utopian and apocalyptic (je tu il elle)

yesterday (as will be and then not again) 

horsemouth's mum went to the doctors in ewyas harold. the community transport people came to get her at midday and brought her back for 2pm. it is a very useful service (and horsemouth thanks them profusely for it).

horsemouth is ok with the buses but  for horsemouth the walk back from the village is do-able (except at night in the dark perhaps). for his mum it is not.  so if anything goes wrong it is a bit of a worry.

later horsemouth walked into ewyas harold and back to pick up a few things (and then down to the abbey and back). three miles all told (three and a half by road). 

such are the vagaries of living in the countryside without a car. 

horsemouth on the hunt for french songs

he thinks he has one in nous n'irons plus au bois (we won't go again into the woods). this was a favourite of debussy (he lifted it a number of times for his own compositions). it is also (allegedly) in je tu il elle by chantal akerman (1974) (but horsemouth hasn't found it yet). 

he supposes he wants slightly naive medieval sounding ones rather than chanson and melodie sounding ones. there's le chalend qui passe perhaps. 

the sung stuff seems to work best with the sound recorder software (designed to record speech). horsemouth sings and claps to give a sense of time and lets rob fill in the musical instruments. 

perhaps try some wordless singing.

it is a mild and temperate morning in the wild. 

horsemouth has just been out to see the chickens and he has his cup of coffee. later he delivers the eggs to the crossroads. 

e.m. cioran and utopia

inspired by his conversation with maria zambrano cioran embarks on a two to three year reading project on utopia (and its pre-requisite apocalypse). perhaps this is  his least likely topic. 

who does he read?

hesiod, genesis, prometheus, vico, fourier, saint-simon, pelagius, robert owen, dostoyevsky, cabet, william morris, campanella, swift (gulliver's travels), saint john of patmos, condorcet, plato, and, of course, st. thomas more. 

horsemouth has a fair amount of utopian and apocalyptic literature. 

the true location of utopia

'I remember precisely the moment when, at the café de flore, I made the decision to explore utopia...'

- e.m. cioran, maria zambrano: a decisive presence.

it was his conversation with maria zambrano that encouraged cioran to start on 'readings extending over two or three years'. 

by the end of his readings cioran thought he had identified the true location of utopia and, with his wife, vanished into the brazillian jungle.

for many years he could be found every afternoon sitting in one of the main squares of utopia feeding the many stray cats of the quarter. he made few friends and found the cafe society uncongenial. after an initial phase of ordering him out to labour in the fields the courtyard committee decided to feed him and treat him as an honoured guest (despite the fact that utopia had no need of philosophy). they argued that his philosophy was so uncongenial it could only function to encourage the youth to work  and live as best they could within utopian society. 

cioran's wife found work as a teacher (again) and supported him until he succumbed to dementia. 

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horsemouth supposes that the main joke here is that notorious romanian pessimist cioran moves to utopia and finds it no worse than paris. in fact he replicates his paris life almost perfectly. in many ways utopia is no worse for him than the everyday world (beset as it is, in cioran's view, by utopic thinking). 

here horsemouth is being unfair. cioran's life in paris suited him well. he spoke the language. he could write in it. he could read in it, he had access to books and educated people.

whether he would have learned utopian is doubtful. 

yesterday horsemouth has been down to unlock the abbey and then he did a little weeding in the garden. 

in the evening a tv documentary on brexit. it is coming up to the tenth anniversary of the referendum.  

horsemouth missed most of it - he was away in porto having a wonderful european experience. this lasts until the evening of st.joao (or more particularly the morning after) when people start commiserating with him about the result. 

it is rare for horsemouth to watch tv (other than the news). the radio he is more partial to.  

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it's the morning. another beautiful morning here in paradise. in a bit he goes and unlocks the abbey. 

'j'ai vu le loup, le renard, le lievre..'

so this week.

today (when you read this). 

horsemouth will be on the abbey rota  for the week. opening up and closing the abbey. 

once in the morning. once in the evening. 

(he does like to feel useful). 

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from here on in a written in the morning blogpost

when horsemouth got up in the morning the chickens were there to greet him at the gate (he had forgotten to lock them up the night before). fortunately they were all there (none had been snaffled by a fox). 

horsemouth is very pleased with the way his recording for far future village band III has turned out (and indeed with the whole thing). it will be released on an unsuspecting world in about a week or two's time. keep an eye out for it. 

rob was asking horsemouth if he had any more crazed french songs and horsemouth had to say he'd think about it. j'ai vu le loup (which horsemouth had to start learning for this) was interestingly not the song horsemouth thought it was 'I saw the wolf (oh how scary)'  but rather 'I saw the wolf, the fox and the hare getting drunk/ singing / dancing (disreputable beasts that they are).'  horsemouth only sang the middle bit so that's all there is of it. 

similarly with travailler c'est trop dur - horsemouth recorded it in two parts and rob picked only the second part so it emerges as a fragment. 

