Yes—many funny comments.  You have the vitriolic defenders of Cage, raging against us know-nothings and waxing intellectual about the philosophic implications of Cage’s stunning innovation.  And you have the jokesters, inquiring about where they might obtain the digital download version, or the techno remix.

Me, I just think it’s funny that the piece has three movements.

Ironic that we have this in an age when silence is less a part of ordinary life, and less appreciated.

Perhaps, in a society that no longer knows how to listen for God in the stillness, this is one way post-modern cultural elites can be convinced to take silence seriously. Make them pay for it and pretend it is really special and important because a famous artist gives them permission to take note.

On the face of it, it is funny because of the absurdity of it. But, I also thought as I watched it, that there is a kernel of truth beneath the absurdity that Cage, the musicians, and the audience, at least on some level, recognize—that silence is important for a flourishing life, and that it should be taken seriously. It’s just that the way they attempt to do so is so hyper-exaggerated and wrongly contextualized it becomes silly.

This is what happens when we no longer recognize the value of what, for example, happens in traditional monastic life with its built-in structures of communal silence. We still realize somehow that communal, organized silence is a good, but we no longer have an idea of where it properly belongs, or from where to derive inspiration for how to embrace silence fruitfully.