Just before 8

A few minutes before 8 p.m., my heart beats faster. So many concerts start at this time — after years in the business my body is trained!

The particular ritual of the concert brings a kind of order to living. Concert days culminate in a seventy- or eighty-minute period of time that begins at 8:05, or 8:13 (late ticket buyers still in line).

Of course, at Wigmore Hall, this “8 o’clock” is 7:30 (often 7:33), in Rome it’s 9. Unlike the painter or the poet (one more revision?), the performer of live entertainments is on the spot/in the hot seat/in the limelight — and then it’s over.

Irretrievable. Done. One way or the other, gone to memory, or preserved “for posterity” in a “live recording.” But not really. Really, it’s not preserved, it’s not saved — we can’t be saved. It’s gone. Whatever it may have meant or signified, no matter how much it cost in dollars or sweat or blood — it’s over, gone, finito.

Until eight o’clock comes around again tomorrow…