Begin Again

496 Pages·2010·4.74 MB·English

by  Kenneth Silverman

ALSO BY KENNETH SILVERMAN
Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse
Houdini!!! The Career of Ehrich Weiss
Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance
The Life and Times of Cotton Mather
A Cultural History of the American Revolution

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2010 by Kenneth Silverman All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York,
and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books,
and the colophon are
registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data Silverman, Kenneth.
Begin again : a biography of John Cage / by Kenneth Silverman.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-30759457-0
1. Cage, John. 2. Composers—United States—Biography. I. Title.
ML410.C24S64 2010
780.92—dc22
[B] 2010009525
v3.1
In memory of my friend Stuart Feder
(1930–2005)
The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles.
—J. HECTOR ST. JOHN CRÈVECOEUR
Letters from an American Farmer (1782)
… it is a country of beginnings …
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Young American (1844)
Beginning was all of living with him, in a beginning he was always as big in his feeling as all
the world around him.
—GERTRUDE STEIN
The Making of Americans (1925)
I try over and over to begin all over again.
—JOHN CAGE
MESSAGEGRAM OF 18 SEPTEMBER 1977
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraphs
1. COMES UP FAMOUS
2. THE ART OF NOISE
3. EAST AND WEST
4. MUSIC OF CHANGES
5. THE TEN THOUSAND THINGS
6. INDETERMINACY
7. FRACTURES
8. HPSCHD
9. EMPTY WORDS
10. APARTMENT HOUSE
11. CHANGES AND DISAPPEARANCES
12. TIME BRACKETS
13. EUROPERAS
14. ANARCHIC HARMONY
15. 1992
DOCUMENTATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
TRACK CREDITS
About the Author
1. COMES UP FAMOUS
—headline, Los Angeles Times
1912–1937
The Cage Family; Los Angeles High School; Pomona College
JOHN CAGE’S achievement, the Times observed, was “a matter of pride
to the people of California.” A front-page photo showed Cage waving to
ten thousand spectators who had gathered to cheer him, including the
mayor of Los Angeles. Telegrams announcing his triumph had been sent
to President Woodrow Wilson.
Coming up famous on June 11, 1913, John Milton Cage and his crew
of five had stayed underwater more than twenty-four hours, doubling
the world record for submergence. The seventy-five-foot-long vessel—
named Peace Keeper—had been built under his patents, as general
manager of the Los Angeles Submarine Boat Company. When tested six
months earlier, the Peace Keeper sank due to shifting ballast and an open
hatchway. It had to be raised off the bottom of Los Angeles Harbor and
dragged through mud back to its slip, to be pumped out.
The Times assessed the launching of “the Cage submarine” as “one of
the most important events that has ever occurred in California or the
entire country.” It was believed in Washington that submarines would be
key weapons in future wars (such perhaps as World War I, to break out
one year later). And Cage had invented novel devices to keep his sub
level, increase its speed, and greatly improve its safety by running the
engines on gasoline rather than potentially explosive storage batteries. A
rear admiral of the U.S. Navy predicted that it would replace all other