Tributes to John Cage: The Kennedy Center Concert and Ninth Street Crossings

WHAT CAN you say about a 70-year-old wiseacre, whose public persona exudes sensitivity and dogma, insight and fatuousness? And what can you say when that 70-year-old man is John Cage? Probably nothing: at his age perhaps he's earned the right to be flip, fatuous and petulant. His music makes a better show – on every level – than he does, and it is what counts, even if Cage doesn't always want his audience to think that.