...I feel so tired. I wonder if they’re tired too. I wonder if the audience is as exhausted with anxiety as I am. And I wonder perhaps if I should be more anxious. For I wonder if they know. I wonder if they know that I’m not who they think I am. I wonder if they know that I’m not Dr Courage. I should take a look. If one of them’s smirking then I’ll know—I’ll know that they know I know and then, then…(takes a slow look over the top of the folder and then slowly disappears behind the folder again)…it’s OK. They still believe. They still believe that it, that book, that monstrous thing that came out of me, that…Music’s Knife and the Throat of Capitalism…they still believe that’s me, rather than some DISGUSTING (suddenly looks up and then catches himself doing it so looks down again)…disgusting abjection that had to be jettisoned from out of my soul oh. OH! I feel so naked. Maybe if I just take all my clothes off they won’t notice how naked I feel they’ll just think I’m naked. I’m going to take my clothes off! I’m going to take my clothes off, that’s what I’m going to do. Yes, that’s it. I’m the emperor and no, no, no, I have no clothes. (Quickly undoes his trousers and drops them to his knees. Suddenly stops and looks at the audience and then just hides behind the folder again.) I’m panicking. This is ridiculous. I’m fucking panicking. For FUCK’S sake calm yourself down...

....Recorded Voice: (In a somewhat sinister tone) In a standard commentary, we find it stated that the Romantic miniature is, quote, “a short work for solo piano, or solo piano and voice, in which, in general, one kind of musical affect is sustained across the entire course of a piece’s duration.” And we might apply this comment directly to our present example, the e minor prelude from Chopin’s Op. 28 set of 24 preludes, first published in 1839, for this piece seems to sustain one melancholy affect. However, the piece is, in fact, far more paradoxical than that, as is, in fact, the nature of affect and emotion in the Romantic miniature in general. For even though the piece definitely has many qualities productive of a sense of depressed melancholy (the monotonous repetition of the chords in the accompaniment; the melodic line that is drenched in a kind of spiritual exhaustion that disenables it, in general, from moving in anything but the most claustrophobically smallest of intervals—he illustrates by singing along with the music’s melody for a moment) we find in the midst of all this other things too. The music, for example, suddenly seems to rail its fist at fate, for no apparent reason…and then at its end, the solemn, church music like chords seem to move the music into the realm of death...

...Do I look alright?—Is she looking at me?—Should I leave my job?—Do you think I’ll get tenure?—Do you think I’m doing what’s right for me?—Am I drinking too much?—Am I a good mother?—Am I a good lover?—Am I really enjoying this?—Do I know how to enjoy myself?—Did I leave the front door open?—Will someone steal my credit identity?—Do you think I’ll be safe?—Does anyone love me?—Do I even know what the me is that I would want someone to love?—Do I like anybody?—Are my friends people I’m just using?—Shall I go on?—Shall I kill myself?—Will anyone care?—Am I alone?—Will I ever be alone?—Why does it all feel so uncomfortable?—Why doesn’t the glove fit the hand?—Why does my life not fit?—Why can’t the clothes and the body be one?—Why am I not one thing?—(getting softer and softer) Why am I not one?—Why am I not one?—Why am I not one?—Why am I not one?—Why am I not one?—Why am I not one?...” You’re the ones who are falling apart. Poor things. You’re the ones who can’t really sustain who you are. But the tagedy is—as we see from your desperate attempt to project what you hate about yourself into the past—is that you can’t even admit that you’re broken, can you! At least Chopin screams his own failure to us. But you. YOU. You just keep putting more and more stage paint on. More and more costumes. It’s really OK to fail. It’s really OK to turn around and be knocked to the ground by the privations and utter compromise that constitute our life. But to be suffering from that and NOT to be able to let oneself even know it. Man—then you’re really wasting your life. REALLY—wasting…your…life…really….wasting…your...life…

photos by Andrea Strudensky