The Likes of Which Have Never Been Seen

Here again, is a rather tired, frustrated university student rant. Today's words: anthropomorphic, amorphic, alchemy and androgynous. Perhaps I should be more succint on the point; I have figured out the scope of my next essay for Bruce's class.

Each of these four words are crucial in my understanding of the "beat" movement. These terms all epitomise what I have pictured to be the premise of my argument. John Cage, in his essays/lectures reawakened the essence of sound and performance. This is something which has been sorely neglected of late. Readers have been for so long prodded into internalised reading of texts, and particularly poetry, that they can no longer hear the beauty of the language. The "Lecture on Nothing" and "The Lecture on Something" have essentially the same scope. The words are laid out on the page in a way which forces the reader to have audible pauses between the words and phrases. Also, they are cyclical, suggesting that the place we should be-at is both the beginning and the end: the ouroboros. Cage makes particular reference to learning to play the piano. Learning anything new requires attention to detail, but also a cyclical patterning. One must repeat or re-beat the pattern learned before any further progress can ensue. The alchemy prescribed by Cage creates this world of human cycles. Birth and death of language are not separate entities, they are one and the same. The beat is not a higher clime to achieve, it is the place we are forced to be-at today.

This sounds rather abstracted right now, but I will use it all as a working model for this essay. Happy reading all, for us University-shackled individuals, only a few weeks to go!