Totleigh 5: Last night

As ever, it ends with a party. Everyone reads - a very good set this year - and after a few shots of Jamesons I go to the piano and do my "Play it again, Sam" act (true lines: Play it, Sam. Play it. You played it for her, you can play it for me or so I remember). I improvise a bit, then it is Ellington, Berlin, and Rogers & Hart, and eventually..

...I have a quartet of lady singers crooning along asking "can you play...?" and, after a fashion, I can, until the whole performance becomes so ragged there is no continuing. Meanwhile proper piano players come and render Satie and Philip Glass and Chopin and Gershwin. I suppose if I had some sheet music I might be able to oblige in classical mode, in somewhat lumbering fashion.

Soon it is 1 am and here I am. Odd how the outside world suddenly looms up like a giant admonitory figure across one's path.

Got one good poem written here. Might put it on the front page once I get back.