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Copyright muse-apprentice-guild.com
The Muse Apprentice Guild
2002

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LAWRENCE KRAUSER
(excerpt from novel: POV: PUPPET)

Always I am eager for a new work by Shakespeare, and at last it seems my wish has been granted under a pseudonym (I imagine the legalities are complex) by TV in Rudolph, a holiday special MC'd by "Sam," a North Pole snowpuppet who does his thing following every station break. Every time I see R&J I miss the chorus after that great opening bit--this recurring snowdude's a vast improvement. Silver and gold, he's singing, a tour-de-force of testament to the penner's ID, Bah Tinsel being a glistering motif in the oeuvre, and what's become of Christmas indeed? Something's anose, red as the sweet end of candy cane, whistles like a kettle. Enter Generational Glitch, Papa don't like it, salad upstaged by dressing: what's in a color, daddio? Shades o' Henry in Dasher, fretted similarly, frigid as Denmark, but for reindeer these wilds are peach metropolis, full of cold and smelly labors. Birds sit brooding in the snow, and Rudy's nose looks red and raw. Or are you sampling Feste, author? This is not my nose neither--nothing that is, is so. That's your reply? More in that nose than who knew? Herbie, the wannabe tooth-tweaker, after Love Bug IV maybe, I suppose early exposure to collisions might engender an interest in dentistry. Just not cut out for the toyshop, kid. Not sticking around for severance pay, either. A veritable Jacques, this guy-Ciao, Claurice and your doe eyes, cut to a closeup on the mercurial Fireball who senses what is up immediately. A quick chide but bassanially supportive-- Whoops and presto, here's love either prepubescent or wise beyond time. Have you yourself found tranquwillity? Masked like Romeo with clay over nose at the ball? And suddenly the earth is dull: we fly, transported by love over sunswept orchards where guises fall from faces to the earth and turn mulch. Who's this dude, he on staff? Like a Best-Of reunion. Mister with the belly and Santa suit--oh. His sniffer not so unred either. Great jumping icebergs! at the probosganist revealed. But what's in a nose? Suchwise does Claurice not even pause to think, so smitten is she with our hero. I see Rosalind in her There's always tomorrow good sense complete with pop-up birds and rabbits. But Daddy's Mr. Final Word, everyone says so, a Tybalt of great rank who will have no cherry-nosed suitor for his daughter. Gives our heroine a hermia to choose love by a furrier's eyes. Rudy self-imposing exile, wanders silent snows, and in a white Illyria meets another independent. Only takes two, here's one who can fly, the other knows molars, but divine to meet a third who is grounded: a prospector though with no nose for prospects and anyhow uninterested, Yukon would rather meander with good buddies, alas that one attracts the carnivorous attentions of Bumbles Abominable. Must say you are handling the station breaks very nicely, I see for you that by nature they are cross-cutty enough for your misce-en-scene, your discipline is marvelous, no surprise. Like Timon still living, this freak! Who can deny the fierce right of the raptor, swooped among puffins, talons for prey? Another island, your highness? What, the world didn't want you? The trio fits right in, soon trembles for fright at a capital roar, some cat who hears their case then grants only one night's stay because unlike playthings, living creatures cannot hide themselves on an island. (As a puppet OK sure I sometimes have trouble distinguishing among entities--I'd thought Rudolph, the dentist, and Yukon were also toys, albeit being protagonists animated with more definition because--but right, I have my biases, nobody's symmetrical: gimme a commercial, I need time to digest--) That's it, ace. I mean I couldn't hide myself anywhere if I wanted. Take a moment, why don't we. Where were we. What a soul! Ever irked by his own bait qualities, Rudolph once again tends to the tail of a sad situation by self-removal, out in wee hours to brave the elements, upping the odds of his chums' survival, a dear if ever there was, Kent was never so selfless--well, debatable...What ninny said yes to a beer commercial...Yet the beverage is not incompatible with subsequent news: his family has been captured by Bumbles. Rudolph's efforts would be futile were it not for the sudden arrival of his friends from the rear in the nose-hair of time, selfless as himself, par bard. Knowing Bumbles is no Shylock but would do anything for pork, the Love Bug honks and sirens him till all is safe, and Cornelius boulders him silly then "unconscious," Herbie sets in with his expertise and lo, Toothless Abominable, it's Henry and Jules all over again with the clash, rumors, revelations. Somebody's scalpel has sharpened--who'd have thought it possible? Klaus complaining Worst storm in fifty years, the Mrs. wernering appeasement: Santa should be a beast without a beard if he should stay at home today for fear; no, Santa should not. If only I could type I'd prove my case to the world, and unveil you still alive, author: So we see that the poet was much in touch with the role-reversing leniencies of his televised era, which will not surprise followers of Portia., viz. Merchant, "the man that hath no music in himself [be] fit for treasons, strategisms, and spoils" (V, I, 83). Fantastic irony in which Santa's fed-upness with elf-music is poised with music as love's food against love being that which makes does mad. But in the end it is realized, dude's got a def schnozz, won't you guide my slay tonight? Triumphant weave, brilliant navigation of prime-time depths, one more for the canon, all sing: You'll go down (per normal) in history.

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