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The problem - well, one problem because there are quite a few - with writing this first thing in the morning is that I'm still not quite clear in the head as I think quite a bit of my brain is in dream mode. I don't know about other people but I'm not remotely compos mentis immediately after getting up - the body may be upright and the eyes nominally open, but to all intents and purposes, the brain is still running iDream. If I'm really unlucky my eyes will still be in REM as well and I'll keep tripping over and spilling my coffee everywhere.

Insert joke about Happy Shiny People here.

Anyway, this means that some of what I've been writing this week comes as a surprise to me later in the day due to, as I mentioned on Tuesday, the brain's tendency to forget night time narratives. This can be a good thing as I can read it twenty four hours later with a fresh eye as I would someone else's work and judge whether it's shit or not. However the downside is that there's a danger I'll end up repeating myself as I won't really remember previous days' efforts. So apologies if some of this blog ends up as a recurring nightmare. That's my excuse for self-plagiarism, anyway.

It's either that, or I'll end up writing the blogging equivalent of John Cage's 4′33″. And whilst I'm on the subject I would genuinely like to know whether the aforementioned four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence actually has any artistic merit or is merely Cage taking the piss out of the avant-garde? Am I a terrible philistine for even entertaining the notion that it was him being lazy? And is it me or is it insane that you can actually buy the track from iTunes?

You can. I just checked. To add insult to injury they have divided it into its three movements so buying the full work would set you back £2.37.

Actually, I tell a lie - the whole thing is available as an album for £1.29. And I'm now starting to really enjoy the fact that you can buy on iTunes something that you could reproduce by simply turning off your iPod for four and a bit minutes. Never mind avant-garde composer; John Cage was a master comedian.

Even funnier are some of the good reviews:
"Each time you play this album your own personal performance begins. This is the only album on iTunes [...] that guarantees you a different performance each time."
As John Cage's work is still in copyright, does this mean you can't be quiet without making a payment to his estate? Do the spaces between tracks on albums by other artists mean that this is the most covered piece of music ever?

When a song fades out is it segueing into this track?

And have I embedded an MP3 of the track into this web page... or not?

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