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Duet for One: The Diaries of Garret O'Geldof

by Brian McShane

328 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0723; ISBN 1-4120-2895-7; US$26.50, C$30.75, EUR22.00, £15.50

A reproduction of the diaries kept by Garret O'Geldof during the Silent Revolt. It is generally believed that the civil disturbances initiated by Bruno Schifra revolutionised our society's attitude to music.

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About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

Don't play your music too loud...
Shhh!! Don't go hooting your horn...
Don't make any noise while you're eating...

The Noise Bandit's in Town.

Bruno and Garret know all about silence.
And noise.
Bruno is tortured by the noises around him.
Garret suffers from the noises within.
And they're not having it.

So their battles begin.
Will they come out in one piece?

That is the question - William Shakespeare.

I wandered lonely as a cloud - William Wordsworth.

E = MC2 - Albert Einstein

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About the Author

The author has been many things throughout his life: actor, musician, clown, teacher, student, carpenter, gardener, brother, father, son, cousin, nephew, uncle, brother-in-law, Joe Public, composer, smoker, drinker, patient, normal bloke trying to get his act together, vegetarian, carnivore, little green man with a funny hat on, shoplifter, prisoner, lover, recluse, bricklayer's labourer, something that the cat dragged in...the list goes on.
And now this. Will we ever get rid of him?

From the Author

What you are about to read is what I have written. There were no intermediaries. No poof-readers or editorial guidance, nothing. It goes straight from me to you. So if and when you find a misplaced comma, or where instead of were, or the repetition of a word two paragraphs on, or you are bored by a bit of waffling, I beg you to suffer it.

The story needed to be told.

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Excerpts

Editor's Foreword

The following publication is a reproduction of the diaries kept by Garret O'Geldof during THE SILENT REVOLT.
The civil disturbances initiated by Bruno Schifra - more commonly known by his nom de guerre SPARTACUS - have already been well documented. To put things briefly into their historical context, it is now generally held to be Sr Schifra's campaign that revolutionised our society's attitude to music.
But although all of this is general currency, Bruno Schifra himself chose to remain silent. His brief statement in court ('Guilty. I've made my point.') disappointed some who expected an impassioned speech, a proclamation of the cause to which he had committed himself. History now tells us that brevity was the greatest speech of all, his manifesto in action.
These diaries show us clearly why he acted the way he did. As the story unfolds, the origin of his motives are laid out before us. We are taken into the world of the two friends; the writer's clumsy search for the meanings behind the symbols, Bruno's unconventional attitude to music, their miraculous discovery of silence and their subsequent contrasting interpretations of that miracle.

The present work has two distinct tones: initially, Mr O'Geldof sets down the story behind their insight into the nature of silence. However, while thus engaged, THE SILENT REVOLT is creeping up on the city of Girona, fruit of his friend's intolerance of what he hears around him. Mr O'Geldof, on eventually learning what is afoot and, to his horror, his friend's involvement, plunges himself suddenly and reluctantly into events of the moment. So begins the second section, a first-hand account of that tumultuous week.
The manuscript - five hundred and twenty-two hand-written fools-cap pages together with two cassette tapes - was handed in at our offices by a cultural entrepreneur (his words) from Girona. As a legal requisite, most of the people cited herein have signed the relevant papers agreeing to their names being used. Two have not: the same cultural entrepreneur and his wife. They had originally insisted on their parts being erased from the final draught. We argued that to exclude them would involve either altering the narrative beyond recognition, or leaving gaping holes and unanswered questions, both alternatives tantamount to falsification. In the ensuing litigation the court ruled that the manuscript should remain intact. However - the judgement concluded - nothing would be taken away from the spirit of the story by respecting their anonymity. Hence they now appear under names they themselves have suggested.

Mr O'Geldof's notes, sometimes clear, measured, of a man in no hurry, more often than not drift into the near-illegible, as though rushing to chronicle a surge of events, feelings, and ideas before they vanish into vague memory. My team and I went to enormous lengths before agreeing on a final text. After much deliberation, we believe the finished product to be as close to the original as may be expected under the circumstances. I hasten to add here that, although he consented to have the document made public, no amount of coaxing would entice the writer to clear up this mess.
Conversations in the original are sometimes a mish-mash of English, Catalan and Spanish. This is fine for a private journal; indeed, Mr O'Geldof's initial intention was that it be a record for him and him alone. But here, with this new regime of a wider readership, we have been granted his approval to use only one language, in this case, English.

The separation lines appearing throughout, such as those preceding and following this paragraph, serve to tidy up an anomaly in the hand-written manuscript: sometimes Mr O'Geldof leaves gaps between one section and another, but more often than not a single thought, a twist to the story or a feeling awakened occupies as little as one line on a page, leaving the remainder blank. Lack of space allows for no such extravagance here.

Faithful to the writer's instructions, in all other matters we have left things as we found them. Irish usage, such as I'm next, amn't I? or You won't forget now, sure you won't? are perfectly understood throughout the English-speaking world. Indeed, this same usage actually forms a vital element to the latter part of the text.
Mr O'Geldof has chosen to record the final part of his diary orally. This too shall be preceded by a brief foreword.

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Catalogue Information

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