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Empty Words
''Empty Words: Writings '73–'78'' is a book by American avant-garde composer John Cage (1912–1992), first published in 1979 by Wesleyan University Press. Contents * "Foreword" (1978) * "Preface to ''Lecture on the Weather''" (1979) * "How the Piano Came to be Prepared" (1973) * "Empty Words" (1974–75) * "Where Are We Eating? and What Are We Eating? (38 Variations on a Theme by Alison Knowles)" (1975) * "Series re Morris Graves" (1974) * "Sixty-One Mesostics Re and Not Re Norman O. Brown" (1979) * "Writing for the Second Time through Finnegans Wake" (1978) * "The Future of Music" (1974) Also included are the following mesostics: * "Many Happy Returns" (1979) * "A Long Letter" (1977) * "Song" (1979) * "For S. Fort, Dancer" (1979) * "For William Mc N. Who studied with Ezra Pound" (1979) * " Wright's Oberlin House Restored by E. Johnson" (1979) * "'I'm the happiest person I know' (S.W.)" (1975) See also * List of compositions by John Cage This is a list of compositions by ...
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John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic 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 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″'', which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is often assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challen ...
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Wesleyan University Press
Wesleyan University Press is a university press that is part of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. The press is currently directed by Suzanna Tamminen, a published poet and essayist. History and overview Founded (in its present form) in 1957, the press publishes books of poetry and books on music, dance and performance, American Studies, and film. In 1965, Wesleyan sold its American Education Publications, a division of the press that published ''My Weekly Reader'', but the university retained the scholarly division. All editing occurs at the editorial office building of the press on the Wesleyan campus. Publishing (printing) now occurs through a consortium of New England college academic presses. The press is notable among prestigious American academic presses for its poetry series, which publishes both established poets and new ones. The press has released more than 250 titles in its poetry series and has garnered, in that series alone, awards including five Pu ...
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Avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical Debate and Poetic Practices' (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), p. 64 . It is frequently characterized by aesthetic innovation and initial unacceptability.Kostelanetz, Richard, ''A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes'', Routledge, May 13, 2013
The avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the ''

Alison Knowles
Alison Knowles (born 1933) is an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists who aspired to merge different artistic media and disciplines. Criteria that have come to distinguish her work as an artist are the arena of performance, the indeterminacy of her event scores resulting in the deauthorization of the work, and the element of tactile participation. She graduated from Pratt Institute in New York with an honors degree in fine art. In May 2015, she was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by Pratt. In the 1960s, she was an active participant in New York City's downtown art scene, collaborating with influential artists such as John Cage and Marcel Duchamp. During this time she began producing event scores, or performances that rework the everyday into art. Knowles's inclusion of visual, aural, and tactile elements sets her art apart from ...
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Morris Graves
Morris Graves (August 28, 1910 – May 5, 2001) was an American painter. He was one of the earliest Modern artists from the Pacific Northwest to achieve national and international acclaim. His style, referred to by some reviewers as Mysticism, used the muted tones of the Northwest environment, Asian aesthetics and philosophy, and a personal iconography of birds, flowers, chalices, and other images to explore the nature of consciousness. An article in a 1953 issue of ''Life'' magazine cemented Graves' reputation as a major figure of the 'Northwest School' of artists. He lived and worked mostly in Western Washington, but spent considerable time traveling and living in Europe and Asia, and spent the last several years of his life in Loleta, California. Early years Morris Cole Graves was born August 28, 1910, in Fox Valley, Oregon, where his family had moved about a year before his birth, from Seattle, Washington, in order to claim land under the Homestead Act. He was named in ...
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Norman O
Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norman conquest of southern Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries ** Norman dynasty, a series of monarchs in England and Normandy ** Norman architecture, romanesque architecture in England and elsewhere ** Norman language, spoken in Normandy ** People or things connected with the French region of Normandy Arts and entertainment * ''Norman'' (film), a 2010 drama film * '' Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer'', a 2016 film * ''Norman'' (TV series), a 1970 British sitcom starring Norman Wisdom * ''The Normans'' (TV series), a documentary * "Norman" (song), a 1962 song written by John D. Loudermilk and recorded by Sue Thompson * "Norman (He's a Rebel)", a song by Mo-dettes from '' The Story So Far'', 1980 Businesses * ...
