I realize of course that I’m no longer worthy of the name musician, if I ever was, though officially I’m still registered as a specially-funded pianoforte soloist with Segismundo Alegría and the Vienna Philharmonic for the duration of the Estabrook Festival, Summer 1978. I know this is true, because one of my new Anarchist friends at the Black Orchid Bar actually called the Festival offices to check me out; the secretary told him she wasn’t allowed to comment on my musical competence, “if any,” but I was in fact on record with them in what she called a “semiactive file’’; and then she made some fantastic allusion to suicidal tendencies I was supposed to have. I don’t know what to make of this last charge except to deny it straight out; the other insults are harder to answer, because I really do feel semiactive these days and I’m not sure how I’d characterize my musical ability except to say that it’s dubious and maybe even preterite; I suppose that’s why I’m out here campaigning for the Anarchists right now instead of making music the way God meant me to.