Saturday, February 18, 2012

On Your Own

"I am agog; I am aghast! Has Marius fucked off at last?!?" Éponine Thénardier, removing her gaberdine, stood agazed on her cell phone. Pacing around her family's apartment in the opulent Gorbeau House, she glanced again and reconfirmed: she had nary a voice message. Known about town as the "Jondrette girl" (which, to her, made some sort of uninterrogated sense, though in having no clue as to just why the Parisians favored this term for her, she couldn't put her finger on exactly why), Éponine was a beautiful girl of somewhere in the neighborhood of…like, 15-17, or thereabouts, I think, and was certainly no stranger to the adoration of the proletariat--which made the absence of telephonic communiqués all the more befuddling and disconcerting (a feeling that she described alternately as "disconfuddlin'" and "shitbagged"). And yet, for Éponine, feeling shitbagged was somehow sublime; the sheer rarity with which the attention of the masses would come to wane made this personal disconfuddlement both terrifying and beautiful. Ordinarily, this disconshitbagging would eftsoons evaporate into the muggy springtime fogstars, and Éponine would crawl betwixt the sheets of her garbagemat and drift away into blissful slumber, soon to waken once more, free from the shackles of fuddleshitbags.

But on this day, as the first sun of a new Parisian June broke through the mistshine of the morning, Éponine was concerned. She stared, countenance unwavering (in a creepy, depressed sort of way, an expression/sensation which she'd refer to alternately as "decreeped" or "dickwiggled"), at the piles of letters she was supposed to send to rich folks across France (a daily task imposed upon her by her parents, M. and Mme Thénardier, who had left behind a lucrative existence as hotel owners in Montfermeil to retire to Paris, at which time they began to make Éponine write these letters--letters which they made her write under the name "Jondrette," a fact that both confused and bored her [a sensation that she'd refer to alternately as "borfused" or "fuckwaddled"]) to ask for some sort of donations or something--actually, Éponine would just copy from a script that her paps had already written, and she didn't really pay much attention; the act of reading made her feel both anxious and hungry--a feeling which she'd describe alternately as "hungraxious" or "pissheveled"--and she'd usually put it on auto-pilot. Of course, better still were the days when local inkhorn-mate Jean JeanValson (or something like that--remembering names made Éponine both furious and startled, a feeling which she'd describe alternately as "fartious" or "shartled") would come by and, appealing to what he claimed were the duties of the philanthropist, give the girl a biscuit and write her letters for her. Secretly, Éponine thought that maybe this ValJen Jeaner guy had a thing for her, but he seemed genuinely nice, and was also far too old for her, and so she tried not to think about it too much--besides, secret inklings made her feel both nauseous and fibromyalgiac, a feeling that she'd describe alternately as "fibronauseoalgia" or "just-plain-cock-berries."

On this morning, Éponine felt that the letters could wait. As she wandered the apartment, pacing hither and yon, she was certain that a pattern had emerged, a fact which left her incensed: pattern recognition made her feel tripped-out and salty, a feeling that she'd describe alternately as "salted out" and "pussbooted," and beyond that, it had become clear that no one was calling her anymore, which was the whole disconfuddlement shit, but, like, every single day. Placing her silent cell phone on the davenport and popping a disc into her Blu Ray player, she plopped back onto her trashbed and burst into tears. She had always known that the attention of the townsfolk was irrelevant, meaningless, and unavoidable, but it had been weeks since her last "telegram from Alexander Graham Bell" (which was a fun little term she used for "voice mail"--even though the usage of fun little terms made her feel droopy and pooped, a sensation which she actually had never described), and she hadn't seen Marius, JeanVal, Cosette, Fantine, or even that wacky policeman in at least a fortnight.

Sitting up on her rubbishpad, she slowly scanned her apartment, finding nothing but solitude. "Empty chairs at empty tables," thought she, "where my friends would love to sit." Suddenly, as in a dream or a movie--maybe even a French porno (the old kind, like, long before the days of contemporary, super-kinky French stuff like that put out by [exhaustive 12-pg. list of modern French pornographers redacted--Ed.]--I'm talking the classic stuff, like 1936's Mme Pam, the Bellman, and a few Croissants)--she had a grand epiphany (an experience that made her feel both "pennywise" and "pound-foolish" because she loved that axiom but didn't even come close to understanding it): The townspeople were depressed!

