A Scene early in the Play
Superintendent of Calhoun County Independent School District hears District to Receive Huge Endowment on Condition
Mr. Eofhst (linkaka Everyone’s Favorite H.S. Teacher), has just told Calhoun Independent School District Superintendent DeLeon what a member of his church heard at the Class of ’44 reunion in Montreal.
Mr. D: “Why did they have it in Montreal. Why not the _______(link to chain willing to sponsor) ballroom.”
Mr. E: rolls his eyes: “They got a good deal. And Montreal was the closest mid point for the 10 who showed up.”
Mr. D: Ten 87 year olds went to Montreal to reminisce about Port LaVaca?
Mr. E: And establish an endowment fund. Miss Upaat’s entire considerable large fortune will constitute most of it. (he pauses) But she has a condition.
Mr. D: I’m listening.
Mr. E: She wants to talk to the children.
Mr. D: Here? I thought you said she lives…
Mr. E: She wants to move back and come help (he raises his eyebrows and looks skyward) every day
Mr. D: So, she can be a class room helper
Mr. E: She’s not, I understand, a helper sort of person.
Mr. D: She’s bossy (as answering his own question)
Mr. E: well, um hm.
Mr. D: hall monitor?
Mr. E: umm. She’s philosophically opposed to restricting free speech
Mr. D: How ‘bout “She to whom excessive exercisers of free speech are sent for Time-out to have to learn to listen respectively to old lady who likes to tell tales so she’ll leave her fortune to Calhoun Independent School District?
Mr. E: Perfect. Btw, she says the Karankawan underground allowed William Polk Milby to spell Cahum C-A-L-H-O-U-N when they named the County (link April 4, 1846 In exchange for mosquito netting for the communists Goethe’s little girlfriend sent.
Mr. D: (Looks a little quisical). Cahum?
Mr. E: (a bit taken aback) You’ve heard it.
Mr. D: My grand dad’s abuelo said it means home in Karankawan. But he was joking. You know. Call home.
Mr. E: Aunt Achadee Kaal says “Google it.”
Mr. D: Aunt Achadee?
Mr. E: Well, she’s my grand mothers great aunt.
Mr. D: She doesn’t want to leave it to you?
Mr. E: She does a spiel on investing you may catch with the kids.
Mr. D: So she’s bribing us not to fire Gerda. I knew she was a lesbian. Who’s her girlfriend?
Mr. E. Communist, not lesbian, and it's..
Mr. D: what' the difference Mr E: it's Geu hrta G o e t h e. Don't ask me why the Germans have an invisible R. I teach French, not German. Ask Gerda.
Mr. D: I'm not going to ask. Then she'd tell and I'd have to fire her.
Mr. E: I'm not talking about Gertrude Lindheimer. I'm referring to G o e t h e, the German romantic poet, Anyway Bettina wasn't really his girlfriend. Everyone in Germany said she made up the love letters and was “just a nutty old woman” Everyone except the ones she helped get to Texas who named their town for her.
Mr. D: Her name?
Mr. E: google Texas Free Thinkers. And German feminists. Everyone's reading her now. They say she's the mother of the epistolary novel
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LaSalle: Voici Mississippi
| ACTION Four French ships represented by: 2 performers with wide black ribbon which is tied to their waists and stretched between them. Front performer holds lightest weight pole that will hold another nailed across it to which is attached lightest weight white material for sail. (muslim sold for cooking?) Back performer waves two very large fans up and down and blows audibly. Gestures to audience to help blow. link to breathing exercise. If there are 8 performers, four ships, so much the better.
heads of La Salle, M and Mde Talon holding new born, and 5 other children (who were lying flat in dark as ships arrived in front of them) pop up. Sing Charles Trenet's La Mer if they didn't sing it in an earlier scene -- maybe when Mde Talon became la mere de Talons for the 6th time.
