i have a strange connection to sex and the city. when 9/11 happened, i was in toronto, recording with nojo. i can remember that morning, michael occhipiniti was supposed to get another musician at the airport, then pick me up at my hotel. i sat in the lobby waiting. he was hours late. mysteriously, i would occasionally hear people talking about something, but i couldn’t figure out what. finally, i went back to my room, turned on the set, and there it was: a tape loop of the same grisly scene on every channel that would last until i left toronto. we did record something, but i for one was completely distracted, and then with all flights cancelled i was stuck there for a week after that. i was unsure whether going home was prudent (there was already talk of anthrax), but i’d just moved into my new home. entertainment was hard to come by on cable. i did something i’ve never done: i went to sam the record man and bought a boxed set of sex and the city, a show i’d never sat and watched, just so i wouldn’t hafta watch the news. it’s a perfectly good show, but i bonded with it because i had to. the show is like valium for me. i think it should be on somewhere every day, on a channel with i love lucy and the original warner brothers cartoons, shows that are culturally basic to our identity and are sadly missing from my cable schedule.

Don Byron: clarinetist, composer, teacher, I used to watch his cat.