Indeterminacy 28

Now and then I come across an article on that rock
garden in Japan where there’s just a space of sand
and a few rocks in it. The author, no
matter who he is, sets out either to suggest
that the position of the rocks in the space follows
some geometrical plan productive of the beauty one
observes, or not satisfied with mere
suggestion, he makes diagrams and detailed
analyses. So when I met Ashihara, the
Japanese music and dance critic (his first name is
Eryo), I told him that I thought those stones
could have been anywhere in that space, that
I doubted whether their relationship was a planned
one, that the emptiness of the sand was such
that it could support stones at any points in it.
Ashihara had already given me a present
(some table mats), but then he asked me to wait
a moment while he went into his hotel.
He came out and gave me the tie I am now wearing.
¶ After he
heard this lecture which I first gave in Brussels
in the French Pavilion, Karlheinz
Stockhausen said, “You should have said,
‘the tie I was wearing yesterday’.”

- John Cage