Repetition sometimes works in poetry, but rarely in prose. The musical provocateur John Cage once wrote a lecture in which a single page was repeated fourteen times, with the refrain “If anybody is sleep let him go to sleep” (Cage, 1961). Midway through, the artist Jean Reynal stood up and screamed, “John, I dearly love you, but I can’t bear another minute.

Repetition sometimes works in poetry, but rarely in prose. The musical provocateur John Cage once wrote a lecture in which a single page was repeated fourteen times, with the refrain “If anybody is sleep let him go to sleep” (Cage, 1961). Midway through, the artist Jean Reynal stood up and screamed, “John, I dearly love you, but I can’t bear another minute.

– Gary F. Marcus –

Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning

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