This performance is identical to John Cage’s infamous “4’33”” but instead of a piano, I used my latest novel, called Blink if You Love Me (Adelaide Books, 2019). Some other differences include standing instead of sitting; use of a hidden stopwatch as opposed to one freely exposed, thus partially obfuscating the performance; inexactitude of timing due to the stopwatch being hidden; inability to accidentally tap any of the piano keys, since no piano was present; lack of a controlled space in which to experience the presence or loss of silence or the negotiations of silence therein due to inherent noisiness of the book convention.

My thinking behind this performance piece was about bringing some chance variety to a classic minimalist composition; how can I recreate it while at the same time making it new? My solution was to use the book as the central object of the score. I also like the idea of turning a novel—which is traditionally thought of as something which must be read out loud or performed by reading the words printed on its pages—into an object for performance instead; “prepared novel,” if you will. Therefore this performance could be renamed “4’33”” for Prepared Novel.

Audience members who noted the start and stop times of the performance mentioned a running time which matched the original within seconds, which may be notable considering the hidden stopwatch. The novel is about a marriage plagued by the tragedy of mispronunciation.