Fern and Muffy start a greeting card business. Muffy paints the covers and Fern writes the poems. All the work makes Fern lose interest in writing, so she tries to figure out how to get make it interesting again.

Everyone loves the Bang on a Can All-Stars, a funky experimental music group that's touring around Elwood City. Everyone that is, except Binky. A musical purist, Binky thinks their nontraditional sound is just a bunch of noise and sets out to prove it.