John Cage - Chesspiece (excerpt)

[Dolphidood]

Lol basically try it in till your interested you quiter!!

[alaespsd]

and it's still boring :)

[alaespsd]

what if i close it, will i be les bored!

[jamesaellis]

15 people are still bored.

[TheHerrUnwichtig]

Shall this be music or what?

[naklajat]

don't feed the trolls, flag spam as spam.

[becomepostal]

I was about to say "BORING" but I prefer to restrain myself.

[Huffinearts]

what a nut!

[bardobound]

boredom can be interesting... cage will challenge you so many ways.

[ignacio270]

cage, un genio

[BMFM1000]

no, no lo es....... solo es interezante

[ignacio270]

sólo los genios musicales cambian el rumbo de la historia de la música. y cage cambió la manera a traves de la cual se organiza una obra musical. aparte su música posee una coherencia interna fascinante. el proverbio que sostiene en este video tiene que ver con una filosofía de vida mas que con una manera de escribir música.

[emperorIng360]

This is horrible shot.

Could anyone tell what was going on?

[jazztrumpet87]

it was a chess game. i get it.

[emperorIng360]

now the universe is open to me

[iwanttowatchsomethin]

Cage expresses the Buddhist notion of suffering, of which boredom is subcategory. To me it suggests that there is a way in which attention can transform discomfort into pleasure. Pleasure as earned rather than as something we get when we escape. It is a very conservative notion, really.

[TakashiKashikura]

i bet most of you took 10 seconds to judge the value of his statement. people are so quick to judge they fail to see with their eyes no more. your responses prove his point.

give it 2 mins, 4 mins, 8 mins... then you would've seen maybe there is something to see and learn about what society label as garbage.

(note: I'm not a fan of Cage)

[Karlfalcon]

Ah, whadda y'all know...

[MitsukiUzumaki]

I love the beat to this song, I couldn't help but snap my fingers along with it.

[townspersondpad]

I must agree with you, such brilliance, such innovation to the world of music.

[townsperson]

Frick yeah man, I was headbanger after it got heavy at 0:22. Then I was all like, "Grryrarara" at 2:53.

[poias7n]

yeah, incomparable song here by Johnny Cage. You should see the video of one of his songs being played on a bus - it has ratings of +290 for some of the comments! Never heard anything like it!

Search for 'cage bus 333'.

[plathhs]

Just great.

[weas89el]

... ... ... ... ...

I don't get it.

[pksr4]

Re: Comment by WonderfulWorldofShit: YES

Re: Comment by 80851: LOL!

[jklxsjkl]

Agreed. This is shit, big-time.

[kjhahjashashsah]

yeah it's just bolocks

[MYNOSEISFULLOFSNOT]

This is a wanker's paradise. He should have this sodding video rammed up his ass.

[aurelius54]

I like Cage but it seems to me that something much more interesting could be done with chess than this.

[GrlLeastLikelyTo]

If I was Duchamp I wouldn't trust John Cage alone with my wife in a darkened screen. Winkwink, Nudgenudge

[jiolsmolimassunemo]

Cage was not straight though... so... it's a good thing you're not Duchamp.

[Somniaxe]

lol. ditto

[bobzechikon]

@80851 go cry in a corner

[eatcloud]

@WonderfulWorldOfShit What work did you make that makes you more valid than John Cage?

[khsgvq]

No, it's not bullshit, it's just bollocks, plain and simple.

[opuisbx]

I disagree, it's bollocks AND B.S.

[uoidbqwhxpuobhd]

No, it's just BS, not bollocks.

[abcdefghijk1mnopqrst]

Bollocks and bullshit.

[6509a]

I don't understand what you are arguing about. Is there REALLY any difference in meaning between describing a video as 'bullshit' and describing it as bollocks'?

[rkvgxovs]

Shut the fuck up you wankers all this stupid argument about bollocks and bullshit

[slb666k]

Hey, cut the bad language, you bastards!

[BlackVomitSmellsBad]

"Hey cut the ban language, you b*******" he says. LOL!

[TheFutureofBullshit]

Bullshit is a major social force today. The world revolves around bullshit. We can't do without it, because the structure of society can't survive without it. Much of what we read in the papers is bullshit: the truth manipulated by commercial and/or political interests.

Cage brings the whole question of bullshit into the public arena. Now bullshit is out in the open, praised, glorified, even intellectualised. Is that good or bad?

[miisu]

This Cage guy was amazing.How can you make money and gain fame doing this kind of nonsense.The great avantgarde swindle indeed.

[wedlyr]

Do some research and you'll realize that money and fame didn't matter to Cage. It was all about the process and joy of making music, or in this case the film, which can be considered music. The time it took for him to concieve how things were done, camera position, time of each frame, etc., would most likely baffle you.

Swindle? I don't think so.

[miisu]

Yeah I've done some "research" and I still think this is crap.

[wedlyr]

obviously "research" doesn't grant appreciation

[l1rr]

Probably wedlyr's idea of 'research' is looking something up on Wikipedia ...

Cage disliked art and culture because he didn't understand it and felt like an outsider (he tried to study with Schoenberg but Schoenberg said that Cage didn't have the intellectual capacity to learn anything). So Cage's spent the rest of his life denying the value of art and culture (a sort of childish 'revenge').

It's the standard 'failed musician' mentality. That's why failed musicians identify with Cage.

[wedlyr]

Actually my research is more like studying Cage and reading some of his writings (ie. Silence). I've also read the book "The Music of John Cage" by James Pritchett.

Combine that with being a successful musician and music major and you get appreciation. 

Learn to open your mind up to something that doesn't sound like the same shit everyone else has. I don't ask anyone to like what Cage wrote or composed.

