Many moons ago, when I was young and a student at the Univ. of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana, I had a part-time student worker job at the Music Library in the Music building on campus. I would check out books, music manuscripts, etc. This was the time when John Cage was a professor of music at U of I, and he would come into the library frequently. I would check books, etc. out for him many times. He truly was into mushrooms, and his books would be interspersed with mushroom factoids. I still have one of his books somewhere.
Cage was a flaming gay who struck poses a lot. He was a little guy and smoked cigarettes using a fancy cigarette holder. Very witty. There was a cadre of professors into the atonal, and performance art music scene at U of I just as it was coming into full blossom. I went to a performance art show that Cage put on at the University Assembly Hall, that was shaped like a giant mushroom (right up Cage’s mushroom alley). Or a giant flying saucer if you prefer. As you went in, there was psychedelic multi-colored gauze hangings w/strobe lights flashing everywhere that you walked through, and in various places you’d trip across harpsichord players (one was some famous female from France that he had imported, can’t remember her name). And in the upper reaches of the hall, up in the rafters (last row of seats) were placed assorted tape machine recorders blaring forth weird music, a combination of humans and machines making noise, err, music. This was of course, back in the Hippie Days, and I would estimate that three quarters of the inhabitants therein were thoroughly stoned before getting there for this psychedelic experience. And an experience it was. Actually, it was a lot of fun. Cage was a real character.
Actually, I shouldn’t have said little guy above as much as a leprechaun type of guy, reminded me of a leprechaun, only taller. I went to one of his performances of the “prepared piano” where he was sticking stuff (objects) under, over the piano strings. Interesting.
If John Cage’s “music” is winning critical acclaim, then classical music is dead. The only good music being written today is movie music.