Now there is no sound in this room except for the typing and the cars passing outside. The radio is off, the modem is off-line. I don't let things like this happen too often. There is always some distraction, some activity droning on in the background and drawing my attention back to it sooner or later, so I can always feel busy.

Some mornings I wake up, turn on the shower, and go back to sleep, comforted to know that the water is pouring down the drain and the steam is filling the bathroom while I am safe and in bed in the other room.

I thrive on distraction. It's as if what I'm doing is never enough, there must always be more, for when I'm done here I can't skip even a second, can not just sit here for that long.

It's always been this way. And I've passed the buck to an invisible partner for as long as I can remember. All my life I've whispered to myself "Let's do this." "We need to get back." "Could you get that?"

I will sleep tonight with the air conditioner on. It is 35 degrees outside, and though spring is not quite here I will use the air conditioner to drown out the noises, and to give myself the feeling of business that I need in order to distract myself to sleep.

BUSINESS is a funny word. I was thinking of it in the previous paragraph as BUSY-NISS, but it's hard to look at that word without assuming BIZ-NISS. When a high school teacher pointed out to the class (I had already observed this) that the business of America is BUSY-NISS, no one laughed or smirked or tried to bring attention to themselves the way they always did when a teacher made a statement of obvious fact that had somehow eluded us all.

The world of BISS-NISS seems a little more ludicrous when you think of it as the world of BUSY-NISS.

Now I'm listening to John Ogdon playing Rachmaninoff. In a little while it will be Ogdon playing Alkan's "Concerto for Solo Piano." Any time I listen to that recording I come away from it feeling like I need a shower. Alkan in general has that affect on me, but Ogdon's performance of the Concerto even more so for its bleak intensity.

Alkan was a pre-occupation of mine throughout high school and college. I first learned of his music from reading a few paragraphs out of a huge book titled something like "Compendium of Classical Music." It was one of those 1,000 page monsters that tried to summarize all of western classical music, a chapter per era, a paragraph or two per composer, in vastly meaningless terms that the average person could understand.

Among several pages summarizing the usual suspects from 19th century piano music (Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, etc.) were a few sentences about Alkan, a composer whose music was tantalizingly described as possessing "incomprehensible difficulties" to virtually any pianist, and to some extent it was unlistenable, particularly among his contemporaries. Years later I would hear similar description of the music of Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, and after moving to New York more such stories about the piano music of Andrew Violette.

Alkan's compositions were described by his contemporaries as music of a man stirred by the cold. Harmonically banal, overwhelmingly difficult to any pianist except himself, there was and is virtually no reason aside from moribund curiosity to exert the necessary effort to learn his biggest piano pieces. The smaller ones, on the other hand, are occasionally interesting. Alkan was among the greatest piano virtuosi of the 19th century, his technique rivaling that even of Liszt; but what he may have had over Liszt in technical ability he sorely lacked in charisma and stage presence. While Liszt traveled the globe and secured his reputation as perhaps the most famous musician in the world, Alkan was holed up in practice rooms of the Paris Conservatoire, composing and mastering his own insanely complicated compositions, few of which were heard or even recognized during his lifetime or in the 100+ years since. He practiced continuously for concerts that never came, writing music that no one ever heard.

Sorabji's music was intentionally incomprehensible to both performers and listeners, and I've always considered his whole output of music and music criticism to be something of an ivory tower experiment. Mention of his music (usually discussed in tandem with John Ogdon's performance of Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum) will probably never raise more than a grunt of recognition from a tiny percentage of CD collectors. His music criticism, forceful and vulgar in the same manner as Alkan's compositions, always leave me feeling dirty.

Andrew Violette is one whose code I have not cracked. The music is thorny and tough, and his performances so astringent that they defy comment.

But Alkan holds a special place among the many innocuous fixations which travel with me through life. Any time I visit a record or CD sotre anywhere in the world I immediately put it to the test by seeing what kind of Alkan and Sorabji CDs they have, or if they even have cards in the bin for these composers. Alkan is frequently represented, Sorabji less frequently, and Violette is one I don't think I've ever even bothered looking for.

Alkan's music is dark and turgid, both in its technical complexities and its spirit. It lurches from neurotically sweet melodies to moments of earnest exaltation. One should not feel bad about admitting that quite a lot of this music is bad.

I imagine most of his compositions as having never left the practice room in which he composed them. In college I told friends about my " Tribute to Alkan." In tribute to Alkan a pianist should learn the complete score of one of Alkan's most difficult scores, such as the 12 Etudes in all the Minor Keys. The pianist should learn every page of these pieces, and the performance would have to be 100% note perfect, or else it failed. The performance would not take place in a concert hall, or a house, or any place where it was likely that anyone would hear it. The performance would take place in a practice room of some conservatory, and would begin at midnight. The only hope for an audience would be people leaving the building who heard the music from upstairs, but they would only be allowed to listen until the security guards kicked them out. Eventually there would be no one there, but the performance would not end until every page of the Etudes had been performed with complete technical accuracy.

When it comes to music, or most anything fr that matter, I need distraction to keep it interesting. The most exciting experiences I've had listening to music have not been in concert halls or even on CD or record, but at places like Herold Square in Manhattan, where through the noise and clamor of a crowded city street I heard someone in an apartment several stories above 31st Street practicing the piano part to Shostakovich's 2nd Piano Trio in E Minor. The absurdity of hearing great music wander through such a filthy, crowded place with the unpretentious energy of someone practicing alone in their apartment electrified me.

OK, Ogdon is now playing Alkan. I must lie down. Actually, what often happens when I listen to this performance is I do sit-ups until I have to stop.