What my grandmother taught me about John Cage

An elder's advice on the avant-garde

My grandmother has always thrived on being enigmatic. I think it is a large part of why she has lived to almost one hundred.

Like all people who have lived a long life, she can unexpectedly share a new story that casts her character in a fresh light. For example, it wasn’t until I was an adult that she mentioned that she had attended London’s Royal Coll…