Voice of John Cage (1912-1992)
Excerpt from his performance of ‘Empty Words’ (1974) 
Recorded at the Subtropics Music Festival in Miami, Florida in April 1991

Vocal guest appearance by Kim Gordon
Excerpt from a video interview for Huck Magazine (2017)

“John Cage's Empty Words (1974) is a marathon text drawn from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau. This is one of Cage’s most sustained and elaborate moves toward the “demilitarization” of language, in four parts: Part I omits sentences, Part II omits phrases, and Part III omits words. Part IV, which omits syllables, leaves us nothing but a virtual lullaby of letters and sounds.”

Source: The John Cage Trust 
https://johncage.org

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I went to see John Cage when I was ten

It puzzled me
It kept me up at night
I got a fever

Couldn’t stop thinking about it, though

It’s just something that always gnawed at me, like
Why was everything so spread out?
Why was the sound all spread out?

How did he get all these people to keep quiet and listen to him?

It kept me up at night
I got a fever

Kim Gordon

empty words etc.

https://precariouspropositions.wordpress.com/

empty words etc.

precarious propositions