MUSICAGE: CAGE MUSES on Words * Art * Music

Art Is Either a Complaint or Do Something Else

Art Is Either a Complaint or Do Something Else John Cage A NOTE ON CAGE'S TEXT A substantial part of the first conversation in MUS1CA G Els devoted to John Cage's methods in composing this lecture-poem, but I'd like to make a couple of suggestions for the reader unfamiliar with his mesostic texts. (Texts structured along a string of capital letters running down their middle.) It may be helpful to think of this piece as a kind of linguistic fugue, a canonic and recombinatory interplay of three voices— that of Jasper Johns (from whose statements this text is composed), John Cage, and, of course, chance. The pleasure of the eyein reading Cage's mesostics is both vertical and horizontal. The pleasure of the ear is one of resonances perhaps most clearly revealed in reading aloud. Cage had many ways of composing mesostic poetry. Here he used chance operations to locate "meso-strings" from Jasper Johns' statements about art so that Johns' silent voice (the strings cannot be heard when the poem is read aloud and are on the edge of invisibility on the page) is the force that fragments and reconfigures his own thoughts. For instance, Cage's first variation on Johns' statements is drawn together by ADEAD MANTAKE A SKULL COVER IT WITH PAINT RUB IT AGAINST CANVAS SKULL AGAINST CANVAS. This String of letters becomes a vertical current gathering words into horizontal axes (what Cage called "wing words") by means of the mesostic rules on pp. 57and 61. Though the range of possible wing words is a function of chance, Cage chose their precise number, taking into account both breath and breadth—that is, both musical elements and possibilities for meaning. The result is a poem in which the interactions between chance and selection that are "Nature's manner of operation" are formally foregrounded. Reading this text is an exercise in letting go of preconceptions about how words should relate to one another (syntax and grammar), clearing the way to notice novel semantic sense. The poem becomes more and more densely textured, more and more musical, as each section arrives in the wake and aftermath and echo of all that went before, asvertical and horizontalaxes are in continual visual play, as the capitalized mesostic letters generate words within words. Cage devised a notation for facilitating the spoken performanceof his mesostic poetry: "A space followed by an apostrophe indicates a new breath. Syllables that would not normally be accented but should be are printed in bold type." (Introduction to I-VI [Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1990], p. 5) But he did not mean for this to constrain the readings of others. One can feel entirely free to play with the phrasing. The variable bonding of letters, words, and phrases adds more and more dimensions to each variation on the source text. There is a limitless proliferation of meanings. Think of Art Is Either a Complaint or Do Something Else as a score. Think of the reading you are about to do as an exploratory, performative act that is but one of many possible realizations. Cage's mesostics are preceded by the Johns statements on which they are based.—JR 3 These texts comefrom statements byJasper Johns, taken from Mark Rosenthal's Jasper Johns Work Since 1974 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1088), which follow. They are not about Johns' statements and because of the way they are written, other statements are produced. —JOHN CAGE, New York City, 1988 Old art offers just as good a criticism of new art as new art offers of old. I don't want my work to be an exposure of my feelings. Art is either a complaint or appeasement. The condition of a presence. The condition of being there. its own work its own its it its shape, color, weight, etc. it is not another (?) and shape is not a color (?) Aspects and movable aspects. To what degreemovable? Entities splitting. The idea of background (and background music) idea of neutrality air and the idea of air (In breathing—in and out) Satie's "Furniture Music" now serving as background for music as well as background for conversation. Puns on intentions. Take an object Do something to it Do something else to it rf ti rt it tt One thing made of another. One thing used as another. 4 W O R D S An Arrogant Object. Something...