Listen to This (48 page)

246
“create a community, almost utopian”
: Rudolf Serkin interviewed on the
Bell Telephone Hour,
1967, as quoted in notes to the Music from Marlboro recording of Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet (Columbia MS 7067, LP).

251
“It’s all wrong”
: Stephen Lehmann and Marion Faber,
Rudolf Serkin
:
A Life
(Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 17.

252
“covering everything and just getting the notes”:
Karen Campbell, “Republic of Equals,”
Symphony,
May–June 2000, p. 18.

265
“There’s no such thing”
: Richard Kostelanetz,
Conversing with Cage,
2nd ed. (Routledge, 2003), p. 65.

265
“Good people of Woodstock”:
David Revill,
The Roaring Silence
—
John Cage
:
A Life
(Arcade, 1992), p. 166.

265
“Now, Earle”:
Kyle Gann,
No Such Thing as Silence
:
John Cage’s
4’33” (Yale University Press, 2010), p. 191.

266
“an act of
framing”: Ibid., p. 11.

266
“let sounds be just sounds”
: John Cage,
Silence
:
Lectures and Writings by John Cage
(Wesleyan University Press, 1973), p. 70.

266
“It begged for a new approach”:
Gann,
No Such Thing as Silence,
p. 11.

266
“Art is a sort of experimental station”
:
Cage, Silence,
p. 139.

266
“absolutely ridiculous”
: Gann,
No Such Thing as Silence,
p. 15.

267
“John Cage was the first composer”
:
Morton Feldman Says
:
Selected Interviews and Lectures, 1964–1987,
ed. Chris Villars (Hyphen, 2006), p. 183.

267
“John, I dearly love you”
: Cage,
Silence,
p. ix.

267
“Noted for
: being
radical”
: Thomas S. Hines, “‘Then Not Yet “Cage” ’: The Los Angeles Years, 1912—1938,”
in John Cage: Composed in America,
ed. Marjorie Perloff and Charles Junkerman (University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 78.

268
“Much of our of boredom”
: John Cage,
I—VI
(Wesleyan University Press, 1997), p. 9.

268
“not much different from not being”
: Kostelanetz,
Conversing with Cage,
p. 280.

268
“He was open, frank”
: Carolyn Brown,
Chance and Circumstance
:
Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham
(Random House, 2007), p. 81.

268
“Don’t you ever parrot”:
Ibid., p. 104.

268
“cheerful existentialist”: John Cage: An Anthology,
ed. Richard Kostelanetz (Da Capo, 1991), p. 146.

269
“One of the greatest blessings”
: Ibid., p. 48.

269
“People would lie in wait”
: Hines, “‘Then Not Yet “Cage,”’” p. 74.

269
Cage seems to have been the only American pupil
: “String Quartet Plays at Composer’s Party,”
Los Angeles Times,
Jan. 6, 1937.

270
“I believe that the use of noise”:
Cage,
Silence,
pp. 3—4.

270
“I decided to use only quiet sounds”
: Ibid., p. 117.

270
“to sober and quiet the mind”
: James Pritchett,
The Music of John Cage
(Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 37.

270
“art imitates nature”
: Gann,
No Such Thing as Silence,
p. 93.

270
“haunting and lovely”:
Ross Parmenter, “Ajemian Plays Work by Cage, 69 Minutes,”
The New York Times,
Jan. 13, 1949.

271
“Well, they’re just playing my piece”
: John Cage and Morton Feldman,
Radio Happenings I—V,
recorded at WBAI, New York City July 1966—January 1967, available at
www.archive.org/details/CageFeldmanConversationl
(accessed Dec. 9, 2010).

271
Silverman … rightly emphasizes
: Kenneth Silverman,
Begin Again
:
A Biography of John Cage
(Knopf, 2010), pp. 267-74.

272
“improperly”
: Brown,
Chance and Circumstance,
p. 266.

272
“It is because of his specifications”
: Lydia Goehr,
The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works
:
An Essay in the Philosophy of Music
(Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 264.

272
“to its purest, scariest peak”:
Richard Taruskin,
The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays
(University of California Press, 2009), p. 272.

272
“Listening to or merely thinking”
: Gann,
No Such Thing as Silence,
p. 198.

272
John Adams
…
describes
: John Adams,
Hallelujah Junction
:
Composing an American Life
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), pp. 56—61.

273
“You mean he got
paid
for that
?”: Gann,
No Such Thing as Silence,
p. 12.

273
$24.15 a month in rent
: Ibid., p. 14.

273
“I wanted to make poverty elegant”
: Kostelanetz,
Conversing with Cage,
p. 212.

274
“the twenty-four kinds”:
Silverman,
Begin Again,
p. 168.

274
“I consider laughter preferable to tears”:
The video can be viewed at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSulycqZH-U
. (accessed Dec. 9, 2010).

274
“[A] monk was walking along”:
John Cage,
A Year from Monday
(Wesleyan University Press, 1967), p. 135.

