Diary John Cage

Notes on Diary
John Cage: "I began the Diary optimistically in 1965 to celebrate the work of R.
Buckmister Fuller, his concern for human needs and world resources, his
comprehensive scientific designs for making life on earth an unequivocal success,
his insistence that problem solving be continuously regenerative.
This text was written for publication by Clark Coolidge in his magazine Joglars,
Providence, R.I. (Vol. 1, No. 3, 1966). It is a mosaic of ideas, statements, words
and stories. It's also a diary. For each day, I determined by chance operations how
many parts of the mosaic I would write and how many words there would be in each.
The number of words per day was to equal, or, by the last statement written, to
exceed one hundred words.
Since Coolidge's magazine was printed by photo-offset typescripts, I used an IBM

Selectric typewriter to print my text. I used twelve different faces, letting
chance operations, determine which face would be used for which statement. So, too,
the left marginations were determined, the right marginations being the result of
not hyphenating words and at the same time keeping the number of character per line
forty-three or less. The present typography follows the chance-determined plan."
On the occasion of John Cage's 75th birthday, West German Radio in Cologne
presented a 24-hour tribute to him under the title NightCageDay. This non-stop
radio program with John Cage was a thoroughly-composed representation in sound of
his musical and literary oeuvre oriented to Zen Buddhism. On this occasion the
first part of his Diary was also presented as a stereophonic performance. For the
recording in the WDR studios in Cologne on July 18th, 1986, Cage had acoustically
represented the randomly and continually varying typography by means of two
parameters, each one corresponding to a change in typography: by means of a
technical change of volume and of the stereophonic position of the voice. Each of
these changes was determined by a random process brought about with the help of the
old Chinese oracle book I-Ching. John Cage was so pleased with the result, which
was characterized by its multitudinous perspectives and its transparency, that he
agreed to a later recording of the whole Diary This took place five years later,
from June 22nd to 24th in 1991, which led to this recording on Wergo.
The recording is based on the former technical procedure: Each change of typography
in the printed text corresponded to a change in the stereophonic position and a
simultaneous change in the volume of the voice. Nine stereophonic positions and
seven levels of volume were available to be determined at random.
After the recordings were made, Klaus Sch�nin asked the 78-year-old John Cage how
the texts of his Diary, which he began to write decades ago, strike him today.
"I think they deal with a problem that still strikes me as being worth thinking
about, that is: How are we to determine our behavior in society as it now is?
We are living in the world of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake: Here comes everyone.
And I believe the number of people living in 1949 has doubled and in '49 it was as
many people living all at once on the planet as had ever lived in history on it.
And it is now in the process of doubling again, so that we are coming toward four
times as many people as ever lived on the planet before 1950 and we don't know how
to behave. And I think that these texts--not all, but some of them--suggest a way
to behave, or a way to think what the values are. In each one of our lives, our
attitude--if we are conscientious--change.
I know my attitude toward music has included many changes and I have the feeling
that the recent music I am writing, I enjoy listening to it more than I do to my
earlier work. So that there has been from my point of view, well I fell that I am
closer to music than I ever was.
I have many things to work on now. I am fortunate in my life, I think. Not only to
have so much music to write that is requested by other people, but now also much
graphic work, and I am busy, as you know, finding food to cook macrobiotically.
That was one of the things that was going to go into the Diary that didn't get in:
That praise of macrobiotics. And acupuncture. And now as far as medicine goes, I am
devoted to Chinese herbs. If I did continue the Diary, the next part--the ninth
part--would certainly be about acupuncture and Chinese herbs and the laying on of
hands.
It is curious that there is no mention of the plague that we now have of AIDS which
engrosses so many people's thoughts and feelings, brings about so much death. But
death becomes a very large part of one's life as one grows older. Not because of
your own death, but because of the death of so many people you have know####your
life.
To continue the Diary?
We'll see what happens. I would like to mention nano technology, the development of
molecular technology, technology without pollution. Very small computerized robots
freeing us from our own work, from ourselves. The trouble is my life involves, as
it always has, no free time.
I don't have a minute." (Laughter)
The first part of the Diary closes with the words: Long Life.

Diary John Cage

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Notes on Diary

Since Coolidge's magazine was printed by photo-offset typescripts, I used an IBM

To continue the Diary?

I don't have a minute." (Laughter)

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