The following is the verbatim transcript of an email message I just received from an acquaintance:
The following is a transcription (verbatim) of a phone message I received today from a friend:
"I don't know if you've read the short story by Tolstoy called The Death of Ivan Ilych. But it's about this judge who, you know, he hates his job, he hates his life, he hates his wife, he despises everything about his life, and he comes to the end of his life, and he's, uh, lying on his deathbed, and he looks at his wife in the eyes and he says: 'What if my whole life has been wrong?' -- I think I want to write a letter to myself that says: 'Dear Zach. Don't die with your music still in you.'"