Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)
Studies - Péter Egri: (Per)chance: Joyce and Cage
What is the rigidity of rule from one point of view is the caprice of chance from another aspect. Let this duality be exemplified by a witty story from Cage's "Indeterminacy" in his volume Silence. The anecdote is perchance a clearer Postmodern ars poetica than are all his pronouncements about the impossibility of all traditional means of music, the alleged error of Beethoven (Cage — Kostelanetz, JCA 813), and the need for rewriting experience in terms of mesostics or / Ching chance operations. The story concerns a conductress who discovered that there was a surplus passenger on the crowded Manchester —Stockport bus. She asked who the last passenger was. Nobody answered. She gained the assistance of the driver and later of an inspector, yet all passengers kept quiet. After some time of general silence, the conductress, the driver and the inspector got off the bus to find a policeman. In their absence, a little man arrived asking whether that was the bus to Stockport. The passengers told him it was, so he got on the bus. The conductress, the driver and the inspector came back with a policeman, who. with the rigour of law and the righteousness of rule, asked in an officious and official tone who the last passenger on was. The little man said, "I was." The policeman said, "All right, get off." All the people on the bus burst into laughter. The conductress, thinking they were laughing at her, burst into tears and said she refused to make the trip to Stockport. The inspector then arranged for another conductress to take over. She, seeing the little man standing at the bus stop, said, "What are you doing there?" He said, "I'm waiting to go to Stockport." She said, "Well, this is the bus to Stockport. Are you getting on or not?" (Cage, S 271; cf. Hayles —Perloff and Junkerman, JCC1A 226-AX) 84
