[silence] Cage quiz shows

[Stefano Pocci]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: louieg 
  To: silence 
  Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 4:10 PM
  Subject: [silence] Cage quiz shows


  Thanks for that link to "I've Got A Secret."
  I've long wanted to see that, and assumed
  there was no existing recording.  I wish I
  could hear the actual sound of the piece,
  but just seeing the flow is a delight.

  Now I'm trying to remember the Italian quiz 
  show Cage was on in the 1950's.  The contestants
  appeared as experts outside their professional fields.  
  Cage did mycology, and apparently created some 
  daytime tv stir in Italy with his repeated appearances 
  as he worked up to the top prize.

  Anyone remember the name of the show,
  when it was on, and if there is a recording?

  Louie


Thank God someone else is interested in that video! Ok I'm kidding Louie but I have been trying to get that few minutes clip for a long long time....unfortunately I have only met people who saw the video but who didn't recorded it.

It was aired in Italy something like ten or fifteen years ago by "Fuori Orario" a Rai Tre (one of the three Rai channels) weird tv program that starts after midnight. Since Cage was a guest at "Lascia o Raddoppia" (double or nothing) for five weeks (every thursday) he was able to perform three of his pieces in front of the astonished host, Mr. Mike Bongiorno, who didn't realize who Cage was (it was january 1959).....or maybe he did, who knows?

People who saw the video told me that a "music walk"-like piece was performed and that of course it was fantastic. The short videoclip is a collage of the different episodes Cage was involved with, so not the whole show, few minutes only.

Cage was in Milan in that period as a guest of the "Studio di Fonologia della Rai" ("Phonology Studio of Rai"...early electronic music experiments) called by Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna and others. Sylvano Bussotti told me that he spent lots of time with him preparing the answers and even went with Cage to Rome to get the money he won during the quiz show episodes (answering some mushrooms questions). Actually I have heard that Berio and others managed to get the right answers thanks to their Rai contacts in order to let Cage win the money he needed, but maybe these are just urban legends:-).


Besides the famous pic with Cage & Mike that was printed in one of Cage Cramps albums, only a brief excerp of the closing dialogue between them is available inside the Materiali Sonori book of Cage (all in italian though). I found other Rai videos with Cage but the quiz show still remains an impossible mission to accomplish.


I hope that spreading the word helps, talk to you soon



Stefano
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