cryptogamian. in former classification systems: one of two major plant divisions, including all plants that do not bear seeds: ferns,mosses, algae, fungi.

Nuptials are celebrated privately.

cryptogamiaA John Cage Recipe Book.

By Jamie Sigadel

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01 Introduction03 Stephen Montague 04 Granola06 Gavin Bryars 07 Tibetian Barley Bread08 Mushroom Hunting 12 Walnut Chicken 13 Cookies14 Merce Cunningham 16 Beans17 Jean-Luc Choplin18 Sounds And Mushrooms

tablespoonsof cups

JOHNCAGE

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J OHNCAGE

John Cage was an impressive many on several levels. Almost accidentally, he re-defined the term "music" as we read it today. An artist and a composer, his inno-vative way of approachingmusic continues to influence and inspire. But what inspired the man, himself? What events, both large and miniscule in scale, directed him towards this path of consciousness? More importantly: What did his friends think of him? What did he eat?

These are the very questions I hope to explore in the confines of this book; To look beneath the layers to the heart, thereby uncovering the founding phi-losophies of an extraordinary man. While unconventionaland seemingly peculiar at times, understanding the most private, quiet moments of Cage is to truly un-derstand him. While a genius in his own right, one will see that he is not all that different from you or me. Besides the whole "re-defining music as we know it" thing, anyway.

“ O n e s h o u l d n ' t

g o t o t h e w o o d s l o o k i n g f o r s o m e t h i n g, b u t r a t h e r t o s e e w h a t i s t h e r e . ” 0 2

“ O n e s h o u l d n ' t

g o t o t h e w o o d s l o o k i n g f o r s o m e t h i n g, b u t r a t h e r t o s e e w h a t i s t h e r e . ”

When I first met John in 1975, he had given me his phone number and told me to call if I was in town. When I was next there, I did. "Am I interrupting you?" I asked. "Of course," he replied. My heart sank. But then he continued: "I regard telephone calls as unexpected pleasures. I like to remain open to things I can't pre-dict." And he invited me to come round for a macrobiotic tea. Later we were on tour with his operas Europeras 3 and 4. We were at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, and the building still wasn't quite finished. There was a party on, and John and I, along with, Merce Cunningham, Mme Duchamp (Marcel Duchamp's wife) and the composer Yvar Mikhashoff, got into a service lift to try to find it. But the lift stopped between floors, and the lights went off - we were plunged into total darkness. It was plain weird. Every second I expected the lift to go into freefall. We pressed the emergency button, and waited.

Nothing happened. Finally Mme Duch-amp said: "What are we going to do?" John replied: "It's the perfect opportunity to hear a piece of music. Just listen." There was a sort of rumble, a kind of hum from the building. We all listened intently. After a while, Yvar started some irregular, very occasional tapping, and so did I. Finally - after about 20 minutes, though it seemed like hours - the lights went back on and we were able to get out. Later, John said: "Wasn't that a marvellous piece of music. My only sadness is thattwo people were adding dissonances to it."

Stephen Montaguecomposer

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“ A t Darmstadt when I wasn’t involved with music, I was in the woods looking for mushrooms. Oneday while I was gathering some Hy pholomas that

were growing around a stump not

far from the concert hall, a lady secretary from the Ferienkurse für Neue Musik came by and said,

“A f te r all, Na - t ur e is be t ter than

6 c rolled oats 1 c wheat germ₁⁄₂ c sesame seeds 1 c wheat flakes

1 c barley, rye, or soy flakes 3/4 c sun-flower seedspinch of salt*

*this is not necessary

Granola

Mix together and add:3/16 c of oil (sesame and olive and corn)13/16 c waterFill the cup of liquids to the brim with Vanilla extractMix with hands. Bake at 325 degrees 1/2 hour, stirring at 15 minutes and at end. Leave in hot oven. Wait 3-4 hours or even 6. Repeat 1/2 hour baking process again leaving in hot oven.