[wedlyr]

I think a musician should have an appreciation, however, to a variety of forms, styles, and time periods.

By the way, Wikipedia is the most unreliable piece of shit the internet has given birth to!

[RayAtBristolUni]

wedlyr: Yes, Wikipedia is a problem. Many students are interested in Wikipedia simply because academics disapprove of it - and some people think that it's wonderful to have a 'democratic' resource to which anyone can contribute. Unfortunately many articles are unreliable and when specialists contribute useful articles other people change them and mess them up.

Try the Dave Nicholls symposium on John Cage. It's very good. He was one of my teachers.

[SSSHHHIIIITTT]

What do you want to read a symposium about John Cage for? John Cage STINKS!

[iwanttowatchsomethin]

Cage notoriously failed to understand music. He was baffled as to why a composer needs a justification to play one sound against another sound. But this is an innocence akin to genius. Cage questioned all these justifications for musical practices of his day. When you say Cage disliked art, you have to understand that Cage was critical of "closure" in art -- what he called "merely art".

[Pissartistry]

What's all this "wise words about spam" shit about? Wankers!!

[RightUpYourAss]

Pretentious shit. Shove it up your backside!

[universeshit]

There wouldn't be any logic in shoving it up anyone's backside. That's where it came from.

[uzvv]

It's just bollocks.

[the1917revolution]

Bollocks and bullshit.

[ThePukingExperience]

Just plain shit, I think.

[keeskogel3291]

And? And? Who's the winner? Who's the loser?

[hobomatt2007]

this guy is kinda strange

[1099lp]

He's not strange, he's just intellectually bent.

[hobomatt2007]

in a good or bad way

[psychedelica59]

why don't you just meditate

[STEVETHEBlKER]

This vid shows you can't make nothing out of shit. UTube is nothing but assholes

[onejivinturkey]

you're an asshole if you don't see the meaning of that

[keeskogel3291]

Oh well--guess I'm an asshole...

[TheLittleDildo]

hey wankers, wake up! cant you see that John Cage is just shitting on you? This is crap and if you like this video you should have this bolox shoved up your fuckin ass LOL!

[KingBoneheadVIII]

This is Cage at his worst, lacking any self-discipline over 'creativity'.

[howardwhiddett]

LMAO

[RockMusicIsCrap]

Steve the biker, can't you be more articulate than this? 'This vid shows you can't make nothing out of shit'. What's that supposed to mean?

[mack2d2]

Can someone explain the logic behind the blurred out of focus shot style? I like the dialog/audio but what gives with the video... I get the feeling this is like the Emperor's New Robe/Clothes... people don't want to say this is stupid because they think they may just not understand it... admit it people, this makes no sense!

[fabio26882]

Well, the dialog/audio alone is not enough?

what he said makes perfect sense to me

the picture also makes sense, they're playing chess

the picture is not perfect, but it's not boring

there are lots of things happening, simultaneously

even if you focus your attention on a specific area, detail, action, etc

still there are lots of things happening, that you can't control

John makes those subtle overtones of reality more audible

[BiggestErectionInUSA]

It's time for all of us to move on from this pathetic crap. There are plenty of major creative figures in American music whose work we hardly ever hear yet Cage gets all the attention. Any five bars of Carl Ruggles are worth more than Cage's entire output.

[oneandonemakestwo]

Well said! Carl Ruggles (1876-1971) is a neglected American genius. The sad people who pretend to admire John Cage in a bid to be "intellectual" really ought to investigate proper, decently-composed American music from outside the mainstream. The tiny compositional output of Carl Ruggles (smaller even than Varese and of equally high quality) is as good a place to start as any.

[larryjay7]

Cage used chance processes extensively in all his work. He may have varied the focus of the camera based on random values derived from one of his processes.

[cerberusjf]

Can someone please tell me if there is a reason why the chess board is the wrong way round?

[DogEditus]

I really don't understand this, at all. Maybe there is a purpose for this, but I don't get it.

[mazzyr]

well thats 1:34 i will never get back.

[furibondaa]

fantastic video, idea and great cage :)

[f3ilter]

I remember seeing the doco that this sequence came from many years ago. It has had a profound effect on me. I think it is beautiful and engaging and inspiring.

[stinkingfart]

bollocks

[WiseWordsAboutSpam]

Before deciding whether you like spam or not, you will have to think carefully about it. Is spam nice? If you think it is nice, you will probably like spam. But if you think spam is unpleasant, you will probably not like spam. The choice is up to you.

[PleaseDontShagTheDog]

Shut the fuck up about spam you dickhead!

[trs5557yd]

Very wise words. I'll remember those words of wisdom for the rest of my life.

[jakobnev]

"Very wise words. I'll remember those words of wisdom for the rest of my life."

Unfortunetly the rest of your life will be really fucking boring..

[luketrinder]

Indeed

[igorsartoni]

so he will live a little bit more...

[maziarj]

the discussions between john and the camera operator before this filming is really funny. the camera operator is teaching John Cage about different possibilities that the camera has, and John Asks for thing that doesn't sound Logical to the camera man and keeps saying " but you dont want to do that because you wont get a good picture" and John cage replies every time " well I am not interested in good picture, I am interested in possibilities and how randomly the can function"

[iwanttowatchsomethin]

This is what is interesting -- possibilities. Composers want to explore possibility, and present works which could have occurred differently. This moves away from perfection in one regard, but opens up toward perfection in the moment, and the specialness of the moment. This has always been part of the arts, but since cage and others, it is of primary interest. Soon we may even regard the choices that composers do NOT make as part of their legacies.

[Buttonless]

this is great! thanks for the video man!!

[heartworm666]

This is fantastic, thank you!

[i1813]

This is bollocks.