IT’S OPEN MIC NIGHT AT:

The Gist and Tangent Pub

Tonight it’s Paige Turner, Sub-Sub Librarian, of the C-of-C-C accompanied by Arturo Haus on silent harmony 

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“SECONDHAND PROSE”

—by secondhand literary pros

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[Spotlight rises. Paige stands beside the upright piano, draped in a shawl made from discarded dust jackets. A yellow neck gaiter hangs just so.]

PAIGE (spoken, with a sigh):

This next number is dedicated to all my annotated lovers out there…

Who’ve been footnoted… but never truly read.

This new version is sung to the tune of Secondhand Rose by Grant Clarke / James Hanley

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[Piano begins with a slow, sentimental vamp.]

PAIGE (singing):

🎶Mother loved her essays… strictly second tier.

Said she “felt the Iliad,” but never got too near.

All our books at home are critics on parade—

Pages full of others and the points they made.

——

It’s no wonder I’ve grown quite verbose—

When all I quote is second hand prose.

I’m hummin’ second hand riffs,

Second hand themes,

That’s why they call me—

Second Hand Dreams.

——

Even our Kindle’s full of glosses—

Prefaced texts and marginal losses.

Second hand blurbs,

I’m mouthing second hand verbs,

Never cracked a spine on something new!

——

Even Ned, the scholar (he once stroked my hand…)

Confessed he thinks Proust is just a French brand of sand.

——

Everyone groans that I’m just—

Second Hand Prose,

From a footnote or two.

From a Preface Review!

Oh yes, I’m that Rose

Who highlights her hue

From summaries deep in Appendix Q…

[Paige twirls her yellow gaiter around a finger and raises her glass.]

PAIGE (spoken):

To the ones who never read, but always discuss.

[Music swells gently.]

PAIGE (singing):

So here’s to second hand plots,

And postmodern dots—

I’ll dance in the margins

Of forgotten thoughts.

’Cause deep down I know

Though I’ve never read* Foe¹ —my citations still glow…

⸻

1 Footnote: Foe (1986) is a novel by J.M. Coetzee that retells the classic story of Robinson Crusoe—but from the perspective of a woman named Susan Barton, who gets stranded on the same island. When she returns to England, she tries to get a writer named “Foe” (a stand-in for Daniel Defoe) to tell her version of events. The book explores whose voices get heard in history—and whose are left out. Paige Turner hasn’t read it, of course. But she’s read three articles about it and has very strong feelings.