CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/14/2022

Each page a Valentine in 'Love, Icebox: Letters from John Cage to Merce Cunningham'

A book so beautiful, so direct and simple, but also so raw, is rare. Love, Icebox: Letters from John Cage to Merce Cunningham is an historic document, as well as a guilty pleasure. Published by the John Cage Trust, with Foreword, Commentary and Afterword by its longtime director and former assistant to Cage, Laura Kuhn, this book is filled with emotional, euphoric, devastated and unguarded love letters from the pioneering composer to his muse and partner, the equally game-changing choreographer. In addition to the letters and Kuhn's invaluable commentary, the book is filled with photographs of the couple's 18th Street loft and objects from their lives–from cookbooks to board games, toys to ornaments, instruments and timepieces. This particular letter, postmarked July 22, 1944, ends with the wistful query, "pardon the intrusion: but when in september will you be back? i would like to measure my breath in relation to the air between us."