1912John Cage was born on 5th September in Los Angeles, California.

1928Completed his graduation from Los Angeles High School.

1930Went on a tour of Europe after dropping out from college.

1931Returned to the U.S. and went to Santa Monica, California.

1933He sent his few compositions to Henry Cowell and in reply Cowell suggested John to take lessons from Arnold Schoenberg.

Timeline

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“ A t Darmstadt when I wasn’t involved with music, I was in the woods looking for mushrooms. Oneday while I was gathering some Hy pholomas that

were growing around a stump not

far from the concert hall, a lady secretary from the Ferienkurse für Neue Musik came by and said,

“A f te r all, Na - t ur e is be t ter than

0 5

My first encounter with John Cage changed my life. I had known about him from quite an early age, as my music master at Goole Grammar School had told me about the prepared piano (the way Cage altered the sound of the instru-ment by inserting objects between the strings) and about 4'33" (the so-called silent piece), which he found interesting, though puzzling.

Gavin Bryars composer

But it was seeing the Cunningham Com-pany at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1966 that really opened my eyes. The first piece I saw was called Solo, danced by Merce Cunningham himself behind a white scrim, with a brilliant white decor by Robert Rauschen berg. It was accom-panied by the five piano Nocturnes by Erik Satie, played with great delicacy by Cage. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life. But the second piece, Variations V, was simply astonishing. It involved the whole company performing seemingly random actions with great elegance, all interact-ing with an array of electronics in the pit, overseen by the benign team of Cage, David Tudor and Gordon Mumma.

I decided that this was what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. I met Cage briefly during this visit to England, and a couple of years later found myself working with him in the US. It was through his personal generosity that I was able to stay there so long - I had only a visitor's visa and couldn't do any official work, but he took me on as an assistant, paying me out of his wn pocket. However, it is his intellectual generos-ity that I value above all. Cage didn't have any "students" in the strict sense, just people who worked with him. It is a measure of his greatness that those who are now composers never end up sounding like him. He gave you permission to be yourself. Anything goes, provided - as he would always say - that you take "nothing" as the base.

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1934–35Studied with Schoenberg and worked at his

mother’s arts and crafts shop.

1935On 7th June he married Xenia Andreyevna

Kashevaroff at Yuma, Arizona.

1936–38Worked at several jobs.

1938Joined Mills College as a faculty member with the help of Lou Harrison, who was a

fellow Cowell student.

Mix flours together with salt. Add oil,rubbing flour between hands until oily.Add boiling water, using spoon to mixuntil dough begins to form, then mixingwith hands; knead until smooth (longtime). Place in oiled pan. Cut toplengthwise. Proof (cover with damp clothand put in warm place 2-6 hours orovernight).

Tibetian Barley Bread

2 c barley flour4 c whole wheat flour1/2 c sesame seeds (roasted)

2 T sesame oil2 T corn oil3-1/2 c boiling water (spring water)

Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes on middle shelf, then 400 degrees for 40 minutes on top shelf.

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Although Cage has been involved with over forty-three films, the two particular films that will be discussed are, "John Cage Mushroom Hunting in Stony Point," and "4'33" his most famous musical piece and an intriguing film. Both films aid to revolutionize the definition of film and music. I chose to examine them because they epitomize Cage, as a non-conformist. The first film, "John Cage Mushroom Hunting in Stony Point" directed by Jud Yalkut in 1972, was re-edited from the original into a forty-nine second film

entitled, "Mushroom Picking," Which included the following poetry from Cage:"Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and ones desire's out of its way and lets it act of its own accord." (Cage, 1972). This quote is Cage's character in a nutshell. I think that John Cage was a man that loved living. He found music and harmony in everything. He said that if something was boring for thirty sec-onds, try it for one minute, if it is still bor-ing try it for two or twenty minutes, until you find that it is not boring at all. I wish I could have known Cage while he was alive because from what I have found in my research, he may have been the happi-est man in the world. He is so admirable, not only in finding the beauty of random-ness, but that is was content in just sitting and being aware of his surroundings. His views of life are so similar to my own, that while I was researching him, I feel like I have also found a part of myself.

