"Lascia o Raddoppia" (Milan, 1959)

It's been rumored over the years that John Cage was a contestant specializing in mushroom identification on "Lascia o Raddoppia" ("Double or Nothing"), Italy's famous quiz show hosted by Mike Bongiorno. Cage was in Milan in the late 1950s as a guest of the composer Luciano Berio, who was then working at the Studio di Fonologia, RAI's experimental studio for audio research. Sylvano Bussotti, Umberto Eco, Bruno Maderna, Roberto Leydi, Marino Zuccheri, Peggy Guggenheim, and Berio's wife, Cathy Berberian, were all close to Cage during this period. According to unconfirmed rumors, due to the tight relation of some of these individuals to RAI, Cage not only garnered a much-coveted spot on the game show as a contestant, but he may have been provided with at least some of the answers to the questions about mushrooms he would be asked en route to winning the final 5 million Lire prize.

(Photo caption: "John Cage is mostly known for his love of 'concrete' music rather than mycology. Such music makes a symphony out of bells or the sound of a train passing by. For the 'daily noises' program, John Cage constructed an orchestra consisting of a piano, two radios, a blender, a watering can, a whistle, a gong, and a kettle.")

During his five appearances on the show, Cage entertained the audience with his unusual compositions. The audience was constantly reminded that he was a composer from Stony Point, New York, and Bongiorno often made fun of his strange musical efforts. No footage has survived, although various people over the years have claimed to have seen it.

There apparently is at least an audio tape in existence, however, since the final episode's dialogue between Cage and Bongiorno has been transcribed and published. This transcription, which appeared for the first time in the October 1975 issue of Gong, an Italian music magazine of the 1970s, includes both the mushroom Q & A as well as a funny closing exchange between game show host and contestant wherein Cage is encouraged to spend more time in Italy without his music.

According to Carlo Bertocci, its contributor (whose ironic title is "The Prophet and the Puppetmaster," referring to Cage and Bongiorno, respectively), the tape was handed to him a couple of years earlier by his friend, Mario Leone. Bertocci's transcription was later reprinted in a series of essays about Cage in an Italian publication entitled "John Cage. Dopo di me il silenzio" (Emme Edizioni, December 1978), and still later in "Sonora's John Cage" (Materiali Sonori, 1993), an Italian/English collection of articles celebrating the composer that was published shortly after his death. It was most recently republished in a new collection of essays simply titled "John Cage" (Edizioni Mudima, 2009).

Click here for an English translation of this dialogue, which features the final questions about mushrooms posed to Cage that led to his winning the final 5 million Lire prize. This prize, incidentally, which amounted to roughly $8,000, was used to purchase a piano for Cage's Stony Point home as well as a Volkswagen bus for the fledgling Merce Cunningham Dance Company's use while touring the United States.

Very few photos of Cage's appearances on "Lascia o Raddoppia" have survived, including this screenshot, likely captured from the still-missing video footage:

But several new images are now available, thanks to Turin's newspaper, La Stampa, which published brief, intermittent reports about the show (with photographic illustrations) and whose archives have recently become available online.

Like this one, a slightly different shot than the one above of Cage and Bongiorno perusing Cage's Water Walk set up (from La Stampa, February 6, 1959, Issue No. 32, page 6).

And this one of Cage at the microphone, with headphones on his ears (from La Stampa, Friday, February 13, 1959, No. 38, page 4):

And yet another, this one a close-up of Cage in the sound booth (from La Stampa, Friday, February 13, 1959, No. 38, page 6).

Lastly, a little-known photo of John Cage and Peggy Guggenheim, taken in Venice (from La Stampa, Thursday, February 19, 1959, No. 43, page 6).

La Stampa's newly-available archives provide access to not only these little-known images, but to concrete evidence of Cage's appearances on "Lascia o Raddoppia": the first taking place on Thursday, January 29, 1959, continuing weekly on Thursday nights throughout February, with the final episode taking place on Thursday, February 26, 1959. Click here for English translations of chronologically-ordered excerpts from the most significant of the La Stampa articles.

