Phish.net > Charts > Narration Chart: "Harpua", 2021-10-30

TREY: Hello [crowd roars “Hello” back]. How are you? [crowd roars in response] We hope you have a good time… So glad to be here.

Even as we sit here, our hero Jimmy is sitting in his little house somewhere on the outskirts of Gamehendge. Jimmy is sitting in his house, sitting at his computer, and he’s working today on this particular version of Jimmy’s story, Jimmy’s sitting at his computer working on his math homework. The thesis that he’s writing is a load of shit, but we’re very glad he finally finished it. He’s finishing it right now, he’s finishing the thesis.

Anyways, he’s working on his math homework, and he’s sitting in his little suburban house. Up next to him his beautiful cat, his cat, is a beautiful nice cat, his cat [Page plays “Your Pet Cat” sample: Your cat is a big beautiful black animal]. His cat is a big beautiful black animal, more like a panther than a cat. Anyway, this cat, I’m going to get right to the point here right at the beginning, this cat is named… POSTER NUTBAG!!! Thought I had to lead up to that.

Anyway, Jimmy is sitting at his house, he’s petting Poster Nutbag, and he’s contemplating digits and animals and the beautiful kingdom of numbers, numerology, and the natural kingdom. As he’s sitting there, he starts to have a moment where suddenly, it all starts to make sense. He’s getting messages from beyond, and there’s a click happening. Suddenly, he can see clearly.

He decides to make his mind blank, surrender to the flow, put his blank space where his mind should be, and in this moment Jimmy starts to see images floating in front of his face. The first thing he sees, he sort of sees a number, he sees lines going like this, kind of a triangle and a line, and it’s the number four. He says “four, this is something, this means something to me. Well, there’s four seasons, there’s north, west, south, east, four.”

And suddenly, the lines of the four start to move and become a quadrangle, a four-sided figure, which is a square. He thinks “Oh, I’m getting this, the message is coming into my mind, i’m seeing something, I see a 4, I see a square, it means something.” And then he sees an image in his mind, now mark this, he sees four squares and four circles. He doesn’t know what this all means, but he really feels like the Great Spirit, whether it’s Icculus or the spirit of his second name, Icculus’ other name which is Holy Blankenstein, because he believes in a blank. Icculus has two names.

It’s almost like Icculus is speaking, Holy Blankenstein is speaking, to Jimmy. He’s encouraging him that he’s almost conquered this thing. He’s like saying “Jimmy, you’re getting there Jimmy.” He’s like “Yeah, you hear the voice of Icculus, the voice of Holy Blankenstein, saying yeah, yeah Jimmy” [Fish plays his “Yeah” sample] That’s it, that’s the voice.

He sees the four, he sees the square, the seasons, how on the fourth day God made light and divided time cause sun [inaudible] and all that. Just when he think he’s getting it, the four starts to change, it morphs.

It morphs before his eyes. Suddenly, it looks like a six now. He can’t figure out why it becomes a six. Suddenly he says, “oh my god, a square with six surfaces is a cube.” He sees a cube floating. Holy Blakenstein, Icculus is like “you’re almost there, Jimmy. Unh huh, you’re almost there Jimmy” [Fish plays the sample that is “Unhhuhuhhuh”] There, that’s it, the voice of Icculus, “You’re figuring this out.”

It’s a four, a square, a quadrangle, with six faces is a cube. A cube is floating before his eyes. Suddenly, in a flash, in a flash… Suddenly, in a flash, the six-sided cube splits into nine. He sees nine cubes in front of him. He says “my god, whoaa, if six has become a nine.” He says, “if six were nine, if the mountains crumbled into the sea, let it be, it ain’t me.”

But, he starts thinking about how much he likes Jimi Hendrix, and since his mind isn’t blank anymore, the nine cubes collapse back into one cube. It’s one cube again. He thinks “have I lost it? I’m gonna put a blank space where my mind should be, surrender to the flow. He hears the voice of Icculus, it’s almost as if Icculus is laughing at him or with him [Fish plays his laugh sample]. Oh, Holy Blankenstein…

Holy Blankenstein, Icculus, it’s many spirits melded into one. Call it the spirit of we, of togetherness. Hello. How are you? We hope you had a good time. It’s not us, it’s Blankenstein and Icculus together, ah I don’t know. He’s got it.The six, the four, 46 that’s it, 46 days, what is it. 46 what? Right then the edges of the cube begin to light up and turn red and green, bright fluorescent colors on the edge, he starts counting them.

