Diario: cómo mejorar el mundo

by John Cage, Gerardo Jorge (Traductor)

Nada en la obra de John Cage es del todo lo que parece. Y este libro no es la excepción, porque se trata de un “diario” que no sigue las convenciones del género, sino que se organiza a través de un mosaico de meditaciones, citas y apuntes dispersos. Entre 1965 y 1982, años durante los cuales escribe estos textos, Cage se enfrenta a un mundo que experimenta profundas mutaciones: desde la contracultura que sacudía los cimientos de la sociedad estadounidense, hasta la descolonización de África, la China de Mao y las revoluciones tecnológicas a gran escala. Mientras la historia toma un rumbo acelerado e impredecible, el compositor y artista, a sus 53 años, se encuentra en una posición ambigua: ya no es un joven que se sienta motivado a ser protagonista, pero sí un testigo atento capaz de diagnosticar e incluso anticipar el rumbo de esta transformación. Impulsado por sus lecturas de Richard Buckminster Fuller, Marshall McLuhan, Norman O. Brown y Henry David Thoreau, y por su propia curiosidad, Cage emprende un viaje arriesgado e inmersivo por la información, entendiendo que está en presencia de un giro fundamental que no solo para el curso de las artes, sino también para nuestra comprensión de la realidad misma.

Tipeado en ocho partes en una máquina de escribir IBM Selectric y tipografías que se intercalan según la determinación del azar este, Diario: Cómo mejorar el mundo es el ejercicio de escritura que lo ocupó por más tiempo y probablemente su apuesta más ambiciosa. Con un formato que oscila entre la poesía épica, el ensayo filosófico, la provocación y la literatura de anticipación, Cage nos invita a repensar el futuro desde una perspectiva crítica y multifacética. Al integrar a la reflexión disciplinas como la biología, la informática, la espiritualidad, la música, la economía y la educación, crea una caja de resonancia que descompone las estructuras preestablecidas del pensamiento y las reemplaza por yuxtaposiciones inesperadas. ¿Es posible mejorar el mundo o solo conseguiremos que las cosas empeoren? La respuesta no está en la resignación.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Art, Memoir

Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, philosopher, poet, music theorist, artist, printmaker, and amateur mycologist and mushroom collector. A pioneer of chance music, electronic music and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.

Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, the three movements of which are performed without a single note being played. The content of the composition is meant to be perceived as the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed, rather than merely as four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence, and the piece became one of the most controversial compositions of the 20th century. Another famous creation of Cage's is the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by placing various objects in the strings), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces, the best known of which is Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48).

His teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music and coincidentally their shared love of mushrooms, but Cage's major influences lay in various Eastern cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text on changing events, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life. In a 1957 lecture, Experimental Music, he described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living".

Reviews

[José Julio]

Resuma su filosofía en una gragea. Respuesta: sal de cualquier jaula en la que te encuentres

[Tentatively, Convenience]

I've praised Dick Higgins' "Something Else Press" repeatedly here & I'm about to do it again. These Great Bear Pamphlets are some of the most prized publications in my library. Too bad many of them are covered w/ rat paw-prints (as close inspection of the cover images that I'll be uploading here will reveal) [- not to mention soot from an arsonist's fire]. Ah! The vagaries of living close to nature thru hol(e)y housing! This series of pamphlets is a fantastic look at (mostly but not entirely) Fluxus materials. The Cage one is printed in multiple colors & multiple fonts - no doubt carefully chosen by 'chance' by Cage's meticulous procedures. A variety of things under consideration flow one into the other here: from computer-made music to his dad's cold remedy.

[Vincent Scarpa]

“When Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western Civilization, he said, ‘It would be nice.’”

[Joan Berthiaume]

  « Connaissance de soi. Certains y parviendront, avec ou sans LSD. » / « Les saisons (création, préservation, destruction, latence) » (p.11)
 « Les gens veulent toujours des définitions, mais il est assez clair à présent que rien ne peut être défini. » (p.15)
« *Nous avons inventé quelque chose d'autre,**pas la roue.* » (p.16)
«Quand te dévêtiras-tu de tes idées? » (p.22)
«Si les Américains avaient été des porcs et non des hommes, cela n'aurait rien changé. » (p.45)
« il nous faut cesser de croire qu'envoyer un courrier suffise pour qu'il parvienne à destination. » (p.50)
« Ils ont mis la charrue avant les boeufs : la publicité qu'ils font vaut mieux que ce dont ils font la publicité. » (Cage, 2003, p.53)
« **ce que nous réclamons est peu****de choses, pour ainsi dire rien. Nous****ne réclamons que ce qui a été si souvent****promis et déclaré : Liberté** » (p.55)

[Heleri]

It feels somewhat of a relic, this one. Just because of that I'd give props to someone who had taken their rat-paw-printed copy and scanned it, so the ones never likely to come upon the thing... We relish. I've heard John Cage read his diary. I oftentimes had it play before I went to sleep, just streaming in his fidget-connected thoughts. I have no speech although I'm a prepared instrument. We're acquainted for 7 years, unrequited, on-again off-again. John embues me in honey mushroom rhizosphere ending in foxfire. I cannot give stars. This is a love letter.

[Jim Ivy]

Very enjoyable to read a brilliant mind in stream of consciousness mode. It’s a lot like Cage’s Indeterminacies. You can almost hear his voice as you read it. How someone could give this 2 stars with no explanation is beyond me…

[Eamonn Barrett]

Beautiful book; beautiful mind.

[Benji]

The success of chance determinacy depends on the quality of the questions being asked.