Persons of Note - eccentric
John Cage
Yoshiro Nakamatsu
Alfred Jarry
What do they all have in common?
It is either they are strange, crazy, eccentric, revolutionary or simply too creative for their own good.
Yoshiro Nakamatsu (@Dr_NakaMats)
Japanese inventor
"I will either welcome you or welcome you in a coffin." - Dr. Nakamatsu, 2016. Stated in his blog for an invitation to his birthday party.
"If It were stomach cancer, I would have been angry as that would have been easier to treat." - diagnosed that he has ductal carcinoma in 2015.
"91 is young. I am still halfway through my life." - he plans to live up to 144 years old
Is he for real though?
Japanese inventor
"I will either welcome you or welcome you in a coffin." - Dr. Nakamatsu, 2016. Stated in his blog for an invitation to his birthday party.
"If It were stomach cancer, I would have been angry as that would have been easier to treat." - diagnosed that he has ductal carcinoma in 2015.
"91 is young. I am still halfway through my life." - he plans to live up to 144 years old
Is he for real though?
- It is said that he patented IBM's floppy disk, however they did not claim to have received any help in creating the floppy disk. The things he claimed to have patented are not all true.
- He invented rather strange things:
- a waterproof pen and notebook
- jumping boots (pyon-pyon)
- a chair that claims to improve one's health (Cerebrex),
- viagra (Love Jet)
- a cure to his cancer (consisting: a song, tea and food)
Alfred Jarry (1873-1907)
French symbolist writer
- I would say that he is rather different. Maybe leaning towards delusional.
- Though claimed to be an understated writer and a major influence in contemporary writing. (falls under the Dadaist and surrealist group of creatives)
- Known work: Ubu Roi. A horrible character made by him based on one of his teachers. It is said that Ubu destroyed Jarry and he became that character, unable to distinguish between reality and imagination.
- Also coined in the idea of Pataphysics = the combination of metaphysics (philosophy of abstract concepts such as time etc) + theoretical physics
- It was rumoured that a romantic such as himself had to fight or drug himself to control his imagination and invention (Ubu). I concluded that: he was crazy.
John Cage (1912-1992)
American musician/composer
(the most conceptual of them all)
- I feel that he is the human embodiment of Tate Modern. He focuses on very conceptual and experimental approaches to making music. One of it being silence. Though it made me think, does silence truly exist? What about the subtle ticking of clocks or breathing?
- A questionable and revolutionary musician/composer
- His earlier works are very similar to Erik Satie's or Claude Debussy's style, Impressionist. Though it became very minimalistic and experimental as he had been influenced by post-war (seek artistic needs/need to express/creativity) situations as well as contemporary/modern artists such as Rauschenberg, Duchamp etc.
- Then he also looked into more technology-driven approach to making music.
"Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise; when we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating." - John Cage, 1937 essay
- Though thinking about it, these people, if they weren't a tad bit eccentric or one of the first to do something new, to experiment, perhaps they wouldn't leave a distinct legacy. For instance, if Cage continues to create music similar to Satie's perhaps he wouldn't be as recognised and perhaps people wouldn't even consider the thought of other forms of 'music'.
Sources:
- https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/japans-87-year-old-patent-king-is-trying-to-invent-treatment-for-his-own-cancer
- https://www.tofugu.com/japan/dr-nakamats/
- http://dr-nakamats.seesaa.net/article/401274451.html
- https://thedissectedfrog.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/25-reasons-alfred-jarry-is-the-merdre/
- https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/04/alfred-jarry-pataphysical-life-review
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