275
“For two hundred years the Europeans”:
Revill,
The Roaring Silence,
p. 283.

276
“We would do well to give up the notion”:
Typescript reproduced in the exhibition catalogue
The Anarchy of Silence: John Cage and Experimental Art,
ed. Julia Robinson (MACBA, 2009), p. 268.

277
Cagemusicircus:
See Alex Ross, “John Cage Tributes,”
The New York Times,
Nov. 7, 1992.

278
“When one dies with this world”:
Pages of Merce Cunningham’s diary supplied by Laura Kuhn, John Cage Trust.

278 “
I couldn’t be happier”:
From Elliot Caplan’s 1991 film
Cage/Cunningham
.

281
“I wish Bob Dylan died”:
Marc Jacobson, “Tangled Up in Gray,”
The Village Voice,
Jan. 30, 1978.

281
“My God, he sounds”
: James Wolcott, “Bob Dylan Beyond Thunderdome,” in
The Dylan Companion,
ed. Elizabeth Thomson and David Gutman (Da Capo, 2001), p. 278.

281
“Bob Dylan, who helped transform”:
Anthony Scaduto, “The Dylan Infection,”
News- day,
May 29, 1997.

281
“Bob Dylan, whose bittersweet”:
Bruce Weber, “Dylan in Hospital with Chest Pains; Europe Tour Is Off,”
The New York Times,
May 29, 1997.

284
“one of the least talented”:
Carl Benson, ed.,
The Bob Dylan Companion: Four Decades of Commentary
(Schirmer, 1998), p. x.

284
“Even if half-mad”:
Don DeLillo,
Great Jones Street
(Penguin, 1994), p. 1.

285 “Tarantula
has six main themes”:
Robin Witting,
The Cracked Bells: A Guide to Tarantula,
rev. ed. (Exploding Rooster Books, 1995), pp. 13, 34.

286
“a reduction of form”:
Aidan Day
Jokerman: Reading the Lyrics of Bob Dylan
(Blackwell, 1988), p. 116.

286 “Late April.
Dylan attends”:
Clinton Heylin,
Bob Dylan: A Life in Stolen Moments
—
Day by Day, 1941-1995
(Schirmer, 1996), p. 149.

286
“Between January and June 1972”:
Clinton Heylin,
Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited
(William Morrow, 2001), p. 334.

286
“Friends describe”:
Ellen Willis,
Beginning to See the Light: Sex, Hope, and Rock-and-Roll,
2nd ed. (Wesleyan University Press, 1992), p. 5.

287
“There’s enough of everything”:
Paul Zollo,
Songwriters on Songwriting
(Da Capo, 2003), p. 74.

287
Joan Didion wrote of Joan Baez:
Joan Didion,
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968), p. 47.

288
“Bob Dylan has walked”:
Ad reproduced in Patrick Humphries and John Bauldie,
Oh No! Not A-nother Bob Dylan Book
(Square One, 1991), p. 175.

288
“I wrote that when I didn’t figure”:
Anthony Scaduto,
Bob Dylan,
rev. ed. (Helter Skelter, 1996), p. 127.

289
“Look what they did”:
Greil Marcus,
Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes
(Henry Holt, 1997; republished in paperback as
The Old, Weird America),
p. 17.

289
“As if he had been waiting”:
Marcus,
Invisible Republic,
pp. 35–36.

290
“I was very disappointed”:
Andy Gill, “Judas!”
The Independent,
Jan. 23, 1999. The identity of the “Judas!” shouter is contested; Andy Kershaw, in “Bob Dylan: How I Found the Man Who Shouted ‘Judas,’”
The Independent,
Sept. 23, 2005, proposed that one John Cordwell should hold the title instead.

291
“certain bedrock strains”:
Marcus,
Invisible Republic,
p. xiii.

291
“What is this shit?”:
Greil Marcus, “Self Portrait No. 25,” in Hedin,
Studio
A, p. 74.

291
“more Dock Boggs”:
Greil Marcus, “Comeback Time Again,”
The Village Voice,
Aug. 13, 1985.

291
“If people are going to dismiss”:
Lester Bangs, “Love or Confusion?” in Hedin,
Studio A,
p. 156.

293
“cause-chasing liberals”:
Paul Williams:
Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, 1960–1973
(Omnibus, 1994), p. 94.

293
“Genius is a terrible word”:
Jules Siegel, “Well, What Have We Here?”
The Saturday Evening Post,
July 30, 1966, reprinted in
Bob Dylan: The Early Years—A Retrospective,
ed. Craig McGregor (Da Capo, 1990), p. 159.

298
“I believe in Hank Williams”:
Jon Pareles, “A Wiser Voice Blowin’ in the Autumn Wind,”
The New York Times,
Sept. 28, 1997.

301
“self-surrender”:
Daniel Cavicchi,
Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning Among Springsteen Fans
(Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 43.