But even if it is an allusion, at some level, to the original Far Side panel, it is also markedly different.
To many British eyes, both president and country are too bombastic, myopically self-assured, lacking a properly tragic view of life and sometimes emotionally incontinent: Mr Bush's allusion at Camp David to the death of Mr Brown's baby daughter a tragedy, the president said, which had "strengthened [Mr Brown's] soul"—struck some listeners as unduly intrusive.
There are politics here – a dark photograph of an upturned Renault car references with an almost contradictory coolness the establishment-shaking student riots in Paris in 1968 – but to fully appreciate the layers of meaning and allusion at play here, one must be au fait with the postmodern art theory from which they emerge.
His prose hops with dropped names, compulsive puns, learned allusions, winks at the reader, and repeated bows to popular culture.
The Alice in Wonderland allusions hinted at when Danny swallowed what turned out to be an encryption device became explicit once Clarke Peters' man of mystery had offered Danny a blue pill inside a red sweet.
(It's not just "South Park" or "Family Guy". Even "Gossip Girl" has sardonic allusions to "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and Eliot Spitzer).
The musical allusions were offered at face value: the fate motif from Wagner's "Ring" not overly portentous, Rossini's galloping "William Tell" Overture not overly hyper.
And if you are among those who will delight in he vocal cameos from the likes of Victoria Clark and Marin Mazzie, or smile knowingly at allusions to Broadway turkeys like "Kwamina" and "Henry, Sweet Henry," it should go right to the top of that list.
Its premise is that like attracts like, that in the big heartless city there is a place where a potential mate will understand your allusions to Andrew Marvell, or at least Sex Week at Yale. "It's an environment where it's easy to talk to new people and you have some shared common background," said Jennifer Wilde Anderson, the founder of Ivy Plus.
Mr. Rihm likes to fill his scores with allusions, and certainly goes at it here.
