At the patisserie opposite this morning, c.08.50, there were two young women serving. One had a certain something about her that, instinctively, I wished to avoid. She wasn't very happy, and her sense of presence didn't extend far beyond herself. How could I have known this within a few seconds (other than by "preternatural sensitivities", that is)?
We are equipped with all the sensory instruments necessary to "read" other human animals (fight or flight?) providing that we have these instruments functioning, online & powered up. These arrive "bundled" with the human child. A proper, fitting education - booting up? - enables the child to fully use these instruments as they were intended. This is rare. We are also bundled with some optional programmes, which require special-needs ("preternatural") training. This is, respectively, more common than we might believe, and very rare: we have to discover the schools or teachers for ourselves. Failing that, instructors. Failing that, someone who has greater experience than us. Failing that, someone who knows more than we do.
Around 09.35, Toyah reading her papers, myself reading & reflecting, this waitress / server began to rearrange chairs beneath the tables near us. She did this by pushing the chairs along the floor. The sound was comparable to the sound of chalk on a blackboard: unpleasant, disruptive to the sonic environment - noisy. Her last chair was the loudest: it shouted at anyone with open ears.
The music of the worlds:
The Silence in Music;
The Music of Silence;
The Sound of Music (to borrow a phrase);
Muzak (dead music)>Noise.
So, what was the waitress doing? Perhaps:
The scraping sound was "music to her ears": in the deeper basement, noise is "music".
She didn't hear the sound: in the basement we are "deaf".
She was intentionally-unintentionally "expressing herself" by present the "artwork" of her life to the world:
"I am pissed, I have the right to be pissed, I'm not doing anything wrong - take that, O screaming-chairleg-on-the-floor - and if I am I don't care. Now the world knows how I feel, and can share my pain, because I have the right to dump my negativity onto the world by small acts of disruption & unpleasantness, particularly on customers reading because they keep me in this shitty job".
My take on it was:
The waitress didn't hear the sound, and was behaving unintentionally unintentionally: asleep on her feet.
The presence of absence is tangible. Whatever the external act, it reflects the quality & presence of the person acting; that is, the "world" they live in. Alternatively, the world which we allow / welcome / wish / accept to live in us.
So, the same act by one person is "right", the same act by another person is "wrong", the same act by another person is arbitrary; the same act by another person is destructive.
My own experiencing of acts. actions & activities is of the intention which gives rise to them. So, determining rules for specific behaviours at KC performances, for example, is rather more complex than putting up posters which threaten:
"Anyone found talking while Adrian is playing a guitar solo will be pelted with overripe fruit".
The person talking, for example, may be a doctor in an emergency situation explaining how a person should take their medication. Or:
"There is a highly poisonous snake wrapping itself around your left leg". Or:
"A crazed psycho whose picture is in all the papers is standing behind you, smiling, holding a small axe. But the axe is small so maybe I shouldn't be talking". Or:
"The man on the balcony directly above your head has placed his knapsack on the ledge and it looks like it will fall". Or:
"Have I told you about the time that I saw Crimson in Berkeley in 1973 when they were supporting The Eagles no of course I haven't but since Bill isn't here today I'll tell you how much better everything was back then when sentience was not so much a miracle as part of the normal process of living but they're really not as good today and even if I were listening to them they wouldn't be as good as 27 years ago and since you're fascinated by my reminiscences.."
When a particular course of response to malfeasance is mandated, it must take place. Otherwise, the credibility of the response is undermined. If undermined, it becomes ineffective. So, under this particular rule of law even an innocent speaker would be taken to the place of punitive fruit-pelting (whether private or public) and suffer their fate, unmitigated by a more flexible justice.
The principle is this: respond in the right way at the right moment.
The rule is this: necessary and/or useful talking only.
The law is this: do not talk.
The basement imperative: Shut up!
There are forms of policing which are appropriate to each world. That's another story, and no doubt more later.
The "worlds of performance" provide a complex matrix of interconnected & connecting situations, relationships & negotiations, all of which need to be taken into account when determining & declaring "principles, rules & laws of the house". One member of the audience will be attending an utterly different performance to the person sitting or standing next to them. One member of the performance team will be playing at an utterly different performance to their band buddy sitting or standing next to them.
18.49
Toyah went to BBC Scotland for an interview this afternoon, and is now at the Traverse for a play, leaving me to e-flurry & reflect.
Responses To The Guestbook:
1. Ty perry ([email protected])
i was thinking about mr. fripp's idea of the audients being participators as much as the musicians are, in the thing called a "king crimson show", so here's a silly question. what does mr. fripp think about vocal participation from audient(s)? no, not really annoying drunken hollering throughout the entire night. maybe like a "woo!" here (like in "fracture"), or a shriek wail there (like in "sex sleep eat drink dream"), whenever the moment calls for it.RF: Please see above. Also:
Act in the moment, as the spirit moves.
I add: the extent of the moment, & the action, is governed by the "world" we live in. The spirit's "freedom" & capacity for manifesting is also limited by the "world" in which it is operating.
