Process

Talespin grew out of James Siena’s fascination with self-reflective images and strategies of
serial creation. In 1986, James became very intrigued by computer-generated images
known as fractals – designs created from mathematical sets and characterized by repetition
on multiple scales – and particularly by a complex fractal known as the Mandelbrot set.
Mandelbrot set image Around the same time, through Douglas Hofstadter’s book Gödel Escher
Bach, he was introduced to the concept of recursion – things that repeat in a self-reflective
way. Classic visual representations of recursion include the endlessly diminishing reflections
in a pair of mirrors that face each other or the packaging for Droste chocolate on which a
nun holds a tray supporting a box on which the same nun, much smaller, holds an identical
box showing the same, yet smaller nun, holding a tray with the same box, etc. Droste image

In addition to his work with Watchface, James was a dedicated and serious painter, and he
was inspired to incorporate these concepts into his visual artwork. James’ painting He also
became intrigued by the challenge of applying them to his performance work. James
proposed that he and Iris compose a story that would include multiple levels of recursion; as
with the Droste nun, each world the characters inhabited would contain other, similar worlds.

James had previously introduced the other members of Watchface to the game Exquisite
Corpse, a favorite of the Surrealists, in which drawings or poems are created by a succession
of contributors. For a drawing, each artist draws part of a figure, then folds the paper back,
leaving just a bit of the drawing showing so the next artist can begin where the previous one
left off. Each artist continues in the same fashion until the page is filled. For a poem, each
writer composes a couple of lines and folds back the page showing only the first word of the
next sentence to inspire the following poet. Exquisite Corpse drawings and poems both
became popular after-dinner pastimes at Watchface’s social gatherings.
Watchface Exquisite Corpse poem

In addition, Iris was long familiar with a related game sometimes called Rigmarole – in which
sequential storytellers stop speaking midsentence at an exciting moment only to be rescued
by the next participant – since it was played by characters in her favorite book since
childhood, Little Women. James and Iris decided to use this technique, combined with
repeated recursion, in writing the story that would become their next performance.

They chose the names Dusty and Scout for their main characters, who were to be their
avatars within the story. Dusty was chosen for James, since he worked in a frame shop and
often left work covered with fine sawdust. Scout represented Iris, since she had referred to
herself in the Watchface show Woolworth’s as “the searcher known as Iris Rose” and she’d
always closely identified with the main character in To Kill a Mockingbird. In a twist,
however, they decided to swap names, so James played Scout and Iris, Dusty. They dubbed
the entire enterprise Talespin.

In a spiral-bound steno notebook with green-tinted, lined pages, James began the story:
“One day, Dusty and Scout decided to bake bread. Each knew the recipe by heart but to
each the recipe was different.” James filled a bit more than two pages and stopped with this
line: “`You worry more than a barrel of worrying monkeys,’ said Dusty.” As in Rigmarole, but
unlike Exquisite Corpse, the previous section of the story was not a surprise, so Iris was able
to continue the story knowing exactly what Dusty and Scout had already been up to. So far
they had mixed up a batch of bread and decided to go to the candy store while it was
rising.

In Iris’ first installment, Scout found a cigarette and when he smoked it, though it was Scout
who felt strange, it was Dusty who turned into a green and purple monster with multiple eyes
and nine fingers on each hand. In James’ next installment, Dusty smoked the cigarette as
well so that Scout would change too, and the two monsters went to a nearby amphitheater.

It was when they got to the amphitheater that the story’s first example of recursion occurred.
Onstage they saw their own apartment building and themselves emerging from it – at that
moment, two versions of Dusty and Scout were present within the story simultaneously, the
stage dramatization of their lives existing entirely within the original world the story had
created. This doubling did not last long, however. When onstage Scout was about to smoke
a cigarette he’d found, the two monsters rushed toward the stage in warning, but when he
took a puff, the monsters exploded. At this point, the story shifted its point of view to follow
the stage representations of Dusty and Scout.

The adventures of Dusty and Scout continued through several more recursive elements:
Dusty was hit on the head by a book whose title was revealed to be Hide and Seek with
Dusty and Scout; the main story eventually returned to the amphitheater, where the monster
versions of Scout and Dusty were still in the audience, revealing the preceding to have all
been part of the play; they went inside the full moon and watched a movie called The
Trouble with Dusty before returning home to their risen bread. steno book page

At some of the intersections between levels of reality, one of the Scouts and/or Dustys was
able to interact with the alternate reality. In the first and simplest of them, onstage Scout’s
smoking of the cigarette caused the monster versions to (temporarily) disappear. In another,
Dusty saved herself and Scout by flipping to the last page of the book and learning just in
time about an impending explosion. Sometimes they simply learned a lesson from the other
reality: although they didn’t interact with The Trouble with Dusty, it did reveal to them how to
cure themselves of being monsters (the secret was horseradish). And after the film, they
found that the moon itself had taken them home.

