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“Science has perfected absolute pianistic reproduction” read Trilby, end up with a physiologist named Johannes Müller tried for a melody by blowing air through a real human larynx prepared with strings and weights for the muscle action thought opera companies would buy them because opera stars’ fees were getting so high like they are now, like all of it is now, what happened? What happened! Go back to that biggest thrill in music is your own participation where did it tip, where did it go from participating even in these cockeyed embraces with Beethoven and Wagner and, and Hofmann and Grieg and these ghostly hands on the, what took it from entertaining to being entertained? From this phantom entertainer to this bleary stupefied pleasure seeking, what breaks your heart. “Discover your unsuspected talent” that’s what breaks your heart, losing that whole, the loss of a kind of innocence that crept in, drifting away of that romantic intoxication that was really quite ridiculous but it was, no it was really quite wonderful, for the first time music in homes anyone’s home “every member of the household may be a performer” this ad says, discovering his unsuspected talent with his feet, this romantic illusion of participating, playing Beethoven yourself that was being destroyed by the technology that had made it possible in the first place, the mechanization exploding everywhere and the phantom hands the, Kannst du mich mit Genuss betrügen yes that, If I ever say to the moment don’t go! Verweile doch! du bist so schön! no match for the march of science that made it possible, marches right on and leaves it in the dust, pianos nobody can play and millions of piano rolls left in the dust while their splendid phantom hands are pushed further from reach by the gramophone and finally paralyzed by the radio teaching birds to sing birdsongs O God, O God, O God, Chi m’a tolto a me stesso that’s Michelangelo, that’s from my book, Ch’a me fusse più presso O più di me potessi that’s in my book, who has taken from me that self who could do more, and what is your book about Mister Joyce? It’s not about something Madam, it is something and goodbye to that hidden talent, those ghostly fingers hard as petrified wood look at mine, the all-or-none ranks of order in those dusty piano rolls become chips in gigantic computer systems whose operators are at the mercy of the systems they’ve designed, programmed stock trading and the market crashes, shoot down a dot on the wrong part of the screen that was an airliner full of pleasure seekers fleeing pain and this grand billion byte technology solving every conceivable problem becomes the heart of the problem itself good God it’s all, all, nuclear power going to change the world now what do we do with the nuclear waste, the waste, tiny felt-tipped wooden fingers turned to stone look at mine, keep my hands still here a few spots veins like Caesar crossing the Apennines didn’t he? Blood splashed here and there you’d never know, all look perfectly normal don’t I? sound perfectly normal don’t I? Talking about the, about what I was talking about little hole in the memory sometimes cross out this hospital bed see me sitting here on a white sofa, white armchair books and papers in front of me? Getting old your only refuge is your work, can’t see the bone scan can’t see the needle in the vein drip drip God knows what hour after hour new treatment down below to strip the romantic veil off the naked animal’s only function to perpetuate the species the race the tribe the, down in the recovery room leg jumps up by itself not mine no, don’t dare stand up like horses the legs go first and darlin yer dancin days are done like the, book right here a minute ago like Huizinga’s kangaroo just reading it wasn’t I? Can’t see across the room everything’s a blur