[silence] Brophy & Cage

[Joseph Zitt]

Zac Bond wrote:
> As for being critical, I think in my entirely nonprofessional 
> discussions of Cage I have been--for example, I find his position on 
> recorded music massively flawed, and I basically dismiss his political 
> and social opinions.  More specific to his music, I am not enthusiastic 
> about some of the complex rhythmic structures he uses in the earlier 
> works, because I find that I cannot hear them; I would have no idea of 
> the small-scale, large-scale structural similarities if they were not 
> pointed out to me by someone who has seen the score.
>   
James Pritchett points out in his indispensable book that Cage's career 
is the history of a person changing his mind. The later Cage might have 
agreed with you about the earlier Cage. If I recall correctly, he 
referred to some of his rhythmic structures in a late interview as 
"boring as hell."

His political views changed over time as well, through a naive Maoism 
toward his later anarchism (naive as that may, also, have been).

By the way, I've recently read the very good book "*CageTalk:* 
*Dialogues with and about John Cage "*
*edited by Peter Dickinson *
http://www.boydell.co.uk/www.urpress.com/80462375.HTM

Many of the interviews there are quite critical of aspects of Cage's 
work, and give an intriguing counterpoint to much of what we have read 
until now.