So when did you become infatuated with Mozart, that famous dead guy?
It was while working retail at Penny Lane Records in Kansas City.
The Bilson recordings were just coming out, and the music just floored you
as it spun on the turntable in the record shop.

(Especially the concerto in E flat. Always liked that key for its allure of grandeur and romance!)

But Hildesheimer had been circulating among the employees as well. We knew of Mozart’s quirks and fate. I had the poem spring to mind all unbidden, as it always does:

Wolfgang Amadeus, belly up and buried.
cashed in his chips, threw in the towel,
closed up shop,
expired.
Left the deriving to us.
Such is the way of the monkey:
not much remains unsaid,
not much remains.
No marble vault, inscription clear.
Much more than meets the eye
we play by ear.
Yet I would place a marker for the curious
that many others found death certain,
success elusive.
Oh!
It must have made them furious.

1985