The First Dose

What can I say? I was in the same room in which they took the X-rays on Monday, lying still in exactly the same way. I was told it would take about fifteen minutes. I seem to recall Søren Kierkegaard joking that eternity scared him because he could not even sit in a dentist's waiting room until it was time for his appointment. Fortunately, there was a CD player in the room, which helped me to form "landmarks" for the passing of time. The content was a rather arbitrary mix. I remember hearing the second movement of Joaquín Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez" while they were positioning me. This mysteriously morphed into the first movement of Antonín Dvořák's string serenade, and now I realize I cannot even remember what followed that excerpt! I asked if I could bring my own material. As I see it, both the third and fourth movements of Ludwig van Beethoven's Opus 106 (the "Hammerklavier" piano sonata) require just about the right duration; and it should be clear from my recent writing that I really need to be better acquainted with both of these movements! I just wonder if that kind of persistent listening will get on the nerves of the technical staff. The last thing I want to do is alienate them! Needless to say, if I can remember the music better than the treatment, this means that I emerged from my first dose with almost no sense of anything happening; so I shall probably reserve subsequent posts for any account of a cumulative effect, should it arise.