(SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, 10/24/05)

“I cried a few times during the show, actually,” Candace said.  We were munching on baklava in her kitchen after the concert.  ”The music was so intense.  I’ve never seen you really perform, I don’t think.  At least not like that.  I can’t describe it.  It’s shocking.  You just… channel the music up there.  The guy in the motorcycle helmet called you a virtuoso.  He loved you.  So did Jim [the owner of the piano gallery where I performed].  And Heather [one of Candace’s friends] — she turns down, like, eighty-dollar tickets to the San Francisco Symphony that she gets through work because she says she doesn’t like that music, but tonight she said how amazed she was by you and your program.”  Then Candace’s tone changed and she shook her head.  “I’m just mad that no one else came.  I sent about sixty emails to my friends.”

“Well, it’s a Monday night,” I said.  ”And it is a piano recital.”  

This rationalization, I have to admit, was mostly for her benefit; I didn’t want my sister feeling sad about things she couldn’t control.  I myself was becoming quite numb to the routine.  Once upon a time I’d hoped that America 88x50 would spark a cultural dialogue about modern American music, and that it would assimilate this music into the general public’s perception about what comprised our national musical identity.  I wanted to show people like Candace’s friends and Jim’s concert series subscribers that this music actually existed, that it was ours, that it was cool.  But here we were again, and even though it was nice that the guy in the motorcycle helmet liked it, and Heather liked it, and Candace liked it, I still felt like I was watching my dreams for America 88x50 decompose midstream, and anyone brave enough to attend one of its concerts inevitably tended only to remind me of what the tour could’ve been, what it should’ve been, but also of what it most certainly was not.  

Jim echoed the same baffling apology of so many hosts before him.  “I mean, I don’t know what else I could have done, but I assure you, next time…”  Next time.  Next time.  I had no interest in what might happen next time.  I was more interested in exactly what the fuck my hosts had expected me to do this time around, the first time around, the only time around I’d probably ever have.