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KARANKAWANS(variable number)
chanting:
Na
ka Kaana-koko Aal Ga's est-day
Na ka kwan-koko wana est-day
Na ka
Kaana-koko Aal Ga’s a-wil
Na ka Kwan-koko, wana a-wil
Achadee Ka Aal Upaaat speaks:
Hajo Waa Kona Ga's
Kana Ba Ba Kana Kana dola-jay peka
(then responding to LaSalle's "Voici" shrugs shoulders and says: Kahum
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I'm posting this in in-process-of-coming-into-being on line where it can be found and amended before it's done. Let's see.
A Scene early in the play
Mr. E: rolls his eyes: “They got a good deal. And Montreal was the closest mid point for the 10 who showed up.”
Scene 2
Aunt Kaal__ comes from rear down one aisle dressed as a old lady who dresses up like her idea of a Karankawan with a bunch of kids dressed according to their research and interpretations of Karankawan attire (lots of tattoos)
Down the other aise come Children who have researched an immigrant group they’re descended from or wish to claim dressed in that attire. Make an effort to have every ethnic group in CCISD represented.
Students:. improvised slightly rude inquiries about Aunt Ka aal’s true origins and speech. [where are you really from? What do you speak. Can you speak in tongues Can you speak African? Can you speak Oriental?] Improvised lines come from exercise In rehearsal, or class, students are asked to write down things they’ve been called that hurt, or that they’re afraid of being called by friends of different ethnic group
Aunt Ka aal does a sort of I’m in a trance dance
I am not a Rosetta stone I am not a Narmer stele I am a woman whose mother spoke French that she learned from her mother who loved a Talon. I am a woman who lived with a man who spoke German whose mother was named De Leon.
Based on hyp re word list gathered from
Where do you live? Cahum (home)
What do you do? Ka-aal oudn ( We love to talk about shooting)
What do you do? Ka-aal am (We love to talk about fishing)
We’re naming this place Calhoun.1846
Baha (good) cahum ka-al-oudn ka-al-am Home of people who love to tell hunting and fishing stories
Our books say you were naked, canniaal, no writing
She looks and says Ka al oodh Oysters crachkers, gold fish, black tea, crabs, sand crabs, That’s why they said they were canny balls, Sing sand crab fight song
Scene 3
A student: here’s our show
Karankawa 4 canoes 4 canoes long ribbon sail 2 stuck 1 went home capn and la sale fight this aint the Mississippi well well claim it no were not yes we are everyone going with me
parameters
call trumpets, conch shell drums leaflets, othr towns accordian
Let the play begin From rear
Karankaw enter from rear Walk thru center aisle (is there one in mainst theatre? \) They chant karankawan, others entering also respond First in French, then Spanish, then english, then German Then polish, Swedish, Czech, vietnames, chines, etc to latest immigrants
B rave men, brave women come here
Children in costumes of lands of origin. Don’t forget Yoruba.
Encourage all manner of show off improvisations, do your thing dancing and variations on chant. They take reserve seats at front.
Ancient karankawan woman (played by GeorgeAnn) and a few children who’ve practiced, take up position on corner of stage chant Na Ka Kaana-koko aal ga’s est-day I love bay Say hello sun Na ka kwan-Koko wana est-day I love bayou, good bye sun
Na ka Kaana-koko aal ga’s a-wil I love bay say hello moon
Na ka Kwan-koko, wana a-wil I love bayou good bye moon
4 canoes, each 4 canoes long wind bring in, low big big wind skin
people who come by water (the French) and well then they wade ashore with children one two three four
five, one born the way the noble, the anchor, the one come to stay (first born in new claimed land got a title)
Robert
Talon children:nous mere and nous pere were not new to new world They’d come over before We (the rest speak) were all born in Canada. New France at that time But politics drove us back to Paree Great for the rich, but not family Another Scene This mimed: Isabelle and Lucien come over – 4 representing canoes with a black ribbon make boat. One holds up a sheet. Lucien and Isabelle blow it.
