ENO: NOT A FRUIT SALT*

The creative arts such as choreography, composing and play-writing as well as the performing arts such as dancing, concertizing and acting share the social environment. It is a social environment that is at once fragmented and increasingly unified. The artist is at once a remote observer in relation to society and an integral part of that society. This polarization, this schizophrenia of experience has been paradoxically taking place in a society that is utterly transforming the conditions in which the artist plays his role. At the core of these social conditions is the unit of social organization, the global society, in which the artist is increasingly participating. Artists are availing themselves of a rich tapestry of resources, richer than at any time in history.

As I watched Artscape: Brian Eno in Conversation1 I could not help but reflect on some of these ideas. I won’t tell you all about Brian Eno. Readers of this prose-poem can google his life, his work and the many efflorescing concepts that spin out of his mind. The many internet sites on Brian Eno, especially Wikipedia, will save me repeating what you can easily read for yourself. But I will make some personal remarks in this prose-poem format. My comments here resulted from listening to this stimulating half hour interview with Brian Eno whose work is at the forefront of music, art and technology. –Ron Price with thanks to 1ABC1 July 21, 2009, 10:00-10:30 p.m.

We both graduated back in the ‘60s,
Brian, but you got stuck into music
in a big way as I headed out of that
form of the arts teaching a hundred
students a week, raising three kids
& with many Bahá'í communities
keeping my nose to the proverbial
grindstone: a life which was not
without its play of creativities....

Your professional music career was just
beginning when my post-secondary life
was taking-off and there I stayed until
the new millennium. Your flamboyance,
performing personality and, as you say,
some deal with destiny, fate or chance
took you into highly eclectic & ambient
electronic music treatments as well as a
list of stuff as long as your arm which I
could not possibly put into this poem. I
have got to hand it to you, Brian.....your
creativity-like that of any unmerited grace-
as Annie Dillard once put it, stimulated my
sensory emporium listening as you put into
words the nature of your experience....your
views and your modus vivendi/operandi....
carry on carrying-on, Brian: thanks a lot....

* Eno is a fast-acting, gastrointestinal product, a name for effervescent fruit salts. It is used as an antacid and reliever of bloatedness. It was invented in the 1850s by James Crossley Eno.

Ron Price
23 July 2009

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married for 43 years, a teacher for 35, a writer and editor for 10 and a Baha'i for 51

well dear thanks for sharing this information i was not aware of this