Mr. Deadman, StandUp Corpse
Mr. Deadman decides to try his hand at standup comedy. He tries his act out on open mic night at the local comedy club. "Last week I went to the doctor," Mr. Deadman says beginning a joke. "I said, 'Doctor, doctor, my heart's stopped beating and I've stopped breathing.' The doctor said, 'You don't need a doctor. You need an undertaker.'" Nobody laughs at this or any of his other jokes, but Mr. Deadman doesn't mind. In fact, he's thrilled. "I've died onstage!" Mr. Deadman congratulates himself.
The above outtake is among a string of outtakes for Mr. Deadman, a work of minimalist fiction by American author Peter Cherches. Outtakes from Lift Your Right Arm also includes outtakes from a quartet of other minimalist fiction first published in Lift Your Right Arm. Here are the four titles of these four minimalist fictions and a few words about each:
Bagatelles - Intense yet amusing relationship between a man and a woman. One outtake: "I translated her into a foreign tongue, but it was a sloppy translation and we both knew it. She protested so I changed her back. Unfortunately, this too was a sloppy translation."
Dirty Windows - A second intense, quirky relationship between a guy and gal. Two lines of outtake: "She was a kleptomaniac. Without knowing it, she stole pieces of him while he wasn't looking and hid them on her person."
Trio Bagatelles - Three way interaction, a kind of postmodern, eccentric spin-off of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit.
A Certain Clarence - Highly peculiar adventures of a very charming but very peculiar man. Rather than sharing a snip of Clarence outtake, here's one of the micro-chapters taken from the original micro-fiction entitled A Certain Clarence in Lift Your Right Arm. Hey, Clarence, I love you, guy - one of my very favorite fictional characters ever.
"It was a wild idea, but Clarence decided to write a play, about himself, called "The Importance of Being Clarence." The play would have only one character, Clarence, but it wouldn't be a monologue - it was a dialogue, between the fictional Clarence, the Clarence in the play and the other Clarence, the real Clarence, that is, the writer, the one who, hey, where did he go?"
Peter Cherches notes how he tried out different short chapters for each micro-fiction, acknowledging due to tone or content or his literary sensibility, a number of the short chapters just didn't quite fit into the overall pattern or aesthetic of the piece, so they were relegated to outtake status. Nevertheless, the outtakes can be a delight to read in and of themselves, thus this book of outtakes.
Peter is a big fan of both jazz and film. And nowadays outtakes from music and movies are frequently made public - so why not outtakes from his book? Why not, indeed? Thanks, Peter!
"Clarence's walls have sprouted stomata, minuscule mouth-like openings. I've heard of walls having ears, Clarence thought, but never mouths." - Peter Cherches, Outtakes from Lift Your Right Arm
American author & performer Peter Cherches, born 1956
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