60
J
OHN CAGE WAS LOST IN THE WOODS.
It was the evening of August 23, 1965, and the American composer
was in Emma Lake, Saskatchewan, to give a lecture at
an artists’ workshop.
Although he’d briefly strayed off
course on a mushroom-hunting expedition a...
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60
J
OHN CAGE WAS LOST IN THE WOODS.
It was the evening of August 23, 1965, and the American composer
was in Emma Lake, Saskatchewan, to give a lecture at
an artists’ workshop.
Although he’d briefly strayed off
course on a mushroom-hunting expedition a week earlier, he hadn’t learned his lesson.
“Found a large stand
of Hydnum repandum.
When others left for a nearby
lake, refused to leave,” he wrote in his journal that
night.
“Arranged to meet on road at 4:00.
3:30 started
back.
4:00 hurried.
6:30 lost.
Yelling, startled moose.
8:00 darkness, soaked sneakers; settled for the night
on squirrel’s midden.
(Family of birds; wind in the
trees, tree against tree; woodpecker.
)” Alone in the
muskeg, Cage noticed every movement, every sound.
P R O F I L E
JOHN CAGE’S
CANADA
The twentieth century’s most important avant-garde
composer may have been American, Crystal Chan writes, but
he found his greatest inspiration north of the border.
P h o t o g ra p h s b y S T E V E N S P E L I O
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