Happy 91st 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 inspiring lyrics 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 336th 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.

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.

Family: Ruthie Bjonerud

Robert, Edna, Neva and now Ruthie Bjonerud were finally reunited three years ago today on the hereafter family farm, where the pastor at Ruthie’s funeral declared that all the cats are nice.

Ruthie was my mother’s cousin and the undisputed keeper of all the family history and lore on the seven-brother-and-two-sister Bjonerud family tree, the diaspora of which came from across the country to reunite at her funeral—probably for the last time—in our easy, loving, treasured geniality to reminisce about Ruthie and catch up with everyone else in our extended Norwegian family. 

Ruthie had been in deteriorating health and had finally agreed to move into the Aase Haugen Home for Lingering Norwegians, where less than a week later she by all accounts died peacefully in her sleep. It’s all anyone could want as far as a way to go, and in her memory her beloved—but now aging, far-flung and busy with our big-city lives—extended family buried her in the Calmar Lutheran Cemetery family plot among the generations of sturdy Norwegian ancestors whose lives in rural northeast Iowa extend back to America’s Civil War. 

And then we—as did those generations before us—gathered at Calmar Lutheran Church for sandwiches and slices of cake prepared by the church ladies and enjoyed the fellowship of family, old memories, new stories and remembrances of the woman who'd spent her life tirelessly, lovingly chronicling it all for us.