“Paramount among them is Gerald Busby, composer, pianist, author of one of the great modern dance scores (Paul Taylor’s Runes), H.I.V. survivor, and also, at one time, as he confides openly, a crack addict. In his tiny studio apartment, complete with piano, at the hotel … on a good morning you can still find him holding forth on art, life, music, Robert Altman, Virgil Thomson, the crack epidemic, and the many uses of hotel (and human) adversity.”