Last night

Many things have happened and been forgotten; but I decide to review some of the recent dialog that I found pretty. Said review entails sorting through the fairy garland that reaches from the back deck at Bambúria out into the backyard and beyond; the garland is made of vines, cobwebs, and, seemingly, paper on which the preceding dialog is writ. All the text is in blank verse but it's not clear that it is Shakespeare; indeed, it's not clear that it was written down before it was spoken—this may be transcript rather than dialog. In any case, I am looking specifically for a speech made by a young woman in a white dress—who may be a young Helen Mirren—enumerating, with the names of early flowers and plants, the ways in which the coming of spring reminds her of her lover returning to her.

I find the speech I was looking for but am immediately distracted by Stately Old Man, whose natural stately state it is to arrange everyone else's activities. Just at the moment, he is giving instruction to a woman about the coming of certain guests for the Christmas season; the setting appears to be a hybrid of a holiday resort and some sort of "home" for people unable to care for themselves—elderly or emotionally fragile, I cannot say. The woman taking instruction from Stately Old Man cheerfully goes about her business, which, through the magic of editing, results pretty much immediately in a Christmas pageant—I'd say holiday pageant but we seem to be in a previous era when fuck minority religions.

And it's a little bit Peanuts TV special and a little bit Ice Capades with just a hint of Superflat Monogram. After singing a song, the children undertake a series of decorative displays in which their vividly colored and geometrically patterned costumes work in synch to create tableaux suggestive of, say, a spray of orchids, or a tropical beach. Like a marching band doing shapes on a football field, it's not clear until the children are close to their final position what the tableau will represent. It's an impressive trick, very nicely choreographed.

For some reason an old woman gets thrown into the mix of children; and she very quickly brings the proceedings to a halt by shouting, "RAPE! RAPE! RAPE!" Then, befuddled by the immediate silence her screams have produced in the auditorium, she says, more calmly, "Someone was raping me. Who was raping me? Or was I raping somebody else?"

In response, a voice that is both I and not I, and that is directed both to the woman and to the television, says, "I don't think anyone was raping anybody, Grandma." And that ends the show, which is a show on television that Bob and I are watching from the living room couch. I am glad that it's over because I have a place to be. I dump my beverage cup—the ice clinging therein is absurdly tenacious—put my tumbler in the stack with the others, and head out the door.