Foreword
Preface to "Lecture on the Weather"
How the Piano Came to be Prepared
Empty Words
Where Are We Eating? and What Are We Eating?
Series re Morris Graves
Sixty-One Mesostics Re and Not Re Norman O. Brown
Writing for the Second Time through Finnegans Wake
The Future of Music
MESOSTICS
Many Happy Returns
A Long Letter
Song
For S. Fort, Dancer
For William McN, who studied with Ezra Pound
Wright's Oberlin House Restored by E. Johnson
"I'm the happiest person I know (S.W.)
His teacher, Arnold Schoenberg, said JOHN CAGE was "not a composer but an inventor of genius." Composer, author, and philosopher, John Cage was born in Los Angles in 1912 and by the age of 37 he had been recognized by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for having extended the boundaries of music. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978, and in 1982, the French government awarded Cage its highest honor for distinguished contribution to cultural life, Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Cage composed hundreds of musical works in his career, including the well-known "4'33"" and his pieces for prepared piano; many of his compositions depend on chance procedures for their structure and performance. Cage was also an author, and his book Silence was described by John Rockwell in the New York Times as "the most influential conduit of Oriental thought and religious ideas into the artistic vanguard-not just in music but in dance, art and poetry as well." John Cage's books, published by Wesleyan, are Silence (1961), A Year From Monday (1967), M (1973), Empty Words (1979), which Cage also regarded as a performance piece, and X (1983). John Cage died in 1992 at the age of 79.
"John Cage is one of those few contemporaries who do important work in more than one art...a master of several arts, a slave to none."
~Richard Kostelanetz, The New York Times Book Review
""John Cage is one of those few contemporaries who do important work in more than one arta master of several arts, a slave to none.""
~Richard Kostelanetz, The New York Times Book Review
""For those who've savored Cage's previous books, Silence (1961), A Year From Monday (1967), and M (1973), no further introduction is necessary. Whether sharing with us details of meals he's enjoyed on tour, transforming texts from Thoreau's Journal by I Ching operations, or digging 'mesostics' on James Joyce's name out of Finnegans Wake, he'll keep you fascinated, exasperated, or amused, depending on your reaction to this sort of thing. There are only two essays on 'music' in the book—but then, to Cage, everything is music. Recommended for freewheeling art/music/poetry collections.""
~Library Journal
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