I did not know what was going to come from Angela’s clarinet. No one could have imagined what was going to come from there.
I expected something pathological, but I did not expect the depth, the violence, and the almost intolerable beauty of the disease…
She improvised around the music of the Pullman porter’s son; went from liquid lyricism to rasping lechery to the shrill skittishness of a frightened child, to a heroin nightmare.
Her glissandi spoke of heaven and hell and all that lay between.
Such music from a woman could only be a case of schizophrenia or demonic possession.
My hair stood on end, as though Angela were rolling on the floor, foaming at the mouth, and babbling fluent Babylonian.
When the music was done, I shrieked at Julian Castle, who was transfixed too, “My God - life! Who can understand even one little minute of it?”
“Don’t try,” he said. “Just pretend you understand.”
"— Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
