I think that -- even at that age -- the whole project would merely have rendered me more cynical than I was even then. Some smart girl had decided to accuse me

I think that -- even at that age -- the whole project would merely have rendered me more cynical than I was even then. Some smart girl had decided to accuse me of plagiarism for a Halloween-themed story assignment I had turned in (it was "too original"). In junior-high, I had convinced the band conductor to devote 20 minutes (in sacrifice to the sehr verehrter Herr James Swearingen) to a reading of a composition I had written for that ensemble. Hearing someone whose name or face I didn't know whistle one of the trite themes I contrived instilled in me an aeternal question mark: was that mocking or camaraderie? Later, as an undergraduate, I awoke to hear some vandals (one of which was claimed to be the offspring of Frank Zappa -- as if that that put him on the order of a C.P.E Bach) demur to hurl paint on my door because he heard my sting quartet at workshop ("no dude, he's cool, did you hear..."). One may as well convince others of your worth by means of buying companies (a ls Musk) or by hurling interstellar bottles into space, only to suffer the heat-death. The saddest, most devastating thought that has ever occurred to me is that despite Voyager's drift, the genius of J.S. Bach will ultimately be erased.