Orfeo

by Richard Powers

A “mistake” is beside the point. Once anything happens, it authentically is.

Like all boys’ names in the age of social networking, it began with a J.

Every pleasure, he has already learned, must turn into a contest.

Music forecasts the past, recalls the future. Now and then the difference falls away, and in one simple gift of circling sound, the ear solves the scrambled cryptogram. One abiding rhythm, present and always, and you’re free. But a few measures more, and the cloak of time closes back around you.

But tempting fate was music’s job description.

Does it make him a depressive, that he loves the storm best of all? The thrill of lightning, of an ambulance, of safety crumbling away.

The job of taste was to thin the insane torrent of human creativity down to manageable levels. But the job of appetite was never to be happy with taste.