Birdtasia

“A playful wringing of future ancestors (

we who must now graft remnant instincts of attention

onto a future indifferent to every life-form it detects

we who must protect the undetected

we who must elongate time

we who must know something was left behind

we who must bring it forward

).”

“A land recognition.”

“A pump of air into the impossible bottle of Empire.”

“A free fall through the center of Earth.”

“A clump of mud at the entrance to every datacenter.”

“The thing we did instead of watching.”

“A dither in our own consciousness.”

“A farewell to what’s already lost.”

“An avian debate with the machine.”

“A cheer to the impulse of intentionally shattering screens.”

“One of an infinite pounding of fists on the table.”

“A ceremony for coming into presence with.”

“The worship of something truly magnificent.”

26 minutes and 06 seconds (in 2026) that you …

… will not be here.

Track list & liner notes

Bring back the birds
1. Common Loon as themself
2. Lamprey A as this guy
  1. Lyrics: “I don’t wanna talk to a bot. Can I please talk to a human? Can I please talk to a human?! I wanna talk to a human. I wanna talk to a fucking human! I want my kids to talk to fucking humans! Your bot sucks. You suck. Nobody wants this. Bring back the birds.”
  2. “Bring back the birds.”
River float at night
1. Crickets as themselves
2. Water as itself
3. Lamprey B as vocals and mandolin
  1. Lyrics: “It is what it is”
4. Pied Butcherbird as River Whale
Pity pity, too late.
1. White-rumped Shama as vocals
2. Olive Whistler as flute
3. Ivory Billed Woodpecker as clarinet and bassoon
4. Nightingale as violins
5. Cassowary as bass and timpani
6. Wiener Philharmoniker Orchestra as itself
7. L. Williams as magic box conductor
8. NYPD as themselves
Dunedrop
1. Mourning dove as sand worm
2. Sand dunes as themselves
3. Earth core Nickel as itself
The silent seconds
1. 164, one for each bird species that has gone extinct since 1500
Ascendant thump
1. Earth core Nickel as itself
2. Golden Crown Sparrow and Olive Whistler as themselves
3. B. Clifton as compass to the center, metallurgist
4. Heart as itself
Archemides as himself
Paradise Now
1. Woodlark and Northern Mocking Bird as great vibes
2. Childlike Empress as herself
3. Fellow New Yorker as Saxophone
4. Lyrics
  1. “Birds!”
  2. “Look up!”
  3. “Paradise!”
Una Furtiva Lagrima
1. Kauaʻi ʻōʻō as itself in 1987. This is the last recording of the Hawaiian honeyeater before extinction: a male sending out a mating call, without a mate to respond.
2. Ferruccio Tagliavini as vocals
  1. Plot of opera: He loves Adina, but she is not interested in an innocent, rustic man such as he. To win her heart, he buys a love potion with all the money he has in his pocket. It is actually a cheap red wine sold by a traveling quack 🦆 — but when he sees Adina weeping, he assumes the “elixir” has worked and she has fallen in love with him.
  2. Lyrics

“Our way of saying ‘I’ determines the force with which we say ‘no’.”

Let our “I”s remain among the birds.