Besides these actual parallel realities, there were clues sprinkled throughout Talespin that
none of the realities was the one that the rest of us actually live in. Besides people turning
into monsters from smoking, there were many other disorienting elements: signs spelled
backwards, such as “gniledomer” on a boarded-up candy store and “derdlim” on their
apartment building (James and Iris lived in an apartment building called The Mildred); the
sun was in “the wrong part of the sky”; “the miniature chairman of the miniature Joint Chiefs
of Staff” drafted Dusty into running the commissary for his army; they were able to step inside
the moon; and the book, besides providing a narrative that directly paralleled their present
experience, also spoke directly to the reader:

“I’m just reading this weird book,” thought Dusty. You see, dear reader,
that Dusty found this book that you are now reading. Yes, you, Dusty, and
you can’t understand how it could be about you and Scout and know so
much about you. Never mind. And that’s the end of Chapter 1.

Despite this intentional “alienation effect”, there was a secret level to Talespin that, on the
contrary, connected it to reality. As James and Iris wrote the story, they embedded many
details from their real life, often poking fun at themselves and each other. Besides the
backwards reference to their home, true-to-life elements included:

James loved making homemade bread.

Iris loved candy and the store Economy Candy on Rivington Street.

The phrase “You worry more than a barrel of worrying monkeys” was a reference to a
favorite catchphrase of Iris’, appropriate for all occasions simply by replacing the
adjectives (for example, “It’s colder than a barrel of cold monkeys” or “It’s more
confusing than a barrel of confusing monkeys”).

James smoked and Iris didn’t like it.

Since James had begun the story, Iris finished it. After curing themselves of monsterhood
with a dose each of horseradish, Dusty checked on the bread, then found Scout in the living
room, reading the encyclopedia.

“Horseradish is in the mustard family,” said Scout.

“That’s fine,” said Dusty, “but let’s get this bread in the oven.”

Scout followed her into the kitchen. “I’m going to carry horseradish with
me everywhere I go.” They noticed from the kitchen window that the sun
was going down. In the right part of the sky.

THE END

Iris typed up the story and James pasted the pages into a bound naval radar instruction
book he had found. radar manual Together they streamlined the script by eliminating all
excess language that didn’t contribute to advancing the story or creating a clear visual
image. edited manual pages

In performance the story was narrated by Marlene McCarty via audio recording while
James and Iris were entirely silent. The selection of movement techniques for Talespin
corresponded to the structural levels of the story. For the beginning and ending, which
represented the “reality” from which the rest of the story departed, and to which it returned,
the movements were drawn from Bodies in Space, the improvisational technique that often
supplied Watchface with its most complex and detailed movements and its most interactive.
Examples of Bodies in Space movements from Iris’ notes:

James on my back, running

Pogo stick chase

James and I jog in and out to center, just missing; we both end up center, James jogs
around

For the transitional periods in which they were approaching and departing from the
amphitheater, Walter Kendall Fives were used, but in keeping with the storybook style of the
piece, the movements were very broad and stylized:

Shriek – knees bent out, hands (splayed) almost to head, mouth open, eyes closed,
hands vibrate

Sit down – hop into 2nd position, cave in slightly. Arms hang center.

Run – legs swing out to sides, both arms swing in opposition

For a brief section in which Scout listened to a call-in talk show on his transistor radio while
waiting for Dusty, Iris moved James as though he were a puppet through actions like Sit in
Gutter, Earplug in Ear, and Look Down the Road.

For the remaining sections, all of which existed within specific alternative realities – the play,
the book, and the movie – the movements were static poses, which the performers referred
to in rehearsal as “film stills.” The poses were not created from scratch, but were based on
illustrations selected from Iris’ large collection of children’s books and re-created as exactly
as possible, though in many instances the positions represented were clearly impossible for
the human body (but that only made the challenge more fun). illustrations for “film stills” The
images were chosen to represent moments in the story such as Explosion, Awful Smell, and
Steam From Ears, and the desired effect was a storybook come to life.