As I type, I'm listening to Morton Feldman's Piano and String Quartet, played by the Kronos Quartet with Aki Takahashi on piano. It's possibly the most purely beautiful CD I own - the 1984 ECM recording of Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa is a close second. But the cover is hideous. A full-frontal nude portrait of Feldman himself would probably have been an improvement.
The closest thing I'm gonna make to a New Year's resolution is this: sometime in 2006, I will make it all the way through Feldman's six-hour String Quartet No. 2. It's one of those CD sets I bought because the idea of it seemed cool - a single piece of music spread over five CDs! - but really, who has time to actually listen to the thing from beginning to end? Obviously not a guy who's editing one book, writing another, pimping a third, editing a magazine full-time and freelancing at night. But I swear before "god" and all the clerks at Kim's that before 365 more days have elapsed I will sit down, maybe with a nice book and a caffeinated beverage or two close at hand, and listen to it - from the beginning all the way to the end, with no breaks except maybe to answer the door and pay for the pizza.
If you're reading this, Happy New Year and thanks for stopping by. Please buy my book. See you next year.
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