Babavision

 Would you like to watch TV?

 Um,
not really
I stopped watching TV
about twenty years ago

 This is a special kind of television
I call it a babavision

 The host then unveiled
a television that had been carved out of stone
and looked like a TV from the sixties

 Now and then I change the channel
by painting a scene on the screen,
but usually I just leave it blank
and watch it like that

 It would be pretty hard
to disturb your neighbors
with a TV like that

 They haven’t complained yet,
and one of my neighbors recently asked me
to carve one for him
His wife is addicted to watching TV
and he’s tired of having to hear
stupid dialogues all day long
He wants to replace his TV
with a babavision

 Good idea
Stones are cool

 Yeah
They’re usually pretty quiet
and they keep to themselves —
except when they decide to slide down a slope
or explode in a fire

 Yeah
Stones are pretty meditative
I have some pretty ones in my hut

 I have a few too

 I used to have a lot of crystals,
but I have given most of them away,
and I don’t collect them anymore
I have the feeling that they enjoy
being deep underground
and that they might be doing
some important work there

 Yeah
Who knows what they’re doing down there

 Maybe it’s time to stop mining
and taking things from places
where humans are perhaps not meant to go

 A small shaft now and then,
here and there
is probably alright,
but a lot of those mining operations
are destroying everything around

 Yeah,
some of those holes are pretty big

 Maybe we could do without
a lot of the things we have grown accustomed to
and live more simply,
like the way people did before the second world war

 Yeah,
I could live without plastic

 Me too

 And I could live without genetically modified seeds
and chemical fertilizers

 Yeah,
heirloom seeds are best
And there’s no need to poison the earth with chemicals

 Organic farming is best

 Yeah
And it’s kind of strange
that we have to say organic
when we talk about the traditional way of farming
It would be better to call the farmers who use chemicals
chemical farmers,
or perhaps poisoners

 Yeah,
that’s what they’re doing
They’re poisoning us and the land,
and that’s not cool

 Yet another post-second world war phenomenon:
most farmers have become poisoners

 Yeah
A lot of bad things began after that war:
ugly architecture,
a rapid rise in the population,
the poisoning of our food and water
and the use of plastic

 Chemical farmers should be required
to disclose all of the poisons and other chemicals
that they put on plants
and into the earth

 Yeah
Maybe then people would stop buying their food
and all farmers would return
to a healthy and sustainable way of farming

Yeah
That’d be cool

 It’s almost chai time

 I’ll get my guitar
and meet you there

 And so the host and the guest
returned to their huts
to get the instruments they wished to play
while everyone drank
their evening tea

♫ ♫ ♫