Ideally, an audient's response is spontaneous, clean, joyful. In which case, hollering & whooping may be entirely appropriate; one of several possible right courses of action. This may sound, from the sidelines, the same as a "drunken hollering" but onstage, it feels very different: engagement, interaction, response, support, positive energy.
So, we are not looking at the behaviour but the intent which gives rise to it.
2. Craig Griffith ([email protected]) 04-Jun-2000 00:55 GMT
I read this excerpt from a Record Collector interview with Jon Anderson of Yes fame, posted in Elephant Talk a couple of days ago:Record Collector:... After the first 2 albums it was rumoured that Robert Fripp would join Yes. Was anyone else considered?
Jon Anderson:....No, no, no, We wanted Steve Howe. Maybe Chris phoned Bob Fripp, but the only thing Bob ever said to me was, "If you're going to play the tambourine, Jon, can you play in time?" I've met Bob often & he always says, "When are you going to become a musician?"
Record Collector:.... Your reply?
Jon Anderson:...You're an old fart.
I would like to ask Mr. Fripp if he would perhaps expand his thoughts on Jon Anderson, or at least elucidate or confirm them as being such. I assumed it was sort of a running joke that Mr. Anderson just didn't get, not knowing Mr. Fripp to be particularly mean-spirited, but I don't know. Replies, public or private would be appreciated, but not crucial.
RF: I can't speak for the consensus view in Yes about me joining them in 1970, nor of their internal deliberations.
Chris Squires & Billy B. came around to visit me where I lived, in a very modest first-floor flat over a clothes shop at 313 Westbourne Park Road, in March 1970 (+ or - a few days). I played them the only-just-recorded "Cat Food" & "Groon". Bill particularly appeared very excited. I was under the impression that the job was on offer.
At that time, I had a very strong sense of the musical direction waiting for me; that were I to join Yes I would move the band in that direction; and that setting Yes' musical direction was not the job on offer. So, we remained friends but I didn't take any action to move the relationship closer. Steve Howe became the guitarist (a much better choice for them).
I went to several Yes shows in 1968-71 (and subsequently). (As Crimson's year was 1969, Yes' year was 1971). One thing that struck me was the volume of the tambourine: it was louder in the house than Bill's snare drum. A tambourine is loud in any case and, being close to an open vocal mike, Jon's was well amplified. The tambourine playing made a greater gestural than purely rhythmic contribution to the show, in my view.
The discrepancy between Jon's tambourine placements in the Yes' time-flow, and the places favoured by Bill's snare, did make interesting alternatives for main accents. With the arrogance & presumption of a younger man, I believe I offered an unsolicited helpful comment on the matter. Like, suggesting the tambourine might be played in time. I don't, however, recall asking Jon as to his musical aspirations, nor his (quite appropriate were that to be so) response.
The last time we met was backstage at The Bottom Line in NY when I was playing there (December 1997). Jon looked in great shape and it was good to see him again. None of the reported conversation above took place, on that occasion anyway.
3. Dan Wasser ([email protected]) 03-Jun-2000 11:22 GMT
Why don't you (or your record company) get a corporate sponsor for the tour to insure profitablity? There's no shame in wanting to make a profit. I believe that everyone realizes that it's very expensive to travel/tour 'round the world. I doubt that the fans in Australia would mind a corporate logo on the stage in trade for seeing Crimson perform.RF: i) KC doesn't attract the kind of attention that a large sponsor requires: mainly huge young, and very young, audiences.
ii) There are very few product lines sufficiently neutral or consonant for us to accept their support.
iii) My Sister presenting trade at the beginning, and sometimes the end, of a KC show, on defined warm-up dates in a small & relatively personal situation, is about as far as I have been able to go. This was itself an experiment, and my Sister believes in commerce as a means of bringing people together.
So none of this easily translates outwards to full-blown national or international touring.
iv) Is there an end to Dan's questions? (Please don't answer this!).
4. Dan Wasser ([email protected]) 29-May-2000 14:45 GMT
Robert, would you consider the following examples to be theft?1. The radio is on. The DJ is playing some good music. I can't listen to the whole show because I (pick one): have to get in the shower, go to my neighbor's house, go to work. So, I turn on the tape recorder and I record the part of the radio show of which I am unable to listen. Then, when I return home that night, I listen to the show. One of the songs is TCOL. Did I steal it? What if I listened to it only once? what if I listened to it twice?
2. I purchased the TCOL CD. My car has a CD player. But, it's currently broken. So, I make a tape of the CD to play in the car's cassette player. When the CD player in my car finally is fixed, I destroy the tape. But, did I steal TCOL when I temporarily put it on cassette? (What if I kept the cassette and alternated between the CD and cassette, in my car?)
Just wondering.
RF: "Wondering" lacks the bite of necessity & therefore doesn't provide quite enough energy for an answer worth having. So this one's on me.
1. Recently I read the comment of an Orthodox monk on how to behave in front of novel conditions. His reply was along these lines (my words): "The Gospels give us directions in how to live but can't provide answers to all possible practical situations. So when you're in a situation where you don't know the right course of action, pray. Call on God for direction".
