Art Pact 160

Transcript One (Day 22):

175: I'm getting the hang of this now. Listen to this. [SINGS] Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high!


92: So I hear. I must learn to control the gain on these microphones.


175: Oh, man, don't be like that.


92: Like what?


175: A hater. Hating on me, like a hater.


92: Christ, when were you bottled? Twenty-ten?


175: 2011. If you must know.


92: Yeah, I guessed it. Listen, I don't have the privilege of politeness any more. I can't just get up and walk away, now can I? I can't ask you to move into the next room to practise. All I can do is sit here and listen to you, and if I have to listen to you singing show tunes for the rest of eternity I might as well just boil myself in this jar.


175: Gawd, alright. Fine, so you don't like show tunes. How about this: [SINGS] The Jim-jam-jive is-


92: Stop! Please, for the love of all that's holy, stop.


175: You could have just asked nicely, man.


92: Apparently I couldn't.



Transcript Two (Day 24):

268: Do you think about things a lot? [SILENCE] You there?


92: I'm here. I just didn't want to dignify that with an answer. I mean, what else is there to do? We're brains in jars, you know? Of course I think about things.


268: I don't.


92: Oh-kayyy.


268: No, I mean I remember a lot of things, and I have emotional responses to them. Sometimes positive responses, sometimes unpleasant ones.


92: Like when you remember one-seventy-five's singing.


175: Not cool, dude.


268: Memories from my past, when I had a body.


175: Never happened.


92: Now what?


175: Never happened, man. We never had bodies in the first place.


268: I have memories, you tool.


175: Made up.


268: I can remember my family.


175: Programmed.


92: So we're all just made up people, is that your argument?


175: Not all of us, just two-sixty-eight. I'm as real as anything.


268: All I meant was, I don't do a lot of thinking. Deep thinking.


92: I wonder if I tried really hard, whether I could grow some arms and throttle one-seventy-five.


175: Come at me, bro!


92: Or failing that, myself.



Transcript Three (Day 78):

268: No, I'm pretty sure it was green. Anyway, that day we went out to the woods, the four of us, and I thought - well, this is my lucky day, this seems like good odds. Two guys, two girls, you know? So we're walking through these - just these beautiful woods, you know, like idyllic woods, sun beaming down through the canopy and dappling the ground, oceans of bluebells and foxgloves making the undergrowth a study in blue, the sounds of songbirds, everything, I'm just on top of the world, and really both of the guys were unbelievably hot. One of them - Donny? Danny? I can never remember his name. Anyway, he was the one I was specially after, but I'll be honest with you, his friend would have done as well. Both really smart, really nice - I mean not clever-clever smart, but just interested in lots of things and you know, real interesting people, the kind who can't ever be boring because their brains are just constantly following line after line and they're always branching out. You know? You know what I mean?


92: Yes, I think I was - I mean, I met plenty of people like that, and I always tried to be one, but perhaps not always successfully. It was just that-


268: Anyway, so things were seeming pretty sweet. We sat down and had a little picnic that the guys had prepared, it was all just - like picture-book perfect, like an illustration in a fairy tale or something.


25: So what went wrong?


268: Oh, I didn't realise you were here.


25: I'm always here.


268: I mean, listening.


25: Go on, anyway. If it helps, forget I exist.


268: No, it's not - look, let's start again. 


92: Not from the top? I think we got the build up. The prolegomena. The scene-setting.


268: No, I mean, just. Look, OK, so we were out on this fairy-tale picnic, except that I didn't realise how apt that choice of words might be. You understand? It wasn't two guys and two girls and good odds, really. It was two guys together, and their friend Josie, and Josie's new work colleague - which is to say, me.


92: Was Josie?


268: Oh no, she was - you know, she was just inviting a new co-worker out for a nice picnic with her flatmate and his boyfriend. That was all. It was just me that read too much into the whole thing.


25: Yeah, figures.



Transcript Four: (Day 102)

92: OK, this is great. This is great. This is all golden. OK, go on.


25: Of the four of them that made it through the first round, there were three men, two spouses, three with children, one bald, two with beards-


92: Can a bearded man be bald?


25: Of course he can.


92: It's just - OK, I accept that.


25: If he has hair on his chin, he's bearded. No hair on his head, he's bald.


92: But the chin is part of the head. You see what I'm saying.


25: Do you want to hear the rest of this puzzle or not? I can just shut up, if that's what you want.


92: No no, go on.



Transcript Five: (Day 125)

175: This is like seriously weird. I mean, seriously. Tell me what I look like.


92: You look like a brain in a jar.


175: Oh man, how did you do it? How did you do it? Tell me, I want to see too.


92: You just - I can't explain it. I just kind of got my head round what the information was coming in, and it turned out to be an image, or a camera feed, or something. I don't know, I can't turn them. I can see straight ahead. I can see all of you.


175: Is it video? Or just a picture?


92: How would I know? You're a brain in a jar. You're not doing a lot of moving around.


END TRANSCRIPTS