On making an Animal Collective Mix

Taking in Animal Collective in its entirety gives me pause, and paws. I am stalking prey, spear in hand, the wooden staff of the tool smooth, the game path smooth, warm under summer feet, hopping along a cliff, waves singing below, bellowing spray into the atmosphere, lifting up into the trees, so unutterably happy as coastal plants are wont to be.  I find myself turning animal, asking, hands padded black on the palms, furry, enormous, clawed, how did this happen?  From whence did it happen to come?  Where in the wide wild world?  Do these people work at the Brooklyn Zoo, are they botanists, alchemists, Dungeons and Dragons characters, have they found a way to boil down sunlight— chop it up and eat it?  Who gave them their powers?  Did they (this is my best guess) crawl out of a mossy sea smushed between the pages of Finnegan’s Wake?  What if Joanna Newsome joined them, would we ever hear from any of them again, or would they find the secret chord of interdimensional teleportation?  I find my beard growing with enormous speed, my jaws growing, teeth elongating, sharpening to needle points, the scents of the world open up like colors, fur sprouts from my back, my muscles bunch, I shake and shed, cry blood and play dead.  Life grows jungly.