Fleur de lis flag. 1 2 3 4 children pop up
Sail back to paris
Mdm (Isabelle) said “let’s try again.” Then the call came again.
“The King Wants You (from the back of the theatre with trumpets, as from town to town (schools, churches, restaurants, banks, who contributed) to promote performance the week before)
Karankawan sha(wo)men
We built them a fire. Which was hard
Mime making fire according to record of Alice Oliver
It was matches, more than beads, or knives,, or blankets that produced such unfavorable trading conditions for us.
For two matches they asked us to clear brush all day we we did to take home the long knives they used.
Better google to see when matches were invented. Maybe wasn’t the French, If you do you’ll see the Chinese had a quick lighting pine stick iby 580 AD English claimed to have a striking match by the time La Salle came, but it didn’t work all that well The French claimed one too but the Swedes patented the safety match in 1844 And had a factory by 1847
about the knives we fed them oysters
so snotty. Yes. Not on the half shell. Open them in the fire. Faster than you, and in later times you’ll rue, your way’s not as safe. no John Henry competition here
We fed them oysters and red fish with chili pequin
.
that’s true and youpan tea
The techonec’s cried
according to the anthropologists the women all froze at the cry while the men drank for 3 days
hey, about the underwater roots, we’re supposed to have eaten all fall. Anthropologists never i.d.’
We needed the fireants once invaders got Deet. We offered the French, and the rest who came too, alligator oil
some say gator some say shark point is to resist hordes of guardian tiniest pests you must wrestle our scariest beasts.
So we fed them our best: oysters and red fish with chili pequin sauce, yaupon tea and lotus root for dessert
Well – that’s all the anthropologists speculate that it was tho the coastal plant botonists overlook. I almost can’t finish the play stopping to google Texas lotus root.
Back to the story, we warmed them and fed them and what did they do.
More than one, more than two
They slew some of you first
cause you stole their blankets
Some of them went back to France
La Salle went off to find New Orleans
folks been dreaming
ever since Indian Ola
You know of Catrin?
What’s that of Colchin
You mean Sor Juana. Her grandfather was jew.
The brown pelican came back from extinction. She is Sor Juana. Sor Juana never saw the sea
And that fills in the last question.
Why were the Talons in a Portuguese p rison.
ACT # 3
Begins with reading of Iberville letter to abbe Chevelier in French
Aunt K and students on side
Student: So where were they?
Aunt: I don’t know. I couldn’t finish the play. All the historians say is they were here in 1704 and again in 1714.
Louis XIV was old, wanted to put his grandson,
on the throne of Spain. But the Holy roman Emperor, who lived in Vienna not Rome, Hapsburg who spoke German but there was no Germany then, said the King of Spain, who was also the Holy Roman emperor several kings and a Hapsburg, should be his grandson
The old Fr king That’s Louis, strong arms the old Sp king into willing the throne to his kin
The Hapsburg, he’s the emperor, tries to get all the little European princes to line up with him
Ah, so, I was so sure. That must have been it. The Talon brothers were on a French ship captured by the Dutch, or was it the English allied with the Portuguese
But I looked everywhere. And so had those who looked before me. I couldn’t find any prison in Portugal
No record of any I could cite in a song
This IS a fiction
So it’s an unfinished play
Aunt: Lamu?
And the Talon’s said, Can you show me the way back to Kahum?
Which is in India?
What was that about the ChineseEmperor Edict of Tollerance
Because they were teaching tolerance and speaking lots of languages and Free Thinking and Free Speech
Robert went back to Ala – that’s established historic fact
I am not a Rosetta stone I am not a Na-armer stele I am a woman whose mother spoke French that she learned from her mother who loved a Talon. I am a woman who lived with a man who spoke German whose mother was named De Leon.
