CHARACTERS

GAME SHOW HOST: Charismatic, quick-tongued, and artificially cordial—like a salesman except you like him.
JOE FREESTYLE: Joe is a rapper.
EUDORA PENDLETON: A bright young woman who doesn’t exist.
THE UNEXPECTED HYPERACCELERATED RADIO-LOCKING LATERAL-JOINTED VANADIUM-TOOTHED PLASMA HIPPOPOTAMUS: Just what it sounds like.

Enter HOST.
HOST: Hey hey hey!  Welcome, welcome to each and every possible combination of individuals here at Chelsea tonight—disallowing multiple permutations, of course.  This is none other than Quandaries Unplugged, the famously frivolous forum for fantastically fanatical formulations of philosophical foibles!  This week, we’re venturing into the mystical domain of metaphysics in search of the answer to a favorite subject of Bertrand Russell—the status of non-existent, and especially, self-contradictory objects!  Let’s hear it for self-contradictory objects, folks!  (Gestures enthusiastically and waits for applause.)   That’s right, that’s right.  So, let’s bring out our first contestant!  Fresh from NYC and basking in sweet notorieTEE, let’s give it 90% of the way up for Joe Freestyle!
HOST starts clapping for JOE.  Enter JOE, putting on the moves.  He calms down after the applause, but still has rhythm.
HOST: How’s it going, Joe?
JOE: Go, go, how’s it gonna go?  Well I donno, I mean, hey! it’s goin’ O.K.
HOST: That’s great, Joe!  Are you familiar with today’s paradox?
JOE: Hey, a paradox, a paradox, I LOVE a good paradox.  Don’tcha know that a paradox is just what mocks the buildin’ blocks of logical thought.  Yeah man, it rocks.
HOST: Well, let’s summarize for our audience.  Famously, when trying to determine the logical rules and syntax of the existential quantifier, philosophers have come up against the problem of whether it’s okay to attribute properties to objects, such as unicorns or factitious notions like the King of a kingless country, which are suspected or even known not to exist.
JOE: Yeah, those peeps Dissed what don’t exist.
HOST: But what’s the twist?
JOE: Well I know what they missed.
HOST: Oh really?
JOE: Yeah, it’s like fruit.  Fruit, yeah you know what I mean, like an orchard peach or a tangerine, or a canteloupe with a nice round shape, or a prickly pear, or a Concord grape, or a grapefruit, good like a plum or a bowl full of date fruit, fruit like a mandarin orange or a coconut, like a ripe persimmon or an apricot, like a pomegranate, don’t want to can it, like an apple, pineapple, lemonade Snapple or a cherry, strawBERry, elderberry, gooseberry, blackberry, blueberry, loganberry, boysenberry—(HOST interrupts.)
HOST: Excuse me!!
JOE: Huh, what?
HOST: What does all that fruit have to do with non-existent objects?
JOE: Uhhh… well sleuth, tell you the truth, it don’t.  You know, it’s just fruit.  Groove it.
HOST: Uh, yeah, I’ll do that.  But anyway, before we get off track, Joe, why don’t you introduce our next contestant?
JOE: Uh, yeah.  Yeah, well, just backstage, we got a big round mammal dat’s all da rage.  Well it’s a quick-moving critter, but it ain’t bitter, no it ain’t no griper, just kind of hyper, got two big joints that move like a windshield wiper.  Well, it’s radio-locked, so you can’t reject it, and it’s all accelerated so ya don’t expect it.  Yo, it’s got metal-plated vanadium teeth, and when it spits plasma, don’t stand beneath.  Showed up this morning on the 8:16 autobus, let’s all sound out a call to the Unexpected, Hyperaccelerated, Radio-Locking, Lateral-Jointed, Vanadium-Toothed Plasma Hippopotamus!
Enter HIPPO, waving its arms in circles.  HOST and JOE clap, and HIPPO revels in the attention, calming down when applause stops.
HIPPO (facing audience): How’s everybody doing!?
HOST: I’m sure they’re all quite contemplative.  Now, as I recall, Hippopotamus, last week you left the show chasing madly after the other contestants after they failed to predict which door you were hidden behind.  Did you ever catch them?
HIPPO: What are you talking about?  This is a fake game show.  There’s no reality to the characters on the show when we’re not on the air!
HOST: Well, you may have a point, but on the other hand… is there any reality to the characters even when they are on the air?
HIPPO: Um, well…
JOE: Yo, yo, like the answer’s no!
HOST: No?  But why not?  After all, I didn’t suggest they were real people… just real characters.
JOE: Oh, whoa.  Whoa.  Now you’re getting’ crazy, my mind’s gone hazy.
