num_pages: 68
description: "After a tsunami / can you hoe up the bones? / can a kangaroo be infinite/ / can an outlaw be charted/" asks a censor in Two-Reelers, Scene Two of Buster Keaton Enters Into Paradise. Dick Higgins makes a metaphysics out of spoken language, a turning of language against itself. With two friends he played eleven scoreless games of Scrabble, using the lists of words formed to write the play's eleven scenes. The players began each game with "Buster Keaton" spelled out in the center of the board. The play's dream-like speeches and stage directions refract Buster Keaton's film plots showing an outsider pasing through phases of rejection and desire until the qualities which make him an outsider allow him to triumph in the end. "Is there a toy for Buster? / there was a fire of toys / at the gazebo / where he had purred. / in the movies?" As Keaton said, "Think slow, act fast."
language: English
title: Buster Keaton Enters into Paradise
titlecomplete: Buster Keaton Enters into Paradise
genres: Poetry
ratings_count: 6
publisher: Small Pr Distribution