-You are stooopid John Cage! At this point in the recording, you feel like the composer's life might be threatened by the mob of outraged italian students who have stormed the stage during this very peculiar performance. Empty Words is two hours worth of Cage reducing a text by Thoreau to long stretches of silence and confusing monosyllabic grunts and moans. It takes five minutes before the first signs of impatience from the crowd surface and from then on, all hell breaks loose. I'm not sure if the ensuing riot was predicted by Cage, but it brings up an interesting aspect to the work. True, the debilitating nature of Cage's "narration" strips away all meaning from the original text and I believe one is supposed to forget about the performance and focus on the surroundings. So this slowly evolving uproar becomes central to the performance. I was glued there for two hours the first time I listened to it and was exhausted once it was over. Devastating!