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Now and then I come across an article on that rock
garden in Japan where there’s just a space of sand
and a few rocks in it. The author, no
matter who he is, sets out either to suggest that
the position of the rocks in the space follows some
geometrical plan productive of the beauty one
observes, or not satisfied with mere
suggestion, he makes diagrams and detailed
analyses. So when I met Ashihara, the
Japanese music and dance critic (his first name is
Eryo), I told him that I thought those stones
could have been anywhere in that space, that I
doubted whether their relationship was a planned one,
that the emptiness of the sand was such that
it could support stones at any points in it.
Ashihara had already given me a present
(some table mats), but then he asked me to
wait a moment while he went into his hotel.
He came out and gave me the tie I am
now wearing. ¶
After he heard this lecture which I first gave
in Brussels in the French Pavilion,
Karlheinz Stockhausen said, “You should have
said, ‘the tie I was wearing yesterday’.”
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