Let’s have a belated celebration of John Cage’s birthday, September 5th, though frankly I’m prepared to celebrate him any day of the year.
And I did see the above photograph on Gary Leonard’s Instagram feed, taken on September 5th 1987 at a party given for Cage at the Triforium in downtown Los Angeles. (He was born in 1912 – looking good, John).
The Triforium is a piece of public sculpture in downtown LA created in 1975 by Joseph Young, made from concrete and illuminated Venetian glass prisms and connected to a programmed sound system. Music and lights moved in harmony. This is a picture I took in 2022.
It was silent for quite a long time but thanks to the folks at the Triforium Project there were live performances in 2017 and 18. And I was at one of them, though as I recall they didn’t play any John Cage
I was there with my psychogeographic pal Anthony Miller, who knows all and sees all, and he said, ‘Isn’t that Gary Leonard over there taking pictures?’ Gary Leonard is a legend in LA, having photographed the great and the good and the deeply obscure, from LA punks onward.
And indeed it was Gary Leonard, and we talked to him a little bit. Now Gary Leonard did a great book, also now a website, called ‘Take My Picture’ and it took a certain amount of will power not to say to him, ‘Take my picture, Gary,’ but we managed it. Sometimes I think that was a mistake.
Anyway, now in further celebration of John Cage and acknowledgement of his status as foodie, mycologist and wit, here is a ‘story’ from his work Indeterminacy.
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