I'll talk about the acting part of my day later, but on Sunday I also went to an exhibit on John Cage at the local museum. I've been meaning to go over there for quite some time and it was quite an experience. I've been a fan of his since I found out that 4'33" existed and did a paper on it for orchestra in high school. (On a random note, there's an app for this.) That guy was wackadoo innovative.

Anyway, I did not know that he was an artist in residence here in the 60's, put on a wacky music event, and premiered another piece, 33 1/3, in which various record players were set up and people were playing whatever (very random) albums they put on, all at once. Here's a video of this somewhere else. I found about ten turntables set up in one room here, with nobody else in there most of the time, so I put on the following albums at once:

* "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," by Elton John (note: you reallly couldn't hear this one in the mix at all). Later I replaced it with "Butterfly" by Barbra Streisand, but you couldn't really hear that one either. Maybe it was just that record player?
* Stephanie Mills "Bit By Bit," Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack, "Fletch." This one REALLY REALLY REALLY stood out when it was playing over everything else. Later I replaced this with the "Grease" soundtrack, and then later someone put on Mexican marimba music......it wasn't bad.
* "Sesame Disco!" Yes, it's Sesame Street does disco! With titles like "What Makes Music?" "Me Lost Me Cookie At The DIsco," "The Happiest Street In The World," "Disco Frog," and "Doin' The Trash." Alas, this one sound really didn't stand out in the mix either.
* "Love Will Turn You Around" by Kenny Rogers. Oh, shut up, my parents liked this one. Hard to hear that as well.
* Joann Castle "Hawaiian Ragtime." This one stood out pretty well and nobody else changed it while I was in there.
* Christmas with the Chipmunks. You could sort of hear this one.
* Martin Mull, "Sex and Violins." I am guessing this was a comedy album but you could not hear it at all.
* Crystal Gayle, "Must Believe In Magic." This one could be heard here and there.
* Debbie Gibson, "Shake Your Love." I really enjoyed this one and you could hear it very clearly.
* Aquarius, "The 5th Dimension." This stood out somewhat well.

I walked around making a video of all of this to memorialize the cacophony, though it doesn't come off the best. I do feel sorry for the docent-types who literally spend all day long standing around doing nothing but listening to THIS racket all day long for three months, though. I kind of enjoyed the sound, but I imagine that would get on your nerves if it wasn't a novelty.

There was a quote on the wall from Cage, "Everything you do is music, and everywhere is the best seat."

They also had some recorded lectures and performances by Cage you could listen to--I liked the performances but the lectures were so random you couldn't follow them (which figures for him). They also had some books on related topics, such as his book "Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)" and his book "Silence"--sadly, both were so random I couldn't follow them, but that's probably the point. I flipped through a comic book called "Chance Operations" that was done in the same way that John Cage used the I Ching to randomize music. Sadly, I can't say it made for an interesting comic to read or even follow, but it did make me wonder how one would like, randomize a craft project like that. There was also a book called "No Such Thing As Silence: John Cage's 4'33", and it amused me there was an entire book on this.

Anyway, the whole thing was pretty cool. After that I went to the gym and the grocery store, got food for parties this week, attempted to memorize lines, and watched a show called "Encore" that gets high school theater casts back together to do a show 20 years later. I felt for the guy who said that every time he has to tell someone he does insurance...yeah, some part of you dies. After that show he's daydreaming of getting his SAG card. I feel ya, buddy.... but that's an entry for another day that I haven't finished writing yet.

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