But as those chunks [of time] get separated and fragmented, my productivity as a novelist drops spectacularly. What replaces it? Instead of a novel that will be around for a long time, and that will, with luck, be read by many people, there is a bunch of e-mail messages that I have sent out to individual persons, and a few speeches given at various conferences.
That is not such a terrible outcome, but neither is it an especially good outcome. The quality of my e-mails and public speaking is, in my view, nowhere near that of my novels. So for me it comes down to the following choice: I can distribute material of bad-to-mediocre quality to a small number of people, or I can distribute material of higher quality to more people. But I can’t do both; the first one obliterates the second.
But those actually made a product. Werner Herzog was great on that show and I'm sure Morgan did great too. Chief futurist since 2014 on what seems to have been a multi-billion dollar scam at this point is not a good look.
The quality of that show is debatable. People liked the baby yoda a lot more than herzog. And herzog said he did it for the money to do his own thing.
Freeman did okay, but again the art overall is not that good. I do recommend listening to “Snitches & Rats (interlude)” for a taste of Morgan’s work though. [1]
I agree everything associated with magic leap looks bad but that happens with everything that falls on the wrong side of history.
And while magic leap’s contributions appear meager, we haven’t had enough time to contextualize them or see what departed talent does next.
Just a little bit of trivia for other Stephenson fans: Anathem’s narrator is named “Erasmas.” This is a phonetic representation of the Greek “ήρωάς μας,” meaning “our hero.”
i also read it as a nod to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus : Raz mentions at one point that his mathic name was the same as an older figure’s, who has some of these attributes.
Funny that the page says "I'd rather see folks like Robert Fripp contribute in a one-way fashion than not at all", but there have been remarkable examples of Fripp's two way communication in the days before email, where perhaps the fan regretted hearing back: http://et.stok.ca/articles/128-19.html (2020 Fripp on his wife's YouTube channel is like a completely different person)
Yeah, some people really want to stay out of the limelight... quite literally, in this case. And looks like he largely succeeded - I would describe myself as fairly familiar with rock music, and I have heard of most of the acts he has collaborated with, but the name Robert Fripp didn't ring a bell...
But if you wanted proof that the kind of toxicity we see on the Internet nowadays did exist before (but wasn't available for everyone to see and amplify), this "fan" letter is a very good example!
If you were ever into prog rock while young, his band King Crimson basically defined the genre and later on moved it to different directions very succesfully.
I've known about Robert Fripp for quite a while, since I bought an album he made with Andy Summers, the guitarist from The Police, in 1984. But it was only last year that I discovered he played the solo guitar line on the David Bowie track Heroes and produced / played on an album by Daryl Hall. He really does get everywhere for someone who's remained relatively unknown as a personality.
"Some of AH's technical ideas, while wonderful--have trickled anonymously into the mainstream of rock in bits and pieces--in broadening the scope of guitar solos and sounds--inspiring hard rock players like Van Halen and Alex Lifeson, and shred-meisters such as Satriani and Vai--I have no time for those guys, because their whole approach to music seems mired to me in adolesence. AH forever refined and expanded the sound of the guitar--unlike Fripp, who single-handedly opened up rock music to new degrees of artistry and near limitless boundaries in terms of other musical traditions and approaches...."
Haa I was expecting a benign fan letter, with cruel reply from Fripp. Instead the "fan letter" was incredibly rude and presumptuous. If that was written to a lady, I'd have assumed it was some kind of deranged stalker. What a weirdo. So I would have to give Fripp a pass on this one.
At around the time this article was written some friends of mine managed to get a musician that was primarily active in the 50s and 60s on the phone once and a lovely conversation was had. (I'm omitting the name because he's still alive and I don't want to create a thundering herd).
There is some portion of famous people, particularly ones that have passed a bit into obscurity where a bit of fan contact would probably be welcome. Unfortunately it's hard to tell who and "a bit" would almost always be far less than the amount received if it got out that they didn't mind fan contact.
I've sent an occasional no-response-expected messages of thanks to the creators of stuff that I've liked-- as I've always appreciated receiving those myself.
I thought Eno's message in "exhibit 1" was thoughtful, well written, and worth the read.
I one read an insightful comment on reddit about the perspective of a youtuber about letting fans down at conventions because they didn't live their "on" youtube personality 24/7. It discussed how easy is is to disappoint people by just being human and what a tremendous responsibility having fans can be. From that perspective it isn't hard to see how just minimizing contact might be best for everyone. [Alas, I can't find it now to link to it here, as google has become substantially useless for searching for specific reddit comments]
I tried to get in touch with Eno once. And I had a good shot at it. I knew someone who knew him personally and agreed to forward a message I had for him. It was regarding nontrivial software I had developed which incredibly and unexpectedly he had more or less invented 20 years ago in a conversational email message. Thought he'd like to know it had come to fruition.
Knowing his reclusion I wasn't expecting to get a response. Which was good, since I didn't receive one.
