the saw in it, checked his hair one more time, and went storming into the Log Jam, where right away he noticed that everything, from the cooking to the clientele, smelled different. The jukebox once famous for hundreds of freeway exits up and down the coast for its gigantic country-and-western collection, including half a dozen covers of „So lonesome I Could Cry,“ was reformatted to light classical and New Age music that gently peeped at the edges of audibility, slowing, lulling this room full of choppers and choker setters who now all looked like models in Fathers' day ads. One of the larger of these, being among the first to notice Zoyd, had chosen to deal this the situation. He wore sunglasses with stylish frames, a Turnbull&Asser shirt in some pastel plaid, three-figure-price-tag jeans by Mme. Gris, and après-logging shoes of a subdued, but incontestably blue, suede. Well good afternoon pretty lady and how fine you're looking, I'm sure in another setting and mood we'd all like to know you as a person with your many fine points and so on like that, but from your fashion message I can tell that you are a sensitive type person who'll appreciate the problem we have here in terms of orientational vibes, if you follow -“

The already confused Zoyd, whose survival instincts may not have been working all the way up to spec, decided to produce the chain saw from his bag. "Buster,“he called plaintively to the owner behind the bar, „where's the media?“ The implement attracted immediate attention from everyone in the room, not all of it technical curiosity. It was a tailor made chain saw, „ tough enough for timber,“ as the commercials said, „but petite enough for a purse.“ The guide bar handle grips, and housing were faced in a genuine mother-of-pearl, and spelled out in rhinestone on the bar, surrounded by sawteeth ready to buzz, was the name of the young women he'd borrowed it from, which onlookers took to be Zoyd's drag name, CHERYL. - „Zoyd, what the heck you doin'“ this all the way up here for,“ Buster deciding it was time to intervene, „no channel's gonna send no crew this far out of town, why are you not down in Eureka or Arcata someplace?"

- „Can't hear you,“ hollered Zoyd, trying to maintain a quickly fading image of dangerousness. He throttled the nacreous pretty saw reluctantly back first to a ladylike bass and then to silence. In the echo, „See you did some redecorating.“ „Well, we're no longer as low-rent as people remember us here either Zoyd,in fact since George Lucas and all his crew came and went there's been a real change of consciousness.“ - „You and me Zoyd, we're like Bigfoot. Times go on, we never change, now, you're no barfighter, I can see the thirst for new experiences, but a man's better off sticking to a specialty, your own basically being transfenestration.“ - Just then the phone rang, and it was for Zoyd. His partner, Van Meter, was calling from the Cucumber Lounge, a notorious Vineland County roadhouse, in high agitation.

„Got six mobile TV units waiting, network up from the City, plus paramedics and a snack truck, all wonderin' where you are.“ „Here. You just called me, remember?“ „Aha. Good point. But you were supposed to be jumping through the front window at the Cuke today.“ „No! I called everybody and told'm it was up here. What happened?“ „Somebody said it got rescheduled.“ „Better come on back,“ said Van Meter.

Zoyd hung up, put the saw back in the bag, finished his beer, and made his exit, blowing broad show-biz kisses and reminding everybody to watch the evening news.The lot Zoyd tried to find a parking space in had never been paved, and the local weather had been writing gullies across it for years. Today it was enjoying a visit from the media, plus a task force of cop vehicles, state and county, flashing their lights and playing the „Jeopardy“ theme on their sirens. Mobile units, lights, cable,crews everywhere, even a couple of Bay Area stations. Zoyd began to feel nervous. „Maybe I should've found something cheap at Buster's to saw on anyway,“ he muttered. - Here came Van Meter now, around the corner of the Cuke, wearing his trademark face, Wounded Righteousness. „Are you ready? We'll be losin' the light, fog's gonna come in any minute, what where you doin' all the hell the way up to the Log Jam?“ „No. Van Meter – why is everybody here instead?“

- Production staff murmured into walkie-talkies, technicians could be seen through the fateful window, waving light meters and checking sound levels outside as Zoyd, breathing steady, silently repeated a Mantra - Zoyd eyeballed himself in the mirror behind the bar, gave his hair a shake, turned, poised, then screaming ran empty-minded at the window and went crashing through. He knew the instant he hit that something was funny. There was hardly any impact, and it all felt and sounded different, no spring or resonance, no volume, only a sort of fine,dulled splintering. After obligingly charging at each of the news cameras while making insane faces, and after the police had finished their paperwork, Zoyd caught sight of Hector squatting in front of the destroyed window, among the glittering debris, holding a bright jagged polygon of plate glass. - like a snake he lunged his head forward and took a giant bite out of the glass.

- Zoyd had tumbled, he was no media innocent, he read TV Guide and had just remembered an article about stunt windows made of clear sheet candy, which would break but not cut. That's why this one had felt so funny – young Wayvone had taken out the normal window and put in one of these sugar types. - On the Tube, Zoyd came blasting out the window, along with the dubbed-in sounds now of real glass breaking. Police cruisers and fire equipment contributed cheery chrome elements. Zoyd watched himself hit the hardpan, roll, come up, and charge the camera, screaming and baring his teeth. - Over one of the San Francisco channels, the videotape was being repeated in slow motion, the million crystal trajectories smooth as fountain-drops, Zoyd in midair with time to rotate into a number of positions he didn't remember being in, many of which, freeze-framed, could have won photo awards someplace.                                                                                almost all of these photos were made by Sebastian Eggler