Spring of a Down - 20
бурлеск, балаган, буфонада
Ba-dump-dump.
Ladies and germinals terminals, the clock is nearly striking the hour over time but not time, precluding overreach of spare.[1] Frob, tweek, twiddle, it is time for the espresso and burlesque.[2] O, e, iye in Chomskian slur on the Theatre of Beautiful Flowers,[3] where everything valuable is free and everything cheap costs dough. (Do not believe me?[4] Candide is free, and the annotations translations are expensive. Make a good joke bad for money. You can even get a degree in Translation at Tsinghua University.)
The record player skips a bit because the ending is near. A burlesque sideshow in buffoonery,[5] in this micro stage below the underground. It is better this way: dirty pink curtains and a lower chance to be annihilated by something untoward happening. And the seats were close enough to the table that they would not know where one body began, and the next one ended. A mausoleum du jour in Kharkiv.
Eat gamely! Scotch and chocolate for all concerned! Then go outside to look at the sky and squares litter in the night downtown. It will only mean a moment of disorientation on the location for a piecewise of time. 12 rings or so.[6] Then sing out songs for the dead rooster for the day Misses Day Died. (9 of May when victory was lost when the Devil hid the cheese, and the Moskva was accidentally sunk on purpose. The Ruskies bomb Kyiv in retaliation.) Chichikov are you watching?[7] Spectators in the theatre on war.[8]
Live from Belgorod across the nominal border where the once and future invasion would start. You can tell which side you are on because on one side it is a war and on the other side, you get arrested for holding up Tolstoy’s classic. (Shhh, its title is secret instead of a novel.)
This theatre is the throng that spans out from Konstyutsii Square. Not a theatre Bolshoi, of course, nor one of the normal, but one of the nano. Nanu, Nanu. Of course, the humor is blacker – but it is black outside, so why not inside? The tables are black, the seats are black, and the costumes are black - even the coffee is black since the barista has no milk. Only the spotlights aren’t black (But we are working on it! The next shipment from Moskva should have some.) And bien sur, the burlesque is blacker the blackest black. But delivered by virgins. But you don’t believe me? Ask them yourself.[9] (Old joke. But you cannot be too fussy, we are here to laugh until tears flow in.)
Satire – firing blanks until one hits (Whereas parody you pull out the joke in bound stitches ;) Ba-dump-dump-borscht. Ah. (Coffee gets you going.) There a three on the stage. One man, two women. It is his name first on the card because he has the only agent. Or more exactly, the only agent who sleeps, or not-sleeps, with the owner. They are young because you can make a living on nothing when you are young. (Old people need to be paid to make a living to work for nothing.) The boy is Artem, and the girls are Lina and Tetiana.[10] Let me tell you about all three: Tetiana is a heavenly garden, of a self-portrait with lilies of the valley; Lina is her because she went apolitical and then wandered in heart, (And what is more political than that? One has to eat! On the left when the heart rules the mind, you fall in love, but on the right, when the mind rules the heart, you only weep.)[11] And where to start with Artem? He grew up near the Red Zone (but not near Hongjing.)[12] He takes pictures for the newspaper, especially about fires burning in shops. He is leaving with the rest of his unit. But he needs a chance to have tears-amid-laughter before he goes.
Of course, since this is Comedy (with a subtle smile, because as the Comedian says to Rorschach, a human death is tragedy but a million deaths is comedy)[13] there is a pull of the stage for the attention on the lights. Look at the audience’s giggling-gaggling-geeing-guffawing mischance – they know the off-stage is at least as juicy as the jokes. It is the sweep of the skirts as they tangle that gives it away. Specifically, when the jokes are lame as a tank in retreat. (I meant redeployment, прости́ть.)[14] She sleeps with him and then he sleeps with the other she and then the two shes, in revenge au revanche, sleep with one another like sheep on the clock. (In English there is no elles, hells bells Welles in revision.)[15]
“I love you!” Glare.
“I love you.” Sweet.
“I love you!” Glare.
“I love you!” Slap.
And the pantomime slapstick breaks out. Spread your arms in black to the dark crucifixion on stage. It is almost time for the electrician to snap the power at the Moskva Street station, across the river. Let the next-blacklights to go dark. It is about 54 minutes or so until the hour bleeds. People will go out and laugh, but they do not know what about. But they will discuss with glowing eyes outré on sweaters lucid.
Tick-tock. The fortress besieged.[16] (Where everyone inside gets needs to get out, everyone on the outside desires to get in. [17] And all the half-truths come up lying on Vicomte de Bragelonne lounge chairs.)[18] Tick-tock - the wolves do bark for the blaggarts are coming to town.[19] Putin spits out threats like a World War I belligerent synchronizing chain and the whole gag turns rancid.Ba-dump-dump-borscht. Ah.
Tootle loo. TTNT. Or TNT, whichever.
[1] Foreshadowing of “Fortress Besieged.”
[2] Foreshadowing of MIT: frob is to twist widely to find a station, tweek is narrow in on the station, and twiddle is to get the station exact. This is a Chomsky derivative in which vowels.
[3] Theatre in Kharkiv.
[4] Ebb, "Willkommen" from Cabaret.
[5] A reference to the title.
[6] Yurii Andrukhovych, Дванадцять обручів
[7] Gogol’s main chacacter.
[8] A quote from Timothy Snyder.
[9] Ebb, "Willkommen" from Cabaret.
[10] Lina Kostenko (Ліна Василівна Костенко),Tetiana Yakovenko (Тетяна Василівна Яковенко), Artem Chapeye (Артем Чапай).
[11] An allusion to GTR, “When the Heart Rules the Mind.”
[12] A reference to an unpublished book by the author.
[13] Moore, Watchmen.
[14] прости́ть prostít' - Forgive me.
[15] In French, there are masculine and feminine words for “they.” Welles is Orson Welles.
[16] Qian, “Fortress Besieged.” One of the classics of literature.
[17] A French quote that explains the title of “Fortress Besieged.”
[18] Allusion to “Fortress Besieged.” The “half-truth” is a mocking refrain to “the truth shall be naked. The Vicomte de Bragelonne is from Dumas's works on The Three Musketeers.
[19] Reference to “Hark, Hark! The Dogs Do Bark,” a verse with many parodies. “Tick-tock” is a reference to “Fortress Besieged” and the internet site.