IN THE ZONING BOARD DEBATES that ensued, Mr. Rollo became a tireless advocate for the “performing” position—that is, the pro-Ariane position, as opposed to the “living” position espoused by the group that wanted to get her off display and hoped to use zoning to do it. These debates became so lively, complex, and intriguing that on nights when the Zoning Board convened, Ariane’s audience was diminished by the great number of people who wanted to hear the eloquent and impassioned Duncan Rollo advance his arguments on her behalf. As soon as the board meeting ended, Rollo would grab his hat and, followed by most of the people who had been in the audience at the meeting, rush on over to report to Ariane, where he would enter to a great clattering of seats and whispering and shushing as the board-meeting audience dispersed itself among Ariane’s. The local paper, the Babbington Reporter, followed the story closely. Every issue bulged with articles, columns, interviews with philosophers and lawyers, and epistolary treatises on the subject of Ariane’s status. Eventually, the issue was settled without a resolution of the questions that had been raised. No one seemed to be able to define the difference between being a living person and playing the part of a living person precisely enough to give it the force of law, so, instead, the town council passed a resolution setting an upper limit of twenty-four hours for any dramatic production staged within the limits of the town of Babbington, adding a “grandfather clause” exempting productions that had begun before the restriction went into effect. (My research, which, I suppose, might have been more thorough, has not turned up another municipality in the United States with a similar restriction.) All the press attention enlarged Ariane’s local audience, of course, and it also brought some outside interest and the first little boomlet in her popularity.
[to be continued]
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