the Boston Symphony Orchestra playing Mozart and Mahler at Carnegie Hall tonight. I can't tell Mahler from Mozart (well okay maybe Mahler from Mozart) -- I always fall asleep when listening to classical music for any extended period of time -- I think I go just so I can go back home with the music echoing just outside of memory and the fleeting impression of beauty. Indie rock concert at Irving Plaza last weekend (Interpol -- remember the name) -- but that's a different kind of music, that's something to truly lose yourself in, not to the music so much as to the rush of sound and smoke and alcohol -- though I find that losing oneself is harder and harder to do. And strangely perhaps easier to do it to classical music, because it requires you to engage with it on more levels. And La Boheme the weekend before, and the ballet after that -- Balanchine to Gershwin, all light and sparkling and charming -- and then a terse modern black-and-white piece by Peter Martin, all edges and tension and elegance -- and then a wonderful tribute to Fred Astaire. I never thought I'd like the ballet, but like the Mahler tonight, one leaves with one's mind still full of light, and that seems something to be -- thankful for?

'Music arrives, searching for us. What hope or memory without it. Whatever we may think. After so many words.' (from Adrienne Rich's 'A Long Conversation').