Recycled pre-blog bits: entry #1, from 4/26/2001

Cantor: Make a Joyful cacophony unto the Lord!

Assembly: Make a Joyful cacophony unto the Lord!

Cantor: Praise the Lord, all ye nations. Let every thing that lives and breathe
praise the Lord. Let the geeks and salesmen and farmers praise him. Let soccer
moms and image consultants and internet addicts praise him. Let the
structurally unemployed, functionally unemployable, and underground economy
worker praise him. Let those with bad breath, crooked teeth, big ears, and
excess facial hair praise him.

Assembly: Make a Joyful cacophony unto the Lord!

Cantor: Praise God with the timbrel, and cymbal, and harp. Praise the Lord with
vocoder and vibraslap and hubkapaphone, with alto sax and tenor sax and soprano
sax and C melody sax and baritone sax and bass sax, with rototom and timbale and
rhythm sampler, with clarinet and clavinet and clavichord and harpsichord and
blues harp and blues band and brass band and euphonium, with B3 and C3 and M3
and M100 and L100 and A100 and XB2 and VK7 and VK77 and Leslie 147 (or 122 in a
pinch).

Assembly: Make a Joyful cacophony unto the Lord!

Cantor: Praise God with the plucked string, with the struck string, with the
bowed string, with the picked string, and with the hammered string. Praise him
with koto and ukelele and baritone ukelele and lute and lyre and Chapman stick
and violin and viola and cello and doublebass and sitar and mandolin and mandola
and mandolectra and banjo and piano and bass guitar and acoustic guitar and
dreadnought guitar and archtop guitar and dobro and lapsteel and pedal steel and
pedal dobro and classical guitar and solid-body electric guitar and hollow-body
electric guitar and semi-hollow-body electric guitar. Praise the Lord with
Gibsons and Epiphones and PRSs and Washburns and MusicMans and Jacksons and
Charvels and Ibanezes and Japanese Fenders and American Fenders and American
Standard Fenders and American Custom Fenders and American Custom Signature
Fenders and Squiers. Praise God with Ovations and Martins and Guilds and
Johnsons and Nationals and Yamahas and Takamines.

Assembly: Make a Joyful cacophony unto the Lord!

Presider: The Lord be with you.

Assembly: And also with you.

Presider: Lift up your axes.

Assembly: We lift them up to the Lord, unless they're really heavy. Or do you
mean figuratively?

Presider: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

Assembly: It is right to give God thanks and praise.

Cantor: It is right, it is truly right, to give our best licks, the fruit of our
axes and the work of our hands, and our teachers' hands before us, unto the
Lord. Praise God, from whom all good licks flow. Praise him with Hendrix
licks, and Allman licks (but refrain thou from Dicky Betts licks, lest thine
fingers freeze that way), and licks of Benson and Beck and Montgomery and
McLaughlin and Summers and Scofield and DiMeola and Connors and Vaughan and
Clapton and Berry and Metheny and Santana and Chaquico and Van Halen and Vai and
Malmsteen and Django. Praise him with Feliciano licks and Williams licks and
Campbell licks and Clark licks and Gill licks and Stuart licks and Skaggs licks,
with Grappelli and O'Connor and Nance and Ponty and Krauss licks, with Herbie
and Chick and Stevie and Steve and Billy and Jan and McCoy and Nicky and Patrice
and Bernie and Oscar licks. Play unto the Lord a new lick, a Spirit-filled
lick, a Christ-did-you-hear-that lick, a God-I-wish-I-could-play-like-that lick,
not that ye would be God or as God, but that ye would be of God, and recognized
thereof, and bring the worshipful ear closer to God.

Assembly: Make a Joyful cacophony unto the Lord!

Cantor: Praise God with open flute, and chimney flute, and stopped flute, with
French flute and English flute and German flute and Dutch flute, with bourdon
and subbourdon and fauxbourdon and semibourdon and lisibourdon and bandoneon.
Praise him with Diapason and Dulciana and Vox Humana and Viol da Gamba, with
pedal and choir and swell and great and solo, with fundamental and octave and
nazard and tierce and none, with melisma and quilisma and quaver and semiquaver
and demiquaver and semidemiquaver, with tracker action and electro-pneumatic
action and electric action and tone wheel and MIDI and transistors and tubes and
amplifiers and bellows.

Assembly: Make a Joyful cacophony unto the Lord!

Cantor: Praise God with silent joy, and silent sorrow, and silent petitions and
silent adulation and silent silence.

Assembly: (silence)

Presider: And after having praised God with all that we have, and all that we
do, and all that we are, we will do so again. Repeatedly, and stopping only for
rest and sustenance and bathroom breaks and baby making and arguing with our
teenagers and bill paying and Mardi Gras. For when we've been there ten
thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's
praise than we did when we started (because it's just not right to start rhyming
NOW).

Assembly: Amen. (the gateway's still down, but my earthly master and founder of the feast finally came up with something else for me to do)