Six Principles of the Performance Event

Robert Fripp's Diary for Thursday, 26th February 2009:

A principle is universal, a rule is inflexible, a law is invariable.

Six Principles of the Performance Event

Music so wishes to be heard that sometimes it calls on unlikely characters to give it voice, and ears. This wishing-to-be heard calls into existence the Performance Event; where music, musician & audience may come together as one, in communion.

This communion has six different forms of being & experiencing itself (plus an invisible seventh); and these forms, or principles, are simultaneously present within the Performance.

I
    When people get together with music, something happens.

When people get together, something happens.
When people get together with music, something remarkable happens.

When musician, audience & music come together in a performance, this something remarkable has a quality of its own.
The something remarkable is Music taking on a life of its own.

The Creation continues being created.

II
    In a performance, things come together, mysteriously; and go better than we might anticipate; and better than we deserve.

In a performance event, the Benevolence that gives rise to Music brings together musicians & audience.

Things come together, mysteriously; and go better than we deserve, or might expect them to.

III
    A performance can take on a life & character of its own.

Any particular performance event  - with these people, in this place, at this time - defines the conditions of the performance: the where, when & what of the event.
This is on the outside.

The conditions of time, place & persons do not govern the quality of our experiencing of this performance.
Our experiencing is on the inside.

That the event happens is a given.
How we participate, listen, respond, is open & available.

What happens within the performance, that is, whether the performance comes to life or not, is to be created & discovered.

If this is so, the performance can take on a life & character of its own.

IV
    Any one performance is a multiplicity of performances.

The degree to which we act as one, as a whole person, is a measure of our integration; that is, a measure of our Being.

The degree to which the performance is a whole event, depends upon the extent to which Musician & Audience & Music are able to enter into Communion as One.

Until this point, the performance event is as many performances as participants.
Beyond this point, the Whole Performance is every Performance: it is eternal.

The distinction between both is less than we might believe it to be.

So, any one performance is a multiplicity of performances.

V   

    The possible is possible.

We are able to be with others only to the degree that we are able to be ourselves.
This being so, we can only be in the performance to the degree that we can be ourselves: to be who we are.

It is possible to be who we are.
So, the possible is possible.

We begin with the possible, and move gradually towards the impossible.

VI

    The impossible is possible.

Normality is what we might achieve, given who we are, what we are, the conditions & limitations of the world we work within.

Our “norm” is what we “ought” to be.
 
This is what is asked of us: to be who we were born to be, and to do what we were born to do.
This is already asking too much: it is impossible

Nevertheless, we begin with the possible & move gradually towards the impossible; trusting that the Benevolence which gives rise to Music is never far away.

So, the impossible is possible.

    The Seventh Principle resides within Silence.

The Six Principles assume a common aim, good will & a willingness to participate in good spirit within the event, and the capacity to do so.

In a sense the Six Principles are available when the highest in us comes together; in the knowledge that, essentially, we are the same person.

When the lowest takes charge, the performance event downgrades; and the possible becomes increasingly restricted.
The impossible becomes impossible.
The best is then, that the possible remains possible.

The worst is, that the possible becomes impossible.
This is the Null Event: nothing happens.

A Null Event has no life span, no persistence, no present moment of its own.
The event disappears, as if it never was; and, really, it wasn’t.
The Null Event is a complete waste of time &energy.
Something is lost.

But, it doesn’t have to be like that.

May we trust the inexpressible Benevolence of the Creative Impulse.

on the demands that someone should "debate" Dawkins in the Oklahoma university

Thoughts from Kansas : Disco. Inst. gets insulted again:

And furthermore, when did it become a requirement of free speech that every perspective be balanced?

One could say the same thing about freedom of the press.  While the "equal time" law has its reasons for elections (the idea that candidates win based on their TV ratings, as shown in Max Headroom, is a scary one) , it was relaxed for the right reasons and really only applies to elections, not to every "controversy", manufactured or real.  Not every perspective and viewpoint is equal in terms of factual support and adherence to reality.  Post-modernism is a poor philosophy.

The scary thing is that it was Democrats who were pushing for the "fairness doctrine", which (like the Republicans and the real line-item veto) was something they pressed for while in the minority and now will likely ignore now that they're in the majority (just like Republicans insisting they wouldn't filibuster every single thing that goes through the Senate unlike the then minority Democrats, and today are now doing exactly that).

TDP - We Need a Fairness Doctrine For Media:

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., says flatly, "It's time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they're in a better position to make a decision."

When two opposing viewpoints are presented in this matter, the American public is NOT in a better position.  If anything, they are in a higher state of ignorance because the two sides (like, say, creationism vs evolution, or climate change) are NOT EQUAL AND NEVER HAVE BEEN.  Forced equal time, already practiced by many young journalists in the classic he-said-she-said (sometimes in their own ignorance, like when one went to get a pro-ID viewpoint and got YECer Ken Ham, who doesn't even like ID because it's not religious enough for his literalism) creates the impression that the issues are 50-50 when they are not.  Things get worse when one side is able to lay down single-sentence talking points that are all false but take 30 seconds to say but 5 minutes (to 5 years) to factually show why it is a blatant lie.

When strictly emotional appeals get involved (the abortion issue, for example), "facts" become meaningless.

The only sides that want a equal time and a fairness doctrine are the ones in the minority and for whom facts and evidence are against them: if they can limit the time that the evidence is given, their emotional appeals can win out in public opinion.

But when evidence and fact are given all the time they need to present themselves and show the lies and willful bias of the opposition (Kitzmiller), the liars' real agenda, an agenda of political control over YOU and your lives, especially your freedom to be free of their close-minded view of religion, becomes clear.

A Primer on Federal Gun Laws

Built on Facts : A primer on federal gun law:

One of the things I've noticed is that a lot of people aren't very familiar with what gun laws actually are in the US. Here I'm going to take you on a tour of what's legal and what isn't in the US. I'll try to do so in a mostly neutral way, but for full disclosure I'd generally want to change the law in two directions - fewer restrictions on use, greater penalties for misuse. When my personal opinion creeps in, I'm going to try to set it apart from the main text. The point of this guide is to focus on is rather than ought, and to serve as a handy reference for when I write about the topic in the future.

THE quote of the week

"What on earth is a University for if it only reinforces opinions that students already hold?" -- Richard Dawkins.