Up on the mountain, walking down with a stick, singing songs which seem to be emerging from the face of the rock, some kind of interchange / exchange, between grasshoppers and spiders, between flowers and various grasses, between colors of blue and red in the iron blood coursing mineral. Speed, pacing, time at high altitudes: the time, what time is it? How to write an opera: why write an opera: what is an opera: a theory of opera: what theory am I reciting or positioning myself against? Which theory is for me and can it be found or must it be written from scratch? Is it a hybrid, something which already exists which I might co-op? Could I trust someone else to articulate it for me? How could I, how should I, what would be the benefit in doing so, the risk? What would I gain or lose in refusing to do so, to articulate my ability, through a text, the opera as text, through the various aspects of a holistic work, describing beings capable of their own specialized speculations, speculating upon a text-image, orating a langue openly? But must it be necessarily - a language? Which is to say: must it say anything at all? Perhaps, and why not, why wouldn't it? Yes it may say many things. As to what or who is the speaker, there is a lot to consider: the literary and theatrical aspects of the projection of voice: where does the voice come from? Who is speaking? What being is this emanating the cool cooing song seemingly out of nothing? For who or for what do they speak? What is this being and how do they articulate themselves? Is it singular, or plural, or potent, or more than can be articulated by my own being-in-relation? Already necessarily an other, or always-already my own, my self, some self? This being is articulating through multifarious forms and dimensions, through the music, through the poetry, through a libretto, an image of orientation. The music is that which is resonating, the resonant vibratory sinusoidal heterodyne tones emerging through movement, friction, materials rubbing, coursing, flowing, tone-ing. A watery intelligence, an air chord, the words they speak - this natural language - is arbitrary and ambivalent, and should be proven through an example - to be made an example of - by using more than one at a time, by inventing some others possibly, for this specific task, if its possible, a new language of possibility. Is it within my capabilities? What is it for, how does it work, what would it say? Is it translation, it is enunciation, is it incantation? Do I need help? Do I need to be speaking to someone, some being, some thing, to hear it, to know it? Must it be real, must it be someone other than myself, must it be at all, what must it be, who must they be? How about this goat here, on this mountain, looking back at me, "will you speak?" No reply, and it runs down the hill away from view. But what would it look like anyways, how would it be pictured, what comes first? Does the rock begin speaking, is it a yell or a whisper? Does it take on form immediately or remain formless, some incanted will with no body to contain it? Or is there an underlying flow of forms, a form-language, a language taking form within the corporeality of the earth, the corporealization of its plants, where is the life within, the planet, is it firm or fluid, does it speak for itself, or does it also co-opt voices? Is it grinding or murmuring or whispering? Does it draw lines in the sand, in itself, over its own skin, or within the bones? Where do these things begin and end, where is the beyond, where is the frame, where is the text, how does it speak, and what does it look like? It's an opera because it's a production, a composite user, an interchange between would-be-users, natural artificial synthetic and otherwise. It's an opera because it's a conversation which is sung not recited, a poem and also more than just, a song but also greater than mere melody, a sound primordial prior to modal primitive to models, a way of thinking and a way of dictating, of notating thinking, because the way that we think is not the way that we think we think, I think, but I'm not sure because it's not stable, this ground, it slips and slides under me. I can get my mind around an idea to craft, make, shape a shelter which slides underneath me, the forming of a new firmament, not completely new out of nothing, based in pure novelty, but with a specific purpose, not just to satisfy curiosity, although not necessarily not that either, but with an explicit task: to support itself in its own making. The opera is tis firmament, attuned tone to the fundamental, a fundamental attunement that is not static, anything but: slipping, sliding, coursing, buzzing, grinding, as I step over it like land unfolding ever before me, never sure that it will be there as I take the next step, as I make contact never completely knowing if it will hold, if it won't break loose and tumble away into a void, of myself or belonging to gravity, a corrialis effect spinning revolving undulating motions of the oceans ever churning sometimes violent but mostly calm, steady, deceptively clear, clean, cooing. An allusion or an illusion or mere delusion: is this me (snapping two objects together) or is it the ground grounding itself? This process I'm describing: is it my own, am I determining, willing a sense of being, a being-becoming, is it necessary? If I don't, who will? Maybe they have already, can I see it, should I look, is it visible, can I hear it, is it within range, within reach, is it real if I never encounter it, if my eye never comes in from the outside, if my I - me - never gets out of