I clear the fog off of the mirror. 
As time passes, the image becomes quite clear - quite sharp - razor sharp.


Razor's edge. 
It's taken a few strokes and I'm missing a few whiskers, but I'm OK. 
I'm still here. 
I'm still what I was. 
I am not changed. 
I am what I am.


I am - changed. 
Change is natural. 
Change is the father of time. 
Change is the father of time. 
Father Time. 
Time to put on some aftershave and plaster the nicks. 
In the nick of time. 
Before the blood dries. 
It's harder to wash off then.


It hurts to lose a part of yourself. 
A part of your face.
Lose face. 
I started to mourn my loss. 
The soft-rough texture that I loved to run my hands over was gone. 
I began to curse that which would steal what I love; 
That which would destroy a part of me.
Then I saw who held the razor -
Who held the razor -
Who held the razor?


As I rinse my whiskers, 
my beard, 
my bristly, black, brushstiff buddies
down the drain, 
I look back into the mirror. 
The image becomes quite clear - quite sharp - razor sharp.


I see Schrödinger's dog, 
whose substance is slave to his structure, 
whose flesh is flesh only because of form, 
whose matter is immaterial. 
Structure and form are master.
Matter doesn't matter.
Matter doesn't matter.
Matter doesn't matter.

vocals, coffee cups, splice blocks, funny shavy noises, pens, and stuff: Doug Gallob

Everyone is familiar with the famous story of Schrödinger's cat. (Erwin Schrödinger, for those of you who don't know, was one of the physicists who was wrestling with the nature of the atom in the early part of the 20th century. He was the dude who developed the wave equations that helped us to imagine light as both particle and wave.) Schrödinger was quite an essayist, and wrote many essays, most of which are slightly less famous than the one about the cat. Among his essays was one which wrestled with the nature of matter. In this essay he discusses the atoms in his bookends (in the shape of great danes) and the atoms in the pet from his childhood, another dog. I was struck by his thoughts on the nature of matter and decided to write a song about it. I had lost the essay for years and finally found it. It is titled "The Importance of Form" and was published in "Science and Humanism", copyright 1951 by Cambridge University Press.