William gedney john cage biography

American composer, music theorist, artist, and philosopher John Cage (1912–1992) transformed the aesthetics of music in what he described as “an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we’re living”.

It was a sensibility that took root in a lesser-known area of his life: an enduring love and fascination with mushrooms, beautifully documented in the two-volume monograph John Cage: A Mycological Foray – Variations on Mushrooms.

Cage’s lifelong love affair with funghi was born of necessity.

He first discovered the magic of mushrooms during the Great Depression when, lacking the money to buy food, he began foraging in his native Ca