Submitted by Sparrow
John Cage was a writer. We speak of all composers as “writing music,” though we never say that a choreographer “writes a dance.” But if you look at the sheet music for 4′33″, it is precisely written. It consists entirely of words.
I mostly knew John Cage as a writer. In 1975, I began working at a natural foods store in Gainesville, Florida called Mother Earth. On my lunch break, I would sometimes read the books from the small book section of the store. One of the books was Silence by John Cage. It was a square book with a beige cover. Inside was dense writing.
Only a great writer could have written the title 4′33″. If the piece were entitled Silence, it would be worthless. 4′33″ is perfectly specific, and a beautiful number, yet it has no meaning. The title contains three mutually dependent jokes:
1) That silence should have a name;
2) That the name should be a number;
3) That the number doesn’t describe anything at all.
I remember the personality of John Cage, as he read at St. Mark’s Church in New York: light and gentle, with an immutable private joke within. I am like a citizen who saw Abraham Lincoln three times in Washington, DC, and later wrote obsessively about him.
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