Name: Where the Heart Beats
Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
ISBN: 9781594203404

Kay Larson

Assesses the influence of Zen Buddhism on the work of composer John Cage, exploring the ways in which Zen transformed Cage's troubled psyche, his relationship with partner Merce Cunningham, and his often indefinable music.

John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

Where the Heart Beats

Greg Talbot

The crack in the egg, happened for Cage when he was 38. As a young man he would tour Europe to learn about the world. Inspired by Dada and futurism, he would look for the vanguard of the art world. He would join an art collective as a young adult, have relationships and lovers, with the well-to-do crowd. And yet, all of his work started to really take shape with the teachings of D.T. Suzuki., and "The Essays of Zen" from the 1930s. This book has so many touchpoints that resonate with me. Buddhist concepts of interrelatedness and egolessness. The beauty of the "zero", the "null", the nothingness. The Huang Po concept of the universal mind. Cage was part of that movement that didn't ask you to see "beauty", he gave us something that asked us to see what "is". The book is laid out with a beautiful three act structure. 1. MOUNTAINS ARE MOUNTAINS 2. MOUNTAINS ARE NO LONGER MOUNTAINS 3. MOUNTAINS ARE MOUNTAINS AGAIN Experience circles you back to where you started, if a bit of a shakier ground. Cage, like many of us, finds an exquisite beauty and coherence in silence, koans, parables, and experience. His artwork which would inspire the 1960s pop artists like Warhol, Yoko Ono, Robert Rauschenberg and Eno opened up a world "something and nothing". If all of this sounds a bit like gibberish or unclear...that's mostly intentional. When we listen to "4'33" by John Cage, at first we can smirk, or laugh or dismiss, but to observ it is to have a totally different experience. Truly a book to provoke an experience to alter our brief, beautiful and always changing lives.

Where the Heart Beats John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

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