Performance is inherently unlikely.

Today's "Aphorism of the Day" from Discipline Global Mobile supplies today's writing prompt.

In case you all are not familiar with “Discipline Global Mobile” - it is an extension of the band, King Crimson. I was wearing my 2021 tour shirt yesterday evening as I was walking to the Hamilton Live on F Street NW between 14th and 15th Streets when a young lady who was canvasing for the International Rescue Committee said “King Crimson!” and that was enough to hook me. I asked if she knew the band and she said that she did not so I filled her in a bit about them and then opened it up so that she could tell me about the IRC - it was a really good job she did in engaging me, so it paid off.

Performance is inherently unlikely.

Now that gave me pause today when it was presented to me as part of the 1000 Club of Discipline Global Mobile via email. However, I took these four words in and began to reflect upon it. That ANYTHING happens AT ALL is a kind of miracle.

Getting back to yesterday evening - I had not intended to be walking down to the Hamilton Live when the day had dawned, but sometime in the course of my day, a message popped in on my “Messenger” app from my cousin, Jeff Knighton, that he had “a ticket with my name on it” to catch Bill Frissell - one of the three guitarists that form Jeff’s “three-legged stool” of guitar - at the Hamilton Live. This simple action led me to being there to enjoy the artistry of Bill and a bassist over the course of a couple of hours. Jeff’s son, Ben, and a couple of friends of theirs were 5 of the 6 at our table in the “Gold” section of the audience.

The connection that we have is a direct result of my father, Harold Bledsoe Gill, Jr., tipping me off to the fact that my second cousin once removed was out there posting guitar performances on the internet some years ago. As we walked from the performance, Jeff remarked that he missed my father’s presence and we commented that Dad’s enthusiasm for the arts and music were - what’s the word? - unusual? There was something that really tickled him about being able to celebrate others and share his enthusiasm in a quiet, humble, and consistent way. Consistency of practice is key to the "discipline” which we bring into the world.

Jeff and I connecting at a distance and then in person brings me back to King Crimson. Our first in-person meeting happened at the performance (which seemed very inherently unlikely) on September 11, 2021 at the Anthem on the DC Wharf. That was the last apearance of King Crimson in North America. They’d wrap up in Japan and, so far as we know, King Crimson as an entity that inhabits a band, has left for the moment. There are off-shoots however, and if anyone is in Europe, you might want to keep an eye out for possible appearance of “Beat” which performs the 1980s repertoire of King Crimson. I saw that combination in the fall of 2024 and that was also the last time that Jeff and I had connected, unexpectedly as it turns out!

Last night was a coordinated connection and I am really grateful that the inherently unlikely performance of Bill Frissell as well as the inherently unlikely existence of any of us happened. Here to wrap up this post is a photograph I shot of Jeff and his son, Ben, to preserve the memory of the evening:

Ben and I share a great-great grandfather, Christopher Columbus Greiner, who was a descendant of an immigrant from Bavaria who arrived in the 18th century in Philadelphia. The family made it’s way down the valley of Virginia where they ran into the westerly moving Gill family. Jeff’s grandmother, Ruby, was the sister of my great-grandmother, Lucy Greiner Gill. We’re really lucky to be here now - or anywhere for that matter. Existence itself - as well as performance in existence - is, after all, inherently unlikely.