16 February 2009

Haiku 47

After waiting on a cold wet windswept platform for 20 minutes because BART's website assured me my regular train was coming on what is a holiday for most of the United States but not for me and then walking into a Walgreen's or RiteAid or whatever, all those stores look alike to me, and having to listen to the theme song from Flashdance (Take your passion! And make it happen! -- when people say things like that, I can barely keep from punching them in the mouth) while discovering that I can't afford their umbrellas so I'm stuck with the already overpriced one I have that broke upon its first use:

Fluorescent graveyard
Where old shit songs haunt the rows
Of shiny plastic

4 comments:

Libby Fife said...

Well, that does suck. Not sure if this will cheer you up or make you ill. I read this morning that an opera based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith is in the works...
Take Care!

vicmarcam said...

Wow! New favorite. I'm sorry for what inspired it, though.
Did you at least buy a Whitman's Sampler (half price)?

Patrick J. Vaz said...

I had read on several sites (not all of them opera-related, so at least they're getting publicity outside the usual circles) that the Anna Nicole Smith opera was underway. I can't remember the librettist, but the composer is Mark (possibly Mark-Anthony?) Turnage, which makes me think this will be worth listening to -- the storyline isn't inherently trashier than the story of Manon Lescaut, a novel which inspired operas by Puccini, Massenet, and Henze. I don't think anyone thought Nixon was a promising opera character, but Adams's Nixon in China is increasingly considered one of the major American operas. In other words: trashy or unlikely subject matter can inspire works that are serious and moving, or at least enjoyable and mildly thought-provoking. So I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt on this one, based on the composer's track record.

Patrick J. Vaz said...

OK, somehow the comments didn't go in the right order, so my first was to Libby, and this to V:

half-price Whitman's sampler? I may be pathetic, but I'm not desperate