Indeterminacy 39

Two wooden boxes containing Oriental spices and
foodstuffs arrived from India. One was for David
Tudor, the other for me. Each of us found, on
opening his box, that the contents were all mixed
up. The lids of containers of spices had somehow
come off. Plastic bags of dried beans and palm sugar
had ripped open. The tin lids of cans of chili
powder had come off. All of these things were
mixed with each other and with the excelsior which
had been put in the box to keep the containers in
position. I put my box in a corner and simply
tried to forget about it. David Tudor, on
the other hand, set to work. Assembling
bowls of various sizes, sieves of about eleven
various-sized screens, a pair of tweezers,
and a small knife, he began a process which
lasted three days, at the end of which time
each spice was separated from each other, each
bean from each other, and the palm sugar lumps
had been scraped free of spice and excavations
in them had removed embedded beans. He
then called me up to say, “Whenever you want
to get at that box of spices you have,
let me know. I’ll help you.”

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 63

David Tudor and I went up to New Haven to do a
television class for the New Haven State Teachers
College. That college specializes
in teaching by means of television. What
they do is to make a tape, audio and visual,
and then broadcast it at a later date early in
the morning. In the course of my
talking, I said something about the purpose
of purposelessness. Afterwards, one
of the teachers said to the head of the Music
Department, “How are you going to explain that
to the class next Tuesday?”
Anyway, we finished the TV business,
drove back to the school, and I asked the
teachers to recommend some second-hand bookstores
in New Haven for David Tudor and me to visit.
They did. A half-hour later when we
walked into one of them, the book dealer
said, “Mr. Tudor? Mr. Cage?” I said,
“Yes?” He said, “You’re to call the State
Teachers College.” I did. They said
the television class we had recorded had not
been recorded at all. Apparently
someone forgot to turn something on.

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 144

David Tudor and I went to Hilversum
in Holland to make a
recording for the Dutch radio.
We arrived at the
studio early and there was some
delay. To pass
the time, we chatted
with the engineer who was to work
with us. He
asked me what kind of music he was
about to record.
Since he was a Dutchman
I said, “It may
remind you of the work of Mondrian.”
¶

When the session was finished
and the three of us were leaving
the studio, I
asked the engineer what he
thought of the music we had
played. He
said, “It reminded
me of the work of Mondrian.”

Indeterminacy 106

David Tudor gives the impression
of not being overly fond of
mushrooms.
But one night he had
two helpings of morels and then
finished the dish completely,
including the juice.
The next
afternoon while he was shaving
I read out loud the following
quotation from Leonardo da Vinci:
“Lo!
Some there are who can call
themselves nothing more than a passage
for food, producers of
dung, fillers up of
privies, for of them
nothing else appears in the world
nor is there any virtue in
their work, for
nothing of them remains but full
privies.”
David Tudor said,
“Perhaps they were good Buddhists.”

Indeterminacy 121

David Tudor and I took a taxi down town. He
was going to Macy’s; I was going on to West
Broadway and Prince where I get my hair cut.
After David Tudor got out, I began
talking with the driver about the weather.
The relative merits of the Old Farmers’ Almanac
and the newspapers came up. The driver said
they were developing rockets that would raise the
weather man’s predictions from 50 to 55 per cent
accuracy. I said I thought the Almanac
starting from a consideration of planets and
their movements, rather than from winds and
theirs, got a better start since the
X-quantities involved were not so physically close
to the results being predicted. The
driver said he’d had an operation some years
before and that while his flesh was dead and
numb, before the wound healed,
he was able to predict weather changes by
the pain he felt in the scar, that
when the flesh lost its numbness and was,
so to speak, back to normal,
he could no longer know in advance
anything about changes in weather.

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 23

When I got the letter from Jack Arends

asking me to lecture at the Teachers
College,
I wrote back and said I’d
be glad to,
that all he had to
do was let me know the date.

He did.

I then said to David Tudor,

“The lecture is so soon that I
don’t think I’ll be able to get all
ninety stories written,
in which case,
now and then,
I’ll just keep my
trap shut.”

He said,

“That’ll be a relief.”

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 148

When I first moved to the country, David Tudor, M. C. Richards,
the Weinribs, and I all lived in the same small farmhouse. In
order to get some privacy I started taking walks in the woods.
It was August. I began collecting the mushrooms which were
growing more or less everywhere. Then I bought some books and
tried to find out which mushroom was which. Realizing I needed
to get to know someone who knew something about mushrooms, I
called the 4-H Club in New York City. I spoke to a secretary. She
said they’d call me back. They never did. ¶ The following spring,
after reading about the edibility of skunk cabbage in Medsger’s
book on wild plants, I gathered a mess of what I took to be skunk
cabbage, gave some to my mother and father (who were visiting)
to take home, cooked the rest in three waters with a pinch of
soda as Medsger advises, and served it to six people, one of
whom, I remember, was from the Museum of Modern Art. I ate more
than the others did in an attempt to convey my enthusiasm over
edible wild plants. After coffee, poker was proposed. I began
winning heavily. M. C. Richards left the table. After a while
she came back and whispered in my ear, “Do you feel all right?”
I said, “No. I don’t. My throat is burning and I can hardly
breathe.” I told the others to divide my winnings, that I was
folding. I went outside and retched. Vomiting with diarrhea
continued for about two hours. Before I lost my will, I told M.
C. Richards to call Mother and Dad and tell them not to eat the
skunk cabbage. I asked her how the others were. She said,
“They’re not as bad off as you are.” Later, when friends lifted
me off the ground to put a blanket under me, I just said, “Leave
me alone.” Someone called Dr. Zukor. He prescribed milk and
salt. I couldn’t take it. He said, “Get him here immediately.”
They did. He pumped my stomach and gave adrenalin to keep my
heart beating. Among other things, he said, “Fifteen minutes
more and he would have been dead.” ¶ I was removed to the Spring
Valley hospital. There during the night I was kept supplied with
adrenalin and I was thoroughly cleaned out. In the morning I felt
like a million dollars. I rang the bell for the nurse to tell her
I was ready to go. No one came. I read a notice on the wall which
said that unless one left by noon he would be charged for an
extra day. When I saw one of the nurses passing by I yelled
something to the effect that she should get me out since I had
no money for a second day. Shortly the room was filled with
doctors and nurses and in no time at all I was hustled out. ¶ I
called up the 4-H Club and told them what had happened. I
emphasized my determination to go on with wild mushrooms. They
said, “Call Mrs. Clark on South Mountain Drive.” She said, “I
can’t help you. Call Mr. So-and-so.” I called him. He said, “I
can’t help you, but call So-and-so who works in the A&P in
Suffern. He knows someone in Ramsey who knows the mushrooms.”
Eventually, I got the name and telephone number of Guy G.
Nearing. When I called him, he said, “Come over any time you
like. I’m almost always here, and I’ll name your mushrooms for
you.” ¶ I wrote a letter to Medsger telling him skunk cabbage
was poisonous. He never replied. Some time later I read about
the need to distinguish between skunk cabbage and the poisonous
hellebore. They grow at the same time in the same places.
Hellebore has pleated leaves. Skunk cabbage does not.

