Happy birthday, Stephen Sondheim!

Thank you for redefining musical theater. For redefining music. For redefining theater.

Thank you for composing music that's at once asymmetrical and balanced, halting and fluid, atonal and lush, messy and perfect.

Thank you for finding lyrics that explore the outer limits of rhythm and structure and rhyme, that tell a story or define a character or celebrate a moment or break a heart in sometimes just a handful of words, that always seem fresh, that always seem timeless, that always seem effortless.

Thank you for creating an apotheosis of creative and intellectual order, design, tension, composition, balance, light and harmony.

Thank you for inspiring as only you can an enraptured young writer to think outside his own thoughts, to feel outside his own feelings, to never stop searching for the perfect word or the lyrical phrase or the essential defining idea in a universe of creative entropy, to always make sure he's proud of how he creates and proud of what he writes.

And thank you for the phrase that I rely on almost daily to turn an undefined someday into a compelling now ... to pull me out of inertia and propel me sometimes through a bipolar fog and sometimes just through my own complacency to run a marathon, broaden my perspective, take on a challenging writing project, upgrade to a difficult tap class, find a solution, emerge unscathed or at least unbroken, or some days to just show up.

Careful the things you say; children will listen. And sometimes they'll turn your words into kick-ass tattoos.

Feel the flow,
Hear what's happening:
We're what's happening!
Long ago
All we had was that funny feeling,
Saying someday we'd send 'em reeling.
Now it looks like we can!
Someday just began.

Happy 334th birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach!

Fun Bach fact 2: The formal title of every work composed by Bach is followed by a BWV (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis or Bach-Works-Catalogue) number. First published in 1950 by Wolfgang Schmieder--who was probably very boring at parties--the BWW system assigned a unique number to each of the 1,126 known written works of Bach. Unlike the far-more-useful-in-my-humble-opinion Köchel catalogue that assigns numbers to every known work of Mozart chronologically, the BWW assigns its numbers by genre. Which isn't even a German word.

Happy 334th birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach!

Fun Bach fact 1: Johann Sebastian Bach is considered to be one of the definitive composers of the Baroque Period in music, which lasted from 1600 until Bach's death in 1750. Following the Renaissance Period, which explored independent, interweaving melodic lines in a style known as polyphony, Baroque music introduced the concept of tonality, where music was written in an established key. The highly ornamental and often improvised music of the Baroque followed the key-based chord progressions played by the lower instruments of the basso continuo.

And though all symphonic music from the Baroque Period forward is collectively known as "classical music," the official Classical Period as we define it today directly followed the Baroque, lasting from 1750 to 1825. Its definitive composer was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

I’LL BE BACH WITH ANOTHER FUN FACT SOON!

All I want for Christmas is my 4'33"!

Happy 176th birthday, Antonín Dvořák!

And happy one-year anniversary of my freedom from Cymbalta -- according to the essay below that just popped up on Facebook. I'm sometimes glad Facebook reminds me of these memories to show me what I've survived and how far I've come ... and how I couldn't have done it without my family, my friends and even my little joys like gorgeously thematic symphonies.

It is 9:30 pm on what would have been Czech composer Antonín Dvořák's 175th birthday, and as my dad and I drove around tonight on our Thursday evening errands we listened to Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 -- also called "From the New World" due to its early American musical themes and the fact that he wrote it in the United States -- almost in its entirety.

It's the last symphony he composed -- and inarguably his most famous -- and in my opinion its brilliance lies in its endless accessibility. Its dominant six-note theme, often sung to the words of the folk song "Goin' Home," is never far from the surface no matter how many variations or complex contrapuntal themes he weaves it through.

As a composer, he was rooted firmly among the late Romantics with their heroic storylines and their soaring emotions and their confident nods to the nascent but growing fascination with the shimmering textures of the Impressionists and the gorgeous discordances of what would soon be revered around the world as American jazz. And this symphony sits right at the confluence of all that history, all that emotion, all that foresight and all that promise. And all with a mere six-note theme.

I'm trying not to make everything I write an endless litany of poor-little-bipolar-boy horror stories about deep depressive dives or unfairly short manic episodes or the spirit-killing side effects of my constantly evolving med cocktails. Honest. But I took my final Cymbalta 72 hours ago and my withdrawal side effects -- which I've been hoping would have waned to nothing by now -- spiked to soul-crushing levels of rapid-fire misery this afternoon and they seem to have gotten even worse in the last few hours. I'm dizzy and floaty and tingly and chompy and bouncy and unsteady and sometimes even actually confused. And I don't even have enough understanding of what's happening to me to know when the waves will hit or how strong they'll be or even when it's safe to stand up and assume I'll remain vertical.

But tonight, driving around with my dad, listening to music that has soothed and exhilarated and inspired and sustained me for 40+ years, knowing enough about it that I could come home and organize my thoughts and write about it all for anyone who cares to read my parades of paragraph-long sentences ... it all gave me a calming sense of purpose. Of much-needed focus. Of obligation to myself and to my family and friends to keep going and to trust that I'll come out at the end whole and balanced and maybe profoundly exhausted but thoroughly tested and ultimately triumphant.

Just like those six little notes.

Happy 332nd birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach part 2!

Fun Bach fact 2: The formal title of every work composed by Bach is followed by a BWV (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis or Bach-Works-Catalogue) number. First published in 1950 by Wolfgang Schmieder -- who was probably very boring at parties -- the BWW system assigned a unique number to each of the 1,126 known written works of Bach. 

Unlike the far-more-useful-in-my-humble-opinion Köchel catalogue that assigns numbers to every known work of Mozart chronologically, the BWW assigns its numbers by genre. Which isn't even a German word.

Happy 332nd birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach!

Fun Bach fact 1: Johann Sebastian Bach is considered to be one of the definitive composers of the Baroque Period in music, which lasted from 1600 until the year of Bach's death in 1750. Following the Renaissance Period, which explored independent, interweaving melodic lines in a style known as polyphony, Baroque music introduced the concept of tonality, where music was written in an established key. The highly ornamental and often improvised music of the Baroque followed the key-based chord progressions played by the lower instruments of the basso continuo.

And though all symphonic music from the Baroque Period forward is collectively known as "classical music," the official Classical Period as we define it today directly followed the Baroque, lasting from 1750 to 1825. Its definitive composer was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.