The glamorous life and thoughts of a concert pianist.

Whether we like it or not, the morning is the time to ponder dreams of the night past. It may also be, for us non-morning types, the part of the day in which we are least capable of dealing with them.

Last night’s dream found me at the Marlboro Music Festival (really School?) preparing some transcribed piece for a performance the next day; from this work whole pages, sections, appeared to be randomly missing; problems were cropping up all over the score in that crazy, dreamy, infinitely regressive fashion. In the midst of this chaos–of course–appears former significant other X, with whom things are “as they were”: communal happiness, embracing, holding hands, and other activities over which one may pseudo-modestly draw a veil. Heedless of the need for rehearsal, we drive together, crazily, down a dangerous road to a surreal beachfront, more like a pool, where people are wading in cold clear water; a path leads out through a crowded comedy club to a hotel where X and I settle down for the night. In the middle of the night, but only moments later in the dream, I wake up in the hotel, alone. I search the beach (eerily lit, even at 3 AM) both for X and for the keys to the rental car which we used; I am distraught and stranded; but somehow I am magically transported to Marlboro in time for the doomed, unrehearsed performance. The dream (by some tradition of such dreams) ends with applause and my exhausted entrance on stage with music I do not recognize at all.

A musical anxiety dream would not bear mentioning. I have long learned to laugh at the whole genre (the contract for which one signs, invisibly, in blood, from the moment one begins to take music lessons “seriously.”) It is, however, the first time I think I have had a COMBO performance-anxiety/lost-love dream (with some travel anxiety thrown in for good measure!); I have to respect the dastardly ingenuity of my subconscious. Anyone else out there in blogland had such a combo? And when a friend calls that morning and says “how are you?”, how do you reply?

Some years ago, for some totally random reason, I wrote a poem about not being able to get out of bed one Sunday morning. It was fairly terrible, and fate conspired to double the mischance, as later that week an Internet site (poetry.com) popped into view that suggested you enter a poem for a possible cash prize. Since the poem was just sitting on my desktop, and I didn’t imagine I would probably write any more poems in the next year, I copied-and-pasted the thing in the pop-up window and sent it off, in hope of undeserved reward.

I had banked on the gentleness of poets. Little did I know what remorseless demons of marketing I had unleashed, more callous than death, and less avoidable. I wish I had preserved all the countless emails they sent, to document the sheer wheedling to which they have subjected me: the invitations to conferences, at my own expense; the holding out of further prizes, further inducements; the leather-bound, gold-inlaid editions of my own work; the subsidiary conferences at which only we elite poets would appear, in Orlando, Florida, etc; the promise that only if I would …

But today they went too far. I received the following:

Jeremy,

The Editors of The International Library of Poetry were thrilled to inform you that your poem was bestowed the prestigious Editor’s Choice Award because of your artistic accomplishments and unique perspective–characteristics found in the most noteworthy poetic works. To further commemorate this prestigious achievement we have elected you to receive the 2005 Editor’s Choice Published Poet Ribbon Award Pin.

This stunning pin proudly displays your elevated status in our poetic community. Since only an elite group of published poets were selected to receive this special honor, imagine the sense of pride you will feel when others see you wearing the 2005 Editor’s Choice Published Poet Ribbon Award Pin. What an impressive way to show off your status as an honored poet for the year 2005!

This striking jewelry piece has the International Library of Poetry name prominently displayed across the top, the Editor’s Choice commendation appears on the ribbon, and the entire pin is set in bronze. It is truly a masterpiece that honors your outstanding and well-deserved accomplishments, and it is a must-have for all esteemed poets.

To take advantage of this special offer to commemorate your exceptional poetic talents, simply click here. For a limited time, this exclusive pin is only $19.95, plus shipping and handling…

Each email seems more flattering than the last, only to end in ignominy. I read no further. Any blogreaders who come up with a good reply to Mr Howard Ely, chair, president, and soulless merchant of Poetry.com, please forward to me! Is that all poetry means to him, to sell pins for $19.95?

I have an objection on literary grounds as well. Look at the thickly scattered code words: “elected,” “elevated,” “elite,” “pride,” “status,” “impressive,” “honored,” “esteemed.” If you were going to make a ham-handed, manipulative appeal to a group of poets, would you really choose hubris as an avenue? After all, poets should know something about pride:

Serpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt
The vertue of that Fruit, in thee first prov’d..

or

The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns
The sinew and forehead of our host,
Having his ear full of his airy fame,
Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent
Lies mocking of our designs.

or

And that if our works could
But vanish with our breath
That were a lucky death,
For triumph can but mar our solitude.

