Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)

Info

Written by John Cage
Hardcover, 176 pages
6 x 8.5 inches
Published by Siglio Press, 2015

Words

"It is a mosaic of ideas, statements, words, and stories. It is also a diary. For each day, I determined by chance operations how many parts of the mosaic I would write and how many words there would be in each."

As the quote above states, John Cage authored his version of a daily diary over 16 years – complete with intertwined observations, obsessions and jokes – in the same way he composed much of his music. One of the 20th century's most visionary and enduring avant-gardists he was a strong and vocal proponent of operations of chance, from his use of the I Ching throughout his life, right down to his aleatoric compositions. Co-edited by Joe Biel and Richard Kraft, Diary is brimming with non-standard text treatments and is a thought-provoking assessment of Cage's methods of composition, making it a beautiful and intriguing work of art in its own right.

—Available from Siglio Press