Hey cool to bump into an evomusart fan here! (Of course it makes sense given the topic.) I see James McDermott in your acknowledgements. He might not remember me, but we hung out at evomusart in 2007 brainstorming ideas on artificial evolution of music.
The writing here from Brian Eno is remarkably clear and well formulated. I admire someone who can formulate himself so well on a subject even when writing something in what I assume, from the minor spelling errors, is a quickly typed random email. (this is re: "exhibit 1: count me out")
I miss the pre-monitized internet. I emailed Jonathan Coulton and asked if I could bring my uke to a show and join him in stage. I don't know why I thought he'd say yes, but he did said yes. I met up with him in the green room and we did a quick rehearsal then on stage he called me up and we performed a song. Surreal.
I have never been able to successfully replicate this sequence of events with another musician though....
This is amazing. When I was younger I used to write bands that I love. I'd contact them with praise, or asking with help on chord progressions, and never received anything back.
One day I mailed an indie band from Canada and told them how much I loved their record and how incredible it was. I received an email back saying thanks that was signed with a name that I didn't recognize. I looked at their website and it was their drummer. I loved it. One of the very happy moments in my musical journey.
Nobody famous ever contributes to forums. This is a law of the universe.
However, emails are an area where something better could be done. Imagine if you were a famous person and you had a definite idea of who you wanted to hear from.
Friends and family would be whitelisted. Amazon too.
Everyone else could then be spam filtered to 'reject' or 'discard' their emails.
At the server level you could reject everything in a foreign language. Or with an attachment.
You could also have your own stop words. So Eno could have 'Music For Airports' as a phrase that triggered the response 'no, sorry mate, thanks for writing though'.
Now what would happen if people did get stock 'don't bother' emails? If they were well written and had some politeness to them then I think people would prefer that to 'well, he never replied, sob, sob...'.
It is about using a customer service ethos, which could be hard to imagine if you are a famous person and therefore centre of the known universe.
There is an aspect of 'proof of work' with email as it is. DMARC is a thing, reverse PTR checks and everything else an email has to get right shows that your email has at least tried.
There are also 'header checks' for proof of identity.
Right now, if some producer at the BBC needed Eno to star on Desert Island Discs then they would be able to contact Eno's agent, give their BBC email address and title, then get a yes or no straightaway.
In this the 'proof of work' would be going through the agent who would obviously think 'yeah, Brian would like that' to forward on the enquiry. They would check the person was from the BBC and it would all be good. Heck, they would probably know the producer anyway and the producer would have LinkedIn and other credentials.
The agent might not be replaceable by a postfix main.cf/master.cf configuration but it must be possible to get something better than anonymity.
I also think that emails received - even if never replied to - is an important metric. Imagine you thought you were really famous and that everyone was wanting to email you for that to not actually be the case.
I'm not a fan, but I liked some of his albums. Late in the eighties my group of architecture students invited him as judge for an architectural competition. He came and I was his assigned translator. He was extremely impressive, much more than most of the other famous people I met then. Certainly not as arrogant as all the other artists, a real gentleman and very interested in everything.
Do people expect a response from someone (famous or otherwise)? Do they feel entitled to one?
This does remind me a little of Twitter though. People in the replies just begging for a reply or RT from a celeb. People will say ridiculous things just to get even a negative interaction with a celeb.
"And then, when you look at the headers, most of the messages turn out to be junk along the lines of "MAKE $$$ WITH NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER!" (where the sender neglects to mention that you will be making the $$$ for them) or "Visit my XXX Website" (where the XXX turns out to stand for "total waste of time") or "Medical Breakthrough" (where the sender is selling something banned throughout the world [apart from one sleepy little village in Kwang-ju])? "
Interesting that it's old enough they didn't just say "spam" (and in fact don't refer to it as spam, though that word was already in use by 2000....)
In the very early days of the Internet (it was capitalized back then) I sent an email to a musician whose music I liked [0]. And I got back a brief reply thanking for reaching out to him, and that was about it. I think he didn't realize that the general public could reach him via email, and he was probably going to change it so that he could concentrate on his work.
I didn't know who Brian Eno was before reading, or his music. It was an interesting article though.
I come away with the impression that this is someone whose work has fulfilled him, and he is someone who doesn't seek the benefits or potential paths that many people would try to exploit success for.
He's not using his name to seek fame, be really highly regarded, or make great wealth from it. His work just has happened to give him some of that as a side benefit in his mind. I wouldn't even say "he's made it in life" in the traditional way you might say about someone who reached monetary satisfaction. He seems to have reached the fulfillment of his purpose in life, and that is kind of refreshing.
Not satisfying for fans, but refreshing. And maybe he's right that some of the negative reaction to this kind of perspective shows exactly the stress and "badness" of fame that creates a sense of entitlement among your appreciators.
Today it seems that every media/IG/whoever is seeking the likes (even you or I do a little of this every time you post something, right)? And the dopamine hit, or doors that it opens to new, interesting things, which probably turn out to be less interesting after a while, or result in more stress after you see what it is you're really pursuing.
