Spaghetti's Club

This is about a murder,
About Giordano Bruno burning at the stake,
About pasta, Italians,
John Cage, chance and mushrooms.
Richard R. had no connection with Italy, except for the fact that he had visited Venice on his
honeymoon and that he owned the complete works of Giordano Bruno.
He was an insurance company manager.
He used to insure Extremely Large Telescopes: ‘In case meteorites fell on them!’  
He liked the stars and had a great passion for pasta.
He led a double life.
He would think:
‘We only live once”
He led a double life.
He could live with two different women.
He led a double life.
This double life would lead him to eat twice as much pasta.
It’s not really romantic, but he used to love making pasta.
He led a double life.
He was accused of being a bigamist.
His lawyer saved him by proving he in fact had three wives.
Lichtenberg was right, it is possible…
But he was then condemned for being a polygamist.
Nobody wants to eat food that comes out of a tin.
Nobody wants to eat in bad restaurants.
Pasta is a good compromise
But even though nobody wants to eat overcooked pasta, how can we explain Richard R.’s unbelievable action?
Richard R. loved pasta.
His knowledge on ways of cooking pasta was unrivalled:
‘Don’t cook a kilogram of pasta in a litre of water, idiot!’
or
‘Parmesan cheese isn’t made in Parma!’
Lichtemberg was wrong.
I have eaten Parmesan from Parma.
John Cage preferred mushrooms!
Richard R. would sometimes have strange ideas.
He wanted to work out what influence food could have on the way one could manage a business.
If he was to eat mushrooms rather than pasta,
Would he manage his business differently?
John Cage became a mushroom expert by chance.
He became an expert with the I Ching
Had Richard R. eaten mushrooms instead or pasta, maybe he would have used the I Ching to manage his business.
John Cage would have liked that.
The telescopes, not so much.
I don’t know how many insurance company managers speak about John Cage with their employees.
Maybe Charles Ives’ employees do.
Nobody knows how many animals are killed every day to feed us.
Nobody wants it to be a fact, that we kill to eat.
Even if pasta is a good compromise,
I’m still not a vegetarian.
Many people kill without being hungry.
Richard R. went very far.
He liked the stars and he adored his wife
There had never been any violence in their couple.
He sometimes would have bizarre ideas.
He wanted to work out his wife’s influence on the way he managed his business.
‘More important than pasta’, according to Lichtenberg,
for Bruno, ‘Less than the Inquisition’,
‘I prefer mushrooms’, said Cage.
He wanted to live in Venice
Where Bruno allegedly met Galileo,
But that’s not certain.
‘There was an argument, I overcooked the pasta’, is what he kept saying to the investigators.
Better to overcook them rather than not cook them enough.
His wife accused him of burning the pasta.
‘Don’t cook a kilogram of pasta in a litre of water, idiot!’
Don’t beat your wife.
‘Today, 3 June 1995, 3pm, we, F.H.B., Justice of the peace of B. county, with the assistance of investigator H.B.F., (…) A woman, who is said to be F.R., the aforementioned Richard R.’s wife (…) on her back, an immense quantity of blood around her head. The right and front side of her neck, along with her face, are chopped so finely that the cervical vertebrae are entirely detached from the torso. As the woman has been cut from the neck down to the stomach, we haven’t had to perform a post-mortem examination of the body. We didn’t further our inspection, as since the organs were found impaled on a stake, her death must have been instantaneous.’
Richard R. had no particular reason to impale his wife’s organs on a stake.
He didn’t want to cook them.
The tests assessing his mental health didn’t give any results.
It’s a problem. He had pleaded ‘not guilty’.
I can’t exactly remember why they burnt Giordano Bruno.
It wasn’t for culinary reasons.
When he was alive, everyone was unanimous against him: Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists
He couldn’t escape it.
I don’t know why Richard R. owned a book of Bruno’s works.
Both were preoccupied with questions about the stars.
‘One can live in this world on soothsaying but not on truth saying.’
Lichtenberg was right.
One was burnt alive because he had a new vision of the world.
The other disembowelled his wife because he had burnt pasta.
Bruno was right, and the pasta was really burnt.
It would have been better for his wife not to say anything, but she couldn’t guess.
Bruno could have renounced his writings.
‘Many a writer believes that the world is interested in everything about him’
Lichtenberg was right.
Bruno should have been more careful.
This is just a text written for music…
I don’t risk anything…
And anyway,
Speaking is not a good enough reason to be disembowelled.
Or to be burnt alive.
The Inquisition was wrong.
This music is dedicated to Lewis Carroll.
He used to say:
‘I wonder how you have the nerve to tell me such nonsense’.
To which Bruno, wisely, replied:
‘One doesn’t need nerve to speak nonsense, a mouth is more useful.’
In spite of some discrepancies, Bruno and Carroll used to get on very well.
Leiws Carroll was an expert in using time.
This is a piece of music about people who perceive time differently.
Richard R. allegedly said: ‘I didn’t do it on purpose, it happened by chance’.
It is not with mushrooms that Mr. Cage became an expert on chance.
It’s with the I Ching.
During performances, he would sometimes cook mushrooms on stage.
Ten cookers.
He was on his own.
He’s never burnt the stalk of a single mushroom.
They are more delicate to cook than pasta.
Fire-fighters stopped the performance.
For safety reasons.
Could he have burnt the two thousand audience members who were there?
I don’t think so.
Even though, that would be less people than during the Inquisition.
But that’s not a good reason.
John Cage used to say:
‘The Inquisition won’t hear anything!’