[no subject]

i think the perhaps the person who told me this meant he had one of the 
largest discographies of any 20th century composer. who knows if that little 
factoid could still stand up in court. anyways, the point was that he was 
alive while most of these records came out, so he had to actively condone 
the reproduction of his work... hence the seeming contradiction between his 
actions and his statements.

>Cage's stance on records and his hypocrisy in having
>so many in his catalog is so Cage-ian- contradictory, dada, and not taking
>himself too seriously. If Cage -really- felt them to be worthless, he'd
>never have made them. One does need to eat and pay the rent though.

i agree - from hearing the stories he tells it appears he was very much a 
working composer, living from commission to commission. he probably did 
whatever he had to to make ends meet. (that's how his work with the prepared 
piano apparently began - there was only enough room for a piano for a dance 
performance, he had 2 or 3 days to write the music, but they needed drum 
sounds, so....). but the video was done i think in the early 80s, and he was 
getting on towards the end of his life so maybe he had changed his viewpoint 
on things by that point. he was probably also in a much better position to 
make such a statement. it would be interesting to see if he ever did have a 
period in his output where he was still composing steadily but recordings of 
his work (by him and not by other artists) simply stopped or slowed down. 
are there any cage scholars on the list who can confirm whether cage was 
just paying lip-service to a noble idea or if he actually followed through?

>I think his comments on records were not to be taken -too- literally.

interestingly enough, the particular moment on the video where he states 
this is extremely memorable to me because it's the one moment in the whole 
60 minutes where he gets very livid and nearly jumps down the throat of one 
of the questioners who has just stated "but listening to records can be very 
useful " - cage speaks very matter of factly to present his argument and 
seems to take the matter very seriously. just because he's a funny fellow 
sometimes doesn't mean we can just write off certain statements that he's 
made. and the tone of his statement is one that resounds throughout his 
work. he also wrote or stated something like "the music i find most 
interesting is that which i haven't yet heard," which goes right along with 
this more extreme notion of not-listening-to-records. i find what he says 
there to be a very interesting and possibly profound observation, especially 
as our lives are consumed with the viewing of more and more 
media-out-time-and-context. of course he doesn't say, Don't listen to 
recordings, or Don't make recordings. he just says that he's very content 
with not listening to them, and would be interested in having other people 
be more interested in a life without records.

>He also said that the only 2 truths he learned at midlife were that the Sun
>and orange juice were bad for you, though I'm sure he's ventured outside
>from time to time.

>; )
>
>Peter

i didn't realize i was living on the edge every morning with a nice glass of 
oj, but i guess i balance that with staying up late and spending a lot of 
daylight hours inside checking email

later
adam

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