Silence
Silence, A Year from Monday, M, Empty Words and X (in this order) form the five parts of a series of books in which Cage tries, as he says, "to find a way of writing which comes from ideas, is not about them, but which produces them." Often these writings include mesostics and essays created by subjecting the work of other writers to chance procedures using the I Ching (what Cage called "writing through").
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- My favorite Eno essay, which also touches on similar themes, is "Composers as Gardeners".[1]
In the "Generative Music" essay, Eno mentions being influence John Cage. For a closer look at his thought, I highly recommend his book "Silence".[2]
[1] - https://www.edge.org/conversation/brian_eno-composers-as-gar...
[2] - https://www.amazon.com/Silence-Lectures-Writings-50th-Annive...
- "Silence" by John Cage. Before it, I thought of Zen as an abstraction; after reading it, I saw how it could be (and ought to be) a way of life.
- His book "Silence" is also really worth reading to understand his philosophy.
https://www.amazon.com/Silence-John-Cage/dp/0714510432/ref=s...
- Silence, John Cage
Man Against Myth, Barrows Dunham
The Elements Of Style, Strunk & White (4th ed.)
Telling Writing, Macrorie
The Zen Teaching Of Huang Po
The Pocket Pema Chödrön
Why I Write, George Orwell
Others come and go from time to time, but those stay.
- by author:
Beano (comic, ’50s)
Private Eye (satirical magazine, ’60s – ’80s)
Raw (comic, ’80s)
Viz (comic, early ’80s)
Paris Review, The - Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews edited by Malcolm Cowley
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Braine, John - Room At The Top
Broyard, Anatole - Kafka Was The Rage
Bulgakov, Mikhail - Master And Margarita, The
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward - Zanoni
Burgess, Anthony - A Clockwork Orange
Burgess, Anthony - Earthly Powers
Cage, John - Silence: Lectures And Writing
Camus, Albert - Stranger, The
Capote, Truman - In Cold Blood
Carter, Angela - Nights At The Circus
Chabon, Michael - Wonder Boys
Chatwin, Bruce - Songlines, The
Cohn, Nik - Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock
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Crane, Hart - Bridge, The
Danto, Arthur C. - Beyond The Brillo Box
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Dos Passos, John - 42nd Parallel, The
Edwards, Frank - Strange People
Elliot, T.S. - Waste Land, The
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Figes, Orlando - A People’s Tragedy
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - Great Gatsby, The
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Friedrich, Otto - Before The Deluge
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Milligan, Spike - Puckoon
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Norris, Frank - McTeague
O’Hara, Frank - Selected Poems
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Stoppard, Tom - Coast Of Utopia, The
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Toole, John Kennedy - A Confederacy Of Dunces
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Wright, Richard - Black Boy
Yokoo, Tadanori - Tadanori Yokoo
Zinn, Howard - A People’s History Of The United States
- This reminds me of a story from John Cage’s “Silence”[1]
Sometime in the 60s or 70s Krishnamurti came to the US and gave some lectures. Cage was at one of these. Krishnamurti started the lecture saying something along the lines of “Please don’t take notes. Just listen, and take away whatever you take away. Anything you forget didn’t matter to you anyway.”.
The woman next to John Cage was writing notes and the person on the other side of her turned to her and said “What did he just say? I couldn’t hear.”
To which the woman replied “He said not to take notes. See? I have it written here in my notes.”
[1] Which is a really cool book btw.