John Cage Mushroom Hunting in Stony Point and 4'33"by elizabeth breitling

1940Invented the prepared piano, a piano in which the sound is altered by objects placed on, under or between the strings.

1941John moved from Seattle when László Moholy-Nagy, the painter asked him to teach at the Chicago School of Design.

1942He left Chicago and came to New York in spring.

1945His marriage with Xenia ended up in divorce.

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John Cage was not interested in content or context, animation, or special effects. He was interested in finding the viewer's reaction. That was his charac-ter, and is reflected in the films he was involved with. He was not a filmmaker; he was a philosopher that discovered what was really important, and what was artificial. He was interested in emotion and harmony. Cage was an expert in the field of mycology, the study of mushrooms, so it made sense to Yalkut that Cage appeared in the film. (Marice) What the viewer sees in the film is Cage opening a basket that is filled with Portobello mushrooms that he shows the camera and then he closes the lid and walks away. The narration fits beautifully with this film because it sug-gests that people are so concerned with desires that they are missing out on life. I think Cage was trying to tell us that we should not change or improve the world; we should enjoy what is right in front of us. I also believe that Cage shared my own believe in fate, and that everything happens for a reason.

In 1951, Cage went to the anechoic chamber at Harvard University to hear silence. " I literally epected to hear nothing," he said. Instead, he heard two sounds, one high and one low. He was told that the first was his nervous system and the other his blood circulating. This was a major revelation that was to affect his compositional philosophy from that time on. It was from this experience that he decided that silence defined, as total absence of sound did not exist. "Try as we may to make silence, we cannot." He wrote." (Solomon 1998) It was this knowl-edge that inspired Cage to compose 4'33". In the film, we see Cage performing his 4'33" in the middle of the street with lots of people around him. He is sitting at a piano holding a stopwatch with a blank look on his face. I think he was listening to the talking, movement, and noise around him, that in his own mind had rhythm, and was a beautiful sympho-ny. Cage said, "Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck pass-ing by a music school?" (Williams 1990)

This quote, although humorous, is also the John Cage ideology. This film, I think cap-tured the essence of who John Cage was. In conclusion, John Cage and his ideas have made a tremendous impact on me. His films "John Cage Mushroom Hunting in Stony Point" and "4'33" help to exempli-fy Cage's personality and characteristics.

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“ OUR INTENTION IS TO AFFIRM THIS LIFE, NOT TO BRING ORDER OUT OF CHAOS, NOR TO SUGGEST IMPROVEMENTS IN CREATION, BUT SIMPLY TO WAKE UP TO THE VERY LIFE WE’RE LIVING, WHICH IS SO EXCELLENT ONCE ONE GETS ONE’S MIND AND ONES DESIRE’S OUT OF ITS WAY AND LETS IT ACT OF ITS OWN ACCORD. ”

“ OUR INTENTION IS TO AFFIRM THIS LIFE, NOT TO BRING ORDER OUT OF CHAOS, NOR TO SUGGEST IMPROVEMENTS IN CREATION, BUT SIMPLY TO WAKE UP TO THE VERY LIFE WE’RE LIVING, WHICH IS SO EXCELLENT ONCE ONE GETS ONE’S MIND AND ONES DESIRE’S OUT OF ITS WAY AND LETS IT ACT OF ITS OWN ACCORD. ” — JOHN CAGE

[1972]

After an hour or so in the woods

looking for mushrooms,

Dad said,

“Well, we can always go

and

buy some real ones.”

