Robert Fripp's Diary for Friday, 21st November 2008

Robert Fripp's Diary

	Friday, 21st November 2008

07.48

DGM HQ.

Awake at 04.50, rising at 06.01.

We are only ready to undertake a piece of work when we have completed that piece of work. Doing the task prepares us to do the task: we are learning on the job. So, clearly, we don’t understand how to do the job until we’ve already done it.

JGB was ready to write & present a consistent & clear form of the DU when he had spent over 30 years reflecting on the material of the first (published) volume & another decade or so writing the last 3 volumes. At that point, his insights & thinking were sufficiently formulated & developed that he was able to present a coherent & ordered (although not fixed) formulation of what he had come to, over a period of five decades. JGB was well aware that the four volumes, as published, needed revision. In my view, JGB’s own Revised Version of the DU was the Sherborne House experiment: the book/s presented in living form.

Perhaps some Diary visitors might now complain in the Guestbook that I have referenced JGB; perhaps someone might also suggest that this is clear evidence of intellectual pretension on my part. I am not recommending JGB, nor his work; JGB’s field of endeavour is reliably unpopular & unattractive to most. Neither am I evangelical. JGB spoke to me in a voice that blew the top of my head off, while also resonating elsewhere, and this in unmistakable tones. Clearly, my personal discipline is founded on personal connections to the JGB line & several persons within it. But personal transmission & training are not enough in & of themselves: unless we take what we have found / been given onto the road, get a life, live the life we get, deal with the repercussions of living it while on our feet & in motion, the rest is imagination & wittering.

We are only able to comment on the concerns of others when we have ourselves reached a comparable degree of proficiency in our own field of endeavour. Until then, it is an act of intelligence to hold our opinions lightly, and quietly. An utterance of ignorance is easily forgivable; a critical utterance based in ignorance is less easily forgiven; and the trumpeting of our ignorance likely to limit our opportunities in decent society.

A point of seeing, or creative insight, is direct & immediate. A function of creative seeing is to connect us to the object–subject of the insight. If you were to ask me how that might be, I present a form of words in return: perhaps my own experience is that the insight comes to me. If this form of words were coherent & presented rationally, the criticism might be made: this is overly rational! A form of words describing a creative insight is not that insight; it is a description of that insight. Better a clear description than otherwise; but better still to connect to the insight through the music, or painting, or poetry, or whatever vehicle is the vehicle of the creative seeing; the instrument of the Creative Impulse.

Since 1969, I have been asked thousands of questions regarding various aspects of my own process. Among these, the questions of KC fans & enthusiasts are often long, complex, theoretical & obtuse; and these make corresponding answers very difficult. Yet, recognising that the music of KC has touched others, as it has myself, a question gets my best shot. The aphorisms are shorter & direct; and an even better answer is, ask the music.

In establishing a practical discipline, and discovering personal process, Guitar Craft is primarily experiential; given the wide variety of languages that Crafties bring to courses, good that this is so. But ask me a question in English during interviews, Q&A, online enthusiast & fan questioning over almost four decades on four continents, and it comes back to this: an honest question, however badly formulated, gets my best shot in return. But that might change; and then we can all have easier lives.

Alternative suggestions:

1. Don’t read this Diary!

2. Visit other sites!

3. Be happier than you are by doing things that make you happier!

4. Abandon any concern for being happy!

5. Ask yourself the right question, and hold the question until the answer presents itself.

Then, describe to yourself the process of reaching the question, holding the question & finding your answer within the question.

Then, post it on your own blogspot & invite the public into your deepest & most personal life.

Then, observe the repercussions.

But this is the site for my Diary! If you don’t like it, get off the buggy ride! Off to your own buggy ride! This is (part of) what I do! What do you do?

11.03 What is attracting the attention of our pal, dear old Mr. Stormy? I…

II…

III…

IV…

Mr. Stormy is in David’s office, preparing KC live in Sendai on13th. October 2000 for download.

Next door, Hugh is in DGM Art Department I…

II…

… with a new computer. The screen on this new computer works; the screen on the old computer, to the left, does not; and has not for many months. Hugh has been encouraged to acquire a new & fully working model; and has acted on that encouragement.

In DGM Reception / Art Department II, Nicky Bookkeeper is in, addressing her ongoing concern with keeping both DGM & myself solvent…

… while David is developing DGM Art Department II plans…

11.14 David has discovered some astonishing statistics regarding DGM accountancy & bookkeeping outlays, expended to provide the UK Government & IR with financial information; and the proportional relevance of these outlays to the payment of our company tax. Astonishing. Terrifying. More on this in due course.

14.44 Mr. Stormy prepared a DGM Birthdays’ Lunch for Hugh & Nicky, although both their birthdays were some time ago. No matter! The celebration lunch was superb.

Off to Romain’s Emporium Of Antiquities, Wonder, Delight & Bliss Arising.

16.45 Mr. Romain has some new wonderments which he is happy to present for inspection I…

II…

… some of which may be tranted off to Bredonborough in due course.

Upon returning to DGM HQ, new info has arrived: MCPS files indicate that, following the acquisition of Sanctuary by UMG in June 2007, the new owners sought to differentiate the two companies; the old company being Sanctuary & the new being Sanctuary UMG. This is precisely the position denied by the Sanctuary UMG Second Tier Lawyer (formerly a STL at Virgin). So, the re-organisation of Sanctuary was, actually & after all, a re-organisation; thus triggering the reversion clause in the KC/ DGM contract. The UMG Sanctuary STL denied the re-organisation was a re-organisation, suggesting that the word re-organisation was actually a term of art. Now, the MCPS info suggests his claim is as inaccurate as we have declared it to be. So, I am wondering, was the STL mistaken, ignorant, deceptive and / or lying? And those are only four possibilities?

I note: the function of a Second Tier Lawyer is to block. They have no authority to settle & resolve, nor sufficient creative capacity to resolve a dispute; instead, they seek to incrementally advance their position on small matters while failing to address the overall position. Our current problems with EMI are also blocked at the level of a STL. The solution? Go over their heads. The last EMI audit was only resolved at the level of a First Tier Lawyer, and only after a Voice From Above had breathed in their ear. Meanwhile, since none of this is rocket science, and it’s clear to me, then it isn’t a secret to be uncovered at EMI / Sanctuary UMG either. So, why would this be the Standard Operating Procedure at major international corporations? What would a SOP such as this indicate to us about that corporation?

Transparency + straightforwardness translate as honesty;

accountability + owning-up equate to responsibility;

distributive justice + fairness we understand as equity;

common decency we recognize as goodwill.

Honesty, responsibility, equity & goodwill are the Four Pillars of the Ethical Company.

In the music industry, the Four Pillars are notable by their absence.

Own-up time?

17.56 Off to Bredonborough..

22.12 Driving up listening to Michael Giles’ Mad Band: most enjoyable & three decades overdue; and Mike Dickson’s two mellotron epics. I would not have believed the mellotron capable of this.

A walk around the town with the Minx I…