Olbers & the Okapi
The okapi survives
through excellent
camouflage. That
& the fact it is the
only antelope who
has ever puzzled
over Heinrich Ol-
bers's paradox —
if the universe is
infinite & full of
stars, why is the
sky dark at night?
A / newt's first / law of motion
The problem
with being
amphibious
is I can never
remember
whether it’s
the coach
driver or
the dive
coach that’s
supposed
to be looking
after me.
Ambit ions
Using a
locator
spell, I
track down
my absent
imagination
& find it is
currently
a charged
particle
in the queue
waiting to
audition
for Ameri-
can Idol.
Open Letter Operetta
(A Tom Beckett Title)
Librettist:
You don't need a
letter opener to
open a letter when
it's an open letter.
Director:
That's great! Now if we repeat that a number of times then that's the operetta half-written already. What characters did you have in mind?
Librettist:
Was thinking of a cheated-on partner as lead, a mezzo-soprano, a bit of a Taylor Swift voice. Other characters would include the non-singing postal worker who brought a letter from the partner in which they admit their cheating & end with an unapologetic goodbye. The contents of the letter could be sung by the departing partner from a position near the back of the stage.
To go with that, perhaps partly performed as a contrapuntal overlap with the preceding:
Today the post-
woman brought
me a letter from my
ex-partner. I will
not open it be-
cause I am al-
ready aware of
what it will say.
To follow on, we have a scene where the spurned spouse sings or speaks their response as they post it to Facebook or another platform since something that appears on social media can be framed as an open letter for contemporary times.
We must, however, in order to adhere to the spirit of an operetta, retain some comedic aspects even though this is essentially a sad piece. Perhaps introduce a chorus who individually comment on the response, &, collectively, interrupt with a repetitive response such as "letter opener, open letter" or "never getting back together again."