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"Lascia o Raddioppia" (Milan, 1959) is the first of what I hope will be many "guest" blogs, this one the work of our remarkable Italian Cage foreign correspondent, Stefano Pocci. Thank you, Stefano, for your persistent research and a beautiful piece, and do forgive any transgressions that have occurred in the adaptation of your work for Kuhn's Blog.

Laura Kuhn

Smelling the Proverbial Roses

In the days just before Merce Cunningham died, we often just sat together, idly talking. One time, I was fidgeting with an unused wallet that was sitting on the small table between us, and, looking inside, I was surprised to find a single business card, very old and worn.

I looked up quizzically, and saw an uncharacteristically wistful expression on Merce's face. "Oh, that!" he said, taking it between his trembling fingers and smiling down at it. "I stayed there after our world tour. It was so beautiful, right on the water. I saved the card thinking that maybe I'd go back." He clumsily returned it to the wallet. "Did you?" I asked. He looked confused for a moment, then quietly replied, "Oh, no." Sadly shaking his head, he tossed the wallet onto the table. "There never seemed to be enough time."

This made me remember a conversation I once had with John Cage late in his life about regrets. Did he have any?

(Significantly, this conversation took place in the midst of a staggering amount of work being done on his Europeras 1 & 2 for the Frankfurt Oper, which almost did him in. No matter how much he delegated, Cage himself was functioning as composer, set designer, costumer, choreographer, lighting designer, director, librettist. The list goes on. And Cage in Wagner's shoes was not a natural fit.)

Just one, he allowed. It had to do with the Sarabhais in India (of Gita and Gira fame), who had once invited him to come with them on a trek into the wilds of their country, on elephants. He was sorry, he said, not to have made the time.

I shared this memory, along with the story of Merce's card, with Rob Shepperson, a lovely Hudson Valley artist, and asked if he might create an image of Cage's dream come true. He did, and I like to think it did, if on an unknown plane. As Richard Fleming says, referencing Camus (speaking of Sisyphus), one must imagine Cage happy.

Rob Shepperson ©2011

Laura Kuhn

Evil and Silence (Richard Fleming)

...Humans seem to be nothing but a walking injustice -- a featherless biped who makes mistakes. To be of passion is to yield to injustice. This is the life of the body and why some have argued for the need to be free of material existence if we are to achieve our moral ends. Surely, we should never claim to be a just person. This has never been our aim or conclusion. We have said only that we should set about to be just -- and also that such an ambition involves suffering and unhappiness. But is this distinction so important? It is what we fight for and must preserve. We know (without much effort or reflection) our disorder, the evidence of certain instincts, the graceless abandon into which we can throw ourselves. But we also know better now (because of our struggling efforts and reflections) the limits of our talk and action. We know better our possibilities. Often when we thought we were moving forward we were losing ground. Someday, when a balance is established between what we are and what we say and do, perhaps then, and we scarcely dare write it, we shall be able to construct the work of which we dream. "Shrill sound never roused me from my slumbers." Musical creation and expression are efforts that exhibit the silent threaded order of word and world and allow the meaningful possibility of a life that can be called good. Music can quiet and sober desperate lives. One must imagine Cage happy.

Richard Fleming, from "Second Book: Ordinary Silence," in Evil and Silence (Paradigm Publishers, 2010)

Laura Kuhn

John Cage & Electronic Publishing

"We can't be satisfied with distribution now because it won't be very good. For instance, my book (Silence), published in the United States, is very difficult to get outside the United States, and that won't be solved, because all of the publishing problems of books, and objects, and things in quantity are still those of the previous culture. Yet with the number of people who work now -- the number of composers, the number of authors, and so on -- has vastly increased over the 19th century; but the number of publishers has not increased. The result is that you have traffic problems, so you have the kind of problems that all large cities encounter with automobile traffic. And I hear, where I go now, that in the future we may expect that private traffic in large cities will be forbidden. It may then equally be forbidden to produce a book that would require people to distribute it, but it will not be forbidden, certainly, to send information by electronic media throughout the world." (John Cage, 1965)

John Cage is ever presaging, but, to date, electronic publications of his writings are scant. Kindle (my e-reader of choice) offers only three: Ken Silverman's Begin Again: An Autobiography of John Cage (Knopf, 2010), Kyle Gann's No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33" (Yale University Press, 2010), and Richard Kostelanetz's Conversing With Cage (Limelight Editions, 1988).* Apple's iBooks (and wouldn't Cage's mesostics positively shine on an iPad) offers nothing at all.