Marinate chicken breasts cut into 1-inch cubes in 2 T tamari, 1 T sherry, 1/2 t ground ginger or 1/2-inch piece of ginger over-night. Heat 2 T sesame oil (total = 1/4 C) over high flame and stir fry 2 sliced scallions, garlic clove cut into two pieces and 1 C of coarsely chopped walnuts. After three or four minutes remove garlic and transfer scallions and walnuts into a bowl. Add remaining oil and chicken pieces and marinade. Stir fry about five minutes, until chicken is tender and coated with soy mix-ture. Combine with walnuts and onions. Serve with rice.

Walnut Chicken

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1946In the early days of this year, John agreed to be the teacher of Gita Sarabhai, an Indian musician who came to the U.S. to learn about western music.

1946–48Worked on the composition of the ‘Sonatas and Interludes’ and some other works.

1949He was honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship and received an award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters.

1951 ‘Imaginary Landscape No. 4’, for 12 casually tuned radios, 24 performers and conductor was premiered.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.In a food processor, grind:1 c. raw almonds1 c. raw oatsCombine almonds and oats in a large bowl. Stir in:1 c. whole wheat flour or brown rice flour (if you want a gluten free option, you may need to add slightly more than the 1 c. brown rice flour, so that you are later able to form balls with the dough) Add ground cinnamon to the dry mixture

.

CookiesTo the dry mixture, add:1/2 c. almond oil (other nut oils work as well)1/2 c. real maple syrup (no Aunt Jemima!)Stir mixture until you are able to form one-inch balls. Place on ungreased-cookie sheet. Flatten slightly, and press a small dollop of your favorite jam orpreserves (jelly is too thin) into thecenter of each cookie. Bake for 15-20 minutes, turning the pan once, halfway through the baking process. Cookies are done when light golden brown. They store well in the fridge.

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“ T h e h i g h e s t p u r p o s e i s t o h a v e n o p u r p o s e a t a l l . T h i s

p u t s o n e i n a c -c o r d w i t h n a t u r e , i n h e r m a n n e r o f o p e r a t i o n . ”

The thing about John is that nothing stopped him. He was constantly working on pieces and bringing them to fruition. Every piece he composed, right from the beginning, he would get performed, either by himself in the early days or gradually by others - he was a practical man. With the invention of the prepared piano, he could produce the sound of a small or-che0stra from a single instrument. A lot of the early prepared-piano pieces were for my solos. It was a mark of his practi-cality that because we could not have long gaps between items on the programme, he would make sure the piano would need very little adjustment between pieces - but the sound would be absolutely different.

Merce Cunningham

choreographer

We did several tours before I founded my company. I remember once we went out west somewhere to a small college. The woman in the physical education de-partment who had invited us wasn't happy with our programme, and didn't want to pay us. So John told her we wouldn't leave until she did. Well, in the end, she did. He had an extraordinary gift for inven-tion. He was always interested in new pos-sibilities and new sounds - it was always a case of what's next to do.

1952He composed ‘4:33’, a piece in which the performers remain silent on stage for that time period.

1958Composed ‘Fontana Mix’, a piece that is based on a series of programmed transparent cards that when overlaid, gave a graph for the random pick up of electronic sounds.

1961Published a collection of his lectures titled ‘Silence’.

1964His father John Milton Cage, Sr. died.

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“ T h e h i g h e s t p u r p o s e i s t o h a v e n o p u r p o s e a t a l l . T h i s

p u t s o n e i n a c -c o r d w i t h n a t u r e , i n h e r m a n n e r o f o p e r a t i o n . ”

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1967A ‘Year from Monday’ was first issued by the Wesleyan University Press.

1969His mother Lucretia Harvey died. ‘Cheap Imita-tion’, an imprint of the music of Erik Satie was published.

1973M: Writings ‘67–’72’, was first issued by the Wes-leyan University Press.

