DGM HQ.
The sun is shining, the sky is blue.
17.45 A day of stuff.
Now in the new SoundWorld I studio, formerly David's office, loading in Soundscapes from the NY Society For Ethical Culture.
20.05 Yes! It's the Late Shift, and the first Late Shift in the new, re-vibrated SoundWorld I. We are listening to KC: Studio 1981-84.
22.07 David has gone home. We have some re-vibrating of the running order to address tomorrow.
Meanwhile, over on the KNews Guestbook recently…
Albemuth Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 11:32 pm
Post subject: The picked nose does not listen!
Sitting in economy, the flight was full with a Herr Booby sitting next to me for 5.5 hours of nose picking & skin-biting just 18-24" from my head. About 45 years old & respectably dressed, I was surprised that after five hours Herr Booby had any more skin available for biting from his fingers. But, for the last 30 minutes on the approach to Dulles, Herr Booby's sickening skin-chewing was undiminished in its vigour & application....
The musician is only able to play music to the extent that the audience is able to listen. Alternatively, unless the audience & musician are engaged, it is unlikely that music can be born in our world. It is not compulsory for the audience to listen but, that being so, the professional musician's capacity to discharge what is required of them is severely constrained.
These two recent quotations from Fripp's diary form a unhappy parallel. His complete lack of charity towards the behavior of Herr Booby (and why "Herr," incidentally?)…
RF: The gentleman had a German accent.
… makes me question the significance of his reflections on the deplorable state of performance conditions.
RF: Why? How?
At the very least, the parallel does not motivate me to attend Fripp's shows.
RF: I am not sure how & in which ways Mr. Albemuth makes a connection to the "unhappy parallel" but I hope he has the intelligence & strength of his convictions to stay away from any & all of my work that does not strongly speak to him. Life is too short to spend time on activities where our passion is not engaged.
Perhaps the Four Quarters Maintainers will attend to audience body language and comportment?
RF: A FQM does take notice of body & kinesthetic language, such as posture, as well as other behavioural cues. Gestural cues are particularly important, of a different quality, kind & order to body language, and of key significance in detecting a possible arising-difficulty ahead of time. Sometimes you can see it coming; other times, you can feel it coming; sometimes, you can sense it coming. The aim is: to know it's coming.
Sometimes we know directly the intent of others, prior to manifestation. This is as if from nowhere, and mysterious. How, why & where this happens is not easily discussed; particularly with any poster being snippy towards a person distressed by being placed in close proximity to someone unable to control their simple physical behaviours. Fortunately, the experience of direct knowing is more easily available experientially than by argument and persuasion.
One of the FQMs on this recent outing is a martial arts sensei who brought 3 of their students to act as FQMs under their supervision as an All Quarters Maintainer. A martial arts Master senses the intention of their opponent before intention moves to action. How is this possible? a reasonable person might ask. By acquiring mastery is one possible answer. How de we acquire mastery? the reasonable person might ask in return. Develop an ongoing practice over 25 years and ask the question again the sensei might reply.
There are equivalent subtleties involved in performance, although I have met very few audients on four continents over 3 decades with whom I am able to discuss these. Discussion is more available between performers, accomplished artists and/or someone with a developed craft/practice. A conversation with a student of martial arts is much easier than in many other fields: if their attention slips, they hit the mat (at least).
Nose pickers be damned?
A fundamental element of a sound education addresses conduct in pubic spaces. Manners move to politeness and, in time, create a space within which courtesy can come to live. Simply put, good manners require of us that private acts are conducted in private places. This does not imply that public nose-pickers are bad people: it suggests they are poorly educated and/or ill-mannered – if they are in control of their behaviour. A booby is not.
There is a connection, between the two RF quotes Mr. Albemuth cites, that I am able to make: a booby is locked into automatic behaviours of which they are often unaware; an un-listening audient is locked into a pattern of un-listening while simultaneously unaware of their lack of listening-presence.
The capacity to listen, to remain open to music we may not even like, for a period of (say) 45 minutes requires maturity. More than that, an attention span of perhaps 90 minutes, requires many years of practice. There is a quality of listening that supports the performance: it is tangible. But an Audient-Booby is pooped at 10 minutes, grumpy at 20, and shouting helpful comments at 30 - if they haven't already walked out the door.
scorched earth Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 4:33 am Post subject:
I'm not sure what the "unhappy parallel" is, but given the frequency of this behavior in the near-to-Fripp vicinity, I can't help wondering if it isn't the awareness, on some level, of Fripp's awareness that's making them nervous and thus triggering these behaviors.
RF: So, it is Fripp's fault after all.
