“Strange Things Happen on Your Birthday”

Program notes:

Each song is a lesson.

“Cats” means finally understanding how to be grateful for all of the memories. Letting them come through as pure joy, letting this joy express itself after so long, and the mourning over how long it has been waiting. The triumph of forgiveness that comes with letting this water continue its flow forward into the future, through and past all of the debris of misunderstanding.

A “Proclaimer” is in our midst, running our cities and our land, and his damage has already extended out across our borders, into Africa, into the undoing of history and equality and the preservation of a future for even his own offspring. Industry over intelligence. Protection over preservation. Disguised as an old-fashioned hero, a swagger and cunning, a criminal. This song is the unexpressed violence and hatred we all feel for this, and a chaotic death knell that sounds throughout the entire planet as a resonance of his actions, and a people scrambling to listen, to figure out how to dance in the fire and bring him down. The ending will change our code, our credo and color our language for a long time.

“Damn Intensity” is an ode to Béla Bartók. Up the long ladder we go, always climbing the next tree. We will ever have to walk over our own two feet in order to progress higher, severing our connection with what would be closest to ground. It is our game. We never quite relearned how to swing from tree to tree. Every trunk must be shimmied up, coated in our intelligence and identity. Build, build, build, think faster, let the metals of the earth prove that we are royalty. It is our game.

Many people on our planet must “EXEUNT”. There has been an order in place for a long time. A code hidden behind caves and palace walls and uranium. The set designs have changed, but always the same old play, the same plot and same catharsis that distracts and detains and delays our progression outside of the opera house and the arena. To see what is going on with our lives and our world. We keep listening to the same thing, in a very particular way. Until a little drummer boy appears and leads the way and makes us remember our felines, felt purring to us not so long ago. How to take the play and go deeper, how to flip the message inside out and learn that the actors on stage are actors and that we can be directors, crying out in darkened unison “EXEUNT ALL!”. It all ends as whimpering lions in fields, but the sun is still shining.

“Providence” reminds us that the clock is ticking, but not as evenly as we feel it. There is no measurement, and our heartbeats are forever rippling time. Listen to the ether and peer into crystal ponds. Rev your engines, start the engines, face the long road ahead. But go nowhere. This is the pattern. What awaits us with this behavior? Here we are in our vehicles, the road is exciting and colorful and bright. We rev and make noise as the countryside extends outwards on its own. Frustration settles into us as we become separated with our delusion of progress. We take a winter and glide down huge hills in sleighs and rediscover the lost feelings of momentum. What joy and sensation! We rev and rig our engines to explode, tear themselves apart in moments of destructive power and glory. It’s ok, the Earth will absorb it, the rains will wash away the oil and the metal fragments will house the animals. It can take it. We sit on the hill in summer and wonder what is next.

What sounds would you “Produce” beneath the ocean? What would it all sound like? How fast would things go? What is the maximum speed of action and sound? Dive down below and try it out. There are echoes to catch if you miss something. Caves to explore, life to see. It is dark, yes… but oh the coral, oh the colors, oh the rippling greens and the peace. Breathe underwater for the first time. The exhalation brings you to a whole new place. The lights come on, and you have found Atlantis. The fruit of the sea is wondrous. You can hear the heartbeat of the universe in all things. It is a grandfather clock striking each molecule of water with its booming sound. Timeless, sad, glorious, and innocent. Take this with you as you rise back to the surface. I know that leaving this place is such sorrow, but you have a story to tell now, back on land.

The mind of a “Mahniac” is patterns repeating, tilling soil, with an unexplained gravitas and clips to the sound and actions, like broken telephone. Glenn Ghoulish mumblings and unexplained oranges. The music only they can hear, the instructions only they can follow. They sit under the trees and rest, and out over the horizon is the crowd with their tools. It puzzles you, as you see them organize step by step into a march. Zombies. It’s hilarious in some ways, and awkward. Whoa, sudden bolts of cooperation and coherence. Where is this going? What can I do? I feel threatened. My own army is descending from the hills, a deeper shade of armor than I expected. Learning the patterns as the silos open and missiles are revealed. Take a closer listen to the mumblings. Can you understand any of the message? It is beautiful in some ways. Like glistening spiderweb. Here is the final battle. Do you have your orders? Do you know what division you are in? Here we go. Swords, guns, missiles, sharks, lightning, rakes and the opening of the gates. All turn suddenly into a new formation and destroy time itself and the universe burps up bits of lasagna.

There is a “Bow.” It makes us itchy.

Your nails can give such pleasure as you scratch an itch. Like a new dawn. There is a rhythm to scratching, a tempo, a dynamic. Too far outside of either and you ruin the magic. But what happens when you cease scratching? And listen to the itch? It ripples across your body on its intended path. It teaches you. You can hear the song. It grants you wishes. What a gift! When the gift is revealed it is like a whale call deep from within your soul, showing you bits and pieces of the next song. What IS this thing? Exactly. Back to the drawing board. Oh how the scratching feels even better now. You are drawing blood and it drips to the floor, and your tendons are being severed, your nerves are being pruned, you are tattooing your own bones with Morse code. But what happens when you have nothing left there to scratch? What is scratching, without an itch?

There is a nocturnal ocean in a place you have never been and it requires a new way to swim, the “Downstroke”. The waves come when you least expect it, there is no moon to govern the chaos of the sea. You can spend as much time as you like and enjoy the beach at night, the sands under your feet. You are alone, there is not even an animal. Here is where you can contemplate your being. You learn to swim and you can get farther away from shore each time. One day you keep going out into the sea, your limbs are massive and capable, and though a storm awaits you, you are ready. You are so ready. Let it come, let the wind whip into you, let the water coat your every surface. You can slip below the chop for peace and return. Many years of swimming and journeying, discovering new patterns and new textures and new shapes. Drown. Surface as the mightiest ship that has ever been built. HEAVE HO, shout to your crew! They are yours! They have joined you, ghosts no longer. The sea is yours, the crescent moon has returned, but is respecting the new sevenly order of things. Your rhythm is captain and the long night is about to end. Still, remember, you have never been here before.