meanwhile

it's a temperate morning here in the wilds. in a bit horsemouth will finish off his coffee and go to unlock the abbey. it has rained in the night so this deprives horsemouth of watering the garden task. 

david hockney/ joan didion/ grace jones as a child

such were the three people horsemouth and howard discussed in their zoom call.  

david hockey - well david was a northerner in the art world (this was his relevance to howard). he kept going and so you've heard of him. howard teaches his photography (not his painting). 

with joan didion horsemouth's work was cut out - but howard did have a copy of slouching towards bethlehem with him,  so horsemouth's task was made easier. notebooks - says didion and she pulls out a quote, and via the quote a scene, poolside in LA. later (years later) a re-encounter at sachs in new york. look at this. the fecundity of memory assisted.

horsemouth sang her praises. by the end he may have had howard convinced.  

it was howard who mentioned grace jones as a child (from a poem horsemouth believes).

here a photo from howard. in his back garden reading and writing (and drawing probably).

meanwhile back in the wilds in the day a wander up the hill to deliver the eggs (and then a wander down the hill to check the defibrillator at the village hall). later a walk over to the village shop for the hereford times and then a walk back. 

horsemouth missed a concert at the abbey. it would have required time and planning to get to it (and rapid sobering up after the zoom beers with howard). 

that was a mostly written the day before blogpost.

it looks like a nice day out this morning.

horsemouth has been out to feed the chickens and to open up the garage. whilst he was having a quick pee he saw the black cat (the beast is not inclined to be over friendly). 

et je prends mon violon...

 an entirely written in the morning blogpost

horsemouth could really do with getting up to the wen.

that said he has been fairly productive of late. he has made more music. (something he has been wanting to do for a while). he has emailed a contact about co-op stuff (though not the old communal endeavour but a new communal endeavour). 

he has heard much of the far future village band III. the fragment of la travailler c'est trop dur works particularly well. 

he will take a crack at j'ai vu le loup (a notorious french tongue twister) and at playing the riff from poor black mattie. 

he will also take a crack at recording a 3 against 2 rhythm. given the success of the clap and vocal tunes. 

it is strange to be dealing with this material after all this time. 

today a beautiful morning. horsemouth will wander the eggs up the hill at some point. perhaps a zoom call with howard. certainly some sitting out and reading. 

the behaviour of nomads

'akhmatova, like gogol, wanted to posses nothing. she gave away the presents given to her... this characteristic recalls the behaviour of nomads.' 

- e.m. cioran, the lure of disillusion. 

yesterday in the morning horsemouth recorded. he took a crack at il est né le divin enfant, he recorded himself singing some of travailler c'est trop dur to handclaps and he recorded a  crack at the headhunters' rhythm from you got it, you get it (you got to get it). 

hopefully some of that will stick. 

rob (in far off rio gordo) has processed some photos of horsemouth for the far future village band project. strangely the most conventional photo has come out the best. 

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oh dear. looks like the day starts with a death. horsemouth will let you know more when he is sure. 

'terribly sad to read of the passing of mickey mann, music producer and engineer, who connected the dots between the shamen, aphex twin, orbital, ramjac, moby,  irresistible force and many more. I was honoured to work with his band pressure of speech too.'  - robin rimbaud  (scanner)

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last night a very mixed bellringing. horsemouth missed catching the sally practically as soon as he started (and down came the bell). however got straight back up on the horse and indeed had a second go without incident (ok he missed catching the sally again early on but recovered). 

afterwards the pub. 

no lift in (so he walked). otherwise everything came together to enable him to go.

worst oil shock ever!

ok so horsemouth's current plan is to take a crack at il est né le divin enfant (a french christmas carol as covered by siouxsie and the banshees and featured in the film the curse of the cat people - you remember the one, the one that doesn't feature any cat people).

he doesn't think you need all the verses just

he is born the divine child...

we've been waiting for this a long time...

did I mention the divine child has been born... 

of course the real question is what else can he offer up. 

he has been thinking about attempting a version of poor black mattie as pauvre henri (or henry callaghan or some such). perhaps the opening chords to fauré's pavane (op.50) aka. theme from an imaginary (spaghetti) western. maybe rework a la luna yo mi voy. 

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the world has been proper shit of late 

(as you may have noticed) 

and horsemouth thinks it is going to get worse (as the oil shock and inflation and interest rate rises hit). of course the argument will be that this is the fault of the incumbent government (however useless they actually are) rather than the fault of an orange shitgibbon in washington starting an unwinnable war on the advice of his genocidal mate. 

add to this a leadership contest in the government (one where you won't get a vote on it for two and a half years) and mobs of racists partying it up in the streets (and that's all proper shit). 

this morning rain. and it looks like it is in all day. (and quite possibly all tomorrow). 

horsemouth has fed the chickens in a bit he will go and get the bin from the bottom of the drive. (ok nix that plan - it's raining too hard).