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MUSICAGE

Name: MUSICAGE
Author: John Cage
ISBN: 0-8195-5285-2

CAGE MUSES ON WORDSARTMUSIC

by John Cage with Joan Retallack ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 20, 1995

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A philosophical discourse embodying a lifetime's aesthetic explorations by infamous composer John Cage (191292). In three extended conversations just prior to the composer's death, poet Retallack quizzed Cage on his work. The result, this compendium of Cagean thought, will baffle those unversed in his unique mixture of Zen Buddhism, American pragmatism, and Utopian anarchism. Students of Cage, on the other hand, will find much here repeated from past interviews and writings. But Cage, as always, is good company, a master aphorist who has an endless supply of pithy sayings (``If in doing something you do it without regard to itself, but to hearing it, it then is music''). Cage describes his compositional method, using chance operations to move away from asserting the composer's personality over the work to a process of endless discovery (``If you work with chance operations, you're basically shiftingfrom the responsibility to choose . . . to the responsibility to ask''). It is Cage's ideal to create art that does not reflect life but is life; for this reason, he admires Mark Tobey's paintings, because they enabled him to discover art in the everyday. Like James Joyce, Cage is an endless punster, enjoying the pun because it embodies his credo of ``interpenetration and nonobstruction''; two meanings can exist in the same ``space'' without either negating the other. Finally, Cage uses art as a kind of self-therapy. His fear of performance is underscored by his description of it as ``immanent danger''; the composer fears his work will be misunderstood, while the performer fears playing it wrong. But if a composition is merely a set of possibilities, then every performance by necessity must be right; neither composer nor performer can fail. Cagey thoughts that will surely knot your brow.

Pub Date: Oct. 20, 1995

ISBN: 0-8195-5285-2

Page Count: 458

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
MUD BOOK
by John Cage ; illustrated by Lois Long

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.