John Cage

["Jesse Kudler" <jkudler@mail.wesleyan.edu>]

The Cage-ian things people were saying led me to hunt down a sight with his
classic Indeterminacy stories:
http://www.pdos.lcs.mit.edu/~eddietwo/indeterminacy/   Two in particular
come to mind a la looping.  The first relates to what someone said about
loops "changing" while staying the same:  (wacky spacing not mine)

At  the  New  School  once      I  was  substituting
 for  Henry  Cowell,             teaching  a  class
 in  Oriental  music.                  I  had  told
him  I  didn't  know  anything  about  the  subject.
                 He  said,              ``That's  all
 right.                   Just  go  where  the  records
 are.                   Take  one  out.
   Play  it       and  then  discuss  it  with  the
 class.''                   Well,              I  took
 out  the  first  record.                   It  was
an  LP  of  a  Buddhist  service.                   It
 began  with  a  short  microtonal  chant  with
sliding  tones,               then  soon  settled  into
 a  single  loud  reiterated  percussive  beat.
                 This  noise  continued  relentlessly
 for  about  fifteen  minutes        with  no
perceptible  variation.                     A  lady
got  up  and  screamed,                and  then
yelled,                ``Take  it  off.
      I  can't  bear  it  any  longer.''
         I  took  it  off.                       A  man
 in   the   class   then   said   angrily,
       ``Why'd   you   take   it   off?
           I   was   just   getting    interested.''

****
Then there's this one:


In   Zen                                  they   say:

            If   something   is   boring   after   two
  minutes,
                                               try   it
 for   four.
                                                        If
  still   boring,
                                                       try
  it   for   eight,

                                                  sixteen,


                           thirty-two,


             and   so   on.



Eventually   one   discovers   that   it's   not
boring   at   all
                           but   very    interesting.



-Jesse