Directed by Colin Johnson
Featuring Ray Renati, Tim Meehan & Sharmin Sehat
RAY WALKS ON WITH A SIGNBOARD THAT READS “GHOSTS”
ENTER TIM AND SHARMIN. RAY FLIPS SIGNBOARD OVER TO REVEAL “PART 1”, THEN EXITS.
TIM
You want to see a ghost?
SHAR
I don’t believe in ghosts.
TIM
Yeah. But do you want to see one?
SILENCE.
SHAR
Don’t be creepy. Ghosts aren’t real.
TIM
No? Then why is there one right outside our apartment door?
SHARMIN LOOKS AT THE DOOR. KNOCKING COMES FROM IT.
TIM
Aren’t you going to answer?
SHAR
This is some kind of joke.
SHARMIN GOES TO DOOR AND OPENS IT. THERE IS A FLOATING COPY OF THE SF BAY GUARDIAN. SHE SCREAMS. TABLEAU. TIM TURNS AROUND HIS LAPTOP. HIS SCREEN SAYS: “GHOSTS, PT. 2” MUNI BUS ARRIVAL SOUND. SHARMIN TAKES THE LAPTOP AND EXITS TO THE BUS. TIME GOES TO THE BAY GUARDIAN AND READS IT. MUNI BUS EXIT SOUND.
ENTER RAY, WITH CANE.
RAY
I haven’t seen one of those in a while.
TIM
Oh, hi Ray.
RAY
Hi Tim.
TIM
You want my seat?
RAY WAVES HIM OFF.
TIM
I had it reprinted at kinko’s from an old pdf. I’m using it for an art project.
RAY
Nice.
TIM
We’re holding a tribute. Remember a place called SOMArts?
RAY
Let me guess… It was south of Market?
TIM
It was a few blocks down from the Tenderloin.
RAY
I know the Tenderloin. They serve Kobe beef and have salsa/bhangra Thursdays.
TIM
Different Tenderloin.
RAY
How was the steak there?
TIM
Wait a second. Can I try something? It’s like a litmus test.
(beat as Ray consents)
Dolores Park.
RAY
Don’t you mean Zynga Park?
TIM
Twin Peaks.
RAY
I thought David Lynch’s revival on Showtime had promise.
TIM
The Mission District.
RAY
I don’t really listen to their music.
TIM
Mexican food.
RAY
I tried some on vacation in Puerto Vallarta.
TIM
Poor people, artists, new immigrants, and lesbian homeowners.
RAY
What is this, an ad for Oakland?
MUNI BUS SOUND. FUTURE SHARMIN IS ON THE BUS WITH A SHINY PLACARD AND SOMETHING LIKE GOOGLE GLASS.
RAY
Just give me a future where I have to stop commuting to work
and I’m happy.
FUTURE SHARMIN
(disembarks) I-can-help-with-that.
FUTURE SHARMIN TURNS HER PLACARD OVER: IT SAYS “GHOSTS, PART THREE”
FUTURE SHARMIN
Do-you-want-to-see-a-ghost?
TIM
What’s wrong with her affect?
RAY
I think she sounds retro. (Ray blows nose into handkerchief) Why don’t you support instructional android freedom?
FUTURE SHARMIN
Thank-you-for-your-product-loyalty-Raymond.
TIM
That’s not freedom. That’s uncanny valley nightmare fuel.
RAY
Try adjusting her Turing ratio.
TIM SWIPES HIS FINGERS ACROSS SHARMIN’S TEMPLES.
TIM
Again. Remember, this is for an undergraduate level audience.
SHARMIN
(to audience) Do you want to see a ghost? (beat. She holds out empty hands) I present to you the Cavendish Bannana.
RAY PUTS A BANANA IN SHARMIN’S HAND.
This robust and nutrition packed cultivar enjoyed market dominance from the mid-20th century to the mid-21st century. Cavendish bananas are sterile, seedless fruiting bodies grown from asexual tissue transplants of immature bananas to mature banana hosts. Because this transplant system means all bananas are effectively clones, the initial decades of profit were in the end undermined due to a total lack of genetic diversity. All it took was one viral organism – specifically the eastern strain of the fungicide-resistant Fusarium oxysporum – I’ll let you write that down – to spell the end of the Cavendish
strain and the industry and livelihoods it supported.
RAY SNEEZES.
TIM
Bless you.
SHARMIN
Ironically, this same fate befell the Cavendish’s predecessor. (holds out empty hand) The Gros Michel Banana.
A PLANTAIN IS PLACED IN HER HAND.
SHARMIN
This robust and nutrition packed cultivar enjoyed market dominance from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century.
Unfortunately like its successor the Cavendish, the Gros Michel was also asexually cultivated exclusively from clones,
thus allowing a single pathogen species – specifically the western strain of fungicide-resistant Fusarium oxysporum –
TIM SNEEZES.
RAY
(to Tim) Bless you. Have a Kleenex. (Hands one to Tim)
SHARMIN
I’ll give you time to write that down. The Gros Michel population was effectively doomed by the year
1962. And although the Cavendish varietal was touted for it’s immunity to western Fusarium oxysporum, its resultant success led to a southeast asian expansion of the global banana plantation system, which in due time exposed the otherwise geographically isolated eastern strain of Fusarium oxysporum to its new, defenseless, supposedly fungus-resistant Cavendish host.
TIM AND RAY SNEEZE AT THE SAME TIME.
The eastern strain was subsequently introduced into previously safe populations of Cavendish bananas in the western hemisphere, as one might expect, due to the then-standard practice of asexual cutting transplantation.
THEY BLOW THEIR NOSES.
SHARMIN
Ironic, don’t you think?
THEY OPEN THEIR KLEENEXES, WHICH ARE SPOTTED WITH BLOOD
FUTURE SHARMIN
Do-you-want-to-see-a-ghost?
LIGHT CHANGE.
END.
Art and Music in Our Souls 