'our separation is an illusion...'

 'our separation is an illusion,

 you and I cannot be parted...' 

- anna akhmatova, poem  without a hero.

' a joke is not so funny when you are living inside of it.' 

- teffi, memories: from moscow to the black sea. 

interesting. horsemouth has nothing written for today already.

thus we have a written entirely in the morning blogpost.

well that's not entirely true, he had the quotations. (the akhmatova for sure).

yesterday (an overcast day) lots of gardening. for some reason horsemouth was able to get on with the weeding having been resistant to the notion for a while. he cropped the last of the broad beans, some more runner beans and the odd, accidentally dug up, potato. 

he also dug up the only carrot that came up out of all the seed he scattered (sod's law) and very tasty it was too. 

in the afternoon zoom beer with howard. he's off to the south coast a lot at the moment. horsemouth promised to bring down some sweet peas and some eggs when he comes down. 

horsemouth wrote another what will you find in the horsemouthfolk archive?

(forgone conclusions, the dog which nearly hung itself, verses and epigrams (repunctuated),  the tremorithic road, every slightest thing illuminated by interests and obsessions, boredom, frustration and anxiety, a dead seagull.

hail to the runner bean that kindest of crops.)

ten years ago horsemouth was moving out of pop(u)lar in the direction of hackney. he'd taken a ton of his books to the charity shop (well maybe not a literal ton) but was still moving a vast amount of shite. 

today (hopefully) a wander up the hill to deliver some eggs, more reading of the teffi and the akhmatova, further plotting of his escape. 

an absolutely foregone conclusion

kilvert on this day in 1872 

the strange tale of the dog which nearly hung itself while jumping down from a wall during a thunderstorm. 

earlier (yesterday)

there was a dragonfly flying about (they don't buzz as far as horsemouth can tell). earlier still he was feeling anxious but he has self-medicated with coffee and is now feeling better (plus the heat has come off the day, there are actually clouds in the sky). 

he has watered the tomatoes (which are looking great, lots of them and very red). the cabbages have been eaten to lattice work by the caterpillars (same with the sprouts). the basil is good. he is imagining telling his brother about watering all of this. 

he was just wiping down his blue jacket - the one that was still mud-stained from where he fell over in the mud six months ago (possibly longer). 

horsemouth had a go at reading and recording two of the pieces he wrote for rob's far future village band  project. if these are successful who will start working his way through the others (perhaps there's an audio book in it). there's the odd infelicitous phrase but on the whole it reads pretty well. 

we are moving up on the six year anniversary of musicians of bremen volume four. 

this is a slightly melancholy anniversary because it was not followed (a year or two later) by a volume five. close on its heals were a whole series of releases the humming  etc. but they just used up the material generated at the same time but MoB failed to generate a successor. subsequent projects did not stick. 

they may do yet (it's not an absolutely foregone conclusion).

and yet there it is. pagodas is an important piece for horsemouth because he plays it all. it is a number of fragments of debussy's pagodes inexpertly played and stitched together. as you can clearly hear while recording it horsemouth developed a great enthusiasm for a crash/ splash cymbal he'd found. 

ok it's the morning. horsemouth just took the milk over to the garage fridge and finished off a cup of coffee from yesterday. the mornings are cool (cold even). 

up the tremorithic road

'exchange(d) verses and epigrams...' - lawrence durrell, ceasar's vast ghost (repunctuated).

horsemouth's mum was off to the queen's wood (planned daytrip). horsemouth had hoped to get a lift into town and then do more secondhand book-shopping (but then he realised he needed to be at home for the unloading of the chickenfeed that his mum and stella would be bringing back). 

horsemouth supposes that he's away to the wen soon and that this kind of stuff is more cheaply and easily done in the wen anyway. it's not like he needs more books. 

p.s. he welcomes andy burnham's £2 bus fare announcement. will this tip the scales on his travelling up to town more often? probably not.

after admitting to himself that he was staying home horsemouth decided to go for a walk.

you will remember him mentioning the tremorithic road before. 

up he went onto the common and then along and up the tremorithic road. he didn't get very far beyond the turnoff down to the trout (as was) but further than he has done previously. had he continued on he would eventually have ended up at bacton village hall maybe.

but he didn't, instead he turned around and came home. 

he came home down by the cwm and along past the abbey. there was an event on at the abbey. feeling agoraphobic horsemouth skirted it. 

and here he is (yesterday) sitting in the shade typing in his adventures and drinking tea. 

the walk has gone some way to reset his mood. 

last night a bottle of beer which he is somewhat regretting now. 

morning coffee. his mum is somewhat tired after yesterday's journey out. a slow start. 

a memorial event for legendary sound engineer mickey mann

this evening there's a memorial event for legendary sound engineer mickey mann. 

horsemouth will not be able to make it and has been putting off discussing it. 

mickey had amazing ears, great technical knowledge, and wide musical tastes. he was generous with his time. eventually after much success health problems and financial difficulties conspired to derail it and close it all down. 

horsemouth is sorry to say he lost contact with mickey when the duke of york was gentrified (however many years ago that was). he would sometimes call in on the off-chance but once that was gone he had no way of finding mickey having forgotten his address. he put some effort into organising a 50ieth birthday celebration for him (drummond street and so on) but not a 60ieth.

horsemouth almost certainly didn't appreciate mickey's music enough at the time. only mothmath truly seems to him indisputably illuminated by his genius in that it does not put a foot wrong - it is simply perfect. 

and yet every slightest thing by him is illuminated by mickey's interests and obsessions. during periods of change who gets access to the machines and the narrative to disseminate their message frees up  (if only for a while before the forces of order re-assert themselves). mickey was fortunate to find himself in one of those eras but he also made it his own. 

others will point to other tracks. his work on other people's songs. his later work on art installations and film soundtracks. 

we live our lives but once. if we are lucky we get to leave behind something of worth. 