Sounds like good advice to me. For those who have difficulty with religious traditions, this is a secular paraphrase:
We live by principle.
We abide by a code of conduct.
When applying a principle to practice, in facing a novel situation, we seek guidance.
We consult our conscience.
2. Several of the postings to the Guestbook & ET address the question: what is appropriate behaviour in front of a huge range of possible courses of action? Dan's questions, more generally, refer to having a code of conduct or practice. How may we determine Right Conduct when, in daily life, there are a proliferation of situations & choices to be made in them? We might approach the question this way:
Firstly, are there house rules or conventional solutions available?
Secondly, what is being asked of me here?
Thirdly, what principle is involved?
3. One of the pillars of my own code of practice, when considering a course of action, is to ask myself these questions:
What shall I do?
Why shall I do this?
How shall I do this?
Will I do this?
The last part requires our consent if we are to proceed. If I know that a course of action is against the expressed wishes of others, I have to be very careful whether I will act. Most likely, I will not give myself the necessary consent. To override the expressed wishes of others involves very considerable repercussions, results & consequences. These cannot be avoided: a tab is run which will be met, sooner or later.
So Dan: what is your code? Briefly, if your question holds value for you, examine your intent. You know the "house rules" - is your action knowingly non-consensual? Is your action intentionally non-consensual (moving towards the lower basement)? Is there any intention to steal - "theft is never innocent" (Rodney Collin)?
A specific answer to your question will also be governed by who is asking the question. Is the person asking acting in a spirit of goodwill?
4. Another quick (& long) answer is this:
Act always in accordance with conscience (this injunction is a principle).
Then:
If a person has no aspiration to act in accordance with conscience, this injunction is meaningless.
If a person is without conscience, this injunction is meaningless.
If a person acts without conscience, they will react against the injunction.
If a person acts in violation of conscience, there are inevitable repercussions:
these may take 14-21 years to arrive but, sooner, later, they will.
Each of these different qualities of guidelines - principles, codes, conventions / rules, laws - belong to different "worlds".
If we act on principle, much of the rest is superfluous.
If we live by a code of conduct, much of the rest is superfluous.
If we abide by consensual rules, we are relatively free of major conflicts.
If we act non-consensually & in violation of house rules; or unfairly; or dishonestly; or in denial of respect for the legitimate rights & concerns of others: we set in motion a series of events which, eventually, will lead us to complain of how much the unfairness of life presses down upon us.
The history of EG Management and its collapse continues to instruct me, more so now than at the time.
5. Moving slightly sideways Why would anyone "in their right mind" not act in accordance with conscience? A strong candidate for an answer is this: where there is drug damage.
Guitar Craft courses attract a wide variety of people from an equally wide variety of backgrounds - countries, cultures, religions, belief systems, social strata, talent, education, intelligence & wealth. Many have a history of drug & alcohol use. This is no impairment or handicap to being accepted for a course.
Some Crafties have come on courses as part of their clean-up programme. They are welcomed without prejudice or blame: I respect those who have the courage to face their demons & accept responsibility for their actions. The relevant Guitar Craft principle here is this:
There is no mistake save one: the failure to learn from a mistake.
Within the context of a course, and the challenges it presents, it is easy to see the effects of heavy drug use. For example: co-ordination between the head and the hands is radically prejudiced; a "greyness" in the personal presence; when looking into the eyes, there is a vast distance to traverse and, sometimes, no-one at the end to embrace; a dullness of response. But the effects can go farther than this.
A disturbing insight from an experienced Crafty: major drug users on GC courses appear to have lost a sense of conscience. This is a hard thing to say. Why would this become particularly apparent within a Guitar Craft context? Guitar Craft is very much a social organism, an "I" in many bodies. From my own (long) experience of watching & enduring (hard) drug use in others, I note that drugs empower the "me".
Several long-term drug users within Guitar Craft have strongly disputed my comments. "Coffee's a drug!" is one of the more prescient arguments that has been used to invalidate my views, as well as to justify the complainants' regular & ongoing (soft) drug use.
I wonder: of those posters who are happy to declare their intention to act non-consensually in a Crimson context, how many have a significant drug background?
5. Pablo Cordero ([email protected]) 04-Jun-2000 04:40 GMT
several Club releases are drawn from 'unauthorised' ie. bootleg sources. Looking back, would you rather those shows had never been bootlegged to begin with?RF: Yes.
Tapers & bootleggers will present all manner of reasons why this answer is not the answer it is. But the answer remains: I would rather that none of the unauthorised recordings had ever been made. Taping & bootlegging set in train a sequence of events and repercussions which RF, DGM, KCCC, BTV & KC have been dealing with over a period of many years.
So, why the Club? The main principle is this:
Turn a seeming disadvantage to your advantage.
The greater the seeming disadvantage, the greater the possible advantage.
But with that as a given, I have a better quality of disadvantages with which I would prefer to engage.
"The foundation of learning is play."
