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The Daily Dish - 2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan

Thought For The Day

By The Daily Dish
Aug 9 2008, 6:02 AM ET

From a great survey of how artists work. John Cage:

One day when I was studying with Schoenberg, he pointed out the eraser on his pencil and said, “This end is more important than the other.” After twenty years I learned to write directly in ink.

Recently, when David Tudor returned from Europe, he brought me a German pencil of modern make. It can carry any size of lead. Pressure on a shaft at the end of the holder frees the lead so that it can be retracted or extended or removed and another put in its place. A sharpener comes with the pencil. The sharpener offers not one but several possibilities. That is, one may choose the kind of point he wishes.

There is no eraser.



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