Author Archives: d.perry

Excerpts from “Towards an Ethics of Improvisation” by Cornelius Cardew (https://www.ubu.com/papers/cardew_ethics.html)

1). Elaborate forms and a brilliant technique conceal a basic inhibition, a reluctance to directly express love, a fear of self-exposure.

2). …for these are, so to speak, suburbs of our language. (And how many houses or streets does it take before a town begins to be a town?) Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses.

It is easy to imagine a language consisting only of orders and reports in battle.-Or a language consisting only of questions and expressions for answering yes and no. And imnumerable [sic] others.- And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.” [quoted from Philosophical Investigations by Wittgenstein]

3). Love is a dimension like time, not some small thing that has to be made more interesting by elaborate preamble. The basic dream -of both love and music- is of a continuity, something that will live forever. The simplest practical attempt at realising this dream is the family. In music we try to eliminate time psycholgically [sic] to work in time in such a way that it loses its hold on us, relaxes its pressure. Quoting Wittgenstein again: “If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present”.

4). My most rewarding experiences with Treatise have come through people who by some fluke have (a) acquired a visual education, (b) escaped a musical education and (c) have nevertheless become musicians, ie play music to the full capacity of their beings.

5). Integrity What we do in the actual event is important -not only what we have in mind. Often what we do is what tells us what we have in mind.

The difference between making the sound and being the sound. The professional musician makes the sounds (in full knowledge of them as they are external to him); AMM is their sounds (as ignorant of them as one is about one’s own nature).

6). Life is a force to be used and if necessary used up. “Death is the virtue in us going to its destination” (Lieh Tzu).

E.C.C.O. (John C. Lilly)

There exists a Cosmic Control Center (C.C.C.) with a Galactic substation called Galactic Coincidence Control (G.C.C.). Within which is the Solar System Control Unit (S.S.C.U.), within which is the Earth Coincidence Control Office (E.C.C.O.). The assignments of responsiblities from the top to the bottom of this system of control is by a set of regulations, which translated by E.C.C.O. for humans is somewhat as follows:

To all humans
If you wish to control coincidences in your own life on the planet Earth, we will cooperate and determine those coincidences for you under the following conditions:

1) You must know/assume/simulate our existence in ECCO

2) You must be willing to accept our responsibility for control of your coincidences.

3) You must exert your best capabilities for your survival programs and your own development as an advancing/advanced member of ECCO’s earthside corps of controlled coincidence workers. You are expected to use your best intelligence in this service

4) You are expected to expect the unexpected every minute, every hour of every day and of every night.

5) You must be able to maintain conscious/thinking/ reasoning no matter what events we arrange to happen to you. Some of these events will seem cataclysmic/catastrophic/overwhelming: remember stay aware, no matter what happens/apparently happens to you.

6) You are in our training program for life: there is no escape from it. We (not you ) control the long-term coincidences; you (not we) control the shorter-term coincidences by your own efforts.

7) Your major mission on earth is to discover/create that which we do to control the long-term coincidence patterns: you are being trained on Earth to do this job.

8) When your mission on planet Earth is completed, you will no longer be required to remain/return there.

9) Remember the motto passed to us (from GCC via SSCU):

“Cosmic Love is absolutelely Ruthless and Highly Indifferent:
it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not.”

“We were surprised and delighted to find we had long-time fans in China even though sometimes our music has been hard to find there. The fact that people really had to work to have access to it was very moving to us. We were told that in the early ’90s people had to buy black-market indie rock cassettes — discarded from factories where the tape had been cut up to prevent resale — and splice them back together by hand in order to hear the music. Having to do so much to have access to music floored us.”

-Naomi Yang (of Galaxie 500, Damon & Naomi)

“During the fruit season, we carry the fruits and bring them into the house. We carry, bring the fruits into the house, and eat them as usual. We bring them into the house…from each of these seven, seven, seven; from each species seven seeds are taken. One closes the skin; it is empty inside, since the seed has already been eaten…about a half an hour passes…earlier we had eaten the seeds; now the seeds have returned, the fruits have become hard. We eat again, swallowing the seeds once again.”

It Happens Like This by James Tate

I was outside St. Cecilia’s Rectory
smoking a cigarette when a goat appeared beside me.
It was mostly black and white, with a little reddish
brown here and there. When I started to walk away,
it followed. I was amused and delighted, but wondered
what the laws were on this kind of thing. There’s
a leash law for dogs, but what about goats? People
smiled at me and admired the goat. “It’s not my goat,”
I explained. “It’s the town’s goat. I’m just taking
my turn caring for it.” “I didn’t know we had a goat,”
one of them said. “I wonder when my turn is.” “Soon,”
I said. “Be patient. Your time is coming.” The goat
stayed by my side. It stopped when I stopped. It looked
up at me and I stared into its eyes. I felt he knew
everything essential about me. We walked on. A police-
man on his beat looked us over. “That’s a mighty
fine goat you got there,” he said, stopping to admire.
“It’s the town’s goat,” I said. “His family goes back
three-hundred years with us,” I said, “from the beginning.”
The officer leaned forward to touch him, then stopped
and looked up at me. “Mind if I pat him?” he asked.
“Touching this goat will change your life,” I said.
“It’s your decision.” He thought real hard for a minute,
and then stood up and said, “What’s his name?” “He’s
called the Prince of Peace,” I said. “God! This town
is like a fairy tale. Everywhere you turn there’s mystery
and wonder. And I’m just a child playing cops and robbers
forever. Please forgive me if I cry.” “We forgive you,
Officer,” I said. “And we understand why you, more than
anybody, should never touch the Prince.” The goat and
I walked on. It was getting dark and we were beginning
to wonder where we would spend the night.

 “The Walkman is replacing certain drugs as a mind- and mood-altering device,” he lamented. “When teenagers have reached the point where they feel they must shut out the sounds of the Ohio State Fair, society is surely ready to collapse.”