Maybe you saw these when they were posted as Maira Kalman’s blog on nytimes.com and now it’s only available as this book, which is not such a bad thing. It’s kind of a comic of paintings while also somewhat of a general elegy on the finiteness of life. People who have died are a recurring theme; even some of the people she mentions visiting back in 2006 have since passed on — Louise Bourgeois, Helen Levitt. But her sense of humor particularly tickles me. I read half of it before bed and the rest with breakfast.

Kalman’s blog currently documents her take on the topic of American democracy (but this will also become a book this fall). She is also responsible for the illustrated version of The Elements of Style.

John Cage’s 4’33" is one of the most misunderstood pieces of music ever written and yet, at times, one of the the avant-garde’s best understood as well. Many presume that the piece’s purpose was deliberate provocation, an attempt to insult, or get a reaction from, the audience. For others, though, it was a logical turning point to which other musical developments had inevitably led, and from which new ones would spring. For many, it was a kind of artistic prayer, a bit of Zen performance theater that opened the ears and allowed one to hear the world anew.

Kyle Gann prefaces this look at Cage’s most widely recognized piece by addressing his own background with Cage and 4’33", namely that he performed it in a high school recital. The book cleanly pans over Cage, his influences, the process toward composing 4’33", the piece itself, and the various ways it has lived on and influenced new forms of music. Somewhat in the vein of a 33⅓ book, but focused on a composition instead of a recording, it’s a breeze to read — not too intellectual for summer beach reading.