Empty Words

{{Short description|1979 book by John Cage}}

{{About|the John Cage book}}

{{Unreferenced|date=December 2009}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2023}}

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| caption = First edition

| author = John Cage

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| country = United States

| language = English

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| subject = Music

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| publisher = Wesleyan University Press

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| pub_date = 1979

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| pages = 199

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| isbn = 978-0819550323

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Empty Words: Writings '73–'78 is a book by American avant-garde composer John Cage (1912–1992), first published in 1979 by Wesleyan University Press.

Contents

  • "Foreword" (1978)
  • "Preface to Lecture on the Weather" (1979)
  • "How the Piano Came to be Prepared" (1973)
  • "Empty Words" (1974–75)
  • "Where Are We Eating? and What Are We Eating? (38 Variations on a Theme by Alison Knowles)" (1975)
  • "Series re Morris Graves" (1974)
  • "Sixty-One Mesostics Re and Not Re Norman O. Brown" (1979)
  • "Writing for the Second Time through Finnegans Wake" (1978)
  • "The Future of Music" (1974)

Also included are the following mesostics:

  • "Many Happy Returns" (1979)
  • "A Long Letter" (1977)
  • "Song" (1979)
  • "For S. Fort, Dancer" (1979)
  • "For William Mc N. Who studied with Ezra Pound" (1979)
  • "Wright's Oberlin House Restored by E. Johnson" (1979)
  • "'I'm the happiest person I know' (S.W.)" (1975)

See also