Re: Re: Re: Re: Perloff on Cage/Cunningham

Oh sure. Reaktion's books are distributed by Univ. of Chicago press and you
can buy all the titles on Amazon. I'll send the Amazon link when I have it.
R

On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 7:32 PM, Joseph Zitt <[email protected]> wrote:

> Rob, is your book available to readers in the US?
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 3:27 PM, Rob Haskins <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>> Hi Stefano,
>> Thanks for your comments. I should hasten to add that I think Cage is full
>> of paradoxes! it's just that the paradox that you mention, and that many
>> mention, is probably not one of them.
>>
>> My dissertation was finished in 2004 and I recently published it (with a
>> revised bibliography and much better layout) in VDM Verlag as *Anarchic
>> Societies of Sounds: The Number Pieces of John Cage*. I also address some
>> of these points (more modestly) in my book *John Cage*, part of Reaktion
>> Books's Critical Lives series, which will be published in the spring or
>> summer of 2012.
>>
>> The use of the term "symbolic investiture" in Julia Robinson's essay is
>> right on the money, I think. I might assign a portion of that essay to my
>> students in the Cage seminar I'm teaching in the spring. Don't miss Branden
>> Joseph's essay (in the same collection), which I think is really fine.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Rob
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 2:40 PM, Stefano Pocci <[email protected]>wrote:
>>
>>> **
>>> On 06/19/2011 05:30 PM, Rob Haskins wrote:
>>>
>>>  I'm also coming late to this discussion, and I haven't read Perloff's
>>> article thoroughly myself--but one remark Stefano makes struck a chord with
>>> me and I thought I'd address it  briefly. I might have more to say about
>>> Perloff's article later.
>>>
>>> Stefano writes,
>>>
>>>
>>>  What's interesting about that piece is its theme, the "constructed
>>>> anarchy" issue. I might sound a bit naive on this but one of the things that
>>>> keeps me hooked on Cage's works and writings is the apparent paradox of the
>>>> rules he followed to practice anarchy.
>>>
>>>
>>>  I studied Cage's interest in anarchism in my dissertation, and haven't
>>> yet written up the results in a proper article, but I hope to do this.
>>> Briefly, anarchism for Cage does not, I think, mean a state of total chaos,
>>> but rather a political affiliation in which the individuals involved
>>> mutually work out how they will live together in an action of continual
>>> negotiation and renegotiation. There  is, then, no paradox between rules
>>> rigorously followed and a resulting constructed anarchism. What Cage aimed
>>> to do in his music was to allow all the instruments and voices (the sounds)
>>> the opportunity to seem equally important, and (for the audience) the
>>> possibility that all those various sounds could be heard in a multiplicity
>>> of ways. Cage's music is indeed a model of anarchistic communities, and the
>>> act of listening to them a kind of participation within those communities.
>>> (Joan Retallack makes this point brilliantly in, I think, "Poethics of a
>>> Complex Realism.")
>>> To this I would add that Cage's discipline and rigor relate not so much
>>> to his anarchistic beliefs as they do to his peculiar appropriation of Zen
>>> principles into his work. I believe it's very difficult (and probably
>>> unproductive) to try completely to disentangle the various strands that make
>>> up his aesthetic practice but rather, to maintain a more synthetic approach
>>> when thinking critically about his ideas. (As indeed Cage himself did in his
>>> vast appropriations of disparate thinkers.)
>>>
>>>
>>>  All best,
>>>
>>> Rob
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks for your very informative reply Rob. I haven't thought of anarchy
>>> the way you put it (as you say Cage actually put it:-). If so, then there's
>>> no need to speak of a "paradox" since my use of that word descends from the
>>> usual notion of anarchy that is "total chaos", more or less. Cage implied
>>> the use of smartness for his anarchic world, something that man wasn't
>>> possessing at all, like he used to say.
>>>
>>> Your words also reminded me of the creativeness left to the audience
>>> which is a real peer of the executor (as well as of the composer) in his
>>> music, if we could only open our ears! That is the anarchy is was aiming to
>>> I suspect. Of course his rigidness could be related to his embrace of the
>>> Zen principles but I cannot go much further than agreeing with you as I
>>> haven't vetted this aspect too deeply yet.
>>>
>>> One more thing though. While reading Julia Robinson's extended essay in
>>> "The Anarchy of Silence" catalog, a very crucial point is made. She calls it
>>> "symbolic investiture" which, if I got it right, consists in the way Cage
>>> absorbed and made his own use of other thinkers' opinions and theories. Cage
>>> might be the very first one to creatively appropriate of someone else's
>>> work, not just a mere quoting process.
>>>
>>> That said, it would be nice to read your dissertation on Cage's anarchy
>>> whenever you write it.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Stefano
>>>
>>> "When we separate music from
>>>  life what we get is art
>>>  (a compendium of masterpieces)" - John Cage
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Rob Haskins, Ph.D.
>> Associate Professor and
>>      Coordinator, Graduate Studies
>> Department of Music, College of Liberal Arts
>> University of New Hampshire
>> M-105, Paul Creative Arts Center
>> 30 Academic Way
>> Durham, NH 03824
>> 603-862-3987 (office)
>> 603-862-3155 (fax)
>> <http://unh.edu/music/>
>> <http://robhaskins.net>
>> <http://musicandmiscellaneous.blogspot.com/>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Joseph Zitt ::http://www.josephzitt.com
>



-- 
Rob Haskins, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and
     Coordinator, Graduate Studies
Department of Music, College of Liberal Arts
University of New Hampshire
M-105, Paul Creative Arts Center
30 Academic Way
Durham, NH 03824
603-862-3987 (office)
603-862-3155 (fax)
<http://unh.edu/music/>
<http://robhaskins.net>
<http://musicandmiscellaneous.blogspot.com/>