As the three Cage e-books go, it's not a bad line-up: a detailed biography, a comprehensive look at Cage's most infamous (and arguably most guiding) composition, and a compilation of conversational engagements (this last, happily, with an index). But, things are going to change. Wesleyan University Press, Cage's stalwart principal publisher for now 50 years, is hard at work with renderings of their entire Cage catalog into electronic form. But, here as elsewhere in the workaday world, Cage poses challenges: Cage's texts are anything but e-reader friendly, so publication (launch) dates are still uncertain. And while I'm at it, let me reveal (a bit ahead of the game) that Wesleyan University Press is busily preparing a 50th anniversary hardcover edition of Cage's maverick Silence (1961), with a beautiful foreword by none other than Kyle Gann.

*The Kindle Store also offers Kostelanetz's Preambles to the New (2009), comprised entirely of prefaces created for previous books. Collectively they span more than four decades (1963-2010), and are grouped

together chronologically under headings that suggest the direction each takes: "Criticism", "Literature", "Artists & Composers", "Politics", etc. There's a new "preamble" by Kostelanetz, and a new introduction, entitled "Master Kosti," contributed by John Rocco. This work is nothing short of masterful recycling, and an elevation of the foreword to dizzying heights. Richard Kostelanetz is an accomplished writer, and prolific to boot; Cage's personal library houses some 14 of his tomes, while the John Cage Trust's print archive includes nearly two dozen. My personal favorites, in addition to the Cage-infused works, are Esthetics Contemporary (Prometheus Books, 1978), Text-Sound-Texts (William Morrow & Co., 1980), and The Theatre of Mixed Means (Dial Press, 1968), all long out of print. A few of his writings are also available for online reading at questia.com, a division of Gale, Cengage Learning.

Laura Kuhn

Cage Against the Machine

http://www.facebook.com/cageagainstthemachine

But let's start at the beginning.

The X Factor is a TV talent show franchise originating in the UK (2004) as a replacement for Pop Idol. It is a singing competition that pits contestants -- aspiring pop singers drawn from public auditions -- against each other. The programs are produced by British music executive, TV producer, and entrepreneur Simon Cowell and his company Syco TV, a subsidiary of his TV production and music publishing house Syco. The "X Factor" of the title refers to that certain, indefinable "something" that makes for star quality. The prize is public adulation and, usually, a recording contact.

A predictable fact in the UK, at least until quite recently, is that whoever wins The X Factor will assuredly release their winning song on a debut single that will go straight to No. 1 on the UK charts in time for Christmas. So when Joe McElderry won The X Factor in 2009 with the December 12 release of his terribly earnest ballad, "The Climb," he was confident he'd be celebrating the holidays in very celebrated style.

Ah, but it was not to be so. The 18-year old from South Shields was ousted by the California rock band Rage Against the Machine, and specifically for their re-release of the 1992 song, "Killing In The Name" (with the endearing iconic refrain, "Fuck you! I won't do what you tell me"). The upset was the result of a rather lofty Facebook campaign spearheaded by one Jon Morter, a 35-year old rock fan, part-time DJ, and logistics expert from Essex.

Morter had made a similar attempt in 2008 when he campaigned for Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" against The X Factor starlet of that year, Alexandra Burke, and her song, "Hallelujah." He was not successful.

Unfazed, Morter decided to try again in 2009 with a campaign on behalf of Rage Against the Machine. But this time around he got a little help: On December 15, the comedian Peter Serafinowicz urged his 268,000+ Twitter followers to join in, and by the time Paul McCartney and former X Factor winner Steve Brookstein pledged their support, McElderry was already doomed.

