E.B. WAN KENOBI & the COUNCIL OF SUPERHEROES
A One-Act Play

Extro: If you can't be an artist, you might as well be a revolutionary. (Tom Stoppard, Travesties)

Intro: This is the cyberworld, these are the cybertimes. We are the past's future and that makes the future now. Cutting edge is the adjective to information technology's noun, and hence we cut the edges of words, or phrases, or in the future some sentences or paragraphs even. Language is an ammunition, and consequently every blog's an armory. Bloggers are today's soldiers and they are - consciously or un - crafted from the valiance of the great Obi Wan Kenobi, George Lucas' Jedi Knight, wishing to fulfill the past prophesy that information will be man's most inordinate weapon. Ever.

Along these lines a group of bloggers from The Philippines called for a bloggers' EB to set up a council of superheroes needed to intensify the artistic and or revolutionary capability of each and every blogger in the world as a first step towards the fulfillment of the prophesy. Think Morpheus? FH!

First you may ask, What is an EB? Ah, where have you been, oldfold? But patience is our virtue, so we will explain: Acronyms signify the swiftness of information. To enable every man, every blogger to pass on info at a faster pace than before, words and phrases are shortened in the spirit of quick communication. Wherefore EB is Eyeball. And while the colloquial verb to eyeball in the Western Hemisphere means to scrutinize or pay close attention to, say, a clause in a contract or a scene from a movie, in the Philippines and other parts of Asia it means 'to meet for the first time'. And so in this play you may find acronyms where you have to be aware, or beware. One is wtf, for even in the spirit of reality a man who says wtf should be taken seriously. To the uninitiated wtf does not mean Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays but has far more troubling connotations. Listen, thus, as Master Jobert screams "wtf!" with the scornful look of a wronged mercenary, for in the well-being of all, we need to know, he really means, Where's the food!

And so on that epicurean note, we begin.

Cast of Characters:
Freude; Ghost (in a dual role); Jet; Belle; Jobert; Angela (in a cameo role) and a host of others with or without speaking parts.

Scene One: At the rooftop of a towering edifice called The Lectern, a forlorn young man walks atop an open parapet and perniciously scares a crowd of onlookers hundreds of feet below with a horrible interpretation of a Chorus Girls' double-kick stride to the music of Sinatra's New York, New York. The seemingly Cabaret-aspirant, a handsome and skinny young man of mysterious beginnings and name, is none other than the Famous Freude, or FF, which is also the acronym of films he loves to watch. As we continue to wonder how the hell he chose his name, he lifts himself in tiptoe, not in an act of dance but in ritual, mandated by tradition that mythology starts with an invocation of the muse. Apparently, Freude suffers from severe mental block and needs an entry in his blog, under the pain of his readers' boycott, and now invokes the wisdom of any wandering muse who may happen to pass by at a worst possible time.

Freude: Eho! Ehodum! Heus!
The crowd below, in unison: En! Ecce!
Freude: Parum sapientiae habere nolo. Ages audietis.

Drums roll, the spirit of John Bonham kicking ass, and from out of the blue a white angelic figure appears, floating on air, a couple of yards away from a perplexed Freude.

Freude: Quid est nomen tuum?
white figure: Ghost, G-h-o-s-t, Ghost.
Freude: Esne Ghost?
Ghost: Esne Fungus, er, Freudus?
Freude: Te videre mihi libet. Serva me!
Ghost: Quid agis hodie?
Freude: Pessime! Et tu?
Ghost: Iter meus erat longum et difficile.
Freude: Languebam. Ira mea est magna.
Ghost: Nemo liber est qui corpori servit.
Freude: Cogito, ergo sum.
Ghost: Tibi mecum venire necesse est. Sir Jobert te EB ire vult.
Fredue: Nolo!
Ghost: Cur?
Freude: What did you mean why? YOU! Are you capable of finding in literature a venue for the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man?
Ghost: Quicquid! ** (**Whatever!) Domum quam primum reveniam.

And in the wink of a squinting eye, Ghost vanishes, swooshing towards the sun, transforming, metamorphosing... Freude looks at the vanishing figure with continued forlorn, his vision stuck in the direction of the sun.

In a second comes a flying head - an astonishingly pretty head and face with flapping baby wings. It approaches Freude.

flying head: Adversus solem ne loquitur. (Afterwards, in a very naughty fashion, she bursts into a song) Bibit hera, bibit herus, bibit miles, bibit devus.
Freude: Quid est nomen tuum?
flying head: Res ipsa loquitor. Nomen meum est Angela.
Freude: Amice magne.
Angela: Ghost erat mulier animi boni.
Freude: Pessime, pessime!
Angela: Gaudeamus igitur, iuvenes dum sumus.
Freude: Nolo, nolo!
Angela: Belle, Jet, Sir Jobert...Sir Jobert te EB ire vult! EB, ahhh! Omnia multa arte curaque conficere poteris.
Freude: Mene iuvabis?
Angela: Volo.
Freude: Dulce est decorum est pro BLOG mori.
Angela: Bonam Fortunam

Afterwards, the angelic head flies away, this time singing a different tune...
Ang lake, ang lake-lake
Ng bulaklak...
bwahahaha, bastos eh ne.

That leaves Freude by himself again, now severely melancholic, and with his face covered by his unusually large hands, sings a long forgotten ditty by Pet Shop Boys...
what have I
What have I
What have I done to deserve this...
What have I
What have I
What have I done to deserve this...

(to be continued, if at all, whenever necessary, upon request, in te omnia sunt...)