For Richard Pinnell

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.
So the most difficult thing is always to keep your beginner's mind. There is no need to have a deep understanding of zen.

~ Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind















The piece is not actually silent [there will never be silence until death comes which never comes]; it is full of sound, but sounds which I do not think of beforehand, which I hear for the first time the same time others hear. What we hear is determined by our own emptiness, our own receptivity; we receive to the extent we are empty to do so. If one is full, or in the course of its performance becomes full of an idea[...], then it is just that.

~John Cage, responding to a detractor of 4'33", recalled by Christian Wolff



Photo: David Tudor performing 4'33", 1952

Absolutely necessary and altogether impossible

New music writing appearing shortly. I have been called to granddaughter-care duty for a while.



























I am delighted to read here and there how flummoxed and wind-milled many listeners feel when trying to articulate some sort of response to motubachii, the radical duo release on Erstwhile of Annette Krebs and Taku Unami.

This mind-stoppage, however temporary its hold before we resume concretizing what initially blew our orienteer-shit away, makes it possible for us as listeners to really look at a lot of received and reified notions about what is music, how dependable is our listening acumen, stuff like that.
This occurs too infrequently, at least in an uncontrived and visceral way, and I am growing fairly confident motubachii may be that sort of genuine article.

My thoughts on motubachii will be published in the summer issue of the Paris Transatlantic.


[Post heading from Stanislaw Lem, The Star Diaries]

All bend
in one wind.

Wendell Berry, All

kyi

Why all the embarrassment
about being happy?
Sometimes I'm as happy
as a sleeping dog,
and for the same reasons,
and for others.

Wendell Berry, Why

Bonne lecture!

[Cellist Charles Curtis]


While you are waiting for me to get the next piece of music writing posted, do yourself a favor and hie over to the irascible, indefatigable Dan Warburton's excellent Paris Transatlantic, and enjoy copious reviews of new music.

Be sure to check the interview with cellist Charles Curtis, whose interpretations of Elaine Radigue, La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier are among my favorite releases. Paris Transatlantic gives the interview format ample space, and when the subject is Curtis, it is justified.

the guidelines

A student asked Suzuki Roshi if he kept an eye on his students to see if they were following the precepts, the Buddhist guidelines of conduct.

"I don't pay attention to whether you're following the precepts or not," he answered. "I just notice how you are with one another."

~ Suzuki Roshi quoted in To Shine One Corner Of The World

clarify the great matter

Dogen Zenji does not say just wholeheartedly sit on a cushion. If you believe in just doing that, place a rock on a cushion and let it sit. It sits better than we do.
Is that enlightened life? We should not fool ourselves.

~ Taizan Maezumi Roshi, Clarify The Great Matter

The photo is of the altar in the zendo at Dharma Field Zen Center in Minneapolis, where I occasionally attend.
The rock supplanted a statue of the buddha, in order, according to Dharma Field head teacher Steve Hagen, "to not confuse people" who react strongly, whether reverentially or negatively, to religious iconography.
One matter is clarified by sitting in this space- it is as Maezumi says, the rock sits better than we do.