" After the funeral, they went to a private club in Chelsea, where they drank and jammed the night away together—greats and nobodies alike. The slightly acrimonious, sardonic Mickey, a fan of folk and world music, would have been pleased. [...] Yurik played, too, his own composition, which he had been working on for the entire year. In memory of Mickey.

For it was Mickey, who had lived so easily, so lightly, and had died so painfully, who had instilled in Yurik the consciousness that, in the highest sense, music had no authorship. It was a gift, and an ability to read the divine book, to transpose a universal sound that needed no notation into the language of paltry musical instruments, invented for the convenience and purpose of transmitting supremely important messages—messages that could not be conveyed in any other way ... And the best ears, the best hearts and souls of this spiritual dimension called music, listened to Yurik's song that evening. And heard it. "

― Lyudmila Ulitskaya , Лестница Якова