Reading Blog #2

After reading “An Interview with John Cage” I became intrigued by the way that he thinks about very ordinary things. When he mentioned how the sound of the horn player emptying his spit out of his horn engages his attention more than the music itself, it confused my brain a little. I consider myself to be a melomaniac (a phrase used to describe someone who has an intense love for music), and I have never thought about the organic sounds that come from a live performance. Cage then describes the seating arrangements he had at his Black Mountain performance; it was designed as a square separated into four triangles with the apexes of the triangles merging towards the center. After reading his description I was in awe, I noticed that he intensely observes the unnoticed “flaws” of everyday life. It could be his philological knowledge guiding him, but I get the sense that Cage disassociates himself from preconceived notions and instead looks at the reality of the performance for what it is. For example, when he is amongst an audience for a live performance, he is using all his senses to observe all of the sounds, all of the lights/colors, all the smells, etc., even the “unintentional” ones (like the horn player emptying his spit from the horn). All of the “unintentional” events are crucial parts of a performance for Cage, he seems to admire the events taken place in the “non-performance” than the performance. I really enjoyed reading his interview on Cage, I think it’s a beneficial reading for beginner artists. Now in the future, I will most definitely practice Cage’s unique thinking in my day to day life in attempts to give my brain a “work out”.