Happy, Happy, Happy!
I was trying to remember when first we met, and I think it was because you were recommended to me as a musical collaborator for the cabaret Mothers & Whores – so I sought a photo (as it turns out, it is one of the only photos I have of you in a URT project), and we both look so… young. As I hope you know, I so love your music – and have so loved each one of our subsequent collaborations: States of Grace, Alice’s Adventures Underground, Einstein’s Dreams, The Loudest Voice, Christmas Memories... You really understand how music and theater meet, like nobody else. Einstein’s Dreams and Christmas Memories, in particular: masterpieces. So, I have this idea I can hear inside your heart, or at least some corners of it – whimsy and deeply-felt emotion, breath, spins and filigrees, long lyrical poems and limericks.
My life and the lives of O! so many have been enriched by your having been born! A toast to that lucky chance!
Evan, dear friend, partly in honor of our two Grace Paley projects, entirely in honor of you, a poem that seems somehow fit for a birthday (you child, you – I turned 60 seven months ago!)
Much Love on your birthday and everyday from your buddy and colleague.
One Day I Decided
One day I decided to not grow any older
lots of luck I said to myself
(my joking self) then I looked up at the sky
which is wide its bluenessits whiteness
low on my leftthe steamy sun rosemoved
I placed my hand against it my whole hand
which is broad from pinky to thumbnomy
two hands I bared my teeth to it my teeth
are strongsecure on their gold postsI breathed
deeplyI held my breathI stood on my toesah
then I was tallerstill the clouds sailed
through mearound meit’s trueI’m just
like themsummertime water that the sun
sips and spits into this guzzling earth
I was trying to remember when first we met, and I think it was because you were recommended to me as a musical collaborator for the cabaret Mothers & Whores – so I sought a photo (as it turns out, it is one of the only photos I have of you in a URT project), and we both look so… young. As I hope you know, I so love your music – and have so loved each one of our subsequent collaborations: States of Grace, Alice’s Adventures Underground, Einstein’s Dreams, The Loudest Voice, Christmas Memories... You really understand how music and theater meet, like nobody else. Einstein’s Dreams and Christmas Memories, in particular: masterpieces. So, I have this idea I can hear inside your heart, or at least some corners of it – whimsy and deeply-felt emotion, breath, spins and filigrees, long lyrical poems and limericks.
My life and the lives of O! so many have been enriched by your having been born! A toast to that lucky chance!
Evan, dear friend, partly in honor of our two Grace Paley projects, entirely in honor of you, a poem that seems somehow fit for a birthday (you child, you – I turned 60 seven months ago!)
Much Love on your birthday and everyday from your buddy and colleague.
One Day I Decided
One day I decided to not grow any older
lots of luck I said to myself
(my joking self) then I looked up at the sky
which is wide its bluenessits whiteness
low on my leftthe steamy sun rosemoved
I placed my hand against it my whole hand
which is broad from pinky to thumbnomy
two hands I bared my teeth to it my teeth
are strongsecure on their gold postsI breathed
deeplyI held my breathI stood on my toesah
then I was tallerstill the clouds sailed
through mearound meit’s trueI’m just
like themsummertime water that the sun
sips and spits into this guzzling earth