Robert Fripp's Diary

Last buffet breakfast in the

12.16
How to last, persist, endure, stay alert & active, within a long period of interviews? Even when the same questions are repeated continually? My own approach:

The presence of a third party is important. In Japan this may be the interpreter, or a member of Pony Canyon sitting in the interview room. Q&As or press conferences are alternative approaches. This is because a large proportion of my interviewers over the years haven't come to ask questions. More, it seems to me, as if they've come to get me. Cerebral games, demands to reconcile apparent contradictions between statements made in 1969 and 1998, and all points in between (really), hostility, aggression, are all par for the course on the interview circuit, notably from English interviewers, closely followed by German, Dutch & Belgian. If there is a third party present, there is an outside force which observes, or to which one may appeal for impartiality in recognising, the sheer not-there-ness of basement thinking dressed up as rational enquiry.

Increasingly, as an older interviewee and one no longer the subject of fashionable status (fashionable status generates remarkable resentment in many English / European journalists), the journalists I see tend to be at least professional, some well considered & of high intelligence, mostly sympathetic, with some long-term fans. Perhaps my generation of hostiles have either grown up sufficiently to let go of their need to confront something they dislike, moved on to address their own proper interests and concerns, or lost interest in KC/RF.

Long-term fan interviewers bring their own agendas. They are hard to help because they are immersed in the past, often, the distant past. They are mostly unable to let go of their weighty baggage and take advantage of what is presently available. But, there are exceptions.

My last interview included a man who has some background as a Zen Buddhist (his words). We were talking about seeming contradictions & paradoxes which should not, we assume, being reconcilable; let alone both having equal truth claims. An example we approached was off composition & improvisation. These are two of the six available creative strategies. Composition is a form of ordering; as a strategy, this acts to focus on what is possible by excluding the impossible. On the other hand, improvisation is a strategy which seeks to engage the impossible. Each excludes the other, it seems, and both are true. To me, there is no contradiction: KC & PX recorded 2 albums simultaneously, and both sound wildly different. "The ConstruKction Of Light" primarily compositional, but with materials to be treated lightly in performance; "Heaven & Earth" primarily improvisational (albeit with the improvised materials assembled / ordered afterwards).

Two people who have each sat on a floor for 25 years, I suggested, can have an entirely different kind of conversation than is possible if one of them has never adopted a practice. Like, there is no dispute about suggestions that thought is material & intent is tangible. This reminds me of the impossibility of debating or arguing with "bootleggers" & photographers that use infra-red. Assuming goodwill, rather than maliciousness or capricious carelessness, how to explain that intention alone changes the atmosphere? And we are still a long way from accepting the possibility that, at a certain point, the quality of listening enables music to come to life within a performance. Performance in our culture is a form of warfare, where "rights" to undermikne the performance are more important than being present and available when music flies by.

Back to interviewers: where once I faced negativity on a regular basis, now I mostly deal with questions from the basement. This is where a third party is valuable: they are invited to see for themselves the dopiness & self-regard & contradiction which is proffered as debate. They provide a presence which enables dialogue to move up a step or two on the ladder.

Now to pack.

17.05
Red Carpet Club, JFK.

After a frustrating 45 minutes attempting to get online, I have now abandoned all hope of connecting. I have no doubt this is my fault, and look forward to the time when e-connection is as straightforward as making a telephone call. If an experienced e-traveller were accompanying me, they would probably know what to do. Me, I have to follow printed instructions. Printed instructions don't work unless you know what to do, at which point they are useful: they don't take into account the small wrinkles, like different kinds of dialing tones available in each country. Oh for an established international standard.

But I have spoken to my Sister, Toyah & mother-in-law Barbara. And Steve Ball. Last night's GC celebration in Seattle of its 15th. anniversary went well, reports Steve. He tried to send me roses in Tokyo, but it proved impossible at that end. I sensed the intention, replied Robert, so don't worry; and celebrated it myself, albeit alone and in interviews.

Once again apologies for the late posting of this diary.