Monday 29 January 2018

What It Is

To review--
Darkness, light rising. It's a downtown park in summer on a work day, getting toward noon. A man has emerged from the edges. He carries an instrument (which I might ditch later) and jangles a set of keys (ditto) from his belt. This is the FLANEUR, as we will know him, who helps set the scene, then fades. 
By now the park has filled with URBANITES on lunch break--a scattered band of loungers and sun-bathers. Many check their news feeds. Street sounds--engines, calls, sirens, back-up beeps--coalesce into the vamp. "Oh-oh," someone says, reacting to a piece of news, and away we go into a news-that-bugs-me funk piece which, if built right, will bring down the house. 
As that ends, everyone heads back to work. The FLANEUR strolls along and runs into PATTY, who has locked herself out of her heritage apartment. "Love, Damn," she sings at this point, though even the FLANEUR, apologizing for his lack of omniscience, isn't sure what love is doing here.
Such a synopsis for a moment offers the following tack: just follow Patty. Keep track of what she wants . . .
Sure, but if I do, she might not ever get inside her heritage apartment and interact there with the food truck guy, the nurse, her parents, the actor, and the janitor. She might not read those memos and drink all that wine . . .
And whom would she sing with in the end?

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