Where The Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

Part biography, part cultural history, and part adoring fan’s notes, journalist Larson’s inventive and contemplative reflections on Cage’s encounters with and absorption of Zen Buddhism opens new windows on Cage’s often complex yet always compelling, music. Weaving threads of the teachings of Zen Buddhist writer D.T. Suzuki and Alan Watts, along with Cage’s own reflections and writings on art, music, dance, and life, Larson patches together a brilliant quilt that covers Cage’s growing understanding of the nature of noise and silence and the roles that each plays in music. Although Cage studied with Suzuki, he admits that he didn’t understand Buddhism until one day when he was walking in the woods looking for mushrooms, the meaning of Suzuki’s teachings came to him. He lived from that moment practicing the Buddhist belief in the interpenetration of all things. By 1946, Cage was reaching out to the great contemplative traditions to comprehend the nature of his suffering self—his marriage was breaking up, and his relationship with Merce Cunningham was quickly developing—and to reflect his great love, music, in the mirror of a greater love. Larson’s thoughtful meditation on Cage offers a glimpse at the evolution of an artist who abandoned many of the musical structures of the past and opened new doors for several generations of musicians and artists. Agent, Anne Edelstein. (July)