Great for him to have reached this point in life -- although as I said, unsatisfying for his fans. Maybe it is an aspect of the human condition that when you've reached satisfaction in life, you actually become a bit disappointing to others -- exactly because you no longer feel the need to engage in the behavior to be an excitement, inspiration, false role model to them. I wonder if he at least plays that role for his friends or family, the ones who he does want to expend that mental energy on?
No offence, but this is an astoundingly ignorant thing to say about the legacy of Brian Eno.
Yeah, he’s not big like Celine Dion or Bono or anyone in that tier of musical fame or mega rich but to suggest that Eno hasn’t really made it in life is hilarious to me. He is one of the most respected and influential artists of his era. It’s like referring to Lou Reed as an unknown.
It is no hyperbole to say that Eno is probably the most influential producer of the latter half of the twentieth century. You may know him indirectly via his collaborations with Talking Heads and Bowie. His legacy permeates all electronically produced music today.
I have his book "A year with swollen appendices" - has he done anything similar more recently wrt keeping an online diary? I can take or leave his music but I did enjoy reading his thoughtful daily entries.
If you'd be willing to explain in more detail what "sense of privilege" means to you personally, that would help a lot of us understand what you're feeling here.
Roxy Music keyboardist, David Bowie collaborator, Robert Fripp collaborator, ambient music pioneer, legendary producer (Devo, Talking Heads, U2, etc.), creator of the Windows 95 startup jingle. Some great solo albums in the '70s, too.
His 70s albums are the obvious bangers but I am a huge admirer of his album The Pearl. Thursday Afternoon is quite nice as well. All of his softer late career albums and collaborations are super nice as reading/relaxing music. His movie soundtrack work is really good as well.
I know I’ve heard of him, but I don’t know what he has done. He must be before my time. Which means he’s before most people on HN’s time.
Edit: guess not knowing the producer of U2 and Coldplay is a sin around here. I’m 38 and I have no idea what any of his other work is but I don’t think I’d much care for it based on my opinions of those two bands he produced.
I don't think the "sin" is not knowing who Eno is, but rather, an unwillingness to explore and educate yourself.
"He must be before my time"
"I know I’ve heard of him"
So, you make some research and the best you can come up with is "the producer of U2 and Coldplay"...
"I have no idea what any of his other work is but I don’t think I’d much care for it based on my opinions of those two bands he produced."
It all just reads as wilful ignorance... You obviously care enough to comment and bask in the fact that you're unaware of him. As if being oblivious to a hugely influential figure should be worn like a badge of pride or something
David Bowie's best work was with Eno. You might want to check the album trilogy Low/Heroes/Lodger.
And of course his massively influential ambient productions, or the band Talking Heads... Or his ambient experiments with Robert Fripp, inventing the tape loop to make the guitar sound like something else.
Or the art/glam rock masterpieces Another Green World and Before and After Science.
People on HN are not as young as you think, and Eno is not such a one-trick pony that the music he makes himself has much resemblance to the more mainstream amongst the bands he's produced.
So I suspect that your downvotes are for broadcasting unfair assumptions as justification for wilful philistinism.
Yes I’m a philistine for not spending the time to listen to old music by a dude that made a bunch of music with bands that I don’t particularly like. I knew the name, but nothing else until tonight. He seems very popular, that’s great I don’t really care for a lot of music made before my time. And I don’t care for what he has done during my time.
Coldplay boring, David Bowie never got into this music. U2 well let’s just say I was one of the people that went through the process to get their free album removed from my iTunes account. Eno seems exactly the type of music I wouldn’t care for. The fact that I made it this far without knowing who he is and finding all the stuff he has touched not what I like seems to validate that.
At what point is it no longer my burden to explore something more until I am no longer a philistine in your opinion?
Intentionally broadcasting a lack of knowledge of someone's oeuvre and using that total pig-head ignorance as some kind badge of honour is grade-A philistinism.
> At what point is it no longer my burden to explore something more until I am no longer a philistine in your opinion
Well, since you ask, I have to suggest just try talking about something you actually know anything about, or are interested in, rather than wasting everyone's time spruiking your incompetence and taking a shit on everyone else's interests.
Maybe your connection got hijacked...? (The link uses plain HTTP and is therefore easier to MITM.)
The linked page is a simple HTML document with no Javascript whatsoever. If you want to be sure, download the HTML document and inspect it using a text editor.
But as those chunks [of time] get separated and fragmented, my productivity as a novelist drops spectacularly. What replaces it? Instead of a novel that will be around for a long time, and that will, with luck, be read by many people, there is a bunch of e-mail messages that I have sent out to individual persons, and a few speeches given at various conferences.
That is not such a terrible outcome, but neither is it an especially good outcome. The quality of my e-mails and public speaking is, in my view, nowhere near that of my novels. So for me it comes down to the following choice: I can distribute material of bad-to-mediocre quality to a small number of people, or I can distribute material of higher quality to more people. But I can’t do both; the first one obliterates the second.