This week, sitting by the water, the last direct practical effects of that period on me have recently been settled. That is, there are (I believe) no more repercussions to emerge which might unseat me professionally or personally. So, the life of the working player is hard; but at least I'm not ducking bullets from behind, side & front while moving forward. There remain liabilities from the setting up of DGM which our de facto charitable status cannot address, but that's business and not warfare.
The past two mornings I have given my affiliation to the Starbucks in the basement of the new building next door. Now we're playing I don't eat, or eat very little solid food, before the show. This morning I've completed re-reading "In Search Of The Miraculous", the second-hand hardback I found with Toyah in Glasgow while en route to Copenhagen from Nashville last May.
This volume is a second impression RKP printing of 1950. It is a gift from one person (named) to another (also named) on July 21st. 1951, and has various markings & comments throughout the text. This must have been very strange stuff for an innocent of Middle England during the early 1950s. I have the sense, from the marginal comments, that the original owner took part in group meetings.
This morning, on page 368 where Ouspensky reports his increasing disaffection from "G.", I found this annotation in the original owner's pencilled hand: "J.G. Bennett has a satisfactory explanation for this episode". Then on page 370, where G. has (to Ouspensky's incomprehension) alienated another early student, Z., is this pencilled comment: "J.G. Bennett has a satisfactory explanation". How remarkable to find these sentences here, in Tokyo, 25 years and 11 months after I met Mr. Bennett.
Notwithstanding that JGB was appointed as Mr. Gurdjieff's "Representative For England" on Mr. Gurdjieff's death, and that Madame Ouspensky directed Mr. Bennett to Mr. Gurdjieff in Paris following Ouspensky's death, JGB was persona non grata to the Ouspensky organisation, as he became (and continues to be) for the Foundation. How irritating this maverick of a man must have been! But the younger Sherborne generation, significantly unaware of the history, simply had the man towards the end of his process. And were amazed.
22.33
Back from the venue. Capacity of 2400, almost full. The first show of this tour with sonic challenges from the stage, mainly slapback. A variety of wonderful clams & adventures, like: Adrian's guitar failed to ignite at the beginning of Larks' IV leaving me hanging impressively on the double-guitar offsets. But we get better & better at recoveries. On the other hand, the quality of our recoveries are only matched by the abandon which precipitates them.
Masa & Miho and Atsushi, plus a corps of press brought by Pony Canyon, were in attendance to witness Clams Crimsonique.
"The foundation of learning is play."
