WIT AND HUMOR – A FUNNY SITE BY BOB WAYNE

I’ll be dropping the Diva off at the airport around 4 o’clock today. The Rose Ensemble will be performing their new show, The Secret Society of Notre Dame in Birmingham, Alabama tomorrow night. I’m a tad worried about the tornadoes they’re having down there but the Diva Drew knows no fear. She’s ready to rock!

She gave me a little background on the show. I wanted to know why they called it The Secret Society of Notre Dame. Picture this.

It’s late in the 12th century. You’re a composer and you’ve been commissioned by the Catholic Church to write choral music for a new cathedraldedicated to the Virgin Mary. It’s being built on the Ile-de-la-Cité in the middle of the Seine River in the heart of Paris.

Everywhere you look, monks are involved in political intrigue and social reform, stretching the boundaries and limits of dedication to the Church, devotion to the King, and searching for answers in the balance between science and doctrine.

You’re sitting on a little knoll off to the side of the work area, watching the bustling workmen and craftsmen as they create this massive edifice to God. You’ve got a basket of cheese and bread with you, you’re sipping from a jug of sour red wine, and your ink stained fingers clutch a ragged quill, waiting for divine inspiration to strike. (Or for the wine to kick in, depending on your religious fervor).

Something creeps into your consciousness. A pattern. You feel it reverberating through your body. It’s the rhythm of the hammers as men hew and assemble the huge beams that will support the stone walls until the last keystones are in place…the ring of chisels as artisans shape the mighty stones of the choir and the nave.

These sounds become the framework on which you build and shape the voices that will fill the cathedral. These composers, who found inspiration in both the menial rhythm of the humble workmen and the shifting, subtle ringing of the artisans hammers, created the music behind the passionate political fervor of the monks in the secret society of Notre Dame…

I can’t wait till the show is performed here.