1975 John Cage published ‘Child of Tree’.

Soak beans overnight after having washed them. In the morning change the water and add Kombu (seaweed). Also, if you wish, rosemary or cumin. Watch them so that they don’t cook too long, just until tender. Then pour off most of the liquid, saving it, and replace it with tamari (or Braggs). But taste first: you may prefer it without tamari or with very little. Taste to see if it’s too salty. If it is, add more bean liquid. Then, if you have the juice from a roasted chicken, put several teaspoons of this with the beans.

Black turtle beans or small white beans can be cooked without soaking overnight. But large kidney beans or pinto beans, etc., are best soaked. (So are the others.)

Another way to cook beans, which has become my favorite way, is with bay leaves, thyme, garlic, salt, and pepper. You can cook it with some kombu from the beginning. I know use the “shocking method.” See Aveline Kushi’s book.

And now I’ve changed again. A Guatema-lan idea: Bury an entire plant of garlic in the beans without bothering to take the paper off. Cook for at least 3 hours.

Beans

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In 1976 I was running a summer academy in the south of France in La Sainte Baume. I had asked John to produce a piece for it, and he was in residence for the whole event, staying in this old monastery. In one concert we programmed his piece Atlas Eclipticalis, which included a very difficult challenge for the trombonist: he was required to play the highest note you can produce on the instrument at a very specific moment.

Jean-Luc Choplin sadler's wells

The piece was performed outside, the players spread around the surround-ings. The trombonist was stationed in the forest. This musician was Japanese; he was completely into Cage's music and philosophy, completely crazy, and deter-mined - like a samurai. He said: "If I can-not play this note I will commit suicide." And he was terribly serious about it. One night I went round to have dinner with John. I said: "You have to speak to him. He is creating a huge psychodrama; I will have to cancel the concert." John said: "Have some mushrooms, Jean-Luc. There's a very small difference between life and death."

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In the end, we hid another musician behind a tree in case the trombonist tried to hurt himself. The trombonist missed the note, the hidden musician jumped on him to stop him. ....happy ending!

FOR THE BIRDS By John Cage.In Conversation with Daniel Charles. 239 pp. Boston: Marion Boyars. $20.

IT'S useless to pretend to know mushrooms,'' says John Cage in For The Birds. “They escape your erudition. The more you know them - about telling, for example, a Spathyema Foetida from a Collybia Platyphylla - the less sure you feel about identifying them.”

John Cage should know. Aside from being what was once called an “avant-garde” composer, he is something of a mushroom expert. He won a mushroom quiz contest in 1958 on Italian televsion. In the 1960's he supplied a New York restaurant with edible fungi. He led mushroom outings at the New School. He knows a Lactarius Piperatus burns the tongue when raw but is delicious when cooked. He has even had his stomach pumped. As Marcel Du-champ wrote, inscribing a chess book for his cagey friend, “Dear John look out: yet another poisonous mushroom.” So the mushroom's role in the avant-garde needs to be accounted for. As Mr. Cage himself has argued, in the Music Lovers' Field Companion: “I have come to the conclusion that much can be learned about music by devoting oneself to the mushroom.” Perhaps sporophores can help explain Mr. Cage's own works. Per-haps they can shed some light on “4'33” - 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence - or on “Imaginary Landscape No. 4” - 12 ra-dios simultaneously played for several

hours - or on the many works painsta-kingly put together according to instruc-tions given by dice and the ‘I Ching.’ Mushrooms may even be central to his philosophy - joining Zen, Thoreau, Buck-minster Fuller, Marshall McLuhan and D.T. Suzuki. Perhaps the mixture of mushrooms (fleshy protuberances growing in moist soil and rotting tree stumps) and music (esthetic structures produced for perfor-mance in the concert hall) has more than casual interest. Or perhaps not. Mr. Cage insists: “I am not interested in the relationships between sounds and mushrooms any more than I am in those between sounds and other sounds. Their link is random; the two words are next to each other in many dictionaries.” At any rate, For the Birds - the latest textual addition to the Cage canon - adds significantly to our understanding of mushrooms and Mr. Cage. With its biographical detail, it is a complement to Richard Kostelanetz's John Cage, show

