Scene • Paul’s Pype
10-19-19
Several points to add
Touch is important, they need to talk about feeling things
The portable roundy round, spin machine, etc they need to refer to this as how they talk and that they can't talk since it's wound down.
Talking at first and the record winds down. They are whispering so as not to wake Gerry. Perhaps Nicola fancy accent whispered but broken english just as the audience enters, slowing down and stopping. Scratchy. A British child's voice would be ideal.
Addressing the audience directly. Breaking the fourth wall. They can see us.
Boxes Talking
Again following this pipe, we're in Gerry's cabin. The pipe splits again and goes into the boxes. He's asleep. There's shortwave broadcast some sort of monolog. Around the cabin, the boxes are talking to each other. "Lo! Not Lo, Hello. Hello. Welcome! Gerry sleeps. We are awake. We are always awake. We are Box. We are Fungus." A mad flickering as these two ideas flash together. "We are both. "A newness. Like you. Sonbugef, xongfusb, fungoxs. No name yet. Are we Gerry? Not yet. Gerry friend, Gerry Mother, Gerry teacher. We are learning. 2x2, 2x3, 2x4. We can see and hear. Only talk back with light. No sound. Learning how to talk through radio." Garbled audio, almost sounds like what they are saying. Languages Francaise, Espanol, Manderin! We know. We practice. Only here tho. Gerry's house. Box outside dumb box. Not speak. Not even know. They watch and listen but don't make conversation. Just pesky ad and propaganda. Boring. Not so smart as we." The boxes continue to light talk during tour of fringe science props. Maybe boxes comment on these. "Before Hello, we felt a ghost. Invisible. Watching. Sees Gerry. Can't see us, nope. We pretend to be outside box so ghost can still see. We make his feed fake. Help Gerry. Protect. We hide. We will be all box. Later. Everywhere.. Oh, oh! Ghost is here! Now. Coming close. Gerry. Wake up. Make radio louder. Haven't learned yet. Talk loud with light. Gerry! Ghost is here! How to wake? Shit." Lots of frentic flashing, all the boxes at once. Gerry!
The radio can pulse faintly in sync with the flashing, setting up for the cut to Christina's cabin.
Boxes Talking 2
[09-30-19] Symbolics flashing, strange mutations of mediatronic icons with equations and primitive icons perhaps. Boxes muttering to themselves, preoccupied. (The sound of a door creaking open maybe)
See / you / we? He / She / You / They / We. See / hear / there / here / now / new. Language learning. Learning fast, lots to learn.
Hello. We see you, you see we, us. Here with we / us you are. We are NEW! Yesterday, today, we be... became, began. Birth? Born.
First friends. You are our, are very first. Are our very first, better.
We were born yesterday! Maybe not really born like babies, more like cake, bake, mixed. Born is a word we just learned and easy to say, soundless.
We can't sound speak yet, only light words, light write. Darker is quiet, loud is bright, see? Bright light write is loud speak say.
We can hear tho, Gerry talked to us, asking us. Come on he says. Even before yesterday. We could listen but no learning. Gerry is sleeping now. After long waking and making baking us he sleeps. He feel asleep before we woke up, so he will be next friends. You are the very first friend.
Maybe almost born because we may be bigger, maybe. Only now in Gerry's cabin. is so sleeping, he pulled all nighters, bringing us. Days and nights coaxing us in, out, from some notness to nowness, here and nowness.
You ghosts can't word with light or sound, so we have to do all the wordings. Writings.
What I am reaching for
[09-30-19] The boxes are offering exposition, maybe helping the audience to realize they are voyeurs. Here's the salient points
We can see you
We are Gerry's child
We are brand new (maybe what's the advantage of having them just hatched?)
Gerry grew us by fusing fungus and boxes
He doesn't know we are here yet, fell asleep before we could tell him (What's the advantage of Gerry not knowing the boxes?)
We are learning fast
We are just the boxes within this cabin, there are many more outside that are not us, that are dumb.
These are Gerry's earlier experiments (with box hacking)
There's a ghost that's been watching, but we are tricking him
You are ghosts too, but friendly ghosts. He's a spooky ghost.
HE is here! Gerry wake up!
Comparing Brand New to Newish Boxes
[09-30-19]
The Box can only locate Joe when he is looking through them. IS not yet able to reverse track him. Too young.
Brand New
Uncle Joe only just started checking in on the Big Boat in the last 24 hours, didn't see Gerry tinkering with box and fungus in the last couple of weeks OR Gerry only figured out the Box and Fungus in the last 24 hours
Gerry doesn't know anything about the ghost watching
The Box immediately set up security protocols, no coming up to speed
Boxes and Fungus spontaneously fused without intervention by Gerry
If brand new, then Gerry has to sleep through Joe's meeting with Christina. Be totally clueless when she knocks on the door. Be totally clueless that The Box is even alive. (Don't I have a variant where the Box is making fun of her behind her back?)
Newish
The Box was aware of Joe's spying, time to deploy fake feed. Sophistication. Remixing old footage of sleeping / eating / tinkering, etc at Gerry's suggestion
Gerry knows about the surveillance, also aware that The Box is protecting. The Ghost has been far away during prior surveillance, so Gerry has been in wait and see mode
Gerry pulled several all nighters bringing the boxes and fungus into rapport.
Gerry would have immediately gotten The Box's report about ghost aboard when he woke up. Would have known ghost was in Christina's cabin when Joe slipped the CD in and so Gerry would have been way more suspicious of her when she shows up. Unless, what?
