John Cage in Vancouver, plus the Rotting Corpses of Halloween

Films on John Cage at the Vancity Theatre -- this happens tonight. Probably a great way to be introduced to Cage, if you only know his name.

New Music Festival of Cage performances (Click the "Launch Silence Flash" link) starting on Wednesday. Thursday, I think, features a guy I know from SFU, Matt Rogalsky, who I thought was a really interesting person (and who turned me on to the Holy Modal Rounders!), but whose music I've never heard. Sounds like the overall thrust is to focus on experimental composition and notation techniques, tho' personally I'm looking forward to John Tilbury doing prepared piano stuff; I don't think I've actually heard compositions for prepared piano -- by Cage or otherwise -- live. A little concerned about the silence-to-sound ratio, but I'll be there. Tons more creative Cage stuff going on in the city, too.

Trouble is that I'm really just not on the John Cage page right now -- I just finished posting some Crass lyrics on my Squamish Five/ Vancouver punk thread on the Nomeansno discussion forum, which shows you more where my head is at these days (it seems more appropriate, given the state of the world, tho' I'm as timid and middleclass as they come, so...).

By the way, speaking of the state of the world, has anyone noticed that Halloween decorations this year are taking on a singularly grim tone? It seems like there are rotting corpses in every window; there's not a trace of innocent kitch -- no pumpkins or black cats or politically incorrect witches' hats -- there's just DEATH, looking you square-on. I've been disturbed by display after display. I can't help but see it as a reaction to the denial of the body count in Iraq, which a lot of people no longer really want to know about -- it just comes creeping in some other way. It's like we're trying to compensate for the fact that we don't have REAL rotting corpses lying around everywhere. What a bummer for those who do.