No Subject

On the musical's opening night, we were reunited. I hadn't seen any of the
major players in upwards of a decade, and I was pleasantly surprised to
note that all of us were still standing, albeit, in some cases, none too
steadily.  What really stunned me, however, was the fervor of the audience.
Not only did it stand and cheer, as if saluting royalty, when the Bee Gees
made their entrance, but it proceeded to go bananas over every remembered
landmark: "Stayin' Alive" and "Jive Talkin'," the dance floor at 2001
Odyssey, Tony Manero's white suit, lines of dialogue, even the silhouette
of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.  The whole evening, in the end, was less
about a new musical than reliving an old love affair, which had seemed at
the time a mere passing fling but now appeared, glossed by the passage of
20 years, as a grand passion.

Afterward, when I looked back on this night, the crowd's rapture slipped
into perspective.  It wasn't really Fever they'd been cheering, but
themselves: their lost youth; their old hungers; above all, their survival.

An echo of glory days.  And who's to say if those days really happened, or
if their stories have all been conjured from dross? And what does it
matter, anyway? Nothing signifies, at the death, but our own tales: the
stubborn belief that once upon a time, we were fully and truly alive.

-30-

Alan
Be sure to read _McKendree: A Burning Novel of Murder and Revenge_
by Douglas Hirt, ISBN 0-8439-4184-7  (available at www.amazon.com)