In that case, says john cage
When I first went to Paris, I did so instead of returning to Pomona
College for my Junior year. Looking around, it was Gothic architecture
that impressed me most. And of that architecture I preferred the flambuoyant
style of the fifteenth century. In this style my interest was attracted by balustrates.
These I studied for six weeks in the Bibliotheque
Mazarin, getting to the library when the doors were opened and not
leaving until they were closed. Professor Pijoan, whom I had known at
Pomona, arrived in Paris and asked me what I was doing. (We were
standing in one of the railway stations there.) I told him. He gave me
literally a swift kick in the pants and then said, “Go tomorrow to Goldfinger.
I’ll arrange for you to work with him. He’s a modern architect.”
After a month of working with Goldfinger, measuring the dimensions of
rooms which he was to modernize, answering the telephone, and drawing
Greek columns, I overheard Goldfinger saying, “To be an architect, one
must devote one’s life solely to architecture.” I then left him, for, as I
explained, there were other things that interested me, music and painting
for instance. After studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, “In order to write
music, you must have a feeling for harmony.” I then explained to him
that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always
encounter an obstacle, that it would be as though I came to a wall
through which I could not pass. I said, “In that case I will devote my
life to beating my head against that wall.”
