Where the Heart Beats 3

Chapter 2 is entitled "John Cage 1912-1938."  Considerably longer than the first chapter, it is broken into different titled sections:  "The View From Pacific Palisades," "The Shape of the Future 1: Men," "The Shape of the Future 2: Music," "The Shape of the Future 3: Art," "Buddha of the Bathroom," "Luigi Russolo," "Arnold Schoenberg," "Oskar Fischinger," and "Walking Water Walk."  Many more Cage quotes are used to create pseudo-conversation.  The opening sections have fascinating descriptions of Cage's early adult life.  He really bluffed his way into just about every aspect of his life, from painting to music to love.  I had no idea that Cage got married, though the author uses quotes to make the very good point about the underground lifestyle forced upon homosexuals in the 1930s that Cage found untenable.  Plus it sounds like he was very confused about his whole sexual identity, falling into and out of love very quickly.  Slowly, as Cage encounters more movers and shakers of the avant-garde, he moves from dabbling dilettante to serious practitioner.  And the seeds of his influences from Dada and Futurism are explored, though more from the perspective of Marcel Duchamp and Luigi Rossolo than from Cage's perspective (so far).  There are hints of the connections to Buddhism as well.  The quotes flow much better than in the first chapter, and the chapter ends with a tease about Cage's later success with Water Walk to show the results of those early influences.