3rd place in Derby #207: The Letter O, with 604 votes!
Oh, awesome, my favorite suite of operas is on: Der Ring des Soapscumen. It’s an epic tale of mythic proportions! Heroes clash! Battles are waged! Bubbles are blown! Eyes water against errant trickles of shampoo! Fate itself hangs in the balance!
It was an ingenious choice on the composer’s part to set a saga of such colossal cataclysm in the bathroom of the gods. It is, after all, the most dangerous room in the house of the gods. Something like 90 percent of accidents take place in the bathroom! Another seven or eight percent of accidents take place just outside the bathroom, to people who just can’t quite make it there in time. It’s the perfect place to explore the Soapscum Ring Cycle’s themes: Love, power, nature, culture, and the ways in which all of us—and even our gods and heroes—are slaves to the basest impulsive desires (for example, Sudsfried’s secret wish, expressed in the first act of his eponymous opera, to go slippy-slippy-slidey over all mankind’s hidey).
I’ve only ever sat through the whole Soapscum Ring Cycle once. I mean, don’t get me wrong—it’s a towering musical achievement, and also contains moisturizing botanical extracts. But at over fifteen hours’ running time, you end up pretty pruney by the time it’s over.
Wear this shirt: in the shower, and multi-task! Do your laundry and see to your bodily hygiene simultaneously! Think of the time you’ll save!
Don’t wear this shirt: to the actual opera. Even in this age of faux-vintage beer tees in the workplace, there are still a few venues where you have to dress like a grown-up.
This shirt tells the world: “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady rinses, repeats.”
We call this color: Drawn From German And Scandi-Navy-an Legend
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