Dear Vasanistas, I know you looked forward to starting the month of July with a new chapter of Park Avenue or Bust! With Vasa, Ypres, and a wounded and groaning Beaconsfield-Outremont last seen scampering off Park Avenue, who would not. The suspense is high. The possibilities are numerous. Yet, the next chapter, when it will be… Continue reading Park Avenue or Bust: A Pause
I would have rather forgotten the scene. Beaconsfield-Outremont lay on the hot pavement of Park Avenue. His Lexington Red short shorts, being too tight, had ripped on impact. The ice cream that had been his companion moments before had landed on his face, strawberries nearby, as if arranged by Jackson Pollock. Here was a twisted… Continue reading Chapter XXXVIII – Or!
Knowing Madison, in the manner one knows of a casual acquaintance who keeps popping up at the same Austrian operas over the years, I was confident she had left the flat for Park Avenue. As it now stood, she was probably skipping her way merely down the thoroughfare as the ladies of the social aristocracy… Continue reading Chapter XXXVII – Park Avenue!
My “how”, delivered with convincing aplomb, lingered in the hot summer air. We had both, after Madison’s mad dash to the street, resumed our seated positions opposite one another. Ypres adopted her postgraduate stance. She was in her element. The lecture would commence, and the isms would no doubt pepper the disquisition. The daylight came… Continue reading Chapter XXXVI – Ypres Reveals All: Part II
Those of you who are not familiar with Wagner will underestimate the extent of Madison’s tormented emotions. Whereas Mozart and Rossini are usually good-humoured fun, with a bit of harmless suspense thrown in, Wagner is the equivalent of a protracted tragic identity crisis. It summons the full range of painful emotions in a most ungermanic… Continue reading Chapter XXXV – Wagnerian Distress
I must admit, dear reader, that I had reached a point where unanticipated revelations no longer had a surprising effect. A couple of weeks prior, I would have easily jumped back three yards in a north-east direction at the news that Madison’s love interest was Pietro Ducale. The idea that Madison was attracted to a… Continue reading Chapter XXXIV – Paragraphs or Feminism
Vasa and Ypres 