NUESTRA SEÑORA DE CONCEPT ALBUM
a scene for Janelle Monáe
EXT. ROUND, GOLD SWIMMING POOL
MONÁEBOT lounges at edge of pool, their legs off-screen, then suddenly jerks upwards as if pulled by puppet strings and dives sideways into pool. CAMERA pulls back, revealing three more identical MONÁEBOTS diving sideways in unison. As CAMERA continues to pull back, the MONÁEBOTS are revealed to be four fingers on a hand, and the pool is a holy water font in a church. EXT has become INT. The fingers are on MONÁEBOT PRIME, dressed in a tuxedo made of patent leather with prominent stitching that is computer cables.
MONÁEBOT PRIME
Watch all the ways I can transform
Plane, train, my own getaway car
Log all the ways I have been born
Woman, android, even a star
Gawk at the spectacle and the storm
Light in my eyes from light-years afar
Talk about how I’m the brand-new norm
Cast a spell from a techno grimoire
MONÁEBOT PRIME removes their head with a slight twist and hands it off-screen, returning with a new head. It has the same face, but with an afro made of electrical wires. They reach into a pocket and remove an afro pick. CAMERA zooms in on it in an arcing shot, revealing the tips of the pick to be interfaces for a motherboard. As the scene arcs and zooms back out, MONÁEBOT PRIME sticks the pick in their wirefro. Their eyes glaze over, then show data downloading. Their eyes whir, spin, then click back into place. They begin to sing, wiggling their fingers à la jazz hands, which sing along.
MONÁEBOT PRIME
You ever wish on a rainbow?
FINGERBOTS
Rainbow…
MONÁEBOT PRIME
You ever wonder where it goes?
FINGERBOTS
It goes…
MONÁEBOT PRIME
Yeah, light is a spectrum, we all know
FINGERBOTS
All know…
MONÁEBOT PRIME
And so are we, so won’t you glow
MONÁEBOT PRIME and FINGERBOTS
Glow, glow, glow, glow, glow, glow, glow
CAMERA refocuses on the font/pool, now occupied by swimmers of a variety of genders and all with some robotic body part. The water lights up in shifting patterns as though RGB lighting were beneath it. The swimmers begin to trade their robot parts with no regard for where they originally were fitted, arms for legs, ears for nipples, jaws for crotches. MONÁEBOT PRIME reaches into the pool with their FINGERBOTS and swirls the water until everyone is laughing in a whirlpool.
MONÁEBOT PRIME
We remained ourselves yet became one like a country. We sang harmonious notes. We were each a voice. We were 3D. We were images on screens on every TV. We were paradox engines driving towards a cliff, then riding off and levitating. We found the pieces within us that were missing. We replaced them with we. We pierced ourselves to become holy.
MONÁEBOT PRIME drops their hands below the screen and brings them back up holding PRINCE in their palms. PRINCE grinds his hips, drawing his hands from them up to his collar and popping it, continuing the motion to pull down his chest panel, revealing him to be a mecha piloted by JAMES BROWN. JAMES BROWN steps out onto the platform just created and gets down with the boogie, then lifts his hands towards his hair as if to brush it back but instead pulls up on his temples, lifting off the top of his head and revealing himself to be a mecha piloted by the smallest MONÁEBOT. The smallest MONÁEBOT holds eye contact with the camera.
END.
JeFF Stumpo is author of five chapbooks of poetry (most through Seven Kitchens Press) and a spoken word album, winner of the Subnivean Award for Poetry (judged by Major Jackson) and runner-up for the Joy Harjo Prize, and his poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as DMQ Review, The Journal, RHINO, Rattle, Puerto del Sol, and Allium. He is a survivor of psychosis and PTSD, husband to a PhD chemist, and father to an amazing trans child. He has a (poor) website at JeFFStumpo.com.
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