The portable is still locked in a world of its own � even more so than is usually the case.

I have been looking through my comprehensive Rauschretro volume which my sister gave me a couple of Christmasses past. The plot thickens as far as the 1961 Paris Tudor Homage is concerned. Several different artists were involved � including Tinguely who specialised in self destructive mechanical sculptures � and there was an episode which involved a real marksman shooting at a dummy and puncturing containers of paint. So in France � home of Artaud � the TH takes a very violent form.

Rausch�s paint brushes and canvas had contact mikes connected to an amplifier. The finished painting was one of the series of combines which include some iconic pieces � like the monogram one with the goat and the tyre.

In the R-retro Nancy Spector uses the TH event and one about eight years earlier to open her review article of R-performances to open the article � these are the signature episodes. In this earlier event, Cage�s model A Ford has paint put on a tyre and it is driven over a great length of papers gummed together. This piece is also included in the standard R-ouevre. A decade later there would be the Lamonte Young piece � draw a straight line and follow it (I think in 10 for Henry Flynt) � which would be executed by N J Park - the pioneer video artist. The LmY newsgroup still struggles with the meaning of this one.

So many of these personalities and episodes are closely interwoven � over decades. R�s white paintings famously provoked 4 mins 33 secs � and then there was the famous Black Mountain event which enters history as the first happening � say within a year of the tyre episode � designed by Cage with the white paintings hanging from the ceiling.

The tyre �line� reaches across to Cage�s practice of drawing a line on paper and then looking for the occurrence of imperfections in the paper on the line and using that as a compositional tool � a way of getting randomness into the work � like the I-Ching, R is also involved in the years following the Tudor Homage with Ann Halpern and the Judson Dance Theatre who progress towards radical minimal dance with Robert Morris, a pioneer minimalist sculptor also

Spector tries to summarise these trends as an example of �an international subculture where performative gesture or corporeal action is emphasised over the aesthetic object� in which a �theatrical art favours inclusion and spontaneity�. Easy to find later echoes like the invention of the pogo � and of course Fluxus is part of the tale too � maybe even Coventry artschool where there was a twist away from the artwork towards the filing cabinet.

(I have to write something for Coventry this weekend � unfortunately not about its place alongside Paris and NYC in the international avant garde.)

The aristocratic and the democratic war with one another in all this � the democracy and the inclusiveness within the events-works fights against the aristocratic aesthetic that naturally/deliberately excludes/alienates the mainstream. This stuff happens in enclaves with small groups of adherents . BEAST is just one of a series of such groups for example. The Wire criticisms of the Cage-fest are another example of how the mainstream can�t quite get the hang of the tradition.

On the other hand the tradition itself repercusses all over. Terry Riley looping Chet Baker in the Parisian radio studio a couple of years after the Homage is another little cell � quite close in time space and orientation � and doing violence to the original recording of Miles� �So What� . One participant from that moved across to Canterbury to help get Soft Machine going. I won�t bore you with South East Michigan Chapter and I Pop�s self violence.

I am thinking just now that I will isolate the Blink Music Beyond Belief � as a 4 piece cluster - and put it alongside NYC0303 � a set of (probably) five pieces that were driven by the combined energy of being in New York just over a year ago � inspiring in it own right � but raised to a much higher intensity by (for example) a tour round the United Nations � contemporary scene of global failure.

I got the 0303 pieces as far as 8 tracks on the CD � different variants and a marginal piece make up the eight. I played a few to Colin Touchin and I think he quite liked them. The marginal piece of the eight is getting played on KK on the Dhorn page (track 2).

I should decide whether I can find �final� versions of the five � one has a Gilbert Isbin part added, another exists pure, with a GI part and as a trio, one has some added MIDI tones and percussion. Maybe I will try a little airsynth or even the new asset as realtime additions. I can see that I will be setting up the MDs and effects rack while I wait for the PC to recover.

Welcome John M � I think we met at an AK concert � and you kindly sent me a couple of D Stoll CDs. Those two string 4tets are really hot if you ask me. Ricardo raises some good questions about starting the game at all.