Robert Fripp's Diary for Sunday, 7th November 2004

Robert Fripp's Diary

	Sunday, 7th November 2004

10. 35

Hotel Acceptable, Beverly Center, Los Angeles.

Sister took me to the airport for my flight to LAX. I have thoroughly enjoyed my visiting this week, and combining our ongoing busy lives with play & eating. It used to be that, whenever I was in San Francisco working, Sister would always be here. Nowadays, she travels more than I do. For my next visit here, Sister will be in New Zealand.

Now, especially for those online commentators & contributors to various chatrooms & guestbooks, those who have no interest in my continuing references to boobies & boobeyism, smokers & smoking, that is, those unfortunates who have no personal freedom in front of their automatic behavioural symptoms & addictions, I present the following report…

On the San Francisco>Los Angeles flight, in the opposite & behind row, Boobyism of the Mouth. This took the form of helpless yammering. Blather blather twitter rattle yammer yammer. I have no objection to anyone who wants to throw their hard-earned currency into a dustbin, but my ears are not a suitable receptacle. Helpless yammering is expensive & destructive.

On my left, semi-boobyism from a young man whose choice of magazine reading was somewhat more edifying (only my assumption) than Savage Horses of the Revolution: a guitar magazine. The semi-boobyism took the form of an automatic scratching of his neck, where he seemed to be looking for various protuberances, that manifested from time to time.

Am I able to use the intrusive & disgusting personal habits of others as pointed sticks? Yes. Do I need the automatic behaviours of others to remind me of my aim? No.

Interesting: I found in both airports, SF & LAX, that I was experiencing anger. This is interesting. There was the anger. Was it mine, I wondered? And reflecting on this, as I walked to a grocery store near the Beverly Center this afternoon, I reflected on the terror of imprisonment within boobyist tendencies. The obvious question: aren't you a booby too? And, at that particular moment, the answer was no. How did I know this? Because I was hearing the sounds around me, not quite a symphony (an intentional musical construction), but nevertheless a panoply of sounds: sharp, distinct, with varying timbres & a wide placement in the sonic spectrum, and surround sound.

When we are present, our sensory input is this sharp, and a good indication to us of whether we are at that moment a booby, or an alert semi-booby. While a booby, we would be hearing nothing. Only when we begin to hear the sonic environment do we realise that, just the moment before, we were a booby. And then, an opportunity…

21.25 Adam collected at the hotel just after 16.00 & carried us off to the Tool loft for 3 hours of recording. Lots of fun and interesting sonics that Adam has prepared.

This evening I have been working as a timbral sound-sculptor, rather than guitar player per se.