Rage Against the Machine won the battle for Christmas top spot on the basis of +/- 500,000 downloads (a mere +/- 50,000 more than the runner-up). A pleasurable twist to the story was that Rage Against the Machine had gone in pledging that, should they win, 100% of the profits from their download would be given over to charities: specifically to the housing and homelessness organization Shelter, and Youth Music, the UK's largest children's music charity. True to their word, on June 6, 2010, Rage Against the Machine gave a concert in London's Finsbury Park to celebrate their success. During the set, which was attended by some 40,000 fans, the band presented the charities with a check for nearly $300,000.

Two months later, on August 12, 2010, a short piece by one Alun Palmer appeared in the Daily Mirror with the following headline: "Silence Isn't Golden for Simon Cowell and X Factor in Christmas No. Battle," wherein it was reported that a host of musicians would be gathering together to record experimental composer John Cage's classic work 4'33" as a viable contender against whomever (and whatever) Simon Cowell would ultimately throw into the 2010 ring.

"Cage Against the Machine" was started by the London-based artist Dave Hilliard in the summer of 2010 as a grassroots Facebook campaign to get Cage's 4'33" to No. 1 on the UK charts this Christmas. For him it may have simply been an amusement, or a petty war lodged against the tyranny of Simon Cowell, but, to date, it's garnered some 73,000 fans, infused over the past several months by the attention of Eddy Temple-Morris (Xfm presenter and CMU columnist), Joe Hutchinson (Ou Est Le Swimming Pool), and Mark Jones (Wall of Sound). Should 4'33" take the No. 1 spot, proceeds will again go to charities, this time five:

1. The British Tinnitus Association (BTA)

2. Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)

3. Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy

4. Youth Music

5. Sound and Music

Interesting stuff, no?

But The X Factor may not be Cage's only contender, or, from another point of view, Cage may not be a contender at all. Since the power of an energetic grassroots Facebook campaign is obviously some measure, we might want to keep an eye on The Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird," that ubiquitous little ditty recorded in 1964 by the Minnesota-based surf rock band known as The Trashmen, which reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Facebook campaign on behalf of The Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird" has attracted, to date, an astonishing 600,000+ fans.

"Surfin' Bird" is actually a combination of two contemporary R & B hits by The Rivingtons: "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" and "The Bird's the Word." The earliest pressings of the single credit The Trashmen as composers, but with the threat of a lawsuit by The Rivington's legal counsel, the credit was changed to reflect the song's true origins.

Such shady beginnings matter very little, of course, and the song went on to be covered by an astonishing array of musicians over the years, including (but not limited to) The Deviants, The Ramones, The Cramps, The Boppers, Silverchair, Equipe, Sodom, The Hep Stars, The Iguanas, The Studio Sound Ensemble, Sha Na Na, The Psycho Surfers, The Queers, The Wipe Outs, and even Pee-Wee Herman. It's also sustained itself in the culture via television and film, with repeated references in Family Guy -- "I Dream of Jesus," "Big Man on Hippocampus" (launching the song to #8 on the iTunes Top 10 Rock Songs chart and #50 on the UK Singles Chart in 2009), "April in Quahog," and "Welcome Back, Carter" -- and in a single episode of the beloved Spongebob Squarepants -- "I Love Dancing." It's at work in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket as well as in John Waters' Pink Flamingo, and it's a soundtrack option in the popular video game Battlefield Vietnam.

But back to John Cage.

Last Monday the recording of 4'33" finally happened, with a Who's Who-worthy line-up of largely Indie artists packed into Studio One of London's legendary Dean Street Studios in London.

The latest tally (drawn from conflicting reports) includes Adam F., Aeroplane, Alexander Wolfe, Alice Russell, Anne Pigalle, Barry Ashworth, Billy Bragg, Big Pink, Bishi, Bo Ningen, Chas Smash, Coldcut, Crystal Fighters, Dan Le Sac, Does It Offend You Yeah?, Dub Pistols, Enter Shikari, Fenech Soler, Fyfe Dangerfield, Gallows, Guillemots, Heaven 17, Imogen Heap, Infadels, Japanese Popsters, Jarra York, John Foxx, John McLure, Kilford the Music Painter, Kooks, Loose Cannons, Man Like Me, Rix Mc, Monarchy, Mr. Hudson, Napolean IIIrd, Olly Wride Orbital, Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, Penguin Prison, Scroobius Pip, South Central, Suggs, Teeth!!!, Tom Alison, Tom Milsom, Unkle, Venus in Furs, Whitey...