HOST: Well, you’re just lazy.  You lose five points.  And now, let’s bring out our final contestant!  From the unpopulated town of Nowhere, Arizona, let’s welcome acclaimed mirage artist Eudora Pendleton!
Enter EUDORA.  HOST and JOE clap, HIPPO waves arms wildly.
EUDORA: Thanks, it’s great to be here.
HOST: Better than the alternative!  Are you ready to play, Eudora?
EUDORA: Yes, I’m ready… but I’m a little bothered by something.  You already asked a question that Joe Freestyle answered before I even got out here.  Isn’t that a little unfair?
HOST: But Joe answered wrong.
EUDORA: But he could have answered right… and I didn’t even get a chance.
HIPPO: Are you suggesting you could have answered right, too?
EUDORA: Well yes, I am.
HOST: But you weren’t on stage yet!
EUDORA: That’s what I’m saying!  If I’d been on stage, I might have answered it right!
HOST: But now we’re talking about a parallel world in which events happened differently!  Since that world never came to be, it doesn’t exist—right?
JOE: Hey, in her defense, it do make sense—that world exists in the conditional tense.
HOST: Interesting take on it, Joe.  To think that a world might exist in a verbal tense… fascinating.  You get your five points back.  And now we’re even, so let’s begin!
HIPPO: Right!
EUDORA: Right.
HOST: Right, you’re playing for a good, square prize—a jackpot of zero dollars!
JOE: Zero?  Zip?  Man, that ain’t hip.  It’s kind of a rip.
EUDORA: I agree.  It’s not hip at all.
HOST: That’s why it’s square, silly!
EUDORA: But if there’s no prize, we have no motivation to play!
HIPPO: Yeah, why zero dollars?
HOST: Well, we wanted the prize to be a nice, round number, and there’s no number rounder than zero.
EUDORA: Ridiculous!
HIPPO: So wait, the jackpot is both square and round?
HOST: That’s right!  It’s the famous round square $0 jackpot!
EUDORA: But that’s no prize at all!
HOST: Can you justify your statement?  Is it really no prize, or is it just a $0 prize?
EUDORA: I’d define the word ‘prize’ functionally, which means a promised amount you will give the winner of the contest once it’s over.  Since you won’t give the winner anything, I think there’s no prize.
HOST: Wrong-o!  By your own definition, the prize is an amount.  And zero is most definitely an amount!  So there is a prize.  Note that under a different functional definition, however, you might have been right.  So you only lose two points.
EUDORA: I don’t have any points to lose!
HOST: Well well, that’s an interesting… what shall I call it.  An interesting POINT!
EUDORA: Err…
HOST: Right then.  Next question: is it possible, even theoretically, for an object to be both round and square?  Aside from puns, that is.
HIPPO: Ooh!  Ooh!  We don’t know if we have the capacity to imagine every possible kind of geometry.  So the answer is yes, there could be a round square thing.
JOE: Yo, yo, you’re insane, you know?  In the plane, there ain’t no provision for that kind of vision.  Sure, there may be some wack geomeTREE all fuzzy and free, but that don’t make use of our definitions!  We got prohibitions, restrictions.  A circle, it be the set o’ points equidistant from the middle, like a pancake on a griddle.  A square, well that’s more like a waffle than a falafel, an’ dat bodes awful, cause you don’t want to tangle with four right angles.  An angle it be sharp, it don’t be smooth, and that’s why a circle don’t fit the groove.  Solid truth.
HOST: So the key point is that to decide what’s possible and what’s not, we have to go back to our definitions and analyze them.  Good answer, Joe.
EUDORA: Hold on!  What if you’re working in a spherical plane and you stretch a square until it’s covering a grand circular cross section?  The angles would smooth out and it would be a circle!
HOST: Aha!  I guess it just goes to show, Joe, definitions can be trickier than they seem.
JOE: Yo, that’s gotta blow.  Hey Eudora, way to go!
HOST: Eudora gets six points and Joe gets three.  Next question: you may be familiar with a particular work of the twentieth century French painter Rene Magritte.  This painting depicts a pipe, and below, in French, are the words “This is not a pipe.”  Is the painting correct?
JOE: Well heck, do you gotta check?  Take a look at that painting and take a swipe, try to wipe off that pipe, does it come clean?  Not that I’ve seen, and my eyes are keen.  No, that’s just canvas and paint, but a real live pipe is what it ain’t.  Pipe, pipe, I know the type.  When you smoke a pipe you ain’t got no gripe.  Pipes are slick, kinda thick, not like a candle wick, they smoulder and steam.  Hey, hey, water pipes and steam, now that’s a team.  Pipes mean more than they seem, and I do deem, a nice solid pipe is a tool supreme.  Yo, one time I had a pipe dream, I was bathing in cream, I even hear pipes are this week’s theme.
