(SALLY rushes upstage to her bed and hauls a video camera and equipment out from underneath it. She puts on earphones, fastens the battery pack around her waist, adjusts focus, etc. She returns to table hoisting camera on her shoulder, starts shooting ROSCOE eating do-nut, drinking coffee.)

(Directly to camera.) This is me in the act of devouring a lemon-filled jelly do-nut. “Jelly” is a bit of a misnomer in this case since it seems to be actually a kind of custard—meringue, maybe.

SALLY: (Still shooting.) Professor Hubbard—uh, could you give us any insight into the comparisons between Cervantes and say, oh, a contemporary Latin American writer such as—César Aira?

ROSCOE: An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter?

SALLY: That’s the one.

ROSCOE: Well, the only valid comparison I could make is the adventure itself—two men, horseback, trekking out into the vast unknown, in search of romance.

SALLY: (Still shooting.) Romance?

ROSCOE: Meaning.

SALLY: Meaning?

ROSCOE: Stop repeating everything I say!

SALLY (Eye to camera.) We’re shooting, you know. We’re taping this.

ROSCOE: I know, I know. But it’s boring when you do that.

SALLY: What’s boring?

ROSCOE: Repeating everything! It’s boring.

SALLY: (Still shooting.) Isn’t repetition part of primitive ritual?

ROSCOE: (Throws down do-nut.) Oh my God.

SALLY: Well—isn’t it? Poetry—song—dance—the drum—

ROSCOE: Can we move on to something—

SALLY: All right, all right. So touchy all of a sudden.

ROSCOE: I’m not touchy!

SALLY: You are.

(SALLY moves in circles around ROSCOE, in and out, getting different angles with the camera.)

ROSCOE: I’m not touchy! I just don’t know if this film idea is—

SALLY: Let’s change the subject, then.

ROSCOE: Let’s.

SALLY: What’s all this “junkie” business, for instance? First I’ve heard about it. Shocking, actually. From heroin to scholarship?

ROSCOE: It’s not a “business”—well—I guess it is.

SALLY: Quite lucrative.

ROSCOE: That’s not what I was—

SALLY: Tell us about the “time”—the era—you know—the street life.

ROSCOE: I liked it better when we were just—exchanging pleasantries. You know—the camera changes everything.

SALLY: (Still shooting.) How?

ROSCOE: I don’t know. It stops something.

SALLY: Forget about the camera.

ROSCOE: I can’t!

SALLY: What about you leaving your wife and family? There’s a subject.

ROSCOE: I don’t want to talk about that.

SALLY: (Taking camera down from her shoulder.) You’re so grouchy all of a sudden.

ROSCOE: I’m sorry—I—I just feel like—I’d just like to have some coffee and—eat a jelly do-nut and—not think about anything.

SALLY: Fine by me.

(SALLY sets camera on floor, under table, takes earphones off, sits back down opposite ROSCOE, in stage left chair, and slurps coffee. Pause.)

ROSCOE: How’s your mother?

SALLY: What?

ROSCOE: Your mother?