Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)

Author: John Cage  Publisher: Siglio (2019) Now available in an expanded paperback edition, Diary registers Cage’s assessment of the times in which he lived as well as his often uncanny portents about the world we live in now. With a great sense of play as well as purpose, Cage traverses vast territory, from the domestic minutiae of everyday life to ideas about how to feed the world. He used chance operations to determine not only the word count and the application of various typefaces but also the number of letters per line, the patterns of indentation, and―in the case of Part Three, originally published by Something Else Press―color. The unusual visual variances on the page become almost musical as language takes on a physical and aural presence.While Cage used chance operations to expand the possibilities of creating and shaping his work beyond the limitations of individual taste, Diary nonetheless accumulates into a complex reflection of Cage’s sensibilities as a thinker and citize