Robert Fripp

Robert Fripp's Diary

Monday 21 September 1998

R Chris Murphy mixer left

12.15 R. Chris Murphy, mixer, left this morning at 04.30 en route for Seattle via London Heathrow. He will return.

15.47

"The Repercussions of Angelic Behaviour" repercuss behind me in this re-fenged study now equipped with four John Miller paintings from the Soundscapes performance in Newlyn Church. Three Michael Finns also charge and energise the room: two abstracts and a driftwood cross. This visual arts are also moving and transfering energies within this space and within my experience of this space. As my experience changes, so my activities within this room change: I would say "for the better". Were the gentle Web visitor to ask "for the better what?" I shall smile politely and move desk to read my burgeoning e-letters, which are increasing rapidly in the knowledge that they are read, and not ignored.

The study has an internal quiet about it which is not related to the amount of sound which reaches from outside. This is the same still, present quiet which I knew in my Father's study in which he died on April 13th. 1985. (I had, thankfully, returned home the day before following the first two Guitar Craft courses). The quiet in my Father's room remained strongly present for several months afterwards, and could be sensed when my Mother moved down to the centre of Wimborne two years later. I know nothing of the history of this, my present study, although a house which has deeds going back to 1599 (modernised 1699-1702) clearly has a history, and presences. That is another story, but not like the story which might be told of my former home in the Fripp family village of Witchampton, where Toyah first visited me.

21.51

You know the time. You know the place. You recognise the wilting sentience and dribbling psyches and those to whom these belong - yes! it's The David & Robert Dribbling Sentience & Wilting Psyche Show!

Hugh is also on hand to wilt and dribble but appears to exhibit characteristics more simian than presently available to David or Robert. Hugh presents his artwork design for DGM Sampler II: yes! to that too. Artwork by Peter Willis - "Angel Of The Presence" - graces the front cover.

Essence brother Peter and I have been involved in varying and various experiments together in living The Life for now 24 years. Peter was the artist responsible for the painting from which two and three elements were extrapolated to provide the "Three of a Perfect Pair" cover. We were partners in a farming project outside Godolphin, near Helston, in Cornwall between 1978 and 1981. Now, Peter and Jo Willis live in Newlyn, near Penzance, with their three very young children. Peter paints, Jo is involved in the Shallal dance troupe (the beneficiary and subject of the Soundscapes performance at Newlyn Church last December).

Linking this with today: John Miller's four paintings now gracing my study were painted for exhibition in the church to support that performance, as were several works by Michael Finn and Peter. The event in the church had visual artists Peter, John & Michael, sonic (aspirant) artist Robert, and dancers of the Shallal troupe.

What is "art" in our sad world? Not the "art" presented and mediated by commercial culture, that's a given. But were you in Newlyn Church last December, then my words are unnecessary. When a gate opens, as if of itself, simply look through the gateway and glimpse the eternal. A minute of eternity is as long as a year, or a lifetime, of eternity. In the mundane world of paper, dopey questions and corrupt business practices, a moment of eternity sustains the flagging spirit for seven years.

Anyway, what is this rubbish? This man's psyche is dribbling! Yes, yes, yes. Dribble, dribble, dribble.

"Sus-taynZ" kicks in "Live Groove". This stomping little sucker is beginning to revibrate and reinvigorate the parts of me that, well, need revibrating and reinvigorating.

The guitarist's registral leaps of conviction and aspiration now ambiguatise "Deception of the Thrush", which may not need any ambiguatising at all. It continues to stagger me, given the clear passion of this player, the witless commentary on the topic of "Fripp has no feel" that occasionally surfaces for pratty debate. Our perceptive acuities and capacities need to go beyond a cliched, limited conception of what "feel" might be, appear to be, and how the expressions of feeling manifest. The vocabulary of passion is more sophisticated than an uncontrolled vibrato and the pumping of a stomping leg.

Trey's solo now prompts all manner of discussion, on the essences of things, between David and Robert.

Hot tickle of the evening: David has relayed this info to me, and I to you... The California Guitar Trio's recent in-store performance in Los Angeles was graced by audient Chelsea Clinton.

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