------------------

horsemouth had some other stuff regarding what he got up to yesterday but he will leave that for another time. 

a state of dull (in)security.

 robbie basho live at sinclair auditorium 22nd july 1978. 

it's not exactly fahey's live in tasmania but it is amazing in its own ways. as a guitar album it is probably better. 

kilvert?

'a letter from mr. venables saying that mr. irvine has taken the curacy of clyro for six months.' 

kilvert says no more than this. his mind was made up already to leave clyro. just the last stint to do.

despite everything horsemouth continues in his state of dull (in)security. it is almost as if the last 5 years of retirement haven't happened. it is an interesting point that had he moved out to the wilds even earlier he would be even more secure. for this reason he contemplates the next five years of retirement with equanimity. 

that's not to say that he is not bored and frustrated and anxious (these are all pretty much his default settings). 

more runner beans cropped yesterday

the remaining broad beans he is leaving until just before his brother gets here. the tomatoes are doing well (as is the basil). there will be enough onions. maybe not enough beetroot, enough damsons... 

he had some thoughts about whether to go out and water. (in the end he half did)

yesterday horsemouth saw an advert for the newport jazz festival. great! he went. a jazz festival in newport... wonder if it's free. 

well it may be free but it's in rhode island. (it was possibly the appearance of stanley clarke on the bill that got the message to him). 

a cool grey morning. it almost looks like it has rained. 

horsemouth has his coffee. he's just taken a big slug of it - ah it tastes good. 

a friend (who is a photographer) has complimented horsemouth on one of his pictures 

(or maybe he did a long time ago it's not exactly clear). this one of a dead seagull taken over near the harland and wolff gates in lyle park . it was a hot day. horsemouth was walking out towards thames barrier park. he was urban exploring (one of his favourite things). 

hail the runner bean that kindest of crops

'I took the whole morning and afternoon service and sermon, but my father took part in holy communion...'

so says francis kilvert of this day in 1872. on wednesday he will spend it with the de quettevilles (this is an old brittany name, ok no horsemouth is wrong, normandy). one of their relatives is still about (writing for the daily torygraph horsemouth believes). 

meanwhile, in lawrence durrell's ceasar's vast ghost  his friend aldo is reading a travel guide to south eastern france by none other than francis kilvert's friend augustus hare. (what are the odds!)

thus is horsemouth's reading united.

hare also wrote ghost stories (or rather he larded his autobiographies with them) - one such is the vampire of croglin grange.

the robbie basho is from 1978 the night before he did a gig that was recorded. this, a short set in a coffee house was recorded also. 

--------------------------

a hazy morning here in the wild 

there are going to be lots of runner beans conversely the first crop of broad beans is in (and there are probably some left overs for his brother) and then horsemouth would have to get very lucky to get another crop out of these particular plants. there are fewer beetroot plants that horsemouth thought/ would have hoped. there will be enough onions. how we are for potatoes he does not yet know. the spinach has bolted and is basically done. the caterpillars have decimated the cabbage and the sprouts.

hail the runner bean that kindest of crops.  

horsemouth worries that he is in the wrong place (hell he knows he is in the wrong place) but there is little or nothing he can do about it. 

yet another imaginary conversation rendered null and void

a discussion of communal living

'the percentage of americans living in nuclear family households has declined significantly since 1970...'

but of course there is a huge economic factor with this. 

horsemouth is no longer living communally. rather than experience it as great and beautiful he experienced it as conflict. conflict over access to the living room, over using the front garden as a waste dump, over using the back garden as a waste dump. 

to be fair whenever he shared he felt these kind of stresses. and whenever he lived on his own he felt different social stresses.

beyond that there was the wider co-op which seemed to contain the absolutely average number of selfish and unpleasant people.  similarly when he worked. 

horsemouth was very grateful to the people who were active in the co-op and to the co-op's existence for housing him at a point when he was in great housing difficulty. he thinks it is a beautiful thing (except in its actuality). similarly for the work that fed him (except for day to day). 

the truth, horsemouth supposes, is that he is a grumpy bastard. 

and yet he misses the co-operative. there was a potential to do good there. 

this is yet another imaginary conversation rendered null and void. 

interesting. facebook was down. and then it was back up again. 

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perhaps the whole target of the iran war is not iran but china. china has handled the energy crisis well by using its strategic reserves. but this cannot continue. similarly for the rest of the world. 

the us strategic reserves are stored underground in giant salt caverns - whether these can be just turned on and off without risking their structural integrity could turn out to be a major issue. 

it is one thing to blunder into a stupid war with iran it is another thing to blunder into a stupid war with china. 

a bright morning with an interesting nip in the air. horsemouth thinks more chicken feed this week.