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 54

One day down at
Black Mountain College,
David Tudor
was eating his lunch.

A student came over to
his table and began asking him questions.


David Tudor
went on eating his
lunch.

The
student
kept on asking questions.


Finally
David Tudor looked at him and said,

“If you don’t know,

why do you ask?”

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 159

When David Tudor, Merce Cunningham, Carolyn
and Earle Brown, and I arrived in
Brussels a year or so ago for programs
at the World’s Fair, we
found out that Earle Brown’s Indices was
not going to be played since the
orchestra found it too difficult.
So, putting
two and two together, we
proposed that Merce Cunningham and Carolyn
Brown dance solos and duets
from Merce Cunningham’s Springweather and
People (which is his title for
Earle Brown’s Indices) and that
David Tudor play the piano
transcription as accompaniment.
With great difficulty,
arrangements were made to
realize this proposal.
At the last minute the
authorities agreed.
However, just before the
performance, the Pope died
and everything was canceled.

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 110

One winter David Tudor and I were touring in the
Middle West. From Cincinnati we drove to
Yellow Springs to drum up an engagement for Merce
Cunningham and his Dance Company. In this
way we met the McGarys. Keith was teaching
philosophy at Antioch College and Donna taught
weaving and dancing. My conversation with
Keith McGary had no sooner begun than we
discovered our mutual interest in mushrooms.
I told him that I’d never seen the
winter-growing Collybia velutipes. He opened
the front door and, using a flashlight,
showed me the plant growing in the snow from the
roots of a nearby tree. He told me what
difficulty he was having finding books about fungi.
I gave him my copy of Hard which I’d
brought along. This book deals especially
with Ohio mushrooms. The next day I
located two copies of the book in a second-hand
bookstore in Columbus. I bought them both.
Each winter I find the Collybia,
the velvet footed, in quantity.
How is it I didn’t notice it
during the winters before I met Keith McGary?

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 64

On the way back from New Haven we were driving along
the Housatonic. It was a beautiful day. We stopped
to have dinner but the restaurants at the river’s
edge turned out not to be restaurants at all but
dark, run-down bars with, curiously, no views of the
river. So we drove on to Newtown, where we saw many
cars parked around a restaurant that appeared to
have a Colonial atmosphere. I said, “All those cars
are a good sign. Let’s eat there.” When we got in,
we were in a large dining room with very few other
people eating. The waitress seemed slightly giddy.
David Tudor ordered some ginger ale, and after quite
a long time was served some Coca-Cola, which he
refused. Later we both ordered parfaits; mine was
to be chocolate, his to be strawberry. As the
waitress entered the kitchen, she shouted, “Two
chocolate parfaits.” When David Tudor explained to
her later that he had ordered strawberry, she said,
“They must have made some mistake in the
kitchen.” I said, “There must be another dining
room in this building with a lot of people eating
in it.” The waitress said, “Yes. It’s
downstairs and there are only two of us for each
floor and we keep running back and forth.”

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 174

One day when I was studying with
Schoenberg, he pointed out
the eraser on his pencil and said,
“This end is more important
than the other.” After twenty years
I learned to write directly in ink.
Recently,
when David Tudor returned from Europe,
he brought me a German
pencil of modern make.
It can carry any size of
lead. Pressure on
a shaft at the end of the holder
frees the lead so that it
can be retracted or extended or
removed and another put in its
place. A sharpener
came with the pencil.
The sharpener offers not one
but several possibilities.
That is,
one may choose the kind of point
he wishes.
There is no eraser.

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 71

M. C. Richards and David Tudor
invited several friends to
dinner.
I was there and it
was a pleasure.
After dinner we
were sitting around talking.
David
Tudor began doing some
paper work in a corner,
perhaps something
to do with music,
though I’m not sure.
After
a while there was
a pause in the conversation,
and someone
said to David Tudor,
“Why don’t you
join the party?” He
said, “I
haven’t left it.
This is how
I keep you entertained.”

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 12

When I told David Tudor
that this talk on music
was nothing but a
series of stories,
he said,
“Don’t fail to
put in some benedictions.”
I said,
“What in heaven’s
name do you mean by
benedictions?” “Blessings,”
he said.
“What blessings?” I
said,
“God bless you everyone?”


“Yes,” he said,
“like they
say in the sutras:
‘This
is not idle talk,
but the
highest of truths’.”

- John Cage