It all made sense now. Surely intimidated by her natural glory, the townspeople had become blubbering messes, homebound weirdos whose only exposure to the outside world would be via the memories of Éponine's grace and splendor, which they would never again experience, having found it too terrifyingly beautiful (and thus disconshitbagging) for human consumption. "I can hear the people sing," thought she, "singing the song of horny men (and women)--it is the music of a people who will not have sex again, for they dreamed a dream of me, but life has killed that dream they dreamed, and it is a dream that shall not be. Maybe I'll write and sing a song for them." And so she did.

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This beautiful excerpt from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (1862) offers insight into one of literature's most unique characters. Éponine truly feels sorrowful for the plight of the miserable ones who will never hold her heart (nor suckle her breasts, which were probably pretty nice by the time she was 18, which is all that really matters because you wouldn't consider it before then, right, dawg?!?), and, as far as secondary characters go, few are more beloved than she.

Of course, you might know her best from the famous musical based on this novel. AWESOME FUCKING COINCIDENCE ALERT: I starred as Éponine in the original Broadway cast (1850-2009) of Les Miserables!!! I'll let you breathe in that news for a moment (this fucking blog entry's really heating up now!), and we'll move on to a new paragraph.

AWESOME FUCKING NEW BLOG FEATURE ALERT: While my plans to introduce a new video feature to this blog remain on hold (for technical reasons that I'll explain in great detail next time--so don't fucking bother me about it until then!!!), I've gone ahead and done you one better. So, with that, it is your great pleasure to allow me to introduce a stunning innovation that will revolutionize the blogosphere (and fucking better put me in the running for 2012's BlogLord of the Year--I swear the fucking International Council of the Internet [at this point, I'd like to ask the official ICI representative who is vetting this post as part of the extensive process that goes into publishing anything on the ol' web to go ahead and skip past the rest of this parenthetical aside--as in, past these brackets and past the closing parenthesis and onto the rest of the initial sentence] wouldn't know innovation if it was sucking on their dicktits!) and likely alter the course of your life and existence both permanently and irreparably: Ladies, Dudes, and Snakes (seriously hoping that a few snakes like to read this blog), I present to you the new Incredibly Loud Slideshow feature!!!

That's right: I have managed to make photos move! Really, this is better than a video feature in every conceivable way--like, it combines photos and motion! So, what I've done is taken the original Broadway cast recording of my show-stopping performance of Les Mis classic (and stalwart member of the musical canon) "On Your Own" and put it to some pictures! Now, of course I don't own the rights to this song; thankfully, I can think of no recently proposed legislation that would regulate the usage of copyrighted materials on the Internet, so I feel comfortable that I can post this shit with impunity!

The first Incredibly Loud entre into the exciting world of slideshows. Includes performance photos, interpretive picture/lyric matching, and the original audio of AM Chenowith's legendary portrayal of Éponine Thénardier in the Broadway hit Les Miserables.



Whew. I'm out of breath just listening to you listening to me singing. It's time for us to hit the showers (not together--didn't you fucking pay any attention to the song?!? It's NEVER GONNA HAPPEN!) and call it a day.

Hmm. Well, you're still here. Not…sure what else I really have to say…don't want to have to ask you to leave…kinda would hope that you'd just sorta…like, get the hint…

WAIT!!! Actually, I did have something else! Taylor Swift--she of the voice that is matched in thinness only by my bosom--is set to star in the major motion picture production of Les Mis! As in, the musical, not the novel (which was already turned into a movie starring…eh, who cares? That thing was lame.)! Now, I'm only one (well-hung) man; how much change can I effect alone? Thus, your mission is clear, o miserable ones: Tell Hollywood that you want Chenowith!! Now, I'm not exactly sure how to get a hold of them…I guess start with www.Hollywood.com, or, easier still, dial every possible combination of phone numbers until you reach someone out there that matters!

Once you're done fillin' up answering machines (Hollywood is traditionally behind the times, technologically speaking, so this mission's gonna be a bit old-school), report back here posthaste! Fill up my comment boxes, follow @AMChenowith on Twitter, Like IncrediblyLoudWriting on Facebook, and e-mail me @ incrediblyloudwriting[dot]gmail[dot]com. Remember: Alone, you are worthless, but together, in service of me and my aims, you might accomplish…something. See you soon.

You're welcome,

AM Chenowith