Various writings by guitar virtuoso Robert Fripp have been much more of interest and inspiration to me than his music for about 20 years now (whenever it was I started picking up his "Guitar Craft Manifestos" at Manny Maris' late, lamented alt-music store on Prince near Mulberry (which was it? "Lunch For Your Ears" or "Rocks In Your Head?" Whichever one wasn't on Spring near West Broadway - Manny worked there first, then started his own place further east . . .).

When caught in the various binds of "what am I to do next?", "what should I be doing?", and the occasional "why am I even doing this?", Fripp's writings have been a gentle guide towards finding a direction when one is needed (like getting a slight push in a rowboat on a calm lake or blowing softly on a piece of floating tissue paper). More general than Eno and Schmidt's Oblique Strategies, which come in handy when blocked in specific working situations, Fripp helps answer the "whys" rather than the "what nows" - and once you have a few of the former answered the latter begin to take care of themselves.

Fripp, dealing with music rather than theatre, often deals with the "why" of performance in public as desirable or not, necessary or not, his concerns with Music being primarily (entirely?) between the musician/interpreter and Music itself. Theatre, being all about public performance, does not have many of these same concerns . . . should it? . . . but much of the thinking still travels from medium to medium . . .


from Robert Fripp's Diary, October 30, 2007:

Performance / presentation in public is a superb way of getting to know ourselves & our mechanics, with a primary aim: to become aware of our illusions. This line of education is strong stuff, and holds dangers:

if we are unpopular with members of the public, the advice they offer (not always attenuated by compassion & forms of refined expression) may do us damage;

if we become popular, our illusions & self-deception become reinforced & strengthened, that fans (who have the right to do so) may live vicariously the thrills & wonder of idealised celebrity;

if we are very popular, representatives of commerce & those who profit from our work, act to encourage our illusions that they may strengthen their hold upon us, and we become more susceptible to business control & direction.

So, for the novice: better to go carefully, preferably with those of greater experience; better to be well-practised; better to be sure of one’s larger aim.

For the more experienced: best to go carefully; best to be well-practised; best to be sure of one’s life-aim; best to know the poverty of our nature (so there is less in the way to prevent music moving out, and inappropriate reactions / repercussions getting in); best to remember Music creates the musician, and who serves the Muse; best to trust the inexpressible benevolence of the Creative Impulse; and best of all - have a really good agent.

Recently, I have been of a distracted and restless nature. I had wanted to rest myself for some time before starting up on "next year's shows" but have wound up making myself fidgety and scattered. Luckily, I have a tech gig and short-term directing-on-commission gig before 2008 to keep me occupied.

But I want to be working on my own things soon, even though I don't really know what those things are as yet (except for the return of Harry in Love). I have bits and pieces of Spell, which appears to be about an American Terrorist in America (a lot like my interpretation of Foreman's Miss Universal Happiness from 1999), and images in mind for another show of grey men in grey suits in grey rooms doing bad things to innocent people they never see (which might or might not be the primarily dance/movement piece I want to do) - lots of clocks and papers. Desks. Metal and glass. Fluorescent tubes.

Spell was being written with a specific actress's voice in mind for the main character (Ann), but the actress is quitting theatre for the time being, so I'd have to recast (at least mentally, it's not like I had or could have had any definite way of knowing this actress would play the part). Any writing I'll do for a while will continue to be in her voice to keep the tone consistent, but I'll probably rewrite it all if I use the fragments I have with another actress (being most interested right now in creating new work for specific actors, their voices, their persons, their emotional tones and timbres). The character has been splitting, anyway, into a male character as well, Andy, who might be Ann's brother (possibly dead, possibly not, possibly imaginary, possibly the "real," dominant figure), or lover, or they just might be the male and female sides of one person externalized. I don't know yet, but I suspect the last. I'll know when it's happening on stage. Ann talks more, though. Still.

While fidgeting around, I've been returning to a lot of old favorite, "comfort food" movies. It started with the horror films around Halloween, but kept going into pulling out and throwing on a lot more movies than have been running here for some time. We've gone through Candyman (Bernard Rose, music by Philip Glass), The Brood (David Cronenberg, photographed by Mark Irwin), Scream (Wes Craven, photographed by Mark Irwin), The Tomb of Ligeia (Roger Corman, written by Robert Towne), The Masque of the Red Death (Roger Corman, photographed by Nicolas Roeg), Black Christmas (Bob Clark), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick), Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, photographed by John Alcott), The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorcese), The Devils (Ken Russell, designed by Derek Jarman, photographed by David Watkin), How I Won the War (Richard Lester, photographed by David Watkin), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Richard Lester, photographed by Nicolas Roeg), THX-1138 (George Lucas), Videodrome (David Cronenberg, photographed by Mark Irwin), Crash (David Cronenberg), Halloween (John Carpenter, photographed by Dean Cundey, camera operated by Ray Stella), The Haunting (Robert Wise, photographed by Davis Boulton), and the 7-episode series On The Air, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. Mostly horror, but slowly moving outward as connections were made or found.

I've got a page of my "favorite movies" on YMDb ("Your Movie Database") HERE. It changes. Fairly frequently. Lots of things drop off and on (especially Sherlock Jr., Sunrise, and 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her).

I seem to be going through a lot of these old favorites trying to figure out what holds them all together in some way. Why these? What do I like? What am I interested in looking at right now? Is it the same damn things I've been looking at for 10 years now? How do I make this new for myself?

And I think I was wrong in what I said at the start here. Completely and utterly wrong. Fripp's words are an inspiration, but in the end nothing inspires as much as the tactile quality of the work . . . the Work is always what matters -- the guitar solo on "Baby's on Fire," or the lead line on "'Heroes'" have said and meant more to me for decades now than any words could, as has the quality of red captured by Nic Roeg in photographing the costumes of the Red Death and Zero Mostel, the firetrucks in Fahrenheit 451, and the splattered and sprayed paint in Performance. These are the inspirations I need more for myself right now . . .

Words are a trick. Words are a trap.