For Gore Vidal

My review of the disappointment of missing the Owen Pallett performance (happening right now).

I listen to "Keep The Dog Quiet" through the clatter of the projector and muffled sound of movie dialogue and swelling score, through my light head and dripping nose and faintly feverish ears and long refusal of sleep, and imagine walking into a dark theater where all my best future acquaintances sit in expensive coats. They watch my shadow find my seat, and from somewhere in its silent center I look out and watch the strings gather in a fountain of light, with the Great One, O.P., standing on its rim, echoing his voice in every corner of the hall, more echoes and more surfaces than my bedroom walls and CD player have ever allowed. Or these tinny bits of plastic that have lately made all S's so sharp, but they will do, because they are only made for imagining, and the lobby needs an attendant like a man needs a man, and anyway memories are as elusive as anticipations and nothing ever gets resolved. It is snowing.