That leads directly into the song (English lyrics by Stephen Clark) that begins: "I saw three suns set the sky ablaze / Who knows how long that they held my gaze". But the songs don't belong exclusively to Woyzeck.
It's more of a one-man cabaret act during which the designer will sing standards like the Pretenders' "Show Me" and "The Sun, Whose Rays Are All Ablaze" from "The Mikado".
As the setting sun set Manhattan's skyline ablaze one evening last month, Mr. Ruffner and his friends tried to ignore the wailing sirens, the roar of overhead planes and the acres of surrounding asphalt as they recovered from a harried day of sightseeing and stargazing (celebrities, not celestial bodies).
Clever visual punning concludes this tale, as Morris's creative largess is mirrored in the delighted birthday boy: Benjamin, knees ablaze with swirling suns (rendered by Morris), now stands larger than life itself.
The trees and plantings are illuminated at night and nurtured by an automatic irrigation system, as is the ipe-wood sun deck on the top floor, ablaze with flowering species and a tropical vibe that is a nod to Ms. Fisher's extensive banking stints in South America.
And not quite under the shelter on the northbound platform, an old man, the sun behind him, just his crown ablaze; and heading southbound, a woman inching ever nearer the platform edge, the light a tear across her midriff, ribcage, shoulders, closer and closer that dearest thing, completeness, all her darkness light at the one time.
Nothing could be bad, or ugly or sad, with that fairy music winging its way across the fells, so, feeling a little better, I looked north-west across the new whiteness at Scafell Pike, rearing up behind the Crinkles, and the rounded dome, like an atomic cloud-burst, of Great Gable - both of them ablaze with the setting sun.
As we continue up a curving mountain pass, the fog breaks and the sun sets a patch of purple wildflowers ablaze.
Few geographic features mark the boat's course; instead, its journey is described solely in images: "the low sun stained with mystic horror," "green nights ablaze with snow," "blue and yellow heavings of phosphorescent song!" The boat begins to disintegrate, and the visions grow darker: "solar lichen and gobs / Of azure snot," "a lunatic plank escorted by black seahorses".
The violence of the story is sometimes at odds with the author's penchant for poetic description, which is more suited to quieter interludes, as when a character walking along the coast of the South China Sea watches as the sun "bloomed like a red dahlia, petals ablaze".
However, a glance out from the breezy shaded patio where I sat onto the central courtyard, ablaze in the glaring evening sun, and all thoughts of bidding my host goodbye immediately evaporated.
