Album US on UbuWeb label
Spoken Word (Spoken Word, Poetry)
From release notes: Lectures delivered at Harvard in 1988-89 as the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, they were more like performances, as the audience heard them. Cage calls them "mesostics," a literary form generated by chance (in this case computerized I-Ching chance) operations. Using the computer as an oracle in conjunction with a large source text, he happens upon ideas, which produce more ideas. Chance, and not Cage, makes the choices and central decisions. Such a form is rooted, Cage tells us in his introduction, in the belief that "all answers answer all questions." There are sound files of Cage reading a mesostic (IV), allowing the listener to experience it as it was delivered, and with a lively selection from the question-and-answer seminars that conveys the flavor of the event.
John Cage voc, 1912-1992 US written by, voice, album by |
John Cage |
No | Title | Artist | Composer | Duration |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Mesostic I-VI Part 1 | John Cage | 34:09 | |
2 | Mesostic I-VI Part 2 | John Cage | 26:42 | |
3 | Q & A, Part 1 | John Cage | 30:06 | |
4 | Q & A, Part 2 | John Cage | 32:32 |