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Finnegans Wake
''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It is well known for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon. It has been called "a work of fiction which combines a body of fables ... with the work of analysis and deconstruction". Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years and published in 1939, ''Finnegans Wake'' was Joyce's final work. The entire book is written in a largely idiosyncratic language, which blends standard English words with neologistic portmanteau words, Irish mannerisms and puns in multiple languages to unique effect. Many critics believe the technique was Joyce's attempt to recreate the experience of sleep and dreams, reproducing the way concepts, people and places become amalgamated in dreaming. It is an attempt by Joyce to combine many of his aesthetic ideas, with references to other works and outside ideas woven into the text; Joyce declared that "Every syllable can be just ...
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Mesostic
A mesostic is a poem or other text arranged so that a vertical phrase intersects lines of horizontal text. It is similar to an acrostic, but with the vertical phrase intersecting somewhere in the midst of the line, as opposed to the beginning of each line. The practice of using index words to select pieces from a preexisting text was developed by Jackson Mac Low as "diastics". It was used extensively by the experimental composer John Cage (Walsh 2001). There are two types of mesostic: fifty percent and one hundred percent. (See also the example below.) * In a fifty-percent mesostic, according to Andrew Culver (John Cage's assistant), "Between any two apitalizedletters, you can't have the second etter" * In a one-hundred-percent mesostic, "Between any two apitalizedletters, you can't have either etter"Cage 57. Below, an example of a one-hundred-percent mesostic: KITCHEN let us maKe of thIs modesT plaCe a room Holding tons of lovE ...
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Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works include ''Ripostes'' (1912), ''Hugh Selwyn Mauberley'' (1920), and his 800-page epic poem, '' The Cantos'' (c. 1917–1962). Pound's contribution to poetry began in the early 20th century with his role in developing Imagism, a movement stressing precision and economy of language. Working in London as foreign editor of several American literary magazines, he helped discover and shape the work of contemporaries such as T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and James Joyce. He was responsible for the 1914 serialization of Joyce's '' A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'', the 1915 publication of Eliot's " The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", and the serialization from 1918 of Joyce's '' Ulysses''. Hemingway wrote in 1932 that, for poets born in ...
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Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements of the twentieth century, influencing architects worldwide through his works and hundreds of apprentices in his Taliesin Fellowship. Wright believed in designing in harmony with humanity and the environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was exemplified in Fallingwater (1935), which has been called "the best all-time work of American architecture". Wright was the pioneer of what came to be called the Prairie School movement of architecture and also developed the concept of the Usonian home in Broadacre City, his vision for urban planning in the United States. He also designed original and innovative offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, museums, and other commercial projects. Wright-designed i ...
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List Of Compositions By John Cage
This is a list of compositions by John Cage (1912–1992), arranged in chronological order by year of composition. List of works Apprenticeship period (1932–36) * ''Greek Ode'', for voice and piano (1932) * ''First Chapter of Ecclesiastes'' (''The Preacher''), for voice and piano (1932, possibly incomplete) * ''Three Easy Pieces'' (1. Round in A minor, 2. Duo in G major, 3. Infinite canon in F minor), for piano (1933) * ''Three Songs for voice and piano'', (1932–33) * '' Sonata for Clarinet'' (1933) * ''Sonata for Two Voices'', for two instruments with specified ranges (1933) * ''Composition for 3 Voices'' for three unspecified instruments (1934) * ''Solo with obbligato accompaniment of two voices in canon, and six short inventions on the subjects of the solo'', for three or more instruments (1934, six inventions revised rchestrated1958) * ''Three pieces'', for two flutes (1935) * ''Quartet'', for any four percussion instruments (1935) * ''Two pieces'', for piano (1935? ...
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1979 Books
Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ''Chiquitita'' to commemorate the event. ** The United States and the People's Republic of China establish full Sino-American relations, diplomatic relations. ** Following a deal agreed during 1978, France, French carmaker Peugeot completes a takeover of American manufacturer Chrysler's Chrysler Europe, European operations, which are based in United Kingdom, Britain's former Rootes Group factories, as well as the former Simca factories in France. * January 7 – Cambodian–Vietnamese War: The People's Army of Vietnam and Vietnamese-backed Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, Cambodian insurgents announce the fall of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and the collapse of the Pol Pot regime. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge retreat west to an area ...
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