Walk the Dog and Light the Light - what can I have been thinking of not to have listened it for several months? Then New York Tenderberry.

Laurence rang and we had quite a long discussion about strategic leadership and certain philosophical extensions - especially L�s middle period of hard edged Minimalism. It shared with the megaMins the confrontational absences - go on just say �Is that all?� and see what happens. Also the covert supernaturalism - about what might well up from carefully cultivated absence - the Via Negativa, almost. We needed to catch up. Then I went out and did some shopping - bought some crumpets.

More ems with L. He alerted me that the Mins are the composers of the week on R3. You can hear a rare excerpt of LmY�s 2nd Transformer Dream. They talk over it - not realizing that it works its magic by concentrated listening. - also Via Negativa. At least they get the Trane connection. I sent some Habermas thoughts which L thought ranked along another I had spotted.

This other was from a LW commentary - that as a student one may be bewitched by his stuff - as indeed we both possibly have been. This bewitchment engenders a lifelong endeavour to follow in the direction he powerfully but vaguely indicates. Paradoxically, in this direction, one of the promises is that one may escape a bewitchment - in which language misleads us about what there is. For example people think that �willing� is an intermediary between deciding and doing. But in voluntary action this is a grammatical illusion. I just do some things without a preceding act of will. Like buying crumpets. In this way you could also invoke a Minm or a Via Negativa. In the blankness thoughts will appear - an internal welling up . Could this mean that you just compose - it wells up if you let it.

A sound and vision thing is almost finished in first draft. The main �instrument� involved is acoustic guitar - and eccentrically /electronically sourced imagery. I also did a kind of remix which became quite radical. So many pathways these days. Somehow one has to find a few and get engaged. You can be engaged about engagement - can you be distanced about distance? Is Minm a way of engaging with distance?

Exchanged a couple of ems with Andrew K - he made a good point about the way The Band seemed to pose an unavoidable songwriting paradigm - except that a few people managed to avoid it. .

The Wire has an obituary for Hugh Davies, who was Stockhausen�s assistant for a couple of years and part of MIC with Derek Bailey and Evan Parker. He had a band called Gentle Fire which brought an album out in the late 60s with pieces by Cage, Brown and Wolff.

I thought a bit about Ruth Pradel�s book, Sex Gods and Rock n Roll. Some good stuff about power and permeability. I have come by an interesting 1961 recording where Gil Evans collaborates with Cecil Taylor - or may be it is simulated collaboration.

I read about Jim Dine on the way to work. He does hearts and dressing gowns. More E-jay options appeared. Steve Reich says he did Different Trains on a Mac. He is 70 this year and apparently grand old man of a past genre.