05.31.09
John Cage's Seventieth Birthday Riddle (Testimonial Poem By Javier Hernandez-Miyares)
i remember sitting close to John Cage.
it was somewhere in the Village.
Steven Pacia was next to me and Merce…
…was next to John:
It was 1982 September Five
Seventy years of John divulging
while pretending not to speak
and always laughing;
and now while his acolytes perform
the ritual of nonexistence,
and he Seventy years old and
now an ancient gag in denim…
Merce asks: How many Buddhist monks does it take to screw in a light bulb?
John replies
: I don’t know.
Merce divulges: Two… One to screw it in, and one not 2.
John: —silence— and then laughter.
On September 5th 1982, i attended a concert of John Cage’s music in celebration of his seventieth birthday. It took place at St. Marks Church, and this is my recollection of that evening.