6th August 2020 - The book that never arrives.
When I first began to prepare John Cage’s One8 for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, it did not seem possible to find any information anywhere about the piece, other than the score and performer instructions. I asked the Company, Peters publishers, my cello teacher, colleagues. My research covered texts, performances and recordings. But no one seemed to know anything about the piece. It had been composed only nine years earlier, so I presumed that this was normal. I developed an approach based on my own practice, a realisation using only Cage’s directions; I worked it out for myself. And in this way, the experience held more meaning for me because it was self-determined. The day after I performed it for the first time in Mulhouse, arriving back in London and walking into Schotts music store, on the CD rack directly facing me, in the centre so that I could not miss it, I immediately spotted a recording of the piece by another cellist. But I was used to mysterious events by then.
When I began this research project in 2014, I did a literature search to find texts, existing knowledge, accounts by performers on experience and accepted approaches in performing with MCDC but found very little. Searching again as I began to write up the research project, I came across some texts on performance philosophies in The Cambridge Companion to John Cage and immediately ordered the book. The Covid-19 restrictions had begun, and this was the only way to read it. My university library was closed. For the following two months Cambridge University Press, only an hour’s drive away, apologised that the book had not arrived yet, refunded my money, and messaged that they had posted another copy to me, on a weekly basis. But, strangely, no matter how often the book was sent, posted, put in a delivery van, it never arrived.
By this point, I had already written the chapters that I had hoped these texts would be useful in illuminating, and through working it out myself had arrived at some meaningful thoughts which had ultimately clarified some remaining perspectives. Finally, I downloaded a pdf copy from the internet as Cambridge University Press had again apparently sent the book that never arrives. And in the pdf found an essay on philosophy and performance which now supported what I had worked out for myself. I expect that the essay giving perspectives on Cage’s performance philosophies will arrive when I finish Chapter 3, just as this lockdown will end when I finally submit this thesis.