John Cage Indeterminacy

Read the stories John Cage tells in Indeterminacy. Go on, you’ll enjoy them. And the Smithsonian Folkways recording accompanied by David Tudor is great great great: The idea behind Indeterminacy was, like many Cagean ideas, essentially simple and audaciously original. Cage read 90 stories, his speed determined by the story’s length. In another room, beyond [...]

Sings About Not Remembering

My brother Jack just emailed me this: A Native American elder was asked to sing the old hunting songs for a documentary. But he doesn’t remember the words and instead sings about not remembering the words and about being filmed. He says he got it from an LA Times about ten years ago. I couldn’t [...]

Croatian Advertising Leaflet

A funny bit from a Croatian tourist leaflet in a Jon Carroll column from 1999: IN OTHER NEWS: Reader Bill Coffin shared with me a lovely advertising leaflet from Croatia. It began with a quote from Alain Dover, a person known neither to Coffin nor me: “During the day, into an incomparable marine scenery, which [...]