I’ve spent the last month and a half memorizing John...

I’ve spent the last month and a half memorizing John Cage’s Cheap Imitation. It has felt almost like a spiritual practice, including requisite moments of enlightenment, doubt, and total frustration. But I’ve taken the score with me everywhere and it has felt, ultimately, really good. The first time I might even perform the piece is this spring, and getting from beginning to end is step one of a million other steps, but I guess I wanted to share that it happened, which is a miracle that I wasn’t sure was possible in August. We all have these lovely little miracles, right? And even as sometimes the world feels pretty hopeless, I’m still grateful to live and work in a community of artists, and I want to know their miracles, too. In a way, I miss my friends and resent this chapter of history for hijacking our minds and our communication. Anyway, it’s a great piece. I hope to play it for you sometime.