there was a strange atmosphere in the room the tension of taking a breath and preparing to leap into icy water an undercurrent of gradually developed disappointment and at the center of it was dc glaser the writer half-drunk and eating he ate like he despised himself ate with a pathological need pawing up fistfuls of expensive hors d'oeuvre and pushing them desperately into his mouth and in the air was a music that consumed itself a music which refused to alight on the mind just wisped away like smoke when you tried to cock your ear to it that was the sort of party it was all surfaces and evasion .