Home > Work > M: Writings '67-'72
1 " Freedom from likes and dislikes, the sudden sense of identification, the spirit of comedy. "
― John Cage , M: Writings '67-'72
2 " Frost interviewing Noel Coward and Margaret Mead. Sir Noel's view of life is Sir Noel. Mead's mind is large and open, like Buckminster Fuller's. She found thoughts dull that suggest that men are superior to animals or plants. "
3 " Remove God from the world of ideas. Remove government, politics from society. Keep sex, humor, utilities. Let private property go. "
4 " It would be better to have no school at all than the schools we now have. Encouraged, instead of frightened, children could learn several languages before reaching age of four, at that age engaging in the invention of their own languages. Play'd be play instead of being, as now, release of repressed anger. "
5 " Why is it that children, taught the names of the months and the fact that there are twelve of them, don't ask why the ninth is called the seventh (September), the tenth called the eight (October), the eleventh called the ninth (November), the twelfth called the tenth (December)? "
6 " Only chance to make the world a success for humanity lies in technology, grand possibility technology provides to do more with less, and indiscriminately for everyone. Return to nature as nature pre-technologically was, attractive and possible as it still in some places is, can only work for some of us. "
7 " Power and profit structures're out of cahoots with current technology. Aware of new inventions, corporations put them aside, waiting for competitive reasons until they're obliged to use new gimmicks. "
8 " I haven't been to a movie for three months of Sundays. I gather from what Carolyn reports that Hollywood now produces false entertainment: unmitigated violence on the screen; snickering, laughter in the audience. "
9 " Combine nursing homes with nursery schools. Bring very old and very young together: they interest one another. "
10 " Sleep's what we need. It produces an emptiness in us into which sooner or later energies flow. "
11 " Computer mistake in grade-giving resulted in academic failure of several brilliant students. After some years the mistake was discovered. Letter was sent to each student inviting him to resume his studies. Each replied he was getting along very well without education. "
12 " Veblen called it the price-system. Mills called it the Power Elite. It's probably no more than ninety-nine people who don't know what they are doing. They're involved in high finance. Fascinating form of gambling. "
13 " Put 'em who threaten possessions and power together with 'em who offend our tastes in sex and dope. Those who're touched, put 'em in asylums. Pack off old ones to 'senior communities,' nursing homes. Our children? Keep'em prisoner, baby-sitter as warden. School? Good for fifteen to twenty years. Army afterward. Liberated, we live in prison. No this, no that. Kill us before we die! "
14 " Farting, don't think, just fart. "
15 " Dad's oil dehydrator was a contained electrostatic field, one electrode down the center, the other the container's inner wall. Principal problem was finding a dielectric to separate the two. Refuse oil poured in came out as oil of the highest grade, dry chemicals, and drinking water. Petroleum Rectifying Company successfully prohibited its use. "
16 " I needed another basis for musical structure. This I found in sound's duration parameter, sound's only parameter which is present even when no sound is intended. "
17 " Technological errors made by government, industry [DDT, ABM, SST, CIA, etc.] are those of children, who, even thought they don't know what the score is, go on playing pre-technological games of power and profit. "
18 " Corporate Responsibility; Environmental Preservation; Consumer Protection; Sex & Race Discrimination (they must mean Sex and Race Liberation). "
19 " Valda said that if you change your residence every six months you can legally free your children from compulsory education. "
20 " Clothes I wear for mushroom hunting are rarely sent to the cleaner. They constitute a collection of odors I produce and gather while rambling in the woods. I notice not only dogs (cats, too) are delighted (they love to smell me). "
