Alison Speaks With Michel de Montaigne Part I

(Sound of heavy heeled boots clopping down the hallway to my living room.)

ALISON: Good evening, Mr. Montaigne. Thank you for popping in at this short notice.
Michel de MONTAIGNE: Not a trifle of a problem, Alison.

ALISON: I see you have your snifter out, and so I will keep this brief. What--

(dramatic pause. Sound of industrial vacuum cleaner in apartment next door whinnies abruptly.)

ALISON: What of taking sides in a dichotomous debate?

MONTAIGNE: The world always looks straight ahead; as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. It is to be expected, to be sure, these divisions among men--and women--but it is our predilection toward such boundaries, such compartmentalizations--this is our nature and this is what is the pattern, not that we have stumbled upon truth in any lasting way when we engage in dichotomous thinking.

ALISON (holding two fingers in the air, entwined about each other): Two things.

MONTAIGNE: What is this, (he gestures at her fingers, still mid-air by her head)

ALISON: Oh, ha (laughs) just a trick one of my teacher-friends at the middle school taught me. It's a way to remind yourself and others that you want to say something while the other person is babbling on.

MONTAIGNE: Harrumph.

ALISON: Ok, one: I'm completely obsessed with compartmentalizations: dioramas, replicas, avatars, miniaturizations, dollhouses, scrapbooking. So I love that you are totally hitting on how we are all so obsessed with little boxes, even before scrapbooking. Two: What if you're torn between two sides, like me, for instance. Some of my female friends are like, "we hate this dude and the poetry series he runs at this bar" and the douchey stuff I hear him say makes me think, "yeah, totally, I'm anti-him."



Montaigne stands, walks to Alison's cabinets and pulls out a bag of Cheetohs.

MONTAIGNE: Yes. Go on, I'm listening.

ALISON: And others of the female persuasion are like, "I like him because I feel cool at the poetry series with the dude at the bar and I get to read there, and it's a free space, where even if you feel a little assholeish, it's okay, it's all part of experimenting." And I'm like, yeah, you right.

Here, the actor playing Montaigne may choose to whistle softly as he flips through a copy of Young, Gay and Fabulous In Chicago, point disbelievingly at the Lichtenstein print on the wall, or improvise other mannerisms to portray the emotional state of a 400 year-old queer who's arrived via time travel into a 2009 feminist-fabulous apartment.

MONTAIGNE: What does your insides tell you to do? Comment dit-on, ah, What do your insides tell you?

ALISON: Well, first, my insides say, this will pass, and people who are hating right now will find themselves allied soon enough in some other white rabbit campaign or another, so sit tight, you know, don't take any sides.

MONTAIGNE: Mm hm.

ALISON: Please don't smoke in here.

MONTAIGNE: Alright.

ALISON: The other side of me is like, isn't there a space in Hell reserved for people like me who focus on the How we talk instead of the Right or Wrong side of what we say?

MONTAIGNE: Who draws the boundaries of dichotomies when we are asked to take a side? Why not decide the shape of the thing, instead of where you will stand on a predesigned space?

ALISON: Like a design-your-own Twister game? Left hand, yellow--except I'll decide what to call "Left Hand" and "Yellow"

MONTAIGNE: You've lost me.

ALISON: It's ok.