Monday 15 January 2018

Oak Floors, Flaneurity

He's still in the show, this flaneur. He speaks first, emerging from darkness as we all do. "It's getting toward noon," he says, as the light rises. "It's summer, a glorious summer." He carries on, pointing out a bench or two, a tree or two, a sidewalk, lawn, which appear as he mentions them. Urbanites are gathering for a break at noon hour, relaxing, checking their news feeds. A vamp builds out of the downtown noise-track--the engines, sirens, back-up beeps--and away we go with "Song to Sing," the opening number, a catalogue of things that bug us in this world. If I have my way (and whose other way would I have), this opener will bring the house down, and we just started! The flaneur, meanwhile, has faded to the edge of the scene, stepping forward again after the button to guide us into the next scene--Patty locked out of her apartment.
All very neat when I put it that way. Need I remind you, dear reader, of the obvious pitfalls of this enterprise? Nah.
But today's immediate matter is whether the flaneur speaks in prose or verse. So far, it's both. I think I have to go one way or the other. 

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