Mr. Mendelssohn peers at Emily over his glasses. "Yes, Miss Scharf?".
"Why do they call it Rogate?"
Roderick rolls his eyes. Everyone knows that the Sundays are named after the first word of the Gregorian introit for the day. Emily is so dumb. Nevertheless, he feels compelled to fondle her buttocks.
Once again, there is no Soprano solo, so Emily sings in the Chorale, where her buttocks are close at hand. Mrs. Dowager sings the Alto solo, a ringer sings the Tenor and Zack sings the Bass.
Mr. Twitchy of the Theology faculty opens the inspirational message with the daily Bible reading, from the book of James:
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.Mr. Twitchy closes the book, clears his throat, pours a glass of water from the pitcher on the lectern, drinks, then addresses the audience.
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
"I have no idea what any of this means."
Mr. Pipes closes the service with a rousing postlude.
After the service, Roderick stops in to see Megan, who did not attend the service. She answers his knock naked, her hair dishevelled. "Come on in," she beckons. "Don't mind me, I'm writing."
Roderick doesn't mind.
"What are you working on?"
"It's a concept for staging Wagner's Ring Cycle. Lake City Opera is sponsoring a contest for student writers."
"Bunny stories are on hold?"
With a wild gesture, Megan conveys her exhaustion with bunnies. Children's books are not her forte. No opportunities for BDSM.
"Want to read it?" Megan thrusts a manuscript into his hand. Roderick sits on the bed and begins to read.
Der Ring des NibelungenRoderick pauses. "I see that you're offering clues about the symbolism."
Production Concept by Megan Cupcake
First Opera: Das Rheingold
Scene One
The setting is a lovely German village by the Rhine River. Three lovely German maidens frolic naked in the river near a pile of gold. An Orthodox Jew named Alberich arrives and tries to have sex with them. They decline, so he takes the gold, which gives him world power but everyone hates him. This explains German anti-Semitism.
Megan rolls her eyes. "Have to. Opera audiences are really stupid."
Roderick continues to read.
Scene TwoSubtle, thinks Roderick. Megan joins him on the bed, her long reddish hair not really covering her large unrestrained breasts. Roderick notices that she has shaved her pubic hair in the shape of a valentine.
The setting is Berchtesgaden. Wotan is Hitler and Fricka is Eva Braun. They awake and admire Hitler's new home, the Eagle's Nest, seen in the background. Eva/Fricka wonders how it was built and who paid for it. Hitler/Wotan tells her that he hired the Jewish industrialists Fafner and Fasolt and promised them beaucoup Reichsmarks in return, but now he's a little short because he can't inflate the currency like they did back in 1922. Fasolt and Fafner arrive and demand their money. When Hitler/Wotan can't come up with it, they take the maiden Freia and depart. Freia, who wears her long blonde hair in braids and is costumed in a dirndl, symbolizes young German women held in thrall to Jewish Industrialists.
Scene ThreeRoderick puts down the manuscript. "Have you seen The Producers?"
Hitler/Wotan and Goebbels/Loge go to the Berlin suburb of Nibelheim, where Alberich the rabbi runs a sweatshop and uses the power of a ring forged from the stolen Rhine gold to force honest German laborers to work for him to produce more gold. He also practices BDSM with Mime, his brother, with Alberich as dom and Mime as sub. Hitler/Wotan and Goebbels/Loge use trickery and the Nuremburg Laws to steal the ring, and they use its power to force Alberich to carry the gold to Berchtesgaden.
Scene Four
Hitler/Wotan pays off Fasolt and Fafner with Alberich's gold. They return Freia, then Fafner kills Fasolt, takes the gold and runs off to Poland, joins the Communist Party and hides in a bunker. To Wagner's grand and noble music, Hitler/Wotan, Eva/Fricka, Freia, Goebbels/Loge and other Nazi luminaries parade into the Eagle's Nest which is bedecked with swastikas.
Megan stretches out on her stomach, buttocks exposed. "No. Why?"
Meanwhile, in Beauneville, Mr. Smiley pays a social visit to Miss Penny, the town treasurer. Actually, it's not just a social visit; he wants to make a donation to the town coffers.
Miss Penny gestures to a cheap chair in her tiny kitchen. "Why don't you sit down? Would you like a cup of coffee? I have one of those little machines."
Mr. Smiley doesn't really care for coffee, but it's impolite to decline a proffered beverage. "Yes, thank you."
Miss Penny fiddles with the machine for a minute, then places a cup of coffee before Mr. Smiley. She does not offer cream and sugar.
Tentatively, Mr. Smiley sips the coffee, which tastes like swill. He grimaces slightly.
"Want to know how to save money on coffee?" Miss Penny confides. "Recycle the coffee pods!"
Mr. Smiley isn't quite sure how to respond. "Doesn't it, um, impact the flavor?"
"Double savings!" exclaims Miss Penny, triumphantly. "It tastes like swill, so I drink less."
This is a bit of a social conundrum for Mr. Smiley. On the one hand, one should never say anything not nice about a hostess' food and drink. On the other hand, Miss Penny seems to have let the cat out of the bag.
"It's nice," he murmurs.