Back to my pinless solitude. Any suggestions how to spend $19.95, in a karmically satisfying fashion?

There is no emotional wall that misery cannot demolish. (Happiness, I’m not so sure.) A few days ago, I was playing through Beethoven Op 10 #1 (the C minor one), and I had the disheartening feeling that it was “classical,” tame; that in comparison to the Bach Partitas I had been playing, its universe was too partial, too contingent. (Bach had come to seem more “romantic” than the Beethoven!) But I had felt the shivers of this Sonata before; at 22 I found it spellbinding; it has always been a favorite of mine, for various reasons; I tried to re-sell myself on it, to look at it as revolution, and not as piece of the past.

But to no avail; I could not force conviction.

Fast forward through the visit of Eighth Blackbird to town, and commensurate carousing. Two nights of late meals, perhaps a drink or two too many, and the kind of sleep that leaves you feeling faintly blended or pureed in the morning. (As if you yourself were the frozen margarita you ingested 9 hours previous.) And on the third day … I awoke with a vision. Advils churning in my stomach, water boiling on the stove, I played the opening C minor chord of the sonata.

Thud. Yes, that was right. The chord had a certain thickness, a toughness, that had eluded me earlier. Though my water whined, and coffee longed in its vacuum-sealed bag to be brewed, I kept at the piano, because I had found an interface between sound and feeling. The synapse snapped. Even the rest–the short silence between the first chord and the next ascending arpeggio–seemed to have a tremendous intensity. (Nothing like a headache to make you appreciate the value of the silences.) Now the C minor chord was “its own man,” not just one of a generic class of typical classical chords (though it is this TOO); but now, I took it personally. Anger, despair, agitation–I took out my anger on myself, and I refused to get up from the piano until I was satisfied. What fun. The closing theme of the expo and recap: a wonderful series of hammer chords; I hammered them out (take that! and that! and that!) and even played that section several times to maximize my own suffering. There is also a tremendous sadness behind the anger. And the beginning of the slow movement, which is “just” I-V-I, tonic-dominant-tonic: its prayerfulness answered the first movement, seemed so deeply, profoundly necessary, and I was more patient suddenly with it, able to feel an Adagio where before I had leaned towards Andante … Like an actor, I had my “motivation;” I had found inspiration in my own bleary, crusty eyes.

Today I can rehear, recapture that feeling, in bits and pieces, though I am comparatively physically well. (Mentally?) The memory of its crackle endures. I know what it sounded like; I know the physical things I did at the piano to create the sounds, and what differentiated those motions/sounds from the everyday. Thanks, stupid carousing self; the bar is set; the goal is there. Now some serious sober work is required to recapture it, to build it into consistent reality.

In a wonderful passage of The Master and Margarita, Styopa awakes with a terrible hangover to find himself in the company of the devil, who recommends “vodka and a spicy snack.” Styopa as I recall takes his advice, and as I recall meets an untimely fate. Ponder on this, oh irresponsible blogger. Caveat: I am not “recommending” the method above for pianists seeking inspiration; but I feel sure I was visited that morning by some force… helpful or destructive? Only the devil knows for sure.

As the cabbie turned right onto Lexington Ave., he asked me would I like to get off on the left or right side of the street? Very professional; well in advance; I felt shuttled by capable hands.

“Left side,” I said.

“Ah,” he said, “you’re going to school.”

I puzzled; I savored in silence this latest enigma from the yellow, peripatetic dimension of the Manhattan taxi. Indeed, there are classes held at the Y… I suppose…?

“School on Saturday night,” he reiterated.

I couldn’t lie to my cabbie, not after he was so professional. “No,” I replied, “I’m going to a concert.”

“Oh.” He laughed. “I thought you only good person in Manhattan.”

I mused in the back seat how wrong he was. Should I reply “haha,” or the more dismissive “Hah”?

“Go to school while everyone party. Go to school Saturday night, church Sunday … that’s a good person.”

Was he serious? There was a glint in the side of his eye, dimly visible through the plexiglass. “I’m zero for two then,” I said.

Without approval or disapproval he turned to me as I stepped out, crunching in the Lexington Ave. slush: “then you’re a real New Yorker.”