Susanna J. Sturgis: Writer • Editor • Martha's Vineyard




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	Return to Highlights The Editor Queen's Song August 18, 2006 By request (I think that's what "RRrrrr-rrrURRF" meant, anyway) here is the sole surviving song from The Edits of Freelance, a controversial operetta about a band of jovial, impecunious, beer-swilling copyeditors living off the New English coast. The rest of the script sank with all hands during an ill-advised and possibly inebriated attempt to walk across Vineyard Sound on Fireworks Night. For those unfamiliar with the show: Young Frederika's parents are highly placed in the Halliburton World Government, but Frederika has nothing but contempt for their conspicuously consumptive lifestyle and so runs off to join the Freelancers. After much waving of weapons and paying of bribes, a detachment of lawyers, accountants, and transportation security screeners have found Frederika and persuaded her to meet with her parents on the privately owned and heavily fortified island of Gnoshon. Frederika is reluctant, but the Lawyer Chief has warned her that the Halliburtonian Triumvirs know that the Freelancers possess pencils of mass destruction and are prepared to act accordingly. The Editor Queen and her Editorial Associates bid Frederika a rousing farewell with this song. CHORUS Editor Queen: For I am the Editor Queen! Associates: You are! Hurrah for the Editor Queen! Editor Queen: And it is, it is a glorious thing to be an Editor Queen! Associates: It is! Hurrah for the Editor Queen, hurrah for the . . . Editor Queen: Oh, better far to just get by editing books with standards high than take some far more lucrative work polishing crap for some rich jerk! Away to the corporate world go you where words are false and no one's true But I'll be true to the song I sing and somehow thrive as an editor queen! CHORUS Associates: For she is the Editor Queen! She is! Hurrah for the Editor Queen! Editor Queen: And it is, it is a glorious thing to be an Editor Queen! Associates: Hurrah for the Editor Queen, hurrah for the Editor Queen! Editor Queen: When I sit me down to pummel some prose I smack my lips and I hold my nose I shred a few more sentences, true, than a novice editor ought to do But many a pro at a top trade press to make a book from an awful mess must manage somehow to slog through more gobbledygook than ever I do. CHORUS Associates: For she is the Editor Queen! She is! Hurrah for the Editor Queen! Editor Queen: And it is, it is a glorious thing to be an Editor Queen! Associates: Hurrah for the Editor Queen, hurrah for the Editor Queen! REPEAT CHORUS AS FREDERIKA CLIMBS INTO THE WAITING DINGHY AND THE ASSOCIATES SHOWER HER WITH POST-IT NOTES





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The Editor Queen's Song