It is possible that Herr Booby was role-playing for all 5.5 hours of his twitching, picking & biting, but my sense is that Herr Booby's head was unaware of what his hands were doing. This hunch is based on observations made in 1975 & subsequently.
lotus spray Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 11:43 am Post subject:
If RF were a humanist instead of a misanthrope he would have realized that the way "Herr Booby" was acting was a nervous reaction because he was scared shitless flying in a plane. Then Fripp would have given the individual what comfort he could, perhaps even taking and squeezing his hand and reassuring him that, no their entrails were probably not going to be splattered all over the eastern seaboard.
RF: A difficulty when criticising a lack of compassion & humanity in others is that, prior to making the criticism, better we manifest the qualities in our own lives.
Why does Mr. Spray offer no sympathy for Fripp's own difficulties with flying (considerable)? Why not offer sympathy to the poor traveler Fripp who, not only dealing with his own flight problems, gets stuck inside the personal-energy broadcast-zone of an uncontrolled booby-twitcher? Why criticise what he sees as misanthropy in Fripp without seeking, for a moment, to empathise with him?
I am heartened by the generous feelings & good wishes Mr. Spray extends towards Herr Booby. However, HB was in a better situation than Fripp. HB was sitting next to a relatively contained character; Fripp, on the other hand, was sitting next to a Booby of High Achievement whose presence radiated dis-ease.
Alas and alack another opportunity to connect with others shot to hell.
RF: Worse than that even, a lost opportunity for Mr. Spray to connect with Fripp. Why reactive negativity & hostility? Where is Mr. Spray's "humanism" here?
Perhaps Mr. Spray is undisturbed by the terror of boobyism. Boobyism is a state of being locked within mechanical patterns, beyond our awareness & beyond our capacity to direct. One effect of boobyism is, it gets in the way of our connecting with others. A second is, a booby lives close to the World of Accident. That makes being near a booby dangerous.
Why did Herr Booby not attempt to reassure the passenger on his right that all was well with the flight? (Although had he offered to comfort me, I'm not sure I would have taken either of Herr Booby's hands).
Perhaps Mr. Spray's posting would have been otherwise, had I included the full Diary report of the flight.
Addenda to RF Diary for Tuesday 14th. June, 2005…
It occurred to me that Herr Booby might be all-of-a-twitch because he was a nervous flier, especially on a long flight from West to East Coast. To make it worse for him, he was sitting next to a quiet & contained Englishman.
Attempting to comfort Herr Booby, I reached across to take & squeeze his hands. He hastily withdrew them from my reach, to better continue picking nose and fingers, wiping nasal extraction & skin detritus upon surrounding surfaces, and gave me an unfriendly glance as if to say: keep your hands off my hands! they're already taken!
I felt crushed, rejected, unwanted, unnecessary to the stream of life, my own needs and worries ignored, and I only wanted to say hello & reassure him that his entrails & mine were mutually entwined in safety for the duration of our long journey.
Yet another post, from Emory, on the same subject…
Emory Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 8:22 pm Post subject: Fripp a human being?
RF: If the question needs to be asked, the answer is probably no.
lotus spray wrote: If RF were a humanist instead of a misanthrope he would have realized that the way "Herr Booby" was acting was a nervous reaction because he was scared shitless flying in a plane. Then Fripp would have given the individual what comfort he could, perhaps even taking and squeezing his hand and reassuring him that, no their entrails were probably not going to be splattered all over the eastern seaboard.
Alas and alack another opportunity to connect with others shot to hell.
Well, that is one thing I find somewhat exasperating about Fripp's writings. A booby, after all, is a human being and only a booby part time.
RF: Not quite. A booby is most likely both a human being and a booby full-time. Boobyism is a behavioural manifestation of a personal state or station. But being a booby is not a proper condition for what we might hope of a human being: the capacity to be responsible for (at least) small acts of personal conduct.
And perhaps Fripp knows that.
RF: Clearly not.
On the other hand, perhaps if he allowed more of that awareness to seep in to his playing, then some of his "drastic measures" might not be necessary.
RF: I find this both presumptuous & arrogant.
Or at least, he might be able to rescue a few more shows from the basement, dusting off the feces, so to speak, and sifting out the hidden humanity therein.
RF: Mea culpa, mea culpa. I am unworthy.
Hang on – I thought the musician went onstage to play music to an audience already in contact with its humanity? My contract says nothing about providing sewage disposal services to audients whose humanity is immersed in a septic tank.
On the other hand, that's a lot to ask of a guy, particularly when one realizes that our fav guitarist…
RF: Reading many online posts for the past 11 years, it is difficult for me to conclude that Fripp is anyone's favourite anything.
… most probably grew up a fairly standard-issue British dude (complete with jacket-with-crest) and then, perhaps by accident, found himself a "rock star" one day. That's GOT to make you feel a little weird. Thank God I'm not in a profession where that's demanded of me.
RF: It's true that my professional life is not one that I would wish on my enemies, with the possible exception of one former manager.
…I'll probably delete this post so enjoy it while you got it.
RF: I don't believe that anything, once posted, ever goes away. And this is enjoyment?
