This collection consists of a dozen articles that I wrote for the bimonthly magazine "Music Lovers" in Shanghai from 1992 to 1998 while hiding in my apartment in New York. As far as I know, one of the readers of these words is the editor who commissioned the manuscript, and the other is me. Now, taking advantage of the publication of this collection, I would like to express my special gratitude to the editor who requested the manuscript. Why, because through his instigation, I started writing continuously nine years ago.

Writing has always been my favorite, but apart from the so-called "creative talks" before and after school, and sporadic manuscript requests that were neither literary theory nor criticism, I have only published a few articles in more than 20 years. , the content is within the scope of art, and topics other than art have never been dreamed of. However, as if in a dream, since last year, I have actually written two "books", one is "New York Trivia" that has been released, and the other is "Shanghai". "Superfluous Materials" were left to dry. Regardless of the content, the style of writing can barely be regarded as "prose" or "essay". Of course, "literature" cannot be mentioned, but after all, it can be regarded as "writing", and from now on, in addition to painting, there is one more trick to cheat. I lied to myself. Friends inside and outside the painting circle who were familiar with it were surprised: You still write? Yes, the reason why my two "books" were boldly agreed and actually written was because this editor had been urging me to write them long ago.

I want to thank him. Let's call him Mr. Z - nine years ago, in the depth of winter, I returned to China for the first time to visit my relatives. I met Mr. Z and his wife in a very small room in the west of Shanghai, and we had dinner and chatted. I learned that he was engaged in music and was editing the magazine "Music Lovers", so I talked about some random things about music in New York. I don’t remember how it came about, but I mentioned that I had gone to look for Horowitz’s funeral in Manhattan. When I was talking about how in the close-up shot of the movie, there was a drop of snot hanging from Lao Huo’s big nostrils, Mr. Z suddenly interrupted me and said loudly: : Oh Danqing, can you write this down?

I remember the serious look on his face. Expressions work great for me. Nine years ago, the publishing industry in junior high schools could not compare with today. Mr. Z’s interest was in compiling manuscripts, and my interest was in writing: I didn’t know what to write about. When someone assigned me a topic - for example Horowitz's Nose - I actually started writing it, but I didn't expect that I would write it continuously, let alone piece it together into a book.

The house in Jiangnan had no heating. At that time, I stayed in New York, which is located in the north, for eleven springs and autumns. I had long forgotten the coldness and coldness of huddled up in the bedroom wearing a cotton-padded jacket and pants. , but returning to China is just for nostalgia, and my body is also nostalgic. It was in the old apartment of Yue's family in Nanjing - now it has been demolished into a pile of rubble - I made a cup of boiling tea to warm my hands, and started writing it on some official manuscript paper from a medical school that I had begged for. After writing it, I mailed it off. That month, in New York, he received a thin volume of "Music Lovers" written by Horowitz in the mail from Mr. Z. At the same time, he was urging for the next manuscript.

"The Sound of the Musical in the Mourning Hall" is the first writing exercise that I copied cleanly and prepared for publication. It is rough and simple. It's sour and elegant, deceiving readers to pay attention. Now that I think about it, it's really like learning to smoke for the first time in my youth. I'm afraid of being seen, but I also want to be seen. I'm learning gestures, hesitation, and posture. But after I smoked one, my throat felt itchy, so I took the second and third. Although I was choking and coughing, it was not addictive, but I started to smoke it unknowingly, and I didn't want to quit, not to mention that there was a guy Z who kept smoking. Pass me a cigarette to light the fire.

But I have never had the delusion to talk about music. With Mr. Z’s finger ticking, I irresponsibly wrote: The so-called "responsibility" refers to the music knowledge that I do not have. What I write in each article is just some daily news "about music", and does not really talk about music. The so-called "living up" naturally means that if I go too far, experts will probably be ignorant of this "enthusiast". Just smile, and I can't see that smile, so you don't have to blush.

Mr. Z, on the other hand, never exposed my nonsense, and just coaxed me to write one issue after another. In this way, I wrote nearly ten articles for him in six years. By 1997, another publishing house made an appointment with me. I came to write "New York Trivia" and had to go back to talking about painting. There was no time left - "Performance to Death" in 1998 was my last article for the magazine, and I stopped writing "Wagner Questions" , I forgot to send it out, now I can take it in.