Sounds And Mushroomsby edward rothstein

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ing how the composer himself has grown in the musical wild. He developed when the laws of musical linearity - tonality and counterpoint - were wildly overrun. But he would have been stifled in the arid, harshly lit ground provided by his one-time teacher, Arnold Schoenberg. “During the period of harmony and counterpoint,” Mr. Cage says, “There was good and bad, and rules to support the good against the bad. Today we must identify ourselves with noises instead ....” Somewhere in the overgrowth and chaos Mr. Cage took root; by 1950 he was the free-growing alternative to the cemented determinism of advanced serial composition. Mr. Cage explains the title of this book, using an aviarian metaphor rather than a toadstoolian one: “I am for the birds, not for the cages in which people sometimes place them.” He is “for the birds” - a lunatic, a charlatan, a clown - and he is “for the birds” - an advocate of that region of freedom where even his own name dissolves into air.

In previous books, Mr. Cage has also been concerned with breaking bonds. “Silence,” “A Year From Monday,” “M” and “Empty Words” relish their own ecc-entricities; lines and spaces and meanings are disrupted with as much gala zest as in Mr. Cage's music. For the Birds, though, is least “for the birds.” Its margins are justified, binding Mr. Cage in 11 interviews with an energetic French philosopher, Daniel Charles. The formal restraints were hard come by. The interviews took place in France in 1970; they were translated into French; the English tapes were lost; the French texts were translated back into English. In 1972 and 1980 Mr. Cage interjected footnotes and placed brackets around statements he didn't remember saying. There is a prefatory “Sixty Answers to Thirty-three Questions From Daniel Charles” in which Mr. Cage pastes, in graffiti style, gnomic, random answers to interview questions. There is also conversation “against the ego,” on “the will to disorder,” on

“the performer's revolt,” on “revolution and synergy,” on mycology, on subjects random and controlled. What is his objection to linearity, to meaning? Would he agree to conduct Beethoven's nine symphonies? (“I would agree if I could use enough musicians to conduct, in one single concert, all nine symphonies super-imposed.”) Mr. Cage mushrooms through the interview form, unquashed by Mr. Charles's sometimes irksome presence - “I admire this line of reasoning,” says Mr. Charles after Mr. Cage proposes a univer-sity with no organization, no requirements and simultaneous lectures in one room. And Mr. Cage has lots to say about mushrooms. In a jacket photograph he beams with pleasure in wooded surround-ings, swinging a basket that must be laden with fungi. He could be thinking of that stroll as he cries, in one of the interviews, “That's my ‘Concert for Piano’! A walk in the forest ....” That work randomly glances about; each player chooses his part from possibilities of 84 different compositions.

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For Mr. Cage, then, mushrooms do not inspire random interest. Rather, they represent a disordered freedom from determination and meaning - they es-cape his erudition. “Mushrooms allowed me to understand Suzuki,” he says; they grow haphazardly, defying the classifying intellect. He hunts them, as he composes, without reflection, with great relish. The mushroom is his icon; its whimsi-cal freedom is everywhere. “Accepting chance,” says the mycologist Mr. Cage, “makes prejudices, pre-conceived ideas, and previous ideas of order and organiza-tion disappear! Art should preserve us from logical manipulations.” Taking the mushroom as his model, he is “imitating Nature in her manner of operation” - random and free. Mr. Cage, an avid reader of Fuller and McLuhan, is also a utopian “anarchist”; government, like order in composition, is to be avoided. Mr. Cage says of his method: “It neither wounds nor wrongs anyone in the end.” It is a harmless exercise in boundlessness, as fanciful as hunting mushrooms.