HOST: One of them, yes.  Okay, you get four points for that… although the question remains whether perhaps the words should be seen as a statement within the world of the painting, under which the depicted pipe really is a pipe, and not just an image.  But let’s move on.
HIPPO: Wait!  The painting can’t possibly be correct!
HOST: Why not?
HIPPO: Because it doesn’t exist at all.
HOST: No, this is a real painting.
HIPPO: But didn’t you say it had “This is not a pipe” written on the bottom in French?
HOST: Yes…
HIPPO: Well, those words are not French!  They’re English!  Therefore the painting is internally inconsistent, which means it can’t exist!
HOST: Ah, well… okay, whatever, you get two points for that.  Here’s the next question.  What kind of metal are the Hippo’s teeth made of?
HIPPO: Ooh, ooh, I know!
EUDORA: That’s an unfair question!
HOST: Ah, but is it a question at all?
HIPPO: My teeth are made of vanadium!!
HOST: So it seems… but on the other hand, who ever heard of an unexpected, hyperaccelerated, radio-locking, lateral-jointed, vanadium-toothed plasma hippopotamus?
HIPPO: What are you implying?
HOST: I am implying that ridiculous as you are, you don’t exist!
HIPPO: What??
HOST: You don’t make any sense!  What is ‘radio-locking’ even supposed to mean?  How can you be made of plasma while still maintaining a solid form?  If you’re hyperaccelerated, why are you standing still?
EUDORA: And for that matter, who ever heard of a talking hippopotamus?
HIPPO: Well, I never!
HOST: That’s the idea.
JOE: Yo, yo, ease up on the poor hipPO!  Just cause it ain’t real don’t mean it don’t feel!  And here’s the Real Deal—its teeth are made of a bright, white, ductal metallic element—atomic number 23—used as a catalyst and in some forms of STEEL!  That’s the truth and there ain’t no appeal.
HOST: Ain’t there?  If the hippo doesn’t exist, wouldn’t it make more sense to say “If it did exist, then its teeth would be vanadium”?
EUDORA: But is there really any way to misunderstand the statement “The hippo’s teeth are vanadium”?  I don’t think so, which means we might as well just say it’s shorthand for what you just suggested.
HOST: Is there any way to misunderstand the word “ain’t?”  I don’t think so, since Joe keeps using it and we all understand.  But that doesn’t make it correct English.
JOE: Yo, yo, I’m feeling faint!  Are y’all so dainty you can’t stand the word “ain’t?”  Well, don’t come to me with no complaint.  That word’s a word, and that’s insured, and if you ain’t heard then you’re absurd.  Word.
HIPPO (bouncing): Vanadium!  Vanadium!  Vanadium!
HOST: Okay, okay, that’s enough.  I think you’re about right, Eudora.  Joe, Hippo, you lose two points each for making an unqualified assertion.  Eudora gains four points.
EUDORA: What’s the score?
HOST: You have eight points, Joe has five and the Hippo has zero.
HIPPO: That means I don’t have a score at all!
HOST: Well, now your score is minus one.  Happy?  It’s time for the last question, and it’s a doozy worth five points.
EUDORA: I’m ready!
HIPPO: I’m ready!
JOE: Ready, and a little heady.
HOST (dramatically): What is the sound of one hand clapping?
EUDORA: Hmm…
JOE: Hmm…
HOST: Hmm… any answers from the audience?  Feel free to raise your hands.
HOST calls on audience members.  If anyone has answers, HOST repeats them out loud for everyone and considers them, but makes no judgment on them.  When there are no more answers…
HOST: No more answers?  Well then, do any of our contestants have an answer?  What is the sound of one hand clapping?
HIPPO: Yes, I think you’re right!!  “What” is the sound of one hand clapping!  The sound of one hand clapping is “What!”
HOST: Hmm… well, okay, that answer’s as good as any.  So, at final count, Joe has five points, the hippopotamus has four, and Eudora is the winner with eight!
EUDORA: Hooray!  I win the zero dollar jackpot!
HOST: You certainly do.
EUDORA: Well, where is it?
HOST: It’s already in your pocket.
EUDORA: Oh, okay.
HIPPO (running around excitedly): What?!?  It’s in her pocket??  FOUL!  This game show is FIXED!  SCANDAL!  SCANDAL!
JOE: Yo, yo, yo, let’s go, or this hippo is gonna blow!  And the plasma’s gonna flow!
EUDORA: Let’s get out of here!
JOE and EUDORA run offstage while HIPPO rages.
HOST: Right then!  Time to run away from the angry non-existent animal!  See you next week on Quandaries Unplugged, and until then, remember: everything and anything you can imagine exists for somebody!  Goodbye, everyone!
HOST runs off-stage, followed by raging HIPPO.
The End.