The late composer and writer John Cage, who attended Pomona College from 1928 to 1930, gets a substantial treatment in the latest Los Angeles Review of Books. Marjorie Perloff’s piece considers Cage’s Silence, available in a new anniversary edition marking 50 years since its first publication. (Hat tip to laobserved.) Writes Perloff:
“In 1961, Wesleyan University Press published a set of “Lectures and Writings” by John Cage called, simply, Silence. ‘It’s the book I’ve reread most often in my life,’ writes the composer-critic Kyle Gann in his illuminating foreword to the 50th anniversary edition. I know exactly what Gann means: With each rereading, Silence seems as charming and challenging as ever, but also somehow different — not quite what we thought it was.”
More about Cage: Pomona English Professor Dick Barnes wrote about the composer as “Our Distinguished Dropout” in a 1996 issue of PCM.
