Rare Books
Here after too long an interval (six years since the appearance of 'M') is the new John Cage. And here too (three times six years, or near it, since 'Silence' came out) is the old John Cage as well. Which is to say: If you've read John Cage before, you're aware of some of his concerns: the nature and future of music; the ways of dancers (and their appetites); the concept of the world as Megalopolis set in global park; the ancient ides of Eastern civilizations (India, Japan) as they reverberate in seminal Western minds (Thoreau, Fuller, Brown); the several magics that reside in the art of the painter, in mushrooms and their habitats, in the clashes and harmonies of words whether arranged by change or by intent. All of these, in one fashion or another, are here in 'Empty Words'; none of them, however, quite as you have seen them before. Yes, of course, there are mesotics: some of them written by the author, more of them found by him (believe it or not) 'Finnegans Wake' by James Joyce. There are anecdotes, there are epigrams, there are even (something new for Mr. Cage) caustic analyses/criticisms of the world's political-economic situation and leadership. There are also drawings, borrowed from those made by Henry David Thoreau to illustrate his 'Journal' of 1837-1862. The section of this book in which they appear--derived at several removes from the same source--is called (like the whole volume) 'Empty Words.' Empty words? In this book, as in so much of everyday life, emptiness and beauty are in the mind/eye of you who experience them. These words lie open on the page for your consideration--each with its meaning(s) as defined by dictionaries; each also with overtones of sense and emotion derived in some measure from the given context, in some measure from its resonance when spoken aloud. Try reading, for example, the series re Morris Graves, first silently, then as a vocal exercise. You'll find it, like all of his books--like all of John Cage's writing--fresh, thought-provoking, fully of beauty and challenge"--From dust jacket.
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