sweet earth flying (storm ending)

'thunder blossoms gorgeously above our heads,

great, hollow, bell-like flowers,

rumbling in the wind...

and the sweet earth flying from the thunder.'

- jean toomer, storm ending. 

it is the anniversary of the first day's recording on marion brown's sweet earth flying (1974) - the title of which is lifted from the jean toomer poem above.

meanwhile in 1872 kilvert is arguing with his friend latimer jones. it all gets a bit heated. 

'mrs. bevan said afterwards she feared we should have fought.'

horsemouth thanks;

(there follows a list of people who have liked or commented on his posts on facebook in the last while)

for their continuing attention to  his bullshit. 

he went for a walk on the common and found a tennis ball lost in the bushes. 

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

ok it is just about 7am. in a bit horsemouth departs (to walk to the bus, to get the bus into hereford, to get the train to birmingham, to get the train to london etc.). horsemouth (you see) is making a flying visit to the city. 

there he will talk with friends. what will they talk about? probably politics. what will they say? that the country/ world is in a terrible state. that the rulers are incompetent bastards. that sort of thing. 

it's really less about the substance of their discussions rather that they meet. 

when's the bus out of pontrilas? 0940. so when should horsemouth set off? probably about 0830. 

ok so he's on the 1040 train to BHM. all is good. 

'no person ever wants to see their childhood home sold' (the drifting life of horsemouth)

yesterday. 

horsemouth wandered into ewyas harold to get some bread and post a letter. 

he wasn't convinced that the shop would be open (because it was a bank holiday). but it was and mission accomplished. 

in a way it is a relief to be able to do something active. 

anyway was soon time for the 13:00 news. (which he listened to as he typed this). 

horsemouth tried book divination 

he tried it with history and utopia and imagined communities  and frankly the results were scary rather than gnomic - history and utopia gave him tyranny concentrating into one big tyranny, imagined communities gave him the linguistic nationalisms of europe. 

in the booklet for the ecstatic music of alice coltrane turiyasangitananda sufiya botofasina (keyboard player with the ashram choir) says;

'no person ever wants to see their childhood home sold.'

this will have to do for a title. 

he watched the drifting life of himeshiro on youtube. 

the weather was surprisingly good and rain free (sunny even). 

in the night (well the morning) a dream about being in a van at a festival with too many issues of the WIRE magazine everywhere. 

a greyish, coolish morning. 

actually it's a beautiful morning with bright sunlight and drifting white seeds or pollen. 

horsemouth has a plan to escape to town

sunday there was a possible thunderstorm (but it doesn't seem to have shown up)  and horsemouth was feeling a bit anxious. 

in the afternoon of the sunday zoom beers with howard - he has the monday off  because of the may bank holiday (internartional workers' day etc.)  and so he could drink on a sunday with a clear conscience.  

two bottles of hobgoblin in his case, two bottles of butty bach in horsemouth's case. a discussion of the reading programme. 

a discussion of charles mingus' town hall concert (howard mentioned ah-um, black saint and the sinner lady, pithecanthropus erectus). horsemouth approved them all and then counter attacked with oh yeah, tijuana moods, and changes two.  

howard's next half term? broadly from the 22nd. 

horsemouth has a plan to escape to town (briefly). 

horsemouth 'remixes' an earlier poem

'a blackout book 

a note to himself: an essay on limits 

 at the flowering of the cabbage

a praise song for the herring

seven intellectuals 

in a boat

two ghost images 

of john fahey

 'all my old men are dead but one.’'

