Robert Fripp's Diary

Satch Bus Over the French

Satch Bus.

Over the French border and into Italy. Beautiful coastline.

12.26 Carsten The Beast has a second second-driver, The Animal, for this second long overnight. They are both German. This gives The Beast an opportunity to converse with a fellow speaker. Carsten seizes this opportunity & the conversation continues without break for several hours. German is a wonderful language for clearing the throat.

Last night The Beast castigated me for turning the front refrigerator up to very cold. This had the effect of cooling glasses and band whistle to an acceptable chill, but also froze Carsten's Health Giving Wonder Drink of Beneficence & Delight - Coca Cola. This is one of two vital components in Carsten's diet and the other is cigarettes.

12.58 A Picture Archive is a useful part of the GC History Project.

21.15 Club Room, Hotel Acceptable, Milan.

We arrived from our overnight around 13.30 to this entirely acceptable professional hotel after the American model, not far from Milan Railway Station. In a hotel facing the station, while on tour with Crimson in 1973, I read Hazrat Khan's The Mysticism Of Sound. Today, here, I have been reading Jacob Needleman's A Sense Of The Cosmos: The Encounter of Modern Science and Ancient Truth (Doubleday 1975). Chilling gently, recovering from many hours in the bus.

When I entered the Club, its television was tuned to Italian MTV & the volume on high. None of the visitors appeared to watching it and, when the Club was empty, I changed the channel to BBC World, the volume to off. A little later a guest arrived & turned the volume up to quiet. This was an acceptable balance in a room where no-one was actually watching, nor listening, but it was necessary for there to be background noise. No-one is watching, no-one is listening: but there must be something. Who is afraid of nothing?

And from Hernan's diary for last Thursday, 1st. July: L3 Inaugural Meeting: Who are we? Where are we from? What brought us here? What is our Aim?

There is so much in these questions. It is necessary that we ask them of ourselves. The answers to these questions give us our raison d'etre; but simply to ask them, with sufficient intensity, may itself be the same.