He’s like “oh my god, the cube has eight vertices, the lines, the vertices, eight straight lines at the edge of the cube.” And at that point, the cube collapses and becomes an eight. He’s like “oh my god, eight edges, a cube, eight.” But, as he’s staring at the eight, he’s like “4-6-8, what is this?”

At this point, the voice Holy Blankenstein Icculus becomes like a wicka-wicka-wicka sound, it’s driving him crazy, wicka-wicka. Then the eight starts to turn sideways, and it becomes the sign for infinity. “That’s it, that’s it. 4-6-8 is infinity, it’s everything.” He says out loud, “it’s everything.” But, as soon as he says the word everything, it’s like he lost it again. Here’s a flash, [sound effect] a flash, a flash of light, and it becomes a zero, a circle.

“What’s going on? I’m back to the four squares, the four circles, but now it’s a zero. I don’t understand, I can’t comprehend what this number is all about, 4-6-8-0.” But, there is a zero floating in front of him. He thinks nothing, nothing is zero, emptiness, nothing, and that’s when it hits him: once he completely thinks of emptiness, it all becomes clear. At that moment, the circle begins to tilt backwards, and it lands on a grid, which is a plane.

The circle is on a grid, and suddenly he realizes so clearly the obvious truth, that it’s becoming a circle and if you vary the x/y/z terms, that would describe a circle with a radius of one, the radius being the hypotenuse of the x, y, and z coordinates. He realizes that the x and y terms in the square’s distance from the origin and he remembers that the square root of xx plus the square f yy is the distance from the origin so each of the two circles is centered two units from the origin obviously.

And as x/y sweep out of their range of being, the two units that went from the origin, there’s a vertical circle–can you see it?--at each point on the circle. Those vertical circles sweep out from the circle, and it becomes a donut, it’s a torus, a donut oh my god. At that moment, behind the donut the six reappears, and he realizes that insects have six legs and that the back of the turtle’s shell has a hexagon in the center. Six…

Hexagon, donuts, donuts touching turtles, turtles touching donuts. It’s the very stuff the universe is made of… You see it? Do you see it? Donuts touching turtles. It was there all along, it was in everything. Suddenly, the square appears again, the square becomes a cube, and the cube starts to tilt sideways: it’s a rhombus! The cube is a rhombus, the ninth cube.

“Oh my god” says Jimmy, “I get it! And, now I know exactly what Phish is gonna play for Halloween…Duhhhh. Duh. How could I have not seen it? The number of hints that they’ve been giving us, how could I have not seen it? The animal kingdom, the numerical kingdom, turtles with six sides hexagons on their backs, hexapod insects. Come on! 40th anniversary, 50th anniversary, you know what I’m talking about?” [sings nah nah nah nahhhh nah nah nah nah]

OK so listen, he’s so excited, he blows off the homework. He’s so excited. The whole time it’s been pouring rain outside. It’s almost like the universe has been listening to his realization. The sun is starting to peek through the clouds, through his window. The silver light is shining on his desktop. And he says, “that’s it, I’m gonna post on my Instagram right now, and I am not kidding.”

Jimmy is gonna post on his Instagram, which is… uh oh yeah, @jimmyposterdad, right now exactly what the Phish halloween album is tomorrow. He starts typing. He’s posting it. There he goes, he’s sitting down, he’s typing out what the Halloween album is going to be on @jimmyposterdad Instagram.

Now you’re probably thinking, “you’re fucking with me because every year you guys fuck with us.” So, if I say he’s actually writing right now what we’re playing, clearly he isn’t because I would never say that. But, that’s how I’m fucking with you this year. We’re telling you what we’re playing this year. It’s on @jimmyposterdad Instagram. Right now, he’s typing. There he goes, he’s typing furiously, I can see him in my mind’s eye.

But, all of a sudden [knocking sound] there’s a knock on the door. “They’re crushing my vibe, who is it? Ah shit.Hold on.” He puts down the typer, turns around, he sees through the crack in the door: his father!? “Ohhh man…”

Look the storm’s gone…