ABSTRACT
To the Editor: I believe that the emphasis you have given [T30] to Cage and McLuhan as germinal influences on Happenings may be oversimplified and, as a result, really unfair to these men. As quite a few of us see the Happenings, what is astonishing is that they are panartistic phenomena, in which energies originally developing within the separate fields of painting, dance, music, poetry, etc., began to cross each other’s paths at various and unexpected places. This was what mutually affected all of them, and in turn produced new hybrid arts and new ideas as well. Mike Kirby has observed this, certainly, but in dealing with only the American (and largely the New York) group, he has tended to localize the whole business around Cage. Cage’s indirect stimulation should not be underestimated, but to place upon him the burden of sponsorship for a range of activities which in part he had nothing to do with, and which in part he is not comfortable with, is to do him a disservice. I do not know how McLuhan feels about this, but Cage is apparently uncomfortable with his assigned role; his interview in T30 made that perfectly clear.
