Somebody Told Me Something About You

Old time soap operas featured organ music to add the slow-moving KA-POW! to otherwise punchy moments. If Nurse Jessie tells married Dr. Steve again This Week In 1962 that she'd love to meet him in the closet for a torrid - um - inventory, you can bet your homemaking butt there's organ music playing in the background to signify her unrequited passion, just as in Slapshot, organ music plays under all kinds of significant moments until Paul Newman swats the organist and shouts, "DON'T EVER PLAY LADY OF SPAIN AGAIN!" I'm thinking of this because as I write Jaws is on AMC, and Quint is so musical. That's how trains of thought travel. Then sometimes, they jump the tracks and crush the little mountain village. Woo! Woo! Splat! My tribe of artists, writers and dipsomaniacs is having trouble coping with Widows Gone Wild.

Tata: Paulie's all upset because Madame Y is knocking fuschia cowboy boots with Mickey. I actually heard myself use the words "the Widow McCheese."
Sharkey: A lot of people are upset!
Tata: Listen, after a two-year ordeal, maybe she's hanging out with him precisely because no one takes him seriously.
Sharkey: It's disgusting!
Tata: It's human contact.
Sharkey: She was asking about me.
Tata: Looking for references, was she? It's the perfect hair. You should carry around business cards listing your favorite products.
Sharkey: I can't do that.
Tata: You mean Madame Y. I agree. On the other hand, people do strange things to cope with grief. Imagine who I'd sleep with if you dropped dead.
Sharkey: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Tata: Right. And you and I aren't even dating.

Section 2. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.

Far be it from me to deliver etiquette instructions to women who've lost husbands after terrible, prolonged and agonizing illnesses. I can't even imagine their pain, their loneliness, their wardrobe demands. If they choose to play Lady of Spain with the entire chorus, I think we can expect to sometimes find ourselves loitering in the path of that drunken kickline. That's been the case with the grief-stricken since time immemorial, and it'll be true after my friends hang up their fishnets and quit getting tattoos. Walk a mile in her glitter hightops, that's what I say, and puh-leeze, let me quit being the Voice of %&#@#! Reason.

All of this is a mere tempest in a teapot compared to real drama, like Tonya And Nancy: the Opera.

Composer Abigail Al-Doory says Tonya and Nancy: the Opera isn't meant as parody. Bill tried to keep that in mind while watching Soprano Kristen Sargeant, clad in a bright red and sequined figure skating costume and matching boxing gloves and listening to an operatic chorus of reporters sing catchy phrases like, "Gillooly colluded."

Never before have I wished an entire opera could be fed to sharks. Cue the organist!

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