Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Bill Trigg <>]

Where can we find the "rules" for creating mesostics?

Bill Trigg

On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 3:17 PM, Stefano Pocci <> wrote:

On 04/11/2013 06:49 PM, Andrew Culver wrote:

Good find, Stefano.

I believe John would have considered this a mistake, and would have considered fixing it by removing "am I doing something wrong".

As it is, the answer is: "Yes, John, you are doing something wrong."

Which makes it right, or at least positive, hmmm?

Nice.

Would he have allowed this rule-pun to survive? Why not?

This should not be taken, however, as an invitation to relax the rules at will. Cage considered them essential, and both he and I spent many hours proofing mesostics and removing or reworking rule-breaking passages. And the software Jim Rosenberg and I wrote were inflexible rule-enforcers.

Recall the desire to find a way of writing that is not about ideas, but produces them. With respect to the source text, the function of the rules is to strip away extant meaning, while simultaneously brushing words against each other in unexpected combinations, thus releasing new meanings.

Andrew Culver

Thanks Andrew. I understand how much rules meant for John and so "I did something wrong" when I deliberately ignored or violated them, but I did to make the mesostic sound nice and intelligible as I was more interested in its graphical quality.

However, I've recently become more fascinated with the challenge that the rules impose on the composition of mesostics. Sometimes you need to leave some blanks because any word fit and these blanks make them mysterious and apparently meaningless, but as you recalled the idea underlying them, that is old ideas 'remixed' that produce newer ones, I guess that's probably what John had in mind.

About the Meister Eckhart mesostic. Both the Italian translation by Michele Porzio and the French one by Daniel Charles have no mistakes instead :-) They respect the 50% rule.


Stefano