A philosophical discourse embodying a lifetime's aesthetic explorations by infamous composer John Cage (191292). In three extended conversations just prior to the composer's death, poet Retallack quizzed Cage on his work. The result, this compendium of Cagean thought, will baffle those unversed in his unique mixture of Zen Buddhism, American pragmatism, and Utopian anarchism. Students of Cage, on the other hand, will find much here repeated from past interviews and writings. But Cage, as always, is good company, a master aphorist who has an endless supply of pithy sayings (``If in doing something you do it without regard to itself, but to hearing it, it then is music''). Cage describes his compositional method, using chance operations to move away from asserting the composer's personality over the work to a process of endless discovery (``If you work with chance operations, you're basically shiftingfrom the responsibility to choose . . . to the responsibility to ask''). It is Cage's ideal to create art that does not reflect life but is life; for this reason, he admires Mark Tobey's paintings, because they enabled him to discover art in the everyday. Like James Joyce, Cage is an endless punster, enjoying the pun because it embodies his credo of ``interpenetration and nonobstruction''; two meanings can exist in the same ``space'' without either negating the other. Finally, Cage uses art as a kind of self-therapy. His fear of performance is underscored by his description of it as ``immanent danger''; the composer fears his work will be misunderstood, while the performer fears playing it wrong. But if a composition is merely a set of possibilities, then every performance by necessity must be right; neither composer nor performer can fail. Cagey thoughts that will surely knot your brow.
Pub Date: Oct. 20, 1995
ISBN: 0-8195-5285-2
Page Count: 458
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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