john cage

In 1959, University of Detroit staffers slipped three silent 45s into the student union jukebox, designed to allow the purchase of peace and quiet during Bobby Darin and Paul Anka barrages. The blanks soon became so popular that needle-burn replaced their hush with the sound of bacon cooking, leading Student Council President Mike McCann to promise undergrads “replacement 45s of ‘stereophonic silence,’ which are twice as silent as monaural disks.” Months later, to protest Elvis’ powers of teen arousal, Pennsylvania’s conservative Reading Eagle News announced the world’s first Silent Record Week, “a tribute to silent jukeboxes” that squares across the world still celebrate every January. Upon catching wind of the Eagle’s nothing-fest, McCann publicly committed his university’s 65-strong cho...