its own articulations of being, is it real, is it reality, does it matter? Is this funny, or tragic, or otherwise, who cares and do I, should I, the meaning, the questioning, the incantatory axis of praxis: it's not just rhyme and meter but of course always necessarily so, like spell casting, cursing upon the earth, for sake of meaning and beauty, and it's echoing reply always incomprehensible, fruitless, trite, cliche, the same old story told again and again but what else is possible? I'm trying to think outside this frame: what is thinking if it's not framing? What is thought if it's not the positioning with a space through time, a relation to spatial times, an era of areas sung through arias: era/area/aria: a time unfolding as an epoch of its own making through a room, spatializing the making of space through craft-time, a continuum, a progression, a procession of discursive, reflexive, subjective, songs. It's sung, written but meant to be read out loud, an oration, a singing hymn for the people, for all people, for personhood, for the making of persons, for the making apart of possible persons, singing to that space between person, that forming space from which persons person actively building upon personages in their wake. Various colors, various tones, various frequencies: do I have a community? Do I have commraderie? Am I in a society? Is this project political, political, political, does it police borders, does it reinforce hold up or break down, is it relatable, is it for whites or grays or blacks or some other spectrum perhaps, some other color, some other age group, some other economic bracket, some other spatio-temporal coordination? Who is excluded? Who and how are they excluded? Am I included? Can anyone else be included? How to bring one in, how to bring them in, where is in, where is the in, the going in, is in a place, a space, when will we get there, how is it articulated, is in a frame, a spatial-temporal frame, how can we sing its thresholds, how might we transgress its foothold, how can we walk around in its T-space, go for a shamanic stroll in a greater-than-abstract K-space, as transcendental flaneurs? How is privilege enacted within this frame, can privilege be expanded, its frame expanded, to be inclusive, to be exclusive, is it limited in its framing, are there restrictions to its constrictions, how can everyone, or anyone, becoming involved, become dissolved, would they want to, if they could, is it up to them, is it up to me, and who are they, and who am I, anyways? This text: this image: this oration: is it a monologue, is it a dialogue, am I in conversation, am I speaking, is there someone listening, does it exist? This text: all these texts: through sound, through oration, through writing, through structure, through architecture, through archi-text-ure, through embodying the mineral intelligence of the landscape, recognizing the delineation of walls, ceilings, the floor, the grid, the space we are inhabiting for the duration of this monologue, this table we are sitting at for the duration of our conversation, the space, the place, the time it takes to describe this image clear enough for you to see it, how much more time for you to feel it, how much more time for you to know that its yours, for your to feel ownership of it, for you to feel indebted, invested, for you to know that it is you that has articulated this? What is your image, can we compared images? How do you speak, what do you say, how are your thoughts embodied through text forms, form-languages, images unfurling within sequences in time, on what space, through which model? Is this monologue monotonous, is it boring? Am I driven by curiosity, novelty, do I need to be stimulated, am I able to be stimulated, is it my mind, my body, my intrigue, my curiosity which needs this, is it my own, did I inherit it, can I lay claim to my manner of speaking, to my capacity to learn new ways of speaking, to my ability to incorporate new concepts into my articulations, may I conceed ownership over any of it, over any aspect, over any perspective, perspectivism, perspectivalism, observing facets of what object, are we seeing the same thing, are we understanding each other, are we asking the right questions, are we foolish in seeking answers, where does wisdom emerge from intelligence, and how will we know how to recognize it when it reveals itself? Is it something within or without, where should we be looking, is it manner or matter of seeing or not seeing, making visible or keeping hidden, is this search clandestine, fraught with error or terror or horror, is it tragic, is this funny? If I laugh, is it from happiness or sadness and how would I know if you weren't here to explain it to me, if you weren't here to bare witness to my oration? Is this interesting, should we keep talking, are we talking, are you responding, or are you choosing to keep quiet, to keep silent, are you protesting your response, exercising your right to not respond, by not responding, relinquishing your determinism, your will, your voice, your actions in speaking and being present before me as your other, or are you merely an extension of my own hallucination? Are you in my delusion or am I in yours, is this real, is it illusory, does it matter, is it matter, is one more beautiful than the other, can it ever be seen, can it ever be spoken, when will it be understood, when will we see the other? What are the marks of intelligence and how quickly can we recite them, is it a process of memorization, depth, complexity, fidelity, velocity? Is it instantiated in material matters, mannered