 

the earlier poem is a cento - a poem made up of lines from other poems (or in this case lines from horsemouth's blogs for the period). he has attempted to concentrate the poem still further. 

what happens when deaths outnumber births?

well not much. life goes on (but it's older). the bumpy profile of ages bumps along (getting older). todays children become teenagers, enter the workforce, their parents age and leave the workforce, the workforce itself even increases a bit by 2050 (or at least the numbers of people who are the right ages for work do). 

but then there's more older people too. 

the evening - outside it is raining

it's the afternoon/evening of the saturday. outside it is raining. this seems strange now (enough days and weeks have gone by without rain). horsemouth has locked up the chickens early (he is excused watering the garden). the water butts that were empty will now fill back up (he hopes). 

the morning - misty

it's the morning horsemouth is back from feeding the chickens. 

the coffee is good this morning as is the light.  

last night more reading of imagined communities. 

may morrow (if there is a mistake to be made I invariably make it)

 as kilvert would put it. 

'I called on the higginses, the new tenants at clyro court farm. mrs. higgins came into the drawing room with two other ladies, and if there is a mistake to be made I invariably make it so I accosted one of the ladies as mrs. higgins and found afterwards that I was speaking to one of the miss bowens who always imagine that I know them so very well and who were therefore proportionately annoyed by the mistake.'

now no kilvert until may 6th (when he argues with mr. latimer jones). 

yesterday

a walk up the hill to deliver the eggs (a discussion of the salt path). there was some rain but it looked insufficient to get horsemouth excused watering. 

today

a pleasant enough morning. a little cloudy after a few bluesky days. horsemouth will be out to do the watering in a bit. 

next week a friend visits (will horsemouth make it up to town?). 

'at the flowering of the cabbage

and a praise song for the herring

'all my old men are dead but one.’

may day (everything you do not yet own)

triple negative · shell of sheen

international workers' day

yesterday sunshine.  as usual sunshine always makes him feel slightly guilty. 

he has had the pleasure of potting up the tomatoes bought at madley plants and planting the cosmo he bought there. the other thing (the trailing thing) horsemouth was less successful at separating the roots than he would have liked to be (bit of a fuck up ah well never mind). 

soon horsemouth will have the pleasure of turning over the pages in the calendars. (he will probably start with the triple negative calendar or possibly the family calendar downstairs). 

then he will be able to see where he is. 

he was feeling a bit out of sorts. 

today 

ok. it's the morning. horsemouth has just turned over the page on the triple negative calendar. (yay!)

judging by the weather forecast a watering of the plants is coming. 

it's bandcamp friday as well. as usual horsemouth is recommending you buy everything you do not yet own by musicians of bremen. (he knows they haven't got a song called everything you do not yet own but you know what he means plus that's a pretty good song title).  

no more bandcamp fridays until august now (so may as well get your purchases in now). 

in kilvert land (and time, on this day in 1872) he stays over for dinner at whitney rectory and then walks home under the stars. 

books, films, gigs, events april 2026

books

-  benedict anderson imagined communities.

- e.m. cioran history and utopia and temptation to exist

- italo svevo a life (started)

- jose saramago all the names (started but not finished)

- charles lancaster (ed.) seeing england: antiquaries, travellers and naturalists (introduction)

- the portable hannah arendt

- edouard louis the end of eddy

- isaiah berlin, critics of the enlightenment the chapter on herder and introduction

- arnold aronson american avant-garde theatre: a history

- LA review of books, an essay on theodor adrono's early music criticism

- wikipedia article on joseph cornell

- Ágota kristóf an article on her in the LRB (sarah resnik)

- scott hamilton a tale of angus maclise's suitcase

- william morris's the well at the world's end ( but just lin carter's excellent introductory essay)

- at the edge of the world by john berger and jean mohr

- kilvert diaries as and when

films

- the shadow  (aled baldwin)

- LRB helen thompson and  james butler, energy flows in the world economy

- novara media, outlaw bookseller, bookpilled, politics joe etc. 

- hackney homeless festival footage

- the music of turiyasangitananda

- youtube vid on radical group aufheben

- ru marshall on carlos castaneda interview

gigs

triple negative and al karpenter

events

AGM of common's water committee,  a visit to the barnet museum, battersea power station,