But there is something about mush-rooms that defies Mr. Cage's flights of Zen fancy. He admits of “chance” op-erations: “It's only if I act like that with mushrooms that it can kill me.” He would not, then, use the “I Ching” to pick mush-rooms; there are bounds on his activity, limits to his freedom. Categories and laws, in fact, fill Mr. Cage's airy regions of freedom like the scientific Latin names for mushrooms he must learn.His musical dice throws involve as many complex operations as harmony and counterpoint; “HPSCHD” required computer calculations to set up the necessary bounds. Mr. Cage evensubmits himself to chance in daily life - “for everything,” he says. '”I have always accepted everything the ‘I Ching’ has revealed to me.” His political anarchy also has its rigidly ordered shadow. “The Maoist model,” he writes in a 1972 footnote, “managed to free a quarter of humanity; that gives cause for thought. Today, without hesita-tion, I would say that, for the moment, Maoism is our greatest reason for optimi-

-sm.” This may not only be for the birds, but for the cages people are put within. So Mr. Cage sets up cages while he destroys them. The music is not even as freely meaningless as he claims. Aside from such early works as the translucently beautiful sonatas for prepared piano, his works avidly take on literal meanings; the music is heard not as koan, but as rebellious gesture. The music is meant to uncage, to free from the grid of the past. But the result is the opposite. Its meaning is caged in that very gesture. There is something exhilarating in the radical scope of Mr. Cage's play with freedom and law; his pronouncements -musical and literary - are wrought with captivating swagger, bluster and charm. But given the state of our musical world, such attitudes are also a bit discourag-ing. For even now, as celebrations of Mr. Cage's 70th birthday begin, he remains less important as a composer than as a symptom, embodying fundamental gestures of this century's cultural beliefs: Natural law is devalued, social tradition is minimized, while rebellious gestures are

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given sense by the tradition they deny. The result is a classic modern trap, not avoided by Zen transcendence. Mr. Cage's career, in fact, seems to provide a marker for the end of musical modernism, which now lies in as much disarray as the carcass of the musical tradi-tion it once fed upon. So Mr. Cage's mush-rooms, in obedience to natural law, may be serving a function. Consider this, a Cagean koan: A woman once asked Mr. Cage, “Have you an explanation of the symbol-ism involved in the death of the Bud-dha by eating a mushroom?” Mr. Cage thought: “Mushrooms grow most vigor-ously in the fall, the period of destruction, and the function of many of them is to bring about the final decay of rotting material. In fact, as I read somewhere, the world would be an impassible heap of old rubbish were it not for mushrooms and their capacity to get rid of it. So I wrote to the lady in Philadephia. I said, “The function of mushrooms is to rid the world of old rubbish. The Buddha died a natural death.”

1946In the early days of this year, John agreed to be the teacher of Gita Sarabhai, an Indian musician who came to the U.S. to learn about western music.

1946–48Worked on the composition of the ‘Sonatas and Interludes’ and some other works.

1949He was honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship and received an award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters.

1951 ‘Imaginary Landscape No. 4’, for 12 casually tuned radios, 24 performers and conductor was premiered.

“What right do I have to be in the woods, if the woods are not in me.”

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bibliphon

The recipe for this book is: part Hoefler Text part Letter Gothic Std Southworth Granite 24 lb paper

Printed by myself, Jamie Sigadel. For Jan Kubaweicz’ Typography III.

© Jamie Sigadel 2012

http://www.foodcultureindex.com/2011/09/john-cages-cookies-recipe.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/jan/16/classicalmusicandopera1http://www.foodcrypt.com/2009/11/john-cage-some-of-his-recipes-a-blog-post/http://thinkexist.com/quotation/food-one_assumes-provides_nourishment-but/165635.htmlhttp://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/index.cgihttp://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/22/books/sounds-and-mushrooms.html?pagewanted=allhttp://people.wcsu.edu/mccarneyh/fva/C/mushroom1.htmlhttp://quote.robertgenn.com/auth_search.php?authid=3138https://johncage.org/blog/Cage_Macrobiotic_Recipes.pdfhttp://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/gedney/search/results?t=john+cage&rows=16&start=16

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