bodies, minding organs, in the transmission between substances, the passing of signals between atoms, molecules, cell structures, are they self-organizing, are they aware of their own organizations, is it the earth realizing itself, are trees really speaking, feeling in relation to each other, as a unified forest, does nature contemplate its own existence, does mathematics lie at the root of the trees, do mathematics lie, is understanding a process coming into its own awareness of itself, is this process economical, is it viable, is it justifiable, is it legitimate, should we continue, would it be better to not, to refrain, to constrain, to keep quiet, to stay silent? Who would lose out, what would be missed, does the attempt cause more harm than the good it is capable of achieving, is it all meaningless, is it all nothing, down there, at the bottom, and then how to we therefore make decisions as to what to lay on top, how to layer it, for what and for whom? For what and for whom does beauty recognize itself, or must it be name first, do aesthetic sensibilities form themselves, or are they acquired, accumulated, designed? Is any of this built, am I building, am I in a building, when I am outside or in what, and when do I say that project is finished, how do we recognize the completeness of articulation, when will I be finished speaking, how much time has passed, how much more time will pass, where is it going, how is it passing, how is it flowing, when does it become boring, and when it does what will we do next? Make it more interesting or sit there and be bored, wherever that is, to be still, to feel it, does it feel good, to be nothing, to be quiet, does it feel better to articulate or to not, are we making each other feel better by articulating or would we rather not? Is this repetitive, is it incessant, will it never end, is this a game, are we playing it, are we the players working within rules or are we playing with the rules, is the game malleable, can it be bent, can it be readjusted, is it defined through signals or the act of playing, how much is predetermined, how much must be explained before playing, how much is learned through playing, what are the consequences of not playing, how much are we able to foresee? Am I writing this opera or is it writing itself, does it come from me or am I a conduit through which these streams are coursing, are any of these ideas my own, can I lay claim to anything, should I, should I try, does it matter, is it matter or memory then? This little bee buzzing in my hair, is it friend or foe, this conversation I had with the iceberg, and now with this glacier, do they hear me? You here mountain, you hear me mountain, do you have a name, do you care to have one, am I the one to give it to you, or has another already, and do you accept it, you who they call mirror, is that because you would rather not lay claim to any identity or territory, but would you hold mine for me as I trod upon you, am I projecting myself upon you, do you have an inside I might inhabit, even for a moment to rest, are you teaching me a lesson, are you helping me to understand, are you doing anything I can understand, are you doing anything at all, or is this all a form of animism, organicism, illusion, anthropomorphic fallacy, lying in language, lying through language, in the form, in my abstraction, within the frame, or in my inability to think beyond it, to diagram beneath the abstractions, to speak outside of the vocabulary I have acquired, to feel greater than the senses of my body. You mountain, do you feel me, do you care for me, can we speak privately, are you public, are you present, are you here, can you hear, are you locatable or do you infact define your own space, you who certainly must be a they, a them, a composite user of multiple languages, multiple momentums, flowing, hissing, gurgling over each other through gravity, some kind of built up destruction or tearing down through chaos or entropy or motion called by any other name, you mountain, are you singular or plural, won't you ask back, won't you ask me, won't you express your curiosity for my existence? Are you a sight or am I just siting your site, do you have limits, a threshold, or am I the one only one delineating the borders, are you a territory are you waiting to be territorialized, can you teach me something about deterritorialization, of myself in relation, can it happen now while I'm upon you, am I still here, am I still upon you, can I ever be completely, can I ever be whole without you, and how about this glacier, melting away up on your top, swollen moist crown cutting away, keeping you moving, is it violent or beautiful, is it sweet to your ears, can you ever hear it, can you hear yourself speaking, do you feel yourself moving, through all the dendritic flows, fractaline cuts, forming and training your jagged epidermis into various tools for my own contemplation, thought-forms taking shape in response to my citing their relations, are they for me, should I receive you as a gift, or are you more ambivalent, more indifferent, are you just a mirror, reflecting, echoing back incessantly, or perhaps able to speak and choosing not to, refraining, restraining, reserving quietly, remaining silent in your stability, beyond my measly frame of time and space. This song: it's an aria of an opera: I'll dedicate it to you, at least for a moment, this moment upon which I was standing upon you, singing it to you, when there was no one else around to listen but you and me, refusing to believe that I was ever really that alone, are we ever, could we ever be?