For the first time ever, all eight parts of Cage's Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse) will soon be available in a beautiful collected edition from Siglio Press, coedited by Joe Biel and Richard Kraft. Composed over the course of sixteen years, Cage's Diary is both prescient and personal, a 16-year repository of observations, anecdotes, proclivities, obsessions, and stories that traverse territory ranging from the domestic minutiae of everyday life to ideas about how to feed the world.Cage typed his entries on an IBM Selectric, using chance to determine word count, typeface, number of letters per line, patterns of indentation, and (in the case of Part Three, published as a Great Bear Pamphlet by Something Else Press) color. In Siglio's hands the unusual visual variances on the page become almost musical as language takes on a physical and aural presence.
Siglio is an independent press in Los Angeles dedicated to publishing uncommon books that live at the intersection of art and literature. Their publications are cross-disciplinary, hybrid works that subvert paradigms, defy categorization, and reveal unexpected connections. Siglio believes that challenging work can be immensely appealing, and that books are as much a pleasure to touch and hold as they are to read. In every sense, John Cage's Diary finds itself perfectly at home.
To pre-order, click here.
Laura Kuhn
P.S. And in case anyone is wondering, there's an incomplete Part Nine, held in its original within the text manuscript collection at the John Cage Trust. Here's a particularly fun little sneak peak:
