All photos © 2011 Charles Martin

We arrived at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium to begin the queue around noon. Eno’s talk was at 2 p.m. and was scheduled until 4:30. Only a handful of people were there at first, but by the time two o’clock was nearing, the line stretched from the front of the Thomas Wolfe down to the Asheville Library. Seating was general admission and we made a bee line for the seats; ending up about 5-7 rows back from the front. This was something of a watershed moment for me; I’d previously seen Robert Fripp play soundscapes and give a Q+A afterward, and now I’d be getting the Eno side of the equation. Fripp, it must be said, had the demeanor of a stern headmaster. This would be a shock to no one. Personally, I couldn’t think of a question vital enough to ask and not be on the receiving end of Fripp’s disappointment. How would Eno take to the podium?

We didn’t have to wait long. After 20-30 minutes of people arriving and seating themselves, the lights dimmed and Brian Eno was introduced to the 70% capacity hall. Like a flashback to vintage lecture hall classes in college, Eno was equipped with four different colored Sharpies®, a few prepared transparencies, a bottle of water, and some blank transparency material to create some freestyled slides for the overhead projector driving the whole shebang.

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Eno began his talk by citing his forebears who provided him with artistic inspiration. John Cage, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley, who would next occupy the hall for a MoogFest Concert, were all cited for their influence into systems [or generative] music that had a large impact on Eno’s artistic development. He then began speaking from a loose outline, which he projected behind him on the screen. He used overlays to indicate that there were several possible flows to the path he could take, and in and of itself, that doevtailed with one of his main themes he would explore on this talk of why we are drawn to art. More on that later.

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First he established that we are all cosmically insignificant with a basis in Copernicus’ heliocentric theory of the universe [since proven]. Mankind then had an inkling that the universe did not, in fact, revolve around him and his glory. He then projected a graph of the variety of life on earth, of which mankind is but a sliver, statistically speaking. Extrapolating further on this theory, Eno then projected a helpful image of the universe with the tiny legend of “you are here” hidden somewhere in its fullness. Not entirely unlike the Infinite Perspective Vortex as it appeared in “Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy!’

"How did I get here?"

At one point after chasing a loose thread of his talk, Eno returned to his overheads confised, murmuring “how did I get here?” And following that the man did exactly what I would have done in his shoes. He began singing beneath his breath the chorus to “Once In A Lifetime” as he had just given himself a perfect song cue! This, undoubtedly, was the coolest thing I have ever seen a “pop musician” do in public. As a song cue whore of the strongest stripe, I fully understand the sick compulsion to answer verbal cues with the appropriate bit of song, even if I loathe the song in question. I just have to do it. I’m compelled. And apparently, so is Eno. That he would do it with a song he wrote is irredeemably cool beyond any reproach!

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Having given his memory a jog via “Once In A Lifetime,” he then went on to his main theme in his talk illuminating this discussion of why we are drawn to art. He postulated a continuum of control versus surrender, whereby the act of surrender is to willingly cede one’s control in a liberating fashion to any number of things. Art amongst them, but also noting religion, sex, and, drugs as some other valid stimuli. He further extrapolated on the interrelationships between many of these disciplines, at one point quipping “If anyone knows ways in which all four of these stimuli are interrelated simultaneously, please let me know.”

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Control hierarchies, consequently, are places where art does not thrive because it undermines authority necessary for control. He placed a transparency showing the Church of England as an example of a control oriented hierarchy. He also offered military and orchestral organization as other examples of a pyramidic hierarchy where information flows in one direction only, and thus leaves the organization stumbling blindly through the universe under the control of a small faction dominating the many.

Surrender as a virtue

Alternatively, redundant, multi-directional hierarchies, such as a sewerage system in Denmark he cited, have a flow of information throughout its structure whereby change can quickly be undertaken in response to crises. This was offered as a model of how and why creativity and art breed within systems that are designed to better support them. He proffered the nomenclature of “scenius” to refer to group intelligences of a high degree of creativity where individuals form communities that are hotbeds of art and creativity.

Can one resist a bald genius steepling his fingers?

One aspect of this was that human brains are getting smaller than generations ago because when human communities formed, less of our brains had to be preoccupied with the business of survival, leaving us time and wherewithal to begin specializing in areas that were not related to simply living. Furthermore, computers and technology allow us to offload dependence on our own memory onto a technological artifact. In theory freeing us up to move elsewhere with our brains.

"You have very good taste."

At a certain point he became aware that time was getting away from him and he was most concerned that Terry Riley should be able to soundcheck properly before his concert, so Eno then took questions from the audience for about ten minutes before wrapping up what was precisely like a particularly great college lecture from a lively and witty speaker. My friend got in the question queue without thinking and managed to fire off the question “how is it that you are part and parcel of so many artistic endeavors that I value?”

“You have very good taste,” quoth the Eno to my friend’s unceasing pleasure. As if he needed to hear that from an expert. On an Eno high, we left the auditorium and made our way back home where we planned to view his photos and share them with my wife, who was at an alternative seminar on Jung’s Death Mother Complex that day. When we saw her she stopped us short and asked us to sit down. She was the one with a story to tell first. She had gotten breakfast on her way to the seminar and was sitting in her car with the engine running [her heater was on that morning], eating her food. When what to her wand’ring eyes did appear but a bald head weaving its way past her on the sidewalk, moving in the direction of the trendy Indigo Hotel complex. In a town full of bald guys, she knew she’d just had an Eno sighting!

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Reacting without thinking, she immediately left her car [engine still running] and followed Eno to his hotel and after determining that it was, in fact, Brian Eno at the hotel desk in front of her. She quickly welcomed Eno to Asheville and asked for an autograph while simultaneously apologizing for the intrusion. To which he replied positively and having received his John Hancock, she thanked him and beat a hasty retreat back to her car, which was thankfully still there. She then produced the Holy Writ of Eno for her awestruck audience of two to see. She couldn’t believe that she had done something so impulsive and fannish, but she was still grinning like the Cheshire Cat!

At this point I’ll wrap this Eno report up with an anecdote from very early in my relationship with my wife. It was a Sunday morning and I was slicing potatoes to make hash browns. I suddenly had the urge to hear “Taking Tiger Mountain [By Strategy]” and when “The True Wheel” came on, the woman who would become my wife began singing along! When I related this revelation of intense coolness to my friend Charles, he simply replied “marry that woman!” Thus endeth the tale!

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