[silence] Brophy & Cage

[Christopher L Shultis]

I would also point to Norman O. Brown's criticism of Cage, 
first presented at Wesleyan in 1988, and later published 
in the Bucknell review. That's out of print but in many 
libraries. Titled simply "John Cage" it has also recently 
been republished in Aufgabe # 5 (ISBN:  0-9723331-8-5) 
with an introduction by Richard K. Winslow, who as many of 
you know, taught at Wesleyan and had many contacts with 
both Cage and Brown. It also includes responses by poets 
including Joan Retallack who also has a long history of 
excellent work on/with Cage. The best thing about Brown's 
criticism in my opinion is that it takes Cage seriously 
and treats his work with the kind of respect that then 
MERITS good criticism. I haven't seen the Brophy piece (so 
thanks for bringing it to our attention!) but for me the 
key issue of good criticism is being deeply informed about 
what one criticizes. This is my complaint with much of the 
early criticism of Cage (journalistic typically and rarely 
well-informed) and also with the occasional criticism one 
finds more recently, like the previously mentioned book by 
Kahn as well as others that I can't think of just off the 
top of my head. I will however mention that of the two 
critiques heard at the Cage Mills conference in 1995 by 
Moira Roth (talking about Pauline Oliveros) and George 
Lewis (Cage and jazz), the latter I've read in published 
version and think it definitely merits further research 
and discussion. Good criticism in other words.

But indeed there is alot of work to do regarding Cage's 
work as meriting criticism. I think if one studies a 
subject deeply, next thing you know there is something to 
criticize. A sign of its importance is its ability to 
merit that time and effort. And that's why once again I 
like Brown. He spent ALOT of time thinking about and 
studying Cage--and not necessarily because of affinities 
either. Instead he was intrigued by their differences and 
his serious desire to pursue what that meant. Good stuff.

chris shultis

On Mon, 06 Nov 2006 04:25:26 -0800
  Joseph Zitt <jzitt@metatronpress.com> wrote:
> 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.
> 
> --
> To join or leave the Silence mailing list, please go to 
>https://list.mail.virginia.edu/mailman/listinfo/silence.
> You can find searchable list archives at 
>http://list.mail.virginia.edu/pipermail/silence/