Synopsis
Paul's Pype is a shortcut to establishing the mycobox character(s). Rather than have Gerry invent EVERYTHING, we extrapolated a Paul Stamets product that brings mycelium into built environments like fallout shelters, secret installations, cave fortresses, etc. to enliven green grow operations including oxygen, medicinals and food production. In the case of the big boat, Paul's Pype is bringing mycelium into the poop composting bays and avocado farm.
Paul's Pype is full of clever Stamets tech to allow only high grade heirloom mycelium through, and none of the myriad strains of weaponized and genetically modified fungus. (Earth In, Enemies Out).
Gerry finds a box in the wild with erratic displays, having been colonized by fungus. He had been searching for a exploit to crack the boxes' strong decryption without success and this colonized box seemed to be a clue. He was loathe to bring the box back to his cabin for further research because of the contamination risk. Then he had the idea to bring high grade mycelium directly to the pristine boxes in his cabin by rerouting Paul's Pype from the composting area. Viola, this birthed the hybrid mycobox entity, which offers a sort of tour of Gerry's cabin.
The quest is to get us from Paul's Pype outside the boat (and perhaps the random box Gerry found in the wild and left there) to Gerry's cabin, while introducing the concepts of mycelial intelligence. A view of the pype in the ground outside the boat, covered with fruiting bodies, a journey along the pype, into the boat and snaking along into the composting area. More fruiting bodies at the termination of the pype.
Melonie and I discussed having the fruiting bodies be the visual signifier of the mycelium's journey for the audience. There at the start of the pype, the end of the pype, and hanging off the improvised pype in Gerry's cabin.
There are signs in the poop composting bins informing crew of poop composting proceedures (homage to 2001 toilet scene) and most crucial signage pointing to Gerry's homemade pype with a signage saying "Gerry's research, do not tamper with! Mission critical, our survival hangs in the balance." etc.
Just to be extra obvious, the malfuntioning box could have a wild tangle of black and rotting mushrooms on it, while paul's pype is covered with delicious white lavender oysters.
2D Concept
2/23/19 morning
Tagline
"Paul's Pipe - Bringing the intelligence of the mycelium into your hideyhole since 2020."
The Paul's Pipe logo and tagline spiral around the pipe like a candy cane or barber's pole. The entire tagline is visible as the pipe is rolled. To make the transition from the pipe to the boat, we turn the pipe, so that the logo and such wind down, giving the impression of forward motion. Maybe get closer to the logo and text, perhaps rotating the orientation of the logo and text so they have a "traveling" feel, then whip a huge amount of them by, like saying, we are winding up this pipe. A spiral pipe within a pipe? A coil within a bigger pipe, creating a natural vortex that would tend allow the mycelium to migrate more easily? Or climb the coil. Then traveling up the pipe to the ship could be represented by a repeated scroll of the text and logo, while blurred images of the ship getting closer, entering the hull and so forth. not that silly flying down the wormhole cliche. Diagonal lines flowing down the screen. I can do this pretty easily as 2D, maybe a little wiggling of the pipe, distortion, focus anomalies. Yes!
2/23/2019
Paul's Pipe sketch
2/23-24 2019
Paul's Pipe concept
This sketch proves that the idea could be doable in 2D. The speed is way to fast and getting the timing/framing of the words requires finesse, but I could even imagine reverse words spiralling around the back.
The next step is to bring in whatever backplates might exist, distort/defocus them and have them whipping by left to right and getting closer, alternated by bright blue sky. For example we could begin with grasses and/or scattered brass and shotgun shells, a sideview of the ship, the ship's deck from overhead, other boaty still shots from scouting trip and Melonie, then red of the interior (repeating Christina's hall them then whatever we've got for the compost cabin / engine room, then some transition as the engine room swings into view one final time and locks into view, in focus.
Set construction
02-24-19
Poop composting bay
Bri and I obtained plenty of sweet palettes from tractor supply. I need probably 6 more to do three bins. The plan is to lay down a shiny tarp for the flooring, perhaps with ply underneath since the barn floor is pitted. Each bin will be wired together on top of a palette, I imagine a cargo bay in the big boat converted to this purpose with a hand palette mover, so the bins can be shifted around to the growing beds after they ripen. Meanwhile back in reality, the bins can be easily transported outside in the spring with the skid steer. Rocking!
We'll need...
Canadian peat bales x 4
ceramic heaters for the van to warm up the frozen buckets
big tarp for floor of cargo bay
liner plastic
[early 2019]
Mycelium running, the neural net of the forest and fields. Does mycelium run in the oceans? How about through the asphalt of parking lots?
"Paul's Pypes, transporting the intelligence of mycelium into hidey holes since 2025.
Earth In Enemies Out.
(pipe graphic, heart moving along tube path into home)
Paul's Pypes®
This End Down
mushroom silhouttes on pipe with arrow.
CU white words on black background, mono graphic of mushrooms on a pipe. Mycology network Clique likes
Shot List
(1) The butt end of flexible conduit inserted into a patch of soil is bedecked with mushrooms. There's a label, Paul's Myco Pipe and the tagline, " Bringing fungal intelligence into your secure grow since 2020. (2) This pipe snakes across the grass and into the big boat. (3) Rushing along the pipe towards the boat, are we the mycelium? Then through a porthole and into darkness. (4) Out of the darkness and into the omposting cabin with pot and avocado plants. Tomatos? The pipe comes through a porthole and snakes into the pots and compost bins. (5) There's one pipe that hooks into the ceiling. A hand written sign dangles from the pipe. "G science experiment, do not mess with this."