I’m adopted Karankan whose hom is Cahum
Francoise. She married King Louis Made him quit warring and whoring he was too old for both. and when he died, she and mde Lully got m lully to compose an opera for the school she started for impoverished but noble young girls
not on the halfshell?
mother of all peppers.
tea leaves, not the berries. No wonder European botonists called it vomitoso. Only vomit if drink too much or mix with rum. Kill any injun
Alcoholics Anonymous is an underground native movement
really?
Who wishes to drink (mime communion, body and….) they said we drank and danced like savages and ate the flesh of our enemies.
scared of gators and snakes and never forget the biggest defenders of our bayous and bays. The least of these: mosquitos and fireants. mosquitos are native. But not the fire ants.
no, shark
lotus in maybe why the Formosians came Texas?
wait for the Chinese and Vietnamese, and the Thais, the real cooks. And the latest from Asia. They go to our church.
They stole our canoe.
So we slew a few
We knew
now that wouldn’t be true. Why would we want soggy wet blankets when we had deer skins and goose feathers, water off back like a duck
Toodle oo
which didn’t exist
singing about New Orleans
poor Katrina.
the Death Dandy Lady
According to Octavio Paz, Mexico’s nobel embajador to Delhi La China Poblana was a Hindu, no a Moghul princess, sold in Colchin to a Portuguese pirate who sold her in Manila to a Mexican gentleman who married her in Pueblo where she’s worshiped as Caterina de San Juan and buried in the chapel of the convent of Santga Clara where at the same time, mole which is somewhat llike curry, comida nacionale with more versions than there are lenguas still. (paz p82-3) She taught the Indian..
And a muslim too.
Well, Santa Catrina sure did.
To discover the China Poblana. And mole.
nb: Omer Talon’s speech in French read in Act I
nephew?
Carlos quinto de Espana, primero Holy Roman Empire. Or is it the other way around
or nephew or…
Students are miming this
Which side are the Dutch on Which side are the Swedes Which side the Bohemians Which side Portuguese
Just like the French had captured a Spanish ship and brought them back to France in 169_ where they gave the Karankawan words and told about LaSalle’s execution, murder, assassination, elimination, good riddance, great loss
There had to be prisons in Portugal
or give a link you could google along
S: about the Talons S2: who WERE real S3: Back fiction if you get it wrong
S: read the letter again In French. S2: reads it. S3 (African or Asian) so why does the Portuguese prison have to be in Portugal
S 4: It could be Lamu
S4: Lamu, continuous Swahili, Portuguese prison but _________Swahili’s ousted them by allying with _______. So they could have captured a French ship with the Talons coming to Spain and sailed it with the Talon’s to Lamu S 5 (African) Where my great great great uncle said “let me see your tattoo?
S 6 (Arab or Asian) So the Swahili friend put them on a ship to Cochin Kuchun
According to Octavio Paz, Nobel laureate of Mexico, that’s where the Cochina Poblana came from
S: No she came from China Cochin
cancelled and kicked out the Portuguese, and the French cause the pope said Chinese couldn’t be xians if they honored thy father and mother in estilo chinois. Chinese style
No Great Khan of tolerance was the Indian one
But that one was gone by the time came the Talons.
Anyway, The Talons had lots of battles by land and by sea and China Poblana came back with them to Mexico City.
Where she and Sor Juana barely escaped the Inquisition.
underground of Karankawan adoptees protected them.
like they did the Talons, whom they put on the underground RR (It never ran just one way) back to Cahum
Marie Madeleine went back to Quebec
That leaves 3 Talon boys, of whom there’s not enough fact to prevent fiction you can’t prove is wrong:
What is your song, Aunt Ka aal
Students compose variations I (peggy) whose mother spoke English learned from her mother, grand child d’ Powhatan. Who lived with a man who spoke Swedish whose son’s wife’s mother came here from Japan
And what about Mde Talon’s friend.
We could actually sing something from it.
That sounds like Elvis Presley to me
Elvis took tunes from everyone.
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