The producers were Paul Epworth (Friendly Fires/Florence & The Machine), Clive Langer (Madness's producer), and Charlie Rapino (That That, Kylie Minogue). The event was also apparently filmed for a documentary and promo release by music film legend Dick Curruthers (Oasis, Manics, Rolling Stones).

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The press has been relentless. Check out this, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this (which, curiously, also finally reveals what really happened between Cage & Batt...), and then search anew tomorrow morning over coffee. As different as Cage's 4'33" is from whatever song emerges as victorious from The X Factor this weekend, it can't possibly be any more different than The Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird." Come what may (and be careful what you wish for), it's been pretty amazing to watch so many imaginations captured by Cage's work. What a world.

Laura Kuhn

John Cage, "How to Get Started" (1989- )

Slought Foundation and the John Cage Trust have joined forces to present How to Get Started, a unique and permanent interactive installation featuring a rarely heard performance by John Cage.

John Cage's first and only performance of How to Get Started in 1989 was conceived of almost as an afterthought--a performance substituting for another that had been previously planned. In the performance, delivered at a sound design conference in Nicasio, California, Cage talks about the difficulty of initiating the creative process, and about improvisation, a subject about which he had long been deeply ambivalent. He proposes a collaborative framework in which sound engineers capture and subsequently layer his extemporized monologue, which consisted of ten brief commentaries on topics then of interest. This amounted to an experiment having to do with thinking in public before a live audience.

Twenty years after the initial performance, the John Cage Trust and Slought Foundation have created an interactive installation enabling the public to participate in its further life at Slought Foundation by adding their voice to the mix. The John Cage Trust turned to Slought Foundation for this collaboration in part because its range of projects has often referenced Cage and those he worked with or influenced during his long career. It is our joint intent that this installation will allow Slought Foundation to become a node of activity for artists, scholars, and others interested in Cage's life and work and ideas.

The project's website will become an evolving digital repository and archive for the recordings generated at Slought Foundation by invited artists and others.

For more information: http://howtogetstarted.org


What You Can Do

1. familiarize yourself with Cage's realization by visiting the website, attending the exhibition, or purchasing the project publication
2. get out ten index cards and write down ten topics of interest
3. practice extemporizing on each topic, in random order
4. notice that Cage never spoke for more than three minutes on a single topic
5. visit Slought Foundation and schedule a session


Curated by Laura Kuhn, Director of the John Cage Trust, Aaron Levy, Executive Director of Slought Foundation, and Arthur Sabatini, professor of Performance Studies at Arizona State University. Exhibition design by Ken Saylor, sound design by Peter Price, and exhibition graphics by Project Projects. Engineering of John Cage's recording by Chris Andersen, Nevessa Production. Photograph of John Cage by Loren Robare.

This program is made possible in part through the generous support of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative. Support has also been provided by the Samuel S. Fels Fund, the John Cage Trust, and the Society of Friends of the Slought Foundation.

Two Words

Sister Mary Katherine entered the Monastery of Silence.

The Priest said, 'Sister, this is a silent monastery. You are welcome here as long as you like, but you may not speak until directed to do so.'

Sister Mary Katherine lived in the monastery for 5 years before the Priest said to her, 'Sister Mary Katherine, you have been here for 5 years. You may speak two words.'

Sister Mary Katherine said, 'Hard bed.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' the Priest said. 'We will get you a better bed.'

After another 5 years, Sister Mary Katherine was summoned by the Priest. 'You may say another two words, Sister Mary Katherine.'

'Cold food,' said Sister Mary Katherine, and the Priest assured her that the food would be better in the future.

On her 15th anniversary at the monastery, the Priest again called Sister Mary Katherine into his office. 'You may say two words today.'

'I quit,' said Sister Mary Katherine.

'It's probably for the best,' said the Priest. 'You've done nothing but bitch ever since you got here.'

Laura Kuhn