We’ve returned to pioneering composer/philosopher/artist John Cage’s book A Year from Monday MANY times since we first picked it up in a friend’s library many years ago. You can open it anywhere and find a snippet that will turn your head around. Like this clarifying view of TASTE, and the opinions about style that are so much a part of modern life:
Ultimately, it’s not a question of taste. It’s the other way around.
Each thing in this world asks us, “What makes you think I’m not something you like?
We find that asking this question as we navigate the world helps to gently loosen up our rote opinions. It softens our view of ugly, oppressive, out-of-balance, NOT, making us see more possibilities. We’ve been applying it to our snarky Annals of Bad Design (of which the bathtub, above is part), and find it curiously liberating.
…“What makes you think I’m not something you like?
…“What makes you think I’m not something you like?
…“What makes you think I’m not something you like?
…“What makes you think I’m not something you like?
