Part 56: Cicero

A Letter from No One?

by Cicero T. Jones

It is a tale as old as time, yet one that continues to titillate: the artist versus the agent; the dreamer and the pragmatist; the creative visionary against the jaded executive. Perhaps the world, in its fullest sense, requires both archetypes: a David and Goliath for our modern age, to feud forever for our fealty; and we humble onlookers can but take sides, place bets, and watch the devastating drama unfurl and unfold before our very eyes. If that be so, count this journalist foremost among the horde of hoi polloi, for he finds himself utterly enraptured by this latest chapter of the saga of Our Beautiful Misery.

At the heart of it all is a story: a simple piece of prose, entitled The Letter, whose subject is an even simpler one. But let not this talk of straightforwardness belie the true complexity of the meta-narrative. Not only has The Letter been already subject to devouring and dissection by The Company (the band’s rabid fanbase) - who have feasted upon it in a manner that can be described only as voracious - since its spontaneous publication Saturday last, the question of its authorship has become perhaps the fiercest-fought battle in rock music since titans John and Paul swung swords.

The Letter is, on its surface, attributed to one Aleksandr Pyotrovich K________, a Russian author in the vein of Dostoevsky or Solzenyitzkin. (One may also detect a Kafkaesque touch in the surname.) However, the amateur scholarship is largely in agreement that this author is a mere textual feature, a fiction, like Nabokov’s Kinbote or the Kierkeegardian slew of pseudonyms. They diverge, however, like Frost’s two roads in the proverbial yellow wood, when it comes to the ostensibly more quotidian question: who really wrote the work?

There are, essentially, two schools of thought: the first cite Cross comma Xander, auteur of Our Beautiful Misery, as penner of the prose. Perhaps an obvious conclusion, given the similarity of the two names and the singer’s prominent position in the existing OBM oeuvre. A trifle too obvious, sneer the second set, who finger infamous behind-the-scenes guru, yogi, and maestro Bobby Melrose (nee Robert) as the writer, citing his background in fiction and Russian ancestry.

Here the hiterto patient reader might object: why not simply ask the two men who wrote the work? Now we have arrived at the true treasure trove. Melrose is on record averring that he did not write The Letter, and has even made intimations that could be inferred to imply that Cross is its creator. And Cross himself took full advantage of his platform at a recent OBM concert in Philadelphia to explicitly, emphatically identify the erstwhile invisible Melrose as its manufacturer.

Publicity stunt? Perhaps so. But without a single, solitary doubt, a doubly delicious one. Pre-orders for the forthcoming album based on the aforementioned short story have flooded the offices of OBM’s label, despite its being, at present, sans title (The Letter is surely too elementary) or release date. But when it does, so to speak, drop, it shall be as a fruit grown ripe with the passage of not only time but the eager anticipation of hungry listeners who yearn, Tantalus-like, to savor its sweetness, and if you seek this writer's whereabouts, expect to find him gazing upwards like a baby bird.