William Strother wrote: >He (John Cage) had been out for days locating the best mushrooms in >California which became the basis for a great meal. I wonder if he was out locating them in stores or in the wild. I, too, interviewed Cage in 1976 at his rented hideaway in Stony Point, NY, where the composer, a dedicated mushroom hunter, described numerous places nearby where he liked to go to find certain ones. A surprisingly gentle man, Cage told me how much he valued silence, complaining that the birds singing outside his cottage in the early morning were getting to be a distraction. "It's actually quieter in the city," he said. John Dalmas [log in to unmask]