germseed

I urge you to bring to hand a copy of John Cage’s ever-useful book  Silence - Lectures and Writings and ask you to read to yourself Communication (p41-52), having your internal voice deliver the lines by Groucho Marx (most likely in diatribe to a trapped and bemused, yet slightly charmed and long-suffering Margaret Dumont).

If you can sustain a passable Groucho impression, or know of those who can, i suggest you read aloud - bordering on, but generally not achieving, unison. I also suggest you start with the line “Nichi nichi kore ko nichi” and end with “The Belgians asked me about the avante-garde in America and this is what i told them” (this last line would appear to be the start of the next section of writing, but under these conditions it can be seen as a wholly ‘appropriate’ end to the monologue, if such a thing were to exist).

After a time, I ask you to read again, this time having your own internal voice deliver the words to Harpo Marx, as if stood in conversation with him. Visualize his response and reaction to the text. Spend time with him and see what he does: this exercise is important (to my mind) as it involves us in some form of conversation with a man who will not speak. A third reading, with Groucho addressing Harpo, could be the next logical workout … but you’ll have to hold tightly to the reins on that one - and do it your own time, not mine. the IDEA.

At a glance, the works of Cage and that of the Marx Brothers are obvious on many levels in their disparity. But we can certainly coax them into a cohesive mutual area: using Cage’s text/s to engage all parties in ‘conversation’ (my main interest here being Harpo), and  infusing all parties in a solution of Cages’s and Harpo’s respective ’silence’.

I have nothing to say/and i’m saying it/and that is poetry/as i need it

(Cage, Lecture on Nothing, 1949)